It was time to get real. It had been a whole year, and John sure as hell knew better. For you, Sherlock, he thought, as he walked down a darkened alley and smashed the half-empty whiskey bottle against the brick wall. Halfway to the bottom, he had realized that this wasn't the way he wanted to spend the rest of his life: getting drunk every time a certain day of the month came up so as to drown his pain. There was no way in hell that John wanted to become like his sister, even if he was already well on his way. The thought floated through his head that maybe Sherlock would have done drugs instead of drinking, like he had insinuated once. The bottle broke, and truly moving on with his life began tonight.
The only thing he could think about doing in that moment was going to see Molly. Molly would understand, and be there for him, and help him. He decided to walk to her flat, which was about a 30 minute walk, so as to clear his head and hopefully sober up a bit before he saw her. Walking to her flat, John still saw what he saw with Sherlock: the battlefield, as that bloody sod Mycroft has said on their first encounter. After losing his way a couple of times because he was absent-mindedly thinking of places he had gone with Sherlock, John reached Molly's home. Knowing she lived on the ground level, he found it a good idea to go round to the back of the complex and knock on a window that had a light behind the white curtain. Molly cautiously drew back the large curtain and was equally startled as she was relieved at seeing John, waving at her.
She opened her window and said in an incredulous tone, "John, what are you doing here? And why aren't you at my front door?" John, still slightly intoxicated, thought that to continue with his good idea he should invite himself in by climbing through Molly's window.
"Jo- John! What on earth are you doing!? Are you … are you drunk?" He smiled at her, standing up after falling through the window.
"How are you today – er – tonight, or this evening, Molly?" he stumbled out. Molly just stared, perplexed with a touch of mortification. "I was just hoping that we could … talk. You know, today, and well what today was, and kind of still is, and – "
"John, come, sit down," Molly interrupted him, "I'll make you a nice cuppa. Ok?"
"Sure, Molly, sounds great. Uh, was that ok of me to come through your window like that? I mean if not, I'm sorry, it seemed ok at the time … I'm just feeling reckless, you know? Like I'm going to start my life all over, now, again, because I decided that, Molly." He looked her right in the eye, "I swear to you. I'm going to be better, and move on. Not drink. Not succumb to him, and how he made me feel. God, I miss him. I know you do, too. But Molly …" His words faltered, and he fell silent.
"John, here." She placed the tea in his hands. "John, I know how you feel. But you've been working through things with your therapist, right?" He stared at her. "Ok, well, maybe not. It takes time though, and no one is expecting you to be ok right away. Everyone grieves differently John, and how you feel is ok."
"How do you know how I feel?" He spat, a little too emotionally. "Molly, how do you know? I've been trying to figure that out for the past year, and I've made some progress, yeah, but I can't … I can't stop feeling this pain, this horrible, dull ache right in the centre of my chest whenever I think of him. How am I supposed to get over that, Molly?" Molly looked at him, unsure that she should say what she was thinking.
"John," she started out, "just think about your relationships with friends and family before you went away … to war. Who were you closest to?"
"He's dead. Knew each other from the first day we arrived at the base. But I could accept that, I mean, I always knew that was a possibility, and I'm ok with it now. But Sherlock …" A single tear fell onto his wrist.
"John, you know I liked Sherlock – well, he made that apparent to everyone that one Christmas," she smiled and rolled her eyes, "and I'm just thinking, um, that maybe you felt for him a bit more than, you know, a friend would. I mean, you lived with him, and knew all his habits and such. And I think maybe Sherlock felt the same way."
John took a long, slow drink of his tea. He wasn't quite sure how to retaliate against such a suggestion that those were his feelings he couldn't figure out. If Sherlock could still make him feel this way, after all this time, maybe there was something to him – maybe, somehow, he really did have a heart, and he gave it to John. Maybe. And maybe it was time that John start to accept this. And maybe it was also time for John to realize that he, in turn, did the exact same thing.
Molly looked as though she were sitting on needles and John was going to say something terrible to her, but he only quietly replied, "Thank you, Molly Hooper." She sat, gaping, in her turn of not knowing what to say, only because John had said it with such surety, emotion, and resignation. Without another word he got up and left out the front door.
He now faced what he could never have on his own: he had feelings for Sherlock Holmes. A fat load of good that'll do me now, he thought to himself bitterly. Irene Adler had even told him that before, but there was no chance he would have took her words to heart when he was … jealous of her. He was jealous of Irene Adler? He was always convinced he was being protective of Sherlock, but he had refused to confess it ran deeper than that.
"I'm not gay," he said aloud, "it's just you, Sherlock." He wasn't quite sure where his feet were taking him, even though his heart knew.
In the morning, a chubby guard found him huddled in front of a cold, black tombstone. He spoke nothing, but only held an expression that told John it would be best if he left soon.