AN: this is my first foray in to Sherlock!fic so be gentle. I beg of thee. This is...This is...idek guys. *runs away*

When John finds out that James Moriarty- or Richard Brooke as the world knows him- is still alive it's like losing Sherlock all over again.

The papers call it a tragedy; poor Rich Brooke, the helpless puppet of a psychopath, left in a coma after an attempted suicide. They have video tributes and flowers are left outside Bart's and they even do a little piece on the BBC on Rich's 'tragically short life'. No one seems concerned with the fact that actor or not, Richard Brooke, had he lived, would have been imprisoned for accessory to murder at the least.

John can't see how they believe all that but he supposes it's easier for people to believe that Sherlock was making it all up rather than believing he was a genius. He finds it rather sickening though how quickly they've turned. Not all of them believe in Richard Brooke though, there are whole websites dedicated to the 'I believe in Sherlock Holmes movement'. Mrs Hudson believes it for a time but John's sure that if Sherlock walked back through their front door today she wouldn't think any less of him. Lestrade is different, he's angry, hurt, betrayed; he almost loses his job over it. They meet up sometimes for a drink and sit silently side by side but eventually Greg drifts away.

John's grateful for the silence. He doesn't want to talk about Sherlock; every time he does it's like a kick in the teeth.

In the days after the fall he throws the television out and averts his eyes every time he passes a newspaper stand. He can't pretend Sherlock's alive when everybody keeps screaming he's dead. He can't pretend that Sherlock will walk back in to his life one day when the story is everywhere. He deletes his blog and avoids the internet at all times.

Eyes front soldier.

He gets letters of condolence from people he's never met, people who assure him they believe in Sherlock but they didn't know Sherlock. They just knew the man in deerstalker hat and the articles. So John burns their letters and after a while Mrs Hudson stops bringing them to him.

He closes his eyes, soldier on John.

One week after the fall he gets a call from Harry.

"Are you okay, John?" she asks after three minutes of silence. "I saw what happened on the news."

John wants to scream at her. No, he is not okay. Sherlock, his best friend, his flatmate, his purpose, is dead. Dead and gone. But he doesn't say that because saying it out loud makes it true. "I'll be okay, Harry." He says in a strained voice.

There's a pause and he can picture her fidgeting nervously, Harry's never been good with emotion. She sighs, "Look, John, I know I suck at this but I'm trying, okay? And Clara...We're back together...And Clara's family have a small cottage in Devon. I just thought, you know, if you wanted to get away from it all for a while?"

She says it all in such a rush that John has to think a few minutes before replying. "That'd be lovely, thank you Harriet."

He can almost feel her relief as she says, "Great, well call me when you want to go down, okay?" He says he will and then she awkwardly says she loves him but hangs up before he can reply.

He goes to Devon for a week and pretends nothing's wrong, he pretends the nightmares don't happen, he pretends people don't stare when he goes into the towns, he pretends when he gets back to Baker Street Sherlock will be waiting.

One week after he gets back to London he goes to St Bart's. He tells himself it's to visit Molly, to see how she's holding up and he does and she does her best to smile even though her eyes betray her true feelings, but even she knows John isn't there to visit her. "Are you going to see him?" she asks softly.

"See who, Molly?"

She looks away, "Jim." She looks back up at him and he nods.

He's not sure why he wants to. Maybe it's just to confirm that Moriarty did exist. Maybe it's so he can smother the man with a pillow and be done with it all. Molly takes him up to Jim's room and John realises that he had expected more from the Napoleon of Crime because in that hospital room he's just a man. Moriarty looks very, very small surrounded by all the machines that are keeping him alive. He's pale, so pale that he looks almost translucent and there are thick white bandages covering his head. He looks any other patient. He's not a monster. He's just a man.

"I come to see him sometimes," Molly says quickly as though confessing to a sin. "I don't know why but...Anyway, I better get back to work..." she hovers for a few more minutes, nervously before leaving the room.

John looks at Moriarty, the big bad wolf cut down by the huntsman and says, "You took everything from me, you know."

"And all for a stupid game," he mutters.

He can imagine Moriarty laughing at him. I won Johnny boy. I beat Sherlock, I won.

He goes back the next week and the week after that. He's not sure why but it helps. He sits by Moriarty's bed and talks about Sherlock and imagines Jim's responses. He tells Jim about what people are saying about Sherlock because of him. He tells Jim about all the imaginative forms of revenge he's come up with for Sherlock's death. He tells Jim about the war and his childhood and everything. And maybe it's just because he knows Jim can't hear, can't judge, can't tell anyone what he's said. Or maybe John's just losing it (John's pretty sure it's the latter). But it works and John feels a little bit better.

The world moves on and Sherlock Holmes isn't in the news anymore and John goes back to being just another face in the crowded city of London.

John packs all of Sherlock's things up and leaves them in Sherlock's room and life moves on.

Then one day Jim wakes up.

He blinks into existence, eyes wide and brown and confused and John feels a little like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He's expecting Moriarty's slow grin to appear and him to say something ridiculously evil but that doesn't happen. Instead Moriarty looks at him and opens and closes his mouth a few times before rasping, "I know you from somewhere, don't I?"

And John laughs. Laughs because Moriarty died to.

Moriarty blinks at him, "What's-What's so funny?" he asks in his lilting Irish voice.

John should feel bad for laughing. This man isn't James Moriarty. He's just a broken, lost, ordinary human. He can almost imagine the disgust Moriarty would feel at his new self, the disgust Sherlock would feel. He leaves still laughing and the next day Mrs Hudson shoves a paper under his door that has a small article on Richard Brooke's miraculous recovery. He tears the article out and thinks about burning it.

The next week he tries not to go back to Bart's but he finds himself there all the same.

Jim is standing unsteadily in front of the window he turns when John walks in. "You're John Watson." He says voice still slightly rough from disuse.

John nods and he turns back to the window, "They said my name was Richard," he says glumly. "It doesn't sound right though."

"That's because it isn't your name," John finds himself saying. He shouldn't, he knows he shouldn't.

"They said I shot myself. But why would I do that?" Jim says quietly.

John's half tempted to tell Jim who he really was.

Jim turns to him, "What's my name Dr Watson?" he asks and John's slightly taken aback by Jim's eyes. They're wide and brown and desperate. There's no trace of Moriarty in them.

"I-" John stammers, "its James."

"James," Jim repeats with a small smile. "James."

There's a part of John that wants Moriarty back. He can't explain it, he knows it's wrong but there's a part of him that knows that Sherlock was just as important to Moriarty. So every time he visits James in the hospital he finds himself talking about Jim's crimes and searching James' face for any flicker of recognition. He never sees any.

"I'm getting out this week," James says one day when John turns up for lunch.

John looks up. It's been a month since James woke up (a month since he became James rather than Moriarty) he's recovered remarkably well, apart from his memories that is. This means no more visits. John's not sure what to say, should he ask where James is going? Should they exchange phone numbers? James is watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Oh," John says.

They don't speak for the rest of the visit.

When John gets back to 221b he finds Mycroft Holmes waiting for him.

He hasn't seen the elder Holmes since Sherlock died. At the time he was glad, he really didn't think he could see Mycroft's smug face again without smashing it in, after all he had betrayed his brother, caused his death. But then John thinks about the amount of time he's been spending with James and he swallows guiltily. "What do you want Mycroft?"he asks as the older man studies him.

"It has come to my attention that you have been spending a rather inordinate amount of time with James Moriarty," Mycroft says in a soft, stern voice.

John looks at him, "Yes and what business of yours is it?" he asks, rather more bitterly then he had intended.

Mycroft cocks his head at John and John's forcefully reminded of how like Sherlock he can be. "I'm just wondering whether it's healthy given that mans past deeds." He says carefully.

John scoffs, "That man's 'past deeds' were enabled by you Mycroft Holmes and don't you forget that."

Mycroft stands up swiftly and his expression is one of pure anger, "Don't ever presume that Sherlock meant any less to me then he did to you, Dr Watson." He says in a voice that could cut through steel.

John's taken aback, he's never seen Mycroft lose his composure like that before, he hadn't thought it possible. The anger vanishes as quickly as it manifested and Mycroft straightens his suit. "I will not prevent you from seeing that man, John but I highly recommend that you end your association with him." he says briskly as he strides out of the door, twirling his umbrella.

John slams the door behind Mycroft and spends the rest of the evening glaring at the skull on the mantelpiece.

He's jolted out of his brooding by a hesitant knock at the front door. For a few moments he thinks it could be Sherlock, but Sherlock wouldn't knock. He's fairly surprised when he opens the door to find James Moriarty standing on the doorstep shuffling his feet awkwardly.

"John," he mumbles to his shoes.

"James, what are you doing here?" John asks.

James looks up at him. "I didn't have anywhere else to go," he says in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

thereJohn sighs and pulls him into the house, "Come on then. You can stay here until you get sorted."

They get up to the flat and while John busies himself making tea James walks around, touching everything and murmuring to himself. John takes his eyes off him for a second and he's vanished, "James?" he calls nervously.

"I'm in here John..." the reply comes from Sherlock's room.

He finds James holding Sherlock's coat and swallows his anger. He doesn't know, he doesn't know.

"Whose room was this?" James asks a faraway look in his eyes.

"My best friend's," John says softly, watching James carefully.

"I've lost someone, John," James says in a voice that tears at John's heart. "I don't know who it is, I don't remember...but there was someone, not me. Someone else and I-" his voice breaks slightly. "I don't what to do."

John touches his shoulder. "I know how you feel, James."

Two months later James is still living with him and John doesn't want that to ever change because no matter how hard he tries not to he can't help comparing James to Sherlock. James does the same bizarre experiments as Sherlock, he doesn't sleep, he hardly eats, he corrects the TV, he writes sad music (although he prefers the piano to the violin) and sometimes if John closes his eyes he can imagine it's not James rambling on about some obscure detail but Sherlock. There are differences, of course. Like when they read about a case James won't talk about how to solve it, he'll talk about how the crime could have been improved. James likes to read fantasy novels, the kind of novels Sherlock wouldn't spare a second glance to. James seems to have a thing for cats as well because one day he brings home a small ginger kitten and names it Sebastian. He chases the cat around the flat and treats it like a baby which John has to admit is pretty adorable if disturbing. He chuckles to himself every time he tries to picture Sherlock with the kitten.

And then there's that other big thing.

The one that involved John coming home drunk late one night and kissing James as though his life depended on it.

James kisses like John thinks Moriarty would. All teeth and harshness and desperation. And it's wrong, he knows it's wrong but he can't seem to stop feeling a little bit disappointed when he opens his eyes and realises who he's kissing. He's not sure whether he's disappointed he's kissing Moriarty or disappointed he's not kissing Sherlock.

No one approves. Lestrade and Mrs Hudson stay silent but he knows they see it as a betrayal. Mycroft kidnaps him once or twice and gives him a stern talking to but John's past caring by that point and when Mycroft says, "What would Sherlock say?" in a voice full of anger and hate John surprises himself by screaming, "He wouldn't say anything because he's dead."

And he realises he's never said it out loud and it feels like a great weight has been lifted. Mycroft looks at him disappointedly and walks away and John doesn't see him again.

When he goes home that night James is sitting on the couch watching a documentary called Sherlock Holmes: Fake or Framed? John supposes he knew this had to happen sometime.

"I did this," James says quietly. "I took him from you. I wasn't really Rich Brooke, was I?"

John shakes his head and James mutters, "Jim Moriarty." As though trying it out then he looks up at John and says, "When you look at me you don't see me, do you?"

John shuffles uncomfortably because what are you meant to say to that? James pauses the screen, "You see him, don't you?"

John looks. James has paused the program on a picture of Sherlock wearing that stupid deer stalker hat, death Frisbee, it's an ear hat, John. He sits down next to James and pulls him close, ignoring the way his whole body stiffens.

"I love you, James." He says softly.

And James looks at him and says, "No you don't." But he kisses him anyway.

"I will love you then." John whispers against his lips.

In the end John supposes this isn't that strange of an outcome. James and he were both broken, lonely men without a purpose, without Sherlock. And it might not be the healthiest of relationships but it's a start, it'll get better.

It's been exactly three years since the fall and John wakes up with an armful of James and thinks that maybe this day should be different. It never is though, it's always ordinary, no big memoriam, no annual special, life just carries on.

There's a knock at the door and James mumbles sleepily as John disentangles himself to go and answer it. Sebastian glares at him as he passes. He thinks it might be Harry, since Sherlock died she's made a habit of dropping by unannounced with a few bottles of wine. She's never come this early though.

He opens the door.

Sherlock smiles.

And John's world explodes.