All Hearts Are Broken

“The things that you wanted to say, but didn’t.” The sentence is an average one, posed in the form of a question: not overly eloquent in word choice, but rather, composed of everyday vocabulary that a toddler could comprehend. Separately, these words have no dire connotations attached, and are, in fact, just words. But for John Hamish Watson, these words twist like a knife in his stomach. He looks down, breathing unstable, a tight lump in his throat. He is once again involuntarily catapulted through the events of the past few years, and he shuts his eyes, perhaps in an effort to not tear up; perhaps to convince himself, even for a fraction of a second, that the memories have a happy ending. But he knows that they don’t: this ending always is composed of blood, pavement, and pure, painful heartbreak. He takes in a shaky, unstable breath as it is replayed for the millionth time before his eyes: Sherlock, tossing his mobile aside, spreading his arms, and allowing himself to fall off of that goddamned roof, the epitome of grace until he lands in Death’s arms, skull crunching as the life drains out of him: that mad, brilliant, beloved man. “I can’t.”