Fic: Nothing to Remember (7/10) [Dollhouse/Sherlock Crossover]
Title: Nothing to Remember
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For Sherlock: through series 2. For Dollhouse: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~4 400 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
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Topher is not involved in recruitment. There’s no reason for him to be. He functions as a part of the machine that is the House. He wipes, he imprints, and he restores when the time comes. He doesn’t settle the paper work and he doesn’t make the deals.
He thinks John Watson has to have done somebody a really, really big favour when he requests an unsupervised meeting with him, pre-wiping, to discuss terms and DeWitt agrees without hesitation. She doesn’t even order Topher to report the meeting back to her or install any extra surveillance, in fact she tells him to turn off the camera because Watson had asked for it.
So, yeah, really big favour. Massive. It’s Langton that tells him that Watson helped solve the Moriarty Issue and that explains everything and then some. Topher only knows as much as DeWitt has told him on the MI and that has been more out of frustration than actual willingness to divulge anything. Anyway, it’s obvious that John Watson is best to be treated as some high end client instead of a desperate, or blackmailed, person looking to get away from it all.
Meeting John Watson shows him that while he is different from the typical future Active, or at least as he understands them, he is the same in some ways. He’s a man in grief who is looking for a way to get away from it all as well as a man looking to protect something. Topher wonders if he faked his own death if anyone would care enough to even suspect that something wasn’t quite right. He asks John what he is actually doing here.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, now that you at least suspect that he’s out there somewhere wouldn’t it just make more sense to go find him? Or wait until he comes back?”
“Why would he come back?”
“Last time I checked if friends leap off buildings to protect other friends they’re going to come back to said friends as soon as they can. Unless he’s trying to start a new life in Bermuda or something.”
John actually ponders that for a moment. “I’d never find him,” he rules. “ I wouldn’t know where to start and if he doesn’t want me or anyone else to find him he won’t be found. As for the waiting suggestion...I don’t think I have the stomach for that.”
“And by stomach you mean mental capacity, I think.”
John shrugs. “Your words not mine.” He sighs, “It’s safer this way, I think. I could be wrong, you know. I probably am I’m wrong but...”
Topher has done his research on Sherlock Holmes in the few minutes he had to himself before John had stepped into the lounge area Topher keeps adjoining the lab. He’s read the blogs, seen the news reports, and seen the words ‘I Believe in Sherlock Holmes’ plastered everywhere. The man could do anything. Coming back from the dead is really just a minor inconvenience at best if everything he’s read is to be believed.
The hope is more devastating than the death itself, Topher realises. If the hope turns out to be true the suffering will be worth it but John does not know how long he can wait before something gives. The question is when and Topher highly doubts that is high on Mr. Holmes’ radar at the moment. He may say he’s doing this to keep Sherlock safe (“they might come after me and it’s probably best that they actually can’t find me”) but he’s doing this to keep himself safe as well. This way he’ll have something to come back to. Even if that something isn’t ideal or expected.
“If he comes back at some point during the five years,” John plows on, “I’m to be released if he serves the equivalent time as my handler. DeWitt has agreed to that.”
That isn’t Topher’s concern either way but he has to point out the obvious. “And what if he walks in the front door say at year four? You expect him to serve four years with you and you’re okay with being wiped for eight? That’s more than DeWitt asks out of the people she blackmails into doing this.”
John shrugs. It’s disturbing and Topher is not a man gets disturbed. He’s seen plenty of desperate types in this line of work but none so blasé about what they do here. “If I’m right I have a feeling that he might give your boss a headache and she’ll either cut down the time or kick us both out.” A ghost of a smirk at that thought.
“More like kick him out and hold you to the letter of your contract,” Topher corrects, and yes this is the voice of experience talking here. “Adelle DeWitt does not let what hers go until it isn’t hers anymore.”
John bristles at being referred to as anyone’s property. “I have a feeling,” he bites out. “That I’m going to be as much of a problem when he comes back as he is.”
Topher sighs, exasperated. “Why does everyone doubt my work? When he comes through that door, if he ever does, you are not going to know who he is. There is going to be nothing up there for you to remember! Nothing!”
“Oh I’m not doubting anything. I just happen to think you lot are dealing with something deeper than memories and brain matter. You throw the words ‘Tabula Rasa’ around here way too much for my liking. If what you did was perfect none of us would glitch, would we? “
Before Topher can attack that statement, he’s well used to defending himself on that front, John starts outlining his terms. They are unusual to say the least but Topher agrees. He can’t resist an experiment, especially on a willing subject. They settle out the details in the paperwork, John signs them, and Topher sends Ivy off to give them to DeWitt. She’ll approve it without even reading it probably. She’s already made clear she’s willing to make a lot of exceptions for this man; Topher makes a mental note to take out the next Big Bad personally and just maybe, maybe, he’ll get some of those changes he wants made implemented.
“You think he’ll agree to the terms?” Topher has to ask.
John doesn’t really want to answer. “I hope he will.”
Topher makes a show of humming and hahing. “Well let me think here. I’m a guy who’s come back from the dead to find out not only has my best friend effectively killed himself for a set amount of time but I’m have to work with him in this state for as long as he’s already been here.” He pauses. “It sounds an awful lot like tit for tat to me.”
John waits. Topher goes on. “ ‘You made me think you were dead for however long so here, I’m dead for the same amount of time but you have to hang out with me but not me during that time. Or else you wait until I finish my five years. Deal with it.’” John’s widen as he realises what Topher is implying. Topher keeps talking before John can say anything. “I buy the self protection reasons and I buy the protecting him reasons, the first more than the second, but you gotta admit, doc, that there’s a little bit of nicely built in punishment in here too.”
Apparently, judging by the look of anger and confusion on his face, he hadn’t actually thought of it that way before. Bless his heart, Topher thins snidely. Then John e sort of nods as some dark part of him warms up to the idea. “Not my intent, but now that you mention it this could solve a few problems later.”
“Like how many teeth he’s going to lose when you punch him in the face?”
He laughs a little at that. It’s rusty from ill use but there is a little bit of warmth still in it. “Like that.”
=====================================================================================
He takes a look at the equipment and lets out a low whistle. “Impressive.”
“I know right!” Topher goes on and babbles about how amazing this mind eraser and mind rewriter is. A sad smile crosses his face as he is reminded of Sherlock whirling around a crime scene, proclaiming his own brilliance in the same way that Topher is now. It has always been John’s lot to appreciate brilliance than to actually be brilliant himself so he tells Topher, again, that he’s impressed. He still regards the chair in the middle of the room with some measure of distrust. At little late for that, he thinks as he remembers the papers he’s signed and the arrangements he’s made.
It could be five years before he’s himself again. The thought is still more liberating than it is terrifying. That terrifies some last speck of him that is a logical, reasonable, thinking person. Sherlock would be doing his best to talk him out of it were he here right now. Hell, anyone with him would be telling him this was a mad idea. The maddest of ideas.
He needs it though. He needs to not remember, he needs to not think, he needs to not be here for awhile. He doesn’t want to kill himself and he doesn’t want to come back from wherever he is going to go and have the pain be numbed or the memory of his friend and his death gone forever. Both had been offered and he had furiously declined.
There also was that hope. That hope that somewhere out there Sherlock Holmes was still alive and if Sherlock had gone to ground to protect himself John knew the first person anyone would go after would be him. He’s in the last place anyone would think to look and they won’t find him here if they do. He’s going to keep drilling that into his head for his last few minutes of self awareness instead of the fact that this is an act of self preservation and, apparently, a bit of revenge.
“I’ve got everything ready to go,” Topher’s voice informs him. “Are you sure about your specs?”
“Very.”
“Most people really don’t like the idea that they’re going to remember exactly what’s happened to them while their body has been for hire.”
“If you think I’m letting you poke about up there without some sort of safeguard in place you’re madder than I thought.”
“And the fact that you’re letting me up there at all says what about you exactly?”
John doesn’t bother responding to something that they both know the answer to. “I’m not going to remember everything as it happens,” John corrects, irritable. “I had better not be anyway.” The last thing he wanted was to be aware of the time that was passing, be aware of being not in control of himself, of being a prisoner in his own body.
“No, no, no, you won’t. It’ll all be there for you to fondly reflect upon afterward if you choose to.”
“If I didn’t suspect better I’d think that you were none too fond of this job.”
Topher shrugged. “I don’t usually get to have nice discussions with Actives with their original personalities intact. Before or after.”
John knows this place attracts the desperate and he is certainly one of them. That being said this place also attracts the hopeless and John cannot claim that title entirely. “Don’t suppose you get a lot of feedback from people once their contracts are done.”
“Surprisingly they don’t want to hang around too long after. Getting them to come in for their post-Active life diagnostic is like pulling teeth.”
John almost finds himself promising to fill out a survey or do whatever Topher wants from people once his time, however much that is, is up but shuts his mouth. If Sherlock is here he’s going to want to go and if Sherlock isn’t here, well...
“Would you rather he come or would you rather he be dead?” Topher sounds legitimately curious.
“Alive, naturally.” John sits himself down on the edge of the chair. If he comes back and Sherlock has been alive this whole time he is going to be furious with him. He’s sure Sherlock has his reasons but his reasons are surely stupid or at least Not Good.
This is actually almost crueler than what Sherlock has done to him, John thinks. That was of course assuming that Sherlock didn’t find a way to bring him back on his own or cut the time down. Serving equal time to whatever John serves could, as Topher pointed out, add up to an intolerable number and John would much rather come around sooner rather than later. Even if it is only to fight about who has done what to whom and which articles of trust have been breached.
John would just be grateful for the chance to argue with him again. The chances as they stand are that he’ll wake up in five years and nothing will have changed. At least he won’t be aware of those lonely years passing.
“If he does come,” John begins, “keep an eye on him, would you?” Topher starts and looks at him. John isn’t sure why he’s bothered asking a man that he’s known for all of an hour to look after a potentially dead friend of his. Topher may remind him of Sherlock but letting the both of them in the same room might mean the end of the world.
At least that would be exciting.
“He’s not going to like what he finds and he can be incredibly slow on the uptake when it comes to what we would call the obvious.” He glares at Topher when he snorts. “Keep him entertained, let him poke around in here when he gets board or banned, make sure he...” He waves a hand in a useless circle and then lets it fall. “Forget about it.” He lies back in the chair. It feels like an eternity before Topher reclines it. “I’m not going to know anything, right?” he finds himself asking. “I’m going to be totally clean. Nothing left of me until you bring me back, yeah?”
“Tabula Rasa,” is Topher’s pretentious reassurance. “Just like everyone down below.”
They like to use that term a lot around here. You can call an infant tabula rasa because they’ve experienced nothing. They are no one until they are named and until they learn and grow. John Watson is an adult male with more than enough experience and history to fill several blank slates. He wonders if anyone here has ever actually bothered to look at a slate after it has been erased.
Enough philosophy, he orders himself. It’s not going to matter in thirty seconds.
He hears a click of a button and a sees rush of images, light, and pain.
John Hamish Watson blinks out of existence in three point five seconds.
=====================================================================================
Sherlock Holmes’ first act once he opens his eyes again is to roll onto his side and vomit. A basin appears just in time as he coughs up what he can and, to his disgust, swallows the rest. “How long?” he asks once the room stops spinning and he manages to focus on Topher, who is kneeling at his side and is cautious moving the basin somewhere out of his sight.
“We’ll get to that,” Topher’s deflects. “First though, can you let Charlie know you’re okay? He’s been worried sick.”
Charlie. Charlie who is not John but is. He pushes himself up, slowly as not to bring on more vomiting, and manages to maneuver himself so he’s sitting on the bottom part of the chair with his feet on the floor. “Charlie?”
Charlie’s a little too far away at present to make out. He’s a blur at the doorway at the moment. “Are you okay now?”
When Sherlock’s eyes decide to work properly at a distance he sees Charlie standing in the doorway, like a child hesitating outside his parents’ room, looking concerned and terrified all at once. Of course he does, Sherlock crows triumphantly to himself, of course he does. He holds out his hand. “Do you trust me?”
Charlie comes forward immediately to take the hand. “With my life,” he answered obediently.
“Not Good?”
“A bit.”
Charlie’s responsive is reflexive, just as reflexive as the first response, but he isn’t sure what he’s said and looks to Sherlock for an explanation. Sherlock is overcome with a desire to hug him but holds his arms where they are. “You go for a swim,” he suggests. “I’ll come see you in a minute. I need to talk to Topher.”
“Okay.” Charlie walks backwards out of the lab, keeping an eye on Sherlock until he has no choice but to turn around.
“He looks better,” Topher says approvingly. “You should have seen him when he first saw you down there. Langton and I managed to keep you separate for a bit but you eventually bumped into each other and he freaked. Like he was shaking you and everything. ‘Wake up, Sherlock! Wake up, Sherlock!’ and you were all like ‘who?’ and he just didn’t know what to do.”
“How long?” Sherlock knows it’s been more than two weeks and he’ll figure out who to blame for that later but he wants to see if he’ll hear the truth from Topher’s lips.
“A month,” Topher admits easily enough. “Now that wasn’t totally my idea, mind you. I was fine with the two weeks but you decided to make yourself disappear whenever we came looking for you.”
A flash of memory, of hiding in the Dollhouse while Topher and the orderlies looked for him. “I evaded you for two weeks.” If there was any proof that some things could not be erased by Topher’s technology this had to be one.
“There’s only room for one ego in here and it’s me,” Topher corrects. “You pulled a fast one on us for two days. Then you just flat out refused to stay in the chair and kept slipping the restraints.” Topher sighs theatrically. “And considering that I can’t imprint anyone with anything, including their original personality, while unconscious, I figured I would just wait until you graced me with your presence and five minutes ago you did, thank God. DeWitt is so furious at you that she’s taking it out on me. I’m surprised I’m not dead actually.
”
Sherlock does not care about Topher being dead or alive at the moment. He cares about the fact that he remembers more than he ought about being no one, which ideally should be nothing. He remembers wandering around the House like he knew the place but didn’t. He remembers some of art class (his drawings had been hideous) and he remembers eating more than he had ever bothered to eat normally. He remembers finding Charlie (John) and Charlie shouting at him to wake up. He remembers Charlie being gone and missing him without knowing why.
He remembers being so happy when Charlie came back, took him by the hand, and told him that he would look after him until he woke up.
“What did you and John agree upon?”
“How much do you remember?”
It’s a hard and interesting question to answer. He remembers flashes of events and is aware of what orders those flashes occurred in without having any conception of time. He cannot account for all thirty days of his state but he is confident he could based on what he remembers and what evidence he could doubtless gather.
He doesn’t particularly want to and he knows that John probably won’t either but it’s useful to know. There was method in John’s madness here. “You did something to let him remember.”
“I did something that would let him remember what we imprinted him with. Surprisingly he didn’t trust DeWitt to stick to her word. When his number is up he’ll be able to see what exactly we’ve done.”
“But you didn’t wipe him completely,” Sherlock presses. “You left something of him in there just like you left something of me.”
Topher smiles slightly and shakes his head. “That, my friend, I did not do. As much as I don’t like to think about it, it could be a very bad thing in certain cases, some things just continue despite wiping or crop again despite wiping. No matter how much I try to ignore it or explain it” He settles into his chair. Sherlock spins to face him properly. He nearly throw up again.
Topher tells him about some previous case studies. Two friends unknowingly being Actives together and seeking each other out. Two Actives falling in love, at least as much as they can, and that love surviving imprint after imprint and continuing even when they were returned to their original selves. “Some things just are that deep,” he finishes. “And, yeah, I may have left him a little bit more open to being stimulated if you were to come back.” Topher settles onto his stool and hands Sherlock an envelope. “I think you and I both know that he’d rather know you were alive sooner rather than later. He may not quite understand it but it makes him feel good and I think that’s what he really needed more than a mind wipe.”
Not that Sherlock ever plans to fake his death and leave John behind again but this conversation with a man who is obviously uncomfortable with the subject matter clinches it. He shoves the scientific evidence that he and John are something unique away. He’d always known it and he doesn’t need the proof for it. He ends the discussion and asks what the envelope is. Topher grins.
“Safe deposit box key.” He hands over a business card next. “John gave it to me to give to you but I honestly forgot all about it until you were on the floor.”
“What’s in it?”
“Aren’t you the one who loves mysteries? Go find out for yourself!”
=====================================================================
DeWitt has Sherlock sent to her office before he can leave. Sherlock can hear the staff leaving and Langton herding people away from the door as he and DeWitt fire everything at each other over Sherlock’s stint as a doll. Once again Sherlock is floored at how concerned with legality and liability an illegal operation is. Sherlock finds himself banned again, this time for a month, and is escorted off the premise with his keys and passes taken away. He is also escorted to his hotel room and left there. It’s all rather excessive and everyone knows that he’s figured out alternate ways into the building without raising the alarm by now. Sherlock plans to keep to his suspension though, that is aside from sneaking in to the pod rooms and visiting John - he thinks he can train him to wait where needs to wait in the one spot where the cameras are blind.
He also has to relish in the victory that is the shortening of his and John’s sentence and John can’t even say that he did it intentionally. DeWitt is far from impressed with Charlie’s behaviour off assignment and, of course, is not Sherlock’s biggest fan and wants the both of them out of her hair. A handler she can’t control is undesirable as is an Active that may be defective. She has knocked the contract down to one year, which means that in eight months they will be free. Sherlock is very tempted to make things miserable enough that DeWitt throws up her hands and cuts them both loose even sooner but knows full well that the likely reaction will be the pair of them being sent to the Attic. He has no desire to risk that anymore than he has to.
There also remains his agreement with John, that he fulfill his end of the bargain. Technically he’s already failed in having eighteen months become twelve but he did not engineer it that way. He hopes that John will understand that and forgive him for it. What’s one more impossible forgiveness to add to the list, he says to himself.
Once the coast is clear he heads off to the bank on the card Topher had given him. The box is empty but for his near forgotten Stradivarius, some staff paper, and a note.
You’re probably going to need these
-J
Terse and awkward. He doesn’t want to give away anything this way and feels silly in that he feels that this may never be read. Sherlock folds up the letter and puts it in his blazer pocket. It will remain there until they are back in Baker Street. When he gets back to the hotel he plays his fingers numb as he furiously but tenderly plays every single song that John likes - even the ones that Sherlock hates so much that they physically pain him to hear or play. The composing will happen later but tonight this is what feels right. They had found each other as themselves, they had found each other as Sherlock and Charlie, and they had found each other as Charlie and...whatever he had been.
He supposes he should think more about his experience in that state but decides it is best left alone. He can be honest with himself now and know his true reasons for doing it.
Bach’s Chaconne is the last thing he plays that night. If he shuts his eyes and thinks hard enough he can almost believe that John is sitting in the arm chair with a cup of tea, nodding off as he nods to the music.
Several miles away and several storeys underground an Active named Charlie settles into his sleep pod with a smile on his face. He doesn’t know why he’s excited, why it feels that something good is coming very very soon, but he likes the feeling. He hopes this feeling stays longer than the other ones.
Part Eight
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For Sherlock: through series 2. For Dollhouse: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~4 400 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
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Topher is not involved in recruitment. There’s no reason for him to be. He functions as a part of the machine that is the House. He wipes, he imprints, and he restores when the time comes. He doesn’t settle the paper work and he doesn’t make the deals.
He thinks John Watson has to have done somebody a really, really big favour when he requests an unsupervised meeting with him, pre-wiping, to discuss terms and DeWitt agrees without hesitation. She doesn’t even order Topher to report the meeting back to her or install any extra surveillance, in fact she tells him to turn off the camera because Watson had asked for it.
So, yeah, really big favour. Massive. It’s Langton that tells him that Watson helped solve the Moriarty Issue and that explains everything and then some. Topher only knows as much as DeWitt has told him on the MI and that has been more out of frustration than actual willingness to divulge anything. Anyway, it’s obvious that John Watson is best to be treated as some high end client instead of a desperate, or blackmailed, person looking to get away from it all.
Meeting John Watson shows him that while he is different from the typical future Active, or at least as he understands them, he is the same in some ways. He’s a man in grief who is looking for a way to get away from it all as well as a man looking to protect something. Topher wonders if he faked his own death if anyone would care enough to even suspect that something wasn’t quite right. He asks John what he is actually doing here.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, now that you at least suspect that he’s out there somewhere wouldn’t it just make more sense to go find him? Or wait until he comes back?”
“Why would he come back?”
“Last time I checked if friends leap off buildings to protect other friends they’re going to come back to said friends as soon as they can. Unless he’s trying to start a new life in Bermuda or something.”
John actually ponders that for a moment. “I’d never find him,” he rules. “ I wouldn’t know where to start and if he doesn’t want me or anyone else to find him he won’t be found. As for the waiting suggestion...I don’t think I have the stomach for that.”
“And by stomach you mean mental capacity, I think.”
John shrugs. “Your words not mine.” He sighs, “It’s safer this way, I think. I could be wrong, you know. I probably am I’m wrong but...”
Topher has done his research on Sherlock Holmes in the few minutes he had to himself before John had stepped into the lounge area Topher keeps adjoining the lab. He’s read the blogs, seen the news reports, and seen the words ‘I Believe in Sherlock Holmes’ plastered everywhere. The man could do anything. Coming back from the dead is really just a minor inconvenience at best if everything he’s read is to be believed.
The hope is more devastating than the death itself, Topher realises. If the hope turns out to be true the suffering will be worth it but John does not know how long he can wait before something gives. The question is when and Topher highly doubts that is high on Mr. Holmes’ radar at the moment. He may say he’s doing this to keep Sherlock safe (“they might come after me and it’s probably best that they actually can’t find me”) but he’s doing this to keep himself safe as well. This way he’ll have something to come back to. Even if that something isn’t ideal or expected.
“If he comes back at some point during the five years,” John plows on, “I’m to be released if he serves the equivalent time as my handler. DeWitt has agreed to that.”
That isn’t Topher’s concern either way but he has to point out the obvious. “And what if he walks in the front door say at year four? You expect him to serve four years with you and you’re okay with being wiped for eight? That’s more than DeWitt asks out of the people she blackmails into doing this.”
John shrugs. It’s disturbing and Topher is not a man gets disturbed. He’s seen plenty of desperate types in this line of work but none so blasé about what they do here. “If I’m right I have a feeling that he might give your boss a headache and she’ll either cut down the time or kick us both out.” A ghost of a smirk at that thought.
“More like kick him out and hold you to the letter of your contract,” Topher corrects, and yes this is the voice of experience talking here. “Adelle DeWitt does not let what hers go until it isn’t hers anymore.”
John bristles at being referred to as anyone’s property. “I have a feeling,” he bites out. “That I’m going to be as much of a problem when he comes back as he is.”
Topher sighs, exasperated. “Why does everyone doubt my work? When he comes through that door, if he ever does, you are not going to know who he is. There is going to be nothing up there for you to remember! Nothing!”
“Oh I’m not doubting anything. I just happen to think you lot are dealing with something deeper than memories and brain matter. You throw the words ‘Tabula Rasa’ around here way too much for my liking. If what you did was perfect none of us would glitch, would we? “
Before Topher can attack that statement, he’s well used to defending himself on that front, John starts outlining his terms. They are unusual to say the least but Topher agrees. He can’t resist an experiment, especially on a willing subject. They settle out the details in the paperwork, John signs them, and Topher sends Ivy off to give them to DeWitt. She’ll approve it without even reading it probably. She’s already made clear she’s willing to make a lot of exceptions for this man; Topher makes a mental note to take out the next Big Bad personally and just maybe, maybe, he’ll get some of those changes he wants made implemented.
“You think he’ll agree to the terms?” Topher has to ask.
John doesn’t really want to answer. “I hope he will.”
Topher makes a show of humming and hahing. “Well let me think here. I’m a guy who’s come back from the dead to find out not only has my best friend effectively killed himself for a set amount of time but I’m have to work with him in this state for as long as he’s already been here.” He pauses. “It sounds an awful lot like tit for tat to me.”
John waits. Topher goes on. “ ‘You made me think you were dead for however long so here, I’m dead for the same amount of time but you have to hang out with me but not me during that time. Or else you wait until I finish my five years. Deal with it.’” John’s widen as he realises what Topher is implying. Topher keeps talking before John can say anything. “I buy the self protection reasons and I buy the protecting him reasons, the first more than the second, but you gotta admit, doc, that there’s a little bit of nicely built in punishment in here too.”
Apparently, judging by the look of anger and confusion on his face, he hadn’t actually thought of it that way before. Bless his heart, Topher thins snidely. Then John e sort of nods as some dark part of him warms up to the idea. “Not my intent, but now that you mention it this could solve a few problems later.”
“Like how many teeth he’s going to lose when you punch him in the face?”
He laughs a little at that. It’s rusty from ill use but there is a little bit of warmth still in it. “Like that.”
=====================================================================================
He takes a look at the equipment and lets out a low whistle. “Impressive.”
“I know right!” Topher goes on and babbles about how amazing this mind eraser and mind rewriter is. A sad smile crosses his face as he is reminded of Sherlock whirling around a crime scene, proclaiming his own brilliance in the same way that Topher is now. It has always been John’s lot to appreciate brilliance than to actually be brilliant himself so he tells Topher, again, that he’s impressed. He still regards the chair in the middle of the room with some measure of distrust. At little late for that, he thinks as he remembers the papers he’s signed and the arrangements he’s made.
It could be five years before he’s himself again. The thought is still more liberating than it is terrifying. That terrifies some last speck of him that is a logical, reasonable, thinking person. Sherlock would be doing his best to talk him out of it were he here right now. Hell, anyone with him would be telling him this was a mad idea. The maddest of ideas.
He needs it though. He needs to not remember, he needs to not think, he needs to not be here for awhile. He doesn’t want to kill himself and he doesn’t want to come back from wherever he is going to go and have the pain be numbed or the memory of his friend and his death gone forever. Both had been offered and he had furiously declined.
There also was that hope. That hope that somewhere out there Sherlock Holmes was still alive and if Sherlock had gone to ground to protect himself John knew the first person anyone would go after would be him. He’s in the last place anyone would think to look and they won’t find him here if they do. He’s going to keep drilling that into his head for his last few minutes of self awareness instead of the fact that this is an act of self preservation and, apparently, a bit of revenge.
“I’ve got everything ready to go,” Topher’s voice informs him. “Are you sure about your specs?”
“Very.”
“Most people really don’t like the idea that they’re going to remember exactly what’s happened to them while their body has been for hire.”
“If you think I’m letting you poke about up there without some sort of safeguard in place you’re madder than I thought.”
“And the fact that you’re letting me up there at all says what about you exactly?”
John doesn’t bother responding to something that they both know the answer to. “I’m not going to remember everything as it happens,” John corrects, irritable. “I had better not be anyway.” The last thing he wanted was to be aware of the time that was passing, be aware of being not in control of himself, of being a prisoner in his own body.
“No, no, no, you won’t. It’ll all be there for you to fondly reflect upon afterward if you choose to.”
“If I didn’t suspect better I’d think that you were none too fond of this job.”
Topher shrugged. “I don’t usually get to have nice discussions with Actives with their original personalities intact. Before or after.”
John knows this place attracts the desperate and he is certainly one of them. That being said this place also attracts the hopeless and John cannot claim that title entirely. “Don’t suppose you get a lot of feedback from people once their contracts are done.”
“Surprisingly they don’t want to hang around too long after. Getting them to come in for their post-Active life diagnostic is like pulling teeth.”
John almost finds himself promising to fill out a survey or do whatever Topher wants from people once his time, however much that is, is up but shuts his mouth. If Sherlock is here he’s going to want to go and if Sherlock isn’t here, well...
“Would you rather he come or would you rather he be dead?” Topher sounds legitimately curious.
“Alive, naturally.” John sits himself down on the edge of the chair. If he comes back and Sherlock has been alive this whole time he is going to be furious with him. He’s sure Sherlock has his reasons but his reasons are surely stupid or at least Not Good.
This is actually almost crueler than what Sherlock has done to him, John thinks. That was of course assuming that Sherlock didn’t find a way to bring him back on his own or cut the time down. Serving equal time to whatever John serves could, as Topher pointed out, add up to an intolerable number and John would much rather come around sooner rather than later. Even if it is only to fight about who has done what to whom and which articles of trust have been breached.
John would just be grateful for the chance to argue with him again. The chances as they stand are that he’ll wake up in five years and nothing will have changed. At least he won’t be aware of those lonely years passing.
“If he does come,” John begins, “keep an eye on him, would you?” Topher starts and looks at him. John isn’t sure why he’s bothered asking a man that he’s known for all of an hour to look after a potentially dead friend of his. Topher may remind him of Sherlock but letting the both of them in the same room might mean the end of the world.
At least that would be exciting.
“He’s not going to like what he finds and he can be incredibly slow on the uptake when it comes to what we would call the obvious.” He glares at Topher when he snorts. “Keep him entertained, let him poke around in here when he gets board or banned, make sure he...” He waves a hand in a useless circle and then lets it fall. “Forget about it.” He lies back in the chair. It feels like an eternity before Topher reclines it. “I’m not going to know anything, right?” he finds himself asking. “I’m going to be totally clean. Nothing left of me until you bring me back, yeah?”
“Tabula Rasa,” is Topher’s pretentious reassurance. “Just like everyone down below.”
They like to use that term a lot around here. You can call an infant tabula rasa because they’ve experienced nothing. They are no one until they are named and until they learn and grow. John Watson is an adult male with more than enough experience and history to fill several blank slates. He wonders if anyone here has ever actually bothered to look at a slate after it has been erased.
Enough philosophy, he orders himself. It’s not going to matter in thirty seconds.
He hears a click of a button and a sees rush of images, light, and pain.
John Hamish Watson blinks out of existence in three point five seconds.
=====================================================================================
Sherlock Holmes’ first act once he opens his eyes again is to roll onto his side and vomit. A basin appears just in time as he coughs up what he can and, to his disgust, swallows the rest. “How long?” he asks once the room stops spinning and he manages to focus on Topher, who is kneeling at his side and is cautious moving the basin somewhere out of his sight.
“We’ll get to that,” Topher’s deflects. “First though, can you let Charlie know you’re okay? He’s been worried sick.”
Charlie. Charlie who is not John but is. He pushes himself up, slowly as not to bring on more vomiting, and manages to maneuver himself so he’s sitting on the bottom part of the chair with his feet on the floor. “Charlie?”
Charlie’s a little too far away at present to make out. He’s a blur at the doorway at the moment. “Are you okay now?”
When Sherlock’s eyes decide to work properly at a distance he sees Charlie standing in the doorway, like a child hesitating outside his parents’ room, looking concerned and terrified all at once. Of course he does, Sherlock crows triumphantly to himself, of course he does. He holds out his hand. “Do you trust me?”
Charlie comes forward immediately to take the hand. “With my life,” he answered obediently.
“Not Good?”
“A bit.”
Charlie’s responsive is reflexive, just as reflexive as the first response, but he isn’t sure what he’s said and looks to Sherlock for an explanation. Sherlock is overcome with a desire to hug him but holds his arms where they are. “You go for a swim,” he suggests. “I’ll come see you in a minute. I need to talk to Topher.”
“Okay.” Charlie walks backwards out of the lab, keeping an eye on Sherlock until he has no choice but to turn around.
“He looks better,” Topher says approvingly. “You should have seen him when he first saw you down there. Langton and I managed to keep you separate for a bit but you eventually bumped into each other and he freaked. Like he was shaking you and everything. ‘Wake up, Sherlock! Wake up, Sherlock!’ and you were all like ‘who?’ and he just didn’t know what to do.”
“How long?” Sherlock knows it’s been more than two weeks and he’ll figure out who to blame for that later but he wants to see if he’ll hear the truth from Topher’s lips.
“A month,” Topher admits easily enough. “Now that wasn’t totally my idea, mind you. I was fine with the two weeks but you decided to make yourself disappear whenever we came looking for you.”
A flash of memory, of hiding in the Dollhouse while Topher and the orderlies looked for him. “I evaded you for two weeks.” If there was any proof that some things could not be erased by Topher’s technology this had to be one.
“There’s only room for one ego in here and it’s me,” Topher corrects. “You pulled a fast one on us for two days. Then you just flat out refused to stay in the chair and kept slipping the restraints.” Topher sighs theatrically. “And considering that I can’t imprint anyone with anything, including their original personality, while unconscious, I figured I would just wait until you graced me with your presence and five minutes ago you did, thank God. DeWitt is so furious at you that she’s taking it out on me. I’m surprised I’m not dead actually.
”
Sherlock does not care about Topher being dead or alive at the moment. He cares about the fact that he remembers more than he ought about being no one, which ideally should be nothing. He remembers wandering around the House like he knew the place but didn’t. He remembers some of art class (his drawings had been hideous) and he remembers eating more than he had ever bothered to eat normally. He remembers finding Charlie (John) and Charlie shouting at him to wake up. He remembers Charlie being gone and missing him without knowing why.
He remembers being so happy when Charlie came back, took him by the hand, and told him that he would look after him until he woke up.
“What did you and John agree upon?”
“How much do you remember?”
It’s a hard and interesting question to answer. He remembers flashes of events and is aware of what orders those flashes occurred in without having any conception of time. He cannot account for all thirty days of his state but he is confident he could based on what he remembers and what evidence he could doubtless gather.
He doesn’t particularly want to and he knows that John probably won’t either but it’s useful to know. There was method in John’s madness here. “You did something to let him remember.”
“I did something that would let him remember what we imprinted him with. Surprisingly he didn’t trust DeWitt to stick to her word. When his number is up he’ll be able to see what exactly we’ve done.”
“But you didn’t wipe him completely,” Sherlock presses. “You left something of him in there just like you left something of me.”
Topher smiles slightly and shakes his head. “That, my friend, I did not do. As much as I don’t like to think about it, it could be a very bad thing in certain cases, some things just continue despite wiping or crop again despite wiping. No matter how much I try to ignore it or explain it” He settles into his chair. Sherlock spins to face him properly. He nearly throw up again.
Topher tells him about some previous case studies. Two friends unknowingly being Actives together and seeking each other out. Two Actives falling in love, at least as much as they can, and that love surviving imprint after imprint and continuing even when they were returned to their original selves. “Some things just are that deep,” he finishes. “And, yeah, I may have left him a little bit more open to being stimulated if you were to come back.” Topher settles onto his stool and hands Sherlock an envelope. “I think you and I both know that he’d rather know you were alive sooner rather than later. He may not quite understand it but it makes him feel good and I think that’s what he really needed more than a mind wipe.”
Not that Sherlock ever plans to fake his death and leave John behind again but this conversation with a man who is obviously uncomfortable with the subject matter clinches it. He shoves the scientific evidence that he and John are something unique away. He’d always known it and he doesn’t need the proof for it. He ends the discussion and asks what the envelope is. Topher grins.
“Safe deposit box key.” He hands over a business card next. “John gave it to me to give to you but I honestly forgot all about it until you were on the floor.”
“What’s in it?”
“Aren’t you the one who loves mysteries? Go find out for yourself!”
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DeWitt has Sherlock sent to her office before he can leave. Sherlock can hear the staff leaving and Langton herding people away from the door as he and DeWitt fire everything at each other over Sherlock’s stint as a doll. Once again Sherlock is floored at how concerned with legality and liability an illegal operation is. Sherlock finds himself banned again, this time for a month, and is escorted off the premise with his keys and passes taken away. He is also escorted to his hotel room and left there. It’s all rather excessive and everyone knows that he’s figured out alternate ways into the building without raising the alarm by now. Sherlock plans to keep to his suspension though, that is aside from sneaking in to the pod rooms and visiting John - he thinks he can train him to wait where needs to wait in the one spot where the cameras are blind.
He also has to relish in the victory that is the shortening of his and John’s sentence and John can’t even say that he did it intentionally. DeWitt is far from impressed with Charlie’s behaviour off assignment and, of course, is not Sherlock’s biggest fan and wants the both of them out of her hair. A handler she can’t control is undesirable as is an Active that may be defective. She has knocked the contract down to one year, which means that in eight months they will be free. Sherlock is very tempted to make things miserable enough that DeWitt throws up her hands and cuts them both loose even sooner but knows full well that the likely reaction will be the pair of them being sent to the Attic. He has no desire to risk that anymore than he has to.
There also remains his agreement with John, that he fulfill his end of the bargain. Technically he’s already failed in having eighteen months become twelve but he did not engineer it that way. He hopes that John will understand that and forgive him for it. What’s one more impossible forgiveness to add to the list, he says to himself.
Once the coast is clear he heads off to the bank on the card Topher had given him. The box is empty but for his near forgotten Stradivarius, some staff paper, and a note.
You’re probably going to need these
-J
Terse and awkward. He doesn’t want to give away anything this way and feels silly in that he feels that this may never be read. Sherlock folds up the letter and puts it in his blazer pocket. It will remain there until they are back in Baker Street. When he gets back to the hotel he plays his fingers numb as he furiously but tenderly plays every single song that John likes - even the ones that Sherlock hates so much that they physically pain him to hear or play. The composing will happen later but tonight this is what feels right. They had found each other as themselves, they had found each other as Sherlock and Charlie, and they had found each other as Charlie and...whatever he had been.
He supposes he should think more about his experience in that state but decides it is best left alone. He can be honest with himself now and know his true reasons for doing it.
Bach’s Chaconne is the last thing he plays that night. If he shuts his eyes and thinks hard enough he can almost believe that John is sitting in the arm chair with a cup of tea, nodding off as he nods to the music.
Several miles away and several storeys underground an Active named Charlie settles into his sleep pod with a smile on his face. He doesn’t know why he’s excited, why it feels that something good is coming very very soon, but he likes the feeling. He hopes this feeling stays longer than the other ones.
Part Eight