Leviticus 20:13

Nothing's Different But Everything Changed

John POV: John was expecting everything to change once Rosie died, he expected some sort of bomb to drop in his life just as it had with Mary, he expected to feel this hallowing sense of loneliness in his dark house, he expected to notice her absence. There was a problem there, however, simply because nothing appeared to change. When he got home he realized that whatever signs that Rosie had ever been alive had long since faded from his home. There were no little pink shoes by the door, no toys strewn across the floor, never to be played with again. The memory of Rosie was in the hospital, not in the house, and her most recent footmark upon the world would be most noticeably missed in that dismal white room. No one would care or mourn her loss there, they would sanitize the room and the next day a new patient would go there to die, no one was going to weep over her body and exclaim how they wish it had been them. And John...what was he to do? He wasn't prepared for the realization that his daughter was gone, however he seemed to have over prepared himself for the loss that he was still waiting to come. When Mary had left he had been left with a half empty house, he had been left with her empty bed and her empty closets and her empty coffee mug. She had been a big part of his life and when she left it felt like he had lost a limb, something that he held so close and forgot to cherish. But for Rosie he knew that she was gone, however it almost felt like she had left as soon as she got admitted to the hospital. It was as if he had already known this day was going to come and therefore the house was already stripped of whatever belongings she had. For a while John just sat in the darkness, leaning against the wooden kitchen table and staring blankly at the dark, cooling cup of coffee that sat before him. He hadn't taken a sip yet, and in the hours he sat there pondering nothing changed except the hands on the clock. He didn't move, he barely even breathed, and the house didn't stir. Because now it was only him, at least now it was official that he was alone in this world. To be a man who had built his life only to have it come crumbling down around him, well it was a tragedy to say the least. The pain that was stirring inside him almost had a life of its own, it almost had a stagnant stillness inside of his body, refusing to let him move, talk, or even let his mind stray to more pleasant subjects. He had seen his daughter, he had seen her dying, and no matter how hard he fought he wasn't allowed to go and hold her hand...Her death itself was worse than he had imagined, it was more graphic, more lonely than he ever intended it to be. When John imagined death by disease he imagined the patient simply wasting away, closing their eyes only to have them never opened again. He didn't expect his poor daughter to be sprawled across the bed, lurching with the defibrillators and arching her back like some sort of animal...He had never wanted that, he had never wanted that for his poor, sweet little girl. And now she was gone, gone when he was too stupid to stay, gone before he could even get in to say his last, final goodbye. However unlike Mary this loss wasn't his fault, he could do nothing to save Rosie while he could've done anything to make Mary stay. For once he was able to blame someone other than himself for his costly loses; he was able to point a finger at something other than a mirror. And of course this wasn't the fault of the doctors, this wasn't the fault of the nurses, it was bigger than that, it was the higher power that had abandoned him in his time of most desperate need. God. When he needed his faith the most it seemed as though his prayers never made it past the roof of the church, they never got God's attention, they never got his blessing. It was becoming increasingly evident that despite John's dedication God had turned a blind eye, he had muted whatever one sided conversation John was attempting to have and decided that the Watsons didn't qualify for his direct attention. He had left John alone, fighting for his daughter's life with whatever meager income he was able to take in, fighting with nothing but a rosary and a bunch of prayers that evidently went unanswered. So what now? What did he have to offer God if God wasn't going to offer anything back? Why would he crawl back to the church now that he found himself more alone than ever? And what about Sherlock, the priest that had stood by him in this time of need despite God's obvious disinterest. What was John supposed to say, how was he supposed to justify his sudden absence in the church if not by directly telling the poor man that he had lost faith? Surely Sherlock wouldn't care about him anymore, surely he would realize that a faithless man was a worthless man, and his thoughts and affection would drift off to the next lonely soul he wandered hopelessly into the church. There was an abundance of sufferers, all Sherlock had to do was pick one out of the crowd, and it would seem that John had been the lucky winner of his undivided attention, or at least he had been. He had no daughter, no faith, and now nothing but a sob story, what would Sherlock ever want with him? He wasn't looking for companionship he was looking for leadership, he was looking to help the people that most need it and now that John had lost everything he had ever loved what could he possibly need that a priest could provide him with? Without God Sherlock was just a man with a fancy white collar, without God he could do nothing more than spew words and touch people on the forehead, what could he possibly do to help the man who had lost it all? John sighed heavily, however his hands didn't budge, his head didn't twitch, his feet didn't shuffle against the tile, he was as still as the abandoned coffee that sat in his mug, slowly illuminated by the sun as its first rays began to peak above the rooftops of the dismal suburban neighborhood. He felt unable to do anything but sit and wallow in his suffering, he wanted to kneel in the shattered remains of his heart and hide from the world. He wanted to let his tears poor freely over his red cheeks and wail at the top of his lungs, he wanted to do anything except sit here in silence, wasting his time before he had to clock in to work. Surely a death in the family would be enough to justify a day of absence, however that was how John had lost his first job way back when. After Mary had left John had lost all will to go on, he had dissolved into the broken man you see today, he had decided that he didn't need a job, he didn't need a purpose, he didn't even need to move. He couldn't let himself fall into that same hole, he couldn't just count himself out and dissolve into nothingness like he had before. He knew there was a reason, he knew there was a purpose to his motivation and yet for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was. Last time it had been Rosie, he had survived purely through her constant support and her need for a father even when he didn't feel like being anything except an immovable object. And today, now, exactly in this moment in space and time he felt the need to go on. As if someone was expecting him to. And so when six o'clock finally struck the clock he pushed himself out of his chair, literally pushing on the table and flinging the wooden chair back a couple of feet as he forced himself to move and to walk and to get his blood pumping a little bit. After being dormant for so long his head spun madly, making it difficult to concentrate on anything as the world in front of him swirled in all sorts of vibrant colors and smears. And yet he got for work, he drank his coffee (a new cup of course), he brushed his hair, brushed his teeth, and washed his face of any of the tears that might have crusted onto his skin. For a moment there he looked new, he looked real, as if nothing had happened the night previous that would possibly get in the way of his functioning like a normal human being. However he was sure people would be able to tell that something was wrong, purely by the way his eyes glowed red and his skin sagged under his eyes, his shoulders hunched and his neck ached and his hands couldn't stop fidgeting uncomfortably, the ones who knew him would know something was wrong. However how many people were left in the world that new his name? How many people were left that cared? And so John dragged himself off to work, deciding to keep his tragedy and sleep deprivation to himself. He hated pity, he hated the looks he got, he hated the apologies and the unnecessarily small voices everyone used to address him, as if he had just died himself. He hated people staring at him, staring as if his loss justified their undivided attention, as if he would start crying and they would be the first to comfort him. God he hated society! He didn't need their sympathy, he didn't need their pity, he knew that they were sorry; he knew that they cared at least minimally; it was the common human emotion he wasn't going to go look for it! He could still function, he wasn't dead yet, he could work and get through the day without having everyone he saw come up to him and remind him about his loss. Sympathy only made it harder to move on. John clocked in right on time and stood behind the grill for his respected time block, not saying a word to Tobias or any of his fellow employees throughout the entirety of the day. Once or twice he peeked out over the counter to see if Sherlock was anywhere to be seen, and yet the priest's absence didn't surprise him all together. Surely Sherlock saw him as a burden, surely he saw him as a helpless soul he was taking up all of his time and attention on a matter so pointless and beyond hopeless. John had no intention of dragging Sherlock into the mess of the final moments, he hadn't intended on the poor priest staying so late into the night either. Obviously Sherlock hadn't wanted to be there, he would have rather been sleeping and getting prepared for the day ahead but no! John had to be selfish, he had to be needy, he dragged that priest out of the church and forced him to stay for as long as he possibly could over a girl he had never even met! He had been on babysitting duty for the poor man; he had helped him walk for God's sake! John had never been so humiliated in his life, for a man as respectable and clean cut as Father Holmes to see John nearly immobilized by grief, so helpless when faced with a crisis. All he could do was insist that he was here to help and yet all of the parishioners probably got the same statement, the same empty gesture. Certainly Sherlock wanted to help but he didn't want to be sitting up until three in the morning listening to John wallow around on the couch, he did have some sort of life after all. And last night, oh John felt so stupid, hugging a priest, and hugging him for so long, embracing him and crying on his shoulder, what on earth did John think he was going to accomplish by that? Not only was Sherlock probably weirded out he was probably disgusted, John had no right to trap him in an embrace, he had no right to hold that man in his arms for as long as he did and thank him profusely. It sent shivers down his spine just thinking about it, because for as much as he knew it was wrong by God he had enjoyed every last moment of it! There was something about that man, something about him that made every moment spent in his presence so very memorable, so very precious. It was in his movements, it was in his words, his deep voice and his lanky figure, his crisp ironed clothes and his curly disheveled hair. It was his confidence and in his awkwardness, the way he stood so tall and yet blushed at the slightest glance, as if he knew that he was the most powerful man in the room and yet felt like he couldn't express it. And to hug that man, to stand up on tiptoes and wrap your arms around his neck, well it was the definition of satisfaction. There was something to be said about being close to people, about feeling their breaths against your skin and feeling their lungs inflate against your chest and hearing their heart beat ever so faintly... There was something about being held like a child again, something about those long arms that so timidly wrapped around John's chest as if they weren't supposed to be there. It was impossible to explain yet it was just so clear, and John was right, there was an exact word to describe what he was feeling. And that, of course, was the only word he was unwilling to use.