Fic for goldvermilion87: Lashkar Gah
Title: Lashkar Gah
Recipient: goldvermilion87
Author: sjames_centre (Susan)
Characters/Pairings: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word Count: 4600
Summary: Set post The Great Game.
The dream is back. It’s a nightmare that’s been following him since Afghanistan, crossing countries and time zones with him. It will go away for months, and then every night for three weeks straight, it'll shock him awake with a gasp and a jolt. Sometimes a hollow scream.
John smells the Semtex before he realizes he’s wearing the vest.
He lies in a daze - drifting and free associating - in what he eventually realizes is the boot of a moving car. He’s on his side, knees pulled up, hands free. His head throbs and he reaches up carefully and feels the lump behind his left ear. Moving causes a sharp pain in his side and he remembers the punch before the hit to his head. He steers clear of the vest, afraid of doing something that might set it off. He bites against his lip, trying to stem his rising panic, until the brassy taste of blood fills his mouth.
Someone is whispering in his ear and for a short stupid second, John thinks he’s not alone. The voice, high and thin and channeled through an earpiece in his right ear, welcomes him back to the game.
“You know how this works, don’t you John? You repeat what I say. You’re smart enough to know what happens if you don’t.”
He remembers the others, the ones with vests like this one, the fear in their voices as they spoke Moriarty’s words. Sherlock’s smug satisfaction when he solved each puzzle. He should have known it wasn’t over - not as long as Moriarty had left Sherlock standing. But this . . . not even Sherlock could have predicted this.
“I’d hate to deliver you to Sherlock in pieces,” the voice continues. “Makes such a bad first impression, don’t you think?”
John fights the urge to answer back, and tries to calm his breathing. Tries to ignore the sense memories that threaten to send him into a full blown panic. It’s the smell. He can never forget the smell. The smoke, the screams. The blood and the bones exploding, shattering, sending him over a railing. He’s no longer in the boot of a car. He’s staring at a young boy in hand me down clothes, wondering for the thousandth time why he didn’t notice sooner. The smell. It always came back to the smell . . .
The car stops abruptly. The slam of a door. The jangle of keys. Footsteps on gravel. Whistling. The boot is opened. A man holds out one hand.
“Shall we dance?”
There has been rain every night during March. No matter how blue the sky during the day, no matter how perfect the weather, by ten o’clock each evening the sky bursts open and rain batters the city.
Tonight is no different. After it’s over, after Moriarty and his dancing pinpoints of red light are banished, while the vest still lies in a dangerous heap on the tile floor, John sits on the kerb in the rain, head in his hands, feet in the gutter, the dirty water soaking through his shoes. He’s concentrating on breathing through his mouth, the way they taught him in medical school when the smell of disease and death and decay was too powerful, too overwhelming.
He hears Sherlock before he sees him. “I’ve called Lestrade,” Sherlock says. “He’ll bring the bomb disposal unit.”
“Yeah, okay,” John answers without lifting his head. He feels as if he’s still speaking someone else’s words.
“Come inside and wait.” There’s a hint of sympathy in Sherlock’s tone and somehow that makes it worse, not better. “I don’t think there’s any danger.”
John shakes his head. He uses one sleeve to wipe the rain from his eyes and the smell gags him. It’s everywhere now - on his clothes, his skin, in his mouth. Since Moriarty first started this game, the memories have been rising, pushing up and out against John’s skin, like the pebbles of glass and concrete he pulled from his hair for weeks after.
Sherlock lets him be. When Lestrade arrives fifteen minutes later, trailing a gaggle of bomb disposal professionals behind him like baby geese, Sherlock does all the talking. He leaves out the messy bits about the missile plans and the last minute phone call. He glances over his shoulder once or twice at John, but busies himself with Lestrade. He promises that John will come to the station tomorrow to give a full statement. Lestrade protests, Sherlock bullies. They make an appointment for eleven the next morning.
Later, Greg drives them back to Baker Street. “Try to get some sleep, John,” he says when they arrive.
John nods - it seems he can no longer form his own words - and follows Sherlock out of the car and up the stairs to the flat. John heads straight for his chair, dizzy from the climb or maybe from the smell of Semtex that still clings to him.
“John, I . . . I am - ” Sherlock starts and then stops and John sees him searching for the words that will somehow make this all better, words that will make it not Sherlock’s fault that his own arrogance nearly got them both killed.
John waits but Sherlock doesn’t say anything else. For a moment, he almost feels sorry for him.
“I need a shower,” John says. He stands shakily and heads down the hall. “Good night.”
When he gets out of the shower, the smell muted but not gone, there is a glass of scotch (the good stuff, John recognizes when he takes a sip) on his bedside table.
“Apology accepted,” he says quietly.
It doesn’t get better.
The dream is back. It’s a nightmare that’s been following him since Afghanistan, crossing countries and time zones with him. It will go away for months, and then every night for three weeks straight, it'll shock him awake with a gasp and a jolt. Sometimes a hollow scream.
He sleeps on the sofa now. The silence in his room is too loud, too frightening. So he falls asleep each night watching old episodes of American cop shows where there are no inconvenient grey zones to ponder. Sherlock says nothing about John’s move to the sofa. John doubts he’s noticed.
He wants to drink too much. To fall into a sleep too deep to dream. Instead, he brings the whiskey bottle downstairs to Mrs. Hudson. “For safekeeping,” he says. There is too much Harry in him not to be afraid.
The smell is always there. Lingering, clinging to his skin, hovering over him like a chemical cloud.
He and Sherlock eat together each morning, sitting across the table, and it's the only part of John’s day that feels completely like it should.
There are new cases - missing daughters and runaway husbands, a kidnapped poodle, a stolen emerald necklace. It’s busy work, easy cases that barely rate above a three or four. John suspects that Sherlock is taking them for him, his screwed-up backwards way of continuing to apologize, if not for everything that happened with Moriarty, then perhaps for enjoying it so much.
He still sleeps on the sofa. It’s almost embarrassing now, two weeks later. He considers making an appointment with Ella Thompson, but always finds a reason to wait another hour, another day. He almost calls her the morning he limps his way to the toilet, as stiff and sore as when he first came home from Afghanistan. But he walks it off before breakfast and puts it down to sleeping on a twenty-year-old piece of sagging furniture that was never meant to be a bed.
Sherlock continues to say nothing. He says it loudly though, a lifted eyebrow, a narrowing of his eyes, the way he bites his lip. John, raised in a family in which one’s feelings were best kept to oneself, is both grateful and disappointed.
One night a week later, they solve a case with a spectacularly over-the-top display of deduction (Sherlock’s, not his). The case had them running for thirty hours straight - chasing leads and testing theories - and they celebrated later with drinks and pasta primavera at Speedy’s.
“Just like old times,” Sherlock said, lifting his glass. He wore the same expression he always did when he’d just shown the world (or two grateful parents, in this case) how absolutely fucking brilliant he was. It would be adorable if it weren’t so obnoxious.
“We have old times already?” John laughed. “When did that happen?”
“I just mean . . . you’ve been a bit more morose than usual lately.”
“Than usual? Really, Sherlock?”
“I know the incident at the pool was . . . disturbing. I only hope you can see your way clear to put it behind you.”
John pushed a piece of broccoli around his plate. He considered telling him about the dreams but couldn’t decide which would be worse - Sherlock’s sympathy or his indifference. “I’m not like you.”
“All the better for that.”
It was likely as close to a compliment as he’d ever get from Sherlock.
“I’m doing the best I can. So sod off, okay?”
“Fine. Just one more question, if I may.”
John braced himself.
“How much longer do you plan on wearing that god-awful cologne?”
Later, John finds a half-empty bottle of brandy at the back of a kitchen cupboard. He carries it to the sofa and turns on the television. The bottle’s empty even before Sam and Dean manage to gank the monster-of-the-week. The glass slips out of his hand and he slides sideways into a restless sleep.
He has the dream again.
The boy stands in the lobby and shafts of light swirl up dancing pieces of dust around him. His eyes are sad and full of something that makes John’s heart ache like a bruise. The boy pulls at John’s sleeve and begs him not to go, to take him home. The old man is there too, but when he turns towards John, he’s really Moriarty, teeth bared like an angry dog, “I’ll burn you,” he hisses.
John’s heart feels like it’s about to punch out of his chest. He’s breathless and confused and everywhere there’s the scent of something he can’t name.
He screams at Moriarty to leave the boy alone but it’s too late.
It’s always too late.
Suddenly awake, heart pounding and lungs gasping for air, he tosses aside the blanket (when did he get a blanket?) and swings his legs out, narrowly missing his shoes (when did he take off his shoes?) placed carefully at the end of the couch. He jumps when he realises that Sherlock is sitting opposite him on a chair he’s dragged in from the kitchen.
“Jesus, Sherlock.” He’s breathing hard, the sounds and smells that fill his head still too real to dismiss.
“You were having another nightmare. A particularly loud one this time. I was . . .” His voice trails off. As usual, John is left to fill in the blanks.
He sits up and reaches over to turn on the lamp. He blinks against the light. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“Three weeks,” he says. He sees the look on John’s face and looks away, embarrassed. “Oh, you mean tonight. Two hours -” he checks his watch, “-and twelve minutes.”
John has no answer for that.
“This isn’t about Moriarty, is it?” Sherlock says.
“Not really, no.”
“It’s a pity you have no mind palace, John. All you really need is a room with a sturdy lock on the door.”
John scrubs his face. “Does it work?”
Sherlock’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Depends on what you’ve locked away in there.” He moves to the other end of the sofa. “I’ve read it’s often helpful to talk to someone about one’s dreams.”
“Are you volunteering?”
Sherlock lifts his shoulders in a small shrug. “If it means we can both resume sleeping undisturbed in our own beds . . .”
“You sit here every night?”
“After the first night, I was curious. Your bed is perfectly suitable. Although you often fall asleep on the sofa during a case, it’s clearly not your first choice. By the third night, I thought I should stay close in case you hurled yourself out the window.”
“Why didn’t you just wake me up?”
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “And risk injury? You’d have your hands around my neck before you were completely awake, Captain Watson.” He looks at his hands and takes a breath. Blinks once or twice. John can see he’s trying to make up his mind about something. “And I recognized several words in Pashto. So I could only assume it had something to do with your time in Afghanistan. Since the nightmares started after the night at the swimming pool, I came to the conclusion that wearing the vest triggered another, more disturbing, memory. The incident at Lashkar Gah, perhaps?”
John’s not sure whether to be angry or impressed. “How do you know about that?” Sherlock starts to speak but he raises one hand. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Lashkar Gah, John. Tell me what happened.” There’s a gentleness in Sherlock’s voice John hasn’t heard before.
John has never spoken about that day to anyone since he was discharged. Now he speaks carefully, measuring out his words, staring at his hands, twisted together loosely between his knees. “We went to visit a hospital in Lashkar Gah . . . it was supposed to be a PR exercise, nothing more . . .”
The boy was ten, maybe eleven. He stood by himself at the centre of the hospital lobby watching the clock on the opposite wall. A thin line of perspiration beaded on his upper lip and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. The hospital at Lashkar Gah in Helmand was stifling, the rolling blackouts of the last few months had landed air conditioning at the bottom of a long list of essential services.
John brushed past him as his group was led through the lobby. The boy turned to stare at him, his eyes wide with fear. John was used to that reaction now - his uniform was not quite the symbol of freedom the British government would have the country believe. More often than not, it was the warning siren that something bad would follow.
John’s group, army doctors and nurses from both the British and US army bases stationed outside the city, was here as a courtesy to the local government. Part diplomacy, part grandstanding by Eshan Amin, the hospital director, part genuine curiosity. The hospital, three stories of nondescript pre-Soviet architecture, stood on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah. It had never been shelled, whether through the good graces of the Taliban or pure stupid luck, he couldn’t tell. Nothing in this country - in this fucking war - was what it appeared.
Not even a frightened little boy in a too large shalwar kameez - the sleeves rolled up over his wrists, the material gathered up loosely at his ankles. A hand-me-down from an older brother or cousin.
The boy was still there an hour later when John exited the stairwell to the left of the lobby. The tour had been interesting; the hospital was an odd collection of outdated medical technologies and modern standard of care. It was clean and well-staffed but suffered from a lack of supplies, everything from syringes to penicillin and painkillers. He suspected this was the real reason Amin had lobbied hard for the visit - if he couldn’t get supplies from the normal channels, maybe the Brits or Americans could divert some his way. It was a dangerous path for Amin to take - getting this close to the enemy - and John knew that the Taliban had killed for lesser offences.
Their translator herded them through the lobby and toward the exit. It was then that John spotted the boy again. He hadn’t moved from his spot in the last hour. He stood, swaying, lips moving silently as if he were reciting a prayer, glancing at the clock every few seconds. He looked as if he were doing his best not to cry.
John stopped to tie his bootlace a few metres from the boy, who was crying openly now, the tears tracing grimy tracks down his face. John stood and made a move to go to him, hoping his rudimentary Pashto wouldn’t fail him. John watched as the boy’s hands disappeared up his sleeves, then reappeared, holding a thin wire between each shaking index finger and thumb. He bent his elbows and began to bring both hands - and both wires - together.
Oh God. John shouted, his heart going like a piston in his chest, “Bomb! Bomb! Get Down!”
People screamed and scattered, running towards the door or hiding under the wooden benches.
John’s shouting had frightened the boy too - his hands dropped to his sides, the wires hanging free like loose threads. He looked around, confused. John made a move toward him, but an old man, his beard white as opium, stepped closer to the boy, holding out one hand and speaking softly in Pashto.
John caught the odd word - please and family and courage. The boy shook his head and the man nodded and hugged him quickly. In that instant, John believed that everything would be all right - that the boy would grow up and live to remember the day he almost died and be grateful that he didn’t. He’d tell his children about the war and how it had turned men into monsters and boys into weapons. But then the old man stiffly went down on one knee so he was at the boy’s level. He took the boy’s wrists in his hands and held them together.
John tried to shout a warning again, but the sound that came out of his throat was something more primal . . .
John wipes at his eyes with the heels of both hands. “Fifteen people died. Including two of my nurses and one of the American doctors. I could have stopped it. I should have known,” he says, his voice thick.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Sherlock says it with such force and clarity that for a moment John dares to believe him.
“No one ever came forward from the boy’s family. I searched for weeks after I was released from hospital, trying to find out his name. No one would talk to me. If only I’d reacted sooner. . . ”
“How many people passed by the boy during the time he stood there?”
“I don’t know, at least a hundred. Probably more.”
“And no one noticed anything remarkable?”
“No, he was just a boy. He looked like every other kid in Helmand. Wary. Too thin by half.”
“You accused me once of being arrogant. Of trying to be ‘fucking Superman’, I think were your exact words. I suggest you’re doing the same now.”
“Do you always talk like a solicitor?”
“Only when I’m trying to make my case.” Sherlock reaches across the space between them and rests his hand lightly on John’s knee. “It wasn’t your fault. In fact, your warning likely saved more lives than were lost.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“You know, but you don’t believe. If your nightmares are any indication.”
John leans back against the sofa. “It’s the smell.”
Sherlock nods. “The Semtex - I thought as much. Olfactory triggers can be the most powerful.”
“Nice to know I’m textbook crazy at least.”
“You’re far from crazy. If you hadn’t been affected by the incident at the pool - that might be categorized as crazy.”
“You’re not having nightmares,” John says.
“I didn’t serve for two hellish years in Afghanistan. And I didn’t have a suicide vest strapped to my chest.”
“No, just sniper rifles trained on your head.”
John stands and gathers the blanket under one arm. “How about I go back to my bed and you go to yours?” He’s not quite ready to admit Sherlock is right, only that he’s not completely wrong.
“If you’re sure.”
“I am. For tonight at least.” John heads toward the stairs, then looks back at Sherlock still sitting on the sofa. “One more thing.”
He looks up.
“Thanks.”
Sherlock nods. “Good night, John.”
It gets better.
A week after he abandons the sofa, John comes down the stairs to the sight and sound of Mrs. Hudson gathering teacups. He slept almost six hours uninterrupted and is feeling almost normal. Almost. He won’t tell Sherlock about the snatch of a dream he had just before he woke up - the dream where Sherlock wore the vest and the little boy held the rifle and he was too far away and he watched in horror as the boy pulled the trigger . . . mercifully, he woke up before he saw Sherlock explode into a thousand pieces. Yeah, not quite normal.
“Honestly, Mrs. Hudson, I will gladly buy you more teacups.” Sherlock sits at the kitchen table, head bowed over his microscope. “But I cannot be expected to stop my experiment every time you need to do a bit of washing up.”
Mrs. Hudson reaches around him and slides a saucer out from under a pile of papers. “I expect you to take some responsibility, Sherlock. It can’t always come down to John to pick up after you.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, Mrs. Hudson,” John answers. He leans down and picks up a cup and saucer next to his chair. “Gives me practice for children.” He holds out his hand, and Mrs. Hudson takes the cup and saucer.
“How you feeling, John? Nightmares better?” Mrs. Hudson touches John’s arm, looks into his eyes.
“How do you . . .” John frowns. “Sherlock, did you . . .”
“Please, John. Nothing happens in this flat that Mrs. Hudson doesn’t know about.”
“Oh hush, Sherlock.” She turns back to John. “I heard you shouting, dear. Woke me up a few nights. But I knew Sherlock was watching over you.”
John doesn’t know how he feels about that - the watching over - sounds too much like experimental observation. “I’m better, thanks, Mrs. Hudson.”
“Yes, yes, we’re all super dandy -” Sherlock says impatiently. “Tea, please, Mrs. Hudson - you have more than enough cups now.”
Mrs. Hudson shakes her head and mutters under her breath. She walks to the door and turns. “Fancy some breakfast, John? Got some lovely sausages.”
“Tea’s fine, Mrs. Hudson. And a couple of biscuits.” John turns from the door and walks into the kitchen. He peers over Sherlock’s shoulder. “Do I want to know what you’re looking at?”
“Not before tea.” Sherlock slides off the chair and heads to the living room. He picks up a folder and brings it back to John, who moves to sink, filling a glass with water.
“Here.”
John takes the file. “What’s this?”
“Research.”
“What kind of research?”
Sherlock moves back to the living room, sits down in front of the computer. John follows him, sits in his chair and opens the folder. He glances at the first page and looks up at Sherlock.
“I must be missing something - what is this?”
“That, John, is a hastily compiled but thoroughly researched accounting of just a fraction of the people who were directly affected by your service in Afghanistan.”
“My service?” John scans the list, recognizing a few names. Roger Meacham. Came into the hospital with a leg that looked like Swiss cheese. They worked through the night saving that leg. But why . . .
“As of last count, one hundred and seventy four in 2008 alone. I’m still waiting for records from 2009.”
John looks at the list again. Asa Razakhan. Seven years old. Hit by shrapnel. Lost one eye, saved the other.
He looks at Sherlock. “I know what I did in Afghanistan, Sherlock. Isn’t the point for me not to remember? The nightmares?”
Sherlock walks over and looks down at John. “The point is the incident in the pool has triggered your guilt over not being able to save one boy, when in actuality you saved hundreds.”
John shakes his head. He looks again at the list. Peter Talbridge - stomach wound. Alexander Jones - ah he remembered Alex Jones. He and John had been caught in crossfire on a street in Helmand that had supposedly been cleared the week before. They had huddled together in a ditch for three hours until they were rescued by American soldiers. But he hadn’t done anything for Alex. They’d just kept their heads down and talked about what they’d miss the most after they were beheaded by the Taliban. He looks up to see Sherlock staring at him.
“I’m not sure what to say . . .”
“There is nothing to say. I am simply demonstrating the overwhelming evidence that you, John Watson, made a considerable difference. And dwelling on one incident, which you had little to no control over, to the point that you will soon damage your health, is illogical and unnecessary.”
John rolls his eyes. “Thanks, I feel better already.”
Sherlock sits opposite John and steeples his fingers. “Keep reading.”
John quickly reads the rest of the list. Some of the names he doesn’t recognize. There wasn’t always time to exchange pleasantries like names when they were dragging men through the streets while mortar rained down on them. He turns the page. These names are not from the war. He scans the list. Molly Hooper, G. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Angelo Coletti, Philip Anderson, Sarah Sawyer, Nigel Foxworth, Mildred Holder, Sebastian Wilkes . . .
“I don’t understand. These are . . .”
“The people you have saved since you came back from Afghanistan. People who you continue to save in your work with me. Granted, I’m still not convinced that saving Anderson was such a good thing.”
John doesn’t understand any of it. At the same time he understands all of it. In the only way he knows how, Sherlock is trying to help him. Trying to show him that . . .
He looks down and sucks in a breath when he comes to the last name on the list. Sherlock Holmes. He looks up and Sherlock is staring at him, one eyebrow raised.
“You?”
“Of course me, John. You don’t really think I could have beaten the overwhelming odds and swallowed the one pill that wouldn’t have killed me?”
John has never felt any guilt over that decision. He knows he’d do it again in a heartbeat. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“Say you’ll drink your tea and get dressed. I told Lestrade we’d meet him in an hour at the scene of what promises to be a delightful murder. Two men, John, killed in exactly the same way in exactly the same spot ten years apart. Lestrade is understandably perplexed.”
John feels a warmth spread across his chest, displacing the cold weight that’s been pressing down for weeks. He’s not sure he completely believes Sherlock’s thesis - that the good he’s done outweighs the bad - but for now it’s enough that Sherlock believes it.
He’s halfway up the stairs when Sherlock shouts at him. “For God’s sake, John, stop hanging about and get dressed. The taxi will be here in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be down in five,” he shouts back. The warmth spreads from his chest and rushes into his veins, his heart. It settles in his bones.
He takes the rest of the stairs two at a time.
Recipient: goldvermilion87
Author: sjames_centre (Susan)
Characters/Pairings: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word Count: 4600
Summary: Set post The Great Game.
The dream is back. It’s a nightmare that’s been following him since Afghanistan, crossing countries and time zones with him. It will go away for months, and then every night for three weeks straight, it'll shock him awake with a gasp and a jolt. Sometimes a hollow scream.
John smells the Semtex before he realizes he’s wearing the vest.
He lies in a daze - drifting and free associating - in what he eventually realizes is the boot of a moving car. He’s on his side, knees pulled up, hands free. His head throbs and he reaches up carefully and feels the lump behind his left ear. Moving causes a sharp pain in his side and he remembers the punch before the hit to his head. He steers clear of the vest, afraid of doing something that might set it off. He bites against his lip, trying to stem his rising panic, until the brassy taste of blood fills his mouth.
Someone is whispering in his ear and for a short stupid second, John thinks he’s not alone. The voice, high and thin and channeled through an earpiece in his right ear, welcomes him back to the game.
“You know how this works, don’t you John? You repeat what I say. You’re smart enough to know what happens if you don’t.”
He remembers the others, the ones with vests like this one, the fear in their voices as they spoke Moriarty’s words. Sherlock’s smug satisfaction when he solved each puzzle. He should have known it wasn’t over - not as long as Moriarty had left Sherlock standing. But this . . . not even Sherlock could have predicted this.
“I’d hate to deliver you to Sherlock in pieces,” the voice continues. “Makes such a bad first impression, don’t you think?”
John fights the urge to answer back, and tries to calm his breathing. Tries to ignore the sense memories that threaten to send him into a full blown panic. It’s the smell. He can never forget the smell. The smoke, the screams. The blood and the bones exploding, shattering, sending him over a railing. He’s no longer in the boot of a car. He’s staring at a young boy in hand me down clothes, wondering for the thousandth time why he didn’t notice sooner. The smell. It always came back to the smell . . .
The car stops abruptly. The slam of a door. The jangle of keys. Footsteps on gravel. Whistling. The boot is opened. A man holds out one hand.
“Shall we dance?”
There has been rain every night during March. No matter how blue the sky during the day, no matter how perfect the weather, by ten o’clock each evening the sky bursts open and rain batters the city.
Tonight is no different. After it’s over, after Moriarty and his dancing pinpoints of red light are banished, while the vest still lies in a dangerous heap on the tile floor, John sits on the kerb in the rain, head in his hands, feet in the gutter, the dirty water soaking through his shoes. He’s concentrating on breathing through his mouth, the way they taught him in medical school when the smell of disease and death and decay was too powerful, too overwhelming.
He hears Sherlock before he sees him. “I’ve called Lestrade,” Sherlock says. “He’ll bring the bomb disposal unit.”
“Yeah, okay,” John answers without lifting his head. He feels as if he’s still speaking someone else’s words.
“Come inside and wait.” There’s a hint of sympathy in Sherlock’s tone and somehow that makes it worse, not better. “I don’t think there’s any danger.”
John shakes his head. He uses one sleeve to wipe the rain from his eyes and the smell gags him. It’s everywhere now - on his clothes, his skin, in his mouth. Since Moriarty first started this game, the memories have been rising, pushing up and out against John’s skin, like the pebbles of glass and concrete he pulled from his hair for weeks after.
Sherlock lets him be. When Lestrade arrives fifteen minutes later, trailing a gaggle of bomb disposal professionals behind him like baby geese, Sherlock does all the talking. He leaves out the messy bits about the missile plans and the last minute phone call. He glances over his shoulder once or twice at John, but busies himself with Lestrade. He promises that John will come to the station tomorrow to give a full statement. Lestrade protests, Sherlock bullies. They make an appointment for eleven the next morning.
Later, Greg drives them back to Baker Street. “Try to get some sleep, John,” he says when they arrive.
John nods - it seems he can no longer form his own words - and follows Sherlock out of the car and up the stairs to the flat. John heads straight for his chair, dizzy from the climb or maybe from the smell of Semtex that still clings to him.
“John, I . . . I am - ” Sherlock starts and then stops and John sees him searching for the words that will somehow make this all better, words that will make it not Sherlock’s fault that his own arrogance nearly got them both killed.
John waits but Sherlock doesn’t say anything else. For a moment, he almost feels sorry for him.
“I need a shower,” John says. He stands shakily and heads down the hall. “Good night.”
When he gets out of the shower, the smell muted but not gone, there is a glass of scotch (the good stuff, John recognizes when he takes a sip) on his bedside table.
“Apology accepted,” he says quietly.
It doesn’t get better.
The dream is back. It’s a nightmare that’s been following him since Afghanistan, crossing countries and time zones with him. It will go away for months, and then every night for three weeks straight, it'll shock him awake with a gasp and a jolt. Sometimes a hollow scream.
He sleeps on the sofa now. The silence in his room is too loud, too frightening. So he falls asleep each night watching old episodes of American cop shows where there are no inconvenient grey zones to ponder. Sherlock says nothing about John’s move to the sofa. John doubts he’s noticed.
He wants to drink too much. To fall into a sleep too deep to dream. Instead, he brings the whiskey bottle downstairs to Mrs. Hudson. “For safekeeping,” he says. There is too much Harry in him not to be afraid.
The smell is always there. Lingering, clinging to his skin, hovering over him like a chemical cloud.
He and Sherlock eat together each morning, sitting across the table, and it's the only part of John’s day that feels completely like it should.
There are new cases - missing daughters and runaway husbands, a kidnapped poodle, a stolen emerald necklace. It’s busy work, easy cases that barely rate above a three or four. John suspects that Sherlock is taking them for him, his screwed-up backwards way of continuing to apologize, if not for everything that happened with Moriarty, then perhaps for enjoying it so much.
He still sleeps on the sofa. It’s almost embarrassing now, two weeks later. He considers making an appointment with Ella Thompson, but always finds a reason to wait another hour, another day. He almost calls her the morning he limps his way to the toilet, as stiff and sore as when he first came home from Afghanistan. But he walks it off before breakfast and puts it down to sleeping on a twenty-year-old piece of sagging furniture that was never meant to be a bed.
Sherlock continues to say nothing. He says it loudly though, a lifted eyebrow, a narrowing of his eyes, the way he bites his lip. John, raised in a family in which one’s feelings were best kept to oneself, is both grateful and disappointed.
One night a week later, they solve a case with a spectacularly over-the-top display of deduction (Sherlock’s, not his). The case had them running for thirty hours straight - chasing leads and testing theories - and they celebrated later with drinks and pasta primavera at Speedy’s.
“Just like old times,” Sherlock said, lifting his glass. He wore the same expression he always did when he’d just shown the world (or two grateful parents, in this case) how absolutely fucking brilliant he was. It would be adorable if it weren’t so obnoxious.
“We have old times already?” John laughed. “When did that happen?”
“I just mean . . . you’ve been a bit more morose than usual lately.”
“Than usual? Really, Sherlock?”
“I know the incident at the pool was . . . disturbing. I only hope you can see your way clear to put it behind you.”
John pushed a piece of broccoli around his plate. He considered telling him about the dreams but couldn’t decide which would be worse - Sherlock’s sympathy or his indifference. “I’m not like you.”
“All the better for that.”
It was likely as close to a compliment as he’d ever get from Sherlock.
“I’m doing the best I can. So sod off, okay?”
“Fine. Just one more question, if I may.”
John braced himself.
“How much longer do you plan on wearing that god-awful cologne?”
Later, John finds a half-empty bottle of brandy at the back of a kitchen cupboard. He carries it to the sofa and turns on the television. The bottle’s empty even before Sam and Dean manage to gank the monster-of-the-week. The glass slips out of his hand and he slides sideways into a restless sleep.
He has the dream again.
The boy stands in the lobby and shafts of light swirl up dancing pieces of dust around him. His eyes are sad and full of something that makes John’s heart ache like a bruise. The boy pulls at John’s sleeve and begs him not to go, to take him home. The old man is there too, but when he turns towards John, he’s really Moriarty, teeth bared like an angry dog, “I’ll burn you,” he hisses.
John’s heart feels like it’s about to punch out of his chest. He’s breathless and confused and everywhere there’s the scent of something he can’t name.
He screams at Moriarty to leave the boy alone but it’s too late.
It’s always too late.
Suddenly awake, heart pounding and lungs gasping for air, he tosses aside the blanket (when did he get a blanket?) and swings his legs out, narrowly missing his shoes (when did he take off his shoes?) placed carefully at the end of the couch. He jumps when he realises that Sherlock is sitting opposite him on a chair he’s dragged in from the kitchen.
“Jesus, Sherlock.” He’s breathing hard, the sounds and smells that fill his head still too real to dismiss.
“You were having another nightmare. A particularly loud one this time. I was . . .” His voice trails off. As usual, John is left to fill in the blanks.
He sits up and reaches over to turn on the lamp. He blinks against the light. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“Three weeks,” he says. He sees the look on John’s face and looks away, embarrassed. “Oh, you mean tonight. Two hours -” he checks his watch, “-and twelve minutes.”
John has no answer for that.
“This isn’t about Moriarty, is it?” Sherlock says.
“Not really, no.”
“It’s a pity you have no mind palace, John. All you really need is a room with a sturdy lock on the door.”
John scrubs his face. “Does it work?”
Sherlock’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Depends on what you’ve locked away in there.” He moves to the other end of the sofa. “I’ve read it’s often helpful to talk to someone about one’s dreams.”
“Are you volunteering?”
Sherlock lifts his shoulders in a small shrug. “If it means we can both resume sleeping undisturbed in our own beds . . .”
“You sit here every night?”
“After the first night, I was curious. Your bed is perfectly suitable. Although you often fall asleep on the sofa during a case, it’s clearly not your first choice. By the third night, I thought I should stay close in case you hurled yourself out the window.”
“Why didn’t you just wake me up?”
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “And risk injury? You’d have your hands around my neck before you were completely awake, Captain Watson.” He looks at his hands and takes a breath. Blinks once or twice. John can see he’s trying to make up his mind about something. “And I recognized several words in Pashto. So I could only assume it had something to do with your time in Afghanistan. Since the nightmares started after the night at the swimming pool, I came to the conclusion that wearing the vest triggered another, more disturbing, memory. The incident at Lashkar Gah, perhaps?”
John’s not sure whether to be angry or impressed. “How do you know about that?” Sherlock starts to speak but he raises one hand. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Lashkar Gah, John. Tell me what happened.” There’s a gentleness in Sherlock’s voice John hasn’t heard before.
John has never spoken about that day to anyone since he was discharged. Now he speaks carefully, measuring out his words, staring at his hands, twisted together loosely between his knees. “We went to visit a hospital in Lashkar Gah . . . it was supposed to be a PR exercise, nothing more . . .”
The boy was ten, maybe eleven. He stood by himself at the centre of the hospital lobby watching the clock on the opposite wall. A thin line of perspiration beaded on his upper lip and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. The hospital at Lashkar Gah in Helmand was stifling, the rolling blackouts of the last few months had landed air conditioning at the bottom of a long list of essential services.
John brushed past him as his group was led through the lobby. The boy turned to stare at him, his eyes wide with fear. John was used to that reaction now - his uniform was not quite the symbol of freedom the British government would have the country believe. More often than not, it was the warning siren that something bad would follow.
John’s group, army doctors and nurses from both the British and US army bases stationed outside the city, was here as a courtesy to the local government. Part diplomacy, part grandstanding by Eshan Amin, the hospital director, part genuine curiosity. The hospital, three stories of nondescript pre-Soviet architecture, stood on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah. It had never been shelled, whether through the good graces of the Taliban or pure stupid luck, he couldn’t tell. Nothing in this country - in this fucking war - was what it appeared.
Not even a frightened little boy in a too large shalwar kameez - the sleeves rolled up over his wrists, the material gathered up loosely at his ankles. A hand-me-down from an older brother or cousin.
The boy was still there an hour later when John exited the stairwell to the left of the lobby. The tour had been interesting; the hospital was an odd collection of outdated medical technologies and modern standard of care. It was clean and well-staffed but suffered from a lack of supplies, everything from syringes to penicillin and painkillers. He suspected this was the real reason Amin had lobbied hard for the visit - if he couldn’t get supplies from the normal channels, maybe the Brits or Americans could divert some his way. It was a dangerous path for Amin to take - getting this close to the enemy - and John knew that the Taliban had killed for lesser offences.
Their translator herded them through the lobby and toward the exit. It was then that John spotted the boy again. He hadn’t moved from his spot in the last hour. He stood, swaying, lips moving silently as if he were reciting a prayer, glancing at the clock every few seconds. He looked as if he were doing his best not to cry.
John stopped to tie his bootlace a few metres from the boy, who was crying openly now, the tears tracing grimy tracks down his face. John stood and made a move to go to him, hoping his rudimentary Pashto wouldn’t fail him. John watched as the boy’s hands disappeared up his sleeves, then reappeared, holding a thin wire between each shaking index finger and thumb. He bent his elbows and began to bring both hands - and both wires - together.
Oh God. John shouted, his heart going like a piston in his chest, “Bomb! Bomb! Get Down!”
People screamed and scattered, running towards the door or hiding under the wooden benches.
John’s shouting had frightened the boy too - his hands dropped to his sides, the wires hanging free like loose threads. He looked around, confused. John made a move toward him, but an old man, his beard white as opium, stepped closer to the boy, holding out one hand and speaking softly in Pashto.
John caught the odd word - please and family and courage. The boy shook his head and the man nodded and hugged him quickly. In that instant, John believed that everything would be all right - that the boy would grow up and live to remember the day he almost died and be grateful that he didn’t. He’d tell his children about the war and how it had turned men into monsters and boys into weapons. But then the old man stiffly went down on one knee so he was at the boy’s level. He took the boy’s wrists in his hands and held them together.
John tried to shout a warning again, but the sound that came out of his throat was something more primal . . .
John wipes at his eyes with the heels of both hands. “Fifteen people died. Including two of my nurses and one of the American doctors. I could have stopped it. I should have known,” he says, his voice thick.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Sherlock says it with such force and clarity that for a moment John dares to believe him.
“No one ever came forward from the boy’s family. I searched for weeks after I was released from hospital, trying to find out his name. No one would talk to me. If only I’d reacted sooner. . . ”
“How many people passed by the boy during the time he stood there?”
“I don’t know, at least a hundred. Probably more.”
“And no one noticed anything remarkable?”
“No, he was just a boy. He looked like every other kid in Helmand. Wary. Too thin by half.”
“You accused me once of being arrogant. Of trying to be ‘fucking Superman’, I think were your exact words. I suggest you’re doing the same now.”
“Do you always talk like a solicitor?”
“Only when I’m trying to make my case.” Sherlock reaches across the space between them and rests his hand lightly on John’s knee. “It wasn’t your fault. In fact, your warning likely saved more lives than were lost.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“You know, but you don’t believe. If your nightmares are any indication.”
John leans back against the sofa. “It’s the smell.”
Sherlock nods. “The Semtex - I thought as much. Olfactory triggers can be the most powerful.”
“Nice to know I’m textbook crazy at least.”
“You’re far from crazy. If you hadn’t been affected by the incident at the pool - that might be categorized as crazy.”
“You’re not having nightmares,” John says.
“I didn’t serve for two hellish years in Afghanistan. And I didn’t have a suicide vest strapped to my chest.”
“No, just sniper rifles trained on your head.”
John stands and gathers the blanket under one arm. “How about I go back to my bed and you go to yours?” He’s not quite ready to admit Sherlock is right, only that he’s not completely wrong.
“If you’re sure.”
“I am. For tonight at least.” John heads toward the stairs, then looks back at Sherlock still sitting on the sofa. “One more thing.”
He looks up.
“Thanks.”
Sherlock nods. “Good night, John.”
It gets better.
A week after he abandons the sofa, John comes down the stairs to the sight and sound of Mrs. Hudson gathering teacups. He slept almost six hours uninterrupted and is feeling almost normal. Almost. He won’t tell Sherlock about the snatch of a dream he had just before he woke up - the dream where Sherlock wore the vest and the little boy held the rifle and he was too far away and he watched in horror as the boy pulled the trigger . . . mercifully, he woke up before he saw Sherlock explode into a thousand pieces. Yeah, not quite normal.
“Honestly, Mrs. Hudson, I will gladly buy you more teacups.” Sherlock sits at the kitchen table, head bowed over his microscope. “But I cannot be expected to stop my experiment every time you need to do a bit of washing up.”
Mrs. Hudson reaches around him and slides a saucer out from under a pile of papers. “I expect you to take some responsibility, Sherlock. It can’t always come down to John to pick up after you.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, Mrs. Hudson,” John answers. He leans down and picks up a cup and saucer next to his chair. “Gives me practice for children.” He holds out his hand, and Mrs. Hudson takes the cup and saucer.
“How you feeling, John? Nightmares better?” Mrs. Hudson touches John’s arm, looks into his eyes.
“How do you . . .” John frowns. “Sherlock, did you . . .”
“Please, John. Nothing happens in this flat that Mrs. Hudson doesn’t know about.”
“Oh hush, Sherlock.” She turns back to John. “I heard you shouting, dear. Woke me up a few nights. But I knew Sherlock was watching over you.”
John doesn’t know how he feels about that - the watching over - sounds too much like experimental observation. “I’m better, thanks, Mrs. Hudson.”
“Yes, yes, we’re all super dandy -” Sherlock says impatiently. “Tea, please, Mrs. Hudson - you have more than enough cups now.”
Mrs. Hudson shakes her head and mutters under her breath. She walks to the door and turns. “Fancy some breakfast, John? Got some lovely sausages.”
“Tea’s fine, Mrs. Hudson. And a couple of biscuits.” John turns from the door and walks into the kitchen. He peers over Sherlock’s shoulder. “Do I want to know what you’re looking at?”
“Not before tea.” Sherlock slides off the chair and heads to the living room. He picks up a folder and brings it back to John, who moves to sink, filling a glass with water.
“Here.”
John takes the file. “What’s this?”
“Research.”
“What kind of research?”
Sherlock moves back to the living room, sits down in front of the computer. John follows him, sits in his chair and opens the folder. He glances at the first page and looks up at Sherlock.
“I must be missing something - what is this?”
“That, John, is a hastily compiled but thoroughly researched accounting of just a fraction of the people who were directly affected by your service in Afghanistan.”
“My service?” John scans the list, recognizing a few names. Roger Meacham. Came into the hospital with a leg that looked like Swiss cheese. They worked through the night saving that leg. But why . . .
“As of last count, one hundred and seventy four in 2008 alone. I’m still waiting for records from 2009.”
John looks at the list again. Asa Razakhan. Seven years old. Hit by shrapnel. Lost one eye, saved the other.
He looks at Sherlock. “I know what I did in Afghanistan, Sherlock. Isn’t the point for me not to remember? The nightmares?”
Sherlock walks over and looks down at John. “The point is the incident in the pool has triggered your guilt over not being able to save one boy, when in actuality you saved hundreds.”
John shakes his head. He looks again at the list. Peter Talbridge - stomach wound. Alexander Jones - ah he remembered Alex Jones. He and John had been caught in crossfire on a street in Helmand that had supposedly been cleared the week before. They had huddled together in a ditch for three hours until they were rescued by American soldiers. But he hadn’t done anything for Alex. They’d just kept their heads down and talked about what they’d miss the most after they were beheaded by the Taliban. He looks up to see Sherlock staring at him.
“I’m not sure what to say . . .”
“There is nothing to say. I am simply demonstrating the overwhelming evidence that you, John Watson, made a considerable difference. And dwelling on one incident, which you had little to no control over, to the point that you will soon damage your health, is illogical and unnecessary.”
John rolls his eyes. “Thanks, I feel better already.”
Sherlock sits opposite John and steeples his fingers. “Keep reading.”
John quickly reads the rest of the list. Some of the names he doesn’t recognize. There wasn’t always time to exchange pleasantries like names when they were dragging men through the streets while mortar rained down on them. He turns the page. These names are not from the war. He scans the list. Molly Hooper, G. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Angelo Coletti, Philip Anderson, Sarah Sawyer, Nigel Foxworth, Mildred Holder, Sebastian Wilkes . . .
“I don’t understand. These are . . .”
“The people you have saved since you came back from Afghanistan. People who you continue to save in your work with me. Granted, I’m still not convinced that saving Anderson was such a good thing.”
John doesn’t understand any of it. At the same time he understands all of it. In the only way he knows how, Sherlock is trying to help him. Trying to show him that . . .
He looks down and sucks in a breath when he comes to the last name on the list. Sherlock Holmes. He looks up and Sherlock is staring at him, one eyebrow raised.
“You?”
“Of course me, John. You don’t really think I could have beaten the overwhelming odds and swallowed the one pill that wouldn’t have killed me?”
John has never felt any guilt over that decision. He knows he’d do it again in a heartbeat. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“Say you’ll drink your tea and get dressed. I told Lestrade we’d meet him in an hour at the scene of what promises to be a delightful murder. Two men, John, killed in exactly the same way in exactly the same spot ten years apart. Lestrade is understandably perplexed.”
John feels a warmth spread across his chest, displacing the cold weight that’s been pressing down for weeks. He’s not sure he completely believes Sherlock’s thesis - that the good he’s done outweighs the bad - but for now it’s enough that Sherlock believes it.
He’s halfway up the stairs when Sherlock shouts at him. “For God’s sake, John, stop hanging about and get dressed. The taxi will be here in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be down in five,” he shouts back. The warmth spreads from his chest and rushes into his veins, his heart. It settles in his bones.
He takes the rest of the stairs two at a time.