A/N This idea refused to go away so I finally gave in and wrote it. I hope you enjoy reading this. Any feedback is appreciated :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing :(

The therapist's office was almost irritatingly boring, John thought as he sat down in that uncomfortable chair for the first time in eighteen months. Everything was too perfect, the furniture and the walls too neat and ordered and it provided an even larger contrast to the cluttered but welcome home he had waiting for him in 221B. When, of course, he was prepared to return there.

He slowly sat down, finding that his leg protested at the action. The damn limp had returned. Turned out it definitely was psychosomatic after all. As if he'd needed further confirmation, the fact that Sherlock had figured it out automatically made it fact anyway. He quickly expelled all thoughts of the detective from his mind and faced the therapist with a straight face. Even she looked too tidy, hands folded in her lap and face sympathetic as if she could possibly understand John's pain. This room was meant to provide a false sense of comfort but John felt neither comforted nor welcome. He wasn't supposed to be here. Sherlock had fixed everything eighteen months ago so why were they broken again?

He barely listened to his therapist, instead he looked straight ahead and focussed on other things that were just as pointless. The drabness of the room made it easier to slip away and he took pleasure in doing so. The more she spoke the more he wanted to walk out and abandon any hopes of moving on, because surely pining after Sherlock was better than forgetting him. She was taking notes, judging him, seeing him in a light that many others wouldn't and it only succeeded in making him wish he was anywhere but here. However, there was a reason he was here and he knew that as well as she did. He just wasn't prepared to admit it.

That Sherlock Holmes, the best man he had ever known, was dead.

The pain started before Sherlock had even hit the ground. Fierce and crippling at first as John watched his friend fall to his inevitable death with a feeling of great helplessness. He was so close and yet too far away. There was nothing he could do and as he watched his best friend slowly glide over the edge to the unforgiving pavement below all John was aware of was the burning pain in his chest. He was useless. He'd always been there when Sherlock called and yet now, when his best friend truly needed him, he could do nothing.

He ran, because what else was there left to do? Ran until Sherlock was finally in sight. Perhaps it wasn't too late. Maybe, just maybe, if he rushed over to Sherlock's side and held his hand and cradled him in his arms everything would be alright. No, it had to be. The thought of Sherlock being dead was ridiculous because if that was the case then John would surely have been taken with him. They were meant to bow out together, for one side of a coin always needed the other. If Sherlock had stopped breathing he'd know. He'd have felt it and he himself would have stopped functioning. He wasn't too late. He could still save him...

He hadn't seen the bicycle. If he had he would have easily avoided it and he wouldn't be lying sprawled out on the road with a ringing in his ears and a dull ache spreading throughout his chest. He shakily rose to his feet, praying that he wasn't too late but knowing full well that he was. There were people surrounding Sherlock now, his Sherlock. They were crowding in on him, hiding him from John's view and he felt his legs rush towards them with a sudden urgency. He couldn't leave Sherlock alone with these strangers. It didn't matter that they were trying to help, Sherlock would be annoyed by them, would chase them away. So why were they still there? Why hadn't Sherlock complained yet?

John tried to reason with them, pushing his way through the heavy mess of people in order to reach his friend. He heard the word 'doctor' come forth from his mouth but that wasn't a strong enough word. "Friend." That was better. More significant, and it must have worked because he was finally on the ground by Sherlock's still form, taking his hand and feeling for a pulse. He'd find one, he was sure he would. He ignored the people who attempted to pull him away. They were distractions, nothing more. Sherlock would be fine, all John needed was some confirmation that life still flowed within the veins of the great Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock would never do anything as boring as die.

The silence that greeted John was crushing in it's intensity and he felt a cold shiver rock his frame as he finally allowed himself to be pulled away. This wasn't happening. Nothing so horrible could ever be real he decided. The dull ache became agonising and it seemed like his heart was trying to rip from his chest for it was no longer needed. While Sherlock's heart remained silent John's was supposed to do the same. So why could he still feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears? How could the man before him simply cease to function through the mere notion that he didn't have a heartbeat? Sherlock could defy that rule, surely. He had to. For John's sake.

The still body was finally rolled onto it's back and suddenly John realised that his own heart had simply been waiting for the right moment to die. That was the only explanation for the numb emptiness that spread throughout his chest now as he stared into his best friend's unseeing eyes for the final time. When he dared to look past the ring of light blue and deep into his friend's soul as he had often done before he found nothing. No intelligence. No life. Dead...

He wasn't here. He couldn't be here, where the cold bit into his skin with the ferocity of a thousand knives with his heart carved from his chest and his eyes fixed upon the shell of his best friend. If he was truly there he'd be screaming by now until he could no longer summon enough precious oxygen into his lungs and his voice grew hoarse and his throat burned. All he could see was the blood. Dripping down Sherlock's face into his dark curls, spreading out on the pavement so that it was close enough to swallow John whole and suffocate him with it's stench. He'd seen blood before but this was worse, this was the life of his friend slipping away, leaving him. Gone. Dead. No, not dead, Sherlock would never, could never...

Sherlock!

Something the therapist had said suddenly seemed significant although John was not entirely sure why. He finally broke free from his trance, the pain in his leg now intensified to a burning sensation and a tremor ran through his left hand. He needed Sherlock desperately but he couldn't have him. All those times he'd come running to Sherlock in times of need and yet the detective couldn't do the same for him. Not anymore.

The therapist stopped taking notes and looked on at him solemnly. John wished he could unsee the pity in her gaze. He'd received that same look from Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly and many others who he couldn't even be bothered thinking about. Each time it only added to the pain. He was no longer a soldier who'd survived horrors in the war. He was simply a pitiful creature.

"The things you wanted to say, but didn't say it..."

John looked up at her and finally remembered what they'd been talking about. Or at least, what a subconscious part of him had been talking about for his complete attention had been somewhere else entirely. The phone-call. Everything he'd wanted to say, should have said in order to get Sherlock down from the roof and to safety. But had left unsaid. Had left it too late. He knew where this was going and he didn't like it. However, what had he liked about this visit? All it had done was resurface memories of when he had died. "Yeah," was forced from John's mouth anyway. He might as well go along with her request for as long as he could. Then he could go home and forget.

"Say it now."

He couldn't. Couldn't bring himself to. It wasn't a case of it being too difficult or upsetting for him. Everything fell into either one of those categories these days and he was slowly learning to deal with it.

There was just no point in saying 'I love you' to a dead man.