OPERATION SEPARATION (Chapter 6)
REASONS
“John!”
Was he in a tunnel?
“JOHN… come on.”
He tried to speak, to reach out to the disembodied voice, but it felt like struggling to surface while drowning. No words came out, so he settled for a huge gasping breath and found that he was able to open his eyes.
“Good… that’s right…breathe.” The voice had a face now and the face was familiar….
Bit by bit, he could feel the sensation returning in his hands and face. There was an oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose. All of a sudden he was assaulted by a cacophony of noise. His eyes widened, as he heard rather than saw that there were a lot of people in the room. He struggled weakly without remembering why, as steady hands grasped his shoulders, holding him.
“Look at me, John. You’re ok. It’s ok. Don’t panic...just breathe. You need to get that gas out of your system.”
John closed his eyes against the overload of sensations, focusing on the calm voice, which he now recognized as Lestrade’s, trying to recall the events that had led up to this.
Within seconds his eyes flew open with a fresh gasp, “SHERLOCK!” Lestrade’s face was creased in worry and he wouldn’t answer, but John didn’t need him to. There was a muted beeping that he could now hear, over and above other sounds.
“Help me up”, he demanded.
“I don’t really think that’s a good idea…”
“Right now Lestrade…or so help me God…”
“Alright, you stubborn arse.” Lestrade swung an arm to support his shoulder, practically lifting John into a sitting position, where he was cradled against his chest. What he saw made him curse his weakness. Sherlock was lying unconscious on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask like him, covered in blood, his pallor enhanced to such a degree, that he looked like a corpse. Three paramedics were frantically working over him, their efforts underlined by the heart monitor, which was beeping erratically. He made to move towards the prone form, but the sum of all his efforts was to slump back against Lestrade’s shoulder breathing heavily. What the hell had been in that gas? He started to determinedly make a second attempt, when Lestrade restrained him gently, “Listen to me John. They are helping him. Take it easy for now. You are in no condition to treat him. Let them do their job.” John prayed, listening to his own heartbeat stutter with the monitor. In an effort to calm himself, he focused on Lestrade, only to notice the bruise on his temple followed by the expression on his face.
“I guess I owe you an apology.”
“You are ex-military, John. I know you were concerned for him, but what tactical advantage were you giving us by doubling the number of hostages?”
“He was helpless, Lestrade.”
“And it wouldn’t be the first and the last time. Following him down the rabbit-hole every time will only get you killed.”
“Only way people like you and me will get to see Wonderland. Besides, it’s worth it.”
Lestrade was looking at him incredulously with a half smile on his face. “We need to have this conversation when you’re sober.”
The heartbeat had grown reassuringly steady. There were two bags of fluids already running into Sherlock. They were readying to lift the stretcher. John could see Donovan and two other plainclothes cops. The remaining five people wore non-descript suits. Thankfully, Catherine had already been removed.
“Knock-out gas…snipers?”He enquired, as he found that he was able to sit up on his own.
“That wasn’t us. We had just taken her musclemen into custody, when this lot showed up. The stooges said that you two were unhurt, so they risked the gas.”
“Let me guess, some big-shot government official in a three-piece suit and an umbrella…”
“A liaison from the M.O.D. actually. Took custody of Miss Adair… we had very little to do once they got here”. Lestrade’s eyes narrowed. ”Please tell me Sherlock is NOT blackmailing some high ranking Government Official on the side.”
“He wishes”, John snorted feebly. He hauled himself up with Lestrade’s support, his eyes following the stretcher as it was carried out. They were both alive…
The journey to the hospital was a blur. Lestrade could not accompany him, as he had a crime scene to secure. Against all his protests, he was ushered to an examination room for a complete check-up, before being declared fit to leave. He made his way to information, to be told that Sherlock was in surgery. He decided to wait in the waiting area and made his way there, only to find Mycroft sitting patiently and looking completely out of place. He smiled at John across the room, and unlike his earlier oily, unctuous attempts, this was genuine, somehow human. For the first time John glimpsed a kindred spirit in Mycroft. He collapsed on the adjacent chair, eyes on the doors leading to the operative area. He felt very tired. Mycroft did not look at him as he reeled off, “Three bruised ribs, broken left wrist and myriad cuts from the glass, most serious effect of which was a punctured femoral artery. I thought you would want to know.” His voice became contrite, “My apologies at being unable to reach you sooner, Dr. Watson.”
John gave a tired half-smile. “I guess, this is my cue to say how surprised I am to have received your help at all, but somehow I am not. So… where were you?”
“I was where I could be useful.” (Translation: couldn’t just stand and watch my brother bleed to death). Mycroft cleared his throat before continuing... “Catherine Adair, sister to Ronald Adair. You must certainly have heard of him.”
John’s voice was incredulous, “THE Ronald Adair; the nutter who killed his parents and his godfather brutally in the course of a single evening, for his inheritance.” That had been a shocking, highly publicized murder that had happened before he had enlisted.
Mycroft continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “Adair Senior had been a Lord; the godfather Huntington, an M.P. It looked like an obvious robbery gone wrong. A petty criminal had already been arrested, all evidence at the scene linking him to the crime. It was an open and shut case with immense pressure on the Yard for prompt results. The brother-sister duo had been the picture-perfect grieving aristocratic family, completely above suspicion, with solid alibis. They had counted on the hue and cry to hurry the trial along.”
His voice now held a hint of pride. “What they hadn’t counted on; was the falsely convicted man being smart enough to contact my brother for help. Sherlock had been in rehab at the time, at the insistence of a particularly stubborn DSI.”
Good old Lestrade, John thought fondly.
The pride in Mycroft’s voice was very real now. “He solved the case while in rehab. He proved to Lestrade that the man they had arrested had definitely not committed the murders.”
He could almost hear his flat-mate’s baritone. This is Angelo. Three years ago I proved to Lestrade at the time of a particularly vicious triple murder that Angelo was in a completely different part of town, house-breaking.
“Following on the steps of that, on deeper investigation the alibi given by the Adairs fell apart. The circumstantial evidence against them led to their arrest. However, without tangible proof, no one was going to take the word of a recovering junkie over two supposedly respectable members of the society. Catherine Adair had a history of mental illness going back to her childhood. She was deemed unfit for prison and transferred to a psych centre for the duration of the trial.”
That was where she met Sherlock, thought John, as one more piece of the jigsaw clicked into place.
Mycroft looked appreciatively at John. “Sherlock saw it as a golden opportunity. He cultivated a faux relationship with Miss Adair, so that he could get close enough to find any evidence. Mind you, solely her confession was worthless in view of her mental instability. What he did manage to uncover, was the existence of a diary, with the entire plan detailed in Catherine’s own handwriting; written a month in advance of the actual crime. It was the proverbial nail in their coffin. In light of this new evidence, Ronald Adair pleaded guilty for all the three murders; but shielded his sister, claiming to have manipulated her instead of the other way round. He got a double life sentence, while she was indefinitely incarcerated at the institute. Following the case, DSI Lestrade was promoted; and the most favorable outcome that even I couldn’t have predicted was that Sherlock, after being released then, hasn’t touched drugs since.”
He paused and turned to hold John’s eyes.”Although, he has been trying his level best to convince you of an addiction that no longer persists. The track marks were a nice touch! I did tell you that he loves to be dramatic.”
John shook his head wearily, “I saw him, Mr. Holmes.”
Mycroft showed what looked like an obscenely expensive mobile to John. On the screen were the results of Sherlock’s tox screen.
“And yet his blood work shows no trace of any recreational substances. Curious, wouldn’t you say?”
John swallowed visibly as he remembered the blown pupils, the slurred speech, the marks. All an act…why? He closed his eyes, holding his head in his hands as his mind whirled. The drugs…the fight…his decision to leave…the intruders…his decision to stay…Sherlock bound yet crawling towards his chair covered in blood…too much to process…too bloody much. He felt trapped in this emotional roller-coaster. His rational mind was telling him he should be angry; while all he felt was an overwhelming sense of relief, which seeped into his tone as he voiced the one thing that made sense of all the madness. “He wants me to leave.”
“And I wouldn’t blame you if you did”, said Mycroft softly. “What happened yesterday; or the events that transpired a week ago, are what passes for Sherlock’s life now. This life is his new addiction…and while we may both agree that it is better than cocaine; any addiction is inherently evil. It eventually consumes a man, destroys him.” There was nothing but calm acceptance in Mycroft’s eyes.
“I would say, that being kidnapped on the first day of my acquaintance with Sherlock, to meet an archenemy in a warehouse had been warning enough. Besides, if Sherlock doesn’t want me, what I think about his life, or whether I wish to continue our living arrangement is immaterial.” His voice became self-deprecating. “After last night, even I have to agree with him. My presence made things far worse.” He felt a white-hot surge of guilt as he relived the memory of Sherlock voluntarily throwing himself over the jagged glass. He had been responsible for the femoral bleed, not Catherine. His hero complex had almost got both of them killed.
“Miss Adair is a psychopath, Dr. Watson. From what I understood while interrogating her, she wanted to kidnap my brother and torture him to insanity. Your timely interruption stopped that from happening. So you will forgive me if I feel nothing but gratitude towards you. As for what you truly mean to Sherlock; let’s just say that for the first time in my life, I find my brother thinking of someone else before himself, albeit in his own warped manner.”
Mycroft held up a hand before John could start defending the ‘sociopath’ label. “I know what you will say. He does risk his life for complete strangers on a daily basis. But helping people is merely a side-effect of his addiction to the puzzle; not his real motive. He suddenly has to cope with what it means to have a friend. He is also smart enough to know that he will be the death of you someday; and considering the bullet that my men dug out of the wall, opposite to the chair you had been restrained in, that day could very well have been today… So the real question is, what do YOU want, Dr. Watson?”
John looked into the brown eyes, so unlike Sherlock’s and yet so uncannily alike in the piercing nature of their gaze. He smiled at him, and watched the apprehension behind the gaze melt away. “You can call me John, Mr. Holmes.”
Mycroft’s smile was a study in relief. “I would prefer Mycroft myself, John.”
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Awareness came in fits and starts; the drowsiness like a shivering curtain just about to lift. He could hear sounds that should mean something; but a voice in his head seems to be dominating the rest. You don’t want to wake up, it told him. As usual he couldn't blindly obey instructions, even those from inside his own head. He rebelled against the voice. It was panicking now…you can’t. Of course he can, he had to…John must be worried sick by now. At that thought, all the synapses in his brain sizzled at once as though a live wire had been thrust inside his skull. He heard the sound of the gunshot going off in his head. The curtain was torn to shreds as awareness clawed through…
Suddenly all the distant sounds were overwhelming… a slow dripping, a frantic beeping. In the next instant his body caught up with his horrified mind; and he was gasping and flailing and shouting something over and over. The voice had been right. John was dead. He had no right waking up in a world where he had let that happen. A world where John would never grin at him, or speak to him or call him…
“Sherlock…SHERLOCK… you IDIOT! Will you just open your eyes?”
He froze, eyes snapping open involuntarily. Deep blue eyes were staring into his own, inches from his face. He realized that he was being held down by two firm hands, so he couldn’t move an inch.
“Sherlock, it’s me, John”, he was saying slowly, very carefully, his eyes underscoring the words. “I am not dead… I am very much alive. Just calm down. I…am… fine. You need to relax, or you will pull out your stitches.”
A minute passed as the beeping of the heart monitor slowly settled, but John didn’t dare blink or slacken his grip. Finally Sherlock found his voice, though it sounded rather small. “Thank you for stating the obvious as usual, John. Now if you will be so kind as to let go of me…”
He watched as the worry in his friend’s eyes was chased away, successively by relief, then annoyance. Yet by the time he let go of Sherlock’s shoulders, and sat back, he was smirking. “Well Genius Detective, it was not so obvious about two minutes ago was it? Apparently your near-death deductions are crap.” His eyes sobered as he added, “So let’s just avoid those, shall we?”
He got up and stretched, as though he had been sitting for a long time and moved to the door to call the nurse, when Sherlock’s voice stopped him. “John…wait…can you just…be here…for now?”
At those words John felt many snappy retorts at the tip of his tongue, but his eyes fell on Sherlock’s face and he controlled the urge to use them. One look at the monitors showed that his vitals were fine. He had already demonstrated that his memory and motor functions were unaffected. The nurse could wait. He sighed and went back to the chair, dropping his hands loosely on the bed as he sat back down. Sherlock’s eyes never left him as his uninjured hand snaked out to grab John’s wrist and hold it firmly, feeling the pulse beating below his fingers. It was then that John saw the contours of his face truly relax, almost blissfully, despite the broken nose and the split lip. He closed his eyes, not letting go of his hand as he did so. Within minutes, he was fast asleep.
John sighed again as he used his free hand to pull the chair closer to the bed. He pillowed his head on his free elbow on the bed, as he prepared to settle for the night.
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