Falling For You

The Funeral

It was a beautiful day for a funeral.  The sky was blue and big and not a single cloud was visible. The crowd gathered was small, but they were all deeply saddened by the death of the dear John Hamish Watson. Mrs. Hudson stood next to Sherlock with her black dress and matching hat on.  It was the same outfit that she had worn to attend Sherlock's funeral, only this time it wasn't Sherlock they were mourning.  When Sherlock had "died", many expected his return.  They knew he could pull off something like his own death and walk out unscathed, but John was just John.  He was so many amazing things that Sherlock aspired to be, but he was not clever enough to fake his own death.

"Beautiful day," Mrs. Hudson said.  Sherlock did and said nothing in reply. He simply stood in front of the doctor's grave with a face of stone.  The grave was next to his own, and one day he hoped to occupy it so that he and John would be able to be next to each other once more.

People milled about the cemetery after having said their goodbyes to John, but Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson had arrived late because Sherlock refused to accept that he was dead and he refused to even move.  Mrs. Hudson had to tell him that John would have wanted him to go because John loved him, too.  That was the only thing that motivated Sherlock whatsoever.  He remembered when he had died and how John had been so devastated and how he had gone to his grave almost every day.  He at least owed him his funeral. 

"Would you mind if I had a moment alone with him?" Sherlock asked.  Mrs. Hudson was taken aback for a second.  She was used to being treated so well by the slender man with the large black coat, but it seemed as though something had suddenly changed within him.  He was colder, darker, and more calculated than ever.  It hurt Mrs. Hudson to see him so, but she knew that there was nothing that would take the pain away.

"I'll go and take Redbeard out for a walk, shall I?" she suggested softly, eyeing Sherlock cautiously.

"Splendid," Sherlock mumbled in reply.

Without another word, Mrs. Hudson left Sherlock alone with John for the last time.  She knew that it would be too much for Sherlock to come back and visit his grave.  She knew that if Sherlock was hurt before, he was broken now and that there would be nothing to repair that.  He would see John in everything and he would miss him like hell, but not matter how much he missed him, he wouldn't ever come back.  

"I never thought it would be like this," Sherlock began, his stormy eyes settling on the words "John Hamish Watson" chiseled in the dark stone.  "I always thought it would be me who left you.  I always... well nevermind what I thought.  It was stupid for me to think that everything would turn out okay.  I suppose that if there's one thing that I've learned from Mycroft it's that all lives end.  All hearts are broken.  I thought that caring was not an advantage when I met you, but then you changed that. You were my everything.  My love.  My life.  But then... but now, you've left.  I never thought you'd leave me, John.  I thought that if everyone left me, you'd still be there for me.  Here.  But I suppose this was never going to work out, was it?  Us. I'm a machine.  Incapable of human emotions.  You're, well, you. Perfection in its finest form.  There are so many memories, so many stories, and I will never forget a single one.  I know one thing now, and that is that I will never forget you."

Sherlock let himself cry.  He sunk to the ground in a fit of tears, clawing at the earth beneath him to get his John back. His John that he loved so dearly. He knew that he wouldn't be able to kill Mycroft and Sherrinford for this.  He knew this because that wasn't what John would have wanted.  John would have wanted Sherlock to stay strong for him.  Stay off the drugs and find someone else to love. But Sherlock knew that the drugs would be there for him when no one else understood, and he knew that the only person in the entire world for him was John Hamish Watson, who was dead.

Sherlock dried his tears and stood up, eager to move on.  He needed to leave this place of death and sorrow.  He needed to try and forget himself.  He needed to get out of his body before he decided to join John in the never ending abyss of death.  Sherlock took one final look around the cemetery before deciding to leave when he stumbled across a figure in the distance.

He smiled.