Not the Same

Sherlock listened to the words as they tread heavily through each corridor of his Mind Palace.

Molly's words.

John's words.

He lay on the cluttered couch in the living room of 221b, his eyes gazing unseeingly up at the ceiling they had worn paths across so many times before. He admitted to himself that he wanted to ignore the psychiatrist's unhelpful words. He didn't want to talk about feelings with a stranger. He barely managed to broach subjects like that with John, with Mycroft. Even admitting to Mary simple things like noticing things were less preferable when she'd been away for a weekend was difficult. Bringing Rosie into it - and how could one not, considering who she was? - only confused things further.

"Anyone but you."

But there was no denying to himself, not this time, how cold and aching the words felt in his abdomen. It was stupid of people to think of feelings making their heart hurt when hearts were in no way connected to any of the emotional pathways in the brain.

And yet now Sherlock could understand what they meant when they said such things, because there was a tight and uncomfortable sensation in his ribcage that made his eyes prick.

The flat was too empty.

Too quiet.

Sherlock was unnerved to find himself lingering on those deductions, his ears listening for the trudge of those most familiar footsteps on the stairs which wouldn't come, the laughter in the kitchen of Mary stumbling across one of his experiments. The wail of their child, waking from a nap to be taken care of.

Sherlock missed it.

And more than that he ached for it back. In a way he had not felt since he was very young, clutching the empty collar of a dog he would never see again and asking Mycroft - then just as he was now - why his dog had had to go.

He knew that this time it wasn't going to be the same, knew that the loss of John was much more than the loss of a dog. The loss of Mary greater still in the sense that even his intellect and all the favours he could cash would never be able to bring her back. When Father had died it had felt nothing like this, though the man had been part of Sherlock's life in one way or another since birth. His role as parent should have made him much more important to Sherlock, he knew from conversations with John, but in reality what loss he had felt then was pale and lifeless in comparison to the pain of John and Mary.

And the odd sensation that the flat was bereft without the squealing wail of Rosie.

She was with Molly, at least, and Sherlock knew Molly was a better choice than him. She knew lots about children, and liked them better, he could only assume. And she was a much warmer person than him. Rosie liked to be held and Molly liked to hold her. Logically, it made sense for John to give her the charge of his child while he took time to sort himself out over the loss of his wife. But it didn't stop a small part of Sherlock feeling… irritated that it had been Molly and not himself who had received the child.

After all, she had spent as many nights at 221b as her own home with her parents, perhaps more. And all the books John had half-heartedly thrust his way with little to no belief he'd read them - and he had, most of them - made a big deal about stability and familiar environments. 221b was certainly, logically speaking, more familiar to baby Rosie than Molly's flat.

He was pretty sure though, if he were to find some way to contact John and tell him that, that John would not be best pleased to hear it. He'd probably be quite the opposite, knowing John. And he'd likely cause Sherlock some physical injury into the bargain. Most likely by punching him.

And so Sherlock found himself lying there, on the living room couch in 221b Baker Street, contemplating the way in which the flat he'd come to unconsciously love so fiercely had become… tainted, changed, by the Watsons.

And how now it wasn't the same place without them, regardless of the fact that nothing had been removed but them.