John sat on the low bench on the edge of the cemetery and waited for Mrs. Hudson to finish visiting Sherlock's grave. He came out here with her every other Saturday, and they had a sort of silent understanding that each would give the other a few moments alone. For John, it had at first been a time to shout at and plead with the uncompromising black tombstone that marked his friend's resting place, and more recently had become a time to simply stand and savor the quiet. His work left so little time for resting…ironic, that the only time he rested anymore was at the grave of the one man who didn't know the meaning of the word.

He wasn't sure what Mrs. Hudson did. Sherlock had been like a son to her…John didn't really want to know how she spent her 'alone time.'

Idly, John pulled his mobile from his pocket and began thumbing through his message inbox, deleting obsolete texts. He sighed, coming across the last text he'd gotten from Sherlock, four months ago.

John, possible blackmailer. Norbury, 7pm. –SH.

John smiled, remembering the result of that particular trip: a woman reunited with her child and a husband with his wife, all at one time. And there hadn't been a blackmailer; it was all a misunderstanding. It had been a happier ending than many of Sherlock's cases—but just as unusual.

Then again, Sherlock had been a very unusual man.

In a fit of whimsy, John replied to the message.

Wrong. –JW

He laughed as he hit send—the first real laugh he had indulged in since…well, it had been a while. His nightmares had come back again, and for all his efforts he couldn't seem to shake the limp that was starting to reappear in his leg, but he was doing his best to readjust to life without Sherlock Holmes. 221b was home again—sleeping in hotel rooms every night was hard on one's wallet—but it was still hard some days, to come home from work and step through that door, completely expecting to see Sherlock's languid figure drooping over the arm of his chair or smell chemicals burning on the stove. Once or twice, he had even caught himself calling out his flat mate's name as he entered.
He hadn't cried since the first time he visited Sherlock's grave, though. And the flat was cleaner than he had ever known it. And he had a date with Mary tonight. Yes, life was getting back to normal.

John squinted up at the clear summer sky. Normal. Normal was…boring.

Where is Mrs. Hudson? With another grin—though it was self-conscious—John reopened his texts and sent another one.

Bored. Bored, bored, bored. –JW

Whoever had Sherlock's number now must be completely confused. The idea amused John—until he realized that it might not be anyone at all. A sudden image came into John's head, of Sherlock Holmes sitting on the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and reading the two texts. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Mrs. Hudson picking her way across the graveyard toward him.

Sherlock Holmes was dead and buried. John Watson was alive and functioning—and sending text messages to a dead man.

Somehow, that made him laugh.

John didn't stop sending texts. He wondered whether he was channeling his grief through the texts, or moving into a dangerous state of denial, but he didn't let the psychoanalysis of the action stop him. For the first few days, the texts were fairly innocuous, things he would have texted Sherlock any day of the week.

Found a new Chinese restaurant. Bottom of the door handles says it's a good one. –JW.

Mrs. Hudson found your toenail collection. –JW

Bored. –JW.

Then, Thursday night, John woke up with a shout from a nightmare. Hesitating only for a second, he reached for his phone and tapped in:

I swear, if you jump one more time, I'll kill you myself. Get out of my dreams. –JW.

His finger hovered over the send-button, and he sank back into his bed with a sigh. Who was he fooling? He was playing a game with his own mind, and it was going to hurt him in the end. But the idea of Sherlock haunting the rooftop of St. Bart's like something out of a Poe story was somehow comforting—if people could haunt, Sherlock would be one to do it. John was just glad his imagination had decided to have him haunt Bart's roof rather than 221b. Sherlock had been bad enough as a living flat mate—as a ghost, he'd be intolerable.

Decisively, John punched send. Mind games or not, it put his imagination to rest. He slept soundly the rest of the night.

After that, the texts became longer and said more of what John wanted to be able to tell Sherlock. Not that he would say any of it if Sherlock were actually there—then again, if Sherlock were there, most of it wouldn't need to be said. And if anyone had ever texted back, asking him what in the world he was doing, he would have been hugely embarrassed. But no one ever did, so his post-mortem texts continued.

Dimly, he knew that there was a possibility that Mycroft had kept Sherlock's phone. He wouldn't put it past the elder Holmes brother. There were always unsavory characters calling and texting Sherlock—Mycroft's agents could probably keep busy for the next two years on just the old texts in Sherlock's phone, let alone anything new that came in. John didn't really care. Whenever the thought came to mind, he summoned up his picture of Sherlock's ghost atop Bart's, and sent another text.

What were you thinking? Idiot. —JW

You never lied to me. I know you—knew you. —JW

Lestrade came by today. Force of instinct—he needed your help. —JW

Since when are you governed by emotions? You're not, which means something else is going on. —JW

Mrs. Hudson said it's your birthday. Happy birthday, Sherlock Holmes. —JW

Did Moriarty kill himself before or after you jumped? —JW

Someone put flowers on your grave. I think it was Molly. Why? I learned a few lessons from you—they were mums picked from the gardens outside Bart's. And they were tied with one of her hair ties. —JW

What did you do with all that milk? —JW

Sometimes he'd wake up from nightmares of either Afghanistan or Moriarty—not so often, as the summer faded into fall and he got busier at work, but they still came. When they did, it had become habit to roll over, grab his phone from its new resting place on his bedside table, and tap out a quick message: sometimes annoyed, sometimes angry, sometimes pleading. He would hit send, imagine Sherlock receiving the text—ghostly under the fog-shrouded sky of London—and fall back asleep with ease.

Dreaming about sweat and gunfire. I need violin music. —JW

106 times now. That I've counted. Stop jumping, Sherlock. —JW

Dreamed you were in Afghanistan and Moriarty was a camel. That wasn't so bad. —JW

He broke up with Mary after three months, and they got back together right before Christmas. He gave her a necklace, and she gave him a scrapbook filled with clippings about Sherlock—all good ones. She understood how much he missed the lanky detective, and he loved her for it.

Mary believes what I say about you. —JW

Took Mrs. Hudson to your grave today. Someone left a deerstalker there—I haven't laughed that hard in ages. —JW

I wonder if Mary would like living at 221b? —JW

It took a long time for John to send that text. He had been spending more and more time with Mary since Christmas. Now that April was nearing its end, he had begun to play with ideas as to what the rest of his life would be like. He loved Mary—there was no question about that. If it were just the two of them, he would be shopping for a ring. But getting married would be the final change, the final nail in the coffin that held the life he had once lived with Sherlock. There would be no more dangerous adventures through the back alleys of London and the idiosyncratic towns that Sherlock had drug him around. Once he married, that life would be forever behind him, nothing more than a memory.

I bought a ring, Sherlock. What in the world am I doing? —JW

As ever, there was no reply. John pictured Sherlock reading the text and looking up at him with that slightly bemused look he had whenever someone didn't get something that was too obvious—in his mind—for words. You're living, John. That's what people do.

John proposed to Mary on May fourth, exactly a year after Sherlock's suicide. It was time to move on. They were married in the summer, in a small chapel with only her family, Mrs. Hudson, and John's sister in attendance. Mary had her sister as her bridesmaid, but John simply laid a blue scarf on a chair without a word. He didn't need to say anything—Mary understood.

For a blissful eighteen months, John felt as though life had truly returned around him—and not only to "normal," but to something far better. Between his work at the hospital and his life with Mary at home, he was never bored. It may not have been the adventurous and hectic life he had experienced with Sherlock, but it was whole and good. He and Mary bought a tiny cottage, which Mary painted with a hundred shades of blue, and the hat-stand in the front hall was respectfully draped with a deerstalker and Sherlock's blue scarf. John rarely had nightmares anymore, and when he did, Mary was there. He sent one message, a few weeks after the wedding:

Thank you for forcing me to learn to cook. —JW

As the days and months passed, and John came home from work every day to find Mary home waiting for him with a kiss on her lips and a mug of coffee in her hand, the ghost of Sherlock Holmes slowly faded from the rooftop of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. John kept some faint sense of comfort from the imagining, but he never went to the roof—though he wasn't sure whether it was because of the memories he was afraid he would find or the ghost he was afraid he wouldn't find. Besides, he still had his limp, and he didn't want to tackle the stairs.

Then, just before the New Year, Mary went out to do some shopping and never came back. After an hour, John called her phone and got no answer. He called four times, the feeling of dread spreading throughout his body, and was yanking his arms through his coat sleeves on his way out the door when his phone rang.

It was Lestrade. Mary had been the victim of a hit-and-run. She was gone.

John didn't even make it out the door. He collapsed in the doorway of the cottage, unable to think or move or do anything but stare at the white gravel walkway that led to his front step. He was still there two hours later when Lestrade and his assistant came, but by that time the white gravel had transformed into white-hot sand and the sounds of traffic had become the noises of gunfire and shouting men. Lestrade told him later that he had tried to fight when the assistant helped him to his feet, and that the only things they could make out in the jumbled mess of words he babbled were 'Mary' and 'Sherlock.'

John pretended not to remember, but he did. He remembered gunfire and sweat and blood—too much blood—and screaming at Sherlock to save Mary, or to find her killer just like he had found a hundred others. But, just like in all of his nightmares, Sherlock didn't hear him. Didn't listen to him. Just like in all of his nightmares, Sherlock jumped.

Lestrade had tried to make him comfortable on the couch, but there were too many memories of Mary in the cottage. One of her knitting projects draped the arm of the rocking chair, a chair he had purchased with the idea of rocking a baby Watson in it. A mug of tea sat, cold, on the kitchen table where Mary had left it.

He needed to get out.

Staggering to his feet, the afghan Lestrade had wrapped around his shoulders slipping to the floor, John grabbed his cane from its place by the door. Lestrade came out of the kitchen and tried to stop him, but John shrugged the officer off. Baker Street. He needed to get to Baker Street.

Later, John never could remember exactly how he got from his cottage back to the flat he had once shared with Sherlock Holmes. He supposed that Lestrade had hailed a cab for him, and he had a vague impression of Mrs. Hudson meeting him at the door and helping him up to the flat, but it could have been that he simply walked—or rather, stumbled—his way up to 221b and collapsed in his old armchair alone. Mycroft had continued to pay the rent on the flat after John's marriage, and the place was exactly as he had left it, if a bit more dusty.

When he finally came to himself, not knowing how many hours or days or years he had sat in that chair, silent tears damping his face, John realized that he had his phone in his hand. He had sent three messages, though he didn't recall having done so.

She's dead, Sherlock. You're all dead, and I'm alone again. –JW

You could have saved her. Why didn't you save her? –JW

I couldn't save her. I couldn't save you. I can't save anyone. –JW

Sherlock's ghost was back. John could see him as clearly as if they were both on the roof of the hospital. Mrs. Hudson brought him a mug of tea, and John accepted it from her without a word. He didn't leave the flat for two days, didn't speak for three. Mary was gone, Sherlock was gone—his wife and his best friend, both dead.

He couldn't sleep. He would wake up with a start every time he began to doze off—visions of Mary falling from a building mixed with scenes from Sherlock's old cases and the chillingly soft voice of Jim Moriarty in his mind, giving him no peace. He had to do something—he was going crazy. He paced 221b as though he were trying to wear a groove in the hardwood floor. He put in a call to work and told the receptionist he wouldn't be in for a few days—they had heard about Mary. He tried to read, tried to watch something on the television, tried to concentrate on the real world long enough to drown out the half-dreams that preyed on his mind. In a moment of desperation he even picked up Sherlock's violin and spent an hour trying to figure out how to tune it.

Finally exhausted, John collapsed in his armchair and simply stared at the walls, cementing reality around him and blocking out all memories of either his wife or his friend. Slowly, as the sun set and the flat began to darken with the London twilight, he felt himself returning to sanity. There were things to be done—funeral arrangements, choosing a grave plot. Perhaps he could find one near Sherlock's, so he could visit them both. Methodically, John swept every thought that smacked of what Sherlock would have called 'sentiment' into a corner of his mind, then shut the door on them and locked it. He would grieve later.

Lestrade probably worried even more about John's stoic behavior—from the time he appeared at the morgue to identify the body, to the graveside service at a plot not twenty yards from where Sherlock was buried—than he had worried about the ex-soldier's breakdown. He tried to get John to talk, invited him out for drinks. But John gave him a smile that he knew wouldn't reach his eyes and said no. Thanks, but no. Besides, he had work in the morning.

Mrs. Hudson didn't even ask when he would move back into the flat—she just assumed he would. And she was right. The memories of Sherlock had faded a bit in that place. He could survive those—but not the memories of Mary in the house that they had bought together, had lived and loved in together, had planned to raise a family in together. Two years had passed since Sherlock died. Time heals all wounds…to a point.

Back home again, 221b. Mycroft's paying the rent. –JW

Finally found your secret pack of cigarettes. Really, Sherlock—my closet? –JW

May fourth came and went. John and Mrs. Hudson went to Sherlock's grave, but John spent most of his time at Mary's. He brought her flowers—he wished he'd done so more when she was alive. Spring faded into summer, bringing a series of 'firsts' without Mary.

Today would have been mine and Mary's second wedding anniversary. I'm at her grave, and I can see yours. Happy anniversary to me. –JW

Stay out of my dreams unless you're going to find Mary's killer. –JW

Had a funny case at work today—a fellow whose thumb had been chopped right off. Engineer. You would have been able to make something of his story. –JW

The fall was particularly damp that year, and John spent several long days down with a horrible chest cold. Mrs. Hudson tutted around him like a mother hen, keeping him well supplied with chicken soup and hot tea. She felt she had to keep him company while he was ill, and they spent several hours one afternoon sharing memories of Sherlock. John laughed so hard he had a choking fit and couldn't breathe without coughing for several minutes. By the time he had recovered, there were tears in his eyes, but he wasn't sure whether they were tears of mirth, sadness, or just from the fit.

He went back to work the next day.

Sherlock haunted the rooftop of Bart's and received message after message—usually monotonous, just John commenting on the day. These texts to Sherlock's ghost had come to be almost a running commentary on John's life:

Three broken arms and a case of the measles. Busy day. –JW

I'm this close to throwing out that stupid picture of a skull you hung up. It's hideous. –JW

I need to get bread and laundry soap at the store. –JW

No nightmares for a week. Not that I'm counting. –JW

Happy Christmas, Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson and I had everyone over for drinks. We put a Santa hat on your skull. –JW

John started to acquire a reputation around St. Bart's as a thorough but surprisigly compassionate doctor. More and more patients were referred to him, and he received a large bonus at the beginning of the year. He had sold the cottage, and between the two sources, decided that he had enough money to go on a bit of a vacation. He took two months' leave of work, and was from early February through the end of March, he went wherever the wind led him. New York, Paris, Istanbul, Rome, Hong Kong…He even went to Switzerland and spent an afternoon hiking his way—painstakingly, with his cane—to the original Reichenbach waterfall, the inspiration for the painting that had made Sherlock famous. He stood for nearly an hour, watching the water tumbling down, down, down into that roaring chasm, and came away feeling as though something had fallen from him there, some weight that he hadn't realized he was carrying.

When he returned to Baker Street and to his job at Bart's, he felt like a new man. He couldn't shake the limp, and he still sent texts to Sherlock's phone whenever he woke from a nightmare or saw something he wished the late detective could see, but he laughed more often and managed to make a few real friends at work. He even met up with Lestrade for drinks every so often, and listened to the inspector talk about the cases that Sherlock couldn't help them with anymore.

Bomb found in Piccadilly Circus. Fake bomb. A note on the top of it said 'From the Jackal.' Police stumped. As usual. –JW

Kidnappings—five of them. All college kids from various sporting teams. No clues—not any we can see, anyway. –JW

That Shan woman finally turned up, we think. A body in a warehouse, one bullet to the head. DNA checks out, but no one knows who killed her. –JW

There were still nights, though, when the absence of his wife and his best friend hit John. The week after the third anniversary of Sherlock's suicide, John found himself awake in the middle of the night, plagued by nightmares for the first time since he had returned from his vacation. It was the same old dream he had had a million times before: Sherlock, standing on the roof of St. Bart's hospital, arms outstretched like he thought he could fly, and John standing below, knowing that if he could just shout hard enough, if he could just move fast enough, he could save his friend.

The dream always ended the same way: Sherlock's face pale and lifeless on the pavement, then fading away like a mist. Gone.

That night, John stared up at the ceiling and really thought about Sherlock's death for the first time. He had always shied away from that train of reasoning, but somehow, that night, it seemed fitting.

What were you doing up there? He wondered. You weren't the sort of man to kill yourself over what other people thought of you. There has to be another reason. Moriarty was there too—did he tell you something? Did he lie? Did he blackmail you—was it murder, not suicide? But what could he have done—you wouldn't kill yourself because he stole your money, or made you look stupid, or… John sat up in bed.
Did Moriarty threaten someone? Someone Sherlock cared about—Mrs. Hudson, maybe? If the criminal mastermind had threatened to hurt Mrs. Hudson unless Sherlock did as he was told…The idea had merit.

John pulled out his phone.

Was he going to hurt Mrs. Hudson? Is that why you jumped? To protect her? –JW

He hit send and flopped back onto the bed, allowing his mind to play with the idea. It would make so much more sense than the idea that Sherlock killed himself because he had been labeled a fraud—more even than if he had actually been a fraud, which John knew he wasn't.

Deedle.

John's phone chirped.

He stared at it, glowing softly on his nightstand. Who in the world would be texting him this late at night? He picked it up and scanned down to the new message, from a hidden number.

Yes.

Yes? What in the world was that supposed to mean? John deleted the message. It was probably a wrong number. Someone had asked someone else to meet them, or whether they had remembered to get cheese at the store, or if they wanted to see a movie, and the reply had been sent to a misdialed number.

He was just dozing off, finally finding the peace of real sleep that he had missed most of the night, when his phone chirped again.

Groaning, he sat up and retrieved the phone, thinking that if it was something else from whoever had sent the last text, he'd send them a message to let them know that their texts were going awry.

427 Park Lane. Midnight. –SH

John looked at the clock instinctively. 11:23. Then he did a double take at the message on his screen, and his breath stopped.

SH?

That was it. Mycroft had gone too far this time. He had sent John strange messages before—calls from public phones, notes through ATM machines, once he had even left a note on Sherlock's grave because he knew that John would be there the next afternoon. But this was beyond enough.

John's hand clenched into a fist, and he tossed his phone onto the bed beside him, pushing himself to his feet and grabbing the first clothes his hands lit upon. In minutes, he was dressed and stumping down the stairs from his flat, cane in one hand and his gun in his pocket. There weren't many cabs roaming the street this time of night, but it didn't take him longer than ten minutes to find one. He directed the cabbie to the address in the text, and sat fuming the entire way there. He would not be summoned in this way any longer—it had been one thing when Sherlock was alive, and Mycroft didn't always want the lanky detective to know that his flat-mate and brother were on speaking terms. But this—after all this time, and a text signed with Sherlock's initials. Too much, it was too much. Mycroft was going to answer for his actions.

427, Park Lane, was a small house, but in a very nice neighborhood. There was a For Sale sign on the low fence that surrounded its tiny yard, and all the windows were dark. John saw no signs of Mycroft's car, but that meant nothing. The front door was unlocked, so obviously someone was expecting him.

John walked into the foyer of the small house, and stopped, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He called out Mycroft's name, not bothering to disguise his irritation and anger. Where was the blasted government man? John walked through the door into what he assumed was the living room, and stopped.

Standing before the small fireplace, looking thin and haggard and more pale than he had ever been in life, was Sherlock's ghost. Its coat hung around the bony frame like a woolen shroud, and the blue scarf that John knew was actually hanging from the coat-rack in 221b draped limply around its shoulders. The ghost stood with its hands in its pockets, an inscrutable look on the hollow face—in short, exactly as John had been imagining his dead friend these past three years. Only, why was he seeing this in this strange living room, rather than atop the roof of St. Bart's hospital?

That's it, thought John, smiling to himself. Not dreaming, anymore—now I'm seeing things when I'm awake. Out of force of habit, he pulled out his phone, ignoring the motionless figure in front of him, and sent a text.

I'm seeing you now, in a stranger's house. I've finally lost it. I've gone mad. –JW

He turned to leave the silent ghost, but stopped halfway through his first step.
A phone chimed behind him.

John whirled around to see Sherlock's ghost pull a phone from its pocket and check the screen. The icy eyes looked up at him, and John's brow furrowed.

The apparition smiled. No, Sherlock Holmes smiled.

"Hello, John."