John woke, nearly screaming. His face was cold, his body numb. His eyes were wet and his lips were dry. He felt haunted and worn. And tired. So very tired. He wanted to lay his head back down, and close his weepy eyes and sleep, just sleep. But he could not.

He could not because he was afraid. He was afraid that the now familiar vision would haunt his dreams once more, hanging over his head like a dark grey sky, ready to pour cold emotion like water down his back and down his heart.

He had tried to stop thinking about it. He had tried to forget. But he found that he could not look away. No matter how much he tried to block it, he would always be stuck seeing Sherlock on top of that building, his body falling slowly, so slowly, to the pavement, and there was blood, so much blood. And then he was gone.

This time, as John slept, he was once again on the phone, having that dreaded call and listening again to that once familiar voice, the one that he knew by heart, yet could not quite recall. As he looked up, he saw Sherlock standing on the rooftop, and his heart sunk like lead, as it always did, with the aching knowledge of what was going to happen. His friend was going to leave him. Forever.

Yet, as John looked up and made eye contact with Sherlock, he saw something in his sleep that he had never seen in wakefulness. Sherlock's eyes, while normally bright and clear, were red and glassy. They were shining with pain and tears, and John couldn't take how broken he looked.

And John had woken, feeling his own dull pain mixed with the fresh agony of his dead friend's. And he realized how much this must have hurt Sherlock as well. That even though he pretended he didn't care, didn't feel, John knew.

And even after all this time, John's mind was still filled with thoughts of his friend, his very best friend. Sometimes, John felt like the only one, the only one who actually remembered. As though Sherlock was forgotten by the world, lost inside John's memory.

Of course the world knew about Sherlock. The famous detective who had killed himself. That's what he would be remembered for, what would go down in history.

But John was not the world. He was one man, one man who had known Sherlock and had seen the truth. The real Sherlock Holmes, who had killed himself not because he had been a fake, but because... John didn't know why. He didn't know, and he couldn't figure it out.

Sometimes, he wished he could have picked up on Sherlock's deduction skills, even just a tiny bit, at least to know why his friend had left him like this. But he hadn't, and in a way, he was glad of that fact. No one could replace Sherlock Holmes. And no one would try.

And as John dragged himself from day to day, he felt awful. Ruined and reduced to dust in an old room, one that hadn't been used in years, or maybe even a lifetime. And some days, he found it easier. Like he didn't feel the pain. But mostly, he wanted to feel the pain, for he felt that the only way to loose it would be to forget, to forget Sherlock entirely, and he could not do that, for he knew that would only hurt worse.

And as the days dragged on, time seemed to fly. A year had already passed, and John often looked up, expecting to see the familiar face of his friend, and yet each time he didn't, he was not surprised, and he felt a pain in his heart just a bit more harsh and dull than the last.

John felt empty inside, like the little flat that held so many memories, that now sat alone and untouched, still in its place on Baker Street. He felt like a hallway that had endured years of disuse, like a home broken by the pain of loss and tears like the frost on a window and on John's heart. He felt hollow, like a rock beaten and worn from a lifetime of crashing waves and eroding agony.

Sometimes John felt like shutting the world out. He would be better off alone and lost than with others, as he would only drag then down as well. He didn't want them to see him, because it was just too hard to pretend he wasn't dead inside. And as the world around him kept on turning, and the days passed by in a series of lights and darks, John felt just as empty and trapped as he had the moment he saw Sherlock's body hit the ground.

John felt like he had been abandoned, like a child that had come home to an empty house, alone and afraid. And John wondered if that was how Sherlock felt.

John had his scars. Physically, as well as mentally. And he knew Sherlock had had his own. And some scars, John knew, were shared between the two of them, and stretched the gap between their two bodies and two hearts, and connected them in ways neither of them fully understood. It was supposed to be the two of them facing the cruel world together, but now it was only John, and he felt as though a new wound had formed in his heart, and that the bridge had fallen to pieces.

John felt like each day became less real than the last, as if he was living in some kind of horrible fog that both existed and did not. He felt as though Sherlock's tale of a brilliant mind and a fenced-in heart of gold would be remembered simply as a nice story, or a lie. And John felt the weight if the truth on his shoulders every day, and he did not know what to do.

Yet, with the chipped words that were still clinging to the mirror, John resolved to live, each moment passing by like a lifetime, but he did not give up. He would look ahead and bravely face tomorrow, no matter how much it hurt. Each moment, familiar and new, would be lived because he was not dead, and he was only just beginning to see the true value of life. So no, he would not look away, would not forget the time he spent with the man that would continue to be his best friend, even in death.