He was right back at where he started.
Well, maybe not quite. Different flat. But it was small enough, grey enough, lifeless enough, for it to not make a difference.
He was alone again.
He had a job this time though. But didn't have work to distract himself at the moment. Paid leave, Sarah said, so you can mourn him.
He didn't need paid leave to do that. He mourned him with every breath he took, in every minute that passes without his phone chiming with a message.
He was encouraged to move out of Baker Street. They said that he wouldn't feel so haunted by the memories of him if he didn't live in the place that held so many of their times together.
He left the flat. But the memories didn't stay behind. No, they left with him. Of course they did, didn't they know that memories lived inside minds, not things?
He was right back at where he started. Alone. Haunted by memories of things he couldn't have any longer.
They thought that the only thing that he gave to him was the opportunity of feeling adrenaline rushing through his veins again.
They tried to give him that back by lending him to a big hospital, placing him into the ER. They thought that would give him an out for his adrenaline addiction.
It wasn't the adrenaline, what kept him with him. Adrenaline had its part, sure, but it wasn't just that.
But they didn't know a lot of things. They also thought he became a doctor so he could take care of people. They thought that those were the two things that drove him, adrenaline and taking care of people.
They didn't have it right.
In the army, he got to take care of his people. His brothers and sisters in arms. His.
It wasn't only the battlefield that he missed. It was also his ability of taking care of those he had under his care. When they invalided him home, they denied him his right of taking care of them.
Random people in the ER weren't his. They were someone else's. Temporarily under his care, but they weren't his. He didn't have to care for their continued well-being, they were in and out of his life, some as quick as a blink.
He gave him that back.
That thrice damned detective was his.
He was his doctor.
He protected him, sometimes from himself. He healed him when he got hurt. He made sure he stayed healthy.
He had it all back. It even was in a more personal level. They shared a flat. They lived together. Saved each others lives.
He would have followed him anywhere.
They thought him foolish, for growing fond of someone so cold.
"Sometimes, they looked at you, standing under the rain, and marvelled at the water flowing off your skin. They thought it would freeze upon touching you. Turn into ice as soon as even one atom came into contact with you, then fall to the ground and shatter into million pieces." He chuckled hollowly.
"I knew better. I've spent enough time with you to know of the warm, living feelings that you hid deep inside, so they didn't hinder your thought process. You were perfectly capable of feeling. You feared, you cared, in your own way. They were just too shallow to notice."
"I'm sorry I called you a machine. I was scared. I was angry. I didn't mean it." He whispered. "I wish I could take it back. Go back in time and un-say it"
But he was back at where he started. Alone in a tiny flat, with nowhere to go. Nothing but his laptop and his gun.
The first time around, he kept his gun close. At hand. It called to him at times, and he liked to have it in a place he could easily access.
So he could look at it and wonder.
Nobody needed him then.
What was the point?
"You always knew just what to say. Knew just the right word to make everyone dance to your tune, the perfect smile to put people at ease, nothing could escape your eyes. I bet you said what you did, did what you did, to get me out of there that day."
Nobody needed him again. He couldn't protect him anymore. He failed again.
"Sometimes, I wish something happened, something that erased you completely from my mind. Maybe it would hurt less."
He looked at the drawer that held his gun.
"Anything. A blinding light. A blow to the head."
"Sometimes, I wish death took me at the pool, so I didn't have to watch you die. Sometimes, I wish death would take me now, so I don't see you everywhere, so I don't see you at every passing moment, in every second, in every vision. I wish I couldn't even touch your memory with words. I wish my voice forgets your name. I wish I didn't hear your footsteps on the floor. I wish your memory followed you into the realm of death and flowers and condolences, and take my feelings for you with it."
He stood up from where he was sitting, making for the drawer.
"I wish..."
'That I may see you again' He thought, in the deepest parts of his mind.
He would have followed him into hell. And if you were a believer... he would.
"I wish..."
A/N: I hate myself for writing this. My muse is an evil bitch.
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