There are some things you can come back from.
You can explain how sorry you are, and then you can mend a fence or build a bridge or break down a wall, and everything can go back to normal.
Some times it isn't quite that simple and you have to say you are sorry many many times and let your eyes show how much you truly mean it. You beg. You may even cry. And the path between where you are and normal will be longer and steeper and full of more hazards and potholes, but if you work together and help each other across the rough patches, you can get back to normal.
But there are other things that sorry doesn't cover.
Especially if the other person knows that you can feign sincere anguish like the best daytime soap star, and that despite what you may say in a spurt of pride, you would willingly plead on bent knees in order to have your status quo reestablished.
Particularly if they knew from firsthand experience that you are capable of heartbroken tears that you can turn off like you have a faucet lever up your sleeve.
And specifically if you conned them into watching you die.
So you keep your explanations to yourself, shouting as loudly as you can inside your head, directing laser-precision thoughts across the gulf between you, but routing them on a detour course away from your lips. Apologies are locked inside the heart that you used to be unsure existed, tumbling over each other like pebbles in surf, rattling against your ventricles and weighing down your chest with stone and sea water. Sincerity and entreaty battle in your veins, but you don't let them reflect in the cool blue of your eyes.
You only cry in the shower.
In the shower, tears blend with two states of water, and sobs not fully stifled in the crook of an elbow are still muffled by the spray and old, rattling pipes.
Two weeks after your return, you hear a shout from across the great, dark chasm.
You look up blandly. "What was that?"
John's face is set in stiff lines, and the circles under his eyes are more pronounced. "I said," he repeats, with tight control, "Why can't you at least say that you're sorry, Sherlock?"
"Oh…well, I didn't think you'd believe me."
He thinks about it for a moment. He opens his mouth once, then closes it and huffs out a breath. "Well, I suppose you have a point there," he says. "Tea?"
"Sure."
He walks to the kitchen to put the kettle on and you return to reading, a faint smile quirking at one side of your mouth.
Normal had never really been a regular abode for the two of you, anyway.