Absolution (3/3)
Title: “Absolution” (3/3)
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock, John, Lestrade, Ensemble
Pairings: Not specified
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Word Count: c. 15,000 total
Warnings: Language, angst, mentions of injuries, implied past drug use, kidfic, and embarrassing amounts of fluff.
Spoilers: Takes place post-Hiatus, and contains a minor spoiler for ACD’s “The Sign of Four.”
Beta: kim_j_8472
Summary: A year after Sherlock’s return from the dead and on the heels of a near-disastrous case, John discovers that his best friend isn’t done keeping secrets from him.
Full Author's Notes in Part 1
Part 2
John came to take over for Sherlock late in the morning, but Victor’s condition was deteriorating rapidly and Sherlock wasn’t about to be pulled from the room.
“How are you feeling, Victor?” John asked, handing Sherlock a cup of coffee and squeezing his shoulder.
“M’fine,” Victor answered quietly. He sounded slightly dazed. “Got a headache.”
“I know. We’ll take care of that soon.” John sat down and passed a hand over his face. “I was watching Violet for a few hours. She’s a sweet kid. Quite a talker, though, once you finally get her going.”
Sherlock, for some reason, felt his heart ease slightly at those words. Victor gave a quiet huff over the line.
“Yeah, s’funny ‘cause she was a late talker. Had us worried.”
Sherlock glanced up from his coffee, his heart turned to ice all over again and sinking rapidly.
“No,” he said quietly. “No, Victor, that was your niece. Violet was talking at nine months.”
The silence that followed was too long.
“You’re right,” Victor said after a moment. “Of course. Nine months.”
Sherlock swallowed hard.
“Victor, what was her first word?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John lean forward.
“Water,” Victor said. Sherlock closed his eyes.
“No,” he said softly. “No, it was - it was horse. Except she couldn’t say it properly, and it sounded like hose, but she kept saying it and pointing to that picture book, and we knew what she meant. Water came later. After… after dad.”
“Listen, Victor,” John jumped in, putting a calming hand on Sherlock’s arm, “we’re almost through to you, all right? But we need you to keep talking to us, so why don’t you tell me about the match last week? I know you watched it. What’d you think of it?”
They both talked to him, trying to keep him calm and focused, and for over an hour assured him that help was only fifteen minutes away. Victor’s confusion was increasing, as were his bouts of memory loss, and they were able to keep the fabrication going until almost ten.
The rescue teams broke through to the basement half an hour later, but Victor had been caught in the partial ceiling collapse and they couldn’t reach him right away.
“They’ve got to stabilize the ceiling before they can start clearing the rubble away,” Lestrade informed Sherlock quietly while John talked to Victor, filling him in on what was happening and why there was all that clamour around him.
“And how long will that take?”
Lestrade simply squeezed his shoulder. His phone rang again, and he excused himself to answer it. Sherlock returned to his chair, and his blood ran cold at the look on John’s face.
“What is it?” he demanded, and then he turned to the microphone. “Victor? Victor.”
John shook his head.
“It’s no use, Sherlock. I think he’s unconscious. He stopped answering a little bit ago.”
Sherlock grabbed the whistle again and blew once, twice, three times before John took it from his hands.
“How long does he have?” Sherlock asked, breath quickening in his chest.
John hesitated, and then sighed. “Not long.”
Before Sherlock could answer, Lestrade breezed back into the room. His face was stone, and the bottom dropped out of Sherlock’s stomach.
“They’ve got him,” Lestrade said, and as those weren’t the words Sherlock was expecting, he faltered. “They’ve got him, Sherlock. It’s over.”
“Is he alive?” Sherlock asked, and when Lestrade’s expression didn’t change, he felt his knees turn to water.
“He’s alive,” Lestrade said quickly, reaching out a hand to steady him. “He’s on his way to the hospital.”
“Then what is it?” Sherlock demanded, because Lestrade’s expression wasn’t right.
“He wasn’t breathing when they found him,” Lestrade said softly. “We don’t know for how long, and they were able to get him breathing again before packing him off to the hospital. But there could be brain damage. It looks like they won’t know for sure until he wakes up.”
Sherlock turned to John.
“How long was he out?”
“He stopped responding to me about half a minute before you sat down again. If he stopped breathing then, too, then he went several minutes without oxygen.” John’s face was grave. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s enough.”
“Go home, lad,” Lestrade advised. “Go be with Violet. They’ll call you the moment they know anything. And there’s no sense in putting Violet through the pain of waiting at the hospital if...”
He trailed off, but Sherlock caught his meaning.
There was nothing to do but wait. Sherlock followed John in a daze back to Baker Street, where he showered and dressed and, at John’s firm insistence, ate.
When he emerged from the kitchen, John had disappeared up to his old room in order to call Mary. Mrs Hudson, who had been watching Violet again, had returned to her flat.
Violet was sitting on the floor in the main room, a book open in her lap and her brow furrowed in concentration as she read. Sherlock crouched behind her and kissed the top of her head, and then glanced over her shoulder at the book she was holding.
“What are you reading about?”
“Bees,” she said simply. “I found it on your bookshelf.”
It was one of his many apiology tomes, and must have been miles beyond her comprehension.
“Did you know that bees can fly for over six miles?” she asked as he sat next to her on the rug.
“I did,” Sherlock said softly. He gathered her into his lap, and she rested the back of her head against his shoulder as she continued to read. He rested his cheek against her hair and, after a moment, closed his eyes. His daughter was a warm, real presence in his arms, a part of Victor that he could touch and hold.
Victor was mistaken. Violet had his eyes, and his nose. She had his smile, too, and surely that was his laugh that Sherlock heard every time she giggled.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t raise a child alone if Victor died, much less one who looked-and sounded-so much like the man he loved so dearly. Surely the pain would kill him.
Sherlock stayed in his room with Violet that night. She huddled under the blankets while he stretched out on top of the covers, hands behind his head, staring at the strange shadows on the ceiling. He didn’t mean to sleep, but the next time he blinked, dawn was breaking and Violet was curled up against his side.
He smoothed her dark hair-Victor’s dark hair-off her forehead, and kissed her cheek as she started to wake. He hadn’t heard from the hospital, but visiting hours would start soon, and he couldn’t bear to be away any longer when Victor was so close.
“Come on,” he said softly as Violet peered at him out of bleary eyes. “Let’s go see your dad.”
----
Sherlock was still listed as Victor’s emergency contact, and upon arrival at the hospital he was informed at Victor had woken half an hour before.
“Go on,” he said, gently steering Violet towards the door to Victor’s room, feeling weak with relief. “Go say hello. I’ll be right there.”
He spoke for a time with Victor’s doctor, listening as the man rattled off Victor’s injuries, trying to piece together a coherent story from them all. Victor’s ribs had been bruised and he had sprained his wrist in the ceiling collapse, that much Sherlock had been right about. And John had accurately diagnosed the concussion. But there were added, anomalous injuries, like bruises on his arms, wrists, and ankles, and a shallow laceration on his left side.
The doctor didn’t theorize, or perhaps he didn’t see the connection, but Sherlock knew what those particular injuries meant. Someone had restrained Victor, and at some point he had come dangerously close to being stabbed in the torso. He had been centimeters from death not long before that building came down on his head, meaning he had nearly died twice on this mission of Mycroft’s.
Anger simmered in Sherlock’s chest at the thought, anger that was directed both at Victor and his attackers. He hoped he kept the worst of it from his voice when he finally asked, “What’s his prognosis?”
“We’re going to keep him here under observation for a day or two. He’s dehydrated and battered, but it looks like he’ll make a full recovery.”
Sherlock nodded wordlessly, dismissing the doctor. But he lingered for a while in the corridor outside Victor’s room, his heart knocking painfully against his ribcage. This was absurd. He had no reason to feel apprehension, especially given the ease with which they had been speaking to one another these past two days.
That didn’t change the fact that they hadn’t laid eyes on one another in close to a year.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a nurse who came hurrying down the otherwise-deserted corridor. She shot him a sidelong, curious glance before continuing on her way, and Sherlock gritted his teeth, trying to find his courage. If he didn’t go into Victor’s room now, he was going to turn and bolt.
They spent all their time, it seemed, either running to or away from one another. There was no middle ground.
The lights had been dimmed in Victor’s room, even though it was the middle of the day and the rest of the hospital was awake and bustling. Likely, this was to avoid putting undue strain on his eyes, allowing him to adjust after being stuck in a pitch-black room for hours on end.
Victor looked shattered, which wasn’t surprising, given that he had been awake upwards of forty-eight hours or more. His jaw and upper lip were shadowed by two days’ worth of stubble, and bruises marred his arms. An oxygen line ran to his nose, likely just a precaution, and he was also hooked up to an IV. There were purple smudges under his eyes, so dark that they were nearly black.
Nonetheless, it appeared as though the past year had been very good to him. He was thirty-six now, and as striking as ever. His features seemed to have only sharpened with age. He was sporting a healthy, even tan, and Sherlock was struck by a mental image of him outside with the horses and Violet.
And he hadn’t been there for any of it.
Sherlock suppressed the sudden pang and moved closer. Violet had climbed up onto the bed with Victor. She made no sound, but her face was buried in his chest and her tiny shoulders were shaking. Victor’s eyes were a mixture of helpless and relieved when they met Sherlock’s gaze, and he mouthed Hey over Violet’s head. He was holding her as tightly as he could manage around the equipment hooked up to his body.
Sherlock stood frozen for a moment, transfixed by the sight of the man he had missed so terribly. And then he was struck by the sight of him holding Violet, the child he had been raising on his own since she was two, and Sherlock realised how much of an outsider he truly was. He was an intruder upon this tiny family, a figure who appeared in Violet’s life only a few times a year and disappeared just as suddenly.
He didn’t belong with them.
“Don’t you dare.” Victor’s voice was a croak, and barely audible over the hiss of the oxygen. It still stopped Sherlock in his tracks, and he turned back to the bed. Victor’s eyes were too bright, and his voice wavered. “Don’t you dare, Sherlock Holmes. Come back here.”
There weren’t any chairs by the bed, and so Sherlock sat on the edge of the mattress. He laid a hand on Violet’s back and began to rub slow, soothing circles between her shoulder blades. Victor moved his arm so that Sherlock could sit properly on the bed and then draped it over his legs, as there was hardly room for the three of them to be on the bed at once. Sherlock squeezed his arm, Victor’s flesh warm beneath his palm, and they gazed at one another for a long moment.
“Hey, stranger,” Victor whispered. “It’s good to see you.”
Sherlock’s eyes burned, and he didn’t trust his voice. Violet shifted just then, saving him from speech.
“Careful, Violet,” he cautioned, springing forward and clamping a hand down on the IV that ran into Victor’s arm in order to protect it. The last thing they needed was for the needle to be ripped out. “Careful with your dad; he’s hurt.”
“Her dad’s had worse,” Victor said dryly, attempting a smile.
“Her dad’s a fool if he thinks that makes this any better,” Sherlock snapped.
Victor sobered instantly. He adjusted Violet in his arms and cupped the back of her head, holding her tightly against him as she continued to weep quietly.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m so sorry I frightened you. But I’m all right, see?”
Sherlock returned his hand to Violet’s back. His anger at Victor could wait for a more opportune moment.
“He’s going to be fine,” he said to Violet. “I promise. And soon - soon you’ll get to go home.”
This didn’t produce the reaction he had been hoping for, or expecting. Instead, Violet lifted her head off Victor’s chest, and her tear-stained face twisted in anger.
“No,” she said. “No, I’m not going!”
Sherlock blinked at her, and then at Victor, who also looked perplexed.
“Violet,” Victor said gently, “don’t you want to go back home?”
“You always make me leave him!” she snapped. “I want to stay with Dad!”
Hurt flashed across Victor’s face, and when Violet buried her face in his shirt and began to cry again, he looked stricken. He returned a hand to the back of her head and stroked her hair, murmuring nonsense assurances in her ear. He handled her distress naturally, as a man who had been soothing fears and calming Violet for years. But this time, it was failing, and Victor looked utterly helpless.
“Violet.”
She lifted her head off Victor’s chest and looked tearfully at Sherlock. He swiped a thumb under her eyes, brushing away the tears.
“Your dad is only doing what’s best for you,” he said softly. “He loves you very much.”
“I don’t want to leave!”
“I know,” Sherlock said gently. “And I’ll miss you. But you need to go with him. It’s not forever.”
“Dad -”
“Violet.” He kissed her forehead. “You must to listen to your dad, and go where he goes. And you need to be kind to him. He… works very hard to keep you safe. You must always remember that.”
Victor stared at him in astonishment for a moment before turning back to Violet. He stroked a hand through her hair.
“We won’t be leaving right away,” he rasped. He gave a rueful smile. “Dad needs to recover first. Then… I’m sure we can arrange to spend a few days here with Daddy. If he’s not too busy.”
Sherlock shook his head.
“Not for you.”
Violet was temporarily mollified, though she refused to let Sherlock out of her sight. She eventually fell asleep, exhausted from the morning’s emotional events. Victor followed not long after, and it was only then that Sherlock dared step away. He texted both Lestrade and John in order to keep them updated, and then went in search of coffee.
When Sherlock returned to Victor’s room, the pair was still fast asleep in the bed. He was reminded of Sunday afternoons when Violet was a baby, how Victor would fall asleep on the sofa with Violet on his chest and a technical manual abandoned on the floor. She was too big for that now, of course, and slept instead with her body pressed against his side. Victor had a sturdy arm wrapped around her, holding her close, and his chin rested against the top of her head.
Sherlock bent over his daughter’s still form and pressed a kiss to her flushed cheek, right over the trail of a dried tear. When he pulled back, bleary blue eyes met his, and his breath caught in his chest.
“It really is good to see you,” Victor murmured, a groggy smile on his lips. “I mean that.”
Sherlock gently extracted Violet from Victor’s grip, careful not to disturb the IV or oxygen lines, and moved her to the empty bed on the other side of the room. He covered her with his Belstaff coat and, after ensuring that she was still deeply asleep, returned to Victor’s side. He perched on the bed near Victor’s hip.
“How do you feel?” he asked finally, falling back on conventional questions when words failed him.
“Don’t feel a thing,” Victor murmured. He blinked several times, as though trying to bring Sherlock’s face into focus. “You look well.”
“You look fantastic.”
Victor snorted.
“I haven’t showered in two days and I’m drugged out of my mind.”
“Mm. I always did hate that about you.” It had been a running joke between the two of them that Victor never could manage to look less than stellar. He was stunning, no matter the time or circumstances. Even now, after a two-day ordeal, he looked wonderful.
Though maybe that was partly to do with the fact that Sherlock had been so terrified, and seeing Victor alive now was a wondrous thing.
“The doctors seem confident that you’ll be released within a day or two.”
Victor nodded and sighed.
“M’sorry for all of this,” he said quietly. “Was Greg’s team very put out?”
“I think they rather enjoyed talking to you, actually.” Sherlock gave a wry smile, which Victor returned. “You made quite an impression on a couple of them. Though Lestrade may never forgive you for the paperwork he’s going to be wading through.”
“I have a feeling Mycroft will take care of that,” Victor said, sobering. “We know who did this, Sherlock. There will be no need for an investigation. Mycroft will handle the details once he debriefs me, and this case will be closed quietly.”
“Erased, you mean,” Sherlock said, and Victor nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s just the way it is. You know that.”
Sherlock nodded tightly, because he did know, and he hated it. He despised the clandestine operations; the closed-door meetings and secrets that had become a fixture of their years together. He had never liked Mycroft’s manipulations and despised them when they started to include the most important person in his life.
He despised them still, but he had learned long ago that there was very little he could do about it.
Except this time, because now Victor and Mycroft had someone else to consider when they planned out their missions, and they had failed miserably this time around.
“Victor,” he said finally, “whatever you were doing in that warehouse is between you and Mycroft. I know better than to try to get you to give me a straight answer about your missions.”
He stopped.
“But,” Victor prompted.
“But,” Sherlock said, inclining his head, “you almost got yourself killed, and it certainly wasn’t an accident that that building came down on your head. So I need to know: Is Violet in danger?”
Victor stared at him for a long minute, the kind of look he used to give Sherlock when they were still married and Sherlock was pressing him for confidential information about missions that Victor simply couldn’t give. But Sherlock wasn’t going to back down this time, not where Violet was involved, and Victor eventually relented.
“No,” he said. “No, their issue was with me, and me alone. They have no interest in anyone else, even someone close to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
And while that wasn’t exactly detailed enough for Sherlock’s liking, he had always trusted both Victor and his judgment. He nodded, indicating that he was done pursuing the topic, and Victor relaxed.
“I don’t do missions for Mycroft all that often anymore,” he said. “Truly. Maybe once a year he’ll ask for my help, and I’ll do what I can. He sends a team of his own people to watch after Violet while I’m gone. They cook and clean and take her to school, and they protect her as needed. It’s all quite safe.”
“Except this time,” Sherlock said. “This might be the first time something’s gone wrong, but it won’t be the last. Victor, she needs you. I can’t ask you to give up the work, because you wouldn’t ask that of me. And I don’t know that I could, even if you did ask. But…”
He trailed off, because he truly didn’t know what he was asking. Victor’s hand found his own.
“You were able to give up the drugs,” Victor said softly. Sherlock curled his fingers around Victor’s, feeling calluses and hard flesh beneath his hand. “I think I can take an early retirement from your brother’s service.”
Sherlock tightened his grip on Victor’s hand.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, knowing the phrase was expected of him, though he hoped Victor wouldn’t actually take it to heart.
“To be perfectly honest, I could do without seeing that look on Violet’s face ever again,” Victor admitted. “Same goes for you, Sher. I’m sorry I frightened you.”
Sherlock thought back to that surreal night just under a year ago, when he and Victor had been reunited in the study of Sherlock’s family home. Violet had been left with Mycroft and her grandmother while the news was broken to Victor first, so he could then better guide her through accepting her father’s return. The look on Victor’s face when he laid eyes on Sherlock had been a mixture of incomprehension, terror, and hope, as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing and, at the same time, feared that it would disappear if he closed his eyes. And when Violet was finally brought into the room…
He never wanted to make his child cry like that again.
“I’ve done my fair share of frightening you and Violet,” Sherlock admitted at last. “It’s not a burden you share alone. It’s over, Vic. We should focus on that.”
Victor nodded, and squeezed his hand. “Did she behave for you?”
Sherlock snorted.
“I’m her father. She doesn’t have to ‘behave’ for me. She needs only to be herself.” He felt the corner of his mouth quirk. “Although she did try to convince me that you allowed her to have ice cream for dinner whenever she wanted.”
Victor gave a sharp bark of a laugh.
“Oh, that schemer. I’m buried under tons of rubble and she was trying to see how she could use that to her advantage!” He paused. “Quite frankly, I think I’m actually impressed. Did it work?”
Sherlock shook his head. “No. Though I may have let her stay up past her bedtime.”
“I think that’s allowed, considering what I put her through. Thank you for watching her.”
Sherlock felt something twist in his gut.
“She’s my child,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to thank me for that. It’s what parents do.”
Victor, thankfully, refrained from pointing out that, not all that long ago, Sherlock might have resented all that time alone with Violet. Now, however, Sherlock couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.
“Violet’s so big,” Sherlock said after some minutes of silence. “When did that happen? It’s only been a few months since I last saw her.”
“Try six,” Victor said with a gentle smile. “But you’re right. Seems like I’m buying her new clothes every other week, she grows out of them so fast.”
Sherlock dropped his gaze to their joined hands. There were more veins on the back of Victor’s than he last remembered, and a new smattering of thin, white scars. There was so much he had missed, and so much that he didn’t know.
“Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it, Victor, this is absurd.”
“What is?”
Sherlock waved a hand vaguely, lifting his eyes to Victor’s concerned face.
“You. Me. This.” He shook his head. “We live half a world apart, and for what reason?”
“Because we couldn’t make it work,” Victor said softly, his face falling. The lines around his mouth deepened.
“That was a long time ago,” Sherlock said
“Does that matter?”
“It might,” Sherlock said. “Stay here, Victor.”
“We will,” Victor said.
“No. Stay for good,” Sherlock said emphatically. Victor looked torn.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “We can’t.”
“You can,” Sherlock said firmly. “I kept the old flat; you can live there. It’s only ten minutes from Baker Street, and Violet can walk to school.”
“You - kept the flat?”
Sherlock nodded. “I didn’t want to live there without you, but I couldn’t let it go. It’ll be suitable for now, but we’ll - you’ll need a house as Violet grows. Or there’s always Baker Street, of course.”
“Sherlock -”
“John’s married now,” Sherlock rambled on. “When he moves the rest of his things out of the flat, Violet could have that room. It’s big, Vic, and it has the perfect view. She’d love it.”
Victor gaped at him for a moment, and then gave a rasping laugh.
“Does John know you’re trying to get rid of him?” he asked, attempting a weak joke in order to deflect the emotionally-charged words. Sherlock rolled his eyes.
“John may be my closest friend, but he’s not you. He could never be you.”
John might be interesting and wonderful in his own right, but Victor was an extension of Sherlock himself. All of these years without him had felt simply wrong, as though Sherlock had been missing a limb. They were two halves of a perfect, complete whole.
Victor swallowed hard.
“We have no idea,” he said quietly, “no idea, if we can make this work again.”
“I know,” Sherlock said. “Christ, Victor, I know. But the odds are on our side. Eighteen years I’ve known you--over half my life--and the only thing I can think of right now is that I’ll be damned if I’m saying goodbye to you again. I could never get tired of you, or of Violet. And I’m missing everything when it comes to her. She’s growing up, and I’m not there. Just stay. It’s all I ask.”
Victor’s hand tightened in Sherlock’s grip, and he drew a wavering breath.
“I suppose,” he said shakily, “it would be good for Violet to be around her other dad for a while. And her grandmother’s here, of course, and a certain infuriating uncle...”
“Whose influence will hopefully be offset by Uncle Greg and Doctor Watson,” Sherlock pointed out, and try as he might, he really couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Victor -”
“Yes,” Victor said, cutting him off. He gave a crooked smile, and a thin line of red ringed the underside of his eyes. “Yes, all right, we’ll stay. Violet and I will take the old flat and we’ll see, okay? We’ll see.”
Seized by impulse, Sherlock cupped Victor’s face with both hands and leaned down. Victor instinctively tilted his head up, and their lips met in a gentle kiss. Victor rested a hand on the back of Sherlock’s head, threading his fingers through the curls. The press of his lips was an absolution, and there was grace in the sigh he breathed against Sherlock’s mouth. When they broke apart, Sherlock gathered Victor into his arms, wrapping him in a loose hug. He buried his face in Victor’s shoulder and breathed in the warm spice of his skin, and doubted he could ever be persuaded to let go.
No. Love had never been their problem.
And this time, maybe it would be enough.
----
A/N: eloquy has created a gorgeous piece of artwork to go along with this final scene. Many thanks, my friend!
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock, John, Lestrade, Ensemble
Pairings: Not specified
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Word Count: c. 15,000 total
Warnings: Language, angst, mentions of injuries, implied past drug use, kidfic, and embarrassing amounts of fluff.
Spoilers: Takes place post-Hiatus, and contains a minor spoiler for ACD’s “The Sign of Four.”
Beta: kim_j_8472
Summary: A year after Sherlock’s return from the dead and on the heels of a near-disastrous case, John discovers that his best friend isn’t done keeping secrets from him.
Full Author's Notes in Part 1
Part 2
John came to take over for Sherlock late in the morning, but Victor’s condition was deteriorating rapidly and Sherlock wasn’t about to be pulled from the room.
“How are you feeling, Victor?” John asked, handing Sherlock a cup of coffee and squeezing his shoulder.
“M’fine,” Victor answered quietly. He sounded slightly dazed. “Got a headache.”
“I know. We’ll take care of that soon.” John sat down and passed a hand over his face. “I was watching Violet for a few hours. She’s a sweet kid. Quite a talker, though, once you finally get her going.”
Sherlock, for some reason, felt his heart ease slightly at those words. Victor gave a quiet huff over the line.
“Yeah, s’funny ‘cause she was a late talker. Had us worried.”
Sherlock glanced up from his coffee, his heart turned to ice all over again and sinking rapidly.
“No,” he said quietly. “No, Victor, that was your niece. Violet was talking at nine months.”
The silence that followed was too long.
“You’re right,” Victor said after a moment. “Of course. Nine months.”
Sherlock swallowed hard.
“Victor, what was her first word?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John lean forward.
“Water,” Victor said. Sherlock closed his eyes.
“No,” he said softly. “No, it was - it was horse. Except she couldn’t say it properly, and it sounded like hose, but she kept saying it and pointing to that picture book, and we knew what she meant. Water came later. After… after dad.”
“Listen, Victor,” John jumped in, putting a calming hand on Sherlock’s arm, “we’re almost through to you, all right? But we need you to keep talking to us, so why don’t you tell me about the match last week? I know you watched it. What’d you think of it?”
They both talked to him, trying to keep him calm and focused, and for over an hour assured him that help was only fifteen minutes away. Victor’s confusion was increasing, as were his bouts of memory loss, and they were able to keep the fabrication going until almost ten.
The rescue teams broke through to the basement half an hour later, but Victor had been caught in the partial ceiling collapse and they couldn’t reach him right away.
“They’ve got to stabilize the ceiling before they can start clearing the rubble away,” Lestrade informed Sherlock quietly while John talked to Victor, filling him in on what was happening and why there was all that clamour around him.
“And how long will that take?”
Lestrade simply squeezed his shoulder. His phone rang again, and he excused himself to answer it. Sherlock returned to his chair, and his blood ran cold at the look on John’s face.
“What is it?” he demanded, and then he turned to the microphone. “Victor? Victor.”
John shook his head.
“It’s no use, Sherlock. I think he’s unconscious. He stopped answering a little bit ago.”
Sherlock grabbed the whistle again and blew once, twice, three times before John took it from his hands.
“How long does he have?” Sherlock asked, breath quickening in his chest.
John hesitated, and then sighed. “Not long.”
Before Sherlock could answer, Lestrade breezed back into the room. His face was stone, and the bottom dropped out of Sherlock’s stomach.
“They’ve got him,” Lestrade said, and as those weren’t the words Sherlock was expecting, he faltered. “They’ve got him, Sherlock. It’s over.”
“Is he alive?” Sherlock asked, and when Lestrade’s expression didn’t change, he felt his knees turn to water.
“He’s alive,” Lestrade said quickly, reaching out a hand to steady him. “He’s on his way to the hospital.”
“Then what is it?” Sherlock demanded, because Lestrade’s expression wasn’t right.
“He wasn’t breathing when they found him,” Lestrade said softly. “We don’t know for how long, and they were able to get him breathing again before packing him off to the hospital. But there could be brain damage. It looks like they won’t know for sure until he wakes up.”
Sherlock turned to John.
“How long was he out?”
“He stopped responding to me about half a minute before you sat down again. If he stopped breathing then, too, then he went several minutes without oxygen.” John’s face was grave. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s enough.”
“Go home, lad,” Lestrade advised. “Go be with Violet. They’ll call you the moment they know anything. And there’s no sense in putting Violet through the pain of waiting at the hospital if...”
He trailed off, but Sherlock caught his meaning.
There was nothing to do but wait. Sherlock followed John in a daze back to Baker Street, where he showered and dressed and, at John’s firm insistence, ate.
When he emerged from the kitchen, John had disappeared up to his old room in order to call Mary. Mrs Hudson, who had been watching Violet again, had returned to her flat.
Violet was sitting on the floor in the main room, a book open in her lap and her brow furrowed in concentration as she read. Sherlock crouched behind her and kissed the top of her head, and then glanced over her shoulder at the book she was holding.
“What are you reading about?”
“Bees,” she said simply. “I found it on your bookshelf.”
It was one of his many apiology tomes, and must have been miles beyond her comprehension.
“Did you know that bees can fly for over six miles?” she asked as he sat next to her on the rug.
“I did,” Sherlock said softly. He gathered her into his lap, and she rested the back of her head against his shoulder as she continued to read. He rested his cheek against her hair and, after a moment, closed his eyes. His daughter was a warm, real presence in his arms, a part of Victor that he could touch and hold.
Victor was mistaken. Violet had his eyes, and his nose. She had his smile, too, and surely that was his laugh that Sherlock heard every time she giggled.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t raise a child alone if Victor died, much less one who looked-and sounded-so much like the man he loved so dearly. Surely the pain would kill him.
Sherlock stayed in his room with Violet that night. She huddled under the blankets while he stretched out on top of the covers, hands behind his head, staring at the strange shadows on the ceiling. He didn’t mean to sleep, but the next time he blinked, dawn was breaking and Violet was curled up against his side.
He smoothed her dark hair-Victor’s dark hair-off her forehead, and kissed her cheek as she started to wake. He hadn’t heard from the hospital, but visiting hours would start soon, and he couldn’t bear to be away any longer when Victor was so close.
“Come on,” he said softly as Violet peered at him out of bleary eyes. “Let’s go see your dad.”
----
Sherlock was still listed as Victor’s emergency contact, and upon arrival at the hospital he was informed at Victor had woken half an hour before.
“Go on,” he said, gently steering Violet towards the door to Victor’s room, feeling weak with relief. “Go say hello. I’ll be right there.”
He spoke for a time with Victor’s doctor, listening as the man rattled off Victor’s injuries, trying to piece together a coherent story from them all. Victor’s ribs had been bruised and he had sprained his wrist in the ceiling collapse, that much Sherlock had been right about. And John had accurately diagnosed the concussion. But there were added, anomalous injuries, like bruises on his arms, wrists, and ankles, and a shallow laceration on his left side.
The doctor didn’t theorize, or perhaps he didn’t see the connection, but Sherlock knew what those particular injuries meant. Someone had restrained Victor, and at some point he had come dangerously close to being stabbed in the torso. He had been centimeters from death not long before that building came down on his head, meaning he had nearly died twice on this mission of Mycroft’s.
Anger simmered in Sherlock’s chest at the thought, anger that was directed both at Victor and his attackers. He hoped he kept the worst of it from his voice when he finally asked, “What’s his prognosis?”
“We’re going to keep him here under observation for a day or two. He’s dehydrated and battered, but it looks like he’ll make a full recovery.”
Sherlock nodded wordlessly, dismissing the doctor. But he lingered for a while in the corridor outside Victor’s room, his heart knocking painfully against his ribcage. This was absurd. He had no reason to feel apprehension, especially given the ease with which they had been speaking to one another these past two days.
That didn’t change the fact that they hadn’t laid eyes on one another in close to a year.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a nurse who came hurrying down the otherwise-deserted corridor. She shot him a sidelong, curious glance before continuing on her way, and Sherlock gritted his teeth, trying to find his courage. If he didn’t go into Victor’s room now, he was going to turn and bolt.
They spent all their time, it seemed, either running to or away from one another. There was no middle ground.
The lights had been dimmed in Victor’s room, even though it was the middle of the day and the rest of the hospital was awake and bustling. Likely, this was to avoid putting undue strain on his eyes, allowing him to adjust after being stuck in a pitch-black room for hours on end.
Victor looked shattered, which wasn’t surprising, given that he had been awake upwards of forty-eight hours or more. His jaw and upper lip were shadowed by two days’ worth of stubble, and bruises marred his arms. An oxygen line ran to his nose, likely just a precaution, and he was also hooked up to an IV. There were purple smudges under his eyes, so dark that they were nearly black.
Nonetheless, it appeared as though the past year had been very good to him. He was thirty-six now, and as striking as ever. His features seemed to have only sharpened with age. He was sporting a healthy, even tan, and Sherlock was struck by a mental image of him outside with the horses and Violet.
And he hadn’t been there for any of it.
Sherlock suppressed the sudden pang and moved closer. Violet had climbed up onto the bed with Victor. She made no sound, but her face was buried in his chest and her tiny shoulders were shaking. Victor’s eyes were a mixture of helpless and relieved when they met Sherlock’s gaze, and he mouthed Hey over Violet’s head. He was holding her as tightly as he could manage around the equipment hooked up to his body.
Sherlock stood frozen for a moment, transfixed by the sight of the man he had missed so terribly. And then he was struck by the sight of him holding Violet, the child he had been raising on his own since she was two, and Sherlock realised how much of an outsider he truly was. He was an intruder upon this tiny family, a figure who appeared in Violet’s life only a few times a year and disappeared just as suddenly.
He didn’t belong with them.
“Don’t you dare.” Victor’s voice was a croak, and barely audible over the hiss of the oxygen. It still stopped Sherlock in his tracks, and he turned back to the bed. Victor’s eyes were too bright, and his voice wavered. “Don’t you dare, Sherlock Holmes. Come back here.”
There weren’t any chairs by the bed, and so Sherlock sat on the edge of the mattress. He laid a hand on Violet’s back and began to rub slow, soothing circles between her shoulder blades. Victor moved his arm so that Sherlock could sit properly on the bed and then draped it over his legs, as there was hardly room for the three of them to be on the bed at once. Sherlock squeezed his arm, Victor’s flesh warm beneath his palm, and they gazed at one another for a long moment.
“Hey, stranger,” Victor whispered. “It’s good to see you.”
Sherlock’s eyes burned, and he didn’t trust his voice. Violet shifted just then, saving him from speech.
“Careful, Violet,” he cautioned, springing forward and clamping a hand down on the IV that ran into Victor’s arm in order to protect it. The last thing they needed was for the needle to be ripped out. “Careful with your dad; he’s hurt.”
“Her dad’s had worse,” Victor said dryly, attempting a smile.
“Her dad’s a fool if he thinks that makes this any better,” Sherlock snapped.
Victor sobered instantly. He adjusted Violet in his arms and cupped the back of her head, holding her tightly against him as she continued to weep quietly.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m so sorry I frightened you. But I’m all right, see?”
Sherlock returned his hand to Violet’s back. His anger at Victor could wait for a more opportune moment.
“He’s going to be fine,” he said to Violet. “I promise. And soon - soon you’ll get to go home.”
This didn’t produce the reaction he had been hoping for, or expecting. Instead, Violet lifted her head off Victor’s chest, and her tear-stained face twisted in anger.
“No,” she said. “No, I’m not going!”
Sherlock blinked at her, and then at Victor, who also looked perplexed.
“Violet,” Victor said gently, “don’t you want to go back home?”
“You always make me leave him!” she snapped. “I want to stay with Dad!”
Hurt flashed across Victor’s face, and when Violet buried her face in his shirt and began to cry again, he looked stricken. He returned a hand to the back of her head and stroked her hair, murmuring nonsense assurances in her ear. He handled her distress naturally, as a man who had been soothing fears and calming Violet for years. But this time, it was failing, and Victor looked utterly helpless.
“Violet.”
She lifted her head off Victor’s chest and looked tearfully at Sherlock. He swiped a thumb under her eyes, brushing away the tears.
“Your dad is only doing what’s best for you,” he said softly. “He loves you very much.”
“I don’t want to leave!”
“I know,” Sherlock said gently. “And I’ll miss you. But you need to go with him. It’s not forever.”
“Dad -”
“Violet.” He kissed her forehead. “You must to listen to your dad, and go where he goes. And you need to be kind to him. He… works very hard to keep you safe. You must always remember that.”
Victor stared at him in astonishment for a moment before turning back to Violet. He stroked a hand through her hair.
“We won’t be leaving right away,” he rasped. He gave a rueful smile. “Dad needs to recover first. Then… I’m sure we can arrange to spend a few days here with Daddy. If he’s not too busy.”
Sherlock shook his head.
“Not for you.”
Violet was temporarily mollified, though she refused to let Sherlock out of her sight. She eventually fell asleep, exhausted from the morning’s emotional events. Victor followed not long after, and it was only then that Sherlock dared step away. He texted both Lestrade and John in order to keep them updated, and then went in search of coffee.
When Sherlock returned to Victor’s room, the pair was still fast asleep in the bed. He was reminded of Sunday afternoons when Violet was a baby, how Victor would fall asleep on the sofa with Violet on his chest and a technical manual abandoned on the floor. She was too big for that now, of course, and slept instead with her body pressed against his side. Victor had a sturdy arm wrapped around her, holding her close, and his chin rested against the top of her head.
Sherlock bent over his daughter’s still form and pressed a kiss to her flushed cheek, right over the trail of a dried tear. When he pulled back, bleary blue eyes met his, and his breath caught in his chest.
“It really is good to see you,” Victor murmured, a groggy smile on his lips. “I mean that.”
Sherlock gently extracted Violet from Victor’s grip, careful not to disturb the IV or oxygen lines, and moved her to the empty bed on the other side of the room. He covered her with his Belstaff coat and, after ensuring that she was still deeply asleep, returned to Victor’s side. He perched on the bed near Victor’s hip.
“How do you feel?” he asked finally, falling back on conventional questions when words failed him.
“Don’t feel a thing,” Victor murmured. He blinked several times, as though trying to bring Sherlock’s face into focus. “You look well.”
“You look fantastic.”
Victor snorted.
“I haven’t showered in two days and I’m drugged out of my mind.”
“Mm. I always did hate that about you.” It had been a running joke between the two of them that Victor never could manage to look less than stellar. He was stunning, no matter the time or circumstances. Even now, after a two-day ordeal, he looked wonderful.
Though maybe that was partly to do with the fact that Sherlock had been so terrified, and seeing Victor alive now was a wondrous thing.
“The doctors seem confident that you’ll be released within a day or two.”
Victor nodded and sighed.
“M’sorry for all of this,” he said quietly. “Was Greg’s team very put out?”
“I think they rather enjoyed talking to you, actually.” Sherlock gave a wry smile, which Victor returned. “You made quite an impression on a couple of them. Though Lestrade may never forgive you for the paperwork he’s going to be wading through.”
“I have a feeling Mycroft will take care of that,” Victor said, sobering. “We know who did this, Sherlock. There will be no need for an investigation. Mycroft will handle the details once he debriefs me, and this case will be closed quietly.”
“Erased, you mean,” Sherlock said, and Victor nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s just the way it is. You know that.”
Sherlock nodded tightly, because he did know, and he hated it. He despised the clandestine operations; the closed-door meetings and secrets that had become a fixture of their years together. He had never liked Mycroft’s manipulations and despised them when they started to include the most important person in his life.
He despised them still, but he had learned long ago that there was very little he could do about it.
Except this time, because now Victor and Mycroft had someone else to consider when they planned out their missions, and they had failed miserably this time around.
“Victor,” he said finally, “whatever you were doing in that warehouse is between you and Mycroft. I know better than to try to get you to give me a straight answer about your missions.”
He stopped.
“But,” Victor prompted.
“But,” Sherlock said, inclining his head, “you almost got yourself killed, and it certainly wasn’t an accident that that building came down on your head. So I need to know: Is Violet in danger?”
Victor stared at him for a long minute, the kind of look he used to give Sherlock when they were still married and Sherlock was pressing him for confidential information about missions that Victor simply couldn’t give. But Sherlock wasn’t going to back down this time, not where Violet was involved, and Victor eventually relented.
“No,” he said. “No, their issue was with me, and me alone. They have no interest in anyone else, even someone close to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
And while that wasn’t exactly detailed enough for Sherlock’s liking, he had always trusted both Victor and his judgment. He nodded, indicating that he was done pursuing the topic, and Victor relaxed.
“I don’t do missions for Mycroft all that often anymore,” he said. “Truly. Maybe once a year he’ll ask for my help, and I’ll do what I can. He sends a team of his own people to watch after Violet while I’m gone. They cook and clean and take her to school, and they protect her as needed. It’s all quite safe.”
“Except this time,” Sherlock said. “This might be the first time something’s gone wrong, but it won’t be the last. Victor, she needs you. I can’t ask you to give up the work, because you wouldn’t ask that of me. And I don’t know that I could, even if you did ask. But…”
He trailed off, because he truly didn’t know what he was asking. Victor’s hand found his own.
“You were able to give up the drugs,” Victor said softly. Sherlock curled his fingers around Victor’s, feeling calluses and hard flesh beneath his hand. “I think I can take an early retirement from your brother’s service.”
Sherlock tightened his grip on Victor’s hand.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, knowing the phrase was expected of him, though he hoped Victor wouldn’t actually take it to heart.
“To be perfectly honest, I could do without seeing that look on Violet’s face ever again,” Victor admitted. “Same goes for you, Sher. I’m sorry I frightened you.”
Sherlock thought back to that surreal night just under a year ago, when he and Victor had been reunited in the study of Sherlock’s family home. Violet had been left with Mycroft and her grandmother while the news was broken to Victor first, so he could then better guide her through accepting her father’s return. The look on Victor’s face when he laid eyes on Sherlock had been a mixture of incomprehension, terror, and hope, as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing and, at the same time, feared that it would disappear if he closed his eyes. And when Violet was finally brought into the room…
He never wanted to make his child cry like that again.
“I’ve done my fair share of frightening you and Violet,” Sherlock admitted at last. “It’s not a burden you share alone. It’s over, Vic. We should focus on that.”
Victor nodded, and squeezed his hand. “Did she behave for you?”
Sherlock snorted.
“I’m her father. She doesn’t have to ‘behave’ for me. She needs only to be herself.” He felt the corner of his mouth quirk. “Although she did try to convince me that you allowed her to have ice cream for dinner whenever she wanted.”
Victor gave a sharp bark of a laugh.
“Oh, that schemer. I’m buried under tons of rubble and she was trying to see how she could use that to her advantage!” He paused. “Quite frankly, I think I’m actually impressed. Did it work?”
Sherlock shook his head. “No. Though I may have let her stay up past her bedtime.”
“I think that’s allowed, considering what I put her through. Thank you for watching her.”
Sherlock felt something twist in his gut.
“She’s my child,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to thank me for that. It’s what parents do.”
Victor, thankfully, refrained from pointing out that, not all that long ago, Sherlock might have resented all that time alone with Violet. Now, however, Sherlock couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.
“Violet’s so big,” Sherlock said after some minutes of silence. “When did that happen? It’s only been a few months since I last saw her.”
“Try six,” Victor said with a gentle smile. “But you’re right. Seems like I’m buying her new clothes every other week, she grows out of them so fast.”
Sherlock dropped his gaze to their joined hands. There were more veins on the back of Victor’s than he last remembered, and a new smattering of thin, white scars. There was so much he had missed, and so much that he didn’t know.
“Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it, Victor, this is absurd.”
“What is?”
Sherlock waved a hand vaguely, lifting his eyes to Victor’s concerned face.
“You. Me. This.” He shook his head. “We live half a world apart, and for what reason?”
“Because we couldn’t make it work,” Victor said softly, his face falling. The lines around his mouth deepened.
“That was a long time ago,” Sherlock said
“Does that matter?”
“It might,” Sherlock said. “Stay here, Victor.”
“We will,” Victor said.
“No. Stay for good,” Sherlock said emphatically. Victor looked torn.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “We can’t.”
“You can,” Sherlock said firmly. “I kept the old flat; you can live there. It’s only ten minutes from Baker Street, and Violet can walk to school.”
“You - kept the flat?”
Sherlock nodded. “I didn’t want to live there without you, but I couldn’t let it go. It’ll be suitable for now, but we’ll - you’ll need a house as Violet grows. Or there’s always Baker Street, of course.”
“Sherlock -”
“John’s married now,” Sherlock rambled on. “When he moves the rest of his things out of the flat, Violet could have that room. It’s big, Vic, and it has the perfect view. She’d love it.”
Victor gaped at him for a moment, and then gave a rasping laugh.
“Does John know you’re trying to get rid of him?” he asked, attempting a weak joke in order to deflect the emotionally-charged words. Sherlock rolled his eyes.
“John may be my closest friend, but he’s not you. He could never be you.”
John might be interesting and wonderful in his own right, but Victor was an extension of Sherlock himself. All of these years without him had felt simply wrong, as though Sherlock had been missing a limb. They were two halves of a perfect, complete whole.
Victor swallowed hard.
“We have no idea,” he said quietly, “no idea, if we can make this work again.”
“I know,” Sherlock said. “Christ, Victor, I know. But the odds are on our side. Eighteen years I’ve known you--over half my life--and the only thing I can think of right now is that I’ll be damned if I’m saying goodbye to you again. I could never get tired of you, or of Violet. And I’m missing everything when it comes to her. She’s growing up, and I’m not there. Just stay. It’s all I ask.”
Victor’s hand tightened in Sherlock’s grip, and he drew a wavering breath.
“I suppose,” he said shakily, “it would be good for Violet to be around her other dad for a while. And her grandmother’s here, of course, and a certain infuriating uncle...”
“Whose influence will hopefully be offset by Uncle Greg and Doctor Watson,” Sherlock pointed out, and try as he might, he really couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Victor -”
“Yes,” Victor said, cutting him off. He gave a crooked smile, and a thin line of red ringed the underside of his eyes. “Yes, all right, we’ll stay. Violet and I will take the old flat and we’ll see, okay? We’ll see.”
Seized by impulse, Sherlock cupped Victor’s face with both hands and leaned down. Victor instinctively tilted his head up, and their lips met in a gentle kiss. Victor rested a hand on the back of Sherlock’s head, threading his fingers through the curls. The press of his lips was an absolution, and there was grace in the sigh he breathed against Sherlock’s mouth. When they broke apart, Sherlock gathered Victor into his arms, wrapping him in a loose hug. He buried his face in Victor’s shoulder and breathed in the warm spice of his skin, and doubted he could ever be persuaded to let go.
No. Love had never been their problem.
And this time, maybe it would be enough.
----
A/N: eloquy has created a gorgeous piece of artwork to go along with this final scene. Many thanks, my friend!