Unrepentant - Chapter 2 - Landmark Hotel: Take Two

[danlef]

Sometimes, the best we try is just not good enough. Mary is about to find out.


Sherlock Holmes thwarts the attempt at reliving Guy Fawkes’ legacy, discloses the Underground spy network and generally saves the day. Once again, the detective is the toast of the news, the press hyenas vying with each other for the most bootlicking interview, and the room at New Scotland Yard where an official press conference is held is full to bursting.

John reads about it in the papers.

It takes the journalists two days to ferret out John’s workplace. Another two days before every last one of them comes to realise that No Comment is the only answer they’re going to get.

Precisely speaking, every last one but for one exception. She has the nerve to wait for John outside his own flat as he gets home from work and John barely recognises her at first. It’s the affected tone in that vexatious voice that finally sets him on the right track.

“Miss Riley. How do you get a skin that thick?”

“It’s Mrs. Davids, actually.” As she steps into the middle of the pavement, John can see she’s pregnant. It’s just starting to show.

“Congratulations, I suppose.”

“It’s been two years. People change.”

“Don’t I know it,” John mutters and tries to side-step her. Either he’s too polite or she’s too quick.

“What about you, Doctor Watson? Where is the Bachelor to the Boffin? That sweet Doctor Hooper is hardly cutting it. Have you read about that press conference? It was very enlightening.”

John presses his lips into a thin line. Of course he’s read about the press conference. About the long-range plan to take down Moriarty, about the fabricated information they fed to the consulting criminal that he would use to destroy Sherlock’s reputation; a plan that had counted on Sherlock disappearing and going underground from the very start - except that Moriarty had flashed his last trump card on Bart’s roof, three gunmen trained on three victims, forcing Sherlock to fake his suicide exactly the way it happened.

John finally manages to get past the journalist without bumping into her too roughly and takes out his keys.

“He used you,” she calls after him. “Just like he used me.”

John freezes. There is no way he could fit the key into the lock at the first try. He clutches the key ring, blades digging into his palm to prevent the keys from jingling. He presses his elbow to his side, hoping that the journalist won’t see his hands shaking. Kitty’s voice behind him is barely raised but he hears her all too well.

“Would you believe me if I told you… Sometimes, during those two years, I would… regret. That I didn’t check on Richard… on Moriarty. That I snatched the opportunity to hit the front page and didn’t think twice. That I could have contributed to his decision to… jump.” She laughs. It reminds John of the clattering sound of ice cubes in a thin glass. “I bet he didn’t think of me even once during those two years.”

Finally, John manages to open the door. He closes it behind him without a word. Mrs. Davids wasn’t waiting for them anyway, as it seems.

After dinner, he spends a good hour sitting in front of his computer, staring at the editing interface of his blog. When the solitary black cursor on the blaring screen threatens to etch a permanent image onto his retinas, he posts a short notice about his engagement.

He disables the comments two hours later. They’re all asking about Sherlock.

“You should delete the whole post,” Mary says, eyes barely lifted from her iPad. She looks like a schoolgirl engrossed in that adventure book with broomsticks and magical wands, and the empty half of the bed next to her looks so damn inviting.

“It’s my blog. I should be entitled to post what I want.” He stretches his back and checks his phone for what feels like the thousandth time today. No new messages. This is another thing he’s going to see when he closes his eyes today: no new messages.

“It’s a blog you’ve been writing - about Sherlock and nothing else ever.”

“Well, not-” any more, “-not now.”

“Even when he was dead. Posts recounting old adventures and gushing about an old birthday message.”

“Are you reading it again?”

Mary grins and hops off the bed, rubbing her elbows. “The best thing about it is the comments,” she remarks.

John deletes the post and goes to take a shower.

There’s a steaming cup of chamomile and lemon balm tea on his bedside table when he returns to the bedroom. John stares at it and wonders when simple tokens of gentle care and unobtrusive perceptiveness began to deserve being thrown at the wall. Dear, sweet Mary. As if a cup of bloody tea could be the cure to his sleepless nights.

*

Sherlock is halfway through the pile of cold cases that Lestrade had dropped off earlier this week, partly a reconciliation gesture, partly a genuine eagerness to make use of Sherlock’s return - the murder solving rate dropped slightly but still distinctly in the past two years - when there’s a knock on the house door, followed by Mrs. Hudson’s muttering as she answers it. It’s too late for a client, though, and the melody of the landlady’s chirping rises up about a minor third which indicates she’s on cordial terms with the visitor-

Sherlock is in the kitchen in three steps and actually sitting down behind his microscope when he realises that the tread of the visitor’s steps on the stairs is too light.

“Sherlock?” She came in through the living room door; it takes her a moment to spot him. About the moment Sherlock needs to tamp down on that sudden riot of panic, followed by an unexpected cold douse of disappointment, and lock them both behind a smooth, marble façade.

“Hello, Mary. Sorry, I’m busy,” he fires off monotonously, eyes glued to the microscope.

“It would be more believable if there was a sample on that thing,” she says as she points to the empty sample holder.

Sherlock briefly closes his eyes, a minute acknowledgement of defeat. He has forgotten that John’s girlfriend is not John himself when it comes to the skills of observation.

Mary takes off her red jacket and settles on a kitchen chair.

“Look, I said I’d talk him around.”

“You did that.”

She taps her fingers on her wrist. “Hardly my fault that they picked him off the street to be roasted alive, right when he finally decided to give in. And I have no idea what went wrong afterwards. We - you saved his life, for God’s sake!”

“Isn’t it getting tiresome, this negotiating business?” Sherlock opens a box of clean slides and digs around for a scalpel.

“John doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?” The sample bag with wool threads from the last file is still on the coffee table in the living room. Damn.

“Sherlock, stop sodding around and listen, because I’m going to say this just once.”

He wrinkles his nose but doesn’t cut her off. In a world where people divide into enemies, allies and bystanders, Mary is not a bystander. Sherlock is not sure which one of the other two options she is. Better let her talk.

“You didn’t see John when I met him. You didn’t see what you did to him. It’s been months of picking up the pieces for me, and I’m not going to stand by and watch him falling apart at the seams all over again.”

“Why would he do that?” It should have been a disdainful, rhetorical question, but somehow it emerged like a nestling from a cracked egg, guileless and frail.

Mary leans back on her chair and shakes her head. “Just - talk to him. Let him in.”

“Would you pass me the small plastic bag on the coffee table? The one with the red tape.”

Mary stares at the ceiling for a while, visibly calming herself.

“Okay,” she breathes out. “The hard way, then. The restaurant in the Landmark Hotel, this Friday, six o’clock sharp. You will be there.”

“Will I?” Sherlock aims for amused but again it emerges on the wrong side of interested. Mary doesn’t miss it. There’s a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

“You will. And don’t mess it up this time.”

Sherlock regards her silently for a couple of minutes. Mary seems unbothered by the scrutiny. Could she really be so selfless? Putting John’s well-being above hers? Sherlock gets up abruptly and picks up the sample bag from the coffee table. Observes her from the corner of his eye. She’s remarkably unreadable.

“Why are you doing this, Mary?” Sherlock puts the slightest emphasis on the pronoun. She raises her eyebrows.

“It’s irrational behaviour from someone in your position,” he continues. “You’re undermining your current advantage. I have a history of ruining John’s relationships. You should be afraid that he might forgive me, not encourage it. What if he comes back to live in Baker Street? What if he starts putting cases above your dates, just like he used to in the past?”

Mary smiles a soft, pitying smile. “I know he used to be like that, yeah, I’ve been warned. But - you have to understand, Sherlock, that something has changed. Do you know what that is?”

Sherlock straightens his back unconsciously. The bandagecovering the gash which he refused to have stitched pulls at the fabric of his shirt. “I might have an idea, yes.”

Mary sighs. “I don’t really think you do. You see, back then - he trusted you. Without question, from day one. A man with trust issues the size of Westminster Abbey and then you came along and said Run and he - just ran.”

Mary keeps talking, her words sometimes punctuated by the tap of her forefinger on the top of the table, but Sherlock is not listening. He ponders this new information, this unexpected angle of insight into John’s character. Of course he doesn’t trust you now. He probably suspects you of suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Who in their right mind would put their trust in a man whose reactions might get unpredictable, whose mental health is disrupted, whose very sanity can be questioned?

And yes, the irony of that is not lost on Sherlock, that he trusted John from day one. But Sherlock has made a habit out of risking his life to prove he’s clever. John... There’s nothing that wrong with John. John is good.

“...with not telling him. You broke it.” Mary is about to finish and Sherlock blinks back to awareness. She shrugs, something like apology in her tone. “And I think he’ll never get back to how he used to be with you. I don’t think you could steal him from me.”

Not so selfless, then. Sherlock decides that it’s a point in Mary’s favour. John deserves someone normal.

“Why change the status quo, then? I know I’m not the right person for John-” at all “-at the moment. He knows it too. I believe he would even say so if you asked him.”

Mary shifts on the chair, takes in the kitchen in one long look around. “What John says is one thing. What he wants is sometimes a completely different thing.” She smirks a little. “And then there’s an even more different thing - what he really needs.”

Sherlock cuts a thread of wool to the size of the slide and prepares a sample. “What about my needs? I, for instance, don’t need his pity.”

Mary lets out a short laugh. “Oh, he doesn’t have any pity for you, trust me. Look - everything you’ve done so far. For him. Just one more thing, just once.”

Sherlock closes his eyes against an image of dark green trees, a plain black gravestone, seagulls high in the sky. Suddenly he can smell mould and paraffin oil and dried blood and days old stains of piss on a concrete floor and the sensation is so sharp that he shudders involuntarily. Interconnected memories. He should see to the maintenance of his Mind Palace soon.

“Give him a chance to say thank you for saving his life,” Mary pleads and Sherlock, against his better judgement, nods.

“I’ll be there.”

*
“Can’t believe you managed to get a table. I was on the list for two weeks!” John fiddles with his wine glass and takes a surreptitious look around. “Also, you’d think that they’d have banned us from here for good, after that... after last time.”

Opposite him, Mary’s eyes are two large diamonds in the candlelight, shining with amusement. “I have my methods.”

John has a brief hilarious thought of asking the waiter for a bottle of champagne and then he thinks better of it.

“Well, what’s the occasion? If you want me to propose properly, since we got so... derailed last time, you should give me back the ring for a mo-”

Words run dry in John’s throat as he spots Sherlock entering the Restaurant door.

“What the hell, Mary-”

She leans forward quickly, her voice quiet and pointed. The diamonds in her eyes could cut glass.

“Listen, love. I set this up to give you - both of you - a chance to get it right. To behave like civilised men.”

John fumes under his breath. “What? To play it out? To pretend that-”

“Just try to imagine it, okay? Imagine that the man you’ve missed for two years is coming across the room,” Mary continues without mercy. “And he’s coming to you. Nobody else knows he’s alive. No press, no evening news, no Twitter, and he’s coming to see you, to give you what you’ve asked for. Would you rather find out from the telly?”

John can hear his own frantic voice bouncing off a deaf gravestone, Just one more miracle, for me. Don’t... be... dead.

“Did you think I hadn’t noticed? How miserable you’ve been?” Mary whispers softly.

The whole idea is ridiculous. John shouldn’t be able to simply forget their first meeting, the week of shunning, the bonfire, their last fateful interaction. And yet... Maybe it’s the scenic setting, Mary’s choice of dress - the same - maybe it’s the look on Sherlock’s face as he approaches the table, something equal parts scared and hopeful - that John feels himself slipping into the role.

There’s that river of blood red anger coursing its well-worn bed in him again but this time he reins himself in and closes the flood gates before it overtakes him. He holds that wave behind the dam of civilised behaviour and suddenly he notices that there is another stream of emotion inside him, underneath the anger. It was drowned out the first time but now he can feel it at last. It’s joy, a trickle of mirth, a little streamlet of happiness, clear, uncorrupted and refreshing. John takes a breath and for the first time in nearly two years he feels alive again.

A third chair materialises at their table seemingly out of nowhere - John is too blindsided watching Sherlock to notice the waiter who no doubt obeys Mary’s clever instructions. Sherlock slides onto it, folds his hands in his lap. Clears his throat. Says nothing. His eyes seem to plead with John for something, for a cue.

John swallows. He’s not sure he can go along with this game, it feels too weird. “You haven’t actually deleted the first time, have you.”

Sherlock frowns. “I never delete anything concer-” Something flicks in his eyes, like a shutter cutting off the light from the lens. “Of course not,” he says instead.

“Good.” John breathes in. He shakes his head. “God, you’re-”

“Not dead,” Sherlock finishes quickly. Opens his mouth, lips formed around the ‘o’ sound. John narrows his eyes: say ‘obviously’ and I’ll throw the table at you. Sherlock closes his mouth like a fish, without a sound. He stares at John for some time, his small frown deepening. At last, he volunteers: “Are you okay?”

John can’t help it, he laughs. “Of course. I’m overjoyed.” He feels a sharp stab in his ankle: Mary has kicked him under the table. It sobers him a bit.

“A bit - thrown off, I suppose,” he admits. “Can’t believe that-”

“I assume I owe you a thousand apologies.” There’s something peculiar about the wording of that phrase that John finds - oh yes. In fact, I am not sorry, Sherlock’s biting words echo through his mind. In the present, Sherlock’s tone grows a scathing edge.

“Perhaps we could subtract those that already transpired between us from the total amount.” He’s looking at Mary, something like defiance in that level gaze. “To speed up the reconciliation process?”

“In that case, you can skip the explanation bit. It’s been all over the papers already.” Mary wears her professional nurse smile. Sherlock’s antics slide off it like water droplets from a teflon surface.

“Right. The full version is classified anyway.”

John knows where that stab was aimed. “Jesus. I’ve missed this. Feeling like punching you when you speak - and it’s not even subtext anymore.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitches. “I believe you wouldn’t avoid my nose and teeth this time.”

“Been there, done that.” John’s voice rasps on the too dry joke. The dim light in the Restaurant is just enough for him to make out the tiny scar on Sherlock’s bottom lip. It’s odd, a simple fat lip shouldn’t have scarred like that. This looks older, and like a mark of something that must have been a rough experience. Sherlock was never careful. Too many people have made him bleed, and John’s own name is on the list. He hates himself for it, for being the last one to do that. He crosses his forearms on the table and leans closer.

“Bloody hell, Sherlock. Do you have any idea-?”

“I haven’t, actually.” Sherlock shrugs. “I had no idea you’d be so affected.”

John jerks his head back. “What?” He shares an incredulous look with Mary. “Really? My best friend commits suicide right in front of me and you expect me not to be affected?”

It’s Sherlock’s turn to nearly fall off the chair. “Your what?”

This is so not the reaction John has been expecting that the low flames of growing anger in him are suddenly quelled by a cold douse of astonishment. Sherlock is looking at him as if John has grown another head overnight.

“You were my best friend,” John repeats, emphasising each word with a slight nod.

Sherlock grabs a glass of wine - Mary’s - and empties it in one gulp before Mary can put a word in protest. He doesn’t seem to notice that the table is set only for two. His hand shakes lightly when he puts the glass back.

“I couldn’t have been.”

“I think I’m the authority on who is and who isn’t my friend and, trust me, you were. It. My best friend.” John speaks very quietly but his voice still breaks a little on the last word. It hurts nearly as much as at the time in Ella’s office, with the rain beating on her large windows. It seems to John now that it always rained in London those days.

Sherlock’s gaze turns inwards and he keeps flicking his eyes from left to right and back in tiny automatic movements. It looks as if he’s reading something, pressed for time. His voice is laden with distress. “I’ve often been rude to you. Dismissive. Arrogant. I drugged you, that time at Baskerville - fine, attempted to. I experimented on you all the time. I was terrible to your girlfriends, on purpose. I was... you kept saying I was hell to put up with... how could I be your... there was no reason for it!”

“Oh God,” Mary sighs quietly to herself. She rolls her eyes. “Logic.”

John can already see the edge of his exasperation. Calm down, he reminds himself.

“Remember that birthday message you made for me? That ‘all my friends hate me’ one?” John laughs shortly. “Well, you didn’t. Hate me.” He rubs his shoulder, clenches his traitorous trembling hand. Grumpy, defeated words he once said to Mike - Who would want me for a flat-mate? - float to the forefront of his memory.

“I’m not the easiest person to live with,” he continues. “I’ve got a bit of a temper-”

“A bit?” Mary quips innocently. John chooses to ignore it, concentrating on Sherlock.

“This ‘putting up with you’ business was mutual, in fact. And then...” he looks down at his hands. “Then you made me think I’d lost you.”

Sherlock’s hands grow restless. He snatches a linen mat from the table and keeps folding and unfolding it in his lap.

“I suppose... I assumed you’d be fine. People lose their dear ones all the time. Your father died shortly before your discharge and I never saw you grieve that much-”

John’s fist lands on the table. Mary hisses. Several waiters give them suspicious looks. John’s voice is very quiet when he speaks.

“I didn’t blame myself for my father’s death.”

Sherlock blinks. John continues, deadly calm. “Would you have done it - would you have faked it - if you knew I’d be blaming myself for your death?”

“Why? Why would you do that? Your attitude during the whole time was unflinchingly loyal. You had no share in destroying my reputation-”

“The bloody reputation I helped to create!”

John feels Mary’s hand on his. Voice down, oh yes. He needs this conversation, he needs to make Sherlock understand, and they can’t afford to get thrown out again.

“I remember how you complained about the notoriety. You would avoid publicity, you would let the Yard’s detectives take all the credit, you hated being photographed...” John recalls all those forced smiles at press conferences, all those little moments when Sherlock needed to brace himself before they would open the door and face the storm of flashlights.

John on the other hand - John used to enjoy it. He huffs a bitter laugh. “It was my blog that made you famous. Nobody was reading your website, remember? And there I was, preening like a bloody peacock every time someone mentioned that they liked ‘the one with the Aluminium Crutch’! If I’d known it was all a plan, if I’d known you were letting Moriarty destroy you, if you had bloody let me in - but you didn’t, and I thought you jumped because you couldn’t bear the loss of your Work, of your reputation. And I kept thinking that the bastard wouldn’t have had anything to destroy if I wasn’t there with my stupid blog in the first place... I felt like I put you on that roof myself.”

John rubs at the dangerous hint of salt in the corners of his eyes and waits. Sherlock appears to be still processing. When he answers at last, it’s in a small, confused voice.

“I never cared for the publicity. The Work was the only thing that mattered, John. You surely knew that.”

John’s spirit drops. Of course the Work was the only thing that mattered. Not his colleague - not his friend... He turns to Mary. “There’s no point in this. Can we-”

She gently squeezes his hand and levels a pointed gaze at Sherlock. “This is the part where you say you’re sorry,” she prompts.

That soft, confused openness evaporates from Sherlock’s face in an instant. The expression left behind could well be chiseled out of marble. “I’m not.” He gestures to John. “He’s alive. Ignorant and hurt and alive is always better than knowing and content and dead.”

John feels a smile growing on his face, the one that pulls the corners of his mouth wide but not up. Young Harry used to run to her room when she saw him smile like that.

“That’s rich. Good thing then that I haven’t done myself in like I wanted to when you were gone.”

The crack of tearing fabric is the only sound in their little bubble of silence. Sherlock stares down at the two halves of the table mat in his clenched fists. Not a line in his face moves but he suddenly looks as if the only colour in his skin is the soft golden glow of the candles.

“I... I didn’t know it would be...”

Then he stops stammering. John can almost see something in his eyes turn around, like a cornered animal that has reached a dead end and, blinded with fear, turns around to scratch and bite and kick at a much larger opponent. Sherlock opens his mouth and the words start to flow, measured and sharp.

“I can’t apologise for a mistake I made based on a lack of information - information that has been deliberately withheld from me.”

His accusing tone doesn’t leave room for objections. “I was labouring under the impression that my death wouldn’t affect you too terribly. You knew you were my only friend but I never heard confirmation that even a fraction of that sentiment was mutual.”

“Sherlock-” Mary says anxiously but Sherlock’s words only gain speed.

“When I introduced you as a friend, you corrected it to a ‘colleague’-”

“I hardly knew you at the time!” John manages but Sherlock is still speaking.

“-the very last thing you said to my face, if I recall correctly, was-”

“Don’t!” John shouts. Miraculously, Sherlock shuts up.

John ignores the approaching waiter, ignores the looks of people from other tables. “So it was my fault. Why is everything - always - my fault?”

Sherlock stands up and straightens his jacket. “I’m a high functioning sociopath, John. Surely you weren’t expecting me to pick up on whatever subtle signs of emotional dependency you deemed too impertinent to actually show.”

John stares as if slapped, unable to form words. Beside him, Mary buries her face in her hands. Sherlock shooes away the waiter and leaves, not looking back.