I've been trying to get my life back together. Harry has convinced me to get a job at the local clinic. At the moment, it's only voluntary, so I'm not earning yet, but it does help. It's a distraction, a way to hide my own problems behind those of everybody else. Plus it's flu season, so I've been a welcome addition to the clinic, especially since I'm willing to do double shifts and night shifts, and have even volunteered to do both Christmas and New Year's. Anything to get out of that damn flat. It's been months since Sherlock's suicide, and I'm not even starting to come to terms with it. It's so hard - to have to go from being closer to him that to anyone else, to suddenly never being able to talk to him or even see him ever again. But like i said, work is helping. Nobody there knows me or recognises me, and nobody mentions Sherlock. For 8 beautiful hours each day I don't have to think. I'm not John Watson, I'm just A Doctor and all I have to do is know about real physical injuries, not people's thoughts or reasons for doing things or anything else. Certainly not my own feelings.

Then one day something wonderful happens. It's New Year's day and Dr Murphy has just relieved me from my overnight shift. I walk along the river back to Baker Street, taking my time. The sun has already risen, bright and bold on this cold winters morning. A soft breeze brushes against my face, making me shiver. I spy a bench facing out onto the river and I sit and watch as cafe windows light up and people drag themselves out of bed after last night's celebrations. Eventually, I stand and start to walk on.

That's when I see it. A figure enveloped in shadows, just in the alley between two houses. And I know as sure as I know my own name that it's him, that he's alive, and that he's finally come home to fix me. Barely even thinking straight, I'm suddenly running. I must see him properly, I must reach him. Please. The figure slips back and I can't see him anymore, but I'm still running because I have to catch him. Breathing hard, heart pounding, giddy with anticipation, I reach the alley and rush down it, knocking over a dustbin and setting off a dog's barking in my all-consuming need to see him up close.

But. The alley is a dead end. The walls too high to climb. He... wasn't here. But I saw him, I know I saw him. I walk slowly back up the alley, past the barking dog, past the spilled bin. I'm in so much of a daze that I almost don't see the sleek black car pull up beside me. The back window rolls down, and I see Mycroft Holmes looking up at me wearily.

"Get in," he says quietly. I walk around the car and slide in beside him.

"Drive," he orders the main in the front, before turning to me. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he remarks with a wry smile.

"I think I might have," I reply, shakily. He regards me closely as I recount the whole story.

"So you think you saw Sherlock?" he says when I'm done.

"I know what I saw."

"John, he's dead. You know he is. You saw him jump. You saw him."

"I know what I saw." I repeat, bitterly. "But I know that if there's anyone on this planet who could figure out how to survive that, it's Sherlock Holmes."

He has no reply for that.

We stop outside 221B a few minutes later.

"Don't... don't do anything rash, John."

"I promise. Don't I always?" I snap, before slamming the car door behind me. I walk inside, then slowly up the stairs, before sitting in his chair. I had seen him, I know I had, and each passing second makes me more certain of this fact.

I run over in my mind the moment he jumped from St Barts - he jumped, he fell, he.. landed? I realise suddenly that I never saw him hit the ground, that stupid building was in the way. And the cyclist that hit me as I ran to Sherlock, was that an accident, or was it planned to delay me? Sherlock's body on the pavement too, it was positioned all wrong. He should have landed across the pavement, not parallel to it. His behaviour had been so strange, too. When I'd told him about Mrs Hudson he had just told me to go. This is the same man who had thrown an American agent out of the window multiple times just for hitting her, yet he wouldn't go see her when she was dying? Plus she wasn't dying, it was a fake call, so maybe he'd planned. He must have wanted me out of the way so he could face Moriarty alone. But why? Did he know Moriarty was going to kill himself? Maybe, I realised, he was never fooled at all. I feel a sudden rush of pride. Moriarty never beat him.

I think about his phone call to me. This is my note. He expressed more emotions in that one call than he'd ever shown to me in the whole time I knew him. It was so out of character for him. Why did he need me to believe in his suicide so badly that he would reduce himself to that?

And then it hits me. He's alive. Really and truly alive. I feel like shouting and punching the air in pure joy. I don't have to live without him anymore. Somehow, and God only knows how, he faked his own death. But why?

Mycroft and Harry spend the next few days trying to persuade me that I didn't see Sherlock, that it was my mind paying tricks on me. I stand firm. Molly is especially keen for me to forget what I saw. She's been acting so strange lately, even more tired than usual, and less happy. I start suspecting her of being involved with his faked death, and bombard her with so many shouted questions that I reduce her to tears. It's at this point that I start to doubt what I saw, start to wonder if I was just imagining it.

Molly is very understanding, bless her, and she refuses to let me apologise. It's hard for all of us, she said, but he was your best friend. You miss him. It's ok.

During the days that I thought he was still alive, the nightmares left me. But as the doubt plants its ugly seed in my mind, they return with a vengeance, more vivid and heartbreaking than before. I always wake screaming.

Sherlock was everything to me, and it's almost like he's died all over again. But it's more painful this time, because I miss him so much more.

"Oh Sherlock," I whisper as I lie in bed that night, cold and alone, "I'm so broken. Won't you come home and fix me?"

I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update - college and work have been getting the better of me, and I just haven't had time. But hopefully I'll be updating more regularly now - I've written most of the story, just need to type it up and upload it :)

Thank you for your patience!

Love to you all,

iamthedaisyqueen xxxxx