Damn it Harry!
Notes: Written for this prompt, while I should have been writing other stuff. The things I do to not procrastinate....
Summary: John gets tired of Harry's drinking and breaks all contact with her. Some months later, she dies of alcohol poisoning.
-x-
”John! Answer your phone!” Sherlock ordered, “I can’t think with that - what on earth is that? It sounds like a child telly show! You’re supposed to be a grown man, use a proper ringtone.”
John shook his head with an amused smile and moved away from the crime scene, ducking under the yellow tape. It was the first crime scene that had really intrigued Sherlock for months so he could understand why the detective didn’t want to be disturbed.
“Yes?” he answered even though it was an unknown number.
“Dr John Watson?” an unfamiliar male voice asked him to confirm.
“Yes, this is he.”
“I’m Dr Sage and I’m calling from Brighton General,” the man introduced himself and John’s brain jumped straight to professional mood, “I’m really sorry to bringing you this news over the phone, but your sister, Harriet Watson, died half an hour ago.”
John felt the air leave him and even though he had turned back and faced the crime scene - it was never good to leave Sherlock unattended around the police - he saw nothing. Harry shouldn’t be in Brighton. Why would she be in Brighton? She was, she was in London. He hadn’t spoken to her for seven months, but she was in London.
“Dr Watson, are you still there?”
“Yes, sorry….” John cleared his throat, “What, I mean, how…?”
“Alcohol poisoning. She was unconscious upon arrival and we never managed to revive her.”
Damn it, Harry….
“I’m sorry,” Dr Sage said again.
“Than….” John had to pause mid-word and clear his throat again; to swallow, to remove the pressure that kept him from breathing properly. “Thank you for…infor- telling me. I….I’m not at home right…right now….Can I call you back in an hour…or two?”
“Of course,” Dr Sage gave him a phone number that went straight to his ward, but John wasn’t capable of remembering it and, after once again hearing how sorry Dr Sage was, John hung up.
With a trembling breath he fell against the wall of the building behind him. He stared straight forward, not seeing much more than people moving in and out of his line of sight. The sounds muffled.
Damn it, Harry.
***
John wasn’t the first one noticing, but after Tom had pointed it out it was too obvious to miss. Harry had a problem. It was called gin; it was called vodka, rum, wine and bear. Sake. Raki. Schnapps.
Or just alcohol.
It had taken four days after Tom’s statement before John had accepted it. Harry was on the brink of becoming an alcoholic and he had to stop making excuses for her. None of the whys mattered anymore.
Well, yes, they did; they did still matter. Obviously it did matter that their parents didn’t accept her sexuality, not to mention how important it was that she hadn’t come to terms with it herself because of their parents’ idiocy. It mattered. It counted as really good reasons. Just not as good excuses. Not anymore.
He had done it for way to long; letting her get away with it because he didn’t have the will or strengths to deal with it. To help her. Because of - or thanks to - Tom though, he couldn’t keep his eyes closed anymore.
“You’re so cute when you worry,” Harry told him, lying on the sofa (his sofa!), and smiling innocently at her baby brother who was standing next to her with a concerned look and arms folded over his chest.
“Seriously, Harry,” John tried, almost pleading, “You have a problem.”
“Oh sod off, you,” she asked him, turning off the telly and sitting up, “I’m not one of your practice patients.”
“No you’re my sister, that’s a hell of a lot more important,” he said, trying his hardest to sound honest and concerned. It came out mostly frustrated. Even a bit irritated. Well, frustrated and irritated were the feelings Harry provoked most of the time, so maybe it wasn't that strange.
“I don’t have a drinking problem,” she said slowly, emphasising the words more than she had to. She had done it a lot when they were kids to imply that John was stupid. He’d hated it then, he hated it now.
“Prove it,” he demanded.
“Doctor Watson, please,” she said condescending, almost rolling her eyes at the doctor-part.
“Shut up,” he snapped.
“You shut up.”
“How old are you? Five?”
“That would make you what? Two?”
How did this, which was supposed to be a serious, adult conversation, end up being a childish argument? Did that happen to all siblings, or just the ones where the younger tried to be the more mature one?
“I’m serious, Harry,” John tried again, it had cost him so much to come to this realisation, he had shed tears because of it, and he wasn’t going to let her get out of this conversation.
“That’s your problem,” she interrupted, “You’re too serious. You see diseases and problems where there aren’t any. Then you worry about things that don’t exist….You shouldn’t worry about me, I should be the one worrying about you.”
“Well, who’s supposed to worry about you, then?” he asked, seating himself next to her.
It was just three years between them. When they’d been children, Harry had looked after John to her best ability, in the way older sisters do, John supposed. Entering her early teens, Harry had soon ditched her baby brother; something else that John though was perfectly natural. Then they had been allies all through her late teenage years, sharing her secret, hiding it from their parents, until she’d had the courage to come out to them.
From that day forth, John had been her only family.
“It’s okay, John,” she said, putting her arm around in. Comforting. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”
“Prove it,” John asked of her again, “If you’re sober for…one week, I’ll stop worrying.”
“Deal,” she said, smiling and hugging his shoulder.
She did it. Not for just one week, she stayed sober for sixteen days.
John was pleased (even if the seventeenth day had ended with Harry falling asleep on his bathroom floor again), but he remembered Tom’s words and kept a closer eye on his sister’s drinking from that day on. She might have kept her part of the deal, but somehow, stop worrying seemed much harder than stop drinking.
-x-
“John!”
Sherlock called for him. Not now Sherlock, please, John had no desire to look at the dead young man again. It was the third strangled backpacker in Paddington, staying at the same hostel; there was no way Sherlock could need him for establishing a provisional cause of death before the official report came.
“John?” Sherlock’s voice was closer, lower.
John raised his head and met real worry in Sherlock’s eyes. It was too much, Sherlock couldn’t worry about him like this when there was such an interesting corpse just meters away. That somehow made it all real.
“What’s happened?”
“Please stop….” John asked, voice hoarse with tears, shaking his head and looking away from him, “Go back to Lestrade….”
It was hard to tell if he broke off because his voice didn’t hold or because he just didn’t know what to say. Either way, Sherlock obeyed. It was surprising, but appreciated.
-x-
Five empty cups in various places. A plate with leftovers on the nightstand. Curtain closed for five days. A heavy pathology book in his lap. Notes taped all over the wall. Feet on the desk. Fingers entangled in the phone cord. Crying sister in the ear.
John couldn’t hear a word of what she was saying. Honestly, he didn’t try so hard. No, most of his focus was on tissue samples. Two days from now he had a huge exam and, as always, he had started to study a week too late.
Drunken phone calls from Harry were never welcomed. Even less so when he had more important things to do than tell her the expected “It’s going to be okay”, “You did the right thing”, “She an idiot” and so on. Well, he had always more important things to do than that.
He didn’t have the time for this; instead he put the phone on the desk, returning to his book. It wasn’t hard to refocus, he wasn’t overly concerned about whatever problem his drama seeking sister had this evening. It was always something, always someone, especially when she was partying. She did it more often now, on completely random days, but John had sympathy for her, she had it…rough. That’s why he didn’t hang up, even though he really wanted to.
After finishing each paragraph, he picked up the phone and said something to her. Not that it mattered, not that she would notice if he didn’t. This continued until the time John picked up the phone and instead of sobbing, heard snoring.
Sighing he hung up the phone and took a moment to ponder if he should go to her and put her to bed. The decision to stay at the desk wasn’t as easy as the one putting down the phone, but it was the right one. Exam trumped passed out sister.
-x-
He had a mug of tea in his hands. Sherlock had made him tea and was now sitting opposite him at the cleared out kitchen table. How it happened that they were at Baker Street already was a bit puzzling for John, but he didn’t care; it was such a relief to come inside and into the familiar chaos he called home.
Sherlock hadn’t said a word since he had sent him away at the crime scene, but he seemed determined to not leave John alone anymore. The tea had been made during John’s second phone conversation with Dr Sage and thanks to that, John was pretty sure he wouldn’t have to tell Sherlock what had happened. It suited him perfectly.
They were going to send the body and her belongings to Bart’s so he could claim it there. It seemed as if she had been on vacation, if you could call it that when you couldn’t hold down a job. The toxicology had shown alcohol levels so high that John was surprised she hadn’t passed out earlier, but still just alcohol. It felt like such a strange, and irrelevant, comfort that she hadn’t used anything else. Alcohol or methamphetamine, why did it matter?
Sherlock’s reached across the table and touched his hand; it was such a light touch with the fingertips that it tickled more than anything else. It was enough to make John cry. First just a sob, but soon he let go of the mug and covered his face with his hands, his whole body shaking as he did his best to stay quiet. Why this was a priority was hard to say, but it just was!
Without taking notice of what it might mean, he heard Sherlock’s chair move and just seconds later Sherlock pulled him into a hug. Still sitting on the chair, John gratefully and greedy wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist and cried into the soft fabric of his shirt. Sherlock’s hands rested lightly on his shoulder and his back.
When the lack of oxygen made him dizzy, the tears had been out for a good while, leaving just dry sobbing. Still Sherlock didn’t let go until he did. The space suddenly created between them made John sob again before he did a very vain attempt to dry is eyes with his hands. Sherlock handed him a paper towel which John gratefully accepted. He couldn’t even manage to feel the slightest bit of embarrassment; the cry had made him completely empty.
“I’m going to bed,” he muttered, not knowing and not caring what time it was. Sherlock nodded and through it all, John could still reflect over the fact that he had probably ruined one of Sherlock’s favourite shirts with tears and snot.
He fell asleep almost as soon as he turned off the light; the bliss of sleep was wonderful.
-x-
John didn’t know what this was supposed to be like. He had been in school his whole life, and now all of a sudden, he wasn’t. All exams were done. All rapports neatly written and handed in. All hours clocked at hospitals and surgeries. Whatever it was supposed to feel like, he was pretty sure guilt wasn’t one of the feelings he was supposed to have.
Standing at the side line of the greatest argument (tears and broken glasses) in modern time, John couldn’t help but feel that he’d made a bad call and almost lead his sister to slaughter by inviting her and Clara to the graduation fest their parents threw for him. He couldn’t gather any sympathy for his parents though, no matter how hard he tried.
At the other side of the room stood Clara, arms wrapped around herself, eyes directed to the floor as she heard how her future in-laws called her and Harry an abomination, saying that they were never welcomed here in the first place and other really nasty things that John actually never thought his parents were capable of verbalising. If the invitation had been unfair to Harry, it was a terrible injustice to Clara. Harry, lead to slaughter; Clara, pushed straight into a minefield.
Should he warn Clara about the drinking; the fact that it might become a problem, the fact that it might already be a problem? No, Harry had behaved so well these last months (spared tonight but the situation was forgiving) and something like that would surely scare Clara off. It might never become a problem; maybe Harry would behave the rest of her life. Maybe. Hopefully. For the first time he actually considered telling someone though. For the first time he felt that telling someone might protect Harry better than covering it up as he always done.
John watched his closest family in the middle of the room, both sister and mother crying now, and the rest of the party just standing around, goggling. John hated them all for not interfering, for not stopping this; grown-ups who just stood there, watching how two parents verbally ripped apart their daughter.
Determined, John walked up to his family, placing himself between his sister and their parents.
“Go to hell,” he told his parents, hasher than he had planned, but he was satisfied with how silent they became and how shocked they looked before he turned to Harry. She looked so terrible; his heart ached and he felt so ashamed for bringing her here. Tonight, her drinking was entirely his fault.
“Let’s take Clara and just go home,” he said in a low voice to Harry so no one else would hear, putting her hair behind her ear just as their parents (read: their father) started to go at it again, telling John to not embarrass them (as if they needed the help) and not use that kind of language. Something about honouring your father and your mother; Sunday school had been such a waste on John.
“Sod off!” John screamed over his shoulder, making most people in the room jump, before turning back to Harry and leading her out of the room, arm sportingly around her waist. She cried and he whispered apologises and promises of killing their parents slowly. Clara hurried after them and just before leaving, John looked back at his parents - eyes filled with venom - wondering if he could ever forgive them.
Harry whispered apologises to Clara the whole way to the car - it was a long time since John had stopped drinking when Harry was around. It was noting John hadn’t heard before, no he had heard all of Harry’s drunken apologises many times, but it was a long time since he had listen to them. The guilt over ruining the night and drinking too much, the promises to never do it again, the declarations of love (he wondered if she had told Clara she loved her before); all of it sounds strange when directed at someone else.
While walking Harry out of the room he had realised that he had a decision to make, or rather that he had made a decision already; he couldn’t let his parents be a part of his life anymore. It came down to a choice between Harry and his parents; and no matter how fed up he was with Harry from time to time, or how much he wished to have a life where all the problems were his own and not hers, he could never reward his parents with his company when they treated Harry like this.
She was his sister and he loved her. It was the law or something. Sure, there was a law stating that he had to love his parents too (besides from the one the Bible his father had said something about), but they had broken the “You must love your children no matter what”-law, so he didn’t feel so ashamed about that.
Starting tonight, as soon as he left, he would be an orphan with living parents.
-x-
“I’m so sorry John….” Molly said in her awkward, but oh so thoughtful, way and gave him a just as awkward and thoughtful hug. John did almost nothing to respond to it.
“Thank you, Molly,” he said and put on the same smile he had been giving Mrs Hudson for the last two days. He couldn’t stand their landlady fussing over him and he was pretty sure he’d have the same reaction to Molly.
“I didn’t even know you had a sister,” Molly kept on talking as they walked over to the table where John suspected Harry was. She was obviously nervous and John just kept on smiling because he had nothing to say to that statement. He didn’t have a sister anymore, did he?
“Do you want to see her or…should I make arrangement for….I can do that you know.”
Again, so awkward and thoughtful. So kind. She really deserved someone better than Sherlock or Moriarty. The smile on John’s face felt a bit more genuine for a moment.
“It’s okay, I’ve managed that already,” it had actually been the first thing he had done the morning after he had found out, “Having her cremated. But yeah…I’d…I’d like to see her.”
Molly opened the black bag and no matter how much John tried to remain in control of himself he had to close his eyes and look away. He was not ready to see this yet. He just wasn’t.
“Want me to leave you alone for a bit?”
“Yes, please,” John whispered, rubbing his face.
“Okidokie then, I’ll come back in a bit.”
“Molly, thank you,” John forced himself to look at her again and put on the smile, “Sherlock’s upstairs…if you could bring him when you come back…?”
“Of course,” Molly nodded and blushed. His sister was lying dead on a steal table between them and she blushed because he mentioned Sherlock! That was just not right….
He braced himself and waited until the door closed behind Molly before looking down at his sister. The sight almost brought him to his knees and he bit his lip hard. She looked so worn. So battered by life. He remembered her as beautiful, not a Hollywood film star, but beautiful still. Smiling. Smirking. He had never seen this sister, this greyish, old version of the colourful pain-in-the arse she’d been.
“Damn it, Harry….” he whispered and tried to gather the professional distance he once had been able to place between himself and dead friends. People were not supposed to be able to do that though, he knew that. It had never worked for long after the adrenaline wore off and now he didn’t have any adrenaline to start with so it was outright impossible.
John placed two fingers on her cold cheek, but as if burned by fire he pulled back. A tremble went through his entire body and he wiped his hand on his jeans.
“Damn it, Harry!” he yelled, “Why didn’t you let me help you? If this was your plan all along, couldn’t you just have thrown yourself in the bloody Thames? I could have lent you my gun! It would have been faster! And so much more considerate to me! But you have no idea, have you? You never cared! What it did to me! What it did to Clara!”
He was yelling at a corpse. That realisation made him cry instead, not much but somehow the tears calmed him and he placed his hand on her chest, her red silk top just barely saving him from her coolness.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “God, Harry….I’m sorry I left, I’m sorry I gave up. I was just so messed up when I got home….That’s no excuse, I should have….I’m sorry, Harry….I was supposed to be on your side.”
They had been each other’s only family for years. Sure, Harry had had Clara - wonderful, wonderful Clara, John still hadn’t really forgiving Harry for messing that up - for a while, but it wasn’t the same. John had given up his relationship with their parents for her sake. He had picked her over their parents and she had picked the bottle over him. Still it was he who apologised, because he felt he hadn’t done enough. He’d left, first the country and then her. He had left to help others and failed to help her; his own sister. Wasn’t she worth more?
“Want some more time?” Molly wondered as she knocked and opened the door at the same time. John quickly withdrew his hand.
“No it’s hrm….” he cleared his throat and dried his eyes as discreetly as he could before turning around; failing to put on the smile. “It’s okay.”
Molly pushed the door open and John saw Sherlock standing one step behind her. He looked calm, composed, very Sherlock. Nothing in his face told that anything was out of the ordinary and John was ever so grateful. Still, he knew that Lestrade had called him three times before they went here (apparently there had been another body) and the fact that Sherlock was still here, not even looking eager to get away, made John even more grateful.
-x-
To: John H. Watson
From: Clara Shaw-Watson
Subject: I’m sorry
I’m sorry, I should have written more. I just don’t know what to write anymore because I can’t write what I need to write. You know?
I need to tell you something because I can’t handle it, but I cannot tell you, you’re in freaking Afghanistan, saving people who would die without you! And you really shouldn’t have to deal with this. And I know I can’t send you this and expect you to drop it, so I guess I do this to force myself to say it.
I’m so, so sorry…You did this for so long and I really, really should handle this better.
She’s drinking again. I don’t know what to do. It’s been going on for so long but I couldn’t tell you. You were leaving for Afghanistan for Christ sake! And I thought I could handle it and that it would get better, but it just gets worse and worse and I can’t pretend it’s not happening.
What should I do? What can I do?
I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything sooner and I’m sorry I’m saying it now and I’m sorry I’m burdening you with this because I know there is nothing you can do from there.
Please just come home safe. Please, please, please come home safe.
//Clara
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Damn it, Harry….” John whispered to the computer screen. A feeling of desperation started to spread in his body as he took a moment and sighed into his hands.
He’d thought it had been fine, that all had been good. He had been so happy; Clara was so good for her. They’d got her sober, she had got herself sober. Just a couple of months ago he and Clara had exchanged e-mails, joking about insemination and him kidnapping Afghani orphans for her and Harry to adopt. She had asked him to help him pick out the colour for the nursery….
What had happened in the months between? Or wait….He read the mail again and his heart sank; “You were leaving for Afghanistan for Christ sake!” It had started before he’d left. And he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen a thing.
There was nothing he could do now. Not from here. Damn it, Harry, it had all been going so well, hadn’t it? What had gone wrong? He didn’t understand.
He needed to answer Clara, say some comforting words that would mean nothing in the end. He just had to, but he couldn’t. Instead he just kept staring on the one line that said that he’d missed it, that he had failed them both. If he thought it would have helped, he would have punched the screen.
Way to ruin a perfectly fine day in the war, Harry. She had to be the only person able to do that.
-x-
What did you say when someone handed you a plain container with your sister’s ashes? It was a very surreal feeling. Very surreal. This coming from the man who, more than once, had found a human head in his fridge.
“Thank you,” he settled on, because he had manners, and nodded slightly before he left.
Now what would he do with his sister’s remains? Once upon a time, he and Harry had been raised catholic (or maybe “catholic”) but seeing as that upbringing might actually be part of the reason for all this, John was pretty sure Harry didn’t want anything to do with any church in her afterlife.
Still, it felt like a funeral was what he was supposed to have for her and no matter how hard he tried, he still thought of a church every time. Christianity was just so entwined in everything in the English society that he couldn’t escape it even if he wanted to. Subconsciously, it pulled him back in.
Jesus - more of a manipulative bitch than Sherlock.
“Should I take her?”
It sounded strange to hear Sherlock refer to an inane object like that, sometimes he didn’t even extend that courtesy to living people. He had followed him here under the pretence of trying to get some “leftovers”; John found that excuse disturbing.
“No,” John shook his head and looked at the container; he hadn’t even bothered to order a proper urn. Harry wouldn’t care, but he cared a little right now.
“What are you going to do with her?”
“I was thinking about placing it next to the skull,” John said thoughtfully and when he realised he had made a joke he forced a smile to accompany it. “I have no idea. Should I call our parents? Should I call Clara?”
“You want to call Clara,” Sherlock told him and John nodded, yes he’d very much like to call Clara. But was it fair to her? He had no idea on what terms she and Harry had split. He didn’t want to call their parents though, but he felt obligated to.
Not that they had any right or claim over Harry anymore.
-x-
“I thought you were going to pick me up at the airport?” John had managed to let himself into Harry’s flat. The cabbie had given him a helping hand with the luggage up the stairs and John was very grateful; it was hard with an injured shoulder, a cane and a messed up leg.
And a sister who apparently couldn’t sober up for three hours to come and pick him up at the airport when he returned home from the bloody war!
“John!” Harry almost tripped over herself to come and throw herself around his neck. “I’m so sorry! I thought you said you’d come on Monday!”
“It is Monday,” John informed her, but answered the hug to his best ability. It was something so familiar and something so safe with being home with her right now. All this time away…he had missed her. He really had.
“Bloody hell you look terrible!” She informed him when she backed away.
You too sis, you too.
“Does it hurt a lot? Are you in pain?”
Yes.
“And I thought you got shot in the shoulder, not the leg!”
I was. Long story.
“John, say something! You’re kinda freaking me out….”
“How much have you been drinking today?” Maybe not the best thing to start with, but it was the only thing playing in his head. When he looked passed her into the flat, he saw paper bags with hidden bottles.
“Stop playing Dr Hero,” she mocked him, making a joke out it as always. He looked at her as she towed his bags into the flat, talking about where they should go for dinner. This wasn’t going to work.
-x-
There was a Garden of Remembrance in the corner of the cemetery; a small one, didn’t look like much to the world, but somewhere, someone had scattered the remains of Harriet Watson. John hadn’t been present, but he had picked the garden at least. Finally.
For three weeks, Harry had actually shared the top of the mantle with the skull. Morbid, but now she was somewhere else. Somewhere in the garden. Hopefully at peace.
John stood at the entrance with an arm around Clara’s waist. He had finally gathered the courage to call her and now the two persons who probably cared the most for Harry stood in silence and looked at the roses. Sure, Harry had friends, both sober and none sober ones, but her drinking friends John couldn’t stand and the sober ones….To be honest, John hadn’t tried to locate anyone.
This strange, slightly awkward, moment of silence was the only funeral Harriet Watson would get. Clara had wanted to read a poem, but faced with the situation she settled on just placing it next to the small plaque outside with Harry’s name on.
“I loved her,” Clara said, almost as a confession and lay her head on John’s shoulder.
“I did too,” he whispered back and wondered if Harry had known that.
-x-
It wasn’t an argument anymore. It was a staring competition which neither of them had planned to lose. John had to wonder what in God’s name he had been thinking; between his PTSD and Harry’s drinking there was no room for a harmonious living arrangement.
“What do you want me to do?” Harry wondered and John had to gather all his strength not to snap again.
“To stop drinking! I want you to stop drinking!”
“It’s not a problem!”
“Are you blind?” John wondered, “It has cost you a job, it has cost you your wife…and if you’re not careful, it’s going to cost you a brother!”
“Who’re you kidding?” she wondered in return, “Where the fuck would you go?”
“They offer me accommodations,” - Why, oh why hadn’t he taken the nice army up on their offer? Maybe he’d actually been able to stand his sister then? - “It’s not like I’m depended on you for anything!”
“Well fuck you then!” she spluttered, “I don’t need you either! Not you, not your God-complex, not anything!”
“Go to hell, Harry!”
She slammed the door behind her as she left. John had all his things out of her flat by the time she came back.
-x-
“How do you feel?” Sherlock wondered as soon as John walked into the sitting-room and practically fell onto the sofa.
“I’ll be okay,” John sighed with a nod and stared at the place where Harry had been sitting for the last three weeks, “Me and Clara actually went out and had a drink in her memory. It felt…strangely appropriate.”
“Do you want so tea?”
“Yes, please,” John gave him an almost peaceful smile; he was too emotionally drained right now to manage a real emotion, “You’ve been pretty good at making tea lately.”
“Basic chemistry,” Sherlock commented and it was really hard to argue with that.
“Thank you,” John said when Sherlock came back with his tea.
“It’s just basic chemistry,” Sherlock repeated and shrugged.
“No, Sherlock,” John shook his head and hold his gaze, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Sherlock said and added after a short silence, “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t. So much….Anymore,” John extended the sentence until Sherlock looked satisfied with the answer. It was the truth, he didn’t. Still there were so many things he wished he could still say to her, so many things he could take back. So many things he could have done to help. More than once he had wished that he could have been her Mycroft.
Which reminded him, he couldn’t make peace with Harry but that didn’t mean it was too late for everyone.
“Do me one last favour?” John asked and Sherlock looked up with raised brows, “Call Mycroft.”
John braced himself for the long persuasion process that would follow, but Sherlock just turned back to his article.
“I did that yesterday.”
-x-
The same story seen from Sherlock's POV.
Summary: John gets tired of Harry's drinking and breaks all contact with her. Some months later, she dies of alcohol poisoning.
-x-
”John! Answer your phone!” Sherlock ordered, “I can’t think with that - what on earth is that? It sounds like a child telly show! You’re supposed to be a grown man, use a proper ringtone.”
John shook his head with an amused smile and moved away from the crime scene, ducking under the yellow tape. It was the first crime scene that had really intrigued Sherlock for months so he could understand why the detective didn’t want to be disturbed.
“Yes?” he answered even though it was an unknown number.
“Dr John Watson?” an unfamiliar male voice asked him to confirm.
“Yes, this is he.”
“I’m Dr Sage and I’m calling from Brighton General,” the man introduced himself and John’s brain jumped straight to professional mood, “I’m really sorry to bringing you this news over the phone, but your sister, Harriet Watson, died half an hour ago.”
John felt the air leave him and even though he had turned back and faced the crime scene - it was never good to leave Sherlock unattended around the police - he saw nothing. Harry shouldn’t be in Brighton. Why would she be in Brighton? She was, she was in London. He hadn’t spoken to her for seven months, but she was in London.
“Dr Watson, are you still there?”
“Yes, sorry….” John cleared his throat, “What, I mean, how…?”
“Alcohol poisoning. She was unconscious upon arrival and we never managed to revive her.”
Damn it, Harry….
“I’m sorry,” Dr Sage said again.
“Than….” John had to pause mid-word and clear his throat again; to swallow, to remove the pressure that kept him from breathing properly. “Thank you for…infor- telling me. I….I’m not at home right…right now….Can I call you back in an hour…or two?”
“Of course,” Dr Sage gave him a phone number that went straight to his ward, but John wasn’t capable of remembering it and, after once again hearing how sorry Dr Sage was, John hung up.
With a trembling breath he fell against the wall of the building behind him. He stared straight forward, not seeing much more than people moving in and out of his line of sight. The sounds muffled.
Damn it, Harry.
***
John wasn’t the first one noticing, but after Tom had pointed it out it was too obvious to miss. Harry had a problem. It was called gin; it was called vodka, rum, wine and bear. Sake. Raki. Schnapps.
Or just alcohol.
It had taken four days after Tom’s statement before John had accepted it. Harry was on the brink of becoming an alcoholic and he had to stop making excuses for her. None of the whys mattered anymore.
Well, yes, they did; they did still matter. Obviously it did matter that their parents didn’t accept her sexuality, not to mention how important it was that she hadn’t come to terms with it herself because of their parents’ idiocy. It mattered. It counted as really good reasons. Just not as good excuses. Not anymore.
He had done it for way to long; letting her get away with it because he didn’t have the will or strengths to deal with it. To help her. Because of - or thanks to - Tom though, he couldn’t keep his eyes closed anymore.
“You’re so cute when you worry,” Harry told him, lying on the sofa (his sofa!), and smiling innocently at her baby brother who was standing next to her with a concerned look and arms folded over his chest.
“Seriously, Harry,” John tried, almost pleading, “You have a problem.”
“Oh sod off, you,” she asked him, turning off the telly and sitting up, “I’m not one of your practice patients.”
“No you’re my sister, that’s a hell of a lot more important,” he said, trying his hardest to sound honest and concerned. It came out mostly frustrated. Even a bit irritated. Well, frustrated and irritated were the feelings Harry provoked most of the time, so maybe it wasn't that strange.
“I don’t have a drinking problem,” she said slowly, emphasising the words more than she had to. She had done it a lot when they were kids to imply that John was stupid. He’d hated it then, he hated it now.
“Prove it,” he demanded.
“Doctor Watson, please,” she said condescending, almost rolling her eyes at the doctor-part.
“Shut up,” he snapped.
“You shut up.”
“How old are you? Five?”
“That would make you what? Two?”
How did this, which was supposed to be a serious, adult conversation, end up being a childish argument? Did that happen to all siblings, or just the ones where the younger tried to be the more mature one?
“I’m serious, Harry,” John tried again, it had cost him so much to come to this realisation, he had shed tears because of it, and he wasn’t going to let her get out of this conversation.
“That’s your problem,” she interrupted, “You’re too serious. You see diseases and problems where there aren’t any. Then you worry about things that don’t exist….You shouldn’t worry about me, I should be the one worrying about you.”
“Well, who’s supposed to worry about you, then?” he asked, seating himself next to her.
It was just three years between them. When they’d been children, Harry had looked after John to her best ability, in the way older sisters do, John supposed. Entering her early teens, Harry had soon ditched her baby brother; something else that John though was perfectly natural. Then they had been allies all through her late teenage years, sharing her secret, hiding it from their parents, until she’d had the courage to come out to them.
From that day forth, John had been her only family.
“It’s okay, John,” she said, putting her arm around in. Comforting. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”
“Prove it,” John asked of her again, “If you’re sober for…one week, I’ll stop worrying.”
“Deal,” she said, smiling and hugging his shoulder.
She did it. Not for just one week, she stayed sober for sixteen days.
John was pleased (even if the seventeenth day had ended with Harry falling asleep on his bathroom floor again), but he remembered Tom’s words and kept a closer eye on his sister’s drinking from that day on. She might have kept her part of the deal, but somehow, stop worrying seemed much harder than stop drinking.
-x-
“John!”
Sherlock called for him. Not now Sherlock, please, John had no desire to look at the dead young man again. It was the third strangled backpacker in Paddington, staying at the same hostel; there was no way Sherlock could need him for establishing a provisional cause of death before the official report came.
“John?” Sherlock’s voice was closer, lower.
John raised his head and met real worry in Sherlock’s eyes. It was too much, Sherlock couldn’t worry about him like this when there was such an interesting corpse just meters away. That somehow made it all real.
“What’s happened?”
“Please stop….” John asked, voice hoarse with tears, shaking his head and looking away from him, “Go back to Lestrade….”
It was hard to tell if he broke off because his voice didn’t hold or because he just didn’t know what to say. Either way, Sherlock obeyed. It was surprising, but appreciated.
-x-
Five empty cups in various places. A plate with leftovers on the nightstand. Curtain closed for five days. A heavy pathology book in his lap. Notes taped all over the wall. Feet on the desk. Fingers entangled in the phone cord. Crying sister in the ear.
John couldn’t hear a word of what she was saying. Honestly, he didn’t try so hard. No, most of his focus was on tissue samples. Two days from now he had a huge exam and, as always, he had started to study a week too late.
Drunken phone calls from Harry were never welcomed. Even less so when he had more important things to do than tell her the expected “It’s going to be okay”, “You did the right thing”, “She an idiot” and so on. Well, he had always more important things to do than that.
He didn’t have the time for this; instead he put the phone on the desk, returning to his book. It wasn’t hard to refocus, he wasn’t overly concerned about whatever problem his drama seeking sister had this evening. It was always something, always someone, especially when she was partying. She did it more often now, on completely random days, but John had sympathy for her, she had it…rough. That’s why he didn’t hang up, even though he really wanted to.
After finishing each paragraph, he picked up the phone and said something to her. Not that it mattered, not that she would notice if he didn’t. This continued until the time John picked up the phone and instead of sobbing, heard snoring.
Sighing he hung up the phone and took a moment to ponder if he should go to her and put her to bed. The decision to stay at the desk wasn’t as easy as the one putting down the phone, but it was the right one. Exam trumped passed out sister.
-x-
He had a mug of tea in his hands. Sherlock had made him tea and was now sitting opposite him at the cleared out kitchen table. How it happened that they were at Baker Street already was a bit puzzling for John, but he didn’t care; it was such a relief to come inside and into the familiar chaos he called home.
Sherlock hadn’t said a word since he had sent him away at the crime scene, but he seemed determined to not leave John alone anymore. The tea had been made during John’s second phone conversation with Dr Sage and thanks to that, John was pretty sure he wouldn’t have to tell Sherlock what had happened. It suited him perfectly.
They were going to send the body and her belongings to Bart’s so he could claim it there. It seemed as if she had been on vacation, if you could call it that when you couldn’t hold down a job. The toxicology had shown alcohol levels so high that John was surprised she hadn’t passed out earlier, but still just alcohol. It felt like such a strange, and irrelevant, comfort that she hadn’t used anything else. Alcohol or methamphetamine, why did it matter?
Sherlock’s reached across the table and touched his hand; it was such a light touch with the fingertips that it tickled more than anything else. It was enough to make John cry. First just a sob, but soon he let go of the mug and covered his face with his hands, his whole body shaking as he did his best to stay quiet. Why this was a priority was hard to say, but it just was!
Without taking notice of what it might mean, he heard Sherlock’s chair move and just seconds later Sherlock pulled him into a hug. Still sitting on the chair, John gratefully and greedy wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist and cried into the soft fabric of his shirt. Sherlock’s hands rested lightly on his shoulder and his back.
When the lack of oxygen made him dizzy, the tears had been out for a good while, leaving just dry sobbing. Still Sherlock didn’t let go until he did. The space suddenly created between them made John sob again before he did a very vain attempt to dry is eyes with his hands. Sherlock handed him a paper towel which John gratefully accepted. He couldn’t even manage to feel the slightest bit of embarrassment; the cry had made him completely empty.
“I’m going to bed,” he muttered, not knowing and not caring what time it was. Sherlock nodded and through it all, John could still reflect over the fact that he had probably ruined one of Sherlock’s favourite shirts with tears and snot.
He fell asleep almost as soon as he turned off the light; the bliss of sleep was wonderful.
-x-
John didn’t know what this was supposed to be like. He had been in school his whole life, and now all of a sudden, he wasn’t. All exams were done. All rapports neatly written and handed in. All hours clocked at hospitals and surgeries. Whatever it was supposed to feel like, he was pretty sure guilt wasn’t one of the feelings he was supposed to have.
Standing at the side line of the greatest argument (tears and broken glasses) in modern time, John couldn’t help but feel that he’d made a bad call and almost lead his sister to slaughter by inviting her and Clara to the graduation fest their parents threw for him. He couldn’t gather any sympathy for his parents though, no matter how hard he tried.
At the other side of the room stood Clara, arms wrapped around herself, eyes directed to the floor as she heard how her future in-laws called her and Harry an abomination, saying that they were never welcomed here in the first place and other really nasty things that John actually never thought his parents were capable of verbalising. If the invitation had been unfair to Harry, it was a terrible injustice to Clara. Harry, lead to slaughter; Clara, pushed straight into a minefield.
Should he warn Clara about the drinking; the fact that it might become a problem, the fact that it might already be a problem? No, Harry had behaved so well these last months (spared tonight but the situation was forgiving) and something like that would surely scare Clara off. It might never become a problem; maybe Harry would behave the rest of her life. Maybe. Hopefully. For the first time he actually considered telling someone though. For the first time he felt that telling someone might protect Harry better than covering it up as he always done.
John watched his closest family in the middle of the room, both sister and mother crying now, and the rest of the party just standing around, goggling. John hated them all for not interfering, for not stopping this; grown-ups who just stood there, watching how two parents verbally ripped apart their daughter.
Determined, John walked up to his family, placing himself between his sister and their parents.
“Go to hell,” he told his parents, hasher than he had planned, but he was satisfied with how silent they became and how shocked they looked before he turned to Harry. She looked so terrible; his heart ached and he felt so ashamed for bringing her here. Tonight, her drinking was entirely his fault.
“Let’s take Clara and just go home,” he said in a low voice to Harry so no one else would hear, putting her hair behind her ear just as their parents (read: their father) started to go at it again, telling John to not embarrass them (as if they needed the help) and not use that kind of language. Something about honouring your father and your mother; Sunday school had been such a waste on John.
“Sod off!” John screamed over his shoulder, making most people in the room jump, before turning back to Harry and leading her out of the room, arm sportingly around her waist. She cried and he whispered apologises and promises of killing their parents slowly. Clara hurried after them and just before leaving, John looked back at his parents - eyes filled with venom - wondering if he could ever forgive them.
Harry whispered apologises to Clara the whole way to the car - it was a long time since John had stopped drinking when Harry was around. It was noting John hadn’t heard before, no he had heard all of Harry’s drunken apologises many times, but it was a long time since he had listen to them. The guilt over ruining the night and drinking too much, the promises to never do it again, the declarations of love (he wondered if she had told Clara she loved her before); all of it sounds strange when directed at someone else.
While walking Harry out of the room he had realised that he had a decision to make, or rather that he had made a decision already; he couldn’t let his parents be a part of his life anymore. It came down to a choice between Harry and his parents; and no matter how fed up he was with Harry from time to time, or how much he wished to have a life where all the problems were his own and not hers, he could never reward his parents with his company when they treated Harry like this.
She was his sister and he loved her. It was the law or something. Sure, there was a law stating that he had to love his parents too (besides from the one the Bible his father had said something about), but they had broken the “You must love your children no matter what”-law, so he didn’t feel so ashamed about that.
Starting tonight, as soon as he left, he would be an orphan with living parents.
-x-
“I’m so sorry John….” Molly said in her awkward, but oh so thoughtful, way and gave him a just as awkward and thoughtful hug. John did almost nothing to respond to it.
“Thank you, Molly,” he said and put on the same smile he had been giving Mrs Hudson for the last two days. He couldn’t stand their landlady fussing over him and he was pretty sure he’d have the same reaction to Molly.
“I didn’t even know you had a sister,” Molly kept on talking as they walked over to the table where John suspected Harry was. She was obviously nervous and John just kept on smiling because he had nothing to say to that statement. He didn’t have a sister anymore, did he?
“Do you want to see her or…should I make arrangement for….I can do that you know.”
Again, so awkward and thoughtful. So kind. She really deserved someone better than Sherlock or Moriarty. The smile on John’s face felt a bit more genuine for a moment.
“It’s okay, I’ve managed that already,” it had actually been the first thing he had done the morning after he had found out, “Having her cremated. But yeah…I’d…I’d like to see her.”
Molly opened the black bag and no matter how much John tried to remain in control of himself he had to close his eyes and look away. He was not ready to see this yet. He just wasn’t.
“Want me to leave you alone for a bit?”
“Yes, please,” John whispered, rubbing his face.
“Okidokie then, I’ll come back in a bit.”
“Molly, thank you,” John forced himself to look at her again and put on the smile, “Sherlock’s upstairs…if you could bring him when you come back…?”
“Of course,” Molly nodded and blushed. His sister was lying dead on a steal table between them and she blushed because he mentioned Sherlock! That was just not right….
He braced himself and waited until the door closed behind Molly before looking down at his sister. The sight almost brought him to his knees and he bit his lip hard. She looked so worn. So battered by life. He remembered her as beautiful, not a Hollywood film star, but beautiful still. Smiling. Smirking. He had never seen this sister, this greyish, old version of the colourful pain-in-the arse she’d been.
“Damn it, Harry….” he whispered and tried to gather the professional distance he once had been able to place between himself and dead friends. People were not supposed to be able to do that though, he knew that. It had never worked for long after the adrenaline wore off and now he didn’t have any adrenaline to start with so it was outright impossible.
John placed two fingers on her cold cheek, but as if burned by fire he pulled back. A tremble went through his entire body and he wiped his hand on his jeans.
“Damn it, Harry!” he yelled, “Why didn’t you let me help you? If this was your plan all along, couldn’t you just have thrown yourself in the bloody Thames? I could have lent you my gun! It would have been faster! And so much more considerate to me! But you have no idea, have you? You never cared! What it did to me! What it did to Clara!”
He was yelling at a corpse. That realisation made him cry instead, not much but somehow the tears calmed him and he placed his hand on her chest, her red silk top just barely saving him from her coolness.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “God, Harry….I’m sorry I left, I’m sorry I gave up. I was just so messed up when I got home….That’s no excuse, I should have….I’m sorry, Harry….I was supposed to be on your side.”
They had been each other’s only family for years. Sure, Harry had had Clara - wonderful, wonderful Clara, John still hadn’t really forgiving Harry for messing that up - for a while, but it wasn’t the same. John had given up his relationship with their parents for her sake. He had picked her over their parents and she had picked the bottle over him. Still it was he who apologised, because he felt he hadn’t done enough. He’d left, first the country and then her. He had left to help others and failed to help her; his own sister. Wasn’t she worth more?
“Want some more time?” Molly wondered as she knocked and opened the door at the same time. John quickly withdrew his hand.
“No it’s hrm….” he cleared his throat and dried his eyes as discreetly as he could before turning around; failing to put on the smile. “It’s okay.”
Molly pushed the door open and John saw Sherlock standing one step behind her. He looked calm, composed, very Sherlock. Nothing in his face told that anything was out of the ordinary and John was ever so grateful. Still, he knew that Lestrade had called him three times before they went here (apparently there had been another body) and the fact that Sherlock was still here, not even looking eager to get away, made John even more grateful.
-x-
To: John H. Watson
From: Clara Shaw-Watson
Subject: I’m sorry
I’m sorry, I should have written more. I just don’t know what to write anymore because I can’t write what I need to write. You know?
I need to tell you something because I can’t handle it, but I cannot tell you, you’re in freaking Afghanistan, saving people who would die without you! And you really shouldn’t have to deal with this. And I know I can’t send you this and expect you to drop it, so I guess I do this to force myself to say it.
I’m so, so sorry…You did this for so long and I really, really should handle this better.
She’s drinking again. I don’t know what to do. It’s been going on for so long but I couldn’t tell you. You were leaving for Afghanistan for Christ sake! And I thought I could handle it and that it would get better, but it just gets worse and worse and I can’t pretend it’s not happening.
What should I do? What can I do?
I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything sooner and I’m sorry I’m saying it now and I’m sorry I’m burdening you with this because I know there is nothing you can do from there.
Please just come home safe. Please, please, please come home safe.
//Clara
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Damn it, Harry….” John whispered to the computer screen. A feeling of desperation started to spread in his body as he took a moment and sighed into his hands.
He’d thought it had been fine, that all had been good. He had been so happy; Clara was so good for her. They’d got her sober, she had got herself sober. Just a couple of months ago he and Clara had exchanged e-mails, joking about insemination and him kidnapping Afghani orphans for her and Harry to adopt. She had asked him to help him pick out the colour for the nursery….
What had happened in the months between? Or wait….He read the mail again and his heart sank; “You were leaving for Afghanistan for Christ sake!” It had started before he’d left. And he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen a thing.
There was nothing he could do now. Not from here. Damn it, Harry, it had all been going so well, hadn’t it? What had gone wrong? He didn’t understand.
He needed to answer Clara, say some comforting words that would mean nothing in the end. He just had to, but he couldn’t. Instead he just kept staring on the one line that said that he’d missed it, that he had failed them both. If he thought it would have helped, he would have punched the screen.
Way to ruin a perfectly fine day in the war, Harry. She had to be the only person able to do that.
-x-
What did you say when someone handed you a plain container with your sister’s ashes? It was a very surreal feeling. Very surreal. This coming from the man who, more than once, had found a human head in his fridge.
“Thank you,” he settled on, because he had manners, and nodded slightly before he left.
Now what would he do with his sister’s remains? Once upon a time, he and Harry had been raised catholic (or maybe “catholic”) but seeing as that upbringing might actually be part of the reason for all this, John was pretty sure Harry didn’t want anything to do with any church in her afterlife.
Still, it felt like a funeral was what he was supposed to have for her and no matter how hard he tried, he still thought of a church every time. Christianity was just so entwined in everything in the English society that he couldn’t escape it even if he wanted to. Subconsciously, it pulled him back in.
Jesus - more of a manipulative bitch than Sherlock.
“Should I take her?”
It sounded strange to hear Sherlock refer to an inane object like that, sometimes he didn’t even extend that courtesy to living people. He had followed him here under the pretence of trying to get some “leftovers”; John found that excuse disturbing.
“No,” John shook his head and looked at the container; he hadn’t even bothered to order a proper urn. Harry wouldn’t care, but he cared a little right now.
“What are you going to do with her?”
“I was thinking about placing it next to the skull,” John said thoughtfully and when he realised he had made a joke he forced a smile to accompany it. “I have no idea. Should I call our parents? Should I call Clara?”
“You want to call Clara,” Sherlock told him and John nodded, yes he’d very much like to call Clara. But was it fair to her? He had no idea on what terms she and Harry had split. He didn’t want to call their parents though, but he felt obligated to.
Not that they had any right or claim over Harry anymore.
-x-
“I thought you were going to pick me up at the airport?” John had managed to let himself into Harry’s flat. The cabbie had given him a helping hand with the luggage up the stairs and John was very grateful; it was hard with an injured shoulder, a cane and a messed up leg.
And a sister who apparently couldn’t sober up for three hours to come and pick him up at the airport when he returned home from the bloody war!
“John!” Harry almost tripped over herself to come and throw herself around his neck. “I’m so sorry! I thought you said you’d come on Monday!”
“It is Monday,” John informed her, but answered the hug to his best ability. It was something so familiar and something so safe with being home with her right now. All this time away…he had missed her. He really had.
“Bloody hell you look terrible!” She informed him when she backed away.
You too sis, you too.
“Does it hurt a lot? Are you in pain?”
Yes.
“And I thought you got shot in the shoulder, not the leg!”
I was. Long story.
“John, say something! You’re kinda freaking me out….”
“How much have you been drinking today?” Maybe not the best thing to start with, but it was the only thing playing in his head. When he looked passed her into the flat, he saw paper bags with hidden bottles.
“Stop playing Dr Hero,” she mocked him, making a joke out it as always. He looked at her as she towed his bags into the flat, talking about where they should go for dinner. This wasn’t going to work.
-x-
There was a Garden of Remembrance in the corner of the cemetery; a small one, didn’t look like much to the world, but somewhere, someone had scattered the remains of Harriet Watson. John hadn’t been present, but he had picked the garden at least. Finally.
For three weeks, Harry had actually shared the top of the mantle with the skull. Morbid, but now she was somewhere else. Somewhere in the garden. Hopefully at peace.
John stood at the entrance with an arm around Clara’s waist. He had finally gathered the courage to call her and now the two persons who probably cared the most for Harry stood in silence and looked at the roses. Sure, Harry had friends, both sober and none sober ones, but her drinking friends John couldn’t stand and the sober ones….To be honest, John hadn’t tried to locate anyone.
This strange, slightly awkward, moment of silence was the only funeral Harriet Watson would get. Clara had wanted to read a poem, but faced with the situation she settled on just placing it next to the small plaque outside with Harry’s name on.
“I loved her,” Clara said, almost as a confession and lay her head on John’s shoulder.
“I did too,” he whispered back and wondered if Harry had known that.
-x-
It wasn’t an argument anymore. It was a staring competition which neither of them had planned to lose. John had to wonder what in God’s name he had been thinking; between his PTSD and Harry’s drinking there was no room for a harmonious living arrangement.
“What do you want me to do?” Harry wondered and John had to gather all his strength not to snap again.
“To stop drinking! I want you to stop drinking!”
“It’s not a problem!”
“Are you blind?” John wondered, “It has cost you a job, it has cost you your wife…and if you’re not careful, it’s going to cost you a brother!”
“Who’re you kidding?” she wondered in return, “Where the fuck would you go?”
“They offer me accommodations,” - Why, oh why hadn’t he taken the nice army up on their offer? Maybe he’d actually been able to stand his sister then? - “It’s not like I’m depended on you for anything!”
“Well fuck you then!” she spluttered, “I don’t need you either! Not you, not your God-complex, not anything!”
“Go to hell, Harry!”
She slammed the door behind her as she left. John had all his things out of her flat by the time she came back.
-x-
“How do you feel?” Sherlock wondered as soon as John walked into the sitting-room and practically fell onto the sofa.
“I’ll be okay,” John sighed with a nod and stared at the place where Harry had been sitting for the last three weeks, “Me and Clara actually went out and had a drink in her memory. It felt…strangely appropriate.”
“Do you want so tea?”
“Yes, please,” John gave him an almost peaceful smile; he was too emotionally drained right now to manage a real emotion, “You’ve been pretty good at making tea lately.”
“Basic chemistry,” Sherlock commented and it was really hard to argue with that.
“Thank you,” John said when Sherlock came back with his tea.
“It’s just basic chemistry,” Sherlock repeated and shrugged.
“No, Sherlock,” John shook his head and hold his gaze, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Sherlock said and added after a short silence, “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t. So much….Anymore,” John extended the sentence until Sherlock looked satisfied with the answer. It was the truth, he didn’t. Still there were so many things he wished he could still say to her, so many things he could take back. So many things he could have done to help. More than once he had wished that he could have been her Mycroft.
Which reminded him, he couldn’t make peace with Harry but that didn’t mean it was too late for everyone.
“Do me one last favour?” John asked and Sherlock looked up with raised brows, “Call Mycroft.”
John braced himself for the long persuasion process that would follow, but Sherlock just turned back to his article.
“I did that yesterday.”
-x-
The same story seen from Sherlock's POV.