Black Hole -REICHENBACH SPOILER ALERT!-

I've heard people compare death to a hole, an empty space in your heart. And I'll admit, I used to think like that, too: I'd lost family, friends, acquaintences, patients, complete strangers, and each one seemed to take a little piece of me with them.

Leave it to Sherlock to aim higher.

A gap would be an improvement to this black hole in my chest that seems to be sucking in everything, every part of me and every memory that was him.

He...the body...it...was stretched out, cold and still on an even colder table. They've left me alone. They've been leaving me alone a lot lately, as if they think I'm volatile.

Maybe I am.

Deep breath. Look at his face, John. Just do it. Even though it's worse than being shot, take a long, hard, final look at the chin and set of the eyes and remember their colour. Memorise the cheekbones and the mouth. Don't forget the hair, a mop of dark, curly hair that they've rinsed out, but you still can't help but picture soaked with blood.

My hand is shaking, but I gently reach out and touch his hair. The fringe, that is. I'm careful to avoid the back and the side where I know I'll find the soft damage that...

That...

Oh, what am I doing? I haven't cried yet, but now tears are streaming down my face and I don't care, because maybe if I keep crying long enough the water will fill that dark, empty vacuum in my chest. My fingers bury deeper into the fringe, clasping the dark curls, holding on so I'm not dragged away.

Slowly my elbow sinks down until it rests on the hard metallic table, but my wrist is bent and my fingers are still entwined in his hair and maybe they'll never come out.

Eternity later, someone comes and gets me. There aren't any tears left but I'm still shaking with silent sobs. I'm so exhausted, I don't even fight it when they take him away...or am I the one moving? Somehow I end up at Mrs Hudson's table with a hot mug of tea in my hands.

I don't drink it. Everything brings him back, and this mug is hallucinogenic coffee. The open fridge, a question if I'm hungry, is experiments on human appendages that will never be finished. The instruction to sit in 221B and "work things out" is him bored: shooting holes in the wall, pacing like a caged panther, curled up on the sofa like a sulking child.

Finally I go to my room, curl up on my bed, the only place that's still mine and only mine. I lay on my bed, staring at the still ceiling fan, for hours, but I don't sleep. I'm trapped somewhere between asleep and awake.

Somewhere where my best friend in the world...Sherlock Holmes...is still alive.