There were no words.
Watson had none, and Sherlock would give him none.
The kerchief lay on his lap, fluttering a little in the breeze. He could see the change in Sherlock's eyes. They looked dead, dull. Their usual gleam had vanished with the discovery, and his mouth was set in a grim line, his breaths clipped. He left Watson to imagine only the worst.
And Sherlock hadn't said anything. Not that Watson would honestly have expected him to.
His friend was stiff as he plucked the bloodied kerchief from Watson's grasp, stood and walked to the rail.
Pain and lifelessness: that was the look in Sherlock's eyes. Watson knew that she had been the only woman that Holmes had ever considered to be worthy of his attentions, if not his affections. Holmes' regard for her outstripped nearly anyone else into whose contact he had come.
She was the woman.
Watson watched as Holmes lifted the kerchief to his face, taking in the last of her scent, that Parisian perfume that she had so favoured; from where he was sitting, he could not quite tell, but it was possible that Holmes ever kissed it, before he lowered it gently, and after a long antagonizing moment, threw it to the sea. The detective turned, and stalked past their bench.
John would not see or speak to Holmes till the next morning.
It had gone unspoken. She was gone.
It did not surprise Watson when Holmes began the search reinvigorated, with new energy at every turn. Perhaps he saw the drive now, less so than that dull form of hurt and mourning. Holmes acted as if the moment had never even occurred, but there were times when he seemed lost in thought, and the light would once again leave his eyes, and a sort of agonized look came over him. In these moments, John knew that he was thinking of her. Dreaming of her. Maybe, playing different scenarios in his head of the way she had died. Perhaps, trying to figure a way that he could have prevented the occurrence.
It wouldn't have surprised him.
The drive, the drive was anew for her memory.
Moriarty had gained an even worse adversary in Holmes when he had made the mistake of taking Irene Adler out of the equation. Now, it was not only the chase, or the principle of the matter: it had become personal.
It occurred to Watson suddenly that perhaps Moriarty had not banked on Holmes being so emotionally invested in his beautiful courier, and only she in he. Perhaps he thought Holmes nearly as emotionaly stagnant as himself. Watson could only wonder how Sherlock had come upon the kerchief. If it had come from a meeting with Moriarty… Holmes' reaction would have been enough to give him away, depending on the severity of it. Somehow, John did not think Holmes had reacted in any emotional manner, rather, most probably in a detached way. It would certainly have been safer, but no less incriminatingly indicative of his own respective feelings for Irene.
And John Watson was positive that Holmes truly loved her, not that the man in question would ever admit it to anyone, much less himself.
John could only remember his own violent reaction to his belief that Holmes had killed Mary that night on the train. The grief and fury Holmes' must have held at Irene's murder… he could hardly imagine. A man who always bottled up everything remotely emotional dealing inwardly with the underhanded murder of the woman that he desperately loved - the very thought was cringe-worthy to Watson. And he'd never get Holmes to say a word.
He would simply go on inwardly, and vehemently hating and cursing Moriarty, till the man was either behind bars (a place that Watson was sure would be ineffective) or dead. And somehow, Watson was sure that Holmes would be willing to commit murder for her.
The thought was somewhat irksome, as it also meant that he could quite possibly get reckless, as he was wont to do when emotionally invested in something, however rare the occasion. Already, he could see the signs; Holmes was projecting outwardly his scathingly sarcastic humour. Normal, but an act none the less.
He was hurting inside.
Perhaps, at first, Watson had some hope that Simza would be able to help him heal, at least a little. A foolish hope and he came to see it almost immediately. Holmes paid her as much attention as he paid other women with whom in came into contact during other cases - just enough to keep her safe in the many tight spots that they had managed to get themselves into, inevitably.
But there was nothing more.
When he heard Sherlock's agonizing screams over the audio-phone in the factory complex, he found himself in a fleeting wonder at the manner in which Irene had died. It had been bloody, he had seen that himself, yet somehow he could not see a man like Moriarty torturing Irene, even if she had let her affections for Holmes get in the way of her assignments from him.
Either way, he knew, deep in the back of his mind, that she had died completely and utterly alone.
On the train, after Sherlock was out of the woods, thanks to his wedding present, John was the only one left awake. He wasn't sure why, for he had been certain that Sherlock would have a very difficult time drifting off, even in his present state of injury. His brain was simply too preoccupied generally, to tend to its bodies welfare. He heard her name slip from his lips.
It surprised him.
Irene. 'Rene.
But not too much.
And in that last moment, when Watson locked eyes with Holmes, a split instant of time before their sudden and silent slip over the edge and into the roaring waters of Reichenbach Falls, he had seen the determined desperation in Holmes' eyes.
He was doing this for the world, and for his personal integrity, but, even more so, he was doing it for Irene.
It's the only way, can't you see, Watson?
Selfish Bastard.
That's what he was. A damned selfish Bastard.
Perhaps he thought he'd see her again, if he believed in an afterlife.
A question that Watson had never asked him. He'd supposed that he had simply assumed it was the negative.
Either way, he was a damned selfish Bastard.
Watson was already was missing him terribly. But not half as much as he was sure Holmes had been missing her.
She was, after all, the woman.