The Irresistibility of Orbits, Part One: or Korengal Calling. Chapter Twelve. Dark Waters.
The Irresistibility of Orbits, Part One: Korengal Calling. Chapter Twelve. Dark Waters.
Author: ghislainem70
Word count 3870
Rating: NC-17
Summary: John Returns to Afghanistan with Sherlock
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, BBC et al.
Warnings: graphic violence, explicit sex, torture, non-con, reference to child abuse, brutality, mayhem.
Chapter Twelve. Dark Waters.
Your eyes speak to me
They tell me be calm
They tell me be strong
Swimming out so deep
Now I can’t breathe
And it’s exactly where I belong
Cause it feels like a run of a lifetime
And nothing’s gonna save us now
Let the waves come crashing down . . .
Lyrics to "Drowning," All Rights Reserved Armin van Buuren
"Mac, you have to get me to my unit. Down there. I have to get to Doctor Watson."
"Hell, Fifty, I don't have orders for that. Hell, I didn't really have orders to even bring you back. Not to speak of your friend - whoever he is - here."
"Mac --- Please. You have to help me get to Watson. If I have to hike in, it may be too late. If you won’t land us, all right then; we'll jump." Sherlock began pulling on a parachute.
Caldwell leaned into the cockpit. "Sir, the number of men Doctor Watson saved in this bloody war can't be counted. This time, he's the one that needs saving. Drop in there. Please. For the love of God," Caldwell begged.
Mac scowled. "This war," he cursed at nobody in particular.
They were over the 'nightclub' now. They could see devastation, the compound was collapsed into rubble and smoke, making a raw crater in the mountainside. The other side of the compound was still relatively intact. The colored lights twinkled with macabre festivity.
Spartan men were picking carefully through the wreckage, lining up enemy dead for identification. The MEDEVAC had already departed; there were no Spartan injured on the field. Mac dropped them gently at the top of the ridge and they scrambled down.
The first person Sherlock saw was Tunes, grimly photographing the enemy dead.
"Where is he? Where is Doctor Watson?" Tunes shrank back from Sherlock, who looked half mad with anxiety.
"Fifty, hell, we looked for an hour. No one can find him. Cat saw Doc and Forsyte go down, into the compound. But they never came out. It got blown to shit in there." Tunes' eyes filled with tears. "Fuck this valley."
"Where is Forsyte right now?"
Tunes swallowed and looked away. "Body bag. Close range shot to the head. Now he’s got no head left. Not to speak of."
Sherlock felt a cold suspicion. Had John done this? Was Forstyte involved in the deaths of Monroe and Mahmoud? Sherlock now believed that he must have been, but pushed away that line of thought.
"Where did you find Forsyte?"
Tunes pointed to the collapsed half of the compound, smoke rising. A single wall remained defiantly standing. Sherlock and Caldwell ran into the rubble.
"Fifty, don’t go, I told you -- its full of explosives! Stay away!" Tunes shouted.
It was almost impossible to believe this had been a substantial dwelling just hours before. It looked like a giant had hurled fistfuls of rock and timber from the heavens. They frantically picked their way through rocks, bits of body parts, snapped beams, fragments of clothing and furniture.
It looked like an entrance to hell.
They called John's name, over and over.
Sherlock at length found a particular crater-like maw in the earth, filled with blood-sprayed rock, and he started digging, tossing rocks, his fingers shredding. Caldwell dove in with a will. They were rewarded. There was a hole here, possibly leading to a tunnel that had been under the house. Sherlock called into the hole, and shone his flashlight. Then Sherlock started crawling. Caldwell started to follow.
"No, its not safe. We can't both get trapped. I will call up if it’s all right. If anything happens to me, Caldwell, promise me --- promise you'll save John. No matter what."
Caldwell promised.
Sherlock crawled into the tunnel. It was not long and was relatively intact. Sherlock felt a surge of hope when he realized that this place may have offered shelter from the worst of the explosions. After about twenty meters, the tunnel opened to a larger space. Sherlock shone his beam around. This was an underground room, full of wooden crates.
He called John's name but there was only silence.
Sherlock inspected the crates and saw some were open. There were weapons, explosives, and gear. Guns, rocket launchers, grenades, gasses, night scopes, ammo. Shiny, new and state-of-the art. Enough to hold off a small army, if need be.
The crates were stamped Spartan, LLC. Now, all the pieces fell into place.
Sherlock put aside his rage and kept hunting for John. Finally, in a dark corner, Serlock saw a tiny movement in the beam of his flashlight.
It was blood. Blood trickling, running, making miniature rivulets in the dirt. With a cry he flung himself into the crevice and saw a boot protruding. He yanked and then an entire body came out. It was John.
There was a large bloody hole where his abdomen should be. Sherlock screamed for Caldwell. John's head lolled and Sherlock cradled it in his lap, the entire universe imploding. So much blood. As many murder scenes as Sherlock had ever seen, he thought he had never seen so much blood. John was barely breathing, wheezing, and every breath pushed another gush of blood from his massive wound. His eyelids fluttered.
"John, it's Sherlock, hold on, just hold on for me," Sherlock cried. Sherlock held John’s hand, tight, so tight, to pull him back from the brink of death if he could. John opened his lips to speak, but his eyes rolled back in his head.
Caldwell came with another man and a stretcher. Caldwell set grimly to work and they carefully pulled John out into the light. "Medevac in five," the other man said. Caldwell was almost as pale as John.
"He needs a transfusion now. Right now. I can’t wait to get to Bagram."
Sherlock said, "Do it, now, take mine, I’m the right type."
"That’s the last of my worries. It's going to take a lot."
Caldwell had a field transfusion kit and without further delay started a direct transfusion. He set the needle into Sherlock’s arm, then into John’s, watching the blood flow into John. It was too slow; John’s blood continued to flow out of the massive wound despite Caldwell’s desperate triage.
"Sherlock, I can’t take too much all at once. It may kill you."
Sherlock grabbed at Caldwell with his bad right hand and clutched at him. "You listen to me, Caldwell. I don’t care if you take every last drop. I don’t care about me. Just save John. You promised. Whatever it takes. Do you hear me? Save. John."
Caldwell nodded. Their eyes met, hopeless.
The MEDEVAC was here. Caldwell had already taken almost one unit of blood and he unhooked the line while they carefully loaded John and then Sherlock aboard. Caldwell urgently wished they could get to Camp Bastion in Helmand, which had possibly the world’s finest trauma unit; but it was too distant; even the Lynx wouldn’t get them there in time.
They were going to run out of blood.
They would have to make a run for Bagram Airfield.
And pray.
* * *
Caldwell took every drop he thought Sherlock could spare without actually killing him, and Sherlock was deep in shock from the sudden blood loss. If the flight had been any longer Caldwell would have started in on his own blood - but no one would have been there for John. Every one of John’s bodily systems was in crisis.
The blood that flowed from Sherlock’s veins had steadily flowed back out again. John was massively hemorrhaging. Caldwell picked as much twisted shrapnel from the gaping wound cavity as he could.
But he could tell it really didn’t matter.
The blood was slowing now. There wasn’t enough volume to keep John’s heart pumping. Soon, it would be too late.
They landed at Bagram where a trauma team was waiting.
* * *
Caldwell followed into the operating room and without asking for permission, set in to help the surgeons.
Several hours into the surgery, a violent shouting outside the OR briefly disturbed their concentration but it was abruptly silenced, and they kept working.
Ten hours later, Caldwell was almost ready to collapse with grief and exhaustion but with his last strength, went to find Sherlock. After receiving a transfusion to restore his lost blood volume, Sherlock had tried to force his way into the operating room and had to be forcibly restrained and sedated. This was not an uncommon event. Soldiers closer than brothers often were brought in together, grotesquely injured, caring only for the safety of their comrade.
In his weakened condition, Sherlock was slightly delirious from whatever they had shot him up with. He had been put in bed restraints to prevent him from hurting himself or trying to break into the critical care unit. He was attached to an IV to restore his fluids. Caldwell sat beside him.
"He’s alive."
Sherlock’s face blazed with joy. He tried to climb out of the bed and yanked at the restraints. "Thank God," he whispered fervently. "I must see him. Get me out of these stupid things."
"No, Holmes. He’s not stable yet. He’s still . . . unconscious. It is better for him that way, he sustained massive injuries and will be in - considerable pain - when he wakes up. Wait until the morning. If you would just calm down, they will probably release you."
Sherlock immediately settled down, like a fractious child who suddenly ran out of energy. Caldwell looked closely at Sherlock and realized he likely had neither eaten, nor drunk, in a long while. The skin of his face drew tight and pale over his bones and his eyes were sunken into hollows. One side of it was torn with numerous deep bloody gouges. He had re-dislocated his shoulder and Caldwell knew would be very fragile now and likely give him a great deal of pain. Probably it would be best after all if Sherlock stayed put.
Suddenly, it seemed like a good idea if he stayed put too.
After a moment, Caldwell’s head sank down against the little tray attached to Sherlock’s bed, and he fell fast asleep slumped over in the chair. Sherlock regarded at Caldwell’s sleeping form with something that might have been gratitude.
Sherlock did not sleep, but watched the hours crawl by on the clock while he forced his mind to work.
* * *
In the middle of the night, Caldwell went to check on John, and was unsurprised to be told he had sunk into a coma.
When Sherlock was finally allowed to see John, his body looked shrunken and frail, like a broken toy, a fragile ghost lying against the pillows. He was dwarfed by the myriad tubes and blinking, hissing machines surrounding him and keeping him alive. Sherlock reverently kissed his forehead.
He talked to John quietly for a long time, as long as they would let him. He really didn’t know what he was saying, but he knew that he was saying very important things. It might have been something about his last experiment in 221b; or it might have been a promise never to do experiments in 221b ever again; it might have been about how he had finally figured out who the counterfeiter was in the Finnish currency affair; it might have been that he was ready now to try that new restaurant, the one that was upsetting Angelo so; then again, it might have been that he couldn’t live without John, that John had taught him how to live and how to love, but had never taught him how to live without him, and he couldn’t leave Sherlock until he did. It might have been that he finally remembered, now: about the sun and the moon, and about orbits.
The irresistibility of orbits, how the earth did go round the sun, of course it did: and it might have been that all his life he had been in the dark, but John was the sun.
It might have been that he did not intend to live a single moment on this earth, after John left it.
* * *
John remained in a coma for days. During that time, when he was forced to leave John’s side, Sherlock went to work. The only thing that had mattered to John, the only reason they were here, was to clear Monroe’s good name. Sherlock dedicated himself to this with a burning vengeance. He didn’t do it for Monroe. He did it for John. Because it was the only thing he could do for John, now.
The story went like this:
The arms in the underground bunker at the nightclub had been sold illicitly to the warlord Tariq Khan, by someone highly placed at Spartan.
Khan had owned a beautiful bacha bazi boy, Mahmoud, who was getting older and wanted to be set free; to join the wars and gain honor, leave behind the shame of his life as an abused plaything.
On the night that Tariq Khan consummated the arms sale with Spartan, several of his most trusted comrades were with him at his compound, in his home village in the Korengal Valley. The men were in a mood for amusement after their business; and so, he had called for Mahmoud and the men had their way with him.
But Mahmoud boldly gained the notice of one of the warlords, and secretly sought his protection to smuggle him out, to let him take up arms and join the fight for Islam against the West. By the next morning, when the men left, Tariq Khan found that Mahmoud was gone.
This Khan would have revenged, given time. He would not permit his authority to be flouted by a bacha bazi boy. But Khan had been careless; and Mahmoud bragged to all who would listen that he knew all about the wonderful modern weapons that Khan had bought from the rich British businessmen. And he even knew where they were kept. Mahmoud was eager to gain face, not realizing that his loose talk would lead to his doom.
The lesser warlord decided he, too, deserved have his own arsenal of beautiful new weapons to increase his power and prestige in the region; and he bragged to a Spartan agent that knew they were easily to be had. He had heard this from Tariq Khan’s own boy’s mouth.
And then Spartan knew that it was time for damage control.
Orders were given. Photographs circulated. Wherever Mahmoud was to be found, he was to be killed, and his head delivered to Tariq Khan. A warning in the language that these warlords would understand: what happened to those who failed to maintain the sacred bond of secrecy.
It was most unfortunate that an allied fighter had a video camera transmitting at the very moment that a Spartan soldier had stupidly rushed to execute Mahmoud. More damage control: video evidence had to be eliminated, or where it could not, be doctored; witnesses such as Stratton and Carr had to be - persuaded ---- to 'remember' that Lieutenant Monroe, and not the Spartan man, had murdered Mahmoud.
Any inkling that Spartan soldiers were actually beheading Islamic boys on the battlefield would lead to an immediate loss of Spartan’s contract to operate what amounted to a private army in Afghanistan.
Much better that a British soldier, crazed with fury at the wound inflicted upon his lover, would do the unthinkable and behead the boy with his own gurkha knife.
A court martial was swiftly arranged. When Monroe reached out for help to his only remaining friend, John Watson; well, Spartan was able to arrange that Monroe’s Judge Advocate should conveniently fail to deliver John’s assurances that he would testify, and that John was coming to Afghanistan. No, this was not a message that they wanted Monroe to get.
Better that he should be left alone in his cell for a while, to think about the fact that no one was coming to help him at all.
And when that did not have the expected effect; when Monroe refused to lose heart or faith in John Watson, or in himself; well, it was not really that difficult to slip someone into his cell in the night and make sure the noose was tight.
And still there were more loose ends. The simple matter of a single bacha bazi boy had multiplied to require damage control involving Stratton, Carr, Monroe, and now John Watson, determined to redeploy and return to Afghanistan to meddle in this affair together with his partner, the infamous detective Sherlock Holmes.
Things were getting worse and worse.
Spartan had the policy of keeping one’s friends close, and one’s enemies closer.
It followed, then, that it was time to bring Doctor Watson into the Spartan fold. What a bonus gift was given when Sherlock Holmes voluntarily entered their net. Now, a very close eye could be kept upon Holmes and Watson at all times.
And if they kept at their quest, nosing about where didn’t belong; well, soldiers died every day in the Korengal.
Spartan had relied upon George Forsyte to facilitate the elimination of Holmes and Watson. But Forsyte had become suspicious, and strangely resistant. Spartan management had failed to fully take into account that they were old comrades at arms. Forsyte and Watson shared a bond from their former Para Regiment, and many close calls battling together in Helmand. In the end, Forsyte’s suspicions became overwhelming. He tried to protect John during the operation on the nightclub.
And when he realized in the end that he had failed, Forsyte had made the ultimate sacrifice.
* * *
All of this Sherlock pieced together from careful sifting of the evidence he had hacked from the Judge Advocate’s computer system; from personal records he hacked from George Forsyte's own mobile and laptop; and, of course, Spartan’s own computer systems.
Revenge was not sweet. Ultimately it required the involvement of Mycroft but by then, Sherlock almost couldn’t remember why he was so furious with him, back in a different life, a world away in London. Sherlock's entire world now was Afghanistan, Bagram Airfield, and a hospital room where John Watson lay in a seemingly endless sleep.
Mycroft made certain calls that ultimately led to a public inquiry into the Mahmoud affair; the posthumous clearing of Monroe’s good name; and finally, the termination of Spartan’s billion-pound contract in Afghanistan.
* * *
On the twelfth day, John opened his eyes.
His eyes focused, fuzzy, first on a glowing digital clock. It was 2:20 a.m. The place where he was lying --a bed -- was very dark. But not completely quiet. There were muted sounds that were familiar, but confusing, at the same time.
His eyes seemed to adjust a little to the dark. There was a person-shape hovering over him but it was too dark to distinguish any features. He felt cool pressure in his left palm.
He must have made a sound because the figure came closer, very close, and he felt more pressure on his hand.
Now he could see. It was an alarmingly thin man with a mop of dark hair and haunted icy blue eyes. His face seemed achingly beautiful to John -- although his head was so fuzzy that this might have been an hallucination. John felt a smile form on his cracked lips without understanding why. His voice was a mere croak.
"Hullo. I'm. . . afraid. . .um. . . --- who --who are you? Do I -- know you?" he said.
An expression of -- pain? - as though from a blow long dreaded, and yet sharper and more agonizing than expected, passed over the man's gaunt face.
"My name - is Sherlock Holmes. You do . . .know me."
The voice was unexpectedly deep, baritone; he realized that it was cultured, very toff, but didn't knew why he knew this.
John sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't know anything, actually. He was very tired. He felt like he was swimming in a cold sea and losing his strength. Any moment he would go under. But the strong pressure on his hand anchored him to reality. It was the only real thing.
"Do you know who am I, then?" he mumbled weakly.
"Your name is John Watson. You're a soldier. You're a doctor. You've been -- "
Here the beautiful man's voice cracked and he stopped speaking for a moment and bowed his head and the pressure on his left hand grew painful. Now he realized that this man was holding his hand.
How extraordinary.
John felt a warmth in his chest. But it was all right. He could not understand anything, but he felt this. And the name, John Watson, he felt that was right. Yes, he was John Watson. He was a soldier. He was doctor.
"You’re in - Afghanistan," this man continued, his voice choking on the words. John opened his eyes again.
The man -- surely he didn't say his name was Sherlock, how odd -- was staring with concentration at John's face.
Afghanistan. Yes, that too sounded right. He knew about Afghanistan. At least he thought he did. There was a huge white space where knowledge, where thoughts and memories ought to reside. Suddenly his heart was racing. "God, what’s wrong with me!" He was thrashing now, trying to get out of the bed but there were some kind of restraints --
This man, this Sherlock -- actually put his cool hand against John's chest and he felt calmer.
"John--- it's all right, John -- you don't remember me. But it's going to be all right. Ask yourself this -- do you trust me?"
This Sherlock Holmes was staring at intensely him as though his answer would be the most important thing he would ever hear.
Do I trust him? John turned the word over in his mind.
Trust.
He considered his hand, clasped in the other man's longer fingers, palm to palm. He vaguely noticed that he hadn't felt any impulse to remove it. He didn't think he was accustomed to holding men's hands quite in this way; but then again, he just didn't know anything. His head hurt. It was going to explode, probably.
He considered this man's face, he almost looked unhinged with some strong emotions (Pain? Grief? Guilt?) and the evidences of a physical ordeal, illness in the sunken cheekbones and hollows of his eyes (he is right; I am a doctor, John acknowledged.)
He considered the feeling in his chest where this man's other hand was pressing firmly. All of this felt completely alien, his own body felt like it was unconnected to him somehow, it was somebody else's body, and this tall man was a total stranger, and yet--
He felt himself flushing and didn't understand why that should be except that the man was so bloody close, and he was feeling dizzy but the question -- did he trust this man? -- he felt he must answer and answer truthfully.
"Yes. I do -- trust you. God knows why."
There was a fire in the other man's eyes now: joy, triumph.
"Good. That's all we need. For now. I'm going for the doctor."
"How long?" John asked. His strength was gone and soon he would be gone again, too. Sherlock Holmes looked away. Then he said, "Twelve days," and in his voice John thought he could hear a whole universe of grief.
Then the cold sea overtook him, and he was falling down into dark waters where the only point of light was Sherlock Holmes' eyes.
The End of Part One.
*comments from kind readers are very much appreciated by your author:)*
back: Eleven
"'The Irresistibility of Orbits' to be continued in Part Two: 'The Forgetting of Things Past,' No 6 in Indestructible series: One
Author's Afterword:
The author has enormous respect and gratitude for our armed forces serving in wars everywhere, particularly Afghanistan. The author did extensive research to write this story. Along with numerous resources on the internet, acknowledgment is given to the insights gained from reading the following books:
War. Sebastian Junger
3 Para. Patrick Bishop.
Ground Truth. Return to Afghanistan. Patrick Bishop
Greetings from Afghanistan, Send More Ammo. Benjamin Tupper
Koran, Kalishnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan. Antonio Guistozzi
The following films are all excellent but the most important, that everyone should see, is the amazing documentary, "Restrepo," a film by Sebastian Junger and Tim Heatherington (who was recently killed doing photojournalism on the conflct in Libya in April 2011. ) "Restrepo" follows American soldiers stationed in the Korengal Valley shortly before the Americans had to abandon it to the Taliban. Also, "The Hurt Locker," dir. Kathryn Bigelow; "Jarhead," dir. Sam Mendes, and "Three Kings," dir. David O. Russell.
Finally, the PBS Dateline documentary "The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan," a hard-hitting account of the bacha bazi practice in Afghanistan, was indespensible, shocking and heartbreaking. The author prays that this practice is rooted out of Afghanistan and that Western powers will do all they can to ensure that this happens as quickly as possible for the sake of the child victims.
The plot device concerning the court martial of Lietuenant Monroe in connection with the beheading on the field of battle of an enemy fighter was inspired in part by the 2010 case of Canadian Army Captain Robert Semrau, whose court martial proceedings took place partly in Afghanistan for the purpose of obtaining eyewitness testimony that otherwise would not have been available. Captain Semrau was accused of shooting a wounded insurgent on the field of battle in Afghanistan, a mercy killing of a critically wounded enemy fighter; and also the 2010 UK case of a Gurkha soldier accused of beheading an enemy fighter's body with his kurkhi knife, purportedly for the purpose of facilitating later identification. The soldier was disciplined and investigated for violations of the Geneva Convention.
**Readers interested in the boys' previous adventures, please see my master fic list: ghislainem70's master fic list