A/N: this just to pass my time between writing my other story in the Harry Potter fandom. This is a one shot, but if enough of you like it and COMMENT, then maybe I'll continue, but we'll see.P.S. this is post Reichenbach Fall.
It had been seven months since John watched as his best friend jumped off the building. Seven months since Sherlock's funeral. Seven months since John had stood over his grave, in the misty fog. Seven months since he asked his friend for one more thing.
" I'm gonna ask you for one more thing, only one more. Sherlock, for me, don't be dead. Could you just do this one thing for me? Just stop it. Stop this."
Tears had slid down his then he had walked away. Just turned around. For a split second he could have sworn he saw him, Sherlock, standing, watching him, underneath the big oak tree. But one blink later, he was gone.
That was the first time after his death that John saw Sherlock when he really wasn't there.
It started small. A passing face in the crowds. A man he saw from a taxi window. A reflection in the glass on a storefront. In the mirror in the public bathroom.
After the first few hurried chases and embarrassed explanations to people who were not the man he thought he had seen, John had an easy time ignoring the illusions that followed him everywhere.
But when they started getting closer, started appearing inside 221B that John actually had trouble with them. They would torment him with memories of the Consulting Detective. One morning a Sherlock would be lounging on the couch, tops of his fingers pressed together in his thinking pose,then it would simply disappear, as quickly as it had come. By late afternoon the illusion would sit cross legged, dressed in his blue robe, on the coffee table in the sitting room. Other times the sound of a haunting melody being played on an out of tune violin would wake John and he would run downstairs to find illusion-Sherlock swaying to the violin music that was coming out of the instrument cradled in his arms. John would shake his head trying to make it go away, but it would still be there.
"Ms. Hudson !" He'd yell,"Ms. Hudson !," he'd panic, the apparition not disappearing, just standing there,playing Sherlock's violin.
Ms. Hudson's hurried footsteps could be heard, coming up the stairs. She would burst into the room, startled.
"John! John, are you alright!?" She run to him and ask.
John would choke up, crying
"Is he there,Ms. Hudson, is he!? Look, there!" John would point at the now still figure.
"Who, dear, who?"
"Sherlock!" He'd yell.
Ms. Hudson, finally understanding, would make a small, distraught noise. The Sherlock looked at him sadly.
"No, dear. He isn't, I'm sorry, but he's not coming back, John."
"He's there! Look at him! I see him everywhere! He's all around me, taunting me, I know he's not real, but he's there!" He would try to make her understand.
"I know, dear, I know."
John would just shake his head and go back upstairs. She didn't know. Not really. John doubted Ms. Hudson was haunted by these memories, so fresh, so real, that sometimes John had a hard time believing they were just figments of his grief stricken Imagination. In attempts to exhaust and distract himself and his mind, John would often take to repeating his old military routine. Waking up early, working out, going jogging. But nothing could distract him from seeing the man that had changed his life, everywhere he went.
Sherlock's brother never contacted him since he saw him at the funeral, neither did Molly. John sometimes went to Scotland Yard to see Lestrade. He never stayed long. People would always give him sympathetic or angry looks. Donovan often tried to rub it in, saying things like
"I told you all Freak was a fake. Said nothing good would ever come of takin help from that nutcase, didn't I John? Now don't get all upset, 'cause your boyfriend's gone and took a ten pointer off the Hospital! "
John would say some choice words, punch a hole in a wall or two, and walk away, with the sounds of Lestrade scolding Donovan on his way out.
On good days John would see Sherlock haunting him maybe two,three times. On a bad day he couldn't even count the number of times he saw him, or woke Ms. Hudson up in the middle of the night, with his yelling for her.
And then one day they stopped coming to him. John stopped seeing Sherlocks everywhere. He didn't know what to think about this. He wanted to be happy, wanted to be glad that the illusions stopped. But he couldn't. No matter how many Sherlocks had taunted him with their words or even their presence itself, he couldn't stop his Detective's face from slowly fading from his mind. As a month past and then four, and then three more, John never saw another Sherlock apparition. John slowly accepted this, until talking about Sherlock didn't even bother him anymore. He went back to the Yard more often, not even Donovan bothered him really. However John never did move out of Baker Street, and Ms. Hudson never asked him to. He never rearranged the flat, except to give the hospital back the severed body parts in the fridge,freezer or microwave.
On the anniversary of the death of his best friend, John was out having a drink, by Sherlock's grave. Not really considering himself drunk, however John was never much of a drinker, he hailed a taxi ride home, thinking of their first case together. The murderous cabbie. John, having a little buzz, chuckled and looked up at the cab driver to make a joke, but stopped when he saw the cabbie's deer stalker hat, and the black curls that rested at the back of the cabbie's neck. Chalking it up to the slight buzz he had, and not a reappearing illusion, John stared moodily out the window, and watched London pass by. A few minutes later the cab stopped outside of 221B Baker Street. John was almost positive that he had not giving the cab driver the address, so maybe he was drunker than he thought. Frowning he handed over the correct amount on the meter,not looking at the driver for fear of what he'd see,and got out and went inside, not bothering to lock the front door. After all, everyone in England knew who lived here and what day it was, so John doubted that someone would try to rob the flat.
John stopped at Ms. Hudson's room to see how she was doing, John hadn't seen her all day, because he had been out at Sherlock's grave. She was sleeping. A box of empty tissues rested on her night stand, with an overflowing rubbish bin underneath. Now he felt bad. She had probably been up all day crying, and John hadn't been there to be with her. Deciding not to wake her, he continued up the stairs to his flat. Opening the unlocked door, John shrugged off his wet coat and hung it up on the hook by the door. Right next to a deer stalker hat. John glared at the sorry excuse of a hat and moved further into the flat to make some tea, doubting his ability to fall asleep.
Coming around the corner into the sitting room, John stopped in his tracks so fast, you would have thought he'd hit an invisible wall. For, standing in the middle of the room, as they so often use to do, was an illusion-Sherlock.
"Why are you back?" John angrily asked the apparition, " Why couldn't you just stay away, I was finally getting over you, you know."
The Sherlock looked confused.
"I'm alive, John. I was never dead. I expected many reactions from you, but this was not one."
"Why?," John asked again," I saw you everywhere, and then you just disappear for months on end? Why do you torment me? Why do you insist on making my life a living hell! What are you going to do this time, hmm? Play his bloody violin, again? Sit on the coffee table? Follow me around!" He shouted at the now even more confused illusion.
" John Watson, whatever are you talkin-" the fake-Sherlock broke off during mid word, his thinking face replacing confusion. John watched, knowing full well that imagined-Sherlock was preparing to torment him, with a memory of one of his doppelganger's deductions.
"Ahh, I presume that after my untimely, however staged, death, your symptoms of PTSD from the war resurfaced, causing you to imagine seeing me everywhere. And seeing the cabbie that drove you, that was me by the way, wearing a deer stalker hat, and having curly black hair, you must think it retriggered the illusions to come back and haunt you. Well, my dear John, you can be rest assured that I am not an illusion, I am the one and only Sherlock Holmes, and I'll thank you to realize that, so that we can all put this behind us," the Sherlock smiled, "now then, I think I'll have a nice cup of tea, how about you John? "
John did not turn around to make tea. He simply scoffed at the tall figure in the room.
" I've heard it all before. From a lot of you Sherlocks. It does not amuse me that my imagination conjures images of my dead friend,so I'll thank you to hurry up and disappear." John could feel his control slipping, after months of not seeing an imagined image , it was a shock to be so abruptly confronted by one.
The Sherlock looked at him.
" You really don't believe me do you."
He started forward, with his hand outstretched, as if to touch his face.
John flinched never did a Sherlock ever try to touch him before, and he didn't like it one bit. Not only did these things disturb him by simply being, but now they wanted to physically be there also. So John did what he always did when the Sherlocks got too upsetting, he did the only thing that was sure to cause the Sherlock to leave,eventually. He called his landlady.
" He's back, Ms. Hudson, they're back!," he yelled in the direction of the open door," Ms. Hudson, please! Come here! I can't handle them anymore ! " He let a tear slip past him.
"John, stop! Don't wake her u- a...are you crying,John?"
"Shut up! Just go away, I don't want to see anymore of you!" John turned around to face the door as he could hear her climbing the stairs at a fast pace.
" Oh, dear," her worried tone could be heard from the stairs, " oh, I thought they might show up today, oh. John, I'm coming, don't worry,dear!"
John didn't bother to look back at the Sherlock, knowing that it would soon vanish.
"John, stop this! Don't be foolish, I'm here, I'm alive!"
John just continued to ignore him. John's heart felt like it had been stuffed with razor blades to hear the fake-Sherlock plead with him.
Ms. Hudson's foot steps reached the top of the stairs. The two people, John and fake-Sherlock, heard her enter the flat.
"John, I'm coming, dear just hold on." Her voice sounded sad, empty of the hope that these nightly reassurances might have stopped. Her foot steps echoed down the entrance way, and John saw her turn the last corner and enter the sitting room.
"They came back,Ms. Hudson . Why did they have to come back ?"
She didn't answer him. He looked up from the spot on the floor by her slipper clad feet. She wasn't looking at him, but rather at a spot behind him.
"Sh...Sherlock?" She asked, dumbstruck.
A/N: Soooo did you like it? I hope you did, 'cause I enjoyed writing it! I don't know if it helped my writers block with my Harry Potter story, but it was worth it! Review enough, and I might just continue this one...