"Goodbye, John."

"SHERLOCK!"

2012: Monday, June 11

01:09

I awoke with a start, my palms sweaty and the covers damp. Dammit. I could hear the commotion in the next room over, likely Harry. I must have been screaming again. With a sigh, I sat up in my bed and looked around the sparse room. This was temporary- living in my sisters flat just felt strange and unnatural. She wasn't a bad flatmate, but we still weren't on the best terms and despite how hard she tried, she wasn't…

I shook my head to clear it. Thinking those thoughts, it was self-destructive. He was gone. Moriarty was an actor. It was all fake, a scheme, a game for a bored child in the body of a man.

That's what everyone said.

That's what he had said.

There were footsteps on the floorboards out in the hall, and a moment later the door creaked slowly open. "John?" came Harry's soft voice, "Are you okay?"

A forced smile on my face, I looked up at her. "Yeah," I said, "I fine. Just had a bad dream, that's all."

"John…" I could hear an ache in her voice, telling me she wanted to say something more. She probably wanted to talk- I had been having the same nightmare for the past two weeks, ever since-

"John." Harry took a cautious step into my room, making her way over to my bed and sitting on the edge of it. Her hand felt foreign and unwelcome as she placed it in an attempt to be comforting on my back. "John, I think you should start seeing your therapist again. You have been having these dreams since… Since he died, John. You need to see someone."

I sat still and let her talk. This wasn't the first time she suggested it, and she wasn't the first to. Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade. Molly. Sarah. Dammit, even Mycroft had said something along the lines of it. iMycroft/i.

And deep down, I knew they were all right. I couldn't keep going on like this. It was unhealthy, and I was only hurting myself and the people around me in the process. But I couldn't bring myself to go to my therapist again. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard anyone tried… They would never be able to understand what I was going through- because none of them understood Sherlock Holmes. I was the only one who truly knew him in his whole life. And I think that there were only five people on the planet who actually missed him. But that didn't matter, because he was gone. Nothing mattered anymore- Sherlock Holmes had brought out the person I wished I was. And now he was gone. He wanted so much to be more, more than ordinary. But in the end, his name simply blew away in the wind like any other, forgotten, unsullied, and only to come to rest on a black headstone. I couldn't even say his name allowed. I didn't want to. I had heard somewhere that no one truly dies until their name is said by the person closest to them.

And I would do whatever was in my power to keep him alive. If I never said his name, he could never die.

"Harriet…" I said softly, not looking at her, "Will this ever end?"

I could feel her body stiffen slightly, probably surprised by my use of her first name as opposed to her nickname. She knew something was bothering me when I called her Harriet. She knew I was seriously pondering something, or had a difficult decision to make.

"It's just that… nothing feels right. Me being here. I don't exist without ihim/i. John Watson isn't here anymore. I don't understand why he left me behind.

Why…"

"John," she said sternly, drawing my eyes to hers and staring into them fiercely, "Shut-up."

I remained silent and sully as she stared determinedly at me. "Don't do anything stupid or I fucking swear-"

I cut her off with my best attempt at a smile. "Go back to bed, Harry. I'll make that appointment, if it would make you feel better." She looked shocked that I had complied, but smiled and silently returned to her room. I let out a deep sigh of relief as I heard her bedroom door close down the hall. I knew I was a burden to her, but she was handling it better than I thought she would. She was a good sister, despite our differences.

I stood slowly, my right leg giving a bit as I limped over to the small window and opened it, breathing in the fresh nighttime air. My limp had returned after he fell. I wondered what my therapist would have to say about that when I went to that damned appointment I had just committed to. But that didn't really matter, it didn't really change anything. I rested my back against the wall and sank to the ground, sitting beneath the stream of cool air flowing into my room. I always had preferred the outdoors to cramped claustrophobic spaces.

As I sat silently on the cold floor, I could feel my eye's watering slightly. I hadn't cried since the fall. Not once. I woke up sometimes with damp cheeks, and then there was that day two weeks ago. The doctors had said that I had some traces of some sort of drug in my system. They were very confused, but it had explained my disorientation. But I had never truly cried, never really broken down. I blinked once, and it was as if that slight drop of water in my eye had never existed.

I felt bad. Sherlock Holmes deserved more.

Across the room, on my virtually empty desk, my phone lit up with a single beep and drew me out of my thoughts. I dragged myself over to it and check to see that the message was from an unknown number. I read it slowly, confused.

"Let's have dinner," it read. I sighed and dropped the phone onto my bed. Must've been a wrong number. I stretched and looked towards my window, detecting the faint scent… of cigarette smoke? At this hour?

I stumbled over to the window, tripping once and falling down- I still wasn't fully used to minding my leg- before I made my way to it and looked curiously out. The street was oddly devoid of all human life- the only evidence that anyone might have been there was the fading red glow of a half-smoked cigarette resting in the middle of the sidewalk beneath my window.

I shook my head and slowly shut the window, returning to my bed in hopes of getting an hour or two of sleep before work in the morning- it was hard enough well rested.

Little did I know how much had been set into motion that calm, lonesome summer night.