A/n: Hello all! I would like to thank my reviewers and followers and all you wonderful people! Anyhow, without much further delay~

Disclaimer: Not mine!

Letters for You

Chapter 2

Face streaked with tears, John stared at the bundle of letters resting in his lap and caressed his name on the first white envelope. A familiar scrawl, created by his hand. He had to face it, open the first letter. Slipping the cheap twine from its window-pane orientation, the doctor set it aside carefully to ensure the knot stayed in place. After all, he had tied it.

Leaning against the wall from his position on the floor, John kicked the capsized end table to the side to make room for the thick pile of letters. Once they were settled by his side, he drew the first and took a deep breath. Sherlock hadn't forgotten after all, maybe perhaps he cared?

Ready as he could ever be, John unsealed the envelope and began reading.

John-

The prognosis does not look good. I thought I could manage, that I could hide it from you, and that before long, I could simply take a 'vacation' and recover from any resulting surgeries. Now there seems to be barely a chance to so much as to be able to get that far.

This problem started at birth, so to speak, but I didn't notice any prevalent symptoms until a few years ago when I had my first heart attack after an otherwise particularly incapacitating night. When I arose, I saw Mycroft hovering over my bed. He had not only came flying to my aid, but had also checked me into rehab, which I escaped...repeatedly.

I was told I had to stop, that I was going to destroy myself, and I took it as a challenge. Amidst my drug-laden daze, I'd tell myself that I'd manage to end it somehow, the relentless boredom, the whirling thoughts, the limitless connections. And then a massive attack stuck, leaving me alone in squalor, afraid to die alone with nothing. Before I met my death, Mycroft plucked me from my filth and threw me into a detox center with more than enough security to stifle my ploys. Too frightened to ruin it, I continued along the set course with enough snide remarks to temporarily satiate my boredom.

An addict, John, is really all I am in the end. Even though they told me to stay away from drugs, tobacco, alcohol, strenuous activities, I couldn't help myself. They said the damage was too great, and despite that, I couldn't find myself caring. I'd rather live my life the way I pleased for a short while than live a miserable lengthy duration.

I recovered; I felt fine with medication, like I could topple the world in a mere moment. With Lestrade, I felt like I had found my calling: the novelty of crime solving. The rush it gave me, the unsatisfied urge to find more and more. I was twisted, hoping for abominable crimes to occur just for me to solve, something only I could solve.

Still feeling well, I picked up smoking not long before I met you. Another bad habit that you immediately objected to. At your prompting, I quit with much complaint...Yet you wouldn't let my silliness fester much past it. You forced me into living a healthier life (though you would probably decry my behavior as unhealthy, it has been better from years' past), and it is likely left me with this last year I wouldn't have otherwise had.

But I've been slowing down, I can feel it. I've been taking fewer cases, trying to push myself less and less. After visiting the doctor, I was formally diagnosed. End stage congestive heart failure, an old man's disease. Something someone twice, thrice, my age should be prone to have. With the inherent condition, chronic periods of substance abuse, and over all poor means of living, I exacerbated something trivial to the point of no return. And it's all my fault. Sherlock Holmes, not killed in the line of work, but by his own childish vices.

As it stands, there are no available transplants. Mycroft has searched and scored, but to no avail. Medicine was always the only thing he couldn't bend. Sure, he could pay researchers, find the best technology, but he can't utilize something that doesn't yet exist.

Just when I was starting to enjoy life. Always just in time, right John?

John stared at the letter before him, trying to wrap his mind around the rawness in which Sherlock wrote. All he had known about that period in his life was that he had an addiction, let alone the fact that he had a heart condition. Just...just what did I know about him? He knew my life story, where I've come from, what I've done, in a mere moment, reading my like an open book...But he seldom talked about himself; I hardly could bring myself to ask. Why didn't I get to know him better while I had the chance? Dammit.

Rereading the last line, the doctor choked back another sob. Sherlock was happy with him, enjoyed life, but was cut short wanting more.

Wiping his puffy eyes, John ran his fingers along the edge of the letter and examined each swirl in Sherlock's scrawl. This small pile was all he had left for Sherlock to say to him. Carefully, he slid the first letter back into its original envelope and moved it to the back of the bundle. Taking up the second letter, he pulled the contents and began reading.

John -

I never thought I'd live too long in the first place, that I'd burn out young and die. Simple as that. An accident, on intention, an overdose, it wouldn't matter. I could never picture myself growing older, losing my faculties, becoming an incompetent shell of what I once was. Purposeless, an easy way to describe it. I'd spent the majority of my life trying to figure it out, just what was it I was meant to do with myself, a waste of human intelligence.

But as the years went on, and I cleaned myself up, I found myself where I am now. I never thought these times would end, but the bitter reality is fast approaching. I had fun, John, I truly did. Chasing criminals, conducting experiments, insulting Donovan and Anderson, teasing you. It all was quite fun, amusing, not boring in the slightest.

I don't want it to end. I'm not ready to die yet. I don't feel like I've done everything I should have, like I'm some child barely starting out on life, prospects high, except they have time aplenty. Just as life was starting to even out, as soon as I started to get used to it, understand what it was like to properly live, I can feel it slip away. I could have done so much more, but I squandered it; I wasted my time. Wasted my life.

If I could have listened. If only I had just simply listened! I wouldn't have been put in this place to begin with, and I would have all the time I needed, anything more than what I have now. Everything is my fault. I shouldn't complain. I consciously chose to continue on with my life foolishly, burning at both ends in a self-destructive plight. Even though I can still hardly think of myself growing older, I could bear with it, were I actually able to allow it to naturally occur.

But I'm just not ready. I'm not ready to die, to leave everyone behind. Every day, I watch you, your every movement, how saddening it is to not be permitted to enjoy that simple pleasure. To be unable to solve crimes, to conduct experiments, to evoke the strangest looks on your faces. I will severely miss all these chances.

Will it hurt? What will my death be like? Will I be alone, found to your horror in the morning hours, unaware of my illness. Will I have been unable to tell you? To give you any sort of forewarning? Would you hate me for it? Would you be sad?

Brows furrowing, John answered the paper, "You told me, of course I'm sad, dummy." As tears pricked in his eyes once more, he wiped them away to continue reading.

When I die, just what will happen?

I've always thought when we're dead we simply decompose into our respective elements, slowly returning our oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, manganese, cobalt, iron, lithium, strontium, aluminum, silicon, lead, vanadium, arsenic, and bromine to our surroundings as our only true survivors. We lose our heat, what's left of our energy to the atmosphere, contributing for the last time to the entropy of the universe. The mind, synapses inactive, unstimulated, is no more. There is no soul, just a series of chemical processes following along a web of wires. Just this blackness is left for us, an exhausted sleep from which you will never wake, no conscious thoughts, no dreams, no heaven.

I can now truly understand why people flock to religion. Having nothing left for you other than a miserable, ephemeral existence, is sad, lonely. What next? How could something I felt so intensely, something I considered so significant, of this great importance, wind up being just an illusory gem, only to be crushed by an apathetic reality. I want so desperately to believe in something greater; with proof, to quash my uncertainty, I want there to be more. There should be more, more than the comfort the thought provides. If not, how unfair, how cruel to just cut something so wonderful so short.

For once in my life, I want to be wrong.

End of Chapter 2

A/n: I had honestly planned two more scenes for this chapter, but I just couldn't write them right after that. What the hell, me? Oh, and I should be updating Absence tonight, too. Next time: John's reaction to that second letter, some flashback times (to help you figure out just what actually happened), and more letters. If you find this in the slightest interesting, please review! I'd love to hear your take on some of the topics addressed. 'Till next time!