I don't know if this works, I wrote it quite quickly and I may redo it. But for now, here it is.

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed."

- Carl Jung

He tried to go as often as he could. So, for an hour or so, every week, the soldier sits by the grave of the detective. Sometimes he talks, and sometimes he doesn't. He never brings flowers, since the detective did not care for them in life, his death does not give way for an exception. The soldier also does not cry, for the same reasons.

And besides; soldiers don't cry.

It's a nice grave. If graves can be considered "nice". It stands alone, away from the sea of others, under a small sycamore. After two months of visits when Summer began to morph into Autumn, a bench appeared under the tree next to the grave of the freak. At first, the invalid thought nothing of it. But after noticing no other benches in the graveyard like it, he put it down on the list of compensations from Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft seemed to be attempting to help him, in the only way he knew now. Whether that was by providing, by the looks of it; an expensive bench so the invalid could rest his leg or paying the rent on Baker Street even after he had moved out.

"You never know, the notion to return may one day take you..."

Nor forgetting the brief, but frequent updates on the well-being of Mrs Hudson. Or maybe, in the case of the bench, the invalid was being arrogant. Maybe the lonely Holmes uses the bench for himself. A rare chance to sit with his brother and tell him all the things he was too afraid to say to his face, for fear of what his answer may have been.

It's a Saturday, late December. London has had quite the snowfall. They're predicting a white Christmas. This does not deter the small doctor, who makes his way slowly but with purpose and poise to the graveside of the genius. Either he's losing his touch already, or he's just getting old because it takes him a while to notice the footprints. Quite small. Heeled. The shoes of a woman.

No.

The Woman.

A single red rose, the shade of her lips, sits by the grave of the genius. He turns to see her standing by the church. She's dyed her hair. Light brown. It makes her look much younger. Her clothes are casual, but expensive. He gives her a small nod and even from here he can see the corners of her mouth twitch up into a small, but pained smile before she returns with a nod of her own. Maybe if he could fix his genius the Woman would be fixed too.

It hurts him to see people broken.

Spring comes slowly and for the first time in months John visits the grave of his best friend Sherlock. He does bring flowers. Well one. Pressed. The detective had no time for flowers;

"They're not relevant to my work!"

but Sherlock did. He used to press them in those massive, cheap, 80s, catalogue encyclopaedias. God knows why. That was just another thing John never got the chance to ask him. Unlike the doctor and the soldier, John always talks to Sherlock. He tells him about his day, how much of a tit he is for leaving him, about Mrs Hudson's new dog, the latest row with the chip and pin machine and how he sat for a full day in his armchair replaying the last time he saw him over and over in his head with all the things he should have said and should have done all running parallel, all with different outcomes.

Unlike the doctor and the soldier; John cries. He cries for his detective, his genius, and the loss of his best friend Sherlock, reduced to the precisely cut golden letters of Sherlock Holmes. He cries for the loss of John, best friend of Sherlock. Who has been replaced by John Hamish Watson, doctor, soldier, invalid;

and very much alone.

I feel everything has came in a complete circle. John's went back where he started. I suppose I wanted this to be a study of how someone can bring different elements out in a person. John made the great Sherlock Holmes, genius, consulting detective, freak into Sherlock - his best friend. And Sherlock made John Watson, soldier, doctor into just John. It breaks my wee heart!

I am very welcome to any typos or grammatical errors, if you happen to see any. And reviews. Always reviews.

SM