Title: In The End

Summary: Once I pretended to die. I let them bury me. I let them mourn. Once I wasted three years of life pretending that I had left this world. Now I would give anything to have a single day of that time with him.

Once I pretended to die.

I let them bury me.

I let them mourn.

Once I wasted three years of life pretending that I had left this world.

Now I would give anything to have a single day of that time with him.

Now I am not watching my best friend grieve for me across a valley. I am not hiding.

This time I am not the one dying.

His hand is cold in mine and I watch the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

We have said our goodbyes already. He was afraid that when the time came he would be too weak. That maybe it would come like a villain in the night, that he would release a breath and simply never take another.

We have been partners, fellow borders, best friends, and biographer and subject, for years. We have been, to put it the only way I understand now, soul mates, for over a decade and never has time seemed so precious. Never has every heartbeat been such a triumph.

In the moments since he fell ill that first fateful time and I began counting every smile and every laugh as precious we have said goodbye more times than all the years we wasted together and apart.

When he smiled I smiled.

When he held out his hand I took it.

When he wrote that he had seen my 'great heart' I told him he was brilliant.

When he winced in pain I offered him my smile.

When he cried out I took his hand.

When he was afraid I told him that I loved him.

Once I wasted three years pretending to be dead.

Now I face the rest of my life without him.

He won't wake up now as I sit by his bedside and all my goodbyes go unheard.

He cannot feel my hand in his.

My tears offer no comfort.

The whispered 'I love you' pressed to his cool forehead will never be heard.

He was right, my brilliant Watson. I watch as his chest falls, another miracle emblazoned in my memory, and then it never rises again. Without flair or fuss he slips into the night, at last he goes where I can not follow.

Once, I pretended to die in a blaze of glory.

John Watson died with elegance and dignity surrounded by more love than any man has the right to possess.

I cannot hope to die as he did – at peace with a broken smile upon his lips. It is not my way.

But I know as I kiss his still cheek and my hand covers the heart which no longer beats that it will not be three long years that separate us this time.

I know that when my time comes my Boswell, my Watson, will be waiting for me.