Title: Mourning Phase
Author: sablize
Character/Pairing: John. Sherlock/John if you see it that way.
Summary: They don't know what it feels like, to lose someone who slowly, without your intending it, became your entire world. Spoilers for 2x03.
Spoilers: Sherlock 2x03, The Reichenbach Fall
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Author's Notes: Sorry for the general un-quality of this fic… I know, it's pretty much just all over the place and I've been experimenting with some new styles so it's a bit more disorganized than usual. Also, the timeline was a bit unclear in the show so I may have taken a few liberties with it. But it's two in the morning and this idea wouldn't leave me alone. And after my second rewatch of today's episode, I just couldn't help but write fic for it. Poor John ): Enjoy!
day one.
He stays. He stays, as long as they let him.
At last, a distressed Molly removes his fingers from Sherlock's cold wrist and makes him leave. Go home, she says. I'm so sorry, John, but you need to go home now.
Okay, he replies numbly. Okay. And he lets her guide him gently to the door.
Mycroft's black car is waiting outside, idling at the curb. There is no Anthea waiting for him. Someone reaches across and opens the door to the backseat slightly, as a prompt. John simply stares, struggling to make a clear decision, and then ultimately walks away.
He understands that Mycroft has good intentions but there is no force on this earth that could compel him to get into that car; it has too many connections to Sherlock, too many memories that he dare not face. He's been broken enough for one day.
The other door opens and then slams, and John hears footsteps behind him. He doesn't turn.
John, cries Mycroft. His voice wavers just slightly. John, he says again, get in the car. Please.
He knows how much Mycroft wants to help but he can't, he just can't. He doesn't want Mycroft's help; he's feeling reckless tonight, and sad, and he simply wants to be alone.
John, Sherlock's brother yells again.
Brother. John keeps forgetting that he isn't alone in his suffering; that Mycroft, too, lost someone important to him.
But, he thinks bitterly, Mycroft only lost his distant brother. I lost my whole damn world.
He turns the corner and doesn't look back.
day two.
The midnight storm wakes him up.
The thunder is loud and close and the rain pounds heavily on the roof, so heavy that John doesn't know why it didn't wake him earlier.
He tries to roll over and instead rolls right off the couch—where he had immediately collapsed after making his way home—and onto the floor. He gasps in pain but doesn't move to get up. He simply lies there, staring as the lightning dances across the ceiling.
Eventually, the unpleasantness of the hard floor against his back prompts him to get up. What he wants is a bed, so he stumbles into the first bedroom he finds. And, of course, it is Sherlock's.
He tumbles into the unmade bed. He doesn't bother to pull the sheets up; the only move he makes is to take the extra pillow and pull it down to his chest. It still smells like Sherlock. John hugs it to him and breathes it in.
Within seconds he falls into a restless sleep, lulled by the mourning rain.
day five.
He hasn't moved from Sherlock's bed in days. Mrs. Hudson is worried.
She brings him tea every couple of hours, setting it on the nightstand beside him. She pats his wrist and sniffles a little. Sometimes she smoothes his hair down a bit. But she never grumbles, never says a word, only comforts him the best that she can.
He pretends to be asleep during these incidents.
Once, however, she forcibly drags him out of bed, to the (now cleared) kitchen table, and demands that he eat something. She makes him toast. With jam. And she stands by, making sure that he eats.
I know you miss him, John, she remarks. She whisks his plate away.
He does nothing but cough a little in response, ducking his head. She smiles sadly at him, pats his hand affectionately, and then ventures back downstairs.
He sits there for a bit more in utter silence. Then, he crawls back into Sherlock's bed for the remainder of the day and night, hugging the pillows to his chest and breathing in the scent that is already fading.
day ten.
John wakes up later than usual that morning, Mrs. Hudson's tea growing cold on the nightstand beside him. The mug is balancing on a stack of envelopes.
Sympathy cards, every last one.
Lestrade. Anderson. Sally. Most of the people that Sherlock helped, in some small way; their names are now unrecognizable to John. If he wanted to, he could go back through his blog, perhaps, and remember which names went with which case.
But he doesn't want to.
So he tosses them into the trash without opening them. Every last one.
day seventeen.
There is a flood of reporters at the door, still, even after over two weeks have passed. Mrs. Hudson finally gives up trying to control them.
I'm sending a few people up! she calls one afternoon.
John, startled, rises out of bed. In two seconds, he manages to throw on something respectable and tries to brush down his mess of hair; then, a wave of reporters crash through his door.
They have no regard for his personal sanity, it seems; they ask him to recount the event in its entirety, with no detail left out. He glances around, trying to find a sympathetic face in the crowd, but no one comes to rescue him.
Voice trembling, he recounts.
When he gets to the part about the lying, about the fraud—which they all know enough about, from other sources—he slows. They push him to keep going. He mutters a quick disclaimer: I don't believe what he said, you know, not a word. He's still a genius to me.
No one seems to hear him, though. His disclaimer means nothing.
He finishes his story and the reporters leave, murmuring excitedly. John crawls resolutely back into Sherlock's bed, trying to breathe through the sudden, debilitating emptiness. Both in the flat and in his heart.
He pulls the pillows to him again, but the scent has long since faded from them.
day twenty-six.
When he wakes up one morning, there are two new messages on his phone, sent three hours and fourteen minutes apart, late in the night.
Hello, Mr Watson
—IA
I heard about our dear friend Mr Holmes.
—IA
He doesn't spare a moment of thought for Irene Adler, who is now supposedly alive. Nothing surprises him anymore. His finger moves to delete the two messages but, as if she somehow knows, his phone lights up again.
I'm sorry.
No signature this time, just two words.
An apology.
One out of many.
Still, an apology out of a woman so uncompassionate should mean something to him. As it is, he feels only a slight twinge of emotion before he simply shuts the phone off, the effort it would take to delete them suddenly too much to bear.
Irene Adler was a background character in Sherlock's life, and she shouldn't be mourning him. She shouldn't be apologizing. She's almost as bad as the ones who sent sympathy cards. They just don't know; they don't know what it feels like, to lose someone who slowly, without your intending it, became your entire world. Irene Adler, for all her many capabilities, cannot know how he feels.
He finally turns his phone on and deletes the messages, then blocks her number for good measure. He's sure she could find her way around it if she really wanted to. But he just wants her to get the hint.
day forty-three.
He finally goes to see his therapist.
It's raining outside, thundering like it was that first night alone. Why today? his therapist asks, always so calm and yet so prodding. He feels her questions like needles in his skin.
Do you want to hear me say it? he asks, voice wavering.
Eighteen months since our last appointment, she observes.
She should know, of all people. God. He doesn't understand why they're playing this… this game. This isn't Twenty Questions. He just wants someone to listen. Or to give him advice. Or something. Anything. Anything at all.
He doesn't really know what he wants. He's pretty sure that's why he came here in the first place.
I'm here because… His voice cracks, fades; he can't say it, damnit, he cannot say it.
What happened, John?
He stumbles around a bit more.
You need to get it out, she says.
My best friend… Sherlock Holmes… He sniffles, once, feeling the tears building behind his eyes already.
He's dead, he finally manages.
There.
He said it.
It doesn't make it any less true, and it sure as hell doesn't make him any less alone.