A bit of time had passed since his arrival in this old, long lost London. John had, of course, realized that this was in fact not a dream. As any person of considerable sense would, after the initial panic, he came to understand that he would most likely not be returning to his own time.
This fact had, at first, terrified him, but with time he calmed enough to accept it. It was a better fate to live in this time, before Sherlock Holmes; centuries before he was even an idea.
Far easier to live before even his own lifespan, than in the dull and painful post-Sherlock haze that had previously become his life.
It was a lonely life; to precede every single person he had ever met. However, it was no worse than to live with the stares from those who remembered his affiliation with the deceased consulting detective.
He'd since taken up the medical profession once again, and began practicing out of the flat he'd bought for himself. It was as close to fulfilling as he could get.
John had surrounded himself in this new life with books to read, patients to cure, and women to charm. He only received one offer of help with his business. A young woman by the name of Abagail Criss showed up one morning at his flat, asking if he had any work for her.
He accepted, and she began to work with him. She moved in with him two years later. In three years' time, they fell in love and were married, and Sherlock Holmes was stored away in the back of John's mind.
Abagail asked him many times; why did he keep an old, rotten apple on the mantlepiece? It was ugly, shriveled with illegible scratches carved into its soft, brown and dark red flesh. Such a disgusting thing certainly took away from the room, but John simply replied every time by telling her that it was for an old friend.
He forbade her to throw it away, no matter how vile it became.
For about a year or so, John took up painting. He kept practicing, but somehow his sketches and finished works ended up looking similar. He burned them.
The flat he now shared with his wife, faded but still a lovely place to live with an admirable view, started to feel strange for a little, although afterwards he just continued onward like clockwork.
Over the years, the passion from his marriage faded gradually into a lasting fondness, and John started to put on some weight. He was a little out of shape; plump, and soft from the years since the excitement of his days in the war and with Sherlock.
A large mustache had taken up residence on his upper lip, one that Abagail teased was a sign of his growing age.
He had her, but at the same time the loneliness still ached inside.
The apple continued to rot, and on the inside so did he with it.
It had been ten years since his arrival, and the world he had built for himself started to change at last.
John heard talk, often from his parents, of a detective that had started solving cases independently. It did not hold his attention at first, until he began to hear more and more about this strange genius whom had suddenly appeared with no known background.
It brought back memories; ones from his previous life that he'd tried to forget.
Still, his life continued uninterrupted for quite a while, until at last he felt the need to hear more. One of his patients in particular was more than happy to tell him of the great skill and cunning this new detective possessed.
He was intrigued, although he knew that this false hope of Sherlock's return was inevitably going to devastate him. It was a fact that he was very much aware of; that no matter how much he wished it to be true, Sherlock Holmes was dead and gone. In fact, he didn't even exist yet.
The thought was somewhat sobering, for all of its loneliness.
John continued to investigate what he'd heard by no means but simply asking around in hopes of a name.
One brisk Sunday in March, he finally found one. It shattered the comfortable, dull existence he had made for himself the moment it was spoken, leaving a shocked silence in its wake as everything John knew came crashing down.
Every single thought since the fall weighed in his mind; his heart sore and at the same time plummeted as he knew that every last desperate hope came true at long last.
The one last miracle he had pleaded for so long ago; a different man in a different century, had come true at long last.
His patient uttered the very name that John himself had wailed out into the night for years. The same name that claimed ownership of every tear he had shed in the last ten years.
It was the name that had plagued his dreams for years before that fateful day, left several centuries in the future.
The mysterious detective he had heard so much about went by none other than Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective.
John Watson, for the first time in a decade, was no longer alone.