John takes a trip to see an old friend.
Set well after the series. I guess it could be considered to have spoilers up to the beginning of season 4 maybe if you squint?
I of course don't own the characters.
It was a gray day outside. The wind howled softly, rustling the few leaves that hadn't already been blown down onto the equally gray ground below. A typical late fall day in London, really- he mused with a sad smile.
He shivered when a particularly brisk breeze ruffled what little was left of his silvery hair. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his shoulder, cringing slightly and hissing under his breath. This weather always did it to him. As soon as it got cold, the white, puckered skin around the now ancient injury on his left shoulder would tighten up and make his entire arm feel like it was on fire.
All these years, and he could still acutely feel the pain.
If he were to be honest with himself, there was nothing that he wanted more today than to just stay in his flat, make a nice cuppa, and watch the rain that he knew would be arriving soon.
But he couldn't.
He had somewhere to be.
With a long sigh, he closed the window and looked around his little flat.
He most certainly could have afforded better, but the pragmatist soldier in him always won out.
He had never been one to have a lot of possessions. Mostly, he had things that he needed, not items that he wanted.
Pragmatist.
But despite this, his flat was full of items. Items that, to most, would just look like the clutter of an old, lonely man.
He certainly could understand why people would think that, as in his elder years he had become quite a recluse. By no means was he mean or cantankerous, he was always known for his manners. But after all that he had been through, he was quite sure that he had earned a quiet retirement. In fact, none of his neighbors had any idea about the adventures that he had had all those years ago.
And that was fine with him.
What he had his flat was the culmination of his life. Souvenirs from the people whom he had known best, people he had cared for, and had cared for him.
Of course, there were plenty of things from the flat on Baker Street. He had even kept that old chair, with the ratty blanket and Union Jack pillow, now dull and dirty from years past. He couldn't sit in it any more, the springs were broken and parts of the frame were jutting out through the now painfully thin fabric. But there was no way he could bear to part with it.
The few pictures that he had were some of his favorite items. He hadn't owned a camera, other than the one on his phone, and he almost never used it, maybe a few times on cases. He had disappointingly few pictures of his friends. What he had were mostly newspaper clippings and the few photographs he was able to snap for his blog.
The one exception, of course, were pictures of Mary- mostly from the wedding. And of course, his sweet and wonderful Rosie. He felt the tears forming in his eyes, unbidden. Quickly he wiped them away. What an old sentimental fool he was becoming! He berated himself.
They were all gone now. And worse still, he had no pictures to remember Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, or Mycroft. All he had was his memories, and in his old age, even those were starting to get fuzzy.
That's what hurt him the most.
Soon, they would fade away, and it would be like they never existed.
Another sigh, and, inevitably, his eyes drew to his mantelpiece, and on top of it, an item that had been there so long, it would have been hard for anyone to tell what it was or even what color it had originally been under the layers of years of dust.
But he knew quite well.
It was with near reverence that he slowly walked over to the mantle and touched the item. His eyes and his mind were a million miles away. With a cloud of dust and a rough coughing spell that left him slightly dizzy, he put the item in an inside pocket of the jacket that he was wearing.
Softly, a chime rang, taking him out of his momentary revelry. He looked at the clock on the wall. 1600 hours. He had better hurry if he wanted to get there before it closed.
He took one last plaintive look at the now empty mantle and its now one singular not dusty spot before he turned away.
It took him a while to get ready. Between his shoulder bothering him and his age, he was already feeling a bit tired by the time he had bundled up enough to go outside.
The thought passed in his head 'It'd be OK to miss it, just this once, right?' But that blasphemous idea was gone as soon as it took a hold in is brain.
NO.
He took the few steps down to the door of his flat, and stepped out onto the sidewalk to hail a taxi. By the time one stopped for him, the parts of his skin that were exposed to the wind and cold were already pink-chapped and wind burnt.
The ride, as it was every year, was a slow slog of agony. Deep down, he was pretty sure that he chose this flat because it was so far from the other side of London, away from everything and everyone that he had held dear so long ago.
And every year, he knew that he should tell the cabbie to take an alternate route from the one that they would inevitably take. From where he lived to where he was going, the quickest route always took them down Baker Street.
But he knew, secretly, that he actually wanted to go past that old green door. It had been painted black many years ago. He had no idea who owned it now, and it had been almost two decades since he had stepped foot inside. The knocker had been replaced too, the old one that one brother would always make crooked and other brother would always fix.
Ever the game went on.
There was traffic on Baker Street, and while the cabbie stopped for the light, he took a long, plaintive look. Speedy's was gone, too. Someone had bought it out and renamed it not long after he moved out for the last time.
He covered a sniffle by clearing his throat, and wiped his eyes while he cleaned his thick glasses. Damn his eyes, they gave him nearly as much trouble as his shoulder did. He felt like he was falling apart.
But stoically, he pressed on, always the solider.
Finally, after making one quick stop, they arrived. He paid the cabbie, and arranged to have him come back in 30 minutes to pick him up.
With one more throat clearing rumble, he got out of the cab and walked through the tall metal gates.
He was on autopilot. His mind was a million miles away, but he had done this so many times that it was muscle memory. The walk took a little longer each time. He was patient. Everything happened at a slower pace now. He was used to it.
Without a conscious thought, his feet stopped on their own. He was at his destination.
It must have been a family plot. Mycroft surely had arranged it long ago.
In front were the parents, his father had gone first. He was the rock, the "normal" one of the family. His mother lived on for almost 5 more years before she passed on as well.
And behind them, as always, were two dutiful sons. They had actually passed less than 3 months apart. As much as they had always put on that they hated each other, it seemed like one couldn't really live without the other. For all their bluster, he knew that they cared deeply for each other.
It had been quite a shock when Sherlock passed. No one knew that he had been hiding a secret for months. As a doctor, he would never forgive himself. He could tell that there was something wrong. And of course he had suggested that Sherlock see a doctor quite often.. But Sherlock, being Sherlock, would always brush it off. Come Hell or high water, he couldn't make Sherlock do something that he didn't want to. He even tried to solicit his brother for help, but even Mycroft wouldn't help, which both angered and thoroughly confused him.
He could never quite place what was off about the detective, and apparently whatever it was, he did a good job of hiding it. He never slowed down when it came to solving cases. He was never anything but "normal" Sherlock. Eventually Sherlock even convinced his best friend that it must have been all in his head and that he was perfectly fine.
What a fool, he thought.
Mycroft had almost definitely known. He always seemed to know everything. He never breathed a word to anyone. And when Sherlock did... die... Mycroft refused to release the autopsy results to anyone, even his best friend, the doctor. He had never forgiven himself for not figuring out what was wrong. And he had never forgiven Mycroft for not telling him. He stopped talking to the elder Holmes. Mycroft died before there was any resolution.
Even more guilt.
Looking back at it now, he had a feeling that Mycroft was sick as well, even before Sherlock died. And maybe they both knew that they had little time left. Neither of them wanted to dwell on it. The brothers had packed a lot of living into their years, though neither had been able to make it to retirement age. But neither of them were really the type to retire, anyways.
He kneeled to put a single flower on each of the other three graves, and then stood silently at the last one.
"20 years ago." His voice wavered at the end. "I'm sorry my visits have tapered off." He used to visit more often, but as he aged, and it got harder to move, the visits had tapered off to once a year.
This day.
The day he died.
A sharp, quick breeze blew through, ruffling his coat behind him, and if he had believed in such things, he would almost think that his friend was trying to tell him something.
But he knew better.
"I feel the east wind." He looked up to the gray, dingy sky, and he knew that he didn't have long before the rain started. It would be here before the cabbie came back, and he had no umbrella or anything else to shield him from the coming weather.
Surprisingly, he was okay with this. There was something that told him that this would be the last year he would visit his friend. He wasn't sure what it was, perhaps that intuition that had been built up inside of him from years of working with the world's only consulting detective.
"It comes for us all in the end. Maybe I am next." He knelt down and took out the item that he had gotten off the mantelpiece form his coat pocket and laid it on the grass in front of the gravestone.
For a while, he was silent, lost in his thoughts.
He only came back to himself when he felt the first tiny cold stabs of rain pelt the back of his neck.
With a long grunt and slow, painful movements, he got back to his feet.
"Farewell, old friend."
Ever the solider, he pivoted sharply on the heel of one foot, turned and walked away. He looked at his watch- he was pretty sure that he had time to visit Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, who were buried in another part of the cemetery, before the cabbbie came back.
The rain beat down harder, the icy cold drips beat like tiny pinpricks on his exposed skin. He could already feel the chill starting to cool his veins, even with as many layers as he had put on.
In a way, he welcomed the seeping cold. He had lived a good life. He was content with where he was. His peace has already been made.
As he walked, he made a move to turn up his collar to protect the back of his neck from the rain, but he froze in mid movement. He couldn't help but laugh. If Sherlock had been around, he never would have heard the end of it.
What started out as a chuckle slowly built into louder and louder laughter, until he had tears in his eyes, though he wasn't sure if it was from joy or sadness. Decades of feelings fell out of him and joined the raindrops on his jacket.
Rain mixed with ice, and still the storm grew, and still he stood, and laughed, until he was gasping for breath, leaning against a light pole while the world spun around him.
The utter ridiculousness of it all was not lost on him. Somehow it seemed appropriate, to have what might be his final time with his friend on such an awful day.
When he had stopped laughing and the world had stopped spinning around him, he slowly wandered towards the other two graves. The visits were brief, but he was happy that he had had time to say what he thought would be his last goodbyes to some of his oldest friends.
Afterwards, he slowly walked towards the front of the cemetery. The cold had leaked in through his thick coat. His head was wet and his skin was pale. He hadn't really intended to catch his death of cold today.
Or then again, maybe he had.
With a couple of short honks, the cabbie let him know that he was here- right on time.
Doctor John Watson looked back one more time to the grave in the distance. He couldn't read the name from here, but he knew the black granite by heart, and smiled softly at the old, battered deerstalker hat that was now sitting on the well tended grass in front of it.
Of all the things that he had taken from 221B Baker Street, that had always been one of his most prized possessions. But he knew that it was now back where it belonged.
One last nod to his old friend, then he turned back towards the cab, and the rest of his life.