"Hello, Mycroft,"
John acknowledged Sherlock's brother as he entered the room; Mycroft nodded in return. John grinned.
"It's nice to see you here, you hardly ever come," John began.
Mycroft pursed his lips. "I find it dampens my spirit."
"Well, you should make an effort to be here more often. He needs his brother."
"It's no difference to him. It's not as if he could tell, John."
"The monitor shows a steadier heartbeat when you're around, Mycroft. I pay attention to it."
"I'm sure you do." He feigned a small grin.
"So what brings you here then, Mycroft? Just visiting?" John asked, casual.
Mycroft suddenly darkened. His eyes were grave. He cleared his throat and stared straight at John. "You need to let him go, John."
John's eyebrows furrowed. "Who?"
"Sherlock, John, who else?"
"Mycroft, why would I do that?" John scoffed, dismissing Mycroft's proposal. "That's ridiculous."
Mycroft seemed hesitant, tip-toeing around his thoughts and choosing words carefully. He spoke slow. "It's been ten months. Nothing's changed. The doctors tell us he is beyond the point of return, John; there's nothing left to hold onto."
"That's not true!"
"No, John," Mycroft sighed. "You don't understand."
"You don't understand!" John spread his arms, guarding Sherlock's body, involuntarily—instinctively—defensive of it. "He's still here, Mycroft, why can't you see that?"
"I can't see it because he's not, John!" Mycroft hissed through gritted teeth. John flinched. He looked shocked, almost confused. Despite the delusion he was saturated in, he felt the undertone of Mycroft's words. His face fell.
"W-why do you say that?" He stuttered. John saw Mycroft violently biting the interior of his cheek. After a second of heavy silence, Mycroft breathed a slightly shaky sigh. He cleared his throat and for the moment, let his shoulders and stiff posture drop. John's eyes were developing a layer of mist as his lip twitched.
"Look at him, John."
He opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but not before Mycroft interrupted, calmly; slowly.
"You're a doctor. Look at him, as a doctor."
John stayed frozen in his opened-mouth position. Pools of moisture in his eyes contorted his vision, but he still did as Mycroft said. He turned his head and looked down at his friend. He stared and stared and although it was staring right back at him, his mind couldn't bring itself to put one and two together. Confusion was evident on his face.
Now, inescapably shaky and weak with grief, Mycroft spoke again.
"Look," Mycroft said, in a slow and cracking voice, "at where you are." John did as Sherlock's brother said.
He looked at the room they were in; all three of them. No longer could John avoid the facts presented to him.
The illusion John's mind had created—the hospital room, the beeping heart rate monitor, the pale rose color in Sherlock's cheeks— all dissolved and were replaced, one by one, by toe tags, blankets laid over lumps, and the disturbing blue bruises on his friend's skin.
A morgue.
John sank down slowly, grasping onto Sherlock's bedside desperately to keep himself from crumbling onto the floor. He became lightheaded when he noticed he'd forgotten to breathe. As he took trembling breaths the sickness did not leave, but intensified his insides began convoluting and an unsteady stabbing pain became present in his heart.
"He's been here, like this, for several days," Mycroft began in a sturdier voice.How was he so composed? John demanded from inside his head. He would have spoken aloud if he could ever get enough air to do so. "He's been embalmed. He's supposed to be buried tomorrow in the morning. They brought me here to tell you."
"To get me away from him," John wheezed. The effort it took to speak the words left him ready to faint. He leaned his head against the side of the metal cot where Sherlock had been laid and took several deep breaths, restoring himself to physical regularity.
"Yes."
John shook his head vehemently. "That won't happen."
"John, you need to leave this illusion—this lie—behind. He's been in a coma for months, and now he's dead. John, you need to move along—"
"You disgust me, Mycroft." John growled. "You really do."
Mycroft was unaffected. "There is nothing left to hold on to."
"Leave me," John demanded in a low tone.
"He is to be buried tomorrow morn—"
"Leave!"
The howl echoed in the empty room. Mycroft involuntarily stumbled back, shocked. For some number of hours, he did not leave, but watched as John Watson of Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, John Watson the army doctor, moaned and sobbed into his dead brother's chest. He watched as John went from delicately stroking Sherlock's brown curls and almost inaudibly sniveling, to brutally banging on the metal morgue cart. Mycroft watched as John collected all the blankets off the bodies in the morgue and piled them into a corner. He watched his brother's only friend pull Sherlock's body from the cart, and sit him down on the mound of cotton he'd created; he saw every tear that fell from John Watson's cheek whenever he went, "Come on, Sherlock, come on," and had to straighten up Sherlock's collapsed body. Finally, as John started conversing with the body, laughing and smiling despite the steady stream of water coming from his eyes, Mycroft collected his things. Without a word, he left the morgue. Leaning on the metal door, worn, he dialed a number.
"We're not going to get him to go anywhere, Greg,"
"I never expected him to. We still need to try. Sherlock would have wanted him to move on."
Mycroft rubbed his forehead. "Would he have?"
Greg sighed in return. "I don't know, but he can't keep on like this."
Mycroft began nodding, but then caught himself. "Why not, though?"
"What do you mean 'why not'?"
He contemplated the situation for a moment. "He's perfectly happy with his illusion," Mycroft peered in through the morgue door window. He saw John lying on his back, animatedly talking to the body that was now lying on the floor as well. "Why not just let him be?"
"He needs to live a real life, Mycroft."
"Would he be happy, Greg? In this real life?" There was a long interval of silence as Greg considered that point. Mycroft continued watching John, who was now sitting, but doubling over laughing. Would he ever laugh like that in real life?
"No," Greg declared, finally.
"He'll come out of it when he's good and ready."
"If he's ever good and ready."
"Yes."
"Alright."
Mycroft nodded to himself. "Goodbye, then."
"Goodbye, Mycroft."
He ended the call but kept the phone in his hands, toying with it, thinking for a minute. Mycroft then called another number.
"Miss Hooper?"
"Uh, yes, Mycroft?"
"Give John his skull."
"Excuse me?"
"Please."
"Mycroft, you don't believe he'd think it a bit, strange?"
"Miss Hooper, he's been flatmates with Sherlock Holmes, I think he deserves more credit than that. This is all we can do for John."
"Uh-okay, then, alright Mycroft."
"Thank you, Molly."
"Not a problem, Mycroft."
Molly Hooper's feet made small tapping noises on the wood flooring in front of the flat's door. Nervously, she shifted left to right, waiting for the door to open. When it did, she was staring at a very tattered, very tired looking John Watson.
"Hello, John," She tried to say as upbeat as she could, without being inappropriately amenable.
John nodded. He didn't say any more. Molly shifted again.
"Uh, Mycroft told me to give this to you," she gingerly placed in John's hands the box containing the skull. "I'm sorry, John. That was all we could do."
He opened the box a crack, looking inside for a moment. He nodded again, and swallowed hard. "It's really alright, Molly. Thank you."
John didn't take his eyes off of the box. Molly began a quick and anxious rampant of, "I'm really very sorry…" when John began to talk quietly. Molly bit down on her tongue.
"I'm glad the I've seen you," John started. "I don't think anyone plans on being around me for now, and it's nice to see someone sometimes. You're a very enjoyable person, Molly. Very kind. I'm sorry if I'm unbearable. I appreciate you coming to give me him back. I'm sorry if I'm not making and sense, I—"
It was here where Molly hugged John, ending his rant.
"It's all alright, John. You're going to be just fine,"
John hugged her back, fervently. "No I'm not, Molly. I'm not…"
Molly broke off the hug, and led John inside his 221B flat. She wordlessly sat him down in his armchair and took the box out of his hands, and put the skull on the coffee table in front of him. He looked confused. Molly gestured to it with her hands.
"Go on. Talk to him."
"What?"
Molly gestured, encouragingly, again.
"I-I can't, Molly." How many times he had been told he needed to move on. Now he was being told to go back.
"Really, John." Molly smiled reassuringly. "It's okay."
John swallowed the nervous feeling in his throat. He rubbed his hands together anxiously and gave sort of a nervous laugh. "Uh, hi, Sherlock…"
With that, Molly Hooper guided John Watson back into his world. She guided him back to Sherlock, and watched the two of them become acquainted again. Soon enough John was hardly aware of Molly's presence, and she silently walked out of the flat, knowing she'd done something good for John Watson the army doctor.
She helped him back into his delusion; back to where he was happy.