A/N

Good day my fanfictioneers! How are we all this fine Sunday? (I now have an image of Uncle Vernan saying "Fine day, Sunday … *shudder*). For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to posting (I am also usually late when it comes to posting) which means that I usually post once a week and, like last time, my chosen day is Sunday. Sometimes I'll be late but I'll usually make up for that by posting 2 chapters next to each other, so it's all good.
Anyways, more importantly than any of that: A massive, humongous, giant-sized THANK YOU and a hug to everyone who read, and especially, reviewed, favourite-d and alerted! It's great to see some of the old faces back, I missed you guys, so feel free to have a bit of banter with me/the story, it's great fun to see you again. And another thing that's great to see: New faces! Yup, for everyone new here, I'm a wee bit crazy, but I already love ya'll already for reading the fic, so thanks, hello and feel free to say hi/input how you like!
As a quick note: This chapter is VERY John centric, so I apologise for that if it's not your cup of tea :/
Anyway, onwards!

Disclaimer: And so it begins. In order to own Sherlock, it makes sense that after his disappearance from TV and from John, I've gotta find him. The monkeys are rallied, the lair is clean and I am ready! I took a train to London today and walked around for 12 hours looking for anyone with curly hair and a long coat. Unfortunately, one of the guys I questioned took offense when I mentioned that his curly hair was only a wig. Still holding a pack of frozen potatoes to my face at the moment…the monkeys couldn't find any peas…

Anyone got any idea as to Sherlock's whereabouts? All ideas welcome!

John had no idea how long he had been sat here. It felt as though he had been sat in the same room for months. In the end, he'd been forced to return. The same as before. He didn't have enough money to rent anywhere else and Mrs Hudson was being generous enough as it was… so he had ended up staying, no matter how much he hated to still be here. It had been months and the flat looked the same. Things in boxes, half between emptiness and the loveable chaos it had had before. Halfway. Like John. Halfway between wanting to leave and needing to stay.

He had no idea how long he'd been here. Since…the incident. Since Sherlock had died. No, John snapped angrily in his mind, the thought feeling like something loud in a silent mind, since Sherlock threw himself from a building. That's how long you've been sat here.

Anger was a motivator, apparently, according to Trish, his therapist, but there was only so far it could get you before you crashed back down to earth. He'd been so angry before. Angry at Sherlock… himself… the police and the newspapers and every person who came past 221 to glimpse at the "fake's" home. To start with, he'd blamed everyone under the sun. He hadn't told anyone anything about his friend. That was his knowledge to have, his friend and if they were just going to judge him as something he wasn't, then they can think again. He had guarded it like a secret. Trish said that wasn't a good thing. You'll only tire yourself out with it in the end, she had said. She was right. In the end, it had tired him out. And now all that was left was a gaping hole, nothing but the too-loud silence and that constant, ever present sinking feeling.

When thinking about Trish, it actually seemed almost strange for her to have a name. The first time they had met, after coming home from Afghanistan, she had introduced herself.

"Hello John, my name is Trish," she had said and then, "Take a seat, John. So, John, how are we feeling today?" She had said his name three times. Addressing someone by their name is a way of connecting. It commands attention and establishes the bond. John had read that in a leaflet in the waiting room before going in to meet her. He didn't remember much else of the leaflet other than it was a clinical blue colour, entitled "Coming Home: Integrating after Army Service" and that the section on talking to people had come to mind when he'd met his therapist. He had promptly not said her name once and had ever since almost forgotten it.

That was before Sherlock had- before the jump. After that it hadn't been long before the shakes had come back and the leg pain and "Mrs Hudson! Mrs Hudson, do you know where my cane is?" John had noted that he'd used Mrs Hudson's name twice in that sentence and he wondered if that was significant in any way. Just a few days after his limp had returned he'd gone to see Trish again. He had sat in the waiting room and picked up a leaflet like the two other people in there, an elderly man with a twitch and a perfectly ordinary looking woman in her late forties with a mark where a wedding ring once had been. John only noticed this because she was reading a leaflet too and when John had looked to see what it was, he'd seen her hand and wondered if Sherlock would have commended him on his discovery. He had quickly buried his head in "The Road to Recovery: 10 Steps to Healing".

The ten steps hadn't helped at all and no matter how many times John said the name "Trish" to his therapist, that wasn't helping either. And besides, he functioned well enough. He'd forced himself back to Baker Street and even with the memories haunting that flat, he felt like he couldn't pull himself away for too long. He'd smile at Mrs Hudson and make tea, even though he'd have to clean up the twelve cold, untouched cups at the end of the day. He looked in the paper for jobs, not that he expected one with the current climate. The attractive woman on the ten o' clock news said that there weren't any jobs to be had and after hearing that John had switched off the TV before any crap programmes came on, mindfully keeping his eyes averted from the chair where Sherlock used to sit, shouting at the TV, secretly engaged with it and pretending that he wasn't.
John had quit his job at the hospital, preferring not to have to work in a building where his friend had jumped from, thank you, he had told his boss. In fact, he had more like shouted it at him. Five days after his return to work and he had suddenly turned on his manager. You can take your job and stick it- If John still had a blog, he would have posted where he had told the manager to put it and the response he had got as it would probably do for comedic value and get him a few more fans, however he'd stopped posting on that months ago. There was no point any more when all he would post would be "Bought milk at the shop", "Searched for a new flat today" or "Went out for a walk today, damn leg keeps playing up". Nothing happens to me.

It all felt familiar. It was machinelike, boring and ridiculously circular because, despite everything that had happened since meeting Sherlock, he was back here. Again. Monotonous and trivial, like he was living a life just for the sake of it. He'd walk around the park, walking stick in one hand, coffee in the other and realise that he was back where he had started. He wondered if that was a bad thing. Nothing had changed since Sherlock had died and yet everything was suddenly different to him, all at the same time. Mrs Hudson let him keep the flat. His job was gone but that wasn't hugely different. There were no cases to solve but then again, they had only come when Sherlock had taken him on them in the first place. But worst of all, he was alone, again. He was so alone, alone to the point where it hurt, like an emptiness that couldn't be filled. He was back where he had started and nothing had changed.

Or at least, not outwardly. Outwardly, nothing was different. It didn't include the fact that Sherlock was a friend, not just a case or a colleague and that things had changed because now whenever John came home, he half expected there to be a head in the fridge or Sherlock composing his next violin piece and making John sit through it to make sure it was just right, even if he was supposed to be at work forty minutes ago. It didn't include the fact that John almost missed being called an idiot just because he missed hearing whatever Sherlock would have to say. Or the fact that he'd gladly never work another case again as long as he could sit in the flat and watch crap TV and talk about football to Sherlock; who plainly didn't care and seemed to know the outcome of every match before it happened, but listened to John all the same because even though it was boring, he apparently sometimes listened to him pretty much no matter how mundane it was and that always made John wonder why. It was something he'd learnt in the army, that taking a bullet for a friend was something you did because it was your duty but also because you know that, afterwards, you wouldn't want to live without them. John wondered if suicides off of buildings counted.

"This kind of numbness is normal, John," Trish would say, "the loss of a friend, especially one as close to you as Sherlock is going to take time to heal" John had paused at that. The perpetual lump in his throat seemed to tighten and he had to smother an involuntary noise with his hand.

"Heal?" he said. His voice broke on the word and he coughed to clear it, "Right. Heal. Of course" He had gone home after that and laughed, for the first time in months. My best friend, John had thought bitterly, My best friend is… dead. And that just needs time to heal? Then he had stopped laughing and sank into the chair; that same chair and tried to stop tears from falling. It hadn't helped. Checking his phone hadn't helped, like he had been doing for weeks because there was still a hope that Sherlock was alive, Sherlock had to be alive and he was just waiting for the right moment to text, probably something mundane and so very Sherlock. Want to have Chinese?

The text didn't come, like it hadn't before and the tears hadn't aided John's aim as he had thrown the mobile at the fireplace, hearing it shatter and not caring. He hadn't taken a call in weeks anyway, not from Harry, despite the pile-up of them, or the one call he had got from Mycroft. Lestrade had been strangely silent and he was the one person John would have spoken to. He wanted to ask him where the investigation was. Why was no-one looking into Sherlock's death? Why is no-one doing anything?

He told Trish the next day that she had a nice name and that she was right, he was going to heal in time. That had been a lie but at least the bit about her name was true. He'd lied again and said he'd thrown his phone away to "cut off ties" and that he was going for a job, like she'd told him to.

"Sherlock would want that," Trish said. John didn't even nod at that because he knew Sherlock better than her, better than anyone and those newspapers weren't going to take that away because Sherlock never once in his life tricked anyone into believing he was brilliant, no matter what the media said. John knew that what Sherlock would say would be that a job was "boring" and also he'd whine about not being able to text him because his phone was off. It's not off Sherlock, it's broken.

He'd sat with Trish for another hour after that, talked, made promises that didn't really sink in. The room felt the same and John wondered if he closed his eyes and thought real hard, he'd still be sat in that chair, waiting for the text that would never come.

The mid-morning was warm, surprisingly so for a London day at this time of year. John tried to take some comfort from the state of the weather, the light sunshine shining through the gap in his curtains but in the end he gave up on that endeavour and rolled out of bed. Today was going to be the day. He didn't look at his calendar as he got up, rubbing the cramps out of his leg and grunting at the pain. He had taken pain-killers during the night, or more correctly, in the early hours of the morning, but they weren't working, despite how strong they were. It felt like it was getting worse and with every nightmare, every time he woke up during the night, voice cracking in the dark as he tried to tell Sherlock not to jump, please Sherlock, don't do it, his leg got even more painful, to the point where it felt like it was on fire each time he awoke.

The nightmares hadn't abated since he began therapy. They were the always the same. He could hear the traffic and see Bart's hospital, looking up to the roof and seeing the outline of Sherlock, terrifyingly close to the edge. In his ear there was the tinny sound of a voice through a mobile. It was Sherlock's voice but not like John had ever heard it. It was so much smaller than Sherlock's voice, so much so that John could barely believe it was him. Sherlock was larger than life, loud and exuberant and intelligent all rolled into one, but one thing he never was, was small. And why was Sherlock apologising? Sherlock Holmes didn't apologise, or at least, not in so many words. Alright Sherlock, you're scaring me now. You're scaring me because this isn't you. It can't be you. The voice on the end of the phone was everything that Sherlock wasn't and it was persuading him, no, telling him to believe that he was a fraud. That this man here, on the end of a phone, was telling the truth to him and Sherlock Holmes was a fake. And as much as John could stretch to believe that maybe, just maybe, his friend really could be small as well as larger-than-life and he maybe could apologise, just once, he would never ever believe that Sherlock Holmes was ever anything less than incredible.

The entire conversation played out in his dream, Sherlock's voice betraying tears and John wanted nothing more than to get up there and pull Sherlock back from the edge. Stop it, just stop it. He wanted to, yet he couldn't because there was always a chance that Sherlock would jump if he moved or that he would hate him for it and never forgive him. So he had stayed and that thought had tormented him for days after, wondering if he should have moved or stayed or called for help or- The dream ended the same regardless. The conversation always ended the same. Goodbye John. John's head shook as he slept and he clawed at the sheets like he was trying to hold onto the sound of his friend's voice just one last time. No, no. And then John would cry out as the figure stepped off the edge, plummeting to the ground. John always awoke before Sherlock fell, screaming like he could stop it just by wishing it. It was like his mind still couldn't process the idea that Sherlock was dead, like it couldn't physically withstand the concept of seeing Sherlock hit the ground.

But if Trish was right, then he must have "processed" it. He must have. After all, today was the day. He'd put in for a job, at last, at a new hospital. Trish said that was good, that he had accepted his situation and was starting to move on. Pile of rubbish, John thought. He hadn't "accepted" anything. There was nowhere to move on to. He lifted himself up from the bed, grunting in pain. He had slept in later than he had wanted to, the painkillers knocking him out but it didn't really matter. Apart from the interview this afternoon, he didn't really have anything to get up for. He didn't have to go see Trish today, he had no errands to run for Mrs Hudson and he didn't have anyone that he had to go see today. Nothing happened around here anymore.

He grabbed his clothes from where they were hanging neatly on his door, assembled like a military uniform and he slung them on almost without thinking. He had picked them out last night, something casual but neat in order to impress the interviewer. Getting a job would convince Trish that he didn't need quite so many sessions as she was advising him to have, which was only eating worryingly into his monetary resources. It would take his mind off things, stop him running through that final conversation in the mornings after his dreams, thinking through every word and trying to see what he had missed, what wasn't quite right, any clue that Sherlock hadn't really meant any of it.

There was something almost robotic about the morning routine. After getting changed, John Watson would go into the kitchen and make himself a bowl of cereal. There would be no head in the fridge or toenails in jam jars in the cupboard. When he padded into the living room there was no tapping of laptop keys or wail of a violin. Just silence and an empty chair in front of the fireplace. John had always thought that it was an old fashioned thing to do; sitting in front of the fireplace with his flatmate, watching the telly and talking about the day. People didn't really just sit like that anymore, at least, not without people assuming there was something going on between two men who found it easy to talk to one another for hours in the evenings. Yet they did and it didn't really matter what people thought. Sherlock was Sherlock and that was it, old fashioned or weird or whatever they thought he was, that was just him. Or at least, he was.

John sat, the depressing thought making the room seem infinitely darker and he grabbed for the remote control, the silence too oppressive and uncomfortable to sit in it for longer than even a few seconds. The TV flickered into life and John's mind seemed to stutter into safe-mode for just a second as he recognised the news reader's voice. It was the same news that Sherlock used to watch, the same channel and the same presenter and for a split second, everything seemed normal, the sound of possible cases filling up the room and John could imagine the pause in the song that Sherlock's violin would no doubt be playing this early in the morning, the detective pausing and listening to a particularly unusual case before scoffing like he had already worked out the answer and carrying on his tune again.

The feeling of normality came and went and John found himself only half listening to the programme, half relieved of the break in the silence, the other half of him not giving a care as to what was going on in the world. From what he knew, the world was wrong. They had all got it wrong and they were all gullible. They had all swallowed the idea that their "Reichenbach hero" had been a fake so easily that John had wanted to scream at them. They believed everything the media told them to and if there was one thing that John had learnt from Sherlock Holmes, it was that the media were idiots.

He dug his spoon into his cereal, the mind-numbingly repetitive action not helping his trance like state and he felt himself zone out. He vaguely wondered what everyone else was doing. He hadn't heard from Mycroft at all since Sherlock had died and that almost surprised John, almost being the important word to that phrase. John couldn't imagine that Mycroft wouldn't be grieving; no matter how much Mycroft had angered him for what he had done, no matter how selfish the older Holmes could be, John knew that, in his own way, Mycroft loved his brother. He had expected more than just the one call, he'd expected Mycroft to visit him even, to question him about his brother's last few moments but he hadn't. There had been nothing but silence and John didn't really know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

A lot of other people had been quiet too, after what had happened. Mrs Hudson was the only person John had seen since the incident, except from Molly, but that had only been for a fleeting moment, when he had been called to identify the body. He had been ready to do it; he had stayed up all night, knowing that it had to be done, steeling himself for it. The next day however, he had arrived only to hear that he no longer had to.

"I'm sorry sir but it's not required," a member of hospital staff had told him, "Someone stepped in, they told us that it would not be in your best interests to see the body in that… state." John's mind had immediately thought of Mycroft, wondering if he had somehow grown a heart all of a sudden and identified the body himself, sparing John.

"Who said that?" John had said. The hospital worker had checked a sheet on his clipboard.

"A Molly Harper, a friend of Mr Holmes. She works here," the worker told him and John had nodded slowly.

"Yeah, I know her," he said. He wondered why Molly hadn't said anything and for a moment, a fleeting second, John allowed himself to hope. Was Molly hiding something? Was there something she knew that he didn't? Maybe this was all- He stopped the thought before he even completed it. If Molly knew something, she would tell him.
The only person John had wanted to speak to after that had been Lestrade and he had even gone to see him at Scotland Yard.

"The Detective Inspector is busy," the receptionist said, "He's in a meeting, would you like me to take a message?" John had shaken his head and left. There wasn't really a way to put every angry comment he had for the D.I into a message. Why is nothing being done? How could you let Moriarty win? Where is Moriarty? Why are you not investigating this? After a few days it was clear that the D.I wasn't up to speaking with him either, John's mobile being completely silent, save for texts from Harry, the ones that John promptly ignored (Sherlock had been right at Christmas, Harry's promise to stop drinking hadn't been as solid as he had thought after all), until he eventually threw the phone at the wall. It hadn't helped, but at least the calls from Harry weren't there to interrupt his thoughts anymore. He didn't want to see her as just another failure, another lie in his life. She was his sister for heaven's sake and if it meant not speaking for a while in order to preserve that mentality, he would happily do just that.
He was snapped out of his thoughts suddenly and for a moment, John didn't even know what it was that had broken him out of his spell.

"Sherlock Holmes, hoax or hero?" John blinked and it took him another few moments to work out where the voice had come from. He turned his head to the TV, blinking at it as if he had never seen it before. It had thrown him off balance, as if his thoughts had been projected onto the news programme and his head felt vaguely scrambled as he focused on the show. There was an image of Sherlock on the screen, deerstalker hat firmly planted on his head, his piercing eyes looking out of the screen, not losing their intelligence even on a photograph. The words: "Hot-shot detective or Long-shot deception?" were plastered on the bottom of the screen and John narrowed his eyes at them. It was now three months since Sherlock had died and they were still trying to pull him down? He reached for the remote; he'd had enough of this.

His hand had already touched the remote when the news reader had begun speaking again and he was halfway to the off button before he stopped, his mind backtracking to what he thought he had just heard. He frowned, putting the remote down, wondering if Trish was right and the stress was getting to him, sure that he had just hallucinated something. He concentrated his attention on the TV, not being able to believe what he was hearing.

"Today we have received a report from Scotland Yard, detailing an internal investigation of their most controversial consultant ever, the "Reichenbach Hero" Sherlock Holmes," the woman on the news said, "After three months of a private investigation into Mr Holmes and his involvement with several high-profile police cases, the New Scotland Yard has released information of new evidence to their inquiry which is pointing towards a scenario in which Mr Holmes was set-up in his part of the events of Richard Brook's trial and Mr Holmes' recent suicide. An unnamed source in Scotland Yard had said that-"

John stopped listening and for a moment, it felt like time itself had stopped. Sherlock wasn't a fraud and John knew that, he knew that more than he had ever known anything, but to hear it, to hear even the faintest whisper that there was proof, real, proper evidence of it, felt impossible. Sherlock Holmes was not a fake. He never was. The whole world was going to know it; they were going to believe it. He stood, the thought still sinking in, not knowing what to do. He didn't know whether to finish watching, try and discover what "new evidence" it was exactly that had convinced them or if he should go downstairs and tell Mrs Hudson, whether to call Lestrade or-

The sound of the scream cut through him like a knife and he spun around, the pain in his leg flaring with the action. His blood ran cold and the thoughts in his head didn't even process any more. It came again, smaller this time and John dropped the cereal bowl, panic and fear and adrenaline sweeping through him, the military training kicking and he wasn't even aware of himself moving before he had already ran to the door and ripped it open. The scream had been recognisable instantly and John's heart thumped in his chest as he powered out of the living room.

Mrs Hudson was in danger.

A/N: Okay, okay so sue me, I'll agree with anyone who says that they dislike this chapter. Originally it was never supposed to be a cliffie, but with the amount that I wanted to fit in for John, I felt that, in order to make things as good as they can be, I needed to separate this chapter into two, meaning that this one had to end on a cliff-hanger. Anyways, if anyone wants to rage on my face about this chapter, I'm okay with that as I'm really not happy with it at all (sorry :S). Also, feel free to point out any mistakes or bad grammar, I've been so overloaded with GCSEs at the moment that my editing is all over the place. HOWEVER! Fear not, as next chapter I fully intend to slap myself wholly around the face and try to write better XD The storyline kicks off well and truly next chapter as I've had to use these first two chapters as kinda-slow story-setting-up chapters, which I am not happy with, but you know :/ To make up for this, I'm gunna be posting the next chapter sooner, as an apology, so expect chapter 3 on Wednesday or Thursday!