Ashes, Ashes

Dead and Gone

- c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   e i g h t -

Emma wasn't in quite the mood to drag herself to the door and find out whoever it was knocking there. Something within her chest told her that she wouldn't be happy if she did such a thing, and therefore she ended up sighing and wishing that she didn't have to ever get up.

She was all too aware that she couldn't spend the rest of her life curled up within her seat, occassionally seeing her cat step by, but at least for the moment she would much rather stay there as if she were stuck there. She almost felt as if she was stuck there, and it wasn't such a horrible thing at the end of it all.

Emma considered simply yelling towards the door, hoping that her barking manner would end up scaring whoever this visitor was away, but she instead sighed to herself and started shifting around. She didn't have much of a choice - she had to get up and figure out what was happening.

Giving another enormous sigh, she managed to drag herself across the floor and make it to the door. Once again, she started considering other options about what she could possibly do instead of speak to whoever was waiting out there, but she stopped herself before it could overcome her.

Simply put, she didn't want to do anything. She didn't want to start interacting with someone else. She didn't want to have to worry about conversing with another human, pretending that she didn't feel empty as hell.

Still, she opened the door.

She didn't know exactly what she'd expected, but Emma found her mouth hanging open when she opened the door. John stood there, looking as disgruntled as he always did whenever something was terribly wrong. Things seemed to be terribly wrong more often than anyone at Baker Street would admit, after all.

Her massive reaction to who was standing at the door proved to be rather alarming to John himself. He hadn't expected anything particularly warm from his former downstairs neighbor (and ex-girlfriend, for that matter) but at he thought she might at least have something vaguely positive to say.

"Er, hello. Sorry if I disturbed you."

"Oh, God, John," Emma exclaimed, heaving out a grand sigh. "What are you doing here right now? You look like someone just ran over your cat or something!"

"I didn't realise that coming here to talk to you would be an issue," John said, blinking several times. "I mean, I do have something important to say, but if it's a bad time."

Emma pasued a moment, thinking through the situation and what she wished to do. She could easily turn him away at this point in time - he was more or less freely offering to let her do such a thing. It seemed like a rather good idea now that it was presented to her, but her curiosity was pulsing within her veins.

"No, I want to know what's happening."

"I know I've become the bearer of bad news every time something happens around here, but...I don't think you'll find out what is happening until it's already happened."

"John, what are you talking about?" Emma said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She made sure to stand in the small crack she'd opened in the door, simply blocking the way into her flat. She'd never wanted someone to walk in and see whatever was lying across the floor even though she had craved someone to talk to.

"I don't know how to say this, God," John said, echoing words that Emma recognised from another point in time.

"Is Sherlock dead again?" Emma asked, her voice a hushed tone. She personally didn't know whether she was trying to make a joke out of the situation or not, which made the situation all too awkward. If it wasn't bad enough that she'd started gawking when she'd spotted John at the door, now it was only getting worse.