The Lying Detective (Sherlock Holmes X OC)

ONE- The Gang's All Back Together!

"Tell me about your morning. Start from the beginning."

"I woke up," John replied, smiling tightly.

John was sitting in a chair a few feet away from an ash blonde, shoulder length haired woman. She was his new therapist and she was sitting in a low armchair. Dark blue floor length curtains were tied back on either side of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the rear of the room, looking out into a back garden, and similar curtains hung on either side of a smaller window beside John.

"How did you sleep?" the therapist questioned in a soft German accent.

"I didn't. I don't."

"You just said you woke up," she replied, a little confused.

"I stopped lying down," John corrected, quickly.

"Alone?" she pestered.

"Of course alone," John answered.

"I meant Rosie, your daughter," his therapist explained.

"Uh, she's with friends," he responded.

"Why?"

"Can't always cope...and, uh, last night wasn't good," John said, thinking about how he stayed up all of last night, drinking.

"That's understandable," his therapist commented.

"Is it? Why? Why is it understandable? Why does everything have to be understandable?" John asked before he smiled and laughed bitterly.

"Why can't, um, some things be unacceptable and- and we just say that?" he questioned as he gestured briefly at the end of his sentence before lowering his hand onto the other and tapping his index finger against it.

"I only mean it's okay," his therapist corrected.

"I'm letting my daughter down. How the hell is that okay?" John asked, harshly.

"You just lost your wife," she stated, softly.

"And Rosie just lost her mother," John replied, then he sucked in a harsh breath before clearing his throat.

"You are holding yourself to an unreasonable standard."

"No, I'm failing to," John replied.

"So there is no one you talk to, confide in?" she questioned with concern.

"No one," John repeated and he sat there in silence for a moment. Well, no one he's willing to talk to. Anita sent him a letter and he burned it instantly. Didn't even read what was inside. Though, in his defense, he was absolutely wasted when he found it slipped under his door.

"Is there anything you're not telling me?" the therapist asked. John thought for a moment. Yes, there was definitely something he wasn't telling her. He was seeing and hearing his dead wife everywhere he went, he even talked to her like she was still there. John looked over at his therapist, biting his lip as he noticed Mary standing behind her. He let out a small laugh.

"No." He cleared his throat awkwardly as he saw Mary looking at him, tears running down her cheeks. John's therapist noticed his gaze had moved from her to just over her left shoulder.

"What are you looking at?" she questioned as she turned in her chair and looked towards where John was looking, though she would never find anything.

"Nothing," John replied.

"You kept glancing to my left," the woman stated, facing him again.

"Oh, I suppose I was just...looking away." John laughed, nervously.