Copper Beech Leaves

[smallhobbit]

Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Characters: John Watson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 350
Prompt: Type some phrase  to do with a Sherlock universe into DeviantArt, Google Images, or some other image generator.  The first picture that appears must be your inspiration and basis for the fic.
Notes: Written for the third of the amnesty prompts for JWP on watsons_woes

It would be autumn, John Watson thought, crunching leaves as he walked through the park.  It was always autumn when these things happened.  He remembered as a kid the autumn his grandparents died; his grandfather first and then just three weeks later his grandmother.  His mother seemed to have cried almost until Christmas that year.  Then, when he was a teenager, his beloved dog had died in the autumn.  Teenaged boys weren’t supposed to cry at all, especially not for a pet, but for once Harry had been understanding and distracted his parents when he’d taken long walks in the countryside, kicking up leaves as he was doing now.

But this time was worse.  He’d held it together when Harry had phoned him and he had taken the first train north, reaching the hospital in time to say a final farewell.  He’d held it together when he helped his father with all the formalities and with contacting various relations.  He’d held it together during the funeral; his voice barely shaking as he did the reading. 

In fact he’d held it together until an hour ago, when he’d once again taken to walking through fallen leaves.  At least he’d stopped crying now.  He supposed he should go back to the flat and try to carry on.  There would be no point in pretending he wasn’t upset, Sherlock would notice that straight away.  He didn’t want to be on his own, but at the same time he didn’t think he could cope with his flatmate in full flow.

His phone pinged.  John took a deep breath before reading Sherlock’s demand.

<Lestrade in Red Lion. Suggest you join him for a pint on the way home>

Okay, he could cope with that.  A second text.

<Don’t bother getting takeaway. Mrs H has made a casserole>

He could cope with that too. 

He set off for the pub.  Five minutes later a third text came in.

<Casserole enough for a small army. Bring GL back with you>

John gave the first small smile of the day, because after all there were some demands he could cope with.