The violin sat by the window, where it'd had always been. It had been so long since I heard it, in a dream or otherwise. Half of me felt guilty for even contemplating, but the rest was so desperate.

I picked it up, with as much care as I could, as if I was terrified to shake some small part of his spirit out of it. I held the bow in my other hand, shaking a bit. I thought back to how he had done it, thn lifted the bow to draw across a string. I cringed at the horrible screeching noise, and returned it to its spot in a hurry. The music was best left to him. It seemed a shame leaving the instrument unplayed for so long, but I can only bare to see it in his hands. My failed attempt left a chord of discomfort resonating in me. I used to be annoyed to hear him up playing at ridiculous times in the morning. I never thought I'd miss it.

I looked back at the room. A few things are missing now. His skull 'friend', his cushion, all the science equipment. It's in storage. Mrs Hudson thought it would help, make things easier. There were some things I just couldn't let her take. The cluedo board is still hidden away, although she insisted I took it from it's place stabbed above the fireplace. I refused to repaper the wall with his smile face target and bullet holes, despite her threats to put it on the rent. She tried hardest to take the dressing gown. His favourite blue one. Needless to say, she lost that battle, and it remains in it's rightful place in his bedroom.

The place still feels empty, to anyone else, it would seem that very little has changed. They're wrong. They'd believe everything in the papers too, but they didn't know him like I did. They never understood him, I never understood either, but I tried to. They never thought that there was something he hid from them, they never considered how human he could really be. I can't stand hearing them mention him. Donovan and Anderson, both are repulsive to me, easily forgetting all the things they said to him when they went to his funeral, just to save face.

I'm getting all worked up now, just because of that violin.

He never got the idea of caring. Well, he never showed it, if he did. Caring won't bring someone back, but loving them makes you care anyway.

"Maybe you should try getting out of the house dear." Mrs Hudson said, coming up the stairs.

"I get out of the house sometimes."

"Other than the grocery shopping, you're always cooped up in here." she peered into the frdge "And you don't do the shopping regularly either. You've run out of milk."

"He was meant to get the milk." I muttered, mostly to myself.

Her visits always involve me trying to have patience while she fusses over me; how I need to tidy some of his things away, how I should get out more, I'm looking a little peaky, maybe I should talk to my phsychiatrist again. It does no good for me, but I let her, if it eases her worry. Then she said something I hadn't expected.

"Maybe you should go and visit him. You haven't been in a while, it could help you to stop missing him so much."

At the time, I disregarded the suggestion. Later in the evening, I went alone to his grave, sitting in front of it, the golden letters of his name shining in the setting sunlight. I talked to him for a while. It might of made me feel better, although I didn't believe he was there. It couldn't be him buried beneath. I knew it wasn't, he was too clever. I know him, he would have found some smart arse way out. One day I'll come here again, and he'll be there, waiting to tell me of his massive intelect, to tell me in what brilliant way he achieved it.

I moved to kneel close to the marble slab, placing a hand on the cold stone "Stop it, Sherlock. Stop this and come back. You can play violin as early as you like, I'll tell you where I hid your emergency cigarettes, I'll buy you your own fridge for all your experiments. This has gone on long enough, stop now."

I could beg all night, but know that he couldn't hear me. He wasn't there. He was off, crimesolving under a different name, although he'd still be insulting, belittling and showing up the people lucky enough to work with him. The thought made me smile, which felt strange. In the back of a cab, I passed Scotland Yard. Donovan and Anderson were just walking out, and in the back of my mind, I heard him in his disapproving tone: Idiots.

When I got back to the flat, it felt even more empty than before. I stayed up as long as I could, but eventually, I allowed myself to go to bed. Not my bed. On my way to his bed, I let my fingers brush against the navy silk dressing gown. I didn't sleep here often, and it hurt to change the sheets, the light trace of his aftershave now gone.

Hours through the night, once again in the earliest point of the morning, I heard it again. Smiling, I didn't get up immediately, for fear of jolting out of a dream. This wasn't a dream, I hoped.

When the tune changed to an unfamiliar one, I walked to find him as quietly as I could. When he saw me he stopped playing.

"No, no, carry on." I sat down in the armchair opposite his.

He smiled and resmed playing "You did say I could play as early as I liked."

"Wh- have you been-"

"You also owe me a fridge, an interesting promise to make while visiting someone's grave."

"Sherlock?"

"Where are the cigarettes?"

"Sherlock!" how had he heard all of that? I was sure I was alone.

He watched me, waiting. The slowly smouldering fire cast shadows under his cheekbones, and he hadn't taken his coat off, the collar turned up as I always remembered. I smiled at his petulant expression, making him roll his eyes and get to his feet. He held his arms out, and for one second, I got a horrible flashback.

The way he stretched out his arms, just before plummeting from the roof... he reached a hand out, and I so badly wanted to take hold of it, he must have been scared. And the tears I herd in his voice...

I ran to him now, scared to see him fall again, slamming into him, and holding tight.

"This again..."

"Shut up."

I listened to his laugh, deep in his chest. "Where have you been? Why did you leave? I almost thought it was another dream."

"Mrs Hudson checks on you regularly, I'm meant to be dead, and the dead don't come back to visit their friends. Mycroft won't like this at all."

"Mycroft knows? He gets to know you're aive, but I don't?" I pulled away.

"It would be impracticle to try and hide from him, and he was quite helpful actually." he shrugged.

"He better be, after selling you out like that."

"And you know I'm here now, so what's the problem?"

We took our seats again, and the stream of questions built up again.

"Is there any point in asking what happened?" I sighed.

"Moriarty."

"...Right. Um, how are you still here? I saw you jump. You jumped."

"Mm, perhaps." he must know how his short unexplanitory answers wound me up.

"You jumped, you hit the pavement and you died. I felt your pulse, I felt how cold you were, I saw all that blood, you told me your suicide note."

"For someone so resistant to believing I'm dead, you just seem to be convincing yourself that I am in fact gone."

"Fine, don't tell me anything. I shouldn't be surprised, you keeping your clever little plans from me, although something like this, I would have thought you'd tell me at least."

He was quiet for a while, unlike him not to have some line to comeback with. "You seem very agitated, it was a mistake to come back. I'm... sorry."

"It wasn't a mistake. I've missed you. But that apology looked like it hurt." I smiled at him, hoping to see him do so in return. He didn't.

"It does seem you've not missed me as much as when I first came here." his eyes swept over the room.

"I think for the first time, I can disprove your deductions."

He laughed, sitting back, waiting for me to continue.

"You've noticed a few things missing. Mrs Hudson took them, and we argued a lot over it. The things that aren't here are in storage, because neither of us could bring ourselves to lose them permanently. Next clue?"

"You've finally taken off my dressing gown."

I shook my head "Nope. Again, Mrs Hudson. She took your red one, sorry. And she got me a new one of my own, two actually. But... I still borrow your's."

"You stopped going to your physchiatrist."

"What help could she be? She never understood." I muttered.

He pursed his lips. Even though it meant I still missed him, he didn't like to be wrong.

"Would it make you feel better, if you thought I was getting over this?"

"You haven't updated your blog for two years."

"Sherlock."

He ignored me "I thought people liked reading your blog. Why haven't you updated it?"

"What would I possibly have to say now?"

"I don't know, what did you write about before?" he frowned.

Him. "Just life, all the cases that you solved, whatever happened."

"Write about things that heppen then. It'd make it so much easier to keep an eye on you."

"You've been spying on me?"

"Hmm. Observing you."

I folded my arms and glared at him "Sherlock... Stop pretending to be dead and come back."

He huffed and stood up, returning his violin to the window. "I think you should go to bed now."

"No, we'll stop talking about it, just don't go yet."

He looked at me, studying me for a while. "You're no good to yourself like this, John. You really should get over it all. Why should you care anymore?"

Not this time. He wouldn't trick me into thinking that way again "You. I know you have a human side to you. Don't act like you have no concept of how people feel about things. If you were so clever, you'd know- Just... don't go there."

"No, tell me. What the 'human' veiwpoint on this?"

His icy grey eyes were fixed on me. He probably just wanted to hear me say something nice about him. I suppose I hoped that telling him would make him stay. "If you care about someone, if you really cared about them, you'd miss them past the point of reason, you'd remember them, you wouldn't want to let it go."

"Why would you care about me? You always made it clear I was a pain in the neck. Why would you miss that?" he pressed the tips of his fingers together, resting his chin on them.

"Because, Sherlock, I consider you my best friend, and seeing you kill yourself was the most traumatic thing I have ever seen. Ever. And I was in the army."

He raised his eyebrows, not fully satisfied.

"You're so egotisticle... When I met your brother, he did this analysing thing on me too. It must run in the family." I smirked as he wrinkled his nose at the comment "Anyway, he said that my hands shook because I was tense, waiting for something to happen, needing to feel a rush. And when I was with you it was like running on the battlefield again. I miss it. I miss you."

"I forgot the milk." he got to his feet.

"Don't leave like that." I stood too.

"Are you going to be a brave boy and sleep in your bed tonight?" he grinned.

"Dead or alive, you're an annoying dick." I pushed past him walking to the door of my bedroom. "You'll come back soon? Why don't you stay?"

"One day, John." He turned his collar up, striding out and closing the door quietly behind him.

I tried to sleep, but found I couldn't. This was real, for certain. In the morning, I would let no shadow of doubt tell me otherwise. Just like I never let anyone tell me that everything Sherlock had said was a lie.

In the morning, I got up quicker than usual. The first thing I did was look for the box Mrs Hudson had taken a few months ago. It was stowed away in the cupboard. For now, I only took the cushion and the skull. I was smuggling a skull back into the living room. I'd never do that without living with Sherlock.

I knew what I was going to do next, after making a cup of tea. When I opened the fridge, I saw a full carton beside the almost-empty one. He remembered the milk...

The living room seemed messier than when I went to bed and I wondered what he'd been doing when he returned that night. I looked around, trying to notice everyting that had been altered, soon realising that he'd found his cigarettes, hidden behind a few books on the bookshelf. Laughing, I wondered if he'd done anything else. I would wait until later to find out, this more pressing task taking my attention. I sat before my laptop, turning it on, and, for the first time since his fall, I loaded my blog. The hit counter was still broken, although I assume the hit have dropped to nothing, as expected, but it didn't matter. I'd prefer a limited audience for this.

The last post... 16th of June. 'He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him,'

Was? He is my best friend. I don't care where he goes, what he does, genuine or fraud, he is my best friend.

The blog of Dr. John H. Watson

It's been a long time since I've been on here, and I assume that there will be no one here to read it. It doesn't matter though. A friend requested I update, so one last post from me will be all.

It's been almost 3 years since I lost my best friend, Sherlock Holmes. I still miss him as much as I did back then.

People weren't always very nice to him, and I regret to say that sometimes I wasn't either. But that never stopped him being brilliant. And while everyone else has stopped believing in him, preferring to listen to the newspapers, I haven't.

I was alone before I met him, and I had nothing to do with my life after returning from Afganistan. But every day was like an adventure, even when he was being a pain.

He is rude, arrogant, inconsiderate, insensitive, he always complains and he keeps his 'science experiments' in the microwave. I owe him a fridge especially for his specimens, because even when he was being all that (which was often!) he's brilliant.

I was warned about him, I was told to stay away from him, he's a physcopath! He's not. Thse people just never understood him. I wish I understood him, but I don't need to. I already know he's an amazing man, just different to what he'd call an 'average mind.' After a while of running around with him, I liked having an average mind, so I could appreciate his intelligence.

I don't care anymore, whether the Earth moves around the sun or not. He's right, there are more important things.

Meeting him, you might have thought he was a cold, unfeeling person. Many people did. It's hard to miss his eccentricities. I punched the Superintendent of Scotland Yard for calling him names because of them! Of course I got arrested for that, but Sherlock being Sherlock got us out of that by a flash of brilliance.

If he was really everything people said he was, he'd have used his genius for the wrong things. If he was really what they said he was, he'd be Moriarty. I've never met anyone further from that.

Deep down, very deep down, there's an emotional part of him. Sometimes, I thought I could see hints of it. I know, on a side he never shows anyone, there's a completely caring, humane trait, making him a thousand times the man I could ever hope to be.

I'd give anything to have him shouting at the T.V, or playing violin at 1am. I'd be happy to find a head in the fridge again, or to listen to him shoot the wall out of boredom. I wish I'd never let him get bored, a mind like his never deserved to be left dormant. I wish I'd had more patience when he was being difficult. I miss him.

I believe in Sherlock Holmes, my best friend and the greatest man I've ever known.

Happy with what I put, I posted it. I hadn't said everything, but he already knew.

After a few minutes, I got a comment on it. I knew it could only be from him.

Anonymous: how touching, appropriate that a eulogy is your last post

Apparently someone's emotionaly side is being kept well away today.

John Watson: Normal people would at least say thank you! And it wasn't a eulogy!

His first comment disappeared, replaced with a new one.

Anonymous: Thank you, John. That was a very kind thing to write. You're a good friend.

Then another took it's place

Anonymous: If anyone ever came close to understanding, it would be you

All his comments disappeared so quickly, but the last one said the most.

Anonymous: I miss you.

I knew how hard it would have been for him to say any of that, and any evidence was gone now. But he'd read it. So now I went about closing the site. It only ever reminded me of adventures I'd never forget.