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When Watson came back from Reichenbach he slept in Holmes' bed for a week. He did not go back to his practice or his wife. He did not eat, save for cups of tea and broth that Mrs Hudson left him outside the door. He did not bother to wonder what she thought of him. He did not do anything but lay curled into Holmes' bedclothes, holding Holmes' pillow tight to his chest and reading the note. The pillowcase was always damp and the note was tattered. He did not care if he never rose again.
When Watson finally left Baker Street in response to the fifth telegram from his wife, it was with the carpet bags he and Holmes had bought on the continent. He had filled one with seven of Holmes' best handkerchiefs, a tin of his hair pomade, the clothing that Holmes bought while abroad, a dressing gown, and the morocco case. Watson kept this bag in his consulting room, under his desk. The maids were not allowed to touch it. He kept the note in the cigarette case tucked always in his inside jacket pocket.
When Mary was ill Watson would often sleep in the guest room so that she could try to regain her strength. This was what Watson told himself. He kept the dressing gown under the pillow and the morocco case on the bedside table. When he lay awake at night he remembered that Holmes had once slept in this bed, and when he touched himself he pretended the hand was not his own.
When Mary slid into her own rest he did not move back into their bedroom. He told himself that this was out of grief for her and not because Sherlock Holmes had never slept in that room. He had the maid keep the room aired and had Mary's dressing table dusted. He left her silver backed brush where she had last left it. He kept a picture of her on the bedside table of the guest room, behind the morocco case. He came close to using Holmes' 7% solution more than once.
The night that Holmes returned Watson did not go back to his practice. He did not sleep. When Holmes touched him he did not have to pretend, and when he cried out at his climax it was a prayer of thanks. Later when he tried, with breathless words and fingers twined into Holmes' own, to tell him what he had done and thought and felt in those three years, Holmes listened patiently. Holmes listened more patiently than Watson had ever known, and when he was finished Holmes had kissed him and enfolded him in wiry arms and held him. When Watson finally fell asleep in the early hours of dawn it was to the sound of Holmes' heartbeat, and the feeling of Holmes' arms, and the smell of Holmes's hair.