I’ve always understood on one level that John wasn’t moving into Sherlock’s flat. They moved into it at the same time. Just now I was reading something that alluded to this, and it made me realize how that means it was always their flat. Until the Fall, every memory of the place was made by the two of them together. As much as we often associate 221B with Sherlock, it was never just his place. It was theirs.
Thinking about that just makes Sherlock’s return all the more heartbreaking. He wasn’t going back to his home that John had once occupied for a short time. He was going back to their home, absent John.
John had been unable to live there without Sherlock, the memories too painful. But Sherlock has to live there without John. Since John isn’t dead, he doesn’t have that excuse to leave. Or perhaps he doesn’t want to leave, he wants the memories because that is all he has.
