Seven months. It'd been seven months since everybody had gathered clad in black. Seven months since John Watson had stood among the inky surroundings of a dead funeral, last to leave that day.
John remembered that day, after everyone left and the sky was so blue. Just the bluest blue and there were so many clouds. He remembered going back to their flat, and reading all his papers. He remembered that first time he'd solved a case on his own, everyone around staring dumbfounded. He'd always remember, as long as he lived.
And seven months after Sherlock left him, John Watson was still alive. He was a new John Watson; he carried a part of Sherlock with him he never had before. He was a hybrid, a new species. But he was half a man trying to live out the lives of two.
John's daily routine now was a ghosted image of his life with Sherlock, a twisted sort of version where he was the detective, and Lestrade phoned him for murders. He knew each of the 243 types of tobacco ash by heart now. Every morning out to a new body or note, every afternoon back to the flat, to update the blog, and then every evening to think of something to do with all his time left. He spent too many hours staring around at that room where he and Sherlock started so many adventures. He could waste away whole evenings just lost in a haze of thoughts too vague to recall or recount. One day he was glancing through a cheap paper but not reading anything. He never really read the papers anymore, he just sort of stared at them and thought. They were an excellent canvas for thoughts. Except when the words 'Sherlock Holmes' came across his vision. Every now and then a rumor came up about Sherlock in the papers, little nasty things for filler. But they were less common now, and slowly but surely, Sherlock Holmes was fading from the lips of the world.
John had learned not to mind the articles about Sherlock. It hardly crossed his mind and there wasn't really much of a stab of emotion along with it. He was used to it.
But they made him miss Sherlock; they made him miss Sherlock very much. He wasn't sure how one becomes used to missing someone. It seemed an impossible feat, as well as an undesirable one.
John Watson didn't want to stop missing Sherlock.
"Disgusting, isn't it?" came a voice from the doorway.
John started from his thoughts and looked up in awe. Standing at the door was a dark-haired woman with an unreadable face and all too readable clothing. She was just a little fuller than he remembered, but absolutely the same woman. The Woman. Standing at the door was Irene Adler.
"I-I'm sorry what. What are you doing here?"
"A fellow mourner can't stop for a visit? These articles that keep cropping up, they're terrible gossip aren't they?" Irene replied with a sly sort of expression that reminded John a bit too much of Sherlock.
"Uh no-I mean yes but what do you mean 'stop for a visit'? Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you supposed to be dead? Mycroft—Mycroft said you were executed by a terrorist group."
"Oh don't be daft, he came for me, Sherlock. He saved me that night in the desert." Irene said, and John was surprised to hear the humanity in her voice as soon as she said Sherlock's name.
John held his temple, pressing his eyes closed and also drinking a large amount of tea at once in a classic defense of his to simply accept events and move on. He raised his head and said in a very exasperated way, "Okay. Okay. So you're alive, and Sherlock saved you and now you've just stopped in seven months after his death for a visit?"
"Yes well I lied about the visit part; it's actually more of a business venture."
"A business venture," John said incredulously. "What on earth kind of business venture could you have involving me?"
Irene gave a dry smile, a display of superior knowledge but not of any particular enjoyment. And then she said simply, "Really it would hurt the business to keep him, so I brought him here," after which she stepped to the side, revealing a little infant carrier, complete with baby.
A little ocean-eyed boy.
