Hello! So this is my humble coping mechanism for the agony of Reichenbach. It was one of the first prompts on the meme after the episode, and I just couldn't resist. It isn't finished yet, but I've got a bit of a backlog from the chapters on the meme, so I'll post those pretty regularly. For now, the M rating doesn't really apply, but it will and I just want to be safe. So without further ado, HERE. TAKE IT.

In the end, John goes back.

It's not that he wants to. The flat is so full of the life that he and Sherlock shared – because really, what's the point in denying? John's life, by the end, was almost impossible to disentangle from Sherlock's – and he chokes on it. He's not even inside the flat proper when it happens. On the ninth stair, John's leg wobbled and he braced himself against the wall as his ribs rebelled and crushed his lungs.

They'd both collapsed on that step after the Pool, dizzy with adrenalin and shaking in the aftermath. The stairs are nowhere near wide enough to accommodate two grown men, but when they were half-sprawled on top of each other, personal bubbles resolutely abolished for the night, they fit quite nicely.

He worried that it was too soon.

But Baker Street is all he has left. The detritus of Sherlock's storm, the flotsam he'd left bobbing on the skin of the world in his wake, is scattered there. John finds he can't resist. The pull of their (his, now) flat is inexorable, a hook around his aorta.

His hand shakes as he opens the door.

The flat is as they'd left it, dragged down the stairs to waiting cars. An unbidden smile quirks John's mouth, the first in a week. He was glad he'd punched that arsehole, even if it had led to a very brief arrest. It had been worth it for the little surprised smile from Sherlock that John had watched him cover up with a glib remark, as always. Always so shocked to find someone on his side, willing to stand up for him…

No. Stop it.

It's far too quiet. There is the hum of the refrigerator, the rumble of traffic and the ticking of a clock from Sherlock's room. Ironic, that. Time really wasn't anything special now, to John. When the most important moments of one's life have already gone by in a few thumping heartbeats, the passage of time feels a bit superfluous.

He'd been back to the flat, once before this, but it was in a state of curious numbness that John now realized was shock. Pity they hadn't kept that blanket.

The first time he'd been back, it was like his body didn't know how to be in this place without him to revolve around. It kept expecting a lanky body to stroll past him and throw itself down onto the sofa in a snit, and John felt himself moving his feet out of the way of nothing at all. He'd given the chair at the kitchen table a wide berth, though it was pushed in, and caught himself before he leaned over to peer over a missing, bony shoulder at the now abandoned experiments. When he left the flat, he left the door open, and he was halfway down the stairs before he realized that there was no-one to follow him through it.

John is aware now. The fog of shock has cleared and the emptiness of the house closes in, clear and cold. He looks at the sofa. There is a dressing gown strewn across it that he'd not noticed before. Blue. He'd liked that one best, and had often wondered if it was as soft as it looked. He'd never permitted himself to find out.

It is soft, as it turns out. Well past things like awkwardness and boundaries and shouldn'ts, John lifts the fabric to his face. It stutters against the growth of beard he hasn't had the energy to shave. He makes the mistake of inhaling.

It smells like John imagined it would, like pilfered cigarettes and camphor and his soap.

So this is what I was missing, John thinks, and crumples to the carpet.