Goodbye John
Those words (those horrid, end-of-a-sad-movie, gone-forever-and-not-coming-back words) seemed full of meaning. After a lifetime (it felt like a lifetime) of not saying what they wanted to say, of not saying what they felt, of not saying what they meant to say, those words. A lifetime of thoughts and feelings and what-I-meant-to-says crammed into those two words.
Goodbye John
And he saw him there on the edge of the building (a hospital-how ironic) and he wanted to say "Don't leave me here alone. Don't leave me; I can't do it on my own. I can't face the world without you" But the line clicked dead before he could say a word.
Goodbye John
The figure fell through the air, arms pin wheeling, legs kicking. It was like one of those horrid dreams where you feel like you're falling. But he couldn't wake up. The black coat (that oh-so-achingly-familiar black coat) billowed around Him like a cloud of smoke.
Goodbye John
Then, in mere seconds it was over, and there was just a crumpled dark form in a heap on the hard cold concrete. And then he found his voice, and the sound he made was the sound of a heart breaking, because it couldn't be true, that couldn't be Him, lying dead on the ground, those words he had said had to be lies, he had to be about to get up and ask him what he thought, or say they ought to go back home for a cup of tea. But He just lay there silently as he ran towards him, and he knew there was no denying the inevitable.
Goodbye Sherlock.
And even though the pain slowly begins to numb (but that takes years), it never goes away, not even for a second, because everything he had was tied up in that man. A whole life. A whole world. An entire existence. And now that he's gone (Don't be gone. Come back. One more thing. Don't be dead.) he doesn't know what to do with himself. So he doesn't. He sits at home (but without Him, it doesn't seem like home), too miserable to care. But it doesn't matter. Nothing seems to, anymore.
Goodbye Sherlock.
He starts seeing a therapist, because one can only live for so long on an army pension, and he wants, no needs to feel normal (or at least a semblance of it) again. He gets a good job where he can work all the time and just not THINK, because work is something to hold on to now, and concentration takes the edge off the pain and off the loneliness for a while.
Goodbye Sherlock.
He doesn't call his family, because when he sees his sister, all he can think about is the first time he met Him, how he deduced all of her problems from his phone. He doesn't call Her (You machine! She had said, but now that was him as well), because he knows she'll be just as useless and scarred as he is, and he doesn't need that. His brother probably doesn't even give a damn anyway, so he sits at home, curled up with some work, trying hard, so hard that it hurts (even the not-thinking hurts how) to forget Him.
Goodbye Sherlock.
He goes to work and comes home, works, and goes back to the office. It's all a schedule (like clockwork, because clockwork is metal and doesn't feel), for the least pain possible, but it's all a like, because as soon as he closes the door on his empty flat, he just wants to fall apart again, because there are so many memories tied up in this place, and he knows that the only reason he's sticking around is because leaving means leaving the last things that remind him of his friend (he can't bear to throw any of it away; it's exactly as he left it, that morning he fell). It hurts, but even the suggestion of the idea of leaving is worse.
Goodbye Sherlock.
He's been going to his grave once a week (Sundays, 2:00). Sometimes more (often more) if it's a bad week (which it almost always is). Sometimes, he just sits there, and you'd think he was fine until you saw the tears streaming silently down his face. Sometimes he talks to him, crying equally much as he talks. Not about cases, or work, or the umbrella term of "their friendship", but about the little things (God, it's the little things he misses most). It's a pitiful substitute, because He could never have been as quiet as the block of glossy black stone that marks his place now. Without Him, this piece of rock is all he has.
Goodbye Sherlock.
On the outside, he's getting better. He's seeing the therapist less, and going out more (he's even been on a date), and he's called some people from that old life once or twice. But on the inside (and behind closed doors, and in that secluded corner of the desolate cemetery), he's only getting worse. He comes home, and curls up in His old chair, because it smells like Him, and wears His clothes (even though they don't fit quite right at all), and plays His old violin, even though he can't follow a tune to save his life (Or is it His life? The irony does not escape him). He shakes when he moves, and rocks back and forth on the ground and cries, deep, racking, soul wrenching sobs, because he's broken inside, and not mending like he ought to. Instead, each day seems to break him further, like a cup you throw again and again until it shatters.
Goodbye Sherlock.
But no one notices the cup as its fractures turn to breaks, and the pieces grow harder and harder to pick up in the morning. No, to the outside world, he is following the carefully studied and plotted seven stages of grief, ending in acceptance and moving on with his life. After his "allotted" time for deep depression, he begins showing a somewhat more happy and hopeful face to the world. It's enough to fool the people who need to be fooled, and the others are too busy being happy he's getting back to normal to notice that the return to normalcy is only skin deep.
Goodbye Sherlock.
It's another normal day, another act, another cup of tea, another day of pretending everything is fine and he'll be alright as soon as he's had some coffee (he's begun taking it black, two sugars) because that's his main problem right now. It's another day of trying to keep it together on the outside while every little thing seems to be perfectly constructed to help him fall apart even more on the inside.
Goodbye Sherlock.
The days flow into one another, and the individual weeks don't seem to matter anymore, all that matters is that with each day that passes, the act gets easier, but the pain gets harder to take behind his closed door, and it's gotten so he doesn't invite anyone from that life round anymore because he knows that anywhere they could go or anything they could say would only remind him more of his friend, and he knows that it's not healthy to cut himself out of their picture like this, but sometimes there are things you just do, not because you ought to, but because you can't seem to do anything else. Maybe jumping was His answer to that. Whatever the particular question happened to be.
Goodbye Sherlock.
Sometimes, he wishes he could jump too, because he might as well be dead, he might be better off dead, but he knows that the illusion that people go to a better place is nothing more than that. An illusion. We tell ourselves the people we love are happier now that they're gone, but it's all a lie, because where else could they go, and where could they go that they could be so much happier, it eclipses the absence of us in their lives (but they're not 'lives' anymore, are they), and it isn't all that comforting anyway, because he isn't sad because he was afraid He was in pain, and now that he's gone, it's all okay again. No, he's still devastated, because he doesn't want to know that He can be peaceful, he doesn't care. What matters is that He left him. He left him here, and without Him, there's nothing left in this life that's worth smiling for.
Goodbye Sherlock.
Sometimes he wishes he could jump too, but he knows he won't "see Him again in a better place", and even living here in misery, where he can be surrounded by His things and the memories of Him that he has, and where he can visit the places He once walked, is better than an eternity of not feeling, not seeing, not being anywhere but in a hole in the ground, just like Him.
Goodbye Sherlock.
So he doesn't jump, and he keeps on putting on an act fooling everyone it needs to, and he keeps on falling apart in their flat at night. And it's been three years, and when he hears those feet on the steps, and that knock on the door, it's the farthest thing from his mind.
One more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be...dead.