On a misty, winter morning John picked up the courage to retrieve his belongings. As he walked down Baker Street he thought to himself 'I am alive, Sherlock is dead, Moriaty is dead, it is all over!', just as his psychiatrist had instructed him to do. He took a deep breath, fumbled for the key he was so familiar with and with a shaking hand put it in the brass lock. To his disbelief the key didn't fit, he was sure it was the correct one, but then again it had been over a year. He remembered that he always kept a spare key in one of the lights above the door, incase of emergencies. He reached for the light but it fell on top of him, hit the ground and it smashed at his feet. In the wreckage of smashed glass and dented metal, lay a small piece of paper. On it was the illegible scrawl of his fr... Sh..., of someone he used to know:
Im sorry, its for the best. SH
He stood there staring at the little slip of paper, minutes past and tears welled in his eyes, because he knew that somehow his only friend was still alive.
In Speedy's Cafe next door John could hear people arguing, he walked closer and as he looked into the window a hooded figure fell through the window and on top of him. John and the hooded figure lay motionless for a few seconds until Mrs Hudson ran out of the shop, with a phone in hand, calling for an ambulance. Flashing lights and a blaring siren woke John from unconsciousness, the whole world was spinning and a team of three paramedics were lifting him into an ambulance. He had searing pain in his back and head, blood seemed to pour from a deep wound near his eyebrow. Ten stitches later, John woke up with a bad headache and a tube attached to the back of his hand, a gentle beeping let him know that he was still alive. Stood next to him was a puffy-eyed Molly, with a steaming cup of coffee (black with two sugars), she passed the mug to him and he took it with weak arms. For the next two hours Molly sat on the chair next to John's bed and they talked about what they had been doing since they last saw each other, for John that wasn't much.
The next afternoon John was dismissed from hospital, his limp was more prominent than ever. He had nowhere to go, he had no money, the one thing he wanted was to be back in Baker Street, listening to Sherlock play Swan Lake until the early hours of the morning. He never had the chance to tell Sherlock how he felt about him.
After a week of nothing much, John was beginning to believe Brooks, that Sherlock was a fraud. On Christmas Day John was sat at his desk, eating reheated leftovers from Mrs Hudson's Christmas dinner, when there was a sharp knock. He got up and stood blankly at the door before undoing the latch and opening the door. Just as he thought, some kids probably just messing about, but to be sure he looked up and down the corridor. Even the slightest sighting sent a warm feeling through him, the tiny wisp of dark curls and the end of a coat flew round the corner before he could call out.