Fic - The Effort of Being Okay 4 (complete)
A/N: I did say this would be up on Monday because I didn't think I'd have time over the weekend. But it seems I do *g*
Title: The Effort of Being Okay
Author: szm
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: John Watson/Greg Lestrade(/Sherlock)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: all the way up to the end of series two
Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC. Not me, no money is made off this story.
Summary: Sherlock is gone, and John is okay. Really. So is Greg.
Many thanks to aeron_lanart for the beta.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
“So, I’m at a crime scene,” started Greg when John answered his phone.
“Really, Detective Inspector? Fancy that,” replied John not trying to hide the amusement in his voice.
“I’m going to ignore that,” said Greg feeling the smile appear on his face. “This guy, who absolutely no-one has a bad word for, not even the ex-girlfriend, got himself shot in a locked room. No gun in the room, any thoughts?”
“Greg,” said John carefully, and Greg could hear the warning in his tone.
“I promise not to let the yard pay you for your time, Doctor,” he snapped back. “But I just… god John, he really would have loved this one.”
No need to say who ‘he’ was, and Greg knew John understood. Greg was fighting the urge to insult Anderson’s intelligence and aggravate Sally just to fill the space where Sherlock should be.
“Do you want me to take a look?” asked John after a pause.
“What about Mycroft?” asked Greg, because he didn’t understand why John was so insistent that he didn’t want anything to do with Mycroft but he had promised to respect it.
“Sod Mycroft,” said John with feeling.
**
John ducked out of the surgery making vague noises about a family emergency and got a taxi he couldn’t really afford to the address Greg had given him. It gave him such a sense of deja-vu that he felt dizzy for a second. He walked towards the building with its criss-crossing police tape, and the flashing lights, and familiar people milling about apparently at cross purposes. John added the scene to the long list of things he supposed he shouldn’t really miss but did anyway. Crime scenes, right up there with war zones. He did his best to make sure his smile didn’t show on his face. Someone in that building was dead after all.
Greg came out of the building looking every inch the Detective Inspector, it was a good look on him. John lost the fight against his smile and quickened his pace a little. He didn’t notice he was being watched from the shadows across the road.
Greg showed him in and they donned the oh-so-attractive scene of crime gear. They climbed the stairs to the second story room the body had been found in. It was a nice building in a really good part of town. Greg told John about the victim and they walked up. Reggie Butler, nice guy, bit of a maths whiz. 32 years old, this was his house but his Mother and sister lived here too. Recently split up from his girlfriend but they were apparently still on good terms.
John wondered if Greg was talking to try and fill up the space of the absent third person. It wasn’t working. John could almost feel the empty air just in front and to one side of him where Sherlock should be.
Reggie was on the floor in the middle of the room. The room had two large windows, in front of the first one was a desk. It had a lamp on it and a laptop which was closed and shoved under some papers. Next to the laptop was a pad full of sums with half of them scribbled out.
John knelt next to Reggie and gave the body a cursory examination. He took a good look at the entry wound.
“No exit wound, bullet’s still inside,” he said, mostly to himself but Greg nodded anyway.
They looked around for a while, but John had to admit he was as stumped as Greg. “The only thing is if someone shot him from a distance through the window. But the angle looks wrong to me,” he said to Greg on the way down.
“And the windows were both closed when he was found,” agreed Greg.
John smiled wistfully. “You were right; he would have loved this one.”
They got back out onto the street to find Anderson arguing with what looked to be a homeless man. He had a huge, filthy, coat on and his face was mostly made up of beard.
“You’re going to have to move on, it’s a crime scene!” shouted Anderson in the special talking to idiots voice annoying people use. As Greg and John got closer the man tried to push past Anderson and Anderson shoved him. John moved forward to catch the man who seemed unsteady on his feet, but Greg beat him to it.
“Careful,” Greg said to the man while looking daggers at Anderson. “Anderson, go and find something else to do okay.
Anderson made a sound of derision in the back of his throat but thankfully left.
The man patted Greg’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said.
“Are you okay?” asked John.
“Yes, yes,” said the man pulling himself somewhat straight and limping away from them. “Gave a statement to the lady policeman. Can I go?” he asked in a thick east European accent.
“Sure,” said Greg.
John briefly wondered where the man would go. There was something about him that John couldn’t quite place. Like maybe he’d seen him before.
“Wanna abuse my position and get a uniform to drive us home?” asked Greg as he turned to face John.
“Sure,” replied John putting the strange man out of his head for now.
**
No-one saw the homeless man walking away. They didn’t see how his back straightened or his gait changed as he turned the corner onto the next street. They didn’t see him pull off the fake beard he was wearing. They certainly didn’t see that he had the keys he’d pick pocketed from the Detective Inspector’s coat in his right hand.
But then again people so often see without observing.
**
They got to the front door and Greg couldn’t find his keys.
“They were in my pocket, I know they were!” he said indignantly.
John just smirked at him and unlocked Greg’s door with his own key and held it open, making a big sweeping ‘after you’ gesture with one arm. Greg walked in not stopping to take off his coat.
And there stood in the middle of his lounge was a ghost. Sherlock Holmes.
Greg tried but he couldn’t get his mouth to work. It gaped open uselessly. Greg could hear the sound of John closing the door and hanging up his coat and… walking this way.
“I pick pocketed your keys,” said ghost Sherlock, in an impossibly normal voice. “It seems that John spends most of his time here anyway. This seemed the most expedient way of letting you both know I’m back.”
“You…” Greg struggled for words. Absolutely any words at all. “You… utter bastard.”
“Greg, is someone else in there?” asked John as he walked into the lounge and stopped suddenly with an intake of breath as he saw Sherlock. John just stared. John stared and Sherlock stared back and Greg thought that maybe time had stopped. Maybe they were stuck in this horrible, wonderful, moment for ever.
John let out a long breath, like he’d been holding it for the whole time Sherlock had been gone. “You’re not dead?” he asked using the careful and calm voice people used around explosives.
Sherlock opened his mouth to respond. Then closed it, thought better of whatever he was about to say, then he opened his mouth again. “No.”
John tipped his head to one side. It was like he was looking into Sherlock for something, but for what Greg couldn’t imagine. “It was a trick?” asked John, voice still calm. Everything was still. Everything had shrunk to this room, these two men.
Sherlock shook his head, but he said “Yes.”
“Why?” John’s voice was still calm but now there was an edge to it. Something hard and sharp.
“Moriarty had people. People who had orders to kill you, Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade, if I didn’t jump. I could let that happen to any of you,” Sherlock turned his head to briefly lock eyes with Greg before turning back to John. The world expanded to include Greg and couldn’t stifle the gasp of surprise. Of course Sherlock would jump for John; it was believable that he would jump for Mrs Hudson. But Greg found it hard to believe he was placed in the same category. That he was that important beyond providing cases. It took Sherlock years to learn his name, and then it was only because of John that he did. But that look had been full of desperation, as if Sherlock could just will Greg into believing it.
“You’re not dead,” John’s voice broke on that statement, although his posture was still military straight. Sherlock stepped forward and his hand reached out to John’s shoulder and John just crumpled, his legs went from underneath him and he fell. Sherlock caught him just in time to stop his head from hitting the floor.
“He fainted,” said Sherlock incredulously. He looked up at Greg and he just looked… lost. It hit Greg all of a sudden. Sherlock had been on his own all this time. He and John had each other. But Sherlock…
Greg knelt down next to John. “He’ll be okay, you gave him a shock.”
They lay John flat on his back gently, Greg checked his breathing. Sherlock stared at John’s face. Trying to catalogue any changes probably.
“Where were you?” asked Greg.
Sherlock looked up he stared at Greg’s face in the same way he’d been staring at John’s. Greg wondered if Sherlock could see his suspension, his divorce, in the lines on his forehead.
“I travelled,” said Sherlock. “I found Moriarty’s people, I stopped them.” His gaze skittered away from Greg’s eyes.
“Stopped them how?” asked the Detective Inspector. What I am covering up now? thought Greg.
“Got them arrested. Sometimes for things they’d actually done,” said Sherlock still avoiding Greg’s eye.
Don’t ask me more hung unsaid in the air between them. This was the last inch, the place where John could follow but Greg couldn’t. Couldn’t go there and still be himself. So he let it go, made the conscious decision not to know. If Sherlock needed to tell he’d tell John, and John would carry it. Because John was strong enough for that, they both could trust him with that.
John’s eyes fluttered open. “What…” he mumbled.
“You fainted,” said Sherlock almost accusingly.
John just smiled. “Sorry, I’ll try not to do it again.” he replied. “You died.”
“Sorry,” said Sherlock smirking back at John. “I’ll try not to do it again.”
“Can you sit up?” asked Greg.
“Yeah probably, but I’m going to lie here for a bit,” replied John, a stupid grin plastered across his face.
Sherlock sighed. “Very well then,” said Sherlock lying down next to John in one big, graceful, dramatic movement. He laced his fingers over his chest and closed his eyes.
Greg couldn’t help but stare at them. That was it? Sherlock was back and now, what? They were just going to lie on the floor. What about everything John had been through? Everything Sherlock must have been through? It was just this simple for them, they were back together and it was all okay. Greg couldn’t work out if he was relieved, or angry, or…
“Do stop thinking Inspector,” said Sherlock offhandedly. “It is distracting.”
Greg took that to be a dismissal. He leant back to pull his feet back under him, his knees taking this opportunity to remind him that he was getting old. But before he could move to far away John grabbed his wrist.
“Stay,” said John, and he must have been an amazing army officer because that voice; it was less than an order but more than a request and it was utterly impossible to do anything but obey it.
Greg tried anyway. “I need to ring people, I have things to do…” Away, away from here. Somewhere he could work out what the hell he was supposed to be feeling.
John’s eyes held his. He’d never noticed before but the colour was not that far from Sherlock’s but where Sherlock’s gaze was compelling and demanded your attention, John’s was warm and invited it.
Sherlock snorted. “No doubt Mycroft has figured it out by now. It’ll be taken care of.”
John tutted, still holding on to Greg’s wrist. It was a warm pressure against delicate skin and bone, but not too hard, easy to shake off. If that was what Greg wanted. “He wants you to stay,” said John. “I do too.”
Greg was still undecided, still unsure of his place. But then Sherlock opened his eyes and Greg was caught between two sets of undeniable blue eyes.
“Lestrade, stay,” said Sherlock softly. Greg gave in and lay down next to John. He stared at the ceiling; letting himself believe - finally - that Sherlock was really back from the dead.
Sherlock let them have a few moments before he said, “You need to look at the second window. And Reggie’s on-line gambling partner…”
*************************************************************************************************
Posted on Archive of Our Own in one chapter if you would prefer.
Title: The Effort of Being Okay
Author: szm
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: John Watson/Greg Lestrade(/Sherlock)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: all the way up to the end of series two
Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC. Not me, no money is made off this story.
Summary: Sherlock is gone, and John is okay. Really. So is Greg.
Many thanks to aeron_lanart for the beta.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
“So, I’m at a crime scene,” started Greg when John answered his phone.
“Really, Detective Inspector? Fancy that,” replied John not trying to hide the amusement in his voice.
“I’m going to ignore that,” said Greg feeling the smile appear on his face. “This guy, who absolutely no-one has a bad word for, not even the ex-girlfriend, got himself shot in a locked room. No gun in the room, any thoughts?”
“Greg,” said John carefully, and Greg could hear the warning in his tone.
“I promise not to let the yard pay you for your time, Doctor,” he snapped back. “But I just… god John, he really would have loved this one.”
No need to say who ‘he’ was, and Greg knew John understood. Greg was fighting the urge to insult Anderson’s intelligence and aggravate Sally just to fill the space where Sherlock should be.
“Do you want me to take a look?” asked John after a pause.
“What about Mycroft?” asked Greg, because he didn’t understand why John was so insistent that he didn’t want anything to do with Mycroft but he had promised to respect it.
“Sod Mycroft,” said John with feeling.
**
John ducked out of the surgery making vague noises about a family emergency and got a taxi he couldn’t really afford to the address Greg had given him. It gave him such a sense of deja-vu that he felt dizzy for a second. He walked towards the building with its criss-crossing police tape, and the flashing lights, and familiar people milling about apparently at cross purposes. John added the scene to the long list of things he supposed he shouldn’t really miss but did anyway. Crime scenes, right up there with war zones. He did his best to make sure his smile didn’t show on his face. Someone in that building was dead after all.
Greg came out of the building looking every inch the Detective Inspector, it was a good look on him. John lost the fight against his smile and quickened his pace a little. He didn’t notice he was being watched from the shadows across the road.
Greg showed him in and they donned the oh-so-attractive scene of crime gear. They climbed the stairs to the second story room the body had been found in. It was a nice building in a really good part of town. Greg told John about the victim and they walked up. Reggie Butler, nice guy, bit of a maths whiz. 32 years old, this was his house but his Mother and sister lived here too. Recently split up from his girlfriend but they were apparently still on good terms.
John wondered if Greg was talking to try and fill up the space of the absent third person. It wasn’t working. John could almost feel the empty air just in front and to one side of him where Sherlock should be.
Reggie was on the floor in the middle of the room. The room had two large windows, in front of the first one was a desk. It had a lamp on it and a laptop which was closed and shoved under some papers. Next to the laptop was a pad full of sums with half of them scribbled out.
John knelt next to Reggie and gave the body a cursory examination. He took a good look at the entry wound.
“No exit wound, bullet’s still inside,” he said, mostly to himself but Greg nodded anyway.
They looked around for a while, but John had to admit he was as stumped as Greg. “The only thing is if someone shot him from a distance through the window. But the angle looks wrong to me,” he said to Greg on the way down.
“And the windows were both closed when he was found,” agreed Greg.
John smiled wistfully. “You were right; he would have loved this one.”
They got back out onto the street to find Anderson arguing with what looked to be a homeless man. He had a huge, filthy, coat on and his face was mostly made up of beard.
“You’re going to have to move on, it’s a crime scene!” shouted Anderson in the special talking to idiots voice annoying people use. As Greg and John got closer the man tried to push past Anderson and Anderson shoved him. John moved forward to catch the man who seemed unsteady on his feet, but Greg beat him to it.
“Careful,” Greg said to the man while looking daggers at Anderson. “Anderson, go and find something else to do okay.
Anderson made a sound of derision in the back of his throat but thankfully left.
The man patted Greg’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said.
“Are you okay?” asked John.
“Yes, yes,” said the man pulling himself somewhat straight and limping away from them. “Gave a statement to the lady policeman. Can I go?” he asked in a thick east European accent.
“Sure,” said Greg.
John briefly wondered where the man would go. There was something about him that John couldn’t quite place. Like maybe he’d seen him before.
“Wanna abuse my position and get a uniform to drive us home?” asked Greg as he turned to face John.
“Sure,” replied John putting the strange man out of his head for now.
**
No-one saw the homeless man walking away. They didn’t see how his back straightened or his gait changed as he turned the corner onto the next street. They didn’t see him pull off the fake beard he was wearing. They certainly didn’t see that he had the keys he’d pick pocketed from the Detective Inspector’s coat in his right hand.
But then again people so often see without observing.
**
They got to the front door and Greg couldn’t find his keys.
“They were in my pocket, I know they were!” he said indignantly.
John just smirked at him and unlocked Greg’s door with his own key and held it open, making a big sweeping ‘after you’ gesture with one arm. Greg walked in not stopping to take off his coat.
And there stood in the middle of his lounge was a ghost. Sherlock Holmes.
Greg tried but he couldn’t get his mouth to work. It gaped open uselessly. Greg could hear the sound of John closing the door and hanging up his coat and… walking this way.
“I pick pocketed your keys,” said ghost Sherlock, in an impossibly normal voice. “It seems that John spends most of his time here anyway. This seemed the most expedient way of letting you both know I’m back.”
“You…” Greg struggled for words. Absolutely any words at all. “You… utter bastard.”
“Greg, is someone else in there?” asked John as he walked into the lounge and stopped suddenly with an intake of breath as he saw Sherlock. John just stared. John stared and Sherlock stared back and Greg thought that maybe time had stopped. Maybe they were stuck in this horrible, wonderful, moment for ever.
John let out a long breath, like he’d been holding it for the whole time Sherlock had been gone. “You’re not dead?” he asked using the careful and calm voice people used around explosives.
Sherlock opened his mouth to respond. Then closed it, thought better of whatever he was about to say, then he opened his mouth again. “No.”
John tipped his head to one side. It was like he was looking into Sherlock for something, but for what Greg couldn’t imagine. “It was a trick?” asked John, voice still calm. Everything was still. Everything had shrunk to this room, these two men.
Sherlock shook his head, but he said “Yes.”
“Why?” John’s voice was still calm but now there was an edge to it. Something hard and sharp.
“Moriarty had people. People who had orders to kill you, Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade, if I didn’t jump. I could let that happen to any of you,” Sherlock turned his head to briefly lock eyes with Greg before turning back to John. The world expanded to include Greg and couldn’t stifle the gasp of surprise. Of course Sherlock would jump for John; it was believable that he would jump for Mrs Hudson. But Greg found it hard to believe he was placed in the same category. That he was that important beyond providing cases. It took Sherlock years to learn his name, and then it was only because of John that he did. But that look had been full of desperation, as if Sherlock could just will Greg into believing it.
“You’re not dead,” John’s voice broke on that statement, although his posture was still military straight. Sherlock stepped forward and his hand reached out to John’s shoulder and John just crumpled, his legs went from underneath him and he fell. Sherlock caught him just in time to stop his head from hitting the floor.
“He fainted,” said Sherlock incredulously. He looked up at Greg and he just looked… lost. It hit Greg all of a sudden. Sherlock had been on his own all this time. He and John had each other. But Sherlock…
Greg knelt down next to John. “He’ll be okay, you gave him a shock.”
They lay John flat on his back gently, Greg checked his breathing. Sherlock stared at John’s face. Trying to catalogue any changes probably.
“Where were you?” asked Greg.
Sherlock looked up he stared at Greg’s face in the same way he’d been staring at John’s. Greg wondered if Sherlock could see his suspension, his divorce, in the lines on his forehead.
“I travelled,” said Sherlock. “I found Moriarty’s people, I stopped them.” His gaze skittered away from Greg’s eyes.
“Stopped them how?” asked the Detective Inspector. What I am covering up now? thought Greg.
“Got them arrested. Sometimes for things they’d actually done,” said Sherlock still avoiding Greg’s eye.
Don’t ask me more hung unsaid in the air between them. This was the last inch, the place where John could follow but Greg couldn’t. Couldn’t go there and still be himself. So he let it go, made the conscious decision not to know. If Sherlock needed to tell he’d tell John, and John would carry it. Because John was strong enough for that, they both could trust him with that.
John’s eyes fluttered open. “What…” he mumbled.
“You fainted,” said Sherlock almost accusingly.
John just smiled. “Sorry, I’ll try not to do it again.” he replied. “You died.”
“Sorry,” said Sherlock smirking back at John. “I’ll try not to do it again.”
“Can you sit up?” asked Greg.
“Yeah probably, but I’m going to lie here for a bit,” replied John, a stupid grin plastered across his face.
Sherlock sighed. “Very well then,” said Sherlock lying down next to John in one big, graceful, dramatic movement. He laced his fingers over his chest and closed his eyes.
Greg couldn’t help but stare at them. That was it? Sherlock was back and now, what? They were just going to lie on the floor. What about everything John had been through? Everything Sherlock must have been through? It was just this simple for them, they were back together and it was all okay. Greg couldn’t work out if he was relieved, or angry, or…
“Do stop thinking Inspector,” said Sherlock offhandedly. “It is distracting.”
Greg took that to be a dismissal. He leant back to pull his feet back under him, his knees taking this opportunity to remind him that he was getting old. But before he could move to far away John grabbed his wrist.
“Stay,” said John, and he must have been an amazing army officer because that voice; it was less than an order but more than a request and it was utterly impossible to do anything but obey it.
Greg tried anyway. “I need to ring people, I have things to do…” Away, away from here. Somewhere he could work out what the hell he was supposed to be feeling.
John’s eyes held his. He’d never noticed before but the colour was not that far from Sherlock’s but where Sherlock’s gaze was compelling and demanded your attention, John’s was warm and invited it.
Sherlock snorted. “No doubt Mycroft has figured it out by now. It’ll be taken care of.”
John tutted, still holding on to Greg’s wrist. It was a warm pressure against delicate skin and bone, but not too hard, easy to shake off. If that was what Greg wanted. “He wants you to stay,” said John. “I do too.”
Greg was still undecided, still unsure of his place. But then Sherlock opened his eyes and Greg was caught between two sets of undeniable blue eyes.
“Lestrade, stay,” said Sherlock softly. Greg gave in and lay down next to John. He stared at the ceiling; letting himself believe - finally - that Sherlock was really back from the dead.
Sherlock let them have a few moments before he said, “You need to look at the second window. And Reggie’s on-line gambling partner…”
*************************************************************************************************
Posted on Archive of Our Own in one chapter if you would prefer.