Walking with Azrael - Chapters 4&5
TITLE: Walking with Azrael*
CHARCTERS: John, Sherlock, Mycroft, Lestrade, Molly, Mrs Hudson and pretty much everyone.
RATING: PG (some swearing)
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Resilience, Smatterings of Humour.
WORDS: Overall 17,633. Chapter 4 (494), Chapter 5 (1,476).
CHAPTERS: 4&5/15 (complete)
SUMMARY: Post-Reichenbach, John rebuilds a life without Sherlock but all is perhaps not as it seems.
Chapters 4&5: John learns to cope in a world alone. He starts to move forward, because that is what he will always do: he owes Sherlock that.
*Azrael is often referred to as the Archangel of death (not to be confused with Azazel who also pops up later in this fic). Contrary to later portrayals as ‘the grim reaper’, he was not originally a figure of dread, but rather of comfort and salvation: teaching mortals to accept death, and consoling those grieving the loss of a loved one. Azrael is also an outcast, although not technically one of the fallen - ‘I may be on the side of the angels but don’t think for a second I am one of them’.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing is mine, I am afraid, and I apologies to Steve Moffat/Mark Gatiss, the BBC and the Conan Doyle Estates for borrowing all their characters for a while. I promise to keep them warm, dry, well fed and safe from harm.
I owe a huge, enormous, colossal debt of thanks to my beta and friend draugdur, who has patiently read through this at least twice and offered wonderful advice and encouragement. However, anything dodgy or incorrect is all my own.
Comments are very much appreciated.
Chapter 5 - Breathing Space
John went to stay with Harry for a few days, though it was never going to be a long term solution. She rallied round and did her best but after a week or so she had gradually begun to drive him up the wall. Initially, it had been her over concern and mollycoddling, then, bit-by-bit, her old self obsession and negativity began to resurface. Things eventually reached a crescendo when she told him how she wished her ex was ‘bloody dead’ because that was the only way the bitch would ever stop trying to get money out of her. John didn’t reply but the flash of anger he felt was like a slap.
To be fair, pretty much everything made him angry at the moment. He hated living with his sister; hated not having anywhere to go; hated being invalided out of the army; hated south London and more than anything he hated Sherlock. He hated him for being such a selfish, egotistical, hubristic bastard who, obviously, hadn’t given a damn about anyone else when he’d thrown himself off that roof. More than once he had found himself sincerely wishing he’d never gone to the Criterion coffee bar all those months ago, because then he might not have ended up passing that bloody park bench and running into Stamford, and just maybe this whole sorry tale would have never unravelled. Thankfully, these flashes of self-indulgent misery never lasted. It wasn’t really in John’s nature to feel sorry for himself for too long. Once they had subsided he would be left with an awful feeling of guilt for days.
It was after one particularly violent outburst - when he had spiralled off into a rant because he couldn’t find his house keys - that Dr Stapleton’s email came back to him. Sitting at Harry’s kitchen table, wondering how he was going to explain the fist hole in the living room door, he remembered her comments about Sherlock’s mind mapping techniques. It struck him that if the method could be used to recall information then it might as easily be applied to forgetting, or at least temporarily mislaying, certain memories.
Over the next few days he tried hard to put the technique into practice. Sherlock had previously spent one heinously long, and rather wet, Wednesday afternoon trying to explain the method to him. Although on that particular occasion John had ended up storming out of the flat in exacerbation, he felt he had a fairly good grasp of the basic tenets. Now he found that if he concentrated very hard on a location, he could construct the appropriate network of neural pathways necessary for the technique to work. However, for him it had to be a real place. No celestial ‘mind palace’ for John Watson then it seemed, but rather a quirky two bedroom London flat: 221b Baker Street to be exact. He smiled in a self effacing way and tried again to picture Sherlock folded up like a praying mantis in one of the armchairs. Over the next few hours, he repeatedly went over conversations, events and emotions, pinning each one down to a separate room, item or feature: the smiley face sprayed on the wall; the skull on the mantelpiece; the discarded Cluedo box; the harpoon in the corner. In this way, he ensured that every memory was assigned a safe place. That each was kept secure until the day he could face them all again. Then he locked the front door, put the key in his mental pocket, and walked away.
The technique worked pretty well in general. Well, at least it gave him breathing space and a way to start moving on. Damn it, he was using that bloody phrase now! Sarah was also a huge help. She had come to see him soon after the funeral and they had struck up a friendship again. She’d been a real mate, never pressing him to talk, but always there if he wanted some company, despite his mood swings; and he had been pretty surly with her at times. It had actually been her idea that he should take some time away from London. Just a short break to get his head together and work out what it was he wanted to do in the long term. She had offered him more locum work if he wanted it, but they had both agreed that he needed a bit of time and distance in order to make that kind of decision. Harry - no doubt in a desperate bid to put some distance between them before a familial Armageddon broke out - suggested he should use their parent’s old place up near the Borders. He had jumped at the offer, relishing the idea of some seclusion for a while.
Lestrade gave him the heads-up on an ex police 4 x 4 going cheap at auction, and with that packed with the few belonging Mrs Hudson had retrieved for him from the flat, he set off for Rothbury. He had always enjoyed the drive up North, especially the final part of the journey where the road skirted around the edge of the of the Northumberland hills - bleak and unforgiving but utterly beautiful. He found the wild, blasted expanse of the place immensely cathartic, although, with a hint of sadness, it reminded him a little of Dartmoor.
By the time he reached the village it had begun to snow, not much, but it was starting to settle. His mum and dad had bought a place just on the edge of Rothbury back in the 1980s. Originally intended for family holidays, his folks had moved there permanently when his dad retired from Catterick Garrison. John had a handful of fond memories of the old place but it had never really been his home. The family had moved around a lot when he was a growing up, his dad being stationed all over the world, so John had never really developed an attachment to any single place or area. Harry had had more to do with the cottage than him, especially since their parents had died. There was evidence of her numerous visits in the hallway: two Gortex jackets hanging side-by-side to the left of the door, below which were matching pairs of hiking boots, one pair slightly more worn and larger than the other.
The inside of the cottage was surprising warm and aired. In the small living room a fire was banked up in the grate, the embers still glowing. On the table next to the TV there were several family photographs. Central was one of him in his Fusiliers uniform, taken at his passing out parade at Sandhurst. He looked absurdly young, his parents flanking him on each side and all three squinting slightly in the bright sunlight.
Slinging his bag down on the armchair, he hunted round for some wood to build up the fire. There was a small pile set neatly to the right of the grate, and he carefully threw on a couple of likely logs, stoking the fire back into life. After a few minutes warming his hands in front of the crackling flames, he took his coat off, threw it on his backpack and moved over to the dining room table where he noticed a bottle of red wine. There was a note propped up against it. Unfolding the crisp white paper he read the message, written in a neat schoolroom script:
Dear John,
Harry asked me to look in on the place and get a few things ready for you. There is milk in the fridge and bread in the cupboard. I have also put a few bits and bobs in the freezer to keep you going for a few days. Eric has chopped some wood and stacked it in the shed. There should be enough for a week or so and just give us a bell if you need any more. It looks as though the weather might turn, mind, so make sure you get yourself stocked up.
I have left our number on the notice board. Just call if you need anything. Feel free to pop over whenever you fancy. Eric is always up for any excuse for a pint.
All the best
Rosabelle Weiss
He was touched by the generosity of the note and the provisions. He wasn’t sure who the Weisses were but he made mental note to call in and thank them when he felt a bit more sociable. He unscrewed the wine and glugged a generous amount out into one of the enormous glasses he had found in the kitchen cupboard. Then, settling in front of the fire, he sat staring into the flames. Outside the snow had begun falling heavily, sealing the village off and shrouding the landscape in silence.
Chapter 4 - Acceptance
After the funeral, John just couldn’t go back to Baker Street. He had finally faced up to the fact that there would be no sudden denouement, no graveside revelation, no waking up to find that he had dozed off in front of the fire and there was Sherlock, remarking on how deeply unattractive it was to see a grown man with drool running down his chin.
It was over. That brilliant man - his friend - was dead, and John really needed to accept it and get on with his life. He had to stop checking his phone every five minutes in the hope of a text message. Give up the relentless scrutiny of newspaper articles, train timetables and advertising hoardings. End the daily inspection of all surfaces for minute changes in accumulating dust. There was going to be no codicil, no messages written in lemon juice. The hero wouldn’t sweep in at the last moment and save the day with a dramatic swirl of his cloak. Justice didn’t need to prevail. After all, this was real life and not a Victorian crime novel. People died, and when they did, they stayed dead.
Sherlock was gone and he just had to deal with it, but he couldn’t do that at the flat. Without that tenuous hope of a resurrection, 221b Baker Street had become just a clutter shell, full of things he didn’t quite want to remember at this point in time. It was best to just walk away. His therapist didn’t agree of course. She believed that he had to face his guilt, embrace the loss and ‘experience his emotions fully’, only then could he get past them and ‘move on’. As a professional, John had the greatest respect for Dr Stewart. As a junior doctor, he had undertaken a rotation on a Pysch ward himself, and knew first-hand the physical and mental havoc that emotional stress could wreak upon the human body. Nevertheless, at this particular moment in time, he wished his esteemed colleague would shut the fuck up about ‘moving on’. If he heard the phrase again, he swore he would batter her to death with her own copy of 'Studies in Hysteria'.
She kept trying to get him to talk to Sherlock. To say all those things he had failed to say when his friend was alive. Well, he had tried that after the funeral but it hadn’t helped. Yes, on one level he fully understood the significance of the cognitive approach she was advocating, but an appreciation of the validity of the therapy still didn’t stop him feeling like his guts had been eviscerated and stretched out in the air like the strings of an Aeolian harp. No thanks, he had he own ways of dealing with loss. It needed to be screwed down tight and packed away. It was his own personal coping mechanism and had always served him pretty well in the past.