Three months. It had been three months since that day, and yet my therapist still insisted that I come see her. A year and a half later and I still get nagging messages on my answering machine interrogating me as to why I didn't show to this appointment or that one. I was able to let it go, why couldn't she?
I had tried telling her that I'd seen things like this before. I was in a war, remember? But she kept insisting this was different. This wasn't the sort of killed-in-action death I was used to seeing. I tried explaining that I had, unfortunately, also witnessed quite a few suicides in my time. Some people are made for war, others break under the pressure. Despite this, she still ordered that I come talk to her, tell her what I was feeling after such a "tragic" event.
The truth is I felt nothing, nothing at all. Numb all over, like a man being prepped for operation. I suppose that's what my therapist saw as peculiar. What she didn't know was numb was a lot better than what I felt after witnessing other suicides. You cry, you grieve, you refuse to accept that there was nothing you could have done to save them. Numb was much better than that. Numb was safe.
I didn't need a therapist. Considering who I lost, what I lost, I thought I was doing pretty well. I didn't cry myself to sleep at night. I didn't wake up every morning with an unshakeable urge to climb to the roof of St. Bart's Hospital and jump, myself. Every day was just normal, and I felt fine. So why I felt so compelled to come to her on that cloudy and humid day, I had no idea.
"Do you know what today is?" she asked in that maddeningly monotonous voice of hers.
"No," I replied brusquely. I immediately regretted coming here. The only good that could come from this was possibly deferring her incessant pestering to make an appointment.
"It's his birthday," she explained, looking up at me, searching my face for some sort of reaction. I gave her none.
"No it isn't," I rebuked, "it was his birthday. Or it would be his birthday," I said flatly. "But today certainly is not his birthday because he is no longer," I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat.
Exhaling, I tried again. "Sherlock is not," I wasn't sure why but I paused. I couldn't bring myself to say it. I couldn't admit it to myself.
"Say it," she encouraged. God, I never felt such a strong urge to hit a woman as I did right then. I didn't even have to be here. She was making me do this. She was making me feel this. I was perfectly fine being numb. She acted like me admitting how sad I really felt would be the breakthrough of a lifetime. She knew I was upset, I knew I was upset, so what good was it doing us to state what we already both knew as fact?
Sherlock killed himself. He was so selfish. Maybe his reputation as a detective was ruined, but who cares? He always was so dramatic, and this time he had taken it too far. He took the easy way out, leaving me to clean up the mess. But I knew I couldn't clean up the mess that was myself, so instead I closed off that day in the furthest away portion of my mind and tried to avoid it at all costs. But along with quarantining that part of my brain, I also had to give up my entitlement to any and all emotions. That's why I felt nothing for so long, and that was much better than the alternative feelings.
She was still staring at me, trying to give me her best look of, what I assume was supposed to be, reassurance. I sighed with resignation. I suppose I would say it if it meant that I would be able to get out of there quicker.
"My, my best friend Sherlock is, " I started. I glanced up at her. She still had her eyes fixed on my face, as if every slight expression I made was the most fascinating thing she's ever seen in her life. "Is dead," I finished, just trying to get the words out of my mouth before they had lingered long enough to sting.
I just noticed the pattering on the window. When had it started raining? I hoped it wasn't too bad; I didn't want to have to wait in a total downpour for the next bus or taxi that happened to drive by. I didn't have an umbrella either. I never was too good at planning ahead in case of –
"John?" her voice droned on like the aimless ticking of a clock.
I merely turned my head towards her to signal that I had heard her. That's all she would get. That's all she deserved. She was saying something about grief taking form in different ways in different people. In the middle of her apparently important speech I stood up and grabbed my cane.
"Thank you for your time, Doctor. I, um, need to go now, though," I hurriedly explained.
"But our session was supposed to last an hour," she called after me, but I was already limping out the door.
It was much worse out than I had expected. The rain came down in buckets, and I was fully soaked within seconds of leaving the small office building. I squinted through the ocean that fell in front of me and caught a flash of orange-yellow light, the kind that typically had the word TAXI written across it in bold black letters. I blindly waved at the car and watched as it waded through the stream of water flowing down the lows in the street.
As soon as it pulled up to the pavement I jumped inside, before I could be pelted with more rain. "Two twenty-one Baker Street," I mindlessly recited, staring out the window. The driver took off without a response.
I suppose taxis should have frightened me, ever since that Study in Pink case. Then again, I had so often been in a vehicle being driven by an unknown face, thanks to Sherlock's brother Mycroft, that I didn't really see any harm in it any more.
The drive back to the apartment wasn't too unbearably long. I handed the driver a few notes, telling him to keep the change, before hopping out and beginning my dash to the door.
I fumbled with the keys, as they kept slipping in my hands from the drenching rain. I finally managed to work it into the keyhole and turn the brass lock without nearly dropping the key.
"I'm back, Mrs. Hudson," I called as I forced the heavy black door open. I could smell that she was preparing some dish for supper. The stairs were a challenge for me as usual, rather laborious with the cane, but I eventually reached the small living room, packed with cardboard boxes.
"What are you making?" I called to her as I removed my coat. I rounded the corner and found her in the kitchen, standing over the stove.
"Oh John, I just started making it. I couldn't help it. It was his favorite, you know. I guess I sort of got used to making his favorite dish on this day and I-" she let out a small sob. She kept her head down, just staring at the pot and its contents.
I rushed to her side and looked over her shoulder. She made pot roast. That was the only thing that she made that he never criticized or made a snarky comment about. She took that to mean it was his favorite.
I tried to see her face, but she was still staring downward. I already knew what it would tell me anyway. She had started to look so old and worn over the past year. The life seemed to have been sucked right out of her. I remember she tried to keep up her old usual cheery appearance for the first few months, but soon gave it up. I knew how hard she must have taken it. She looked to frail now, I was afraid that if I touched her she would fall to pieces. Then again, she already had.
I tried to comfort her, softly resting my hand on her shoulder. I didn't speak, neither did she. Finally, she looked up at me. I could see the small dried up rivers where a tear must have escaped. She tried to say something, but I could see that her voice wouldn't come to her. I knew what she had meant though. Her mouth read, "I miss him so much." All I could do was nod to let her know that she wasn't alone.
I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was the fact that it was his birthday. Maybe it was the never-ending rain. Maybe it was that old familiar scent of pot roast. Or maybe it was that even then, a year later, there was still that one moment that lasted just a fraction of a second when I ascended those stairs in which I found myself paralyzed with worry when I didn't see Sherlock sitting in his chair tinkering with his violin.
I'm not sure what exactly caused it, but that's when I finally let it out. There, in the kitchen, forehead come to rest on Mrs. Hudson's shoulder, that's when the downpour really started.