One. Two. Three. Four. John began to count the points on the ceiling where the lines crossed. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. He'd had done it countless times. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There was a total of seven hundred and thirty. Thirteen. Fourteen. Seven hundred and thirty little dots. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seven hundred and thirty days since John Watson last saw him. What a coincidence. It was the second anniversary and he was celebrating by not leaving the bed. A break. Usually he walked all the way to his chair in the parlor before collapsing and shutting down for the day. He no longer cared about moving, or sleeping, or eating, or talking to people or doing anything. He was so empty inside, like a pit of nothingness had fought its way down his throat and taken up residence. He had been transformed into an abyss of first pain, then aching, and finally he withered into nothing.
Watson heard the distant calls of Mrs. Hudson through his relentless reverie; acknowledging her little more than as a person in a dream. He extracted his arm from his shadow like body, and reached across towards the gaping window, covered in frost and letting in frigid air. Hello Sherlock. He'd been there every day, in the window, and they always had a nice little stare. John snapped the window shut and pulled the curtain across, covering up Sherlock's face. It was a nice little ritual the man and the "ghost" had. John, of course, thought the figure was just a figment of his deranged mind. But today, there came a faint knock. John ignored it, used to seeing and hearing things that were most certainly not genuine. But there, there! faint, a timid ping against glass. John stretched hisneck around, facing the window. When he saw a silhouette in the lank, damp flowered curtain, the broken-down man tried to yell for Mrs. Hudson so she could get out and be safe, though he still doubted his presence of mind. To no avail, he tried to voice his concern. He hadn't talked, and had scarcely drank anything since that day in the cemetery. His voice seemed to have gone dry, crinkled and old and dusty like the ancient pages of a family bible, passed down through the generations. He knew, however, that the kind old lady would never come into see him in Sherlock's former room, for the sight of John's ever present gun lying by his side, often in his hand, upset her greatly. John swiveled stiffly onto his opposite side, now facing the window. He heard a slight noise, only detectable to a military man who had been living in near silence for two years. The window slid open with a grating noise. A slim hand reached around and grasped the curtain. The long, bony fingers slowly pulled back to reveal a beautifully sculpted arm, a shoulder, a head, a face. A very familiar face. A face with beautiful eyes and a mouth, lips that opened. A mouth that formed into different shapes, with sounds being dragged along the back end. A mouth that manipulated and twisted, molded itself into one simple word that took so much effort to create, for so long had not been said, for so long had not been heard. "John."