It was a Monday. The beginning of yet another endless week. John collapsed into his chair with a frozen dinner after a long day at the surgery. He was always tired these days, but it was the kind of tired that sleeping for an eternity couldn't fix.
The soft hum of the television kept him awake long into the night, but the silence was far more overbearing. It was always the same crap telly anyway. He couldn't tell you a single thing that he'd seen, it all rushed into a blur of names and pictures with the news of a new tragedy, a new scandal, a new miracle. None of it mattered anyway.
The clock counted the hours into the night. The light faded except for that small illuminated square. It was sometime around midnight when a faint knock on the door downstairs broke John's stupor. He recognized the knock. It had been coming more and more frequently these days. A faint enough knock, but a strong enough tremble to be audible even from a distance. It was always Harry. Nobody else visited anymore. He sighed, wondering how she always managed to show up at his door regardless of the state she was in. He could practically smell the alcohol on her breath before he even opened the door.
"For the last time, you have to stop doing this. I'm not-"John's sentence broke off as he opened the door.
It wasn't Harry.
Looking back at him was a face he hadn't seen in years. Black hair strewn about, old purple shirt now tattered from age, sleeves rolled up to reveal the angry red marks covering his arms, and strongest of all was that familiar smell that he'd always associated with his sister.
"Sherlock," John stuttered.
"John," returned the familiar voice with an unfamiliar shake.
"You were dead."
"…Yes."
"Three years."
"I'm sorry."
Time had frozen and for a moment so brief that it was barely noticeable, everything was the way it had been; the way it should be. They both stood there with the weight of an apology that was far too little and far too late bearing down on both of them. It broke the air, destroying the idea that maybe with a bit of tape things could still be patched up.
"I know," said John, closing the door on the man that he no longer knew and wishing more than anything that this nightmare would just end once and for all.