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I miss him.
Not just mentally, or physically, but…spiritually? Yeah, that sounds right.
When he jumped, my world shattered on the pavement. The hopes and dreams had for the both of us cracked open and bled out onto the ground like the blood of the greatest, most absolutely brilliant and frustrating man I had ever met.
The most beautiful person I had ever dared to love.
I still wake up in the morning in our bed and reach for him, only to be greeted by the cold empty place where he used to sleep. I still wake in the middle of the night, crying his name, my hands outstretched as I try to catch him and fail. They say time heals all wounds, but months have passed and my sorrow still gapes and gushes red. Each day is harder and harder to face, more difficult to get through, and I do not have the strength to face another empty day.
Please forgive me for my crime.
I love you, Sherlock Holmes, and I always will.
-John Hamish Watson
John reread his letter, deciding it was as good as it was going to get. He stuffed the letter back into its envelope and tucked it away in his jacket pocket. His red, cried out eyes were glassy he stepped up onto the ledge of the roof and stared out over the city of London, watching the little twinkles of light that came here and there. His breathing wasn’t shaky like it had been earlier, instead it was calm and even, like when he was in the midst of gunfire.
He clenched his fists as he gazed down at the pavement where mere months earlier, Sherlock had lain in a pool of his own genius fluids, and breathed in deep, savoring the last breath of air in his lungs. John raised his foot and stepped over the edge.
But at the last, most impossible second, a great force hit him in the ribs and pushed him to solid ground. He drew in a painful gasp, his eyes beholding the great expanse of stars filling the massive sky above him. He finally came back to his senses and heard a voice berating him furiously.
“You complete and bloody sod, I don’t know what you thought you were trying to do. Is killing yourself clever in your book, or have you utterly lost what semblance of a tiny brain you might’ve had?”
“Sh-Sherlock?” John whispered, clutching at the thick woolen fabric of the oh-so-familiar coat.
“Who else would save you just as you were about to do the most ignorant thing in the world?” the detective snarled, and was about to say something else, but stopped as John started weeping openly, the night filled with the sound of his sobs. The younger Holmes brother pulled his doctor to his chest and held him close as he poured out his relief into the night.
Later, John would have the time to be angry at Sherlock. But right now, all he wanted to feel was safe once again.