Prompt: Either Holmes or Watson needs a hug. Will they get it?, from Hades Lord of the Dea

A/N: this one definitely got away from me, and possible expanded a little too much, not sure how well it worked, but just be aware, angst ahead.

John stood alongside the grave, concentrating on the bite of the wind on his cheeks and the way his breath looked like clouds in the winter weather. On anything but the casket being lowered into the ground. He blinked the tears away whenever they appeared. He was fourteen now, nearly a man, and fourteen-year-old boys didn't cry. Not even as his mother's coffin hit the bottom with a dull thud.

She is never coming back, John thought, swallowing the lump in his throat. His mother had been ill for some years, long enough that he had started to believe it would never come to its inevitable end. But a cough became a hack and a hack became bloody and like so many others, Mrs. Watson wasted away. John hastily wiped his eyes, thinking he would very much like a hug. But that was impossible. His mother was the only one who had ever hugged him. His father certainly wouldn't, not since John had been very small.

Suddenly, John felt a comforting arm around his shoulders, and looked up to see his brother, home from university for the funeral. "She was ill for a long time, Johnny," Henry Watson said. He was the only one who still called him Johnny. "She is past the pain at last."

John sniffled. "Someday," he said, "I shall be a doctor, and then I can heal people like Mother."

Over twenty years later, Dr. John Watson was alone in his shared rooms at Baker Street when he took a package, sent to him from France. He did not need to read the letter to know what had happened. He had not heard much of Henry of late, and what news did come to him was unpleasant. So his brother had at last succumbed to the drink and the cavalier lifestyle he had led. Watson could not say it was a surprise, however unwelcome it was. Henry had had all the prospects one could have and thrown them away, causing his family grief and himself much unhappiness.

But that was in the past, and if Watson could not grieve the person his brother had become, he could grieve for the person he had been, and the person he might have been. The brother who had taught him to play rugby and given him his old Latin textbooks when he left university so Watson did not have to buy his own. The brother who had been the only one to comfort him after their mother's death. Watson smiled sadly. It was no small thing, a hug, though as he heard his fellow-lodger throw open the door downstairs, he hastily tucked the watch into his pocket.

Holmes did not understand such things as loss and sympathy.

Perhaps it might seem strange that the train ride back was the most agonizing of all. More than the desperate search for Holmes's body in the crevasse beneath Reichenbach Falls, more than the hurry to get the news back to London before it could be reported. Through all of that, Watson had had things to do. First the desperate hope that Holmes might somehow have survived, then the determination to bring him home, then the arrangements and the bustle of people around him who assisted him in this place where he did not speak the language or know the customs.

But on the train ride back, he was alone, with only the empty seat across from him, louder in its way than Holmes had ever been as he expounded on whatever subject had caught his fancy that day.

Never again. For the first time in ten years he was alone. Never had Watson imagined that Holmes would - even could - die. He had been larger than life, a presence that had filled every space in Watson's life. Watson had known grief before, too much, but not like this. This was not grief, this was a vast, black emptiness that swallowed up all else. This was incomprehensible. He willed Holmes to be seated across from him each time he opened his eyes, and each time he was reminded anew that he had left Holmes at the bottom of those accursed falls.

When he finally, days later, arrived at the station in London, he saw nothing but Mary standing there waiting for him, and as she enveloped him in a hug, he could finally let go.

Three years later, Watson stood alongside another grave. The few other mourners had left, the snow was newly fallen, and he was alone. Truly alone, for the first time in his life. Mary was gone, to the same horrible disease that had killed his mother so long ago, that he had once sworn he would be able to heal.

His mother. Henry. Holmes. Now Mary. Watson's life was a list of loved ones he could not save.

And there was no one left who could give him even the slightest sympathy.

A mere few months later, Watson awoke to find Sherlock Holmes's arms around him, gently guiding him to his chair after he had fainted. A sip of brandy later, and he realized that he was not dreaming.

Holmes was alive. He had returned.

Watson was not alone after all.