If Only He Knew…
BBC Sherlock, Johnlock, under 600 words
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. Possible OOC. Short one-shot. Losing someone you love is never easy. Finding your way back is even harder.
"…And you know what, one day just showin' up won't be enough. One day we'll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there."
Silence overwhelmed everyone in the small flat, punctuated only by the sounds of rain pattering against the windows and the signs of human life outside of these dull walls.
"I- I just…" Greg whispered, confused as everyone else. He glanced up to the ledge above the fire place, the incriminating note sitting there making his heart lurch. "Should we…?"
Everyone nodded and looked up from the blond-haired man lying on the floor. Sally stepped forward and plucked the folded paper off the sill and opened it. She recited the last words of the man who was now lying dead on the floor. Tears silently fell down her face as she read the suicide note of the man she had started to become friends with. Mrs. Hudson's sobs filled the silence after the reading. Sally remembered back to the first night she met him, those words she spoke to him and almost laughed aloud from the irony.
"…One day…"
Well that day had come. John Watson stared up at the ceiling of 221B Baker Street with unseeing eyes. Dead. Single shot to the head with the handgun still in his hand. No one had expected this. They'd all thought he'd been coping better after the apparent death of Sherlock. It's been 2 years; surely he could've been dealing with it better?
Obviously they had been wrong to think so. In his note he had confessed everything. How much it hurt; how he had realized that life without Sherlock is not a life he cared for. How he was very much in love with Sherlock. How he couldn't just let go of the first man he'd trusted since Afghanistan. Couldn't stand all of the reminders staring him in the face everywhere he looked.
Time seemed to slow from that moment on. Minutes appeared as hours. The rain constantly pounding on the glass, as if the city itself were crying for the brave man it had lost that day. Greg, Sally, Mrs. Hudson, and Mycroft all stood in the room and mourned the ex-army doctor that had invaded their lives and left such a big impression. They watched as others came in and cleaned up, packing the body away to be sent to St. Bart's. Finally, everyone but Mycroft left.
"He really did care about you, you know." He whispered to the tall, dark presence no one had acknowledged.
"I know. Now." The man choked out, voice ruff and filled with emotions he hadn't felt for years.
"He loved you."
"And I loved him."
"If only he knew…" Mycroft slipped out, leaving the other man alone, staring at the spot where his best friend had laid, dead, just moments ago.
"Oh John…"
His voice broke and the tears finally escaped from his eyes. Overwhelmed with feelings, his legs buckled beneath him and he fell into a messy heap on the floor.
For a long time the once great consulting detective lay on the floor contemplating what to do. However hard he tried, he could not forget the man that was no longer in his life.
With thoughts only of the man he loved, he stood and pulled the trigger.
And so Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were reunited once again.