Chapter 1- The Dream

I stared at a picture of him in his deerstalker, as I did every night, still praying for my miracle. My memories flash back three years, when I stood at his black headstone. "Please don't be...dead." Those words have forever been seared into the back of my mind and they have become my deepest, most heartfelt wish. "I just want my best friend back," I thought as I remembered Sherlock in his sheet in Buckingham Palace, remembered him in the cab with the ash try. Every day was agony- is agony- without him.

Three years of being without the only one I truly loved, and I looked at a lifetime more. It must be my curse, loneliness. I put his picture down and closed my eyes and dreamed of that magnificent man.

I was standing at his grave site, and on his tombstone lay a single red rose. I kneeled on the ground and whispered, "Come back" to my dead companion. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a flutter of black cloth. Much to my surprise, and anger, Sherlock was kneeling at a grave next to his.

I noticed tears rolling down his face. Sherlock never cried, not for anyone or anything.

"What's the matter, mate?" I asked as I read the gravestone. Shock washed over me as I gasped with disbelief. No, it couldn't be. It wasn't possible. It read:

Here Lies John H. Watson

The Best Friend

A Man Could Ever Have

"I did this to you, John. I did this. I should have returned sooner. I should have told you. You need to know, I've always loved you. I should have been there for you. I didn't know you would be so affected by my death. I never meant for any of this to happen. Come back to me, John." Tears ran down his face and splattered onto the cold, hard earth.

"Sherlock, I'm not dead. I'm right here. I'm right beside you! Sherlock!" Couldn't he hear me? Why won't he notice me, he who sees everything, observes everything. "Sherlock!" I tried to push him, knock him over with the full force of my body, but he disappeared. He dissipated into black smoke, whisked away by the wind.

"I'm alive, Sherlock, I'm alive," I whispered hopelessly to the spot where my best friend had been a moment before.

"I'm alive," I stated as I shot up in my bed. The clock on my nightstand read 2:32 AM. "Too early to be awake," I thought. Movement in the shadows caught my eye. A figure standing in the doorway was illuminated by the soft glow of moonlight.

"As am I, John." Sherlock had returned.