Opus 43
Do you know the feeling of trying to cry, but tears just won't come out? The feeling of a newborn lump in your throat that grows and grows until you simply have to alleviate yourself of suffering, but when you try, all you can muster up are depressing sighs and chilling shivers. And, for a split second, you wonder if you can cry anymore.
She has felt this way. She has felt this way often, lately.
The night that she found him, note clasped tightly in his right hand, noose hung tightly around his neck. The day of the funeral, where people wore black and shivered because snow starting to crisp the tips of everything, turning around like a merry-go-round and magically turning London into a winter wonderland. The day they told her she should go home, she shouldn't come back to the hospital, there was no helping her. Tears wouldn't come out; not because she didn't care, but because there was just no use in trying any further.
Things that happen, happen. Correct?
She had thought this over as she clasped her sweaty palms together on the bus, legs together, around her cell phone. It was a new model, an iPhone, something so fancy that she swore to herself she would figure it out. However, she was never good with technology - that was one of the many reasons she loved him. He was the one that was good at things. She dug her chin into her scarf and let that same lump grow with her darkening, fading memories, the ones she had tried so hard to repress and dammit just go away already
dammit
just
go
away
"You're unwanted here," They whispered. This was the first of the voices.
She had thought this over as she sat with her knees dug into her eyeballs, hands around her head, clean sheets around her soft, fresh-from-the-shower skin. Would they haunt her forever? It had seemed like years, but it had only been weeks. Now they chattered idly, occupying her, keeping her from going insane. She wasn't sure if this was a bad thing or a good thing.
"They all hate you," They snickered. "Die. Die now."
"GO AWAY!" She screamed, tearing at her blonde hair. She only got this stupid short cut because she knew he would like it; he was the reason she did most things. He was the reason for everything, and when he was gone, that was when it was over. When she knew she was going to go beyond caring and into the unknown world of After Sherlock Died.
No, no, no, no, no
Sherlock, what are you doing?
...you're joking, right?
Just kidding! It's just a joke!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Stop Sherlock
Stop now, Sherlock
Can you hear me Sherlock
TALK TO ME SHERLOCK
SHERLOCK SAY SOMETHING
She thought this over as she sat in the lobby of her local therapists' office for the first time in five years. The last time was the day before the funeral, when the shock kept her hands shaking at all times, when she didn't get a wink of sleep at night. She had retreated back to her cane, and it was then when she realized how much she had missed the old thing. She instantly recognized the old scratches, the bruises, the worn leather. It also suppressed harder times, when her dreams were of a slightly more gory nature. Even that longing for release was nothing like this.
She sat down, keeping her limp at a minimum. She didn't have to act anymore. After an hour of empty speaking, the doctor knew something was up.
"I just... don't feel alive anymore. Not without him. It's not the same."
"Lots of people feel like this. Is it extreme?"
She looked up, the dark circles under her eyes intensifying. "After five years, I still can't think of anything else."
"Come back Saturday. I have some pills I want you to try, Dr. Watson."
She thought this over as she stroked the wedding ring she found behind his pillow. She had wrapped it tightly around her finger and kissed it several times a day, and every single time brought back the shock of the first time she had found it; the authentic diamond must have been so expensive. And to think, he had just been waiting for the right time - it brought her into unmanageable hysterics. There was no way she could ever forgive herself for that. Maybe it was all her fault?
"It's your fault," Mor hissed. He had a nickname now. Mainly because she wouldn't dare speak of Moriarty. Not anymore.
"I know," She whispered, her lips barely moving. Every time they moved, it felt like a machine, cranking and sputtering, clasping open and shut. Speaking felt unnatural and weird. Nevertheless, Mor always got a two-worded response. She had never ignored his remarks.
She thought this over as she flushed her expensive pills down the toilet, her breasts hanging out of her stained white t-shirt. The name, Dr. Joan Watson (she had quit her doctors' job and started working at a pharmacy), stirred and distorted in sudden contact with the water. She finally saw them all go bye-bye. The numbness that had held her back for nearly three months was over, and she would never see any therapist again. She was done playing games. It just wasn't her style.
She would come to regret this, but she had no idea. She was just the same old stupid girl. Didn't know anything about anything. Not without a papa goose to guide her. "Help me," She pleaded, the croaking evident in her voice. A lump had built up. Another damn lump. But this time, tears fell down her cheeks, staining her makeup-less face with red. She hated this. She wanted this end, and end right now. There was no going back.
She thought this over as she sealed the deal with Ms. Hudson and moved out for good. As she called for a taxi, the old leather bags sagged under her weight and pulled her down. They were chocked full of memories, but she tried to keep them pleasant ones. There was no point of leaving London if she brought everything with her! She managed a glum grin at her own joke and got into the cab.
When she reached her new home, she pulled off all of the curtains and let natural sunshine in as she planned, day after day, just how things would work. They had to work, or they just wouldn't work. That was one thing Sherlock had taught her. Planning is important. And everything that was important to him would immortally be important to her. That was her rule. Even though she didn't know it.
"What's the point of this?"
"Quiet, Mor."
After weeks of labor, her flat was beautiful - and she was miserable. She took a shower and cleared her thoughts and sinuses, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she could be happy for herself. She felt so selfish all of the sudden. Dr. Joan Watson, left a large sum of money by a famous detective, is still being so depressed after nearly 9 years of nearly no talk of anyone from her old life, or anyone else, for that matter. People didn't really matter as much for her anymore. She found people to be like food - some are pleasant, but most leave a bad aftertaste. It was better not to eat than be a glutton.
She thought this over as she pounded her head against the white walls of her flat, trying desperately to get Mor out of her head once and for all. Her vision blurred on and off, red eventually filling her vision as well, and when she was finally done, she gripped the wall tightly and turned her attention to the floor, blinking rapidly. Drool fizzed from her mouth and into a puddle on the floor. Her head jerked back and forth a few times a minute, as if some new word had been said, her mind had been tricked into excitement, her emotions zipping up and down from the pressure on her brain.
"I feel absolutely loopy," She giggled. She would hate herself for this. She didn't care much.
She thought this over as she leaned on her pillow in the hospital, tears finally falling freely from her face. She could finally feel the beautiful release of blue drops of ocean-like water onto the musky white sheets that covered her body. Head trauma, they said. Immediate examination, they said. She knew exactly what they were going to do, she was a doctor. After a few days of constant sheet changing because they thought she had spilled a drink (when in reality, she was enjoying her new free tears), she was let out with drugs and a stern warning. She was also suggested to go to a therapist to get to the bottom of what had happened, since she wouldn't cough it up herself. No, Dr. Joan Watson wasn't going to a counselor.
No
Nope
Zip
Zada
Zilch
I will haunt you forever, Joan
She thought this over as she stared at the ceiling in her bedroom, pills scattered around her, as Billy Joel crooned on the radio, scantily clad in her underwear. She blinked again, but her bloodshot eyes wouldn't let up on their constant aching. She finally rolled over and tried to get sleep, only to return to her ceiling position thirty minutes later. This was how she spent most nights, watching the ceiling and waiting for the day her mind would come out of its catatonic cocoon and she would finally wake up from this never ending nightmare. She would feel the sun hit her face, a warm body that smelt of tea wrapped around her, and he would say "Good morning," the way he always did, before getting up to read a book or force her out of bed bridal-style.
Sometimes it felt like this was reality, and that was the dream. Not often.
She thought this over as her mother screamed at her over the phone, how she had let her life go. How moving out of London to this wasteland was such a bad idea. How she should just let go. She had tried to cry that it wasn't that easy, that you didn't just get over it, but she didn't know Sherlock. She didn't feel the same fluttering in her heart when she saw his face light up her cranium, his wrinkly smile, the way he did and said the stupidest things, the way he reassured her that yes, he was a genius. Her mum just couldn't see that. Nobody would ever see it now, because he was -
He was gone. And according to that old hag of a therapist, she was on the road to recovery if she admitted what was wrong. Even if it was more than wrong. It was double triple one thousand million wrong. It had ruined her life. The doctor wasn't afraid to admit anything; it was her mouth, and Mor, that wouldn't cooperate.
She thought this over as various words rolled over her tongue, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, yips. The first one had taken her hope, the second her belief in love, the third her sanity, and the last her leg (for real this time). She had lost everything now. It was stupid, all of this was. The woman had been by herself for ten years. Ms. Hudson had died. Even Mycroft had kicked the bucket, both of them slightly solemn but completely sane. Why did it have to be her? Why did he even have to -
Don't even finish that sentence, Watson.
She let her brain cells die, content on simply not thinking. He would be so disappointed in her.
She thought this over as she attended her mother's funeral, her brother's, her old friends'. They got to die, why couldn't she? She found herself soon wishing for death, for this horrible life to be over. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be! This wasn't why she was living, to suffer, was it!? And if it was, what was the point? Why was she even sticking around?
She thought this over for the thousandth damn time as she held the gun to her head.
Then she set it down on the coffee table, letting out a loud sigh. There was no way she was going to do it. God, she hated herself so much. Why had she even left that day? He wouldn't even be dead if she hadn't insisted on getting milk. She could have stopped him.
Mor began mumbling incoherent sentences. Even he had been reduced to insanity after thirteen years of captivity in her cracked cranium. That didn't make her as happy as it would have maybe 6 odd years ago. In fact, she missed his company. She spent most of her days trapped in her flat bedroom, ignoring the tax collectors as they let the walls of her labor of love crash around her. It was what she deserved, though she hadn't let her mind flutter to that subject much.
She thought this over when she sat in the living room for the first time in years, eating jam and toast, drinking tea, and fiddling with the loaded shotgun in her right hand. She carried it around, just in case she decided to suddenly pull the trigger, but she had always stopped last minute and set it down on the coffee table, content on holding on to something that just wasn't there. They had taken nearly everything now; it would be the perfect place for a suicide. Oh, Sherlock would have loved this case. It made her smirk; if she was going down, she was doing it the perfect way.
She thought this over as she put the finishing touches on her contraption and finally stood back, admiring her new machine. She filled the attached rifle with bullets (her new obsession with guns had just recently grown) and prepared it, as if she was taking a picture. She sat on the couch, her head facing the ceiling.
This was it, wasn't it?
This was the end?
So why wasn't there anything worth thinking about running through her mind?
Why was the most important thing to her, still, and always -
He thought this over, his head in his hands, as he read it in the paper the next day. It was all his fault. And for the first time in years, Sherlock Holmes cried.