So the world really did end in 2012. My world, anyway.

I wasn't adjusting. Every day, I went through the motions of living, trying not to let the emptiness inside of me show on my face. If I gave it any quarter, it would consume me. Damn you, Sherlock Holmes. What does Humpty Dumpty do without the extraordinary man who managed to put him together again?

I texted Mycroft, but he did not reply. I looked in on Molly. We only ended up huddled at opposite ends of her sofa, two useless lumps of lonely misery. The world had turned bleak and colorless, and I knew I had never been so lost.

How long before I started talking to the bloody skull?

So I ended up sitting there in a crowded pub one Sunday, a pint in front of me, watching the Manchester United game with Greg Lestrade. It was just as though I had never punched his boss in the face.

A little more than halfway through the game, he set his glass down and exhaled noisily. I knew that sound; he always used to do that when Sherlock had been particularly difficult.

"Rubbish," Greg said, and I glanced toward him. "Whatever Sherlock was, he was too irritating to be a fraud."

What was that noise I made just then? Was it a laugh? I hadn't laughed in ages, it seemed. "That," I agreed. "Exactly that. Thank you." He had managed to express a sentiment I had failed to put into words.

Well, Greg had known the bastard longer than me, anyway.

The game ended, and as we sat there finishing our beer, he said to me, "You know we're friends, right?"

I avoided looking at him. Did I know? Or did I assume that everyone I had ever met on account of Sherlock would inevitably drift out of my life? And why the hell did I suddenly feel like crying?

"Yeah." I think I was lying. I had always considered him a closer friend to Sherlock.

Greg set his empty glass down. "You like video games?"

What? "Uhm." I frowned. "It's been a while since I've played any." Years, really. Where was this conversation headed?

"Come on." He stood up and paid for our drinks. "Let's go play Portal. You'll like it. That computer's a right bitch."

Which is how I ended up sitting in front of Greg Lestrade's PS3, buried under a pile of purring cats, swearing back at a fictional robot that tirelessly taunted the character I controlled. I didn't necessarily feel alive again, but at least for a little while, the weight of my loneliness was no longer crushing me.