Afterwards, it all happens very fast.
John is still sitting on the pavement, staring straight ahead, brain still buzzing with movement, when the ambulance whisks Sherlock off in a flurry of sound. A nurse says something close to his ear. John doesn't hear it or understand it or feel anything but the cold breath on his neck. She helps him to his feet and he doesn't look at her. Someone wraps a shock blanket around his shoulders. He can't feel his fingertips but doesn't remember if he ever could. Suddenly he's trying to remember what it felt like to feel.
Someone says, "Do you need to go to hospital?"
He asks where they've taken Sherlock, and if he could go there, please. Hours later and his back is pressed into cold white sheets and he's staring up at a cold white ceiling and the air smells like disinfectant and he wants to get so bloody mad at Sherlock but he doesn't feel a thing.
…
Lestrade comes by 221B in the early morning when John is released. John has stopped speaking entirely aside from short, uttered phrases to Mrs. Hudson. Yes, I'll take a cuppa. Yes, I'll take that box. Sherlock would have wanted me to —
"It feels sort of empty now, doesn't it?"
John looks around. All of Sherlock's clutter has been cleared, packed away in neat boxes tucked into a corner. John says, "Haven't noticed," and looks down at his shoes.
Lestrade purses his lips like he's going to say something else. Like he's going to say he's sorry. That he believed Sherlock all along. That it was such a shame he'd go like that. Suicide and all. John feels bitterness rising up in his throat like hot bile.
Instead, Lestrade says, "You must have gone through a lot."
A puff of air releases from John's lungs before he can swallow it. "Get out." He nods towards the door. His voice sounds like it's full of broken glass. "Please."
Mrs. Hudson peers from behind the doorway, and the look is of betrayal and sadness and a million other things, and she says nothing, but she gestures Lestrade out, a hand on his back, until John can't see him anymore and he can breathe again. And that's when he realizes he needs to leave 221B and never have to stare through the bullet holes in the wall, never have to think about what it's like on the other side, as if they weren't there at all.
…
The papers call him a "fake genius." A clinically insane narcissist. A tragic villain. The papers post photos of Richard Brooke, the innocent actor, shot to death by Sherlock Holmes, the criminal mastermind who had the whole city fooled. They talk about what a tragedy this all was. What a poor man Richard Brooke had been. What a shame that Sherlock Holmes turned out to be so very ordinary.
John's therapist writes, "Still has trust issues," down in her little book. She tells him to write down everything that happens to him again. She tells him not to go looking for beautiful strangers. She asks him why he's limping again. All questions he doesn't understand, orders he doesn't follow. She tells him to start dating again.
And so John dates again.
…
Each date is the same. A coffee shop downtown, a pretty woman across from him. She talks about her cats and her work and asks him if he is recently divorced. No, he says. Not at all. He says he is unemployed. Worked alongside a private detective for a while, but plans fell through. He says he has a sister he loves very much. Doesn't see her often.
Sherlock met him for the first time, just once, and told John everything he knew about Harry from the moment he saw his phone. John thought it was brilliant. And now he lies to girls about his lovely sister and her lovely house and his lovely relationship with her. And they eat it up along with their blueberry muffins and swallow it down with their decaf coffee and he hates every single one of them.
…
All the newspapers want interviews. They want to know if the great Sherlock Holmes could even have fooled his flatmate, his companion, his partner. They want to know so much that John feels like he'd never be able to tell anyone. Did Sherlock say anything to you when he jumped? Did you see him hit the ground?
He'd tell them that Sherlock was a really great man. He was not a tragic villain, a narcissistic criminal, but a great hero. But he knows that it's not what they want to hear. They want the story about the downfall of an insane man. They don't want the truth.
Take a lie and wrap it up in truths. Sherlock Holmes was a great man. And they were lucky enough for him to have been a good one.
…
"Recently divorced?"
John looks down at the swirling foam in his coffee. He says, "No." Without looking up, as an afterthought, he tags, "Recently separated."
He'd forgotten her damned name and couldn't recall it if he tried, but she looked genuine when she touched his hand. "I'm sorry. You must be sad."
He glances up at her and for a second thinks he saw a great, tall man, with dark hair and curly curls, and presses his thin lips together. "Yes. I'm just trying to move on."
She smiles at him and he knows that he hasn't.