Present Day: John had a really hard time not picking up his laptop while he sat in his room; his curiosity was literally eating him away. He was so close, he knew all he needed to know, he could find out what happened to Sherlock, find out exactly what happened to Victor, solve the mystery, save the day, and he couldn't. Well, at least he couldn't in his house, but when he got to school, that would be another question. Sherlock did a good job of making sure John had no possible temptations to start searching, starting by hiding the laptop cord, turning off the WIFI repeatedly, and one time he even took the laptop when John suggested he do a little bit more digging. John really didn't understand what the big secret was; did Sherlock not know that John knew everything that had happened in his life, had he forgotten that John read all of those letters? But there seemed to be more, something Sherlock obviously didn't want John to find out, hidden in his past.
"This is getting annoying." John decided as he pushed past many crumpled shirts and pants away to dig out his laptop from the top shelf in the closet. Sherlock materialized next to him, sitting on one of the shelves. Immediately the room got colder, but John was done with being scared of Sherlock, like any normal person should be when approached by a ghost. Instead, John really wanted to get a leaf blower and shoo away this paranormal pest.
"You're tempted, I can tell you are." Sherlock decided.
"Yes, well, maybe I find all of the secret a bit useless. I already know everything about you, why can't I know about your death?" John asked.
"It's not what happened, it's what didn't." Sherlock insisted.
"That doesn't really help." John decided.
"Exactly why I kept it vague." Sherlock agreed. John groaned, sitting down on the bottom of the closet floor, looking up at the ghost with wonder. He really couldn't process that he was speaking to someone who had died more than seventy years ago. It had become so casual.
"When I die, do you think I'm going to become a ghost?" John asked.
"If given the option, don't." Sherlock sighed.
"You get an option?" John asked.
"I'm not sure. I don't really know what happened after I died; I just remember darkness, and then light. And I was here, in this closet. I thought I had just passed out or something, but my family couldn't hear me when I screamed, they couldn't see me when I was right in front of their faces, they just cried..." Sherlock sighed.
"So how'd you come back?" John asked.
"I think you're stuck in this world if you have something to stay for." Sherlock insisted. "I had to stay for Victor."
"Everyone's got something to stay for, one way or another. I mean, if someone's terribly devoted to a comic book collection you're saying they'll haunt the world for the rest of their lives? The way you put it, it's like this world is crawling with ghosts!" John insisted.
"Who's to say it's not?" Sherlock asked seriously. John sighed, looking down at the darkened floor, light only by the light coming through the open closet door and the slight glow coming off of Sherlock's skin.
"Are there any other ghosts haunting our house?" John asked.
"Not that I know of." Sherlock sighed. "That could change though."
"Are you saying we'll die and stay here?" John asked.
"I can only hope. It's terribly boring all alone." Sherlock sighed.
"Well you're not alone, I'm here." John pointed out.
"In two years you'll be gone." Sherlock debated.
"I'll come back to visit." John insisted. "And my parents are nice."
"I'm not going to meet your parents. The only reason I showed myself to you is because you got too close to figuring out yourself. And it's better that I reveal my own secrets to one person than have a group of teenagers discover me on heat cameras." Sherlock sighed.
"My friends aren't bad." John sighed.
"Yes, but they'll go running to the media the minute they spot me, and then we'll have ghost hunters, and tourists, and historians, maybe even priests trying to put me to rest." Sherlock sighed.
"Is that a bad thing?" John asked.
"I suppose it's not. But whatever I'm here for, it's not finished." He insisted.
"You're here to find Victor. But like I said, he's probably in Libya; he's probably wandering around the battlefields, knowing that there is no way you'll ever get reunited." John insisted.
"Unless he didn't find me important enough to stay for." Sherlock sighed.
"I doubt that, I read those letters, he was just as found of you as you were him, maybe even more." John insisted.
"I don't want to think about him, mangled, bloody, I don't want to know that he's dead." Sherlock sighed.
"He may not be, but we wouldn't know that because you won't let me use the bloody internet!" John growled.
"I don't want to know! If he's alive that means he doesn't care enough to come, if he's dead that means he didn't care enough to stay, either way he's forgotten about me." Sherlock sighed.
"That's not possible." John insisted.
"I was worried about this, I knew I was just one of his boys, fallen under his charm. The minute I'm out of sight I'm out of mind. He went over to wherever, accompanied by hundreds of all the most fit and attractive men this country could conjure up, I mean, what am I compared to a solider? He probably had ten different boyfriends over there before he died. I'm nothing to him." Sherlock insisted.
"Have you even read these letters? He's in love with you, he said, in one of them, that he wouldn't even blink twice at another person, he said that you were his one and only!" John insisted.
"Well then evidently he was lying!" Sherlock yelled, taking up one of John's dress shoes and chucking it against the wall in rage. Overdramatic, yes. Enough to damage the shoe? Hopefully.
"You're just having a mood swing or something." John sighed.
"It's called realization." Sherlock growled. "That you waited on this earth, cold, alone, and undead, for a boy who was never going to come!"
"He can't come because he's in the same bloody position as you! He's probably in some grass field, or in some museum, wandering around, scared and alone, because he can't go anywhere and he's expecting you to come and see him! He probably thinks you don't care about him either!" John yelled back.
"He knows what happened! He knew I had died, he was there! And he did nothing, he ran, he never came back! I wasn't enough in life; I'm never going to be enough in death!" Sherlock screamed, and with that his form was gone, vanished into thin air for another spiritual sulking session. John just sighed, he knew he should feel bad for Sherlock, maybe just a little bit, but frankly he didn't care. So he grabbed the laptop and lay down on his bed, watching sports until he was called down for dinner or something. When in fact dinner was ready, John sluggishly descended the stairs, and to his surprise was met with a construction site.
"Hi John!" he father said excitedly.
"What in the world did you do?" John asked in shock. Half of the kitchen floor had been torn up, the cracked tile in a big heap near the door with exposed concreate foundation where it had previously had been.
"A little bit of redecorating, just started. I figured since we did such a good job on the porch that we could do an even better job on the kitchen floor!" he said proudly.
"Dad, the porch is unstable." John insisted.
"Well, the construction man is coming to pour concrete tomorrow, so we can sit on it again." Mr. Watson insisted. "It's not my fault that the old house owners didn't put a base on it."
"I'm not sure concreate was invented when this house was built." John mumbled, stepping around his father's tools to go wash his hands.
"Have you seen Harry?" Mrs. Watson asked.
"Not since school." John sighed. "And I didn't like the encounter."
"Well, she's not answering her phone again. We put a curfew on her, she had to be home before five, and it's five thirty and she's not here." Mrs. Watson insisted.
"I bet she didn't like that." John decided.
"Obviously not." Mrs. Watson sighed. They all sat around the table, which had to be moved to the wall so that Mr. Watson could finish his little project, and had homemade macaroni and cheese with stewed tomatoes. It was a good meal, but no one seemed able to enjoy it. Mrs. Watson was anxiously looking towards the door for any sign of Harry, Mr. Watson seemed to be trying to figure out the right color of paint that would go good with the tan tiling he was going to put in, and John was scanning the room for Sherlock. He didn't know if the ghost could come downstairs or not, but if he could John was hoping he'd provide a little bit of entertainment for this otherwise dull dinner. But evidently, Sherlock was either caught up crying in the closet or was trying on John's clothes or reading the letters Victor had sent, because he wasn't in the living room or dining room or anywhere to be seen at all. When finally dinner was over, it had become six forty five, and still there was no sign of Harry. Mrs. Watson was obviously becoming beyond nervous, tapping her fingers against the wooden table, looking expectantly to the door as if Harry was going to come barging in, declaring her love for the world. But still, the house was empty.
"I'm worried." She decided.
"She's done this before, but this time we're going to enforce the curfew. This is pushing the limit." Mr. Watson decided.
"And she'll be grounded." Mrs. Watson agreed.
"I second that." John agreed. "How is it that she's not constantly grounded, I don't get how this system works?"
"John, don't talk about things you don't understand." Mrs. Watson sighed.
"Then how am I supposed to learn?" he asked snippily.
"You go to your room, and you be quiet, and you let us take care of this." Mr. Watson insisted.
"That's stupid." John decided.
"That's life John. Good night." Mrs. Watson agreed.
"Goodnight." John grumbled, thankful he didn't have to do the dishes, and disapperated up the stairwell. There were sounds coming from upstairs, but he just assumed that it was Sherlock making a big mess, ugh, what did he have to clean up now? The lights were off, but John wasn't really scared, not anymore. But as he got closer, he opened his door and heard nothing, there were no sounds coming from inside his room, but from the room across the hall. Harry's room. Was it Sherlock tormenting her for once again leaving their family in turmoil? John took a deep breath, ready to tell Sherlock off for making such a mess, and opened the door to see a silhouette stuffing things into an open suitcase, another one hovering on the roof outside an open window...
"Harry?" John asked, turning on the light just in time to see the other figure, a blonde haired girl outside the window, flee from sight. Harry indeed was sitting in front of the closet, the drawers open and empty, trying to shove all that she owned into the suitcase.
"John, shut up, don't tell mom and dad!" she whispered desperately.
"What are you doing?" John asked.
"I'm going back home. I hate it here, everything's got worse since we moved, and maybe if I go back they'll get the message." Harry insisted.
"Who was at the window?" John asked, knowing this wasn't the right move at all. Of course he couldn't let Harry leave, could he?
"That was just, someone..." Harry muttered.
"One of your friends?" John asked.
"She's coming with me." Harry insisted.
"That's pathetic, Harry you realize you'll starve on the streets." John pointed out.
"Don't test me dork, I know more about the streets than you'll ever know." Harry insisted.
"I'm not testing your intelligence, just your metabolism after you haven't eaten in four days." John shrugged.
"I'm leaving John, and I'm not coming back." She insisted.
"You think I'm going to let that happen?" John asked with a sigh.
"You will let it happen, because you can't use your vocal cords if they're dangling from your tattling neck!" she insisted. John only had time to gape at her threat when there was something like a blast of thunder, and Harry, quite like Henry, went flying back, only this time with a lot more force. Her head hit the edge of the windowsill with an ungodly crack, and there was a loud scream. Little did John know, that scream was from him. He was forced back by an unseen force, into the corner, and he couldn't move. John knew though, he wasn't being harmed, he was being protected. Sherlock was getting between him and his sister, because the ghost had taken the threat way too literally. His parents came rushing up the stairs, and as soon as they got there, John regained feeling in his limbs, and he was able to walk. Sherlock had vanished.
"Harry, oh my goodness what happened?" Mrs. Watson asked, rushing to Harry's motionless form in the window.
"I came upstairs, she was packing, she said she was going away, and I...I said I'd tell and she lunged at me and I pushed her..." John mumbled, making it up as he went. But the emotion, the terror, that wasn't acting. John was genuinely terrified of what happened. Mrs. Watson burst into loud tears as she felt Harry's neck for a pulse.
"She's alive, she's alright, call an ambulance!" she demanded, cradling Harry's limp form in her arms, pressing one of the scattered tee shirts to the bleeding gash in the back of her head.
"John, get out." Mr. Watson insisted as he started dialing an ambulance.
"No, it was an accident, I didn't mean..." he started.
"Go to your room!" Mr. Watson demanded, pushing John out of the room and shutting the door in his face. John was left, stunned, in the dark hallway, and then found himself retreating back into his own room, closing the door and staring, as if he could see through the wood at the scene. He heard his father's rushed call for an ambulance, he could hear his mother crying, he could hear the operator on the other line talking back...John kept taking feeble steps back until, in the middle of the room, he bumped into something solid.
"You...we..." he muttered, not quite knowing who to blame for this tragedy.
"I'm sorry John, she would've hurt you." Sherlock insisted in a quiet, protective voice.
"They'll think I did it..." he muttered.
"I know." Sherlock agreed. "But they know it was an accident, you'd never hurt her on purpose."
"I might have." John mumbled, turning so that he could see Sherlock's glowing form above him. John was kind of sure that ghosts could get all emotional, but Sherlock's face looked sad, worried even, about what might become of his actions.
"You were protecting me." John muttered.
"I was." Sherlock agreed.
"Why?" John asked, looking up into the once shimmering green eyes, which only shone with sadness.
"I can't lose you, not now, not ever." Sherlock admitted. John felt small tears pooling into his eyes, and even though it definitely went against his better judgment, he threw his arms around Sherlock's neck and lay against his chest. Sherlock sighed with something of relief, but his chest didn't rise, John could only hear it from above. Sherlock's arms wrapped around John's back and he let John burry his face into the cold folds of his jacket. There was some sort of warmth, some sort of happiness, with a human companion. Something just right about hugging them with the emotions that you were feeling, and transferring each other's sorrows. The burden is too much for one to carry, but it's just enough weight for two to share. Sherlock didn't provide any warmth, only the feeling of safety. John knew that as long as Sherlock held him in his arms that no harm would come to him, not from his parents, or Harry, or anyone. But there was no comforting heat beat to harmonize with, there was no heat rising from his skin that made John feel warm and welcome, there were no breaths to lift him slightly, no pulse to feel through the echoes of his skin, it was more evident than ever that John was indeed being comforted by someone who was dead.
"It'll be alright John. There are worse things that could happen." Sherlock insisted.
"It doesn't feel like it." John admitted.
"Well, you haven't felt death yet." Sherlock agreed.