It's been two years. Two years ago John ran to his friend on the floor, right in front of St. Bart's hospital. Two years ago he saw him lying there, after falling from the rooftop. Dead. The pain had been too hard to bear. The limp had come back. The will to live was even less than when he returned from the war. The ghosts he saw at night, sleeping or awake, had been replaced with the image of his falling friend, with the image of the blood all over his face and his strange position on the pavement. It had been too much. He had tried to go back to what it was before Sherlock. He had helped pack his things and empty the flat. Except for the violin. The violin had stayed in the same place all this time, the place Sherlock used to occupy while playing, gazing at the street outside the window. John had tried to play it but with no success. First his hands felt the strings. It was as if he was touching Sherlock's hands dancing with the movements he needed to play the song. The never ended compositions stood there as well, to never be finished nor played. It had been too much.

John looked out the window, the tears he did not try to supress anymore falling down his cheeks, blurring up his vision. He was shaking. He had made a decision, even without thinking. He had written a letter, he wrote it on his blog, but nobody really consulted his blog anymore because he had stopped writing a long time ago. After Sherlock's death it all seemed meaningless and too much of an effort. He had tried to work and got fired because he sometimes burst at small things and couldn't contain his bad moods. Other times he was just completely still for days. Mrs. Hudson took care of him when she saw he was in a very bad day, but that just made him feel like he was a burden. He should be helping her, not the other way around. He had gone out on dates, he had met women who liked him, but in the end his own depression would send them all away. He would stop caring. They would stop calling.

John grabbed the gun with his left hand, still shaking, now more than ever. He always thought he would have the courage to go with it until the end, but would he? He started panting, panic running through his chest, making him feel a pressure in his heart and a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew it was not worthy to go on. What for, if he had tried everything with no result? What for, if his nights were spent struggling against the nightmares and the days against reality? Yes, this was it. It was enough of living.

He stroked the strings of the violin one more time, a faint sound coming out of it. He pressed the gun to his left temple, trying to make himself stop trembling. He pulled the trigger and shot.

The door downstairs opened up and a pair of heavy footsteps hurried up the corridor and into the living room right before the sound of the shot filled the room. A deep, panicked voice screamed John's name as he fell to the ground, inanimate, like a puppet to which someone cut the strings. Sherlock grabbed his body as it fell down, down to the floor like the gun that had took John's life fell. He tried to make John talk to him, holding his head with a hand. But John's eyes were already white and unfocused, looking at nothing Sherlock could see. He saw the life escape his friend's body, and a last struggling breath. He had read his blog and seen the suicide note John had left for the world and, mostly, for him. Still, had come too late.

Sherlock held John's body tight, close to his own, and cried on the floor of 221B Baker Street, rocking himself back and forward. He had been too late. Too late for the only friend he ever had.