The Blog of Dr. John H. Watson

Journey Back

Unpublished - Draft saved 13:09 P.M.

I know I haven't posted much in the last few years. I've got excuses, but they don't mean anything, and for those of you who were expecting updates, I'm sorry. But I feel like there's something important that I need to say, and if you've been reading the papers, you probably already know what it is.

Sherlock's gone.

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It started with little things.

"John!" His voice bellowed from the sitting room. "Where is it? Where did you put it?"

"Put what?" I padded into the room, two cups of tea in hand. Sherlock had almost destroyed the sofa, tossing cushions left and right

He whirled around to face me, his eyes glinting. "Your laptop! Where did you hide it? I was just using it a moment ago!"

I frowned. He had been using it a minute ago. I glanced around the room and spotted it on the desk, hidden under a stack of books and papers. "Right there."

Sherlock blinked. "Ah. Yes. Thank you." He then proceeded to toss the books over his shoulder and plopped down in front of the computer, typing rapidly. I handed him his tea, and we went about our day as usual.

It didn't seem abnormal at the time. He'd done things like that before, even when we were much younger. But something told me this time was different.

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Things continued like that for a while. Sherlock would forget the keys, or what he was looking for in the kitchen. Small things, really. Short-term memory loss comes with age. I've had a bit of a problem with that, myself. So it was nothing to get worked up about.

But one day he forgot something important.

We'd gone into town to get groceries. I still don't know why he insisted on coming with me; he hated how boring it was, and I hated how he would whine the entire time about something or other.

This time, though, he was oddly quiet. If I asked him to get something for me, he did it without complaint. I didn't really think too much of it until we arrived at the register and started unloading the cart.

"When are we going home?" he asked quietly.

I frowned. "Right after we buy all this."

"No." Sherlock shook his head. "I mean home. London. 221b."

We had moved out of London ten years earlier.

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That was easy to blow off, though. Maybe he had just wanted to go back to the old flat for a visit. Maybe he wanted to move back to London. There were lots of excuses for it, and I did--I excused all of it because I didn't want to think that there was a problem. He was just getting older, like the rest of us.

Eventually he started losing track of the days, and once he thought it was spring when it was quite obviously winter. Sometimes he'd forget where he was, and he was even more quick to anger on occasion. I still brushed it off, though. No reason to worry.

The next big thing he forgot, though, made me realize my hope was unfounded and dragged me back to reality.

Sherlock had been pacing the sitting room for a good half-hour, constantly looking from his laptop to me. "John!" he finally said, this time his eyes on the computer. "Call Lestrade. I think we might have a case."

I froze. "I don't think that's such a great idea," I replied slowly.

He looked up at me from the laptop screen with a scowl. "Of course it is. I never have any ideas except for great ones."

Even in old age, he didn't become any more modest. I tried again, clearing my throat. "Why don't you just let the arresting officers handle it, yeah? I'm sure they know what they're doing."

"When have they ever?" He rolled his eyes at me and held a hand out for his mobile, his eyes glued to the screen. After a couple of moments, when he realized his hand was still empty, he looked up at me quizzically.

I took a deep breath. "Sherlock, Lestrade's been dead for fifteen years."

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After that, I insisted he see a doctor. Sherlock of course reminded me that I was, in fact, a doctor, and then I reminded him that I couldn't diagnose family, but I'd go with him if he wanted. He threw a temper tantrum, and once he realized he didn't have a choice in the matter, we went anyway.

The diagnosis shouldn't have been a surprise, but it still wasn't what either of us wanted to hear.

Alzheimer's.

The doctor gave Sherlock a prescription for several different types of medication that might or might not work. He didn't have to explain anything else to us after that. We both knew it would be a downward spiral from that point, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

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Although his memory of the last twenty or so years was shot, Sherlock remembered things in the far past extremely well. On our thirtieth anniversary, he played the same song he'd written for our first dance at our wedding. I didn't even think he'd kept the sheet music, but apparently he had. Some nights he would regale me with stories of his childhood, some of which he'd never spoken a word about before. But any time I brought up, say, the last case he solved--the one with the horse stable and the colt that won the Derby--he would just give me a blank stare and change the subject. Sure, it was seventeen years ago, but he used to brag about that one all the time, and when he couldn't even remember the name of the stable...

One thing he never forgot, however, was his bees. Sherlock loved his hive and took care of them as though they were his children. It was rather interesting to watch: such a stoic, intellectual man handle his bees and whisper sweet things to them as he collected their honey. We used to take jars and jars of the stuff into town every two weeks and sell it to passersby. Or, at least, I did. Sherlock though it was tedious. And maybe it was, but it was better than sitting at home and doing nothing, which is what we did most of the time. But it was a good nothing. Definitely relaxing from the all the something we did when we were younger.

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It wasn't easy for him, though. He knew what was happening to him, and I think that was the worst part. Whenever he said something that wasn't quite right, I'd try to go along with it, but he was always able to read me too easily. He'd see he'd made a mistake because my pupils were dilated or my pulse increased or something ridiculous, and then he'd go off and have a pout.

Sherlock wouldn't want me to tell you the details. He wouldn't want me to tell you how sullen and quiet he became when he got something wrong. He wouldn't want me to tell you that some days he never left the bedroom because he'd forgotten something important and was too embarrassed to come out. He wouldn't want me to tell you that there was one night, not long after the diagnosis, that he cried in my arms because he couldn't believe that this was happening to him, of all people, a man who relied on his memory and logic above all else.

I'm not telling you this because he asked me not to. I'm telling you this because Sherlock Holmes was as human as they come, and it broke me because there wasn't a villain who needed shooting or a crime that needed to be solved. There was nothing I could do to save him this time.

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He'd always said that he wanted to die chasing a criminal around London. I'd always said he was an idiot, and if it ever happened, I'd bring him back to life and then kill him again for being so stupid.

There wasn't a long hospital stay or a painful story to it. That's not to say it wasn't sad; it tore my heart out. But I think it helped, knowing he wasn't in physical pain or in a care home or completely out of his mind. I don't know what I would have done then.

To be honest, I never thought it'd happen. Sherlock was indestructible; he'd avoided death more than once, so who was to say he wouldn't do it again? I definitely didn't expect him to go before I did. I definitely didn't want him to.

That day had been normal. Well, at least for us. We had breakfast, Sherlock took his medication, and then we went out to tend to his hive and collect their honey. He bottled it and told me we'd have enough to sell in a couple more days. I made note of it and promised to go into town that next Sunday.

Then we went to the sitting room, and I read some of the stories from the paper while he did an experiment involving a Bunsen burner and an eyeball. It was a game we'd played for years. He'd stop me--sometimes when I was only a sentence into the story--and tell me how it ended, never looking up from whatever he happened to be doing. He was always right.

Sherlock took a nap after that. It was strange; before, when we'd only known each other for a few years, I was constantly telling him to get more sleep. But in the last several years he out-slept me. I guess all that lack of rest caught up to him.

In the afternoon, we went into town and ate dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant. It was his favorite place to eat in Sussex, and he had insisted that we go. I'm really glad he did, now.

When we got back to the house, we had some wine (maybe a bit too much) and sat and talked. He told me more about his childhood, and I told him some stupid stories about my Army mates. Just regular conversation, really, but it felt more than that at the time.

Some days I look back and wonder if he knew what was going to happen.

It was late when we finally went to sleep. We were both a little drunk and stumbled up the stairs together, and by the time we reached the bedroom, we collapsed on the bed in a heap. He told me he loved me, and I told him he was a drunken git, and we both laughed. And then we fell asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, he was gone.

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The first time he died, I said he was the best man and most human being I'd ever known. That's still true, but I feel like I can't just say "he's passed away" and leave it at that.

He didn't have a funeral. Didn't want one. To be honest, I would probably have been the only one to show up, anyway. Most of our friends are dead, except for Molly, and she immigrated to America a long time ago with her fiancé. She wouldn't have a reason to come back just for Sherlock.

Anyway, since he didn't have a funeral, he didn't have a proper eulogy, either, and that's what I want to do. Because he deserves it, probably more than anyone else I know. Definitely more than anyone else I know.

You know what he was like. I don't think I need to remind you how brilliant and amazing he was one more time; it's written all over the blog. And, yeah, that's a big part of who he is, but it's not everything about Sherlock Holmes. It doesn't even scratch the surface.

If I told you he was caring, you'd probably laugh at me. If I told you he was kind, you'd probably call me an idiot. And yet he was both of those things to the people and things he cared about. Granted, that group's very small, and even within it he had to be in the right mood, the right temperament to be kind or caring or loving. But he was capable of it.

He wasn't the machine people made him out to be. He was a human being who loved and hated and cared and gave and took and lived, and I was lucky enough to be one of the few people who got to see those sides of him.

Sherlock helped me when I was beyond help. And I didn't even realize that's what he was doing when he offered to take me to that first crime scene. I honestly think if I hadn't met him, I would have died a miserable, insane wreck decades ago. But he wouldn't let me do that. I owe my life to him so many times over, and I don't know if I ever really thanked him for that.

I do know one thing, though. I loved him more than I ever loved anyone else in the world. And I still do. I always will.

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And so ends our story, and this blog. It's been almost a year now, and I still don't know what to do. I think I'll go back to London. Move into the old flat, since it's still empty. Tedious, as he'd say. I guess I'm in for a lot of that from now on.

There are so many things I wish I'd done, things I'd said. But it's for the best, I suppose. He didn't die the way he wanted to, in the middle of what he loved, but he died next to someone he loved. That's got to be worth something.

So, that's it, then. You know where to find me. And, Sherlock, you bastard, wherever you are. Cheers.

John