John Believes in Sherlock Holmes

The darkness kept on coming, like it always did. John knew there was no escape yet still he felt the desperate urge to run; to scream; to get away. It was closer now; John could feel it clutching at his heart like ghostly claws, tearing him apart. He had to get away. Without thinking he turned and ran, twisting left and right, left and right. He was almost there, he was almost…

It had him. He could feel it tugging at his body, raising him upwards into the blackened sky he knew so well. With a sense of dread he felt his head tilting downwards. Powerless to stop it, John watched from above as his best friend, Sherlock Holmes, hurtled to his death.

John woke drenched in sweat and shakily reached over to his bedside table, blindly uncapping the bottle of pills that lay there. He stuffed one into his mouth and turned on his lamp.

"Dammit Sherlock," He muttered to himself. Checking the clock, he realised he'd better get up; he had his therapist appointment in an hour. To be perfectly honest John wasn't sure why he continued to go, it wasn't as if he enjoyed reliving his best friend's suicide every week.

That was another thing, the suicide. Everyone John knew had just accepted the fact that Sherlock would take his own life, especially after his rooftop murder of actor, Richard Brooks. But to John that didn't fit. It would never fit. Sherlock was the most logical person he knew; there was no way he would have taken his own life. He would have had to have been murdered, or maybe- No, John wouldn't let himself think that. Sherlock Holmes was dead. The sooner he admitted that, the sooner he could get on with living his own life.

Gulping down a bitter black coffee- there was no milk, he had forgotten to buy any- John rushed out of his flat, slamming the door in the process. After hailing a taxi, he got in and told the cabbie his therapist's address. With nothing more to say he sat back and tried to relax.

Looking out of the window kept John busy. He sunk into his own world, people watching, seeing things that were only half there- a tall, lanky figure; a man with a mop of dark hair and once, the shadow of a black trench coat passing around a corner. But these were just hallucinations he reminded himself, nothing to get his hopes up over, just another side effect of death.

As he reached his therapists office, John got out of the cab and paid the driver, barely glancing up as he collected his change. He turned away, towards the overly polished building that was home to all sorts of mental health advisors, and in the corner of his mind he realised that the taxi had not yet driven off. He was about to enter the building when a voice spoke from behind him. "It's not real you know. All of this pain you're going through, it's not real."

Without turning round, John realised that he knew that voice, would recognise it anywhere- the soft masculinity, the velvet undertones that rather unsubtly pointed at academia, and an almost insufferable finality about the statement. "It's not real".

John couldn't believe it; he had hardly dared to hope. Three long years of grief and he was actually alive? "Y… You can't be here," John stammered, still refusing to turn around, "You're gone, you told me yourself, I… I saw the body…" He stopped, suddenly confused, he did see a body, but how close did he actually get to it before he was knocked over by that bloody bike? How close did he get before the fall made his vision blur and he couldn't see anything clearly, let alone a body? "And even if it is you," He began again, "Why didn't you come and find me? Why didn't you tell me?" At this last syllable John's voice broke and his shoulders shook in a last-ditch effort to maintain his composure, "You could have told me Sherlock."

"I did it to protect you," came the voice again, this time heavy with emotion, "They were after me John, and if they had known I was still alive then they would have killed you in a heartbeat. You were just a job to them; what was I supposed to do?" He was pleading now, his tone full of regret and John felt a deep sorrow wrenching at his heart. One more thing, he needed one more reassurance before he finally forgave this begging man.

"What about you Sherlock," he said, his voice surprisingly steady, "What am I to you?" There was a pause, and then the man spoke, slowly and calmly as if realising a sudden truth.

"You are, and always have been my closest friend, and I would never let anything happen to you, Doctor John Watson."

Finally hearing the words he had been waiting three years to hear, John turned around, slowly raising his eyes to look at the speaker. There, standing just outside the parked cab, garbed in a dishevelled black trench coat, hair covered by a rather unattractive deerstalker hat, was his best friend Sherlock Holmes. His face was shadowed from fatigue, but his tear-filled eyes shone brightly underneath his cap.

"How are you John?" he asked quietly. John, too filled with emotion to speak properly replied in a hoarse whisper, "Fantastic. How about you?" Sherlock paused for a second, before giving a watery smile. "Brilliant," He replied.