Dinner is consumed, and eventually Sherlock is driven back to Baker Street when they find out nothing else can be done. They just have to wait.
Sherlock does not do waiting well.
At first, he obsessively starts cleaning the flat, thinking that John will be home in a few days, a week perhaps, and he won't like to see the flat a mess. Everything down to the fridge and his experiments is cleaned, restocked, organized. Baker Street has never been so clean. But then the cleaning is done, and Sherlock's mind has nothing else to focus on. It's still early, barely a week since he talked to John. That's still within an acceptable time frame, so he goes back to working and his experiments, anything to take up his time. He even starts to eat and sleep more just to have something to do. And because John said he had lost weight, and he doesn't want John to be upset with him when he comes back.
Two weeks go by since the conversation, and that is when things start going downhill for the detective. Two men in military uniform show up at the door to Baker Street, requesting to see Sherlock.
"Oh, dear. He's upstairs, but he's in quite a state.. come in, let me see if I can go bring him down.." Mrs. Hudson fusses, before she heads upstairs to try and get Sherlock down.
It doesn't take long for the young man to come down the stairs quickly, but he stops on the third step when he sees the two men, slowly stepping down, mercurial eyes are looking them both over, noting the envelope that they have in their hands. "He's not dead." he says flatly, refusing to believe something like that despite the conclusion his mind jumps to.
The taller of the men, a Captain as well if his markings are anything to go by. "No, sir. Captain John Watson put you as his emergency contact, the person to notify should anything happen to him." He hesitates for a moment. "He is currently classified as Missing In Action, sir." He says before he holds out the letter. "We were informed to give you this." He says simply. When the letter is taken from him, he nods a little. "Good day, sir." He says before he turns, both men leaving Baker Street.
Sherlock looks down at the letter in his hands for a few moments before he retreats back to his flat, opening the letter and pouring over the last known locations and information. It's all things that he already knew though, thanks to his brother. They still don't know where John and his team went, where they thought their fallen comrade was being held.
Then people start telling him, starting with Mycroft, that he might have to accept the fact that John might not be coming back, that something might have happened to him. And he thinks of John, suffering for two years thinking that he was dead. Sherlock refuses to believe that his lover, his blogger, his doctor, could be killed so easily, after so much that they went through in over two years of catching criminals, the detective refuses to believe that John could die in a desert somewhere. He stops arguing with people, though, he keeps his beliefs in his heart, where they're safe and will remain so. He keeps waiting as two weeks stretches into three, stretches into four.
The openness, the playfulness that he'd started to display, even around Lestrade, starts to slowly recede, and everyone starts to notice the difference in Sherlock. There is no one there to temper Sherlock's sharp tongue, to smooth over the rough edges. There is no one to keep him calm, or keep him rested. He pushes himself to the limits until he sometimes literally collapses from exhaustion. And there is no one there who he will listen to, despite how much they might yell at him. Yelling only makes him withdraw even more. He solves more cases than ever for Scotland Yard. Five months after John left for this mission, and Sherlock barely even shows off at crime scenes anymore. His accusations of Scotland Yard's incompetence don't even hold the same bite as it used to.
Sherlock continues to work. It's something he can do, something to occupy his mind, it's the only thing that he has left other than just waiting. When he's at the flat, he's just waiting for John to get back. He tries to at least eat, even if he very rarely sleeps. With sleep come dreams, and dreams are worse than being awake. In his dreams, John is there with him, but when he wakes, he is in an empty flat.
The detective still believes his doctor will return to him. It was a promise he made, afterall. That he would be home soon. A month and a half after John is declared MIA, Sherlock finally gets a serial killer case that occupies him fully and takes his mind off other things, the spark coming back to him a little, to where he even gets a bit angry at Donovan and Anderson, something that hasn't happened in weeks.
In the middle of the case, he is in Baker Street, trying to figure out the problem, scrubbing his hands through his hair as he paces through the flat, the paths well worn by now, so that he could do it in his sleep or with his eyes closed. He's so tired and so focused on the case that he doesn't even notice when he turns toward John's chair and yells, "I'm missing something, it doesn't make sense, John!"
An empty chair and silence is the only answer the world's only consulting detective gets.
I know this is short but it was really difficult for me to write, emotionally at least. I hated putting Sherlock through this, but it will all be worth it, next chapter, I promise!
But that will have to wait a few hours because I need to sleep.
As always, reviews/comments are welcome!