Sherlock Fic: An Empty Station (1/4)
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything.
Word Count: 17,000+
Author's Note: Thank you in advance for your reading time! I'm glad to have you here. Nonlinear storytelling turned out to be quite the challenge, and as always, the characters of Sherlock turned out to be fantastic material to work with. As always, your comments, thoughts, and criticisms are gratefully accepted, and entirely appreciated. The title comes from the first stanza of Pablo Neruda's Poem, "Don't Go Far Off":
"Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep."
An Empty Station
Day 1
Sherlock Holmes jumps off the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital at 3:46 pm, on the 20th of May, 2012, which is a Sunday.
Across town at New Scotland Yard at 3:46 pm on May 20th, Sunday, Inspector Gregory Lestrade has just settled in for a cataclysmic dressing down from the Chief Superintendent. They've gotten as far as, “Bloody reckless, Lestrade. You'll be raked over the coals for this, you've made a laughing stock of--”
Lestrade's mobile buzzes in his pocket. Incoming text. He and the Super both pause at the noise, and the man's eyes narrow. Lestrade does the mental odds of it being anyone other than Sherlock or someone directly related to him.
They're slim.
He goes for the phone.
The Super nearly chokes, face turning red, spittle flying across the desk. “Don't even think about it, or I'll have your warrant card so fast--”
Lestrade's warrant card is, in point of fact, face-up on his desk downstairs. He left it there before he came to this meeting because he had a sickening, swooping sensation in his gut that he would no longer have it by the end of the afternoon regardless.
The suspension forms are sitting on the desk between them, where Lestrade's eyes drift. The paperwork's face-down, but Lestrade is not actually an idiot, whatever Sherlock tends to tell him.
Which is why he reaches for his phone, takes it out and flips it open and reads the text message. Does his best to ignore the man across the desk-the man who not only controls Lestrade's career, but also his reputation as a policeman and any hope he has of not landing in prison himself for the chronic undertaking of professional treason.
The text, received at 3:48 pm from a blocked number, reads as follows:
Go to St. Bart's immediately. S.E. John will need you. -MH
S.E. means Sherlock. Emergency. There was a span of roughly seven months, about six years ago, when he and Mycroft Holmes needed that kind of shorthand. He hasn't seen it in a long time, and it sends a cold dread down his spine. He looks up at the Super, who's nearly maroon at this point. His shouting is probably rattling cups down by the water cooler, but Lestrade doesn't hear a bit of it.
The thing is: Lestrade listened to Anderson, and to Donovan, because he does in fact trust their judgment (outside their opinions on each other), and he knows full well that he needs checking from time to time. You know what I'm saying, you just don't want to think about it. He took the issue to the higher-ups strictly because Donovan would have done it otherwise, and her going over his head would have shipwrecked the both of them. You're not seriously suggesting... He'd taken the lashing accordingly, especially after the stunt with John and the punch and the failed arrest and the escape, which had been frankly embarrassing for everyone involved who wasn't Sherlock.
The tirade has gone on without him. It's now gotten to, “You've consorted with a bloody madman, Lestrade! Who knows what kind of havoc he's been playing on us, what information he's gotten! Once he's brought in and convicted you'll be linked to a killer, we can't have that kind of thing associated with-”
The thing is: Lestrade hadn't believed a word of it, not really. Not for more than about a minute, anyway. He's a lot of things, but blind hasn't ever been one of them, thanks, and he knows Sherlock Holmes better than sight. Sherlock's no murderer. Never has been, never will be, and anyone that's seen him around John Watson for ten seconds knows that's true.
Lestrade can count on one hand the number of times that Sherlock has turned out to be wrong.
He can count on one finger the number of times that Mycroft Holmes has told him to go somewhere, S.E., and it has not been entirely warranted.
More important than that, even, he knows himself. And down deep in the core of him Gregory Lestrade is a life-long copper and a bloody good Detective Inspector because he wants the right thing done no matter how difficult it is. That's all, at the end of the day, and he's lost plenty of sleep (and a spouse) over it. Sherlock's been a godsend to the case solve ratio over the last five years, and the brass knew that. Thirty-four cases with Sherlock's name attached haven't just gone unnoticed up until now. Something's rotten in the higher-ups and Lestrade is getting the whipping for it.
The right thing. Well.
At 3:50 in the afternoon on the 20th of May, on Sunday, Lestrade stands up abruptly, cuts the ranting off mid-sentence. “Right,” he says. It's a death knell, and it feels heavy in the air. He takes a breath and pushes through. “Sir, I'm off. Have to take care of this.” He holds up the phone, gives it a wiggle.
The Super stares at him, completely flummoxed. Outside in the hallway, Donovan gives him a horrified kind of look through the glass. Lestrade is fighting the instinct to apologize and sit back down, save whatever's left of his career. He barely succeeds in staying upright, but he manages. He looks away from Sally.
The Superintendent's face has shaded to magenta. Spittle flies from his lips as he leans forward across the desk and bellows, “You bloody idiot, you are under investigation--”
“Best let you lot get to it, then,” Lestrade says evenly, and he turns on his heel, and he walks out of the bloody office.
He stops by his desk to collect his things on the way out, entirely ignores Donovan trotting at his heels and shouting at him. “Sorry,” he tells her around the keys in his mouth as he pulls his coat on, shrugs into the sleeves properly. “Emergency.”
John will need you, the text message says, and the dead fear that puts down his spine-because John will need you means Sherlock will not be available-has him running for the door before Sally can get another word in edgewise.
Lestrade leaves his warrant card where it is, and he puts his cuffs there too, on top of the desk. It breaks his heart to go without them-he feels something crack to pieces right in the middle of his chest. But there's no time to dwell, not right now. He starts the car and drives like a bat out of hell toward Bart's.
Day 6
Lestrade wakes up on May 26th, Saturday, and stares up at the gray-washed ceiling of his bedroom. His first thought, typically: I'm going to be late for work.
His second thought, as of this week: No. Suspension. Right.
He drifts again, lets himself doze off some of the heavy exhaustion still clinging to his joints. The world's a bit of a haze, still. It's been raining off and on since yesterday; the soft drumming of the weather on the windowpanes is soothing. It's a relief to have a good reason to stay indoors, away from things. The world needs to be as small as he can make it or he'll crack apart into bits.
That thought stirs something uneasy in him, but he doesn't quite care enough to concentrate. It takes a solid five minutes of middling consciousness for the rest of reality to creep in, and then he thinks: Sherlock's dead. He jumped off a building. He's dead.
Lestrade has a hard time sitting up after that. It takes a monumental effort to raise his torso, lift his shoulders. He stays in bed for a while with his head propped in his hands, elbows on knees. When he finally hauls himself up, it's to shuffle off to the loo, and then the kitchen. He makes a pot of coffee and pours himself a mug. The smell of it clears his head a little. Over in the sitting room, John is sacked out on the sofa bed, completely still. It feels like a sick-room. Like mourning.
He checks his mobile where it's charging on the counter. There's a slew of missed calls from Dimmock, one text from Anderson and one from Donovan. He ignores them. He takes his coffee and goes back to bed instead. The covers are soft and cool against his skin. The rain patters against the windows. He tries thinking it again, since it doesn't feel entirely real yet. Sherlock's dead.
He doesn't actually believe it, is the thing. Not yet. Bloody typical of Sherlock, to be so impossible and ridiculous that he's managed to convince Lestrade that there isn't a single scrape he won't worm his way out of eventually. Not even a swan dive off the roof of St. Bart's. Not even a suicide note to John Watson.
Not even a morgue.
Day 2
They find James Moriarty's body on the roof of the hospital. They actually found it at 5:30 pm the day before, discovered by the team called in for Sherlock, but Lestrade doesn't hear about it until the day after, for obvious reasons. John's just been released on the condition that he's carefully looked after until the worst of the concussion symptoms fade. Lestrade's agreed to take him back to Mrs Hudson, so he's stopped by to help ease John through the corridors and to the car. They've gotten as far as the wheelchair without speaking a word to each other.
The buzz of Lestrade's mobile in his pocket is something of a relief when it breaks the silence. “Hang on,” he says as he flips it open. It's from Dimmock, who apparently feels like he owes Lestrade something, because it's an update:
Body found on the roof where Holmes jumped. Moriarty. Looks like suicide.
He stares down at the text, has to read it twice before it registers. He must make some kind of noise, because John looks up at him from where he's been gingerly tying his shoelaces, eyes keen.
“What?” John asks. He's fine-tuned, waiting for the news that'll turn this whole mess around. Lestrade can't blame him-he's doing the same, even if he's not quite willing to admit it.
“They found a body on the roof,” he says.
“Moriarty,” John breathes. Something strange passes over his face. “Anything else?”
Lestrade blinks at him. “What else--”
His phone buzzes again and he flips it open. Second text from Dimmock:
Prints just came through as some actor Richard Brooke. Moriarty was a hoax. Keep your head down, Lestrade.
Lestrade shakes his head, like that'll make the words rearrange on the screen. “What?”
John sighs. “Let me guess. They just discovered that the man on the roof was actually some actor named Richard Brooke?”
They stare at each other. Lestrade closes his phone and thinks very carefully about whether he wants an answer before he asks, “What do you know about this?”
John's expression is blank when he says, “I think...that I should make a statement.”
It's pretty telling of the entire last week that Lestrade looks at him, very seriously, and asks, “Are you sure?”
“He asked me to,” John says helplessly. And that's it, really, so Lestrade texts Dimmock back and tells him to get down to John's room and do his job.
John insists that Lestrade stay for his report of events, so he does, and Dimmock doesn't say a word about it. John repeats every word of Sherlock's, every blasted nuance of that “suicide note.” He doesn't say a word about where he'd been before he got to Bart's, or what the two of them had been doing while they were evading the police. Dimmock lets him get away with it, maybe because it doesn't matter any more. Sherlock's confession has closed the books, and no one is going to look much harder at present.
Dimmock leaves them with a curt nod to John. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he says somberly, which is as close to My condolences as he's going to get. He catches Lestrade's eye just briefly before he goes, clears his throat as he passes. Lestrade has no idea what that means.
John is staring off into the middle distance, eyes remote. He looks small and still, absent from his skin. Like he was outside the morgue. Lestrade shakes his head and sits on the end of the bed for a moment to gather himself. The blanket folded up at the foot is scratchy against his fingertips when he reaches to straighten it. “He really said all that. He told you to tell me and Mrs. Hudson and everyone else that he's a fake who created James bloody Moriarty on an ego trip.”
“Yeah.” John looks at him steadily. “Yeah. You and Mrs Hudson in particular, he said.”
Lestrade considers that. “Bollocks,” he says, at a loss for anything better.
John sighs. “Yeah.” There's nothing else to say.
They end up down in the hospital cafeteria, putting off leaving just a few minutes more. They're both waiting for news from the roof. From anywhere.
They're both waiting for Sherlock Holmes to walk through the door, somehow, and tell them to hurry up behind him. Lestrade is, anyway. His brain is stuck on loop. He gives up pushing his soggy sandwich from side to side and throws his napkin down. “He said that. He admitted to being a fake.”
John doesn't say a word. He takes a bite of his sandwich and swallows it down in an evident display of willpower.
“You don't believe him,” Lestrade says rhetorically.
Well; he thought it was rhetorical, anyway. John raises an eyebrow at him, impassive, and doesn't respond. It's a move straight out of Sherlock's repertoire, and it makes Lestrade want to throw something at him.
“Fine,” he says. He leaves the table and goes to get a drink. By the time he comes back, he's realized that he's been approaching this wrong. If John thinks Sherlock's innocent, he's been wise not to verbalize it where anyone can hear. Lestrade's off his own game.
It's shocking, the way his brain's turned over the course of the last day. He's strategizing against the Yard. But if the Yard-or parts of the higher-ups, at least-are under someone's thumb, they're all going to be worse off for it. Thank God this isn't his case; he couldn't do it with a clean conscience, not now. He's not convinced anyone can be trusted with it to begin with, which makes him sick. Lestrade trusts Dimmock well enough, but he's not sure just how far the man will go if he's ordered to.
And...well. It's Sherlock. Lestrade doesn't owe him, exactly, except that he does. And this is John, which means it's the best he can do. He's decided on his marching orders.
He eases carefully into the hard plastic chair and stirs his coffee. It's too hot to drink, and the steam doesn't smell like anything, not even after he's doused it with three sugars. He gives himself another minute to make up his mind. “John,” he says, slowly.
“Greg,” he returns. Lestrade raises his head and really looks John over. The harsh hospital lighting has washed out the color in his skin, leaves him looking stark and unfamiliar. He suspects that if he presses, John might just break into pieces too small to find again. It's not safe to leave him alone, any more than it's safe to keep him here in the building where so much has happened.
Instead of all that, Lestrade says, “Let's get you out of here.”
“Greg, I can't--”
He doesn't finish the sentence. Lestrade has no idea.
“That's fine,” he says at last. “Let's get you back to Baker Street.”
John sighs. It's the most normal thing Lestrade's heard from him today. “Right. Mrs Hudson.”
Bugger. Mrs Hudson. Lestrade's pretty sure he can't stand that. Wouldn't offer if he could. He's a friend, but John and Mrs Hudson are family, and he's got no business there.
“I'll drop you off,” he says.
Day 22
It actually bothers him a bit that Sherlock never learned his name. He'd thought it was obstinacy and some semblance of cynical professionalism that had kept him at Lestrade all those years. It had never mattered, really. Anyway, if Sherlock had tried to call him by his first name at a crime scene in that condescending you are an idiot voice of is, Lestrade would have actually punched him, instead of just thinking longingly about doing it.
But there had been that one second out at Baskerville.
“That's his name-” “Is it?”
And Sherlock had looked genuinely surprised, like it hadn't occurred to him that Lestrade might have a life, a thought, a bloody name outside their work together. He'd known it at some point, of course he had, but he apparently hadn't kept it. Lestrade's read the “my brain is a hard drive” blog of John's; he knows that Sherlock ejected extraneous data to make room for other things.
And that's the point, isn't it. After six years of doing all they did together, all those cases and all that work. After the months when he watched Sherlock turn from a druggie with a superiority complex to a brilliant, terrifying, unbearable detective with an even worse superiority complex. After exchanging looks over Donovan and Anderson thinking they were being subtle, after quiet nights when a case wrapped up. After quitting smoking together. After throwing glances over John's head when they both knew Sherlock was leading him on, and John just hadn't been around long enough to parse it yet. After all of that.
After all of that, Lestrade apparently hadn't been worth the effort for Sherlock to remember his name. Not once.
Yeah. It's silly to still feel stung over it, but he does anyway.
Day 5
Mrs Hudson calls Lestrade at 4:25 pm on Friday, May 25th, to tell him that John's having a panic attack upstairs.
“I'm sorry,” she murmurs to him as she lets him into Baker Street twenty minutes later. She puts a hand over her mouth and shakes her head; her fingers are shaking. “I'm sorry, but I didn't know who else to ring. He just started shouting, and now I can't get him to say a word. He's just sitting there staring, oh-”
Lestrade winces when the tears start. He puts a hand on her elbow, gentle, and steers her toward her flat. “It's alright,” he says in his soothing the witness voice. “Why don't you start up some tea, alright? And I'll see if I can talk him down a bit.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I knew we could count on you, you've always been a friend, even when you were trying to arrest them both.” She presses a hand to his cheek. No one's done that to him since his mother passed; her skin is papery thin and warm against his. Mrs Hudson tries on a wobbly smile that barely wobbles the corners of her mouth. “You go up, dear, and I'll put the kettle on.” She pats his cheek with her fingers and withdraws back into her flat.
Lestrade stares after her. It takes him a minute to shake off the unexpected hollow sensation in the middle of his chest. When he manages it, he takes off his coat and throws it over the banister of the steps. He takes them slowly, one at a time, doesn't try to hop the squeaky board on the left side of the one two from the top. He pauses at the door to the sitting room. It's half-open. Lestrade reaches his hand out and taps his knuckles on it once in the semblance of a knock before he gives it a gentle push.
“John?” No answer. He takes a deep breath and steps into the room.
Nothing's changed since Lestrade was last in the room less than a week ago, trying to bring Sherlock in with the least amount of chaos possible. There are still mugs on the table, papers on the floor. All the lights are out, leaving the whole place painted in grays and blues from the clouds outside.
It's deathly silent. Lestrade feels a shiver down his spine. Mrs Hudson could've warned him that he was walking into a bloody mausoleum.
He tiptoes in as best he can. “John?” he tries again. Still nothing. He does a lap around the kitchen, comes back out into the hallway.
And there he is. John's sitting on the floor of the hall, propped with his back against Sherlock's door. His knees are up against his chest, arms around them.
“John,” Lestrade says, quietly.
John's eyes startle into awareness all at once, his body tightening in the fight or flight that Lestrade knows well. He's grateful John's not anywhere near a gun right now, or he'd be on his way to bleeding out on the carpet. John's eyes haven't registered him as a friendly yet. Lestrade feels sick. He kneels on the floor, carefully, holds his hand out in the universal gesture for surrender. “John,” he says. It's as quiet and firm as he can make it, the voice he uses to talk people off of ledges. “Hey. Just me. It's only me.”
Off of ledges. Horrible train of thought, that. Sherlock. Lestrade tightens a muscle in his thigh just to feel the strain of it for a second, keep him grounded.
John stares at him another second, and then he relaxes all at once; the tension bleeds out of his shoulders like his strings have been cut. “Lestrade,” he murmurs. “God, I'm-”
“A mess.” Seems silly to pretend otherwise. John makes a face at him. Lestrade settles in on the floor with him, right in the middle of the hall at an angle so they can see each other. The position has bad memories attached, but he does it anyway.
John scrubs both hands over his face, leaves them resting in his hair for a long moment. “Right,” he says eventually. His voice is a dry wisp of itself, barely audible. “How did you...”
“Mrs Hudson called.” Lestrade shifts, tucks one hand around his shin and pulls it up toward him in a half-stretch. He lets his skull press back into the wall behind him.
“I must have scared her,” John sighs.
“Yeah, well, not something she's used to, is it? Not even when you're living with Sherlock.” Lestrade winces as soon as the name comes out. Can't stop himself. John looks away. They're quiet while they both try to breathe for a second.
Abruptly, John clears his throat, uses his hands to try and smooth out the creases in his shirt. “Right, sorry about that, hadn't realized she'd call and-”
“It's fine,” Lestrade cuts him off. It is. He'd hate himself for anything less. He levers himself to his feet. “I mean it. Don't apologize to me.” His tone's harsher than he meant it to be. He reaches down and gives John a hand. The pull in his muscles, the re-centering of gravity through his shoulder and down into his knees, makes it easier to think, for whatever reason. John sways a little once he's standing; he looks terrible, eyes sunken in, skin waxy.
“We're getting coffee,” Lestrade tells him. John tries to protest but Lestrade ignores him, physically tugs him to the hallway and down the stairs. “Come on. Let's get you out of here for a minute.” John doesn't argue after that. He takes his coat and follows Lestrade out the door.
They sit in Speedy's for twenty minutes, and stir their coffees, and neither of them say a word. Things like PTSD and You haven't been sleeping and What the bloody hell are we supposed to do now float through the air, at least on Lestrade's side. John starts to look better as they sit, at least; his skin colors in a bit, and his eyes track the motion in the room on habit, not threat identification. Being away from Baker Street is clearly good for him.
Which makes it easy for him to finish off his coffee, put it down, look John in the eye and inform him, “You're coming back with me. The sofa-bed's not bad.”
John looks surprised. “I don't want to intrude.”
“Shut it,” Lestrade says with a semblance of cheerfulness. John's phrasing isn't lost on either of them. I don't want to intrude doesn't mean I don't want to go. So that's it.
“I'll need to stop by the flat, at least.” John finishes the last of his coffee. He rubs his finger along the edge of his cup, absently. “I should... say something. To Mrs Hudson.”
Lestrade takes a breath. “Alright,” he agrees. “And we'll see about packing you a bag, yeah? Just for a night.”
They manage all of it without another incident. Mrs Hudson is lovely and supportive, and she hands Lestrade a package of tea biscuits on their way out the door. John kisses her on the cheek and hefts his bag over his shoulder, and they're gone from Baker Street.
“Greg,” John says quietly, as they get to the car.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“Right,” he says, and that's the last time either of them say anything like it again.
Day 3
Kitty Riley's article gets published on Monday, but Lestrade doesn't pick it up until the day after. He reads it back to front, absorbs it all: Sherlock's supposed master criminal scheming, the creation of Moriarty and the unfair framing of Richard Brooke, Sherlock's apparent confession to the crimes just before he jumped in shame and disgrace.
Lestrade sits down and he thinks about it, lets the evidence sift through his mind. Because he's a detective first and foremost, and he wants the truth, even if it turns out he's been deluding himself and everyone else for the last six years. So he sits, and he thinks.
And here's the thing. If Sherlock had really done it all, if he'd managed somehow to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, including Lestrade's, there was still no possible way that John wouldn't have noticed. They were simply together too often, and Lestrade knows enough about their lives to appreciate how impossible it would have been to hide all of that, even for Sherlock.
Which means: If Sherlock Holmes is guilty of murder and crime and framing, then so is John. And John being a criminal, a murderer, a coward, even by association, is something that fits no evidence Lestrade can see. Even if he hadn't known Sherlock (which he did), even if he hadn't seen where he came from (which he had), Lestrade has met John Watson, and he's willing to hang his hat on that, no matter if everyone else-even Sherlock-tells him otherwise.
Here's the thing. Sherlock Holmes was no killer, but he always was a liar.
-
Part II