One More Miracle

1 • Alone

He's gone. Gone.

There will be no miracle. No way he could ever come back.

I have to make myself believe it. I have to. I know in the totally logical part of my brain that he's...I can't bring myself to say it.

This isn't right, I have to admit it or I'll never get over it. Admitting it is the first step.

She made me do it before, my therapist, but it wasn't something I meant. It had all been a lie to make me feel a little better, hoping that if I heard it out loud-form my own mouth, I would be able to believe the words I said, to convince her that I was sane. To convince myself- it didn't work. I just wanted her to believe me for once, for someone to believe as I do. I didn't believe what I said at all. But I needed to do it. This time, I will believe it, I will say those words with conviction.

Why can't I do this? Okay, I can do it. I was a solider, for God's sake. Why am I so scared to do it? It's only words. I have to. I can't go on lying to myself.

My best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead.

Do I believe it, really?

But he isn't-wasn't, John ,wasn't- just my best friend. I'm in love with him. Even if he is...gone-I'm just going to stick with 'gone'; it doesn't sound as permanent (so it sounds a lot better in my brain), but it's fitting- he is gone, totally and completely gone. Maybe I'll never get over him, maybe I'll always go on with this numbness, with this arrogant, lanky, high-cheekboned hole in my life.

But I can go on. I know I can. I lived before I met him, right? Being alone isn't that bad.

Is it?

Totally alone, for the rest of my life. I can do that, I have friends, there's Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly-but they're all Sherlock people. All my old friends are either overseas- still fighting, or he insulted then enough that they refuse to talk to me even if he is- I force the word out, it isn't healthy to just say 'gone' as if he'll come back-dead.

But is he, really? Is he by some miracle-and he was bloody good at miracles- still alive? No. I can't let myself think that. Think of this logically. He's dead. You felt his pulse. He didn't have one. He's dead, of course he is. But could he have-. For God's sake no, I have to block all these thoughts. The ones saying that he could have survived where no one else would have, he's Sherlock, he could do anything.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can't do this. I can't let myself think that he went off and just left me.

It's better, a thousand times better, than him being dead, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't just leave everything like this, he'd have told me. How could he have done it? Just gone? Left me here- as alone as I was the day we met? He's left forever now.

I owe him everything. I owe him my sanity; even though he's currently the source of the opposite, I owe him my defense; whenever anyone questions him. He gave me so much, the friendship: I had never had a friend like that before. Someone that made me laugh so much, someone that would always be there to talk to- whatever he pretended, I know that he always listened, someone that relied on me. I know it's ridiculous, but I liked that he seemed to need me, that he wouldn't sleep, eat without force, that even on cases, where he was at his best, and he shot down everything anyone said to him, he'd listen to what I had to say, and often, it would help him in some way. I liked being needed like that, having a purpose, I hadn't had that after I got injured, and it was something I craved. I owe him a lot of the new friends I'd made too, I hadn't seen anyone at all from before until I met up with Stamford, they were all on tours or in some big flash hospital. I had barely talked to anyone, and I just sat in the little flat all day, alone. Very much as I'm doing now; but that's out of choice, I guess, I refuse to talk to people though a lot of them have visited. I had no one then, absolutely no one, and he filled that, He fixed it, fixed me. Now he's gone, he's left me more broken and even more alone that I even thought possible.