John stroked the little dogs fur and looked at it. It made him happy. Something that didn't really happen quite that often anymore. He looked up to the owner and smiled.

'I'll take it.' The man handed him the puppy and looked at him in a way that could've been described as a cold stare but somehow there was something more, something strange. John awkwardly broke eye contact and took the small dog in his arms.

'Hey little guy, how are you doing?' he abruptly stopped talking to the little animal when he noticed the old man staring.

'Uhm, how much?'

'Oh you can have it, I'll be glad when it's gone.' The man walked towards the door and John followed behind closely. He looked around the room and felt a shiver run through his spine. He noticed the man had already opened the door and was waiting for him to leave.

'Oh uh, bye.'

'Yeah, yeah whatever.' The door closed behind his back and the puppy yawned before curling up in =johns arms and falling asleep. It was raining and the streets were empty, he sighed, pulled open his umbrella and started walking. He hummed a tune and he noticed the dog had woken up and was slowly wagging its tail.

'Hey, bud, what shall we call you, huh? How about something classic? Something ordinary, something old. My father had a dog just like you, you know?' the dog appeared to be a boxer but he wasn't sure seeing as the man never mentioned it.

'He was named Gladstone I think. I always liked that name, I don't know why… maybe I was just used to it.'

John found himself talking to the little guy, who was now officially named Gladstone, more than he had in the past two years. He also found himself smiling more and more every day. Miss. Hudson noticed john enjoyed the daily walks more and more. But it'd never be the same. There was always this flicker of sadness in the man's eyes. When John came home from meetings with his therapist he was greeted by the happy little Gladstone, waiting to be taken out for a walk and wagging its tail. A few months after he decided to get a dog on a Saturday John decided to look in some boxes he found in the attic a few weeks before. The first two were nothing important but it was in the third one he found something. Something he vaguely remembered, it was… what was it? He wasn't fully sure what it was called but he remembered something of- a deerstalker? He wondered why he had such a strange hat in a box in his attic, he looked at the box and noticed a familiar writing. It was miss. Hudson's.

Sherlock's stuff.

John's face saddened as the memory of a peculiar hat came to mind. A part of his mind wanted to close the box, lock it out of his mind forever but his hands kept digging. He stumbled upon what appeared to be a skull? A human skull? And something soft, he pulled it out of the box and realized it was a scarf, a bluish scarf and a violin. John pulled the instrument out of the box and looked at it with a sad expression on his face. After a while he noticed miss. Hudson was standing behind him, looking down at him and smiling sadly.

'It hurts, doesn't it?' John just nodded.

'I've been dreading the day you found that box actually.' There was a moment of silence in which John put the violin down and picked up the scarf. He smelled it, hoping to sense the smell that had long ago disappeared.

'Hang in there John, it gets easier.'

'it's been three years miss. Hudson.'

'I know.' He turned around to look at her and saw her walk towards the stairs before she turned around and said 'Gladstone's waiting for his walk, shall I take him out for you?'

'uhm no, I'll do it myself. Something to keep my mind of things.'

John looked around and exhaled slowly. The park was empty, it always was actually. He looked at Gladstone who was happily running around in the rain. It always rained, it's the curse of living in London, he thought to himself. He sighed, he was getting sick of it. He missed his old life, he missed solving crimes, he missed that every day was different, he missed running his shitty blog people somehow cared to read, he missed- he missed Sherlock.

On the other side of the park, in a corner John couldn't quite see, there was a man, sitting on a bench, wearing a long grey coat with the collar turned up. He scratched the side of his head, a wig starting to hurt, and pulled out his phone.

{1} new message

I-… I really don't think you should be doing this –Molly

Yeah, well you never know unless you try , Molly –SH

and you should know, he commented in his head.