John slowly walked out of the flat that he had seemingly so long known as his home. He could hardly believe he was leaving it all behind. No. He thought. He knew he wasn't leaving it behind. Everyone had told him to leave it behind and find a new life. He isn't coming back. They said, Not this time… John had held onto the little hope he had for over a year since the incident, but it quickly faded, and in this moment, little more than despair was left.
Tears welled in his eyes like a river held back by a dam as he closed the door behind him. He walked down the familiar staircase, gently caressing the railing. He had come so far. Now, there was nothing left. Nothing but emptiness in these once lively and bullet filled walls. He recalled the first time he saw this staircase. Hardly a year and a half ago. Such a short amount of time, and I already have to leave it behind. He had learned the hard way: nothing in this world lasts.
He left without saying a word to Mrs. Hudson. He couldn't let her see him like this. He was a soldier. He straightened his back and walked towards the door. He let his hand linger on the doorknob, then very slowly turned it, and opened the door that held so many memories. As he closed the door behind him, and as he fully left behind that old place, the tears finally spilled over his cheeks like a waterfall in the midst of a rainstorm.
The air was harsh, and bit at him. Every tear stung as he felt them slide down his face. He turned up his coat collar, partly to shield himself from the wind and to keep him warm, but he knew deep down that it was in remembrance of his old friend, who was long gone, but he pushed down any such thought, and walked on. Mary was waiting for him at home, but he wasn't going home. Not yet. He couldn't. He promised.
He made his way through the streets, taking a tour of his memories. He was soaking it all in. He had held it back for so long, as a soldier should, but those walls he had placed had been broken long ago. Every soldier has their breaking point, and he had found his. He had found his just over two years ago, when he first met Sherlock. He hadn't known that a friend could do so much, and he had never meant to tear down all these walls that long hard battles and the war had put up, and that more battles of a very different sort would easily tear down. He had never had a friend that he was that close to. One whom he cared so much about. Each of those cases, each time Sherlock was in danger, each time they both were, he began to realize how he knew that he could never lose him, and if he ever did, nothing would ever be the same again. He lost the only person who really and truly understood him.
John continued to wander around, seemingly aimlessly, but he knew, deep down, that there was an end destination. It was where he always ended up. Every day since it had happened, that is where he found himself.
After too short a time of walking, there he was, at Sherlock's grave.
He wasn't sure why he kept coming back. He couldn't bring himself to again say the things he said when he first came here, and the millions of other things that were still lingering inside his head.
A sudden realization came to him. I keep coming back because I think he can hear me, and see me. He wished that it was true. He knew now that nothing could really fix him. He was broken, shattered into an infinite amount of pieces, and no one could put him back together.
Mary had tried, and done as well as any, for she brought back a spark, but to fully mend a broken soul is an impossible task to take on, for any except the one who broke it. His therapist did nothing to help, and he stopped seeing her, despite her protest. He just wanted to fade away into the background, for no one to pay him any heed, and he wanted to be forgotten by all but Mary. The only reason he had left to live.
Now, as John stood in the cold, the snow began to fall, white and pure. He was reminded of the innocence of days before, even of his days with Sherlock. Anything seemed more innocent and pleasant than this. He had gone through so many horrors in the war, but none compared to the cruel feeling of losing someone close to you.
He stared up silently into the unwelcoming grey sky. Suddenly, the sky became familiar, like home, and he felt at peace. For the first time in over a year, he felt at peace. And yet, at the same time, he still felt the emptiness. It was a hollow kind of peace. He had merely let his thoughts leave him for a moment, but far too soon, he was forced to return to the brutal reality.
He looked back down to the earth, where, buried six feet deep, were the remains of his best friend. Every time he came out here, he almost didn't believe what his eyes had seen. He let out a long and deep sigh, with the breath quivering, but not from the cold. He had hardly felt the cold. He couldn't feel much of anything then.
He choked back a few more tears, and, with much reluctance, stepped away from the grave. He glanced at his watch. He had been there for almost 30 minutes. He always had lost track of time with him. He grimaced, as he knew Mary would ask where he was, and he never liked to answer, but she always knew.
He took a detour home, and passed by St. Barts. That was really where it all started. Where he had been introduced to his friend. He stopped at the front of the building.
He hadn't noticed, but Molly had seen him standing there, looking despondent. She knew why. She held back tears herself. But she knew something he didn't. Molly was desperate to tell John. She couldn't bear to see someone so hollow, like a body whose soul and light has left, and yet was still walking around, and very few notice that it's really a dead person walking. She could tell though. She knew how to.
She was about to invite him in from the cruel weather, if not to tell him, at least to comfort him, as best she could. But before she could, he walked away, looking more crestfallen than ever, and the dim light glinted off the tears on his face. Molly quickly turned away, as if to hide her own tears. Her heart had been broken for far too long.
John hadn't even realized there were tears on his face, as he walked on, with pain in every step he took away from all those memories.
He took a long time, but he made it back home, to Mary. The only consolation he had in life. But he knew that he would be back around that way the very next day. No matter how many times he told himself that he had put it past him, no matter how many times he had said to himself, this is the last day, he could not stop. The pain was like a drug. He could never leave it behind. After work every day, he found himself treading the same path, almost unconsciously. But he also promised. He promised Sherlock that he wouldn't forget him, and felt as though he would be doing so if he left him to lie in his grave all alone.
He had indeed found himself walking that path everyday from then on for the next year. The miracle he had asked for never left his heart. It may have been broken, but it never left. It grew twisted, and made him bitter inside when he thought on it, for he couldn't understand why Sherlock had to leave, why he chose to jump off that horrible rooftop, almost like a child who can't understand death. But the hope of the miracle never left. And after that year, he found that it had not been in vain, and that a miracle, his miracle, his prayer, had been answered.