A/N: So I got the idea for this from another Elementary fic called A New Opportunity go check out its great!

This chapter is really short but it's sort of a prologue, this is my first thing where I'll have chapters so reviews are my motivation, leave them :)

The title comes from a poem of the same name (read that too) but read this first, let me know what you think (good or bad) and most importantly, enjoy!

Joan Watson was a strong woman.

She didn't cry unless there was damn good reason to.

She didn't get upset or flustered, she found a way to deal with the problem at hand and worked toward a solution.

But right now, she couldn't find one.

And, if she was honest, it feels as if her world is falling down.

If only she hadn't sent him out.

She should've known.

She should've been more forceful about going.

But she wasn't.

And look where it got her.

Joan took her head out of her hands and looked around the hospital room she was in. There, on the bed lay Sherlock Holmes looking smaller, more fragile and more delicate than she had ever seen him.

Fragments of the past day hit her like a freight train.

"See you there."

"I'll get a cab."

Accident on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ambulance.

Multiple fractures.

Brain haemorrhage.

Coma.

Sherlock.

Life was going to change. In a big way.

Joan was strong.

Joan can cope.

But sometimes it's all to much.

Being a surgeon, Joan knew the side-effects this was going to have.

A whole list of things that might be wrong with Sherlock, seizures,

Weakness in his limbs, decreased alertness. Changes in vision, difficulty writing or reading, hand tremors, loss of coordination, an abnormal sense of taste.

All detrimental to his career. And if Sherlock can't work, he can't live.

That was if he lived though.

Sherlock, being in a truly horrifying state had been put in an induced coma, in effort to give the brain chance to heal itself.

That was six days ago. Other than to eat, shower and change and use the bathroom.

She had been at a loss for what to do for most of the time, and when not trying to get all the updates as to his condition, trying to work out what to do.

Other than his head injury he had a punctured lung, which was also a great threat to his well being. Doctors were estimating a approximate recovery time of 9 months.

9 months.

Nine months.

Nine.

Joan tried to wrap her head around that. Nine months without Sherlock felt like an impossibility.

She sighed.

"I wish that was me lying there. I don't know how I'm going to make it without you."

Eventually persuaded to go back to the brownstone she walked all the way.

Fearing what happened to him might happen to her.

Upon getting home, realising she would have to stay here alone she cried. The full reality had sunk in and she felt utterly, utterly helpless.

Not in the mood for anything she fixed herself a bowl of his cereal and curled up in Sherlock's chair.

These few months are going to feel like an eternity.

An eternity without the first person she had felt safe with in years.

Honestly, she was scared.

Lucky then, that Joan Watson is a strong woman.