Alright I decided this chapter will be like a flashback-chapter. It's going to be about Johns life one month after Sherlock's "death". I think it's going to be angsty so you have been warned.

By the way, I wanted to thank the people who followed me for it (that'd mean they like my story I assume :')), you're all very very lovely!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: still don't own anything!

John Watson stared at the back of his cab drivers seat as he drove through London. The man was talking, but John couldn't hear. Vaguely, in the back of his head, he wondered why he always got the way-too-happy-on-an-early-morning-ones.

It was like someone had pushed a mute button that had caused the whole world to become almost inaudible.

The drivers voice didn't sound like he was sitting in front of John, on a distance of barely 10 inches, but like the way you hear your neighbours next door talk through your walls. Not completely inaudible, but too unclear to actually make out what they're saying.

Muted.

In some way John liked it better like this, in his own world. He could feel almost numb sometimes if he tried really hard. He knew there was pain, loads of pain. And sorrow. And loneliness. Guilt. Hopelessness. He could keep most of it out like this by shutting everything down when he had the chance.

At least he tried very hard to.

If he concentrated enough on the sound of the man's voice, he could hear it like he normally did. If he concentrated and tried harder, he could make himself form words, too. Words that could start a conversation, or words that could tell the bloody man to shut up and just take him to his destination without all the chit-chat. But he didn't want to. He didn't feel like a part of this world anymore. He felt cut-off. Unreal. Like he was dreaming. Not able to function like he normally would have done.

Normally. What that meant. He figured he could barely remember. He wondered if there had ever been a "normally" in his life. He sure as hell did know that there never would be one again.

"Normally" for John had been the time in his life he'd spent with Sherlock Holmes. His best friend, partner in crime, the man he secretly loved.

Sherlock Holmes.

The name sounded unreal to John. It sounded like the name of someone he had once met in a life he never thought he'd have. Someone who had made him feel alive. Someone who had saved him from everything a person could be saved of. Someone who he'd loved to death, even though he'd never really shown it.

He knew Sherlock had really been there, even though at times John was so detached from everything that he'd almost forget he had been real. He could remember their times together. All the things the Consulting Detective had brought into his life at the time he had needed it most. At the time he needed someone like him most, even though he'd never thought his happiness would come in the form of a thin man with black curls and the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen in a long black coat with a blue scarf.

But all of that didn't matter anymore. Now Sherlock Holmes was just a memory of a ghost.

Through his thoughts, John heard a muffled voice repeating something. He turned his gaze to the window of the cab he was sitting in. It had stopped, and was now parked in front of a big gate that said "City of London Cemetery". John realized the driver was talking loudly to him now and forced himself to wake up from his muted-self.

The sounds of the real world started to come back. John was greeted by a faint sound of birds chirping, along with the wind blowing through the cemetery gates, what caused one of the big iron fences to squeak at every blow.

"Mate, are you even listening? I have other customers too, you know, so you might as well start hearing something. Hey mate, are you deaf? Hello?"

"Er, yes. Sorry. I'll just…" John didn't know what to say, so he just tossed the cabbie 30 pounds and got out of the car with a little difficulty because of his cane before he could say another word.

As John walked towards the entrance of the cemetery, the wind began to blow even harder than it had before. John shivered and he stopped to take a moment to turn up his coat collar.

Somewhere in the back of his head a conversation about coat collars he'd had in another life came up.

"Oh, please. Can we not do this, this time?"

"Do what?"

"You being all mysterious with your cheekbones and turning your coat collar up so you look cool."

"I don't do that."

"Yeah, you do."

As John walked past long lanes of gravestones, he vaguely wondered why he'd come here in the first place. It was not that any of these visits mattered anymore. It was not like they would make anything better and John knew that slowly, bit by bit, he would be expected to move on.

The truth was that at first everyone understands. Everyone wants to be there for you. Everyone feels sorry for you.

But then, after a considerable amount of days, weeks, months, people start moving on. And they start wanting you to do the same. To pick up the thread. To forget about it.

But John couldn't. Sherlock had been such a great part of his life that couldn't just "move on" without the detective like nothing ever happened, and even if he could, he wasn't sure if he wanted to.

John had stopped. He had been so lost in his own thoughts that at first he hadn't even noticed. He had his head down and was staring at his shoes. He looked up.

As he saw the gravestone with the engraving, reality hit him hard, like a hard punch in the face. John stared, and even though he had come here countless times in the past month, it always felt like it was the first. He just couldn't get used to seeing his best friends name engraved on a cold black stone on a cemetery, knowing his lifeless body was buried here between the dead.

The stone said nothing but his name. Nothing about what an amazing person he had been. Nothing about all the crucial things he'd once done for Scotland Yard and so many other people. Nothing about how he would be missed by family or friends.

Just a name. Nothing more.

And so John started to talk. He always did when he came here. He didn't believe in ghosts or dead people who could see what the living were doing whatsoever, but he figured this was the place where he felt like he was closest to Sherlock besides the flat. At least here he had something to talk to, even though it was only a black stone with a name on it.

If someone would ask him what he told Sherlock during his visits to his grave, John wouldn't know. He honestly mostly just talked about the things he'd done that day. From how he had spent the whole day at the flat, telling Sherlock every detail of it. How he'd made tea, and how he always forgot that he had to make just one cup now, cursing his foolishness. To what crappy tv show had been on the telly last night and how stupid Sherlock had found it if he'd seen it.

"You know, Sherlock. I've started drinking my coffee with two sugars since today. You know, like you did. I'm sure you'd find it amusing if you would be here. I feel kind of closer to you when I do it. Because well, if I can't make us both coffee and I have to chose one of them to make, I'll just make yours because you're far more important than a cup of black coffee without sugar. I actually think I quite like drinking it like this anyway, so thanks for the tip."

If he'd eaten, he would tell Sherlock, too. Saying that he had been right about eating being overrated all along, but still telling him he had had his toast with strawberry jam and butter on a slice of brown bread.

He mostly just kept telling Sherlock how boring everything was, and how he wished he'd come back to him and how he missed him.

"When I was with you I realized for the first time London was actually quite fun. When we were out together and you started deducing people about whatsoever, I realized there are so many untold stories everywhere, and I got so curious about every single one of them because of you. I genuinely started liking it here.

But then you were gone, and you still are. And it is boring again, everyone is the same. I can't read them like you could, Sherlock. I miss your little deduction thingys, along with you inflicting your opinions on the world even though they mostly were far too outspoken and incredibly rude. I still miss them, and everything else you talked to me about. I just miss you and I wish you'd come back. I really hope you will, even if it's not… well, in this life. And you have to remember that I'll always believe in you and I hope you're doing well."

One time he'd spent hours screaming. Insulting his friend for leaving him just like that, with nothing. With no life and no hope.

"Today I realized that I shouldn't be nice to you at all. I am, but I really shouldn't. I always tell you about what my life is like now in the tiniest detail and everything and how I miss you and how I do all these stupid things because of you even though you're not here anymore.

You wanna know why I'm mad? Well I'll bloody tell you why. Because you left. You left without saying a bloody thing. Just like that. Just with nothing but a phone call while you were standing on some stupid rooftop, telling me that I should watch. Watch? Can you actually believe it, Sherlock? Why did I have to watch? Why? I really don't understand you, and I hate you for doing this to me. I hate you, do you hear me?! Why did you have to come bursting into my life at the moment I needed someone like you most? And what the hell gives you the right to just pop out like that? I hate it that I met you. I hate it. I hate you. I wish I had just stayed in that bloody army pension, you know that?"

He just talked and talked. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for just minutes. And sometimes he just sat there, staring at an engraving with the name of a ghost. Saying nothing for hours, often until the cemetery would close and the gardener had to throw him out, mocking at him that they were closing the gates and he should go home.

Today John told Sherlock that Lestrade had called him that morning, asking him to come with him to a crime scene. And that he'd said no because crime scenes were boring if Sherlock wasn't around, just like everything else.

"It's not that I don't want to go, because I do, but I don't want to be alone. It's not the same without you, you know. Nothing is the same without you."

And once again, John spend the evening talking to his friend. When he stopped talking, he realized it was getting darker and darker and he figured he had to go.

"Alright Sherly, time to go. I'll speak to you again, soon."

John glanced at the grave for one more time before turning around and then started to limp back to the entrance of the cemetery along long lanes of other gravestones.

But then he remembered something and turned around.

"Er, I don't know if I've told you already, but I've been having these kind of funny dreams about you. I often dream about you on that rooftop and then I see you jump, but in the dreams I can't move. I can only watch you again and again and I just don't know what to do.

But then I have these other dreams about our first meeting in the laboratory, and I experience everything all over again. From the moment I met Mike Stamford in that park to you saying your name and address before disappearing again with a wink. And sometimes it seems so real that I wake up smiling. Then it takes me a couple of seconds to realize that you're not asleep in the bedroom below me, but that you're just gone. That's the part I hate about those ones.

But then there's a dream I've been having since just a couple of days ago. In that dream I know you're dead, but you come back. And the scenario of your comeback changes in every dream. Sometimes you just come bursting through the door with bags full of supplies from the grocery store, saying you got the milk, you idiot. And sometimes you just call me, or text me, or you just ring the doorbell and when I open it it's you standing there. Just as I remember you. And then you hug me and you say that it'll all be okay and that you're here now. When I wake up from those ones, even though I know you're gone, I feel almost happy for a moment. I know it's a silly fantasy, but I'll always be ready for you if you come home. I really hope you do someday, because I love you and I miss you and I'm kind of lost without you."

well I have no idea if that was good I'm a little anxious about this chapter but I hope you like it because it was quite heartbreaking to write omg

Reviews are still very welcome and I'll upload a new chapter as soon as possible and thank you so much for reading :)