Chapter 1: Now What?

Pain.

This was the first thing Doctor John Watson felt when he woke up each morning. The feeling of emptiness and nothingness clouded his mind.

What now? He often asked himself this question. Sherlock's been gone for what? A year now and that picture of blood all over his best friend's expressionless face was still so vividly engraved in his mind. Everyday John spoke to him, or at least he think he did and everyday he had hoped for a reply.

"Hope." He told himself.

Hope was something Doctor John Watson was running out of.

Every morning he goes to get breakfast, breakfast for two, sometimes he would even bring flowers. Today it was Tea, one without sugar and two sandwiches. He settled himself on the stone floor, his back against the stone tablet. He left the sugarless cup and one of the sandwiches, the one with ham in front of the tablet and began eating his own share. His enjoyed mornings like these, having breakfast with Sherlock, filling him in on recent events, rising crime rates that sort of thing. His arm would be slung across the marble tablet, legs stretched out. He would finish his meal before leaving for work never forgetting to take some time dusting and cleaning Sherlock's tombstone.

His days went by slowly. Dull. They were usually common household illnesses and paranoid parents. He missed those cases, the feeling of adrenaline running through his veins. He had stopped blogging simply because there was nothing to blog about and it hurt him to physically visit that website, all the adventures now just a documented part of his memory. A nurse working in the same clinic as him by the name of Mary had asked him out to dinner once, he didn't know if he could trust her, he didn't dislike her in fact she didn't mind her one bit. If Sherlock was here he would read her like an open book within seconds. He declined dinner giving the lousy excuse of feeling unwell and left work choosing to order take out watching medical soap dramas at home snuggled in his chair.

He always had problem falling asleep and when he finally slept he would be haunted with nightmares of the war or of Sherlock forcing his tired mind out of that peaceful slumber. Sometimes he wished he would just fall asleep and never wakeup. Tonight he decided he would be falling asleep with the aid of sleeping pills. Sleeping pills was something John had been taking at an increasing rate, it was not healthy but he didn't care, not anymore.