Acceptance
It's about three weeks after Sherlock's death that John returns to 221 B Baker Street, and a further two weeks before he can bring himself to enter Sherlock's room.
The thought has been nagging at the back of his mind since Mrs Hudson mentioned it when they visited the cemetery together – as much as they dislike the idea, they need to clean out his things. In the weeks that John spends living with his sister, unable to even set foot in the flat, Mrs Hudson doesn't enter 221B, let alone clean out Sherlock's belongings. That's something she refuses to do without John there with her. Upon returning to the flat, however, John isn't ready to do that at all. For that matter, he isn't ready to do anything. He isn't ready to leave the flat or to work or to answer his phone, and he isn't ready to see anyone, with the exception of Mrs Hudson. She comes up before bed every day to make sure he has had something to eat (half the time, he hasn't).
For weeks, John refuses to even think about opening Sherlock's door. He's put up walls around his emotions, disconnecting himself, but no matter what he does, he knows that opening Sherlock's door will open the door to his emotions as well, and he doesn't want to do that. After two weeks of living back at the flat, however, he decides that he has to do something. It has to be done sooner or later, and maybe sooner is better. On top of that, he knows he needs to do something, anything other than what he's been doing. He knows this is going to hurt, but it cannot possibly hurt as much as it hurts to sit around doing nothing but thinking, thinking, thinking, about the fact that Sherlock killed himself and Sherlock made him watch and Sherlock is gone and the clearest image in his mind is a bloodstained face with lifeless, blue eyes. It hurts more than a bullet through his shoulder.
He has to work himself up just to get down the stairs, telling himself that he can do this, he can do this, he can do this. It sounds pathetic even in his mind, but he needs it, because he really feels like he can't do this at all. He won't admit it aloud, but he doesn't feel like he can do anything at all.
Mrs Hudson's expression when he knocks on her door and asks her if she'll help him clean out Sherlock's room is a combination of sympathetic sadness and relief. John coming downstairs to her, instead of her coming upstairs to him is an improvement. John is a brave man, a soldier, and she has no doubt that he will get through this, but losing someone you love is always going to hurt.
Entering Sherlock's room is not easy for either of them, but that's only to be expected. They both work in silence, going through drawers and cupboards and taking things out, putting them in piles – one pile of things to be donated to charity, and one of things that need to be thrown out. When John finds an old blue scarf in the bottom of the wardrobe, his mind goes back to a memory of going out to replace the worn scarf with a new one, the one now stained with Sherlock's blood, and he makes a new pile for things he can't bring himself to get rid of.
Later, when Mrs Hudson has gone to take bags of clothes downstairs, he takes Sherlock's old scarf up to his room. He runs his fingertips over the material, turning it over in his hands. The edges are frayed and the material feels rougher than it must have been when Sherlock first bought it. It's almost funny to think that the press latched onto pictures of Sherlock Holmes in a deerstalker, when this piece of his outfit had much more of his character than the hat ever would. It really goes to show, John thinks, how little the press knew of him, compared to how much John knew of him.
Did you love him?
The thought comes out of nowhere, in a voice he doesn't recognise. It stands out from the pool of other thoughts in his mind, louder, clearer and so much harder to ignore. It's not a thought that has ever crossed his mind before and he's not sure why it is crossing his mind now.
Did you love him? the voice in his mind repeats.
Of course not, he thinks. I'm not gay. And he puts the scarf away in his bottom drawer.
Two days later, Mrs Hudson takes the last box of Sherlock's things downstairs, and John stands at the door, looking around the flat.
The kitchen table has been cleared of microscopes and beakers and any other equipment that looks like it belongs in a science lab, and the fridge has been emptied of anything inedible (which, as it turns out, is just about everything, because no one has opened that fridge for over a month now, and the small amount of food that would have been edible at one point has all gone off). The papers scattered over the table in the living room have been either thrown away or filed away (anything that could still be important has been put in one of the drawers, as has a pile of sheet music – another thing that John can't bring himself to get rid of). The bookshelf has been rearranged, now fitting all of the books that had been sitting in piles on the floor; only a few of the books had to be removed from the bookshelf to do so, and they were books that Mrs Hudson and John both agreed would do much more good in another's possession.
For the first time since John has seen it, the flat looks clean, and it's so unbearably wrong.
The skull still sits on the mantle, and the violin lies in its case in the corner, but other than that, the flat has been stripped of anything Sherlock. John knows that if Sherlock were here, he'd mock him for attaching too much sentimental value to the appearance of a building's interior, but this flat had just as much character as that scarf, and now, despite it still containing books and furniture and all of John's belongings, it looks empty.
John turns and slips into the bathroom, the silence ringing in his ears. He turns on the tap and lets the water run over his hands, and then lowers his head to splash his face before straightening up and meeting the eyes of his reflection in the mirror. He looks old and worn and his eyes look almost lifeless, but not quite, not in the same way as Sherlock's.
He braces his hands on the sides of the sink and cries.
Things get worse before they get better. He reverts back to the way he was before cleaning out Sherlock's belongings – not answering his phone, barely talking when Mrs Hudson comes upstairs to make sure he's eating, sleeping restlessly at best with vivid nightmares of Sherlock's fall, and not leaving the flat. It feels as though the past few days used up whatever energy he had, and he goes back to feeling exhausted all the time, despite the fact that he hasn't done anything. He remembers what it was like when he came back from the war. For the first few weeks, it felt as though he had nothing to live for – he'd gone from saving people's lives to living in a small bedsit in London where the only person who knew he was home was his sister, who wanted as much to do with him as he did with her. Despite having friends now who care about him (if the several missed calls and ignored text messages on his phone say anything), he can't help but notice how he feels now much like he did then. He's lost his sense of purpose again.
In comparison to the rest of his life, the time he spent with Sherlock is short, but yet the man somehow managed to weave himself so tightly into John's life that John would not have been able to imagine life without him, and now he's being forced to live it. It hurts. It's like a part of his soul has been torn away from him forcefully, and he can't imagine being whole again.
John has lost friends before, being in the army, and it hurt, but not like this. He thinks it must be because there are so many questions surrounding Sherlock's death. Sherlock stood on the roof and called himself a fake, but John isn't an idiot and he knows that's not true, which means that Sherlock lied to him and Sherlock died for a reason that John isn't sure of. It's the most logical explanation for why Sherlock's death hurts so much more than the deaths of his friends in the army – there is no closure in suicide.
It's also possible, John knows, that he might have been closer to Sherlock than he has been to anyone else.
Did you love him? the same voice in his head asks him again, coming out of nowhere as it had the time before.
John thinks of women, of girlfriends that he's said "I love you" to, of the young woman he dated before joining the army whom he was sure he was going to marry. He thinks of the way he felt when she was near or when they kissed, and he remembers thinking that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Loving her was like every fibre of his being was on fire, yearning for her, and her touch was like electricity against his skin.
Did you love him?
Of course not, he thinks. I'm not attracted to him. And he pushes the thought to the back of his mind, picking up the two mugs – one empty, one full – to rinse them out in the sink.
John is drunk. Absolutely, completely off his face drunk.
You'd think that after seeing what alcohol did to his sister, he'd know better, but instead, for the first time in his life, John chose to take a leaf out of her book. It has been over two months since Sherlock's death, and it still hurts just as much as it did to start with. John hasn't had a proper night's sleep in weeks, because Sherlock's lifeless eyes slide into his unconsciousness every night, forcing him awake in the darkness of an empty flat. The only person he has spoken to is Mrs Hudson, and, just once, Mycroft Holmes, who turned up in his living room a couple of weeks ago (that conversation consisted entirely of John telling him to piss off in the least polite terms possible, before locking himself in his bedroom and refusing to leave until he heard the front door shut). He stills feel empty and the only times he doesn't feel hurt, he feels numb, and he wants it all to just stop, and somehow he managed to convince himself that alcohol was the best way to solve that problem.
He hasn't gone to a pub or a bar, because the last thing he wants to do is have to talk to anyone, even if it's just asking the bartender for another. Instead, he raided the alcohol cupboard and pulled out whatever he could find – a couple of bottles of wine and a bottle of whiskey. The latter, he knows from having an alcoholic sister, gets you very, very drunk, very, very fast, and so he poured himself a glass of that to start with, and another, and another, and it's not long before he ends up in this state.
He won't remember any of this in the morning. It will be a glorious black hole in his mind – a few sweet hours of not thinking, just as he wanted. However, in the moment, he is thinking, however unclearly, and it's unbearable. The alcohol has taken every miserable feeling in his body and intensified it. He's hurt to the point where it aches inside of his chest, he's furious at Sherlock for leaving him without a clue as to why he had to die, and he's long surpassed mere sadness. He wants to scream and cry and throw a temper tantrum like a child, and he probably would if he weren't too busy throwing up into the toilet bowl.
In the morning, he won't remember pulling out his phone and typing out several messages to Sherlock. 'I hate u', 'fu you' and 'come back pleas I need u' are among them, and his phone's autocorrect is the only reason why they come out making any sense at all. There are several other messages in there that consist of strings of letters and gibberish that not even his phone could fix up.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the name "Sherlock Holmes" in his phone's address book is directly below the name "Mycroft Holmes", and shaky fingers tend to press a lot of wrong buttons. The first message Mycroft receives wakes him up and confuses him, but after the third, he realises that John is inebriated, and he opens up his own address book.
In the morning, John won't remember the recently demoted Detective Constable Greg Lestrade banging on the door to his flat, waking up Mrs Hudson in the process. He won't remember Greg standing there in the bathroom as he threw up the entire contents of his stomach, and he won't remember Greg talking to him for half an hour, forcing him to take sips of water and stay conscious until it's clear that he's not going to throw up in his sleep and choke on his own vomit. He won't remember Greg helping him upstairs and laying him in the recovery position in his bed, and he won't remember almost crying himself to sleep, mumbling a slurred "I miss you" before the darkness of unconsciousness engulfed him.
Ultimately, it's Greg who helps John begin to pull himself back together again. To an extent, it's out of guilt. He's certain that he's responsible for Sherlock's death; he knows he should have stayed on the man's side instead of turning his back, and he hates himself for it. Sherlock's death hurt him too, though not as much as it hurt John. How could it? Greg had never seen Sherlock treat anyone in the way that he treated John, and the two had somehow gone from strangers to one being of John&Sherlock, Sherlock&John in just a few short days. Of course losing Sherlock would be, for John, like losing a part of himself, and no one could possibly be hurting as much as he is. Maybe, just maybe, helping John begins to make up for a small portion of his mistakes.
It starts with a phone call the night after, after John has had enough time to sleep off his hangover. John doesn't mention anything of the night before, and Greg doesn't mention he was there. He makes small talk for a few minutes, before saying that he and John should go grab lunch sometime. John says, "Yeah, sure, that'd be great" in the tone of voice that clearly says, "I'm never going to call you up on that offer". So Greg keeps trying, with daily phone calls and periodic text messages until John finally agrees.
John holds his head up high, shoulders squared and mouth set in a hard line, but Greg has never seen him so broken. Even John's voice sounds empty, and the conversation is painfully forced, not flowing naturally as it had once so many months ago. He wonders if it will ever get back to that point again. He wonders if John will ever lose the haunted look in his eyes.
He asks John about therapy (he isn't going), about work (he has ignored all of Sarah's calls and doesn't think he has a job anymore), and about his blog (he has nothing to write about), and no matter how open the question is, John manages to answer in short, clipped sentences that make it clear that he wants to leave. The thought that maybe John has other places he needs to be this afternoon does cross Greg's mind, but when he asks, John doesn't even bother to lie and say that he does.
Greg has never been good at comfort, even when he can empathise. He's never been one to speak gently and kindly and dance around issues that he knows are going to hurt. So he decides to take the approach he knows so well, and be blunt. He tells John that he needs to get himself help, if not from his old therapist then from a new one. He tells John that he needs to get himself a new job, because the number in his bank account is not going to stay constant just because he's grieving, and he tells John that he can't live out the rest of his life in misery. He makes the mistake of saying "Sherlock wouldn't have wanted that", which only results in John snapping at him, saying that none of them ever knew what Sherlock wanted, before apologising and staring down at his knees ruefully. However, when they part their separate ways that afternoon, John does promise to keep Greg's words in mind, and that's all that Greg can really ask for.
It doesn't happen overnight, nor even in a week, but John makes the decision to take Greg's advice. He knows that he can't sit and grieve forever, and he wants to get through this as much as anyone would, so he pushes himself. He manages to find another job at another clinic, thanks to Sarah putting in a wonderful reference for him (kindly forgetting to mention the time he fell asleep at work, or the number of times he's had to leave abruptly before his shift has finished because of a text from a certain consulting detective), and though the first few weeks are hard and he comes home feeling exhausted both physically and mentally, he manages to work well enough to be liked by his boss and his colleagues, and he earns enough to keep him living in Baker Street, at least for the moment being.
He meets up with Greg for coffee regularly, at least once or twice a week. When a month has passed and John, though getting better, still appears to be struggling, Greg puts forward again the suggestion of getting help. John's initial response is to argue, to say that he did go back to therapy for a month and it did absolutely nothing for him, and so Greg then suggests that maybe he should look into someone who specialises in grief instead of PTSD. It takes some convincing, but eventually, John agrees, and Greg helps him look into finding a grief counsellor.
He starts off with two appointments a week; his counsellor's name is Bethany Lase, though she prefers to be called Beth. For the first few weeks, he can barely bring himself to open up at all, but Beth is patient and kind and, thankfully, easy to talk to, and so, ever so slowly, he begins to respond to her prompting. She is understanding and allows him to dance around issues to start with, but then she begins prompting more specifically, forcing him to talk about the things he'd rather avoid. It feels as though every therapy session opens up old wounds, but in the long run, it begins to feel as though it also stitches said wounds up more firmly.
After a good couple of months, his boss promotes him to a full-time employee, and so he has to rearrange his schedule. When he mentions this to Beth, she decides that he should continue with the counselling, but one session a week should suffice. She moves him to an evening timeslot, as it's the easiest way to fit it into his schedule.
There's a woman a few years younger than him who sees another counsellor at around the same time as him, and so they often end up in the waiting room together. For the first few weeks, they barely acknowledge each other's presence – after all, they see each other for only a few minutes before one of them gets called inside. One night, however, the counsellors are delayed, and so they strike up conversation to pass the time.
Her name is Mary Morstan. She's been seeing a counsellor for a couple of months longer than he has, and is now coping well enough to believe she'll only have a few weeks, a month at most, before she stops attending sessions. It was the death of her husband that sent her to counselling; like John, she wasn't coping as well as she should have been and knew she needed help. Though John feels horrible for thinking it, it's so comforting to find someone who understands. Despite having people like Greg and Mrs Hudson who have lost the same person, Mary is able to empathise with him more than anyone else.
After that night, they talk every week, in the five or ten minutes they manage to get before their sessions start. On the night of Mary's last session, she gives him her number and tells him to keep in touch.
Neither of them is really looking for a relationship. Perhaps that's why theirs works so well.
Their relationship progresses slower than any relationship John has had since he was in university, and it's perfect for that reason alone. John hasn't wanted to think about any romantic relationships at all since Sherlock's death. In fact, he hasn't wanted to think about relationships at all for a good few months while Sherlock was alive, either, because he had accepted the fact that his life with Sherlock was simply incompatible with dating. After Sherlock's death, he had just assumed that life without Sherlock was just as incompatible as well.
Mary isn't a woman he's met whom he is immediately attracted to and wants to go out with. Mary is a woman who becomes his friend. She's kind and sweet, and manages to be bubbly even though John knows what she must have gone through only months earlier. She's clever, too, to the point where he finds himself thinking one afternoon, Sherlock might have liked her, and above all, she's compassionate and empathetic. She knows exactly what John is going through, and is happy to give him all the space he needs, and to be with him when he needs that more. She turns out to be even easier to talk to than his counsellor (perhaps there's comfort in talking to someone who isn't documenting everything you say in a little black book), and he trusts her quickly. She trusts him too, and they open up to each other. He tells her about Sherlock, and she about her late husband, and with every word they speak, John's chest begins to feel just that tiny bit lighter.
John spends the first anniversary of Sherlock's death alone.
Everyone knows that this is what John wants and so everyone is understanding about it. Greg doesn't have to be told not to call, and Mary recognises that this is what John wants the moment he mentioned the date of Sherlock's death a few days earlier. He finds a plate of biscuits sitting on the kitchen table when he comes out of the shower, but other than that, Mrs Hudson gives him space. Though he has been doing a lot better, John is still grieving, and is grateful for the fact that his friends have allowed him to do that in peace.
He spends the morning at home, opening his mind to the thoughts that he usually suppresses when he's not with his counsellor. He thinks first of Sherlock's death, but then tries his best to push past that memory, and think instead of Sherlock's life, of the time that he did have with the man before it was torn so forcefully away from him. He thinks of wild cab chases through the backstreets of London, and of coming home to find Sherlock shooting the wall, and of adrenaline rushing through his body in moments when one of them has narrowly escaped death – moments that leave him feeling so unbelievably alive.
Despite the pain that Sherlock has now put him through for the past year, John does not regret meeting him. He knows he thought it at first; immediately following Sherlock's death, he found himself wishing he'd never met the man, so he'd never have to experience this, but now, John is able to say that he takes it back. The time he had with Sherlock was arguably the best of his life. He came home from the war feeling as though he had no reason to be alive, and Sherlock had given him purpose. Sherlock's death had torn that feeling away from him, and still a part of him feels empty, but he's able to look back now and realise that he's glad that he experienced that feeling of purpose at all.
John leaves the flat in the afternoon, catching a cab to the cemetery. As can only be expected, the cemetery is empty, and he's relieved to find it that way. The last thing he wants is to have to deal with people today. He stands in front of Sherlock's grave, wondering briefly if he should have brought flowers before deciding, no; Sherlock would only laugh at the sentiment, if he were capable of laughing anymore.
He talks aloud to the gravestone, feeling foolish at first, but it starts to feel natural after a few minutes. He says everything you'd expect him to say – that he misses Sherlock, that he's coping better now but he thinks he'll always miss Sherlock, and that he hopes that Sherlock isn't causing too much of a commotion up in heaven. John isn't necessarily a very religious man, but it's easier to believe that Sherlock's up there somewhere than it is to believe that he's gone entirely.
He talks about counselling, and about Mary. He tells Sherlock that he would have liked her, at least more than he liked any of the women John brought home. He talks about Greg and Mrs Hudson, saying that they, too, miss Sherlock immensely, even if their grief didn't seem as severe and as long lasting as John's.
He finishes again with a soft, "I miss you", reaching forward and putting his hand on the gravestone as if he's squeezing Sherlock's shoulder instead. If he tries hard enough, he can almost remember what it felt like to do so.
Did you love him? The voice in his head doesn't take him by surprise this time, even though it's been several months since he heard the question last.
He thinks of Mary. He thinks of how she's been so supportive of him and how he owes her a large chunk of his sanity. He thinks of how he feels about her, and it's clear that he does fancy her. He hasn't known anyone since university whom he has not been immediately attracted to but whom he has fallen for later, but yet there's no doubt that he does feel that way about her. Though he doesn't want to push her for anything – she has lost her husband, after all – he knows a large part of him would like to be with her romantically.
Did you love him? the voice asks.
Of course not, he replies in his mind. If I'd loved him, I would have wanted something more with him. And he gives Sherlock's gravestone a squeeze before withdrawing his hand and turning away.
Things don't suddenly become easier because he has been grieving for a year, but they do start getting better.
Getting out of bed in the morning stops feeling like a constant chore, and while there are some mornings, generally after an unpleasant night, that make him just want to pull the sheets up over his head and never face the world again, the number of mornings that do not feel like this begin to outnumber them. His nightmares become fewer and further between, and he begins to find himself able to fall into a restful sleep without the use of sleep aids. He manages to go for hours, and then days without consciously having to think about suppressing certain memories in his mind, and he manages to open his mind to fonder memories of Sherlock, rather than just his final memory of him.
He continues to meet up with Greg on a regular basis, now realising exactly how much Greg has helped him and how grateful he should be for that reason, and he also becomes closer and closer with Mary, seeing her almost every day. When she's not working, she joins him for lunch during his break at work, and they unintentionally form a tradition after his counselling session: she waits for him outside the building and they go out for dinner nearby her flat before walking back to her home together. The tradition continues even after he's stopped needing the sessions, only Mary meets him at his flat instead. One night, he takes a chance and, once they're standing outside her door, he leans forward to press a soft kiss to her cheek. She turns her head at the last minute and catches his lips with her own, and he starts introducing her as his girlfriend after that.
It is exactly one year, four months and eighteen days after Sherlock's death when, as he's lying in bed and beginning to fall asleep, John realises that, at least in that moment, he is content. It is the best feeling he has had in a long time.
After dating Mary for a few months, her family, apparently dying to meet him, invites John over for dinner. They spend the afternoon together, discussing how John should definitely mention that he's a doctor if he wants to immediately gain her father's respect. Before they get a cab to Mary's family's home, they stop by Baker Street so John can grab a jacket. He tells Mary he'll only be a moment before he dashes upstairs to his room, pulling open the wardrobe door. He's pulling his jacket off the coat hanger when something falls off the shelf above it, and he jerks his foot back just before it hits before bending down to pick it up.
He feels strange, almost as if he's in a dream, as he recognises the object as a scrapbook – the book in which John wrote about the cases he went on with Sherlock and in which he kept any important notes and documents pertaining to said cases. He leans back against the wall as he opens it up. A few odd bits and pieces flutter out to the floor, including a sticky note with Sherlock's handwriting on it. He remembers coming home to find the casebook open on the table one afternoon, Sherlock having gone through and stuck sticky notes on some of the pages where he felt the need to voice his opinion. He remembers finding some sticky notes of his own to add to the book in response.
He turns the page, and the picture on it – Sherlock standing on a rock at Dartmoor with an almost laughably serious expression on his face – causes a clenching sensation in his chest. He feels almost breathless as he stares down at the photograph, a picture of Sherlock alive and well and completely unaware of the future, contrasting with the final vision of Sherlock stuck in his mind. He runs his fingertips over the page, over the sticky notes, feeling the slight indent of Sherlock's handwriting.
Did you love him?
He hasn't had time to think when he hears Mary's voice calling from downstairs. He starts visibly, snapping the casebook shut hastily and shoving it into the wardrobe before he's consciously made the decision to keep it a secret from Mary. He pulls on his jacket and rushes downstairs, the voice returning as he's buttoning his jacket up.
Did you love him?
Of course not, he thinks as Mary slips her hand into his. If I'd loved him, I would have known before.
Dinner is nice. John is able to keep the casebook out of his mind without too much difficulty, grateful that both of Mary's parents are charismatic and keep the conversations flowing. Mary's father looks approving when he tells them that he's a doctor and Mary's mother has looked approving from the moment he walked through the door. They talk about John's career and about what it was like for him growing up, and they have plenty of embarrassing stories from Mary's childhood that make her blush and smile.
Then, of course, is the dreaded question: "How did you two meet?"
John doesn't even have time to panic over the question when Mary starts talking. She doesn't explain that they met through grievance counselling. Instead, a perfectly plausible story comes out about how they met through a mutual friend and clicked immediately, and Mary's parents nod and smile without a hint of scepticism on their faces. John reaches under the table and grabs Mary's hand, giving it a squeeze to thank her, thank her for knowing him so well, knowing what topic to avoid, knowing exactly what to do. She squeezes back, and their hands remain loosely entwined beneath the table until Mr Morstan decides to bring out dessert.
When John arrives home that night, he changes and gets himself ready for bed quickly. Now without the distraction of Mary and her family, there's only one thing he's interested in doing. He takes the book from the wardrobe, handling it as though it's something precious and delicate, and he carries it over to his bed. He spends hours flicking through pages after pages, completely losing track of the time as he lets all the memories come rushing back to him. Some of them hurt, while others make him stifle a laugh, but all of them make his heart twist inside his chest and the words God, I miss you run through his head.
A few months before the second anniversary of Sherlock's death, John moves in with Mary.
A part of him has always known that he would be moving out of Baker Street sooner or later. With all the memories attached to it, he's surprised he stayed there for as long as he did. Once upon a time, Baker Street was home, but it's not home without Sherlock. It's not home without body parts in the fridge and experiments on the table, it's not home without case notes scattered all over the place, and it's not home without the sound of a violin playing at ungodly hours of the night. Besides, the reason he moved into Baker Street in the first place was because he had a flatmate with whom he could split the rent. Having a full time job kept him living there for as long as he did (though Mrs Hudson might have helped by letting the rent slide once or twice during the first few months), but he's always known that he's either going to have to get a new flatmate or get a new flat, and the former simply isn't an option.
Mary helps him pack up his things. They spend hours folding up clothes and packing things up in boxes, ready to be piled into a cab to be taken away. Mary keeps conversation while she's there with him, but when she disappears to carry a box downstairs, John becomes aware of exactly how it feels to be moving away. A part of him doesn't want to, but that part of him only wants to be there if Sherlock is. Sherlock is gone, and so, too, must John leave.
As Mary takes the last box downstairs, John lingers by the doorway and stares into the now empty flat. There are no more books on the shelf or skulls on the mantelpiece; the flat doesn't look anything like it had before, and he has to take a moment. A voice in his mind that sounds too much like Sherlock's to not hurt mocks him for being sentimental, but he doesn't care. He needs to say goodbye.
"All right?" Mary asks as she returns, taking her place beside him. Her voice is soft and warm and her eyes filled with understanding.
"Yeah, fine," John replies, looking into the empty living room instead of glancing at her. "Just need a moment, that's all." He pauses for a moment, and then adds, "It feels sort of like I'm leaving a part of him behind."
She has that expression on her face that means that she knows exactly what John is thinking and what he's feeling. She reaches out and takes hold of his hand, lacing her fingers through the gaps in between his. "You loved him," she says simply. The look on her face cuts off his protest, and she clarifies, "Not in the usual way, but you did."
John can't help but think that maybe she is right.
After Mary has fallen asleep that night, John climbs out of bed and makes his way downstairs as quietly as he can manage, turning on the light in the living room. They've unpacked the important things, but most of his belongings are sitting in boxes in the corner. It doesn't take him long to find the one he's looking for, and he opens it with a pair of scissors. He takes out Sherlock's violin and his scarf before he manages to get to the scrapbook sitting on the bottom of the pile. He carries it and Sherlock's scarf over to the sofa, draping the scarf over his legs before opening the book.
Just as he had on that night so many months ago, John stays awake for hours, flipping through the pages. He reads every word, paying more attention to the ones that Sherlock wrote, hearing them so clearly in his mind in Sherlock's voice. He studies the photographs, letting his mind absorb those images of Sherlock to replace the more prominent image of Sherlock's lifeless body on the ground. He lets down his walls and allows himself feel everything that the pictures and the words provoke. It hurts, but pain isn't the only feeling there. There's a whole ocean of them, some unpleasant and some nicer, and one that he's never put a label on before.
Did you love him? asks the voice inside his mind.
Yes, he replies, and he doesn't need to explain it any more than that.
Author's Note: Just a quick disclaimer before I end, on the topic of Sherlock's scarf. It was Tumblr user "fridafrag" who pointed out that Sherlock had a different scarf in season two, and she also had the headcanon that John was the one who had bought Sherlock a new scarf. That is where said idea has come from originally.
Many thanks to Sami (who you can find on Tumblr under the name of himynameissamijane) for taking the time out of her busy schedule to beta this for me.
And, of course, thank you to all of you who took the time to read this. It means a lot. Thank you!