I have returned friends.

Hope you enjoy and sorry for the wait (and the possible feels)...

Six months.

Six long, horrible, nightmare-filled months.

Six months of seeing him dead, alive, or some combination of the two, all in my dreams.

Six months of his corpse with its peeling grayed skin and cloudy, pale eyes.

Six months of being just too late to save him before he takes a final, shuddering breath.

Six months of waiting. Six months of being told that he might never show again. Six months of being told that he's gone, that I need to deal with that.

Three months after he disappeared, three months of hard fighting and warping obsession on my own part before Mary gives up and joins opinions with the others. Three months into the search and she leaves, preferring not to live with a broken man, needing someone solid under her feet. Three month she's been gone, half as long as him. Three months since she last told me she loved me. Three months since last we've talked, since she told me she would come back if and when I got better and stopped this madness. She loves Sherlock too, like a brother, but this is too much. She needs me there, completely and totally, for the baby. She will take me back if I decide to be a husband again, if I give up and let fate take its course. Three months since she's left, and everyday I wait for the call telling me that I'm a father, and that perhaps I can see the baby if I'm well enough.

Three months since she left and six months since he disappeared, and I can't manage myself anymore. Sherlock is gone. Mary has left. Lestrade is too busy to care. So is everyone else. I've stopped going to work, I've stopped eating and sleeping. I feel like I can't function. I am alone. Really, truly alone without even my wife and prospective parenthood to keep the depression at bay.

Three months since she left and six months since he disappeared, and my phone begins ring out so loudly it's almost deafening. Finally, a ring after months of cellular silence, nobody having anything to call me about. At first I think it might be Mary, telling me she loves me and that she wants me back and that our child has been born, happy and healthy and beautiful. But it's Lestrade, his voice holding such an urgency as I've ever heard from him.

Six months of eternal, tortuous waiting...six months without him and he is finally found, completely by chance. Alive, but most certainly not well. Alive, but most certainly very, very sick. Alive, but maybe dying. I don't know.

Six months, but I am given relief. Six months, and it's like I can breath once more.

Six months of utter hell, and things might finally be okay. Six months of waiting for him, and I might have a family still. Mary might take me back if I can be okay again.

And I can be okay if he lives.

So six long months, and the antiseptic smell of the hospital finally invades my nose in a more than welcome manner. Six months, and I'm running for him.

Six months of waiting, and they've finally found him recovered him against the words of others. Six months, but still I must wait. Mere hours this time though, perhaps a day at the longest. Hours until I can see him, hours until I can be assured that he is in fact alive, at least for the time being. Hours until six months of waiting finally ends and I can hold his hand in mine. Hours until these three months without my wife can end as well.

But still I am terrified. He might be gone now. But I can't think like that. I can't afford to.

But closure is closure, after all. His death would mean another funeral I don't know if I can handle alone, but his death would bring the true grieving process to light. If he is dead, and not merely missing, I can move on.

No, I can't think like that.

The details are fuzzy though. I don't know his condition. Lestrade was in a panic, a flurry of emotions, when he called me. He simply told me that they'd found him, and that I needed to get to the hospital as soon as I could.

No telling where he was when they found him. Or how long he was there. Or how long he was cold and exposed and sick and starving.

These are the things I think about against my will as I wait in the uncomfortably molded plastic chair, alone. These are the things I think about as my fingers tremble of the speed dial button, as I think of calling Mary and hearing her beautiful voice for the first time in three months.

But something stops me, and I return my phone to my pocket, hoping it would ring once more with news on Sherlock's condition.

Because, perhaps it won't be mere hours before I am assured of anything. I might be able to see his body through a window somewhere, witness with my own eyes what little life remains sealed away in the broken casing. But I won't be able to speak to him and have him speak back in the voice I've missed so (almost as much as my own wife's), or be assured that he is hearing me. Even if, by some unlikely miracle, he is healthy enough to wake he won't be able to speak any time soon, won't be conscious for days. He'll remain locked in his mind, recovering at least in a physical sense.

No, I can't think like this.

Because hopefully for only a few days.

I have to remain hopeful, it's all I have left, really. I have to hope that in a few days time he'll wake and be able (or willing) to talk, to tell me why. I have to hope that he'll agree to going to rehab. I have to hope that there won't be any long-term effects, that he won't be permanently damaged. I have to hope that Mary will take me back, that we'll be able to raise our child together, with Sherlock by our side, playing the part of the mad uncle. Because I know he'll love the baby despite his cold exterior. I know he'll think of him or her as his own family. I know he'll agree to be their godfather. I know they'll meet one day.

I have to believe he will be okay, that I will be okay.

I have to believe it, because for the past three months I've been completely and totally alone, that faint glimmer of hope has been the only thing keeping the gun out of my mouth.

I must apologize for the brevity and lack of substance. Also for the Mary thing, it just came to me at random...whoops, completely unintended. Thought it might make for interesting writing, even if I by no means hate Mary (I actually really like her character).

I hope the next chapter will be more substantial, less rambly, with actual happenings (and a sorta kinda reunion).

Sherlock is far from out of the woods my friends, so please leave a review which shall inspire me to write more quickly!