Preface
221B Baker Street had remained remarkably unchanged in the three years since the world's only Consulting Detective took the plunge from the roof of St. Barts. Immediately following the suicide of his best friend, John had abandoned the flat and, despite their differences, chose to spend the next months with his sister Harry as he tried to put his life back together.
He had been completely destroyed by the death of his friend and he couldn't bear to be in the flat where the constant reminders of Sherlock were so very prevalent. He was shocked and confused. He knew Sherlock was never a fraud; he had seen the Detective deduce the lives of many from the most insignificant details time and time again. John could not understand why Sherlock would kill himself when he was clearly not a fake.
Mrs. Hudson refused to let anyone else rent the flat, grieving Sherlock nearly as badly as he was and stubbornly insisting that John would return when he was ready. John received the push he needed to return to the place eight months after the fall, when they found the recording.
Due to the confusion, accusations, and grief that Sherlock had left in his wake, there had been little work done to actually investigate the apparent murder-suicide. A deeply sorrowed Greg Lestrade had collected the only piece of evidence from that fateful day on the roof, the phone, but he quickly moved it to storage at the yard and took his time to grieve for his friend before forgetting about the phone for months.
It was only after eight months that he remembered about the phone, and he decided to catalogue the evidence it held and put the case to rest in order to try to move on from Sherlock's death. As he went through it he discovered a voice recording saved in the phone's archives, and that one recording changed the lives of everyone who had every heard of Sherlock Holmes.
Lestrade listened to the recording of Sherlock's conversation on the roof with Moriarty for the first time alone in his office and he was happy he did so in solitude. He was in tears as he heard Sherlock in his deep voice claim Lestrade as a friend worth dying for, and as he learned of the truth behind the Detective's jump he knew one thing was certain; Sherlock Holmes was indeed a great man.
Soon after composing himself he called in a congregation of people to his office. John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Molly, Donovan, Anderson, and a handful of trusted officers gathered in the small room. Lestrade had ignored all the shouted questions that had come his way upon entering the room and he simply played the recording for everyone to hear. The reactions were as he expected.
When the recording had finished John was sobbing in loud uncontrollable gasps from his chair, muttering expletives and the occasional "That bloody idiot" or "complete arse". Lestrade knew that John uttered the curses with no malicious intent; he was simply grieving for Sherlock all over again, except now John knew that Sherlock had given his life in exchange for those of his closest friends. Mrs. Hudson was shaking and sobbing as she held on to John. Mycroft had pressed his lips into a thin, white line and left in a hurry as soon as the audio ended. Molly followed after him in tears. Donovan sat with wet eyes and her hands over her mouth, finally realizing the extent of her wrongs when in came to the consulting detective. Anderson was along the same lines as were the rest of the officers.
That day gave John the push he needed to move back to Baker Street and the memory of his late friend, much to the delight of a very understanding Mrs. Hudson. He knew that he would never recover and he would be tormented by guilt, but he felt that he owed it to Sherlock to keep the place alive for his memory. He threw away nothing of Sherlock's, save for the remaining body parts and chemical experiments he had found hidden throughout the flat, and he moved the various science equipment in to basement storage of the building. He moved back into his old room and he took up his old job at the surgery where Sarah worked. His life was slowly coming back together after eight dark, grief-filled months. John would never be the same again, his friend's absence assured that, but he was determined the restore some normality to his life for Sherlock's sake. The biggest challenge was when he started helping Scotland Yard on cases again. Without Sherlock, he wasn't much of an advantage, but Lestrade always appreciated the sharp medical observations he could make about the bodies.
As the months went by, John continued with his life. He wasn't as happy as he once was with Sherlock, but he pushed forward and tried his best to move on with his life while always remembering his best friend. It wasn't until two months after the three-year anniversary of Sherlock's death that John's life was up turned once more.
