Author's Note: This is my very first foray into Sherlock fic and I've got about 10 chapters mapped out right now. Un-beta'd and not Brit picked. Suggestions and critiques are highly encouraged!


Really, when he thought about it for a moment, John wasn't that surprised after all.

The first few weeks after the fall were bad – quite bad actually – but one simply didn't fall apart over the death of a mate one had only known for eighteen months and certainly not over a flatmate who was at best arrogant, rude, and brilliant. So John had pulled himself together and gotten on with it. Whatever it was.

He'd stayed away from 221B for exactly three weeks before deciding he was being silly. Mrs. Hudson had taken on the responsibility of packing up all of his former flatmate's belongings and he accepted her offer of the flat the third time she called. John didn't even hold his breath when he stepped through the doorway into the now spotless living room, didn't even flinch when he opened the nearly empty and immaculate refrigerator, and certainly didn't reach for a second cup when he made himself a cup of tea. He returned easily to the room at the top of the stairs and if he tried the doorknob of the second bedroom once, it was only to check if it was locked. It was. Which was probably Mrs. Hudson's wish, so John didn't care, really.

The skull stayed on the mantel, the chair stayed in place, and John went back to work at the surgery.

At first, Mrs. Hudson had hovered, plying him with tea and nibbles and motherly nagging. She eyed the cane in the corner of the room, but John never picked it up, never even glanced at it. Everyone expected him to, it seemed, but one didn't fall apart over the death of a flatmate. So John didn't.

They came to check on him. He said all the right things and they all seemed to relax – Lestrade, Molly, Harry. Harry's visit was the most surprising. She'd looked at him with sad eyes and he'd gazed levelly back at her until he'd had to look away. She'd patted his hand on her departure and muttered that she was glad he was doing so well, that she wouldn't be in the same circumstances, and he resented the implications and the burst of pain at her words.

Mycroft's visit was the worst one. He'd sat in the chair and cast his shrewd gaze on John, that gaze that was so familiar and yet so terribly, terribly wrong. When asked how he was, John replied with his standard, "Fine."

"You are not fine," was the cool reply, accompanied by the supercilious eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, how would you know, Mycroft?" He shot back.

"You've lost weight."

John ate his weight in Chinese takeaway that night. He was fine and he didn't need a Holmes coming in and telling him he wasn't.

He spent most of his time working and ignoring Lestrade's calls. Occasionally, he'd pick up and Lestrade would ask him to come take a look at something and John would always have to take an extra shift that night, so sorry, maybe next time. It wasn't that he was avoiding cases; they just weren't his area of expertise. They never had been. It didn't take long for Lestrade to stop calling.

He didn't really need the extra shifts. Mycroft had been left as the executor of the estate and though there was no will, he had made provisions for John. John had tried protesting. Flatmates didn't leave fortunes to each other, but Mycroft had said that friends occasionally did. There wasn't much use in protesting after that.

Eighteen months, three weeks, and two days after the fall, he met Mary. They began dating accidentally – well, no, not accidentally. He had asked her for drinks and then found himself doing it again. It wasn't until their fifth date that he realized he'd started a relationship and he found comfort in the normalcy of it. They'd exchanged I-love-you's that were surprisingly easy by the second month and by the sixth month, they were engaged. John had gone to the jewelers on the way home from his third ever visit to the cemetery and asked Mary the next day.

It had been two years and one day since the fall and John refused to think about the reasons for his timing. It didn't matter anyway – he'd only known the man for eighteen months after all. He'd been dead for even longer. And one did not fall apart over the death of a flatmate. Or even a friend.

Mary set the date out nine months. She joked that their marriage was an incubating baby and John smiled tightly. She worried that they were moving too fast and he told her he had no reservations. He didn't really. Mary never asked about his former flatmate, the infamous consulting detective, and John had long ago decided he would marry her just for that. For being so normal and ordinary and boring in her love for him.

John still had nightmares, of course he did, reliving that awful morning. It would have been surprising if he hadn't. He had watched a friend die that day. He'd have had nightmares if it had been Molly or Lestrade or even Donovan. Once, he imagined what it would be like to watch Mary fall. It didn't hurt like he thought it would so he purposely remembered what looking up at the dark figure on the roof of St. Bart's had felt like. It had tasted like fear, sounded like heartbreak, and smelled like death. It had felt like a yawning chasm of regret and pain and a soul shattering realization that his last real words to his flatmate were ones of accusation and disgust.

Sometimes, when he stood under the shower head and let the too-hot water stream over him, he pretended that the only water on his face came from the tap.

John refused to consider the implications of that. All of it.

He went to work, stayed over at Mary's but never brought her to 221B, drank with his colleagues but never to blackout, and very carefully ignored that he wasn't whole.


The initial text from Lestrade was something of a surprise, but it was nothing compared to the email, phone call, and personal visit that came after it. Lestrade had knocked purposefully on the door and only the shock of his appearance kept John from slamming it back in his face. John hadn't seen the Detective Inspector since long before the first anniversary of the fall, and frankly he didn't like the burning that bubbled up in his throat at the sight of Lestrade's gray hair just three months before the third.

"John, you look good," Lestrade said, only momentarily betraying himself with rounded eyes and a flicker of surprise. He stood awkwardly in the threshold, hands deep in his pockets, carefully avoiding looking at the empty black chair opposite him. John knew the feeling.

"You too. The Yard keeping itself together these days?"

"Most of the time."

The silence stretched. John decided to take pity on the poor man. Besides, he was beginning to feel the tug of curiosity that he hadn't felt since... Well, for a while at least. "You might as well take a seat and tell me what's brought you out to 221B. Can I get you a cuppa?" At the policeman's nod, John strode into the kitchen and busied himself with the kettle. Lestrade obeyed the silent request and followed him into the flat. Minutes later, he and Lestrade were seated across from one another, John in the chair he kept at the little table and the other man in John's usual chair.

"Greg, why are you here?"

"We've had a murder. Major Ronald Adair, lately of Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Someone you know?" Lestrade peered at John over the rim of his teacup.

"You could say that," John said, huffing a breath against his own drink. "Knew him when he was a captain. Bit of a gambler, but nothing too high. He's dead?"

"Shot while sitting in a locked room," Lestrade said, his gaze steady, politely ignoring John's sudden intake of breath.

"And you thought of me?"

"Of course."

"Well, I didn't do it, if that's what you're after," John attempted to joke, setting his cup down to mask the tremor in his hands. Lestrade leaned forward, elbows on knees and hands folded beneath his chin.

"You know it's not," he said. "Come take a look. It's familiar and I need to know I'm not the only one who notices."

"You know I was never the one who noticed," John said quietly.

"Yeah, but you're the one who's here." There was nothing coddling about that tone, no part of it that John could assume conveyed sympathy or understanding. It was fact and as much as he had tried to convince himself that he'd accepted the loss, he realized that he really hadn't. Not until that moment with the DI staring him down and baldly asking him to go it alone. There really wasn't anything else left to do.

John swallowed hard and nodded. Sighing, he took his mobile out of his pocket and sent a text to Mary, canceling their plans for the evening. Her response was immediate and positive, simply stating she'd see him later. It didn't make him feel better.