A study in photos - from the album of John H. Watson
December 2010, Baker Street. This smartass is staring at some piece of paper while deducing the hell out of it. Look at how focused he is, I mean, I could draw a moustache on his face and he would never know it.
Maybe - why not? - I’ll do it for real.
* * *
March 2011. He brought me at this lab, there were a corpse and some blood on the floor. He grabbed my hand and whispered “John, do you see it too?”. His eyes were shining with a light I rarely see. They were beautiful, grey-blue like an ocean, with some green on the inside. I asked “What?”, “All of this…. The truth” he answered. I smiled and looked away. He pulled back and started deducing everything, and he’s still doing it as I write this on a note.
Don’t know what he’s thinking. Don’t know what is happening. But he’s beautiful, isn’t he? I could look at his silhouette forever.
* * *
October 2011, Baker Street. He turned to me and said “John, don’t you think that…?”, then stopped and looked at me holding my phone to take a picture of him. I swear, his face was priceless, with those pink lips parted, a whole sky opened with confusion under his dark eyelashes. I started giggling - I couldn’t help but do it. Then, as he was looking at me, the corner of his lips started rising up.
“You… took a picture of me, John?” he asked with the tiniest smile curling his mouth “Why?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t and I closed my eyes for a while. When I opened them again, he was still staring at me, but closer than before. There was silence, except for the sound of my heart beating against my ribs.
His lips were soft. I enjoyed it.
* * *
January 2012, King’s Road. I can’t believe he’s actually wearing the ‘damn hat’! People are pointing at him and calling him The Genius With The Hat and he’s complaining about it with Lestrade. But I think he’s secretly pleased - and I trust my opinion, as I am given to know him very well. People finally like him and I am happy.
He deserves it.
* * *
February 2012, Baker Street.
John stares at the old photos in the album, while the dust slowly whirls around him in the grey light coming through the curtains. The paper smells good, smells of old memories and Baker Street and oh God, smells so much of Sherlock. That light, slightly bitter smell mixed with a bit of sugary.
But Sherlock is dead.
It’s almost funny how the world keeps going on, even if an essential part of it is vanished into thin air. Because Sherlock was an essential part of it. And now he’s dead, even though his smell is laying on the couch, in the stairs, in the bedroom he and John have shared so many times.
I love you, he thinks. I love you. Again and again. I love you so much.
John holds his breath until he can’t help but inhale the dusty air of 221B of Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson has stopped coming upstairs to clean or chat or make tea. She has stopped doing anything. She just sits at the table downstairs and sobs, trying to make the lowest sounds possible. John can hear her. But he won’t go to comfort her.
He just sits on Sherlock’s armchair, wrapped in one of his coats, staring into space and begging for this torture to end.
* * *
April 2014, Brick Lane. I just made a joke and Sherlock now is laughing as it was the funniest thing he has ever heard. While he was… away, I had almost forgotten how beautiful his laughter sounded. There are some wrinkles around his eyes… I’m sure that before the fall he had less. But I don’t care. I don’t even care that I’m going to marry Mary, a woman, and that she’s my present. I don’t care, because Sherlock is my past and my future.
Why did he have to jump, that day of two years ago? Now it’s all so complicated. We are sadder. More divided. More lonely. Even if now he’s laughing, there is a deep grief in his grey-blue eyes.
I’m so confused.
* * *
September 2015, Baker Street. Again Baker Street. Perhaps he was about to tell me how he had just brilliantly solved the case, but he noticed that I was trying to take a picture of him. He smiled, and at first it was an amused smile. “You are not changed, John” he said, as it was an amazing thing. But then his eyes became sad and the smile disappeared.
I cleared my throat and tried to find something - anything - to say. Then I whispered “Neither are you. Always beautiful, just as I remembered”. He winced. I winced. There was an overwhelming silence.
“Sherlock…”
“It’s okay,” he said avoiding my eyes “It’s okay. I understand. It’s okay”.
What did he understand? I don’t know. We were in love, but it all fell apart and now my fiancée is a woman. There is nothing else to understand.
Except for a thing. We are still in love. But we can’t do anything about it.
* * *
May 2017, Westminster Cathedral. We did it! We got married this morning! It was strange and crazy and beautiful.
Sherlock was surprisingly early and kept looking at me while the priest was talking. At some point he took my hand - it was sweaty, but it’s okay, because mine was too - and whispered “I love you, John” with a shaking voice and teary eyes. I almost started crying. I’ve spent a lot of time telling people I didn’t like men, because I was scared to admit it. But in that moment, I swear, I was sure I love him with all myself.
“I love you too, Sherlock” I whispered.
Sherlock didn’t wait for the priest to end his speech, but he grabbed my back, pulled me against his chest and kissed me passionately. The crowd started laughing and clapping - even Mycroft, although I suspect that Molly forced him.
Perhaps it was worth it, waiting all those years of grief to can finally hold his hand on an altar. I really miss Mary and I feel quite responsible for her death, but I wouldn’t change a thing of what happened. I am free, now. And I’ll be free until Sherlock will be with me. Forever and ever.
And now I can say it out loud: I love Sherlock Holmes.
* * *
From the album of John H. Watson (a little addition by mrs Hudson):
I noticed that my dear John left some notes next to each photo, thus I’ll do it too.
I took this on their first month together, while they were focused on solving one of their little cases. They were so hesitant and unsure of how to approach each other. They didn’t think about the pain that was waiting for them. James Moriarty was just a strange echo, a voice that didn’t bother them. They were happier and more lonely at the same time.
Alas, my memory wasn’t - and isn’t - so good, so I always forgot to give them this photo, then Sherlock faked his own death and I couldn’t give it away. John already had so much photos of Sherlock… so I kept this one.
But now it has been laying in my flat for too much time. My dear boys are on their honeymoon solving cases around the world thanks to Mycroft Holmes (I think he’s changed after all the sister thing), and I want to surprise them. I’m going to give them this photo, my favourite.
It will be a reminder that they lost so, so many things, but they always supplied with each other’s presence.
I wish you all the best, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
Sincerely, Martha Louise Hudson
