So... This is my Sherlock fanfic. I hope you enjoy it. Warning: it is very sad so don't expect some "happy, cute romance" or anything.

It is based on the time between "The Reichenbach Fall" and when Sherlock came back in "The Empty Hearse" and is from John's point of view (obviously).

Each chapter is based on one of the five stages of grief. (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.) This means that there will probably only be five chapters. Please leave comments on what I should improve on and what you think. They would really help since I am new to posting stories for others to see. Anyway, enough of this text you probably won't read. Enjoy!

Read on Wattpad: myworks/83554474-grief

2 Months after the fall: August

John sat in his new flat, no furniture just boxes of his few belongings. This is good. He thought, A fresh start, that's what I need.
Still, as he sat there all he felt was lonely and empty. He reached for his phone on the table and it immediately went to the number he had gotten used to seeing many times;

Sherlock.

Without thinking, he pressed the call button, his instincts kicking in. It wasn't until four rings that he realized that there would be no answer. Of course, he sighed lightly as loneliness crawled back out of him, like a snake trying to slither slowly out of his throat. Dead men can't answer phones. So, why do I keep calling him? This was not the first time this had happened that day. It was, what? the seventh time? What day is it? He wondered aloud to an empty room.

Sleeplessness and grief blend all the days together in one meaningless blur. He plucked his phone from the table next to him and pressed the button to power it on. Bright white light streamed out of the screen, filling the dark room with iridescent light. His eyes burned as he looked at the blinding screen. The phone blinked the date;

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16

He groaned as he set the phone back on the table. Great, he thought, Another rainy Tuesday.

As he watched the rain flow steadily down the window, he remembered the day exactly two months ago that left him with such torture. The day he lost Sherlock Holmes.

He stood on the sidewalk in front of Saint Bart's hospital, looking up helplessly. He had seen enough to know what this meant. He would do anything to stop it from happening, but instead, he stood there paralyzed in fear and grief. His best friend stood on that rooftop. His only friend. This is it, he thought, the man who taught me so many things and sent me on so many adventures is here on the ledge of this hospital about to do the unthinkable. He couldn't help but wonder why. Why would such an extraordinary person with such a beautiful mind commit suicide? Sherlock Holmes, too. He was anything but modest.

John had learned to live with this fact, just as Sherlock had learned how to live with the war-scarred John who brought along a new girl every week and was not even close to half as smart as himself. It was how they lived, and they both respected each other's quirks, knowing that their life was far from normal. That friendship had led them to go on so many adventures together. So many and now, no more. What would he do with all that time? What would he do without his best friend?

He now still asks that question to himself. John looks out the window to see that it is now the afternoon, around lunchtime. Outside, everyone is going about their normal, happy lives. Little girls skipping through the neighborhood, a young couple going out for lunch in the nearby restaurant. How can they be living so happily while I'm here in a bubble of grief? he wondered. But they were not him. They didn't have his life and his problems. He began to feel jealous, wondering why life isn't so hard for stopped himself. No; I shouldn't be having these cruel thoughts. He grabbed his laptop and started reading through his old blogs, his usual distraction from life.

He read through his first blog titled: A Study in Pink and was filled with stale nostalgia. The first line read:

My Therapist is making me keep a blog. She said that it would help me "adjust to civilian life"
but I don't understand how it would help. What am I supposed to write if nothing happens to me? So, here we go therapist, I hope this makes you feel better.

John laughed at his past self. That was before Sherlock. The "pre-Sherlock" period where people still thought he could have a normal life, even he believed it. It was not what John Watson was meant for. John Watson was always meant for adventure.

He could have known that when he was in elementary school, always doing crazy things that got him in trouble, or in high school when he decided to join the military as a war nurse . But, John Watson wouldn't truly understand his thirst for adventure until the day he met Sherlock Holmes.

He read on,

I saw my friend Mark Stanford today. We met in medical school. That was the last time I'd seen him, before the war. We talked for a bit, about what our lives are like now, me, trying to get sorted in life and get a place on only an army pension and him, getting used to his new job teaching at Saint Bart's hospital nearby.

John chuckled again, remembering how simple his life was back then. How simple, easy and yet...boring. Not the life for him. He kept reading,

I told Mark about my dilemma, trying to find a place lace in London with little money. He suggested me getting a flat share with somebody nearby. When I tried to explain to him about how nobody would want share a flat with a war veteran without money or a job, he just laughed and said that he knew someone. Shocked that someone like that would exist, I decided to trust him. I hope that this is the right decision and that my new flatmate would be nice. Maybe it was another war veteran just like him. I meet him tomorrow. Wish me luck.

John closed his laptop and rubbed his tired eyes, finally exhausted from the bright screen terrorizing him with old memories. Memories that he could never have again. He looked at the clock, then at the door. He waited, expecting to see the door burst open only to reveal a tired Sherlock covered with blood or in a sheet with another case and set of predicaments. He looked outside only to be greeted with the darkness of the coming night.

He went over to the kitchen. Even though he knew it was mostly empty, he thought he should force himself to put something more filling than tea in his body. After all, now that he was out of Mrs. Hudson's company, there was no one to make sure he was eating properly. Still, it felt good to leave Mrs. Hudson. He needed to move on and stop making his grief turn himself into a useless, selfish blob that is only being a bother to people. After all, he wasn't the only person who knew Sherlock. Other people were grieving too.

He grabbed a pack of his favorite biscuits and sank back down deep into his recliner. The biscuit stared up at him, its circular, golden-brown aura making him long to eat it. That feeling, however, was competing against the abiding hole that he felt in his stomach, the hole that was eating himself up inside. In this new life, he has to face his old problems running off with Sherlock had allowed him to avoid.

"Severe PTSD" He remembered overhearing a phycologist, "He has really bad trust issues and it may take him a long time to adjust to society." Why do they always give things such scarily, specific names? Why can't they simply call it what it is? A monster. The monster that tore and clawed and tore at insides, leaving him feeling restless, anxious, and lonely. If only it were a physical being. If it was a physical being, he could fight it. He could throw punches at it just like he's been doing to solve a lot of problems in his life. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He had to deal with it using different methods, methods he hated.

With the help of , John had been through five psychiatrists and none of them were able to help in the slightest. He knew that Mrs. Hudson was just trying to help but every time he went to a psychiatrist, his experiences were the same, and negative. John remembered one summer day like every other.

He sat impatiently in the waiting room of his third psychiatrist. Feet tapping. Fingers tapping. Nervous energy flowed through John like water in a busy, rushing river. He got this way every time he had to talk about the fall. Afraid. Defensive. He was like a cornered animal. He looked around desperately in search for something that can use up his restless energy.

The office was like every other he had been to. The wall to the left of him was lined with shelves stocked with extraneous medical magazines. In each corner of the room, there were TVs showing golf on mute so not to bother the mental illnesses of the patients. He looked casually at the other people in the room. There were not many people in the room, maybe three or four counting himself. They were all spread out haphazardly throughout the room, no two people next to each other.

He looked over the closest person to his right. Using the skills he had acquired at the time that he spent with Sherlock, he was able to note many things about the man. He would never be as good as Sherlock was, but he could easily observe many of the basics about the man. He looked to be in his seventies, too old to be at a psychologist you would think. I guess crazy doesn't discriminate by age. The little hair that he had left was snow white and pointed straight up on his head, like an angry white cat. He was very obviously shaking, his hands in a constant tremble. His eyes were large and bulging, like one of those toys whose eyes pop out when squeezed.

A woman was on the other side of him who was younger, maybe even a teenager, no older than twenty. She wasn't showing the same symptoms of shaking as the older man but instead was looking around anxiously, like everything in the room, no matter how harmless, wanted to hurt her. She was curled in a little protective ball alert, her knees at her chest.

He compared himself to these individuals. Surely, he wasn't like them. Yet, he was still there, sitting in this quiet room painted a blinding shade of white. He used to be a bright, attractive young man. Where did that go? When did he let his heart take over his mind?

The door to the office creaked open, interrupting his thoughts. It's funny how something can seem louder in his mind than it sounded in reality. "John Watson?" Called a young woman from the doorway. He slowly got up, watching not to injure his leg when he got up and limped towards the door. His feet hit the floor irregularly as he made his way to the door. The woman gave him a commercial smile and welcomed him into the room. The room was small and predictable. It contained only a bench, a desk, and a chair. A few psychiatry posters hung on the wall as an attempt to and color to a colorless room. The name tag on the psychiatrist revealed her name to be Amelia Whiteson. Amelia walked across the room to the chair and motioned for John to sit down.

"Now," Amelia said,"Let's start at the beginning."

And so it began, half an hour of John telling the story starting at when he met Sherlock and going to the fall.

Amelia sat and listened, occasionally jotting notes in the notebook on her lap. John sat up towards the edge of his seat whenever she did this, leaning in, trying to read what she was writing upside down.

John's focused on making his story only include facts as he knew from experience that any emotion that he may use would only make the situation worse. Amelia pushed him to try to squeeze the emotion out of the strong soldier in front of her.

John explained what he felt, trying not to reveal all his emotion. He explained every day he still looks forward to the texts Sherlock would send every day. He would stare at his phone every day waiting for the messages that would never come. He would sit in the morning with the paper, waiting for Sherlock to walk down the hallway with a new and exciting adventure for them to run off with.

Even though this was some improvement in trust, John remained reluctant to trust and wanted to stay strong in front of this new person he didn't know very well.

I'm a soldier, he thought, I'm supposed to be strong. I have to stay strong.

This thought controlled him. The thoughts never had a good result. It ruled his everyday thoughts like a dictator destined for chaos.

John only wanted Sherlock to come through the door again, to get to see him one last time. To say goodbye. He would never get that chance again.

Later that night, he sat in his chair, irrationally watching the door for when Sherlock would come home or at least send him a text.

One hour passed,

No sign.

Two hours,

Still no Sherlock.

The hands of the clock swirled around with every second, the constant ticking driving John mad. Every hour, every minute, every second. It was just a second without his friend. Reluctant to go to his room and be tempted by sleep,
he sat in the chair in the cold, dark, room preparing for the next sleepless night.