Prologue
Three years. It had been three years since Sherlock Holmes jumped off that damned building; three years since John Watson lost his best friend to the trapping, sticky spiders-web of James Moriarty.
The Army Doctor had fallen into a pit of depression shortly after Sherlock had left him…only he felt he wasn't allowed to call it 'depression' as his time with the Consulting Detective had been so fleeting. The word depression makes one think of someone who's very soul is being crushed by the weight of a sadness so heavy, and John Watson felt that he didn't deserve to be described as 'depressed', as so many other people had it worse.
That didn't change the fact that he was, most definitely, suffocatingly, deeply depressed.
And angry.
One mustn't forget the smouldering anger that John Watson felt on a day-to-day basis: anger at Sherlock, at himself, at the mundane routine of every single fucking day that he had to push himself through, anger at everybody else for not believing in Sherlock Holmes as completely as they should have done and anger at the fact that without Sherlock, John could barely get through a few hours without almost breaking down.
Of course he had good days, when he didn't think about Sherlock so much, and just enjoyed being in someone's company. This usually only extended to Mrs. Hudson, Greg and sometimes Molly. Everyone else was a complete fucking idiot.
Sometimes Greg would just sit next to John in the pub and watch him drink pint after pint after bitter pint; then attempt to drag him back to his flat in one piece. Greg could make John laugh about things Sherlock used to do, like how his unattractive verbal spasms always ended up being so awfully, inappropriately charming. And the way Sherlock could act however he pleased in front of witnesses and family members and people would still find him interesting and suave and attractive in such an odd way. Then John would cry silent, hot tears into his half-drank beer and Greg would realise that the once-strong Army Doctor still needed nursing and was not over the 'death' of his best friend. However quietly they did it, everyone feared that John Watson would never recover from the absence of the amazing Sherlock Holmes.
Mrs. Hudson worried constantly and she always tried to make John eat. He wouldn't.
He felt that he couldn't stomach it, that he'd just throw it all up and he did sometimes. So John Watson just stopped eating.
John Watson rarely slept.
John Watson stopped speaking to most of the people he knew.
John Watson started dreaming of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes sneaking into 221b late at night and watching John sleep.
Sherlock Holmes soothing John when he had a nightmare.
Sherlock Holmes doing ordinary things, like making tea and watching TV.
And when John woke up he could never tell whether they were real occurrences or not.
When John's mind decided that the dreams weren't enough, it started tricking the man into thinking that he saw Sherlock throughout the day.
A glimpse of dark curls here, sightings of unusually high cheekbones there, and a silent pillar of perfectly sculpted marble-like features and limbs, clad in a deep blue scarf and a black, swooping coat standing across the road, or in the corner. Just watching John go about his day, checking up on him, making sure he was ok. Which of course he wasn't.
But then John would blink, and he was gone.
This only confirmed John's horrified concerns that he was going mad.
The Army Doctor's frame was fading, and becoming thinner and thinner with every bleak day that passed. New wrinkles were being formed on the aging face of a slowly shattering man. His once blonde hair was turning grey. His eyes that were once such a deep, stormy blue were constantly empty. Darker thoughts were crossing his usually rational mind.
And one day, the day before John Watson would have decided to end his life, Sherlock Holmes rose from the dead and walked into 221b with his coat collar turned up and his cheekbones held high just as if he had never left.