John never really moved on.

He left the school after that. He got debilitating panic attacks whenever he walked near his old room, or sat in the canteen, or talked to Greg or Mary or Irene. He cried whenever he saw that building, whenever he breathed. Because each time he drew in a breath, he knew he wasn't beside him doing the same thing.

His parents, willingly, let him enroll in his old school again. It was much the same as before, except this time, he didn't have any friends. They had never been real friends anyway. It sickened him whenever they tried to talk to him, because they didn't deduce, or recite Shakespeare, or come up with a snarky insult. None of them could play violin- peasants, Sherlock would say- or recite the periodic table- imbeciles. None of them were enigma's with spindly limbs and gorgeous eyes- none of them were him.

Sentiment, that damned boy would reply.

John didn't play sport anymore either. He exercised a lot, normally threw himself into boxing or running or something that stopped him thinking. But he didn't play football. Or rugby. Or tennis.

Turns out his parents didn't care.

When John was twenty, Baskerville Academy hosted a reunion for the students of 2002. Molly Hooper had sought out John's number and texted him, saying how delightful it would be if he came and saw the group again. John asked if Moriarty was there. She said he left the same year John did.

Reluctantly, John attended. He was greeted by a pretty looking Molly, who had developed into something quietly beautiful; a gorgeous and confident Mary, who's accent now contained an American twang; and a dangerously smoking Irene, who practically wore nothing and had several of the boys and staff swooning. Greg shook his hand and John couldn't help but notice how tall he was now- everyone had changed dramatically. So why was it that John still felt the same?
John learnt that Molly was training to be a pathologist in London, and planned to work at the same hospital as John once her course was complete. Mary was training again for the CIA- with her past experience, she was elligible. "No guns," she had assured John, hand on her hip. "Well, for defence, yeah. But I don't want to kill nobody anymore."

Irene boasted about becoming a dominatrix, and how she had already ruined Lindsey Lohan's career and trampled David Cameron's dignity. John didn't quite believe her. Greg was training to be a DI, and was the first to bring him up.

"I kinda hoped we'd be on the force together, you know?" Greg said sadly, sloshing his beer in its cup. "He was brilliant at that sorta stuff. Would've been a smashing private detective or something."

John didn't mention that Sherlock had always talked of being a consulting detective, and that he had snubbed the private ones.

At some point later, Anderson and Sally approached him. They'd entered a serious relationship now, and John immediately sneered when they approached. Anderson merely nodded in understanding, before offering his hand. "I'm sorry for everything," he said, Sally nodding nervously behind him.

"I was a bitch." She reconsidered this. "And he was a dick," she added.

John teared up at that point. He bid everyone farewell and stumbled to his car, depressed and perhaps a little drunk.

The next week he signed up for the army.

With his medical training, they accepted him as a soldier with a medical liscence- an army doctor. He swallowed training like it was water, already fit and ready, with a mind sharper than a knife and a resolve stronger than cement. He ate the army, drank the army, breathed the army. It was all he could really do now.

He craved the thrill, the same one he used to get when kissing Sherlock. He purposely flung himself into the midst of danger, rewarding himself when he saved a life in the process. Afghanistan was hot and dirty and dangerous, and he loved it.

Until he got shot.

John has nothing, now.

No army. No family. No friends.

No Sherlock.

Just a useless leg and a screwed up shoulder. An empty heart and too small lungs. He can't breathe properly anymore, even though breathing is all he ever really does.

But he doesn't want to, anymore. Not really.

"I promise that writing everything that happens to you online will help you," his therapist says, leaning forward on her chair and placing her elbows on her knees. John looks up at her in defeat, eyes hard and cold.

"Nothing happens to me."

"John? John Watson!"

The soldier turns around when he hears his surname- it's what everyone called him in the army. "Watson, drop and give me twenty!" "March on Watson!" "Retreat, Watson, retreat!" "Don't you dare die on me Watson!"

"Mike, Mike Stamford! Trained at Bart's together?"

John remembers him as the guy he'd blatantly ignored the entire two years. The guy who'd tried to be his friend, but John had pushed away, because he wasn't him.

"Oh, yeah. Hi."

"I know, I got fat."

"No, no, you..."

"Heard you were somewhere getting shot at!" John grimaces. "What happened?"

"I got shot."

Before he knows what's happening, Mike's bought him a coffee, and they've collapsed on a bench near a public park. John leans his cane against the brittle wood, clenching and unclenching his fist as Mike rambles on about how comfortable his life is and how he's now teaching and gosh how it's awful etc. etc.

"Staying in London?"

John chuckles sadly. "Can't afford London on an army pension."

"You wouldn't bear to be anywhere else. That's not the John Watson I know."

John's glare is beyond spiteful. "Well, I'm not the John Watson you..." he trails off when Mike grins sloppily at him, and instead rubs his knee anxiously.

"Can't Harry help?"

Another hollow laugh. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen."

"Maybe, get a flatshare or something?"

John leans his head back, staring at the sky for a millisecond before letting his head snap to face Mike. "Come on," he scoffs, eyes void of mirth, "who'd want me as a flatmate?"

Mike giggles stupidly, and John eyes him suspiciously. He lets a moment pass before speaking again.

"What?"

Mike's head lolls round to face him. "Well, you're the second person to say that to me today."

John frowns. "Who was the first?"

The lab isn't how John remembers it.

It's all high tech now, a stark contrast from the sandy plains of the middle east. John glances at Mike, clearly impressed, and shrugs in the general direction of the equipment. "Different from my day."

"You have no idea."

Yes, the lab is definitely different. All machines, and petri dishes, various computers dotted here and there. And last time he was here, there definitely wasn't a lean, rather peculiar individual perched in the corner with his eyes glued to a microscope.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone?" The man says, his voice deep and earthy, thick with an elegant British accent. It sounds familiar to John, but he can't quite place it..."

"Why can't you use the landline?"

"I prefer to text."

"Sorry, left it in my other coat."

John suddenly finds himself in a very generous mood. "Here, you can use mine," he says, offering his phone up lazily. The man turns to him, muttering a thanks- and that's when John sees him.

Same softly curling hair and sharp eyes, same alabaster skin and husky, thick voice. But he's not as painfully skinny anymore- still tall and slim, but with more muscle. He looks healthier, John prefers him this way, with more meat on his bones and more light in his eyes. They still look tired- sleeping habits haven't changed then- but he doesn't look ready to shoot himself. Not like last time John saw him.

Dumbfounded, he can't even utter the words You're dead, even though that would be the obvious response. Sherlock smiles wryly- his eyes a little shocked perhaps, but still maintaining his sarcastic composure. Taking the phone in his cool fingers, he begins to type, John still staring at him in awe and shock and panic. The soldier is too busy trying to form the question How are you alive? or trying to find the best way to say I love you, I've missed you, that he misses Sherlock's next question.

"S-sorry?"

"Which was it- Afghanistan, or Iraq?"

THE END.