London, August 2012
John's not fine, far from it.
The first few weeks following Sherlock's death pass like the period just after he'd been shot, when the world was ashen and empty and John lost in it. He stays away from the people he's called friends; Mike - Greg - even Molly - they remind him of a life that's died with Sherlock, and he doesn't want to suffer their pity and platitudes. They can't fill the hole he's left, and John certainly doesn't want to watch them try.
Eventually, he starts picking up the pieces of his life, trying to fit them back together only to find that the edges have frayed. Locum work at a new surgery distracts him for hours at a time, a pleasant hum that sees him through the walk back to his bedsit. But once inside, the silence always encroaches on his equanimity. He looks around and sees not what's there (precious little, in any case), but what's gone. No strange surprises await him in unexpected places; no sounds, but the ones he makes.
And there's an ache for which John has no name, lurking just below the surface of his consciousness, haunting him in a way his wound never did. It's a tightening behind his sternum at the smell of some restaurant he's passed. A sting in his eyes that he blinks away when the sky is a certain shade of grey. A sickening flutter whenever he looks at the mobile he still carries, though it never chimes these days.
He keeps it all under lock and key, and if the strangers he encounters mistake the circles under his eyes for a night out with the lads, if they miss the tightness of his jaw and the thinness of his lips when he smiles, all the better.
But inevitably there comes a night when the ache is more a pain that makes him wince, and he knows of only one way to make it go away. It's an indulgence he seldom allows himself, because he's seen - too often and far too close - what it does, but tonight it's the only thing short of a tourniquet that will help to stanch the steady bleed of his inconvenient emotions.
John drinks alone - a bottle of Dewar's he's had for years - and he's already three sheets to the wind when he climbs into a cab near midnight. Ten minutes later, he's pounding loudly on Harry's door.
"John!" Harry exclaims at the sight of John standing before her, unsteady on his feet but still, surprisingly, upright. "Do you know what time it is? What are you doing here?"
"'lo, Harry," John says evenly. "Can I come in?"
Harry grabs his forearm and tugs him inside, catching a whiff of the evening's activity as he passes her on his way to the lounge.
"Have you been drinking?" she says, and John, falling to the sofa, gives a small snort.
"I'd have thought that was obvious."
He rests his heavy head on the back of the sofa and drapes an arm over his eyes. Harry goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and when she returns, John sits up and takes his mobile out of his pocket, placing it on the table between them.
"Here. I've been meaning to return this ever since you and Clara got back together." He looks around the room as though only just realising where he is. "Is she here?"
Harry shakes her head. "Gone to her mum's for the weekend. John - what's going on? You don't drink."
John gives a small, mirthless laugh, not meeting his sister's eyes.
"No, I don't, do I?" he says.
Harry frowns. "What's happened, John?"
And this is as far as he wants this conversation to go; but the price for numbing his ceaseless ache is that the alcohol has loosened his tongue.
"You read the papers."
"What, Sherlock Holmes?" John barely holds back a wince at the name. "I know you were friends, but it's been, what, two months now?"
He can feel words rising like bile in his throat, and he's powerless to swallow them back.
"He was my best friend, Harry. You don't just -"
No.
John gives a short shake of his head and looks away.
Harry opens her mouth to say something, but she's cut short by the whistle of the kettle and hurries to the kitchen. John feels himself lose a little more of his footing; it was a terrible idea, coming here. All the things he's held at bay since Sherlock's death - all the things he couldn't tell Ella - threaten to overwhelm him, and there's nowhere to run anymore.
Harry returns, places a steaming cup of tea before John, and sits on the sofa next to him, waiting.
After a moment, John asks abruptly, "Have you ever had a best friend, Harry?"
"Clara," she says, not missing a beat, and John nods knowingly.
"And how did you feel when -" another stubborn shake of his head.
No.
But Harry, clearly out of her depth, reaches out and places a tentative hand on John's knee. "How did I feel when?" she asks.
"When -" John heaves a sigh. "When you thought she was gone."
"Gutted," she answers instantly. "But that's different. She's -"
And maybe Harry would finish that thought - tell John that Clara is the whole world to her, that she can't imagine life without her, that she'd do anything, has doneeverything, for her - but when she looks up into John's hollow stare, it's clear that it's no different at all.
"John... " she says softly, her eyes widening.
"No," he says, his voice breaking almost imperceptibly. "No."
He blinks once, twice and again in rapid succession.
"Oh, Johnny, you poor sod," Harry says, and John curls into her, clutching at her shirt with both hands and burying his face in her shoulder.
She brings her arms around him, holding him tightly, and lets him cry.