A/N Tralala~

Thanks to littlelostsheep

Disclaimer I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.

[4/10]

Sleep was most everything that John lived for lately, so it was only reasonable that he hated getting up more than ever.

Sometimes it seemed as though alarm clock beeps had been intentionally designed to be as infuriatingly intrusive as possible. It was, he supposed, a possibility- how else could people be expected to get up at all? Still, the abrasive, monotonous sounds that grated across his eardrums were unpleasant in just about every imaginable way, especially when he took the time to remember what they signaled.

Sarah's funeral is today.

It had been postponed quite extensively- just for me, John thought hollowly, so that I could attend- from the usual date, though a cremation had occurred much earlier on. The thought was like a physical stab to him. First frozen, then burned. The only thing left of Sarah now- Sarah Sawyer, his Sarah- were ashes. She could be contained in a bag.

His throat and eyes began aching, but he ignored them, instead forcing himself out of the warm fortress that was his bed and glancing blearily at the alarm clock, swiping his hand over the button to shut it off. The funeral- it hurt to think that word- was in three hours. Enough time to shower, get all dressed up, covering his emotions so that no one else would have to see that he was a real person... and, ideally, eat breakfast, though as soon as the thought of trying to stomach something occurred to him, the image of a pile of cold gray ashes flashed once more behind his eyes, and food became instantly repulsive.

It had been well over a month now since the freezer, since he'd... found her... and still, the very thought had a catastrophic effect on him. Was that abnormal? Somehow, his medically trained mind couldn't find an answer to that question even as he searched it vaguely.

Get over it.

But, at times like now, such a thing seemed impossible.

John realized that he was sitting up silently in his bed, and slowly rose, going through the familiar motions of showering, dressing, combing his hair out without thinking about them at all. He let his mind float through a misty sort of rift, pleasantly numb, and avoided all thought of the day that awaited him. Maybe he'd be able to stay in this mindless state throughout the whole... event. That would be nice. Of course, it probably wouldn't be so easy once he was actually confronted with whatever held her remains, miserable relatives, speeches about-

He threw the thought aside, cringing away from it. He couldn't allow himself to focus on these things. If that meant cutting out the part of his mind that revolved around Sarah entirely, then so be it. Anything to stop the pain.

Anything.

Concern.

I'm... concerned... for him.

Worried about or concerned for?

Sherlock couldn't quite define the subtle differences between the two expressions, making it impossible to answer the question that he had asked of himself. The thought alone was still alien, even after weeks of living with this new, frighteningly damaged John, of feeling the slight ache in his stomach every time he tried to imagine the other's pain. It was most certainly unpleasant, and he'd been spending as little of time as possible in the flat, even knowing that his constant escapes were both selfish and cowardly. That didn't really matter to him... or, at least, it shouldn't. But it does. He didn't want John to be upset, he really, really didn't.

He knew what today was, though, and couldn't take his mind off of it that morning. He still hadn't decided whether or not he himself would be going to the funeral. John had indicated that he was expecting him to, which was the only reason he possibly might. Sherlock had no connections to Sarah- if anything, he'd disliked her, though he had, after all, saved her life from a gang of violent Chinese smugglers that one time. Still. Funerals weren't the sort of thing he was used to attending. He'd never been to one, not even that of his parents, and had no idea how he might end up behaving. Of course, people would expect him to be silent and respectful and whatnot, but that just wasn't him. He wasn't a silent or respectful person, and he knew it perfectly well. If he did end up going, he might do everything wrong and actually end up offending John rather than supporting him.

So just don't go!

It wasn't that easy, though. Things in general weren't that easy. He used to think they were, before the huge tangle of feelings that, apparently, was most people's everyday life had caught up with him. He hated it, utterly detested the whole new dimension that had been added to his mind, but that didn't mean that he could do anything to control it. It seemed to drive him mad, at times.

Happiness. There was an emotion that he'd like to get a taste of someday.

Of course, if things continued along the pattern they'd fallen into lately, he could hardly expect to.

He'd just stay. Stay behind. That was the best option, surely. He didn't want to go, after all, really, really didn't. John would probably cope better on his own, and Sherlock wouldn't have to see him as a wreck. That would be... just awful. Only hints of John's inner turmoil had shown through over the past weeks, and the idea of seeing it as a whole was utterly repulsive. It would drive Sherlock mad, not... not being able to help.

Why should I want to?

Once again, a question that he had no answer to. Dreadfully common as of late. Dreadfully common, and dreadfully disruptive. He hated them, the questions, absolutely detested them and wished with every fiber of his being that they'd just leave him the hell alone, but of course they wouldn't obey. Of course not. Nothing every obeyed him, not really. Apparently, not even his own mind.

It wasn't fair, how quickly three hours could pass. The cab ride was the worst- all the way through, John desperately wished that he could hold onto time, snag his fingers into its intricate lattice and just cling on, even as it tried to push him on his way. There was a theory, he knew, about time being the fourth dimension. He couldn't pretend to understand it perfectly, but it was clear to him that it had something to do with them only being able to move through it in one direction. If he was a four-dimensional creature, would he be able to go backwards right now, to give himself another week until this awful funeral- or even to return to the time before Sarah had... well, before the freezer.

But he wasn't four-dimensional, and he didn't even know if the stupid time theory was accurate. It probably was just a pile of nonsense made up by money-hungry scientists trying to feed knowledge-starved crowds. The human race would never be satisfied with what it had, or so things seemed. Why was that? Why couldn't they just live in the present moment? Just be happy?

Why can't we just be happy?

The topic of his thoughts was growing dangerously near her, and would have to be set on a different track. Unfortunately, as soon as this came to mind, the taxi halted, and he found himself outside a funeral home that he couldn't read the name of through suddenly blurry vision.

As he paid and thanked the driver, his voice sounded even to him as though he had contracted a sudden, rather bad head cold. Don't start crying, he told himself firmly. That was one thing that he hadn't done yet, even through the awful pain he endured daily. His throat would hurt, his eyes would sting, but not a single tear had escaped him since Sarah's death.

Death.

The word was hard and heavy in his mind, and he withdrew from it fearfully. It was so blunt, so obtuse, so... real. Death, death, death. The more he tried to avoid it echoing through his mind, the more it persisted. Death. Death. Repeating over and over until had no meaning, was as empty a drumbeat as get over it.

Death.

Get over it.

Each phrase contradicting the other, insisting on its impossibility. The tears threatened to appear again, fiercer and more insistent than ever, but he ignored them, straightening his back as he walked through the doors of the funeral home.

There it was, silent, waiting. Sitting on a table draped in some rich black cloth, surrounded by huddles of similarly dressed people, all with ducked heads, many shaking with sobs.

A box.

Just a box.

Small, almost innocent-looking. Wooden, and very plain, though the ruby-like sheen of the polished rosewood was certainly luxurious. It gleamed in the purposely low lighting, and he found himself getting closer, his legs carrying him up to it out of childish curiosity. He caught a glimpse of a neat, serif-lettered engraving- Sarah Sawyer, with some dates he didn't need to read below it- before he was backpedaling, a sour taste rising in the back of his throat.

Dead. Dead. Dead. She's dead, her whole life was cut off, she'll never marry you or anyone else, she'll never have any children, she'll never become a grandparent or go into retirement, she'll never finish that stupid romance novel that she claimed was so good, that she always took a long with her to work, read during breaks... she'll never get the new album by whatever the hell her favorite band was called, the one that was coming out this spring... that dog she had, the little cocker spaniel- what was his name, something like Arnold or Matthew- he doesn't have a mummy anymore, because she's bloody dead. She's dead, and it's my fault, completely and entirely my fault for being stupid enough to have a relationship with her when I'm someone involved with so many dangerous people... you'd think that perhaps it'd be enough for them to just kidnap her the once, tie her to a goddamn chair and threaten her with a bolt through the heart, but no, the worse had to happen- everything, absolutely everything, had to be taken away from her.

It came back in a huge rush, one that left him breathless even though he hadn't been making and noise. Get over it thundered through his mind, growing louder and louder- getoveritgetoveritgetoverit- until, suddenly, it was gone.

He couldn't just get over it. Not something that hurt this much. Not without allowing himself some sort of time to mourn. Sarah deserved better than being forgotten.

He blinked and refocused on the box, the box which now held a woman that he'd previously felt the heartbeat of, seen the smile and heard the laugh and smelled the breath of. Every physical trace of her was now contained in that little wooden box.

All of it.

In a box.

But Sarah, he knew- the real Sarah, her personality, aura, spirit- wasn't in there, not really. She was much farther away, probably much less recognizable... because she was gone. Just gone. He couldn't ever get her back, so why was he trying?

The whole of the funeral was a mess of tears and shaky speeches from the other mourners. John had a vague idea in the back of his mind that he'd been intending to say a little something himself, might even had written it down, but the idea of going up to that little podium and trying to actually talk about Sarah seemed impossible. It was hard enough to be here, to think about her. He wanted out. Badly. But such a thing was impossible at the moment, of course. Running away from the building, jumping in a cab, returning to Baker Street... the very prospect was absurd, as much as he wanted to just flee. He'd have to sit through this thing.

But then, after that, it would truly be over.

They moved outside at some point, where a bunch of folding chairs had been set up, to watch the little box be buried. It was sad, he thought, almost pathetic that the headstone was, in fact, larger than the container of what was once her body.

Oh, god, the headstone...

It was so heavy, so... final. The expression set in stone came to mind. Her name, her dates were carved into it. Beginning and end. Start and termination. Her cycle was over, done, complete. Cut off. By me.

A bird trilled from one of the gorgeous, sun-dappled trees overhead, and John felt anger boiling inside him. Why was the world so cheerful when he was such a wreck? As if to spite him farther, the light, bubbly laugh of a young girl leaked through the cemetery gates, along with the smooth creaking of bicycle wheels. Some kid was having fun, actually having fun. Nothing had changed for her recently. He life was as steady and happy as the path of her bike. She didn't know pain...

Didn't know pain.

He hadn't known pain, not for a long time. He'd thought he had. Hell, he had almost lost his own life. He couldn't quite imagine anything much worse than that. But this was agonizing. Really and truly agonizing. It would have been better to be shot a thousand times than to experience this, be living this nightmare out of which there was no escape, no waking. He was trapped.

It seemed to take hours for the whole thing to finish. Maybe it did. And even after it was officially over, relatives and friends mulled around, consoling one another, paying their respects... no one approached him. They all knew of him, of course, knew that he'd been the one to find her body- he could tell by some of their glares that they didn't suspect it to be a coincidence- and yet he'd never actually met any of them. And they weren't ready to make that connection now, apparently.

Just go home. Go home, he told himself insistently, but couldn't make himself rise from the chair. He was paralyzed with pain. Slowly, everyone else cleared out, until finally he was left alone with the gravestone.

Now his legs were moving, lifting him, carrying him to the stone tablet. He stood in front of it for a moment, willing tears to come, just something to leave a physical imprint of this pain on his body. But there was nothing. Just that horrible void inside of him. The letters were burned into his vision. SARAH SAWYER. She's dead, and it's my fault.

"I'm sorry," he said simply, then turned and left the cemetery.