Two O'clock in the Afternoon
By SSQ
It's two o'clock in the afternoon, and Doctor John H. Watson is late for a very important date. A date with a madman who was oh-so-brilliant.
A madman who he'll never see again.
It's marked on the calendar, on today's date in bright red ink.
Redredred, like the blood he bled.
Two o'clock, a meeting with Lestrade. Man up Watson, it reads. You can do this.
The good doctor sits in a chair reading the paper, his jaw clenched as he distracts himself a few more minutes of waiting for a fantastic, wonderful man who the universe wronged.
Waitingwaitingwaiting…He's not coming back, soldier. You're just making him wait longer, all alone…
There is a half-drunk cup of coffee on the table, and the dark brown residue leaves a stain on the china. Next to it is a glass of brandy, and a tub of generic brand sleeping pills.
Don't stay any longer, Jon. Remember, come if convenient. And if it's inconvenient, come anyways. Don't keep him by himself. You know how he is when you're away.
-=OOO=-
It's two o'clock in the afternoon, and DI Greg Lestrade is called in on a suicide. At first he turns it down, saying that his division is homicides, thank you very much. Not depressing blokes who decide to off themselves.
Then Donovan tells him he'll want this one, and his mind jumps back to the last time she said that, before the death of Sherlock Holmes. Her face wasn't nearly as solemn as it is now.
He grabs his coat.
-=OOO=-
It's two o'clock in the afternoon, and rain pounds down like bullets on the sidewalk as Lestrade consoles a woman who is sobbing uncontrollably in a flat. Her name is Mrs. Hudson, and she has just lost the second person who she thought of as a son. Well, more of a son-in-law, what with how he and Sherlock always acted. Nevertheless, she cared.
Suicides always were the worst.
-=OOO=-
It's two o'clock in the afternoon, and Sergeant Sally Donovan stands inside. "I told you," She murmurs quietly. "Nothing good can come from knowing Sherlock Holmes. One day he had to leave a body behind. Turns out he left two." The police constables finish liftin gJohn into a body bag, hefting him up to bring him to the morgue. There is nothing left for the police to do when he gets there; it's up to the family to make funeral arrangements. "You were a good man, John." She sighs. "You shouldn't have gone this way."
It's two o'clock in the afternoon, and the door two 221B Baker Street shuts with a click. It will never be rented out again.
-=OOO=-
Three o'clock in the afternoon, and Sherlock Holmes returns to Baker Street, one hour too late to have the life he'd always wanted; a life with John. He had expected a wife, he had expected children, but not this, never this.
-=OOO=-
At exactly two o'clock in the afternoon three years ago, Sherlock Holmes jumped from Bart's hospital roof. John Watson was just a little late, and in the final moments of his life, he wondered why he even waited at all.
-=OOO=-
Two o'clock in the afternoon, one day later, Sherlock Holmes sits alone in 221B Baker Street, twirling a bottle in his hands. It's a memento of his first case with John, a pill, pure white. It fits perfectly between his fingers as he lifts it up and drops it in his mouth in one elegant movement.
The clock chimes two-fifteen, and Sherlock Holmes is dead.