BREATHING AGAIN
If you now ask John Watson how his life had been to spend three years without Sherlock Holmes after that gruesome affair at Reichenbach Falls,
he will jokingly answer you it had been easier and definitely less dangerous.
He will joke about a nicer and cleaner flat, long and restoring nights of sleep, non-toxic meals and no kidnappings at all.
If you are not one of his closest friends -one of his two closest friend, Lestrade and Sarah (though he still regrets throwing his chance with her away)- you will believe those words, 'cause he speaks them with his light, soft voice and a pretty smirk on his lips; you will totally miss a strange glimpse in his eyes.
The truth is, Sherlock Holmes was not the only dead man between the two of them.
John, however, had never seemed to acknowledge that.
Of course, he had been sad, desperate perhaps; he had felt lonely and abandoned.
He'd felt the pain coming from his limping leg, he'd tasted the bitter and desalted taste of his own tears in many dark, cold nights,
when he had woken up sweaty and shattered after a vicious nightmare. Or, at least, he had thought of feeling and doing all that.
What he had never seemed to notice was how dead he had been.
On the job, he had behaved like a perfect automaton: arriving on time, visiting patients and leaving on time,
not realising that he had barely told Sarah three cold words during the entire day and that he had showed no sign of his usual empathy and love to his patients.
Off duty, he had lived in a cold flat, eaten tasteless food and read the same dull page of the same dull book for ages.
At night, he had slept agitated sleeps, just to wake up the morning after and start all over again.
Useless, spent, dead.
When Sherlock had reappeared in front of him for the first time, he had fainted.
When he had regained consciousness, he had felt, for the first time in three years, pain, for his head had hit the ground with a thud.
He had felt Sherlock's arms embracing him, too.
He had looked in his friend's eyes, and had recognised the sorrow and the loneliness in them as his own.
Something inside him had broken loose.
He had started crying and laughing and shivering and yelling and touching and kissing and reassuring and feeling hungry thirsty desperate
bored amused excited lonely aroused ANGRY HAPPY COMPLETE and BREATHING again.
Things got better after that.
Things got better after Sherlock.
John was finally living again, he could see it in other people's face when they looked at him.
He could feel it inside himself every moment.