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You died on a Monday.
I watched it happen, because you asked me to.
Please, John. Will you do this for me?
So I did. Of course I did.
Because that’s the way it always was with us. You asked, and I said yes.
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We buried you on a Thursday.
It rained. Though that’s hardly news, I suppose. It is London, after all. It always rains. Not that the rain ever stopped you from haring off into it when there was a mystery to solve, taking impossibly long strides with your shoes slapping water up off the concrete in your wake, splashing my trousers and jacket as I ran behind, arriving at wherever it was you were leading me soaked from head to toe while you shook off the rain with a careless toss of your head, wild curls and flushed cheeks looking all the more dashing for the sprint.
That’s how I wanted to remember you: Eyes bright and out of breath and buzzing with energy and bursting with genius.
When they asked me what you should be buried in, I gave them your navy suit and a white shirt and three nicotine patches and told them it would be a closed casket. They didn’t argue.
It was a simple service, just a few words really. Here lies our dear departed brother, ashes to ashes, thy kingdom come, etc.
Mrs. Hudson was there. So was Lestrade. And Molly.
Mycroft didn’t come.
They stayed as long as they could, of course. Spoke softly to me in hushed tones, rubbed my shoulders with understanding hands, tried to persuade me to come back to the car with gentle promises of warmth and supper and tea and company—but I wouldn’t go. I said I couldn’t bear to leave you there alone, but that was a lie.
I couldn’t bear to leave you there and be alone.
Not again.
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I met her on a Tuesday.
She breezed into the surgery in her red woolen coat with her hair mussed from the wind and a smile that lit up the room and a laugh that filled the newly brightened space. She was clever and funny and able and pretty.
I liked her immediately.
That afternoon the surgery had a new nurse, and that night I had a date.
We had drinks and dinner and lively conversation and when she took my hand as I walked her to her flat and wove her small fingers between mine the feeling was so unfamiliar that it took me a few moments to recognize it—to puzzle out what the thrum of my pulse in my ears and the spring in my step and the rush of air in my lungs all meant. It was something I’d not felt for a very long time:
Alive.
After months of living under a veil of grief I believed might never be lifted, a year and a half spent missing the one person who’d given me a reason to live when I’d lost hope that I’d ever find one again, a warm hand slipped into my own and helped me see the way to a new one.
On that ordinary Tuesday night, I came back to life.
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You came back to life on a Friday.
Your timing was impeccable, as always.
A diamond ring in my hand, a lovely woman across the table, a poorly prepared speech surrounding the most important question I’d ever asked, and suddenly there you were.
Standing before me in your stolen tie and smug grin and penciled-on moustache and awkward attempts at humor about mine and your (gloriously, amazingly, miraculously) god-damned beating heart—as though the last two years of my life were all a big joke and this was your moment to deliver the long awaited punch-line.
So I beat you to it.
Split your lip and bloodied your nose and raised enough fuss to get us kicked out of three different restaurants and then left you exactly as you were the last time I’d seen you—bleeding on the sidewalk.
Only this time, I’d been the one to put you there.
This time, at least I knew you were alive.
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I married her on a Saturday.
You were there, of course. Practically planned the whole bloody thing, really.
The three of us were thick as thieves then—you and Mary negotiating all day about invitations and bridesmaids gowns and menus and cake flavors and flowers and schedules and serviettes and all manner of things I pretended to have an opinion about—you and I chasing down London’s more interesting criminals all night.
Life was good. I loved a woman who loved my best friend who loved the woman I loved.
And when the big day came, I stood between the two people who meant the most to me in the entire world.
I stood beside her, my new wife.
You stood beside me, my best man.
There were photographs and church bells and cake and wine and telegrams and speeches and surprises and tears and attempted murder and an arrest before the night was over.
That day, I knew without a doubt that I was the luckiest man alive.
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She shot you on a Wednesday.
I didn’t know it was her, of course. Not then, anyway.
I knelt beside you on the floor and fought to keep you breathing—to keep your heart beating until the paramedics could get there—my hands stained red with the blood that I couldn’t stop from seeping between my fingers no matter how hard I pressed them against the wound.
I stayed beside you all night, you know. Stared at the monitor until my eyes stung with the effort of keeping them open, watched each sharp peak rise with every beat of your heart, held your long fingers in the palm of my hand and silently begged you not to leave me again.
Please, Sherlock.
Please…
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You kissed me on a Sunday.
Long after Christmas, after Magnussen, after ‘Moriarty’, after the baby that never was, after the divorce, after I’d come home.
There were no flowers or grand gestures or violin sonatas or long winded declarations.
There was Chinese takeaway, and bad telly, and sitting closer together on the couch (again) than two best mates probably should. There was a yawn, and a stretch, and a long arm falling to rest on the back of the sofa before sliding easily down and around my shoulders. There was a questioning look, an answering smile, and a soft press of lips.
And then another.
There was a wet slide of one mouth against another, the slight scrape of stubble, a soft nuzzle of noses and sweet huffs of breath on heated skin.
There were sighs and moans and sweat and slick and gasps and fingers and tongues and lips and skin pressed against skin—and it was all fine.
There were many more Sundays to come, filled with hundreds and hundreds of kisses.
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You asked me on a Monday.
I watched you get down on one knee, then hold up a ring.
Please, John. Will you marry me?
So I did. Of course I did.
Because that’s the way it always is with us. You ask, and I say yes.