John stared at Sherlock's gravestone for a long, long moment.
He was vaguely aware of Mrs Hudson somewhere behind him, of the wind rustling leaves, how the light reflected off the black stone.
And he thought; No, this can't be right.
He was aware that if he voiced those words aloud, people would shoot him pitying looks, their very being seeming to scream 'you poor thing...' but it was not grief. It was a sense of wrongness that permeated his being ever since he watched Sherlock fall. It couldn't have been what he saw. There had to be something more going on – there had to be. Just like in Baskerville he couldn't trust what he saw. Sherlock is-was a genius. He saw that time and time again, and there was no way that he could have faked it all. It wasn't possible.
Which meant that there was something happening behind the scenes, and up on that rooftop that John had missed. Like why had Moriarty killed himself, why Sherlock had been so determined that John believe that Sherlock was a fake, why he had to stay still and look at only him – yelling at him whenever he was about to look away, take a few steps forward. Granted, it wasn't like he could have looked away from Sherlock perched up there, dramatic coat and a desperate voice in his ear and all.
He didn't know what the something was. He had guesses – hundreds upon thousands of guesses, but all of them useless until he had more facts. Just one of the many things he had learned working, living, breathing life with Sherlock. Without the facts, you couldn't know anything. The smallest things can mean the difference between a case being solved or not.
He thought of going to Mycroft, and asking him for information that he didn't currently know, that he needed to have, to understand what was going on around him. Debated taking a gun along to try and get Mycroft to tell him the truth. (And to make himself feel a fraction better.) John dismissed the idea. Mycroft wasn't the sort of person you could threaten with a gun and get what you wanted out of it.
He remembered how Mycroft looked with jagged edges exposed; asking John to explain to Sherlock why it was that Moriarty's scheme was so brilliant. How he'd sold out his own brother for the nation.
John stared down at his hand, resting against the black marble of Sherlock's gravestone, and thought: No.
There was too much happening in those few days, those precious last hours, and while he would readily admit that he was nowhere near as brilliant as Sherlock that did not mean he couldn't tell when something was off, was wrong straight down to the deepest level of his being.
His Soldier instincts were still set on protect and attack; not retreat or stay.
There was a something – a nebulous thing, small details in a larger picture – going on around him without his knowledge and John was left standing here in a graveyard without his... without Sherlock. Adrift in it all. Trying to adapt to a world that no longer made sense.
John stared at the stone, the words carved across it, and thought: No. This is wrong.
He didn't have all of the information. His instincts were demanding action. Sherlock's grave was in front of him, under his hand.
But it was bigger than that – so much bigger than Sherlock and Moriarty and John. Sherlock's voice drifted across his mind, about how Moriarty was a spider in the middle of a web. Surely a genius madman wouldn't have been content with only Britain being ensnared. There had to be an empire out there, ruining lives as efficiently as his own had been. (Again.) And he could do something about that, at least, at the very least. He owed it to the man who gave him purpose, a new battlefield away from the army that no longer had use for him.
He could get revenge.
And in turn protect others.
John patted the stone one last time, slowly turning away. He felt his spine straighten, his shoulders brace themselves. His leg was fine, his hand steady.
It was time to hunt spiders.
XXXXXX
AN:ok, so, I've been reading a fair few Sherlock fics lately. And one thing that annoys the hell out of me is how they all seem to have John falling apart and ignoring the larger problem. Yes, it is horrible and tragic and oh god why would you do that Sherlock! But. John is made of sterner stuff.
The story that I was reading when this attacked is 'Multiplicity' on AO3 by 1electricpirate. Fantastic story, but damn it also makes me angry.
This is complete, for me, because I'm incapable of actually continuing a story. Feel free to adopt it, just let me know so that I can read what you do with it :)