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John Watson is loyal to a fault. Standing in front of a simple black headstone, he hates himself for it. It is irrational, and pointless, and entirely unpractical. He tells this to the grave of the man who knew him for a cruelly short amount of time. It doesn’t make him feel any better, because he is talking to the carved letters of a name like they will somehow understand what he is trying to say. John knows that he just needs time, but he can’t shake the terrible guilt that hangs over him. It is the ‘what if’ that has followed every tragedy he has ever known, and there are far too many to count. Dwelling, however, won’t make any difference now. Sherlock’s voice in his head tells him this, and he sighs because he knows that it is true, but… It has been a month. It should hurt less by now.
John Watson is a soldier. He is trained and experienced, not only in armed combat, but in bare-knuckled, desperate fist fights. His accuracy and ability have always been admirable; as a trauma surgeon, he knows better than to let his hands shake. It could mean the difference between life and death for some poor sod bleeding out in a stretcher in the sand.
This is why, at two months, John Watson stares at his hands, and curses the intermittent tremor that refuses to cease. It is irrational, he knows, because it is all in his head. Yet the knowledge of this does not make it go away. This is why, when John types up his last blog entry, he does not tell the long story that accompanies his final statement. Instead, he sips thoughtfully at the tea Mrs Hudson has made him, and then goes out to get the shopping.
John Watson is also a doctor. He fixes people, and spent years doing so, stitching wounds that he never wants to see the like of again, even if he can’t help but remember them and the men who earned them when he sees Afghanistan in the news. And, lately, in his dreams. Three months, he knows, even if he makes no conscious decision to count them as they pass. It takes three months for the nightmares to return. He is not sure whether to be surprised that it takes that long, or concerned that they are still solely concerning the war. He does, occasionally, wake from a nightmare that he does not remember, drenched in cold sweat, blood pumping with adrenaline, breathing hard.
Although John Watson is a doctor, he is not a psychiatrist, which is why, at four months, he stops going back to see his therapist. She is not any more help now than she ever was, and the nightmares are not as bad any more. The improvement has nothing to do with Ella’s help.
John knows that he is doing it again; being alone, trying to work out what there is to live for. Resisting the urge to fall back to his old habits, he stays at Baker Street. He tells himself that it is not because Mycroft says that Sherlock’s part of the rent is paid for the rest of the year (which John doubts but does not protest at).
He takes on a full-time position at the surgery, because this time, he knows that the world does not simply stop turning because one person dies. It stings, and sometimes a reminder hits him unexpectedly and knocks the wind out of him, but he does not dwell on it anymore.
At five months, John Watson remembers that he is also a human being, and stops trying to work ridiculous hours of overtime, however much the surgery needs his help. He is frustrated with himself that it has taken him this long to settle into his new routine, but he bears it out and saves the self-depreciation for a day where it might actually be useful, which is never.
This is when John finally moves out of Baker Street and finds another flat. He furnishes it with some of his old possessions, before remembering how little he actually owns. In retaliation of this fact, he stocks the cupboards with the resources he will need for the next week, and buys more than the one army mug that he has owned for too long to remember where it came from. He gets rid of the old furniture and gets some of his own, some nice pieces that are serviceable as well as comfortable, but no more than strictly necessary. The thing is, he is being practical, and taking better care of himself.
John Watson is not naturally a vengeful man, and he has a strong moral compass. He thinks that this is why he does not hang up on the elder Holmes and then launch an assassination attempt when he rings his personal mobile, though it is a close call. He listens while Mycroft explains that they have been unable to retrieve the voice recorded message left on Sherlock’s phone because the damage is too extensive.
John wonders if it took Mycroft six months to realise this, or if it just took him six months to tell John. He decides, reluctantly, that it is far more likely to be the latter, and hangs up on Mycroft mid-sentence. It is a strangely satisfying action.
John Watson is undeniably male, and charming with it. There is a reason why, in the army, he was known as Three-Continents-Watson. His reputation has dwindled slightly with age, but he is reluctant to admit it. He isn’t that old, barely middle-aged yet, and there are plenty of women his age looking for - for want of a better word - ‘love’. After three consecutive failures, he wonders if it is possible that he will have to change his tactics to accommodate for being about three years out of practice. He does so at the seven-month mark, two weeks after getting his social life back on track.
The results are incredibly unexpected, and attract an entirely different type of woman, but he enjoys it. They are generally sweet and companiable and entirely complacent about one-night stands. He keeps in contact with a few of them. Eventually, his reputation grows again, because he frequents the same places and word gets ‘round that although he may not be the looker he once was, he has had plenty of experience, and he is a fucking fantastic lover.
Sarah develops a damning look for whenever he turns up late to the surgery with his shirt buttons done all the way to the top and his tie done tightly to his throat, because even then the fabric doesn’t always cover the marks and really, he never bothers to do much about the state of his hair.
John Watson has killed people. This is why, at eight months (not counting), he points a gun at his ex-best friend’s head.
To be fair to John, though, he arrives home at midnight to find that a man he hardly recognises anymore is standing in the middle of his flat, drinking a can of beer stolen from John’s fridge. The man is well-built, stocky and medium height, with sandy-blond hair and ice-blue eyes. Once James has explained himself, he offers to pay John for the beer by taking him out for another one. John decides that a pint would be brilliant right about now, actually, and the two of them get so far under that when John wakes in the morning he has not got a clue how he got home, or why James Bond is asleep on his sofa. Incidentally, John was apparently asleep on the rug, which seems a bit unfair really, seeing as it is his flat. Anyway, he gives James a hangover coffee strong enough to take the roof off his mouth, and they agree to meet up whenever they can.
They don’t mention old times in that first encounter, which John is grateful for. There are some memories from college that he really doesn’t want to remember, thanks very much, his sexual exploits being among them. Thankfully, James expresses a sincere wish for their renewed relationship to be entirely platonic. John agrees.
The fact that James agrees not to mention that John possesses illegal firearms is definitely a bonus.
John Watson is a good man, which is why he calls the police first when he sees a man being mugged in an alleyway, and then joins in the fray afterwards. The fact that he takes out two of the muggers with his bare fists and accidentally sends a third flying over the Thames barrier has a lot to do with the very first point we discussed about John, although that is irrelevant. This point is demonstrated by the fact that when John finds that a disgruntled, stoned, broken James is the intended victim, he takes him in, because he has never seen James Bond loose a fight before.
James maintains to this day that he could have held them off, which John always snorts at, but the exchange is good-humoured and casual, and neither man has any heart in it. This is why, at ten months, John finds himself once again sharing a flat with one of the most dangerous men in Britain, even if this one spends quite a lot of time abroad and can’t actually tell John his job description. The fact that he doesn’t need to is entirely beside the point. A rather long conversation about the matter basically boils down to this; John drags James out of the gutter, takes him home, sobers him up, and offers to let James stay at his flat if he gives up the alcohol.
Unsurprisingly, James concedes.
John Watson is born to fight battles. Even if he no longer shoots people on a daily basis, he hungers after the adrenaline and the desperation, the liberating terror, the pressure of a time limit and somebody’s life in his hands.
He remembers this after a long conversation with James, who comes back from an unknown destination at eleven months with a nasty wound in his thigh that John recognises as a bullet wound, and does not comment on. John stitches him up, and James comments on how John is a far better surgeon than James ever thought he would be. It is his own way of thanking his friend.
John laughs at him, and then gets a job working at A&E, because James is hardly ever home anyway, and he needs it. It is good work, too. He is fighting again, and this time, he is doing what he does best.
John Watson is not, and never will be, the kind of person to find a conventional flatmate. This he discovers when he comes home to find James Bond, Mycroft Holmes, and a complete stranger on his sofa. James is sulking. Mycroft is suave as ever. The stranger is too familiar for comfort, and he smiles in that way which makes John wary. The man is small, young, and handsome, his dark curls flopping over his pale, drawn face, his expression of eagerness and perpetual curiosity a terrifying reminder of someone John still thinks of too often. Mycroft introduces him as ‘my younger brother’, and John thinks he wants Sherlock back just so he can whack him one for not telling him that there was a third Holmes. However, he can’t help but smile when the boy introduces himself simply as ‘Q’, and gives him a memory stick. He tries not to be surprised when James kisses the boy on the way out.
When they are gone, James willingly offers John information about his job for the first time. John is unsurprised to learn that James is an MI6 agent, and one of the best.
They listen to the voice recording on the pen drive together. It turns out to be the recording that Mycroft said was lost, of Sherlock’s last few minutes. It is Moriarty. John sits down heavily when the recording stops, because he had almost forgotten what this grief could be like. Of course, he had thought it was his fault before, but now… even though the situation is entirely different, the guilt is renewed a hundred times over because it was for him.
James waits up with him through the night, and listens as John simply talks at him.
He rings Greg in the morning, and Lestrade comes over to listen to the tape. Later that night, they all go out for a pint together.
~0~
John takes James to see the grave on the anniversary, because Mrs Hudson had passed away three months before and nobody had thought to tell him until after the funeral. He puts his lilies on her still-fresh mound of earth underneath the new headstone, and maybe cries a little bit because Mrs Hudson is someone who would understand the tears. There is a simplistic angel carved in the stone, and he thinks it suits her well.
There are fresh flowers at Sherlock’s grave too, which is strange, because John never wanted to bring flowers. Sherlock wasn’t that kind of person.
This time, his eyes tracing the thin gold lettering of a name, John realises he really doesn’t have much to say.
“Thank you,” he says first, and then, “You fucking bastard, I hate you for this, you know that?”
James gives him a look of complete understanding, and they go home. Q is waiting for them. James takes them all out to dinner.
~0~
John thinks that, if his life had a motto, it would also be a suitable epitaph. He tells James, who thinks that he is being morbid, and makes John tell him what the motto is anyway. When John says ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, James can’t help but laugh, because John’s dry humour is back, and he didn’t realise how much he had missed it.
John Watson is the kind of man who will always contradict himself. He is unexpected, and unfathomable, an everyday man who is as far from normal as it is possible to be. John Watson is, and always will be, extraordinary.