Goodbye, Shadow

Goodbye, Doctor

Before Sherlock Holmes met the army doctor, he was completely alone. Even if he didn't acknowledge the fact and pushed it out of his brain entirely, he lead a solitary existence in London. Day by day, the only thing he really had to look forward to was the promise of some puzzle that might turn up. There was nothing else to occupy his time; nothing to do except hope for an interesting case to come his way.

At first, John was just an opportunity for Sherlock to save some money out of his already-thin funds - someone to help him pay his rent and possibly buy him some milk on occasion. He was just someone that was insane enough to consider being flatmates with him. A retired soldier. But then, Dr. John Watson became so much more than all of those things.

He wasn't quite honestly sure why he had doubted himself, but for a reason unknown to him Sherlock hadn't expected John to show up at Baker Street. When the cab had pulled up to the curb and he saw the army doctor standing there alone on the curb, leaning on his cane outside of 221B, Sherlock had been pleased - almost happy. He did not expect a friend out of Mr. Watson, nor did he even want a colleague from him in the beginning. But not even Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective of Britain, could deduce what was within someone's future accurately. And soon enough, he learned that there was so much more to John than met the eye.

John had started out as a soldier, a survivor, and a doctor. Faster than he would have expected, he found something extraordinary and strange in Dr. Watson - that instead of ignoring him, insulting or berating Sherlock for his observations, John exclaimed how brilliant and intuitive his comments were. In an even more unexpected turn of events, he said that Sherlock himself was amazing - and he couldn't honestly say that didn't strike him as kind and stick to his mind like paste for a long while afterwards. That alone made him second-guess Watson and all he had assumed about him. In that single, stunning moment in the back of the cab, Sherlock Holmes realized that for the first time in his life, he could have a friend. And maybe he'd even have his own doctor to fix him and all that was broken within.

But it didn't take long for him to discover that he was putting his only friend in danger.

When John had stepped out of the changing room at the pool, clad in a huge jacket, he'd thought for a brief moment that maybe he'd been Moriarty all along - how very, very wrong he had been. The heavy coat was lined with active explosives, and Sherlock could see the nervous sweat glimmering on John's forehead - the trembling in his left hand, the very way the doctor spoke... He was being controlled, just as the other victims had been.

The consulting detective regret to say that he was only immediately worried for John's personal health after Jim Moriarty had left the pool and the snipers had turned their attention elsewhere. Then, he'd ripped off the vest of explosives and tossed it aside, hurriedly checking over his friend for injuries - nothing visible, but John had collapsed, pale and shuddering in fear beside the pool as he realized something horrible. John - his friend, his blogger, his soldier and his doctor - had nearly died thanks to him and his job. He had knowingly risked his life for Sherlock. That spoke more than any word ever could to Sherlock, and that had given him faith that John was truly his friend.

From Dr. Watson abandoning his cane in the diner to chase a taxi and jump between rooftops, and fighting off the Gollum, John never ceased to amaze him. They had started off as simple roommates - but between the cases, the pair had come to a silent understanding of one another's ways. Watson did more than just tolerate him as others before had; he lived alongside him happily and willingly. This knowledge pulled Sherlock through his depressions, and he honestly knew that the doctor was playing a part in healing some of him.

John didn't complain about his frequent (and sometimes a touch frustrating) deductions, and would always pass him anything he deemed necessary when Sherlock was thinking in his Mind Palace. He followed his instructions readily on cases, and even when he was cross with Sherlock for something, he would help him with reading through reports and newspapers for cases. John would never so much as breathe a word of complaint about his violin playing, even when Sherlock began composing at an ungodly hour of the night.

To anyone else, John would seem a simple fellow - but to Holmes he was something complex and odd - and the day he saw John Watson's soul and heart bared to his very eyes, his over-analyzing, prying eyes, he would give the world to change. The day John fell apart was the day Sherlock fell to the pavement.

Standing atop the roof, looking down on him and telling John he was a fraud and to watch him as he died had been the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. Hearing John shout to be let through to his seemingly lifeless body, that he was his friend had torn Sherlock up inside. Then, seeing him look so lost, so alone in the big world at his grave, to watch him cry bitterly over Sherlock's empty casket, he could hardly bear to sit there and stare as he left. Sherlock wanted nothing more than to listen, to give him that one last miracle - to see that sadness go away. To make his doctor feel better.

And now, watching him leave with Mary, Sherlock felt as if he were falling towards that pavement all over again. He felt as lost as John had looked as he spoke to Sherlock's headstone after the coffin had been buried in the earth.

His dear doctor had moved on.