Anything recognizable is the property of the appropriate owners. I do not make any claim to ownership, nor do I make any money from this.

This is primarily based off of the most recent BBC version starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

The Fall of Great Man

John Watson was empty after the nameless stranger pulled Sherlock's thin wrist from his hands. He let himself be steered down the street and into St. Barts but he didn't actively hear the doctors and nurses rushing around. His brain was stuck watching the detective tumble through the air, coat flapping in the wind. The sickening crunch echoed in his head until he wanted to puncture his eardrums.

Lestrade shook the ex-army doctor and called his name a little louder before John responded. The blond blinked as if surprised to see him and it made the DI's chest hurt. When the call had come in that Sherlock Holmes had jumped off of the roof of St. Barts, he had sunk into his chair and stared at the phone in the same way. They had to be wrong, Sherlock wouldn't have committed suicide.

"John?" The doctor made a noncommittal grunt and tried to pace but Lestrade wouldn't let go of his arm. "What happened? They said Sherlock jumped."

"He didn't jump!" Anger flared brightly in the blond's face before it crumpled again. "He fell."

Watson was staring off into the distance in shock again and Lestrade let go of his arm. Hours later, after dealing with the dead body on the roof, the DI returned to find Mycroft leaning on his umbrella looking defeated and John in a chair in front of him. Molly appeared before Greg could address the elder Holmes, wringing her hands.

Clearly she had been crying. "Y-you can see him. If you want."

Mycroft nodded sharply and followed the small woman, umbrella clicking on the floor with every step. To Lestrade's surprise, John pushed himself out of the chair and stiffly followed.

The morgue felt cooler than usual to John and he nearly froze in the doorway upon seeing the shape of a body under a sheet. He knew who was under the cloth and he didn't want to admit it. Watson had put his faith in the detective, and that faith had been shattered in a few loaded seconds. It was all wrong.

He couldn't bear to see the sheet pulled back and Sherlock's dead gray eyes staring at the ceiling again. Before the doors had closed behind Lestrade, John was pushing them open and escaped into the hallway. The walls seemed to close in around the ex-army surgeon so he closed his eyes and focused on breathing. Breathing was simple. Breathing was calming.

"Breathing, breathing is boring."

The whimper of pain caught in his throat. When he opened his eyes again, Molly was standing before him, shuffling her feet nervously. Suddenly she held out a bundle of cloth.

"Here. I nicked this before they took it for evidence. H-he would have wanted you to have it."

Sherlock's scarf dangled from her hand and John carefully took it. The blue cloth was soft between his calloused fingers and he just stared at the faint stripes. Watson hadn't had much chance to touch the scarf before as it was always around the detective's neck or stuffed in his pocket. Seeing it now was almost surreal and he tucked it away and made his way towards the elevator.

If there was one thing that John was good at, it was surviving. The former army doctor pulled on a mask the day that Sherlock Holmes fell and no one seemed to see through it. They moved on with their lives as the days added up, and John acted like he did too.

Upon arriving back at 221B, the doctor calmly made his way to his room to pick up his dog tags. When he had been invalided back to England, the small pieces of metal had told him who he was, even if he didn't know it any more. The same crushing weight was returning and he needed the support but no matter where he looked in the flat, he couldn't find them. They should have been sitting in his bedside table, next to the spare clip for the Browning, but they weren't there. He could have ordered a replacement set, but it didn't seem right. Sentiment and all that.

"Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side."

There were occasions that John was tempted to believe Sherlock's opinion on sentiment. And then he would look up at the wall and see the bright yellow smiley face full of holes or the skull on the mantelpiece. Sometimes, in the very earliest hours before dawn, he would wish he was back in his old bedsit where the sounds of a violin were foreign. But every time he tried to pack up Sherlock's belongings, his hands shook and John put everything back where it was. The doctor was glad that there wasn't an official funeral, only a text from Mycroft telling him where the gravestone was and that all of Sherlock's belongings were his to do with as he pleased. He finally went to see the marker a week later.

Even standing at the grave of his best friend, Watson couldn't believe that everything he had been told was a lie. No one would ever convince the former soldier that the great Sherlock Holmes was a fake. If only there could be one more miracle to add to surviving Afghanistan, the pool, and chasing criminals through London. The heel turn twinged in his leg, but stubbornness kept the limp from showing until he got back to Baker Street.

Lestrade was the first to notice his limp had returned. Without cases to bring them together, they met every Friday at a pub and watched football. Greg would grumble about the office and his ex-wife while the doctor listened. John would give anything to have Sherlock back to complain about. After living with the detective, nothing really seemed bothersome any more.

"I thought Sherlock cured your limp."

It was an unspoken agreement that no one mentioned the tall man, but they had enough pints between them that it didn't really matter. John shrugged his shoulders and emptied his glass.

"He did for a while."

"It's just a trick. A magic trick."

They ordered more drinks and didn't mention the cane leaning against the table again. John honestly hadn't been surprised when his leg gave out on the way to Tesco. If anyone could heal solely through force of will, Sherlock could. But now that he was gone, the pain took his place again.

John didn't consciously notice that he had grabbed Sherlock's scarf on the way out the door. The weather was miserable, raining in great silver sheets so thick the doctor wondered how the sun would ever break through again. Watson almost liked the rain this way, it made him anonymous as everyone rushed by on their way to the shops, or work, or school. No one gave him a second glance. Just another nameless figure on the backdrop of London.

Just like the cane, the blue scarf became a part of the doctor whenever he ventured out of Baker Street. He visited his old therapist for a few months because Mycroft insisted on John talking to someone who wasn't involved with Sherlock. When she recommended that he leave Baker Street, John realized she wasn't focused on helping him understand why the detective fell but on moving on. Forgetting. The ex-army surgeon interrupted her long winded spiel about blogs and walked out of the office.

"I'd be lost without my blogger."

John knew he was lost without the detective to blog about. Nothing happened to him before meeting Sherlock and now that he was gone, there was a surplus of nothing. The doctor thought about his dog tags again and where they might have ended up. He spent a weekend cleaning the flat from top to bottom searching for the stamped metal circles to no avail. Mrs Hudson offered to bring up boxes to take away the detective's things but Watson shook his head and put the skull back on the mantle.

Body parts and poisons were put in the trash but all of the papers and books that had been scattered around found homes in shelves and files. The thought of Sherlock trying to find anything in the clean flat brought a wistful smile to his face for a moment. Despite being alone in 221B, Mrs Hudson refused to allow him to pay for Sherlock's half of the rent. Something about it already being taken care of, just as long as he wanted to stay.