(no subject)
Title: “Sunrise, Sunset”
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock; Lestrade
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Word Count: c. 4,000
Warnings: Character Death; Angst; Illness
Spoilers: None
Beta: canonisrelative
Summary: The end is where they start from.
Notes: This is the penultimate story in the "Winter's Child" series. Title comes from “Fiddler on the Roof.” For those interested in a timeline for this series, that can be found here. More notes are at the end.
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“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
-T. S. Eliot.
-----
The weak, watery beams of dawn had yet to reach the shaded yard when Sherlock and Lestrade started out on their walk that morning, and their shoes were soaked through with dew by the time they reached the long grass of the fields that lay behind the cottage. Sherlock pushed open the gate, and Toby shot past him before either he or Lestrade could step through, tearing off after a small animal he had spotted.
Lestrade laughed out loud as they followed his dog at a more sedate pace. He said over Toby’s excited barks, “Good thing we don’t have close neighbors, eh? He’d have them up every morning at the crack of dawn.”
“Indeed. Though he still has us up that early every morning.”
“Are you complaining?”
Sherlock huffed a laugh. “Not a chance.”
Calvin always complained that he got more sleep at school than he did while on visits home. Sherlock had never required more than four or five hours in a night and frequently got less; Lestrade and John were up with the sun, a force of habit trained into them and one that their bodies never forgot, even as the years separating them from their jobs lengthened. And Toby made sure that none of them lingered in bed for very long, anyway.
“It will always astound me,” Sherlock commented as they walked, “that, the moment there is an animal in sight, he appears to forget the fact that he’s fifteen years old.”
“Wish I had that problem,” Lestrade said, but he softened the words with a wink, and Sherlock returned his smile.
“Why? Do you have a desire to pursue small animals?” he teased. Lestrade snorted and elbowed him in the side. Sherlock laughed.
“How’s Cal? I heard John take a call from him last night.”
“He’s well,” Sherlock told him.
"Only that?"
"Our conversation was rather brief," Sherlock admitted. Calvin had hurried him off the phone as quickly as politeness allowed. "It was John's advice he was seeking."
"Ah. Something to do with Skye, then," Lestrade said around a soft smile. He stooped to grab a stick off the ground, and lobbed it in Toby’s general direction. The dog ceased harassing the squirrel he had been pursuing and took off after the stick instead. “Between the three of us, John's probably the most suited to give relationship advice, you have to admit.”
Sherlock conceded his point with a wordless grunt, but felt compelled to add, “They aren’t together, Greg.”
“I know.” Lestrade shoved his hands in the pockets of the light jacket he had donned to ward off the late summer chill. The first hints of autumn were in the air this morning, swift and biting, and would be burned away by the sun in only a few hours’ time. “They’re still meant for each other. In every way. Toby!”
The dog paused at the sound of Lestrade’s scolding tone, but only briefly. He yipped once at them before taking off again. Lestrade’s resulting laugh was just as short-lived, replaced by a sudden coughing fit.
“Greg -”
“I’m fine,” Lestrade wheezed, brushing away the hand Sherlock placed on his elbow. Sherlock withdrew, pushing his hands into his pockets and curling them into fists to keep from reaching out for Lestrade again.
They pressed on once Lestrade had regained his breath, but Lestrade’s steps were measured and deliberate, more so than what had passed for normal for him since the diagnosis. Sherlock slowed the pace because he knew Lestrade wouldn’t. He also knew that they could walk their usual route around the entirety of the property without Lestrade saying a word in protest, no matter how he was feeling.
And so Sherlock turned to Lestrade after only half an hour and offered a weak smile, saying, “I think we should start back.”
Lestrade’s brows furrowed in confusion and slight accusation. “Oh?”
“My knee,” Sherlock said in clarification, and it wasn’t a complete lie. The injury he had received in an auto accident decades prior did give him trouble in certain weathers, and this Lestrade knew. The other man’s eyes softened almost instantly.
“Toby,” he called, turning back toward the cottage. “C’mon. Inside.”
If Lestrade thought that Sherlock’s reasons were anything other than the truth, he didn’t let on about it. And if, halfway up the hill, Sherlock offered his arm and Lestrade took it, leaning some of his weight on the younger man... well, nothing was said about that, either.
“Tomorrow will be better,” Sherlock said when they were inside, and Lestrade nodded.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
----
Sherlock recounted the morning’s events to John as they were preparing for bed that night.
“I’ve never seen...” Sherlock trailed off. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching as John stripped down to his pants. This was the first moment they'd had together since breakfast--John had been at the neighbors’ house for most of the afternoon, helping with their newborn. He never said as much out loud, but Sherlock privately suspected that John missed having a young child to care for, and so volunteered to look after one every time the opportunity presented itself.
“Hmm?” John asked as he stretched out on the bed. He folded his hands behind his head. “What’s this, now?”
“I’ve never seen him so exhausted,” Sherlock finished finally.
“It’s to be expected, Sherlock. With the disease and all,” John said, soothing, but they had had this conversation many times since Lestrade’s diagnosis some months prior, and his words were beginning to take on a well-worn tinge.
“Has he said anything to you?” Sherlock pressed.
“No,” John said, shaking his head. “You know I’d tell you. First thing.”
“Unless he promised you to secrecy,” Sherlock pointed out.
“Which he knows is pointless, because you’d be able to figure out, if nothing else, that he was keeping something from you.” John propped himself up on his elbows and pressed a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. When he pulled away, his expression was grave. “He’s... not doing well, physically. We all know that. We also know that he’s probably seen his last birthday.”
Sherlock nodded dumbly.
“But the end isn’t now,” John said gently, reaching for Sherlock’s hand. “It might be soon, yes, or a year down the road. It’s just not now. Not tonight. He’s safe, he’s comfortable, and he’s got us. Focus on that.”
“I try to.”
“I know.” John reached for the lamp, and extinguished the light. “You’ve got tomorrow. Try not to look beyond that. Day-by-day; that’s what we’ll have to do, yeah? Right, come here.”
Sherlock curled around John, and followed him quickly to sleep.
----
On the good days, John had coffee with Lestrade in the morning before going off to tend to his various in-home patients. Sherlock stopped by his room in the evening, usually to find Lestrade pecking away at his emails--mostly from old friends they had left behind in London--or reading a book while Toby slept at the end of his bed.
On the bad ones, John spent all morning with Lestrade, easing his discomfort with whatever medication was at his disposal or just providing Lestrade with some company. Sherlock would take over early in the afternoon, and they would all take dinner together in the small bedroom.
And then, if the day had been especially difficult on Lestrade, Sherlock would spend the night, curled in an overstuffed chair they had dragged in there from the living room.
Sherlock never intended to fall asleep, but age had brought with it some unpleasant realities, not the least of which was that he did not have the same tight control over his body now in his fifties that he had possessed while in his twenties.
And Sherlock woke every morning with his heart in his throat, frozen in the chair with his eyes fixed on Lestrade, unable to move until he saw the unmistakable rise and fall of the other man’s chest. He feared that, one day, he would wake up to find that Lestrade could not.
He couldn’t say how he would react should Lestrade pass, unannounced, in the night.
He couldn’t say, even, how he was going to react when it happened at all, be it in the night or under his watch.
He only knew that the thought of it flooded his veins with ice, and that he hadn’t been this terrified since the day he became a father.
----
Sherlock was out by the hives one afternoon when John went to find him.
“They’re looking good,” John said by way of greeting as he approached. They had suffered a rash of storms last month that damaged some of the hives; Sherlock hadn’t been sure whether they would recover, and had spent untold hours repairing and salvaging what he could of them. His efforts had paid off, and they were thriving once again.
“They are doing remarkably well,” Sherlock agreed. His eyes narrowed. “But you did not come out here to discuss apiology.”
“Can’t put anything past you, can I,” John said wearily. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground for a moment, unable to meet Sherlock’s wary gaze. “I just came to say, I think you should call it an early day and come back inside.”
“Don’t be foolish, John,” Sherlock huffed, turning back to his work. “There’s hours of daylight yet and I intend to make full use of it while I can. And we’re only weeks away from the first frost, so -”
“Sherlock,” John interrupted, and then said, slowly, “You need to call it an early day, and come inside.”
Sherlock’s hands stilled and he turned to face John fully, the suddenly-forgotten bees flitting around his face and zipping through his curls. He ignored them.
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” John said. “But... he’s not doing well.”
“He’s had bad days before.”
“This is different,” John said quietly, recalling Lestrade’s pallid and pained face. He had been resting finally when John left the house, but the morning had been long and difficult. “It’s more than a bad day. It’s...”
John trailed off and watched as Sherlock swallowed visibly.
“Tonight?” he asked finally.
John shook his head.
“No. I don’t think so. But it could happen anytime now. Tomorrow, perhaps; next week at the outset. It’s... it’s a death watch, Sherlock. From here on out. I’m so sorry.”
Sherlock shook his head violently, said, “No,” and turned on his heel and strode away.
“He’s been sleeping more than is normal. He hasn’t been eating,” John said softly, following Sherlock as he stepped into the shed and tugged off his gloves with more force than was strictly necessary. John folded his arms across his chest, warding off the sudden chill of a dying summer’s breeze. “You’ve seen him these past few days. You know this as well as I do. You know... you know what all of that means.”
“It means nothing,” Sherlock snapped at him. "I -"
“Sherlock. This isn't about you," John interrupted gently, and met his gaze steadily. “This is about your father, and you need to be with him now.”
----
Lestrade was asleep when Sherlock went to see him.
He was sitting up in bed, a pillow shoved behind his back and a book open on his lap. Sherlock padded silently into the room and took a blanket off of a nearby chair. He draped it over Lestrade’s legs and went to move the book. That motion was enough to wake Lestrade, however, and he blinked blearily up at Sherlock.
“What’re you doin’?” he murmured.
“You were asleep,” Sherlock replied. He set the book aside.
“Mmm. No. Just restin’.” Lestrade passed a hand over his eyes and then glanced at his watch. “Bit early for you to be back, yeah?”
“The hives have been taken care of for the night. There is little else for me to do at the moment,” Sherlock lied smoothly.
Lestrade stifled a yawn with the back of his hand, and then asked, “And how are they?”
“Well,” Sherlock told him. “I’m predicting that the second nectar flow will occur within the next week or two.”
“And you’ve never been wrong about that before,” Lestrade said with a smile.
“Not as yet, no.”
“You should be out there, then. Getting ready for it.”
Sherlock felt the smile drop from his face, and he shook his head. “I have time. I’d rather be here.”
Lestrade snorted. “Don’t lie to an old man, Sherlock Holmes, it isn’t kind. No one would rather be here.”
Sherlock felt the corner of his mouth tug upwards. “I’m not no one.”
Lestrade’s gaze turned pensive.
“No,” he mused. “No, you’re not.”
He tugged at the ends of the blanket, smoothing it over his lap, and then snapped his fingers twice. Toby, who had been sleeping by the door, dutifully padded over to the bed and leaped up, settling down with his head on Lestrade’s thigh. Lestrade rested his hand on the back of the dog’s neck and closed his eyes; Toby let out a heavy sigh and turned despondent eyes on Sherlock, as though he shared in his worry. Sherlock swallowed past a tight throat as Lestrade started to drift off to sleep once more.
“Do you remember the Dower case?” Sherlock asked abruptly, moved to do so by the absurd notion that if he could just keep Lestrade talking, the other man would be able to keep his tenuous hold on consciousness and life. It was irrational and unfounded--but then, Sherlock had always been irrational where Lestrade was concerned.
“Hmm?” Lestrade muttered, rousing himself.
“The Dower case,” Sherlock repeated.
“Yeah,” Lestrade rasped, a small smile tugging at his lips. “When you fell into the Thames. God, what a sight you were.”
“And what did you do after that?”
“Went in after you,” Lestrade answered readily. “Like I always do.”
“Yeah,” Sherlock murmured. “You always did. Never could figure out why, but you did.”
“Do you know now?”
Sherlock gazed at the chocolate eyes, filled with concern now as he had seen so many times at the beginning of their association--waking in hospital or on a dingy sofa in a god-forsaken flat, the first thing he always saw were those eyes.
“Yes,” he said softly. “I believe I do.”
“God,” Lestrade murmured, eyes drifting to the window. “We always talk about the work, don’t we?”
“Would you rather talk about something else?”
“I don’t know, Sherlock,” Lestrade sighed. “Jus’ - talk to me, yeah? Anything will do. Mem’ry’s not what it used to be; I’m sure even some of the old stories will sound new.”
Sherlock licked his lips, scrolling back through the memories in his mind, sorting aside the less-than-pleasant ones and seeing the big ones easily--the landmarks, the milestones.
“Do you remember the first time you saw Calvin walk?”
“‘Course I do,” Lestrade said fondly. “You called me that night--and you never call. Took me ten minutes to try to figure out what it was you were telling me. And I stopped by the next day on my lunch break t’see for myself.”
Sherlock nodded to himself. “And his first - his first recital.”
“God, he was a wreck. Bloody terrified. But he played flawlessly. Even you couldn’t find fault with his performance.”
“I believe, as a parent, I’m required not to,” Sherlock said around a smirk. “Though there wasn’t any fault to be found, anyway.”
Lestrade smiled, and patted his knee. “And his first day at university, when you cried...”
“I did not.”
“Right, ‘course not. Shed a tear, I mean.”
“Perhaps,” Sherlock grunted. He leaned back in his chair, and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Do you recall the time he first brought someone home?”
Lestrade gave a strong bark of a laugh, wildly incongruous with his thin frame. “You mean, when the former soldier and the scary Inspector from Scotland Yard teamed up to scare the shit out of the kid? Yeah... God, we were awful. John brought out all the terrifying things you had packed away years ago - the skull, the harpoon, the axe. Left them lying around the flat and put his gun, very conspicuously, next to his laptop.”
“If I recall, you were little better.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cal so mortified. Didn’t talk to us for a week after that.”
“And, for once, his annoyance was not directed at me,” Sherlock said with smirk. “So really, I should have thanked the two of you.”
“His first word was train,” Lestrade added fondly, continuing the reminiscing, and closed his eyes. Sherlock hesitated for half a second, and in that silence Lestrade must have sensed that something was wrong.
“No,” Sherlock said softly as Lestrade opened his eyes again, curious. “That - that was Jack.”
“Right,” Lestrade said after a moment. “No - you’re right, yeah, God. Sorry, lad. Cal’s - Cal’s was da.”
He was overcome then with a violent coughing fit, and Sherlock’s heart seized in his chest.
“All right?” Sherlock asked, reaching for the glass of water as Lestrade sucked in deep lungfuls of air.
“Yeah,” Lestrade was able to gasp after a moment. “M’fine. Jus’... this damn body.”
He sighed, leaning back against the pillows. “And this damn disease. What kind of an end is this? Can’t even remember my own kid’s first words.”
Sherlock found himself torn between It’s not the end and That’s not your fault and settled instead for silence. The first was a lie and the second Lestrade wouldn’t believe anyway.
“Don’t grow old, lad,” Lestrade muttered. “S’not worth the trouble.”
“I intend to do no such thing,” Sherlock said seriously, which elicited a snort from Lestrade.
“No, you wouldn’t, would you? Too damn stubborn to die.” Lestrade leaned back against the pillows and sighed. “Outlive us all, I should think.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“You will. You and John both. It’ll always be you two out here, long after the rest of us are gone.”
-----
The days after that were better. Lestrade regained some strength, enough so that on a handful of afternoons he was able to sit in his chair in the living room and read with Toby snoring away contentedly at his feet. And while he never went for another walk with Sherlock, some mornings he was able to make it as far as the porch, where he would pass the time with his coffee and newspaper and sometimes even Sherlock, when a moment could be spared from the hives.
And then there came a morning when Lestrade didn’t get out of bed at all.
----
John was usually the first to check on Lestrade in the mornings, doing so while Sherlock showered and dressed. He returned to their bedroom that particular day as Sherlock was still doing up his shirt, and closed the door behind him.
“I don’t think you should go out to the hives today,” John announced quietly, his face grey and sombre.
“What’s happened?” Sherlock asked sharply, his heart knocking wildly in his chest. John brushed past him to stand by the window, bracing his hands on the sill, gazing out at the trees beyond. “John.”
John didn’t turn around. When he answered, his words were empty.
“I think... he just saw his last sunrise, Sherlock.”
----
John called Cal that afternoon, and told him that it was time to come home.
----
Lestrade didn’t wake again until the afternoon, but Sherlock passed the morning in the small bedroom anyway, his laptop open on his lap but his fingers still on the keyboard. Every now and again he could bring himself to skim through an article or two, but it wasn’t long before his gaze was drawn back to the window or to Lestrade’s too-still form. His thoughts were even further away, focused on nothing in particular.
He was numb.
John visited his morning patients and rescheduled his afternoon ones so he could join them for a few hours. At three, after Lestrade had fallen asleep again, he checked his mobile and then handed it to Sherlock so that he could read the message.
Calvin was on his way.
Sherlock absorbed this news with a small jerk of his head, handing the phone back to John; then, with John halfway out the door, he said, “He won’t make it in time.”
John paused on the threshold for a long minute, his hand resting on the doorknob.
“No,” he said at last. “No, I don’t think he will.”
-----
When Lestrade woke for the final time, golden light was slanting through the window from the setting sun.
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock was out of his chair in an instant, moving to sit on the mattress at Lestrade’s side. A calloused hand found its way into his, though which of them moved first he couldn’t say, and Lestrade’s heavy brown eyes held him frozen in place.
This is it, Sherlock registered vaguely, though he couldn’t say why he was so certain of this. Perhaps it was the fact that the ever-present lines of strain had nearly all disappeared from Lestrade’s face, smoothed away by an unknown force. He appeared serene.
He was no longer fighting.
“Yes,” Sherlock said, squeezing the hand. “It’s me. What is it?”
Lestrade’s breaths were shallow, his chest working laboriously to try to suck air into failing lungs. Sherlock rested his free hand on Lestrade’s shoulder, leaning over him so that the man could keep him in view.
“Relax,” Sherlock said. “You... you must relax, Greg.”
No, he wanted to say instead. No, you have to fight.
But John’s strained words came to him, as did his husband’s red-rimmed and haunted eyes, from back when they all had tentatively discussed the subject of medical intervention for when Lestrade’s body finally failed him. Lestrade had vetoed it almost immediately, and John had been left to explain his reasons to a hurting Sherlock.
Resuscitation is damaging, you know that. It would cause him even more pain than what he’s already enduring. It’d work, Sherlock, but he’d hurt. And with life support, he’d never leave the hospital. He’d never come back home.
“Trying,” Lestrade whispered. His hand clutched at Sherlock’s in a deceptively-strong grip, no longer fighting the inevitable but unwilling to let go just yet. “Trying to -”
“Don’t try,” Sherlock found himself saying. He placed the palm of his hand flat on Lestrade’s chest, feeling him breathe. “I’m all right, Greg. We’re all right.”
“Yeah?” Lestrade gave a crooked grin. “Yeah, you are, aren’t you? M’glad.”
“Yes,” Sherlock whispered, stumbling on. “Cal is - is healthy, and off at school, and nearly grown up now. And - and John has the practice. It suits him; he’s very happy.”
Lestrade reached out for Sherlock’s knee, and swept his thumb soothingly across the inside of Sherlock’s kneecap.
“You?”
“I am as well,” Sherlock answered the fragmented question. “I’m happy, Greg.”
Sherlock took Lestrade’s hand in both of his, trying to rub some warmth back into the cool flesh. Cold, too cold, unnaturally so. He brought the hand to his mouth, brushing his lips briefly across Lestrade’s fingers, and then whispered, “It’s all right. I’m all right.”
The eyes that met his shone too brightly in the semi-darkness. Lestrade lifted a hand to Sherlock’s cheek, and in the next moment Sherlock had his head on Lestrade’s chest, his ear resting over the staccato beat of the fading heart. Lestrade threaded his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, the way he had done when their positions had been reversed all those decades ago.
Sherlock closed his eyes, and in an instant he was twenty-six, twenty-seven, kipping on a borrowed sofa while Lestrade (forty, forty-one, ageless), brushed the hair away from his face with a gentle hand. He breathed in the scent of Lestrade’s laundry soap and was twenty-eight, twenty-nine, hunched, ill, over the sink in a flat that had become his adopted home while a hand gripped his shoulder and told him that it would be all right.
“M’boy,” Lestrade murmured on a wisp of breath, the words rumbling up through his chest, and Sherlock felt them against his cheek more than he heard them. He lifted his head and was met with a wavering smile, the last bit of comfort Lestrade was able to offer as his strength left him. “Oh, lad. Lookit you.”
Sherlock gently set the hand that he still held back down on the mattress, and then pushed shaking fingers through Lestrade’s short and sweat-damp hair. His breaths were growing thin and reedy, each one more shallow than the last. His eyelids fluttered.
Let go, Sherlock wished he could have said, but he wasn't selfless enough for that.
“It’s all right,” he whispered instead. The words still tasted like ash on his tongue, but Lestrade's face eased anyway. Sherlock dropped his head and pressed his lips to Lestrade’s temple as the other man let out his final exhale, and murmured the words he had heard so often at the beginning: “It’s all right, Greg. I’ve got you.”
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Previous Two Stories: "Points of Departure" and "What do you see, my blue-eyed son?"
Conclusion: "The Colours Dull, and Candles Dim"
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Final Notes:
As mentioned at the beginning, this is the second-to-last WC story, but from comments I’ve received over the past few months, I think this is the one you’ve all seen coming for a while. So here is where I start my farewell to this series. Thanks must go, first and foremost, to canonisrelative. When I sat down a year ago and wrote “Worthwhile Things,” I hadn’t intended for it to be more than an idea I found interesting and wanted to share with a friend. She latched onto it, and I found that I couldn’t shake it. We started writing random snippets for one another, and an entire universe started to form. Between the two of us, we wrote 70,000 words in three weeks, and then she floated the idea of cleaning up the stories and posting them as a cohesive series for others to read as well.
I’m so very glad we did.
I’ve formed many fandom friendships as a result of this series, and solidified my existing one with Canon. I’m very pleased to be able to count her among my close friends now, and it’s a wonderful experience to be able to truly click and work well with a co-author. Especially one as talented as she is. Thank you, dear, for everything.
Thanks also to basaltgrrl, who has provided us with some gorgeous illustrations for many of the stories. She gave Calvin a face, among other things, and it’s been such an honor to have someone draw art for things we’ve written. Thank you, BG.
I’m sorry to see this series drawing to a close, but it’s been a wonderful year. Thank you, many times over, to everyone who has come along with us on the journey of this little family-by-choice. There’s just one more fic after this one; thank you for coming this far with us.