Of Minds and Memories (Part 1)
Title: Of Minds and Memories (Part 1 of 2)
Author: jenlee1
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG-13, for this part
Word Count: 4800
Summary: He comes to himself in St. James Square - upright, if only just; strangely dizzy, every muscle sore and aching, as though he’s been beaten.
Spoilers/Warnings: none, that I’m aware of
Disclaimer: I own nothing; written for fun, not profit.
A/N: Written (somewhat loosely) for a kinkmeme prompt, here. Thanks so much to the lovely enkiduts for giving this a read-through for me :)
-Prologue-
He comes to himself in St. James Square - upright, if only just; strangely dizzy, every muscle sore and aching, as though he’s been beaten. Which, presumably, he has, if the smudged dirt on his clothing and the lump on his head are to be taken as evidence of anything.
A disquieting conclusion, perhaps, but it materializes in his mind without conscious effort, and he feels no particular surprise - merely files it away for future reference, a mildly interesting observation to be considered further once the world ceases tilting and spinning long enough for him to think.
He’s filthy, he can feel it - unwashed hair plastered stubbornly to his forehead in spite of the breeze, fingernails encrusted with grime, and stinking, oily river water - river water? - drying on his clothes. He wants to crawl out of his skin, be someone else, someplace cleaner and more comfortable, but he settles for staggering aimlessly down the street because it seems preferable to standing still.
With no notion of where he’s been - not to mention where he’s headed - the journey is, by necessity, long and meandering. Street corners and alleyways rise up before him, a choice to make at every turn, and he trails the fingers of one hand along the rough brick and cool stone of each building as he passes. The city is too full, too busy, and he stumbles past blurred signposts and darkened windows, silent and unnoticed, like wandering through someone else’s dream.
His thoughts struggle against each other, half-formed and hopelessly tangled, fighting through the pounding in his head to order themselves into something he can make sense of. Something is wrong - something has happened - and when he finds himself, at last, in front of Scotland Yard, it seems the most natural thing in the world to go inside. Up the steps and through the great, wide doors and he wanders down a hallway to stop dead before the front desk, at a complete and utter loss for what to do next.
There’s been a crime committed, that much seems certain, although he’d be hard pressed to say what it was; never mind when, or where, or a thousand other bits of information that might be necessary, if anything is to be done about it. His mind casts about, restless and uncertain, scrabbling for purchase on the rocky ledges of his thoughts, usually silky smooth and effortless, but there is nothing of use; no names, no faces, only empty spaces where the details should be.
It’s maddening and terrifying all at once, and he stumbles sideways, leans against the wall to force the heels of his hands against his eyes. He increases the pressure until it burns, bright spots flashing behind his eyelids, but it doesn’t help, only leaves him with a headache and a vague sense of nausea - although that might have been there before - and frustration wells up like cold water in his lungs.
The reverie breaks as a voice rings out from across the lobby, and he glances up to see a supercilious little man with dark, squinting eyes and a face like a rodent regarding him with some surprise, all pointed features and primly raised eyebrows.
“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes, I can tell you - we’d just about given you up for dead.” The tone is weary but disconcertingly casual, and the sense of grudging relief behind the words suggests a certain history of acquaintance; plainly, this man knows him somehow. None of it makes any sense, and he wavers on his feet, exhausted and overwhelmed at the sheer incomprehensibility of it all.
“Mr. Holmes?” Curious eyes look him up and down, tinged, at last, with something like concern. “Mind telling us where on earth you’ve been for the last three days? You look ghastly.”
Holmes, he thinks absently. He tries to concentrate, but it’s more difficult than it should be.
It doesn’t sound familiar.
_______________________________________________________________________
As luck would have it, I arrived home at last on a rainy Sunday afternoon, suitcases thumping to the floor with the air of exhausted finality that comes at the end of a trying journey. It was not often that I found myself summoned to assist with my cousin’s practice in Norfolk, but the distraction was generally a welcome one; the opportunity to escape the confines of the city for a few days was sufficiently rare as to be irresistibly attractive to a soul weary of smoke and grime, and I had accepted the invitation without question.
The agreed upon interval - one week at most - had stretched into nearly a fortnight away from my rooms at Baker Street, and I was surprised at the intensity of my longing for the comforts of home, as well as the familiar company of a particular consulting detective. Our friendship, though its comforting predictability had long been one of the cornerstones of my existence, had taken a decidedly more intimate turn some six months earlier; I had felt his absence more keenly than I expected during my sojourn into the countryside, and indeed, had spent a large part of the journey back to London imagining the various depraved and illegal acts I wished to perpetrate upon his person that very evening.
Regardless, and much to my consternation, it was immediately clear upon my arrival that Holmes was not in. I glanced hopefully into his private study and even paused at the door to his bedroom, but the peaceful serenity of the atmosphere - undisturbed by restless pacing, muffled gunshots, or the melancholy sigh of violin strings - was quite incompatible with his presence in the house. The absence of any lingering traces of pipe smoke in the sitting room, in fact, suggested that he had been out most of the day.
Which, although anticlimactic in the extreme, was hardly unusual. He had a case, no doubt, and I confess that at the time, I was absurdly grateful for it. Disposed as he was to black moods and artificial sources of stimulation, Holmes was more than capable of finding other, far more destructive activities to occupy his time during my absence, and the fact that he was not sprawled listlessly on the settee with a needle in his arm - or worse - seemed reason enough to be relieved.
Our rooms seemed most unsatisfyingly empty without him, but I knew very well that nothing could be done to hasten his return. I set about the tedious task of unpacking, returning my belongings to their accustomed places as the dreary gloom filtering through the curtains settled and deepened, until the rooms seemed lit from within in a soft, watery grey. Supper was a solitary affair, the silence broken only by the gentle clinking of silverware on china, but I put aside the empty tray with a sense of tired contentment. It was enough to be home at last after so many days away, and I am ashamed to say that on that evening, I spared little more than a passing thought for the whereabouts of my companion.
Past experience had proven that there was no use in waiting up; he would return when he had accomplished his mission for the night and Heaven only knew when that might be. Eager as I was to hear the intriguing details of his latest endeavor, the exhausting effects of the journey weighed heavily on my constitution, and the idea of whiling away half the night propped in an armchair before the dying fire held little appeal.
I sought my bed not long after sundown, bad leg aching in the aftermath of the train ride, and gave the matter no more thought.
******
On the second day, I began to worry. A quick glance at my friend’s bed revealed that it had not been slept in, and there was no sign of him anywhere in the house. Mrs. Hudson recalled bringing him supper the day before my return - thank God for small favors - which gave me some measure of peace. It seemed that his unexplained absence was, at least, a recent development.
I was careful, in my mind, to refer to it as such - an absence. Holmes was often absent without explanation, although rarely for days at a time, and it brought a calming sense of familiarity to what might otherwise have been a rather troubling set of circumstances. The gnawing sense of unease was present, certainly, but it warred with something more akin to exasperation, and I embraced it wholeheartedly. Exasperation, I was far more prepared to deal with.
What he was not, of course, was missing. Missing would imply something far more sinister, as though Holmes had been overpowered and taken someplace against his will, which was a far more disturbing prospect. Missing persons were, all too frequently, found dead in warehouses and filthy alleyways on the wrong side of town, and the very notion was so abhorrent that it skittered across the edges of my thoughts without ever taking hold. And in any case - I mused with strangely brittle confidence, unwilling to consider the alternative - Holmes was far too skilled to have been caught unawares.
The afternoon passed in a blur of nervous activity that would have rivaled Holmes’ unnatural bursts of energy under the influence of his seven percent solution. I drifted through the house without thought or purpose, unable to keep still, ears straining for the sound of his familiar tread on the stairs. The loose papers in his study provided no hint of his current case or where it might have led him, though I searched through them as if the very secrets of the universe could be found in the tilt of his scrawl, cursing the lack of any conventional scheme of organization that might have led me to an answer.
Through it all, I assured myself with all the certainty I could muster that my friend was busily engaged in his work and quite all right, determined to think of anything but his terrifying, single-minded focus and its potential to lead him into peril. His was a dangerous profession, to be sure, but my unwavering faith in his abilities had served me well in the past, and I would not relinquish it now.
At any moment, undoubtedly, he would come bursting into the sitting room with a flush to his cheeks and a gripping tale to tell; I had only to be patient, as ever.
******
The third day dawned crisp and clear with no word, still, of Sherlock Holmes, and my nerves could bear the strain no longer. I haunted the halls of Scotland Yard in something approaching a blind panic, with no clear notion of my purpose. Inspector Lestrade humored me with a patient tolerance that grated horribly on the edges of every irrational fear that leapt in my imagination, nodding gently and asking perfectly reasonable questions for which I had no answers.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where he is!” I exploded, at last. “If I knew that, I bloody well wouldn’t be here, would I? He could be anywhere.”
He could be dead, is what I wanted to say, but the words caught somewhere in my chest and stuck there, dull and heavy, blocking any further attempt at conversation.
His assurances poured over me in a rush of senseless noise, full of polite concern and empty promises.
Go home, Doctor. The hand on my shoulder was well-intentioned; kind and sympathetic and utterly useless, under the circumstances. We’ll do our best. He’s bound to turn up - probably just running down a lead somewhere. You know how he is.
I knew all too well, which was precisely the problem.
******
There are few things more maddening than forced inaction in the face of a gripping, terrible fear. Deprived of any means of locating my errant friend - short of wandering aimlessly through the city shouting his name, which was becoming an increasingly attractive option as the day wore on - my mind was roused to a fever pitch, considering and discarding one unpleasant scenario after another.
I had half-convinced myself, at various moments, that Holmes was lying in a darkened corner of some nameless alleyway, insensate and badly injured; or collapsed for want of food and sleep in one of the unseen bolt-holes he kept throughout the city, driven to the point of exhaustion by his all-consuming work. Other, more palatable possibilities presented themselves at times, and I clung to them as tightly as I dared in spite of my misgivings; perhaps, after all, he had become so engrossed in tracking a suspect that he simply failed to notice the passage of time, or again, had even left London in pursuit of a case - not for the first time, a voice in my mind noted darkly - and neglected to send word.
Of all the various outcomes I had considered, spanning the wide and varied range from benign to utterly disastrous, I was startled to find myself quite unprepared for the actual circumstances of his return. There are some things, I suppose, that are beyond imagining until they have been experienced.
What occurred, in point of fact, was this: Holmes made his presence known with something of his usual flair for the dramatic, albeit unintentionally, at around half-past three that very afternoon. Which is to say that he stumbled into Scotland Yard under his own power - dirty and disheveled, and more than a little confused - and came within a hairsbreadth of collapsing on the floor, much to the alarm of Inspector Lestrade and several other passers-by.
The young constable sent to fetch me seemed reluctant to dwell on the details, explaining the matter as best he could in quick, halting words, but the message he relayed seemed scarcely believable. I could only stare, mouth unbearably dry, as he stammered out the news of my friend’s condition - couldn’t tell us his own name, sir, much less where he’s been - fingers clutching the doorframe in a white-knuckled grip as though it could keep me upright. His words hung suspended in the air, razor-sharp and undeniable, as my mind struggled in vain to comprehend their meaning.
Amnesia. The very notion of my brilliant friend reduced to such a state, lost and bewildered in a city he knew by heart, was as chilling a thought as I had ever encountered. Surely, it could not be true; though I had heard tales of individuals so pitiably affected, confirmed cases were so rare as to be nearly non-existent, and my medical knowledge of the subject was - regrettably - limited to a footnote in a dusty textbook.
It is perhaps one of life’s little ironies that I, myself, recall very little of the carriage ride that followed, though it was undoubtedly one of the more miserable interludes of my life. Further attempts at conversation were out of the question, and my thoughts only served to heighten the tension humming through my body, regardless of what they turned to. And so, how long the trip lasted I cannot say; I passed the time listening to the rhythmic clip-clop of horse hooves on the pavement, and quite determinedly thinking of nothing.
******
They had taken Holmes to an empty office in back, and at first glance, the scene before me was lamentably familiar. He was slumped in a high-backed desk chair, leaning heavily on one arm as though unconscious or asleep, in a weary pose I had seen too many times at the close of a case during our long association. The fact that he was not, so far as I could tell, covered in blood or groaning in agony was more than I had dared to hope for, and I allowed myself a tiny, short-lived rush of relief at finding him in one piece.
Which is not to say, of course, that he was entirely well. Indeed, a livid bruise just visible beneath his eye and the unmistakable exhaustion in his demeanor bore witness to the fact that his recent existence had been anything but peaceful, and the reek of foul water permeating the room was almost certainly connected to the layer of grime ground into his clothing, noticeable even from where I stood just inside the doorway. Something in his appearance set my nerves on edge; the nameless fear surged back, icy cold and insidious, lurking dangerously at the back of my thoughts.
Desperate for some word of reassurance in what was rapidly becoming a strange, bewildering nightmare, I addressed myself to Lestrade, perched pensively on the edge of a nearby desk.
“He’s not injured, then? Has an examination been made?”
The inspector had no time to answer as the slumped figure stirred and straightened at the sound of my voice, pulling himself upright in the chair with obvious effort. Keen, familiar eyes met mine at last, frighteningly cool and distant.
“I beg your pardon, but you are - ?”
Dear God, it should not have hurt so much - it was nothing more than a medical condition, brought on by a head injury or a stressor of some kind, and certainly not any fault of my friend’s - but it was all I could do to keep from reeling backwards, as though from a physical blow. Lestrade cast a quick, helpless look in my direction, and I recovered myself with some difficulty.
“Watson.” I nearly put out a hand for him to shake, propelled by sheer force of habit, and was left flushing uncomfortably in the doorway. “John Watson. Your - ” I stopped short. Your faithful companion, I wanted to say. Your biographer, your doctor, your lover. Everything.
“Your colleague.” I hesitated. “Your friend,” I added, more softly. It seemed safe enough, although it left far too much unsaid, and he raised a single, elegant eyebrow.
“I see.” I doubted that he did, quite frankly, but there was nothing to be done about it now. The familiar, piercing gaze raked me up and down, taking my measure at a glance. “You are a physician, then.”
I glanced down at my empty hands in some surprise. My Gladstone bag, regrettably, still lay on the side table in our sitting room at Baker Street, where it had come to rest during my unpacking earlier in the week. Evidently, he had needed no such obvious clue to discern my profession, and I felt an abrupt, senseless rush of gratitude that some things, at least, remained unchanged.
He pursed his lips, reading my startled admiration in an instant. “You flatter me, Doctor, but I cannot claim the credit. The inspector has been kind enough to enlighten me on a number of things, regarding what I cannot recall. Although certainly, I might have guessed it from your manner and your immediate interest in my physical well-being, to the exclusion of… other concerns.”
I stared, stricken - surely he could not imagine that I didn’t care - but he held up a tired hand, forestalling my half-hearted attempt to speak.
“No, don’t apologize. It is true enough for us all, I think, that the problem we prefer is the problem we can solve - I cannot begrudge you that.”
One corner of his mouth turned up, sardonic to the last.
“So bind my wounds, Doctor, and I thank you. But I fear that you cannot help me.”
The words emerged in something of a monotone, his features unnaturally still, but I discerned the flicker of fear behind his expression with the ease of long practice, there and gone in an instant. Oh, Holmes. In truth, I could scarcely imagine the blinding terror of emptiness where memories should be; of unfailing comprehension and sharp clarity of thought, replaced by helpless confusion at every turn.
His fingers moved to the buttons of his shirt, trembling in spite of his efforts to still them, and I could keep silent no longer.
“Holmes - ” He stared at me, eyes wide, and for a moment I couldn’t speak. What words of comfort could I possibly offer? “It’s not - ” I swallowed convulsively, as desperate for reassurance as he. “It’s temporary.”
It was, I was nearly certain. It had to be.
******
The examination was brief and clinical. Numerous cuts and bruises suggested that there had been a struggle of some kind, but to my great relief, the damage was largely superficial; he would be stiff and sore for the next several days, but my probing fingers found nothing that time and rest could not resolve. He submitted to the necessary prodding without complaint, but there was none of the usual comfort that the familiar ritual had so often brought to both of us; my hands were careful and professional but nothing more, and he spoke only when spoken to, answering my questions in the clipped, quiet tone he would have used with any other doctor.
The tension was approaching unbearable levels by the time I finished, and it was with a surge of thin, reluctant gratitude that I climbed into the carriage behind him, having been given permission at last to take my exhausted detective back to Baker Street, to face whatever reality awaited us there. I hesitated even in my own mind to call it home, as the word held little meaning for him now.
We settled on seats opposite one another as the driver whipped up the horses, neither feeling any particular urge to speak, and I took the opportunity to observe him without the ever-present need to interact. He had turned his attention, already, to the puzzle at hand; no doubt grasping for anything that might help him to orient himself in the rush of confusion that threatened to overwhelm his mind, and I watched him work with something of my usual fascination.
A search of his personal effects had been unremarkable, yielding no clue as to his recent activities save for the sodden, illegible remains of a telegram in the pocket of his trousers. The message was lost, ink hopelessly smudged and carried away by the water, but the mark of the originating office was just visible in the upper left-hand corner. It was something, at any rate, a place to start; and Holmes studied it intently from every angle, holding it up to the light streaming in through the windows as we rattled along over the pavement.
“Does it seem familiar?”
My voice broke the stillness for the first time since our departure and he glanced up with a start, as if he had forgotten my presence for a moment in the intensity of his study. His gaze was wary, distant in a way that it had never been, and I let out an involuntary breath. For God’s sake, Holmes, it’s me.
“No.” He shook his head, a quick flash of frustration, and lowered the sodden bit of paper to his lap.
It was a dismissal, of sorts. That he wished to be alone with his thoughts was plain, but my nerves were too frayed for obedient silence; I pressed on in spite of myself, the words slipping past my lips before I could stop them.
“Is there… nothing at all? Not even a glimmer in your mind of what you’ve been up to, or where you might have been?”
It was foolish, perhaps, to continue hammering away at the same useless point, and I braced myself for a sharp reply. To my surprise, his expression softened as he considered the question - one, undoubtedly, that he had asked himself many times over the past several hours - and he passed a weary hand over his eyes in an uncharacteristic gesture of fatigue.
“The river,” he murmured faintly, shuddering at the unmistakable stench of the Thames still clinging to his body. “I was by the river.”
There was something in his manner, a fleeting look of horrified revulsion quite beyond his natural distaste for filth and grime, that chilled me to the very core of my bones.
“Holmes,” I whispered, “whatever could have happened?”
I put out a hand without thinking, seeking to calm him with a gentle touch on his forearm as I had done a thousand times before. For an instant, all seemed easy and familiar; I recalled the change in our circumstances just as my intent registered in his mind and he stiffened, drawing back with a start as my hand froze in midair, hovering between us as if it had struck an invisible barricade.
It was too much, suddenly, to be so close; my knee just brushing the trouser-leg of this man who stared at me with Holmes’ eyes and didn’t trust me. The tiny compartment seemed abruptly smaller, heavy with too many things unspoken, and I turned my face to the window.
The remainder of the ride passed in silence, tight and grey as an impending rainstorm.
******
Our rooms at Baker Street, as I had feared, held little in the way of comfort for either of us.
I spoke at first, a steady stream of too-cheerful assurances, born of a misguided desire to be helpful - here is the foyer, the front staircase; here is the sitting room, your tobacco slipper, your favorite armchair - but he winced at every word, and I lapsed into silence because it was unbearably wrong, somehow, to explain such trifles to the most intelligent man in London as though he were a child.
And in any case, as ever, he was hardly in need of my guidance. He moved with careful deliberation, approaching our home as though it were a riddle to be solved. His eyes swept over once-familiar surroundings, smooth and methodical, in a desperate effort to grasp the meaning that eluded him; drawing what conclusions he could from our belongings jumbled together on desks and tables, spilling out of half-closed drawers; careless trappings of a life as strange and foreign to him, now, as that of someone passing on the street.
His gaze caught on the morocco case and lingered, half open on the mantelpiece where he had left it; eyes dark and shuttered, long fingers rubbing absently at the needle marks beneath his sleeve, but he moved past without comment.
The door to his private study hung slightly ajar, and he crossed the sitting room without a word to peer inside. The room was quite unmistakably his - more, perhaps, than any other in the house - and traces of his presence lingered over everything within; old newspapers, unopened correspondence, papers of every type and description stacked high on the polished desk and spilling over into every corner of the cluttered space. Here and there lay the evidence of his interests; half-empty jars of chemicals, the blackened remnants of a recent scientific experiment, an abandoned tea tray piled with dishes long forgotten, and he absorbed it all with a peculiar set to his shoulders, scarcely breathing, the muscles of his back tense and ramrod straight.
What must it be like - I mused, with a flicker of unease - to piece oneself together from memories scattered across a desktop? Disordered fragments gathering dust in an empty room?
His eyes lit on something in the shadows and I followed his gaze to discern, at last, what he had seen - his beloved Stradivarius, propped against an armchair.
“It’s yours,” I murmured unnecessarily. He gave a quick nod without looking at me, his expression inscrutable, and I cursed myself once more for stating the obvious. Coaxing music from the violin, of course, came as naturally to him as speaking or breathing; he was drawn to it as inexorably as a moth to a flame, and his fingers needed little input from his conscious mind to play.
I watched, eyes burning strangely, as he bent to retrieve it. Gentle hands cradled the instrument close, running over its smooth curves in a careful, reverent caress. For a long moment, neither of us spoke; something hung in the sudden stillness, fragile and delicate, that I feared to disturb.
“Doctor, I beg of you…” His voice emerged at last - hoarse and ragged, scarcely recognizable - and the thin shoulders quivered as he drew a breath. “Leave me in peace.”
I withdrew in silence, eyes fixed on his back as I pulled the door nearly shut behind me. He was quite inexplicably lost, adrift in a world of unfamiliar faces; the knowledge and clarity he held so dear swept away, somehow, in a single moment of violence. Whatever solace he might be able to find in his music, I was not cruel enough to deny him.
It was early in the evening, fading remnants of sunlight still streaming in through the curtains, but I made my way up the stairs without hesitation. In truth, I had seen more than enough of the day; tomorrow could hardly be worse.
The warm comfort of my bed beckoned, its promise of oblivion more alluring than ever. I collapsed across the coverlet without bothering to undress, fighting to subdue the cold, pitiless ache that had worked its way into my chest. Holmes was safe, after all; alive and whole, and we could work through the rest. It should have been a great relief. And yet…
I closed my eyes to the familiar strains of Mendelssohn drifting up from the sitting room and tried to pretend, for a few hours, that the man downstairs was not a stranger.
Part 2