Disclaimer: I do not own any Sherlock/John/etc character from the Sherlock BBC series: I'm just a devoted fan of theirs. The quotations are from the series. This is my first fanfic ever, so... an experience for me. Any reviews are really, truly welcome & they'll make me inconceivably happy! :)

~Some Things Last Forever~

Prologue

'Why today?'

'Do you want to hear me say it?'

'18 months since our last appointment.'

18 months… Jesus Christ, 18 bloody months since the first time I saw Sher-… Since I saw my best friend. Since Sherlock in my life. 18 months ago he was still… He was there, thoughtful, laying on the sofa, murmuring to me while I was buying Tesco milk, bulleting the ornamented wall around the yellow smiley face. The severed head and the thumbs were still in the fridge every time I wanted to have a supper.

'Nothing happens to me,' I remember saying 18 months ago to the pseudo-(and I know how pseudo she is)-psychologist in front of me. How mistaken I was! To claim that 'nothing happens to you' is to admit your own failure in life and to seal your own fate, to commit a suicide without... without really having the urge to jump off the rooftop of St Bart's.

Here it is, again. Every bloody time when I start thinking about something, anything, I remember his wing-like arms, delineated in the greyish sky. I remember 'THE Fall', as some pressmen record it, not as an incidence, but as a gracious flight: a last one. Even his last deduction was thoroughly made, in his typical Sherlock style: with full dedication and firmness in it. No hesitation.

I was there, just across the building when my mind, like every single time, co-operating with my heart, screamed that I am too distant from St Bart's.

'No, stay exactly where you are!'

That was it. That was the last point in his last 'note'. It was not what he said: I was listening, yes, though, I was not hearing. It was the way he said it. The trembling voice, the lack of rudeness in his speech, the atrocious lies in my ears. I tried to focus my eyes on the tall black-coated figure some feet above me, standing there regally as a marble statue, but this was not Him. This was not Sherlock. This was not the best friend whom I knew to be the bravest, the smartest, the most unshakeable person in the world.

She is staring at me with her judging black holes, trying to make the time pass before her next patient, attempting to elicit a simple answer from me. My mind is a mess. I haven't slept properly since the ominous afternoon in front of (or, should I say, 'at the corner of'?) St Bart's. I haven't eaten any of Mrs Hudson's cupcakes (except, I reminisce, once, but she had salted them, instead of putting sugar, which made her snivel, whispering Sherlock's name). I've decided to walk out of 221B and go to Harry, but soon I figured out I cannot stand her most of the time. Every morning, I do the same bloody thing: pouring the English tea with sip of milk in two china cups and putting one in front of me and one for Harry. Then she comes, knits her brows, scolding me she never-ever drinks her tea like that, that she is 'not Sherlock, for heaven's sake', and that I need help, because I am too traumatised to go on like that.

When I first met Mycroft, he told me that I am not haunted by the war, but I miss it. Wandering over the streets of London by yourself you see solitude only; walking with someone else, is a pleasant conversation, most likely, a good acquaintance. Strolling about the streets with Sherlock Holmes is an adventure: it is a war outside the battlefield.

Now, for the second time in my life, I'm being alone, missing the thing that has always given me strength and wish to go on: the war. The soldier-mate who dies in front of thy eyes and you are unable even to whisper his name properly.

'There's stuff that you wanted to say...'

Yes, there is. There are so many things that I've never even had to strength to tell him.

'... but didn't say it.'

'Yeah.'

'Say it now.'

'No... Sorry, I can't.'

And I still don't have any strength. There is a lump in my throat still standing there; I still cannot get rid of it, no matter how hard I try. I feel the desperate need to cry, to scream, to laugh at the same time. To giggle, like we did on every crime scene, because, I know, I know that he is somewhere around me, looking at me with his piercing green-blue gaze, alive. I have to believe Sherlock is alive. I truly do.

'It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note.'

His note. His bloody note. I know every single syllable of it by heart and even re-re-whispering the words, spoken through his tremulous voice, makes my whole body ache. 'It's what people do, don't they?' They cry, Sherlock. They ache. They suffer when their relatives and friends are taken away from this world.

I ache. I have the steady faith that you'll be (I chuckle, remembering your mocking tone) 'like a fairy' and you'll rise from this trap, called grave, that you'll walk into this room and you'll say that my therapist should be fired because she thinks my pain is a malady, not a pure psychotic despair.

'Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain.'

My lonely fairytale – so lonely, that I was the one who ought to turn over the pages and read it to myself; needed a good old-fashioned protagonist. You were not the 'old-fashioned' type: you're anything, but 'old-fashioned'. From your cheekbones and your coat, through the damned yellow smiley face (forgive me, Mrs Hudson, for I've made it a sad one, bulleting it at 3a.m.), to the master-mind the world is not even close to reveal yet (and I wonder, would it ever be?).

I miss you, Sherlock. I miss you so much, it hurts. I miss your lack of conformity sometimes. I miss your sarcasm, verging on insult. I miss your frankness. I miss your uncommonness. I miss the best and only friend that I have ever had. And I know this pain will not fade away, regardless the days, the months, the years. You were... You still are the best gift that fate has ever given to me: just when I was so alone, just when I thought I won't make it through. The best gift at the best moment. These, pardon me, are things I can't say out loud: things I can't even rationally put in order in my head.

So, here I am, with a bright novelist future (yes, Sherlock, sarcasm), just the 'normal-looking bloke' John Watson, former army doctor and captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers in Afghanistan, trying to re-arrange my thoughts, to start living a tedious solitary life. No blog, no friend, no me. Just a day-to-day survival, pseudo-psychologist, random thoughts, always and always revolving around the impeccable figure on the top of St Bart's.

I am so alone. And I owe you this, now. You brought me here, Sherlock. Forgive me when I blame you for everything I am (or, rather, I am not) right now, but you ought to understand. I have to, although I'll never entirely, move on. I have to stop this war right here, right now, although I cannot live a second without it.

I'll cancel all my next appointments with the therapist: I don't need her.

I'll go to Tesco and I'll buy some cold, icy milk. I'll drain the bottle by myself.

I'll take a cab, pass the Tower of London, pass Tate, Wembley, not really knowing where to go.

I'll take a lonely walk in Hyde, I'll feed the ducklings, I'll sit alone on a bench.

I'll call Mrs Hudson, hear her cry, hang up, still feeling the lump in my throat.

I'll sob.

I'll pay my honours to you, like a true captain should.

And, urging myself not to, I'll finally go to your grave; touch the black floe, called gravestone, with the aureate eight and six letters, without date, without year.

I'll pray for a miracle. Again. And again. And again.

I'll pray for this to have been just a God-damned experiment on me, just like in Baskerville. For you to come to me, to lean on my shoulder, to look at me with your glacial eyes, and to ask me with concern: 'Are you alright, John? Are you OK?'

I will be, Sherlock. I shall, if I know you are alive. If you are next to me.

Now people will definitely talk.