Sherlock Holmes dies.

Sherlock Holmes dies. And so does John Watson.

Not literally. No, nothing as kind as that. But he does die, somewhere, inside, in that secret place where Sherlock Holmes lived within John Watson. He doesn't live there anymore, John makes sure of that. Having the dead man live there would be too painful. So it's filled with something like concrete now, filling the void that the detective left. Making it so heavy. Every day, so goddamn, fucking heavy...

He tells himself, over and over and over again, that he can get through this, he's lost friends in the war. He can handle this.

He repeats the mantra over and over and again. And he survives. He walks on. He walks until he breaks.

He breaks when he realises that he knows, deep down, that's it not the same. Nothing was ever the same with Sherlock. He was just so much more... Sherlock was friendship and Sherlock was love and Sherlock was home. John's lost everything that could have been. Everything that might have happened with them... He guesses he'll never know now.

Sometimes he likes to hope that it might have worked itself out. Somehow. At night, instead of sleeping, John dreams and wishes and cries and hopes...

Sometimes the hoping makes him smile through those tears.

Sometimes the hoping makes the concrete so heavy he can't help but fall down. Pulls him down like gravity pulls down a sheet of glass. Pulling and pulling and pulling until it hits the earth... Shattering, crashing, breaking on impact...

John Watson breaks oh so many times.

He breaks, he cries, he picks the pieces of himself up off the floor, tapes them together as best he can and he begins to learn to walk again.

He walks until he breaks.

Soooo... I think that's about it with this one. Think I'll do a sequel if and when inspiration strikes... Here's hoping.

Thanks to everyone who bothered to read it, to add it to their story alerts and everyone who was kind enough to review :)