:') I guess this is goodbye.
I love you.
Stay strong johnlock shippers, I have good feelings about the next season.
Sincerely,
- somevelvetmorning
The coffin creaked open, and Sherlock's jaw dropped.
You could hear a choking noise in the back of his throat and his eyes started to water.
He extended a soft hand out into the coffin, to feel...was it real?
It was still warm.
He was still warm.
John was still warm.
John.
John was in the coffin, he didn't look well, but he was alive.
His hands were bound, as well as his feet.
His mouth was duct taped shut.
He was fast asleep, with dark circles under his eyes and bloody gashes all over his body.
Tears fell down Sherlock's face, he couldn't feel them.
His heart had exploded into a million pieces, the pieces of shattered glass cutting into the rest of the body, causing him to internally bleed.
My John.
John.
John Watson.
My doctor.
My friend.
My...love.
But then he realized the implications of the situation, and started shaking John.
His voice was ragged and desperate as he yelled:
" John! John! JOHN!"
His doctor stirred, and slowly opened his eyes.
He broke into a smile, Sherlock could see it in the wrinkles of his eyes.
The detective ripped the tape off and began uniting his bonds.
" Am I dead? Are you an angel?"
John whispered, tears falling down his cheeks and past the spatters of dried blood.
Sherlock stopped and looked into his eyes.
He bent down and softly kissed his lips, stroking his patchy, blond hair soaked in red.
"No, you're alive. John...you're alive..."
Sherlock's voice started to choke up.
" We have no time for this, we have to get you to the hospital."
He hadn't even noticed the group of people lingering behind him.
" John? What the hell!?"
" Is this some kind of sick joke?"
Sherlock turned around swiftly and yelled
" MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!"
Alarmed, a few people scattered away.
Sherlock turned to Lestrade,
" Call help. Now. Don't ask questions."
Lestrade quickly nodded and dialed 911. As soon as he was on the phone, he silently ushered people away from the coffin as he spoke to the operator.
Sherlock bent back down and ripped a piece of his jacket off.
" John, I'm going to put pressure on this wound."
The last thing Sherlock wanted was for John to bleed to death.
Sherlock was in his logical state of mind, without this, he would crack.
John grew more and more awake as he started to look around.
" Where...where am I? Whereami? whereamiglosrefdg..."
John started drifting off again.
A terrified look grew in Sherlock's eyes.
" John! Don't leave me again! I can't lose you! Stay with me John, stay with me. What is your favorite color? John?!"
" Hmm?"
" John, what's your favorite color?!"
John opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock's face.
" Blue. Or green. Whatever bloody color your eyes are..."
John closed his eyes again.
" John!"
"John!"
An ambulance pulled up to the gate of the cemetery, two men hopped out of the back, carrying a stretcher.
They ran to the coffin and placed John in the stretcher, with Sherlock following close behind.
As they placed his body in the truck, Sherlock tried to get in too, but was stopped by one of the doctors.
" What is your relationship to this man?"
Sherlock sternly looked into the man's eyes and stated clearly:
" I am his fiancée."
The doctor nodded and let Sherlock through.
He held John's hand all the way to the hospital, crying silently.
John was alive, John was here.
He would never let John go.
...
...
...
( One Month Later)
They were sitting in Lestrade's office silently.
Sherlock and John were sitting next to each-other on a couch, Sherlock's arm around his waist, hands clasped tightly.
They had not separated once over the course of the last month, by now everyone had accepted it.
Lestrade held a CD in between his fingers, as he stood next to a TV, pacing.
" John, you are healed now, correct?"
John nodded quietly.
When he had been taken to the hospital, they found multiple stab wounds and significant damage to the ribs and skull.
He sat down, and faced the two men.
" I understand this is difficult for you to recollect, but I need an explanation for this. If you were kidnapped by James Moriarty, I need to know what he did and as many details as possible in order to find him."
John took a deep breath.
" The body in the cab crash wasn't mine. It had most of the same proportions...but It wasn't me. As soon as I walked out the door of 221B I felt hands around my neck and everything went dark."
Sherlock cringed.
" Moriarty told me his plan. He told me of how he would "burn the heart out of" Sherlock, and it didn't matter what I knew because I would soon be dead..."
His voice broke off, he cleared his throat and tried again.
" He caused that car crash, it just wasn't me in the car...he said he easily hacked the systems and switched the identification of the DNA on both of our bodies. The body was so damaged...it looked pretty convincing."
He looked at the ground.
" I spent that time in a dark room, tied and gagged to a metal chair. He would come in... punch and kick me for no reason at all. I would end up bloody and with fuzzy spots in my vision. He would show me...footage...of Sherlock. Him crying, not eating... I barely ate, he would feed me stale bread every couple days. Sometimes I woke up coughing up blood..."
John put his head in his hands.
" He tortured me."
" I'm sorry John."
Lestrade gave John a pitying stare.
Sherlock tightened his grip around the smaller man.
" Can you tell me why he put you in the coffin alive?"
John took another deep breath.
" He said it was his spin on Romeo and Juliet. He said he would put me in the coffin, alive, and drug me so I would fall asleep. Then Sherlock would receive a package in the mail, containing a photo of me, alive in the coffin, three days later. Of course he would have the coffin dug up, find my dead body, that was once alive, along with that disc."
He gestured to the disc in Lestrade's hand.
" He said on the disc, there was a surprise. One that would cause Sherlock to finally crack and commit suicide. Effectively burning the heart out of him."
" Wait, why was the coffin there in the first place if it was empty?"
Sherlock spoke.
" I was told that it was provided by the military in honor of John's service, and that it had memorabilia from his time in the war inside. I was not in my right mind at the time, Moriarty anticipated this."
Everyone was silent.
" Well, I guess it's time we gave this DVD a watch."
Lestrade mumbled.
He put it into the DVD player, and pressed play.
An image appeared on the screen, first fuzzy, then became clear.
It was Moriarty, dressed as Shakespeare, smiling his psychotic grin.
" I would like to tell you a little story, of a man with a heart of ice, and-"
As soon as he saw Moriarty's face, John started to shake slightly, his eyes blown wide.
When he started speaking, he shook much more, and started whispering:
" Turn it off. Turn it off."
" - the man who made it melt."
Suddenly John stood up and started screaming
" TURN IT OFF! PLEEEAASSSEE!"
He gripped his head and fell to the ground, convulsing, crying in agony:
" STOP IT! PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!"
Lestrade ran over to the player and pressed pause.
Sherlock bent down next to John and wrapped his arms around him, quietly soothing him.
John stopped yelling and fell into Sherlock's arms, sobbing.
Greg looked extremely guilty.
" I'm so sorry, that was stupid of me."
Sherlock gave him a glare and helped John out of the office.
Lestrade sat down at his desk, head in his hands.
About ten minutes later, Sherlock returned, alone.
" John is sitting outside your office, on the bench. That was really quite imbecilic, George."
Greg didn't bother correcting him.
Sherlock sat down, directly across from him.
" How do I protect him?"
Lestrade looked around quickly and shut the door. He sat back down at his desk.
" You have two options. A, the two of you can continue life here in London, solving cases for us. You already know the obvious risks that come with that option. Option B, I can arrange you two into the witness protection program, which is much safer. This will include bodyguards and maximum forces. Obviously you can't solve cases while under their protection. You can work with your brother on the specific arrangements."
Sherlock looked torn, he ran his hands through his soft black ringlets.
He had to weigh his priorities.
He had no idea what he would choose...
...
...
...
...
( 1 Year Later)
Bright, golden bumblebees.
Tall fields of wheat.
There is a house in the middle of the field, next to the house is a bee's hive and a large tree. If you walk past the tree, you'll find a trail leading into the woods and towards a river. It is nearly desolate, except for some small woodland animals and...well...you know who.
The move to Wyoming, in the United States, was a difficult one.
Sherlock was bored.
Very, very bored.
But, his number one priority was to spend the time he had left with John, and to fix him.
The two men had learned to find things to do in the middle of no where.
Sherlock had taken up beekeeping, and studied the behavior and interactions of the bees. He enjoyed it almost as much as solving cases. He also found that in the peace and quiet, he achieved new levels of greatness on his violin. He also became very skilled in the art of drawing,painting and astronomy. He kept a little telescope in the back that he would look through on clear nights.
Unfortunately for John, there were no electronic devices allowed, there would be a risk of tracking software.
It took time, but he eventually John let go of his attachment to society and social media.
John explored the woods and the trails leading to the river. He actually found a love for photography that he hadn't realized before. He also realized that he enjoyed writing immensely, he used a typewriter to write a memoir of his life and a few short stories. Sherlock would still playfully tease him about his writing skills, but he became better over time.
It was like they were at peace with their inner demons.
The demons that caused them to race around like mad men, the ones that ate them up inside. Those past memories that came back, more cutting than before. Together, they helped each other to work through the trauma of their childhoods, and their encounters with James Moriarty.
They didn't talk too much, a lot of times they would just enjoy each others quiet company.
It was just a temporary vacation, for who knows how long, and they enjoyed it more than expected.
One night, Sherlock grabbed John's hand and lightly pulled him through the field and into the woods.
" Sherlock, it's ten o'clock at night, where are you taking me?"
Sherlock smiled and looked behind him.
" Somewhere new ... "
This peaked John's curiosity and he stayed silent, you could only hear the crunching of feet upon leaves. It was Autumn, the trees were almost completely bare.
They crossed the bridge that John had built over the river, looking down into the rushing waters.
Sherlock led him to a path by the side that looked new...very new. There were barely any footprints on it.
" I made this path a few weeks ago."
John smiled.
" It's lovely."
It was, the path was right beside the river and was in direct view of the sky.
" We're almost there..."
They reached a meadow, a clearing in the middle of the woods.
There were candles all around the edges of the clearing, there were so many...there had to be hundreds!
" Sherlock...this is beau-"
John cut off when he looked up at the sky.
The moon was bigger than he had ever seen, and the sky was so clear that he could see every star in the sky.
It took his breath away.
Sherlock faced John.
" John Hamish Watson. I have loved you for a very long time now, and when I say love, I mean it in it's purest form."
John smiled, with tears in his eyes.
" I realize that it was not the photo that brought us together, it was an infinite chemistry bound to create flying sparks and bring me to you. You to me. I couldn't have imagined a more adequate being to spend the rest of my life with. You have helped me become happy, for the first time in my entire life, I feel warm. The least I can do is to ensure your happiness as well."
Sherlock slowly got down on one knee.
" John. Will you do me the honor, of taking my hand in marriage?"
John gasped and then grinned widely.
" Yes. Oh god, yes."