Archive of Our Own

After the fall, John goes back to seeing his therapist. Not necessarily because he wants to, but because Mycroft is offering to pay as restitution for everything he had done. John decides it might actually be a good idea for him. And, what do you know, it is. He is recovering from the initial shock quite well, though, not nearly as fast as he would like. It still hurts. He thinks it will always hurt. He thinks he will never be able to get over all of the hurt.

Ella suggests a lot of things for John to do. Go for long walks, keep in close contact with his friends, she even suggests moving out of Baker Street, but John isn’t ready to do that yet. Nothing seems to be working now, but he tries everything she says. During a session two months later, she has a suggestion that is different than the others before.

“Try writing him letters,” she says.

John sits up straighter in his chair. “Letters?”

“Yes, letters. It can really help patients in grief. Just write down things you would want to say to him. It doesn’t have to be deep and meaningful, just tell him what you did each day or how you’re feeling. Even though he can’t read them, you’ll feel like you still have a connection to him, which is good.”

Admittedly, John thinks the idea is childish. Writing letters to his dead best friend won’t do anything for him. But he is willing to give it a try.

When he gets back to the flat later that evening, and after watching a few shows on the telly, John remembers what Ella had said. He gets out his calligraphy set and a nice pad of paper and sits. The paper laid out in front of him, pen in hand, he sits for a full twenty minutes without having written a word.

This is pointless, he thinks. But he knows it would be best to at least give it a try. He searches for the right words to say, but there was only one thing that comes mind.

Work at the clinic is hard. 18 hour shifts with just a single half hour break have become a usual thing for John. Sarah is there to keep him company, along with a few other doctors who he’s come to know.

His routine is nearly the same every day. Wake up at 5:30 (sometimes even earlier), Head out to work by 6:00, take his lunch break at 11:45, and work the rest of the day before coming home at 9:00. He is exhausted every night by the time he comes home, barely having enough energy to make himself dinner and get into bed. But every few nights, John makes the time to write another letter. He never writes anything big, just a simple note of what he had done each day.

Lestrade asks John down to the pub for a drink. It isn’t the first time they have seen each other since Sherlock had died, but it is still a bit awkward at first. They avoid the topic of Sherlock for as long as they can, discussing football scores and making small talk, but after they have each had several drinks, they find their way to talking about the detective.

“It’s still really hard. I think about him all the time. Everything seems to remind me of him. It helps when I keep myself busy, but every night, I have dreams of him jumping, and every time, I try to save him, but I never get there in time.”

They each take another sip of their drinks.

“Things like this don’t go away easy, John. I was the same way when I lost my first wife. You’ve just gotta push through.”

“My therapist says the same thing. She’s helped a lot. Gave me some really good advice on dealing with everything.”

“Like what?”

“Well, she told me to write him letters. I thought it was stupid at first, but it actually seems to be helping. Just saying little things, nothing big. Though sometimes I wish I was writing something more meaningful than what I’ve been writing.”

“What d’you mean?”

John thinks for a moment, and took another sip of his drink. “Nothing.”

They talk for a little while longer, drinking another couple of drinks each, eventually saying their goodbyes and heading off. John takes a cab back to the flat, not trusting himself to make the walk back to Baker Street with this level of intoxication. He stumbles through the doorway to the flat, nearly tripping over the stairs on his way up.

He makes himself tea, slouching up against the counter as he waits for the kettle to boil. After a couple cups and a snack of Jammie Dodgers, he flops down on the couch.

He doesn’t have to go into the clinic tomorrow, which is for the best, so he decides he will just sleep on the sofa tonight. As he starts falling asleep, he realizes he hadn’t written his letter for the day. He gets back up and pulls out his pen and paper, trying to think of what to write.

That’s when he remembers his conversation with Lestrade. The letters he had been writing the past few days felt meaningless, and his drunken mind can’t help but bring up all of the feelings he has been holding in.

The next day, John wakes up and finds the letter he had written the night before. He feels stupid and is tempted to throw it away, but decides to put it on the bottom of the box holding the rest of the letters. He doesn’t write again for three days.

John gets a promotion. Head surgeon of a hospital on the other side of London. It is too good of an opportunity to not take. He packs up all of his belongings and moves out of Baker Street within two weeks.

His new flat is smaller, similar to the one he had been staying in before moving into 221B, but it feels empty. He tries to make it seem more homey by decorating it with some familiar items that had been in the old flat: the skull, the moose head, even spray painting a yellow smiley face on the wall, but it still doesn’t feel right.

He has a panic attack the first night he stays there. He takes a cold shower, drinks a glass of milk, and paces around the flat, trying to make it go away, but nothing works. Eventually, he tries writing a letter.

He puts down the pen and cries. He feels nothing but despair and vulnerability in that moment.

He cries himself to sleep later that night.

He likes his new job. It’s much harder work, but he likes it. The other doctors at the hospital are nice. Tom, from his old job, was promoted to here as well, as his assistant. They spend most of their break time talking. He takes longer shifts most days, since he wanted to spend the least amount of time at his flat as possible.

He still writes letters, almost every day. He doesn’t say much. Just little things about his new job, or how Mrs Hudson and Lestrade are doing, and occasionally the ‘I miss you’. On a day that he is particularly sad, he thinks it may help to read some of his past letters. As he goes through, he notices that many of the letters were missing. It is a bit odd, but he assumes they had just gotten misplaced in the move. John decides he will look around some of the boxes still unpacked to see if he could find them.

John meets up with Mycroft. He wasn’t the person John most wanted to see, but when the black sedan pulled up in front of him on the street, he knew it best to just go with him.

Mycroft tells John that he’s working to try and clear Sherlock’s name. It seems oddly sentimental of him, but John is onboard. John agrees to tell him everything he knows about the fall, including all of Sherlock’s final moments. He can’t help but cry at the end.

When he get’s home, his eyes are bloodshot with tears. He decides to write a letter.

You always did so much for me, so I’ve decided to do something for you. I know you told me not to, but I believe in you, and I’m going to make the world believe in you, too. -JW

John looks for the letter the next day. It isn’t in the box.

His life is almost all work and helping Mycroft. He almost never gets to do anything recreational. That’s why when Lindsay, one of the nurses at the hospital, asks him out for a lunch date, he’s thrilled to say yes.

She is a sweet girl, someone who he’d had his eye on ever since starting his job here. She’s very pretty, and very funny, with dark, curly brown hair and a light tan. They go out to a cafe for their date. They both have a lot of fun.

Later that evening, John is happy. He didn’t feel a real connection with her, nothing more than a friendship bond, but it was still nice to spend some time with someone.

He writes his letter for the day.

The letter is missing once again.

Harry started drinking again. They have a fight over the phone about it. It’s all screaming and tears until John hangs up on her. He cries the rest of the night.

John wakes up at half past three in the morning in his bed that feels all too small. He feels cold. After a shower that was much too hot, he tries to fall back asleep. No luck.

He can’t stop feeling horrible inside as he lays in bed. He realizes it’s no use to lay in bed any longer, so he decides to write a letter, having forgotten to write the night before.

The next morning, John remembers the letter. He decides to throw it out. When he looks in the box, it’s gone. He thinks Mycroft must have been taking them.

In a fit of anger, John stormed over to Mycroft’s and demands to know where the letters are. Mycroft has no idea what he’s talking about. John thinks it’s a complete and utter lie.

One of Mycroft’s cars stops John on his way to work. He refuses to get in.

John doesn’t see Mycroft anymore. He stops writing letters.

Work becomes even more mundane than it had felt before. He no longer enjoys it. Tom and Lindsay both ask John if he’s alright. He’s not quite sure that he is.

His flat seems to be shifting a little bit every time he’s gone. John wonders if someone has been in it while he was away. He wonders if he’s going crazy.

John goes to his therapist. She asks him what’s wrong. He doesn’t know what to say. When she asks about the letters, John tells her he stopped writing them a while back. She suggests to start up again. That’s the last thing John wants.

He has a panic attack. It’s his third time this week. They seem to be getting worse each time. It’s getting harder for him to calm down from them.

Everything hurts. Everything’s pointless. Nothing has meaning to John anymore. After a panic attack one night, he remembers what Ella said about the letters. He tries to write. He can’t find the words.

John cries every night. He can’t remember a day that he didn’t cry.

John comes home from the clinic one evening. He finds a flower on the counter. He wonders if it’s from Lindsay.

Strange things start happening to him. He finds more flowers around the flat. A stranger offers to pay for his coffee. Someone leaves a box of cookies outside of his flat. John asks Lindsay if it was from her. She says it wasn’t.

John feels better. He’s not happy, but he’s not as sad as he was. He hasn’t cried in almost a week.

He finally feels good enough to write a letter again. It’s short, just telling about the flowers and the coffee and the cookies. He forgets to put it in the box before he goes to Tesco.

When he comes home later, he sees the letter on the counter. John thought he had left it on the desk. He doesn’t think much of it. He goes to put it in the box with the other letters. When he pulls it off of the top shelf that he had been keeping it on, it feels oddly lighter than usual.

He opens the lid to the box and his knees nearly give out. All of the letters he had written are gone. There’s a single envelope sitting at the bottom of the box. It’s addressed to himself, in the messy chickenscratch he knew all too well. He picks it up with shaking hands, carefully running his hands over the paper.

He opens it. There was a note inside, almost completely blank, with just a single line of words in the center.