Chapter One
"This is the voicemail of Sherlock Holmes please leave a message after the tone, they will get back to you as soon as they can"
"That's the problem though Sherlock isn't it. You aren't going to get back to me. You can't get back to me. For some crazy reason I thought ringing you would help. I thought just hearing those two seconds of your voice would help make it better. That you were still here. That someday I'm going to come home and I'll hear the word 'bored' and then gunshots. I think even Mrs Hudson misses that. It feels so… Empty without you. You're an absolute pillock, but I miss you. You were my best friend Sherlock. You knew everything about me. Admittedly that's because you deduced it. But that's beside the point, I trusted you. And then I lost you. What were you thinking Sherlock? Were you thinking? It must've been the first time in your life you brilliant insane brainiac.
Life is different without you Sherlock. It's weird. It's wrong. I went back to my therapist, she's been great. Not much use, but still, she's been great. I saw Harry too. She's… better. Drinking less, she's been great too. She thinks you were my boyfriend, I told her not to be ridiculous. We get along better now, not brilliantly but better. It's funny how death brings people together. It's a shame too though.
Your room hasn't been touched since you left us Sherlock. To be honest I don't want to go in there, I'm half terrified I'm going to find some horrible left over body of yours and I don't want to see your things. I don't want to have to worry about throwing them out, I don't even want to think that everything in that room once belonged to you. You've left your finger prints everywhere, for a man who worked on crime scenes all his life I would've thought you'd known better.
I remember the first time I met you Sherlock, you amazed me. And poor Molly, even I could tell she had a hopeless crush on you. It's funny really, the man who could analyse everyone around him had no idea his co-worker was crushing on him.
This is ridiculous, I'm hanging up. You can't hear me. You aren't coming back. It's, it's just so hard to accept. Six months is a long time Sherlock and we've all been lost without you. But you were my friend and I will always, always believe in you."
John Watson stood for a few seconds, phone in hand and then finally had the courage to hang up. He'd let go of all those last words he wanted Sherlock to hear. For days, weeks and month they'd been bubbling up, threatening to explode out of him at any moment. But he hadn't been able to let go. He'd tried so hard to keep it together but on the six month anniversary of Sherlock's death he'd decided to let his barriers down. He hadn't cried at the funeral, instead he'd saved it up until this very moment when he allowed himself to cry freely.
Sherlock of course had heard all of this. Up in Scotland he'd been staying, waiting, planning. But when he heard his best friend crying and talking to a man who supposedly no longer existed. This wasn't the first time John had tried to contact Sherlock almost everyday texts set his phone off, this was, however, the first time John had rung. And it would be the last time his messages were ignored.