Chapter 9: Misery.

"If that there King was to wake," added Tweedledum, "you'd go out—bang!—Just like a candle."

-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass.

Five days had passed, since his last visit with Moriarty. Five long days of glancing over his shoulder and checking his phone obsessively, looking around the flat for notes and half-expecting a knock on the door.

There was nothing.

No glimpses of someone watching him. Sometimes the CCTV cameras turned as he went past, but that was probably just Mycroft checking up on him. No texts or phone calls from unknown numbers. No unexpected visitors. Life was (dull, blank, predictable) normal, thankfully. Every day without a sign of Moriarty was a (half) relief.

John sat on his couch, staring at the texts that Moriarty had sent him, a four-minute exchange that had made him more alone than ever. Things in life were like that. They happened so quickly, like missing a step and realizing that you're going to fall. There's really no time from the thought to the impact, just a blur or movement and then it's a memory.

The minutes passed like the hours, and the hours passed like the days, like ripples in a pond, fading once they reached the edges, unimportant and unremembered. John was the surface of the water, floating quietly without the wind to move him. Tranquil, peaceful, quiet (dull, blank, predictable).

Drip, drip, drip. It was days later. The tap was leaking again, and John didn't care. He had nothing to do today, no work on Sundays, no friends, and no urge to go out, knowing that he would be looking around for black eyes… or dark, curling hair. Dreading the constant rising hope and then falling disappointment, he had decided that it was safer to stay here and stare at the blank television, and listen to the sound of water hitting the metal sink. Thwak. Thwak. Thwak. One, and another, and another. Counting off the seconds of John's life.

He was trying not to think of Sherlock, and failing. In the blank emptiness, the memories came waltzing in, filling the space with a time when there was colour in the world. All John could do was close his eyes, and find himself back at 221B.

He remembered the time that Sherlock and he had baked a cake together. It had been John's idea, of course, but Sherlock had agreed more readily than expected, because he had been bored. The two of them had mixed the cake, folded it, poured it, baked it, and iced it. It had been a little burned on the bottom, and the icing was too thick to spread very well, but they had eaten it anyways.

John smiled. He'd gotten Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, to eat chocolate cake. He drew up the image that he'd promised never to forget, a mental snapshot of Sherlock looking up at him from his chair, with chocolate icing on his nose. He'd laughed long and hard, and resisted the urge to kiss it off. That would have been not-good, to borrow a term from Sherlock himself.

Oh, there it was again, the burning at the back of his throat, so familiar in every time of his life except the years before he knew about the world, and the time he spent with Sherlock. His eyes were hurting, too, but this time he didn't want to cry, so he pushed back the tears, and put his hands over his eyes. Things he never told Sherlock, things he wouldn't tell his councilor, things he would never say again, echoed in his mind.

I love you. Sherlock, with icing on his nose and a confused expression on his face, unsure of why John was laughing so much. I love you. Sherlock in a good mood after a case, playing the violin and waking John up. John had listened, and realized that he was playing the latest case, the murder and the mystery and the solution, and they were in the music, their friendship, running together through the notes. I love you. John had to bite it down sometimes, when the words threatened to burst out of him. When Sherlock gave a little smile, or grabbed John's shoulders, or fell asleep on the couch after being awake for nine days. I love you.

And now he'd never say those words, and that was final, because Sherlock was dead (and Moriarty was alive). Why Moriarty? Who had decided that one of them should die, and the other one live? How could the world justify a consulting criminal in the world, without his counterpart?

Moriarty had been smarter. He had fought death, he had made a plan, and he had won. Against death, against Sherlock, against the whole world. And who was left to challenge him? John? A wave of bitterness surged up inside him, drowning the fond memories. And where was Sherlock when he was needed? Dead? He hadn't fought, not like Moriarty, he'd stood there and made his pretty little speech, then stepped of the edge willingly. Why? What could make Sherlock do that?

A consulting detective and a consulting criminal meet on the roof of a hospital. (It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Maybe it is.) They talk, or something. Moriarty shoots himself in the head (but doesn't really). Sherlock makes a speech about being a fraud, then jumps off the building, but it doesn't. Make. Sense!

Moriarty shot himself so that he could disappear, that was clear enough. People were getting too close to him, and he probably didn't want to live out the rest of his life as boring Richard Brooks. That was easy, that made sense. John had never thought he'd see the day that Moriarty made sense to him, and Sherlock didn't, but that day was now.

Sherlock had jumped. Why? Maybe they had threatened someone if he didn't do it. Mrs. Hudson? Him? No, that didn't make sense. Sherlock was willing to sacrifice people. He'd made that clear at the pool, where he had been prepared to blow all three of them sky-high to stop Moriarty. So what? Why? Sherlock would never commit suicide, John knew him well enough to say that, and even if he did, why would he make the speech about being a fraud if he wasn't? No one could have forced him to say those things, unless his phone was being monitored. And even then, what could 'they' have done? He was already preparing to jump off a building.

It all made no sense, and it was just making John's head hurt. He leaned back against the arm of the couch, and sighed. The bottom line was that Moriarty had won, and Sherlock had stepped off the edge of that building without fighting. And there was the bitterness again, a sudden resentment. Sherlock knew how important he was to John, he didn't have the right to ruin both their lives like this!

There were people dying, all over London. When Sherlock had become famous, crime rates had dropped, because everyone knew that if they got too much attention, killed too many people, made their crimes too interesting, they could have Sherlock Holmes on their case, the consulting detective that always found the criminals. And now they were back again, serial killers all over Britain finally daring to poke their heads up. And the police, as Sherlock had always said, were useless, and if only the consulting detective were here, lives could be saved that had been lost to the criminals the police were unable to catch.

No matter what Sherlock had been threatened with, there were more important things. Life and death. Friendship. Love. His work, what had happened to his all-important work? Tossed aside like his cell phone when he jumped off the building.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Moriarty was alive, but he wasn't John's problem anymore. Sherlock was dead, and that had stopped mattering. Dull, blank, empty life. Did it matter who had been there before, or who had left? All that was left was nothingness, in all directions. And an echo of three words that John would never say. And the dripping of the tap. Drip. Drip. Drip.

A/N: Tell me what you thought, tell me if you want more chapters! Thanks for the reviews and follows, sorry for the angst, and I'll see you next time.