Sherlock sat in his chair, as John stepped into their flat. Not that much of a surprise. More of a surprise was the soft 'Hello', with which he greeted him.
"Hello", John croaked back, then mentally shook his head at his own stupidity. Those hallucinations should not be able to unnerve him any longer like that, even with their seldom use of speech in any form.
"How was your day?", the illusion asked. John raised one eyebrow. A full sentence even. He should probably be concerned over the fact, that the images of his mind were becoming more and more realitically.
"Good", he said aloud. "Good." The last one was more a whisper.
Swiftly he closed the door behind himself and put his bag away. More to distract himself than because he was thirsty he poured himself a glass of water. As he stepped back into the living room, Sherlock was still there. He let himself fall into the other armchair, feeling exhausted.
"From your stance and all the other indicators I'm not willing to list here, I would dare to object." Sherlock had steepled his fingers in front of his face like he always did – used to do, John reminded himself.
For a moment, the doctor considered to remain silent. It was, what the medicine inside him told him to do. On the other hand, he did not really had someone to talk to for a while. Mrs. Hudson would either cry everytime he brought Sherlock up or just look at him pitifully.
Lestrade had been building a wall around himself for the half year Sherlock was dead. John guessed, it was probably his way of dealing with grief. To bottle up everything inside of him and stuff it away in some dark corner of his mind so it would not affect him.
He wished, he would be able to do so too. To be able to push memories and emotions aside and hope to continue somehow with his life.
The hallucinations were the best proof that he did not seem to have that ability.
"I went to the psychiatrist", he finally said after a long silence. "Mycroft coaxed me into doing so. Well, not coaxing, more blackmailing I guess."
He ran his hand through his hair. "She's just as crappy as the one I've got before. The previous sessions she just asked me questions I did not want to answer at all. Pushed myself to say some things, but, well, did not really help the whole thing. This time I was silent the whole hour."
Suddenly, he just could not keep it up any longer. Collapsing into the chair, he buried his head in his hands.
"Why did you have to kill yourself just right there in front of me? Hell, seconds before you were talking to me and then you jumped! Do you even know how many times I see this scene in my nightmares?"
One heavy breath.
"I know, it was not suicide. Suicide does not suit you. My therapist says things like You could not have changed his decision or You did nothing wrong to me the whole time. I've once tried to hint, that maybe it had not been suicide. She wrote 'denial' in that pad of hers.
Hell, it most likely really did not mattered, what I said. It mattered, that I just ran off to Mrs. Hudson and left you behind, that is it.
You're a bloody idiot, you know that? You did it on purpose. Trying to get me away, so you would be alone when you met Moriarty. Trying to protect me, huh? I would have died for you, if necessary. You knew that. Of course you did. As crappy as you always were with our people, that much you knew. Without me saying it.
I've never said that you should turn the tables around."
His hands were damp as he looked up. Sherlock was gone. Needless to say.
Still, John felt better than he had in months.