I do not own Sherlock.
When John was still that little Johnny, his father would sometimes show him the constellations, lonely in the sky and bright like their Christmas tree. By the time he turned eleven, John would have known all their names by heart. They were old buddies, John and the stars.
Years later, in the vast solitude of Afghanistan, John would look at the sky and make a wish. At the time, being back in England seemed like a misty dream.
The moon in Afghanistan was so bright and so close to his face that sometimes John thought to reach out his hand, steal it from the sky and use it as a pillow in the cold dark hour before the dawn when he wondered how many full moons he was going to see. It was breathtaking – the moon and the raw landscape – but John was neither a tourist nor a stargazer. Not anymore. That was why Afghanistan had the scent of death and loss and fire.
But when John returned back to London, the moon was too small and too distant. John's dreams were filled with death and loss and fire, and the moon was falling from the sky like an enormous silver star or celestial ball kicked by a god. No matter how much he tried, John could never catch it.
Sometimes, when the London sky was too dark to spot the stars, John wondered whether his father would guide him now, as he had guided John's steady finger when they had been drawing their map of the galaxy.
'You have the hands of a doctor', his father had used to exclaim, 'both you and Harry do', and it was true. John had entertained the thought of becoming a surgeon, but eventually it was Harry who had graduated from Bart's. John had the hands of a sniper, he mused, but his father would never learnt that.
Even after all these years and all these stars that had fallen from the sky like glowing bullets, John still could vividly recall that day when his mother burst into Harry and his' room and informed them that they were moving out, now.
John was reading a Tolkien book while Harry was pretending to study for her history exam, and they were both drinking tea and eating insane amounts of cinnamon cookies Harry had baked earlier that day.
They were also quietly agreeing that they couldn't hear mother's screaming from the living room downstairs; her voice was maddened and on the verge of cracking. John desperately wanted to focus on his novel but failed, and Harry kept glancing nervously at the door.
John thought a bit bitterly that they should have got accustomed to it a long time ago. He was sure that in a few days, his father would take Harry to the cinema and would stargaze with John again, and he would pretend that it was all nothing. Personally, John thought that 'nothing' was a very big word.
'Do you think we can do anything?', John asked tentatively as Harry finally closed her textbook and resignedly threw it away.
'Sure. Make it worse', she replied coolly. John winced at her tone but remained silent.
It wasn't that she didn't care, he reassured himself. She just cared a little bit too much. Maybe.
John decided against continuing this talk. It would lead to nothing anyway, so he changed the subject and asked Harry if she had seen their dog Dasher that morning.
'No bloody idea where he is', Harry muttered. 'Don't you dare to go downstairs now and look for him'.
Their mother's furious shrieks were contrapuntal to their father's gravelly answers, so John just nodded. He peered at Harry, who looked as if she was trying to add something else, but then they both heard the final ringing screech and then a thudding noise.
Their mother was running upstairs.
John and Harry had time to exchange nervous glances when she opened the door.
Margaret was a short middle-aged woman, her eyes blue like John's and her strawberry blond hair straight. Now, her face was swollen and reddened from shouting and crying, and she was still wearing her old patchwork gown, even though it was midday.
John and Harry both knew that she had been waiting for their father to return home again.
Margaret knew that they knew.
She looked both lost like a little girl and determined like a soldier. She swept her gaze over the room.
'Pack your things', she told them gravely, 'you have an hour. We're moving out'.
'Everything?', Harry asked gingerly, and they all knew that she in fact wanted to learn whether they would come back.
Margaret, suddenly a bit weary, tried to smile and failed. Her hand was gripping the doorknob.
'Only the necessities', she clarified and then hesitated. 'I will go back tomorrow to get the rest'.
With that, their mother was gone. She didn't close the door but as John and Harry were packing, whatever was happening downstairs was silent.
Nowadays, John was sure that whoever was that girl with whom his father had cheated on mum, she hadn't lasted two weeks. She hadn't been the first one and certainly not the last one.
They had stayed with John's grandparents for a few months and then Margaret had rented a flat in Newcastle. After the divorce, she returned to her maiden name, and John and Harry also started going by Watson.
John kept his father's initial in his name, though. Harry didn't.
After that, John's contact with his father was rather limited. The would exchange polite birthday wishes on the phone or meet up for awkward Christmas dinners and occasional Sunday trips but every time John spoke to him, he had a flashback of mum's bleak face when she was taking them to grandparents that day. John remembered that she hadn't spoken a word, only gripping the steering wheel silently.
John was sure that there still had to be a spark of their old dad, the one who had taught him astronomy and had been hopeless at rugby. But it was the same man who had watched stars with John only after a night out with one of his lady friends, and so John was reluctant to risk a closer relationship with him.
He was afraid that all the stars had long died.
Both he and Harry had studied medicine, Harry eventually becoming an oncologist while John specialising in trauma surgery instead and promptly joining the army. Harry had believed he had been wasting his talent out there, patching up unfortunate soldiers instead of making use of his brain ('You were the best student, Johnny, why would you choose...'). John had disagreed.
Afghanistan smelled like danger, starry nights and challenge, and tasted like blood, sun and death. Sometimes, when there were bright moments igniting his dreams, Afghanistan felt like love. But John knew that it was a fickle thing, blond, auburn-haired, olive-skinned or freckled. It was all the same on the three continents John had visited. Passionate, sweet, and short.
The moon was a constant, though. John would try to capture it behind the darkness of his eyelids, this shining faraway friend.
He would soon learn it had worked better in Afghanistan than in London.
It was the day after that peaceful moonless night which John had spent thankfully sleeping. Afghanistan sounded like screams, gunshots and finality when John was trying to save a young soldier form his unit, still blinking to chase away the image of the moon he kept seeing while he was applying the pressure to the wound. Now, he doesn't remember much. He knows he didn't save the soldier.
He knows that the bullet wound in his shoulder hurt so much that John was certain it had to be a small silvery moon that entered his body and left him broken.
The moon in London was indifferent like a stranger, oddly distant and quiet. John would limp in the park, the cane mocking him with his every step. London smelled like rain, like John's past and like boredom.
Margaret had died while he had been in Afghaninstan. For many painful weeks, the moon had had her face. While in London, he once talked with his father on the phone but didn't get around to meeting him, and his contact with Harry was limited to her giving him the old mobile which John kept but never used. He had no one to call anyway.
Even the moon never paid attention to him.
There were suffocating moments when John was lying in his bed in the tiny bedsit which he was unable to call home. Silence was overwhelming and John would listen desperately to loud music which gave him that deceptive illusion of not being utterly alone. In those moments, John himself was the only person who could hold his hand. He didn't like to think about how it made him feel.
So he curled himself up under the unfriendly blanket and pondered in the back of his mind whether it would be acceptable to call his father.
When John was little and lonely, and his father happened to be home, he would wrap John up in the fluffy blanket which smelled like dreams and dragons, and would took him outside to observe the stars. They would sit there together, father on the bench, John on his lap. Father would whisper stories about Alpheratz, Sirius, and Rigel; about black holes and red dwarfs, and he would show him the golden beads and buttons of constellations.
They would sit there until mum, irritated and a tiny bit resigned, would call them in and hug John goodnight, kissing his nose. John knew she never liked this nightly stargazing and blamed father for every cold John would catch but somehow it never discouraged them.
Mum never liked father's lady friends and it didn't stop him either.
But no matter how often John would fiddle with Harry's old phone, he never called.
And then, in the never-ending swirl of the dark coat and piercing quicksilver eyes, London began to smell like a crazy chase after criminals and delicious Italian food, and John dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, he could be happy again.
Not that he was dwelling too much on it. Hope never seemed to be the Watsons' forte.
There was a mysterious brunette and there was a self-proclaimed archenemy. There was a cane brought back by the restaurant's owner, and there was that exhilarating feeling of being able to walk again, run again, live again.
But most importantly, there was Sherlock.
Sherlock, who managed to do something the moon had not succeeded in. He unveiled the London of which John had been unaware – dark, mysterious, tense, dangerous, and it was all John needed to breathe again, because it smelled like a reminder, like a purpose, and like a promise.
It was a cloudy night, the moon impossible to spot, and John was sitting in the cab, his fingers itching for his gun. It was like having a mission again. John the soldier wanted to fight. John the doctor wanted to heal. Both wanted to save, both wanted to protect, and for a moment, John was whole again.
Later, he would never remember if he could see the moon when he was getting out of the cab and running towards the college. His thoughts were focused on saving Sherlock. There was a shy single thought that maybe, if he did it right, if he succeeded, he could be happy. But John was too cautious to dare to hope.
When John H. Watson pulls the trigger, there is no hope in his eyes, just focus and determination.
When he realises he has killed his father, there is Hope only in his name.