A/N: So this is my first Sherlock fic. It's probably rubbish, but I've been wanting to write this for a while. Reviews are much appreciated!
Sherlock Holmes was gone. Forever.
Gone. Capital G. Absent. Lost. Missing.
Dead.
Even in the days and weeks after the funeral, after the press had retreated and moved on to the next big story, John Watson couldn't believe it. It didn't seem possible that the brilliant, dynamic, obnoxious man he'd come to call his best friend had vanished off the face of the earth.
But he had. John had seen him leap from the building, his coat billowing out behind him as if it were a cape, as if he were flying, only he wasn't. He'd searched for a pulse, but all he'd felt was a still, clammy wrist. Cold emptiness; the absence of the life. He was dead. D-E-A-D. No way around it.
In the weeks that followed, John couldn't help but be amazed at what the lack of Sherlock was like. He'd open the fridge and be momentarily stunned to find that it was full of food rather than an assortment of dismembered body parts from Bart's mortuary. He'd find himself staring at the place on the mantelpiece where the skull used to reside. He'd wake in the folds of the night, listening to nothing but silence in the place of the thin, melancholy tune that the violin had once filled the flat with at such an hour. He'd make two cups of tea instead of one in the belated attempt to force-feed his stubborn flatmate.
It was remarkable, the things people left behind. He'd seen death; he'd stared it in the face, and turned to see the path of destruction it left behind, but it wasn't like this. Nothing was like this; it was so final. There was no way to avoid it, no clever plan to escape from it. He was gone, leaving nothing behind but a name etched in granite and half a dozen boxes, jammed into a closet, collecting dust. How could a person, so larger-than-life, be condensed into so little?
And yet, there were things that John couldn't understand. Why did he find himself scanning crowds for the mop of curly hair, or the shadow of the black coat? Why did he find himself checking for messages on his phone in the middle of the day when he really should have been working? Was it the remnants of grief, or was it hope?
Was he mourning, or waiting?
His mind could on circle back to it. Sherlock Holmes was a smart man. Beyond smart. Brilliant. Genius. He could look at a situation and pick out every detail, every possible turn of events, every triumph and every loss. Surely he could see every escape.
Ian Monkford and Janus Cars. Moriarty. A faked death, albeit transparent.
But more convincing, Irene Adler. It had been her in Bart's mortuary, it was definitely her. Only it wasn't.
He'd watched Sherlock jump, he'd seen him fall. The bike may have prevented him from seeing him land, but he'd seen the body. Touched the body. It was real. Very real.
Despite that, despite everything, he couldn't let go. He couldn't donate the beakers and Bunsen burners and Erlenmeyer flasks to the local schools, even though Mrs. Hudson thought that he ought to. He couldn't repaper the wall, even though a smiley face had been spray-painted on it, and even though it was riddled with bullet holes. One night, he slunk from his bedroom to the closet, where he extracted the skull and replaced it in its regular place on the mantel.
Sherlock Holmes was gone. Forever.
Unless he wasn't.