When John Watson watches Sherlock Holmes fall to his death from the rooftop at Bart's, he doesn't fall with him.
He remembers the whole thing somewhat detachedly, like it was a story someone had told him instead of something he had lived (survived). The phone call – Sherlock's note – is the only thing he recalls vividly. Everything is a blur after that, after the jump. There's flailing limbs and a bicycle and way too many people and a wrist that is somehow warm yet cold at the same time and redredred so much red. The images stretch through an impossible amount of time. It can't be more than 5 minutes from the jump until the ambulance shows up but it feels like hours inside his head. He knows there has to be a way these images connect, something that explains how he got from the place Sherlock demanded he stood to be kneeling next to his friend's body – corpse – but he doesn't remember. Can't remember. Doesn't want to remember.
The funeral was arranged incredibly fast, though that didn't particularly surprise John. He had seen Mycroft Holmes do much more impressive things and, considering the kind of life Sherlock leads – lead –, it wasn't too strange for his funeral to be halfway ready even before his death.
He considers skipping the funeral for about 23 seconds after a text from Anthea arrives (Calliope this month, actually, but he hasn't bothered to keep track in a while), containing only an address and the time. He doesn't feel like going. He can already see the glances full of pity, feel the strong hugs and pats to his back, hear the words full of apology and concern. He has no use for them. Also, John reckons Sherlock wouldn't care either way. 'Irrational', he'd say. 'Dull. Tedious.' 'Sentiment', John would explain. He can't help but giggle at the thought but something like a strangled choke comes out when his lips part and the giggle dies in his throat.
Of course, he ends up attending. Not for Sherlock and not for himself, but for everyone else. Because he knows they are all there for Sherlock. Funerals, he knows, are for the living.
As expected, most of the guests approach John, look at him sadly, hug him, pat his shoulder and mutter some heartfelt words. He feels somewhat like the grieving widow and stays quietly in front of the headstone trying, unsuccessfully, to deter people from approaching him by acting like he's lost in thought. He realizes later that it hadn't been one of his best plans. He forgives himself, though.
There is a priest blandly speaking about life and death and heaven and hell, and he makes John so irrationally angry he decides to go stand at the back. It's only then that he realizes how many people have attended. There's obviously Mycroft, the ever-present Anthea and a strict-looking woman John supposes is the Holmes' mother. There is Mrs. Hudson, who is crying more than everyone else. Molly, who looks even more fidgety than usual and oddly more nervous than sad. Lestrade, who keeps shooting John weird looks that are equal parts worried, sorrowful and apologetic. There is Angelo and Billy and the family that owns the Chinese restaurant down the street and the boys from Speedy and most of the Yarders and Sarah and a bunch of Sherlock's clients he recognizes and a lot of other people he has never seen before. 'Some sociopath you are, git' he can't help but think fondly. Were. Tenses are still confusing.
John supposes it says something about his life that he's more surprised to spot Anderson in the crowd than to see the rather large group of young, raggedy-looking people he recognized as part of the Baker Street irregulars standing mostly away from the rest.
Both Lestrade and Mycroft are visibly nervous when they approach him, one first and then the other, after the ceremony. Well, Lestrade is. Mycroft is never visibly anything other than terrifying, but John can tell anyway.
The DI apologizes, or at least tries to. John cuts him off before he can say anything other than "Look, John..." and fakes a little smile for Lestrade's sake.
"It's fine, Greg. You don't have to." And he doesn't. Because John has forgiven him already. It's not his fault, really, John knows. Orders from above and all that. Greg gives him a shy smile and a pat on the back, and he leaves, looking considerably more relaxed.
Mycroft, on the other hand, doesn't say anything. John didn't expect him to. Hopes he will. Doesn't want him to. He hasn't forgiven the elder Holmes yet. Probably never will. He knows it's not entirely fair but he can't help blame Mycroft for everything. Because Moriarty was clever, frightfully clever, but Mycroft gave him the tools to bring Sherlock down. Because he had seen Mycroft do things a man couldn't normally do, but he wasn't there the only time they really needed a miracle. Because he had Moriarty in a cell once and one just doesn't let a psychopath that scratched one's brother name all over the walls of his bloody cell out just like that, what the fuck is wrong with you Mycroft?. John reckons he should feel sorry for Mycroft. In spite of all their differences, the man just lost a brother. But John can't bring himself to care and is thankful the elder Holmes doesn't say anything. Maybe. They stand side by side for several long minutes. John has almost forgotten about the other man, when he feels long fingers wrap around his shoulder. Light as the touch is, it feels more like Mycroft is gripping for support than trying to reassure John.
He feels better because of that.
John locks himself up inside 221B as soon as he gets back and it's radio silence for the rest of the week. He doesn't answer calls, texts or e-mails, doesn't open his door, doesn't reply when Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade yell at him from outside the flat. He never talks to anyone about that week.
The next Monday John's out of the flat early. He goes to the surgery and presents Sarah his resignation letter.
"Are you sure, John?" she asks, eying him warily. She's worried, of course. They stopped dating ages ago, but she always worries. "A distraction will be good, don't you-?"
"It's fine, Sarah." He interrupts her. His voice is rough from lack of use, but the tone is warm. "I'll be fine, I promise. I just need..."
He doesn't finish the sentence. Sarah just smiles at him sadly and accepts the letter.
He calls in a number of favours during the next couple days and, by the end of the week, he has a new, full-time job at the University College Hospital. Accident and Emergency department. He is certain Mycroft is somehow related to his swift hiring but he doesn't ask.
He knows by now Holmes are no good at apologizing properly.
A month after The Fall – that's what he calls it now –, he cleans up the flat. He throws away all of Sherlock's experiments. He returns the microscope to the lab at Bart's – Molly stares at him contritely when he shows up and gives him a smile just as fake as the one he's wearing -, he washes and stores all the pipettes, beakers and petri dishes, and takes those to Bart's too. He gathers all of his flatmate's – former flatmate's – notes, books, logs, drawings, files and whatever else is lying around in neat little piles. He can't bring himself to get rid of those, so he finds a place for them in the shelves next to the fireplace. He dusts and hoovers and scrubs every single surface in the flat.
The violin is the only thing he doesn't touch.
John moves on as best as he knows. He works and gets the shopping and watches bad telly with Mrs. Hudson and goes to the pub with Lestrade (once the man is certain John has forgiven him) and reconnects with old college mates. It's just going through the motions at first, forcing himself to move. But, day by day, bit by bit, things start to feel more real. The smiles not quite so fake, the gestures not quite so practised. Then he gets home one night, after a particularly long and tiresome shift, and realizes he hasn't thought about Sherlock even once in the whole day.
Things become easier after that.
The alarm beeps and John wakes and sits on his bed. He twists his bad shoulder a few times to warm it up – it always cramps up at night – and shuffles down to the kitchen. He makes tea and drinks it quietly, staring at the door to Sherlock's old room. Moving down there would be the logical thing to do, he knows (the room downstairs is bigger and has better lighting), but he can't bring himself to do it. Mycroft, as part of what appears to be a very twisted apology via making sure John doesn't need anything material at all, is covering Sherlock's half of the rent. John doesn't mind; he's not entirely sure Mycroft wasn't doing that before either way. He can afford not having a flatmate just yet.
He shakes himself and leaves for work. The wound is still too raw for him to be comfortable alone at home for long periods of time, so he's grateful for the distraction the hospital provides. And it's brilliant, it really is. He's a good doctor - very good - and his steel nerves and resourcefulness quickly gain him the respect and trust of his colleagues. His hand doesn't shake while he's at work, and he never takes the cane to the hospital.
It's about half a year after Sherlock's death, on what would be his birthday, that he finally enters the damned room. He opens the window to air it and removes the bedding from the mattress almost violently. He cleans the entire place within an inch of its life, pushes all the furniture against a corner and takes down the frames from the walls. It's almost 2 am when he's finally done and he sits in the middle of the room, opens a bottle of whisky and lights up a cigarette for the first time since he left college.
"Many happy returns, mate" he says to the air once the bottle is half-empty and he has no more cigarettes left. He closes the windows and goes back to his own bed. He doesn't remember his dreams in the morning.
The room becomes a sort of deposit after that. John doesn't have or need many things, but he has taken to hoarding ridiculous amounts of books and he's running out of space. He moves Sherlock's old books to the empty room and stores his own new ones in the shelves at the sides of the fireplace.
The flat is now more John's than Sherlock's, but the doctor can still see the traces of his late friend all over. A stain in the wall, an acid-burnt hole in the rug, a spot of well-worn leather in the armchair. They make his hearth both clench and warm up when he sees them and he doesn't hate them. Most of the time.
Another seven months pass before John appears one evening at the Diogenes Club. He sits and waits for Mycroft just like he did the night he confronted him about the information he had given Moriarty. If the elder Holmes is startled by his presence when he arrives, he doesn't show it. He merely sits on the armchair in front of John and stares at him with the inquisitive, piercing glare that John knows well.
After a few long and tense minutes, John finally speaks up. Mycroft is good, but not good enough to hide his bafflement when the doctor tells him that this thing about black cars following him bloody everywhere is getting annoying after all this time and does the Britain Government really have so little to do that they can have people tracking a rather boring ex-army doctor?
John has become an expert in Holmes-speech after all this time. Mycroft recognizes the forgiveness behind the words, without John having to say anything directly. He replies with some backhanded compliment in his usual condescending and overly cryptic manner, but John can see the way his lips thin as he fights back a smile.
Mycroft is incredibly easy to talk to once he deigns to do so out of his own volition and not just deeply ingrained politeness. The conversation stays away from the topics of Sherlock, Baker Street's rent and work, and they end up bonding over an unlikely (for Mycroft, at least) love for science fiction novels. John leaves almost two hours later with a well-thumbed copy of 'The Food Of The Gods' under his arm and a strange sense of relief he hadn't felt in a while.
He goes back home and makes tea.
The world might crumble, but John Watson won't crumble down with it.
Notes: The quote "Funerals, [I had decided,] are for the living" is from the book 'The Fault in Our Stars' by John Green, which is brilliant and I absolutely recommend. I really doubt John would have read it, but the quote seemed fitting.
The title is from Morris Mandel's "Problems in Human Emotions" column.