all our years apart (lead us to the one today)
It wasn't that the flat was dingy and small, or that the cot was uncomfortable and hard. Memories of similar living conditions flashed through John's mind, most of it from just months ago, his army uniform cut and pressed, a gun in his hand and gauze in the other. The sound of gunfire echoed in his ears, with John's brain fighting it, attempting to give him reality instead.
John wiped his face hard and looked around at his flat, the sounds fading in his head, slowly being replaced with the deafening silence of the small room before him.
What hit him hard was the loneliness.
John looked over in the corner, where his cane leaned against the wall, waiting to be used. The only sound in the entire flat now was the sound of cheering and excited counting down of the seconds until midnight. The telly was blaring the noise, glaring the light into John's eyes and flooding the room.
After a long moment, John turned it off.
There was no point. John should just get rid of his television - nothing happens in the world anyway.
Somewhere else, Sherlock was running through a back alley in London, clutching a superficial gunshot wound to his side. He pulled his hand away. It wasn't too damp at all. The bullet the criminal shot must have just grazed him.
Good news for brainwork not to die tonight, then.
Snow had already started falling, white flakes falling from the pitch-black night sky above him. Sherlock glanced up, squinting his eyes into the sprinkling snow.
"Sherlock, are you still there?"
Sherlock looked down, his eyes following where the sound was coming from. His mobile phone blinked with Lestrade's name, the call having started almost an hour ago.
"Brilliant," Sherlock told him. "Everything's gone brilliant, Lestrade, come at once to collect your criminal."
"Sherlock, I know heard a gunshot. What happened? Are you bleeding? Are you-"
Sherlock pressed the 'end call' button, then he texted Lestrade his address. Those details can wait for the report.
There was no way that Lestrade would be there anytime soon, but really, that was no problem. In the last few minutes since Sherlock encountered the criminal, he had whipped his head with the barrel of his gun and slammed his head against the dumpster for good measure.
With the final thought, the bell on Big Ben sounded, piercing the midnight air. Sherlock counted. One, twice, three times. Then nine more.
As the residents of the buildings around him started to sing, harmonizing "Auld Lang Syne", Sherlock lit a cigarette, taking a drag, then coughed horrendously.
The singing drowned out the hacking coughs of Sherlock, who stood alone and thin in a dank alley behind an old flat. Sherlock steadied himself against the wall, and he cleared his throat.
He really ought to start wearing smoking patches.
The lights danced upon the walls of 221B Baker Street, the quietness of the flat pressing down on John like a pressure point, as he stole glances at Sherlock from across the room.
The policemen of Scotland Yard were more than certainly long gone by now. That left just Mrs. Hudson, who had since fully recovered from her fright with the American men and was now one floor below, preparing to issue in the new year.
That just left John and Sherlock, alone, as the clock slowly ticked towards midnight.
John poured himself a drink, the bourbon swirling into the glass held tightly in his hands. John gritted his teeth.
Irene Adler was wrong. Sherlock is not his. And John should have corrected her.
John walked into the sitting room, where Sherlock was picking up his violin. His elegant fingers gripped the back of the instrument, absentmindedly running themselves up and down the strings.
"So, she's alive then." John broke the silence, keeping his voice steady. "How are we feeling about that?"
Sherlock wasn't looking at him. John could only imagine why. He stared at the grace of Sherlock's turned back, posing to start playing.
"Happy New Year, John." Sherlock still wasn't looking at him.
John didn't move his eyes. "Do you think you'll be seeing her again?"
Sherlock finally turned to stare into him, and John watched as he started the first notes to the song. "Auld Lang Syne" wafted through the tense air at 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock and John had lived together for almost a year now. The lights outside were only dimmed by the steady snowfall, with the chiming of the bell continuing to soar through the street.
At this point, John could only sit down in his chair. Thinking to himself, It didn't mean anything.
But Irene Adler's words still played through his head, drowning out the chimes of the clock, drowning out Sherlock's playing.
"Well, I am. Look at us both."
John sipped his bourbon, though his throat had become tight.
Sherlock looked at John's reflection in the glass in front of him, thinking deeply as he pretended to watch the snow.
All the while thinking to himself: "What did it mean?"
Half an hour later, he picked up his cell phone and texted Irene. After thinking of his message for a moment, he wrote, "Happy New Year."
John sat alone in Baker Street, boxes with all of his things gathered in the corner. His beard, unkempt and dirty, was becoming far too wild even for John. He really should shave a little. Maybe just leave behind a mustache. Something to make him a handsome bachelor.
"Oh you prat," he said to himself. "You'd never take advantage of it."
John drank the bourbon, and the taste was the same as exactly a year before. Memories flashed in his mind of Sherlock playing the violin right in front of him, for hours and hours, before John had finally turned to bed sleeping fitfully with thoughts of Irene Adler's observations.
Could she have observed that a year later, Sherlock would be dead?
The bell chimed midnight, as it had so many times, so many years before. Texts ignited on John's mobile beside him, the screen lighting up as much as the sky probably is, fireworks booming loudly in the distance.
John took a glance, deadened eyes darting down to look at the screen. One from Lestrade read, "Happy New Year John - let me know if you need anything, mate."
Another text, from Molly this time: "Hi John! Hope you're doing better, know you've got us if you need!"
This one made John smile a little bit. Molly always was a bit of a sweetheart. Always deserved better than hanging onto Sherlock for all that time.
John's smile fell at the thought, his face grimacing. "Yeah, I should talk, shouldn't I?"
He looked up at Sherlock's empty chair, dusty and slowly losing its luster with passed time. John had made it a point not to place even a jacket on it since the Fall. The fewer reasons to look at it, the better.
John still woke up in the middle of the night, watching Sherlock's body plummet through the air, landing with a thud right in front of him on the sidewalk. John always gets there too late to catch him.
And every day, John thought to himself, "this is why. This is why I need to get my own place. Move on with my life."
"Yeah, right," Sherlock scoffed, twiddling his fingers as he stared amusedly at John. "Move on with what life, Watson? I'm gone."
John's head snapped up, and he narrowed his eyes in concealed anger.
"You arsehole," John seethed. "You made me watch you die, you don't get to be snarky with me."
"I'm not being snarky. I'm stating a fact." Sherlock leaned forward. "I'm gone, John. You know I am. There's no bringing me back. And I can't come back. So why do you still see me?"
"You're not really here."
Sherlock smiled at him. Knowingly, cocky. "I always will be, John. Because you'll never stop believing in me."
John looked at him. Tears welled up in his eyes. "Well, I have to now, don't I?"
Sherlock leaned back in his chair. The chair did not move. "You can try. But I'll always be here. Right there."
Sherlock touched John's forehead tenderly with his finger. A tear fell from John's cheek. "I hope not."
Sherlock got up from his chair and moved to the back of the room.
Miles and miles away, Sherlock, the real Sherlock, was crouched down behind a tree with a gun clenched in his hand. He flipped open the revolver, the sound clicking against the silence around him. Blast. Nearly empty.
Sherlock looked around. Not for the first time, he wished John was here to shoot for him. He had already missed more than he should have.
The yelling of his enemies echoed nearby, and Sherlock knew the trees couldn't protect him forever.
A gunshot flew past him and embedded itself in the bark behind him. Sherlock turned to look at it, then faced forward again to meet John's eyes.
"Looks like they're carrying AK-47s. Can't be far," John told him, loading his own gun. "I suggest you get around them, dodge them on the northside, distract them with their own gunfire. Be loud then silent. They'll never see you coming, Sherlock. I can assure it."
"I think you're right, John." Sherlock looked at him. "Follow me closely. This is going to be thin."
Sherlock heard another gunshot, and he ducked his head. He bent low to the ground, then he weaved between the trees. The leaves below his feet crunched loudly, and he heard gunfire shooting the opposite way. Sherlock grinned. John had been right.
The alarm on his watch beeped. Sherlock glanced down.
He looked up, meeting John's eyes again, firm and determined, yet soft and kind. Sherlock smiled. "Happy New Year, John."
Another gunshot. Sherlock ducked again, and when he looked behind him again, John was gone.
"Have you ever thought of getting married?" John asked Mary, who was leaning up against his side on the sofa. "I mean, to me?"
"Ooh, only every day, darling," Mary told him, smiling brightly and softly kissing his lips. "Every day you tell me you love me. Every day you're with me, I'm thinking about it."
John grinned and bent down to kiss her. "Brilliant. Best to know."
Mary grinned back. "You are too, love."
John laughed, unconsciously smoothing down his mustache. Mary glanced down at it, her brow wrinkling before it was smoothed out again. "Why do you ask, anyway?"
"I was thinking about it," John replied with a soft smile on his face. "I want to move on, best I can. It's time. It's been almost two years, you know."
Mary's smile turned sympathetic. "That's right. That can't be easy for you."
"No, it's..." John trailed off. "I always knew he was important to me. But losing him...I can't believe how difficult it is for me to say. You were there for me, Mary, and for that, I will forever be thankful just to have met you."
John looked into Mary's eyes, and all he saw was life. Just life. The life he wants for himself. One the opposite of the one he led with Sherlock.
When he looked into Mary's eyes, he didn't see the battlefield. He didn't get that tingle in his spine, the excitement in his heart. Not like he did with Sherlock. With Mary, it was calm. Just quietness. Security. And the promise that everything was going to be ordinary.
John looked up in the seat in front of him, and Sherlock was staring at him again. But this time, he was absolutely silent.
This time, when midnight struck, Mary kissed him, and John felt like everything might work out just averagely. Just the way he needs it to.
Sherlock smoked another cigarette, the map before him wrinkled, ripped, and damp. But still readable.
Gashes lined his arms and legs, his back aching from the unhealed whip marks embedded in his skin. Sherlock shook his head, trying not to focus on the immense pain pounding through his body.
Instead, he tried to focus on John's eyes.
"I think if you hit here, here, and here," fake-John told him with certainty. "You can catch them off-guard. Especially if you avoid the back entrance, that's where they'll think to catch you first."
"So where would I have to go in?" Sherlock asked bending forward to look at where his John was pointing. "What other way is there?"
"Right-" John pointed to another point. "-there. It's only watched over by one man. It'll be their downfall not to arm it. It's the only way, I think."
Sherlock looked at John, his own face soft, scarred, and muddy. "I think this could work."
John stared back at him. "I know it will. Long as we stick together. Sherlock, you can't make a mistake here."
"I know. And I won't." Sherlock licked his lips. "Not when I'm so close to seeing you again."
John fell silent, then he smiled and nodded, a soft look igniting in his eyes. It was a look Sherlock had seen several times before. "Happy New Year, Sherlock."
Sherlock checked his watch."Already?"
"You ought to leave now. Midnight on New Year's? Fewer people at the door." John looked at Sherlock knowingly. "Of course I've kept track. Now go. The people of London deserve to see you again. I deserve to see you again. Now go."
Sherlock huffed a laugh. His eyes met John's, full of love, admiration. His stomach flipped. "I'll come back to you. Soon."
John said, "You better, and you better be alive. Now, go."
Sherlock burst out from the door of the half-burned house he was squatting in. The quietness of the area, the woods, was enough to keep his mind calm. The leaves crunched below his boots, the snow around him falling steadily around him, into his wild curly hair and long wild beard.
But it was all worth it. Sherlock will always remember that.
Anything for John Watson.
"Happy New Year, everyone!" Lestrade called out throughout the Baker Street flat. "The clock's counting down!"
John grabbed Mary's hand and tried to match her smile. "Another year, my darling," he said to her evenly. "Although it is much different this time."
Mary glanced up, watching Sherlock moving around the room absentmindedly. She shook her head. "Remember, he must have been through a lot. You said he spent two years abroad, fighting Moriarty's network?"
"Yeah," John sighed heavily. "I never got so many details, but...you can imagine, right? He's never going to talk about it as much as we want him to."
"He's independent," Mary responded. "At least from what I've heard of him. I don't think he's the sort to seek out help."
"But, from what I have seen," Mary continued. "he is the sort to answer calls for help. He raced in that fire to save you. I saw it for myself. He will help if you just let him."
"I don't need help, Mary, he does," John told her. "He's back after two years-"
"And he's just come back to his best friend, who's moved on with his life. Who's getting married next summer." John bit the inside of his lip at that. "He should at least help you continue to grow. And if he doesn't, then he's not really a friend, though, is he?"
John looked back at Sherlock, who was standing rod-straight in the corner of the room, speaking with Molly Hooper. Sherlock looked up momentarily, right into John's eyes. Sherlock held his stare for a moment before they both broke away.
John shook his head, trying to focus on his fiancée in front of him.
"Is he still talking to her?"
Molly looked at John for a moment from across the room, who was grabbing Mary's hand and leading her to the kitchen. She nodded. "Yes, Sherlock, I'm afraid he is."
Sherlock gritted his teeth. "They're getting married in May, about to spend the rest of their lives together. Don't they think they have their entire lives to talk?"
Molly looked at Sherlock sympathetically. "Can't imagine how this must be for you. I mean, he just moved out? You haven't seen him for two years, barely at all this past month since you came back."
"John made his choice. And if it's her, that's…"
Sherlock glanced at John at that moment, watching as he kissed his fiancée tenderly on the cheek. Sherlock trailed off, before falling completely silent.
Then Sherlock met John's eyes for a moment, and he purposefully stared right at him. Silently asking him to break away and talk to him instead.
Of course, John didn't read his mind. Instead, he turned back to his fiancée. Sherlock let out a long sigh.
"Sherlock." Molly's brows were wrinkled, her eyes wide with realization. "Are you jealous?"
Sherlock straightened his back. "I'm not. I'm just..."
Molly's eyes widened. "You're not just jealous...you're..."
Sherlock stopped, and he looked down sharply to the ground. He felt the walls fall for just a moment around his one confidant, and his shoulders slumped.
He met Molly's eyes, who returned the gaze with sympathy and sorrow.
"Molly..." Tears came to his eyes.
Molly sighed, placing a palm on Sherlock's cheek. "Oh, Sherlock-"
"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!" Lestrade called with the entire room. "Happy New Year!"
The following year brought a gunshot, fired from Sherlock's gun and into Magnussen's head. John was still shaking on the inside from the moment it happened. And he couldn't get the tender look in Sherlock's eyes out of his mind.
"Give my love to Mary!" Sherlock had called above the deafening whir of the helicopter blades. "Tell her she's safe now."
The tarmac moment was also forever present in his mind and will be forever. Because John knew there was more than what Sherlock was telling him.
If John's deductions were right, Sherlock had been on his way to his death.
And John had had no idea what to say to him as a final goodbye.
Sherlock had looked at him deep into his eyes, his ungloved and bare hand outstretched to him to shake. "To the very best of times, John," he had said.
And how true it was. Sherlock was the best of his life; that's what John should have said.
That's what he should have said years ago.
Before Mary shot him. Before Mary lied to him. Before he promised his life to her.
The clock was ticking down again. The minutes were going by faster than John had thought, faster than he had ever seen them.
Because as soon as he leaves 221B Baker Street, he's going to have to go back to his wife.
And it scared him how much he didn't want to do that.
Sherlock had brought John back to Baker Street on Mycroft's orders, but this was the first of his brother's orders he couldn't help but genuinely want to obey.
This was the first time they'd been alone since the Stag Night. Since they sat together in those two chairs. Since Sherlock felt John drunkenly brush his thumb against his knee. Since Sherlock wanted to blurt out just how much he didn't want John to marry Mary the next week.
He would have chosen to tell John that Mary is a liar. But he didn't. Because he'd never do that to John Watson, never, because he didn't choose Sherlock.
And he never, ever would.
Sherlock glanced at John. "Do you have time for tea, then?"
John gave a heavy sigh. "I wish I did. I really, really do."
Sherlock looked at John, letting the words hang in the air. John paused in his movements, clenching and unclenching his fists. He glanced at Sherlock.
"Because I have a duty to my wife."
Sherlock nodded solemnly. "I understand. John, it's almost midnight. You should be with your wife. You should be…"
You should be with her, not with me. Because you're not married to me. You're married to her. She makes you happy in a way I never will be able to.
Sherlock cleared his throat, forcing those words away from his throat. He said instead, "you should be in your own home."
John nodded. "Yeah. I know. But I don't want to-"
Sherlock bit down on his tongue. He really shouldn't have said that.
John looked at him. Sadness and exhaustion were in his eyes. "Sherlock, don't you start-"
"So pretend I don't," Sherlock told him firmly. "Pretend I'm too high to think straight. Let me say it. Please don't go home to Mary. Please stay here."
Sherlock stared at John despairingly. The words hung in the air.
Sherlock had never begged for mercy in his life. He has now.
John shifted on his feet, and he wouldn't speak. Deciding what he was going to say.
Then finally, John said, "Sherlock, I wish-"
Then John's phone rang. He looked down, his sentence interrupted. John stared at his phone for a long, long time. He almost let it ring out.
Then he answered it. "Yeah?'
Sherlock looked at John, his heart pounding, so low it was almost to his feet.
And also practically bleeding into John's hands.
John nodded. Made some noncommittal noises. Glanced up at Sherlock once or twice. Then, "Okay. I'll be there soon. I love you."
Sherlock felt his face fall. John looked into his eyes. Apologies were written in the air, all across John's face. But it wasn't ever said aloud.
"It's Mary. Sherlock, I'm sorry, but I have to..."
"Go." Sherlock gestured to the door. "I'll… I'll see you later."
John nodded. His feet didn't move, though, as if they were rooted to the very ground of Baker Street. John looked up at Sherlock, swallowing hard.
Then, after an even longer moment, John turned, and he left the way he came.
Sherlock stood in the middle of the room for a long time after that. Even after the clock struck midnight.
It'd been a long, long, long time since Sherlock had felt this happy.
John was in the corner playing with Rosie, wearing a 'Happy New Years' hat too big for his head, with one on Rosie's to match. Mrs. Hudson sat right beside him holding a toy in front of the little girl's face, much to her delight.
Lestrade made his next silly face at her, switching into a bright smile upon the sound of little Rosie's laughter.
Sherlock grinned. How such a beautiful creature came from such a poor and failed marriage was beyond even him.
John's eyes were happy again, his blue eyes alight with mirth and joy, a man unburdened. Even his shoulders were less tense, now holding his daughter the way they should.
"Sherlock?" Molly said. "I'm sorry I haven't been... how are you doing? I know that explosion must have-"
"Molly, what are you talking about?" Sherlock said, turning to her incredulously. "I'm the one who owes you an apology."
"Oh Sherlock, please, we've talked about this before," Molly told him, waving her hand once. "I can't imagine what you had to go through on that dreadful island. I only hope your sister is-"
"Eurus is doing fine," Sherlock replied easily. "Everything is fine. Perfect, actually."
Molly looked at John, then back at Sherlock. "Everything?"
Sherlock looked at John, and their eyes met. John smiled warmly at him, a smile Sherlock hadn't seen in a long time.
One that was genuine. One that was John.
Sherlock nodded. "It's perfect enough."
Then Rosie started crying, with an ensuing of "awwwww!" chorusing throughout the flat.
"Looks like someone might be ready for her nap," Mrs. Hudson announced. John laughed.
"I'll take her to the nursery," Sherlock volunteered with a soft smile. "I was just heading out anyway."
"Well try to make it back for the New Year, darling," Mrs. Hudson told him kindly. "The bells about to chime, you know."
Lestrade handed Sherlock her rattle, and Mrs. Hudson stood to hand her over, whom Sherlock tenderly took into his arms.
Sherlock headed into the back room.
John followed right behind him.
Sherlock turned around, startled, as the door closed shut behind him.
John stood there, with his hand still hanging from the doorknob. As if, for one second, he thought about leaving entirely. But then his hand slipped away, hanging loosely at his side confidently and with certainty.
John wasn't going anywhere.
"Sherlock, there's something I need to say. And I need to say it now, or it's never going to get said."
Sherlock nodded. He lay Rosie down. "Okay. Is something wrong?"
John looked away. "Look, I… I made the wrong decision. Last year."
"Well, not just last year. Every time I went home with her. When I knew that wasn't something I wanted to do." John stepped closer. "Every time I knew...that I would rather have been with you. Not her."
Sherlock met his eyes. "John-"
"Sherlock, I know this doesn't make any sense. But...whatever you have to say...please let me tell you this first."
A moment of silence passed before John could continue.
"Sherlock, I have never...regretted anything more than marrying her. I should have-I should have been with you. The whole time. I don't know what I was thinking, and I'm so sorry I…"
John stopped at the shocked look on Sherlock's face. John's face fell. "I really shouldn't be saying this to you."
Sherlock felt the weight on his chest relieve itself as soon as the words escaped from his mouth. Sherlock couldn't believe how right it felt to finally say it, and for John to finally hear it.
John sighed, and he smiled so softly that even Sherlock felt his heart melt in his chest. John opened and closed his mouth again and again. Trying to find a way to reply.
Then, "I've loved you for longer than you will ever know."
There it was. The words finally said, finally out in the open. Sherlock couldn't look away from John's eyes.
Then the beeping started. Sherlock didn't even have to look down at his watch. Sherlock smiled wide, his face breaking out into a wide grin.
John stepped forward, and before Sherlock could even register what was happening, Sherlock grabbed John by the waist and kissed him, softly, and without hesitation.
John huffed a laugh, pulled away, then kissed him again.
Finally. A truly happy new year.
