A/N: First of all, forgive me for not updating soon. I've wanted to published this story since last week but I can't find a right time to do it. There was always something stopping me. Anyway, enjoy reading this chapter. :3

EDITED: This is the beta-version of the fifth chapter. Thanks to Eli.


Chapter 5: Unexpected Visitor

A loud knock on the door made John jump from his sleep to a sitting position. The sun streamed right into his eyes, made him feel more than a littlea little disoriented. He looked around and realised that he was in the living room. His neck was sore from sleeping on the couch, but he still considered it the best sleep he'd had in a week. At least he had slept until after sunrise. He cracked his neck and rubbed it; stayed on the couch to gather up his consciousness, but whoever was at the door wasn't having any of it. John stood up, walked toward the door with slight annoyance as the knocking turned to hammering.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm here," he mumbled, still rubbing his neck. "Hold on!" he yelled and opened the door.

In front of him stood a balding brown-haired man, looking a little relieved once the door was open. He scanned John's appearance and pulled a face.

"You look like shit," he said.

"It's early morning. I have the right to look like shit after being rudely awoken from my sleep." He gestured for Mike Stamford to enter the room, but Mike didn't come in. He just stood there looking confused.

"Oh, what do you want, Mike? It"s too early. If you don't have anything important to say, please be somewhere else and wake up other people."

Mike leaned on the door frame and folded his arms across his chest. "Oh God, you've forgotten, haven't you?"

"Please just cut the crap and tell me, what did I—" John stopped in the middle of his sentence and froze. The cogs in his brain whirled and then he remembered Sherlock's words, 'You see but do not observe.' Now he understood what it meant.

"No way." John glanced at the calendar on the wall, "God, no."

Mike nodded his head slowly and pointed at John accusingly. "This is your wedding day, hence the suit and bowtie that I currently wear."

"I remember that now, thank you," John groaned. "How can a groom forget his own wedding day?" He glanced at the clock. There was enough time to do everything, but he'd have to do it quickly. "Please don't tell Mary about this."

"About what?" He winked.

"Thank you," said John hastily and then made a beeline to the bathroom. "I'm going to clean myself a bit and then get change. Sit down and make yourself a cuppa."

"No thanks, I'm too nervous to even drink."

"Why?" A muffled voice came from the bathroom.

"Oh, I don't know!" Mike threw his hands on the air, frustrated. "Maybe because keeping you on time was the only responsiblity I had, and for some reason, I screwed it up!" There was no response from John, only the sound of his electric toothbrush.

Mike threw himselfonto the couch but then he saw a couple of boxes marked 'John' on the carpet so he stood and approached them. He wrinkled his forehead. John moved in almost 2 months ago, he should have finished unpacking ages ago. He was just about to open the box when John emerged from the other room.

"Don't worry, we'll be there on time," John grinned as he appeared while buttoning up his suit. "I was in the army, I know how to get dressed fast."

Mike nodded and nodded at the door. "Let's go then."


"There are so many bloody taxis when you don't need one and none when you need it the most..." Mike fidgeted on the edge of the concrete street and started scraping at the gravel like a toddler. John couldn't help snorting at the sight. He tried to cover it with a cough but Mike knew better.

"Oh, I'm glad one of us finding this situation amusing, because I happened to know someone that arranged your wedding. And I knew perfectly well that she will kill me."

"Just relax, Mike. I'm the one who's getting married, shouldn't I be the one panicking?"

"Yes, and you're not, so I'll do it for you."

John smiled at Mike, glad that they were friends. He was one of the few people who'd helped him get back on his feet after Sherlock's death. John's expression changed for a second, hating his train of thought that always took him back to Sherlock. He was supposed to be happy today, he'd told that to Sherlock himself yesterday.

"There is a God." Mike looked up and whispered 'thank you' then waved his hands frantically as a cab appeared on the corner of the road.

Mike was just about to open the door when someone called to John from the other side of the street.

"Isn't that... Lestrade?" Mike asked, blinking at the man half running toward them.

"Yes, but we'd better get going. Just hop in, Mike." John opened the door hastily and pushed Mike in. Mike slid in and when John was about to put his foot in someone grasped his arm.

"John..." Lestrade huffed and panted.

"Lestrade," Lestrade flinched at his brusque tone, "I don't have time for you now. I really need to go."

"I'm sorry... I know I shouldn't have said what I said back then, but Sherlock—"

"I really need to go, I cannot be late for my own wedding." John wriggled away and sat in the cab.

"I—" Lestrade tried to talk but John slammed he door in his face.

"Go." John instructed the cabbie.

The engine grumbled softly to itself as the cab drove off. Seconds later John felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and he fished it out. Incoming call from Lestrade; he rejected it right away. Mike turned to John.

"Okay, what was that?"

"What was what?"

His phone vibrated again; another call from Lestrade. John sighed and turned off his phone.

"That," Mike gestured to Lestrade's direction "and that!" He pointed at John's phone.

John shrugged.

"I don't mean to pry, but I thought you and Lestrade were pretty close."

"Not anymore," John replied shortly. Mike looked like he wanted to say something but John beat him to it. "Please, I don't want to think about that today. Can you just—" John left the sentence hanging there, quite sure that Mike got the message.

Mike nodded, still looking puzzled. He spent the rest of the journey glancing at John who was staring out of the window, thinking about the unexpected visit from Lestrade. They hadn't exactly parted as friends the last time they met..


John wasn't coping well with Sherlock's death, everybody knew that. He didn't eat properly, didn't sleep properly, thank God he still showered. Mrs. Hudson tried to talk to him but he didn't say anything. He just sat on Sherlock's seat and mourned for days. Mrs. Hudson didn't just lose Sherlock, she also lost John that day. She lost both of her boys.

Every sense in John's body was receiving information far too much, he just choose to ignore it all. He could hear Mrs. Hudson talking, he could hear the phone, he could hear the clock's maddening tick. He hated it, because every tick he heard he spent without Sherlock. He didn't want to feel this way. No.

"John..." A familiar voice came from the stairs. 'Greg,' John thought, but again, he choose to ignore everything.

"John..." The man finally appeared, and sat on John's vacated seat. "Mrs. Hudson's nearly gone mad trying to talk to you, so she called me and asked me to talk to you." He looked at John.

"You cannot live like this." He settled down on John's old seat and continued to talk, imploring him to move on. John heard him talking, half of the time he forgot what he heard as soon as the words came out Lestrade's mouth and the other time he just heard noises without meaning. That was until Lestrade said something that caught John's attention.

"...as far as I'm concerned, Sherlock's gone for good. Can't you see that without him, the crime rate's decre—" Lestrade didn't get the chance to finish his sentence because in a split second John had jumped up and grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him up.

John was shorter than Lestrade, and yet somehow Lestrade felt smaller than him. He pulled Lestrade forward until their faces were just inches apart and talked deliberately slowly. "Don't you ever talk about Sherlock like that." Then he released him.

Every emotion bottled up from the last couple of weeks had finally exploded.

"I wouldn't be surprised to hear your ungrateful subordinates talking about him like that, not that I like it though, but you..." He paused and glared at him. "I thought you were his friend."

"How long have you worked with him?" When Lestrade failed to respond, John raised his voice. "Six years? Almost seven?"

"Tell me, in all those years, how many time have you asked for his help?" Lestrade stood silently. "I've witnessed you asking for his help tons of times, and that was just in two years of me being his room-mate." John pointed sharply at Lestrade. "You never paid him for it either... and I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about you and your subordinates' appreciation of him."

Lestrade was speechless, he'd never seen this side of John Watson. He used to see John as Sherlock's personal assistant, who apologised on behalf of Sherlock's blunt rudeness, a good doctor. He never knew that John could be this—fiery.

"It wasn't his idea to publish the stories on my blog. It was mine. You want to know why? Because even though he didn't mind you getting all the credit for solving a case, he deserved it too." John inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. "I want the world to know him better, not as an annoying dick, but as a great detective."

"He never asked for fame." His tone became softer. "It bothered him because the criminals started to recognise him. He could only go on a case with disguises." He paused. "So, please tell me, with that brilliant brain of yours, what makes you believe he was a fraud?"

Lestrade looked baffled at the possibility that Sherlock really was innocent. How ludicrous! Sherlock, without a doubt, was an innocent man.

"Don't get me wrong, I never accused him of being a fraud," Lestrade finally replied. "But did you not smell something fishy about Sherlock?"

"Like what?"

"He can read people like a bloody open book."

"He deduced it from the details!"

"How he guess—"

"Sherlock never guessed!" John cut in. "This is ridiculous, you knew him way before I did. I'm sure you know all of this. You just don't want to feel guilty for trying to arrest him."

Lestrade shook his head. "I can't believe that his 'charm' is strong enough to make you defend him like this."

"I'm sorry—what?"

"Charm, you know, he tricked you to do things. He tricked you like he tricked Molly. You two would do almost anything for him."

This time, Lestrade had rendered John speechless.

"He used you to clean up his mess. John your love for Sher—"

"Get out." John paused before raising his voice, yelling at Lestrade. "GET OUT!"

"John, please. I just want to help."

"If you are trying to help by insulting Sherlock, then your help is not needed." John pushed Lestrade toward the stairs. "You're not welcomed here any more!"

"Okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"Sherlock's right. It's hard to kill an idea once it's planted in your brain. You're altering the facts to match the ideas you have. Now, OUT!"

Lestrade stared at John hopelessly before descending the stairs.


The screeching sound of the tyres on the road drove back John to the present day. They finally arrived at the church. John sighed before he got out, feeling highly annoyed.

'I'm happy. This is my wedding. I love Mary Morstan.' He kept chanting it beneath his breath, hoping repeating it a dozen times would make it true.


A/N: Again, thank you to EliMayz and nannily for the review. I wrote Sherlock playing violin to soothe John from his nightmares scene because IT IS CANON and I always love when I read a fic that mentioned it. The other reason is because I just had a musical interpretation in my theatre practice. They use violin as one of the instrument and since then I cannot get the sound out of my head. It's so perfect that I want you all to hear it. LAKFDHJDFHJDJKFJD