(A/N: My first foray into this fandom. I'm not used to writing angst, but I hope this came across well. I also don't particularly enjoy writing swear words so I limited them... But without any further ado: the fic.)

HELLO, JOHN
l.c. li

It's been almost a month, but I haven't gotten a new flatmate. Thank God that no one expects me too. 221B Baker Street feels empty, but sharing it with an undeserving co-renter would be far worse.

Sometimes, when I'm not at my steady, simple—dull—job as a doctor, I sit by the fireplace and think. Especially during the winter months, where it is bitterly cold, and empty, so terribly empty.

I imagine that one day he'll pop in, fresh as a daisy with his collar turned up just to make himself look cool, just to spite me, just because it's one of the idiosyncratic things he does. And I'll be working, stooped over the old, ratty sofa that really should be thrown out and burned, but I can't, because it's one of the last things I have of him.

"Hello, John," he would say, and he would smile as he does whenever he gets a truly captivating case and no longer has to shoot poor Mrs. Hudson's walls out of sheer boredom.

And I would stare and drop whatever I happened to be holding, regardless of whether it was some fragile material or not, certain that I was in the midst of another dream, the same type that my therapist was attempting to stem.

"You were dead," I would say. Or stutter, more like. Because there would be so many things I would want to say but wasn't quite sure how; I felt your pulse, I saw the blood, I heard your bones cracking, your neck snapping...

But he wouldn't reply. He'd only look me up from top to bottom and make an arrogant twit out of himself by telling me where I'd been and what I'd been doing based on the state of my shoelaces, the selection of my clothes, the cleanliness of our flat 221B Baker Street, and loads of other things that only Sherlock would notice and only Sherlock would be able to use. And I would be so happy that I wouldn't care, I would let him do all the thinking he wanted, all the deducing he wanted, as long as he was alive, as long as the bloody man was alive.

"Brilliant," I would say, like all the other times.

"Thank... you," he would say, uneasily, because he was just learning how to say 'thank you' and actually mean it.

And then I would regain my senses and fly at him, cursing up a storm, asking why, why didn't he come back the moment he had the chance, and how did he bloody come back to life, I'm a doctor and I know you were dead, are you trying to piss me off, is that all you know how to do, you obnoxious excessively clever git!

He would be calm, the sort of calm only Sherlock could be, and would recount an extraordinary tale on how he faked his death by using a voice recorder and eyedrops and a long piece of invisible string, because he's Sherlock Holmes and never thought of merely not dying in the first place; no, he has to go through some elaborate scheme that rips the hearts out of me and Mrs. Hudson and even Lestrade, because anyone who's known him has been profoundly affected, for better or for worse.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I would say, wounded.

And he wouldn't reply, because the Sherlock in my imagination cannot compare to the real Sherlock, and he can't tell me anything I don't already know.

But I imagine that maybe he'd laugh, that his face would suddenly turn cruel, that he'd say oh, it was all part of a psychological experiment, he did enjoy it while it lasted, it was quite fascinating. And suddenly he would become the Sherlock that Sergeant Sally Donovan warned me he would become—no, that he always had been—and all the past nineteen months would vanish like smoke, all the times where I thought that maybe, just maybe he was becoming human like the rest of us.

Whenever I think of that, I always try to push it away. Because while it would hardly do to disgrace the memory of the dead, it is a greater sin to doubt when you were the one closest to them.

So instead I imagine that his face would soften, not excessively, but in a very slight way, the way he started to do quite often before he jumped off a bloody building, that is, and perhaps he would even smile, a small smile, of course.

"Unfortunately, John, if I hadn't died, you and Mrs. Hudson would be in quite a large measure of danger."

"You think that's a good excuse, don't you, you awful, idiotic, malicious—" Plenty of vocabulary here, vocabulary that should be hidden from the children, if I had any around, that is.

And then Sherlock would go silent again, because my imagined Sherlock doesn't know what I don't know, doesn't know why the real Sherlock would tell me he really was a fake, why he said he made up the cases, why he had to jump and commit suicide of all the bloody ways to die.

The Sherlock I knew wouldn't do that.

The Sherlock I knew wouldn't go out like some inane twit, jumping from buildings after idiotically emotional cell calls. The Sherlock I knew wouldn't capitulate to death so easily, not when there were still cases to solve; fascinating cases, dangerous cases, fun cases. He would be bored when dead, I know it. No serial murders, genetic experiments, chases and retreats where guns are firing every which way. He would be absolutely bored.

Perhaps bored enough to come back to life and climb out of his coffin and up to the surface where he belonged.

I haven't been writing in my blog recently. My therapist gave me an earful over it, but that's because she doesn't understand. No one does. That's why I haven't been writing. How could I possibly tell the world what I'm feeling when I don't want to tell the world what I'm feeling?

I can't stand it anymore, sleeping peacefully through the night because Sherlock doesn't start playing violin at some ungodly hour in the morning; never acquiring injuries because I'm never chasing after some serial killer or murderer or infamous gang; even opening the fridge and never finding bloodied appendages in ziplock bags, or decapitated heads in the freezer.

My life was mad when Sherlock was around, bloody mad, but I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

I suppose that at some point, sitting around in front of fireplaces and thinking morose thoughts won't be enough. I'll need to get up, head straight for the streets of London, and find myself a handful of serial killers to keep me busy.

"John? Post for you!"

Mrs. Hudson comes up the staircase, a dull, patterned shawl wrapped around her shoulders—shoulders that have gotten alarmingly bony since Sherlock's death.

I rock to my feet, hissing between my teeth as my psychosomatic leg acts up. "What's that?"

"There's a postman at the door asking for your signature."

"My signature? What for?" I reach for my aluminium crutch. I didn't need it for nearly eighteen months in one go. I shouldn't be needing it now.

"I don't know," Mrs. Hudson says worriedly. "Do you think perhaps he's the dangerous sort? I've never had to sign for a package before."

"Could use a bit of danger in my life." I hobble down the steps to the doorway. "You should stay up here, Mrs. Hudson. In case something happens, you know."

Mrs. Hudson looks indignant and worried and confused all at once, but she stays at the top of the stairs.

The postman hands me a letter with some sort of special seal on it, then an electronic device where I am to sign. I do without a flourish, then hand it back.

"If that's all you'll be needing," I say with a curt nod, turning around.

"Break up while you still can. She'll try to inject poisons into your food within the next two weeks."

That voice. That way of speech. That... deduction.

It can't be, it's impossible, it's inconceivable, it's Sherlock.

I wheel about, my aluminium crutch knocking against my hip and clattering against the concrete, but the postman's already beginning to leave. I catch the flash of his eyes beneath his cap as he turns. Eyes that I know. Eyes that are Sherlock's.

But I can hardly call out a dead man's name in the street, this very public street, so I snatch up my crutch and poke him in the back of his heel instead. He turns around, cap still pulled over his face, but I can tell he's annoyed—or, heaven forbid, emotional—judging from the tension in his shoulders.

"Where. Have. You. Been." I make sure my voice is low, make sure Mrs. Hudson doesn't see, make sure we don't look suspicious.

Sherlock—it must be him, it must, I don't care that they say he's dead, I don't care that I saw him fall or felt his pulse, it's him—pulls his cap lower over his eyes. "Not here."

I barely stem a stream of curses and grab him by the collar. "Not here? Bloody—Sherlock! You were dead! If you don't tell me why the h—"

"Mr. Watson?"

And suddenly I am back at the doorway of 221B Baker Street, the electronic signing device planted in my left hand, the pen in my right, staring off into space, because it was just my imagination, of course it was, because Sherlock isn't coming back.

"Mr. Watson, please sign in the space given."

And I am standing in front of a postman who is most certainly not Sherlock, staring at me with eyes that are most certainly not Sherlock's, speaking in a voice that is most certainly not Sherlock's.

"Yes, of course." I sign it. Without a flourish. And I turn around and head up the stairs.

This time there is nothing stopping me.

"What was it?" Mrs. Hudson asks.

"I don't know," I say. "Just a letter."

And she seems to sense that I'm disappointed, more disappointed than I've ever been in my life, and walks into the kitchen to prepare a batch of biscuits.

I slump into the armchair—another piece of furniture I haven't been able to get rid of—and fling my crutch away from me, biting back a bitter laugh. Had I actually expected such a ridiculous thing? Sherlock is gone, I know, gone for good, buried beneath that horrible black stone that bears his name.

"Why don't you open the letter, dear?" Mrs. Hudson asks softly, setting a cup of tea before me. I drink it. It's boiling hot. I don't care, I swallow anyway.

"Alright," I say.

Perhaps it's from Mycroft; perhaps that's why it required a signature. The envelope is plain, but it's made of nice paper, and it has some sort of special seal across that back that makes it look like it came from the Middle Ages. It's easy to break open, and the letter inside has only nine words:

Black. Two sugars. Five minutes. Don't frighten Mrs. Hudson.

Suddenly I'm rocketing to my feet, the pain gone from my leg, rushing to Mrs. Hudson, telling her earnestly, but gently, that oh, I'm out of milk, would you mind going to the store and getting me some really quick, I would go, but oh my leg, I'm sorry Mrs. Hudson, please? And she's startled by the fact that there's life in me, fire in me, for the first time in more than a month, and heads out the door without checking the fridge and seeing I already have milk, two cartons of it.

I feel sorry for lying to her, but there's no time, no time at all, because coffee needs to be made, and I know I'm just getting my hopes up again, but he was, he is my best mate, and if he's coming back I'm not about to stand around and be useless. There's a dark, traitorous voice in the back of my head, the one that reminds me of the funeral, the coffin, the tombstone, the one that whispers incessantly that he won't come, he can't come, stop making this coffee because it will go to waste; but then I hear the doorknob turning and the gentle whoosh of air as it is pushed forward, and my hand automatically travels to the gun in the kitchen drawer, just in case, just in case it isn't Sherlock.

But those are his eyes. Those are definitely his eyes. And his hair; I have never seen anyone else with hair like that. With those eyes, and that hair, I know that it's him. He has his collar turned up, just like I imagined.

And suddenly he's smiling, smiling that smile he does whenever he gets a truly captivating case and no longer has to shoot poor Mrs. Hudson's walls out of sheer boredom—no, perhaps even broader, or at least warmer, but with a touch of fear, perhaps fear that this may not be the right decision, that he might regret this.

But nothing has ever felt so natural, so right at this moment. It is not my imagination; I know it is not, and I have never felt more happy, angry, indignant, overjoyed, royally pissed off.

Sherlock Holmes only has to say two words, two words that finally bring me back as Dr. John Hamish Watson, back to home.

"Hello, John."

And I have the feeling I won't be needing a new flatmate.

FIN
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