Fic: Nothing to Remember (4/10) [Sherlock/Dollhouse crossover]
Title: Nothing to Remember
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For Sherlock: through series 2. For Dollhouse: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~3 600 for this part. Entire fic will be ~ 35 000
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain but this incarnation belongs to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC. Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy
Summary: Eighteen months after faking his own death Sherlock Holmes returns to London only to discover that John has sought refuge across the Atlantic and away from himself.
Author’s Notes: I realise that it says crossover with Dollhouse up above here but no knowledge of Dollhouse is required. I’m really using the concept and some of the characters and that’s all explained within. So if that’s the only thing holding you back from reading this do press on; I’d rather you stop reading because you don’t like it and not because you’re not familiar with Dollhouse. If you really would prefer a bit of a primer the Wikipedia article should serve you well. Enjoy! :)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Miss DeWitt does give him a copy of John’s contract after all. Apparently John had said it was fine, or so his signature on yet another document stamped by the Rossum Corporation said. Sherlock signs many other stamped pieces of paper. There were formal acceptance of terms of employment, non disclosure agreements, and other wonderful bits of paper securing his service as well as his silence. Part of him wants to revolt, to demand to see John - or rather Charlie as he is known here. Charlie. He wants to see Charlie who is really John without knowing that he was, and is, John but doesn’t at the same time. He keeps quiet and doesn’t demand anything. He nods, picks up his copies of the documents, and follows DeWitt’s order that he go home and report in for work tomorrow morning.
The door softly clicks closed behind him as he takes in the hotel room that is to be his home until the contracts are up. It is extravagant in the way that penthouse suites are extravagant without being offensively so. In many ways it is as if his bedroom, the sitting room, and the kitchen at 221b have been transplanted, blended, and set up in this room. As Sherlock closely inspects some of the furniture he finds that the transplant part is thankfully untrue but the sentiment is there. It’s his half of 221b. Nothing to even hint of John’s presence in that flat is here. He is certain that that it should hurt, certain that it will hurt in the days to come, but right now he is grateful for John’s continuing absence.
If there’s one thing he has to get through his head it is that for all intents and purposes John Watson is dead. Or if imagining him dead is too much or too close to the truth he needs to think of him as beyond his reach. He cannot be looking into the eyes of Charlie the Active and be expecting to see John. This business remains in business because it delivers a satisfactory service. Sherlock expects to be shown the science of it tomorrow. He doesn’t know whether this desire to be told conclusively is for his own sanity or for John’s.
He takes out a marker from the desk and writes in large letters Charlie ≠John on the wall. He leaves enough space for him to keep a tally of the days like a prisoner would on their cell wall.
He then throws himself on the floor and rings Mycroft. It only rings once.
“Coming home now I suspect?” There’s a hope in his voice that Sherlock knows he would die before admitting it was there. Normally Sherlock would take full advantage of this but it is with a heavy heart that he tells Mycroft exactly when he’ll be coming home. Mycroft goes through every single solitary word of the contracts - Sherlock scans the bits of paper he signed along with a copy of John’s - and says he’ll have his solicitors take a look at them. Sherlock tells him that he suspects they’ll hold since he was allowed to leave the building with them. Mycroft pretends that he doesn’t hear him. Arrangements are made, check in times are decided upon, and Mycroft implores him to take notes and send him updates on the organization.
“Making the most of this situation are we?”
“You would do the same.”
Sherlock cannot say he can argue with that but he ends the call there. He looks up at the writing on the wall. Charlie ≠John
Don’t you forget it now.
I give you twenty minutes.
Go away.
You sure?
Sherlock isn’t but John doesn’t say anything further.
=====================================================================================
The Dollhouse could almost be considered a spa if you were not to look past what was immediately present. If you knew nothing of the organization and did not look too closely at the people in it all you would see would be some people enjoying a holiday. Once you looked closer you saw vacancy in the guests’ eyes and in their voices, their relaxed nods when spoken to, and the pure and innocent smiles not meant to be seen on adults, you understood why every fibre of your being was screaming that something wasn’t right here.
When the Actives were not on assignment they were pampered. DeWitt listed a host of amenities from the five star food, to the classes, to the live in doctor. Their every want or need was catered to. Not that they wanted or needed much; DeWitt had not been exaggerating about the Actives having the needs of children.
She also had not exaggerated the power the place had. Where the Actives lived and played appeared to be the picture of relaxation and serenity everything else thrummed with the activity of a secret, illegal, business operation. There was enough weaponry to hold the House if under attack, and even some for after that, enough personnel running about and DeWitt was even texting clients while giving him the tour. “Last minute alterations,” she explained each time. “There’s always something with some of the shyer ones.”
The handlers he was introduced to were all either ex military or ex police. There was one single ex-convict but he was a handler because he was particularly well suited to handle his Active, who was serving his prison sentence as a Doll instead of in a conventional prison. The handlers all suffered background checks as extensive and as invasive as secret service agents did. They also were assigned their Actives very carefully and any evidence or hint of inappropriate behaviour resulted in immediate, harsh action. The Attic is a term he has already heard tossed around a bit and he has every reason to believe it is as terrible as the staff seems to believe it is.
Charlie is not to be seen throughout this tour. Sherlock suspects that they’re moving him around so he does not see him one second before DeWitt thinks he has to. There is also the possibility that Sherlock has walked by him already but he refuses to consider the idea that he would miss him even if it made sense. Charlie was not John after all and no one could summon his attention like John.
Sherlock does meet Alice Jenkins, Charlie’s first handler who has since been assigned to another Active due to showing signs of attraction toward him. No one tells this to him of course but it is written all over her face. As well as in the fact that the Active that is now her charge is female, tall, dark haired and dark eyed. Charlie’s most recent handler was recently taken ill, terminally ill, and had resigned. DeWitt smiles that he’d arrived just in time and Sherlock reminds her that he did not come for her convenience.
That makes her flinch and come as close to screaming at him as he has made her yet. It is a small victory but he will revel in it as best he can. The revelry is brief as he realises that they are headed to what has to be where the ‘imprinting’ happens. It is the only location on the tour he has not yet seen. In the room is a simple chair similar to a dentist’s set up to lower the head of the person sitting in it into a ring that Sherlock can’t help but find threatening. On the other hand there are a myriad of computers and medical equipment and monitors that he is itching to get his hands on. Aside from DeWitt not wanting him to take a peek just yet there is another staff member here, one he has a feeling he is going to be made to deal with fairly frequently.
“Sherlock Holmes, this is our programmer; Topher Brink.”
Topher Brink is about John’s height and has a dishwater colour hair similar to his friend’s but without the military precision hair cut. Everyone else at this establishment is dressed very well, business casual at the very lowest, but Topher is wearing a pair of jeans coupled with a grey t-shirt and open buttoned shirt. Appearance is never a be all or end all in Sherlock’s deductions and even as he takes in Brink’s slightly disheveled appearance he knows he is looking at the real brains behind the operation. Brink either created this system or improved it and it his domain before it is DeWitt’s.
Topher smiles brightly and extends his hand. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Holmes, and glad you’re part of the team.” Honest relief there. Topher must know about John’s contract, but DeWitt does not appear to be the type to expound on confidential data with the programmer. This leads to one other source. Sherlock vows to get him alone later. For now he listens with genuine interest as Topher takes him around the lab and shows him everything with the pride only one scientist can show to another. At some point DeWitt has left them to their own devices but Sherlock barely notices.
The science of the thing is really quite extraordinary. Sherlock gives him some personality specifications and Topher creates a man with precisely those qualities right down to genetic predisposition and family upbringing. He was creating people without bodies here, disposable people who may never see the light of day again once their engagement was done with. “We keep aspects and reuse some personalities,” Topher tells him as he stores Sherlock’s creation onto a wedge. “We definitely do not imprint the same active with the same personality twice if we can avoid it. The chance of glitching is just too much.”
“Glitching?”
“When the Actives get flashbacks of their original personalities. It’s usually something small like remembering a certain way to eat pizza or their last birthday or something but it can be a big problem during a mission. They tend not to respond to their handlers if they’re busy trying to figure out why a certain street corner seems familiar.” Topher shrugs, concerned but resigned. “I do what I can to mitigate it but the brain’s a tricky thing and I’ve made the system better but not perfect.” He rolls his eyes.
Sherlock fiercely controls the spark of hope in him. Just because Charlie may suddenly find himself craving Earl Grey or flashback to Afghanistan does not mean that Charlie is John. John is on one of the wedges like the one Topher is putting away now. He thinks about asking which one is John’s but has a feeling that it isn’t kept with the others, not now that he is here anyway.
“You know,” Topher starts. “I got to talk to John a bit, before I...” he gestured at the chair between them. “He wanted -“ Topher jumps a foot in the air and clutches his chest. “Would you stop doing that! You always do that! Are you part ninja or something?”
“They said I had a treatment.”
Sherlock tenses at the familiar voice. He had prepared himself for hearing just the sound of the voice and not the person but hearing John - Charlie. This is Charlie not John and do remember it! - sounding so vacant and childlike was a horror unlike any other. Despite this horror his need to see his friend, or rather this person who resembled his friend, overpowers him and he turns.
The eyes, Sherlock thinks, are worse than the voice. Sherlock can deduce a great deal from the eyes and there is nothing in Charlie’s eyes to suggest anything about them and there is nothing of John staring back at him. He pulls back his focus to take in the man that was once John Watson. He appears healthy and unharmed and seems to have just come from the in house masseuse. He’s wearing a comfortable grey t-shirt, loose fitting black trousers and looks completely relaxed. Relaxed, carefree, and content. Sherlock is almost envious but the wrongness and the hurt is thrumming through him too hard and fast for him to notice all that much. He clenches his hands into fists to keep from grabbing Charlie’s shoulders and shaking him until John was standing there instead.
Topher waves them closer together. “Charlie, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, this is Charlie.”
The name means nothing to Charlie but he smiles brightly and says hello. Sherlock manages to say hello back. Charlie appears confused and is about to ask him something but Topher ushers him into the chair. “Sherlock’s going to be your new handler.” Charlie’s only response is an obedient “okay” and Sherlock watches the chair recline until Charlie is laying down. He doesn’t even react when he notices his head is surrounded by the ring.
Topher passes Sherlock a piece of paper. “Bonding spell,” he explains with a wink. “Stick to the words. Once you two do that, I push some buttons, and then he’ll trust you no matter what imprint we put in him. He’ll even trust you when he’s like this.” Sherlock scans the quick script and commits it to memory, handing it back to Topher dismissively. His stomach churns at the idea of having this man programmed to trust him when before it had been given willingly.
“Also,” Topher continues, “physical contact helps. So touch his shoulder or hold his hand or something. You don’t want him questioning you when you’re in the field let me tell you.”
Touch was a strange thing in his and John’s relationship. They had no sense of personal space; they grabbed and pulled and yanked each other at will but touching without any sort of immediate goal in mind was not something they did without thought. Clasps on the shoulder were barely frequent on either end and hand holding is something that Sherlock has only done once: while John was unconscious in hospital. They were free with each other but there were still some boundaries.
He decides to take Charlie’s hand here. Charlie reflexively grips back. That grip tightens as the circle around Charlie’s head illuminates with purple light and his body tenses with a brief stab of pain. The pain is gone faster than it came, though, and soon Charlie is looking at him as if he is the most important thing in his universe.
Topher nudges him with his foot.
Sherlock clears his throat and does his best to keep his eyes locked with Charlie’s. “Everything is going to be alright.”
“Now that you’re here.” Charlie’s fingers shift until he’s managed to wrap his hand around Sherlock’s wrist without their hands ever having separated. Two fingers press into his wrist. Sherlock does his best not to gasp or otherwise react to the fact that Charlie - John!- is taking his pulse. The last time he and John had touched was when John had pushed his way through the clutch of people in front of St. Bart’s and tried to find a pulse on his supposed bloody corpse.
It’s a reflex, he tells himself. Topher’s programmed all of them to do this and they’re all programmed to react to these words. It’s just the programming it’s not John. But there’s something there in Charlie’s trusting eyes. A disbelief and a relief that cannot be standard issue for this ritual.
Topher clears his throat. Sherlock forces the next, and final, line of script out. “Do you trust me?”
Charlie’s index and middle fingers curl around Sherlock’s wrist with the others. The move is without a doubt a caress. “With my life,” the voice is a reverent whisper, the reaffirmation of a believer who once doubted.
John’s hand squeezes his tight and Sherlock squeezes back and refuses to let him go. He can’t tell if the squeeze is a greeting or a farewell and needs John to stay with him for one more second but the purple light is shut off, Topher announces the ritual a success, and it is Charlie that rises up with the chair. Sherlock lets go of his hand.
“Shall I go now?” Charlie asks Topher with his eyes still on Sherlock.
“If you like.” When Charlie gets up and walks out Topher indicates that he should follow. “You haven’t seen him in a long time. Go bond.”
“That isn’t John,” Sherlock growls.
“That’s kinda the point,” Topher reminds him. “If you want him to be John again, by that I mean if you want him to go with you when you walk up to him and tell him that he needs treatment when he’s imprinted with somebody who doesn’t know you or me from a hole in the wall, you need to go hang out. It’s been how long you guys? A year and half, right?” He goes on despite Sherlock’s lack of response. “You’re a different person now, I’m sure. He’s just a little more different. Go reacquaint. I can show you some other stuff later.”
It takes twenty minutes of battle before Topher gets Sherlock out of the room. The last electrical shock from the keyboard was decidedly against the rules, he decides. If one could call that display of “who can hotwire a computer to do the most damage the fastest” to have anything resembling rules that was. He shall have to be more ruthless next time - Topher Brink clearly had an advantage on him.
An advantage that may be the fact that he got to speak to John and John must have spoken of him. What did they talk about? What did a man who was about to have his mind erased say to a man who was about to do it? That question would have to wait since he did admit that he had the curiosity to see how much of that ‘ritual’ had worked on Charlie and how much of John remained.
He spies Charlie walking toward an art class. When Sherlock reaches him he has selected pastels and is in the process of colouring the entire sheet of paper grey. “Hello, Charlie.” He sits down.
“Good day.” Charlie looks up and smiles at him but continues furiously drawing the paper grey.
“What are you drawing?”
“Grey.”
“I can see that,” Sherlock mumbles. “Just the colour grey or are you planning on doing something with it?”
“Just the pavement will be grey; the rest will be black and red.” Charlie puts the grey pastel down and reaches for a black one. A rudimentary stick man is drawn and then Charlie reaches for the red. The red surrounds the stick figure, especially around the stick man’s head, and Charlie looks back at his work and smiles triumphantly. Whatever is in his head has translated precisely on to paper.
Sherlock swallows. “What happened to the man?” he asks.
Charlie doesn’t hesitate. “He fell.” The two words are whispered and distant and Charlie’s face contorts as he tries to turn an image of blood and pain into a memory. Sherlock doesn’t know and doesn’t care if this is happening only because of the bonding or because Charlie is remembering on his own but he would be a fool not to press his advantage.
“Molly gave me some blood bags,” he explains. “I burst them on the pavement before I rolled off the lorry. Do you remember the lorry, John?”
“Who’s John?” It is an honest question and it makes Sherlock want to hit him.
“You are,” Sherlock insists. He takes Charlie’s wrists and squeezes them tight. He doesn’t look at him. “You’re John Watson and I’m Sherlock Holmes. We live in London, we solve crimes together, and I was never really dead, John. I’m back now and we can go back home now. It’s all over.”
For a minute it looks like Charlie is actually considering it but whatever recognition or insight he’d had upstairs isn’t here now. The eyes are vacant and Sherlock can almost hear the crackle of missed connections in his brain. The picture means nothing to him. In fact whatever Charlie did remember to make him the picture is gone now; he looks slightly confused at what he’s drawn. “I think I’ll go for a swim now.”
Sherlock deflates and nods him away. Charlie stands but hovers by him expectantly. “Come with me?”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“You’re programmed to like me.”
“What?”
“Just go on. I’d like to be alone right now.” He folds his arms on the table and rests his chin on top.
Charlie does not move. He stands by Sherlock and when he does not move he sits down, flips his paper over and starts drawing again. This time he’s grabbed the pencils and he’s sketching. “I thought you wanted to go swimming,” Sherlock near snaps.
“Don’t want to now.”
“You’ve swam without me plenty of times, surely you can manage it now.” He hates Charlie, he decides. He hates Charlie for not being John and he hates John for deciding this was a good idea and forcing him to make his amends like this. He knows Charlie is looking at him in shock and sadness but he can’t bear to look up. Staring at his chest is easier than his face. After a moment Charlie wanders off and Sherlock buries his face into the table. This is only the first day and it is only going to get worse from here.
When he finally rises from his chair he sees Charlie’s sketch. It’s very crude but it looks very much like a headstone.
Maybe he’d ask Mycroft to take his headstone away, put John’s name on it, and send it back to him to prop up in his hotel room. Maybe that would make the message stick.
Part Five
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For Sherlock: through series 2. For Dollhouse: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~3 600 for this part. Entire fic will be ~ 35 000
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain but this incarnation belongs to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC. Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy
Summary: Eighteen months after faking his own death Sherlock Holmes returns to London only to discover that John has sought refuge across the Atlantic and away from himself.
Author’s Notes: I realise that it says crossover with Dollhouse up above here but no knowledge of Dollhouse is required. I’m really using the concept and some of the characters and that’s all explained within. So if that’s the only thing holding you back from reading this do press on; I’d rather you stop reading because you don’t like it and not because you’re not familiar with Dollhouse. If you really would prefer a bit of a primer the Wikipedia article should serve you well. Enjoy! :)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Miss DeWitt does give him a copy of John’s contract after all. Apparently John had said it was fine, or so his signature on yet another document stamped by the Rossum Corporation said. Sherlock signs many other stamped pieces of paper. There were formal acceptance of terms of employment, non disclosure agreements, and other wonderful bits of paper securing his service as well as his silence. Part of him wants to revolt, to demand to see John - or rather Charlie as he is known here. Charlie. He wants to see Charlie who is really John without knowing that he was, and is, John but doesn’t at the same time. He keeps quiet and doesn’t demand anything. He nods, picks up his copies of the documents, and follows DeWitt’s order that he go home and report in for work tomorrow morning.
The door softly clicks closed behind him as he takes in the hotel room that is to be his home until the contracts are up. It is extravagant in the way that penthouse suites are extravagant without being offensively so. In many ways it is as if his bedroom, the sitting room, and the kitchen at 221b have been transplanted, blended, and set up in this room. As Sherlock closely inspects some of the furniture he finds that the transplant part is thankfully untrue but the sentiment is there. It’s his half of 221b. Nothing to even hint of John’s presence in that flat is here. He is certain that that it should hurt, certain that it will hurt in the days to come, but right now he is grateful for John’s continuing absence.
If there’s one thing he has to get through his head it is that for all intents and purposes John Watson is dead. Or if imagining him dead is too much or too close to the truth he needs to think of him as beyond his reach. He cannot be looking into the eyes of Charlie the Active and be expecting to see John. This business remains in business because it delivers a satisfactory service. Sherlock expects to be shown the science of it tomorrow. He doesn’t know whether this desire to be told conclusively is for his own sanity or for John’s.
He takes out a marker from the desk and writes in large letters Charlie ≠John on the wall. He leaves enough space for him to keep a tally of the days like a prisoner would on their cell wall.
He then throws himself on the floor and rings Mycroft. It only rings once.
“Coming home now I suspect?” There’s a hope in his voice that Sherlock knows he would die before admitting it was there. Normally Sherlock would take full advantage of this but it is with a heavy heart that he tells Mycroft exactly when he’ll be coming home. Mycroft goes through every single solitary word of the contracts - Sherlock scans the bits of paper he signed along with a copy of John’s - and says he’ll have his solicitors take a look at them. Sherlock tells him that he suspects they’ll hold since he was allowed to leave the building with them. Mycroft pretends that he doesn’t hear him. Arrangements are made, check in times are decided upon, and Mycroft implores him to take notes and send him updates on the organization.
“Making the most of this situation are we?”
“You would do the same.”
Sherlock cannot say he can argue with that but he ends the call there. He looks up at the writing on the wall. Charlie ≠John
Don’t you forget it now.
I give you twenty minutes.
Go away.
You sure?
Sherlock isn’t but John doesn’t say anything further.
=====================================================================================
The Dollhouse could almost be considered a spa if you were not to look past what was immediately present. If you knew nothing of the organization and did not look too closely at the people in it all you would see would be some people enjoying a holiday. Once you looked closer you saw vacancy in the guests’ eyes and in their voices, their relaxed nods when spoken to, and the pure and innocent smiles not meant to be seen on adults, you understood why every fibre of your being was screaming that something wasn’t right here.
When the Actives were not on assignment they were pampered. DeWitt listed a host of amenities from the five star food, to the classes, to the live in doctor. Their every want or need was catered to. Not that they wanted or needed much; DeWitt had not been exaggerating about the Actives having the needs of children.
She also had not exaggerated the power the place had. Where the Actives lived and played appeared to be the picture of relaxation and serenity everything else thrummed with the activity of a secret, illegal, business operation. There was enough weaponry to hold the House if under attack, and even some for after that, enough personnel running about and DeWitt was even texting clients while giving him the tour. “Last minute alterations,” she explained each time. “There’s always something with some of the shyer ones.”
The handlers he was introduced to were all either ex military or ex police. There was one single ex-convict but he was a handler because he was particularly well suited to handle his Active, who was serving his prison sentence as a Doll instead of in a conventional prison. The handlers all suffered background checks as extensive and as invasive as secret service agents did. They also were assigned their Actives very carefully and any evidence or hint of inappropriate behaviour resulted in immediate, harsh action. The Attic is a term he has already heard tossed around a bit and he has every reason to believe it is as terrible as the staff seems to believe it is.
Charlie is not to be seen throughout this tour. Sherlock suspects that they’re moving him around so he does not see him one second before DeWitt thinks he has to. There is also the possibility that Sherlock has walked by him already but he refuses to consider the idea that he would miss him even if it made sense. Charlie was not John after all and no one could summon his attention like John.
Sherlock does meet Alice Jenkins, Charlie’s first handler who has since been assigned to another Active due to showing signs of attraction toward him. No one tells this to him of course but it is written all over her face. As well as in the fact that the Active that is now her charge is female, tall, dark haired and dark eyed. Charlie’s most recent handler was recently taken ill, terminally ill, and had resigned. DeWitt smiles that he’d arrived just in time and Sherlock reminds her that he did not come for her convenience.
That makes her flinch and come as close to screaming at him as he has made her yet. It is a small victory but he will revel in it as best he can. The revelry is brief as he realises that they are headed to what has to be where the ‘imprinting’ happens. It is the only location on the tour he has not yet seen. In the room is a simple chair similar to a dentist’s set up to lower the head of the person sitting in it into a ring that Sherlock can’t help but find threatening. On the other hand there are a myriad of computers and medical equipment and monitors that he is itching to get his hands on. Aside from DeWitt not wanting him to take a peek just yet there is another staff member here, one he has a feeling he is going to be made to deal with fairly frequently.
“Sherlock Holmes, this is our programmer; Topher Brink.”
Topher Brink is about John’s height and has a dishwater colour hair similar to his friend’s but without the military precision hair cut. Everyone else at this establishment is dressed very well, business casual at the very lowest, but Topher is wearing a pair of jeans coupled with a grey t-shirt and open buttoned shirt. Appearance is never a be all or end all in Sherlock’s deductions and even as he takes in Brink’s slightly disheveled appearance he knows he is looking at the real brains behind the operation. Brink either created this system or improved it and it his domain before it is DeWitt’s.
Topher smiles brightly and extends his hand. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Holmes, and glad you’re part of the team.” Honest relief there. Topher must know about John’s contract, but DeWitt does not appear to be the type to expound on confidential data with the programmer. This leads to one other source. Sherlock vows to get him alone later. For now he listens with genuine interest as Topher takes him around the lab and shows him everything with the pride only one scientist can show to another. At some point DeWitt has left them to their own devices but Sherlock barely notices.
The science of the thing is really quite extraordinary. Sherlock gives him some personality specifications and Topher creates a man with precisely those qualities right down to genetic predisposition and family upbringing. He was creating people without bodies here, disposable people who may never see the light of day again once their engagement was done with. “We keep aspects and reuse some personalities,” Topher tells him as he stores Sherlock’s creation onto a wedge. “We definitely do not imprint the same active with the same personality twice if we can avoid it. The chance of glitching is just too much.”
“Glitching?”
“When the Actives get flashbacks of their original personalities. It’s usually something small like remembering a certain way to eat pizza or their last birthday or something but it can be a big problem during a mission. They tend not to respond to their handlers if they’re busy trying to figure out why a certain street corner seems familiar.” Topher shrugs, concerned but resigned. “I do what I can to mitigate it but the brain’s a tricky thing and I’ve made the system better but not perfect.” He rolls his eyes.
Sherlock fiercely controls the spark of hope in him. Just because Charlie may suddenly find himself craving Earl Grey or flashback to Afghanistan does not mean that Charlie is John. John is on one of the wedges like the one Topher is putting away now. He thinks about asking which one is John’s but has a feeling that it isn’t kept with the others, not now that he is here anyway.
“You know,” Topher starts. “I got to talk to John a bit, before I...” he gestured at the chair between them. “He wanted -“ Topher jumps a foot in the air and clutches his chest. “Would you stop doing that! You always do that! Are you part ninja or something?”
“They said I had a treatment.”
Sherlock tenses at the familiar voice. He had prepared himself for hearing just the sound of the voice and not the person but hearing John - Charlie. This is Charlie not John and do remember it! - sounding so vacant and childlike was a horror unlike any other. Despite this horror his need to see his friend, or rather this person who resembled his friend, overpowers him and he turns.
The eyes, Sherlock thinks, are worse than the voice. Sherlock can deduce a great deal from the eyes and there is nothing in Charlie’s eyes to suggest anything about them and there is nothing of John staring back at him. He pulls back his focus to take in the man that was once John Watson. He appears healthy and unharmed and seems to have just come from the in house masseuse. He’s wearing a comfortable grey t-shirt, loose fitting black trousers and looks completely relaxed. Relaxed, carefree, and content. Sherlock is almost envious but the wrongness and the hurt is thrumming through him too hard and fast for him to notice all that much. He clenches his hands into fists to keep from grabbing Charlie’s shoulders and shaking him until John was standing there instead.
Topher waves them closer together. “Charlie, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, this is Charlie.”
The name means nothing to Charlie but he smiles brightly and says hello. Sherlock manages to say hello back. Charlie appears confused and is about to ask him something but Topher ushers him into the chair. “Sherlock’s going to be your new handler.” Charlie’s only response is an obedient “okay” and Sherlock watches the chair recline until Charlie is laying down. He doesn’t even react when he notices his head is surrounded by the ring.
Topher passes Sherlock a piece of paper. “Bonding spell,” he explains with a wink. “Stick to the words. Once you two do that, I push some buttons, and then he’ll trust you no matter what imprint we put in him. He’ll even trust you when he’s like this.” Sherlock scans the quick script and commits it to memory, handing it back to Topher dismissively. His stomach churns at the idea of having this man programmed to trust him when before it had been given willingly.
“Also,” Topher continues, “physical contact helps. So touch his shoulder or hold his hand or something. You don’t want him questioning you when you’re in the field let me tell you.”
Touch was a strange thing in his and John’s relationship. They had no sense of personal space; they grabbed and pulled and yanked each other at will but touching without any sort of immediate goal in mind was not something they did without thought. Clasps on the shoulder were barely frequent on either end and hand holding is something that Sherlock has only done once: while John was unconscious in hospital. They were free with each other but there were still some boundaries.
He decides to take Charlie’s hand here. Charlie reflexively grips back. That grip tightens as the circle around Charlie’s head illuminates with purple light and his body tenses with a brief stab of pain. The pain is gone faster than it came, though, and soon Charlie is looking at him as if he is the most important thing in his universe.
Topher nudges him with his foot.
Sherlock clears his throat and does his best to keep his eyes locked with Charlie’s. “Everything is going to be alright.”
“Now that you’re here.” Charlie’s fingers shift until he’s managed to wrap his hand around Sherlock’s wrist without their hands ever having separated. Two fingers press into his wrist. Sherlock does his best not to gasp or otherwise react to the fact that Charlie - John!- is taking his pulse. The last time he and John had touched was when John had pushed his way through the clutch of people in front of St. Bart’s and tried to find a pulse on his supposed bloody corpse.
It’s a reflex, he tells himself. Topher’s programmed all of them to do this and they’re all programmed to react to these words. It’s just the programming it’s not John. But there’s something there in Charlie’s trusting eyes. A disbelief and a relief that cannot be standard issue for this ritual.
Topher clears his throat. Sherlock forces the next, and final, line of script out. “Do you trust me?”
Charlie’s index and middle fingers curl around Sherlock’s wrist with the others. The move is without a doubt a caress. “With my life,” the voice is a reverent whisper, the reaffirmation of a believer who once doubted.
John’s hand squeezes his tight and Sherlock squeezes back and refuses to let him go. He can’t tell if the squeeze is a greeting or a farewell and needs John to stay with him for one more second but the purple light is shut off, Topher announces the ritual a success, and it is Charlie that rises up with the chair. Sherlock lets go of his hand.
“Shall I go now?” Charlie asks Topher with his eyes still on Sherlock.
“If you like.” When Charlie gets up and walks out Topher indicates that he should follow. “You haven’t seen him in a long time. Go bond.”
“That isn’t John,” Sherlock growls.
“That’s kinda the point,” Topher reminds him. “If you want him to be John again, by that I mean if you want him to go with you when you walk up to him and tell him that he needs treatment when he’s imprinted with somebody who doesn’t know you or me from a hole in the wall, you need to go hang out. It’s been how long you guys? A year and half, right?” He goes on despite Sherlock’s lack of response. “You’re a different person now, I’m sure. He’s just a little more different. Go reacquaint. I can show you some other stuff later.”
It takes twenty minutes of battle before Topher gets Sherlock out of the room. The last electrical shock from the keyboard was decidedly against the rules, he decides. If one could call that display of “who can hotwire a computer to do the most damage the fastest” to have anything resembling rules that was. He shall have to be more ruthless next time - Topher Brink clearly had an advantage on him.
An advantage that may be the fact that he got to speak to John and John must have spoken of him. What did they talk about? What did a man who was about to have his mind erased say to a man who was about to do it? That question would have to wait since he did admit that he had the curiosity to see how much of that ‘ritual’ had worked on Charlie and how much of John remained.
He spies Charlie walking toward an art class. When Sherlock reaches him he has selected pastels and is in the process of colouring the entire sheet of paper grey. “Hello, Charlie.” He sits down.
“Good day.” Charlie looks up and smiles at him but continues furiously drawing the paper grey.
“What are you drawing?”
“Grey.”
“I can see that,” Sherlock mumbles. “Just the colour grey or are you planning on doing something with it?”
“Just the pavement will be grey; the rest will be black and red.” Charlie puts the grey pastel down and reaches for a black one. A rudimentary stick man is drawn and then Charlie reaches for the red. The red surrounds the stick figure, especially around the stick man’s head, and Charlie looks back at his work and smiles triumphantly. Whatever is in his head has translated precisely on to paper.
Sherlock swallows. “What happened to the man?” he asks.
Charlie doesn’t hesitate. “He fell.” The two words are whispered and distant and Charlie’s face contorts as he tries to turn an image of blood and pain into a memory. Sherlock doesn’t know and doesn’t care if this is happening only because of the bonding or because Charlie is remembering on his own but he would be a fool not to press his advantage.
“Molly gave me some blood bags,” he explains. “I burst them on the pavement before I rolled off the lorry. Do you remember the lorry, John?”
“Who’s John?” It is an honest question and it makes Sherlock want to hit him.
“You are,” Sherlock insists. He takes Charlie’s wrists and squeezes them tight. He doesn’t look at him. “You’re John Watson and I’m Sherlock Holmes. We live in London, we solve crimes together, and I was never really dead, John. I’m back now and we can go back home now. It’s all over.”
For a minute it looks like Charlie is actually considering it but whatever recognition or insight he’d had upstairs isn’t here now. The eyes are vacant and Sherlock can almost hear the crackle of missed connections in his brain. The picture means nothing to him. In fact whatever Charlie did remember to make him the picture is gone now; he looks slightly confused at what he’s drawn. “I think I’ll go for a swim now.”
Sherlock deflates and nods him away. Charlie stands but hovers by him expectantly. “Come with me?”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“You’re programmed to like me.”
“What?”
“Just go on. I’d like to be alone right now.” He folds his arms on the table and rests his chin on top.
Charlie does not move. He stands by Sherlock and when he does not move he sits down, flips his paper over and starts drawing again. This time he’s grabbed the pencils and he’s sketching. “I thought you wanted to go swimming,” Sherlock near snaps.
“Don’t want to now.”
“You’ve swam without me plenty of times, surely you can manage it now.” He hates Charlie, he decides. He hates Charlie for not being John and he hates John for deciding this was a good idea and forcing him to make his amends like this. He knows Charlie is looking at him in shock and sadness but he can’t bear to look up. Staring at his chest is easier than his face. After a moment Charlie wanders off and Sherlock buries his face into the table. This is only the first day and it is only going to get worse from here.
When he finally rises from his chair he sees Charlie’s sketch. It’s very crude but it looks very much like a headstone.
Maybe he’d ask Mycroft to take his headstone away, put John’s name on it, and send it back to him to prop up in his hotel room. Maybe that would make the message stick.
Part Five