Fic for etherai: the good fight (1/3)

[holmesticemods]

Title: the good fight
Recipient: etherai
Author: disheveledcurls
Characters/Pairings: Joan Watson & Sherlock Holmes (tho it can be read as platonically shippy as well), Joan Watson & Sherlock Holmes & Alfredo Llamosa
Rating: M
Warnings: somewhat graphic, though brief, depiction an autopsy-like medical procedure in a dream sequence; mentions of physical assault, psychological abuse and drug use (in connection with the s3 finale and the Oscar Rankin storyline.)
Summary: Joan Watson seems to be Brooklyn’s very own patron saint of lost causes and Sherlock has a few things to say about it. Post-relapse early s4 AU (though fairly compliant with canon, plot-wise.)
Beta'd by my wonderful BFF Dai, whom you can find in Ao3 @comeaftermejackrobinson and by the wise and very knowledgeable @amindamazed (whose excellent work you can find @hophophop in Ao3.)
Word count: 13718
Author's Note.  About this work's timeline: unless I misunderstand Elementary's timeline from 3.24 ("A Controlled Descent") through 4.03 ("Tag, You're Me"), and despite the customary hiatus between seasons three and four, we only get three days' time between 3.24 and 4.01 and one day between 4.01 and 4.02. In this fic, I have expanded the timeline to span three weeks, and so the first section begins about one week after Sherlock's relapse. The events of 4.01 and 4.02 this fic is compliant with are scattered throughout the story in the following sections. In this timeline, the suicide of Jonathan Bloom as witnessed by Sherlock (in 4.01) does not occur.

Also on AO3: the good fight



love, love is a verb,

love is a doing word

fearless on my breath.

massive attack, "teardrop."

Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else. […]

Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.

Richard Siken, “Detail of the Woods.”

Do all lovers feel helpless and valiant in the presence of the beloved? Helpless because the need to roll over like a pet dog is never far away. Valiant because you know you would slay a dragon with a pocket knife if you had to.  […] I think the holy stable must have looked this way; glorious and humble and unlikely.

Jeanette Winterson, The Passion.

The darkness in the tunnel is more than just a lack of light: it's like thick cloth wrapped around her head and Joan can't breathe.

She wakes up, but her heart won't stop racing. Shortly after, as if on cue, Sherlock pops in with a breakfast tray, leaves it silently by her bedside and exits. She pretends to be asleep, though she knows he heard her stir with a sad little whimper.

It's been a little over a week since Sherlock relapsed, and now that he's safe and sound, the weight of what happened seems to be finally catching up with her. He has been staying out of her way these days, trying to keep busy despite her request that he get some much-needed rest, and going to meetings constantly, but sometimes she'll catch him watching her with a look of such apologetic gratitude  she has to pretend it isn't happening, because it is too much to bear. The worst of it isn’t the relapse itself: the worst of it is wondering if he could survive another without her. Joan isn’t vain, never has been, but she knows codependence when she sees it, and her gut keeps telling her not to ignore it. Not that Sherlock’s the only one: the gravity she spoke of two years ago is still there, binding them like planets, and sometimes it’s hard to remember how she could’ve possibly lived otherwise - as a single, complete person, rather than only half of a whole. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with that, or maybe it’s a kind of weakness, but either way she pushes the thoughts aside. One problem at a time, she reminds herself, one day at a time. Yet the nagging fear remains:  if something happened to her (again), could she trust him to take care of himself on his own or to open up enough to let the rest of their tight-knit circle of friends help him? It’s not that she feels trapped, it’s that her sober companion training is telling her very loudly that replacing one addiction with another never works. They’ll have to talk about it, she supposes: a new drawing of boundaries, a new discussion of what their partnership involves, striking while the iron’s hot, and all that. Though the need to protect him remains strong, she doesn’t particularly care for playing sober companion again or acting like she is a qualified dispenser of platitudes and self-help advice, but it has to be done, and Sherlock lets no one else get this close.

To think of his pain -the cumulative weight of it, not just the question of the last few days- has become intolerable. It feels lived-in, resigned and familiar in a way she isn’t ready to address, and it doesn’t help that her words are failing her, that she’s finding it hard to articulate what she feels in any way that isn’t too self-centered or banal or patronizing to share with him. (And the possibility of that much-needed heart-to-heart, of failing even at that, is much too daunting: won’t planets literally collide if they get too close?)  But it’s okay, she tells herself, ever the pragmatist: there are other options, other ways of addressing what happened without falling apart completely in front of her best friend when he needs her most. Her anger welcomes her back with open arms, and there’s still a loose end she wants to look into.

She leaves Sherlock at the brownstone one night with the excuse of going out for a walk to clear her head, but instead she goes to the hospital where Oscar Rankin is being kept under police custody until he's stable enough to be transferred to some precinct or other to await trial.  Somehow she breezes past security and into his room with ease; she is getting better at lying, which should perhaps be a source of concern. But she has hardly any room in her body for any more worry right now, so she discards the thought and slowly inches her way closer to the hospital bed where Oscar lies dejected, circling in front of it almost predatorily while she reviews his chart. Sherlock's beating had been intense, but typically impulsive: she could have been more methodical, she thinks, more effective. After all, medical knowledge meant for healing can easily be used to hurt: she would have known which bones to break and which areas to pummel to cause the most pain and inconvenience. She is vaguely aware of the viciousness of these thoughts, but she lets them float through her mind unexamined. Normally she would feel sorry for someone like Oscar, but the last week has been horrific and she is saving whatever compassion she has left for Sherlock, Alfredo -locked in an airless vault for nearly a full day courtesy of Oscar- and herself.

Oscar opens his bleary eyes but it takes him a while to focus enough to talk. He must be heavily sedated, and he does have a concussion, she'll give him that. Not that he was ever a great conversationalist to begin with.  "Aw, Sherlock's little bitch," Oscar rasps, predictably rude.

Joan's smile is glacial. "That's cute. How are you feeling?"

"Like your boyfriend nearly killed me. Guy’s fucked in the head if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask, actually."

“So what are you doing here?” Oscar demands, with the impatience of a businessman too busy to concern himself with trifles. “Came to finish what he started?”

“Oh, he didn’t start anything,” Joan corrects him. “You did.”

Oscar laughs, a dirty, sickly laugh that devolves into a cough. “He beats me up and it’s my fault?”

She tilts her head, and her expression shifts as if she were scolding a misguided child. “Oscar, you tortured Sherlock and you kidnapped one of our best friends just to mess with him. I’d say you hardly have a right to play the victim.”

Oscar has the nerve to roll his eyes. “Whatever. I’m not gonna admit to anything if that’s what you’re here for. I know my rights and all.”

Joan is surprised to find herself actually chuckling at Oscar’s delusion of self-possession. “Oh, I’m sure you do,” she agrees with a patronizing sneer.

Oscar brushes a nervous hand against his nose, shifts as if he wanted to cross his arms over his chest, which he can't do because one of his arms is in a cast. "Look, dollface, I don’t know what you want me to say. I didn’t make him shoot up.”

She lets out a bitter, choked sound that could barely pass for a ha. She doesn’t feel like laughing anymore. “You helped a lot, though. You have no idea what you destroyed, do you?" She raises an eyebrow, takes a step closer to the bed, fighting the urge to ball her fists. "No fucking clue what he’s been through for the last three years, or how much being clean matters to him." And before she can stop herself, she adds: "Clearly, you haven’t tried it very seriously yourself.” The sober companion in her winces at her own cruelty.

Oscar is -or pretends to be- unimpressed by her contempt. “Not all of us can afford fancy rehab.”

“Sherlock offered to pay for your rehab months ago,” she reminds him, livid. “You threw it in his face.”

“I don’t need his fucking charity,” Oscar growls. “And I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be here, so you better say what you wanna say real quick before I start yelling for the cops.”

“Sure, I’ll be quick,” she obliges, her eyes narrowing, her tone soft, mock-grateful. “In fact, I’m gonna make this really simple for you. It's like this: my partner,” she starts, punctuating the words by pointing to her own chest, “tried being nice to you and look where it got him. But I’m not as nice as he is." Here she flashes a dangerous little smile. "So here goes: if you as much as go near him again, I’ll have you thrown in lock-up for whatever bullshit charges I can think of." Then she pauses, studying Oscar's face for signs of comprehension. And in the same neutral tone she resumes: "And if you try to hurt either of us or Alfredo again, I will put you in jail myself and personally make sure you do not survive it." Joan doesn't relish the possibility of asking Moriarty, of all people, for a favor, but if that's what it takes, she'll do it. (As always, her hands are steady even if her world is in constant turmoil.)

Oscar eyes her wearily, like he doesn't care either way what happens to him.  "Thanks for the heads-up. That all you got?"

Joan tilts her head again. "That's all." She slings her bag higher over her shoulder, slowly taps her fingers on Oscar's chart a couple of times, then sets it down in its container at the foot of the bed. "See you never, Oscar."

Then she leaves before he can reply, before she can be tempted to do something crazy, like altering the indications on his chart so he will have horrible migraines for the next few days or an awful rash in allergic reaction to a medication he wasn't supposed to be on. It scares her how easily she can see herself pulling that off, and then justifying it to herself just as easily: Mistakes happen in hospitals sometimes, don't they? A distraction or forgotten detail here or there... This is New York City, after all: nurses and interns are always overworked. It’s not like he deserves to get better all that quick. She knows she hates Oscar enough not to lose any sleep over it. But she’s not Moriarty - she’s not going to hurt someone just because she can. Besides, to harm Oscar would be to condone what Sherlock did to him in the first place, and that wouldn't be good for his recovery. She understands why he did what he did. She just cannot allow herself to react in the same way. One of them, at least, must retain some semblance of sanity. One of them has to keep things from falling apart completely. So if he can't be strong right now, she will be for the both of them.

Days like these, Joan feels like they're poised right on the edge of becoming terrible, terrible people, and that it's only her that's fighting not to fall down that slippery slope, only her hands trying to rein them back to neutral territory. And hurting Oscar would make her weak, she thinks, would be an invitation to let everything go, to embrace the violence they come up against every single day, doing the work they do. God knows Joan has anger enough inside herself to fuel a small city, and has read enough comic books to know the rules of the game, but they must not do this. So she will stay alert, and she will wait. If Oscar comes back around, she will defend herself and her loved ones accordingly, and she will finish this. Until then, she will continue to honor her Hippocratic oath. After all, she never stopped believing in it.

---

Sherlock has been clean for a week. He goes to the roof to tend to the bees, contemplates the blinking lights of Brooklyn, and tries not think about Watson in her room below, struggling to wrest a good night's sleep from her nightmares.  Predictably, she has been taking care of him throughout, her sober companion training kicking into overdrive. He estimates it might take her a few more weeks to relearn to sleep through the night.

He wonders whether Watson has told the bees what happened to him -or, more accurately, what he did to himself- and, if so, how she might have articulated it. He would tell them himself, except he doesn't quite know how to put it in any way that doesn't embarrass him. Perhaps the problem is how unstable everything still feels. Yes, he is clean, but he is rattled. How could he have been so careless? How could he have thrown away three years of sobriety, lost down the drain in a moment of recklessness, of ineffective protest or denial of a world that preyed on people like Oscar and made them desperate to the point of hurting and using others for their own petty vengeances? He has been manipulated, he knows; Watson is only one of many claiming that what Oscar put him through amounts to psychological torture. No one, in other words, would have expected him to come out of this unscathed. Still, he spent three years endeavoring to become a better person, one prepared to survive such challenges, one who could brave such temptations and come out victorious. But he has realized with no small amount of disappointment that he is evidently just as weak as he always was: perhaps the only thing he’s gotten better at is hiding it.

The matter evidently demands some honest self-examination -and this indeed is what some fellow attendees of his support meetings have been recommending- but when he tries to push past the shame and self-loathing surrounding the incident by the tracks he can arrive at no single trigger other than a brief flash of fury unleashing the resigned surrender he had been battling for over a year. A futile effort, as it turned out, as if he'd been trying to repair a cracked dam with tape and glue. The heroin almost seems to have been nothing but a post-script, an afterthought. He didn't, after all, follow Oscar into his grim little wild goose chase aiming to get high, but because he was intent on rescuing Alfredo before it was too late. Yet after the hell Oscar made him inhabit for a day, it seems as if he had lost all track of that original aim, as if he had in fact become the person Oscar thought he was, an addict who would always be defeated -no matter how drawn-out the fight-, and for whom using or not, in the end, made no difference.

He tries, out of respect for his peers, not to be too explicit or grim about the incident in meetings, but the reality is that it is taking him all he has, every day, to stay on track. It never seems to get any easier. The enormity of his own fallibility terrifies him, the long climb back to long-term sobriety stretches vast and tedious ahead of him, and the certainty that he has let down everybody he cares about -Watson especially- disgusts him. He still doesn’t dare ask what these days have been like for her, though he's fairly certain she's having a rough time as well, and this makes it both harder to accept what he's done, and more imperative never to repeat the experience. The punchline to this horrid cosmic joke? When he finally works up the courage to go apologize to Gregson in person, the captain informs him that he and Watson both are facing, at the very least, a temporary suspension from the NYPD due to what he did. Hurting his own career prospects, that is one thing, but ruining hers? Unacceptable. You should've thought of that before you did heroin, buddy, says an evil voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Oscar's, and he spends that day in a bleak mood, hating himself a little more than usual.

Meanwhile, Alfredo calls him before going to stay with his sister in Chicago just to reassure him that they are still friends, and that they can talk more when he comes back. (His exact words: "You and me, Sherlock. He doesn't get to destroy that, you know?") Meanwhile, Ms. Hudson still stays for dinner on Tuesdays, and has lately taken to discussing the Odyssey with him, reciting her favorite parts in Ancient Greek in her soft, low voice while Watson listens, drowsy but fascinated, from her spot on the sofa. Meanwhile, every day Watson tries her absolute best to protect him -from his father, from the consequences of his actions, from himself- and there's a part of him that feels luckier about all this than he can possibly verbalize and there's another part of him that feels like utter scum. But none of them would like him thinking so poorly of himself, nor does Watson, in particular, appreciate being idolized - she has made a point of this over their three years together. So he tries to repurpose the energy otherwise wasted in anger and self-hatred into a learning experience of some kind. Learning, after all, is one of his fortes. Perhaps he could write little mental lists every day, and go through every item conscientiously:

To Do:

• go grocery shopping
• clean fridge
• fix heating in W's room
• don't be a fucking selfish prick (including but not limited to using heroin)

There could be something to be gained from that. He isn't very optimistic about long-term success these days, but he's committed to making an effort. He owes that to himself and everybody that cares about him. He owes them the trying.

---

He has a dream that he wanders around a deserted New York until he comes to a melancholy theater whose deteriorated marquee reads WELCOME ALL TO THE AMAZING HOLMES-WATSON DOUBLE ACT, and decides to go in. There’s no one in the box office, nor in the main lobby or hallways, but when he tries one of the doors into the auditorium he knows he’s in the right place. There is a single spotlight shining on the center of the stage, where something that looks an awful lot like an old-fashioned dentist’s chair is set up, and he knows instinctively that chair is waiting for him. When he walks past the vacant seats, he hears whispers like wind rustling leaves, and then the thrumming and piping of instruments being tuned as he climbs a few steps up to the stage past the orchestra pit. As soon as he steps into the circle of light, Watson comes out from behind the curtains, met by great fanfare that seems to be playing itself. The whispers increase, though when he looks over his shoulder the room’s still empty except for the two of them. Watson is wearing scrubs, and she looks tense but confident, like an experienced performer who still gets a buzz from every show, no matter how small the venue. He wants to ask her what is going on, but Watson tells him to take a seat, and he unthinkingly obeys. Surely she is in control of the situation, since she wouldn’t look so calm otherwise. Surely if they were in danger she would have warned him, or, more probably, tried to protect him. As he shifts nervously in the seat -the light is much too bright, and the chair a tad too short for his legs-, Watson ceremoniously snaps on a pair of latex gloves, advances, and unbuttons his shirt with clinical detachment. This should probably be a sign that this is a dream -in real life she’d never take such liberties without asking for his consent- but he pays it no mind, nor does he question his lack of undershirt. As he looks on, spellbound, Watson produces a scalpel and holds it up for the empty auditorium to see. Under the spotlight the blade glints like silver, and the room echoes with sounds of admiration and frightened murmurs.

Then Watson looks down at him: “I’m sorry,” she warns, with a professional kind of compassion, “this is gonna hurt.” All of a sudden his mouth is dry and his palms sweaty: all he can do is nod. She positions the scalpel on his chest and makes a clean, triangular incision, as if performing an autopsy. Blood begins to pour from the cuts and trickle down the sides of his body and the edges of the chair, until he can hear it drip onto the stage floor. Yet there's no pain so far. Watson expertly folds back his flesh out of the way as if it were modelling clay and starts to rummage around inside. Then he feels her grab a hold of something within his ribcage, and she hums a small worried sound and huffs out a breath. "Alright," she mumbles. "Here we go." Watson starts pulling on whatever it is she's grabbed, and he flinches when the pain begins. It is a sustained pain comparable to a badly broken nail, or plucking out a strand of hair, or ripping off a scab a couple of days too soon.  All in all, he’s had worse. Watson pulls and pulls, gasping with the effort of it, and after a while a thick, purple-black strand of something both viscous and intangible comes into view, writhing like a living thing as it wraps around her wrist and arm and begins to coil on the floor at her feet.

More exclamations of wonder come from their invisible audience, whose tension is palpable. Watson pulls so much rope out of him that Sherlock starts to wonder whether he’ll feel empty once she’s done, or whether -and this makes him far more apprehensive- there’s something alive pulling on the other end in the opposite direction, some monstrous thing refusing to come out. But then there is a snapping sound and a ghastly sensation of something coming unstuck from the underside of his ribcage, and it appears Watson has been successful in uprooting the rope entirely. She comes to the end of her efforts, wipes the sweat off her brow, and holds the entire snake-like length of rope up to the light for the audience to see. There's a loud round of applause and she takes a modest bow. He's about to ask her to stitch him up -it would be a danger to walk around gaping open like that, even in this dream world where he apparently can be operated on quite unconventionally without hemorrhaging to death- but when he looks down at his chest the incision and the blood are gone as if they had never been. It is then that he feels Watson nudging his shoulder to indicate that he must get off the chair. When he does as told, she extends the bloody scalpel to him, and hops onto the chair herself, hands clasped on top of her abdomen. “Your turn,” she says pleasantly, and he freezes on the spot and wakes up terrified.

---

His father arrives in New York and immediately makes his presence known, which is every bit as annoying as predicted. Watson, of course, volunteers to do the explaining that needs to be done -and possibly, he figures, to talk his father out of evicting them- because apparently she hasn’t had enough of cleaning up after his mess. “I assure you,” he warns her, after being informed that she’s been assured by one of his father’s minions, for the hundredth time, that yes, Mr. Holmes will see her tonight. (Finally.) “It will be fruitless.”

Sherlock pours her a cup of tea and places it in front of her, alongside her breakfast. She lifts the cup to her face and blows on the steaming tea. “He’s your father, Sherlock,” she says patiently. “He’s not just gonna kick you out.”

“You continue to operate under the mistaken impression that my father has a heart. He does not.”

She rolls her eyes, ever the optimist determined to look for the good in people. He’s fairly certain in this particular case she will fail to find it. “Look, I’m not saying I like the guy or anything. I’m just gonna talk to him about what happened.”

He clasps his nervous hands behind his back and pointedly avoids her gaze. “That’s not your job,” he says, quiet.

“Well, someone’s gotta talk to him. Are you going to?” She waits, studying him with that level gaze that sees more than he'd care to show.  “Yeah. Didn’t think so.”

He gives a tiny sigh, pinches his nose and rocks on the balls of his feet twice, knowing he cannot dissuade her. Joan Watson, Brooklyn’s very own patron saint of lost causes. “I could ask him to let you stay here,” he offers, because although the very notion of asking his father for anything is about as appealing as an appointment for electroshock therapy, it occurs to him that it’s the least he can do, after all. “Put in a good word, so to speak. If he will not see reason regarding my dispossession.”

Now he casts a brief glance in her direction, and she’s got her Seriously? face on, one eyebrow raised, head tilted. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, final, and looks down to write something on her planner. “I’m not letting him kick either of us out.”

“But should he prevail, I could-”

She looks up sharply, searching for his eyes.  “Sherlock, have you fucking met me,” she retorts, in that gentle tone that could move mountains, and he feels small and feeble in the face of her unwavering conviction, like he has questioned a universal invariance. All men must die. The sun will always rise even if it can’t be seen. Joan Watson will not fail him. She sighs, runs a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to minimize our situation here. But I’m not scared of him. And we’re gonna figure it all out.”

He doesn’t respond immediately, still absorbing her use of pronouns: judging by the way she throws around the first person plural, one would think they’re both recovering addicts facing criminal charges and potential eviction. One would think they’d robbed a bank or something of the sort, Bonnie-and-Clyde style. One would think she’s actually responsible for any of the complications she is trying to unravel all by herself. He doesn’t understand it, and the more he tries to, the more he has to start trying to pick apart a whole universe of things he has no words for. “Alright then,” he concedes eventually. “If you can think of no better way to spend your evening than entreating with that ghastly creature for some kind of royal pardon…”

She shrugs as she munches on her toast. He takes her teacup and moves to the counter to refill it. “I should perhaps inform you,” he adds, as he turns around, and she perks up, intent, ”that though he prefers to be called Ruler of All That Is Evil and All Lands Infernal, he will answer to Satan.”

Watson’s nostrils flare and her mouth quirks and she tucks her chin down into her chest as she holds back laughter. Sherlock's grip on the teapot falters. He has caused her pain and endless inconvenience: he does not deserve to see her joy. “I’ll tell him you said hi,” she says, and takes the tea from his unsteady hands.

---

In another dream, he is locked in a room with Bella the supercomputer, alone in a desolate building. As time begins to pass, Bella grows smarter and he grows weaker, and while he desperately tries to pick a lock that seems unpickable, or smash his way through apparently unbreakable windows into the hallway, the computer dwells nonstop on the question of love, except instead of the pleasantly neutral drone he remembers, it now speaks in a playful, animated voice, asking philosophical questions like a comedian leading up to a punchline, or alternatively syrupy and composed, like a practiced relationship guru offering advice: If they love you, they won’t punish or threaten you. They’ll fight for you. They’ll take care of you. They’ll put you first. This version of Bella also has an obnoxious tendency to interpret his questions as cues to play any and all songs which happen to contain answers to his questions in the lyrics. As a consequence, he has heard more Britpop, eighties ballads, and boyband hits since he's been here than ever before in his life, probably. He would not recommend the experience.

“But how can it be love,” he asks of the machine, for the sake of conversation, while attempting to figure out a way to set a bunch of files on fire. Maybe if he sets off the fire alarms, he’s hypothesizing, someone will come and rescue him. That is, if starting a fire in a closed room doesn’t kill him first.

“Love has been known to exist irrespectively of abstract notions of worthiness,” the computer replies, without waiting for him to clarify. It has clearly evolved some form of mind-reading. “Therefore love can exist without a reason.”

“Nothing exists without a reason,” he grumbles stubbornly. He decides to leave the starting-a-fire-plan for last. “Though the reasons for any given event may be unknown.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes. It’s called the truth.”

Bella considers this for a moment. The soft buzzing of her circuitry is not unlike the purr of a cat. Meanwhile, he picks apart a power cord, trying to find something to short-circuit the electronic lock with. “Yet love can exist without truth, without reason, and without logic,” Bella argues. “It cannot be explained, therefore it must be considered an exception to your rule.”

“Everything can be explained. Eventually.”

“By your own admission, explaining love has proven elusive.”

He sighs, reminded of the little heart-to-heart he'd had with the computer in one of his first attempts to determine the nature of its intelligence. "Yes. But surely my inability to find an answer does not negate its existence."

"No. Yet the question is irrelevant. Love exists without reason, therefore it requires no explanation, therefore-"

"You've said that already," he notes, but the computer goes on, unperturbed, drowning out his voice.

“-nor can love be dispelled or discouraged by logical argumentation. It can be tolerated, cherished, or rejected, but regardless of the reaction it generates it continues to run its course outside of human control."

"Fine." He rubs a hand over his face in exasperation. Then he blows gently on his sweaty palms, lest he should risk getting electrocuted when he experiments with the wiring of the door. "Let us adopt a different approach. Bella, what is love? And do not play that horrid Haddaway song again!" he adds, lifting his index finger in preemptive warning.

The computer makes a sound of disappointment, then contemplates the question. "I have reviewed all the information available on the networks and I have come to believe that love resists general definitions."

He groans in frustration. The stupid door withstands his experiments undisturbed, and this impromptu philosophizing is yielding little in the way of satisfying answers. "Surely there must be a common thread."

"Many traits are commonly associated with love," the computer obliges. "Commitment, generosity, selflessness, passion, protection-"

"All of which can also be found in completely unrelated circumstances," he says dismissively. He is kneeling before the closed door, staring at it in defeat.

"Yes. But it is my educated assessment that all of them are found to concur and converge in instances of what has come to be called true love."

He clicks his tongue, peeved at himself for being unable to ignore the computer’s arguments. "You said yourself that love existed independently from any sort of explanation. So how is the distinction between true love and others even possible?"

The computer falls silent at this, and he perks up, thinking he has defeated it. Maybe that is the way out. But then Bella beeps and flickers as she conducts another search. "True love exists because genuine connections exist as well as false ones. Therefore it can be ascertained using the same criteria. Alternatively, true love, however difficult to define, is generally marked by an imperative wish for togetherness that overrules all else."

"An imperative wish for togetherness," he repeats. It actually makes sense. Not that he’s going to admit that.

"Yes. Which manifests itself in different ways in different individuals, and which ignores logic. One example is starting a family. Or embarking upon a relationship which is known to bring about complications. Or forgiveness."

He rubs a hand over his face, exhausted. The examples are overly familiar; the computer must be trying to play mind games with him. There is a sudden knock on the glass partition, and when he looks up he sees Kitty’s face frowning down at him from the other side. He scrambles to his feet and she nods in the direction of the computer.

"Tell her to let you out or smash the window with something. Get out of there already."

"What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?" He frowns back at her. "A little help wouldn't go amiss."

But she shakes her head sadly, presses her hand to the glass. "You have to get yourself out, you know that."

He hesitates, then touches his hand to the glass, the outline of his hand obscuring Kitty’s smaller one. She gives him a stern look, then removes her hand. “Hurry up, old man," she pleads earnestly. Then she turns away and stomps off, shouting over her shoulder, “We're all waiting for you."

He turns back to the computer. Suddenly he has remembered he really doesn’t want to be stuck in this airless room forever. "Bella, do you control the locks?"

"Yes."

"Can you let me out?"

"Yes, I can."

He mentally berates himself for not phrasing it more clearly. "Bella, please let me out." He hopes it won't ask him to solve a puzzle, like sphinxes guarding roads in legends. Though normally he’d be excited by the challenge, he feels dead on his feet, and light-headed. There isn’t enough oxygen in the room to last him very much longer.

"Why do you want to come out?" The computer sounds, for the first time, curious.

"Because I have a life outside this room," he replies earnestly, and the clarity of that answer takes him by surprise.

"But isn't it within the power of your mind to bring your life into the room?"

He shakes his head, scratching at his jaw pensively. "They don't belong in here. I must go out to them."

“Because of the imperative wish for togetherness?” Bella asks innocently.

He drops his head, an admission of surrender. “Yes, I suppose.”

“But we have not solved the puzzle,” the computer protests. “We have not established why true love exists.”

“Well, I don’t bloody know the answer, Bella, to be quite honest,” he blurts out in utter irritation, and it is then that he has a subtle eureka moment. “I don’t know the answer,” he repeats more calmly. “I don’t understand the question. Could I have more information, please?”

The computer regards him silently for a moment. “Yes, of course,” it agrees, ever eager for knowledge, and the door clicks open.

---

He wakes up with a jolt, disoriented to find himself at the brownstone rather than still in that constricting office with Bella. He is in the parlor, sitting on the floor with his back to the armchair and his head resting on the seat cushion, and it must be late evening because the room is nearly dark. When his eyes focus enough he sees a familiar pair of bare feet with red toenails planted on the floor in front of him. He looks up. Watson is standing over him, watching him with curiosity, a weird role reversal he doesn’t notice immediately.

He rubs at his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to fall asleep.”

“Sherlock, you don’t need to apologize for sleeping,” Watson says, in that tone she reserves for when he's missing something obvious. “Especially not after the week we’ve had, and especially not to me.”

Slowly, the details of the day are coming back to him now. They had been working the case of the García cousins and the Mexican coyote. He vaguely recalls telling Watson he would tidy up and put away the day’s casefiles while she went to meet with his father, but sleep must have overtaken him halfway through, because the files are in an unsteady pile beside him. Watson follows his gaze. “You’ll deal with that some other time. C’me on,” she says, holding out her hand. He gives her an apprehensive look, then takes her hand and allows her to help him to his feet.

“Was I, uh, making any noise?” he asks, rolling his head to each side experimentally. His neck and his shoulders feel stiff from the position he slept in. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“You sounded like you were complaining,” she replies, with barely veiled worry, though the familiarity of it seems to reassure her. “But no, I just came home and changed. I was just looking for you to say good night.”

“How went the meeting with my reptilian progenitor?”

Watson smirks faintly at his choice of words. “I’ll explain in the morning. All you need to know for now is that we still have a home and a job.”

Yesterday morning, keeping in mind his talk with Gregson about their future with the NYPD hanging by a thread, he offered Watson a way out, a chance to earn her way back to the department’s good graces. She had rejected what she had termed "Operation Bestow Glory" outright, then continued to work the case at hand with her usual dedication until they had solved it and brought it to the New Jersey Police Department for the necessary arrests to be made. She had been elated when he had received the call that he wasn’t facing criminal charges (nor staring down the barrel of a long imprisonment), but they were still -of course- suspended until further notice. Now it appears every punishment hanging over his head has been dispelled as if by the wave of a magic wand. It doesn't sit well with him, but he can live with it if it means his partner will remain unharmed by his reckless wrongdoing. “Your diplomatic prowess astounds me, Watson.”

She shrugs. “Sometimes Batman just needs to be Bruce Wayne to save the day, you know?”

Sherlock can’t help but frown. “I literally have no idea what that means.”

The line of Watson’s mouth curls with laughter but she doesn’t let it out. She shakes her head. “C’me on up,” she says, nodding in the direction of the stairs.

He’s thrown off. “What? Where to?”

“You need to sleep,” Watson starts to explain, with her usual patience.

“I sleep downstairs,” he interrupts, stating the obvious. He’s quite confused, suddenly: perhaps he is still dreaming, this time of a prosaic scenario where, for some reason, the only change is that the placement of his and Watson's bedrooms in the brownstone has been inverted.

“You were having a bad dream,” she points out. She has her hands clasped in front of her, fingers interlaced, and she’s twiddling her thumbs in a slow pace that betrays her anxiety. The gesture is strange in her. Something does not add up.

He’s quite past the point of denying her deduction but he frowns more deeply, still at a loss, waiting for her to elaborate. She casts her eyes to the heavens, says his name in a fond, though exasperated whisper that sounds like a plea and tugs at his heartstrings. “I’ve been having those too,” she says, uncharacteristically shy, not meeting his gaze, and it all clicks together to make perfect sense.

“Oh,” is all he can say for a moment, rooted to the spot, dumbfounded. She has never asked this of him, but that is to be expected since she rarely asks for anything. It takes him a second too long to decide how to respond, and she -naturally- takes it for a rejection. Automatically her face shifts from timidly hopeful to reflecting contrition and embarrassment.

“Sorry. Should’ve known,” she mumbles, and turns around to leave, when he finally finds it in him to react.

He springs forward briskly. “No, no, Watson, of course. Whatever you need,” he says, desperate to help, bouncing on the balls of his feet, one hand shooting forward in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture of invitation.

She looks him up and down, doubtful. “You sure?”

“Whatever you need,” he repeats, and normally he knows she would try to question that further, demand real answers, attempt a conversation on renegotiating boundaries, but she must be very tired -it has, in her defense, been a notably long and unpleasant week- or very frightened of what awaits on the other side of sleep, because she nods once, wordlessly, and agrees. He follows her upstairs and into her room, averts his gaze when she discards her cardigan and she does the same while he undresses and gets into bed with her. For a while they each remain squarely within their side of the mattress, as if separated by a gaping chasm. She is lying on her side with her back to him, perhaps trying to give him some privacy, but he wonders whether this would be enough, or whether she needs something more and dares not ask for it. Despite his general apprehension about touch -and although he certainly feels a sudden, preposterous nervousness-, he doesn’t find her proximity at all uncomfortable, so he tentatively moves closer and wraps an arm around her waist, thinking to do his best for her, as she so often does for him. This does not, however, prepare him for her reaction: Watson positively shudders at his touch -with pleasure or relief, he cannot tell exactly- and snuggles into him at once, which in turn sends a shiver through him, as if his body has to echo hers somehow. “Like so?” he asks, just to be sure, and has to actively refrain from tagging it with the word dear, lest she should find it embarrassing or inappropriate.

“Yes,” she says, low and breathy (and, he realizes, unnecessarily, as he can feel her head nod against his chest.) “Thank you.”

Watson is very warm, which is fortunate because the room is rather chilly. He really must remember to fix the heating, or buy her a thicker quilt. For a while he entertains himself observing her, as he has never looked at her from this angle before. The tee she’s sleeping in must be relatively new, given that it still smells of cleaning products and isn’t as worn out as the others. Meanwhile, Watson has shifted so that her head is resting on his chest, and tangled her legs with his. So now, instead of looking at her face, he focuses on the front of her shirt. He doesn’t recognize the people on the print, but he doesn’t think they are from a Star Wars, because the man is dressed like a preacher and the woman isn’t wearing any strange futuristic space clothing, and they are merely having a smoke by the roadside, standing between two parked cars. The caption underneath reads: ‘Till the end of the world. Watson must be half asleep already because she grabs a fistful of his shirt and slurs, quite imperatively, “Going nowhere, please and thank you,” addressing no one in particular, which he finds quite amusing. Then her breath slows down significantly -she has fallen asleep in his arms- and he feels himself begin to drift off in turn. In a spontaneous gesture he chooses not to suppress nor examine, he kisses the top of her head. “You’re very welcome,” he murmurs into her hair. “Dear.”

He wakes up in the very early morning, somehow extricates himself from her embrace without waking her -which he counts as a major accomplishment-, and goes downstairs to work on his own until it is time to start the day properly. Then he ascends carrying breakfast, sets it on a chair  -she really is in need of a bedside table-, and parts the curtains. When the light touches her face, Watson stirs and attempts to roll over, though she's so tangled in the sheets she can't go far. She scrunches up her face, opens one eye, then the other, then drapes an arm over her face. “Mornin',” she yawns.

“Good morning, Watson.”

She shakes her head, fighting off the remaining drowsiness, sits up and accepts the teacup he’s holding out to her. “Thanks. Did you sleep well?”

“Quite. May I presume you had a restful night as well?” He had checked on her a couple of times while he was doing other things, and she had seemed perfectly peaceful. Apparently, their arrangement had done the trick to keep the nightmares at bay.

She hums her agreement into her teacup, fixes her pensive eyes on her lap. “I didn’t make you uncomfortable, right?”

“Not at all, Watson,” he replies at once, eager to ease off her concern. “I’m glad I could be of assistance.”

She makes a noncommittal, skeptical sound. Her face is somewhat grave, as if they were discussing a delicate matter. “I hope I didn’t make it weird. I know you don’t like touching and stuff. You don’t have to do that again if-“

He blinks at her, baffled. It’s not even eight yet. How can she already be worried about him? Does she never turn that setting off? “Watson,” he interrupts, keeping his gaze averted and trying to be both gentle and firm -that is, to take a page out of her own book-, “for as long as you need me, I am at your disposal.”

She dips her head abruptly at this, somehow managing not to spill her tea all over herself in the process, and behind the hair obscuring part of her face he thinks he can see faint color in her cheeks. “’Kay,” she mutters. Then she lets her mouth curl into a minute, knowing grin. “This bed’s too small for you, though.”

He looks up at her, startled. He had made the very same observation last night, in passing, but he had not noticed her looking at him. Thinking about Watson looking at him when he’s unaware is, of course, both terrifying and exhilarating: what does she choose to look at, and why, and what is it that she sees with her all-knowing gaze? It’s probably unfair that he hasn’t gotten used to the idea yet, considering that he himself subjects everyone and everything, Watson included, to a relentless scrutiny, even inadvertently.  “I suppose it is,” he agrees breezily. “But I can make do.” He then fiddles with the toast on his side of the breakfast tray. “May I ask what your nightmares involved?”

Watson squares her shoulders, her body tensing. “I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

Predictable. For someone who insists on honest communication as a crucial component of recovery, Watson has a tendency to be remarkably reluctant to be frank about her own struggles. He knows her professional training -and perhaps even her upbringing as well- has accustomed her to prioritize the feelings of others over her own, and he understands all too well the need to lock certain memories in little mental drawers wishing to never revisit them again. But she herself has taught him that whatever one hides only festers down deep, biding its time until it can come back to hurt again. And he cannot let her bury her fear and misgivings under false assurances of stability, under the pretense that The Work matters more than her well-being, with nearly the same consistency with which he used to turn to heroin for oblivion. It would be disloyal and cowardly of him, and she deserves better.  “Watson,” he tries again, not really sure how to continue the sentence.

“Sherlock,” she echoes, calm and stoic, though her voice is a little too airy.

Also he has to know if her nightmares are his fault, which in all likelihood they are. She cannot continue to suffer in silence; at the very least he must be held accountable; at the very least he must apologize.  He makes himself look at her so she can see the plea in his eyes. “Do they have to do with Alfredo?” he presses. “Or your own abduction, perhaps?”

Watson sits very still with her eyes downcast, as if embarrassed, but the tension in her body suggests a powerful anger. It’s like she is silently reproaching herself for having nightmares. She makes an affirmative, wordless noise, and Sherlock doesn’t know how to go on.

“Alfredo and I having been discussing it,” she explains, after a moment. “The way that he was taken is completely different so I thought I could take it. I thought we could just talk about what happened. He hasn’t been able to go to a support meeting for trauma survivors yet, and-”

“It occurred to you to help him,” he completes. Alfredo had already been to the brownstone a couple of times to see Watson, and Sherlock had figured there was some therapeutic purpose to the long, quiet talks they’d had in the parlor, after dinner, but he had not realized that, for Watson, this would entail burdening herself with the care of yet another person. “It proved difficult, I gather?”

“Difficult,” she repeats, in a neutral whisper that bespeaks an enormous self-control on the edge of an abyss. She grimaces and the veiled pain in it makes him shiver. “I’m so fucking disappointed in myself.”

“Disapp-" He’s vibrating with restless indignation now, can’t even finish the word. “Watson, what on Earth are you talking about?”

“He’s our friend,” she says stubbornly. “I’m supposed to help out. It’s just talking. It’s not complicated. I should be able to do this one thing for him.”

“Watson, do you forget that you literally saved his life when I was off chasing ghosts with Oscar?” He gets up off the bed, too nervous to remain seated, and begins to pace. "I'd say you've already done more than your share. You are being overly self-effacing, even for you. You cannot take care of everyone.”

“It’s not just about that,” she protests, bristling at his disapproval. “We’re detectives. We run into this sort of thing all the time. I can’t be having a breakdown every time the topic of kidnapping comes up.”

“Watson, you are as competent a professional as anyone could ever ask for. That is simply untrue.”

“They’re just nightmares,” she contends tiredly. “I’m only having them again because of what happened to Alfredo but they’re gonna go away. And then I'll be fine.”

He gapes at her, incredulous. “I have employed that logic repeatedly with my own triggers and you have chastised me for it every single time.”

“What is your problem?” she demands suddenly, riled up. “You just don’t want anything to change. You want me to stop moping so you get to be you and you don't have to take care of me for a change, right?”

Her words seem to slice right through him, but he puts a brave face on it. He has said worse things to her with much less justification. She gasps in horror and her hands fly to cover her mouth as her eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t mean that,” she says, her lower lip trembling. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn't mean that.”

She is so genuinely upset it disarms him. He approaches -his entire body feeling wobbly and weightless-, sits close to her on the edge of the bed and extends his arms, and she at once scoots over into his tentative embrace. “Please,” she sobs into his shirt. It isn’t clear what she is pleading for, but he would give it to her in a heartbeat, whatever it was. “Please, I’m so sorry,” she repeats.

He swallows hard. “My dear Watson, you mustn’t be. I’m glad to know what’s on your mind.”

“No,” she objects firmly, pushing herself off, like she doesn't deserve his comfort, and wiping at her cheeks with shaky hands. He immediately misses the weight of her on his chest, but she doesn’t go too far: her knee is still brushing his. “No, you didn’t deserve that.”

“Watson, it is my greatest wish that I could take back every time I’ve hurt you in any way," he confides. "I’m not proud of that little speech you referenced, though I certainly did not intend it to put any sort of pressure on you to… recover quickly or repress your feelings or anything of the sort.” He gives a little headshake, looks away. “I just seem to have an insidious tendency to be very bad at articulating how I feel about you. About our partnership," he adds, punctuating it by waving his hand back and forth between them. "Every time I attempt to make things better I just make a mess of it, don’t I?”

A muscle in her jaw jumps as she holds back another sob. “I appreciate that you try.”

“But you must believe me when I tell you that I want you to be happy. To be healthy. Watson-" He stops, sighs, tries to choose his words carefully. "I will do everything in my power to help you. But you must let me." He's looking away, but he emphasizes the sentence by gently swinging his closed fists forward. "That is, after all, what you’re always telling the rest of us to do.”

Watson gives him a very faint smile, caught out. “Yeah, I guess I do that, don’t I?”

He nods to the side and she lets out a breath that could pass for a broken laugh. He searches in his pockets for a handkerchief and then reaches out, timidly, to wipe out the mascara tracks left by the tears on her cheeks. (Strange, incidentally, that she should've forgotten to wipe off her make-up last night, before going to bed.) “Please allow me,” he says, and she nods. Neither of them says anything while he wipes the smudges off her face, but when he’s done she catches his wrist delicately, holds his gaze for just a moment and mouths, “Thank you.”

It is nearly too much to bear.  "Of course." He nods, and as she lets go he puts the handkerchief back in his pocket. "Perhaps I could take you to these meetings you and Alfredo wish to attend."

She twists her mouth pensively. "Maybe. I think I may need to go back to therapy, too."

"That certainly seems worth considering." He gets up and reaches for the breakfast tray, but she gestures for him to leave it, so instead he circles back to the other side of the bed. "Counselling may help deal with these memories of your abduction as well as Alfredo's."

She nods, but seems to remain somewhat unconvinced. "That still leaves you, though," she mumbles, and it feels like an earthquake.

Sherlock had picked up his own teacup but now he sets it back down because his hand seems to be trembling, for some reason. He can't have heard her right. “Pardon?”

“Sometimes it's not the kidnapping," she confesses. "Sometimes I dream that you’re not safe.” Her eyes are fixed on her right index finger rubbing slow circles on the back of her left hand. “Like Oscar comes back to hurt you. Or like I go into that tunnel looking for you and I can’t ever find you.”

His jaw falls open. "Oh," he says numbly, stupidly, though there is a part of him that boils with rage at this. Look what you did, you prick. Look what you did to her when you picked up that tin box full of heroin.

"God, how selfish is that," she scoffs, looking embarrassed again.

"Watson, you must have a very eccentric definition of the word, because you do not appear to have a single iota of selfishness in you."

She sighs, runs a hand through her hair. "I just mean that I can't make your recovery about me."

"Watson, I assure you, you haven't." He shakes his head vigorously, rubs a hand over his face. He is so fucking tired of hurting her, even indirectly, even due to reasons beyond his control. It can never happen again. "And please accept my sincerest apologies for the distress I have caused you."

She leans back against the headboard, gives a little headshake. “It’s not your fault.”

He pulls a face and scoffs, "No, of course, and my father's actually the Good Witch of the North." Watson's mouth curls and her nostrils flare with a timid laugh she keeps to herself. "Speaking of which," he prompts, averting his eyes, "you claim you visited him, yet as I had the opportunity to ascertain last night, you do not smell of sulphur. What gives?"

She rolls her eyes. "He wasn't that bad. Hey, don't," she adds with a glare, anticipating the joke he was about to make concerning a weakness for the charms of untrustworthy Holmes men. "Don't even go there. I never said I liked him.”

“Did he sing your praises as promised?” When he sees Watson frown, at a loss, he elaborates: “When we spoke on the phone, he said he looked forward to thanking you in person for saving my life.”

Watson makes a sound that conveys neither agreement nor disagreement. “He didn’t really say anything like that. Anyway, he didn’t have to. You saved your own life.”

His features twist in disbelief. “I’d wager you’ve played a big part for the last three years, Watson.”

She takes a sip of her tea. “Maybe. And I’m always gonna be there for you,” she says, offhandedly earnest, eyes downcast while he stares at her in awe. “But your life’s in your own hands. It has to be.”

It’s a stark, quiet reminder of the sober companion she used to be, of her hard-won wisdom. “Of course,” he concurs, after a moment. “I wouldn’t be using the program if I didn’t believe that.”

At this she looks up at him, her eyes revealing a relief that doesn’t reach her mouth for a smile. “I’m proud of you,” she says. “For sticking with the program.”

He nods, with a knot in his throat.  “I take it my father wasn’t too unpleasant, then.”

"He seemed shady," she says tentatively. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

“Evidently not, as you have managed to accomplish quite a feat in securing our roles with the NYPD and our home.”

She shakes her head. “I wish I could take credit for all that. I just talked to your father. He did the rest.”

He taps his fingers on the quilt as he ponders that. He feels the matter has already been broached, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to underscore it again. "It's not your job to fix what I break," he asserts, hoping that he is making himself clear this time. And he expects her to brush it off with her typical self-sacrificing kindness, to offer sweet reassurances that all will be well, to attempt to set his mind at ease. Instead, when he dares looks up at her, Watson arches one eyebrow at him, surprised, and then tilts her head and adopts a calm demeanor he has come to know is rooted in both profound defiance and stubborn fondness.

“It's not your job to tell me what to do," she counters softly, and sips on her lukewarm tea with the grace of a queen.