Scotch, the Third (1/1)
Title - Scotch, the Third (1/1)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, John, Mycroft
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - Cleaning up, continued.
Author's Notes - It has been a wild and manic sort of writing time lately... This follows directly from "Scotch."
Thanks to arctacuda. She tries so patiently to get me to stop using comma splices, but I am very stubborn.
Greg Lestrade stood in front of the door of 221 Baker Street and tried to make up his mind whether or not to knock. Once upon a time, this doorway had been the subject of much surveillance, by criminal masterminds, press, police operatives, and most of all, Lestrade considered, by the former inhabitant's all-powerful brother. He was hoping it wasn't still under surveillance so that no one would see him stand on the stoop and dither about knocking on a door that he used to just burst through all the time, confident of the obnoxious version of welcome that was Sherlock Holmes's specialty, of the fact that he was always glad to see him even as he sneered and pretended otherwise.
The truth was, he wasn't sure seeing John Watson was a good idea after all, as the last time he'd burst his way through this door, he'd come with an arrest warrant and a pair of handcuffs and had threatened to arrest John as well. It was not his finest hour and not something he was particularly proud of. He was very grateful that his name had been cleared and his position was safe and he was being considered for a promotion, especially whenever he caught sight of the astonished, no-longer-smug Sally and Anderson. But he wasn't sure he actually deserved to have come out of this as cleanly and effortlessly as he had.
For really the first time, he understood why Sherlock had put such distance between himself and Mycroft. Mycroft had never struck Lestrade as an easy bloke to get along with, but as a brother he had seemed decent enough. A bit critical, possibly, and overbearing, definitely, but concerned about Sherlock's welfare. Lestrade would never have called Mycroft loving, but also thought that it was obvious enough Mycroft did love Sherlock, and Lestrade had frequently thought Sherlock was crueler than was quite necessary when it came to Mycroft. Sherlock was generally crueler than was quite necessary, of course, but Lestrade now understood his point with Mycroft. It was nice to have someone powerful and generous with that power in your corner, but it did make you feel a bit...dirty. Lestrade would have preferred to have come cleanly out of the investigation because he actually was innocent of any misdeeds. He was grateful to Mycroft for the help, but he could see why Sherlock had probably very quickly come to resent it and, with his typical lack of tact or diplomacy, pushed him away.
So Lestrade stood on the doorstep and took a deep breath and hoped Mycroft wasn't watching this display of indecision. The thought he might be preserved on camera in this state made him lift his hand and knock.
It was Mrs. Hudson who opened the door, and Lestrade grinned at her as if this were a perfectly normal visit. "Mrs. Hudson," he practically gushed, to make up for just how abnormal the visit was. "How are you?" He actually took her hands in his and kissed her cheek, and then wondered vaguely if he'd completely lost his mind and, bloody hell, he really hoped this doorway wasn't still under anybody's surveillance.
"Oh, Inspector!" she exclaimed, and gripped his hands tightly enough to pull him into a proper hug.
"Oh," he said in surprise, but the hug was tight and a little desperate and Lestrade immediately felt badly that it had taken him so long to pay a visit to this place.
"It's so good to see you," she told him, sounding sniffly.
"And you," he said, gently. "How are you?" he asked again.
She released him from the hug, sniffling again and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. "Oh, you know. I'm...you know."
"Yeah," he said, and stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to think of more small talk they could make.
"How are you?" she asked, suddenly, as if just remembering her manners.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said, jovially, and rocked a bit on his heels. He knew he looked ridiculous. Aware of the ghosts of cameras past, he closed the front door. "Is John in?"
Mrs. Hudson stared at him. "Oh. You don't know."
For a wild moment, Lestrade actually thought it was possible that John Watson had died, too, and no one had told him. It seemed fitting to him, as believable to him as anything else that had happened over the past crazy month. "Know what?"
"He moved out." Mrs. Hudson's eyes filled with tears. "He couldn't stand it, poor thing."
"Oh," Lestrade realized. "Yes. I can imagine."
"He didn't tell you?"
Lestrade thought he would surely hit the limits of feeling guilty soon, but at the moment it was reaching new heights. Or depths. "I haven't talked to him since..." he admitted, and then confessed, truthfully, by way of excuse, "I didn't know what to say."
"Oh," sighed Mrs. Hudson, her eyes still swimming at him, "none of us do. I can tell you where he is. Let me go get the address. He'd love to see you." She scurried toward her flat.
Lestrade wanted to point out that he still wasn't entirely sure that was the case, given the last time they had seen each other, but Mrs. Hudson was one of those souls who forgave and forgot immediately. It was how, he thought, she had been able to put up with Sherlock for so long. Not just put up with him but genuinely love him. Lestrade suspected if he pointed out that the last time he was there, one of his sergeants had escorted John Watson down those stairs under arrest, Mrs. Hudson would tsk at him and tell him that it was all water under the bridge. It was no use trying to have a serious conversation about the circumstances surrounding Sherlock Holmes's death with Mrs. Hudson.
Mrs. Hudson returned, clutching a piece of paper that she handed across to him. "It was really so good to see you, Inspector. It's been so quiet since..." Mrs. Hudson glanced upstairs, as if the pull of the ghost living up there was too much for her.
"Did he clean it all out?"
"Who?"
"John. Take it with him." Lestrade tried to think of this, Sherlock's scientific equipment, piles of miscellany, violin and skull and dressing gown and experiments, everything picked up and transported to a new place. It didn't seem like something John would do.
Mrs. Hudson confirmed this. "Goodness, no. John doesn't want anything to do with any of it. I've been at a loss, but Mycroft stopped by--Do you know Mycroft? Sherlock's brother?"
Lestrade wanted to say, Yes, apparently I'm his newest drinking buddy, but that seemed too strange for him to utter out loud, so he just inclined his chin politely in affirmation.
"Well, he stopped by. And he's such a nice man, Mycroft. Don't you think he's such a nice man?"
Lestrade thought "nice" was not an adjective he would have used to describe Mycroft, not if you asked him to use a hundred adjectives to describe him. It wasn't that he wasn't nice, but at the same time, it also wasn't that he was nice. Lestrade hmm'd noncommittally.
"Anyway, he stopped by and said I was to keep everything in the flat exactly as is, and he would keep paying the rent."
"Exactly as it is," repeated Lestrade.
"That's what he said."
Lestrade glanced toward the staircase. "Well, that's funny, isn't it?"
"Funny? Why?"
Lestrade looked at her. "He was almost never here while Sherlock was alive. Now he's suddenly getting...what? Sentimental?"
"Well, can you blame him? Really? People get funny when family members die. When my husband died, I ate nothing but brussels sprouts for a full week. Anyway, he's a nice man, and so sad, I don't have the heart not to keep it for him."
Lestrade tipped his head in thought, looking at the staircase. "Do you mind?" he asked.
"Mind what?"
"If I just...say good-bye." He gestured toward the staircase, toward the flat at the top of it.
"Oh. Not at all. Take your time." Mrs. Hudson laid a kind hand on his arm. "It was so good to see you, Inspector. You should stop by once in a while. It's so...quiet here." Lestrade could imagine. She fluttered away, back into her flat.
Lestrade eventually walked up the stairs the way he'd walked up the stairs countless times before and stepped into the flat's lounge. It was dark in the room, and stuffy the way rooms that weren't lived in got. Sherlock's laptop, closed and off, probably permanently, was perched precariously on a tipping pile of yellowing newspapers. John's laptop was nowhere to be seen, and Lestrade realized that of course John had taken it with him, but it seemed strange not to see it in its spot on the desk, open to the blog and waiting for the next entry. Other than the laptop, there was no real indication that anything was missing. Everything was the way Lestrade would have expected it to be. John's stamp on the flat had never been even a quarter of Sherlock's stamp on the place, possessions-wise.
Lestrade walked over to the fireplace, stepping over a neat pile of sheet music crowned with a piece of chalk, stood by the skull on the mantelpiece, surveyed the room, and sighed heavily. He had come up here out of curiosity, because Mycroft's sudden burst of sentimentality seemed odd to him. Then again, Mycroft collecting him for Scotch at a posh gentleman's club was odd. Mrs. Hudson was right. People did strange things when family members died, Lestrade had seen it time and again. So he had come up to this room out of curiosity but he should have avoided it. The muffled decay of the room was unbearable, and Lestrade momentarily felt stuck in it, trapped in the way the place used to be, when it was never still and never quiet and frequently more of everything than any reasonable person would have wanted. It hit him then suddenly, abruptly, as he stood there, in a way that it hadn't before, that he was never going to come into this flat again. He was glad that he had come upstairs after all, that the last time should be this moment of mourning and not the moment when he pulled out his handcuffs.
He lifted his hand and placed his fingertips on the skull on the mantelpiece and said, softly, feeling silly but also feeling like he ought to say it, "I'm sorry."
Then he walked out of the lounge, stood at the top of the stairs, thought about the pile of sheet music he'd stepped over, and walked back into the room. And, though he slid his eyes over every nook and cranny, he could not find Sherlock Holmes's beloved violin.
***
With John's address in his hand and time having been set aside for him to visit John, he had no real excuse not to go visit John. He wanted to have an excuse, but to get an excuse he'd have to call Donovan and that wasn't going to happen. He wasn't sure he and Donovan would ever really reclaim a viable working relationship. She should really put in for a transfer, he thought. He didn't want to have to request the transfer for her, because that felt...not right to him. A bit like punishing her, really. And, magnanimous position he'd taken with Mycroft aside, he knew he'd take too much pleasure in punishing Donovan, and so, as a consequence, he was avoiding giving in to it. In his head, this somehow made him the bigger person.
Well, he considered, as he arrived at John's address. Maybe the problem would go away. Maybe Mycroft would get him promoted. Or have Sally killed.
The building was roughly the same size as Mrs. Hudson's building, and in roughly the same state of benign half-repair. John may have moved out, Lestrade thought, but he hadn't moved very far.
The door was open, and Lestrade stepped in and considered the alcove he was in, looking again at the address Mrs. Hudson had given him. "C," she had written, and he found "C" on a door on the first floor and, taking a deep breath, knocked. Maybe John wouldn't be home, and then he could both assuage his conscience and avoid the inevitable awkwardness of this encounter.
"Who is it?" called John, almost immediately.
Damn, thought Lestrade, and then called back, "It's Greg."
"Oh," came the response, sounding vaguely surprised. "Just a second."
Lestrade heard the deadbolt being thrown and the chain being taken off. It was funny, security was never something John had seemed inclined to worry about when he had been the flatmate of a man surrounded by world-class assassins and criminal masterminds.
"Hi," said Lestrade, when John opened the door, and he even gave a little wave, because he apparently behaved like an idiot now.
"Hi," said John, in a tone Lestrade couldn't read. "Come in, come in." He opened the door wider.
"Are you sure?" asked Lestrade. "I don't want to interrupt if you're busy--"
"I'm not busy," John replied, firmly, and he sounded almost like he found the idea of being busy laughable. "Please. Come in."
Lestrade stepped through the doorway and found himself in a small kitchen that was open to a small lounge that had the bare minimum of furniture. The walls were a clinical white that were harsh and begging to be covered with something: wallpaper, pictures, anything. But John had put nothing up on them. The only thing that seemed even the slightest bit John-Watson about this flat was the laptop on the kitchen counter, except that was closed instead of open and whirring expectantly. Lestrade supposed it was possible that this spartan look was John's taste and he had just put up with the chaotic clutter of Sherlock all around him, but it was a little like walking into a marble tomb. He was scared his voice would echo when he spoke. "This is nice," he said, because he couldn't very well say it was awful, and his voice didn't echo.
"Thank you," said John, closing the door behind him. "Uh." He looked at Lestrade, his brow furrowed a bit, and Lestrade still couldn't quite read his expression. "How'd you know I was here?"
Lestrade wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake coming here. "Oh. Mrs. Hudson. Gave me the address. I hope you don't mind?"
"No, not at all. Not at all. Come in. Sit down. Would you like something to drink?"
Lestrade, at the invitation, had wandered into the lounge and was regarding the one sorry-looking sofa that represented the only seating in the room. "No," he said. "I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"I'm fine." Lestrade sat on the sofa and John came out of the kitchen, paused, and then pulled over a stool by the breakfast bar and sat opposite him, which Lestrade thought was a better conversational stance than sitting next to him on the sofa.
"So," said John, immediately, "how are things?"
John clearly wanted to lead the conversation and it was probably to Lestrade's advantage to let him do it. "Oh. You know. It's all been fairly typical, it's all been..." Lestrade trailed off, for the first time truly thinking about what he'd spent the past six weeks doing. Nothing, really. He'd spent the past six weeks doing nothing. "It's all been fairly dull, really," he admitted.
John laughed, the sort of laugh that was closer to a sob. "It has been, hasn't it?"
There was something cathartic about that sad little laugh, like it broke the tension in the room just enough for Lestrade to breathe. John Watson was sad, but he was holding it together, and that was encouraging. And he hadn't opened the conversation with well-deserved accusations. "A bit," said Lestrade. He glanced around the flat and tried to come up with something positive to say about it. "It's a nice location, isn't it? Nice street, I mean. Quiet. Seems like."
John laughed again, that same sort of desperate laugh. "Quiet," he said. "Yes." He looked around the flat. "It's so...quiet."
Ah, thought Lestrade. Of course. Oops. Lestrade cleared his throat. "John, I'm--"
"Don't." He cut him off and closed his eyes briefly. "Don't tell me you're sorry for my loss."
"I wasn't going to say that," said Lestrade, honestly. "I was going to say that I'm sorry for--"
"Don't bother with that, either. It doesn't matter."
"It does matter."
"It did matter, Greg. It's over with now." There was a brittleness to his tone and a sharpness to his gaze that made Lestrade fight to keep from squirming. I am being magnanimous and forgiving you, was what John Watson was saying, but I am not going to forget it.
Sometimes, thought Lestrade, it was better not to be forgiven for things. "John, I didn't mean to--"
John cut him off again with a sound of disgust. "Of course you didn't mean it. You and Mycroft both."
"Mycroft?" echoed Lestrade. "What does he have to do with it?"
John spoke as if he hadn't heard him. "You didn't mean it. You didn't intend it. You didn't imagine how it was all going to end up. Of course you didn't. Who does? I've caught criminals with you, Greg." He smiled across at him sardonically, without warmth. "Isn't that what they all say? 'I didn't mean it, Inspector, I don't know what happened.'"
Lestrade was startled into a chuckle. Not because anything was amusing, but because, well, it was all so very absurd. "You're right. They do say that." He felt ridiculous. And exhausted. He scrubbed his hands over his face and leaned back on John Watson's pathetic sofa. "I hadn't made that connection. I'm sorry I came in here telling you I didn't mean it."
John sighed, and Lestrade could visibly see the fight go out of him, too, a bit of a slump to the way he was sitting on the stool. "No. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know you didn't mean it. Of course you didn't. None of us saw it coming." He paused. "Although you could have been a little bit nicer when you were arresting us."
"I didn't arrest you," Lestrade pointed out.
"You threatened to," John replied, evenly, eyes on him.
"I threatened to. Yes. I am sorry, it was a strange night, it was--"
John cut off his apology, shaking his head. "The Commissioner walked in behind you, Greg, I figured out pretty quickly that things were out of your hands and over your head. I imagine you're in worlds of trouble over this whole thing?"
"No, actually. I have a benefactor, apparently."
"A benefactor?"
"Mycroft."
John rolled his eyes a bit. "Oh, God, Mycroft is everywhere these days. You can't walk out the door without tripping over Mycroft."
"Taking it hard?" suggested Lestrade.
"Who knows?"
"Mrs. Hudson said he's having the flat preserved as is."
"Yes. He thinks I'm going to come to my senses in a few weeks and want all that stuff. As if I ever would. Can you imagine? Picking up all of Sherlock's stuff and putting it somewhere? It would be bad enough for me to put it in storage, to close a door on it and have it sit in darkness and damp and dust. But it would be worse to live with it, to have it around me constantly, as if he'd just popped out for a second, I'd always be waiting for..." John took a shuddering breath. "But I can't sell it, either. I wouldn't even know what half of it is to sell, and I would just spend the whole time wishing he was there for me to ask, because I never asked when I could have asked, and, bloody hell, Greg, I don't want anything to do with any of it. I wish Mycroft would just...I don't know. Go away."
"Does he keep bothering you?"
"No. Not really. I'm being unfair. I've only seen him once. He sends notes. Normal notes. I mean, as normal as Mycroft gets. Delivered by courier, but at least they're not sealed with wax and sewn into my pillowcase or something absurd like that."
Lestrade couldn't help but smile. "Notes about what?"
"Loose ends from the blog business and stuff like that. It isn't his fault, but I feel like I'd rather make a clean break, you know? Not deal with it, not think about it anymore."
"I can play intermediary if you'd like."
John looked at him curiously. "Do you know Mycroft?"
"Do you think anybody knows Mycroft?"
"Fair enough. No, it's no trouble, I'll deal with it. I'm being snappish today, sorry. I have been a terrible host. Seriously, are you sure I can't get you anything?"
He didn't know why, at that moment, the careful dam he'd built up broke, but it did. Maybe it was this place, breathing in the sorrow of this flat, maybe it just tapped away at you. But he'd been telling himself not to think about the past, about the tiny insignificant moments that made up, in the end, a friendship. In six weeks, he had tried not to think of Sherlock Holmes, and he didn't think of him now, but he thought of John at the Christmas Eve gathering he'd thrown, giddy as he offered drinks and nibbles. John, who had walked into Sherlock's life and somehow taken the disparate people in Sherlock's orbit and tugged them tightly into a makeshift family. Come over for Christmas Eve, John had said, I think we'll start a tradition of it, an annual gathering. At the time, Lestrade had been, as they all had been, in a good mood. It had seemed like a bright time, life stretching before them, all of them allied in a strange, frustrating dedication to the impossible genius they shared. Lots of Christmases where Sherlock would make terrible remarks and the rest of them would be irritated with him and it had been something fun to be a part of, fun because of John, and now, in six weeks, with the star at their orbit gone, they'd all been cast adrift, going through motions. "No," he said, surprised at how sad he sounded when he said it, at how sad he was, suddenly. "I'm really fine."
John seemed to sense the shift in his mood. "How did you meet him?" he asked, abruptly.
"Sherlock?" Lestrade clarified. It was not a question John had ever asked him before.
John nodded shortly.
Six weeks of not thinking about Sherlock Holmes. Lestrade thought of him now, the way he had been when they'd first met, when Lestrade had had no inkling of any of the astonishing things that were to come. "Let's just say the last time I arrested him was not the first time I arrested him."
"Drugs?" John guessed. "That's how you knew..."
"Drugs, yes." Lestrade thought back. He hadn't thought of it in forever. It had been a long time since he had seen in Sherlock Holmes the desperate kid he had first met. "But not like other drug addicts. He was an absolute mess, completely out of it, until he overheard two of my constables discussing a murder case we'd just picked up, and suddenly he was demanding to speak to me and spouting forth theories. I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying, I just thought it was the strangest acid trip I'd ever seen anybody have, and then he turned out to be right. When I figured out he was right, I had to track him down. He'd been released and sent to some sort of fancy rehab clinic--"
"Mycroft," John guessed.
"Had to be. Anyway, he was clean and he was clever and he said something like, 'Of course I was right, Inspector, you're an idiot.'"
"Of course he said that."
"And even though he was the most annoying person I'd ever met, I thought I could be annoying right back and that I'd make a deal with him."
"If he stayed clean, you'd ask him for help every once in a while."
"Yeah. And then 'every once in a while' turned into..." He hadn't thought of this, either. Really ever before. When had every once in a while turned into him dropping by just to chat sometimes? "In the beginning I thought I was helping the kid out." And he had. And then... "But I think I started coming to see him just because I was...bored. And he was never boring. He was...He was..." Infuriating. Maddening. Brilliant. Anything but boring.
"I know," said John, softly. "He was."
Lestrade thought of it all, really let himself think of it all, of everything that had happened since he had known Sherlock Holmes. He thought of nights in Sherlock's flat, before he'd met John, being subjected to rounds of verbal abuse but waiting with bated breath for the moment when Sherlock would make the breakthrough and they would be off and running. He said, slowly, letting himself recognize it, letting it sink in, "I will never be as exasperated in my future as he used to make me. But I'll probably never find what I do as exhilarating as he used to make it feel for me." He heard Sally's voice, long ago when he had first started to go down the path of pulling Sherlock in to help, warning him that Sherlock enjoyed it too much, that there was something indecent about his delight in the crimes. Lestrade had dismissed it, but maybe he had dismissed it because he had been more like Sherlock in that way than he'd wanted Sally to know. He had really never thought of that before, but maybe that was how he'd ended up quasi-friends with an impossible man to begin with: because somewhere, below the artificial level where he was well-socialized and mannered and polite and civilized, on the more primal level where it really mattered, he had recognized a kindred spirit. What other reason could there be for persisting in being near such a prickly human being?
John spoke, interrupting his reverie, and Lestrade half-jumped, having forgotten there was anyone else in the room. "It was the plus side of being his friend. He was, most of the time, an unbearable wanker. But you got some reflected glory to go along with that. He was...so much bigger than life that he made you feel like your life wasn't small anymore."
John looked as lost in his own world as Lestrade had just been. "Yeah," Lestrade agreed, and then, "Listen, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." John, his eyes clearer, met Lestrade's and smiled. "I mean, I will be. I promise. Are you?"
Lestrade smiled back. "We need to go out for a couple of pints, you and I."
"We should, yes."
"We can trade our most annoying stories about him. It'll make you feel better."
"You think?"
"No?"
"Possibly not. Or, at least, not yet. You know, he used to play his bloody violin in the middle of the night. I hated that. I yelled at him about it a million times. He never took any notice of me, just kept playing it at two a.m. Now I lay in bed and wish someone would start playing the violin at two o'clock in the morning."
The violin. Lestrade smiled a bit, because he knew he was supposed to, but his mind was other places. "Did you take his violin?"
"Sherlock's violin? No, I didn't take anything out of the flat."
"I went in today, the violin's not there."
"No, Mycroft took it."
"The violin?" Lestrade said, in surprise.
John nodded.
"What else did he take?"
"Nothing. Said he didn't want anything else. He just took the violin. Why? You don't play, do you?"
"No, no, I was just...I knew it was valuable and when I didn't see it in the flat I was concerned. You know."
"Ah. No need to be concerned. It's in good hands."
"Does Mycroft play the violin?"
John considered. "Not that I know of. I don't think so. Sherlock said once that Mycroft didn't know how to make anything so beautiful as music, or something like that. It sounded better when Sherlock said it."
"So why did Mycroft want the violin, if he doesn't play the violin?"
John was starting to look irritated, a look Lestrade recognized. He was Interrogating. His wife--former? Ex? Once and maybe future?--had used to accuse him of it all the time, had used to get the same look. "I don't know, to remember his brother by, is that so strange?"
Lestrade decided to let it drop. "No. Not at all." He wanted to go on. Plus, you mentioned Mycroft before. Mycroft and me, lumped together in the things we didn't mean to do. And Mycroft thinks you blame him for it all... But he sensed he had reached the end of John's tolerance of that. Maybe his tolerance of this whole conversation. Lestrade stood up. "Anyway, we should go out for a couple of pints. And talk about football. And I mean that." He was worried that it sounded like a platitude, like something he might say and then never actually do. But he was half-worried about John in the wake of this whole thing, and half-worried about himself. He had genuinely enjoyed being friends with John when Sherlock was alive, why shouldn't it survive Sherlock's death?
"That we should do," John agreed, fervently, following him to the door. "And you could, you know, call me."
Lestrade looked at him, uncomprehending. John was fidgeting with the cuff of his shirt, not looking at him. What was he talking about? About going out? Hadn't Lestrade just said that? "Yeah, I'll do that."
"Not about going to a pub, I mean, if you, you know, need any help." John looked up at him. "With a case, say. Or anything like that," he rushed out.
Oh. Lestrade decided he was very much off-kilter, if it had taken him so long to figure that out. And really, he should have offered it before. Yes, he'd just gotten reprimanded for bringing in civilians on official police business, but to hell with that. He liked working with John, it would be nice to have the prospect of calling him in on particularly interesting things, puzzle them out, try to think the way Sherlock would have thought had he been there. "Yes. I will. Definitely."
"Good." John smiled, and Lestrade thought he looked much better, and he resolved to call him with the next even vaguely interesting case he got, anything he got that wasn't open-and-shut. "Thanks for coming by. It was nice to see you." John opened the door.
Lestrade stepped through it, then turned back abruptly, because the words were suddenly a press inside him that he felt he had to get out, that he wouldn't be able to sleep until he did. "John--"
John sensed something was coming. "Greg, you don't have to--"
"No, I have to get this out, just let me." He tried to gather the threads of his thoughts, making sure that when he spoke, he spoke firmly. "I'm sorry. Maybe it wasn't my fault, and it's true that I had no idea the extent of what seems to have been going on, but he was my friend, and I should have believed in him more. In fact, I did believe in him, but I let everyone else shout me down, I let them, and I should never have done it. I should have told them that if they were suspicious, they could come to arrest him without me."
"You did what you had to d--"
"No, I didn't." Which was the truth. "I should have told them no. He was my friend, and he deserved better than that. He was in trouble, and he couldn't come to me about it, and I'm sorry. I can't apologize to him, so I'm apologizing to you instead."
John looked at him for a second. He was back to being unreadable, his eyes shuttered and closed off. He said, finally, "He did like you, you know. Whenever we had to work with other Dis, he said you were brilliant in comparison. And that was high praise from Sherlock Holmes. He liked you."
"I know," Lestrade admitted, thickly, because he always had, underneath all the insults and snide remarks. "That's what makes what I did worse."
***
Lestrade left John's apartment feeling marginally better and thought maybe it had done him good to get all that out of his system. He returned to work, but nothing interesting was going on and he could not focus on it. Sally was being as annoying as she could possibly be and he wanted to ask her if she thought the best way to make up their Sherlockian fight was to behave as irritatingly as Sherlock ever could be. Because he didn't think it wise to ask her that, he slammed his office door shut in her face instead. She didn't take too kindly to that, but he was secure in his knowledge that it was better than the alternative. The things he wished to shout at Sally were best not shouted in front of the entire office. Although maybe he should get that out of his system as well.
At any rate, Lestrade found himself standing in his office looking at files that were the cases he was supposed to be working on and thinking about Sherlock Holmes's violin.
Sod this, he decided, and went home. Maybe he just needed to sleep; he hadn't been sleeping well.
Home was worse, because home, since he had moved out, was a flat as equally depressing as John's. Maybe he and John should be flatmates. The idea almost made him laugh hysterically, alone in his flat, and because it was possible he was going insane, he decided at that moment that what he was going to do was go see Mycroft Holmes and ask him about the bloody violin.
In a great temper arising mostly out of the frustration of not being able to sleep when he wanted to sleep and all because Mycroft had taken his brother's violin and who cared about that, only detective inspectors who had lost their minds, he drove to the club where Mycroft had taken him for a Scotch. There was little chance it would be open at this hour, but, what the hell, he had nothing better to do.
He parked the police car illegally, because it was one of the perks of his station to get to do so, jogged up the front steps of the imposing building, and was surprised to find that the door opened easily when he turned the knob. Inside, the lights were turned low and the fires were banked but there were a few men still sitting silently. They didn't even look up when he came in. This was the most uncurious place he'd ever been. Which also made it the most curious place he'd ever been.
He walked to the Talking Room Mycroft had taken him to the previous time and considered how he was going to fetch Mycroft if he couldn't talk to anyone there. He was saved by a well-dressed man walking in and asking politely, with a brief disapproving glance toward the jeans he was wearing, "Can I help you, sir?"
"Yeah, is Mr. Holmes here?"
"Who shall I say is calling?"
"Tell him Inspector Lestrade."
The man inclined his head marginally and left the room. Lestrade supposed this was confirmation Mycroft was there, so he turned on the lights and helped himself to the Scotch. He didn't even bother to look up from his pouring when he heard Mycroft walk in.
"Inspector," he said. "This is a surprise."
Lestrade glanced at him. He was as impeccably dressed as he always was, and one would never have known it was, frankly, the middle of the night. Lestrade handed him a Scotch, which he took with mild interest, and then said, "Do you live here?"
Mycroft looked surprised. "What would make you think that?"
"It's the middle of the night."
"It's the middle of the night and you're here. Do you live here?"
"That's very funny, ha ha," said Lestrade, because he wasn't really in the mood. He sat down and said to Mycroft, "Have a seat."
"How gracious of you," remarked Mycroft, dryly, and sat. "How did you even get here?"
"I drove."
"But how did you know where it was?"
Lestrade looked at him in disbelief. "You took me here. I paid attention. I'm not a complete idiot."
Mycroft seemed to allow that possibility with a ghost of a shrug and sipped his Scotch. "You left your wife," he said.
"How do you know that? Are you having me followed?"
Mycroft looked annoyed. "I'm not having you followed. As if I haven't better things to do than have you followed. And as if you, Detective Inspector, shouldn't be able to know if you're being followed."
"I'm not sure I'd know if I were being followed by one of you lot."
"We're not as good as I would like us to be."
"Just exactly who are 'you lot'?"
Mycroft smiled without warmth and said, "We're better than that, though. Is there a reason you're here, Inspector?"
"I went to see John."
"Oh. As you said before, 'That explains the Scotch then.'"
"You're preserving everything in Sherlock's flat. Just the way it is."
"John might want it someday."
"Just the way it is. You could have it packed up, put in storage, it would still be there if John wanted it."
"That would take effort, Inspector."
"It would be cheaper for you, though."
"At the risk of being uncouth, I should ask you: Do you think cost is something I'm especially concerned with?"
Lestrade mirrored Mycroft's cold smile. "Do you play any musical instruments?"
Mycroft seemed not to expect that question. He paused, looking at Lestrade assessingly, cautiously, clearly trying to discern the purpose behind the question. "Why?"
"Just curious. Sherlock was a beautiful violinist."
"He was, yes." Mycroft spoke carefully, eyes sharp on Lestrade. "But no, I don't play anything. Music was his talent, not mine."
"Your parents didn't make you take anything?"
"No. This is a delightful conversation. What about you? Did you take any musical instruments?"
"No, I played chess," said Lestrade, and smiled sweetly at Mycroft's narrowed eyes. "You see, the reason I ask all this."
"I can't wait to hear," drawled Mycroft.
"You took Sherlock's violin."
"I did, yes."
"Why?"
"Why shouldn't I? I bought it for him, so I suppose it was technically mine, anyway."
Lestrade hadn't expected this. "You bought it for him?"
"Of course. He was only a boy still, when his musical talent became apparent. His teacher told me I ought to get him an instrument worthy of his playing."
"So you got him a Stradivarius."
Mycroft shrugged.
"Because it was the best," Lestrade reasoned, "and he was your little brother, so you bought him the best. But why were you buying it for him? He was just a boy, but you're not that much older than him. Wouldn't your parents--oh. Your parents were dead. Weren't they?"
"If you'd like to interrogate me, Inspector, feel free to come back with a warrant," said Mycroft, coolly.
"So you took the violin. Out of sentiment? That's nice. Sweet. Touching."
"Inspector," said Mycroft, his voice trailing off into a warning.
Lestrade heard the warning. It was the first time in the conversation he'd truly stepped over Mycroft's line. He hadn't enjoyed the conversation, but he hadn't put threat into it until that moment. Mockery of why he took the violin. Why? Because he truly had taken it out of sentiment and he was embarrassed? Or because he didn't want Lestrade getting any nearer to why he'd taken the violin. Lestrade completely changed the subject. "What is it with your family and first names?"
Mycroft regarded him suspiciously. "They're old family names."
"No, I don't mean your names, I mean other people's names. I was, when all is said and done, one of your brother's few friends, and he never once called me anything but 'Inspector'. He didn't even know my first name."
"It's Gregory," said Mycroft.
Lestrade lifted his glass in a mock toast. "Very good."
"And my brother didn't really have 'friends'--"
"You know, you say that a lot. All the time, really. To lots of people. Anyone who will listen. You said it to me the first time we met. 'My brother doesn't have friends, Inspector, so I must resort to paying people to associate with him.' That's what you said. You know what I think?"
"I am not especially interested in what you think," said Mycroft.
"You're so determined to believe Sherlock had no friends because you have no friends, and you couldn't bear to think of him beating you in that respect."
"I'm confused," said Mycroft, icily. "Are you a policeman, or a psychotherapist?"
Lestrade stood up, put down the Scotch he'd not really touched, and grinned at Mycroft. "You'd be surprised. Most of the time, they're kind of the same thing. Good night, Mycroft."
"Have a pleasant evening, Inspector," he heard Mycroft say in response, as he walked out of the room.
Next
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, John, Mycroft
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - Cleaning up, continued.
Author's Notes - It has been a wild and manic sort of writing time lately... This follows directly from "Scotch."
Thanks to arctacuda. She tries so patiently to get me to stop using comma splices, but I am very stubborn.
Greg Lestrade stood in front of the door of 221 Baker Street and tried to make up his mind whether or not to knock. Once upon a time, this doorway had been the subject of much surveillance, by criminal masterminds, press, police operatives, and most of all, Lestrade considered, by the former inhabitant's all-powerful brother. He was hoping it wasn't still under surveillance so that no one would see him stand on the stoop and dither about knocking on a door that he used to just burst through all the time, confident of the obnoxious version of welcome that was Sherlock Holmes's specialty, of the fact that he was always glad to see him even as he sneered and pretended otherwise.
The truth was, he wasn't sure seeing John Watson was a good idea after all, as the last time he'd burst his way through this door, he'd come with an arrest warrant and a pair of handcuffs and had threatened to arrest John as well. It was not his finest hour and not something he was particularly proud of. He was very grateful that his name had been cleared and his position was safe and he was being considered for a promotion, especially whenever he caught sight of the astonished, no-longer-smug Sally and Anderson. But he wasn't sure he actually deserved to have come out of this as cleanly and effortlessly as he had.
For really the first time, he understood why Sherlock had put such distance between himself and Mycroft. Mycroft had never struck Lestrade as an easy bloke to get along with, but as a brother he had seemed decent enough. A bit critical, possibly, and overbearing, definitely, but concerned about Sherlock's welfare. Lestrade would never have called Mycroft loving, but also thought that it was obvious enough Mycroft did love Sherlock, and Lestrade had frequently thought Sherlock was crueler than was quite necessary when it came to Mycroft. Sherlock was generally crueler than was quite necessary, of course, but Lestrade now understood his point with Mycroft. It was nice to have someone powerful and generous with that power in your corner, but it did make you feel a bit...dirty. Lestrade would have preferred to have come cleanly out of the investigation because he actually was innocent of any misdeeds. He was grateful to Mycroft for the help, but he could see why Sherlock had probably very quickly come to resent it and, with his typical lack of tact or diplomacy, pushed him away.
So Lestrade stood on the doorstep and took a deep breath and hoped Mycroft wasn't watching this display of indecision. The thought he might be preserved on camera in this state made him lift his hand and knock.
It was Mrs. Hudson who opened the door, and Lestrade grinned at her as if this were a perfectly normal visit. "Mrs. Hudson," he practically gushed, to make up for just how abnormal the visit was. "How are you?" He actually took her hands in his and kissed her cheek, and then wondered vaguely if he'd completely lost his mind and, bloody hell, he really hoped this doorway wasn't still under anybody's surveillance.
"Oh, Inspector!" she exclaimed, and gripped his hands tightly enough to pull him into a proper hug.
"Oh," he said in surprise, but the hug was tight and a little desperate and Lestrade immediately felt badly that it had taken him so long to pay a visit to this place.
"It's so good to see you," she told him, sounding sniffly.
"And you," he said, gently. "How are you?" he asked again.
She released him from the hug, sniffling again and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. "Oh, you know. I'm...you know."
"Yeah," he said, and stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to think of more small talk they could make.
"How are you?" she asked, suddenly, as if just remembering her manners.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said, jovially, and rocked a bit on his heels. He knew he looked ridiculous. Aware of the ghosts of cameras past, he closed the front door. "Is John in?"
Mrs. Hudson stared at him. "Oh. You don't know."
For a wild moment, Lestrade actually thought it was possible that John Watson had died, too, and no one had told him. It seemed fitting to him, as believable to him as anything else that had happened over the past crazy month. "Know what?"
"He moved out." Mrs. Hudson's eyes filled with tears. "He couldn't stand it, poor thing."
"Oh," Lestrade realized. "Yes. I can imagine."
"He didn't tell you?"
Lestrade thought he would surely hit the limits of feeling guilty soon, but at the moment it was reaching new heights. Or depths. "I haven't talked to him since..." he admitted, and then confessed, truthfully, by way of excuse, "I didn't know what to say."
"Oh," sighed Mrs. Hudson, her eyes still swimming at him, "none of us do. I can tell you where he is. Let me go get the address. He'd love to see you." She scurried toward her flat.
Lestrade wanted to point out that he still wasn't entirely sure that was the case, given the last time they had seen each other, but Mrs. Hudson was one of those souls who forgave and forgot immediately. It was how, he thought, she had been able to put up with Sherlock for so long. Not just put up with him but genuinely love him. Lestrade suspected if he pointed out that the last time he was there, one of his sergeants had escorted John Watson down those stairs under arrest, Mrs. Hudson would tsk at him and tell him that it was all water under the bridge. It was no use trying to have a serious conversation about the circumstances surrounding Sherlock Holmes's death with Mrs. Hudson.
Mrs. Hudson returned, clutching a piece of paper that she handed across to him. "It was really so good to see you, Inspector. It's been so quiet since..." Mrs. Hudson glanced upstairs, as if the pull of the ghost living up there was too much for her.
"Did he clean it all out?"
"Who?"
"John. Take it with him." Lestrade tried to think of this, Sherlock's scientific equipment, piles of miscellany, violin and skull and dressing gown and experiments, everything picked up and transported to a new place. It didn't seem like something John would do.
Mrs. Hudson confirmed this. "Goodness, no. John doesn't want anything to do with any of it. I've been at a loss, but Mycroft stopped by--Do you know Mycroft? Sherlock's brother?"
Lestrade wanted to say, Yes, apparently I'm his newest drinking buddy, but that seemed too strange for him to utter out loud, so he just inclined his chin politely in affirmation.
"Well, he stopped by. And he's such a nice man, Mycroft. Don't you think he's such a nice man?"
Lestrade thought "nice" was not an adjective he would have used to describe Mycroft, not if you asked him to use a hundred adjectives to describe him. It wasn't that he wasn't nice, but at the same time, it also wasn't that he was nice. Lestrade hmm'd noncommittally.
"Anyway, he stopped by and said I was to keep everything in the flat exactly as is, and he would keep paying the rent."
"Exactly as it is," repeated Lestrade.
"That's what he said."
Lestrade glanced toward the staircase. "Well, that's funny, isn't it?"
"Funny? Why?"
Lestrade looked at her. "He was almost never here while Sherlock was alive. Now he's suddenly getting...what? Sentimental?"
"Well, can you blame him? Really? People get funny when family members die. When my husband died, I ate nothing but brussels sprouts for a full week. Anyway, he's a nice man, and so sad, I don't have the heart not to keep it for him."
Lestrade tipped his head in thought, looking at the staircase. "Do you mind?" he asked.
"Mind what?"
"If I just...say good-bye." He gestured toward the staircase, toward the flat at the top of it.
"Oh. Not at all. Take your time." Mrs. Hudson laid a kind hand on his arm. "It was so good to see you, Inspector. You should stop by once in a while. It's so...quiet here." Lestrade could imagine. She fluttered away, back into her flat.
Lestrade eventually walked up the stairs the way he'd walked up the stairs countless times before and stepped into the flat's lounge. It was dark in the room, and stuffy the way rooms that weren't lived in got. Sherlock's laptop, closed and off, probably permanently, was perched precariously on a tipping pile of yellowing newspapers. John's laptop was nowhere to be seen, and Lestrade realized that of course John had taken it with him, but it seemed strange not to see it in its spot on the desk, open to the blog and waiting for the next entry. Other than the laptop, there was no real indication that anything was missing. Everything was the way Lestrade would have expected it to be. John's stamp on the flat had never been even a quarter of Sherlock's stamp on the place, possessions-wise.
Lestrade walked over to the fireplace, stepping over a neat pile of sheet music crowned with a piece of chalk, stood by the skull on the mantelpiece, surveyed the room, and sighed heavily. He had come up here out of curiosity, because Mycroft's sudden burst of sentimentality seemed odd to him. Then again, Mycroft collecting him for Scotch at a posh gentleman's club was odd. Mrs. Hudson was right. People did strange things when family members died, Lestrade had seen it time and again. So he had come up to this room out of curiosity but he should have avoided it. The muffled decay of the room was unbearable, and Lestrade momentarily felt stuck in it, trapped in the way the place used to be, when it was never still and never quiet and frequently more of everything than any reasonable person would have wanted. It hit him then suddenly, abruptly, as he stood there, in a way that it hadn't before, that he was never going to come into this flat again. He was glad that he had come upstairs after all, that the last time should be this moment of mourning and not the moment when he pulled out his handcuffs.
He lifted his hand and placed his fingertips on the skull on the mantelpiece and said, softly, feeling silly but also feeling like he ought to say it, "I'm sorry."
Then he walked out of the lounge, stood at the top of the stairs, thought about the pile of sheet music he'd stepped over, and walked back into the room. And, though he slid his eyes over every nook and cranny, he could not find Sherlock Holmes's beloved violin.
***
With John's address in his hand and time having been set aside for him to visit John, he had no real excuse not to go visit John. He wanted to have an excuse, but to get an excuse he'd have to call Donovan and that wasn't going to happen. He wasn't sure he and Donovan would ever really reclaim a viable working relationship. She should really put in for a transfer, he thought. He didn't want to have to request the transfer for her, because that felt...not right to him. A bit like punishing her, really. And, magnanimous position he'd taken with Mycroft aside, he knew he'd take too much pleasure in punishing Donovan, and so, as a consequence, he was avoiding giving in to it. In his head, this somehow made him the bigger person.
Well, he considered, as he arrived at John's address. Maybe the problem would go away. Maybe Mycroft would get him promoted. Or have Sally killed.
The building was roughly the same size as Mrs. Hudson's building, and in roughly the same state of benign half-repair. John may have moved out, Lestrade thought, but he hadn't moved very far.
The door was open, and Lestrade stepped in and considered the alcove he was in, looking again at the address Mrs. Hudson had given him. "C," she had written, and he found "C" on a door on the first floor and, taking a deep breath, knocked. Maybe John wouldn't be home, and then he could both assuage his conscience and avoid the inevitable awkwardness of this encounter.
"Who is it?" called John, almost immediately.
Damn, thought Lestrade, and then called back, "It's Greg."
"Oh," came the response, sounding vaguely surprised. "Just a second."
Lestrade heard the deadbolt being thrown and the chain being taken off. It was funny, security was never something John had seemed inclined to worry about when he had been the flatmate of a man surrounded by world-class assassins and criminal masterminds.
"Hi," said Lestrade, when John opened the door, and he even gave a little wave, because he apparently behaved like an idiot now.
"Hi," said John, in a tone Lestrade couldn't read. "Come in, come in." He opened the door wider.
"Are you sure?" asked Lestrade. "I don't want to interrupt if you're busy--"
"I'm not busy," John replied, firmly, and he sounded almost like he found the idea of being busy laughable. "Please. Come in."
Lestrade stepped through the doorway and found himself in a small kitchen that was open to a small lounge that had the bare minimum of furniture. The walls were a clinical white that were harsh and begging to be covered with something: wallpaper, pictures, anything. But John had put nothing up on them. The only thing that seemed even the slightest bit John-Watson about this flat was the laptop on the kitchen counter, except that was closed instead of open and whirring expectantly. Lestrade supposed it was possible that this spartan look was John's taste and he had just put up with the chaotic clutter of Sherlock all around him, but it was a little like walking into a marble tomb. He was scared his voice would echo when he spoke. "This is nice," he said, because he couldn't very well say it was awful, and his voice didn't echo.
"Thank you," said John, closing the door behind him. "Uh." He looked at Lestrade, his brow furrowed a bit, and Lestrade still couldn't quite read his expression. "How'd you know I was here?"
Lestrade wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake coming here. "Oh. Mrs. Hudson. Gave me the address. I hope you don't mind?"
"No, not at all. Not at all. Come in. Sit down. Would you like something to drink?"
Lestrade, at the invitation, had wandered into the lounge and was regarding the one sorry-looking sofa that represented the only seating in the room. "No," he said. "I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"I'm fine." Lestrade sat on the sofa and John came out of the kitchen, paused, and then pulled over a stool by the breakfast bar and sat opposite him, which Lestrade thought was a better conversational stance than sitting next to him on the sofa.
"So," said John, immediately, "how are things?"
John clearly wanted to lead the conversation and it was probably to Lestrade's advantage to let him do it. "Oh. You know. It's all been fairly typical, it's all been..." Lestrade trailed off, for the first time truly thinking about what he'd spent the past six weeks doing. Nothing, really. He'd spent the past six weeks doing nothing. "It's all been fairly dull, really," he admitted.
John laughed, the sort of laugh that was closer to a sob. "It has been, hasn't it?"
There was something cathartic about that sad little laugh, like it broke the tension in the room just enough for Lestrade to breathe. John Watson was sad, but he was holding it together, and that was encouraging. And he hadn't opened the conversation with well-deserved accusations. "A bit," said Lestrade. He glanced around the flat and tried to come up with something positive to say about it. "It's a nice location, isn't it? Nice street, I mean. Quiet. Seems like."
John laughed again, that same sort of desperate laugh. "Quiet," he said. "Yes." He looked around the flat. "It's so...quiet."
Ah, thought Lestrade. Of course. Oops. Lestrade cleared his throat. "John, I'm--"
"Don't." He cut him off and closed his eyes briefly. "Don't tell me you're sorry for my loss."
"I wasn't going to say that," said Lestrade, honestly. "I was going to say that I'm sorry for--"
"Don't bother with that, either. It doesn't matter."
"It does matter."
"It did matter, Greg. It's over with now." There was a brittleness to his tone and a sharpness to his gaze that made Lestrade fight to keep from squirming. I am being magnanimous and forgiving you, was what John Watson was saying, but I am not going to forget it.
Sometimes, thought Lestrade, it was better not to be forgiven for things. "John, I didn't mean to--"
John cut him off again with a sound of disgust. "Of course you didn't mean it. You and Mycroft both."
"Mycroft?" echoed Lestrade. "What does he have to do with it?"
John spoke as if he hadn't heard him. "You didn't mean it. You didn't intend it. You didn't imagine how it was all going to end up. Of course you didn't. Who does? I've caught criminals with you, Greg." He smiled across at him sardonically, without warmth. "Isn't that what they all say? 'I didn't mean it, Inspector, I don't know what happened.'"
Lestrade was startled into a chuckle. Not because anything was amusing, but because, well, it was all so very absurd. "You're right. They do say that." He felt ridiculous. And exhausted. He scrubbed his hands over his face and leaned back on John Watson's pathetic sofa. "I hadn't made that connection. I'm sorry I came in here telling you I didn't mean it."
John sighed, and Lestrade could visibly see the fight go out of him, too, a bit of a slump to the way he was sitting on the stool. "No. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know you didn't mean it. Of course you didn't. None of us saw it coming." He paused. "Although you could have been a little bit nicer when you were arresting us."
"I didn't arrest you," Lestrade pointed out.
"You threatened to," John replied, evenly, eyes on him.
"I threatened to. Yes. I am sorry, it was a strange night, it was--"
John cut off his apology, shaking his head. "The Commissioner walked in behind you, Greg, I figured out pretty quickly that things were out of your hands and over your head. I imagine you're in worlds of trouble over this whole thing?"
"No, actually. I have a benefactor, apparently."
"A benefactor?"
"Mycroft."
John rolled his eyes a bit. "Oh, God, Mycroft is everywhere these days. You can't walk out the door without tripping over Mycroft."
"Taking it hard?" suggested Lestrade.
"Who knows?"
"Mrs. Hudson said he's having the flat preserved as is."
"Yes. He thinks I'm going to come to my senses in a few weeks and want all that stuff. As if I ever would. Can you imagine? Picking up all of Sherlock's stuff and putting it somewhere? It would be bad enough for me to put it in storage, to close a door on it and have it sit in darkness and damp and dust. But it would be worse to live with it, to have it around me constantly, as if he'd just popped out for a second, I'd always be waiting for..." John took a shuddering breath. "But I can't sell it, either. I wouldn't even know what half of it is to sell, and I would just spend the whole time wishing he was there for me to ask, because I never asked when I could have asked, and, bloody hell, Greg, I don't want anything to do with any of it. I wish Mycroft would just...I don't know. Go away."
"Does he keep bothering you?"
"No. Not really. I'm being unfair. I've only seen him once. He sends notes. Normal notes. I mean, as normal as Mycroft gets. Delivered by courier, but at least they're not sealed with wax and sewn into my pillowcase or something absurd like that."
Lestrade couldn't help but smile. "Notes about what?"
"Loose ends from the blog business and stuff like that. It isn't his fault, but I feel like I'd rather make a clean break, you know? Not deal with it, not think about it anymore."
"I can play intermediary if you'd like."
John looked at him curiously. "Do you know Mycroft?"
"Do you think anybody knows Mycroft?"
"Fair enough. No, it's no trouble, I'll deal with it. I'm being snappish today, sorry. I have been a terrible host. Seriously, are you sure I can't get you anything?"
He didn't know why, at that moment, the careful dam he'd built up broke, but it did. Maybe it was this place, breathing in the sorrow of this flat, maybe it just tapped away at you. But he'd been telling himself not to think about the past, about the tiny insignificant moments that made up, in the end, a friendship. In six weeks, he had tried not to think of Sherlock Holmes, and he didn't think of him now, but he thought of John at the Christmas Eve gathering he'd thrown, giddy as he offered drinks and nibbles. John, who had walked into Sherlock's life and somehow taken the disparate people in Sherlock's orbit and tugged them tightly into a makeshift family. Come over for Christmas Eve, John had said, I think we'll start a tradition of it, an annual gathering. At the time, Lestrade had been, as they all had been, in a good mood. It had seemed like a bright time, life stretching before them, all of them allied in a strange, frustrating dedication to the impossible genius they shared. Lots of Christmases where Sherlock would make terrible remarks and the rest of them would be irritated with him and it had been something fun to be a part of, fun because of John, and now, in six weeks, with the star at their orbit gone, they'd all been cast adrift, going through motions. "No," he said, surprised at how sad he sounded when he said it, at how sad he was, suddenly. "I'm really fine."
John seemed to sense the shift in his mood. "How did you meet him?" he asked, abruptly.
"Sherlock?" Lestrade clarified. It was not a question John had ever asked him before.
John nodded shortly.
Six weeks of not thinking about Sherlock Holmes. Lestrade thought of him now, the way he had been when they'd first met, when Lestrade had had no inkling of any of the astonishing things that were to come. "Let's just say the last time I arrested him was not the first time I arrested him."
"Drugs?" John guessed. "That's how you knew..."
"Drugs, yes." Lestrade thought back. He hadn't thought of it in forever. It had been a long time since he had seen in Sherlock Holmes the desperate kid he had first met. "But not like other drug addicts. He was an absolute mess, completely out of it, until he overheard two of my constables discussing a murder case we'd just picked up, and suddenly he was demanding to speak to me and spouting forth theories. I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying, I just thought it was the strangest acid trip I'd ever seen anybody have, and then he turned out to be right. When I figured out he was right, I had to track him down. He'd been released and sent to some sort of fancy rehab clinic--"
"Mycroft," John guessed.
"Had to be. Anyway, he was clean and he was clever and he said something like, 'Of course I was right, Inspector, you're an idiot.'"
"Of course he said that."
"And even though he was the most annoying person I'd ever met, I thought I could be annoying right back and that I'd make a deal with him."
"If he stayed clean, you'd ask him for help every once in a while."
"Yeah. And then 'every once in a while' turned into..." He hadn't thought of this, either. Really ever before. When had every once in a while turned into him dropping by just to chat sometimes? "In the beginning I thought I was helping the kid out." And he had. And then... "But I think I started coming to see him just because I was...bored. And he was never boring. He was...He was..." Infuriating. Maddening. Brilliant. Anything but boring.
"I know," said John, softly. "He was."
Lestrade thought of it all, really let himself think of it all, of everything that had happened since he had known Sherlock Holmes. He thought of nights in Sherlock's flat, before he'd met John, being subjected to rounds of verbal abuse but waiting with bated breath for the moment when Sherlock would make the breakthrough and they would be off and running. He said, slowly, letting himself recognize it, letting it sink in, "I will never be as exasperated in my future as he used to make me. But I'll probably never find what I do as exhilarating as he used to make it feel for me." He heard Sally's voice, long ago when he had first started to go down the path of pulling Sherlock in to help, warning him that Sherlock enjoyed it too much, that there was something indecent about his delight in the crimes. Lestrade had dismissed it, but maybe he had dismissed it because he had been more like Sherlock in that way than he'd wanted Sally to know. He had really never thought of that before, but maybe that was how he'd ended up quasi-friends with an impossible man to begin with: because somewhere, below the artificial level where he was well-socialized and mannered and polite and civilized, on the more primal level where it really mattered, he had recognized a kindred spirit. What other reason could there be for persisting in being near such a prickly human being?
John spoke, interrupting his reverie, and Lestrade half-jumped, having forgotten there was anyone else in the room. "It was the plus side of being his friend. He was, most of the time, an unbearable wanker. But you got some reflected glory to go along with that. He was...so much bigger than life that he made you feel like your life wasn't small anymore."
John looked as lost in his own world as Lestrade had just been. "Yeah," Lestrade agreed, and then, "Listen, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." John, his eyes clearer, met Lestrade's and smiled. "I mean, I will be. I promise. Are you?"
Lestrade smiled back. "We need to go out for a couple of pints, you and I."
"We should, yes."
"We can trade our most annoying stories about him. It'll make you feel better."
"You think?"
"No?"
"Possibly not. Or, at least, not yet. You know, he used to play his bloody violin in the middle of the night. I hated that. I yelled at him about it a million times. He never took any notice of me, just kept playing it at two a.m. Now I lay in bed and wish someone would start playing the violin at two o'clock in the morning."
The violin. Lestrade smiled a bit, because he knew he was supposed to, but his mind was other places. "Did you take his violin?"
"Sherlock's violin? No, I didn't take anything out of the flat."
"I went in today, the violin's not there."
"No, Mycroft took it."
"The violin?" Lestrade said, in surprise.
John nodded.
"What else did he take?"
"Nothing. Said he didn't want anything else. He just took the violin. Why? You don't play, do you?"
"No, no, I was just...I knew it was valuable and when I didn't see it in the flat I was concerned. You know."
"Ah. No need to be concerned. It's in good hands."
"Does Mycroft play the violin?"
John considered. "Not that I know of. I don't think so. Sherlock said once that Mycroft didn't know how to make anything so beautiful as music, or something like that. It sounded better when Sherlock said it."
"So why did Mycroft want the violin, if he doesn't play the violin?"
John was starting to look irritated, a look Lestrade recognized. He was Interrogating. His wife--former? Ex? Once and maybe future?--had used to accuse him of it all the time, had used to get the same look. "I don't know, to remember his brother by, is that so strange?"
Lestrade decided to let it drop. "No. Not at all." He wanted to go on. Plus, you mentioned Mycroft before. Mycroft and me, lumped together in the things we didn't mean to do. And Mycroft thinks you blame him for it all... But he sensed he had reached the end of John's tolerance of that. Maybe his tolerance of this whole conversation. Lestrade stood up. "Anyway, we should go out for a couple of pints. And talk about football. And I mean that." He was worried that it sounded like a platitude, like something he might say and then never actually do. But he was half-worried about John in the wake of this whole thing, and half-worried about himself. He had genuinely enjoyed being friends with John when Sherlock was alive, why shouldn't it survive Sherlock's death?
"That we should do," John agreed, fervently, following him to the door. "And you could, you know, call me."
Lestrade looked at him, uncomprehending. John was fidgeting with the cuff of his shirt, not looking at him. What was he talking about? About going out? Hadn't Lestrade just said that? "Yeah, I'll do that."
"Not about going to a pub, I mean, if you, you know, need any help." John looked up at him. "With a case, say. Or anything like that," he rushed out.
Oh. Lestrade decided he was very much off-kilter, if it had taken him so long to figure that out. And really, he should have offered it before. Yes, he'd just gotten reprimanded for bringing in civilians on official police business, but to hell with that. He liked working with John, it would be nice to have the prospect of calling him in on particularly interesting things, puzzle them out, try to think the way Sherlock would have thought had he been there. "Yes. I will. Definitely."
"Good." John smiled, and Lestrade thought he looked much better, and he resolved to call him with the next even vaguely interesting case he got, anything he got that wasn't open-and-shut. "Thanks for coming by. It was nice to see you." John opened the door.
Lestrade stepped through it, then turned back abruptly, because the words were suddenly a press inside him that he felt he had to get out, that he wouldn't be able to sleep until he did. "John--"
John sensed something was coming. "Greg, you don't have to--"
"No, I have to get this out, just let me." He tried to gather the threads of his thoughts, making sure that when he spoke, he spoke firmly. "I'm sorry. Maybe it wasn't my fault, and it's true that I had no idea the extent of what seems to have been going on, but he was my friend, and I should have believed in him more. In fact, I did believe in him, but I let everyone else shout me down, I let them, and I should never have done it. I should have told them that if they were suspicious, they could come to arrest him without me."
"You did what you had to d--"
"No, I didn't." Which was the truth. "I should have told them no. He was my friend, and he deserved better than that. He was in trouble, and he couldn't come to me about it, and I'm sorry. I can't apologize to him, so I'm apologizing to you instead."
John looked at him for a second. He was back to being unreadable, his eyes shuttered and closed off. He said, finally, "He did like you, you know. Whenever we had to work with other Dis, he said you were brilliant in comparison. And that was high praise from Sherlock Holmes. He liked you."
"I know," Lestrade admitted, thickly, because he always had, underneath all the insults and snide remarks. "That's what makes what I did worse."
***
Lestrade left John's apartment feeling marginally better and thought maybe it had done him good to get all that out of his system. He returned to work, but nothing interesting was going on and he could not focus on it. Sally was being as annoying as she could possibly be and he wanted to ask her if she thought the best way to make up their Sherlockian fight was to behave as irritatingly as Sherlock ever could be. Because he didn't think it wise to ask her that, he slammed his office door shut in her face instead. She didn't take too kindly to that, but he was secure in his knowledge that it was better than the alternative. The things he wished to shout at Sally were best not shouted in front of the entire office. Although maybe he should get that out of his system as well.
At any rate, Lestrade found himself standing in his office looking at files that were the cases he was supposed to be working on and thinking about Sherlock Holmes's violin.
Sod this, he decided, and went home. Maybe he just needed to sleep; he hadn't been sleeping well.
Home was worse, because home, since he had moved out, was a flat as equally depressing as John's. Maybe he and John should be flatmates. The idea almost made him laugh hysterically, alone in his flat, and because it was possible he was going insane, he decided at that moment that what he was going to do was go see Mycroft Holmes and ask him about the bloody violin.
In a great temper arising mostly out of the frustration of not being able to sleep when he wanted to sleep and all because Mycroft had taken his brother's violin and who cared about that, only detective inspectors who had lost their minds, he drove to the club where Mycroft had taken him for a Scotch. There was little chance it would be open at this hour, but, what the hell, he had nothing better to do.
He parked the police car illegally, because it was one of the perks of his station to get to do so, jogged up the front steps of the imposing building, and was surprised to find that the door opened easily when he turned the knob. Inside, the lights were turned low and the fires were banked but there were a few men still sitting silently. They didn't even look up when he came in. This was the most uncurious place he'd ever been. Which also made it the most curious place he'd ever been.
He walked to the Talking Room Mycroft had taken him to the previous time and considered how he was going to fetch Mycroft if he couldn't talk to anyone there. He was saved by a well-dressed man walking in and asking politely, with a brief disapproving glance toward the jeans he was wearing, "Can I help you, sir?"
"Yeah, is Mr. Holmes here?"
"Who shall I say is calling?"
"Tell him Inspector Lestrade."
The man inclined his head marginally and left the room. Lestrade supposed this was confirmation Mycroft was there, so he turned on the lights and helped himself to the Scotch. He didn't even bother to look up from his pouring when he heard Mycroft walk in.
"Inspector," he said. "This is a surprise."
Lestrade glanced at him. He was as impeccably dressed as he always was, and one would never have known it was, frankly, the middle of the night. Lestrade handed him a Scotch, which he took with mild interest, and then said, "Do you live here?"
Mycroft looked surprised. "What would make you think that?"
"It's the middle of the night."
"It's the middle of the night and you're here. Do you live here?"
"That's very funny, ha ha," said Lestrade, because he wasn't really in the mood. He sat down and said to Mycroft, "Have a seat."
"How gracious of you," remarked Mycroft, dryly, and sat. "How did you even get here?"
"I drove."
"But how did you know where it was?"
Lestrade looked at him in disbelief. "You took me here. I paid attention. I'm not a complete idiot."
Mycroft seemed to allow that possibility with a ghost of a shrug and sipped his Scotch. "You left your wife," he said.
"How do you know that? Are you having me followed?"
Mycroft looked annoyed. "I'm not having you followed. As if I haven't better things to do than have you followed. And as if you, Detective Inspector, shouldn't be able to know if you're being followed."
"I'm not sure I'd know if I were being followed by one of you lot."
"We're not as good as I would like us to be."
"Just exactly who are 'you lot'?"
Mycroft smiled without warmth and said, "We're better than that, though. Is there a reason you're here, Inspector?"
"I went to see John."
"Oh. As you said before, 'That explains the Scotch then.'"
"You're preserving everything in Sherlock's flat. Just the way it is."
"John might want it someday."
"Just the way it is. You could have it packed up, put in storage, it would still be there if John wanted it."
"That would take effort, Inspector."
"It would be cheaper for you, though."
"At the risk of being uncouth, I should ask you: Do you think cost is something I'm especially concerned with?"
Lestrade mirrored Mycroft's cold smile. "Do you play any musical instruments?"
Mycroft seemed not to expect that question. He paused, looking at Lestrade assessingly, cautiously, clearly trying to discern the purpose behind the question. "Why?"
"Just curious. Sherlock was a beautiful violinist."
"He was, yes." Mycroft spoke carefully, eyes sharp on Lestrade. "But no, I don't play anything. Music was his talent, not mine."
"Your parents didn't make you take anything?"
"No. This is a delightful conversation. What about you? Did you take any musical instruments?"
"No, I played chess," said Lestrade, and smiled sweetly at Mycroft's narrowed eyes. "You see, the reason I ask all this."
"I can't wait to hear," drawled Mycroft.
"You took Sherlock's violin."
"I did, yes."
"Why?"
"Why shouldn't I? I bought it for him, so I suppose it was technically mine, anyway."
Lestrade hadn't expected this. "You bought it for him?"
"Of course. He was only a boy still, when his musical talent became apparent. His teacher told me I ought to get him an instrument worthy of his playing."
"So you got him a Stradivarius."
Mycroft shrugged.
"Because it was the best," Lestrade reasoned, "and he was your little brother, so you bought him the best. But why were you buying it for him? He was just a boy, but you're not that much older than him. Wouldn't your parents--oh. Your parents were dead. Weren't they?"
"If you'd like to interrogate me, Inspector, feel free to come back with a warrant," said Mycroft, coolly.
"So you took the violin. Out of sentiment? That's nice. Sweet. Touching."
"Inspector," said Mycroft, his voice trailing off into a warning.
Lestrade heard the warning. It was the first time in the conversation he'd truly stepped over Mycroft's line. He hadn't enjoyed the conversation, but he hadn't put threat into it until that moment. Mockery of why he took the violin. Why? Because he truly had taken it out of sentiment and he was embarrassed? Or because he didn't want Lestrade getting any nearer to why he'd taken the violin. Lestrade completely changed the subject. "What is it with your family and first names?"
Mycroft regarded him suspiciously. "They're old family names."
"No, I don't mean your names, I mean other people's names. I was, when all is said and done, one of your brother's few friends, and he never once called me anything but 'Inspector'. He didn't even know my first name."
"It's Gregory," said Mycroft.
Lestrade lifted his glass in a mock toast. "Very good."
"And my brother didn't really have 'friends'--"
"You know, you say that a lot. All the time, really. To lots of people. Anyone who will listen. You said it to me the first time we met. 'My brother doesn't have friends, Inspector, so I must resort to paying people to associate with him.' That's what you said. You know what I think?"
"I am not especially interested in what you think," said Mycroft.
"You're so determined to believe Sherlock had no friends because you have no friends, and you couldn't bear to think of him beating you in that respect."
"I'm confused," said Mycroft, icily. "Are you a policeman, or a psychotherapist?"
Lestrade stood up, put down the Scotch he'd not really touched, and grinned at Mycroft. "You'd be surprised. Most of the time, they're kind of the same thing. Good night, Mycroft."
"Have a pleasant evening, Inspector," he heard Mycroft say in response, as he walked out of the room.
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