"First of all, nothing about Sherlock is ever simple," John remarked with a wistful smile.

"Well, you have to start somewhere. How did you meet him?"

John took a deep breath to steady himself and launched into the saga of his adventures with Sherlock. Mary learned about Mike Stamford, the flat, and how Sherlock told John his entire life story from just a sideways glance. John told her about Sherlock's passion for detective work, his hunger for puzzles to solve. He detailed all of the cases they'd solved together: the woman in pink, the Chinese drug smuggling group, the bombing victims with the false painting, the Woman with her camera phone, and the mythical demon dogs at Baskerville. Throughout his discussion of their life together, Mary could see him progressively relaxing. He was relishing in memories of a happier time, and it must have felt good to finally let it all out after he'd kept it bottled up for so long.

"It sounds like you two had a lot of fun together," Mary remarked.

"Definitely. He could be a pompous, annoying dick at times, but I still couldn't resist the temptation to follow him on his mystery-solving escapades or to chase criminals around London. I may have been just the sidekick to his genius, but I have no doubt he much preferred my company to solitude—most of the time. He—he was my best friend…" John looked on the verge of tears yet again, and Mary gave him another hug.

"It's okay. I know it hurts, but he wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life mourning."

"You're right. He's probably yelling at me for being a sentimental idiot. But it's just so hard. Especially the way it happened, I can't help but blame myself." He pulled back from Mary's embrace, and she saw reflected in his face pure agony.

"What happened, John?" Mary finally asked the question that had been bugging her since she first met him. Beneath all her concern for his mental health was a sense of relief that her quest was coming to an end.

"Mary, I haven't been able to recount this story to anybody, not even my therapist. Every time I try to get the words out, I just become a mess of grief and self-hatred."

"You have all the time you need. We could be here all day if that's what it takes."

"Okay. As you've probably figured out by now, Sherlock—Sherlock is… dead. And honestly, there are only two people I can blame for that: Moriarty and myself. We met Moriarty a while ago; he was the ghost in the shadows of nearly every case that we encountered. He was the mastermind behind the largest criminal network in Europe, probably the world. When he finally decided to come out of hiding, nobody was prepared. He came out with a fiery bang, stealing the crown jewels with nothing more than chewing gum, a diamond, and a fire extinguisher.

"The crazy thing is, he didn't even want the jewels. He just wanted to show off. He let himself get caught, let himself be tried. He pled not guilty, but didn't offer up any evidence whatsoever. The jury found him not guilty anyway. Obviously, he'd been blackmailing them, but there was no way to prove it. And then he kidnapped the ambassador's children. Sherlock was immediately summoned to help find them.

"If I knew what it would lead to, I wouldn't have let him go."

At this point, Mary's imagination had outlined the rest of the story. She assumed that Moriarty killed Sherlock, and John felt guilty for not being there to save him. It seemed like a likely conclusion. But the truth, as she would soon learn, was actually far more heart-wrenching.

"But he went, and he was fantastic. He tracked the children down with nothing more than the scraping of a footprint. He was so excited for such a challenging case, I had to remind him to stop smiling. We found the children in an abandoned chocolate factory—they'd been eating sweets from wrappers lined with mercury. Of course, they were both immediately taken to hospital. The boy was much worse off than his sister, he didn't regain consciousness until much later. But Sherlock and I went to question the girl to see if she knew anything about her kidnapper.

"The second she caught a glimpse of Sherlock, she screamed bloody murder. I have no idea why. But some of his rivals at Scotland Yard immediately assumed it was because Sherlock was the kidnapper, and she recognized him. They had always been jealous of his cleverness. He was usually quite rude and condescending, calling them idiots all the time. But the thing is, compared to Sherlock, they were idiots. They just didn't like being constantly reminded of the fact. So when the slightest opportunity arose, they labeled him a fraud, a fake genius. And then Richard Brook came into the whole spectacle and made everything infinitely worse. This journalist that Sherlock had pissed off at the trial wrote some story about Sherlock hiring an actor to play Moriarty and staging all the crimes so that he could solve them and make himself look smart.

"Moriarty pretended to be this guy, Richard Brook, and he pretended he was just an actor. He even had authentic papers and DVDs—that's how far he went with this lie." At this point, Mary could hear barely-restrained fury in John's voice. "And people believed it. That's the worst part: people believed it. Pretty much everybody except for me bought into Moriarty's lies. I've known Sherlock for years, and there was no way anybody would ever convince me that he wasn't genuine.

"And then everything started to spiral out of control. I got a call. I don't even remember who from, but someone called me to tell me that our landlady, Mrs. Hudson, had been shot and was dying. I immediately told Sherlock, but he refused to come with me. He said he was too busy. I—I called him a machine. I was so angry that he wouldn't come. He loved her like a mother, we both did. I should have known something was up, but my brain was already so overwhelmed from all the confusion that I didn't realize I'd been fooled. I raced off to see her, only to discover she was perfectly fine. Then I put two and two together and ran back to find Sherlock.

"Just as I got out of the cab at Bart's, my phone rang. It was Sherlock. I panicked, wondering what the hell was going on, and he told me to look up. He—he was on the roof, four bloody stories up." Mary knew this part was going to be incredibly hard for John, so she grabbed his hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

"I'll never get that image out of my head. He was right on the edge. I wanted to go up there and stop him, but he told me to stay put. I thought I could convince him to change his mind, literally talk him off the edge. If I'd known that I couldn't, I would have raced up there and shoved him away from the edge. But I was painfully unaware of how awful things had already become. He told me that the story of Richard Brook was true. He said wasn't a genius, he was a criminal who solved his own cases to look smart. I didn't believe him. Not for one second. When we first met, he knew all about my sister from one glance at my phone. He claimed that was fake too, that he'd researched me to impress me with his deductions, but I know that can't be true. There's no way that information was available to him.

"But his confession threw me off guard. I was so lost and confused that I didn't know what to believe anymore. At first, it was the two of us against Moriarty and the rest of the world. We both knew he was real. But now Sherlock believed the lies? I just couldn't make sense of it all. If I'd known what was coming next, I would've turned away. Because now whenever I close my eyes, and whenever I actually manage to fall asleep, I'm forced to watch this moment replay itself over and over again.

"His last words to me were: 'Goodbye John.' And then he jumped."

Mary audibly gasped in horror.

"I couldn't react fast enough. I started running, but something knocked me over and I hit my head on the street. I got up and kept running, despite knowing what I would find when I got there. Everything hurt, but whether that was from the fall or the emotional trauma I don't know. I remember approaching the small mob that had already gathered. The first thing my eyes registered was the blood on the pavement… so much blood, mixed with rainwater so it looked like even more. I tried to get closer, but the other people pushed me back. When I eventually got a hand on his wrist, there was nothing. No pulse."

"Oh John," Mary whimpered, herself about to cry as well. "That's terrible."

"The last time I spoke to him in person—his last impression of me—was me shouting at him, calling him a fucking machine." John buried his face in his hands and wept silently. Mary wiped a few stray tears off her own cheeks before leaning forward to comfort him. She couldn't imagine the agony he must feel every day. To lose your best friend was one thing, but to witness them commit suicide before your eyes was a whole new level of tragedy.

"I just wish I could go back and do it over. I know that if Mrs. Hudson was really in danger, he'd be the first one there. He once repeatedly threw a guy out of our window for hurting her. If I hadn't gone, I would have stayed with him. I could've talked him out of this. I was so stupid. And because I wasn't clever enough, he's dead."

Mary heard an unhealthy amount of self-loathing in his tone. If things continued at this rate, she feared John would climb to the top of that same building and throw himself off. She couldn't let that happen. The world needed men like John Watson.

"Mary, I'm sorry for laying this all on you. You probably never want to see me again now that you know I'm a walking Shakespearian tragedy."

"No, no, no. Absolutely not. John, I love you for who you are, and nothing about your past could ever change that. I would never leave you just because of some emotional baggage. Sherlock is a part of who you are, and anybody who would abandon you for that is despicable."

"Thank you. You've been fantastic. Most people know at least part of the story, it was all over the news, but they just get frustrated with me. They think I should get over it and move on with my life."

"That's not how grief works," Mary assured. "You're not supposed to get over it. You're not supposed to forget. But you're also not supposed to wallow in sorrow all the time. You are allowed to enjoy your life; it's not disrespectful to his memory."

"I know that, but he was so omnipresent that every little thing reminds me of him. Last night with the violin music, I saw him playing. He played whenever he was thinking, which was often, sometimes waking me up at ungodly hours of the morning. At that murderer you mentioned—he would have been all over that case, bouncing off the walls in excitement. Even little things, like going to the store and seeing the brand of shampoo that he used. Sometimes I feel like the world is mocking me, giving me bits of Sherlock here and there just to emphasize the fact that I'll never see the whole picture again."

"John, you should try to interpret it differently. All those things that remind you of him are just ways he lives on."

"I like that philosophy. Thank you. Mary, this has been so helpful, I don't know what to say."

"You don't need to say anything, just promise me that you'll come to me if you're struggling, okay? You shouldn't have to face anything alone."

"Okay," John sighed. Mary felt a weight lifted off both of their shoulders. She'd finally found the answers to her questions, and John had finally found an outlet for his grief. After that day, things progressively improved. John gradually crept back out of his shell and regained some of the vibrancy he'd been missing. He and Mary grew close enough that they moved in together, and the picture that had hidden in John's sock drawer—the one Mary never revealed she knew about—was framed and hung on the wall of the living room.

Now that she knew the whole story, John wasn't afraid to talk to Mary about Sherlock. It was therapeutic for him, sharing stories of the detective's antics. It helped him to remember the good times. The more she heard about him, the more Mary wished she could've met this man that changed John's life. When John talked about him, he brought the detective to life. They had very little photographs beyond the one they'd framed, so Mary constructed her mental image of Sherlock based solely on that and John's anecdotes. Apparently, John could tell she wanted to know more than he could tell her.

"Mary, could you come here and watch something with me?" he inquired. Mary had absolutely no clue what was about to happen, but she wandered into the living room anyway. There, she found John inserting some DVD.

"I don't have time to watch a movie right now," she said, preparing to turn back around.

"It's not long," John assured. "I've seen it before, it's not even five minutes."

"Okay." Mary sat down on the couch. "But what exactly is it?"

"Detective Inspector Lestrade gave this to me a while ago, and I've held on to it. It's something Sherlock made for me that I think you ought to see. He missed my birthday dinner, and Lestrade forced him to film this to make up for it."

John sat down next to Mary and draped his arm across her shoulders. She braced herself for what she expected to be an emotional few minutes, but John only smiled wistfully when the face of his lost friend popped up on the screen. She wondered how many times he'd watched this just to witness Sherlock in life. The detective started talking to an off-screen Lestrade, and Mary immediately saw that he was exactly as John had always described him. He had an indescribable aura that made Mary reluctant to look away for even a second, for fear she'd miss something exciting.

Mary felt John inch ever so slightly closer to her; he knew what was coming. Sherlock moved on to the part of the video that had actually been shown, and his phrasing was eerily applicable to the current situation.

"I'm sorry I'm not there at the moment," Sherlock said sincerely. Of course he was referring to missing the dinner, but the quote could easily be interpreted differently. Sherlock wasn't here at the moment, and Mary knew he'd be sorry if he'd seen John's reaction from wherever he was.

"Don't worry, I'm going to be with you again very soon," the detective concluded with an endearing wink. Hearing that was difficult, even for Mary, who'd never known him when he was alive. She couldn't imagine how John felt when he heard that line, knowing it would never happen. All in all, she was immensely glad John decided to show her this. She hoped he didn't regret sharing it with her.

~0~

On several occasions, John brought Mary along to the cemetery to visit Sherlock's grave. It was simple, but beautiful in its own right. John told her that when he'd been at his worst, he would just sit here with his gun, hopelessly inebriated, contemplating if it was worth it to continue living. Mary shuddered to think of him here, alone and depressed and in possession of a lethal weapon. With one twitch of a trigger finger, things could have ended very differently. She was infinitely grateful that he'd pulled through such a dark time.

As time passed, Mary learned many things about grief, especially pertaining to John. One would expect things to get steadily easier as each day passed, but that was not the case. The line didn't advance linearly, but peaked and dipped at random. Some days and nights were good, but many were not. There was no pattern to it that she could discern. John would just wake up inherently depressed some mornings, and there was nothing Mary could do or say to intervene. For the most part, she stayed out of his way and let him work through it on his own. The stupors rarely lasted more than twenty four hours, and occurred rarely in comparison to the good days. Mary was forced to accept them as an inevitable part of life with John.

Nights were a bit different. Mary could tell within minutes of them settling down together whether a night was to be good or bad. There were the times he'd sleep peacefully throughout the night, and there were the times he'd lie awake tossing and turning. There were times he'd report that he'd had a lovely dream based on some pleasant memory, and there were times he'd wake up drenched in sweat, screaming Sherlock's name. Those were the times Mary feared the most. She knew those were the nights his subconscious had forced him to relive that horrible day. She would hold him, whisper sweet nothings in his ear, and he'd eventually return to an exhausted sleep.

John had taken her advice to heart: some of the things that used to make him miss Sherlock instead just served as fond reminders. Mary kept track of the things that still upset him and tried her best to avoid them. She always changed the channel or hid the paper if there was any mention of interesting murders. Those were not fond reminders, they were only teases of the life Sherlock could've had if he were still here.

The day the press finally debunked the Sherlock Holmes-Moriarty story was particularly hard on John. Of course, John had been right about Sherlock all along. The detective was genuine; Moriarty had been the one to lie and deceive. Mary thought John should have felt vindicated, but things were never that simple.

"He lied to me," John told Mary. "He said he was a fake, that it was all a magic trick. But he was lying." Mary knew exactly why this made it so difficult. If Sherlock really was a fraud, then he died to escape the inevitable repercussions. But if he was genuine, it was only a matter of time before people discovered the truth and his name was cleared. He killed himself because he was desperately unhappy with his life, John and all. Hearing that news must've made John think he wasn't good enough, that his friendship with Sherlock hadn't been worth as much as he'd initially thought it was. If Sherlock valued John as much as John valued him, he wouldn't have left him so abruptly. At least, that's how John saw it. Mary saw it differently.

From what she'd learned of Sherlock's personality, Mary knew he wouldn't do something like that. In all honesty, he probably hadn't realized how much he meant to John. She had no doubt that Sherlock cared deeply about John, but he likely didn't understand just how thoroughly those feelings were reciprocated. Listening to John talk about Sherlock's quirkier traits, Mary had made her own assumptions about potential neurodivergence, and it wasn't uncommon for them to struggle to read other people emotions. The way Mary saw it, Sherlock probably thought he was liberating John from the burden he considered himself to be. If only he could see how wrong he'd been.

Eventually, they reached a point where Mary couldn't foresee any more improvement. John had come so far from the despairing, lonely man she'd first observed at work. He wasn't one hundred percent, but it was inhuman to expect him to regain full functionality after such a trauma. However, there was one thing—well, one person—that would actually bring him full circle.

~0~

Mary remembered that night vividly. Despite how close they were, Mary and John rarely mentioned the possibility of marriage. Mary knew why, and it had nothing to do with their relationship. Marriage meant a wedding, and she knew John wouldn't want a wedding if he couldn't have his best friend there. Maybe that meant it would never happen, but Mary could accept that. But that night, John had been clearly attempting to introduce a proposal, and he was being so adorably awkward about it, when the waiter with the ridiculous French accent flamboyantly interrupted him. She'll never forget the look on John's face—he probably thought he was hallucinating. She would, too, if her best friend she'd been mourning for two years suddenly popped up like that. Then she looked at him more closely and realized that their server was, indeed, a poorly-disguised version of the curly-haired man from the picture. It was a miracle. Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead.

Mary could understand why John initially reacted with anger and bitterness. This man had taken so much away from John by forcibly removing himself from his life, and then he just reappeared as if by magic. John had been left to grieve for his best friend who had never really died, while others were in on it the whole time. He'd been effectively robbed of two years of his life, two years he would never get back. He had a right to be angry. But when John and Sherlock eventually reconciled, Mary saw what had been missing the entire time she'd known him.

Sherlock's presence amplified all of John's good qualities and muted the few bad ones. Alone, he'd been everything a woman could hope for: strong, kind-hearted, courteous, with a heart of gold. With Sherlock, he was easily the best man Mary had ever known. The transformation was truly marvelous. Sherlock was like the missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle: without it, you could still make out the picture, but having it made everything infinitely more beautiful.