Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

CHAPTER TWO (John's POV)

221 B Baker Street

London NW1 6XE

London Borough of City of Westminster

June 2012

I'm standing in front of the door at our home, where I have lived with Sherlock for so many months. Even though I have closed the door only a few hours earlier behind me, it seems to me as though weeks have passed. I can feel the warm sun of spring on my skin, but its warmth contrasts so strongly with the icy stranglehold, in which my guts have been held captive for the past fourteen days, that I perceive the warmth as sheer cruelty.

It's only been two weeks but it feels like an eternity. It's only been two weeks, I realize and when realization hits me, it threatens to blow me away. I still got the whole damn rest of my now completely meaningless life in front of me. It saddens me. It gets me down. The severity of my grief surprises me. I lost many good comrades at war, friends even, but I never felt like this.

The pain threatens, no, is breaking me apart.

Involuntarily my eyes prick and I blink a few times to suppress the upcoming tears. Anger and grief are currently crashing in high waves upon me, in turns, and threaten to carry me off. I'm furious. With the press. With Mycroft. With Moriarty. I'm mad at myself and also angry with Sherlock. The moments in which this irrepressible rage fills every fibre of my body are more tolerable though than the moments in which I feel the horrible, sharp pain of loss. But both of them are certainly taking my breath away. I must get away from here. Away from Baker Street. Away from the constant reminders of him. I just cannot understand it all. It makes me mad. It hurts. Everything feels cold and empty.

Outwardly, I try to not let it show how much I miss him. During the past two weeks the vultures of the press have been everywhere, trying to get a picture of me, the mourning friend. But I'm doing my best to not give them the pleasure. I'm good at avoiding them. So the ugly articles which are published in the tabloids, dragging Sherlock's reputation through the dirt, slowly but surely decline in frequency, now. The world continues to turn. The episode Sherlock will soon be finished.

But not for me.

Our mutual friends do their best to comfort me, but Sherlock is irreplaceable, of course. I still cannot believe that Moriarty really has won. I often think about what he said back at the pool. I keep asking myself, did Sherlock burn in the twenty-four hours that devastated his life like his nemesis has predicted? Did he doubt me or my friendship for him at any point? Did he ever pause for a moment, doubting his choice? I truly regret our last hours, that I called him a machine.

He didn't deserve it. His kind-hearted character was as impressive as his genius, just less obvious to the world. Sometimes it even was less obvious to me. I should have known that he played me. But he knows…knew me so well…he knew exactly which buttons to push to get me here or there. We never had a healthy way of discussing our problems, neither of us being the talkative type. But most of the time I managed to look past the ice, right into his heart.

I've taken Ella's advice to heart. At the grave I told him today what I should have told him ages ago.

You were the best man and the most human human-being I've ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. I was so alone and I owe you so much.

For the first time in ages I cried. That surprised me. I don't cry very often. I only knew Sherlock for eighteen months. But between us a bond had been formed that not even I can understand. I needed him. I still do. He complemented me, I have to admit. And now I'm alone again.

Mrs Hudson's voice interrupts my thoughts. "Are you sure, John? Maybe we can renovate number C for you if it is too much upstairs?"

I swallow and clear my throat. "No, Mrs Hudson. I know you mean well, but I really cannot go back at the moment," I say. "Please just leave Sh ... his things untouched. I'll take care of them later."

I even owe him that, I believe. He hated it when people touched his belongings. I was his exception. In many ways.

Reluctantly, she nods her head. "Look, John. You really don't need to worry about the rent. You know, his brother paid the rent three months in advance," she says and adds "the bastard," darkly.

I most certainly don't want to talk about the bastard. Undoubtedly the man is driven by his bad conscience. I would not have given him credit for having one. Mycroft 'I'm above it all' Holmes is one of the most dangerous men I know. He doesn't work for the secret service for no reason. Men without conscience. But dangerous or not, right now, I cannot undertake for my own behaviour, should the elder Holmes cross my path. He betrayed me, betrayed his brother. But obviously Mycroft Holmes smells rat, because the coward has vanished from the face of the earth since his brother's death. I may not be fair with him. The press might be hunting him, too. But at the moment I can't really say that I care.

I'm glad that Mrs Hudson unlocks the door. My own hands are shaking. My tremor, which disappeared when I became acquainted with Sherlock, has returned - as well as my psychosomatic limp. I noticed it at the cemetery.

"Do you need help packing?" she asks.

I shake my head. "No."

With one last sad smile my landlady disappears in her apartment, mourning her lost surrogate son on her own.

As I slowly climb up the stairs to our apartment – for some reason I recall that there are seventeen – my legs are heavy like lead. For a moment I stay in front of the living room door, which I have deliberately closed behind me when I left this morning. Reluctantly, I place the palm of my right hand against the closed door. I will leave our home for a time, trying to come to terms with everything before I can manage to deal with breaking up of the household. Right now, I cannot bear to cast a look at the violin nor the antelope skull, wearing Sherlock's headphones. I simply cannot.

I close my eyes for a moment and feel the old, rough wood under my fingers, knowing that Sherlock's life is hidden behind it. The chemical equipment, now carefully packed in boxes, is waiting for its fate. Knee-high piles of the women's magazine 'My Weekly' are lying on the floor. He has read them for hours after poring over thick books on decomposition in order to become familiar with the depths of the human mind. In his opinion, you will find all aspects of human life in the columns of named magazine. Personally, I have reason to doubt that. But discussions with Sherlock were useless at best. Sherlock's collection of ammunition is still exhibited in the showcase on the wall. The knife that 'organized' Sherlock's unread correspondence and that he 'luckily just stuck into the letters and not their authors' is still pinned on the mantelpiece. Although I once described our apartment as 'furnished in fungal chic', it's home to me. God, I'm going to miss all that.

My thoughts are in a merry-go-round since the day Sherlock has taken his own life. I play and replay his last words over and over again in my mind.

I'm a fake. It's a trick, just a magic trick. I invented Moriarty.

I know that's not true. I know that Sherlock's words were nothing more than a lie. Sherlock lied to me just this once, standing on St. Bart's rooftop and wanting to make me believe these words. Again and again I ask myself 'why'. But the answer is hidden from me and the nagging uncertainty is torturing me. Did he not see any other solution to stop Moriarty's game? I just know that my best friend has jumped to his death because he had to, not because he wanted to. Someone forced him to. Forced to humiliate himself, to confirm the filthy lies about him and then to take his own life. So that the whole thing looked like a confession. That much is clear to me.

This knowledge makes his death neither easier nor more bearable, but gives me something to hold on. Gives me a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to eat, a reason to breathe. It somehow gets me through the night. At least for the moment. My mourning is not to be suppressed forever.

I take a few deep breaths and open my eyes. Then I pull rank and climb the remaining stairs to my room.

It's no good to linger around, dwelling about the past. Now there are more important things to do. I have to fulfil a task. Moriarty destroyed Sherlock, brought disgrace on him, stained his name and eventually left him no other way out than suicide. Which turns his suicide into murder. And I have vowed not to rest until I cleared Sherlock's name and James Moriarty, who vanished without a trace, gets what he deserves.

Heroes don't exist and even if they would, then I would not be one of them.

Which remains to be seen. He hasn't always been right about everything.

Determined I reach for my mobile phone and dial the number. It goes over several times before the man picks up. "Greg, it's me, John. Do you have time tonight? I really need to discuss something with you."

When Greg joins me at the Pub a few hours later, he looks at me doubtfully. He doesn't seem to know what to say to me. Sherlock's death stands between us, neither of us being responsible for it but both of us feeling its weight.

"It's good to see you, John," he finally greets me, joining me at the back room table.

"I'm glad you could make it," I say. I already had two pints, trying to drown my anxiety and gathering some courage.

"How are you?" Greg asks sheepishly.

"I've been better," I say evasively. "But I got an apartment at Queen Anne Street from a doctor that I know from the hospital. She is a few months abroad. I can stay there as long as I want," I say and steer the topic on Greg's own situation. "And how are things going for you?"

I notice that Greg looks defeated. His face possesses an unhealthy white colour with blue circles under his eyes. "The superintendent gives me hell for letting you escape and not being able to lay my hands on you before … you know. He makes it my fault."

"That's ridiculous. If Sherlock took something to his head no one could change his mind," I say.

"I know," he replies. "And yet I feel responsible. I was angry at Sherlock for his bloody attitude, but I couldn't tell him 'no'. I had to warn you off. If I had taken him into custody, maybe he would still be alive."

"Stop it, Greg. This whole thing has to do with Moriarty," I say and look at him sternly. "Sherlock was not suicidal. Never has been. He had no reason to kill himself. God, he didn't ever give a damn what other people thought of him. You don't really believe this kidnapping nonsense?"

Greg blushes and runs his hand through his hair. "John, I really don't know what to believe anymore. Each question remains without answer, only raising countless new questions."

I glare at him. "That Kitty Reilly bitch made a criminal genius of him. I'm not standing back while she drags his name through the dirt. How can you even believe one word of this nonsense? You know him even longer than I have. Especially you should know him better. He always helped you. He was your friend." I emphasize the last bit on purpose. I know my words are not entirely fair.

"John, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Of course, I don't think of Sherlock as a criminal mastermind," he relents. "He was a great man."

"He was a good one, too. I know him, Greg. And I think he tried to tell me the truth before he ... you know."

He looks at me inquiringly. "The truth?"

"He said that when we first met he wanted to impress me and that he has researched me in advance to do so."

"John, I really don't know how ..."

"What I meant to say is that he did not. I mean he impressed me, of course, but when he deduced my life story, not all of the facts were right. Had he researched me, he would have known that. If anything, Sherlock Holmes was a perfectionist. He didn't like to make mistakes," I explain.

Greg's face goes even paler. "He gives you his note, telling you that he was a fraud but secretly telling you to not believe a word of it?"

"No. Not fraud. He said fake. What he meant was that the note was fake."

He groans. "Why on earth did the idiot jump off the roof?"

"Moriarty must have forced him. I just don't know yet, how and why. I need to find out what happened, Greg. Look, you are my friend and I trust you. I need you to go through the Bruhl files again," I force myself to say with a firm voice.

Greg shakes his head in disbelief. "John, I can't …"

"Please, Greg. I know what I'm asking of you and I truly am sorry for getting you into trouble. But I have to proof his innocence."

"John, my hands are bound," he says with a wave of his hand.

"I owe him," I press forward. "It's the only thing left, I can do for him."

He looks at me with an inquiring eye.

I hold his gaze. "I'm standing fast, Greg. I'll bring Moriarty down. With or without your help."

Scrutinizing me, he finally penetrates the meaning of what I said. Resignation flares up in his eyes. Part of me feels sorry for him. I know he has a bad time at the moment. But I know it's the right thing to do. For both of us.

Dear readers,

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The chapter is betad by TheMuseOfDeduction.

Source description of the flat and scrapbook: "Sherlock - The Casebook" by Guy Adams.