Author's note: My second ever fanfiction, very different from the first one posted here. This story was written together with my great friend, Iris0011 – I wrote the beginning and the end, and she supplied the middle part describing John's thoughts. Neither of us owns any of the characters, however.
John heard the kettle on the kitchen counter switch itself off with a quiet click. Now that he considered it, he wasn't actually fancying drinking tea at all – it had been solely out of habit that he had put the kettle on in the first place. Nevertheless, the kettle was on the boil now, and he thought it would be in some way improper just not to care and let it cool again, so he pushed himself up from his armchair wearily and wandered into the kitchen to prepare the tea. He decided he wouldn't bother with the tea set - he didn't really want the tea, he was on his own after all, and why would he care, anyway. So he just opened the cupboard and grabbed his well-worn RAMC mug to fix his tea in.
When he was finished with it, he took his steaming mug form the counter. Too hot to drink, he realised, even with the milk already added. He carried it over to the kitchen table and pondered. How weird, he thought, one never used to be able to actually sit down to this table, it was always so full of all those test tubes and chemicals and microscope and rubbish.
Even now, he wouldn't sit down on the chair nearest him, the one between the table and the counter. That was where all the messiness used to cluster on the tabletop, with the irremissible microscope in the middle. He walked around the table and lowered himself on the other chair, facing the counter and the cupboards, with his back to the door leading out onto the landing. Draught, he noticed. Needs to be fixed. He put his mug in front of him on the table, cradling his hands around it.
It's been a year, exactly a year today. Shit, how can he have got used to this?
Missing a person was a curious thing indeed. It was not like he could complain about the relative orderly state of his now exclusively occupied flat, or the lack of occasional eyeballs in the fridge. To any sane person, coming home without anticipating the whole place being burnt down or blown up, or finding a revengeful criminal on the threshold would surely seem like a reassuring thing. So, what did it say about him, Dr John Watson, former military doctor, that he was actually missing those things?
Whenever he tried to talk about that to Mrs Hudson, the fragile old lady would have such an expression in her eyes that made John angry inside. It was not pity he needed, damn it! Not at all! He had already thrown that state, that pitiable state away once. And he was refusing to fall back to it!
How easy was it again?
"Wanna see some more?"
"Oh God, yes."
And before he knew, he had thrown away his cane, like he had never needed it in the first place. Just because it was him… That reckless, crazy person, sweeping over his previously composed life, like a living tornado.
'You idiot…' John found himself sighing aloud, and though, to an outsider, it would have sounded like he was scolding himself, it was not the case. Being alone for one whole year must have affected him more than he had realized, John reflected. After all, it was not a normal thing, conversing with thin air, even if he was lonely.
Maybe he should follow Molly's advice after all, and get himself a puppy to play with. But then again, he hadn't been that fond of dogs. Being exclusive tenant or not, microscopes, chemical tubes and all those things there or not, in John's mind, this was still somehow his place.
And that was how it should be.
The walls still remembered him.
Not because of the fading yellow smiley on the wall, of which no begging of Mrs. Hudson could make him get rid of.
When John used to write his blog about their cases, how many fans would gather! People from all over the country would write tons of reviews every day! One elderly lady from Liverpool even sent them snacks and stuff, and in a totally gooey letter, a 16-year-old girl offered to marry either of them willing…! Then there was that memorable picture with that hat, which he declared ridiculous afterwards… It was all over the papers, and everyone queued up to get his advice in unsolvable problems. But in the end, the ones who attended his funeral were only him, and Mrs. Hudson. No-one else. The ones who had been here with him, in this very flat, the place where it had all happened.
221B, Baker Street…
That's why, though he was probably only making things harder for himself, John wouldn't hear of moving to some other place. Because beside the pain, here was the only place he could also feel pride. A small smile began tugging at the corner of his lips, bittersweet, the only kind he had left.
He'd better stop this. Remembering did no good. He had to throw away the cane, and start walking, armed with this pride. If he didn't want others to pity him, he'd better stop pitying himself.
Looking for something matter-of-fact to distract himself with, he spotted the mug of tea on the tabletop, held between his loosely folded hands. He had completely forgotten it was there. He gripped it more firmly and lifted it to his mouth to take a sip.
"Lukewarm," he heard from behind him.
His hands, holding the mug, stopped in mid-air. He froze. Was he going mad?
"It is obviously lukewarm, it's been about 10 minutes you've been sitting there and brooding over whatever that might have come across your mind," the voice added.
He could feel his whole body stiffen.
He knew that voice.
God, he knew it too well.
He wanted to move, but all his body had gone numb. It must have been no more than a few seconds, but it felt like minutes passing before he could get his muscles to obey him as he shakily scrambled into a standing position, his back to the door, mug still in hand. As he stood, he realised he had started to shake visibly, his stomach in a knot, a bout of nausea washing over him, shivers running down his body.
He drew in a shallow breath – he meant it to be a deep one but wouldn't manage – and, with all the strength he could muster, willed himself to turn around. He felt he was moving as if in slow motion, desperately trying to focus his vision on the tall figure standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the landing, all coat and cheekbones as ever.
He never realised his fingers had let go before the RAMC mug shattered to pieces on the kitchen floor, spilling lukewarm tea everywhere.