Theme Prompt - Shadow

There was a shadow in John’s heart the day Mary met him. It was tall and thin, curly hair obvious at the top along with the elegant hands and long fingers. Mary didn’t know the name of the shadow, not at first, but she knew how important it was to John. People didn’t carry others like that without them meaning something.

“So, who was he?” Mary asked one day, calmly and somewhat disinterestedly. She’d learned by now that John replied best to casual questions about his past, closing up when it turned at all serious. “This madman you talk about in your blog.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” John replied, savoring each syllable though he grimaced as if each one were a knife directly to his heart. Which, to be fair, they probably were. This was the first Mary had heard John speak the name and Greg Lestrade had mentioned that John never spoke the name in his presence either. “He was... an amazing man. One of the most brilliant I ever knew.”

“I’d heard about his cases,” Mary murmured, studying John carefully and feeling a pang at the smile he wore. She never saw that smile, felt like she was intruding on something intimate. “What was he to you?”

“Everything,” John replied shortly. That told Mary Sherlock would never be buried.