Months. Months of sorrow. Months of pain. Months of regret. "John, I'm home." Those words, "I'm home," they are supposed to fill people with overwhelming happiness and excitement. Joyfulness. For me, they just add on to the pain I already feel. The only thing I have been able to feel for the past few months is pain. Ever since that one, torturous, fateful day. The day my best friend, possibly the greatest man in the world, died. His name was none other than Sherlock Holmes, the "fake," is what people called him. The detective that made up the worlds most dangerous man, Jim Moriarty, just to get attention. That's what everyone else believes, but I know the truth. I still remember that day. I remember it as if it just happened yesterday. Every word spoken, every feeling I felt, every single little detail. I still remember all the fear, the anger, the anxiety that was building up inside of me as that last phone call came to an end. I can still feel those emotions welled up inside of me now. I can feel them when I remember those last words and the memories that follow them. Those last two words, "Goodbye, John." The moment those words escaped his lips, the world... my world, shattered. The feeling of fear viciously stabbed at my heart, I wanted to stop him, but I was paralyzed. I have been in a fucking war for God's sake and now, now I can't move even a centimeter! I had realized at that moment, what Sherlock was planning to do. No... that isn't quite right. I knew. I knew the whole time, I just didn't want to believe it. I was too scared. I hoped that Sherlock, the greatest master mind of all time, had managed a way around this. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I didn't want to say goodbye. I especially didn't want Sherlock to tell me goodbye. "No... don't-" the phone screeched in my ear. He hung up. This was the last conversation I was ever going to have with him and all I could say was that! That was when my heart literally skipped a beat. It was too late to do anything. There was no way to contact him, no way to reach him, to slap sense into him. There was definitely no chance I would be able to get to the top of that damn building in time to stop him. So I did the only thing I could think of at the time. "SHERLOCK!" I prayed. I prayed and prayed and prayed he could hear me. That he would stop in his tracks and change in his mind. Then, that slightest bit of hope I had left was obliterated as he fell. "Sherlock..." I murmured. My heart felt like someone had just dropped a 1,000 ton brick on it. There was so much I wanted to still do with him and so many things I wanted, needed, to tell him. And now, now there was no way to ever tell him how much he meant to me, to thank him for saving me from loneliness. "John, I'm home." Oh, how much I would give, to hear him say that. How much I would be willing to give up, to see his face, to go on another case together, to solve another mystery with him, to laugh with him, to smile with him. Then, I remembered seeing his body on the hard cold cement. The blood, the feel of his cold skin, the look of his pale face and lifeless blue eyes. Suddenly, without even noticing, a tear snaked it's way down my face and landed on my hand. A hand reached out and wiped away the streak left behind from the tear on my face. I jumped, a little startled, I hadn't even noticed that our... my landlady had came in. "Were you remembering... Sherlock?" she choked back some tears. Her eyes were rimmed red, it was easy to tell she was about to break. "Yeah..." I whispered. "It's so odd... not having his crazy experiments spread across the kitchen. It's even odd not having a head sitting in the fridge. Normally, it's odd to have those things in a house. But Sherlock never was normal, hehe..." she sniffled, " It just f-... it feels so-" "Empty." I finished her sentence. She looked back over towards me and nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing." I stared at her for a minute. Her small, frail frame was trembling and her eyes were all glassy. "You know Mrs. Hudson... you can cry." I whispered to her. And just like that, she broke. I brought her trembling body into a gentle embrace and started lightly patting her back, "It's okay..." I mumbled into her ear in an attempt to comfort her. But truthfully, nothing was okay. Ever since Sherlock died, everyone's world was flipped over and changed for the worse. Lestrade went back to smoking and doesn't take his job near as seriously as he did, Mrs. Hudson could hardly even walk into the apartment without breaking down and begging for Sherlock to come back. And as for me? I just lost every last ounce of joy in my life. I can't laugh anymore, much less smile because it hurts to smile. It reminds me of how much Sherlock and I used to laugh together. How fun everything used to be. The excitement I felt when I was with him, the thrill of a new mystery and how through everything we endured together, we still enjoyed ourselves. Now I can't even take my job seriously. Healing people, observing what's wrong with them reminds me off having to observe the bodies in the mysteries that Sherlock and I solved. I feel alone and empty. Nothing makes me feel alive anymore. I mean, going back to an ordinary life after living with Sherlock? That's way too big of a change for anyone to endure. Just thinking about how I will never be able to see Sherlock again made my knees weak. I started to shake under my own weight, and I'm guessing Mrs. Hudson was able to tell that I needed support because she brought her small hands to my back and started to rub in a circular motion on my back. She returned my embrace and shifted me up a little bit to help me stand. "You... you know you can cry too." she hiccuped between sobs. I gave her a weary chuckle, "No, someone has to be the strong one here to support everyone else and Lestrade isn't doing a bloody well job at it." "It's okay to cry sometimes," her voice wavered a little bit but her crying had at least ceased, "especially in times like these." She was right. Times like these, you need to let everything out. So what was restraining me? Why did I refuse to cry? Maybe because of what I went through during my time in the military? Or maybe it's because I know that Sherlock wouldn't want me crying? Mostly because he doesn't know how to comfort people. The thought of Sherlock made me water up. I chuckled at the thought of Sherlock's shocked face at Mrs. Hudson and I in a weeping heap and how he would start to panic over it. Telling us to, "knock it off," or, "you people are truly stupid." He really sucks at comforting people. Then, the dam broke and the water ran free. I sat down on my chair and buried my face into my hands, hiding my mess of a face from Mrs. Hudson. "Here, how about I go make us some tea." "Y-yeah... yeah that sounds good." I stuttered between sharp breaths. While Mrs. Hudson went off to make tea, I wiped my tears and headed over to the window. I watched the groups of people strolling by, laughing and smiling with each other. It hurt. I couldn't stand watching people be happy anymore. I continued to watch the people stroll by as Mrs. Hudson ranted about her hip, trying to cheer up the mood. I, to be frank, tuned her out the whole time. I didn't really care. I was absolutely uninterested in everything I was looking at, until I noticed a bundle of brown hair and a long trench coat stroll past the apartment. I took in a sharp breath and dashed for my coat, "I'm going out Mrs. Hudson!" Mrs. Hudson sighed, "why when I'm always making tea?"