Leviticus 20:13

Nothing's Different But Everything Changed

John was having more and more trouble with accepting his sudden loss as the hours turned into days, as the sun set and sank, as the hour hand spun around and around the clock and provided him with a reference to know just how many hours he was wasting. It wasn't the loss that startled him, it would seem that all the grief preparation had served him just right and now that Rosie was actually gone, well, it seemed as though the lack of grief was what scared him the most. It got to times when he had to force himself to be upset, when he made himself sit up in the dead of night and pour whiskey into his coffee, trying to make the tears flow by remembering all his favorite things about his daughter. And yet he couldn't cry, he couldn't even frown, he had become an emotionless machine all together and he scared himself more than anything. Maybe he had just gotten used to tragedies; maybe he was able to remind himself that no matter how many lives stopped his would keep on going, his heart would beat no matter how shattered, and the world would turn even if his own heart gave out. It was the natural circle of life; it was happiness until a higher power decided that misery was more amusing. And so people died, people left, people hurt. John was just one of those people who hurt; he was one of those experiments that God, wherever he might be right now, liked to torture until he physically snapped. Maybe God was trying to see if one really can die from a broken heart. Maybe John was just resisting. It was odd not being a father; however it was much more odd to have the whole afternoon to do nothing. Usually John was rushing here and there, buying Rosie things, going to visit Rosie, arguing with nurses...and to think there was nothing to do now except pay funeral bills and pick out the best gravestone. And the funeral of course, well it had to be held at a church. Rosie wasn't raised religious, however since John had such close ties to the Father he felt like he almost had to hold the ceremony in the local church. Now of course he wouldn't complain about seeing Father Holmes again, however he was certainly upset when he realized he would have to step back into that insufferable building, he would have to walk into a place where people worship someone who had turned a blind eye on them for how many years now? Somewhere in the hundreds most likely. John didn't want to have to pretend to be intrigued; he didn't want to have to pretend to believe anymore. He hated the stony faces of the biblical deities, Mary, Joseph, even Jesus dying on the cross, they all stared at him so judgmentally, as if wondering why he hadn't already fallen onto his knees with his rosary in hand. Why should he pray to them if they weren't going to respond, why should he pray for them if he was beginning to wonder if they were really up there, listening? What if this was all just a hoax, what if God, the Bible, all of it, was just a thousand year fairytale that people started to take a little bit too seriously? That would explain why they had let Rosie die so carelessly... But nevertheless when John left work he went straight to the church, driving rather crookedly as he made his way to the large steeple that poked through all the rest of the meager little buildings in town. It was always easy to find the local church because of that steeple, the cross that they managed to place to high up in the world, as if it would attract anything other than lightning strikes. As if God immediately paid attention to the church with the highest roof. When John arrived in the parking lot he saw that he wasn't alone, in fact it would seem that he had managed to time himself perfectly, just to arrive in the middle of mass. With his luck of course Father Holmes would be leading the prayers, and yet he didn't necessarily have to see the priest today. There was a secretary, wasn't there? Some little old lady behind a window that he could talk to? John sighed heavily, however he fixed his hair in the rear view mirror and stepped out onto the pavement with a bit of a huff. He wasn't in a good mood today, or any day to be exact. The less he slept the more he drank, and the more he drank the more miserable he became. It was a slow spiral downwards, but of course he was eventually going to end up in a rut he couldn't climb out of. John slowly made his way into the church, not quite sure who he was expecting to meet and certainly unable to figure out who he wanted to meet. It had been a couple of days since he had last encountered Father Holmes, however he knew that the priest must be around somewhere, lingering about the church like he always was. John wondered if Sherlock had given any thought to John and his loss since that night on the sidewalk, if he wanted to check up or if he wanted to forget about the Watson family, or what was left of it at least, as quickly as possible. How did he feel about their last parting? The hug, what did he think about the hug? Maybe he'll avoid John today, just to make sure there was no more unnecessary compassion at the miserable, sleep deprived hour of three in the morning. When John entered the church he heard that familiar singing, the way the thirty or so voices echoed off of the sloped wooden ceiling and the way the organ droned on through the walls, carrying whatever sound it made throughout the entire building. It was a beautiful sound, it really was, and yet it took all of John's power to stay where he was, it took all of his power to keep him from running from that building in a mad frenzy. To think that these people wasted their lives, wasted their voices, their breaths, their time, just to sing and pray to a God who so blatantly ignored them! John couldn't stand that accursed singing anymore so instead he just walked around back, towards the little room he recognized as the secretary's office.