Cycle 4, Round 3 Entries: #23 - #31
23.
“Mycroft Homes, if you orchestrated this….” Sherlock seethed as he tried and failed to loosen the rope that bound him to a chair in the northwest corner of a cold, grey room.
“You think I was so desperate to spend time with you and your companion that I had you kidnapped?”
“You’ve done it before,” John interjected.
“Twice this past Christmas.” Sherlock added.
“Well, if you hadn’t escaped the first time…”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere.” John sighed.
“Where could we possibly go?” Lestrade asked as he tried to wobble the chair he was tied to. “Bloody things are bolted down… as if we might walk off with them…”
“You are not funny.” Sherlock sighed.
“You expect me to do a comedy routine while the four of us are tied to chairs in opposite corners of some tiny room? It’s like we’re naughty primary schoolers.
“Or kinky bridge partners,” Mycroft offered.
“Those aren’t cards in my pocket, I’m just happy to see you.” Lestrade waggled his eyebrows emphatically.
“If only the rest of you were so mobile,” Sherlock smirked.
Lestrade’s eyes twinkled as a wickedly sly smile spread across his face, “Well…”
“If it wasn’t Mycroft…” John interrupted before they were drowned in a sea of entendre, “then we need to find a way out of here.”
“Our chairs are bolted to the floor,” Lestrade replied. “Our Legs and feet are bound. I’m no Holmes but I think they’ll agree with my assessment that the walls are concrete. We’re unlikely to break through them without a tank. The steel door….”
“We need to wait to be found?” John interrupted.
“That would imply we are lost.” Sherlock frowned.
“We are!”
“I am never lost when I am in London!” Sherlock scoffed. “I am trapped, however.”
“How nice for you. I’m lost and trapped.”
“Shame,” Sherlock sighed.
“Right, well, when will one of us be missed?” John regained focus.
Lestrade shrugged, “Donno, off until Monday, technically…. Depends on how many murders we have on the weekend, doesn’t it?”
“When will you be missed at home?” John asked.
“Won’t be.”
“They won’t worry when you don’t turn up for dinner?”
“I’m rarely home for dinner.”
“When you don’t call to check in, then?” John sighed.
“Not so great at that, either,” Greg blushed.
“Right, well, Sherlock’s schedule is erratic at best. Mycroft? Surely, your assistant will notice your lack of communication.
Mycroft frowned, “Maybe. Yes. But I was scheduled for meetings in Tehran. So she scheduled a ski weekend in Gstaad.”
“You’ll be missed at your meeting!” John perked up.
“I will be absent, not missed.”
“I imagine they’ll be rather relieved to be rid of you, actually.” Sherlock snickered.
“Quite.” Mycroft agreed.
“Right… well… Honestly, Lestrade, this is why you should call home more often!”
“Honey, I’m sorry I won’t be home in time for dinner. I’ve been unavoidably detained.” Lestrade said with a sigh.
“That is quite alright, Dear. I’m a bit tied up myself.” Mycroft responded in amused tones.
“Lunch tomorrow, if either of us can get away?”
“It is a date.” Mycroft agreed.
“A tentative one.” Lestrade laughed.
“Wait,” John’s eyes widened in shock, “you two…”
“You didn’t work that out at Christmas?” Sherlock shook his head in disbelief.
“I was too busy being kidnapped!”
“Won’t you be missed at your surgery?” Lestrade asked.
“No, I am not scheduled to work this weekend.”
“Or any weekend. He was sacked,” Sherlock explained
“I was given to believe he was a rather top notch physician,” Mycroft frowned.
“I kept missing work without notice.” John reddened.
“For cases,” Sherlock defended.
Mycroft sighed as he tried and failed to find a more comfortable position. "Well, it will be good for my diet.”
The men tensed as the door creaked open.
A team of armed response officers flooded the room.
Lestrade grinned, “That was fast but how’d….”
“I alerted them,” A female voice came from the doorway.
The men all turned their heads to see Mrs. Hudson just entering the room.
“We had a date to watch Telly, remember John. “ She coughed, “you downloaded all that Project Runway? Sorry officers. I know that’s illegal but Tim Gunn is….” She trailed off as a warm glow spread across her face.
Lestrade grinned, “I agree. But how’d you find us?”
“I used the tracking computer thingy..” She held out a device, “that your Mr. Holmes gave me at New Years.”
“Mycroft!” Sherlock protested.
“No more escape for you this Christmas, brother.”
24.
He tried at first to protest - had argued with the clerk at the desk:
"I'm not lost! How can I be lost? The principle is ridiculous. You are ridiculous. You obviously hate your job, you're bored beyond belief, and if I were you, I'd find a different nail salon; you're going to get a nasty infection from those acrylics."
But she'd just stared past him, popping her gum, playing with her pencil with one hand, twirling a strand of bleach-dry stringy hair with the other.
After a while he gave up, returning to sit behind the desk in a narrow hallway lined with orange plastic chairs - the sort Sherlock vaguely remembered from primary school, set up neatly along the wall on the green linoleum with a few battered tables scattered about and some very backdated copies of Country Life and Women's Day. Sherlock leafed through them at first, but advice on décor from 1986 didn’t really appeal.
Even the crosswords were mostly done. It took Sherlock three hours to work out the five different people who'd done them.
Or he thought it was hours. Time did funny things here.
People came and went. Mostly they were elderly men and women in dressing gowns and slippers, occasionally a frightened teenager. Sherlock recognized one of the teenagers as one of his homeless network: Ricky, sitting quietly on a far chair, pressing his hand to his side to cover a stab wound.
Sherlock didn't try to talk to him. He'd learned by then that nobody really talked to anyone here.
Much like on the tube.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was Ricky who stayed the longest, but someone eventually came for him: his gran, a sharp old lady with a Jamaican accent, who gave him a clip round the ear and then a tight hug. Ricky shambled off beside her, grinning from ear to ear as she scolded him.
The fire door slammed behind them. The clerk went back to staring into space, twirling her hair and popping her gum. It was the same piece from when Sherlock had first argued with her.
An elderly man shuffled and coughed - a hacking, rattling cough: probably what had killed him.
Sherlock leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Where was everybody?
He played games with himself, trying to decide who would be first to collect him: Mrs Hudson, probably, unless Mycroft gave himself heart failure first. Mummy, perhaps, although Sherlock hoped not. Ricky's gran had nothing on an enraged Mummy. And Sherlock was sure he'd be more than scolded for his little escapade.
Speaking of which, why wasn't Moriarty here? He'd fallen, too. Sherlock remembered the crunch of bone, the impact of pavement… surely he'd be here, too. Waiting.
Nobody came.
With each bang of the fire door, hope seemed to spark and fade within his breast.
Hope. That foolish thing.
He supposed he'd made the mistake of hoping in the first place. Much like caring about John had been a mistake.
Well, he'd learned his lesson.
And here he was.
Waiting.
***
The door clicks open and a man enters; he's wearing a lumpy jumper and worn jeans. His face is lined, his hair completely grey. His eyes are kind, a faded blue. He grasps a cane with one gnarled hand, limping along.
"Hello," he says to the clerk. "I'm here to pick up Sherlock Holmes?"
The clerk doesn't reply - she never talks to the punters - merely shoves a form at him.
The man smiles and signs his name: John H Watson.
"John. John. Are you all right, are you…"
"I'm fine, Sherlock. Come on."
Sherlock bolts up around the desk.
"You got old," he blurts, grasping John's shoulders.
John laughs.
"Well, it's been… a while," he says. "Bloody hell, you look exactly the same as when I saw you…"
"You came for me," Sherlock interrupts, staring at John, staring into those careworn eyes.
"And you waited," John replies.
Suddenly, it makes sense.
"I had to, John. I didn't realize it at the time, but now… now I do."
"Well, come on then," John says, grabbing his hand. "Hungry?"
"Starving."
"They say there's excellent Chinese… you can tell by looking at the bottom quarter of the door?"
"Bottom third," Sherlock corrects as they walk through the door of the Lost and Found.
John's hand is in his, and it feels right.
"God, I missed you," John says.
Sherlock smiles.
"I can still predict the fortune cookies," he boasts.
25.
Molly shook her head at the screams coming from outside. She should be used to it by now, but she knows that even if she works at the school for the rest of her life, she will always be surprised at the amount of noise boys could make.
The Lestrade School for Boys was a home for orphans, misplaced youths with nowhere to go. Molly taught the sciences, and took her turns in other areas. Mother, sister, confidante, maid, cook…
"Finder of all things," she says as she picks up a jumper in the lunch room.
It's bulky and colorless, but the material is soft and warm. It's a staple of all the uniforms. Most of the boys refuse to wear it.
"John," Molly sighs as she folds it.
John wears the jumper. Serious, quiet John, who sits in front in all the classes, just in case he misses something.
Molly looks out the window, watching the boys play football or rugby or some combination that involved their uniforms getting as dirty as possible.
John of course, was watching, almost joining, almost walking away.
Only one other sat out the large game, a tall figure more interested in a group of bushes than the game behind him.
"Sherlock," Molly shook her head.
Sherlock barely shows up for class, often out of uniform, and proceeds to tell the class why Molly is wrong and that everything they are learning is shit.
Sherlock often spends after lunch standing in a corner, or writing sentences such as 'I will not disrespect my teacher.'
He does not change.
Molly turns from the window. She needs to get ready for class. After all, Sherlock may show up, and she needs to be prepared.
*
One year later
Molly folds the jumper and puts it on top of the box. She carries it down the hallway slowly. She hates this part of her job.
"Miss Hooper, Miss Hooper, do you need help with that?"
Molly stops. It's very rare for Sherlock to even acknowledge her presence. To ask to help….
"I have it, Sherlock. Thank you for asking, though. You know, you probably wouldn't be shivering if you were wearing your jumper."
Sherlock rolls his eyes dramatically, "Even the nonconformist in me cannot wear that thing. I think I used mine to house some field mice, and then I threw it out when it died."
Molly laughs, "That sounds about right."
"Actually, I did have an ulterior motive for finding you."
"Of course you did."
"I was wondering if you could tell me where John is. I've been looking for him all day."
Molly blinks, and puts the box down. She sees Sherlock's eyes flicker to the top of the box, and back to her.
"Just like that?"
Molly nods.
"We've known about it for a few weeks, but we never tell the child until it happens, because the person might back out. He barely had time to pack, let alone tell his friends. His friend."
"You know, maybe I am a bit chilly," Sherlock says, grabbing the jumper, and running down the hall.
Despite that it never really fit him, Molly is almost certain she never saw Sherlock without the jumper ever again.
26.
John had come home to many strange sights in his time at 221B and they'd all taught him something new about his flatmate. Not good things necessarily, but always informative. None, however, had quite prepared him for the night he walked in to find Sherlock standing at the surprisingly bare kitchen table, hands on his hips, face unreadable.
John stopped short and stared for a few seconds. "Is that a menorah?"
Sherlock didn't look up. "Obviously."
"Okay, yeah, stupid question." He rubbed a hand across his face. "Better one: where did the menorah come from and why do you have it?"
"It's mine." Sherlock did look up finally. "I wasn't sure where it was, but I was able to locate it with a bit of effort. As for why, don't you ever look at a calendar?" At John's blank look, he sighed. "Hanukkah, John. It starts tomorrow."
"Okay," John said slowly. "But that's a Jewish holiday. You aren't Jewish."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "There you go, theorizing without all the facts again. As a matter of fact, I am Jewish. I had a bar mitzvah and everything."
John blinked. "Wait, seriously?"
"Is it really so hard to believe?" Underneath the annoyance and impatience, Sherlock's shoulders were tense, his expression ever so slightly wary. It occurred to John that it had to be difficult for someone like Sherlock to admit to any sort of religious affiliation, something so easily dismissed as irrational. "I know your family's secular, but surely I'm not the only person you've ever met who had a religious upbringing."
"Well, no, but I've never seen you do any… Jewish things." He rubbed his face again. "It's a bit of a surprise, is all."
A smile flickered across Sherlock's face. "I never said I was a very good Jew."
John laughed at that. "So your whole family's Jewish, then?"
Sherlock shrugged. "Mycroft pretends he isn't, because it's easier to succeed in politics if you're a goy." The word came out almost thoughtlessly. Like a habit, as natural as breathing. "But it's probably safe to say my mother's more observant now than she's ever been. No doubt a delayed sort of empty nest syndrome."
"Fair enough. But what brought all this on?" He gestured at the table. "A bit sudden, isn't it?"
He shrugged again. John wasn't sure if it was just that he knew Sherlock rather well and saw him more clearly than other people did, but he was visibly uncomfortable. "My mother called. She wants me to go home tomorrow, for the start of the holiday. It seemed… appropriate to find my own menorah. No sense doing a thing halfway."
"Oh." John looked at the menorah and candles, then back at Sherlock. "You want to celebrate this year? Is there anything I should do?"
"It's not a very important holiday," Sherlock said, a bit too quickly. "It just seems that way because it overlaps with Christmas. You needn't concern yourself."
"Sherlock," John said patiently, "I'm not asking because I feel obligated. Holidays are something friends and flatmates do together. It's one of those normal people things again." He smiled. "So, let's try again: what would you like me to do?"
Sherlock was staring at him as though he were something very extraordinary. He was silent for a long time, then said, "My mother wants to meet you. Will you come tomorrow?"
John grinned. "Of course I will. I'd love you meet your mum."
Sherlock smiled back, some of the tension easing. "Good. That's. Yes, that's good."
John nodded. "Well, now that's settled, how about some tea? I don't know if you've noticed, but it's freezing tonight."
He almost missed it, already on his way to the kettle, but as he turned away Sherlock said, voice soft and almost reverent, "Thank you, John."
It was a long time before the smile faded from John's lips and, even then, the warmth lingered.
27.
Martha peered into the mirror. Grey roots-ought to see Della for a touch-up. She smoothed her coral lipstick, pulled on a faded raincoat, waited on the porch.
Atlanta, Georgia was not London. The only trait the cities shared was that Christmas brought cold rain, not a snowy carpet. Pity. Snow was clean and cheery. She could use that right now.
Dorothy “Dot” Bennett pulled her battered Chevy into the driveway, and Martha climbed in, placing a box of cupcakes on the backseat. Dot had convinced Martha to lend her soprano to the church choir’s annual visit to the rehab center. Martha couldn't say no. Dot was her caseworker and friend. She’d helped Martha leave her cheating, murdering Johnny-Cash-song of a husband and find a safe place to live until the man was finally in jail. In a few weeks Dot would drive her to Florida for the trial.
“Have faith in the system,” Dot always said, but Martha knew better. Robert Hudson always found a way to survive. He’d go free. He’d find her. There was no escape.
In nightly dreams, Martha returned to London and fashioned a new life. But in her waking hours, she knew nightmares were more likely to come true than dreams.
Once she started singing, the music lifted a bit of the fear and anxiety. She watched the residents’ eyes as she sang-many of them glassy and unresponsive, poor sods. The odds were against them, and most of them knew it. But a few seemed pleased to hear the traditional Christmas hymns; one or two sang along.
The choir was small, but their voices blended like carillon bells. Martha’s rang out higher and sweeter than the rest. She’d grown up singing with her sisters, then gone on the road with a dozen different bands in Europe and the States in the 1960s and ‘70s, until she’d met Robert Hudson and become his pianist, manager, and finally his wife. She’d lost her voice and herself in the years with him. Now she was struggling to find both again.
After “Silent Night,” they took a break to put out treats and cider for the residents. Martha tried to offer an embrace and a “Happy Christmas” whenever she thought someone might accept the gesture. Then Dot introduced one of the sullen men who had refused to acknowledge the choir.
“Martha, this is Mr. Sherlock Holmes-from England-like you, honey. He’s asking for tea. Would you make him a cup in the kitchen? Dr. Wilkes says Mr. Holmes loves crime stories, so I thought you two might hit it off,” Dot winked and walked away.
Martha looked at the emaciated, pale figure-neck wrapped in a thick scarf, black curls over his face. His sad eyes triggered her maternal sympathies and his public school vowels brought a wave of homesickness. She held out her hand and he held on tight, looking at her face, then her arm, examining both in detail.
“You tried to kill yourself a few years ago. Unusual for a woman to choose a blade over pills-must have been desperate. You’ve recently removed a wedding ring-the tan line and the way you kept reaching for it while singing indicates a long marriage. Is the crime your husband is accused of anything to do with you? Or is he a promiscuous sort, spreading mischief among the masses?”
Martha pulled her hand away, embarrassed, angry. What sort of parlour game was this little junkie playing? She couldn’t let him rattle her, so she changed the subject, “I’ll be happy to make you a cuppa, dear. Follow me. Tell me how you got so far from home.”
“You have a monstrous husband; I have a monstrous brother who sent me here,” said the young man, gliding into the kitchen. “Now explain your husband’s case. I can probably ensure a conviction,” he said with a smirk. “If that’s what you want?”
Yes. She did want that. So she brewed the tea and told Robert’s story. They heard the choir resume singing in the common room, but she kept talking. Sherlock scratched in a notebook, questioned, paced. Then he explained how they would prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
“He’ll be convicted, then there will be appeals-but since it’s Florida, he’ll be dead sooner rather than later.”
Sherlock was grinning now-suddenly handsome, spinning them both madly ‘round the kitchen. And no matter how inappropriate, Martha found she really couldn’t stop smiling and holding onto the lovely boy for dear life.
28.
‘Who’s shooting? Who’s shooting?’
Lestrade jumps out of the car almost before it stops, incandescent with fury. It can’t be one of his team who’ve started firing randomly; he knows that they’re better than that and he’d vouch for every single one of them, even Anderson.
He’s met with headshakes all round, and it’s not long before he finds out that it was someone else entirely, a mysterious avenging angel who’s disappeared into the night.
***
Lestrade insists that investigations be carried out with all of their usual precision. It would be easy to let things slide just because they’re hunting the killer of a psychopath, but that’s the start of a slippery moral slope and so Lestrade chases and harries his team just as much as if the victim had been an innocent man, perhaps even more so.
Nevertheless, he can’t deny that he eventually closes the case with an inward sigh of relief that he’s careful not to let his team see. They’ve scoured the room where - ballistics tell them - the shooter would have been standing, but with so many people passing through it on a daily basis then it’s all but impossible to tell which footprints belong to their killer and which belong to the dozens of people who pass through here every day. All traces of him have, quite simply, been lost - swallowed up among all the other insignificant scuffs and marks left by everyone else.
Privately, Lestrade is relieved that Sherlock Holmes appears to have acquired another guardian angel. Try as he might, he can’t be in two places at once and that was a closer call than he cares to think about.
As he drives home and lets himself into his solitary flat, he reflects on Sherlock’s new flatmate. John looks quiet, unassuming, but he clearly has a core of steel underneath his pleasant demeanour since it’s been several weeks now and he’s still living at 221B. But neither has he apparently fallen under Sherlock’s spell and Lestrade, thinking about the way John’s gaze - warm and bright and interested - catches and hold his across crime scenes and morgue visits, starts to wonder.
***
Half a year later, Lestrade feels luckier than he has any right to be. John had accepted his offer of a date with flattering speed and enthusiasm, and Christ, if anyone understood what it was like trying to fit a relationship around the demands of work then it was him. He’d taken to dropping by the office on evenings when Lestrade was working late, ostensibly just to see him for five minutes before ‘forgetting’ the carrier bag on his desk that contained fruit and sandwiches.
Tonight they’re at the flat, ordering takeaway and settling in for a DVD night. It’s their six-month anniversary, although neither of them has admitted it aloud, and Lestrade has spent the whole day in an unreasonably good mood.
The doorbell goes and John orders Lestrade upstairs to fetch his wallet, not even listening to Lestrade’s offer to pay, and Lestrade grins and goes. He can’t see John’s wallet on the dresser, and tugs at his desk drawer to see if he swept it in there carelessly last night. The drawer slides open easily, and Lestrade sees it.
The Browning sits there, black and silent as a snake, and Lestrade can only stare dumbly for a long moment. He knows instinctively, just knows, that there’s a bullet in the evidence files at the Yard that’s a match for those in the chamber of the gun. The possibility had crossed his mind, of course, but it’s one thing to consider it in the abstract and another to have irrefutable evidence in front of you.
Eons seem to pass before John calls impatiently to him from the foot of the stairs, and Lestrade pushes the drawer shut silently. He spots John’s wallet on the bed, scoops it up, and descends the stairs, never to speak of what he’s found.
29.
He exhaled, the fog of his breath mingling with the steam from his coffee cup, both floating up, away, disappearing to nothing.
Forgotten almost as soon as they existed.
He was aware that it was cold. He should be feeling cold. He didn't.
"You win some, you lose some," his first sergeant would shrug, when they watched a guilty party walk free, or with a pathetic punishment.
He'd stopped believing that a long time ago.
Working on murder cases, rape cases, cases where no one ever 'won', whether someone was punished or not, had changed all that. It was all losses now. Some just cut deeper than others - scarred more people, more lives.
The water slid by beneath him, black and glossy, reflecting the gaudy lights, gold and silver in the ripples.
Traffic droned nearby, the rush and pulse of the city alive all around him.
Oblivious.
How could everything keep going, after such tragedies? How could the whole world not slide to a halt, for a moment, pause in respect, in acknowledgement of a life lost. How could people not glance up at the huge, brightly lit building that towered over him and think for a second that this hospital, every day, welcomed new lives into the world - but also housed the bodies whose souls had slipped away.
He sipped his coffee, not tasting it, feeling the heat sting his lips.
There was a slight noise behind him. The crunch of a leaf underfoot. Hesitation. Respect for the moment. It could only be one person.
"John." His voice was rough, deep, cracked. But the acknowledgment was the permission John had been waiting for, and he moved to stand next to Lestrade, leaning on the railing too.
One of the things Lestrade respected about John Watson was his empathy. His ability to read the moment and know what to say - or not to say. He hoped it would teach Sherlock by example.
"Tough one," John said. The words forming, washing over him, slipping away like the water below.
He nodded, sipped his coffee again.
"You know, if you want to talk. Or…just want a quiet drink, that sort of thing, anytime…"
Lestrade nodded again, then took a deep breath, straightening up, smoothing his jacket and shirt down and turning his back to the rail. Through the doors of the hospital he could see patients, visitors, friends, family, doctors, porters - everyone busy, everyone moving. Life carrying on.
"Thanks. I might."
And then there was Sally, walking towards him, file in hand, car keys hanging from her finger.
"Sir, we should get going. Anderson's on his way in, Billy's sorting us out an incident room."
He took a moment - a beat - and then nodded.
---
John watched as the man turned back into the professional. It slid over him like a suit of armour. Protecting him, yes, but also weighing so very heavily on the fragile body within.
He was pleased when, the evening after the arrest had been made, his phone beeped to signal a message received.
'Drink would be good, if you're available.'
He replied, and an hour later stepped into the pub. Not too busy - just enough to ensure there was no bored bartender to interrupt your thoughts, or anyone to notice if you sat alone.
He slid onto a tall stool next to Lestrade, one glance to see that the pint on the bar was less than half gone. He ordered for himself, then settled.
"Good work."
Lestrade gave a half shrug. "Can't stop it happening, can we? Always a step behind."
"Can stop it happening to someone else," John pointed out. "Still. Must take a lot out of you."
"Same as doctoring, maybe," Lestrade answered, not making eye contact. "Got to find it in yourself, haven't you? Or someone has to, anyway."
John nodded silently, contemplating how similar their jobs were. Patching up what had gone wrong, and doing their best to prevent and protect, unnoticed and out of mind until the sudden need for them arose in someone's life.
Lestrade raised his glass and tipped it toward John.
"To all the lost, who find each other," he said, clinking the glasses together.
John nodded and sipped his pint, looking into Lestrades dark brown eyes.
"You think we're lost?" he asked, once he'd swallowed.
Lestrade shrugged. "Don't you?"
When no answer came he gave a brief flicker of a smile.
"I'd rather be lost with you, though, than lost alone."
John smiled back and nodded in agreement.
30.
John was used to losing people.
He’d lost Will, his best mate, to a car accident when he was seven.
He lost his father to drink, and a dozen years later, was still losing Harry to it.
He’d lost his mum to cancer while he was in university.
He’d lost his first girlfriend to another friend, and then his first boyfriend to an internalized homophobia John had never been able to help him really overcome. He’d heard Ben had overdosed a few years later, by which time they’d not talked in over a year, and somehow it still felt as though he’d lost him twice.
And then he’d become a doctor, and there were patients: lost to illness, disease, injury, the frailty of the human body, the limits of modern medicine, or perhaps him just not quite being good enough, sometimes. His teachers told him it was normal to feel it, to remember, but they didn’t tell him (and he didn’t ask) if it was normal to remember them all, to keep lists in his head with the names of those he hadn’t been able to save.
He joined the military, then, driven by some strange cocktail of martyrdom, duty, adrenaline, desperation, and half a dozen other things he’d never been able to quite make sense of, including a cherry of why the hell not atop it all. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway.
And finally, in the desert, he achieves a sort of numbness, because he’s finally so full of loss there isn’t room for any more, and the feeling in his chest is a dull throb instead of a piercing stabbing, and honest to god it’s an improvement. He likes people, he still does, but he looks in the eyes of the men and women he drinks with, and knows tomorrow they may be tiny pieces courtesy of a bloody IED, and he’s so thankful he can’t properly feel anymore he very oddly feels like crying all over again. He smiles at them anyway, and tries to save them.
And then he’s the one needing saving, and he’s back in London, and the numbness remains but the usefulness is gone. He’s run out of people to lose, and oddly the thought doesn’t bring him any sort of peace, just another ache to add to the ache in his leg and the ache in his arm.
And then he meets Sherlock, and suddenly he’s not numb, and oh god but it’s overwhelming to feel so much, all at once, and all for one person. And what a person, Sherlock’s like an explosion, like watching the Big Bang at the planetarium but happening five feet away.
But there’s a corrollary he’d almost forgotten, when he started feeling again, and there’s a pool, and a bomb, and he will not lose Sherlock. He doesn’t have it in him to lose Sherlock, and it’s selfishness, in a way, to decide he’d rather die and not lose Sherlock than live without him.
But Sherlock doesn’t escape, and maybe now they’ll both die, and he doesn’t want Sherlock to, but as long as he doesn’t have to live without him he can find a certain amount of peace with what’s about to happen.
And then there’s light, and darkness, and noise, followed by quiet, and he hears a whisper in his ear, so faint it’s a miracle he can hear it over the loud ringing and the pain all over his body.
“I can’t lose you, John.”
31.
Death Trap
Sherlock threw money at the driver and jumped out of the cab before it had stopped. Ducking under the police tape, he made a beeline for the house's main entrance, but barely made it five steps before his arm was grabbed and he was yanked to a stop.
"You're can't go in there, Sherlock," Lestrade said, not relinquishing his hold.
"Of course I am. John's in there." Sherlock didn't mention he was the one that had sent John inside. To his death. No, because he was going to stop that from happening. If only these idiotic policemen would let him do his job.
"I know exactly where John is and what he's up against, and he expressly forbid me to allow you entry."
Sherlock stopped pulling against the restraint. "He called you first," he accused, realizing how the police had beat him here.
"He wanted to make sure you wouldn't be stupid enough to go in after him."
"It's not stupidity-it's logic. No one else will be able to figure out the traps and get John out alive."
Lestrade nodded like he understood, but, "I still can't let you in," he said.
***
Sherlock fumed as he paced.
Lestrade had set up a line of his officers to guard against Sherlock entering the James' mansion. Gareth James had set up his palatial estate as a "Murder Castle," emulating the infamous H. H. Holmes that had created much the same in the US in the 1890's. The estate was large and sprawling, and Sherlock had no idea was happening to John. The Yard had called a specialized team coming to venture into the house, but it was taking them far too long to arrive.
How could Sherlock have missed such an obvious suspect? He'd merely thought James to be a pawn in someone else's game, and had sent John directly into his lair. Sherlock tried John's phone again, and again it went straight to voicemail. He decided it was because John turned it off to avoid distractions. He wouldn't accept any other reason.
With a check of the time, Sherlock stilled. He turned toward the house and quickly went through various scenarios to bypass the officers and get into the house, discarding one after another. He had just decided on the strategy that had the greatest chance of success, when the front door opened. Everyone milling about the courtyard stopped and turned to look. John stood in the doorway, bruised, bloody, and battered, but alive.
It didn't matter that others were closer, Sherlock easily beat them to John.
John tilted against Sherlock as he was led to the nearest police car. He narrowed his eyes at his friend. "You're surprised I made it out."
"Not at all," Sherlock argued. "I knew you could do it.
John smiled. "Liar."
People started clamoring for answers.
Waving a hand, John said, "My advice? Raze the damn house to the ground. There's nothing good in there."
"What about James?" Lestrade asked.
"He's in there, too. Third room on the left at the top of the second staircase. I think he meant it for me, but somehow he was caught inside." John paused. "Strychnine is not a pleasant death."
"I'm taking John home," Sherlock announced.
Lestrade opened his mouth to argue, then closed it, nodding. "I'll be over later for your statement."
Imperiously, Sherlock demanded a police car take them back to Baker Street.
The drive was quiet for the first several minutes, until John leaned back and said, "Go ahead and ask."
Sherlock had been dying to know exactly what contraptions and traps James had set, and now that John was safe, he could set his curiosity free. But... "No questions," he said. "I'm just glad you're all right." When Sherlock received a warm smile in return, he knew he'd made the correct decision.
Besides, he could just scour the Yard's reports and find out everything he needed.
32.
The Red Book
It’s a small thing, yet one of John Watson’s most treasured possessions; a talisman against the dark, it was tucked into his rucksack and brought with him throughout his RAMC career as a tangible reminder of home. It has been used to soothe him self back to reality after a devastating night terrors where the faces of the dead haunt him.
Just a slim book, bound in faded red and now crumbling leather with gilded letters, “The Principles of Surgery, Volume I” has been with John Watson since the day Granddad handed it to him, the day he graduated medical school. He can still recall the pride radiating from the old man with the trembling hands as he handed the volume to him to ‘remember how far we’ve come since then’. The faint trace of vanilla trapped at the spine of the book reminds him of the old man still.
Naturally, when this anchor to the past goes missing in the assorted rubble and general disorder that periodically overtakes 221B, John is both concerned and upset. Though the night terrors had dissipated some since arriving, it was his custom to peruse the book before sleep in an effort to ward away insomnia. The combination of archaic language and the technical details were especially effective in producing restful sleep.
Unfortunately, Sherlock was of absolutely no help in assisting in locating the missing book. He claimed he’d never seen the thing and could not be bothered trying to find it. John was irked but kept up his search between cases and his clinic work and even went so far as to inquire if Mrs. Hudson had seen it in her occasional bouts of ‘not your housekeeper, but just this once’ cleaning sessions, but to no avail.
Of course, it did surface at some point in late November, tucked into a dusty alcove near the kitchen, far from where John usually kept it- he supposed he must have brought it down once in a particularly bad fit of insomnia. If the binding seemed to be less inclined to crack and there was an odd slip of paper from a restoration company tucked into the back, it may have slipped John’s notice, having not needed to use the book since spending large amounts of time running about London. November was a particularly busy month with three murders, a forgery, and two international scandals that Mycroft dragged them into investigating.
John was not terribly surprised to find a small bundle wrapped in brown paper chucked casually at him on Christmas Eve with the season’s greetings, containing The Principles of Surgery Volumes II and III”. Nor was he astonished at his flat mate’s ability to locate said rare volumes. He suspects that Mycroft may have had something to do with that; he seems the type to enjoy that kind of thing. But what does come as a shock is the inscription on the inner front cover of all three volumes: Dr. John H. Watson, 1878.
On to poll!