And Then Came the Sun A Work in Progress

by heartsandheartache

John, still in mourning after Sherlock's death, tries to cope with the loss and with how he treated Sherlock in their last face to face interaction. Mostly implied Johnlock at this point, as John is still unaware of his true feelings.

1. Chapter 1

And Then Came the Sun (A Work in Progress)

(Please review, I need help! Thank you!)

Sherlock doesn't—didn't—know the ways of the heart. Obviously. So he had no idea that by doing what he thought he must do, that he would nearly kill me. Seeing him jump… The void he left was more painful than any wound I'd ever suffered in battle. I lost my best friend.

I've seen people die, violently even, far too many times. I'd seen them die before me as I tried to save them on the battlefield. But none had ever been so real. None of those deaths, even the deaths on the battlefield—the deaths of those good men and women—had ever touched me. Hell, I'd even killed a few men. But this was Sherlock. A man who was, I am convinced, somehow forced into confessing to being a fraud before he died.

The real frauds were the journalists who jumped on top of the story with hopes of making their careers. For weeks, at least fifty different versions of the same headline and the same story were printed through the dozen or so popular newspapers and tabloids—they wouldn't let go of the story. I would constantly see people hungrily reading those rags, desperate to see the bad in someone so good. Sadists by nature.

Sherlock was a joke to these people; a curiosity to be ridiculed, mocked. None of them saw him for what he was. Moriarty had touched all of these people. He fed them lies that were easy to swallow so they took quite easily; their minds poisoned so willingly by his condemnation.

I continued living on Baker Street, in our flat, and hardly touched any of Sherlock's things. I'd cleaned up a few of his perishable specimens and experiments as they started going bad, but even then some odd odors would occasionally irritate me. I would search for the source when I did smell it, but never found it, and I never could identify what it was.

I left most everything else alone. I didn't know what to do with his mess. I offered some of the research material to Molly and Lestrade, but even with them taking several books each, the living room was still overfull of his mess of literature and research and God knows what else.

Mrs. Hudson was kind enough to let me stay on with just a small increase in rent. I knew she had to be hurting financially by doing this, so I tried my best to chip in more when I could. I began to think that Mycroft might be paying part of Sherlock's rent as well.

Mycroft had been coming by the flat quite frequently to check in. I found it strange, and quite irritating, but I supposed that it was his way of mourning the death of his brother; a death that he may have been able to prevent if he had done his job properly. But I supposed that if he were going to help me pay rent, that I should be pleasant to him. I never really said much to him. I would offer him tea or coffee, make polite and pointless conversation, ask a few questions about how he'd been getting along, and answer a few about myself. Mycroft didn't say much either, and usually just watched me over the edge of his teacup.

I didn't enjoy the visits. I had other things to do, and didn't want to share my home with Mycroft anymore than I had to. I've blamed him since I learned how he handled Moriarty in the beginning. But they didn't last long. Mycroft was gone as soon as he'd asked what he'd come to ask, and as soon as he'd finished his tea. A busy man like him—he was the British government, after all—had very little time for me. He soon stopped coming by so frequently, losing interest in my troubles and having is own to deal with.

Part of me thinks he regrets the relationship he'd had with his brother, and part of me thinks he feels rightfully guilty, so he makes time to come by to just be where Sherlock had been. Where he'd breathed, sat, slept. Where he'd lived.

He'd been here. There was no denying that.

The whole place was still an echo of that man. The yellow face painted on the wall, and the bullet holes ripping the smile to bits. The odds and ends, the who knows what. The beakers and tubes and chemicals. The scuffmarks from where he propped his feet up on the coffee table over and over again.

Nearly everything in the flat was still there.

Minus one tall man in a long black coat.