As Watson struggles to deal with the apparent death of his closest ally, he finds solace in writing and sending letters to Holmes of words both known and, sometimes, unspoken.

Rated T for now, because who knows what may happen? I haven't quite decided if this is going to be a Holmes/Watson fic or just friendship-based, so for those who are shippers of our beloved twosome please feel free to view this as pre-slash regardless!

Reviews are always appreciated, and love is bestowed upon those that do. Aw, hell, and those that don't.

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He did not know what first led him to press the pencil to paper, words looping uncontrollably at the command of his fingertips as he wrote to his dead friend – logic was certainly nothing to do with it, of that he was aware and it was impossible to convince himself otherwise.

If there was one thing John Watson was not, it was stupid; this was evident in his waiting for Mary to leave the house on various errands, allowing himself the appropriate atmosphere in which he could scribe his very feelings down without the guilty knowledge that she could glance over his shoulder at any moment and know without denial how he was truly faring.

The truth of it was, he did not know himself how he fared – but it worried him. He knew that if he were to truly sit and think about it, if he were to stop writing that infernal manuscript and focus wholeheartedly on the loss of Sherlock Holmes with no one around to remind him of propriety… well, he did not know much, but he knew at the very least that it would elicit a permanent change in him, one that would not bode well for his marriage. He could not lose Mary as well as Holmes – he loved her too much, literally too much now that he had no one else to love alongside her… some days he was sure it would drive her away, that he would be so needlessly clingy that she would see him for what he truly was – a man on the edge of weakness and utter desperation – and leave him.

Once again, he marked the illogical nature of what he was doing – that is, the exact opposite to what he should do. He was risking everything, and all for the sake of a letter to someone who would never read it.

Loss of mind and loss of love… the risks I take for you, old boy. Even in death you manage to tilt my entire world upon its axis.

He pondered adding these musings to the letter, deeming them too emotional for his usual repartee with the detective – but then, why bother holding back? The man would never read them, never read anything again, so where was the logic in pretending the thoughts and emotions that were coursing through his mind and wherever emotions centred from could be deemed anything but pointless? A small smile flitted across his face, devoid of any emotion other than derision at himself – he was wandering in his thoughts, going round and round in circles much the same way he had always imagined Holmes did – had – when he was in one of his black moods. Focusing on one thing was difficult these days, and when facing the mortality of his closest ally alongside his own thoughts on it all it seemed that it was only magnified.

Forcing himself to focus, Watson pressed the pencil hard against the paper and began to write once more, the words becoming slowly more illegible and shaky as he poured himself onto the page without hesitation. He barely noticed the lead becoming blunt at the pressure he was exerting, his hand growing tired and sluggish. Without even thinking about it he switched hands, determined to get every word out for absolutely no reason at all – his left hand was clumsy, smudging the sentences and making the entire thing seem vaguely comical as he considered the absolute uselessness of this letter were Holmes even alive, indecipherable in both form and content. Soon his fist was positively clenched against the pencil, so hard that his knuckles whitened and his entire body began to shake – was he going mad? He laughed out loud into the empty room, the sound unnatural and unforgiving as it bounced around the walls and reverberated back at him like a spectre's call, a ghostly wail that sent shivers down his spine.

"John? Are you all right?"

Mary's voice just outside of the door shook and shocked him; how long had she been home? Here he had sat, throwing himself at a now ruined piece of paper and all the while she had been here… had she never left at all? Did she know what he was doing? If not, what would she think if she were to see him like this? The thoughts stabbed at his brain relentlessly.

He quickly signed his name at the bottom, suddenly on autopilot; with great care and no grace he slipped it into an envelope, his shaking hands bringing it to whet the edge of the seal with his tongue and press it closed.

"John, darling? May I come in?"

"W-" His voice cracked as if broken with misuse – he cleared his throat, leaping heavily to his feet and groaning inwardly at the pain that shot through his leg. Had he been sitting for so long? "Wait a moment, Mary – just one moment."

He scrawled the address from memory onto the envelope before realising that he could not – would not – send it; everyone knew, knew about the death and how it had come about… they would think him mad. Though, perhaps he was. Perhaps.

If the letter were to be delivered, it would have to be by his own hand.

As quickly as he could manage he slipped the letter into his waistcoat, limping to the door and brushing himself down – shedding the emotions as if an old skin – and opened the study door. Mary was poised to knock again, the concern in her eyes as evident as the – damn it – lead smudged on his hand. Her hair was delightfully windblown, clearly she had not been home long, and her walking boots still on her feet; an odd surge of love pushed through his veins and threatened to make him weep, a whim that he quickly extinguished as he stepped out beside her and shut the door quietly behind him.

"Mary."

"Are you quite well, John? You're as pale as a ghost." Her hands fluttered upwards, hesitant to touch his face but settling upon his cheeks regardless – her skin was soft and warm, warmer than the temperature outside… she must have been wearing gloves only moments before. He forced a smile as his eyes met hers, reaching up and taking her hands away from his face and holding them within his own.

"Don't fret, sweetheart, I'm fine. I was just writing and became rather involved."

The edges of her lips tugged upwards. "Oh, you. You always do. How is it coming?"

A moment of panic shot through his chest before realising that she wasn't referring to the letter, rather the manuscript that he had been so determined to write in every spare minute. He laughed, a staccato sound that sounded wrong even to his own ears. "It's going well. A long way to go and no doubt I'll change it all in a few months, but with any luck it'll turn out all right."

Mary's responding smile was so full of warmth that just for a second, Watson was sure he had never felt so loved in his entire life. "It's not luck with a talent like yours, John."

"You're a flatterer, Mary," he said, letting go of her hands but offering her his arm instead as he began to make his way through the hallway. "I just hope all this faith you have in me will come to something one day."

He did not need to look at her to know that she was looking up at him with a curiosity he did not want to engage with. "I have no doubts, and you shouldn't either. Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"Never better," he said, putting more effort behind the lie and finding surprise that he almost believed himself. "Why do you ask?"

She stopped him as he went to sit in his armchair, reaching for his left hand and holding it in front of her face. "For one, you lied to me. You haven't been writing your manuscript at all – this is lead from a pencil, and unless you've started to write your manuscript by hand rather than with your typewriter…?"

He said nothing, waiting for her to continue calling him out.

"And your eyes, John. Your eyes always give you away. Your eyes narrow when you're lying – only by the tiniest measures, barely noticeable to anyone but your own wife. I noticed it instantly."

"As only you could," Watson sighed, looking away from her. For a moment she stood quietly, simply watching him, but after her own sigh she began to press against his shoulder gently, encouraging him into his chair and sitting beside him on the arm as she did so. "You're right, of course. I cannot lie to you."

She left her hand upon his shoulder. "I'm not upset by the lie, only the fact that you feel you need to lie to me in the first place. Tell me true, John – you are not at your best today, are you?"

He shut his eyes. "No."

"Is this… do you want to talk to me about it?"

He still did not open his eyes. "Would you be terribly offended if I said that I did not?"

The hand upon his shoulder tightened somewhat before releasing him. "Of course not. I cannot always assume that you will tell me everything... even if it is my wish."

A slight gust of air alerted him to the fact that she had turned away from him; quickly, quicker than he knew he had the ability to move, he reached out and took her hand in his. She turned, clearly surprised at the contact – he could not blame her, as he was not given to impulsive acts of affection; it was not in his nature, never before and certainly not now with the loss of Holmes. If anything, the loss had made him more stoic, less likely to reach out. It had been months, pitiful months, lacking in number or substance – the lack of Holmes was great, and the desire to reach out was nothing more than an instinctive suppressant of emotion. It had been hard for Mary, he knew, when her own instinct was to touch and hold and be there in physical ways to nullify her own gentle grief – worse was knowing that Mary's grief was heightened by his own, Watson being well aware that she felt he was slipping away from her. He wished often in these strange days that he could voice exactly how wrong she was, how he was more bound to her than he had ever been and that she meant more to him now than she could have ever envisioned.

He met her gaze, now, and pressed against her fingers lightly. "All will be well in time, sweetheart. It is only a matter of moving through the days and reaching normality once more." He ignored the contradictory way of his words – he could not return to the normality of before, as 'before' had been changed irrevocably. "I... I know I do not express this often, but I cannot do it without you, Mary. I cannot fathom another day without you by my side."

Her eyes instantly softened; he could see the glitter of unshod tears behind them, adjoined by a simple but genuine understanding of the strength of his words. Slowly, carefully she laced her fingers with his, bending at the knee until she was on his level. Her beautiful eyes fluttered closed as her knees touched the ground, leaning forward to press her cheek to his knuckles and shaking her head lightly to and fro.

"Thank you, John. I needed to hear that from your lips rather than just... hoping. I so needed to hear that from you."

The need in her voice tightened his throat. "I'm sorry that I do not speak of it more often. You know... you do know that I love you?"

When she raised her head, she was smiling – a small, somewhat sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. "As I do you. But I do know that it shouldn't just be me."

Watson found himself baffled. "Shouldn't just be you? What do you mean? Shouldn't just be you that I love?" Amusement flitted across his features, a rarity in those days. "I hardly think I need more than one wife!"

Mary stared at him for a moment, her eyes focused wholly on his as she seemed to attempt to see through the veneer he had erected since Reichenbach Falls; Watson shifted uncomfortably as he awaited her reply, never one for prolonged eye-contact, something that had probably worsened since his days with Holmes. The detective had never seemed to relish anything remotely intense or meaningful in an emotional sense. "Mary?"

"I shouldn't be the only one with you, the only one by your side. Sometimes..." She hesitated, her eyes shifting from his as she considered what she was about to say. "Sometimes I would even go so far as to say that, yes, I shouldn't be the only one you love."

For a blissful moment he was once again unaware of what his wife was referring to; his mind cast itself rapidly over the possibilities, the women he – they – knew, wondering if he had somehow inadvertently made her think that he desired one of them, needed more than she was so willing to give. He squeezed her hand tightly, leaning forward and waiting until she met his gaze again. "My dearest wife, you cannot think I desire more than you?"

The whisper – more of a sigh – slipped through her lips and pierced him like a blunted blade. "Holmes."

"Holmes?" Watson's eyes narrowed, leaning back almost violently as he considered the meaning to her naming his oldest friend. "You think I... desired him? Good god, Mary, how could you even consider that? We were friends, nothing more – not that it would even matter if we were nothing more than strangers on the street, it's an offence!" A laugh escaped him, his eyes widening. "You cannot seriously think- "

"Calm down, John," Mary interjected, shaking the hands in hers slightly. "All I meant is that you loved him as a brother and miss his company. Nothing more."

"Right," he said, almost breathless. "Right. Yes, you're quite right. I miss his company."

He realised that, despite his greatest intentions, they had somehow come to rest upon the very topic he had wanted to avoid; it was his wish that if he were to grieve, he would grieve alone, and Mary was well aware of that. Perhaps she was more aware of what he had been doing in his study than he at first assumed... and perhaps she would not think he was mad. His hand twitched beneath hers, considering bringing out the letter and confessing all to her.

She stood, releasing her grasp on his hands. "I don't pretend to know what you're going through John, and I will respect what you asked of me. I won't speak of him until you're ready. Just understand that... that I'm proud of you."

"Whatever for?"

"Oh, all sorts of things," she said, warmth in her tone, "but in this instance, I'm proud of you for how you're dealing with it all, proud of your clarity and calm. I knew I had married a man of strength, but seeing it as I am now... I cannot help but feel so incredibly lucky."

As she drifted gracefully to the door, Watson felt gratitude flood through his veins – at her kind heart, her love for him, her knowing exactly when to leave him alone. It was something Holmes had never quite grasped – ah, Holmes again! - and it was somewhat refreshing to be reminded of the latter at a point where Mary was so incredibly dear to him.

His fingers slipped within his waistcoat and settled upon the envelope.

"Thank you, Mary. But I'm the lucky one."

Briefly turning, her eyes flickered to where his hand now rested and back up to his eyes. "Yes, John. I believe that to be true as well."

With one last smile – sympathetic, loving and concerned all at once – she left the room, her skirts flicking around the door and following the soft clicking of her footsteps against wood. He watched the empty space where she had been, the scent of her lingering in the room as he turned his attention once again to the paper brushing his fingers. It was madness, utter madness, no reasonable cause whatsoever for his wanting to deliver a letter to a dead man. Even if Holmes were alive, Watson knew the man would hate to read a letter so based upon emotion...

Two hours later he found himself standing outside 221B Baker Street, the letter between his fingertips and his heart racing beneath his chest.