The sun came up, and he found himself in the waiting room with Mary. His wife.
You can trust her, Sherlock had said. But look where that had gotten him.
"I know that I can't apologize..." she began, and he shook his head. "But I am sorry," she whispered. "So sorry," she choked.
John didn't attempt to comfort her.
"He was my best friend," John said dumbly. "My best friend. I'd only just gotten him back."
He blinked once, twice.
"He skipped out of hospital to tell me the truth about you. But instead of just telling me, and letting me hate you, he took it upon himself to repair our relationship. He died because he bled out in our flat, telling me that you didn't mean to kill him, that you didn't have a choice." His voice was bitter. "He died trying to repair the very thing that had broken him."
"John-" Mary began.
"No," he snapped. "You don't get to talk. Not anymore. Not right now. Maybe not ever."
She nodded slightly.
They sat in silence for a while longer.
"Mycroft will know," John said suddenly. It wasn't said to her, she just happened to be there.
Mary, or whatever the hell her name was, nodded. "I know. But Sherlock made sure that he wouldn't have me killed. He said... he couldn't let that happen to the baby." She sniffed, and John almost wanted to hold her. Almost. Not quite.
John didn't know what he wanted Mycroft to do.
(A tiny part of him wanted Mycroft to kill them both, just because everything would go away then. He suspected that wouldn't happen.)
But he knew he didn't want Mycroft to kill the baby. And he didn't think Mycroft would do that. Maybe.
So Mary was safe (being a relative term) for now.
John didn't say anything.
Mary asked him if he wanted to go home, because she could go somewhere else.
John didn't want to speak to her, but sort of had to. He declined, and sent her home, saying he would find somewhere else. He couldn't go home now. Not after... this.
Someone had to tell Mrs Hudson.
But the woman didn't need to be told when John stood at her door. Not with that expression. Not when he looked so completely destroyed and broken.
He held her as she cried for a while. He did his best not to, trying to be strong. After a while he excused himself, saying that he hadn't slept all night.
She sniffed, and told him she understood.
He slept in Baker Street. His bedroom was the same as it was before, minus the things he'd taken with him when he moved out, unable to bear living among the memories. He'd always planned to come back for his other things, but never could.
It was probably the same reason he could never bring himself to visit Mrs Hudson. She was right, of course, he could have called... but it was all so hard, and maybe if he didn't acknowledge any of that happening, he could pretend. (Of course he couldn't.)
He didn't really sleep.
Even when sleeping with Mary, he'd still have dreams, of Afghanistan, of Sherlock falling, of everything that had ever gone wrong with his life.
He didn't think he slept more than an hour the whole time.
He got up sometime in the late afternoon, possibly even more exhausted than when he went to bed.
John wasn't sure why he got up. What he was supposed to do.
His life had been torn down in pieces around him over the last week or so, and nothing could ever be the same. Even if Sherlock had been there to patch things up, glue could only do so much.
John thought briefly of his gun.
Because honest to god, he had fucked it up big time. He may have thought things were fucked up before, but not on this level. Before, his pregnant assassin wife had not shot and killed his best friend.
No, definitely not on this level.
But there was the baby. And that was the only thing keeping him from getting a taxi right now, and going home to the closet. (They both knew it was there. Mary had expressed her dislike for it before, which he could almost laugh about now. Where did she keep her gun?)
But that was it.
He honestly didn't know what he was going to do. Sherlock told him to trust Mary, but that was before he went and died on John. And with Sherlock in such a state, how could he trust anything the man said?
Because he's Sherlock bloody Holmes, something whispered to him.
Was, he corrected. Not anymore.
He'd used up his miracle, begging at Sherlock's grave for him to not be dead.
And he got him back, for a year more, and now he was gone. For real. John had watched the entire time, there was no room for tricks, no body doubles, no faking that.
No more miracles.
