Sherlock,
I've gone out to go get some more milk and jam. Please don't leave.
Love,
John
It was the tone of the note itself that really made me feel terrible. I had hurt John, an act I never wanted to commit again. Hopefully, I never would have to do it again. The looks on his face when I walked in and held out my arms, when he thought I wasn't real, when he told me to he would never let me go again, and finally when we got back to the flat and he realized I really wasn't going to ever leave him again willingly; those are the looks that could thaw any heart. My brother is called 'The Iceman", and it's because he never lets anything get to him. Ever. But when he walked in and saw a crying John with me curled at his feet, broken, his heart thawed a little. There are things that you never want to see in your life again, and I think that he might have had this feeling in that moment. I sighed, because I knew that the moment I had another case thrown to my feet, it would be the life it was before Moriarty had burned me. Before I had performed the trick that had almost lost me the man I had come to love, and before I had even decided that I had loved him. Life without John really had been Hell, mainly because I knew what I had done would leave him heartbroken and without a friend to come home to.
John re-entered the flat grumbling about the machines at the store. He was infamous for his rows with the time-saver machines. I remember the first time I had sent him out for groceries when we had first moved into 221b Baker Street.
"Sherlock, can I borrow your card? Mine doesn't seem to want to work."
"What happened? You seem flustered."
"I had a row with a machine in the store."
"You had a row. With a machine. In the grocery store."
"Yes, Sherlock. Can I borrow your card?"
"It's in my wallet. On the table."
"Thanks."
I smiled, and he knew why. Crossing the room, he put the groceries down, and then came to sit on the couch with me. I was watching "Crap Telly" as he liked to call it. He popped in a copy of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and we curled up on the couch even closer than we already were. This was LOVE. No matter what he said in the past about not being gay, and not being my date; we were here, closer together than we had ever been in public. Now the rumors could be confirmed, and the press was having a field day. I rarely left the flat anymore because of the press waiting outside, and Mycroft had bodyguards following John everywhere. Our lives where made a living hell everyday, and even Lestrade, when he did come over, came in the back way.
Now it's not a great secret that Lestrade and Mycroft were in a relationship, or that John's sister had a wife, but for some reason, our relationship exploded the media. Even the Queen, when she needed our help with a case, such as the case against The Woman, had her assistants call through the back entrance. No one wanted to admit that they still believed in Sherlock Holmes when everyone turned against him. Now that they know that I had 'died' to save the people closest to me, everyone wanted the full scoop on how I did it. But that was a secret that I was going to tell only to John. The only other person who had known about the plan was Molly Hooper, because she had been important... Even though I might not have ever shown her that she was, she had been very important to me.
"Sherlock, you're thinking too hard again. Tell me?"
"John, you wanted to know how I managed to survive the fall? It's long and complicated, but I can tell you if you want to hear it."
"Please, Sherlock. I need to know how you survived that jump and why you did it."
"Moriarty had told me that he was going to burn the heart out of me, remember? The day that he kidnapped you and strapped explosives to your chest? Well, he chose three people who would hurt me most if they died. He chose Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and you, John. As I tried to convince him that I would do whatever he wanted and to call off the snipers, he shot himself. Bullet through the mouth, and took with him the only way to save the three of you. The only other way to save you was to have the snipers see me jump, and I knew that if I went to the roof for that meeting, I was going to die. Molly assisted me by giving me a toxin that slows the pulse enough to make you seem dead, and then there was a fail-safe in case Moriarty had me jump. We had a spring board placed where I would land if I needed to jump, or if I was pushed off the roof. By the time you regained consciousness, Molly had time to smother blood all over me and make it seem as if I was really, truly dead. I hid out for a while, taking down Moriarty's network all over the world, making sure that no one would ever be stupid enough to ever cross Sherlock Holmes or John Watson ever again."
"You did this to save us, and yet you have nothing to show for it?"
"John, I have you. Mrs. Hudson is still here to take care of us if we need it. Lestrade and Mycroft are still together, because I sacrificed the only thing I thought I would never be able to recover."
"What's that, Sherlock?"
"You. Or at least your love and trust. I thought that I had lost it all in one fell swoop."
"Sherlock, I'll admit, I spent some time after I thought you had died hating you. Then the anger and hate turned into how much I missed and needed you. After that, I started to see my therapist again. All she had to say was that I needed to find closure, and admit why I had stopped coming to our appointments."
"And?"
"I stopped going to them because I had you. And then you left, Sherlock. You left me here, alone, and it hurt like hell."
"How about this, John? My promise to you, never to leave your side again. To take you with me wherever I go. I lived for a year without you, and that was the worst time of my life. So, John Hamish Watson, will you do me the honor of becoming my lawfully wedded husband?"
"Sherlock, I am either the stupidest man on Earth, or the luckiest. But yes, of course, I'll marry you."
That's the way my life with John Watson as a friend, companion, and sometimes lover ended, and a new chapter began.