Thanks to everyone who have reviewed and given me support! Go Sherlock!
I know it's just elaboration on scenes already seen in Season 2 Episode 3, but the next chapter will have completely new material, taking place after episode 3, so stay tuned!
Once more, I do not own Sherlock, that glorious honor belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and of course Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. And as tribute to the latter, I added a tiny Doctor Who reference for all the Whovians out there! Try and spot it, if you can...
Chapter 2: The Sun and the Earth
"You told me once that you weren't a hero. Um…there were times that I didn't even think you were human. But, let me tell you this, you were…the best man, the most human…human being and no one will ever convince me that you told a lie."
At least he was able to say it, just once, his voice a bit awkward and choked, but absolutely devoted. John Watson was finally able to stand there at Sherlock Holmes' grave, staring dejectedly, hopelessly, at the polished black stone with his name engraved there in shining gold letters, making the tragedy unchangeable, making it real, and say the words that he had been meaning to say to his flat mate for a very long time. But they were confessed all too late. The consulting detective could no longer hear the doctor's words. Sherlock would never have listened to them anyway; he would have merely denied them straightaway again with a nonsensical but rational diatribe about there being no heroes in the world. But he could have tried but never got the chance. And that was what hurt above all else, except for the deep agony of loss that would never go away now.
He would never be the same without him.
"One more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me: Don't…be…dead. Just for me. Stop it. Stop this."
That man was practically invincible. Sherlock could do anything, why couldn't he do this and come back from the dead? He needed him. If only he could have just repaid him somehow for all he had given him, all the much-needed adventure and puzzles, laughter and companionship. The greatest friend any man could have ever had, and he would never find another one like him, that much he knew.
During the week after the funeral took place, John whittled away all that time trying to forget his pain and all of those memories that constantly pressed against him like a vice, wandering his flat at 221 B Baker Street like a lost mutt that had been separated from the pack, and no wonder. Every time he took a step, there were reminders of him all over the place: his science equipment scattered all over the table in the kitchen—which were now packed away courtesy of Mrs. Hudson, their landlady/unofficial housekeeper—the yellow smiley face painted on the wall decorated with bullet holes for his moments of boredom, his laptop, his riding crop, the teacups they shared, his chair that would now always sit vacant, his violin that would soon be gathering dust, and most of all, his long dark trench coat and blue scarf with the smooth dark leather gloves he knew would be in the side pockets, all spares that were left in the hall closet since his usual ones he had worn when he jumped to his end.
How could they still be there and he now gone forever? John almost couldn't believe it still. The only solid indication that Sherlock would not emerge suddenly from his bedroom in his blue dressing gown, his face focused solely on his latest case, or appearing at the stairs with a sour look on his face when he couldn't solve a particularly challenging one, or a smug one when he had solved it, was the dark depression that constantly gnawed at him from the inside, a huge gaping wound that Sherlock had left behind, tearing him apart and driving him mad at the same time. More often than not, he could almost hear Sherlock throwing out ideas to the skull that grinned gruesomely from the mantelpiece in the living room, hear strains of violin music as he slept, even half believing he glimpsed a thin dark figure in the corner of his eye. It was becoming too much for his emotions to manage.
He would have given anything to bring the one and only Sherlock Holmes back. Even if it meant coping with his arrogant rants and his experiments involving bloody body parts in the fridge.
That had been a dreadful day for John Watson, to say the least, when he had admitted how much Sherlock had meant to him. Mrs. Hudson, who had noticed with undeniable worry that her last remaining tenant had taken on the more bad habits of her former one by not sleeping and not eating, had practically shoved John out of that familiar black door into the open air, claiming that they needed to visit Sherlock's grave.
"We need to put fresh flowers there," she had claimed matter-of-factly but with a betraying sniff. "The old ones must have withered by now."
"And what would be the point?" John protested half-heartedly. "He'll never see them. They'll just die for nothing." He had to pause for a moment on the stair landing with his hand reaching out for the wall to steady himself, realizing what he had just said was exactly how he felt about his dear friend, and he had to struggle to regain his indignant composure once more.
Mrs. Hudson waited patiently, her wrinkled face sad and sympathetic, small hands clasped together. John glanced at her kind light eyes and red graying hair. Somehow, he could always be comforted by her company, even then. He stole a ragged breath.
Rubbing his eyes then moving to rake his short sandy hair in exasperation, he continued, "He never even liked flowers." Again he caught himself. "Well, maybe he did. Once he told me how beautiful he thought the stars were the night we were chasing the Golem. Perhaps he would have liked them a bit. Of course, he would never have understood the gesture. Sentiment."
He laughed briefly with grim humor as he remembered. Who would have thought that someone with such endless and epic intelligence could have been boggled by social interactions? Or that the earth revolved around the sun.
Without another word of argument, John allowed the landlady to lead him to the street to hail a cab. For the entirety of the trip, for some reason, he couldn't let go of that image of the earth tethered to its path in the universe in relation to our solar system's star. What would happen if the sun disappeared? What if the one thing that made the earth steady and grounded, the one thing that gave it reason to exist, was taken forever? He knew what would happen too readily. The planet would be thrust out into the vast vacuum of space and be lost. It would cease to exist.
His jaw clenched and his hands tore at the cab's seats.
Sherlock…I can't go on without you either.
The former army doctor gazed solemnly out the window with a knot in his throat that had become all too familiar of late, trying with all his might to not think of the time that a very different cabbie once tried to trick his friend into taking a lethal pill, and he had stopped him, protected Sherlock, by putting a bullet in the killer's heart.
If only he could have had the power to save him again.
At the grave, under a gray and darkening sky, John and Mrs. Hudson laid the flowers reverently on the cold dirt, flowers that John had chosen specifically for Sherlock. There were dark purple and blue blooms with thin stalks that reminded him utterly, with a stab to the heart, of the detective; and then he selected ones that he thought Sherlock might have liked, if that were possible, ones that looked like beautiful stars. He refused to let Mrs. Hudson pay for them at the shop. And this time, he was careful to avoid the chip-and-pin machine. On a day like today, he would have ripped that particular piece of machinery from its hinges and beaten its stupid screen to a pulp. Ordinarily, he would have welcomed the alleviating distraction, but he didn't want to scare Mrs. Hudson.
Then, patting his hand lovingly atop Sherlock's grave, he unlocked the words that had been plaguing him all week.
"I was so alone and I owe you so much."
And standing there, ignoring his reflection mingling with his best friend's name along the surface of the glassy dark stone, he couldn't hold in the tears any longer. He let them out.
After sobbing into his hand for several moments, his defense mechanism took charge. The pieces of old armor slowly reforming about himself once more, but only enough to hide the turmoil within. Only enough to survive. He raised his head, nodded once in finality, straightened his shoulders, turned on his heel, and marched away although each step pained him more and more. Ever the soldier.
But his heart and soul refused to follow suit.
A small, faint sound like the crunch of twigs underfoot echoed from a tree that stood several yards away, making John instinctively turn his head…and thought he spotted a figure in a long black trench coat meld into the shadows beneath the branches. John stumbled shortly but shook his head in dismissal.
Ghosts. Just ghosts, nothing more.
John Watson, you truly are going mad.
Catching up to Mrs. Hudson, he made a decision. He couldn't return to the flat, their flat, not now. Not yet.
He considered calling Sarah at the clinic to try and get his old job back, kick his medical skills back into gear, but hesitated with that as well.
Suddenly, a tall, thin man with receding light brown hair clad in a long suit coat and umbrella in hand like a cane materialized between the sculptures of weeping angels and Celtic crosses, halting languidly in front of John and Mrs. Hudson, and he knew what to do.
Looking into that face with its sharp nose and close-set eyes that were, unbelievably, obviously full of remorse and pain instead of their usual uncaring authority, John could feel a very dark and powerful reaction churning in his stomach like an awakening volcano. The doctor began to shake with mounting rage and fisted his hands together, ready to chin the government official at the slightest provocation.
"What the hell are you doing here, Mycroft?" John queried in a dangerous monotone, spitting out the name of Sherlock's elder brother like it was the worst of all curses.
Mycroft frowned, his nostrils twitching. "John, I—"
"No!" John exploded, making Mycroft flinch and Mrs. Hudson cringe and groan once. He felt terrible about the latter but he couldn't seem to make himself let up. "Shut up, Mycroft, or I'll do it for you! You have no bloody right to be here, after what you did to him. If it wasn't for you," his voice cracked so he took a breath and swallowed. "If it wasn't for your idiocy, he would still be alive. Well, I hope you're proud of yourself, giving up absolutely everything for Queen and country, but he wasn't yours to give up. You made it perfectly clear that you weren't actually family. With all those 'old scores' between you two, I reckon you're happy about this."
"John!" Mrs. Hudson scolded in her shock. "Oh, dear."
Mycroft did not react, only gazing at the smaller man with brow furrowed. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, a bit. I won't drop you to the ground right now and throttle you to the edge of your life under three conditions."
One of his eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"
That one syllable in of itself seemed rather condescending to the doctor whose temper flared in consequence. "First, I will allow you to visit his grave once, just this once then I never want to see you anywhere near this place or, I swear, I will kill you. Second, you will pay for Sherlock's half of the rent for as long as necessary, and lastly," John's eyes narrowed as he gathered his courage, hoping he wasn't going too far. "I have decided to go on holiday. A long holiday, and you," he jabbed a finger into the air toward the older man, "will pay for it."
Mycroft's chin tilted haughtily into the air above his pressed and tailored collar whilst his arms straightened out in front of his depthless chest, hands resting together in the handle of his black umbrella. He stared at John, as though sizing him up or simply contemplating his temper. "Fine," he answered brusquely. "I will grant all your requests. Now I suggest we part ways as much as we can from now on."
"You'll get no argument from me."
John rapidly strode away over the cold, gray grass of the churchyard with Mrs. Hudson scurrying to catch up. They hailed another cab just as thunder began to rumble overhead.
I need a sodding drink, John thought to himself, Or at least a cuppa.
But, abruptly, he was consumed with restlessness and urgency, and he couldn't wait, not anymore.
Once he entered 221 B, John ignored Mrs. Hudson's distressed questions and ran up to his room. With unnecessary force, he packed as much as he could fit into one suitcase, his jumpers, pants, suits, toiletries, and then stormed out of the flat with only one backward glance, his heart heaving in his empty chest. After apologizing to his landlady, he took his leave of the one place that he shared with his old friend, the agonizing reminders an endless scream in his head, before rushing out into the pouring rain.
Getting away was what he wanted most right now, since what he actually needed had flared into supernova and dissipated. Now, the wandering would begin.