Sherlock Fic: Leaving things undone: Day 2: Logic
Day 2: Logic
It’s not logical.
Deductions can only be made with the help of logic. I see the true order of things, the connections between details and I draw conclusions. But it must always (always!) be logical. You can’t understand the concatenation of events if they happen in an illogical order. The brain works by means of experience and it expects what’s most likely. How could someone assume illogicality and solve a mystery by that? And still there is the fear of the crime without motive, the murder without reason. (Would I be able to solve a crime like that? And would it be a felony anyway?) Logic governs my trains of thought and it’s quite satisfying if you wrap your mind around it completely (and it hurts so bad if one piece doesn’t fit, as if a piece from a different puzzle cheated its way in, and no matter how I look at it, it won’t fit).
John acts logically. Always. Sometimes it’s a strange kind of logic (when he shot the cabbie without thinking about it, when he wrapped his arms around Jim Moriarty, the bomb so close to his heart, and yelled at me to run). But afterwards I understood his actions, I thought I knew why he did it, because John (my loyal John) is always the helper, always the one who sacrifices himself, because he thinks other’s lives are worth more than his own (or is it just my life he values so much?). It’s John’s logic that is behind his actions, and I don’t share but understand it.
But there is nothing logical in our current situation. The letter: an enigma. Why should the Army reclaim him? It’s simply not possible for them to request someone who was wounded in action to return. But on the other hand I really don’t know what reasons they named, the letter which arrived weeks ago was thrown away long since and there is probably no more left than ash (strange, this irony, the item that changes everything is nothing more than dust by now, and still the effect lasts). The document I saw last Sunday in the kitchen was just a reminder, a warning, a threatening finger. Far too little information. And yet: not logical.
Why does John put up with it (why doesn’t he fight back, why doesn’t he scream and curse, why is he so calm and so sad and why does he just stand there saying nothing)?
I open my eyes. The room is colourless, an old black and white photograph. Without noticing it the second day passed me by while I lay on the sofa and thought about logic and got angry because nothing made sense. Now it dawns, and somewhere out there the city noises get lost between raindrops (London sounds oddly far away, like a different town), and the wooden floor boards upstairs creak (I didn’t even realise John came home from work, did he greet me without getting an answer, like a ghost?).
I slowly sit up, rest my elbows on my knees and put my head between my hands (sometimes I need to support myself). I see my mobile phone lying on the coffee table. The display lights up for a few seconds, shows three missed calls from a name that usually gives me new cases. But I don’t feel like hunting criminals (I feel exhausted, and in actual fact my mind is occupied enough), and yes, Lestrade will be surprised and maybe he will worry a bit (the nature of a good man), but I don’t care.
Beside my mobile lies the list, the list with seven experiments. I crossed the first item out, suppressed the fact that I failed with ignorance this time (and normally no one is better in ignoring than I am!) The next one is logic, highlighted and underlined, and I remember that I lay down on the sofa this morning after John left the house, and started trying to understand the logic of our situation (and I seem to have failed, again).
Finally I stand up. My joints feel stiff, no wonder given the fact I lay on the sofa the whole day. I leave the living room, silently climb the stairs to John’s room, and stand in front of the closed door and eavesdrop, one ear carefully placed against the cool wood. But it’s quiet inside, so he pauses, maybe he hears me, maybe he is just sitting motionless on his bed (and maybe he is having the same thoughts about logic).
I put my hand on the door handle, hesitating, and then I remember John’s words. It’s been a long time since he uttered them (it was during a case, he touched my shoulder before I opened a door and lightly shook his head, reached his hand past me and knocked. “Be polite,” he said and smiled like a big brother out of a children’s book), and so I knock and wait. Then I open the door.
John stands in front of the window with his back to me. On the bed, records and folders are scattered, apparently he was trying to sort all his documents. On top of the uppermost page of one stack I make out a small piece of paper with my name written on it, I guess these are papers regarding the flat, electricity and water and heating (all the things he took care of, because John always takes care, he just does it, and I can’t remember who did it before him).
“I will miss the view,” John suddenly says, one hand resting on the window pane, outside raindrops run down the glass and transform the city lights into a mosaic, and I realise that I’m still gripping the handle and that I haven’t moved out of the door frame, as if I fear to enter forbidden ground (even though I stand next to his bed so many nights and watch him sleep and don’t feel guilty for a second).
“You could just stay,” I try, and think a smile would strengthen the message, but I’m not able to force one (and after all he has his back turned on me anyway). John shrugs his shoulders, then turns around and looks at me (his gaze determined, but behind his eyes there is his mind, and it tells another story, but what story exactly?).
“There is no way around it”, he says and shakes his head, maybe because he doesn’t believe it himself (he doesn’t want to leave) or he wants to signify that I’m wrong and that he will leave, no matter what I say.
For a while we just watch each other, two tokens on a playing field, motionless until someone gives us a push, and suddenly London seems to be so noisy out there (you foreign city, the ride through your streets last Sunday seems years ago), and the silence inside feels so crushing and I suddenly want to scream (don’t go, don’t leave me behind), but I control my mind, I do all I can not to shout it out loud, and then the moment passes and John is suddenly standing in front of me and slipping the documents into my hands. He says something, I’m sure it contained the word “important”, but when I’m standing in my room half an hour later I have forgotten where I put the papers.
It’s not logical.
I need more information and it comes to my mind that John mentioned that Mycroft had something to do with this whole situation (sometimes I forget about Mycroft completely, as if my brain wants to delete his existence). I will visit him tomorrow, I decide, and of course I don’t want to, because I know how this will end.
And then I lie in my bed, stretch my bare feet until the joints grate so that it almost hurts. My hands rest on my stomach, I count my inhales, listen to the sounds of the old building. Sometimes there is laughter coming from the living room (John must be watching one of these entertainment shows, their humour has never been accessible to me) and there are police sirens just a few streets away. The wind presses raindrops against the window and my heart presses against my chest. I close my eyes and think: it’s not logical.
(Nothing I feel is logical)
It’s not logical.
Deductions can only be made with the help of logic. I see the true order of things, the connections between details and I draw conclusions. But it must always (always!) be logical. You can’t understand the concatenation of events if they happen in an illogical order. The brain works by means of experience and it expects what’s most likely. How could someone assume illogicality and solve a mystery by that? And still there is the fear of the crime without motive, the murder without reason. (Would I be able to solve a crime like that? And would it be a felony anyway?) Logic governs my trains of thought and it’s quite satisfying if you wrap your mind around it completely (and it hurts so bad if one piece doesn’t fit, as if a piece from a different puzzle cheated its way in, and no matter how I look at it, it won’t fit).
John acts logically. Always. Sometimes it’s a strange kind of logic (when he shot the cabbie without thinking about it, when he wrapped his arms around Jim Moriarty, the bomb so close to his heart, and yelled at me to run). But afterwards I understood his actions, I thought I knew why he did it, because John (my loyal John) is always the helper, always the one who sacrifices himself, because he thinks other’s lives are worth more than his own (or is it just my life he values so much?). It’s John’s logic that is behind his actions, and I don’t share but understand it.
But there is nothing logical in our current situation. The letter: an enigma. Why should the Army reclaim him? It’s simply not possible for them to request someone who was wounded in action to return. But on the other hand I really don’t know what reasons they named, the letter which arrived weeks ago was thrown away long since and there is probably no more left than ash (strange, this irony, the item that changes everything is nothing more than dust by now, and still the effect lasts). The document I saw last Sunday in the kitchen was just a reminder, a warning, a threatening finger. Far too little information. And yet: not logical.
Why does John put up with it (why doesn’t he fight back, why doesn’t he scream and curse, why is he so calm and so sad and why does he just stand there saying nothing)?
I open my eyes. The room is colourless, an old black and white photograph. Without noticing it the second day passed me by while I lay on the sofa and thought about logic and got angry because nothing made sense. Now it dawns, and somewhere out there the city noises get lost between raindrops (London sounds oddly far away, like a different town), and the wooden floor boards upstairs creak (I didn’t even realise John came home from work, did he greet me without getting an answer, like a ghost?).
I slowly sit up, rest my elbows on my knees and put my head between my hands (sometimes I need to support myself). I see my mobile phone lying on the coffee table. The display lights up for a few seconds, shows three missed calls from a name that usually gives me new cases. But I don’t feel like hunting criminals (I feel exhausted, and in actual fact my mind is occupied enough), and yes, Lestrade will be surprised and maybe he will worry a bit (the nature of a good man), but I don’t care.
Beside my mobile lies the list, the list with seven experiments. I crossed the first item out, suppressed the fact that I failed with ignorance this time (and normally no one is better in ignoring than I am!) The next one is logic, highlighted and underlined, and I remember that I lay down on the sofa this morning after John left the house, and started trying to understand the logic of our situation (and I seem to have failed, again).
Finally I stand up. My joints feel stiff, no wonder given the fact I lay on the sofa the whole day. I leave the living room, silently climb the stairs to John’s room, and stand in front of the closed door and eavesdrop, one ear carefully placed against the cool wood. But it’s quiet inside, so he pauses, maybe he hears me, maybe he is just sitting motionless on his bed (and maybe he is having the same thoughts about logic).
I put my hand on the door handle, hesitating, and then I remember John’s words. It’s been a long time since he uttered them (it was during a case, he touched my shoulder before I opened a door and lightly shook his head, reached his hand past me and knocked. “Be polite,” he said and smiled like a big brother out of a children’s book), and so I knock and wait. Then I open the door.
John stands in front of the window with his back to me. On the bed, records and folders are scattered, apparently he was trying to sort all his documents. On top of the uppermost page of one stack I make out a small piece of paper with my name written on it, I guess these are papers regarding the flat, electricity and water and heating (all the things he took care of, because John always takes care, he just does it, and I can’t remember who did it before him).
“I will miss the view,” John suddenly says, one hand resting on the window pane, outside raindrops run down the glass and transform the city lights into a mosaic, and I realise that I’m still gripping the handle and that I haven’t moved out of the door frame, as if I fear to enter forbidden ground (even though I stand next to his bed so many nights and watch him sleep and don’t feel guilty for a second).
“You could just stay,” I try, and think a smile would strengthen the message, but I’m not able to force one (and after all he has his back turned on me anyway). John shrugs his shoulders, then turns around and looks at me (his gaze determined, but behind his eyes there is his mind, and it tells another story, but what story exactly?).
“There is no way around it”, he says and shakes his head, maybe because he doesn’t believe it himself (he doesn’t want to leave) or he wants to signify that I’m wrong and that he will leave, no matter what I say.
For a while we just watch each other, two tokens on a playing field, motionless until someone gives us a push, and suddenly London seems to be so noisy out there (you foreign city, the ride through your streets last Sunday seems years ago), and the silence inside feels so crushing and I suddenly want to scream (don’t go, don’t leave me behind), but I control my mind, I do all I can not to shout it out loud, and then the moment passes and John is suddenly standing in front of me and slipping the documents into my hands. He says something, I’m sure it contained the word “important”, but when I’m standing in my room half an hour later I have forgotten where I put the papers.
It’s not logical.
I need more information and it comes to my mind that John mentioned that Mycroft had something to do with this whole situation (sometimes I forget about Mycroft completely, as if my brain wants to delete his existence). I will visit him tomorrow, I decide, and of course I don’t want to, because I know how this will end.
And then I lie in my bed, stretch my bare feet until the joints grate so that it almost hurts. My hands rest on my stomach, I count my inhales, listen to the sounds of the old building. Sometimes there is laughter coming from the living room (John must be watching one of these entertainment shows, their humour has never been accessible to me) and there are police sirens just a few streets away. The wind presses raindrops against the window and my heart presses against my chest. I close my eyes and think: it’s not logical.
(Nothing I feel is logical)