Someone send a runner for the feeling that I lost today, 1/3
Title: Someone send a runner for the feeling that I lost today, 1/3
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock nor am I earning any financial gains from this work.
Pairing/Characters: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, John Watson/Mary Morstan, Greg Lestrade, Molly Hooper, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft Holmes
Word Count: 9,039
Rating: PG-13
Summary:John tries to breathe through his mouth but in the back of his throat it feels like he's choking... when he closed his eyes for just a moment he so clearly heard Sherlock's voice saying his name, 'John.'
When Sherlock's eyes slip closed he sees John instead. John sits across from him, his hands held up in the air calling for Sherlock, holding out a hand to pull him home.
The three years in between when Sherlock 'dies' and then comes back again.
Author Notes: This is a prequel to my 'after three years' story And I'm five years ago and three thousand miles away. It is meant to be connected to that story but you could read it on its own too. (The title comes from a song by The National).
Chaper 2 can be found: HERE
Cross posted at A03
One week has passed since John saw his therapist and went to the cemetery with Mrs. Hudson; one week since John touched the cold marble of Sherlock’s grave and asked ‘don’t be dead.’
---------
One week has passed since Sherlock last saw John; one week since he left the cemetery alive and then left London.
---------
John sits in his chair staring at the empty one across from him. The day’s newspaper lies in patches all over the floor, keeping to sections even as it fell. The style section soaks up John’s mug of tea as the mug itself lies in four pieces against the grate of the fireplace. John’s hands still hang in the air after both objects fell, shaking.
John tries to breathe through his mouth but in the back of his throat it feels like he’s choking. He breathes through his nose as slowly as he can, opens and closes his eyes, forces himself to see the empty chair because when he closed his eyes for a moment - just a second, just one indulgence - he heard Sherlock’s voice so clearly saying his name, ‘John…’
He can’t close his eyes, not anymore.
----------
Sherlock sits on the worn carpet of the sort of hotel where you pay cash up front but rooms are still private. The sheets scratch and the blankets are threadbare but at least the curtains close. Sherlock sits with his coat wrapped around him, knees bent up by his chest as he tries to think. A circle of papers lies on the floor in front of him, the basics he could pull in the time it took to set a starting path for himself.
Now he needs a new line to move on, a fabric to form so he can find the first string to pull which will slowly turn that fabric into meaningless thread.
Sherlock tries to think but his eyes float up to the blank wall of the room, old yellowing wall paper with an indefinable pattern. When Sherlock’s eyes slip closed he sees John instead. John sits across from him - close enough to touch - his hands held up in the air calling for Sherlock, holding out a hand to pull Sherlock home.
Sherlock forces his eyes open, breathes through his nose as slowly as he can, and blinks the gritty hotel room into completely reality.
He can’t close his eyes, not anymore.
---------
“So that’s it then?” John puts his hands on his hips. “He’s still out there?”
Lestrade sighs. “John, he wasn’t real. He was just -”
“Oh, that is bullshit and you know it!”
Lestrade shakes his head and looks at the wall instead of John. John stays where his is, will not give ground.
“It has to be his fault!” John insists. “Moriarty is -”
“John, you have to let it go, it’s over now.” Lestrade speaks softly and it makes John want to hit him in the face. “Chasing after this Jim Moriarty is not going to bring Sherlock back.”
John shakes his head and paces across the room. “No, no, that’s not the point.”
“John, you’re grieving, we all are.”
“Oh? Are you?”
“Of course, I am!” Lestrade snaps and smacks his desk. “I...” He breathes in once and holds up a hand. “I wasn’t as close to Sherlock as you but I knew him five years longer and I know you know how he makes an impression on a person.”
John bites the edge of his lip and nods. “I know.”
“But listen to me, Jim Moriarty was not real.”
“Oh, he was. Yes, he was.”
Lestrade waves a hand. “Regardless John, what can we do? If anyone was going to catch Jim Moriarty for real, everything he was that Sherlock said he was, who else would catch him but Sherlock?”
“We could try!”
“Sir?” Sally pokes her head into the office. “We have -“ Then she suddenly notices John standing there and her jaw snaps closed tightly.
Lestrade clears his throat and John looks back to him. “John, go home; live your life and get over Sherlock.”
John stares at Lestrade. He remembers standing in this office so many times - Sherlock opening the envelope with the pink phone, Sherlock seated at Lestrade’s desk, Sherlock and Lestrade arguing over clues, Sherlock watching John for his reaction, Sherlock alive and brilliant and solving everything the blasted police could not. John shakes his head at Lestrade but he does not trust his voice. Instead he turns, pushes past Sally and storms away.
--------
“Molly?”
“Sherlock! Is it... is it safe for you to call?”
Sherlock stares out the window at the stars, remembers John beside him as they looked up together. “It is safe enough.”
“Your plan seems to have worked,” Molly says. “You should have seen the tabloids.”
“I did.”
“Oh... oh well. Well what, not that I don’t want to talk to you but, well, what do you need?”
“I...” Sherlock looks at the city below, the cars, the people, the strangers. “I wanted to know how... how is...”
“Sherlock, you know you could tell him that you’re -”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Sherlock, how long do you need to be -”
“I have things to do, Molly. I need to keep him, all of you... I need to fix the whole world of Jim Moriarty.”
“Sherlock,” her voice cracks once, “how long will be gone?”
“As long as I need to be.”
--------
“John?”
“Hi Sarah.” John nods quickly and stays standing in her office door. “Sorry to bother you in the middle of the day -”
“Oh, well that’s -”
“Your receptionist said - “
“No, no, come in,” she waves a hand at the chair on the other side of her desk. “Please, sit.”
John nods again and steps in, closing the door to just a crack open as he does. John sits, hands clasped in his lap.
They stare at each other in silence for a moment until Sarah raises her eyebrows. “So?”
“Yeah, sorry, I...” He remembers a darkened theater, Chinese acrobats, Sherlock flying through the curtain and Sarah running to the rescue. “I’m looking for a new job and thought I’d start here to see if you’d heard of any good openings, been out of it for a while... uh, as you know.”
“Well, I could probably...” She clears her throat and searches his face. “John, I… I just wanted to say I’m sorry about -”
“I’m just here to see if you knew of any place, Sarah.”
“John,” she leans forward over her desk, “I know it’s been a while but if you need - “
John abruptly stands up. “Look, I’ll just check around myself.”
“John, wait.” Sarah stands up too. “I’ll come by, we can -”
John yanks open her office door. “Goodbye, Sarah.”
----------
“I would like to thank you again for your help.” The chief inspector shakes Sherlock’s hand. “You’re quite skilled for a private detective.”
Sherlock almost corrects him - consulting detective - but he presses his lips tighter together instead.
“Durham doesn’t usually get such intricate cases as this,” the man continues with a half serious, half indulgent grin. “The new lads around here could learn a lot from you.”
Sherlock smiles thinly. “And the older one’s as well.”
The man’s smile twitches but he keeps it up remarkably well. He lets go of Sherlock’s hand and nods. “Yes, well, we would have never realized these string of crimes were connected without you.”
“Simply unraveling the web.”
The man chuckles and Sherlock does not even crack a smile. He peers over the inspector’s head as two of his PCs lead their criminal - just an outer layer, small ring of antique thefts, barely scratching the surface of Moriarty - away for a long stint behind bars.
“Do be sure to round up his confederates,” Sherlock says, barely glancing at the man in front of him as he picks up his navy blue coat. “He had three others working with him after all. I assume you can narrow the list of ten names down properly on your own.”
The man snorts out a course laugh. “Oh, I think we know our jobs well enough for that.”
“Supposedly.” Sherlock pulls on the pea coat and turns away. “Good day.”
He walks out toward the double doors until the inspector shouts after him, “Oh, wait! Hamish!”
Sherlock pauses with his hand on the door handle and glances over his shoulder. “One of the local news boys wanted a story for the Sunday paper, would you -”
Sherlock abruptly turns away. “No.”
---------
John stares up at the ceiling of his room. He follows a crack from the corner to where it ends at the next wall, a sort of choppy circle. He focuses on breathing in and out and tries not to think. He knows he needs to sit up, stand up, put on clothing, go to work, live.
“Get up...” he whispers to himself but he does not move.
He cannot just lie here. He can’t stay in bed all day and turn into a hermit or a shut in but every day feels harder to move, harder to get out of bed because why bother? The rush is gone and the flat is empty. He’s waking up to go to the hospital, cure the sick, surely a profession worth something? He tries to tell himself that but then he remembers crouching over some body to tell Sherlock the time of death just before the man starts a speech about fabric type or polished rings.
“Get up,” John says out loud again.
He touches his face then presses his fingers against his lips, keeps himself breathing slowly in and out. Sometimes he wakes up with tear trails around his eyes and slightly damp spots in his hair as though he cried all night. Maybe he did. Maybe one morning he’ll wake up so dehydrated from all the tears there won’t be a question of forcing himself up because he won’t be able to.
John breathes in again and stops all trains of thought like that, all insanity. “Get up.”
He clenches his fists in the sheets, grits his teeth. He sees Sherlock sprawled all over the couch groaning about boredom, Sherlock running just ahead of him through a star lit alley, Sherlock smiling when John looks at him. John thinks about being able to touch Sherlock’s hand just one last time.
“Get up... get up, get up, get up.”
--------
Sherlock stares at himself in the mirror of the small airplane lavatory. The flight to Sweden will not be long, just over two hours. The pilot looked well rested, no obvious defects in the structure of the plane and the seat beside Sherlock remained pleasantly vacant. Yet as Sherlock stands locked away in an off smelling, claustrophobic closet of a ‘room’ his hands shake so hard he fears to properly open the door again.
Sherlock breathes in slowly once then twice to try and calm whatever this physical response is. He has nothing to fear - fake passport accepted, flight in no danger - but perhaps that is wrong.
He is finally leaving England after his zig-zag journey north leaving only former Moriarty clients locked up in his wake, one at the bottom of a particularly accepting river. There will be more people, more crimes to fix in England but the rest of Europe, of the world, is a web of Moriarty he must tackle now. He cannot remain at home any longer with his face so recognizable; it was a risk to stay in country as long as he did after his ‘suicide.’
“But I wanted...” Sherlock shakes his head, surprised at his own voice bringing forth his thoughts.
He still wanted to be near John.
Sherlock’s whole body shudders and his hands spasm. He breathes, clenches his fists, leans back against the wall and becomes suddenly so very self-aware. Sherlock bites his lip and keeps his shaking hands clenched up tight.
Oh, he is afraid after all. What if he never sees John again?
----------
John starts to search for a new flat. He has a job now but living in the middle of the London isn’t cheap. The flat is really meant for two what with two bedrooms, both of which are large to begin with. Not to mention the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen is no longer in use.
John looks at Camberwell, Forest Hill, Penge, Croydon, Herne Hill; scrolls through findaproperty and gumtree.com. He sees ads for flat shares, ‘looking for one roommate, modest rent, furnished,’ but wants to smash his laptop, throw it against the wall. He tries to be practical, think of the money and the sense of having his own place at least. Yet if he even pulls one of his suitcases out of the closet he instantly wants to throw it out the window. Every click of a new property feels like a betrayal, like he’d be leaving Sherlock behind forever.
Harry says, “But It’s better to move on, right? Not be surrounded by all the memories?”
Maybe he does not want to move on. John knows these walls, these floors, the fixtures in the kitchen, each piece of this ridiculous flat glues him to the spot and to the memory he will not let go of. He tears up ads he’d clipped out of the paper, nearly does smash his laptop and grips the arms of his chair so tightly his fingers go white.
He ends up down in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen, mug of tea in his hands, and she cuts his rent by half.
“Can’t have you leaving yet, deary,” she says with a smile and a hand over his.
--------
At certain points Sherlock feels twenty years old again having to fight through three beat cops until he finds the fourth which believes him enough to send him on to a detective who may actually look at the case he can solve and finally make headway.
“I am trying to tell you that this is not some simple suicide. If you look at the evidence -”
“Mein gott, How did you gain access this?”
Sherlock has no reputation to pull from, no professional history to use as proof and no relationship with any police force. He cannot use his name to show that, obviously, he knows what he says. Every time, every case, is a fight to get past the thick skulls of police bureaucracy and procedure.
“You cannot have this.” The detective stands up behind her desk. “It is classified and you -”
“ - can solve this case for real instead of shelving it due to careless stupidity!”
“Raus aus!” She points sharply at the door behind him.
Sherlock stands up straight, holding one photo from the case file in his hand. “The angle is far too acute for suicide, no one would hold their hand that way, and there are obviously fingernail marks on the temple. It is clear. Es ist mord.”
The detective stares at him a moment then gazes at the photo. She leans over her desk, nose closer to the photo until finally her eyes tick up to look at Sherlock. “Murder?”
Sherlock feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips and he thinks, ‘there, John, another step forward.’ Sherlock nods at her, “Murder.”
---------
When John had nightmares before they featured Afghanistan - blood, bullets, shouting, screaming, helicopters, more blood, explosions, sand, always that war which left scars but gave him purpose. His nightmares are different now.
“Okay, look up, I’m on the rooftop.”
“Oh god...”
Sun… it was sunny and clear that day, pavement instead of sand. Barts wasn’t the sort of building you looked at for any longer than a few seconds, except this time. In his dreams now the sun shines so brightly behind Sherlock up on the roof, like it might burn him away before...
“What’s going on?”
“An apology...”
The other buildings blur out leaving Barts alone, the only distinct memory in a sea of metropolitan gray. John dreams no other people, just the two of them - just sun and Barts and two mobiles connecting through visible space.
“I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly, in fact tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”
“Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up.”
It’s strange how dreams - nightmares - can bring back conversations which were so confused and blurred and very, very important with complete clarity. It is only a dream, only a memory remade into something more or less real, but it cuts harder every time. Even when in the dream Sherlock appears only as a shape on a rooftop, bled into black by the over bright sun, the words remain as sharp as brand new knives.
“Keep your eyes fixed on me, please, will you do this for me?”
John never moves, never tries to go into the building or run up the stairs or pull Sherlock back from the edge. It is a dream so why can’t he do something this time? Why? Why!
“Goodbye, John.”
“No... don’t...”
And Sherlock always falls. He always, always, always falls. He falls in a moment or in real time or until John snaps away so Sherlock won’t land... won’t hit, won’t die again and again.
John wakes without shouting or screaming, not drenched in sweat or shaking. Instead he holds onto his sheets, tears at the corners of his eyes and he wishes to go back, wishes to dream again because maybe this time Sherlock won’t fall. Maybe this time John can stay in the dream and they both will live again.
---------
Anonymity remains vital to Sherlock’s mission. Since ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is dead he must become different people every step of the way. He’s used disguises in the past, pulled out a smile or some tears to gain information from unknowing suspects and witnesses. Now disguise envelops every day of his life because there is no Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock cuts his hair short above his ears, not too short though so he still has some curls. He dyes it a bright, vibrant red - a shade good enough to be assumed natural. Ginger hair is useful because then it’s all a person remembers after meeting, the face disappears. Half the time he dresses like some university kid who took a year off to backpack through Europe then forgot to come home. He wears worn jackets, faded jeans, sneakers close to the point of chucking in the bin. However, he also keeps one good suit and a fine leather briefcase to play the part of private detective. He has two sets of false glasses, three bland boring ties of ‘office’ variety, and two pairs of good, shined shoes. Then in contrast he has club wear, tight pants and tighter shirts, outfits to draw attention just when he wants to snap the trap shut. He even has his generic police uniform that could apply to a number of countries.
The more costumes he keeps the more Sherlock feels in control, more structured, more able to have an end in sight.
Despite all the disguises weighing him down, at the bottom of his duffle - never worn but still kept, he always brings that long, dark gray coat.
---------
John visits Sherlock’s grave once a week, at the very least. Sometimes he brings flowers but not every time. He imagines Sherlock would have found the gesture ridiculous but John remains self-aware enough to know that the gesture is more for him than for Sherlock. He always visits alone usually for fifteen or twenty minutes but sometimes he stays for an hour or more.
John sits on Sherlock’s grave, arm stretched out to full length so the tips of his fingers touch the stone. He slowly traces Sherlock’s name up and down, the stone only slightly less shiny now.
“We met for the first time two years ago, Sherlock.” John chuckles. “To think it was Mike that brought us together. I’m surprised he’s someone you even spoke to more than once.” John drops his arm. “But who knows who you talked to before I came along, right?”
John sighs and lets his head fall forward, hunching himself over against the cold and against the memories.
“That first time in the cab when you explained everything you knew about me, about my sister.” John smiles at the memory, at the thought of Sherlock warm beside him and not cold beneath him. “You were perfect in an instant, everything I needed in my life right then, perfect even when you were a complete ass.” John shakes his head against the stone. “Such an ass but... but still perfect.”
John shoves himself up onto his knees and grabs the edges of the grave. “Didn’t you understand how I… Didn’t you? How couldn’t you?” John swallows hard. “Why.. why would you...” He breathes in sharply and shifts back onto his heels. “Didn’t you know how much I cared about you? Didn’t that matter?”
John’s heels start to ache and he awkwardly falls back to sitting on the ground again. He fists his fingers in the grass, pulling out blades and grinding dirt under his nails.
“Sometimes you were such an idiot, such a damned, bloody idiot.” John stares at the stone trying to see the man it represents. “How could you be such a genius and be such a stupid man?”
John scoots himself forward over the grass and leans his shoulder against the stone. “I just... I just want...” John sighs, tries to make himself solid, whole, tells himself to stand up, go home. John whispers. “I just want you back.”
John wakes up in the morning with his face pillowed on one arm and Mycroft crouching down beside him.
“John?”
John has to blink four times until the resemblance Mycroft bears to his brother properly fades away.
“Oh, John.” Mycroft touches his face. “You’re freezing. We should get you to a hospital.”
“No...” John murmurs.
“You’ve been here all night! You are a doctor, John, really you should know better; you could have hypothermia!” Mycroft insists, pulling John up to his knees and putting his own coat around John’s shoulders. “Please, get up.”
John blinks, trying to really think but his head is two years ago in the lab with his mobile held out in his hand, standing beside Sherlock, watching as he swirls out the door.
“John, get up!” Mycroft pulls and John rises to his feet. “You are coming with me, now, and we are taking you to hospital.”
“We met two years ago,” John says with a dark laugh, “do you remember, Mycroft? You kidnapped me with your car.”
“I did not kidnap you.”
“Close enough.”
Mycroft sighs, putting one arm around John’s shoulders and forcing him to walk forward. “If Sherlock could see you...”
John gasps. “He can’t.”
“Well, I can, John, and perhaps this time I will have to kidnap you for your own good.”
John chuckles, feeling weaker the further they walk until he starts to lean part of his weight on Mycroft.
“Why would he leave us?” John whispers.
Mycroft brushes his hand across the back of John’s hair once but he does not respond.
---------
Sherlock runs down an alley, torch held out in front of him though he only barely needs it. His suspect runs ahead of him, losing ground as he tires. Sherlock will catch him in less than a minute, just before they hit the main road. The man - Mario Arroyo - swerves around a stack of rotting wooden boxes, knocking them down behind him so Sherlock has to leap on instinct and hope he makes it. Sherlock hits the ground again on both feet, only losing a few seconds.
‘One more, John, one more.’
Ten more seconds and Sherlock grabs the back of the Mario’s coat then hits him in the head with his torch. Mario yelps and stumbles which allows Sherlock to hook an ankle around Mario’s and bring the man crashing to the ground.
Sherlock kneels down beside him, pinning him with one arm and pulling Mario’s gun out of his pants. “I’ll have that.”
“¡Suéltame!”
“Get off? I don’t think so,” Sherlock replies. “You killed your wife, Senor.”
He shakes his head. “No, I did not, she -”
“Oh, yes, an accident?”
“Si!”
Sherlock laughs. “Rather convenient accident and quite a lot money passing to you, wasn’t it?”
The man breathes through his nose and frowns. “It was not me.”
“Chemical in her bloodstream? The hem of her dress? Not to mention the marks on her forehead?”
Mario’s breathing increases and he tries to jerk up but Sherlock shoves him back into pavement. He shakes his head. “I.. I did not... it was... I had... it was not my plan!”
“It was most certainly you who carried it out but you are correct, you had help with the finer details.”
Mario’s eyes widen because despite the slower wits he realizes what Sherlock knows and he swallows hard. “Is he... will he come for me?”
Sherlock smiles very slowly, “Not if you help me first. Now, who was your contact to Moriarty?” The man stiffens at the name. “I know you never saw him personally, you are certainly too small a piece on the chessboard for that. So, who did you speak to?”
“I... I cannot...”
“Yes, you can.” Sherlock thinks of John beside him, holding the gun with a smile, the rush of the chase. Sherlock tilts his head to the side slowly. “You will.”
“I... no, I...”
Sherlock cocks Mario’s gun, points it at the stone wall beside them and fires off a shot. The man starts at the loud noise and stares in shock. His eyes tick up toward the main street several meters away, maybe hoping the noise would attract passersby.
“In this area of Buenos Aires, Mario? I think not. You are quite alone.” Sherlock cocks the gun again and slides it away from the wall to point at Mario’s neck. “Who was your contact?”
--------
John and Greg sit side by side at the bar, matching pints in front of them. Three TVs behind the bar broadcast the football match for the night. Greg seems to care about one of the teams but John watches only in a detached sense.
“So, how are you?” Greg asks.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine.”
Greg shrugs. “All right.”
“How is Scotland Yard?”
Greg chuckles. “Maybe we solve a few less cases but no shortage of bad guys.”
“Yeah, think not.”
They both pick up their pints at the same time and take sips of their beer. Up on the screen three players fall into some sort of kick gone wrong type of fight and the referees have to jump in to tear the players apart. Greg waves a hand at the screen and grunts with annoyance. One of the players shoves a referee and is kicked out of the game.
“Oy, no!” Greg shouts, echoed by various other people in the pub.
John raises his eyebrow but just takes another drink of his beer, knocking the rest back and sliding the empty glass toward the inside edge of the bar. Greg watches the game a bit longer until one team barely misses a goal. Then he turns back to John.
“So, really then?”
John looks out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
Greg taps his glass on the bar. “Come on, John.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Greg shakes his head. “You were in hospital not long ago because -”
“All right!” John shakes his head and holds up a hand to get another beer. “How do you even know about that?”
“I am a cop.”
John just sighs.
“John, I just think perhaps...”
John turns and looks straight at Greg. “What?”
Greg does not look away. “I think it’s time to move on.” John opens his mouth but Greg holds up his hand. “Aye, no, I mean it. I think you’re holding on so tightly because you think if you try to move on it’s betraying him or something the like, right?”
John’s lips twitch but he does not respond.
“Well, it’s not.” Greg raises both eyebrows and drinks the rest of his beer. “So, maybe you should give ‘moving on’ a chance, all right?”
John turns away. “It’s not as easy as all that.”
“Not if you don’t let it be.”
John frowns. “Shut up, Lestrade.”
“Only when you listen, Watson.”
-------
Sherlock knows what his purpose is; he knows the state of his mission, how far he’s gone and what is left to do. Maybe he doesn’t have the specifics, how many people he needs to arrest or at least take care of but he sees the path. Sherlock finds crimes, fixes police errors, cuts down the little people to have them lead him to the middle men left who saw Moriarty’s face - who may even know who Sherlock is.
The point though, the point he does not know, the point of ‘home’ is only a fog on the horizon. When can he go home? Sherlock never used to have such a strong sense of ‘home’ before, not before John.
Sherlock e-mails Molly, the only person he can use as an anchor to the life he wishes to return to.
To: Molly Hooper
Subject: SH
Update?
-SH
He sends one word, maybe one sentence e-mails. He sits in his hotel rooms, computer at his hip, looking down at research but really thinking of nothing but Molly’s response. If she takes more than an hour he becomes restless, fingers twitching and glancing down at his phone or his laptop every ten seconds.
To: Sherlock Holmes
Subject: Same
I haven’t seen John very much myself. I heard he was in the hospital a month or so ago. He still misses you. Can’t you come back now?
<3 Molly
Sherlock saves every e-mail. Molly used to ask how he was, where he was, but when he never answered she began to give up. Instead every e-mail ends with a variation of ‘can’t you come back.’
“Oh, Molly.” Sherlock archives the e-mail. “I will. I have to.”
To: Molly Hooper
Subject:
Soon.
-SH
--------
When he sits and lets his mind wander down dangerous paths, John thinks about what he last said to Sherlock in person in the lab, "friends protect people."
Should he have protected Sherlock more? Protected him from himself? Or in his own, overly logical, way was Sherlock trying to protect him? Jim disappeared, Sherlock died, and John was left behind. Was all of that Sherlock’s way of, what, saving John? Saving John from Sherlock?
John wishes Sherlock were still here so he could tell the man how wrong he was.
---------
Due to this Moriarty mission, Sherlock rarely stays in one place long. He plants for a week, a week in a half, maybe only two days. Sometimes the place he lands coincides with a crime to expose and fix while other times the place is only a way station, a room to wait out a few days while he figures out where to move next.
Sherlock hangs a map of the world on the wall every place he stays. He pins photographs, police reports, news articles, his own scraps of notes to all the relevant places. He keeps notebooks and folders on separate countries where dear Jim spent more time. His research fills up countless folders on his laptop. Every time he finishes with one location five more seem likely candidates.
Sometimes he just wants to shout, ‘stop it, enough,’ to shake Jim and tell him to, ‘please, let it go, you’ve done enough.’ But Jim is just as dead as Sherlock pretended to be. Sherlock has no way to express his frustration, nothing to do but keep moving forward.
“But not forever.” Sherlock paces back and forth in front of the map tacked onto the wall. “There has to be an end. He was only a man. He cannot have strings stretching to infinity.” Sherlock looks at the empty chair by the window, wishes a person - one person - sat there to listen, to give feedback. He frowns and flips open a notebook. “At least Antarctica should be empty.”
He rereads every bit of research - cases complete, hints which might mean nothing, obvious facts, clues wrung from witnesses - the fabric seems to imply there is someone, someone right below Jim who is the last pillar to knock out but the layers are still deep. Sherlock knows it only means time, only time until he lays everything out and connects every meaningless consulted crime.
But when he can’t read the same page again, can’t straighten the last piece out, he pulls one small piece of paper from his wallet. It is a photograph of a man. The man smiles in the unguarded way people do when truly pleased but they believe no one sees. His eyes look right at the camera, that one second chance before he realizes he is being watched.
Sherlock stares at the image, imagines John can see him through the photo as their eyes meet. He looks and looks and looks and remembers the point of this entire path he follows.
---------
March 31st usually means a few presents or a trip to the pub with his mates, maybe even a visit from Harry. John’s birthday this year is no exception, in fact some of his old army mates, as well as Paige and Brandon from uni, plan a party at the pub, invite his sister and even some of the Scotland Yard crew. They rent out the place for the night and pull together to buy him a new laptop.
“Need one for something other than your blogging, yea?” Mike says.
John smiles, thanks them for the generous gift, and does three rounds as they all sing Happy Birthday about five times over, decreasing the quality of singing each time but certainly not the enthusiasm.
“To John!” Greg says, holding up his glass. “Best birthday bloke in London.”
Everyone laughs and clinks glasses, splashing beer onto the floor not just once.
John just shakes his head at the inspector. “Very creative.”
He only chuckles and chugs down the last of pint. “Well, we all can’t be as creative as Sherlock was, right?” He laughs again. “You can make the toast to yourself next time.”
John smiles back but his chest feels tight and five minutes later he sits in the back corner of the pub well away from the festivities, head in his hands. He stares at the floor and feels tears slowly leak down his face. He knows this needs to stop somehow but out of nowhere the littlest things seems to throw him back months. Just mention Sherlock’s name with a smile and John feels like he’s been punched in the stomach, like someone shot him in the head.
“Why...” John whispers to the wood floor.
“John?”
John tilts his head slightly at the voice and then Molly crouches down into his view.
“John, why are you...” She trails off then touches his wrist. “Do you.... I mean, if you want to talk about...” She sighs and lets go of his wrist.
John shakes his head. “Molly, I don’t...”
Molly holds out a napkin for him. “Want dry off your face at least? Though it’s your party and you can cry if you want to?”
John chuckles despite himself and takes the napkin from her. “Right, yeah.” He finally looks up at Molly, red dress and her hair down. “You look nice.”
She smiles a little. “Thank you.” She stands half way then sits on the chair against the wall beside him. “So?”
John wipes his cheeks quickly then crumples the napkin in his hand. He breathes in once and knocks his head back against the wall. “Greg... Lestrade, he...” John chuckles. “He just mentioned Sherlock, just in passing but I...”
“Just hearing his name can hurt,” Molly finishes.
John looks at her and presses his lips together tightly. He shakes his head. “You think you’re fine and then.” He makes a motion like punching in the air. He laughs but the sound comes out choked and weak.
Molly shifts in her chair to really face him. She opens her mouth but then closes it again before saying anything. She clasps her hands together then lets go and lays them flat on her legs.
“I think...” she begins, “I think what he did.” John clenches his teeth and his throat tightens. Molly reaches out and takes his hand. “I think he did it to protect you.”
John laughs harshly, bitingly, and pulls his hand away from her. “Really? You think he -” John gasps and puts a fist up to his mouth. “No, if he was...”
“John...”
“If that is what he was doing,” John points at Molly, “then he was wrong!”
“If you could ask him -”
“Ask him?” John laughs again. “It’s all well and good to imagine ‘what ifs,’ Molly, but we can’t have any of those ‘what ifs,’ now can we?”
Molly watches him, face still calm, though she bites her lip. “What would you say to him if you could?”
John groans and shakes his head hard. “What does it matter?”
“Because it matters!”
John stares at her for a moment then looks away and lays his head back against the wall.
“I’d tell him...” John shakes his head slowly and remembers his therapist insisting in her quiet, well taught way that he say all the ‘unsaid’ things - her professional interest maddening in its impersonal, cold view. Molly however only waits with the same sad expression he feels. “I suppose I’d... tell - I’d tell him that I... I’d tell him how I felt... about him.” John clears his throat carefully. “He was the best man I ever knew.”
He won’t say ‘love,’ can’t say it, but when he looks up at Molly again he knows that she hears it anyway.
---------
“Qui est-ce?”
Sherlock glances up slowly from the dark wood of the bar to the woman standing behind it - short brown hair, low cut purple tank top, worn, at least a year old, close cut nails - due to cooking most likely, formerly pierced eyebrow, leather belt, third hour of her shift. He raises his eyebrows slowly in reply.
“Who is it?” She repeats and points to his phone resting on the bar top.
Sherlock’s eyes tick to his phone - black droid this time. He frowns and glances back at her.
“You sit here for two hours and stare.” She flips her hand palm up - very Italian gesture, probably her mother’s side. “You only move to look to your mobile.”
He cocks his head, quick glance to the clock to confirm and he makes a ‘hmm’ noise.
“So, who is it?” She asks a third time and leans over slightly, elbows just propped up on the edge of the bar. “Who is it you do not call?”
“Perhaps I am waiting for someone to call me?” Sherlock replies, stalls.
Her mouth quirks. “You never worked at a bar, have you?” She stands up straight again and pulls out her own mobile. “If I am waiting for a call when I look at my phone I click it on.” She does so, turning the screen out toward him showing the background of raindrops and the time of 11:14. “I think, ‘perhaps I missed the beep? Perhaps I did not feel it vibrate?’ I do not just stare.”
“Astute.” Sherlock sits up straighter on the stool and folds his hands around the drink in front of him, finger tips just touching at the other side, barely cold anymore with the ice melted. “Who is it then?”
She clicks her phone screen off and slips it back into her pocket. She rubs both her thumbs and forefingers together in the air then points one forefinger at his face. “A girl.”
Sherlock sighs and picks up his glass a fraction so it taps back onto the bar top, dropping off beads of sweat onto the coaster.
She only smiles. “Ah, so a boy instead.”
‘Not a boy,’ Sherlock thinks, ‘a man, one man.’ Instead he says with an edge of malevolence, “why not something else? Work? Family?”
She snorts. “You sit for two hours with one melting drink over work? I think not.”
“Obviously.”
“You do not expect him to call you.” She twirls one hand in the air. “So, you hurt him or he cares nothing for you?” She tips her head to the side. “Which?”
Sherlock looks down at his phone, presses each number in his head and hears the rings, hears John’s voice, imagines falling into a cushion of sound and intonation and memory as John says his name, ‘Sherlock…’
“Why don’t you call him?”
Sherlock blinks back into the bar and turns to her. He frowns. “Why have you been asking me all of this? Do you expect an increase in tip?”
“Not from a man who does not even drink his one drink.”
Sherlock purses his lips but says nothing. She leans over again and leans across the bar slightly, scrutinizing his face. She purses her lips back at him in an almost child-like mockery. Sherlock’s lips change into a frown then she hops back and stands up.
“Is it something special? Party you are missing? Not invited to? Break up?”
Sherlock grumbles loudly and drinks a swig of his watered down whiskey and soda. She chuckles and nods as he puts the glass down.
“In the right area now, yes?”
“Today is his birthday,” Sherlock abruptly admits without meaning to.
Her mouth forms into an ‘o’ shape and Sherlock turns his head away, eyes drawn back to the silent phone.
“Then why not call, say ‘happy birthday,’ it could open a door?”
“I can’t.”
She scoffs. “Oh, why not? What is so big?”
“He believes I’m dead.”
For the first time in her fluffy, all knowing bar tender act of a conversation her eyebrows fly up and the only expression on her face is surprise. Sherlock downs the rest of the drink in one gulp.
---------
When John leaves his house in the morning to go to work, Mycroft stands just off his front stoop waiting for him. John stops in the doorway but Mycroft only stares back at him.
“I take it you don’t want to come in?” John asks dryly.
“No, I have a key if I’d wished to do that.”
John frowns. “I’ll have to ask Mrs. Hudson about changing the locks.”
Mycroft smiles. “If that makes you feel better.”
John steps out of the doorway and pulls the door shut behind him. He steps off the stoop and stops in front of Mycroft. Mycroft stares down at him until John finally sighs and gives in.
“Right, so, what do you want, Mycroft?”
“I came to see how you were doing.”
“How I was doing?” John deadpans.
“Well, after our last little adventure together I thought -”
“Yeah, I got it.” John puts up his hands once then drops them. “Well, I’m fine.”
“Fine is a word so often used when one is not really in fact fine.”
John groans. “Really, Mycroft, don’t you have better things to be doing? Arresting little old ladies as terrorists?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow and John gestures down the street. “I do have work to get to.”
“I am aware of that, John, but I am also aware that it has been nearly a year since Sherlock... well, since he’s been gone and I know how anniversaries tend to bring out dramatic emotions.”
John grinds his teeth and tilts his head to the side. “Is this your ‘worrying constantly?’ I’m not your brother.”
“Well, practically you were, wouldn’t you say? And it seems with Sherlock away my concern has shifted to you.”
“Fancy that,” John says icily.
“I am merely concerned for you, John, nothing more. These things do take time.”
John puts his hands on his hips. “Mycroft, if you want to help me why don’t you just let me go to work and live my life instead of checking up on me like a blasted reminder!”
Mycroft clicks his teeth and twirls the umbrella in his hand around once. “I see.”
“I...” John groans again and sighs. “I’m sorry, I.... I appreciate that you are concerned but I don’t need to be checked up on, all right?”
Mycroft nods. “Fine, but consider I am only trying to do what my brother would want.”
John laughs once. “Really, what’s that? Stalk me? Mother hen me?”
“Ensure you keep on living.” John’s face falls and he stares at Mycroft. Mycroft tilts his head and smiles. “And make sure you are happy.”
John stares and he has to swallow twice before speaking. “Why? To make up for what you did?”
Mycroft face shifts ever so slightly and he looks away. “Perhaps.”
---------
Sherlock sits across the table in the interview room from Andrew Brent whom Sherlock has just proven had a hand in five crimes stealing quite expensive art from galleries around New York City.
“You are not entirely incompetent, Mr. Brent,” Sherlock says, “You were able to pull off these crimes but how much the ideas were yours and how much were our shared associate’s is the real question? I imagine far more his than yours.”
Andrew nods with a smile. “Mr. Moriarty, you mean?”
Sherlock raises his eyebrows but his lips twitch to almost mirror the other man’s expression. “Helped you a great deal, didn’t he? You were small time before this and he raised you up.”
“I had hoped he could help more,” Andrew shrugs, “it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“You believe he enjoyed his portion of the proceeds?”
Andrew purses his lips. “I don’t think that was his favorite part of it, actually.”
“No,” Sherlock leans forward slightly, “neither do I, which is why I know how far his web really spreads.”
“Do you?”
“Did you ever actually meet Jim Moriarty in person?”
Andrew frowns. “Why are you interrogating me about this? He’s dead, right?”
“Is he? Is all of him dead?”
Andrew gives Sherlock a strange look then puts his cuffed hands up on the table. “What do you want? My contact? How do you know I didn’t always talk straight to Moriarty?”
“You?” Sherlock sneers. “Please. Worn shoes, department store suit, not the same level of class. And there is your hearing, a touch off in one ear by the way you tilt your head so not even the one with polished skills to crack safes. And of course chips in your nail not from constant menial labor such as construction or the like but more like climbing on the outside of buildings or down in tunnels, only happens sometimes but more than once or twice - the leg man of operations. Leg men, Mr. Brent, do not meet the top of the food chain.” Sherlock holds up a finger. “So, who was your contact?”
Andrew swallows and shakes his head. “No way, he’d kill me just as quickly as Mr. M would have.”
Sherlock tilts his head. “Isn’t that all the more reason for me to find those who were closest to the top? Then you can have a nice, peaceful time in jail instead of fearing assassination behind those bars.”
“What could you do?”
“Obviously, I could catch him.”
Andrew stares then very slowly he begins to smile. Sherlock frowns - new posture, tension leaving hands, smile more like a smirk - Andrew knows something.
“Well, Mr. Jones,” Andrew says, “I think we’re done here. I have nothing more to say to you.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I know who you really are.” Sherlock stays perfectly still - give nothing away - and stares back. Andrew leans forward over the table so his lips are as close to Sherlock’s ear as possible in his restraints. Then he whispers, “You are Sherlock Holmes.”
---------
John sits at the table next to the windows in his flat. His laptop sits open in front of him. He has his blog up on the screen, the last entry from almost a year ago at the top. John sighs and lets his eyes coast around the room. Not much has changed in the flat, bit cleaner perhaps and he did get rid of the cow skull which hung on the wall.
“One big difference though,” John says out loud but then shakes his head at himself.
He closes his eyes and remembers Sherlock lying on the couch, “There is nothing out there worth moving for.”
“Crime isn’t the only thing in life, Sherlock.”
“It is the only interesting thing.”
John smiles to himself. It took twenty minutes and then three games of Cludeo just to get Sherlock off the couch and go outside for the first time in a week. John opens his eyes again to see the empty couch. He hardly sits on it any more, just his chair and the table. If he had people over maybe they’d sit there; if he ever had anyone over.
John sighs and looks back to this computer. He sees his own words, sees Sherlock’s name in the type. If he scrolls down he will see every case, their life together, himself and Sherlock - the blogger and the detective. Only John knows what every day together was really like, Sherlock always beside him - experiments in the kitchen, violin at six AM, blog entries about geographical location evidenced by sunburn, Sherlock asleep with his head in John’s lap because neither could be bothered to move. John breathes in and has to look away.
“Isn’t it ever going to stop...” John whispers to himself.
Then he grits his teeth and logs into the back end of the blog site. He pulls up a new entry and types out one sentence. He doesn’t even pause to consider. John hits enter and publishes.
‘He was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him.’
John stares at the words and whispers again as if Sherlock could hear him somehow. “I miss you so much.”
---------
Sherlock turns the doorknob after the last click of his lock pick and steps into the flat. He pauses for a moment just in case though he is 98% certain no one waits inside. Sherlock takes two steps inside and closes the door behind him. He walks swiftly across the room and peers out the windows at the Piazza del Campo. Clusters of people sit on the half-moon shaped piazza while a crowd of tourists walk back and forth snapping photos of the Torre del Mangia. Though it is June now with the sun beating down, the small, square fountain at the apex of the piazza is not on and most of the residents hide beneath restaurant awnings for some cool instead.
“Siena.” Sherlock humphs. “And you always seemed like such a big city boy, Jim.”
Sherlock pivots and regards the room - antique furnishings, red chaise lounge with gold edging obviously stolen, mahogany table purchased, red curtains, table at the wall frequently moved for computer cords, matching wardrobe against the far wall with obvious use of the key lock - Jim used this apartment often. Sherlock steps away from the windows and walks slowly around the flat, just three and a half rooms - bedroom with attached bath, large lounge, and kitchen.
“Why did you like this one so much, eh, Jim?”
Sherlock follows the worn portions of the carpet, traces Jim’s steps as he moved in this space. The well-trod paths always lead to the windows.
“Liked to watch the world below?” Sherlock pulls back one curtain in the bedroom - four post bed, sheets unmade, slept with someone else? “Or did you spy on those across from you?”
Sherlock can see into at least three other flats or business from this window, likely a few more from the main room. However, Siena is hardly a city robust enough to fuel a desire for fascinating crime or mayhem. Sherlock purses his lips and looks at the bedroom. He opens the closets and finds two suits hanging up as well as a dark brown, leather jacket, slightly worn edges. The jacket clearly does not belong to Jim.
“Hmm.” Sherlock turns around again and stares at the room. “Was this just one of your stopping points?”
Sherlock wonders if he looks in the kitchen will he find a set of carving knives meant for activities other than food preparation?
Sherlock walks out of the bedroom and crosses the lounge to the wardrobe against the wall. He pulls the handle and finds it surprisingly unlocked. A few papers and a folder remain, pushed to the edges as though they were once more organized. Sherlock frowns and grinds his teeth once.
“Someone was here before me.”
Sherlock picks up the papers, two blank and one which turns out to be a flight itinerary. He scrutinizes the flight itinerary, looks at the date - two days ago - and clenches his fist around the corner.
Sherlock smirks. “Moved too quickly.”
He picks up the folder and opens it. Inside he finds a photograph; it is a black and white photograph, clearly from some security camera, of himself with just the shoulder and back of the head of someone else standing beside him. In the photograph his face is in profile as he looks down at the shorter man beside him. The expression on his face appears tranquil, as though in that moment Sherlock would not have rather been anywhere else. Sherlock’s mouth twitches and he closes the folder around the photograph.
“You can’t run forever.” He turns and walks to the door. “I will find you.”
He has to.
---------
It’s been one year to the day since Sherlock died.
John doesn't answer when Lestrade calls, doesn't answer when Harry calls, ignores Mycroft’s text. He locks the doors against Mrs. Hudson and drinks an entire bottle of Makers Mark while the clip to his gun sits underwater in the toilet.
---------
It’s been one year to the day since Sherlock died.
Sherlock sits alone in a backstreet hotel room, curtains closed and his mobile on the bed in front of him. He dials John's number but stops before the last digit then turns off the phone.
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock nor am I earning any financial gains from this work.
Pairing/Characters: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, John Watson/Mary Morstan, Greg Lestrade, Molly Hooper, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft Holmes
Word Count: 9,039
Rating: PG-13
Summary:John tries to breathe through his mouth but in the back of his throat it feels like he's choking... when he closed his eyes for just a moment he so clearly heard Sherlock's voice saying his name, 'John.'
When Sherlock's eyes slip closed he sees John instead. John sits across from him, his hands held up in the air calling for Sherlock, holding out a hand to pull him home.
The three years in between when Sherlock 'dies' and then comes back again.
Author Notes: This is a prequel to my 'after three years' story And I'm five years ago and three thousand miles away. It is meant to be connected to that story but you could read it on its own too. (The title comes from a song by The National).
Chaper 2 can be found: HERE
Cross posted at A03
One week has passed since John saw his therapist and went to the cemetery with Mrs. Hudson; one week since John touched the cold marble of Sherlock’s grave and asked ‘don’t be dead.’
---------
One week has passed since Sherlock last saw John; one week since he left the cemetery alive and then left London.
---------
John sits in his chair staring at the empty one across from him. The day’s newspaper lies in patches all over the floor, keeping to sections even as it fell. The style section soaks up John’s mug of tea as the mug itself lies in four pieces against the grate of the fireplace. John’s hands still hang in the air after both objects fell, shaking.
John tries to breathe through his mouth but in the back of his throat it feels like he’s choking. He breathes through his nose as slowly as he can, opens and closes his eyes, forces himself to see the empty chair because when he closed his eyes for a moment - just a second, just one indulgence - he heard Sherlock’s voice so clearly saying his name, ‘John…’
He can’t close his eyes, not anymore.
----------
Sherlock sits on the worn carpet of the sort of hotel where you pay cash up front but rooms are still private. The sheets scratch and the blankets are threadbare but at least the curtains close. Sherlock sits with his coat wrapped around him, knees bent up by his chest as he tries to think. A circle of papers lies on the floor in front of him, the basics he could pull in the time it took to set a starting path for himself.
Now he needs a new line to move on, a fabric to form so he can find the first string to pull which will slowly turn that fabric into meaningless thread.
Sherlock tries to think but his eyes float up to the blank wall of the room, old yellowing wall paper with an indefinable pattern. When Sherlock’s eyes slip closed he sees John instead. John sits across from him - close enough to touch - his hands held up in the air calling for Sherlock, holding out a hand to pull Sherlock home.
Sherlock forces his eyes open, breathes through his nose as slowly as he can, and blinks the gritty hotel room into completely reality.
He can’t close his eyes, not anymore.
---------
“So that’s it then?” John puts his hands on his hips. “He’s still out there?”
Lestrade sighs. “John, he wasn’t real. He was just -”
“Oh, that is bullshit and you know it!”
Lestrade shakes his head and looks at the wall instead of John. John stays where his is, will not give ground.
“It has to be his fault!” John insists. “Moriarty is -”
“John, you have to let it go, it’s over now.” Lestrade speaks softly and it makes John want to hit him in the face. “Chasing after this Jim Moriarty is not going to bring Sherlock back.”
John shakes his head and paces across the room. “No, no, that’s not the point.”
“John, you’re grieving, we all are.”
“Oh? Are you?”
“Of course, I am!” Lestrade snaps and smacks his desk. “I...” He breathes in once and holds up a hand. “I wasn’t as close to Sherlock as you but I knew him five years longer and I know you know how he makes an impression on a person.”
John bites the edge of his lip and nods. “I know.”
“But listen to me, Jim Moriarty was not real.”
“Oh, he was. Yes, he was.”
Lestrade waves a hand. “Regardless John, what can we do? If anyone was going to catch Jim Moriarty for real, everything he was that Sherlock said he was, who else would catch him but Sherlock?”
“We could try!”
“Sir?” Sally pokes her head into the office. “We have -“ Then she suddenly notices John standing there and her jaw snaps closed tightly.
Lestrade clears his throat and John looks back to him. “John, go home; live your life and get over Sherlock.”
John stares at Lestrade. He remembers standing in this office so many times - Sherlock opening the envelope with the pink phone, Sherlock seated at Lestrade’s desk, Sherlock and Lestrade arguing over clues, Sherlock watching John for his reaction, Sherlock alive and brilliant and solving everything the blasted police could not. John shakes his head at Lestrade but he does not trust his voice. Instead he turns, pushes past Sally and storms away.
--------
“Molly?”
“Sherlock! Is it... is it safe for you to call?”
Sherlock stares out the window at the stars, remembers John beside him as they looked up together. “It is safe enough.”
“Your plan seems to have worked,” Molly says. “You should have seen the tabloids.”
“I did.”
“Oh... oh well. Well what, not that I don’t want to talk to you but, well, what do you need?”
“I...” Sherlock looks at the city below, the cars, the people, the strangers. “I wanted to know how... how is...”
“Sherlock, you know you could tell him that you’re -”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Sherlock, how long do you need to be -”
“I have things to do, Molly. I need to keep him, all of you... I need to fix the whole world of Jim Moriarty.”
“Sherlock,” her voice cracks once, “how long will be gone?”
“As long as I need to be.”
--------
“John?”
“Hi Sarah.” John nods quickly and stays standing in her office door. “Sorry to bother you in the middle of the day -”
“Oh, well that’s -”
“Your receptionist said - “
“No, no, come in,” she waves a hand at the chair on the other side of her desk. “Please, sit.”
John nods again and steps in, closing the door to just a crack open as he does. John sits, hands clasped in his lap.
They stare at each other in silence for a moment until Sarah raises her eyebrows. “So?”
“Yeah, sorry, I...” He remembers a darkened theater, Chinese acrobats, Sherlock flying through the curtain and Sarah running to the rescue. “I’m looking for a new job and thought I’d start here to see if you’d heard of any good openings, been out of it for a while... uh, as you know.”
“Well, I could probably...” She clears her throat and searches his face. “John, I… I just wanted to say I’m sorry about -”
“I’m just here to see if you knew of any place, Sarah.”
“John,” she leans forward over her desk, “I know it’s been a while but if you need - “
John abruptly stands up. “Look, I’ll just check around myself.”
“John, wait.” Sarah stands up too. “I’ll come by, we can -”
John yanks open her office door. “Goodbye, Sarah.”
----------
“I would like to thank you again for your help.” The chief inspector shakes Sherlock’s hand. “You’re quite skilled for a private detective.”
Sherlock almost corrects him - consulting detective - but he presses his lips tighter together instead.
“Durham doesn’t usually get such intricate cases as this,” the man continues with a half serious, half indulgent grin. “The new lads around here could learn a lot from you.”
Sherlock smiles thinly. “And the older one’s as well.”
The man’s smile twitches but he keeps it up remarkably well. He lets go of Sherlock’s hand and nods. “Yes, well, we would have never realized these string of crimes were connected without you.”
“Simply unraveling the web.”
The man chuckles and Sherlock does not even crack a smile. He peers over the inspector’s head as two of his PCs lead their criminal - just an outer layer, small ring of antique thefts, barely scratching the surface of Moriarty - away for a long stint behind bars.
“Do be sure to round up his confederates,” Sherlock says, barely glancing at the man in front of him as he picks up his navy blue coat. “He had three others working with him after all. I assume you can narrow the list of ten names down properly on your own.”
The man snorts out a course laugh. “Oh, I think we know our jobs well enough for that.”
“Supposedly.” Sherlock pulls on the pea coat and turns away. “Good day.”
He walks out toward the double doors until the inspector shouts after him, “Oh, wait! Hamish!”
Sherlock pauses with his hand on the door handle and glances over his shoulder. “One of the local news boys wanted a story for the Sunday paper, would you -”
Sherlock abruptly turns away. “No.”
---------
John stares up at the ceiling of his room. He follows a crack from the corner to where it ends at the next wall, a sort of choppy circle. He focuses on breathing in and out and tries not to think. He knows he needs to sit up, stand up, put on clothing, go to work, live.
“Get up...” he whispers to himself but he does not move.
He cannot just lie here. He can’t stay in bed all day and turn into a hermit or a shut in but every day feels harder to move, harder to get out of bed because why bother? The rush is gone and the flat is empty. He’s waking up to go to the hospital, cure the sick, surely a profession worth something? He tries to tell himself that but then he remembers crouching over some body to tell Sherlock the time of death just before the man starts a speech about fabric type or polished rings.
“Get up,” John says out loud again.
He touches his face then presses his fingers against his lips, keeps himself breathing slowly in and out. Sometimes he wakes up with tear trails around his eyes and slightly damp spots in his hair as though he cried all night. Maybe he did. Maybe one morning he’ll wake up so dehydrated from all the tears there won’t be a question of forcing himself up because he won’t be able to.
John breathes in again and stops all trains of thought like that, all insanity. “Get up.”
He clenches his fists in the sheets, grits his teeth. He sees Sherlock sprawled all over the couch groaning about boredom, Sherlock running just ahead of him through a star lit alley, Sherlock smiling when John looks at him. John thinks about being able to touch Sherlock’s hand just one last time.
“Get up... get up, get up, get up.”
--------
Sherlock stares at himself in the mirror of the small airplane lavatory. The flight to Sweden will not be long, just over two hours. The pilot looked well rested, no obvious defects in the structure of the plane and the seat beside Sherlock remained pleasantly vacant. Yet as Sherlock stands locked away in an off smelling, claustrophobic closet of a ‘room’ his hands shake so hard he fears to properly open the door again.
Sherlock breathes in slowly once then twice to try and calm whatever this physical response is. He has nothing to fear - fake passport accepted, flight in no danger - but perhaps that is wrong.
He is finally leaving England after his zig-zag journey north leaving only former Moriarty clients locked up in his wake, one at the bottom of a particularly accepting river. There will be more people, more crimes to fix in England but the rest of Europe, of the world, is a web of Moriarty he must tackle now. He cannot remain at home any longer with his face so recognizable; it was a risk to stay in country as long as he did after his ‘suicide.’
“But I wanted...” Sherlock shakes his head, surprised at his own voice bringing forth his thoughts.
He still wanted to be near John.
Sherlock’s whole body shudders and his hands spasm. He breathes, clenches his fists, leans back against the wall and becomes suddenly so very self-aware. Sherlock bites his lip and keeps his shaking hands clenched up tight.
Oh, he is afraid after all. What if he never sees John again?
----------
John starts to search for a new flat. He has a job now but living in the middle of the London isn’t cheap. The flat is really meant for two what with two bedrooms, both of which are large to begin with. Not to mention the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen is no longer in use.
John looks at Camberwell, Forest Hill, Penge, Croydon, Herne Hill; scrolls through findaproperty and gumtree.com. He sees ads for flat shares, ‘looking for one roommate, modest rent, furnished,’ but wants to smash his laptop, throw it against the wall. He tries to be practical, think of the money and the sense of having his own place at least. Yet if he even pulls one of his suitcases out of the closet he instantly wants to throw it out the window. Every click of a new property feels like a betrayal, like he’d be leaving Sherlock behind forever.
Harry says, “But It’s better to move on, right? Not be surrounded by all the memories?”
Maybe he does not want to move on. John knows these walls, these floors, the fixtures in the kitchen, each piece of this ridiculous flat glues him to the spot and to the memory he will not let go of. He tears up ads he’d clipped out of the paper, nearly does smash his laptop and grips the arms of his chair so tightly his fingers go white.
He ends up down in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen, mug of tea in his hands, and she cuts his rent by half.
“Can’t have you leaving yet, deary,” she says with a smile and a hand over his.
--------
At certain points Sherlock feels twenty years old again having to fight through three beat cops until he finds the fourth which believes him enough to send him on to a detective who may actually look at the case he can solve and finally make headway.
“I am trying to tell you that this is not some simple suicide. If you look at the evidence -”
“Mein gott, How did you gain access this?”
Sherlock has no reputation to pull from, no professional history to use as proof and no relationship with any police force. He cannot use his name to show that, obviously, he knows what he says. Every time, every case, is a fight to get past the thick skulls of police bureaucracy and procedure.
“You cannot have this.” The detective stands up behind her desk. “It is classified and you -”
“ - can solve this case for real instead of shelving it due to careless stupidity!”
“Raus aus!” She points sharply at the door behind him.
Sherlock stands up straight, holding one photo from the case file in his hand. “The angle is far too acute for suicide, no one would hold their hand that way, and there are obviously fingernail marks on the temple. It is clear. Es ist mord.”
The detective stares at him a moment then gazes at the photo. She leans over her desk, nose closer to the photo until finally her eyes tick up to look at Sherlock. “Murder?”
Sherlock feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips and he thinks, ‘there, John, another step forward.’ Sherlock nods at her, “Murder.”
---------
When John had nightmares before they featured Afghanistan - blood, bullets, shouting, screaming, helicopters, more blood, explosions, sand, always that war which left scars but gave him purpose. His nightmares are different now.
“Okay, look up, I’m on the rooftop.”
“Oh god...”
Sun… it was sunny and clear that day, pavement instead of sand. Barts wasn’t the sort of building you looked at for any longer than a few seconds, except this time. In his dreams now the sun shines so brightly behind Sherlock up on the roof, like it might burn him away before...
“What’s going on?”
“An apology...”
The other buildings blur out leaving Barts alone, the only distinct memory in a sea of metropolitan gray. John dreams no other people, just the two of them - just sun and Barts and two mobiles connecting through visible space.
“I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly, in fact tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”
“Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up.”
It’s strange how dreams - nightmares - can bring back conversations which were so confused and blurred and very, very important with complete clarity. It is only a dream, only a memory remade into something more or less real, but it cuts harder every time. Even when in the dream Sherlock appears only as a shape on a rooftop, bled into black by the over bright sun, the words remain as sharp as brand new knives.
“Keep your eyes fixed on me, please, will you do this for me?”
John never moves, never tries to go into the building or run up the stairs or pull Sherlock back from the edge. It is a dream so why can’t he do something this time? Why? Why!
“Goodbye, John.”
“No... don’t...”
And Sherlock always falls. He always, always, always falls. He falls in a moment or in real time or until John snaps away so Sherlock won’t land... won’t hit, won’t die again and again.
John wakes without shouting or screaming, not drenched in sweat or shaking. Instead he holds onto his sheets, tears at the corners of his eyes and he wishes to go back, wishes to dream again because maybe this time Sherlock won’t fall. Maybe this time John can stay in the dream and they both will live again.
---------
Anonymity remains vital to Sherlock’s mission. Since ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is dead he must become different people every step of the way. He’s used disguises in the past, pulled out a smile or some tears to gain information from unknowing suspects and witnesses. Now disguise envelops every day of his life because there is no Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock cuts his hair short above his ears, not too short though so he still has some curls. He dyes it a bright, vibrant red - a shade good enough to be assumed natural. Ginger hair is useful because then it’s all a person remembers after meeting, the face disappears. Half the time he dresses like some university kid who took a year off to backpack through Europe then forgot to come home. He wears worn jackets, faded jeans, sneakers close to the point of chucking in the bin. However, he also keeps one good suit and a fine leather briefcase to play the part of private detective. He has two sets of false glasses, three bland boring ties of ‘office’ variety, and two pairs of good, shined shoes. Then in contrast he has club wear, tight pants and tighter shirts, outfits to draw attention just when he wants to snap the trap shut. He even has his generic police uniform that could apply to a number of countries.
The more costumes he keeps the more Sherlock feels in control, more structured, more able to have an end in sight.
Despite all the disguises weighing him down, at the bottom of his duffle - never worn but still kept, he always brings that long, dark gray coat.
---------
John visits Sherlock’s grave once a week, at the very least. Sometimes he brings flowers but not every time. He imagines Sherlock would have found the gesture ridiculous but John remains self-aware enough to know that the gesture is more for him than for Sherlock. He always visits alone usually for fifteen or twenty minutes but sometimes he stays for an hour or more.
John sits on Sherlock’s grave, arm stretched out to full length so the tips of his fingers touch the stone. He slowly traces Sherlock’s name up and down, the stone only slightly less shiny now.
“We met for the first time two years ago, Sherlock.” John chuckles. “To think it was Mike that brought us together. I’m surprised he’s someone you even spoke to more than once.” John drops his arm. “But who knows who you talked to before I came along, right?”
John sighs and lets his head fall forward, hunching himself over against the cold and against the memories.
“That first time in the cab when you explained everything you knew about me, about my sister.” John smiles at the memory, at the thought of Sherlock warm beside him and not cold beneath him. “You were perfect in an instant, everything I needed in my life right then, perfect even when you were a complete ass.” John shakes his head against the stone. “Such an ass but... but still perfect.”
John shoves himself up onto his knees and grabs the edges of the grave. “Didn’t you understand how I… Didn’t you? How couldn’t you?” John swallows hard. “Why.. why would you...” He breathes in sharply and shifts back onto his heels. “Didn’t you know how much I cared about you? Didn’t that matter?”
John’s heels start to ache and he awkwardly falls back to sitting on the ground again. He fists his fingers in the grass, pulling out blades and grinding dirt under his nails.
“Sometimes you were such an idiot, such a damned, bloody idiot.” John stares at the stone trying to see the man it represents. “How could you be such a genius and be such a stupid man?”
John scoots himself forward over the grass and leans his shoulder against the stone. “I just... I just want...” John sighs, tries to make himself solid, whole, tells himself to stand up, go home. John whispers. “I just want you back.”
John wakes up in the morning with his face pillowed on one arm and Mycroft crouching down beside him.
“John?”
John has to blink four times until the resemblance Mycroft bears to his brother properly fades away.
“Oh, John.” Mycroft touches his face. “You’re freezing. We should get you to a hospital.”
“No...” John murmurs.
“You’ve been here all night! You are a doctor, John, really you should know better; you could have hypothermia!” Mycroft insists, pulling John up to his knees and putting his own coat around John’s shoulders. “Please, get up.”
John blinks, trying to really think but his head is two years ago in the lab with his mobile held out in his hand, standing beside Sherlock, watching as he swirls out the door.
“John, get up!” Mycroft pulls and John rises to his feet. “You are coming with me, now, and we are taking you to hospital.”
“We met two years ago,” John says with a dark laugh, “do you remember, Mycroft? You kidnapped me with your car.”
“I did not kidnap you.”
“Close enough.”
Mycroft sighs, putting one arm around John’s shoulders and forcing him to walk forward. “If Sherlock could see you...”
John gasps. “He can’t.”
“Well, I can, John, and perhaps this time I will have to kidnap you for your own good.”
John chuckles, feeling weaker the further they walk until he starts to lean part of his weight on Mycroft.
“Why would he leave us?” John whispers.
Mycroft brushes his hand across the back of John’s hair once but he does not respond.
---------
Sherlock runs down an alley, torch held out in front of him though he only barely needs it. His suspect runs ahead of him, losing ground as he tires. Sherlock will catch him in less than a minute, just before they hit the main road. The man - Mario Arroyo - swerves around a stack of rotting wooden boxes, knocking them down behind him so Sherlock has to leap on instinct and hope he makes it. Sherlock hits the ground again on both feet, only losing a few seconds.
‘One more, John, one more.’
Ten more seconds and Sherlock grabs the back of the Mario’s coat then hits him in the head with his torch. Mario yelps and stumbles which allows Sherlock to hook an ankle around Mario’s and bring the man crashing to the ground.
Sherlock kneels down beside him, pinning him with one arm and pulling Mario’s gun out of his pants. “I’ll have that.”
“¡Suéltame!”
“Get off? I don’t think so,” Sherlock replies. “You killed your wife, Senor.”
He shakes his head. “No, I did not, she -”
“Oh, yes, an accident?”
“Si!”
Sherlock laughs. “Rather convenient accident and quite a lot money passing to you, wasn’t it?”
The man breathes through his nose and frowns. “It was not me.”
“Chemical in her bloodstream? The hem of her dress? Not to mention the marks on her forehead?”
Mario’s breathing increases and he tries to jerk up but Sherlock shoves him back into pavement. He shakes his head. “I.. I did not... it was... I had... it was not my plan!”
“It was most certainly you who carried it out but you are correct, you had help with the finer details.”
Mario’s eyes widen because despite the slower wits he realizes what Sherlock knows and he swallows hard. “Is he... will he come for me?”
Sherlock smiles very slowly, “Not if you help me first. Now, who was your contact to Moriarty?” The man stiffens at the name. “I know you never saw him personally, you are certainly too small a piece on the chessboard for that. So, who did you speak to?”
“I... I cannot...”
“Yes, you can.” Sherlock thinks of John beside him, holding the gun with a smile, the rush of the chase. Sherlock tilts his head to the side slowly. “You will.”
“I... no, I...”
Sherlock cocks Mario’s gun, points it at the stone wall beside them and fires off a shot. The man starts at the loud noise and stares in shock. His eyes tick up toward the main street several meters away, maybe hoping the noise would attract passersby.
“In this area of Buenos Aires, Mario? I think not. You are quite alone.” Sherlock cocks the gun again and slides it away from the wall to point at Mario’s neck. “Who was your contact?”
--------
John and Greg sit side by side at the bar, matching pints in front of them. Three TVs behind the bar broadcast the football match for the night. Greg seems to care about one of the teams but John watches only in a detached sense.
“So, how are you?” Greg asks.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine.”
Greg shrugs. “All right.”
“How is Scotland Yard?”
Greg chuckles. “Maybe we solve a few less cases but no shortage of bad guys.”
“Yeah, think not.”
They both pick up their pints at the same time and take sips of their beer. Up on the screen three players fall into some sort of kick gone wrong type of fight and the referees have to jump in to tear the players apart. Greg waves a hand at the screen and grunts with annoyance. One of the players shoves a referee and is kicked out of the game.
“Oy, no!” Greg shouts, echoed by various other people in the pub.
John raises his eyebrow but just takes another drink of his beer, knocking the rest back and sliding the empty glass toward the inside edge of the bar. Greg watches the game a bit longer until one team barely misses a goal. Then he turns back to John.
“So, really then?”
John looks out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
Greg taps his glass on the bar. “Come on, John.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Greg shakes his head. “You were in hospital not long ago because -”
“All right!” John shakes his head and holds up a hand to get another beer. “How do you even know about that?”
“I am a cop.”
John just sighs.
“John, I just think perhaps...”
John turns and looks straight at Greg. “What?”
Greg does not look away. “I think it’s time to move on.” John opens his mouth but Greg holds up his hand. “Aye, no, I mean it. I think you’re holding on so tightly because you think if you try to move on it’s betraying him or something the like, right?”
John’s lips twitch but he does not respond.
“Well, it’s not.” Greg raises both eyebrows and drinks the rest of his beer. “So, maybe you should give ‘moving on’ a chance, all right?”
John turns away. “It’s not as easy as all that.”
“Not if you don’t let it be.”
John frowns. “Shut up, Lestrade.”
“Only when you listen, Watson.”
-------
Sherlock knows what his purpose is; he knows the state of his mission, how far he’s gone and what is left to do. Maybe he doesn’t have the specifics, how many people he needs to arrest or at least take care of but he sees the path. Sherlock finds crimes, fixes police errors, cuts down the little people to have them lead him to the middle men left who saw Moriarty’s face - who may even know who Sherlock is.
The point though, the point he does not know, the point of ‘home’ is only a fog on the horizon. When can he go home? Sherlock never used to have such a strong sense of ‘home’ before, not before John.
Sherlock e-mails Molly, the only person he can use as an anchor to the life he wishes to return to.
To: Molly Hooper
Subject: SH
Update?
-SH
He sends one word, maybe one sentence e-mails. He sits in his hotel rooms, computer at his hip, looking down at research but really thinking of nothing but Molly’s response. If she takes more than an hour he becomes restless, fingers twitching and glancing down at his phone or his laptop every ten seconds.
To: Sherlock Holmes
Subject: Same
I haven’t seen John very much myself. I heard he was in the hospital a month or so ago. He still misses you. Can’t you come back now?
<3 Molly
Sherlock saves every e-mail. Molly used to ask how he was, where he was, but when he never answered she began to give up. Instead every e-mail ends with a variation of ‘can’t you come back.’
“Oh, Molly.” Sherlock archives the e-mail. “I will. I have to.”
To: Molly Hooper
Subject:
Soon.
-SH
--------
When he sits and lets his mind wander down dangerous paths, John thinks about what he last said to Sherlock in person in the lab, "friends protect people."
Should he have protected Sherlock more? Protected him from himself? Or in his own, overly logical, way was Sherlock trying to protect him? Jim disappeared, Sherlock died, and John was left behind. Was all of that Sherlock’s way of, what, saving John? Saving John from Sherlock?
John wishes Sherlock were still here so he could tell the man how wrong he was.
---------
Due to this Moriarty mission, Sherlock rarely stays in one place long. He plants for a week, a week in a half, maybe only two days. Sometimes the place he lands coincides with a crime to expose and fix while other times the place is only a way station, a room to wait out a few days while he figures out where to move next.
Sherlock hangs a map of the world on the wall every place he stays. He pins photographs, police reports, news articles, his own scraps of notes to all the relevant places. He keeps notebooks and folders on separate countries where dear Jim spent more time. His research fills up countless folders on his laptop. Every time he finishes with one location five more seem likely candidates.
Sometimes he just wants to shout, ‘stop it, enough,’ to shake Jim and tell him to, ‘please, let it go, you’ve done enough.’ But Jim is just as dead as Sherlock pretended to be. Sherlock has no way to express his frustration, nothing to do but keep moving forward.
“But not forever.” Sherlock paces back and forth in front of the map tacked onto the wall. “There has to be an end. He was only a man. He cannot have strings stretching to infinity.” Sherlock looks at the empty chair by the window, wishes a person - one person - sat there to listen, to give feedback. He frowns and flips open a notebook. “At least Antarctica should be empty.”
He rereads every bit of research - cases complete, hints which might mean nothing, obvious facts, clues wrung from witnesses - the fabric seems to imply there is someone, someone right below Jim who is the last pillar to knock out but the layers are still deep. Sherlock knows it only means time, only time until he lays everything out and connects every meaningless consulted crime.
But when he can’t read the same page again, can’t straighten the last piece out, he pulls one small piece of paper from his wallet. It is a photograph of a man. The man smiles in the unguarded way people do when truly pleased but they believe no one sees. His eyes look right at the camera, that one second chance before he realizes he is being watched.
Sherlock stares at the image, imagines John can see him through the photo as their eyes meet. He looks and looks and looks and remembers the point of this entire path he follows.
---------
March 31st usually means a few presents or a trip to the pub with his mates, maybe even a visit from Harry. John’s birthday this year is no exception, in fact some of his old army mates, as well as Paige and Brandon from uni, plan a party at the pub, invite his sister and even some of the Scotland Yard crew. They rent out the place for the night and pull together to buy him a new laptop.
“Need one for something other than your blogging, yea?” Mike says.
John smiles, thanks them for the generous gift, and does three rounds as they all sing Happy Birthday about five times over, decreasing the quality of singing each time but certainly not the enthusiasm.
“To John!” Greg says, holding up his glass. “Best birthday bloke in London.”
Everyone laughs and clinks glasses, splashing beer onto the floor not just once.
John just shakes his head at the inspector. “Very creative.”
He only chuckles and chugs down the last of pint. “Well, we all can’t be as creative as Sherlock was, right?” He laughs again. “You can make the toast to yourself next time.”
John smiles back but his chest feels tight and five minutes later he sits in the back corner of the pub well away from the festivities, head in his hands. He stares at the floor and feels tears slowly leak down his face. He knows this needs to stop somehow but out of nowhere the littlest things seems to throw him back months. Just mention Sherlock’s name with a smile and John feels like he’s been punched in the stomach, like someone shot him in the head.
“Why...” John whispers to the wood floor.
“John?”
John tilts his head slightly at the voice and then Molly crouches down into his view.
“John, why are you...” She trails off then touches his wrist. “Do you.... I mean, if you want to talk about...” She sighs and lets go of his wrist.
John shakes his head. “Molly, I don’t...”
Molly holds out a napkin for him. “Want dry off your face at least? Though it’s your party and you can cry if you want to?”
John chuckles despite himself and takes the napkin from her. “Right, yeah.” He finally looks up at Molly, red dress and her hair down. “You look nice.”
She smiles a little. “Thank you.” She stands half way then sits on the chair against the wall beside him. “So?”
John wipes his cheeks quickly then crumples the napkin in his hand. He breathes in once and knocks his head back against the wall. “Greg... Lestrade, he...” John chuckles. “He just mentioned Sherlock, just in passing but I...”
“Just hearing his name can hurt,” Molly finishes.
John looks at her and presses his lips together tightly. He shakes his head. “You think you’re fine and then.” He makes a motion like punching in the air. He laughs but the sound comes out choked and weak.
Molly shifts in her chair to really face him. She opens her mouth but then closes it again before saying anything. She clasps her hands together then lets go and lays them flat on her legs.
“I think...” she begins, “I think what he did.” John clenches his teeth and his throat tightens. Molly reaches out and takes his hand. “I think he did it to protect you.”
John laughs harshly, bitingly, and pulls his hand away from her. “Really? You think he -” John gasps and puts a fist up to his mouth. “No, if he was...”
“John...”
“If that is what he was doing,” John points at Molly, “then he was wrong!”
“If you could ask him -”
“Ask him?” John laughs again. “It’s all well and good to imagine ‘what ifs,’ Molly, but we can’t have any of those ‘what ifs,’ now can we?”
Molly watches him, face still calm, though she bites her lip. “What would you say to him if you could?”
John groans and shakes his head hard. “What does it matter?”
“Because it matters!”
John stares at her for a moment then looks away and lays his head back against the wall.
“I’d tell him...” John shakes his head slowly and remembers his therapist insisting in her quiet, well taught way that he say all the ‘unsaid’ things - her professional interest maddening in its impersonal, cold view. Molly however only waits with the same sad expression he feels. “I suppose I’d... tell - I’d tell him that I... I’d tell him how I felt... about him.” John clears his throat carefully. “He was the best man I ever knew.”
He won’t say ‘love,’ can’t say it, but when he looks up at Molly again he knows that she hears it anyway.
---------
“Qui est-ce?”
Sherlock glances up slowly from the dark wood of the bar to the woman standing behind it - short brown hair, low cut purple tank top, worn, at least a year old, close cut nails - due to cooking most likely, formerly pierced eyebrow, leather belt, third hour of her shift. He raises his eyebrows slowly in reply.
“Who is it?” She repeats and points to his phone resting on the bar top.
Sherlock’s eyes tick to his phone - black droid this time. He frowns and glances back at her.
“You sit here for two hours and stare.” She flips her hand palm up - very Italian gesture, probably her mother’s side. “You only move to look to your mobile.”
He cocks his head, quick glance to the clock to confirm and he makes a ‘hmm’ noise.
“So, who is it?” She asks a third time and leans over slightly, elbows just propped up on the edge of the bar. “Who is it you do not call?”
“Perhaps I am waiting for someone to call me?” Sherlock replies, stalls.
Her mouth quirks. “You never worked at a bar, have you?” She stands up straight again and pulls out her own mobile. “If I am waiting for a call when I look at my phone I click it on.” She does so, turning the screen out toward him showing the background of raindrops and the time of 11:14. “I think, ‘perhaps I missed the beep? Perhaps I did not feel it vibrate?’ I do not just stare.”
“Astute.” Sherlock sits up straighter on the stool and folds his hands around the drink in front of him, finger tips just touching at the other side, barely cold anymore with the ice melted. “Who is it then?”
She clicks her phone screen off and slips it back into her pocket. She rubs both her thumbs and forefingers together in the air then points one forefinger at his face. “A girl.”
Sherlock sighs and picks up his glass a fraction so it taps back onto the bar top, dropping off beads of sweat onto the coaster.
She only smiles. “Ah, so a boy instead.”
‘Not a boy,’ Sherlock thinks, ‘a man, one man.’ Instead he says with an edge of malevolence, “why not something else? Work? Family?”
She snorts. “You sit for two hours with one melting drink over work? I think not.”
“Obviously.”
“You do not expect him to call you.” She twirls one hand in the air. “So, you hurt him or he cares nothing for you?” She tips her head to the side. “Which?”
Sherlock looks down at his phone, presses each number in his head and hears the rings, hears John’s voice, imagines falling into a cushion of sound and intonation and memory as John says his name, ‘Sherlock…’
“Why don’t you call him?”
Sherlock blinks back into the bar and turns to her. He frowns. “Why have you been asking me all of this? Do you expect an increase in tip?”
“Not from a man who does not even drink his one drink.”
Sherlock purses his lips but says nothing. She leans over again and leans across the bar slightly, scrutinizing his face. She purses her lips back at him in an almost child-like mockery. Sherlock’s lips change into a frown then she hops back and stands up.
“Is it something special? Party you are missing? Not invited to? Break up?”
Sherlock grumbles loudly and drinks a swig of his watered down whiskey and soda. She chuckles and nods as he puts the glass down.
“In the right area now, yes?”
“Today is his birthday,” Sherlock abruptly admits without meaning to.
Her mouth forms into an ‘o’ shape and Sherlock turns his head away, eyes drawn back to the silent phone.
“Then why not call, say ‘happy birthday,’ it could open a door?”
“I can’t.”
She scoffs. “Oh, why not? What is so big?”
“He believes I’m dead.”
For the first time in her fluffy, all knowing bar tender act of a conversation her eyebrows fly up and the only expression on her face is surprise. Sherlock downs the rest of the drink in one gulp.
---------
When John leaves his house in the morning to go to work, Mycroft stands just off his front stoop waiting for him. John stops in the doorway but Mycroft only stares back at him.
“I take it you don’t want to come in?” John asks dryly.
“No, I have a key if I’d wished to do that.”
John frowns. “I’ll have to ask Mrs. Hudson about changing the locks.”
Mycroft smiles. “If that makes you feel better.”
John steps out of the doorway and pulls the door shut behind him. He steps off the stoop and stops in front of Mycroft. Mycroft stares down at him until John finally sighs and gives in.
“Right, so, what do you want, Mycroft?”
“I came to see how you were doing.”
“How I was doing?” John deadpans.
“Well, after our last little adventure together I thought -”
“Yeah, I got it.” John puts up his hands once then drops them. “Well, I’m fine.”
“Fine is a word so often used when one is not really in fact fine.”
John groans. “Really, Mycroft, don’t you have better things to be doing? Arresting little old ladies as terrorists?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow and John gestures down the street. “I do have work to get to.”
“I am aware of that, John, but I am also aware that it has been nearly a year since Sherlock... well, since he’s been gone and I know how anniversaries tend to bring out dramatic emotions.”
John grinds his teeth and tilts his head to the side. “Is this your ‘worrying constantly?’ I’m not your brother.”
“Well, practically you were, wouldn’t you say? And it seems with Sherlock away my concern has shifted to you.”
“Fancy that,” John says icily.
“I am merely concerned for you, John, nothing more. These things do take time.”
John puts his hands on his hips. “Mycroft, if you want to help me why don’t you just let me go to work and live my life instead of checking up on me like a blasted reminder!”
Mycroft clicks his teeth and twirls the umbrella in his hand around once. “I see.”
“I...” John groans again and sighs. “I’m sorry, I.... I appreciate that you are concerned but I don’t need to be checked up on, all right?”
Mycroft nods. “Fine, but consider I am only trying to do what my brother would want.”
John laughs once. “Really, what’s that? Stalk me? Mother hen me?”
“Ensure you keep on living.” John’s face falls and he stares at Mycroft. Mycroft tilts his head and smiles. “And make sure you are happy.”
John stares and he has to swallow twice before speaking. “Why? To make up for what you did?”
Mycroft face shifts ever so slightly and he looks away. “Perhaps.”
---------
Sherlock sits across the table in the interview room from Andrew Brent whom Sherlock has just proven had a hand in five crimes stealing quite expensive art from galleries around New York City.
“You are not entirely incompetent, Mr. Brent,” Sherlock says, “You were able to pull off these crimes but how much the ideas were yours and how much were our shared associate’s is the real question? I imagine far more his than yours.”
Andrew nods with a smile. “Mr. Moriarty, you mean?”
Sherlock raises his eyebrows but his lips twitch to almost mirror the other man’s expression. “Helped you a great deal, didn’t he? You were small time before this and he raised you up.”
“I had hoped he could help more,” Andrew shrugs, “it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“You believe he enjoyed his portion of the proceeds?”
Andrew purses his lips. “I don’t think that was his favorite part of it, actually.”
“No,” Sherlock leans forward slightly, “neither do I, which is why I know how far his web really spreads.”
“Do you?”
“Did you ever actually meet Jim Moriarty in person?”
Andrew frowns. “Why are you interrogating me about this? He’s dead, right?”
“Is he? Is all of him dead?”
Andrew gives Sherlock a strange look then puts his cuffed hands up on the table. “What do you want? My contact? How do you know I didn’t always talk straight to Moriarty?”
“You?” Sherlock sneers. “Please. Worn shoes, department store suit, not the same level of class. And there is your hearing, a touch off in one ear by the way you tilt your head so not even the one with polished skills to crack safes. And of course chips in your nail not from constant menial labor such as construction or the like but more like climbing on the outside of buildings or down in tunnels, only happens sometimes but more than once or twice - the leg man of operations. Leg men, Mr. Brent, do not meet the top of the food chain.” Sherlock holds up a finger. “So, who was your contact?”
Andrew swallows and shakes his head. “No way, he’d kill me just as quickly as Mr. M would have.”
Sherlock tilts his head. “Isn’t that all the more reason for me to find those who were closest to the top? Then you can have a nice, peaceful time in jail instead of fearing assassination behind those bars.”
“What could you do?”
“Obviously, I could catch him.”
Andrew stares then very slowly he begins to smile. Sherlock frowns - new posture, tension leaving hands, smile more like a smirk - Andrew knows something.
“Well, Mr. Jones,” Andrew says, “I think we’re done here. I have nothing more to say to you.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I know who you really are.” Sherlock stays perfectly still - give nothing away - and stares back. Andrew leans forward over the table so his lips are as close to Sherlock’s ear as possible in his restraints. Then he whispers, “You are Sherlock Holmes.”
---------
John sits at the table next to the windows in his flat. His laptop sits open in front of him. He has his blog up on the screen, the last entry from almost a year ago at the top. John sighs and lets his eyes coast around the room. Not much has changed in the flat, bit cleaner perhaps and he did get rid of the cow skull which hung on the wall.
“One big difference though,” John says out loud but then shakes his head at himself.
He closes his eyes and remembers Sherlock lying on the couch, “There is nothing out there worth moving for.”
“Crime isn’t the only thing in life, Sherlock.”
“It is the only interesting thing.”
John smiles to himself. It took twenty minutes and then three games of Cludeo just to get Sherlock off the couch and go outside for the first time in a week. John opens his eyes again to see the empty couch. He hardly sits on it any more, just his chair and the table. If he had people over maybe they’d sit there; if he ever had anyone over.
John sighs and looks back to this computer. He sees his own words, sees Sherlock’s name in the type. If he scrolls down he will see every case, their life together, himself and Sherlock - the blogger and the detective. Only John knows what every day together was really like, Sherlock always beside him - experiments in the kitchen, violin at six AM, blog entries about geographical location evidenced by sunburn, Sherlock asleep with his head in John’s lap because neither could be bothered to move. John breathes in and has to look away.
“Isn’t it ever going to stop...” John whispers to himself.
Then he grits his teeth and logs into the back end of the blog site. He pulls up a new entry and types out one sentence. He doesn’t even pause to consider. John hits enter and publishes.
‘He was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him.’
John stares at the words and whispers again as if Sherlock could hear him somehow. “I miss you so much.”
---------
Sherlock turns the doorknob after the last click of his lock pick and steps into the flat. He pauses for a moment just in case though he is 98% certain no one waits inside. Sherlock takes two steps inside and closes the door behind him. He walks swiftly across the room and peers out the windows at the Piazza del Campo. Clusters of people sit on the half-moon shaped piazza while a crowd of tourists walk back and forth snapping photos of the Torre del Mangia. Though it is June now with the sun beating down, the small, square fountain at the apex of the piazza is not on and most of the residents hide beneath restaurant awnings for some cool instead.
“Siena.” Sherlock humphs. “And you always seemed like such a big city boy, Jim.”
Sherlock pivots and regards the room - antique furnishings, red chaise lounge with gold edging obviously stolen, mahogany table purchased, red curtains, table at the wall frequently moved for computer cords, matching wardrobe against the far wall with obvious use of the key lock - Jim used this apartment often. Sherlock steps away from the windows and walks slowly around the flat, just three and a half rooms - bedroom with attached bath, large lounge, and kitchen.
“Why did you like this one so much, eh, Jim?”
Sherlock follows the worn portions of the carpet, traces Jim’s steps as he moved in this space. The well-trod paths always lead to the windows.
“Liked to watch the world below?” Sherlock pulls back one curtain in the bedroom - four post bed, sheets unmade, slept with someone else? “Or did you spy on those across from you?”
Sherlock can see into at least three other flats or business from this window, likely a few more from the main room. However, Siena is hardly a city robust enough to fuel a desire for fascinating crime or mayhem. Sherlock purses his lips and looks at the bedroom. He opens the closets and finds two suits hanging up as well as a dark brown, leather jacket, slightly worn edges. The jacket clearly does not belong to Jim.
“Hmm.” Sherlock turns around again and stares at the room. “Was this just one of your stopping points?”
Sherlock wonders if he looks in the kitchen will he find a set of carving knives meant for activities other than food preparation?
Sherlock walks out of the bedroom and crosses the lounge to the wardrobe against the wall. He pulls the handle and finds it surprisingly unlocked. A few papers and a folder remain, pushed to the edges as though they were once more organized. Sherlock frowns and grinds his teeth once.
“Someone was here before me.”
Sherlock picks up the papers, two blank and one which turns out to be a flight itinerary. He scrutinizes the flight itinerary, looks at the date - two days ago - and clenches his fist around the corner.
Sherlock smirks. “Moved too quickly.”
He picks up the folder and opens it. Inside he finds a photograph; it is a black and white photograph, clearly from some security camera, of himself with just the shoulder and back of the head of someone else standing beside him. In the photograph his face is in profile as he looks down at the shorter man beside him. The expression on his face appears tranquil, as though in that moment Sherlock would not have rather been anywhere else. Sherlock’s mouth twitches and he closes the folder around the photograph.
“You can’t run forever.” He turns and walks to the door. “I will find you.”
He has to.
---------
It’s been one year to the day since Sherlock died.
John doesn't answer when Lestrade calls, doesn't answer when Harry calls, ignores Mycroft’s text. He locks the doors against Mrs. Hudson and drinks an entire bottle of Makers Mark while the clip to his gun sits underwater in the toilet.
---------
It’s been one year to the day since Sherlock died.
Sherlock sits alone in a backstreet hotel room, curtains closed and his mobile on the bed in front of him. He dials John's number but stops before the last digit then turns off the phone.