And the years went by. Sometimes in slow motion, mostly in fast forward, but they passed. John's life passed in little snippets as his weakened form began to grow strong once again.
That cane, that cane he thought he would never need again.
The funeral, in a hall filled with people but empty of love.
The apartment. Lonely, empty, much neater than it used to be, even with the dog.
Mrs. Hudson's sad eyes, always watching, always worrying.
Mycroft's calls, now and then, asking if he needed anything.
Sitting in the apartment, alone at his laptop, trying to type up the final story. The Reichenbach Fall, he finally decided to call it. And as John typed, he poured all of his emotion into that one final reminder to the world that Sherlock Holmes was capable of doing something incredible. And that he had died to achieve it.
John walked to the post office, and in a box from Mycroft, Sherlock's second-best dressing gown. He hung it on his coat hanger, where it had always been.
Sobbing, just once, just a few months after the event. Throwing his cane in anger. Having to crawl to it in order to stand up.
A year later, John sauntered down the street, on his way to the bank to pick up the unnecessary cheques from Mycroft, paying Sherlock's rent. A kind gesture, but John would always send them back. He knew the same cheque would be sent to Mrs. Hudson afterwards, anyway. But, on his way to the post office, he is intercepted by a middle-aged thief, who takes the money and runs off. And John, his apathy turning to fury, chases after him, catches him, takes him into Lestrade and realizes that he ran the entire way on his own. Cane be damned.
Months after that, John meets a girl named Mary.
John leaves 221B Baker street. He and Mary move into a small townhouse in Kensington. He visits Mrs. Hudson once a month. Mycroft hardly calls.
Two years have passed. John goes to Baker street, into the apartment that Mycroft is still paying for. The phone rings. Lestrade needs a second opinion. How did he know I was here?
Two and half years gone by, they have solved countless London cases, saving the world one criminal mastermind at a time. But never the way Sherlock did. They could never observe quite so perfectly, so accurately.
Finally, three years had passed. Three years without Sherlock Holmes, and John had job, a fiance and a life to call his own. A life fulfilled with adventure and happiness, without worry of danger just ahead. John was glad for his life.
The case of Ronald Adair was one that Sherlock would have taken quite an interest in. A gambler, a murder-all the fixings of a good crime scene. John and Lestrade both attended the court case, and as it let out, they had a nice chat.
"Something to look into, you think?" Lestrade asked the Doctor.
"I was thinking we could check the apartment, if you're allowed in on it. Might be something we could make out of all it. See what we could do."
"Right." Lestrade chuckled. "Who knows, maybe Adair had an old record from a night-club owner whose taste in music should have been clear cause for a murder."
John laughed at the good-natured joke as they descended the steps of the courthouse. On his way down, he bumped shoulders with a man in a knit-beanie, who dropped his own collection of what appeared to be Bibles. John picked up a few and handed them to the man, who scoffed as he ran off.
"He's in a mood," Lestrade pointed out about the man, but John had barely noticed the ordeal, his mind having been reminded of the deductive methods of an old friend. "Well, I'd best be off, and you'd better get home to Mary, hadn't you?"
"S'pose so." The two men shook hands and make their way home. John took a long route, stopping by Mrs. Hudson's to check in, as he occasionally did. She wasn't in, which seemed strange to John at that time of day, but nothing seemed out of place. He hailed a cab and arrived home.
Mary greeted him in the foyer, kissed him square on the lips and asked how his day was.
"It was quite interesting, I think that Greg and I have quite the case at the moment," John informed her, never taking his hand off her waist. When John and Mary were together, he always held her in some way, as if she was about to float away. His therapist would have told him he was clinging too tightly, but then, he hadn't seen a therapist in years.
"Darling, there's a man here. He says you bumped into him earlier?" John was confused.
"Yes...but how could he know where I live?"
"He seems a good enough sort...perhaps a little religious. He's in your office." John kissed her forehead and made his way to the study, where the man in the beanie was petting his dog. Gladstone seemed quite thrilled with the arrangement.
"He doesn't usually take so well to strangers," John began, looking at the man's back. He was in a pain black suit jacket and a pair of blue jeans. If John were making deductions about him, he would have assumed by his thin frame and only partially formal attire that this man was homeless, but what of the Bibles? "Mary and I aren't particularly religious, so if you're looking for souls to save, you may have come to the wrong place." No response. Gladstone was practically drooling-in fact, he was. John turned to his bookcase. "Of course, even if we were religious, I do own a Bible, so we need not buy a second-" John turned back to the stranger, but when he did, the stranger was no longer there. He had taken off the tight hat and coat, and there in front of John Watson was Sherlock Holmes, in the flesh, dressed in blue jeans.
John fainted. There was no other way to respond.