Every time I reread this chapter, I tear up a little. There's a reason I saved it for last. ;)

Chapter 7: John

"You machine!"

Those were some of the last words he'd spoken to Sherlock in person. Those were the words he wished he'd never said. Those were the words John would forever regret:

"You machine!"

John had been tricked, and he'd fallen for it whole-heartedly. He didn't even remember who it was who called him saying Mrs. Hudson had been shot; he hadn't thought to check if it was a reliable source. He'd been so overwhelmed with everything going on that he'd let his guard down. Of course he rushed over to check on her, and Sherlock had stayed behind. He'd been such an idiot: Sherlock loved Mrs. Hudson more than he loved his own mother. If she was really in trouble, he'd be the first one there. He should've seen that something was up. Sherlock would have called him an idiot for missing something so obvious.

Those final few moments replayed themselves in an endless loop in John's brain, torturing him. Every time he relived it, he thought of everything he did wrong, everything he should have done but didn't. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Sherlock silhouetted against the sky behind him as he stood on top of St. Bart's, he saw his bloodied body lying motionless on the pavement. Their phone conversation looped over and over in his head like a broken record. Sherlock had called it his note.

John hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time since it happened. If he allowed himself to dream, his subconscious forced him to again watch Sherlock plummet four stories. Just as in real life, he was powerless to stop it. Never had he felt so useless. Not when he failed to save his comrades on the battlefield, not when he failed to save Harry from turning to the bottle, not when he failed to save himself from his own post-traumatic stress, but when he failed to save his best friend from ending his life.

He agonized over the weeks leading up to the event, searching his memories of Sherlock for signs of depression. He was a doctor, for heaven's sake; he should have noticed that something was wrong! The whole Richard Brooke affair would have been enough to drive any normal person over the edge, but Sherlock was far from normal. He accepted the accusations with grace, he allowed everyone around him to think that he made everything up. The Sherlock John knew would have gone to the ends of the Earth to set the record straight, not thrown in the towel.

On the rooftop, Sherlock had told John that the rumors were true, that he did invent all the crimes. John hadn't believed him for one second, had thought this was all some big joke. He hadn't really taken it seriously until Sherlock's feet left the roof. Then his world had come crashing down. He remembered running desperately, being knocked over, and scrambling back to his feet to get to Sherlock. He just couldn't be dead. Sherlock Holmes didn't die. By the time John reached the sidewalk, a small crowd had already accumulated. John immediately noticed the blood on the pavement beneath their feet. He rushed forward, pushing through the masses to get to Sherlock, because he couldn't be dead, it just wasn't possible. He finally got a hand around the detective's wrist, and his heart sank when no reassuring thump-thump could be felt beneath his fingertips. Then he'd been wrenched away and forced to watch as Sherlock's lifeless body was carted away by strangers.

In that moment, he'd felt nothing more than a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. The crowd dispersed, leaving no more evidence of the fall except for the blood still spattering the ground. John had wandered the area aimlessly, not knowing what to do with himself. He remembered pinching himself repeatedly, convinced this was all a bad dream, that he'd wake up in his bed in Baker Street to the sounds of the violin emanating from downstairs. But no matter how hard he pinched, he remained anchored here, in what had to be reality.

He didn't remember exactly what happened afterwards, but somehow he ended up back at Baker Street. It was painfully empty and silent. He wandered upstairs to the sitting room and sat down in his chair, looking across at the black armchair that would never be occupied again. He knew instantly that he wouldn't be able to stay there without Sherlock. From that moment, he simply existed in a timeless stupor. He didn't eat or sleep, only drinking the cups of tea Mrs. Hudson practically forced down his throat. It just didn't seem fair that he could engage in such mundane activities when Sherlock never would again.

He knew Mycroft had already set a date for the funeral, but he didn't dwell on that thought too much. A funeral would only solidify the fact that Sherlock was gone. Until then, he could hold out hope that the detective would burst into the flat, demanding John follow him on a case. He'd heard some people say that funerals bring closure, help the surviving accept things and move on. He tried to think of it like that, but he couldn't see it as anything more than a confirmation of Sherlock's non-existence.

Now, John found himself in the funeral home itself, realizing that he'd been one hundred percent right. He'd started crying the moment he stepped inside, and hadn't stopped since. The tears poured constantly down his face, like a leaky faucet. Every once in a while, a burst of emotion would speed them up, turning a trickle into a torrent. His first glimpse of the casket was one example, Sherlock's cold body stuffed into a box. Mycroft hadn't asked him if he wanted a last glimpse of the body, and John was somewhat torn in regards to this. He understood that he wasn't family, but he was much closer to Sherlock than anybody else. On one hand, he did not want to see Sherlock lying dead, but on the other, his last image of the detective was of him with his head bashed in and bloody. At least he'd been made presentable before he was to be buried, Mycroft would have made sure of that. John hoped Mycroft had had him dressed in his purple dress shirt; it was one of his favorites.

At the front of the room was a simple lectern, where some man from the funeral home was currently muttering nonsense he'd rehearsed half an hour ago. To one side was a large picture of Sherlock. However, he'd hated having his picture taken, and the only usable one they could find was one from the newspaper: him wearing the deerstalker hat. Sherlock would hate that, and this only made John cry harder.

Sherlock's parents were nowhere to be found, and John found this appalling. Their son had died, and they couldn't be bothered to attend the funeral? It was sickening. John understood that people didn't always have the best of relationships with their parents, but no conflict could possibly important enough to bar them from coming to mourn the loss of their child. He considered questioning Mycroft about their absence, but decided against it. The last thing he needed was more Holmes drama.

Next to John sat Lestrade, Mycroft, Molly, and Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock had a small circle of friends, but each probably cared enough to be worth two or three people. John had seen Anderson and Donovan towards the back of the room, but he chose not to acknowledge their presence. He couldn't help but blame them for pushing Sherlock too far. They'd coerced Lestrade into thinking Sherlock a liar, and John wasn't sure he could ever forgive them for their actions.

The Detective Inspector himself now stood up and moved to the front of the room to give a speech. He and John had agreed they'd be the only ones to speak. When he decided firmly that he would write one, John had sat down and poured his heart out into his eulogy. Listening to Lestrade speak about Sherlock's passion for the work, John felt the tears pouring even harder. He would never meet another man quite like Sherlock Holmes.

Before he knew it, Lestrade had finished and it was John's turn. John wiped the tears away with the back of his hand, but fresh ones soon replaced them. He'd just have to suck it up and do this. He eased up out of his seat and slowly walked up to the front of the room. He didn't think he'd be able to make it through his eulogy without sniffling, so he abandoned all hope of delivering it cleanly. He'd be a sniveling mess, but screw it.

"As I'm sure you know, my name is John Watson, and I had the pleasure of chronicling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes," he began, tears already obscuring his vision. He'd have to speak partially from memory or continuously wipe his eyes dry to be able to read his notes.

"When I first met Sherlock, I was fresh out of Afghanistan with a bum shoulder, severe PTSD, and a psychosomatic limp," he confessed. "I'd been in therapy, physical and mental, ever since I returned to England, but I wasn't getting any better. By some miracle of fate, I stumbled upon Mike Stamford, who brought me to a morgue—of all places—" John choked on this line, remembering Sherlock's love of the morgue and all the insane experiments he'd conducted there—"to meet a potential flatmate. Imagine my surprise when a man I've never met before tells me my entire life story. I was taken aback, and a little suspicious. But Sherlock Holmes soon proved to be the perfect companion, despite his eccentricities. In one night, my limp was cured and my life completely turned around, and I owe it all to Sherlock Holmes.

"Over the years, the crimes grew stranger and we grew closer. Sherlock quickly became my best friend. The man himself would claim that he didn't have friends, but I have no doubt that he considered me a friend, maybe his only one. But if I were to have only one friend in the world, I would choose Sherlock Holmes. Because even though he can be callously blunt, blatantly ignorant, and inhumanly stoic, he can also be gently compassionate, amazingly clever, stupidly fearless, and fiercely loyal."

John had to take a bit of a breather after that bit, biting his knuckle because the pain helped him keep it together. He continued:

"I wouldn't trade my life with Sherlock for anything. If I'm totally honest, I might not have had much of a life if I hadn't crossed paths with him. He saved me from my own demons, and for that I owe him so many thanks. That I will never be able to tell him how grateful I am is a thought that pains me to no end. There are so many things I wish I could tell him now, more than I could ever say in one sitting, but I fear he is where I cannot reach him. He would scoff at me for so much as suggesting an afterlife, but if anybody deserves a spot in heaven, it's Sherlock Holmes. He would probably scoff at me some more for being so sentimental—he always hated sentiment—but I hope he's secretly pleased to know that I care. I care so much, that I feel like I'm about to burst with grief knowing he's gone.

"The circumstances of his death play no small part in the emotional severity of this tragedy. Sherlock was not suicidal, he was happy with his job and his life, and it wasn't until he was faced with James Moriarty that things started to go downhill. I don't know what you've heard about Richard Brook, but Sherlock and I know for a fact he is purely a construct of Moriarty, designed to defame Sherlock. I shudder to think about how many people bought into this idea that Sherlock Holmes was a fraud, a fake genius," John not-so-subtly glanced in Donovan and Anderson's direction.

"But I've accepted that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you want to believe that the greatest mind to ever live was a fraud, inventing everything to bolster his ego, then more power to you. But nobody will ever convince me that my best friend, the man who saved me, has been lying to me the entire time I've known him. The only aspect of this tragedy that offers me any respite from the sheer anguish is the demise of Moriarty. If Sherlock Holmes had to die, at least he brought the world's greatest criminal down with him. I know that's what he would've wanted," John concluded. He raised his gaze from his paper to look out across the room, to see a hundred watery-eyed faces staring back at them. He briefly nodded and staggered back to his seat, feeling the grief swell up inside of him like a tidal wave. The moment he sat down, he collapsed against Lestrade and wept with more force than ever.

He had no idea how long he remained there, his face buried in the DI's shoulder, but by the time he resurfaced many people had already left. It was time to go to the cemetery, where they would put Sherlock in the ground for the rest of eternity. Slowly, Lestrade coaxed John to a standing position and led him away.

It was sunny outside, and John despised it. His best friend in the whole world was dead, and the bright sun dared to show its face and set an inappropriate mood. It should have been raining, the clouds crying alongside the mourners. John and Lestrade walked side by side towards the hole that had been dug. Mycroft had wanted Sherlock to rest near his grandparents, so that's where he would lie.

All John could think about as the casket was carried towards the gaping hole in the earth was how much Sherlock hated to be cooped up. He liked to be free to burst in and out of rooms at whim, and being covered in six feet of dirt would certainly prevent that. It felt so permanent, and John hated it. Worst of all was the fact that John could never reach him again once he was buried. They'd remained forever separated, and John couldn't bear to imagine such a life.

He couldn't take it anymore. A life without Sherlock wasn't a life worth living, and time was running out. Every inch the casket lowered into the hole was another inch separating John from his best friend. Without thinking, he lunged for the grave, hoping deep down that he could wrench open the coffin and Sherlock would jump out large as life. Before he could get any closer, he felt sturdy hands gripping him and holding him back. But he was losing Sherlock, he was disappearing from sight. "No, no," he muttered loudly, struggling against his captor's grasp. Sherlock was leaving him, and he wouldn't allow it. The last edge of wood disappeared beneath the rim of the hole, and John lost it. "NO!" He couldn't see Sherlock anymore; he was gone. Really, truly gone. Forever.

He continued to thrash and attempt to escape, wanting more than anything to join Sherlock in the depths, but his energy soon drained and his jostling waned in strength. It was hopeless. He was never getting Sherlock back, and he'd have to accept that. He relaxed, and the hands that had been holding him released their grip. He took a deep breath and stepped forward to throw a handful of dirt into the hole. He did so without looking down, because if he did, he'd never be able to wipe the image from his mind.

Sherlock Holmes did not belong in a hole in the ground. He belonged on the streets of London chasing down criminals. He belonged in Scotland Yard insulting the entire police force. He belonged in 221B Baker Street playing the violin or moping around waiting for a case. He belonged by John Watson's side. Well, John Watson belonged by his side, not the other way around. Sherlock was always in charge.

As a child, John had been taught to find the silver lining to every cloud, the rainbow after every storm. Standing by the grave of his best friend in the world, he racked his brain desperately searching for some positive aspect to cling to like a lifeline. After a few minutes, he settled on one small consolation. He knelt down on the cold ground and leaned slightly over the hole so Sherlock could hear him better. And he whispered, quietly enough so no one could overhear him:

"I hope you won't be bored anymore."