John had to go through his things. That was the worst part of it. He had to decide what to throw away and what to keep. Which precious bits of that magnificent life go in the bin? Sherlock's beetle-and-bat collection on the mantle would probably go. His books would stay, even though John had no use for them.
"Oh, God…" the boxes of papers in the corner were stacked to the ceiling—Sherlock had always hated throwing papers away and now John had to go through every missive or scrap of random information. Sherlock had no order when it came to writing things down. Sometimes John would find paper with nothing but a number on it. It meant nothing to him, but Sherlock would have known the meaning of the seemingly random notes he'd kept.
Sherlock had been gone six months. The week after his death, John had already started looking for a new flat. He couldn't stand to not hear his best friend's low muttering as he would sit on the sofa, talking mostly to the ceiling about whatever details didn't make sense about his case. He'd never hear the strange improvised violin music floating up the stairs into his dreams. No more body parts littering the flat. As much as he hated it, he missed it. He missed other things, too, little twitches. The way Sherlock would roll his eyes when Anderson spoke. The way Sherlock would run his fingers along his face when thinking, as if trying to figure out his own expressions. He missed having to shout at Sherlock for his social ineptitudes.
He couldn't go back to Baker Street for a month. He couldn't even pass it or see the words without a hand tightening around his heart. He took the bus because cabs would make him think of Sherlock. After three months, he could pass the door to 221B but never had the strength to knock on the door. Now he knew he had to.
He had nightmares, picturing what it must have been like as Sherlock plummeted through the air. He couldn't stop what was happening. It was the past. John didn't know why it was worse to lose Sherlock. He'd lost other people before. Friends he'd lost in the war, mostly. Maybe because Sherlock wasn't a soldier. In war, one expected to lose people they know. Not in the simple, humble, peaceful English capital. And not from falling from the rooftop.
His mind was fairly blank—empty with the grief that had threatened to overwhelm him again as he smelled the familiar acrid air of their old flat. It smelled like old books, mould, dust, and various chemicals with which Sherlock had experimented. It was so still. Untouched. John suspected that Mrs. Hudson hadn't even been upstairs since Sherlock—
He opened a box of papers labeled "music". He'd expected to find sheet music for violin concertos that Sherlock would play. Instead, he found hand-written music, composed by Sherlock himself. As a lapsed clarinetist, John could read the music. It was beautiful—melancholy, soulful, magnificent stuff. If Sherlock had been a musician rather than a detective, he would surely have been a household name.
John found dozens of violin concertos, walzes, requiems, and other assorted musical works. They all had traditional names. Violin Concerto in E Minor or such. The more John read the music, the more he realized that the world had lost more than a detective. It had lost the most brilliant classical composer of the last fifty years. He would have these performed and recorded in honor of his friend.
There was another piece of music on Sherlock's desk. John had never looked much at Sherlock's things, on account of the fact that Sherlock would probably be quite upset. This particular song was unfinished, stopping mid-bar with a soaring full G. John picked it up and ran it through his mind. It was by far the most beautiful of all the music Sherlock had composed, even though it lacked an ending. It was a violin/clarinet duet, the only one of Sherlock's pieces to be so. Perhaps he was challenging himself, trying a new musical outlet. The music alone nearly brought John to tears, but once he saw the title, he found he could no longer stand as it ripped the air from his lungs and all pretense of insensitivity from his mind.
For John