Goodbye, John.
The words echo through my numb mind, sometimes soft and quiet, sometimes loud as a jackhammer, but still those two words. Lingering there. Always lingering. Even after two months of reading paper after paper, they linger. Two months of watching the bold headlines dwindle and sink further into the depths of the news, morphing from a shocking story of a genius's suicide into an article about how everyone knew he was a fake, into a few lines about his deceit, into a small picture with a caption on the back of the page into an absence of the detective in the public's eye at all.
Why are you here, John?
She knows why I'm here. I'm here because my best friend, my only friend, my only connection to the world I love and once knew, is dead. But she makes me say it anyway, and I choke on the words.
He's dead.
She tells me that grief is natural, that what I'm feeling will pass eventually. I thought it would too. I hoped and prayed it would, hoped against hope, against the dull, throbbing pain that emerged in my leg the moment Sherlock's body hit the ground. I hoped, even as I lifted that coffee cup with my left hand and saw it start to tremble. I hoped, even as, one day, after procrastinating and procrastinating and procrastinating, I buckled and grabbed that hateful cane out of its long-forgotten corner. The hope is gone now. I watched as the hope stood tall on the edge of despair, and took a step forward. I watched as my friend did the same, night after night. I dreamt I was there. I dreamt that I could help, but I didn't. I stood there, watching his lips form the words I invented Moriarty, watching his dark form tumble through the air.
There was nothing you could have done.
I could have saved him. I could have prevented it all happening. It's my fault, all of this grief, this sorrow, this endless, mind-numbing pain, because I did something I never should have.
Don't turn people into heroes, John. They don't exist, and if they did I wouldn't be one of them.
He was a hero, though. And I let him grow bigger and bigger in my mind, turning into more than a man, into more than a hero, into more than a legend. Swollen with his own genius, his own intellect, until he was perfectly giant.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, isn't that the saying?
I'm still waiting on that miracle, Sherlock.
-x-
"It's been two years to the day," is how I begin this particular therapy session, "and it doesn't hurt any less."
The eyes of my doctor, hopeful for a breakthrough on this, the second anniversary of his death, flash disappointment. I sigh. Not a long-suffering sigh, like in the days when I still lived at 221b Baker Street with Sherlock, but a drawn-out, sad type of sigh layered with remorse.
"Don't wait for it to hurt less, John," the woman in front of me says, "wait to become accustomed to the pain." I look out the window and try to breathe past the aching of my heart.
"I am accustomed to the pain. I've been accustomed to it for a long time." A crease appears between my eyes as I glare out at the world, still turning.
"Shouldn't it at least fade, just a little bit?" I ask, almost angry. "Shouldn't I be able to hold my hands out steady? Shouldn't I be able to walk?" With an impatient gesture, I fling my cane away from me. It hits the floor with a dull thud.
"John, you have to be patient…" She begins, but I don't let her finish.
"I've been patient for two years. I'm not going to be patient anymore."
My words drop out of my mouth like stones, and they thump down onto the carpet by my cane. Subject closed. For a few moments there is silence, and I examine the squared tips of my fingers.
"You've started blogging again," the woman begins, shuffling her notes around in my file and shifting positions in her chair.
"Yeah, a little bit."
"But not on your old blog?"
"No. I've started a new one. Only my sister reads it, and evidently you as well."
"I think you should put something else on there, John. The old blog. A finale post, if you will."
"I did that already," I sigh. My fingers reach up to my forehead and try to iron out the mile-deep wrinkles.
"I know, but that was so short of an entry, and so long ago. Try to post something else, something that commemorates the memory of Sherlock better. I think that will help you get over him."
For a moment I sit, staring out the massive window into the garden.
"Promise me you'll try?"
I don't answer for what seems like forever. "Sure I'll try."
-x-
I sit in my small, cold, pristine flat, so unlike the homely cluttered thing I had shared with Sherlock. My cane sits ready at my elbow as I open my laptop.
It's been a while.
My fingers type the four words into my old blogging page. Then they freeze. What else is there to say? What more could they possibly want from me, the best friend of a fake detective? My left hand trembles over the keys.
I know that most of you probably don't even read this blog anymore, but…
My eyes flick to the right of the screen where the number still sits, frozen at 1895. It's been stuck for two years. Just like me.
But I thought that those few true fans deserved more than those sparse last words. So I've decided to tell the whole story of his death. The real story, though, not what you've been hearing on the news. The story that no one likes to hear, the story straight from the horse's mouth, as the saying goes.
"Straight from the horse's mouth." I repeat the words out loud. "Come on, then, Sherlock. Tell your story."
The laptop slams shut and I limp out the door.
-x-
The red-eyed waitress serves me my tea at the dimly-lit restaurant where Sherlock had once cured me of my limp.
"Can I get you anything else tonight, Dr.?" she asks. I've become somewhat of a regular during her shift.
"No, Mary, thank you." She nods and walks away, leaving me alone with the small porcelain cup. I raise it to my lips, hand trembling slightly. The rain tapping on my window is the only sound to be heard.
"You might want to blow, good doctor," A very familiar voice sounds behind me, "The tea they serve here is scalding."
Startled, I dart around to see an old, thin man, eyes half-lidded and covered in cataracts, hunched over a piece of toast with jam. In my haste, the tea sloshes over the edge of my cup.
I curse as the liquid soaks through my trousers and burns the skin below.
Instantly the man behind me apologizes, and I look up from the blossoming stain to his face, sagging jowls covered in grey stubble, ears protruding, forehead veiled by a brown fedora.
"Terribly sorry to give you a fright, sir," he mumbles.
"No, it's quite alright." Having heard his voice again, it sounds much less like Sherlock's. It's too gravely. Too shaky.
"You just reminded me of a friend, that's all." Abandoning my tea, I stand up and walk to the door, stumbling slightly. The old man's hand brushes my side as he steadies me.
"Thanks."
"It's the least I can do."
And then I am in the rainy night air, calling a cab to take me home.
-x-
The cab drives away before I check my trouser pocket for my key. My hand reemerges with nothing but a ball of lint and some coins. I can feel the misty rain soak through my jacket, the clouds all but obscuring any light from the sky.
A sigh slips out, this time extremely long-suffering. It's nearly two in the morning. Nobody will answer if I buzz.
"Excuse me, Doctor," The same voice from the restaurant calls out, and I look around, leaning heavily on my cane as I turn. Through the drizzle I see the old man, already wet to his skin.
"You dropped your keys by my table," he explains, "But you left before I could say anything. I hope you don't mind I followed you home." A thin hand proffers my keys, glinting in the dull streetlight. Gratefully, I take them.
"Do come in and dry off," I say as the door swings open.
His steps are soft behind me as we enter.
"May I use your bathroom?" he asks, and I nod. In a moment, he is gone and I am at my table, the laptop open and beckoning. I've decided to have another go at the blog post.
"As the saying goes." I murmur what I wrote last, all thoughts of the strange old man in my bathroom out of my mind.
So here it goes.
As I write the story, a weight seems to lift off my shoulders. I'd never addressed the details before, not to Mrs. Hudson, not to Molly, not to any of my mates at work, not to anybody. Not even to myself. Once or twice, my cheek tickles and I reach to scratch it, surprised when my hand comes away wet. I hear the sound of the man opening the bathroom door as if it's from far away.
"Goodbye, John."
Then with a flick of his wrist, he tossed his phone to the side. Those long, thin arms spread wide, allowing the wind to catch and tug at his jacket. He looked like a great bloody bird, about to take off. But he didn't take off. He leaned forward. And then he fell.
The memory bubbles up to the surface again, and I feel the same shock, the same agony, the same horror. Only this time, I let myself feel. I let it wash over me, along with all those memories of Sherlock. Happy and sad. Annoying and exhilarating. Every adventure we ever had together, I relive in a fraction of a second, and when the tide of memories ebbs, I feel a little better. A little lighter. Something lifts in the back of my brain, and the corners of my mouth do too.
The blinding pain I felt when Sherlock died is now more of a remembered ache.
This, John, is what we call a breakthrough, I can hear the words of my therapist, echoing from the future. I smile, fully this time. A breakthrough.
"What are you so happy about?" Sherlock's voice seems to say.
I click the post button on the blog and scoot my chair out, leaning back and setting my arms on the arm rest, suddenly exhausted from the long day.
"You're dead, and I'm okay with it." I let out a little laugh. A few seconds pass, then I repeat more softly, "And I'm okay with it."
"How okay with it?" Again, Sherlock's voice sounds. I think I should be worried, hearing it so clearly in my head, but I'm too tired to care.
"Very."
"Well then, this situation might be a little awkward." Sherlock's voice takes on the normal, sarcastic tones I am so used to.
"Wait… What situation?" The creases between my eyebrows reappear as I realize the voice isn't coming from my head.
It's coming from behind me.
I pop out of my chair and spin around.
There he stands, clad in the familiar black coat, the familiar purple scarf, the familiar dark curls falling over the familiar blue eyes, the familiar angular cheekbones, complete with that look of astounding arrogance and the air of marvelous superiority. His presence is strange in this room, too real and too shocking. I almost fall over from surprise.
Because there in my flat, leaning ever so casually on the doorframe, stands the one and the only Sherlock Holmes.