New fic: Stand Alone Among the Wreck, Sherlock/John
Title: Stand Alone Among the Wreck
Author: giddygeek
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Spoilers: This is a post-The Reichenbach Fall wallow. Made of wallowing. And possibly some pining. Also did I mention wallowing? Because that.
Notes: 4300 words. Many thanks to drunktuesdays and misspamela for beta!
Warnings: ( skip) Possible mental health triggers. Brief discussion of suicide.
The carnival ends, eventually.
John steps out onto the street, and no one tries to take his picture. No one asks him any questions about Sherlock's life, or death, or what life is like after Sherlock's death.
He goes to the surgery and treats patients, most of whom are hurting in one way or another, some of whom he can help. Sarah asks him round for dinner and he declines, because her new boyfriend is tall, dark and friendly, and tries hard not to ask John questions with very awkward answers.
"John," she says as he's heading out the door, cane in hand. He turns, gives her a mildly inquisitive look. She hesitates. "Are you...talking? To anyone?"
He shifts his cane from one hand to the other. The mildly inquisitive look becomes a mildly mocking smile. "I'm talking to you, right now."
Sarah rolls her eyes at him. "You know what I mean. I'm asking, as your friend, and as a doctor, if you're talking to someone."
John goes to therapy on a regular basis. He sits in a chair, and talks about what he can. Sometimes he talks about getting a cat. Something aloof and independent, he tells his therapist, making it a joke. Something with nine lives. "I am," he tells Sarah. He tries to make it reassuring. "I promise, I'm taking care of myself, you don't have to worry."
"I don't have to do anything, John Watson. I worry about you because I want to." But she does look less concerned when she smiles at him, eyes warm; they are friends, they've become friends again, and he's grateful when he stops to think about it. She sits back at her desk and waves her hand at the door. "Now shoo, out you go. And tell Mrs. Hudson that I very much appreciated the sandwich--it was lovely."
"Will do," John promises, saluting Sarah with the cane before turning back to go. He won't do it, of course; Mrs. Hudson doesn't need to know he only eats half the food she sends him off with. She'll grumble about her finances again and tell him she can't be affording to feed half of London and besides, she's not his housekeeper, why should she be someone else's cook?
He steps out onto the kerb and instinctively now, warily, looks for photogs or reporters, but there aren't any that he spots. Sherlock would probably have spotted three, but Sherlock's no longer there to spot them. No one steps forward to bother John, and that's the important thing.
With no need to escape, he decides against the expense of a cab; he's due to check in on some of Sherlock's Irregulars anyway. He tucks his head down into the collar of his jacket, too light for the grey drizzle of a London spring, and walks alone through nicer roads to worse ones, decent areas to shit ones. Along the way, he has some quiet conversations with panhandlers, grubby young and old men and women who are used to him now. They tell him things they might've told Sherlock, though he thinks they don't give him as nearly as much information, and he knows that they charge him more money.
He's out of what cash he was carrying when he set out well before he's finished his rounds, but that's all right. The only regular Irregular left is Rosie, tall and quiet, face of indeterminate gender, skin of indeterminate color, rose-pink hat and scarf worn no matter what the weather. It's been a few weeks since John's seen Rosie, and none of the other Irregulars know a thing; John's worried, a bit, but it's not exactly unheard of for the Irregulars to come and go, and Lestrade keeps him up to date on the homeless admitted to hospital or found dead on the streets.
He keeps to the quiet places, moves slowly and steadily, eyes peeled for a splash of color in the gloom. He's almost out of Rosie's territory before he spots the pink hat off in the distance, the lean figure busy on some errand and oblivious to his presence. John wants to call out but doesn't, choosing to let his relief settle into his chest rather than risk making the wrong noise, scare Rosie away, like one might frighten a deer in the wood. It's good to have all of Sherlock's Irregulars accounted for, that's all; if Rosie needs him, he'll be around.
John watches for a moment as Rosie leans down, sorts through bins. He can hear the soft crow of triumph over a particularly good find, and he smiles. All's well, then. That's his work for the day done; he turns and makes his careful way home.
~
It took him months to move back to Baker Street, after. It wasn't planned that he should move back at all--one day he was sitting in his plain, bare room staring at a plain, bare wall, and it was all so familiar that he thought of the days when he first met Sherlock. Couldn't help it. Eighteen months working and living with the best man he'd ever known, the best friend he'd ever had, and it was so much worse to go back to his own dull, dulled world.
It would have been very easy to end it. Sometimes John thought there were only two questions. Which method of death to choose; a bullet, like Moriarty, or a fall, like Sherlock? And if he did it, if he finally, finally made the choice it sometimes seemed like he'd been fated to make, what would Sherlock think, if he came home?
It was a nonsense question, John knew it, had known it all along. Sherlock was dead, and the sooner he accepted that in one way or another, the better.
But nonsense questions--they'd found a way of sticking in his mind, now. His training, his time in the military, his work, his entire life had led him to look for horses when he heard hoof beats. Nonsense was for children, dreamers and schemers. John Watson was for reason; until, that was, Sherlock had proved to him over and over that reason and nonsense were more alike than not; that when he heard hoof beats, he should look for hounds.
What if, he thought, sitting alone in his room, alone in the world. What. If.
With the words echoing in his mind, he got up. He collected his belongings. Not thinking about it, not planning it, and certainly not hoping for anything, he hailed a cab, and he went back to 221b.
He went home.
And now, at the end of a long day, he climbs the stairs. Mrs. Hudson is cooking something in his kitchen; soup, he finds, when he checks the pot. Something with a lot of fat and potatoes. It smells very good.
Sherlock would have told her that she shouldn't have used his best fingers, the ones he'd been saving up, and she'd have hit him with her spoon. John would have smiled from his chair, where he would have been reading the paper or updating the blog. He'd have enjoyed their snappish affection for each other while they squabbled over whether or not Sherlock would eat; he'd have enjoyed his soup with them or without them, Sherlock at the table with his equipment or a bowl, Mrs. Hudson downstairs with her telly or tucking in happily, pleased with her success.
John takes a small bowl of soup and settles at the table with it and the paper. His imagination fills in the life and vibrancy of a flat shared with Sherlock Holmes, all music and madness, while John sits at the table, almost unaware of the silence, alone.
After a while, he goes to bed. He leaves his soup untouched. He leaves the paper unread. He settles on his back, still and quiet between his clean and fastidiously tidy sheets, and watches the shadow thrown across the floor by Sherlock's violin until he finally, finally, falls asleep.
~
It has been fifteen months since Sherlock Holmes died. John Watson gets through it, day by day by quiet, dull day.
~
His therapist seems dissatisfied with his progress.
"John." She sits forward in her chair, elbows braced on her thighs. She's very lovely. John wishes he could fully appreciate the shadow of her cleavage. Instead, he observes with almost clinical admiration. She raises an eyebrow at him and he looks back at her without expression, waiting.
She sighs. "How long are you going to hold this in?"
He thinks about it. He looks out the window, and watches snowflakes dance merrily through the air. "I'm a soldier," he says slowly. "A doctor."
"The ability to endure almost anything may be part of your training," she tells him. "But where does that end?"
John doesn't flinch. He meets her gaze, holds it. Says, "I'm his friend. His only one. You tell me, where does that end?"
She doesn't have an answer; not that she says out loud, anyway.
That's okay. Neither does he.
~
The Irregulars seem to have a rough winter. Big Pete and Little Pete are almost never on their corner; Big Pete, John hears from Lestrade, has had pneumonia. The twins keep to the shadows, rarely venturing forward, even when John offers them gifts, money. The prostitutes, Shere and Vickie and Donnie, seem okay, but then they're very unlikely to let John know otherwise, much as he's tried to make it clear that he doesn't judge, he simply cares. Rosie is around, and then not. He hears that she's all right, and sometimes he sees her pink cap around a corner, down an alley, but she's always gone again when he gets close.
John feels like he's failing them. He hides money in places he thinks they'll find it, when he doesn't see them, and leaves bags of food around too. Nothing ever remains when he checks back but that doesn't mean much; still, he tries as hard as he can.
One night, while he's out walking Rosie's territory, a sleek dark car pulls up beside him. He looks at it out of the corner of his eye, but gets in without hesitation when the door opens.
Inside, it's warm and smells faintly of cloves and cinnamon. He's sitting next to Mycroft Holmes.
"You know, I find your dedication almost...excessive," Mycroft says, lips curling; he disapproves, it seems, of excess. That reeks to John of hypocrisy, certainly coming from a man who hobnobs with royalty, surrounds himself with comfort, and loves his massively excessive brother. Then again, everything about Mycroft reeks to him these days.
"They need someone," he says simply.
"They need programs, not enabling."
John just stares at Mycroft, waiting.
Mycroft sighs. "All right, fine. I'm sure you've bankrupted yourself with this...habit...by now. Shall we make a deal? You cease your aimless street wanderings, and I will ensure that all of Sherlock's little mice have their fair share of cheese."
John tucks his chin down, clears his throat. "They're people," he says, low. "They're not Sherlock's little mice. They're just people."
Next to him, pillowed in leather and wearing a suit worth more than all of Sherlock's Irregulars could gather together in a month, Mycroft Holmes steeples his fingers. The gesture is so like Sherlock, and his brother is so unlike him, that John has to look away. He watches the street for a moment, and when Mycroft is silent, prepares to get out of the car.
"Wait," Mycroft says. "Your bleeding heart alarms me, Doctor, but I suppose you shall have your way. Fine. Continue to make your rounds of Sherlock's people, but allow me to finance the operation."
John turns to him, ready to refuse.
"Please," Mycroft Holmes says, and although his face is expressionless and his eyes reveal nothing, John watches him, and hesitates. Mycroft presses his fingertips together, then puts his hands down on his knees, every movement slow and careful, very deliberate. "In my brother's name. In his honor."
John continues to hesitate, half in the car, half in the world of the Irregulars, poor and so alone without Sherlock Holmes to chivvy them along, give them a sense of adventure and of usefulness, and to give them coins, a ready supply for cold nights.
"All right," he says, and gets out of the car. "For Sherlock."
"My infernal brother," Mycroft says as John is closing the door, and the mixture of affection and aggravation that he allows John hear in his voice almost makes him smile.
~
Molly won't speak to him. John stops at St. Bart's sometimes, on errands for the surgery or just in hope that this time will be different, but it never is. She's never available; when she is, she looks at John with such terror on her face that he can't approach her.
He doesn't know what he's done to deserve this treatment from one of the few people he thinks he could talk with, perhaps even honestly, about life after Sherlock, but he refuses to make it worse. He thinks about Molly in a lovely black dress and red lipstick, and Molly cowed by Sherlock, Molly half in love and silly with it, and he leaves her alone.
He hopes she's happy. He just. Really hopes she's happy.
~
Once in a while, Lestrade comes by the flat. He drops off tidbits of information about the Irregulars, gossips a little about mutual acquaintances; Donovan's been demoted, he says, with a vicious smile. Traffic. No one knows what happened, and she isn't talking.
Anderson's story is a little more colorful--he got fired for sloppy mishandling of one too many crime scenes. John almost wishes he'd been there to see Anderson led away from the last one, protesting all the way about how he'd never; anyone paying the least bit of attention to his work should know better; his reputation. But then he might have hit the man, and he's trying to keep a low profile these days.
Sometimes Lestrade asks for help. John isn't quite a criminal expert, but he's learned a few things, and they work well together. When they're talking over a mystery, he feels his brain lighting up, humming away. He feels closest to Sherlock then, sometimes turns to him to ask a question, sometimes hears Sherlock's impatient no no no when something is especially wrong.
More than one crime scene, John stands motionless in the middle of the chaos, his eyes closed. He doesn't have a mind palace, exactly, but he can envision Sherlock in his, and that helps him make connections he might have otherwise missed. He imagines Sherlock prowling around, looking at this, examining that, and it prevents him from overlooking small, vital clues.
So John isn't a criminal expert, but the memory of one haunts him, challenges him, and almost comforts him, which seems close enough.
~
Big Pete passes away in early April. John pays his burial expenses, through the fund that Mycroft has opened for him. He pays for a small memorial, which only he and Little Pete attend.
John stands at attention through the brief service. He keeps his gaze off the marker, the temporary stone that will mark Big Pete's burial site until the nicer monument has been completed. Little Pete had asked for a kitten and a flask to be etched under Big Pete's name, and John hadn't hesitated, just agreed.
Beside him, Little Pete is still and silent. They'd been together a long time, "Through thick and thin," Big Pete had once told John with a placid smile. These are thin days, John thinks, watching Little Pete from the corner of his eye. Very thin days, for everyone.
Rosie watches from behind the fence, too far away to hear anything or see any details of the service, but John supposes that all rituals have their comfort, to those that observe them. There's no sign of the pink hat and scarf when it's over, though, and John can only shake his head and offer to buy Little Pete a pint.
"I guess I'm just Pete now," Little Pete says, when they've settled at the closest pub. A sad smile flickers across his face, and is gone. "A different man, right? I suppose that can't be all bad, now can it?"
John sits back, and thinks about that. A different person. It's hard to see a silver lining to a loss of this magnitude, but maybe Little Pete--Pete--has got the right of it. You come out of grief a changed person. John wouldn't say that he's out of grief--he doesn't know that he can be, somehow, while he still feels like Sherlock is alive. But he's done good work at the surgery, with the Irregulars, with Lestrade. In some ways, he supposes that he is more confident these days. A different man.
He clears his throat, leans forward. "Listen, Pete," he says. "I, uh. I want to change the terms of your agreement with Sherlock, just a bit--no, no, I'm not trying to--listen, I'm just saying that I'll pay you your share, and a share in memory of Big Pete, to come directly to me with certain information."
Pete eyes him, wary.
John struggles to smile a little, to seem reassuring. "Nothing you're not used to," he promises. "Just instead of me having to tug and twist at everyone to get half the truth, I want the whole truth. The full gossip. Every rumour, every whisper in the wind, as if I were Sherlock himself. Do you think--I mean, are you willing to do that?"
"Ah," Pete says, and takes a long pull off his glass. "Well, I'd take the deal, but it ain't my decision. For matters of who gets what, information-wise, you'll need to talk to Rosie, and that's all I got to say. Well, that and thanks for your help and all."
"Pete." John struggles not to let his frustration show. "I'm not asking for government secrets here--"
"Ain't you, though?" Pete asks, with a sly smile; then he clams up, and no matter how much John presses, refuses to say more.
~
When John gets to the top of the stairs, he's tired and cold and a little drunk. Attempting to loosen Pete up with liquor had failed, miserably.
Their door is open.
John hesitates on the landing, then peers through the crack; it's been a long time since there was trouble at Baker Street, but it never hurts to be cautious.
Someone is standing in front of the fireplace. The glow of a pink hat, a pink scarf tucked into a black coat, makes John gasp. He pushes open the door and says, "Rosie, what are you--" with a mix of fear and hope in his voice; is something wrong, is Rosie hurt; is something right, has Pete passed along word that John was ready for more--
Rosie turns, slow and graceful, coat flaring with the motion. The face John sees is pale, thin and bony, but the structure is otherworldly, masculine and familiar. The eyes that meet his are an eerie grey, almost colorless, calculating and somehow very, very warm.
Sherlock Holmes sweeps the pink hat off his head, the pink scarf away from his throat, and says, "John! Were you really so taken in by this dis--John? John!"
Something thumps to the ground; John's cane. John himself isn't far behind it. Head swimming, focused narrowed, darkness encroaching, he puts out a hand and makes a sound, a sad, joyful, half-swallowed sound, before he faints dead away.
~
There is something under his legs. That's the first thing John's aware of, as the world swims back into clarity. He's on the couch, the feel and smell of it familiar, and there is something under his legs.
There is a cool hand on his face. An irritable voice says, "I know you're awake, John. Open your eyes. We're about to have a fight about whether or not you need a minder, which is not a fight I'd have thought--well, there you are; now tell me, are you stupid?"
"Sher--" John chokes. The word wants to come out, and doesn't.
Sherlock scowls at him. He looks different, even more gawky and tired than when John had first met him. His hair is short. Strangely, that seems natural; the silver strands threaded through the thick, dark waves seem to suit him. "Are you incapable of speech? If I'd have known the depths of just how far you'd let yourself go, I'd never have taxed your feeble mind with such a dramatic reveal. I certainly didn't want to cause you a stroke."
His hand is very gentle on John's face. His thumb is stroking John's cheekbone.
You broke my heart and you're worried about stroke? John wants to say. What comes out is, in thick tones, like every word is clotting in his throat, "If you're not a ghost or a hallucination, Sherlock, then I suggest you run."
Sherlock looks delighted. His grip tightens, and he shakes John a little. "Don't be foolish; I'm neither a ghost nor a hallucination, and I'm certainly not scared of you."
"You should be," John says, and he begins to fight Sherlock's grip, attempting to stand.
He gets halfway to his feet when Sherlock makes a frustrated noise and a quick move; on a normal day, the sweep of his arm would have landed John back on the floor in a heartbeat. But this is not a normal day, and some bit of training and instinct has John swinging out with his fist at just the right angle. His knuckles connect soundly with Sherlock's cheekbone, and Sherlock thumps down the floor while John stands, hands clenched at his sides, and stares at him.
Stares. At Sherlock Holmes. Words seem to come and go in John's mind too fast for him to get them out; all the pain of two years spent grieving, the joy of having it proved once and for all that the great Sherlock Holmes wasn't through yet, the rage and betrayal at having been duped. He stares, and all he says is, "You're...alive."
Sherlock stares back at him, attention arrested. John doesn't doubt that he's cataloguing every change, every new line on John's face and new grey in his hair. It's almost disconcerting to be the subject of that intense study once again.
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "Your first clue should have been that there aren't any ghosts. But I suppose that even if there were, it would be very difficult to bruise one." He touches his cheekbone, winces, but there isn't a cut. There might be a bruise, but John finds it very difficult to care.
"This isn't the reaction I'd thought you'd have," Sherlock says. "Fascinating. Is this the reaction you thought you'd have?"
"No." John takes a deep breath, lowers his head a bit, closes his eyes. Tries to get control of himself, the way he's been trained. Breath out. Breath in, breath out. His legs are shaking, his stomach is shaking, he feels like he just ran a marathon; he ran it for nineteen months, step by step until he'd thought he was too tired to carry on, and now the race is over. It's won.
He opens his eyes. "I want to know how you did it," he says, evenly, calm and steady. "I want to know everything. Where you've been, what you've done, how many times you almost got yourself killed proving that you were more clever than Jim Moriarty. All of it, do you hear me? You won't leave out a word."
"As if I would keep any tidbit of this remarkable story from my blogger." Sherlock quirks a smile at him. Holds up his hands, palms out, pax. "That is, of course, assuming that my blogger doesn't kill me to celebrate Moriarty's failure, and that of his silly little worldwide spider web."
"I'm not your blogger," John snaps, and the spreading curl of Sherlock's smile tells him that Sherlock knows he's lying. They both know that John hasn't written a word since he posted, I will never believe it JW to the website. They both know, John thinks, how much those words covered, and how inadequate anything else he could have said would have been.
John watches Sherlock smile. "Well, I certainly wouldn't have anyone else," he says, with assurance, and John knows that he can be any character, he can play any man, Sherlock Holmes can and has duped everyone, but about this, he is telling the truth.
And finally, slowly because it almost hurts, it's an ache in his body to feel this much joy and satisfaction and love all at once, because he wouldn't have anyone else either, John smiles back. Smiles back, and reaches out his hand to Sherlock Holmes, who takes it, gets to his feet in one smooth motion, and continues it by pulling John into a tight, squeezing hug.
Sherlock huffs out a breath against the top of John's head, and it sounds immensely self-satisfied, like this is what he expected and he's gratified, as always, to be proven correct. John closes his eyes, tucks his nose against Sherlock's collar, and holds on for as long as the moment lasts.
Which is a surprising length of time; a minute, maybe, or more; then Sherlock squeezes one last time--John should have guessed that he would hug just slightly wrong, like a boa constrictor attempting to show affection--before he gently pushes John away from him and steps back.
"Stories later, nutrition now. I'm famished," he says, in a pleased tone that he almost never uses for food. "Mrs. Hudson," he calls, darting toward the door, all energetic movements and swirling coat. "Oh, Mrs. Hudson--tell me, what's for tea? Do you have any cake? Mrs. Hudson--" and John sits on their couch, beginning to laugh; beginning, at last, to come alive again, as the sound and fury of Sherlock Holmes fills their flat once more.
Author: giddygeek
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Spoilers: This is a post-The Reichenbach Fall wallow. Made of wallowing. And possibly some pining. Also did I mention wallowing? Because that.
Notes: 4300 words. Many thanks to drunktuesdays and misspamela for beta!
Warnings: ( skip) Possible mental health triggers. Brief discussion of suicide.
The carnival ends, eventually.
John steps out onto the street, and no one tries to take his picture. No one asks him any questions about Sherlock's life, or death, or what life is like after Sherlock's death.
He goes to the surgery and treats patients, most of whom are hurting in one way or another, some of whom he can help. Sarah asks him round for dinner and he declines, because her new boyfriend is tall, dark and friendly, and tries hard not to ask John questions with very awkward answers.
"John," she says as he's heading out the door, cane in hand. He turns, gives her a mildly inquisitive look. She hesitates. "Are you...talking? To anyone?"
He shifts his cane from one hand to the other. The mildly inquisitive look becomes a mildly mocking smile. "I'm talking to you, right now."
Sarah rolls her eyes at him. "You know what I mean. I'm asking, as your friend, and as a doctor, if you're talking to someone."
John goes to therapy on a regular basis. He sits in a chair, and talks about what he can. Sometimes he talks about getting a cat. Something aloof and independent, he tells his therapist, making it a joke. Something with nine lives. "I am," he tells Sarah. He tries to make it reassuring. "I promise, I'm taking care of myself, you don't have to worry."
"I don't have to do anything, John Watson. I worry about you because I want to." But she does look less concerned when she smiles at him, eyes warm; they are friends, they've become friends again, and he's grateful when he stops to think about it. She sits back at her desk and waves her hand at the door. "Now shoo, out you go. And tell Mrs. Hudson that I very much appreciated the sandwich--it was lovely."
"Will do," John promises, saluting Sarah with the cane before turning back to go. He won't do it, of course; Mrs. Hudson doesn't need to know he only eats half the food she sends him off with. She'll grumble about her finances again and tell him she can't be affording to feed half of London and besides, she's not his housekeeper, why should she be someone else's cook?
He steps out onto the kerb and instinctively now, warily, looks for photogs or reporters, but there aren't any that he spots. Sherlock would probably have spotted three, but Sherlock's no longer there to spot them. No one steps forward to bother John, and that's the important thing.
With no need to escape, he decides against the expense of a cab; he's due to check in on some of Sherlock's Irregulars anyway. He tucks his head down into the collar of his jacket, too light for the grey drizzle of a London spring, and walks alone through nicer roads to worse ones, decent areas to shit ones. Along the way, he has some quiet conversations with panhandlers, grubby young and old men and women who are used to him now. They tell him things they might've told Sherlock, though he thinks they don't give him as nearly as much information, and he knows that they charge him more money.
He's out of what cash he was carrying when he set out well before he's finished his rounds, but that's all right. The only regular Irregular left is Rosie, tall and quiet, face of indeterminate gender, skin of indeterminate color, rose-pink hat and scarf worn no matter what the weather. It's been a few weeks since John's seen Rosie, and none of the other Irregulars know a thing; John's worried, a bit, but it's not exactly unheard of for the Irregulars to come and go, and Lestrade keeps him up to date on the homeless admitted to hospital or found dead on the streets.
He keeps to the quiet places, moves slowly and steadily, eyes peeled for a splash of color in the gloom. He's almost out of Rosie's territory before he spots the pink hat off in the distance, the lean figure busy on some errand and oblivious to his presence. John wants to call out but doesn't, choosing to let his relief settle into his chest rather than risk making the wrong noise, scare Rosie away, like one might frighten a deer in the wood. It's good to have all of Sherlock's Irregulars accounted for, that's all; if Rosie needs him, he'll be around.
John watches for a moment as Rosie leans down, sorts through bins. He can hear the soft crow of triumph over a particularly good find, and he smiles. All's well, then. That's his work for the day done; he turns and makes his careful way home.
~
It took him months to move back to Baker Street, after. It wasn't planned that he should move back at all--one day he was sitting in his plain, bare room staring at a plain, bare wall, and it was all so familiar that he thought of the days when he first met Sherlock. Couldn't help it. Eighteen months working and living with the best man he'd ever known, the best friend he'd ever had, and it was so much worse to go back to his own dull, dulled world.
It would have been very easy to end it. Sometimes John thought there were only two questions. Which method of death to choose; a bullet, like Moriarty, or a fall, like Sherlock? And if he did it, if he finally, finally made the choice it sometimes seemed like he'd been fated to make, what would Sherlock think, if he came home?
It was a nonsense question, John knew it, had known it all along. Sherlock was dead, and the sooner he accepted that in one way or another, the better.
But nonsense questions--they'd found a way of sticking in his mind, now. His training, his time in the military, his work, his entire life had led him to look for horses when he heard hoof beats. Nonsense was for children, dreamers and schemers. John Watson was for reason; until, that was, Sherlock had proved to him over and over that reason and nonsense were more alike than not; that when he heard hoof beats, he should look for hounds.
What if, he thought, sitting alone in his room, alone in the world. What. If.
With the words echoing in his mind, he got up. He collected his belongings. Not thinking about it, not planning it, and certainly not hoping for anything, he hailed a cab, and he went back to 221b.
He went home.
And now, at the end of a long day, he climbs the stairs. Mrs. Hudson is cooking something in his kitchen; soup, he finds, when he checks the pot. Something with a lot of fat and potatoes. It smells very good.
Sherlock would have told her that she shouldn't have used his best fingers, the ones he'd been saving up, and she'd have hit him with her spoon. John would have smiled from his chair, where he would have been reading the paper or updating the blog. He'd have enjoyed their snappish affection for each other while they squabbled over whether or not Sherlock would eat; he'd have enjoyed his soup with them or without them, Sherlock at the table with his equipment or a bowl, Mrs. Hudson downstairs with her telly or tucking in happily, pleased with her success.
John takes a small bowl of soup and settles at the table with it and the paper. His imagination fills in the life and vibrancy of a flat shared with Sherlock Holmes, all music and madness, while John sits at the table, almost unaware of the silence, alone.
After a while, he goes to bed. He leaves his soup untouched. He leaves the paper unread. He settles on his back, still and quiet between his clean and fastidiously tidy sheets, and watches the shadow thrown across the floor by Sherlock's violin until he finally, finally, falls asleep.
~
It has been fifteen months since Sherlock Holmes died. John Watson gets through it, day by day by quiet, dull day.
~
His therapist seems dissatisfied with his progress.
"John." She sits forward in her chair, elbows braced on her thighs. She's very lovely. John wishes he could fully appreciate the shadow of her cleavage. Instead, he observes with almost clinical admiration. She raises an eyebrow at him and he looks back at her without expression, waiting.
She sighs. "How long are you going to hold this in?"
He thinks about it. He looks out the window, and watches snowflakes dance merrily through the air. "I'm a soldier," he says slowly. "A doctor."
"The ability to endure almost anything may be part of your training," she tells him. "But where does that end?"
John doesn't flinch. He meets her gaze, holds it. Says, "I'm his friend. His only one. You tell me, where does that end?"
She doesn't have an answer; not that she says out loud, anyway.
That's okay. Neither does he.
~
The Irregulars seem to have a rough winter. Big Pete and Little Pete are almost never on their corner; Big Pete, John hears from Lestrade, has had pneumonia. The twins keep to the shadows, rarely venturing forward, even when John offers them gifts, money. The prostitutes, Shere and Vickie and Donnie, seem okay, but then they're very unlikely to let John know otherwise, much as he's tried to make it clear that he doesn't judge, he simply cares. Rosie is around, and then not. He hears that she's all right, and sometimes he sees her pink cap around a corner, down an alley, but she's always gone again when he gets close.
John feels like he's failing them. He hides money in places he thinks they'll find it, when he doesn't see them, and leaves bags of food around too. Nothing ever remains when he checks back but that doesn't mean much; still, he tries as hard as he can.
One night, while he's out walking Rosie's territory, a sleek dark car pulls up beside him. He looks at it out of the corner of his eye, but gets in without hesitation when the door opens.
Inside, it's warm and smells faintly of cloves and cinnamon. He's sitting next to Mycroft Holmes.
"You know, I find your dedication almost...excessive," Mycroft says, lips curling; he disapproves, it seems, of excess. That reeks to John of hypocrisy, certainly coming from a man who hobnobs with royalty, surrounds himself with comfort, and loves his massively excessive brother. Then again, everything about Mycroft reeks to him these days.
"They need someone," he says simply.
"They need programs, not enabling."
John just stares at Mycroft, waiting.
Mycroft sighs. "All right, fine. I'm sure you've bankrupted yourself with this...habit...by now. Shall we make a deal? You cease your aimless street wanderings, and I will ensure that all of Sherlock's little mice have their fair share of cheese."
John tucks his chin down, clears his throat. "They're people," he says, low. "They're not Sherlock's little mice. They're just people."
Next to him, pillowed in leather and wearing a suit worth more than all of Sherlock's Irregulars could gather together in a month, Mycroft Holmes steeples his fingers. The gesture is so like Sherlock, and his brother is so unlike him, that John has to look away. He watches the street for a moment, and when Mycroft is silent, prepares to get out of the car.
"Wait," Mycroft says. "Your bleeding heart alarms me, Doctor, but I suppose you shall have your way. Fine. Continue to make your rounds of Sherlock's people, but allow me to finance the operation."
John turns to him, ready to refuse.
"Please," Mycroft Holmes says, and although his face is expressionless and his eyes reveal nothing, John watches him, and hesitates. Mycroft presses his fingertips together, then puts his hands down on his knees, every movement slow and careful, very deliberate. "In my brother's name. In his honor."
John continues to hesitate, half in the car, half in the world of the Irregulars, poor and so alone without Sherlock Holmes to chivvy them along, give them a sense of adventure and of usefulness, and to give them coins, a ready supply for cold nights.
"All right," he says, and gets out of the car. "For Sherlock."
"My infernal brother," Mycroft says as John is closing the door, and the mixture of affection and aggravation that he allows John hear in his voice almost makes him smile.
~
Molly won't speak to him. John stops at St. Bart's sometimes, on errands for the surgery or just in hope that this time will be different, but it never is. She's never available; when she is, she looks at John with such terror on her face that he can't approach her.
He doesn't know what he's done to deserve this treatment from one of the few people he thinks he could talk with, perhaps even honestly, about life after Sherlock, but he refuses to make it worse. He thinks about Molly in a lovely black dress and red lipstick, and Molly cowed by Sherlock, Molly half in love and silly with it, and he leaves her alone.
He hopes she's happy. He just. Really hopes she's happy.
~
Once in a while, Lestrade comes by the flat. He drops off tidbits of information about the Irregulars, gossips a little about mutual acquaintances; Donovan's been demoted, he says, with a vicious smile. Traffic. No one knows what happened, and she isn't talking.
Anderson's story is a little more colorful--he got fired for sloppy mishandling of one too many crime scenes. John almost wishes he'd been there to see Anderson led away from the last one, protesting all the way about how he'd never; anyone paying the least bit of attention to his work should know better; his reputation. But then he might have hit the man, and he's trying to keep a low profile these days.
Sometimes Lestrade asks for help. John isn't quite a criminal expert, but he's learned a few things, and they work well together. When they're talking over a mystery, he feels his brain lighting up, humming away. He feels closest to Sherlock then, sometimes turns to him to ask a question, sometimes hears Sherlock's impatient no no no when something is especially wrong.
More than one crime scene, John stands motionless in the middle of the chaos, his eyes closed. He doesn't have a mind palace, exactly, but he can envision Sherlock in his, and that helps him make connections he might have otherwise missed. He imagines Sherlock prowling around, looking at this, examining that, and it prevents him from overlooking small, vital clues.
So John isn't a criminal expert, but the memory of one haunts him, challenges him, and almost comforts him, which seems close enough.
~
Big Pete passes away in early April. John pays his burial expenses, through the fund that Mycroft has opened for him. He pays for a small memorial, which only he and Little Pete attend.
John stands at attention through the brief service. He keeps his gaze off the marker, the temporary stone that will mark Big Pete's burial site until the nicer monument has been completed. Little Pete had asked for a kitten and a flask to be etched under Big Pete's name, and John hadn't hesitated, just agreed.
Beside him, Little Pete is still and silent. They'd been together a long time, "Through thick and thin," Big Pete had once told John with a placid smile. These are thin days, John thinks, watching Little Pete from the corner of his eye. Very thin days, for everyone.
Rosie watches from behind the fence, too far away to hear anything or see any details of the service, but John supposes that all rituals have their comfort, to those that observe them. There's no sign of the pink hat and scarf when it's over, though, and John can only shake his head and offer to buy Little Pete a pint.
"I guess I'm just Pete now," Little Pete says, when they've settled at the closest pub. A sad smile flickers across his face, and is gone. "A different man, right? I suppose that can't be all bad, now can it?"
John sits back, and thinks about that. A different person. It's hard to see a silver lining to a loss of this magnitude, but maybe Little Pete--Pete--has got the right of it. You come out of grief a changed person. John wouldn't say that he's out of grief--he doesn't know that he can be, somehow, while he still feels like Sherlock is alive. But he's done good work at the surgery, with the Irregulars, with Lestrade. In some ways, he supposes that he is more confident these days. A different man.
He clears his throat, leans forward. "Listen, Pete," he says. "I, uh. I want to change the terms of your agreement with Sherlock, just a bit--no, no, I'm not trying to--listen, I'm just saying that I'll pay you your share, and a share in memory of Big Pete, to come directly to me with certain information."
Pete eyes him, wary.
John struggles to smile a little, to seem reassuring. "Nothing you're not used to," he promises. "Just instead of me having to tug and twist at everyone to get half the truth, I want the whole truth. The full gossip. Every rumour, every whisper in the wind, as if I were Sherlock himself. Do you think--I mean, are you willing to do that?"
"Ah," Pete says, and takes a long pull off his glass. "Well, I'd take the deal, but it ain't my decision. For matters of who gets what, information-wise, you'll need to talk to Rosie, and that's all I got to say. Well, that and thanks for your help and all."
"Pete." John struggles not to let his frustration show. "I'm not asking for government secrets here--"
"Ain't you, though?" Pete asks, with a sly smile; then he clams up, and no matter how much John presses, refuses to say more.
~
When John gets to the top of the stairs, he's tired and cold and a little drunk. Attempting to loosen Pete up with liquor had failed, miserably.
Their door is open.
John hesitates on the landing, then peers through the crack; it's been a long time since there was trouble at Baker Street, but it never hurts to be cautious.
Someone is standing in front of the fireplace. The glow of a pink hat, a pink scarf tucked into a black coat, makes John gasp. He pushes open the door and says, "Rosie, what are you--" with a mix of fear and hope in his voice; is something wrong, is Rosie hurt; is something right, has Pete passed along word that John was ready for more--
Rosie turns, slow and graceful, coat flaring with the motion. The face John sees is pale, thin and bony, but the structure is otherworldly, masculine and familiar. The eyes that meet his are an eerie grey, almost colorless, calculating and somehow very, very warm.
Sherlock Holmes sweeps the pink hat off his head, the pink scarf away from his throat, and says, "John! Were you really so taken in by this dis--John? John!"
Something thumps to the ground; John's cane. John himself isn't far behind it. Head swimming, focused narrowed, darkness encroaching, he puts out a hand and makes a sound, a sad, joyful, half-swallowed sound, before he faints dead away.
~
There is something under his legs. That's the first thing John's aware of, as the world swims back into clarity. He's on the couch, the feel and smell of it familiar, and there is something under his legs.
There is a cool hand on his face. An irritable voice says, "I know you're awake, John. Open your eyes. We're about to have a fight about whether or not you need a minder, which is not a fight I'd have thought--well, there you are; now tell me, are you stupid?"
"Sher--" John chokes. The word wants to come out, and doesn't.
Sherlock scowls at him. He looks different, even more gawky and tired than when John had first met him. His hair is short. Strangely, that seems natural; the silver strands threaded through the thick, dark waves seem to suit him. "Are you incapable of speech? If I'd have known the depths of just how far you'd let yourself go, I'd never have taxed your feeble mind with such a dramatic reveal. I certainly didn't want to cause you a stroke."
His hand is very gentle on John's face. His thumb is stroking John's cheekbone.
You broke my heart and you're worried about stroke? John wants to say. What comes out is, in thick tones, like every word is clotting in his throat, "If you're not a ghost or a hallucination, Sherlock, then I suggest you run."
Sherlock looks delighted. His grip tightens, and he shakes John a little. "Don't be foolish; I'm neither a ghost nor a hallucination, and I'm certainly not scared of you."
"You should be," John says, and he begins to fight Sherlock's grip, attempting to stand.
He gets halfway to his feet when Sherlock makes a frustrated noise and a quick move; on a normal day, the sweep of his arm would have landed John back on the floor in a heartbeat. But this is not a normal day, and some bit of training and instinct has John swinging out with his fist at just the right angle. His knuckles connect soundly with Sherlock's cheekbone, and Sherlock thumps down the floor while John stands, hands clenched at his sides, and stares at him.
Stares. At Sherlock Holmes. Words seem to come and go in John's mind too fast for him to get them out; all the pain of two years spent grieving, the joy of having it proved once and for all that the great Sherlock Holmes wasn't through yet, the rage and betrayal at having been duped. He stares, and all he says is, "You're...alive."
Sherlock stares back at him, attention arrested. John doesn't doubt that he's cataloguing every change, every new line on John's face and new grey in his hair. It's almost disconcerting to be the subject of that intense study once again.
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "Your first clue should have been that there aren't any ghosts. But I suppose that even if there were, it would be very difficult to bruise one." He touches his cheekbone, winces, but there isn't a cut. There might be a bruise, but John finds it very difficult to care.
"This isn't the reaction I'd thought you'd have," Sherlock says. "Fascinating. Is this the reaction you thought you'd have?"
"No." John takes a deep breath, lowers his head a bit, closes his eyes. Tries to get control of himself, the way he's been trained. Breath out. Breath in, breath out. His legs are shaking, his stomach is shaking, he feels like he just ran a marathon; he ran it for nineteen months, step by step until he'd thought he was too tired to carry on, and now the race is over. It's won.
He opens his eyes. "I want to know how you did it," he says, evenly, calm and steady. "I want to know everything. Where you've been, what you've done, how many times you almost got yourself killed proving that you were more clever than Jim Moriarty. All of it, do you hear me? You won't leave out a word."
"As if I would keep any tidbit of this remarkable story from my blogger." Sherlock quirks a smile at him. Holds up his hands, palms out, pax. "That is, of course, assuming that my blogger doesn't kill me to celebrate Moriarty's failure, and that of his silly little worldwide spider web."
"I'm not your blogger," John snaps, and the spreading curl of Sherlock's smile tells him that Sherlock knows he's lying. They both know that John hasn't written a word since he posted, I will never believe it JW to the website. They both know, John thinks, how much those words covered, and how inadequate anything else he could have said would have been.
John watches Sherlock smile. "Well, I certainly wouldn't have anyone else," he says, with assurance, and John knows that he can be any character, he can play any man, Sherlock Holmes can and has duped everyone, but about this, he is telling the truth.
And finally, slowly because it almost hurts, it's an ache in his body to feel this much joy and satisfaction and love all at once, because he wouldn't have anyone else either, John smiles back. Smiles back, and reaches out his hand to Sherlock Holmes, who takes it, gets to his feet in one smooth motion, and continues it by pulling John into a tight, squeezing hug.
Sherlock huffs out a breath against the top of John's head, and it sounds immensely self-satisfied, like this is what he expected and he's gratified, as always, to be proven correct. John closes his eyes, tucks his nose against Sherlock's collar, and holds on for as long as the moment lasts.
Which is a surprising length of time; a minute, maybe, or more; then Sherlock squeezes one last time--John should have guessed that he would hug just slightly wrong, like a boa constrictor attempting to show affection--before he gently pushes John away from him and steps back.
"Stories later, nutrition now. I'm famished," he says, in a pleased tone that he almost never uses for food. "Mrs. Hudson," he calls, darting toward the door, all energetic movements and swirling coat. "Oh, Mrs. Hudson--tell me, what's for tea? Do you have any cake? Mrs. Hudson--" and John sits on their couch, beginning to laugh; beginning, at last, to come alive again, as the sound and fury of Sherlock Holmes fills their flat once more.