Yesterday's Child. (Sherlock BBC)
Title: Yesterday's Child.
Author: andrea_deer
Characters/Pairing(s): pre-John/Sherlock.
Rating: PG13
Warnings: suicide and character’s death (not permanent), depression, angst, fate, fluffy endings, some swearing.
Spoilers/Timeline: Happens right before and during Study in Pink.
Summary: It’s not the first time-loop John got stuck in, but it was the first one, when he had no idea what to do to fix it.
Word Count: ~6,800
Beta: The most amazing frayer! Thanks again for making this fic readable! :)
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. And I sort of enjoy this lack of responsibility.
(*)
There were some periods in John's life when time slowed down, like summer he spent with his grandparents when he was thirteen; Christmas holidays, when John was seventeen and trapped inside the house for over a month with his leg in plaster; certainly quite a few boring lessons; relatives' visits and queues in shops or banks or post offices.
For the most part, John's life was packed full with activity, excitement, and duty. His rugby team, university, his placements, part-time jobs, nights out, girlfriends, mates and then, finally, the Army: training, shooting and saving lives. Sometimes it seemed too much, that he would never able to fit it all into one lifetime. Sometimes he didn't have to.
(Spring 1971)
John was born three times before luck contrived for his mother to be in hospital, on time and for there to be someone would be able to cut the umbilical cord wrapped around his tiny neck.
(Summer 1982)
He was eleven and he drowned in the river near his grandparents’ house. He could remember the burning pain of his lungs fighting for air as panic began to overwhelm him. He thrashed the water frantically with his arms, but the current was too strong and John was gasping more and more water instead of air. His cries for help becoming streams of bubbles, he was drawn deeper; Harry's cries became muffled and then silenced completely. He died.
He woke up with only the vaguest sensation of dread and déjà vu. He went to play in the river with Harry, but he stopped short, watching the deep, dark water looking no more threatening than ever. Something made him freeze. Some sudden, unexplained fear coiling in his stomach as if he’d just swallowed a block of ice. He refused to go in. Harry, thirteen, sure of herself and annoying as she ever would be, called him a chicken and pushed at him, but he stubbornly refused. Instead, he watched as this time she was the one that drowned. Hours later he cried in his bed until he fell asleep and he woke up on the same morning again.
He didn't remember drowning or watching Harry die, but he remembered the fear and the pain, and associated both with the dark waters of the river. He refused to even go near it and did his damnedest to keep Harry away as well. He even told their grandma about Harry's plans and she got grounded for a week and hadn’t forgiven John for grassing her up for the rest of the summer. Grandma said he was right to tell her, the river was unpredictable. As John moved on, waking up on a day that felt new, he still dreamed with a painful clarity about drowning.
(Autumn 1986)
When John was fifteen his memories were remaining complete by the second repetition; by the third he knew exactly what to do. Harry might have been a little surprised when he came to her school so they could go home together, and she might have complained for the entire journey when he insisted on taking the longest possible route to get home. She might have called him a weirdo for days after; and perhaps he could have justified it better, but the memories of Harry’s beaten body were too fresh in his mind. He was ready to deal with being called a weirdo if it meant Harry never had the encounter with those homophobic bastards that would cost her her eye.
(Winter 1991)
When John was nineteen, he repeated one day eight times until he finally broke down and talked to Janet, as she sat on the stairs to one of the buildings on the campus, crying silently, tears dropping down her face. Something bitter in John reminded him that she hadn’t shed a single tear when she broke up with him. It was that bitterness that had prevented him talking to Janet on the first day, on his way to the university, and asking what had happened and whether she needed any help.
She did.
Her parents had kicked her out, she was four months pregnant and the baby's father had just left for a year abroad. She had nowhere to go, nothing to eat and no clue what to do now.
It was none of John's business really and he was only a student, barely getting by on his own: he still offered Janet the couch in the flat he was renting with a bunch of mates, and spent the next month helping her get back on her feet. By then, her parents had cooled off and were worried, apologetic and begging for her to come home.
Six months later when John became a proud godfather of little Gabrielle, Janet hugged him close, still hormonal and tearful, and told him he saved her life.
(Summer 2009)
He repeated the day he was shot twelve times before he managed to get a non-fatal wound. On the twelfth day, he drifted away in a hospital, thinking that next time he would try another route, and maybe avoid any wounds at all. When he woke, he was still wounded and it was another day.
He mumbled throughout his fever: that it wasn't fair; he wanted to try again; and that it hurt.. All twelve re-lived days mixed in his mind completely; and he couldn't quite remember if he had an infected wound in his shoulder, or whether his right femoral artery had been punctured and he was bleeding to death. It gave him one scar, but he could still feel the pain in his leg, as vividly as when the bullet had struck him on his eleventh death in the desert. They sent him home.
His life had been so fast up until that point; he didn't cope well with the way time brutally decelerated after he was sent back. Time crawled again. It was far worse than any boring lecture or useless, lazy summer, because it lasted month after month, with the same flat dullness, without reason or end.
Sometimes John thought that, perhaps, he had already used all the life he would ever have, and now all was left was this gray, pathetic existence. It seemed as if he had served his purpose and there was nothing left for him but to fade for the rest of his days.
These days the only time when anything happened to him was at night, when he dreamed he was back with his squad. He would try to finish patching up Williams and then run, run like hell, till the blinding pain in blossomed in his arm made him topple like a felled tree. Then he'd wake and it was nothingness all over again.
(29th January 2010)
It was still dark outside when nightmares woke John up on another Friday morning in his bedsit. At some point, he vaguely recalled, Fridays had meant something. They were about getting through another working week and into the time of relax, party and freedom. Now they just meant another therapy session. He wondered if avoiding another conversation about the complete failure of his blog would be worth the effort of getting up and writing something.
It took him an hour to convince himself that yes, probably it was, by which time, the point was rather moot. With a heavy sigh he hauled himself up and made his bed with military precision, before sitting back down. Sometimes he wondered why he still bothered with things like that, then again, these days he needed to hold on to those small rituals of everyday life, so he could have anything to do at all.
He honestly tried to write something on his blog, anything at all, really. He was sure his therapist wouldn't be happy with just anything, but still she'd be more pleased with a token effort than nothing. Staring at the mocking, empty text box, he found himself facing the same problem as always: What exactly was he supposed to write about?
”Everything that happens to you,” she had said, and John wanted to laugh bitterly. Well, honesty's important in therapy, he thought wryly, and typed "Yesterday I did nothing," and posted.
(*)
"How's your blog going?" she asked.
In his first year at university, John had been assigned an essay on 'Treatments for Pulmonary Autoimmune Disease'. He'd been thoroughly uninspired by the subject and had left it too late- all the books he wanted were out of the library, there was no time to find more than a handful of papers and it was too late to ask his tutor for help. In the end, he'd been forced to make up references to justify the things he'd managed to get from talking to the higher year students on the MedSoc rugby team. When he'd been called in to explain why the essay was late, below word count, and why so many papers came from 'The Annals of the Society of Medical Practitioners of Rugby', and why nobody else had ever heard of it, John had felt exactly as he did now, in front of his therapist. Just like a naughty schoolboy that hadn't done his homework.
He coughed awkwardly.
"Slowly, but fine. Yes, fine."
She gave him a measured look and he tried to put on his most honest looking face. She hummed noncommittally and scribbled something down in her notes, her handwriting too tight and messy for him to decipher upside down.
It could mean she hadn't read his newest blog entry yet; he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or annoyed about that. Of course, she said it was for him, not her, but really, if his therapist wasn't even going to read it, why should he even bother?
(*)
Passing through the park had become one of the most humiliating things for John since he'd been wounded. The joggers that gave him such a wide berth as they passed, old ladies giving looks of kindly sympathy from the benches and the giggles and shouts as he passed a group of teenage girls.
”Oi, stop staring at the cripple.”
“Did I look too long? How long do I actually look at people normally?”
“Oh my God, this is so awkward.”
John limped in a fast, steady rhythm, trying to get out of there as soon as possible, focusing straight ahead, not glancing at anyone. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see those walking in the opposite direction being careful to make no eye contact, because staring was bad, avoiding looking was bad. His skin was crawling with the feeling of being watched, and a paranoia towards the laughs and talk happening all around him. He tried not to see, not to hear; just move on. Step after step. As quickly as possible. Restraining himself from trying to go any quicker, because falling down now would be mortifying.
"John? John Watson!"
He stopped suddenly, surprised, and looked back at the chubby man who looked tauntingly familiar. He smiled and John's mind went to the memories of the people from university: friendly, cheerful, chaotic, happy; before he had become used to orders and bullets and sand and PTSD.
"Stamford, Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together."
"Yes, Mike, sorry. Of course."
"Yeah, I know, I got fat."
"No, no," John said automatically and for a moment he was simply astonished that conversation and proper reactions came so easily. He thought he had forgotten all of it by now.
"I heard you were somewhere getting shot at. What happened?"
And wasn't that a short but effective way to open a whole can of worms? And he was back there- bullets flying over his head, pain erupting in his arm, Williams falling down beside him… He could almost smell the hot sand, covered in blood. John gulped and glanced around briefly, calling himself back to the park.
"Well," he started, thinking quickly, "I got shot. Actually, I was on my way to physiotherapy; I'm running a bit late, I..."
He waved vaguely in the direction he was going, hoping his eagerness to escape would be excused.
"Yeah, sure, sorry mate. Don't want to keep you. We should catch up soon!"
"Yes," John agreed easily, not even planning on following through. "We should. We really should."
He smiled at the person who was once his friend and nodded through Mike’s explanations of where he could be now found, before limping away steadily though his palms were sweaty and his leg hurt. It was somewhat ironic, he thought bitterly; he couldn’t walk properly and yet still managed to run away all the same.
(*)
He didn’t crawl into his bed only because it was barely afternoon and there was nothing for him to do all weekend and he feared that if he did, he might not find a reason to get up for anything other than a piss until Monday, when he had another therapy session scheduled. He doubted this description of the weekend would be something his therapist would want to hear.
He lay on top of the covers, a compromise between wallowing in depression and desperately holding onto normality. He moved from his bed hours later, only when he managed to convince himself that he should eat something. It was a duty more than anything else, but he made himself sandwiches and chewed them mechanically whilst staring at the wall. He opened his laptop, wondering if writing on his blog could make him feel even worse. At least he'd met Mike, it was something to write about, right?
His previous note had six comments by now. His sister had written: 'call me, you sad bastard,', And then: 'sorry, i won't call you a sad bastard, if you will call me'. Bill Murray had asked: 'Missing getting shot at? ;)' Two anonymous posters had complimented John’s writing style and included links to their blogs; and one spambot was highly concerned about John's penis size.
He wanted to tell his sister he didn’t feel like talking, tell Murray to kindly go fuck himself and decline the spambot’s offer, since his penis size was one of the few things that didn't distress him at the moment. He closed the laptop without writing a word and went to have a shower, brush his teeth, polish his shoes, fold his clothes- all things he only did so he didn't go mad, or just crawl into bed before eight pm.
It was actually almost ten by the time his head touched his pillow. He closed his eyes, praying he wouldn't dream about the pain and blood and desert. Then, right before he slipped into slumber, he prayed he would.
(29th January 2010) (Take #2)
The dreams came.
He was trying to patch up Williams, and then he ran. People shouted to him to run, run like hell, but a bullet caught up with him anyway; he fell to the ground, howling in pain.
When he awoke, he recognised the bare room he now called home: its impersonal furniture and the weak light falling from the lamppost outside his window. It was still dark outside; John's leg hurt and his arm ached. He curled himself into a tight ball, as if that would help him hide from overpowering sense of routine that even made his dreams repeat themselves two nights in a row.
He managed until it was light outside before the call of nature became overpowering and finally had to haul himself up from the bed. Barely resisting the urge to just crawl back between the sheets, he made his bed and put on his dressing gown, forcing himself to make his breakfast, at nine, as always. A need for routine was part of why he'd joined the military- and he needed the paltry drive it gave his life now. It also forced him to actually eat every day, even if it didn't sound all that tempting sometimes.
After noon he lost the battle with boredom and opened his laptop again, wondering how people could spend days on end just staring into laptops' screens. The only things he could think of googling were medicine and the army, and he felt rather fed up with both of them.
He considered answering comments on his blog now that he felt calmer, but checked his email three times instead and browsed Facebook for an hour, being given at least half a dozen "life" quotes and being reminded that he had birthdays of three friends this week. John rolled his eyes at the monitor, grumbling slightly.
He opened his blog with dread, wondering whether there'd be even more charming comments left under his entry, but there was no entry at all and absolutely no comments. He searched his email inbox and the trash folder, trying to find the notifying emails but there was no sign of them. He hadn’t noticed how time slipped by in this fruitless search until his phone rang and he was surprised to see the number of his therapist displayed.
"Hello?"
"Hello, John, is everything alright?" she asked, somehow managing to sound perfectly polite and irritated at the same time. If he detected and twinge of worry in her tone it disappeared in the next sentence. "We were supposed to meet today, but you never showed. Did something come up?"
"I-," he blinked, confused, "We were?"
He could almost hear her stopping herself from giving an exasperated sigh.
"Yes, John. We're meeting on Mondays and Fridays, remember?"
"Yes," he snapped too quickly, "Yes, of course I do. I just... I hadn't realized... is it really Monday already?" he finished weakly, barely finding his voice.
"It's Friday, John."
The idea of the whole weekend slipping past him was... confusing, and terrifying, but a whole week? It was...unless...
"John?"
"Yes, yes, of course, it is. I am terribly sorry. I promise I will be there on Monday."
She hummed in agreement and he disconnected before she could say another word. He'd lost a whole week. He checked the calendar in his laptop, unable to believe it, and blinked in shock. It was Friday; the same Friday as yesterday. It explained the non-existent posts and comments, and the repeated nightmares. He sat down hard on his bed. This was impossible. Absolutely impossible. What the hell was he supposed to repair when nothing had happened?
He glanced at the clock; he had physiotherapy again. He cursed violently and limped to his closet, getting dressed and ready to leave. Leaning heavily on his cane, he limped to the park.
"John? John Watson! Mike, Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together."
John limped away so fast his leg was killing him by the time he got home. He curled up on his bed and pushed his face into the pillow, trying to stop the broken sobs.
"I can't re-live it again, I can't. There's nothing, nothing at all," he moaned to himself and didn't move from bed until he calmed enough to fall asleep.
(29th January 2010) (Take #3)
This time, when the same nightmares woke him up, he immediately reached for his phone, checking the date. It was six in the morning on Friday. Again.
He lay there, anguished and confused, until it was light. He got up, ate his breakfast and went for his therapy without opening his laptop. He didn't say a word to his therapist and he avoided the park on his way home, hoping that maybe that would be it. Maybe, after meeting him, Mike had been hit by a car whilst crossing the street and now that John avoided him, everything would be set straight and tomorrow would actually come.
It didn't.
(29th January 2010) (Take #4)
John avoided both his therapist and Mike and spent his day reading all the news accounts about the day he was repeating. He learned of two muggings nearby and few car accidents, but still had no clue how he could stop them, or whether they were supposed to be stopped.
(29th January 2010) (Take #5)
He followed the routine of the previous day, noticing that pretty much everything went just the same, even the smallest things revolving around him, if he didn't change anything. On earlier occasions he wondered sometimes if some small things could change, if people who wondered which way to turn, perhaps chose differently every time the day repeated itself. It seemed as though they were stuck with their choices, unless John changed something for them.
He didn't go to sleep at all, that day. Perhaps, rather than making the day right, he just needed to get to the next one. He spent his night pacing his room, drinking cup after cup of coffee, watching the midnight tick nearer and wondering if that was it; would he finally get to Saturday? Would it be worth it if he did?
Six in the morning rolled in and between one second and the next, John went from standing in the middle of the room on Saturday morning to waking up screaming back on Friday.
He didn't move from bed that day. Mostly terrified and only slightly relieved.
(29th January 2010) (Take #8)
He posted a macro of a cat declaring “I did nothing today and still got paid” on his blog before his therapy. His therapist wasn't impressed. (But that also meant she was actually reading it, he counted it as a worthwhile experiment.)
(29th January 2010) (Take #11)
He followed Mike from a distance for three days before he saw his whole day. It was hard to shadow someone when they knew you and you could barely walk, but after their meeting each day and a few hours of tailing him every time, John learned that Mike still worked at Bart’s, as he'd said; he had a nice, cheerful wife to go home to and lived through the whole day and night without any problems at all.
Good for him, but very frustrating for John.
(29th January 2010) (Take #14)
He lay for hours, in the dark, after his nightmares left him, wondering if, perhaps, he wasn't still in one. He'd spent two weeks re-living one day. Perhaps this was hell, perhaps he'd never got out of the desert.
(29th January 2010) (Take #17)
John stopped one of the muggings on the 16th take, and effectively interrupted the other one on the 17th take of Friday. It changed nothing.
(29th January 2010) (Take #20)
The urge to solve the mystery of the repeated day was fighting a losing battle against the boredom of the repetitiveness of it all. John went through the park again, meeting Mike. He called out to him before Mike got a chance to hail him. It went well till they got to the question that John always dreaded:
"I heard you were somewhere getting shot at, what happened?"
John stared pensively at his cane.
"I decided a circus career was more my thing," he deadpanned. Mike's awkwardness ended their conversation rather quickly, with weak promises of checking up on one another later.
The casual promises for nonexistent tomorrows were becoming easier for John with every passing Friday.
(29th January 2010) (Take #24)
John wanted a Ferrari. He couldn't afford one, and it would be a rather stupid waste of money he didn't have, but reason was sliding further and further away from John.
He played the lottery, but he was told it would take few days at best before he would get his money. Remembering the lottery numbers was out, then.
(29th January 2010) (Take #28)
Using his savings and credit card didn't really work either, because to actually get the car he'd paid for he had to wait a few days as well. It probably should have been obvious to him, but he'd still hoped it'd be possible to get around this somehow.
(29th January 2010) (Take #29)
Stealing a Ferrari was more complicated than it looked.
(29th January 2010) (Take #42)
But not impossible.
When he finally escaped the M25, he put his foot down, enjoying the speed of movement. Driving out of the city and feeling as if he was escaping finally. He died in a car crash around two am and woke at six the day before.
That successfully got that dream out of his system.
(29th January 2010) (Take #47)
He managed to talk himself out of it many times, but in the end there was no argument strong enough to hold. If it worked, he'd end this cycle, and the miserable days that would come when this one ended, if it didn't, nothing would change.
Perhaps that was what needed setting right. John had often felt his life was one big adventure, scripted like a film. He should have died a heroic death in the desert, that would make sense, but he managed to mess it up and now there was no script, no plan for him.
He shot himself, decorating the bland walls of his bedsit with his brain and blood. He woke up at six without as much as a migraine.
(29th January 2010) (Take #56)
He woke up at six and sat down by his laptop. He wrote the best account he could remember of the last two months. Or just one day, depending on how one looked at it. This time his therapist was even less pleased with the contents of his entry.
"John, do you honestly believe this is literally true?"
He snorted.
"I probably shouldn't tell you this, should I?"
"On the contrary, that's exactly the kind of thing you should be telling me about, John. It is rather serious; it is a sign you're not coping well at all. I had thought you might be experiencing some post traumatic stress, but perhaps you are not adapting to civilian life as well as I'd thought.”
Her notes were barely visible on her knee- 'Civilian life seems dull- idea of repetitive day a manifestation of fears? Fears that this situation is all will ever experience again...depression and hallucinations?'
He looked away. She asked questions and he talked, for the first time since they'd started meeting, actually letting out all that he thought and felt. He left hours later with a prescription for stronger medication. The whole journey home, he wondered if it was just in his head. How could he know the lottery numbers; how did he know who he would meet if he went to walk around the park right now, and whom he would have met if he had gone two hours earlier? He wondered if he was making it all up to justify his insanity.
He woke up the next morning and he though he might be indeed insane, the prescription from his therapist was not on his bedside table, and he was not going through this whole story just to get it again.
(29th January 2010) (Take #64)
"John! John Watson!"
John turned, affecting bemused puzzlement.
"Mike, Mike Stamford, we were in Bart's together."
"No, I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else."
"Oh."
(29th January 2010) (Take #68)
John didn't walk through the park at all.
(29th January 2010) (Take #72)
He ignored Mike altogether.
(29th January 2010) (Take #75)
He answered all Mike’s questions in a dialect he'd learned in Afghanistan, with a healthy dose of swearing peppered in.
(29th January 2010) (Take #84)
John began writing the story of a man trapped in a repeating day. He was almost pleased with the results, till he realised that he'd need to start all over again tomorrow. That thought sapped his enthusiasm completely.
It was a shame, he had been going to call it 'The Steady Case of the Endless Days'.
(29th January 2010) (Take #89)
When John introduced himself first, and said he didn't want to talk about himself too much, they actually had a conversation and he began to hear about Mike's life.
(29th January 2010) (Take #98)
When it began to get boring, once Mike had shared all he would be willing to, John got him drunk. Twice.
When you're getting bored to death, last thing you want for entertainment is your old friend, unable to stand up or to give his address to a taxi driver at the end of an evening.
(29th January 2010) (Take #100)
Once, John told Mike about repeating his days. He had been going to prove it with the information he'd learned from Mike previously, but his friend looked too concerned about him already.
"Forget it, no one ever gets it anyway." he sighed,
"Are you alright, John? Do you need to talk to someone?"
"No, I am not; and do you know why, Mike? Because it's the hundredth time I've lived through this Friday. And I can never stop it. It will go on like this forever. Friday, after Friday, after Friday."
"Well," said Mike, sounding incredibly dubious, "At least it's not Monday."
And John snorted. Sometimes he didn't mind having to share his eternal day with Mike.
(29th January 2010) (Take #129)
John was calm, resigned to another Friday, and finally at peace with it; bored, but at peace. He got up, got ready and went to his therapist's appointment. He admitted to not writing a word of his blog, read her writing upside down and morosely confessed that nothing ever happened to him
He met Mike in the park and feigned polite surprise, because it was the easiest option. Mike insisted on getting them both coffee and John pointed him in the direction of the best coffee shop in the vicinity, because they'd drunk that coffee a dozen times. It was all by now such routine it barely got any honest reaction from John, even the mention of the war failed to surprise him and push him into a swirl of unwelcome memories.
He sat awkwardly, his hand cramping and his brain going stir-crazy at the thought of hearing Mike's 'How I Met My Wife' story again.
"So what about you then?" Mike asked, "Just staying in town until you get yourself sorted?"
"Can't afford London on an army pension," John snapped, unwilling to get into it, though he barely remembered it was a problem.
He was faced with his cheap accommodations every day, but he hadn't paid the rent in months. Mike did not take the hint and change the subject.
"Then, I don't know, can't you get a flat-share or something?"
John actually laughed at that.
"Seriously, who'd want me for a flatmate?"
Mike laughed too. John glanced at him, confused.
"What?"
"You're the second person who's said that to me today."
Mike now had John's full attention, because that... that was new.
*
Mike’s vague warnings that the bloke might be viewed as a little bit eccentric didn't discourage him at all, because John was fascinated. He hadn't met anyone new in weeks, even amongst the people he walked past on the street or sat next to on the tube. After a month of small talk with strangers, an eccentric sounded like an absolute treat.
Mike knocked on one of the lab doors and they entered without waiting for an invitation. The lab was interesting and exciting after only visiting the very same places for so long; it awoke the old memories of his time at university. He felt as if he really should regret leaving it, but despite everything he really couldn't. If he'd stayed at Bart's, the days would've soon become as dull and oppressive as they were now.
"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine,"
Only when the man spoke did John remember he was there, and his attention snapped to take in his lean form.
Handsome, he thought, but needs to eat more, he added; a second later he shook his head, reminding himself that he didn't care.
"What's wrong with the landline?" responded Mike, in a long-suffering tone- obviously used to the man's requests and orders by now.
"I prefer to text,"
"Sorry," replied Mike, sounding only vaguely so, “It's in my coat."
John shrugged. Since this Friday had began, he'd helped more old ladies across the street than he could count, lent his phone to at least four frantic people, given directions to a driver (once good and once bad, just in case he shouldn't get to his destination) and even helped a girl get her kitten from the tree. You could never knew what would kick off the day in the right direction. (Thankfully it didn't seem to be the kitten, which would have been really embarrassing.)
"Here, use mine."
"Oh," the man seemed surprised, but smiled nonetheless, glancing at Mike as if questioning who exactly John was and what was he doing here. "Thank you."
"It's an old friend of mine, John Watson," explained Mike as the man strode to John, taking his phone and sliding it open with more ease than John ever managed, despite having owned it for months.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he asked, and Mike smiled as if his plan finally started working. John knew that smile- it was the one Mike had worn the day he managed to trick John into writing an essay for a deadline which, he later revealed, was a month away, rather than the day he'd previously claimed.
"Sorry?"
"Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?"
John glanced at Mike and the stranger, wondering what exactly was going on and why after weeks of stagnation, everything new seemed happening at the speed of light?
"Afghanistan, sorry, how did you..."
"Ah, Molly!”
How did this man know about him? Maybe... the thought was alarming, but maybe this man knew John. The people on tube didn't know him, but he knew them by now. Perhaps this man had met John before; perhaps, though over a hundred Fridays, this was first one in which he came into this lab, for this man it was the hundredth one for this man. John shook his head, this was were the madness lie.
"How do you feel about violin?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I play the violin when I'm thinking, sometimes I don't talk for the days on. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."
"You told him about me?"
"Not a word!" assured Mike; John could tell he was barely stopping himself from cackling madly. This was payback, thought John vaguely, for all the pranks he pulled on Mike through when they shared a flat in third year. And fine, fine, perhaps the eyebrow shaving incident had been totally uncalled for, but getting revenge after so many years was even more so.
"Then who said anything about flat-mates?" he demanded.
"I did. This morning I told Mike that I must be a difficult man to find a flat-mate for," explained the man, whilst putting his coat on. "Now here he is, just back from lunch with an old friend clearly just from military service in Afghanistan, it was no difficult leap."
His smirk following his statement struck John as more honest that his seemingly casual, polite smiles. John found them arrogant, conceited and mocking smirks - incredibly attractive and perhaps a little bit addictive.
"How did you know about Afghanistan?" he asked, but the man only smiled. 'Hooked,' he seemed to say; John wanted to glare, but couldn't disagree.
"I have my eyes on a nice little place in central London, together we should be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock. Sorry, I’ve got to dash, I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."
Central London? Together? Riding-crop in the mortuary?
The world was spinning fast and going completely utterly mad. John hadn't felt so fascinated and alive in months. Certainly not since he was sent back.
Tomorrow... John thought frantically as the man was leaving. There might not be a tomorrow. He wanted more of this man’s utterly charming presence.
"Is that it?"
"Is that what?"
Dramatic exit now ruined, the annoyance was clear in the man’s voice. John tried hard not to mock this inclination to the theatrical.
"We've just met and we're going to look at a flat."
The man looked around, perhaps just to make it more effective when he locked his pale eyes with John's again.
"Problem?"
Mike was now wearing the look John also knew very well; last time he’d seen it Mike was introducing their friend Clara to John's sister. The bloody amateur cupid. John wasn’t sure if he should laugh or smack him - fair play to him though. Cupid’s arrow had struck fairly damn true.
"We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we're meeting; I don't even know your name."
The man's gaze became intense again and John couldn't have looked away if he tried. John felt like a mouse, frozen in the predatory gaze of a snake, but he really couldn’t seem to mind. He found he could stand straight and his hand wasn’t shaking. He was facing the most fascinating person he’d ever met; he couldn’t look away.
"I know you're an army doctor and you've been recently invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother, but you won't go to him for help even though he's worried about you. You don’t approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly I'm afraid."
John remembered his hand was actually clenched around the handle of a cane, he glanced down in shock and avoided the eye contact for a moment.
"It's enough to be going on, don’t you think?"
"The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221 b Baker Street," he said, and winked at John, who had no other option but stare at him again. "Afternoon!"
It took him few long seconds before he could drag his gaze back to Mike and stare at his smug smile rather dumbly.
"Yeah," Mike said. "He's always like that."
*
"I admit, John, this suggestion of you two sharing a flat was a bit of a joke at first," Mike admitted finally when they were standing near the main exit, saying goodbye, "but to be honest, if you're not completely opposed to the idea, I think you should give it a go. You two could be really good for each other, I think."
Sherlock Holmes was obviously at least half crazy, but he was also the best thing that happened to John in over four months at least, probably more.
"I will think about it," he promised Mike, shaking his hand and thinking of all the promises he’d already made to this man, promises he would never remember.
Coming back home seemed a bit strange. The day had been so intense compared to the previous ones, it seemed like it had started forever ago.
He checked the sent texts.
"If brother has green ladder arrest brother. SH"
It took him two minutes to find Sherlock Holmes' site, Science of Deduction, on his laptop. With the name like that, the possibility of it being someone else was rather small; still, he checked the picture first. The serious, imperious gaze was one and the same.
Five hours later, John gave up. The site, as fascinating as it was, didn't explain how Sherlock knew him, or give him a better understanding of the man.
When he was already warm in his bed, his eyes falling closed and his breath evening out; as his brain slowed, as if sleep slurred his very thoughts, he wondered: Perhaps meeting Sherlock Holmes was supposed to save John's life from an eternity of boredom and frustration.
(30th January 2010) (Saturday)
He dreamed of chasing Sherlock Holmes through the corridors of St Bart's, though it looked more like a gothic mansion than a hospital. Holmes kept suddenly appearing from random corridors, his hair wild and a black cape billowing around him. He said, meaningfully, and cryptically: “If the day repeats again, avoid the water. It will be surrounded by fire and pain.” and ran away again leaving John to follow him.
He woke up to the sun shining through the window. Gradually, hysteric giggles caught up with him. He laughed till tears streamed down his face and he could barely catch another breath.
It was Saturday.
John agreed to move in to a new flat, visited a crime scene and got kidnapped, became Sherlock's assistant, run half across the London, took part in a drug bust, engaged in a mad chase after a cab, shot a man and was utterly head over heels for that brilliant idiot. It was the fastest day he’d ever lived through, barely able to keep up. The speed of it all left him breathless and terrified. But it kept him away from the endless gray boredom he’d been living in.
John couldn’t wait to see another day by this madman's side.
the end
Author: andrea_deer
Characters/Pairing(s): pre-John/Sherlock.
Rating: PG13
Warnings: suicide and character’s death (not permanent), depression, angst, fate, fluffy endings, some swearing.
Spoilers/Timeline: Happens right before and during Study in Pink.
Summary: It’s not the first time-loop John got stuck in, but it was the first one, when he had no idea what to do to fix it.
Word Count: ~6,800
Beta: The most amazing frayer! Thanks again for making this fic readable! :)
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. And I sort of enjoy this lack of responsibility.
(*)
There were some periods in John's life when time slowed down, like summer he spent with his grandparents when he was thirteen; Christmas holidays, when John was seventeen and trapped inside the house for over a month with his leg in plaster; certainly quite a few boring lessons; relatives' visits and queues in shops or banks or post offices.
For the most part, John's life was packed full with activity, excitement, and duty. His rugby team, university, his placements, part-time jobs, nights out, girlfriends, mates and then, finally, the Army: training, shooting and saving lives. Sometimes it seemed too much, that he would never able to fit it all into one lifetime. Sometimes he didn't have to.
(Spring 1971)
John was born three times before luck contrived for his mother to be in hospital, on time and for there to be someone would be able to cut the umbilical cord wrapped around his tiny neck.
(Summer 1982)
He was eleven and he drowned in the river near his grandparents’ house. He could remember the burning pain of his lungs fighting for air as panic began to overwhelm him. He thrashed the water frantically with his arms, but the current was too strong and John was gasping more and more water instead of air. His cries for help becoming streams of bubbles, he was drawn deeper; Harry's cries became muffled and then silenced completely. He died.
He woke up with only the vaguest sensation of dread and déjà vu. He went to play in the river with Harry, but he stopped short, watching the deep, dark water looking no more threatening than ever. Something made him freeze. Some sudden, unexplained fear coiling in his stomach as if he’d just swallowed a block of ice. He refused to go in. Harry, thirteen, sure of herself and annoying as she ever would be, called him a chicken and pushed at him, but he stubbornly refused. Instead, he watched as this time she was the one that drowned. Hours later he cried in his bed until he fell asleep and he woke up on the same morning again.
He didn't remember drowning or watching Harry die, but he remembered the fear and the pain, and associated both with the dark waters of the river. He refused to even go near it and did his damnedest to keep Harry away as well. He even told their grandma about Harry's plans and she got grounded for a week and hadn’t forgiven John for grassing her up for the rest of the summer. Grandma said he was right to tell her, the river was unpredictable. As John moved on, waking up on a day that felt new, he still dreamed with a painful clarity about drowning.
(Autumn 1986)
When John was fifteen his memories were remaining complete by the second repetition; by the third he knew exactly what to do. Harry might have been a little surprised when he came to her school so they could go home together, and she might have complained for the entire journey when he insisted on taking the longest possible route to get home. She might have called him a weirdo for days after; and perhaps he could have justified it better, but the memories of Harry’s beaten body were too fresh in his mind. He was ready to deal with being called a weirdo if it meant Harry never had the encounter with those homophobic bastards that would cost her her eye.
(Winter 1991)
When John was nineteen, he repeated one day eight times until he finally broke down and talked to Janet, as she sat on the stairs to one of the buildings on the campus, crying silently, tears dropping down her face. Something bitter in John reminded him that she hadn’t shed a single tear when she broke up with him. It was that bitterness that had prevented him talking to Janet on the first day, on his way to the university, and asking what had happened and whether she needed any help.
She did.
Her parents had kicked her out, she was four months pregnant and the baby's father had just left for a year abroad. She had nowhere to go, nothing to eat and no clue what to do now.
It was none of John's business really and he was only a student, barely getting by on his own: he still offered Janet the couch in the flat he was renting with a bunch of mates, and spent the next month helping her get back on her feet. By then, her parents had cooled off and were worried, apologetic and begging for her to come home.
Six months later when John became a proud godfather of little Gabrielle, Janet hugged him close, still hormonal and tearful, and told him he saved her life.
(Summer 2009)
He repeated the day he was shot twelve times before he managed to get a non-fatal wound. On the twelfth day, he drifted away in a hospital, thinking that next time he would try another route, and maybe avoid any wounds at all. When he woke, he was still wounded and it was another day.
He mumbled throughout his fever: that it wasn't fair; he wanted to try again; and that it hurt.. All twelve re-lived days mixed in his mind completely; and he couldn't quite remember if he had an infected wound in his shoulder, or whether his right femoral artery had been punctured and he was bleeding to death. It gave him one scar, but he could still feel the pain in his leg, as vividly as when the bullet had struck him on his eleventh death in the desert. They sent him home.
His life had been so fast up until that point; he didn't cope well with the way time brutally decelerated after he was sent back. Time crawled again. It was far worse than any boring lecture or useless, lazy summer, because it lasted month after month, with the same flat dullness, without reason or end.
Sometimes John thought that, perhaps, he had already used all the life he would ever have, and now all was left was this gray, pathetic existence. It seemed as if he had served his purpose and there was nothing left for him but to fade for the rest of his days.
These days the only time when anything happened to him was at night, when he dreamed he was back with his squad. He would try to finish patching up Williams and then run, run like hell, till the blinding pain in blossomed in his arm made him topple like a felled tree. Then he'd wake and it was nothingness all over again.
(29th January 2010)
It was still dark outside when nightmares woke John up on another Friday morning in his bedsit. At some point, he vaguely recalled, Fridays had meant something. They were about getting through another working week and into the time of relax, party and freedom. Now they just meant another therapy session. He wondered if avoiding another conversation about the complete failure of his blog would be worth the effort of getting up and writing something.
It took him an hour to convince himself that yes, probably it was, by which time, the point was rather moot. With a heavy sigh he hauled himself up and made his bed with military precision, before sitting back down. Sometimes he wondered why he still bothered with things like that, then again, these days he needed to hold on to those small rituals of everyday life, so he could have anything to do at all.
He honestly tried to write something on his blog, anything at all, really. He was sure his therapist wouldn't be happy with just anything, but still she'd be more pleased with a token effort than nothing. Staring at the mocking, empty text box, he found himself facing the same problem as always: What exactly was he supposed to write about?
”Everything that happens to you,” she had said, and John wanted to laugh bitterly. Well, honesty's important in therapy, he thought wryly, and typed "Yesterday I did nothing," and posted.
(*)
"How's your blog going?" she asked.
In his first year at university, John had been assigned an essay on 'Treatments for Pulmonary Autoimmune Disease'. He'd been thoroughly uninspired by the subject and had left it too late- all the books he wanted were out of the library, there was no time to find more than a handful of papers and it was too late to ask his tutor for help. In the end, he'd been forced to make up references to justify the things he'd managed to get from talking to the higher year students on the MedSoc rugby team. When he'd been called in to explain why the essay was late, below word count, and why so many papers came from 'The Annals of the Society of Medical Practitioners of Rugby', and why nobody else had ever heard of it, John had felt exactly as he did now, in front of his therapist. Just like a naughty schoolboy that hadn't done his homework.
He coughed awkwardly.
"Slowly, but fine. Yes, fine."
She gave him a measured look and he tried to put on his most honest looking face. She hummed noncommittally and scribbled something down in her notes, her handwriting too tight and messy for him to decipher upside down.
It could mean she hadn't read his newest blog entry yet; he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or annoyed about that. Of course, she said it was for him, not her, but really, if his therapist wasn't even going to read it, why should he even bother?
(*)
Passing through the park had become one of the most humiliating things for John since he'd been wounded. The joggers that gave him such a wide berth as they passed, old ladies giving looks of kindly sympathy from the benches and the giggles and shouts as he passed a group of teenage girls.
”Oi, stop staring at the cripple.”
“Did I look too long? How long do I actually look at people normally?”
“Oh my God, this is so awkward.”
John limped in a fast, steady rhythm, trying to get out of there as soon as possible, focusing straight ahead, not glancing at anyone. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see those walking in the opposite direction being careful to make no eye contact, because staring was bad, avoiding looking was bad. His skin was crawling with the feeling of being watched, and a paranoia towards the laughs and talk happening all around him. He tried not to see, not to hear; just move on. Step after step. As quickly as possible. Restraining himself from trying to go any quicker, because falling down now would be mortifying.
"John? John Watson!"
He stopped suddenly, surprised, and looked back at the chubby man who looked tauntingly familiar. He smiled and John's mind went to the memories of the people from university: friendly, cheerful, chaotic, happy; before he had become used to orders and bullets and sand and PTSD.
"Stamford, Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together."
"Yes, Mike, sorry. Of course."
"Yeah, I know, I got fat."
"No, no," John said automatically and for a moment he was simply astonished that conversation and proper reactions came so easily. He thought he had forgotten all of it by now.
"I heard you were somewhere getting shot at. What happened?"
And wasn't that a short but effective way to open a whole can of worms? And he was back there- bullets flying over his head, pain erupting in his arm, Williams falling down beside him… He could almost smell the hot sand, covered in blood. John gulped and glanced around briefly, calling himself back to the park.
"Well," he started, thinking quickly, "I got shot. Actually, I was on my way to physiotherapy; I'm running a bit late, I..."
He waved vaguely in the direction he was going, hoping his eagerness to escape would be excused.
"Yeah, sure, sorry mate. Don't want to keep you. We should catch up soon!"
"Yes," John agreed easily, not even planning on following through. "We should. We really should."
He smiled at the person who was once his friend and nodded through Mike’s explanations of where he could be now found, before limping away steadily though his palms were sweaty and his leg hurt. It was somewhat ironic, he thought bitterly; he couldn’t walk properly and yet still managed to run away all the same.
(*)
He didn’t crawl into his bed only because it was barely afternoon and there was nothing for him to do all weekend and he feared that if he did, he might not find a reason to get up for anything other than a piss until Monday, when he had another therapy session scheduled. He doubted this description of the weekend would be something his therapist would want to hear.
He lay on top of the covers, a compromise between wallowing in depression and desperately holding onto normality. He moved from his bed hours later, only when he managed to convince himself that he should eat something. It was a duty more than anything else, but he made himself sandwiches and chewed them mechanically whilst staring at the wall. He opened his laptop, wondering if writing on his blog could make him feel even worse. At least he'd met Mike, it was something to write about, right?
His previous note had six comments by now. His sister had written: 'call me, you sad bastard,', And then: 'sorry, i won't call you a sad bastard, if you will call me'. Bill Murray had asked: 'Missing getting shot at? ;)' Two anonymous posters had complimented John’s writing style and included links to their blogs; and one spambot was highly concerned about John's penis size.
He wanted to tell his sister he didn’t feel like talking, tell Murray to kindly go fuck himself and decline the spambot’s offer, since his penis size was one of the few things that didn't distress him at the moment. He closed the laptop without writing a word and went to have a shower, brush his teeth, polish his shoes, fold his clothes- all things he only did so he didn't go mad, or just crawl into bed before eight pm.
It was actually almost ten by the time his head touched his pillow. He closed his eyes, praying he wouldn't dream about the pain and blood and desert. Then, right before he slipped into slumber, he prayed he would.
(29th January 2010) (Take #2)
The dreams came.
He was trying to patch up Williams, and then he ran. People shouted to him to run, run like hell, but a bullet caught up with him anyway; he fell to the ground, howling in pain.
When he awoke, he recognised the bare room he now called home: its impersonal furniture and the weak light falling from the lamppost outside his window. It was still dark outside; John's leg hurt and his arm ached. He curled himself into a tight ball, as if that would help him hide from overpowering sense of routine that even made his dreams repeat themselves two nights in a row.
He managed until it was light outside before the call of nature became overpowering and finally had to haul himself up from the bed. Barely resisting the urge to just crawl back between the sheets, he made his bed and put on his dressing gown, forcing himself to make his breakfast, at nine, as always. A need for routine was part of why he'd joined the military- and he needed the paltry drive it gave his life now. It also forced him to actually eat every day, even if it didn't sound all that tempting sometimes.
After noon he lost the battle with boredom and opened his laptop again, wondering how people could spend days on end just staring into laptops' screens. The only things he could think of googling were medicine and the army, and he felt rather fed up with both of them.
He considered answering comments on his blog now that he felt calmer, but checked his email three times instead and browsed Facebook for an hour, being given at least half a dozen "life" quotes and being reminded that he had birthdays of three friends this week. John rolled his eyes at the monitor, grumbling slightly.
He opened his blog with dread, wondering whether there'd be even more charming comments left under his entry, but there was no entry at all and absolutely no comments. He searched his email inbox and the trash folder, trying to find the notifying emails but there was no sign of them. He hadn’t noticed how time slipped by in this fruitless search until his phone rang and he was surprised to see the number of his therapist displayed.
"Hello?"
"Hello, John, is everything alright?" she asked, somehow managing to sound perfectly polite and irritated at the same time. If he detected and twinge of worry in her tone it disappeared in the next sentence. "We were supposed to meet today, but you never showed. Did something come up?"
"I-," he blinked, confused, "We were?"
He could almost hear her stopping herself from giving an exasperated sigh.
"Yes, John. We're meeting on Mondays and Fridays, remember?"
"Yes," he snapped too quickly, "Yes, of course I do. I just... I hadn't realized... is it really Monday already?" he finished weakly, barely finding his voice.
"It's Friday, John."
The idea of the whole weekend slipping past him was... confusing, and terrifying, but a whole week? It was...unless...
"John?"
"Yes, yes, of course, it is. I am terribly sorry. I promise I will be there on Monday."
She hummed in agreement and he disconnected before she could say another word. He'd lost a whole week. He checked the calendar in his laptop, unable to believe it, and blinked in shock. It was Friday; the same Friday as yesterday. It explained the non-existent posts and comments, and the repeated nightmares. He sat down hard on his bed. This was impossible. Absolutely impossible. What the hell was he supposed to repair when nothing had happened?
He glanced at the clock; he had physiotherapy again. He cursed violently and limped to his closet, getting dressed and ready to leave. Leaning heavily on his cane, he limped to the park.
"John? John Watson! Mike, Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together."
John limped away so fast his leg was killing him by the time he got home. He curled up on his bed and pushed his face into the pillow, trying to stop the broken sobs.
"I can't re-live it again, I can't. There's nothing, nothing at all," he moaned to himself and didn't move from bed until he calmed enough to fall asleep.
(29th January 2010) (Take #3)
This time, when the same nightmares woke him up, he immediately reached for his phone, checking the date. It was six in the morning on Friday. Again.
He lay there, anguished and confused, until it was light. He got up, ate his breakfast and went for his therapy without opening his laptop. He didn't say a word to his therapist and he avoided the park on his way home, hoping that maybe that would be it. Maybe, after meeting him, Mike had been hit by a car whilst crossing the street and now that John avoided him, everything would be set straight and tomorrow would actually come.
It didn't.
(29th January 2010) (Take #4)
John avoided both his therapist and Mike and spent his day reading all the news accounts about the day he was repeating. He learned of two muggings nearby and few car accidents, but still had no clue how he could stop them, or whether they were supposed to be stopped.
(29th January 2010) (Take #5)
He followed the routine of the previous day, noticing that pretty much everything went just the same, even the smallest things revolving around him, if he didn't change anything. On earlier occasions he wondered sometimes if some small things could change, if people who wondered which way to turn, perhaps chose differently every time the day repeated itself. It seemed as though they were stuck with their choices, unless John changed something for them.
He didn't go to sleep at all, that day. Perhaps, rather than making the day right, he just needed to get to the next one. He spent his night pacing his room, drinking cup after cup of coffee, watching the midnight tick nearer and wondering if that was it; would he finally get to Saturday? Would it be worth it if he did?
Six in the morning rolled in and between one second and the next, John went from standing in the middle of the room on Saturday morning to waking up screaming back on Friday.
He didn't move from bed that day. Mostly terrified and only slightly relieved.
(29th January 2010) (Take #8)
He posted a macro of a cat declaring “I did nothing today and still got paid” on his blog before his therapy. His therapist wasn't impressed. (But that also meant she was actually reading it, he counted it as a worthwhile experiment.)
(29th January 2010) (Take #11)
He followed Mike from a distance for three days before he saw his whole day. It was hard to shadow someone when they knew you and you could barely walk, but after their meeting each day and a few hours of tailing him every time, John learned that Mike still worked at Bart’s, as he'd said; he had a nice, cheerful wife to go home to and lived through the whole day and night without any problems at all.
Good for him, but very frustrating for John.
(29th January 2010) (Take #14)
He lay for hours, in the dark, after his nightmares left him, wondering if, perhaps, he wasn't still in one. He'd spent two weeks re-living one day. Perhaps this was hell, perhaps he'd never got out of the desert.
(29th January 2010) (Take #17)
John stopped one of the muggings on the 16th take, and effectively interrupted the other one on the 17th take of Friday. It changed nothing.
(29th January 2010) (Take #20)
The urge to solve the mystery of the repeated day was fighting a losing battle against the boredom of the repetitiveness of it all. John went through the park again, meeting Mike. He called out to him before Mike got a chance to hail him. It went well till they got to the question that John always dreaded:
"I heard you were somewhere getting shot at, what happened?"
John stared pensively at his cane.
"I decided a circus career was more my thing," he deadpanned. Mike's awkwardness ended their conversation rather quickly, with weak promises of checking up on one another later.
The casual promises for nonexistent tomorrows were becoming easier for John with every passing Friday.
(29th January 2010) (Take #24)
John wanted a Ferrari. He couldn't afford one, and it would be a rather stupid waste of money he didn't have, but reason was sliding further and further away from John.
He played the lottery, but he was told it would take few days at best before he would get his money. Remembering the lottery numbers was out, then.
(29th January 2010) (Take #28)
Using his savings and credit card didn't really work either, because to actually get the car he'd paid for he had to wait a few days as well. It probably should have been obvious to him, but he'd still hoped it'd be possible to get around this somehow.
(29th January 2010) (Take #29)
Stealing a Ferrari was more complicated than it looked.
(29th January 2010) (Take #42)
But not impossible.
When he finally escaped the M25, he put his foot down, enjoying the speed of movement. Driving out of the city and feeling as if he was escaping finally. He died in a car crash around two am and woke at six the day before.
That successfully got that dream out of his system.
(29th January 2010) (Take #47)
He managed to talk himself out of it many times, but in the end there was no argument strong enough to hold. If it worked, he'd end this cycle, and the miserable days that would come when this one ended, if it didn't, nothing would change.
Perhaps that was what needed setting right. John had often felt his life was one big adventure, scripted like a film. He should have died a heroic death in the desert, that would make sense, but he managed to mess it up and now there was no script, no plan for him.
He shot himself, decorating the bland walls of his bedsit with his brain and blood. He woke up at six without as much as a migraine.
(29th January 2010) (Take #56)
He woke up at six and sat down by his laptop. He wrote the best account he could remember of the last two months. Or just one day, depending on how one looked at it. This time his therapist was even less pleased with the contents of his entry.
"John, do you honestly believe this is literally true?"
He snorted.
"I probably shouldn't tell you this, should I?"
"On the contrary, that's exactly the kind of thing you should be telling me about, John. It is rather serious; it is a sign you're not coping well at all. I had thought you might be experiencing some post traumatic stress, but perhaps you are not adapting to civilian life as well as I'd thought.”
Her notes were barely visible on her knee- 'Civilian life seems dull- idea of repetitive day a manifestation of fears? Fears that this situation is all will ever experience again...depression and hallucinations?'
He looked away. She asked questions and he talked, for the first time since they'd started meeting, actually letting out all that he thought and felt. He left hours later with a prescription for stronger medication. The whole journey home, he wondered if it was just in his head. How could he know the lottery numbers; how did he know who he would meet if he went to walk around the park right now, and whom he would have met if he had gone two hours earlier? He wondered if he was making it all up to justify his insanity.
He woke up the next morning and he though he might be indeed insane, the prescription from his therapist was not on his bedside table, and he was not going through this whole story just to get it again.
(29th January 2010) (Take #64)
"John! John Watson!"
John turned, affecting bemused puzzlement.
"Mike, Mike Stamford, we were in Bart's together."
"No, I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else."
"Oh."
(29th January 2010) (Take #68)
John didn't walk through the park at all.
(29th January 2010) (Take #72)
He ignored Mike altogether.
(29th January 2010) (Take #75)
He answered all Mike’s questions in a dialect he'd learned in Afghanistan, with a healthy dose of swearing peppered in.
(29th January 2010) (Take #84)
John began writing the story of a man trapped in a repeating day. He was almost pleased with the results, till he realised that he'd need to start all over again tomorrow. That thought sapped his enthusiasm completely.
It was a shame, he had been going to call it 'The Steady Case of the Endless Days'.
(29th January 2010) (Take #89)
When John introduced himself first, and said he didn't want to talk about himself too much, they actually had a conversation and he began to hear about Mike's life.
(29th January 2010) (Take #98)
When it began to get boring, once Mike had shared all he would be willing to, John got him drunk. Twice.
When you're getting bored to death, last thing you want for entertainment is your old friend, unable to stand up or to give his address to a taxi driver at the end of an evening.
(29th January 2010) (Take #100)
Once, John told Mike about repeating his days. He had been going to prove it with the information he'd learned from Mike previously, but his friend looked too concerned about him already.
"Forget it, no one ever gets it anyway." he sighed,
"Are you alright, John? Do you need to talk to someone?"
"No, I am not; and do you know why, Mike? Because it's the hundredth time I've lived through this Friday. And I can never stop it. It will go on like this forever. Friday, after Friday, after Friday."
"Well," said Mike, sounding incredibly dubious, "At least it's not Monday."
And John snorted. Sometimes he didn't mind having to share his eternal day with Mike.
(29th January 2010) (Take #129)
John was calm, resigned to another Friday, and finally at peace with it; bored, but at peace. He got up, got ready and went to his therapist's appointment. He admitted to not writing a word of his blog, read her writing upside down and morosely confessed that nothing ever happened to him
He met Mike in the park and feigned polite surprise, because it was the easiest option. Mike insisted on getting them both coffee and John pointed him in the direction of the best coffee shop in the vicinity, because they'd drunk that coffee a dozen times. It was all by now such routine it barely got any honest reaction from John, even the mention of the war failed to surprise him and push him into a swirl of unwelcome memories.
He sat awkwardly, his hand cramping and his brain going stir-crazy at the thought of hearing Mike's 'How I Met My Wife' story again.
"So what about you then?" Mike asked, "Just staying in town until you get yourself sorted?"
"Can't afford London on an army pension," John snapped, unwilling to get into it, though he barely remembered it was a problem.
He was faced with his cheap accommodations every day, but he hadn't paid the rent in months. Mike did not take the hint and change the subject.
"Then, I don't know, can't you get a flat-share or something?"
John actually laughed at that.
"Seriously, who'd want me for a flatmate?"
Mike laughed too. John glanced at him, confused.
"What?"
"You're the second person who's said that to me today."
Mike now had John's full attention, because that... that was new.
*
Mike’s vague warnings that the bloke might be viewed as a little bit eccentric didn't discourage him at all, because John was fascinated. He hadn't met anyone new in weeks, even amongst the people he walked past on the street or sat next to on the tube. After a month of small talk with strangers, an eccentric sounded like an absolute treat.
Mike knocked on one of the lab doors and they entered without waiting for an invitation. The lab was interesting and exciting after only visiting the very same places for so long; it awoke the old memories of his time at university. He felt as if he really should regret leaving it, but despite everything he really couldn't. If he'd stayed at Bart's, the days would've soon become as dull and oppressive as they were now.
"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine,"
Only when the man spoke did John remember he was there, and his attention snapped to take in his lean form.
Handsome, he thought, but needs to eat more, he added; a second later he shook his head, reminding himself that he didn't care.
"What's wrong with the landline?" responded Mike, in a long-suffering tone- obviously used to the man's requests and orders by now.
"I prefer to text,"
"Sorry," replied Mike, sounding only vaguely so, “It's in my coat."
John shrugged. Since this Friday had began, he'd helped more old ladies across the street than he could count, lent his phone to at least four frantic people, given directions to a driver (once good and once bad, just in case he shouldn't get to his destination) and even helped a girl get her kitten from the tree. You could never knew what would kick off the day in the right direction. (Thankfully it didn't seem to be the kitten, which would have been really embarrassing.)
"Here, use mine."
"Oh," the man seemed surprised, but smiled nonetheless, glancing at Mike as if questioning who exactly John was and what was he doing here. "Thank you."
"It's an old friend of mine, John Watson," explained Mike as the man strode to John, taking his phone and sliding it open with more ease than John ever managed, despite having owned it for months.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he asked, and Mike smiled as if his plan finally started working. John knew that smile- it was the one Mike had worn the day he managed to trick John into writing an essay for a deadline which, he later revealed, was a month away, rather than the day he'd previously claimed.
"Sorry?"
"Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?"
John glanced at Mike and the stranger, wondering what exactly was going on and why after weeks of stagnation, everything new seemed happening at the speed of light?
"Afghanistan, sorry, how did you..."
"Ah, Molly!”
How did this man know about him? Maybe... the thought was alarming, but maybe this man knew John. The people on tube didn't know him, but he knew them by now. Perhaps this man had met John before; perhaps, though over a hundred Fridays, this was first one in which he came into this lab, for this man it was the hundredth one for this man. John shook his head, this was were the madness lie.
"How do you feel about violin?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I play the violin when I'm thinking, sometimes I don't talk for the days on. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."
"You told him about me?"
"Not a word!" assured Mike; John could tell he was barely stopping himself from cackling madly. This was payback, thought John vaguely, for all the pranks he pulled on Mike through when they shared a flat in third year. And fine, fine, perhaps the eyebrow shaving incident had been totally uncalled for, but getting revenge after so many years was even more so.
"Then who said anything about flat-mates?" he demanded.
"I did. This morning I told Mike that I must be a difficult man to find a flat-mate for," explained the man, whilst putting his coat on. "Now here he is, just back from lunch with an old friend clearly just from military service in Afghanistan, it was no difficult leap."
His smirk following his statement struck John as more honest that his seemingly casual, polite smiles. John found them arrogant, conceited and mocking smirks - incredibly attractive and perhaps a little bit addictive.
"How did you know about Afghanistan?" he asked, but the man only smiled. 'Hooked,' he seemed to say; John wanted to glare, but couldn't disagree.
"I have my eyes on a nice little place in central London, together we should be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock. Sorry, I’ve got to dash, I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."
Central London? Together? Riding-crop in the mortuary?
The world was spinning fast and going completely utterly mad. John hadn't felt so fascinated and alive in months. Certainly not since he was sent back.
Tomorrow... John thought frantically as the man was leaving. There might not be a tomorrow. He wanted more of this man’s utterly charming presence.
"Is that it?"
"Is that what?"
Dramatic exit now ruined, the annoyance was clear in the man’s voice. John tried hard not to mock this inclination to the theatrical.
"We've just met and we're going to look at a flat."
The man looked around, perhaps just to make it more effective when he locked his pale eyes with John's again.
"Problem?"
Mike was now wearing the look John also knew very well; last time he’d seen it Mike was introducing their friend Clara to John's sister. The bloody amateur cupid. John wasn’t sure if he should laugh or smack him - fair play to him though. Cupid’s arrow had struck fairly damn true.
"We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we're meeting; I don't even know your name."
The man's gaze became intense again and John couldn't have looked away if he tried. John felt like a mouse, frozen in the predatory gaze of a snake, but he really couldn’t seem to mind. He found he could stand straight and his hand wasn’t shaking. He was facing the most fascinating person he’d ever met; he couldn’t look away.
"I know you're an army doctor and you've been recently invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother, but you won't go to him for help even though he's worried about you. You don’t approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly I'm afraid."
John remembered his hand was actually clenched around the handle of a cane, he glanced down in shock and avoided the eye contact for a moment.
"It's enough to be going on, don’t you think?"
"The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221 b Baker Street," he said, and winked at John, who had no other option but stare at him again. "Afternoon!"
It took him few long seconds before he could drag his gaze back to Mike and stare at his smug smile rather dumbly.
"Yeah," Mike said. "He's always like that."
*
"I admit, John, this suggestion of you two sharing a flat was a bit of a joke at first," Mike admitted finally when they were standing near the main exit, saying goodbye, "but to be honest, if you're not completely opposed to the idea, I think you should give it a go. You two could be really good for each other, I think."
Sherlock Holmes was obviously at least half crazy, but he was also the best thing that happened to John in over four months at least, probably more.
"I will think about it," he promised Mike, shaking his hand and thinking of all the promises he’d already made to this man, promises he would never remember.
Coming back home seemed a bit strange. The day had been so intense compared to the previous ones, it seemed like it had started forever ago.
He checked the sent texts.
"If brother has green ladder arrest brother. SH"
It took him two minutes to find Sherlock Holmes' site, Science of Deduction, on his laptop. With the name like that, the possibility of it being someone else was rather small; still, he checked the picture first. The serious, imperious gaze was one and the same.
Five hours later, John gave up. The site, as fascinating as it was, didn't explain how Sherlock knew him, or give him a better understanding of the man.
When he was already warm in his bed, his eyes falling closed and his breath evening out; as his brain slowed, as if sleep slurred his very thoughts, he wondered: Perhaps meeting Sherlock Holmes was supposed to save John's life from an eternity of boredom and frustration.
(30th January 2010) (Saturday)
He dreamed of chasing Sherlock Holmes through the corridors of St Bart's, though it looked more like a gothic mansion than a hospital. Holmes kept suddenly appearing from random corridors, his hair wild and a black cape billowing around him. He said, meaningfully, and cryptically: “If the day repeats again, avoid the water. It will be surrounded by fire and pain.” and ran away again leaving John to follow him.
He woke up to the sun shining through the window. Gradually, hysteric giggles caught up with him. He laughed till tears streamed down his face and he could barely catch another breath.
It was Saturday.
John agreed to move in to a new flat, visited a crime scene and got kidnapped, became Sherlock's assistant, run half across the London, took part in a drug bust, engaged in a mad chase after a cab, shot a man and was utterly head over heels for that brilliant idiot. It was the fastest day he’d ever lived through, barely able to keep up. The speed of it all left him breathless and terrified. But it kept him away from the endless gray boredom he’d been living in.
John couldn’t wait to see another day by this madman's side.
the end