And Dean lived his apple-pie life with Lisa and Ben, a happily-ever-after he never believed and never would believe he deserved.

But let's be honest. If one person deserves happiness, it's Dean Winchester.

Dean, who literally sold his soul to save the one person who mattered to him most at the time. Who experienced more pain than any other person would ever have to embody in their entire lifetimes on earth, save perhaps his brother Samuel. Dean deserved happiness. He still does. But the story has been tainted, and it is no longer my premise by which the world is turning.

Anyone who's ever written anything, who's ever come up with a story of their own will tell you wholeheartedly that they cannot control their characters. They have lives of their own, the author merely finds out who they are and where they fit in. With, of course, some minor tweaking. That's what I do. I'm an author.

I don't know how this is going to turn out, and I don't know who's fucking with my plan. But our Universe is being bled upon by another—several others, if I'm not mistaken. (I'm not often mistaken.) It's seriously screwing some shit up and I'm headed out to talk to some individuals about who's screwing around with reality.

I doubt this laptop's going to survive for long without a charge (I know that's not gonna be available anytime soon) so I'll leave this story here, save it to the hard drive and maybe if we sort it all out someday I'll be able to let everyone know exactly what happened.

Or maybe I'll be able to pretend like this never happened. Who knows.

Chuck

The airport was as chaotic as ever. John Watson didn't particularly like airports, though he harbored no dislike for them either. All in all he was indifferent, and there was no point in being otherwise. (Sherlock would've understood and agreed with him on this, he was certain.) New York was something to behold, he supposed: a sight everyone ought to see at least once in his or her lifetime.

Home just didn't feel like home after Sherlock had died. It was a house, of course, with a couple of beds and a kitchen and a room with chairs and a couch. Any house could have these things. Their house, of course, had a couple of things others didn't: a simple yellow face painted on the sitting room wall, dotted with bullet holes from that one time when Sherlock had been particularly bored. A Tupperware container of severed fingers in the freezer (still around less for sentiment and more for the reason that John had no idea what to do with them—garbage didn't seem proper for that sort of thing). But even these weren't what had made it home, they were merely echoes of the man that had: a tall, fair-skinned and dark haired Consulting Detective whom was no longer with him. Home, John figured, was the people you were with, not the place you were located.

But his home was gone, and now was the time to move on: the loss of his home had inspired him to travel, to get away for a time and discover what the world was like outside of 221B Baker Street. New York City was waiting for him, and that was what he intended to see now.

"Am I the only one here who doesn't feel like a stalker?" an exasperated Rory repeated.

"Do you want to find the Doctor or not?" His wife didn't lift her gaze from the smartphone in her grasp. "Find John, find Sherlock. Find Sherlock, find the Doctor. It's pretty simple." They sat on a black metal bench on the outer sidewalk, Rory leaning forward with his hands clasped together.

"Of course I want to find the Doctor. But aren't these measures a tad…extreme? Or is that just me?"

Amy smiled without looking up as she shook her head. "Just you, hon." A blip from the phone signaled yet another text from River, the orchestrator of this whole "where's the Doctor?" endeavor. "John's here," the redhead announced.

"Oh, fantastic." Her husband rolled his eyes. "Well, let's get it on with, then."

They stood up, gathering their things, and took off at a brisk pace down the unusually quiet New York City street.

The cab pulled up four blocks from where the couple had originally been seated, dropping off its passenger next to a subway station. Amy and Rory approached the stout British man headed for the underground train.

"Here we go," Rory muttered to his spouse.

"John? John Watson?" A seemingly British man and his redheaded partner (Wife, or so it appeared from the rings that they shared. He had picked up a few things from Sherlock over the years) approached the blogger as he turned to face the voice that had just called his attention. "You're John Watson, correct?"

"Who's asking?"

After a moment of awkward glances, the woman pushed for her probably-spouse to introduce the pair.

"Ah, um, Rory Williams—Pond, Rory Pond. This is my wife, Amelia. Avid followers of your blog."

The redhead—Amelia—nodded at her husband as he gave her a worried glance.

Ah. Fans. He should've expected it, what with the swelled number of hits his blog had received after the fall. He refused to refer to it as it Sherlock's "suicide" or "death;" it was simply "the fall" for all intents and purposes.

"Yes, yes that's me. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Can we, erm, can we have a chat? We were hoping… ah, we'd like to talk to you about your friend, Sherlock."

John took a deep breath. Of course they want to know about Sherlock. That's all anyone asked about anymore, what happened to Sherlock and if it was all true and what sort of relationship did they have. There were plenty of "sorry"s and "condolences" as well, but the people offering those sorts of sentiments were greatly outnumbered by nosy ones dying for the latest gossip.

"I've said my piece about him on my latest blog post three months ago. That's all I have to say on the matter, thank you very much for asking and if you don't mind, I have a train to catch."

"Doctor Watson," spoke Amelia. Her confident Scottish accent was laced with an aggressiveness that let John know that there was no way he was getting out of this one. He noticed, however, an underlying tone of worry and perhaps a more sincere notice than first gleaned. (Sherlock's influence hadn't worn off much in the months after the fall.) It almost seemed like a plea, if he was being honest with himself. John Watson from one to the other and sighed.

"Alright. Fine. But don't expect me to tell you every little detail you wish to know, you hear?" Amelia gave a firm nod, followed by a less confident one from her husband (elicited at the nudge of an elbow). John didn't know what made him trust these people, but something about them just felt… right. They seemed sincere enough. Sherlock would know what their motives were in a split second, but John tried not to think about that and went with the same decision-making strategy he had used in the years before 221B and had been using since- his gut.