"You will never be a skeleton, when I am a ghost."
― Anthony Liccione
A bestfriend is like a soul-mate, a partner through life, a persons rock. A best-friend is someone who you can trust with your life, with your world, with your heart, yet still have that ability to laugh about the serious dilemmas and get through them together. But what were you supposed to do when that serious dilemma was that your best-friend no longer was? That some eviler force had chosen that their time was now, that the world didn't need that person anymore. What were you supposed to do when the world was wrong, and nothing was right anymore?
As John Hamish Watson left the last crime scene he ever wished to lay eyes on, they were the very questions that continuously echoed through his mind. See, this is the problem with the death of someone you cared for. Your head became full, yet your heart unbearably empty. He could hear the shouts and pleads of pedestrians as he fled from the surrounding area of St Bartholomew's Hospital where the broken corpse of his soul-mate laid. A corpse. A cold, emotionless shell of a body. Perhaps John was what one may call a walking corpse at this moment in time, but he dismissed such thoughts as it sent back fresh memories. Memories of Sherlock gracefully falling from the rooftop, the solid, concrete floor being his inevitable destination- and therefore his resting place. The place were every breath left the body of the youngest Holmes brother. Every bit of life, every dream, wish, desire. Nothing remained of Sherlock Holmes except for his body. He'd always said it was nothing but transport, and right now that couldn't be any more accurate.
The simple thought of existing without Sherlock by his side was heart-wrenching for John, never-mind the thought of returning to the flat that they had once shared together. At some point though, he would have to. Perhaps it would help. Perhaps standing in a room filled with Sherlocks belongings, never to be completed experiments, strewn papers, and tatty books would somehow fill that gaping void that had been created in his heart. Though John doubted that. How could reminding yourself constantly of the drastic change that had happened, ease an irreversibly dismantled heart? The only thing it could possibly do is reopen fresh wounds. Wounds which would never heal.
It took days for John to pluck up the courage to return to 221B Baker Street, and he regretted it the moment he walked in. All of his predictions of how he'd feel proved to be correct as he couldn't help the silent flow of tears that cascaded down his cheeks at the mere sight of the front door. Though an invisible tether somehow kept him attached. As much as it pained the Army Doctor to stay, he just knew that walking away would hurt him even more. So he stayed.
Time doesn't heal pain, time simply makes pain easier to hide. That's what John had recently learned. As friends and relatives visited him to see how he was doing, John felt his heart continue to break. Continue to shatter until he was certain it was nothing less than an abundance of minuscule glass splinters, occupying a certain area in the left side of his chest.