AN: So, this is a present for my friend Jess, whose username on here is curlyboff, and who I converted to the fandom not so long ago. Updates may be sporadic and short, but I'm sure she'll moan at me before I leave it too long. ;-) Enjoy! Review if you have a moment to spare.
ONE: INTRODUCTIONS
John apologised profusely; Mrs Hudson said she understood. Too many memories in that flat, too many ghosts. Oh, he'd tried it for a couple of weeks, told himself it would get easier, but though the pain had dulled, there was a lingering essence of Sherlock which made it hard to breathe, hard to do anything at all except stare across at his best friend's chair and wonder why, how, if only. Far from being a comfort, this inescapable presence was suffocating, painful. Sherlock wasn't going to come back. There was no use in pretending he was just in the next room, or downstairs, or chasing up a Brixton road after a criminal.
Sherlock was Gone, and John had to Accept This. He loathed the way his therapist vocally capitalised the words, as if the formality was somehow supposed to make it easier.
He didn't leave London. Though he was loath to accept any help from Mycroft, the money, to exact digits, required to rent a smaller flat that had just become available in Notting Hill appeared in his bank account, and he took it as an apology, however inadequate. He packed his bags, and, after a long internal battle, allowed himself to take the second-best dressing-gown as keepsake.
He stowed it away in the back of his new wardrobe and closed the door. All of his own clothes fitted into the chest of drawers.
The flat was nice. That was really the only way it could be described - small, but not cramped; furnished, but not lavish, and most importantly, utterly soulless. Here, he could choose not to remember.
The neighborhood seemed fine. He hadn't seen many people around, had made a feeble attempt at deducing the profession of the only woman he'd come across, but after 'probably the media' he was stuck. She had a pink flower in her hair and she smiled at him, until she noticed he was staring at her and hurried away.
Harry had been doing her dutiful sister bit and had come round a few times, carefully remarked on how well he was looking and not mentioning that name at all. He had to hand it to her; she was doing an awful lot better than he had been these last few weeks.
But he was coping. About this he was adamant. He was coping admirably, in fact. He told her so. She smiled sadly and looked pointedly at his walking stick.
He laughed. Oh, this old thing, no, he didn't need it, not really. In fact, he was thinking just this morning that he'll get rid of it soon.
Harry said she believed him, then kissed him on the cheek and left.
And it was going so well! He managed to get ready for work without even touching the stick. In good time, too. Time enough that he didn't need to take the lift down to the ground floor of the building, no, he could take the stairs, because that was the kind of able-bodied, coping man he was.
It was really just his luck, wasn't it, that halfway down the flight his damned leg decided to buckle under him and send him sprawling in a heap at the bottom, and that at that precise moment, the nice lady from the upstairs flat should come around the corner.
"Unnnnnf," John said eloquently, rolling over into a sitting position. He had a horrible feeling he must be blushing quite furiously.
"Are you all right?" the nice lady said, slowly crouching down in front of him with a concerned look on her face. There was a cream flower in her hair this time, he noticed.
He did his best to smile. "No broken bones. Slight...loss of dignity."
"What happened?" she inquired, and offered him a hand, which he gratefully accepted, then leant upright against the wall of the stairwell.
"I have this... leg," he explained lamely.
"Ah, I've got a couple of those," she said, grinning.
He smiled. "Yeah, it's... um, kind of, long story short, I have a psychosomatic limp, and I told myself if I just left the walking stick at home, it'd go away. It, er, didn't, though."
"Bad luck," she said sympathetically. "Is there anything I can do?"
He shook his head. "No, thank you. I'll just go and the blasted thing and be off to work. I suppose I'll just have to grin and bear it for a while longer."
She nodded. "Okay. Um, but will you be able to get up the stairs?"
"No chance. I'll take the lift this time." He hobbled over to the elevator in question, and pressed the button.
"I may as well come with you," she said, coming to join him just as the doors slid open. "Could you press number 4?"
He did so. They waited in silence until the no-nonsense-nanny voice of the lift announced that they were Going Up.
He coughed. "I'm John, by the way. John Watson."
She smiled. "Hello, John. I'm Sebastienne, but call me Sebby. Sebby Moran."