It had been three long years, or there about, since Sherlock had jumped off St Bart's. John was still breaking, though people had tried to mend him, without much success. It was like trying to construct the Eiffel Tower with blue tack- it wouldn't work, it took a lot of effort, and it would break. John acted happy, sometimes, and on rare occasion he actually was. But everyone could see the emotion that attempted to hide behind a plastered, fake smile. And it was about as far from happy as you could get. About the only thing everyone achieved with their efforts was simply keeping him from doing himself harm, keeping it at bay, though most of them knew that he would completely break eventually. Everyone avoided saying the name around him. He knew how they looked at him, pity being among one of the main feelings there. He disliked pity.
He had stayed away from the flat for months. Less than a year, but more than half. He had avoided it, purposely going out of his way sometimes to do so. He hadn't known how he would react. But one day he had found himself in the general area by accident, and had gone to see it.
John didn't leave it after that, and only went back to where he had been staying to get his things. Simply put, he stayed in Baker Street. Mrs Hudson had kept it as it was, for which he was glad about, though it made it harder to come back to sometimes.
Every once and a while he woke up and forgot what had happened, going out to see Sherlock before stepping into the living room and remembering. He once got as far as making tea for the two of them, then stopped dead in the middle of the living room, then fled to his room- with the tea. He didn't come out of there for a couple of hours.
He hadn't moved many of Sherlock's things, tidied up a little bit of the papers, before noticing that he preferred them all spread out and messy. It made him feel a little bit like Sherlock was still around. He hadn't moved his instrument from it's case.
He missed the scraping of the bow across the strings of a violin at three in the morning. He missed being dragged out of the flat at the most idiotic hours, coming back to it bone tired. He missed the tall, lanky detective with the shock of black hair sulking on the couch in his dressing gown.
He missed Sherlock.

John stood on a bridge, looking out over the Thames. The water swirled below, and the wind was starting to cool, cutting through his sweater. His chin tucked into his scarf- which admittedly was one of the detectives ones, the scent of him long since gone. Oh the expressions when he had worn it outside for the first time. Again, mainly pity. There was some surprise too, though that was more hastily covered up. He was gazing down at the water, wondering what day it was. He had lost track at some time, and didn't really see the point in finding out again. He had been going through the days in a blur, not really picking up on anything, nor fixating on something for long. He had times when he was back to himself, but he was usually back in the flat when they happened, and he soon started to drift. Some psychiatrist had said that it could be a coping mechanism. He had stopped going to see her long ago, when she said that Sherlock had been a fake, that the newspapers had proved everything false. It was one of the very few times in his life where John had wanted to hit a woman. He had given cold goodbyes, and simply left. Hadn't seen her again. Refused to, though people tried to make him go. They gave up eventually. He was back to thinking about Sherlock again. Everything reminded him of the detective.
'She said you were a fake.' John murmured to the water below. He had taken to talking to Sherlock when there was no one around, or when people couldn't hear him, when his voice would be smothered. 'So did a lot of other people. Idiots.' A very small smile, tweaking one corner of his mouth up slightly.
Then his eyes dulled a little, and the smile disappeared entirely, turning down at the corners. 'You- you were a fucking idiot, Sherlock.' His voice broke on the detectives name, which he hadn't used in over a year. 'Why did you have to step off of that roof, and leave me here? You didn't have to. You're just a selfish bastard.' His voice was going wobbly, a clear indication as to him attempting not to cry. 'I still text you daily, did you know that? Sometimes it's just me forgetting, and asking you something, like what you want from the shop, but sometimes it's just things I wish I had told you.' He had never told him how he felt, but had edged toward it in a few of his messages, before shying away and avoiding the topic. Stupid, running from texts that would never be read. He stood there for a long time, thinking. Then his hands withdrew from the warmth of his pockets, phone in one, and he tapped out a message, pausing to look at the water again before he hit send.

Sherlock had always checked on John when Mycroft gave him updated information on him, how he was doing. Even if it was the smallest thing, something that sounded unimportant. Now it was that John had been staring at the water of the Thames for an unusual period of time.
More than once, Sherlock had gotten the homeless network to keep an eye on him, sometimes called in a favour. (In one case, John seemingly purposely walked into the path of an oncoming car, and someone pushed him out of the way- Sherlock's doing. John had seemed particularly bad that week, so he had sent someone to make sure he wouldn't be able to do something stupid.) But this was one of the few times that he went in person. He was in London, had almost finished untangling Moriarty's web, and badly wanted to see him, even if it was from afar, even if he couldn't reveal himself. He had been watching the mainly still figure for a little while, from a fair distance, a minute or two away if he ran- when his phone buzzed, indicating that he had a text. He reluctantly took his eyes off of his former flatmate, sticking his hand in his pocket to retrieve the phone. New message received. He slid his thumb across the screen, then blinked. For a second the only thing his mind focused on was the name, John, then shifted to read the rest. It wasn't unusual to get texts from John, and he knew that he really should have switched numbers-Sentiment- but hadn't, against Mycroft's wishes and warnings. His heart slammed into his ribs as he properly processed the message, his gaze rising from the screen to look back at the figure that was now climbing up onto the railing of the bridge. Afterwards, he vaguely remembered dropping the phone, the screen still displaying the message.
Sherlock, I know that this is idiotic, that you aren't at the other end of this, that you are rotting in the ground, but just let me get this off of my chest. I loved you- still do, really. I never told you, but I'd be surprised if you didn't figure it out. You jumped, and took my heart with you. I'm simply joining you to reclaim it.
He ran. Towards his former flatmate, towards the man who put up with everything he had done as no one else did, towards someone who didn't seem to want to be saved.