"This is my note. Goodbye John."
Sherlock lifted his arms and leaned forward, too far forward. His body flew down to the pavement. It seemed to take a lifetime. He finally hit the pavement, blood staining the sidewalk. His lifeless body lay crumpled on the concrete.
"He's my friend! He's my friend, let me through!" John's voice was painful to hear, hoarse with panic and suppressed sobs. They weren't letting him through. They weren't ever going to let him see Sherlock again.
John woke up tangled in his sheets. Sweat dripped down his forehead and his pajamas were sticking to his skin. It wasn't the first nightmare, far from it, but he'd never stop waking up in a panic. John checked the bedside clock. Five minutes after four in the morning. At least it wasn't two this time. Once it had been ten after eleven and John hadn't even gotten fifteen minutes of sleep. He couldn't fall asleep again after the nightmares. They were just too awful.
Since he was up for the morning, he figured he might as well make a cup of tea and watch the news. As he waited for the water to heat, he turned in the news, then abruptly punched the power button. It was playing another story about Sherlock. They hardly played anything else these days. There probably wasn't anything to play, now that Moriarty wasn't able to commit his crimes. John hated watching the reporters spin constant webs of lies about the man John knew, the one who was better than all that.
Most of the stories focused on Sherlock's cases, speculating how he'd set them up. They thought he made deals with real criminals to let him catch them. They thought he made deals to free them afterwards. In short, they thought Sherlock Holmes was a criminal himself. That wasn't even the worst of it. A few were about Moriarty. Those were the worst. They told everyone that Jim Moriarty was an actor, that he wasn't a real criminal. They were wrong about all of it, from the theories that Sherlock was a criminal to the bits about the actor portraying his nemesis. Two men died on that horrible day, but Moriarty certainly wasn't the innocent one.
James Moriarty was a spider. He could fit in anywhere. Once you saw him, he could manipulate you, manipulate your fear, into something he could use. No actor was that good. No one could make those criminals dance the way Moriarty had. At least, no actor that John had ever heard of.
John made his tea and sipped at it shakily. He wasn't sure if it was the cold, the nightmare or the news that was making him tremble. He left the heat off now. If everything good was gone, the heat couldn't be an exception. His nightmare was still fresh and terrifying. The news on the TV made him seethe with anger at the lies they pinned to a good man. Maybe all three combined could make even the toughest soldier unstable. He needed to calm down. He needed to do it fast before he completely shattered.
John sat down in his chair. He didn't turn on anything. He just sat. His therapist had warned him against this. She'd said it wouldn't do any good to dwell on it. She'd told him it would only make it worse. John tried to busy himself with other stuff, but he couldn't help it. Everything he could possibly think of that would keep him busy were things he'd done with Sherlock. The endless possibilities had dissolved when Sherlock hit the pavement and stopped breathing. He hadn't realized how much his friend had improved his entire life until it was all gone.
John finished his tea and got up to wash up. He quickly washed and dried the dirty mug before opening the cupboard to put it back. There was a grimy, spotted file folder in the cupboard, one he hadn't even seen before. John opened it up, only to find Sherlock's hurried handwriting telling him the details of an old double murder case. John slammed the door shut. He shouldn't have read it, he shouldn't have even opened it. He had to blink back tears. It wasn't fair! Sherlock held so much promise. He helped people. Why had he died but John was still here? John wasn't special, he just tagged along. He didn't have the brains or the potential Sherlock held.
He slid to the cold kitchen floor. The overwhelming sense of guilt was too much for him. He couldn't stand, he couldn't see, he could barely breathe. What was wrong with him? He was a soldier. He'd seen plenty of his friends and colleagues die in Afghanistan. He missed them, sure, but he didn't collapse just thinking about them. He didn't feel quite this guilty for not going down with them. That was how it worked in the army. You mourn but you move on. He slowly rose to his feet.
"I'm stronger than this," he muttered to himself.
It wasn't quite enough.
John found himself in the same position about a month later. There was the same nightmare running through his mind. The news was different this time, but every crime, every victim they reported brought old memories bubbling to the surface.
I can't do this anymore, he thought.
It was months after Sherlock's death. He shouldn't be having these problems anymore. Even Mrs Hudson and Lestrade were over it already. John was the last one with such an immense load of grief. He couldn't do it. Everyone else pitied him, he knew they did. They looked down on him. They thought he was weak. John was done, he was just so done. He grabbed a piece of paper and the nearest pen. It was one of Sherlock's. He still left them lying around. John took a deep breath to calm his nerves and wrote his final words down on paper.
I read your note Sherlock, I just wish you were here to read mine.
Thanks for reading, please leave a review and tell me what you thought!