Post Reichenbach, John, Mrs Hudson Sherlock:Fanworks Fest
Title: In the Moment
Pairing:John, Mrs Hudson
Prompt: Mrs H looks after John post-Reichenbach...
Warnings: Grief, Angst, Possible SPolier for S2x3
After the Fall
The room was bland. Beige and taupe tones filled in the shapes made by the room’s sharp unyielding lines. The bedsit was not luxurious, but it was clean. Most importantly, it was anonymous. There was nothing here to reflect his grief. No mementos to magnify the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.
He would return home, he supposed, but not yet.
He sat on the bed and tried to remember what to do. He could recall the things he might once have done…tea, newspaper, unpack…but they seemed distant; the preoccupations of a stranger. He sat still, hands on his knees, and tried to feel connected to the passing moments.
Finally, he bent over and resting his head in his hands, tried to ignore the hollow ache in his chest.
Three months later
“Hello, John!” Mrs Hudson stepped into the room and immediately enveloped him in her arms. He responded immediately, holding her for a moment longer than he might once have. To his relief she didn’t let go until he did.
“How are you?” She looked around the room with a critical eye as she spoke. He knew she didn’t approve, she had wanted him home weeks ago.
John was relieved military habits had endured through the overwhelming onslaught of his grief, even if he wasn’t sure he could remember exactly how it happened. His sorrow remained a formless, gnawing thing and he had spent the last few months trying to wrest it into a shape he could give a name to. Time had passed, he knew, but he found it hard to focus on the details.
His bag was packed and resting on the table. Mrs. Hudson touched the bag and turned to give him a warm smile. “Are you ready?” She turned towards the door.
He cleared his throat. “I could have met you there, you know.”
“Well, dear, it’s a lovely day and a walk will do my hip some good.” She smiled at him.
“Right, yeah, let’s go.” John nodded at her unvoiced encouragement and picked up his bag. Without looking back he followed Mrs Hudson out the door and down the corridor. They stepped outside. It was late September and the air was crisp although the sky remained clear. John let her lead the way back home.
“I picked up a few bits and bobs for you already. But I’ll do tea tonight, so don’t worry about cooking, it is your first night home.” She reached over to squeeze his arm affectionately.
He could feel the muscles of his face pull back automatically in a smile and he reminded himself to pat her hand where she held on to him. He could feel the bones in her hand, fragile, bird-like and so warm.
When they reached Baker Street he stopped at the front step.
“I…” he started to speak but stopped, not sure what to say. He twisted his head to the side, trying to look away from the mute accusation of the door. His collar felt tight and an uncomfortable urge to flee crept along the edges of his mind. Mrs Hudson reached out and placed her hand on his forearm. He focused on her touch, willed himself to stay.
“When you’re ready, John.” She rubbed his arm in emphasis. “Let’s just get you upstairs, alright?”
She released him and unlocked the door. He released the breath he hadn’t noticed he had been holding, and stepped forward.
He went up the stairs without looking around. As he turned from the landing to the sitting room door he consciously refused to let himself pause. Striding forward he dropped his bag on the couch and turned to survey the room.
It was the same. He was different.
He heard her slower steps come up the stairs. “I’ll make some tea.” She went to the kitchen; he could hear the rattle of dishes as she searched for some mugs. He followed her into the kitchen, and stood by the table, hands empty and open at his sides.
“That brother of his came by a few days after we went to the cemetery.” She paused, holding the refrigerator door open to fetch the milk. She turned to watch his face. He nodded, tried to remember how to form an expression of polite inquiry.
“Hmm.”
She continued, “Well, he brought some people with him, cleaners and whatnot. They took all the clothes and cleared out the experiments. Thank goodness! I’m not sure I would have been up for that type of shifting. They even Hoovered the carpets, twice! But they left the rest of his things…his…personal things. When I asked him - thinking that maybe you wouldn’t want to see them. He said ‘By rights they are Dr Watson’s. When he returns to the flat, which he will, please let him know I shall call by.’” She shook her head at the memory.
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
The kettle clicked off, and she turned and began busying herself with the tea. When she turned back to him the two steaming mugs in her hand, John pulled out a chair for her and another for himself. They sat down. He thought maybe he should say something, but nothing came to mind so he busied himself by sipping the tea.
Finally, Mrs Hudson set her cup on the table and wrapped her hands around it.
“It’s time you know.”
He looked at her and cleared his throat before he asked, “Time for what?”
“Time to let yourself heal. You’ve been grieving, John, but you can’t let your life slip by this way.”
He reached out and rested his fingers on her wrist. He licked his lips as he tried to express his thoughts into a form she would understand. “I…” he paused, “I don’t know how to move past this.” He gestured towards his chest with his free hand. His hand wavered as he tried to force the emptiness into a form he could reveal to her. Finally, in frustration he exhaled. “Bloody hell! I…I can’t even talk about it.” He let go of her wrist and covered his eyes with his hands. He suddenly felt her hand on his elbow, heard her slight exhale before she spoke.
“My father was a soldier, you know.”
John turned to look at her, dropping his hands to circle the mug in front of him. Her hand still rested on his arm, but she had turned her face away. She was staring at the cooker, but he knew her thoughts were farther away.
“No, no I didn’t.” He cleared his throat. “Know that, I mean.”
“Well, I was just a wee girl then, 3, or maybe close to 4. He was a Sergeant in the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk, in the early days of the war…1940?”
He covered her hand with his own. “I remember that. What happened to him?”
“Well,” she paused, “he was killed. The ship he was on sunk during the evacuation from France, and everyone on board drowned.” Her face was still, weary memories teased at the corner of her eyes.
“I’m so sorry.” He could see the loss in her eyes, dimmed perhaps with age, but still a ghostly, eternal thing. She turned her head to look at him.
“Well, people died, then…on the battlefields, in the city too. It wasn’t so out of the ordinary. On this very block, the lady next door but one had her whole house destroyed by a V2. But in the beginning…at first…it was hard. The whole battle was a rout, and to die at sea. No body to bury. Well… It was hard for people to talk about these things then. You just…carried on.” He could see her recollecting the scattered pieces of her grief. “My mother was gutted. I was too young, I think, to really understand but I remember being frightened for her. She told me once,” she paused, “that she wished she had died too. She never really got over it. I never did either. But you don’t always, do you?”
He bowed his head, and closed his eyes. “No.” Her fingers tightened slightly on his elbow.
“Well, I asked her once, years later, how she coped at first, and with such a young daughter to care for. She told me that as long as she focused on just one moment at a time she could bear it. Whether that one moment was a cup of tea or a radio play on a good day, or just remembering how to breathe on a bad one, it didn’t matter. She just kept going.” She swallowed, “But the last thing she said, and I’ve never forgotten this, was that she never forgot how much he loved us, so on the very worst days she let that be enough to carry her through.“ She sipped her tea. “Don’t give up, John. He loved you so.” Her voice was gentle, a whisper.
Behind his closed eyes he heard the words and knew them for truth. He heard the scrape of the chair on the floor as she stood.
“I’ll start tea then. It’ll be just a tick. Why don’t you take your bag up? Come down in a minute?”
“Yeah. Ta.”
He felt a light kiss on the top of his head as she walked by. In the wretched, empty silence that followed he listened to the clock on the wall count the minutes away.