"Oi! Pansy!"
John sighed and continued walking to his classroom.
"Leave me alone, Bruce."
"You were late to your morning beating again. Haven't we talked about this?"
"Yeah. At least a hundred times."
Bruce grabbed him by the collar and smashed him up against the wall.
"Do we need to have another talk?"
John wrinkled his nose.
"Preferably after you brush your teeth."
Bruce growled and smashed him against the wall again, causing him to groan a bit.
"What did you say to me?"
"Put me down," John whimpered, finding that his feet were actually off the floor.
"What did you say to me?!"
"He said to put him down."
Bruce looked over his shoulder at a young girl about John's age, wearing a pink blouse tucked into her uniform skirt.
"Go away, Princess. This is between the men."
She stepped up to him and crossed her arms.
"Not anymore, it's not. Put him down."
"Or what?" Bruce sniggered.
"Or you'll be sorry, you big ugly brute."
"Go away!" John hissed at her. "I can handle this!"
"Shut up, Runt!" Bruce shook him.
"I'm going to ask you one last time: Put. Him. Down," the girl said.
Bruce dropped John and turned around to face the girl.
"I ain't afraid of a tiny little Barbie doll like you."
The girl smiled evilly.
"You should be."
And she delivered Bruce a swift and hard kick in the nuts, sending him to the floor in a heap.
"Touch him again, and those balls will be more than bruised. Got it?"
Bruce snarled and stood up, still clutching his groin.
"You're crazy!"
"Look who's talking!"
Grumbling, Bruce shuffled away, pushing John to the ground as he did so.
"What a bully," the girl said once he was gone, helping John to his feet.
"I could have handled it," John mumbled, brushing himself off.
"You were doing a great job," the girl said sarcastically. "You're welcome, by the way."
John looked at her angrily for a second before softening his expression.
"Thanks."
"No problem," the girl beamed. "My name's Rose. Rose Wallace."
"John. John Watson."
The two children shook hands.
"Want to eat lunch together?" Rose asked.
John was thrown a bit off guard but the sudden question.
"What?"
"Lunch? Today?"
John nodded hesitantly.
"Sure, I gue-"
"Good! I'll meet you by the oak tree outside!"
And with one last smile, Rose hurried off, leaving the young John Watson confused and slightly enamoured.
John sighed after watching the memory play out before him.
He had forgotten Rose. His best friend for the longest time. Really, his only friend. They loved being around each other. He loved being around her. She was always there to make him laugh, to make him smile, and to make him feel like he had some purpose in the world.
How had it all turned to crap so fast?
He walked down the hallway of his primary school and opened the door to the back, faced with not only the outside, but the outside of his secondary school.
He saw himself and Rose, about sixteen years of age, sitting on the bench in the courtyard. Rose was reading something on notebook paper. John stepped closer to see what was going on.
"'And they all lived happily ever after.' Wow," Rose said with a snort.
"What?"
"Talk about a cliche."
"Oh, shut up," young John muttered.
Rose giggled and punched him playfully in the arm.
"I'm only teasing. It's really quite good, John."
John smiled.
"You think so?"
"It's sure to earn you an A."
John took a bite from his apple as he put the paper back in his satchel.
"You know, Creative Writing isn't really fun without you in it," he said as he swallowed the bit of apple.
Rose shrugged and munched on a piece of her sandwich.
"Writing's not really my area. I prefer art."
"Writing *is* art."
"I mean painting, silly," she said with a smirk.
John shrugged.
"You might like writing, actually. If you have a knack for painting, and I know that you do, you'd probably be really good at writing."
Rose set down her sandwich and crossed her legs.
"Nah, s'alright. I failed English when I was in primary school, anyway."
"So what?"
"So, that means I'm not any good at writing."
"Nonsense," John said.
"Such language," Rose said with fake offence. "You'd better watch that mouth of yours!"
John grinned.
"Thank you, Mrs. Sarcasm. I'll keep that in mind."
Rose laughed for a minute before clearing her throat and settling down.
"Anyway," she said. "How's Harry?"
John's smile disappeared.
"She's drinking, now."
Rose frowned.
"Really?"
"And she's still hanging around that Riley guy. If Mum finds out, she'll flip."
Rose blew out a long stream of air.
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"Have you talked to Harry much about it?"
"No."
"Have you tried?"
"No."
"I'm sure if you-"
"Can we not talk about Harry right now?"
Rose nodded and backed off.
"Sure. Sorry."
"It's okay. Let's just... let's not talk about my family right now."
"Sure."
They sat in silence and ate, watching as other kids walked through the courtyard talking and playing around.
Without much of a warning, Rose handed John her ice pack.
"What's this for?" John asked her.
"For the bruise on your wrist. That looks painful."
Rose smiled sadly at him, gently placing the ice on his wrist.
John blushed.
"Thanks."
Just then, the bell rang.
"Crap. I should get going. I don't want to get yelled at by Mr. Pink again."
John nodded.
"Yeah, yeah. Of course."
"You can keep that ice pack," Rose said with a serious expression. "I have a feeling you'll want it in the future."
"Oh... okay," John said.
"Later!" Rose called, waving before she ran off to class.
The elder John watched as she ran by, and promptly decided to follow her inside, anticipating another memory to come from it.
As he opened the door, he found that his suspicions were confirmed. This time, he was in a bedroom. Not his own, but Rose's. The walls were painted a lovely shade of blue and were covered in posters of artists she loved and bands she listened to.
"And what's the answer?" he heard his younger self say.
He looked over to see himself and Rose seated on her bed, Calculus homework laid out on the covers.
"Oh, who the hell cares?" Rose groaned, collapsing onto her pillow. "You don't need to know this crap in the real world."
"How about we take a water break?" John smiled, closing the textbook.
Rose sighed and stared up at her ceiling.
"Hey John?"
"Yeah?"
"Where do you see yourself in the future?"
"Depends. How far are we talking?"
"Like, ten years. Where do you see yourself?"
John shrugged.
"I don't know. Probably working as a doctor with a wife. Maybe kids."
"Living a sheltered life, huh?"
"Maybe. It's hard to say."
Rose closed her eyes and smiled.
"I see myself travelling. A lot. Paris, Africa, Germany, China, America; painting and immersing myself in the culture."
John set down the textbook and homework on the floor and laid down next to Rose, looking up at the ceiling along with her.
"Not with anyone?"
Rose shrugged.
"Maybe, maybe not. I guess it would depend on if I met the right person, you know?"
John smirked.
"I know what you mean."
"No kids, though. I wouldn't want to drag them around with me."
"Makes sense."
"It's a shame I won't live long enough for that to happen."
John frowned.
"I thought we weren't going to talk about that."
"It's the elephant in the room, John. It's kind of hard not to talk about it."
John sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"I don't like to talk about it."
Rose sighed and joined him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, well it's no fun for me either. After all, I'm the one who's lost all her hair. And you know how much I loved my hair."
John put his head in his hands.
"Look, John," Rose said. "I hate to sound so negative, but I'm seriously just being realistic. I mean, we both know this can't end well. So instead of faking our way through this, pretending that everything's okay and making things awkward, why don't we just face the music? Accept what's happening and move on?"
"Because you're my friend, Rose! I don't want you to..." John bit the inside of his cheek. "I don't want to lose you."
"And I don't want to leave."
Rose wrapped her arm around John, and the two of them sat there, staring out the window at the night sky.
"I love you, Rose."
Rose smiled.
"I love you too, John."
As the memory seemed to come to a close, older John could hardly stifle a broken-sounding sob.
Only about two months after this, Rose's condition worsened and she was admitted to the hospital.
And three weeks after that, she passed away.
John sniffed and went to walk out the door, when a disembodied voice echoed in his brain and stopped him in his tracks.
"John..." it said.
It was the same voice he'd heard before in the waking world.
"John... idiot... wake up..."
Who was it? He couldn't exactly place his finger on it.
"Don't leave me here alone."
And just like that, the voice stopped, leaving him to shake his head and walk out the door.
This memory was new.
It wasn't as mellow as the other ones had been.
No, this one was far worse.
It burned like fire here. John found that his brow was covered in a thick layer of sweat. Looking down, he discovered sand at his feet. In the distance he heard yelling and screaming. Explosions and gunfire.
And then he knew where he was.
Afghanistan.
John sunk down to his knees, holding his head.
He didn't want this. He didn't want to relive this.
"Please, just make this stop!" he screamed.
He looked up and saw himself holding Murray in his arms, trying to stop the kid's wound from bleeding, begging him to hold on.
He watched again as Murray died.
Then he saw the Afghan soldier walk up behind him. Saw as he turned around and fought the soldier, trying to get the better of him. Saw as the soldier pushed him off and immediately fired, sending the bullet into his shoulder, ripping through tissue and muscle.
John instinctively cried out and clutched his shoulder, the pain of it more intense than he remembered.
"Make it stop!" he cried.
Then that same voice from earlier came back.
And the pain stopped.
And the memory stopped.
It was just him and the voice.
"I'm here, John."
John felt a pressure in his hand. He looked down to see what on earth it was, but found nothing.
Yet he felt it there; a warm sensation wrapping around his right hand.
And that voice.
"You're safe, John. I'm here."
Who's voice was that?
"You're alright."
The more it spoke, the more familiar it became.
"I'm right here."
A baritone voice; deep and soothing.
"It's me."
And suddenly, John placed it.
"Sherlock," he whispered.