Beta'd by the phenomenal WhirligigSwirl
The day after the funeral would forever be remembered as the day John officially lost it.
He spent the rest of the day after the funeral feeling numb. He didn't sleep that night, and he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten. Time lost all meaning, and before he knew it, daylight was streaming in through the dirty window of his bedsit. His phone was lit up, indicating a new voicemail from Mrs Hudson. He hadn't heard it ring. After a moment, he clicked it open, mind wandering as he listened, only processing about every third phrase.
"Missed you at the funeral…clean out the flat…come by for tea…taking care of yourself…"
He didn't call her back. He just went.
Standing outside 221, Baker Street, John took a deep breath, and then rapped softly on the door. He shifted restlessly for a few moments, then knocked again. No answer. He looked down for a moment. He could swear he heard Sherlock say in a bored tone from somewhere behind him, "Mrs Hudson must be at Mrs Turner's for tea". His head snapped up, eyes searching frantically for the origin of the voice. But there was no one there.
"Right then. Let's get on with this," he muttered to no one in particular.
221B was much like he remembered leaving it, although it now contained the notable addition of a stack of flattened cardboard boxes just inside the door. Probably Mrs Hudson's doing. "Right then," he repeated to himself, gusting open a bin liner.
The kitchen was the easiest (and most obvious) place to start. The things that needed to be tossed in there were obvious, and while John liked to think he had a strong stomach, the experiments in the fridge were, frankly, quite alarming.
Within an hour, he had thrown out at a dozen eyes, three hands (from three distinct bodies), five feet, one head, one ear, and several pints of unmarked assorted fluids from the freezer. The interior of the fridge as well as the surrounding countertops all then received a vigorous scrubbing-down. When he had collected everything destined for the trash, he started in on sorting out the rest of their belongings.
John assembled two boxes. He labelled the first "KEEP" in block letters, and the other "TOSS". The table that dominated the centre of the kitchen was still covered with the debris from Sherlock's many cases and experiments. Notebooks written in something akin to hieroglyphs littered the surface, as well as flasks, beakers, and the microscope Sherlock had nicked from Bart's. He flicked idly through a small notebook that had been left open beside the microscope. Sherlock's looping, messy writing stared back at him. The words didn't mean anything to him, something about the composition of amines in a particular substance. No reason to keep it, really. He meant to add it to the TOSS box, but somehow it landed in KEEP. And wouldn't you know it, but the same thing happened with the next three notebooks he picked up.
After the better part of an hour, the table was clear. Feeling accomplished, John turned to the now crammed boxes. Well, crammed by some standards. The KEEP box was overflowing, but the TOSS box was empty, save for a pack of cigarettes he had found taped under the table. Sighing, John went back to re-evaluate the KEEP box, desperately trying to find something, anything, that could go.
That's when he saw it.
A flash of movement, just out of the corner of his eye, a flick of long coat and a flash of dark curls. So quick that if he'd blinked, he would have missed it. His hands stilled, wrist deep in the detritus of the box. He'd imagined it. He had to have imagined it. But what if Sherlock wasn't dead? Then the door downstairs shut with a clatter. Suddenly, John was certain. Sherlock was alive! He was coming up, and all of this had just been a nasty dream. John shot up from his chair and bolted down the stairs, only to find Mrs Hudson, struggling in with her weekly groceries.
"John! I hadn't expected you to come by this soon."
John barely heard her. "Where is he? You must have passed him on the way in!" he said frantically, trying to see around her through the open door.
"He? He who? Has Mycroft been poking around again?"
"Sherlock! You must have seen him…" She stared at him, confused. "Come, Mrs Hudson, he was just here! I saw him!"
"John, please stop shouting," Mrs Hudson said gently. John hadn't realised he'd been raising his voice.
"He was here! I saw him! He isn't dead!"
She gave him a pitying look. "When my mother died, I still saw her everywhere. For weeks and weeks, I'd come home and –"
"This isn't the same! He's alive! He was here! Maybe it's for a case…" John trailed off as his phone rang and he scrambled to answer it. He almost convinced himself it was Sherlock calling. "Hello?" he asked eagerly.
"John, you're scaring Mrs Hudson." Mycroft, he realized with disdain. The tosser had bugged their flat. Again. Wait, Mycroft!
"Mycroft! I saw him! He's alive. Use your CCTV or something. Tell him it's okay to come home!"
"John, I want you to step outside and into the car that's waiting for you." John bolted from the house. Mycroft must know. Maybe Sherlock was even in the car waiting for him. Hell, he wouldn't even be angry, just so long as his friend wasn't really dead.
Sherlock wasn't in the car, only Mycroft. "Where is he?" he asked quickly, hardly able to contain himself.
"John, we buried Sherlock in Sussex three days ago. He's gone," Mycroft said softly, his face passive.
"No. No, no, no. I saw him, in the flat, not ten minutes ago."
"I assure you, you did not." The car began to move.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Back to your home. I think it best if you keep clear of Baker Street - for a while, at least. It may be your flat, but I think it would be better if I had it tidied out for you."
"You can't just wipe him away, like he didn't exist!" John protested sharply.
"We can't go on like he's still here either." Mycroft's voice was gentle but firm, defying all argument. The rest of the drive was spent in complete silence.
His room, when he entered it, was quiet and still. It could never be as dynamic, or as much of a home as Baker Street. But he couldn't go back there now. It would always be their place. God, he sounded like a spurned lover. It shouldn't be like this, and yet it was. It was like being fresh from Afghanistan all over again. Broken, alone, and unsure of what to do. Thinking back to those first few weeks, he touched his Browning lightly where it sat in his desk drawer. It would be so simple to just end it all. To make none of it matter anymore. What would Sherlock think? What would he say? He would say to stop being so sentimental.
John set the gun down and called Ella, rescheduling again the appointment that he had yet to keep.
It was pouring rain outside. The very sound of the drops made John feel weary, a bone-deep ache. He knew he looked awful. He could see it reflected back at him in Ella's eyes, but how he looked was nothing compared to how he felt.
"Why today?" she asked.
"Do you want to hear me say it?" Something in her eyes said yes, but out loud she didn't reply.
"Do you read the papers?" He felt angry. He was reminded, again, why he stopped going to therapy in the first place.
"Sometimes," she answers. Her face is passive.
"And you watch telly. You know why I'm here." Oh god, he could feel the tears welling up. There has been far too much crying on his part in the last few weeks, more than in the rest of his life combined. He takes a deep breath. "I am here because –" and his voice cracked. Damn.
"What happened, John?" She's leaning forward.
"Sher – " There is nothing he can do to stop the tears now.
"You need to get it out."
"My best friend - Sherlock Holmes - is dead." He says it haltingly, and shakily, and the tears come as soon as he has finished. Something about saying it, that way, made it final. It was over. He was gone.
She held out some tissues, and waited for him to compose himself a bit before continuing. "There's stuff you wanted to say, but didn't say it."
"Yeah." His voice was still hoarse. There were so many things.
"Say it now."
He blinked. "No. Sorry, I…can't."
"John, it's just like before. You need to get it out."
"They're things I have to say to him."
"Why don't you?"
"I nearly lost it just being in the flat we shared."
"Get it all out. Say it to someone. This is why I suggested the blog."
"Lot of fat good that did."
"I rather enjoyed your posts."
"I doubt there will be more."
"How are you planning on moving on, John?" Ella asked softly after a moment, abandoning the blog argument for another time.
"I hadn't put much thought into it."
"What did you do last time?"
"Soldiers aren't supposed to have feelings. Stiff upper lip and that rot. You can't seriously be recommending it as a coping mechanism."
"I'm worried about you in the short-term. We can work past that in the long-term, but for right now, we need to get you through this."
At the end of the hour, he stepped outside and phoned Mrs Hudson, looking up at the sky as the rain fell. He wasn't honestly sure that all the wetness on his face was from above.
"Mrs Hudson, I was wondering if you might want to go see Sherlock with me. I don't want—" He sucked in a deep breath. "I don't want to go alone."
"Of course, dear. Tomorrow afternoon?"
Mrs Hudson had brought flowers. Would Sherlock have even liked flowers? There certainly weren't any around the flat. They made the cab smell nice, though, as it manoeuvred down the twisting roads to the Sussex graveyard. The grave was well into a cemetery filled with the ancestors of the Holmes family, Sherlock's tucked just next to the father he had never spoken of. His tombstone was stark, standing out, onyx-black, amid the rows of pale, worn white marble. It only held his name - no date or epitaph to speak of.
"Mycroft came by and we packed up all of his things," Mrs Hudson commented after a moment. "There's all the stuff, all the science equipment. I left it all in boxes. I don't know what needs doing. I thought I'd take it to a school. Would you?" She looked at him expectantly.
John thought about it for a moment. "I can't go back to the flat again. Not at the moment." He was sure he'd end up running the things over to Bart's eventually, but not today. "I'm angry." He could feel the emotion bubbling to the surface, but fought it down.
"It's okay, John. There's nothing unusual in that. That's the way he made everyone feel," she assured him. That wasn't what he'd meant at all."All the marks on my table; and the noise! Firing guns at half past one in the morning-"
"Yeah." The memories now just made him sad.
"Bloody specimens in my fridge. Imagine. Keeping bodies where there's food!"
"Yes." John heard her voice waver. If she broke, so would he, and he didn't think he could handle that again today.
"And the fighting! Drove me up the wall with all his carryings-on!" He had to stop her before she took them both over the edge.
"Yeah, listen. I'm not actually that angry, okay?"
It did the trick.
"Okay. I'll leave you alone to, er, you know." She gestured at the headstone and reached for her handkerchief; she was definitely sobbing as she walked away. He watched for a moment to make sure she was gone, and then turned back. Right. Now or never. Like Ella said, get it all out.
"Um. You... you told me once that you weren't a hero. Um. There were times that I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this, you were…the best man and the most human...human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, and so...there." He finished lamely. He moved to walk away, but felt pulled back. That wasn't all that he had to say. "I was so alone, and I owe you so much. But please, there's just one more thing, one more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't. Be. Dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop it, stop this..."
He reached out to touch the cold stone. One tear rolled out of his eye. The last tear he would shed for Sherlock Holmes, he decided right then. He stepped back and assumed his military posture, gave Sherlock a mental salute. As he walked away, he felt his leg twinge in a way it hadn't in 18 months. Yes, Sherlock Holmes was definitely gone.