"Look, please, there's just one more thing, one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't. Be. Dead. Would you do that, just for me, just… Stop it. Stop this."

After uselessly pleading with Sherlock to come back to him, John had turned and walked away from the grave. He felt defeated, abandoned, and oh so tired - like the weight of all the world had suddenly fallen on his shoulders. Sherlock had been the only bright spot in an otherwise dim world, and John just didn't know any more if he could stand going back to the way things were before he knew what excitement and danger and love were.

Before he knew Sherlock.

He'd lied to Mrs. Hudson when he said he couldn't go back to the flat. Well, he hadn't known that he was lying at the time, but standing on the steps of 221b a few hours (and drinks) later he couldn't help but think he'd deceived the landlady somehow. He stumbled up the stairs, barely paying attention to where he was going and knocking his shin against an end table as he staggered through the living room and toward Sherlock's bedroom. He stared at the unmade bed, the top sheet laying discarded at the bottom where Sherlock had last tossed it, probably just before getting dressed on the day he...

John ran his fingers over the smooth cotton, closing his eyes and imagining Sherlock wrapped in the sheet while sitting in Buckingham Palace. He smiled - Sherlock was certainly not the Commonwealth. Never had been.

He kicked off his shoes and crawled into the bed, biting his lower lip when the scent that surrounded him was that of Sherlock: part tobacco, part toothpaste, part cologne, but all Sherlock. He turned his face into the pillow just in time for it to catch his first tears, which soon turned into near-painful sobs that shook him to his core and kept him awake until he was too exhausted to cry any longer and fell asleep with his face still buried in the tear-soaked pillow.

Mrs. Hudson didn't ask any questions: his presence the next morning must have given her a fright, but John never heard a word from her asking him why he'd come back. He just woke up at half past noon with the covers pulled up around him and Sherlock's sheet draped over his shoulders.

If it hadn't been for Mrs. Hudson, the landlady-turned-mother figure, John probably would have wasted away in more ways than he had already. He got three square meals a day - even though he barely picked at them - and a gentle reminder to take a bath every other. And after the first time Mrs. Hudson tried to change the sheets and met with a distraught and fiercely protective John as a result, she never tried again.

The smell of Sherlock was on those sheets, and that smell was all John had left of the man.

Sometimes he would dream of Sherlock, which made his waking hours just a little more unbearable for the lack of him. One moment he'd be watching Sherlock solve a case, yell at Anderson, or pout at Mycroft, and the next he'd be torn away to bleak reality where Mrs. Hudson was waiting with breakfast.

Not all dreams were pleasant, though. Sometimes he'd have to watch Sherlock standing on the edge of the hospital roof, reaching out to him for help. But John could never move in those dreams. He was held to his spot until Sherlock hit the pavement, and only then could he run toward him. Even then it was as if he was moving in slow motion, his view of the body obscured by passing traffic and the ever-growing crowd of people.

In those dreams he never even got to touch Sherlock's hand, and waking was more of a blessing than a curse.

Then there were the nights when he dreamed quite lucidly that Sherlock was there beside him, pulling him into his arms and cradling him through the night. He'd run his long, spindly fingers through John's hair, lay a kiss to his temple, and whisper about how everything was going to be alright, that this was all just a game and he wasn't really gone. Not for good.

John loved and hated those nights. He'd lie there helplessly, wanting to ask Sherlock why - why did he have to pretend to be gone, why couldn't he come back and hold him like this in reality, why did he have to be dead? - but always unable to speak. So he'd just wrap his arms tightly around that skinny frame and cry until the dream was over and the next dull morning greeted him.

When he woke up one morning and realized that the scent of Sherlock had been replaced with the smell of sweat and him, he got up and removed the sheets himself. Mrs. Hudson didn't ask any questions when she found them in the laundry, but John did see her packing one of her husband's old pipes with some of Sherlock's tobacco and setting it by the bedroom window.

After that morning, John sort of got back on track. He could eat almost all the food Mrs. Hudson prepared for him, could go down to the corner store without scaring the neighborhood children, and actually managed to shower and shave on a daily basis. He was still sleeping in Sherlock's bed, but for the most part he seemed to be on the mend.

It wasn't until a week later that he had another of the lucid dreams where Sherlock was there holding him through the night. This time the consulting detective was gently rubbing his back through his sobs, telling him he was doing well and it wouldn't be much longer, that he'd be back soon enough. John wanted desperately to believe him, but the rational part of him knew his brain was conjuring up these dreams to soothe him through the loss of his best friend.

He woke the next morning feeling warm and happy, the covers pulled up around his shoulders and the smell of Sherlock surrounding him like an extra blanket. He actually drifted off again, waking a few minutes later with a start as his sleepy brain came to the conclusion that things were not as they should have been.

The sheets smelled like Sherlock. The pillow beside him smelled like Sherlock.

He smelled like Sherlock.

John sat up and ran a hand through his hair, sighing as the smell of tobacco and toothpaste and cologne seemed to get stronger. Maybe he'd finally lost his marbles, but maybe Sherlock had been there and everything really was going to be okay. He could only hope that was the case.

When Mrs. Hudson came upstairs to fix some lunch, she found John having a lie in and decided not to disturb him since he seemed to be sleeping more peacefully than usual.

Perhaps the worst was over.