"Hello, you have reached Sherlock Holmes."
John's resolve melted at the sound of his flatmate's somber baratone.
It had been too long. Too bloody long since he had felt those unique chords hit his ears.
"Either I have chosen to ignore your call because I haven't the patience to put up with, what I know will be, the badgerings of an idiot. Or I am simply too busy being the only consulting detective in the wolrd and therefore saving you from certain doom. If you , however, actually have something worth my time to listen to -which I assure you, you probably don't- you may leave a message. If you are -or are in any way related to- Anderson, Donovan, or anyone of equal brain matter, I won't listen, so don't bother. Mycroft, sod off. Lestrade, you know I prefer text, but if you must call, call John. Laterz."
John gulped in a gasp of air around the swelling lump that consumed his throat. The message was long winded and beyond specific. So cold and decisive. So Sherlock.
John couldn't do it.
He couldn't take it. But he had to. He felt his heart would surely give out under what denying this would do to him.
He had to talk.
Hearing the beep, he knew he would not have much time. He had to hurry.
Gathering his thoughts and painfully trying to clear away the lump that had taken home in his throat, he began to speak to the emptiness on the other line.
"Hi, Sherlock. I know you're not there and I know this would be classified as 'the badgering of an idiot' to you , but I just need to talk it out. Needless to say my day's not been the hottest. Absolutely nothing is going right at the surgury. I can't focus on the patients I'm taking in. Every story they come in with reminds me of us. Of our adventures and misadventures. I miss them.
I've gone back to using the cane again. I know you would not be pleased, but I can't help it. Psychosomatic or not, it hurts. It hurts a bloody lot. Right. Why am I even wasting my breath? You left me, jumped off a bloody building. Why would you care about how I feel? Leaving me your experiments, your messes, your madness, an empty flat. Why would you do this? Sherlock. Why?"
John's voice halted with a break. He took a deep, shaking breath before setting his jaw firm and fixing the wall with a firm glare, not unlike the one it was accustomed to lately.
"Right. Okey. Sorry for that. Sometimes it just happens. This whole spiel happened because I missed our blasted morning talk. Best not do that again." John's voice fell to a faint murmur to himself as he shook his head helplessly, thinking of what sort of mental state he had to be in to admit that missing a morning talk with a grave stone had gotten him so emotionally unbalanced.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in pain and annoyance. His face scrunched in an effort to hide all the emotions burning through his veins. To quell them before they took over completely.
"I am sorry, Sherlock. I just... I am. I just can't help but feel that you are out there. That you are alive and behind all those murders. All linked to Moriarty. All linked to you. Sherlock, why? Come back to get me, You don't have to do it alone. I can help you. I will help you. I would do anything and - "
The dial tone sounded. John's desperate please were cut short. John felt that burning again. That consuming feeling that he was alone. That Sherlock had left him for a reason. That he wasn't wanted anymore. A sob of helplessness rushed up his throat but he grabbed it back just in time before it made it's way out.
I need to get out of here.
At that moment John didn't care that he had overbooked his day at surgery. His distraction from reality.
He had to get out. He couldn't do it.
He glanced up a pleading moment to Sarah, tearing his eyes from their determined set on the door. Understanding lit her eyes and she nodded to him almost imperceptibly, willing him to go. John's clenched jaw released momentarily in relief that he had not had to explain the wetness in his eyes, or beg for a respite, or deal with the pitying stares of others as he lost it all in front of them in that lobby. He thanked her wih this eyes, hoping she understood everything he was trying to say through them. Dropping his eyes again, his determined stride returned; pulling him, dragging him, into the oblivious world around him and to the well padded trail of the cemetary.
Reaching the end of the trampled grass, he stared momentarily blank at the harsh ebony of the smooth stone.
The lump he had forgotten about in his throat returned.
John's jaws ached from the force of being clenched the entire walk over, yet now standing in front of his friend, he clenched them even tighter.
He reached out, brushing his fingertips against the smooth white lettering.
His vision blurred.
He had lost friends before. Many friends, many colleagues, had fallen in Afghanistan.
He had seen many gruesome deaths, "Far too many" was an understatement. Enough for a lifetime he had thought. Then there was Sherlock.
The intriguing enigma that was the man. Brilliant, sometimes overly so. Loyalty was something John did not treat lightly. Once someone had earned his loyalty he never took it back. For that reason very few truly had it. Sherlock was one. John's greatest gift was given to that man so easily, so quickly, he almost couldn't believe it himself. He would always protect his friend. But then came Moriarty. The human incarnation of brilliance at it's worst.
And John had failed.
Failed to keep up, failed to see, failed to listen. Failed to save the life he valued the most. A life that he priced far above his own.
As a doctor, he lost a part of himself with every life lost under his care. As a captain, he struggled every day through the fact that his men were wiped out under his command.
As a friend, he lost himself.
Though he urged Lestrade and Molly to believe that he was coping, though he confided his small struggles to gentle Mrs. Hudson, and though he worked more on his acting abilities every time he met with his therapist to keep Mycroft at bay; if he were completely honest with himself, he died that day.
Not in body obviously, but he might as well have been, it would have felt better. His spirit had fled him along with Sherlock. He was left with a body and nothing to do with it. He didn't even know who he was any more. He hardly recognized himself.
Trapped.
John knew he was. There could be no denying it.
He told himself to suck it up. To keep going. That Sherlock was alive. That he was going to come back for him. They had more adventures to go on, it couldn't be over. Not like this.
John slid down the stone, curling himself against the slow trickle of rain that was just beginning to fall, resting on the smooth, cold, utterly unforgiving rock.
He cried. His tears mixing with the soft pelts on his face. And though he knew it was absurd, in the midst of the oncoming storm, he felt a little safer. A little warmer. A fealing spread through him and he smiled at it. Next to his friend's final resting place he felt it.
Home.
It was not in the tedious workplace, or in the dull mingling of crowds in streets, or even within caring warmth of Mrs. Hudson's flat. It was action, it was chase , it was Sherlock. And now more than ever he wanted to feel that thrill again. As Mycroft had once said, he was not haunted; he missed it. He missed it again.
Sherlock.
Home.