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He never imagined it would end like this.
One foot on the ledge, the other one half way towards the heavens and then –
***
John thinks he might meet Sherlock again in his dreams but as soon as he closes his eyes there is only blood blood no pulse where is his heart I thought it was mine too and sleep won’t come to him. The bags under his eyes are like permanent markers of the grief he doesn’t allow himself to feel and his shaking hand and aching leg proof that he can’t be whole without him by his side.
***
“Just take them.”
“I’d really rather not.”
“Not an option.”
“You can’t force me.”
“This is not what he would have wanted.”
Bitter resignation, a glass full of stale water and Lestrade leaves Baker Street without the pharmacist's bag. John sits and listens to the slow drum of his heart. It rushes the blood through his body like a waterfall, an echo of a long forgotten memory. A pale hand reaching out for him, unseeing eyes staring into his soul, (no pulse no pulse) blood-soaked memories of something celestial, unwavering, a constant in his life gone to a better world.
***
Five weeks after, and John still doesn’t understand. He sleeps, but Sherlock won’t come to him in his dreams. There are no dips in the mattress at night, no murmurs or whisperings waking him up from his restless sleep. No hands (pale, reaching for him) touching his blankets or caressing his clammy skin.
He should have been back by now.
***
Mrs Hudson cooks for him, brings the food to him, watches him eat. John knows she’s under Mycroft’s strict orders. They worry about him, but really, he’s been far worse.
***
This is not what he would have wanted.
The phrase haunts him. It doesn’t help him, having people telling him how Sherlock would have felt, what Sherlock would have wanted him to do and feel. They can’t know. John doesn’t know. Not even Sherlock would have known, mind too large and emotions scattered like clouds on a windy summer’s day.
Standing at the window, looking down upon the life beneath his feet, he wonders if this is how Sherlock felt, standing on top of the world, looking down on him, a small ant easy to crush on the ground compared to his greatness. Only it wasn’t John who was crushed (but really it was).
***
The funeral is a family business, and the only reason John is there is because Mycroft knows he needs some kind of closure. The church is tiny in comparison to the life of Sherlock Holmes, and John hates every bit of it. This is not how he should end. The coffin stands close to the altar, like a cenotaph of all the days he and Sherlock could have (should have) had together; a cenotaph of their broken future.
He bites the insides of his cheeks until they bleed and Mycroft puts his hand over his clenched fists in understanding.
John doesn’t cry. In Afghanistan, when he was caught in the crossfire, blinded by smoke and fear and rage and the feeling of hopelessness, he would breathe so hard his lungs hurt, so hard his heart started to beat in tandem with the gunfire. Bullets and fire would fall like rain, ashes smudged across his tanned face, never streaked by tears. Touching Sherlock’s gravestone, his last testament, he can feel himself tearing. But he sheds no tears. He is a soldier.
He and Sherlock fought their war, and they lost. He is a soldier, and Sherlock was his cause to fight.
***
Three months after, he saves a young boy’s life, and it is in that moment John knows he will make it out of the grief and the lonely nights. There is still a war worth fighting even though the cause is different. Maybe this is what Sherlock would have wanted, after all. The next time Lestrade calls him about a case, he answers.
(And later that night, when John is tossing and turning in his dreamless sleep, the mattress dips and pale hands reach for his blanket, touches his clammy skin, whispers in his ear
this is not what I wanted)