[ John would say it had been a normal day, as far as days tended to go anymore. He was ever a man drilled into taking up a routine at the end of the day, and the past couple of years certainly hadn't been an exception.
Wake up, breakfast, work, lunch, work, home, dinner, telly, eventually bed. Maybe a date breaking it up a bit, a phone call to Harry, a cuppa with Mrs. Hudson. A drink out at a pub somewhere. There had been a very noticeable lack of insane runs across London or criminal rings to be broken up since Sherlock's death, of course, and he would be lying to say he didn't miss it (even worse if he were to say he never missed Sherlock- not that he really tried saying either). But at the same time he'd come around to a certain appreciation for the stability, the same vague sort of gratefulness he'd had when he first came home from Afghanistan. No real chances of trying to hold some poor bastard together with two hands and not enough bandages: no best friends jumping off of hospital roofs, except in the occasional nightmare (and those, at least, he could handle having).
And god, he hated it, hated everything dark and washed-out, hated having nothing worth doing when he'd been part of something that felt so important and lost it, twice in his life, but he was still here. He walked, he breathed, he talked, he could still smile and still laugh, because he was very much alive and planned on keeping it that way. He couldn't go back into the army, Sherlock Holmes was dead, and the universe didn't miss a beat because of it (the Earth kept going around the sun, the bills needed paying, he needed honest to god human company and to not drive himself mad thinking about why and how he could have stopped any of it).
People might say any number of less than complementary things about John Watson, for whatever reason they'd have, but they could never call him a coward.
It was hard. It slowly got easier. He held no expectations of getting fully over what happened, but he wasn't stupid enough to say his life was over. Less than what it was, maybe, but there was always a little something worth the effort (and maybe he went to bars a bit on the seedier side more often than he ought to, maybe he'd stopped a mugging or two as time passed, played a little bit of daring with London traffic when he needed to cross the street, but it was worth it. A little fresh air. Something exciting).
Today was not a particularly exciting day. The routine went entirely as normal, he spent his day looking over colds and ear infections with all good humor and patience. Chatted with a nice enough woman when he stopped to pick up milk- definitely wanted to call her this week, he feels like he'd like to get to know her. Steady routine, good old responsible John, coming home like he would on any other day. A few more grey hairs than he used to have, the start of shadows under his eyes from a bad night's sleep, but on the whole still very much as John Watson as he's always been.
This, of course, is typically where one includes "little did he know." ]
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