Dear John,
From the moment I stepped from the ledge, I was gone. Interminable velocity would have crushed me, broken me- shattered me, if I was not all of these things before jumping. Your trust in me was unwavering and I destroyed every splintered little fragment of your shell shocked heart.
I have tried to keep my eyes to the future I hope to secure. But I am weak. Weak in ways only you could understand or forgive. Far too often, I have glanced back and found a soldier in the distance, soldiering on.
I wonder, always, if you might ever forgive me. I wonder too if I deserve such forgiveness. It is the knowledge that you would welcome me back with open arms that wounds the most. I have not broken a mere mortal but a god among them.
I think of your healing touch as they whip me, your soothing words as I struggle for each breath when they come in the night to torment me. I, a man who could not find his soul even if he spent a thousand years searching, send my own out to see where you are. Perhaps Baker Street gathers dust, perhaps it houses an obnoxiously happy young family. One that we might have been. I can see your frown at such a thought. How could it be so when you are not gay, you ask? There are mysteries even I cannot solve. The only evidence I have but your lingering gaze, admiration I have never known and your constant presence. Shall I grow my hair for you, dearest John? I cannot change my sex any more easy than I can my devotion to you. Would that I were a woman, we might be married. We might have unruly children and a happy home. If only I were a woman, or if only you were gay.
Should I succeed in untangling this never ending web, I know I will do so in the hopes of returning to Baker Street to kneel at your feet. To beg of your unending patience. For I see now that you love me at my very worst and I will do all I can to become my very best. I only hope, John, that my affections may be returned. Perhaps you might only let me look upon you a moment before you leave me forever. That would be enough John, my memory palace has a shrine to you.
If you leave, I will carry on. We will both lead the lives we otherwise would. And you would be happy and I would be happy in knowing such. And to see you happy from afar, to watch another bring the quirk to your smile and the light to your eyes would be just the punishment most fitting to what I did to you. It would be a sweet justice to remain Sherlock Holmes for all my life. For I see now what kind of man he is without John Watson. He is one I should like to see throw himself from a rooftop on a cold November day.
I am sorry for all I have done, John. And I am sorry for all I ask of you.
Repentantly yours,
William Sherlock Holmes,
In case you are in need of baby names.