"Are you wearing any pants?"

  "No."

  "Okay..." My eyes flick over to Sherlock, meeting his galaxy pupils. We burst out laughing, the snickers and giggles echoing down the halls of the Buckingham Palace.

  Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street. Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ended so suddenly...

I see Sherlock's pale fingers reach out towards me. "Keep your eyes fixed on me," he barely whispers. "Please, will you do this for me?"

  "Do what?" I have to will my voice not to crack. Not to let him know how much I'm breaking inside.

  "This phone call...it's my note. It what's people do, don't they? Leave a note?"

  I shake my head furiously, refusing to believe this is happening. "Leave a note when?"

"Goodbye, John." My ears hold on to the way his baritone voice says my name. How it lingers so slightly on the 'n.'

  "No, don't." My voice falters this time. I can't help it.

  Everything's a blur after that. I hear myself shouting, but I can't quite comphrend what I yell. All I see is Sherlock...flying. Flying towards the ground so, so suddenly and so, so fast...

  Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall. Like the colors of autumn so bright just before they lose it all...

My hands shake in my lap as I dare to glance up at Molly Hooper. Her thin lips are set in a frown, but her chestnut eyes are bright with tears.

  "Seeing him dead. On the sidewalk. Just lying there with blood pooling around his curls..." I whisper almost inaudibly.

  Losing him was blue like I'd never known...

"My life feels incomplete without him here. I want to move on, I really do, Molly."

  Missing him was dark gray all alone...forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met...

  "I thought I loved him," I state, clenching my fists. I had told no one that. But Molly...she was different. I felt like I could trust her.

  But loving him was red. Loving him was red...

  "Take my hand." Sherlock glances down and over at me. My trembling fingers interlock with his. A course of electricity shoots through my arm, and I clench my jaw as we sprint into an alley. I hold on to the memory of his thumb just grazing past my palm barely.

Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you. Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song...

  "What is it?" Sherlock asks boredly, shooting that rubber ball across the tile floor once again. It bounces back and he flawlessly catches it.

  "Paramedics. Mrs. Hudson...she's been shot," I shove my mobile angrily back in my jacket pocket.

  "What? How?"

  "Well, probably one of the killers you managed to attract...Jesus. She's dying, Sherlock. Let's go." I turn towards the lab door, hand already on the doorhandle, ready to spring into action.

  "You go. I'm busy." Those words make me freeze. I slowly turn back to him, scowling. How could he possible say that?!

  "Busy?" I growl.

  "Thinking. I need to think." Sherlock bounces the fracking ball again, watching it move.

  "You need to...Doesn't she mean anything to you?! You once almost killed a man because he laid a fracking finger on her!"

  "She's my landlady," he shrugs.

  Fury fills me. "She's  dying." He's silent. "You utter machine. You know what? You stay here, all on your own."

  "Alone is what I have. Alone protects me,'" he states.

  "No. Friends protect people." And with that, I tear open the lab room door, striding out into the corridor, fists clenched, anger clouding my mind.

  Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answer. Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong...

"Little did I know that thirty minutes later, I would be witnessing the death of my best friend." I cover my mouth with my hand, praying silently to hold the incessant tears back. "I didn't realize how hard it would be. To live like this. All alone."

  Losing him was blue like I'd never known. Missing him was dark gray all alone. Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met...

"But it made me realize so many things. Especially how much I absoutely was hopelessly in love with him."

  But loving him was red. Loving him was red. Oh, red. Burning red...

"I know that he's all that I talk about. But I can't stop remembering him, Molly. I can't stop from thinking about him every moment of every single day."

  Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes. Tell myself it's time now. Got to let go. But moving on from him is impossible when I still see it all in my head...in burning red...

My mind fills with those ebony curls I never got to run my fingers through; those blue, green, gray eyes I never got to spend eternity staring into; those nimble fingers that I never got to squeeze tightly when I said that I loved him. Memories of what was and never would be were always there, taunting. 

  Burning red...