The Horror of the Thing
Summary: Post-Reichenbach, John contemplates the impossible.
Authors Note: Can read as a continuation of For the First and Last Time or as a stand alone
Sherlock not dead. The idea had made it's home in my mind. At first I was afraid to even look at it, in case I got too close, breathed too hard, and extinguished that small glimmer of hope that the idea had sparked.
Sherlock lying on the pavement, not dead. How could I have forgotten the feel of Sherlock's pulse against my fingers? How could I have searched for that pulse so desperately, only to discard it, once I found it? Only I hadn't, not really. It had been there in my mind, that small flutter of life against my fingertips, kept separate, locked away but still there.
Sherlock on the mortuary-slab, not dead. How could I have not seen? Not known? A doctor for God's sake. Only I had seen. I had scanned his body, moved his head, noted that the neck wasn't broken, nor the skull, probable fracture of the lower jaw. Felt his ribs, none broken. Both legs intact. A bad fracture in both arms. I hadn't palpitated the abdomen, could have been serious internal bleeding. Still nothing obvious.
Sherlock silhouetted against the sky, not contemplating suicide
Sherlock pleading with me to stay in that one particular spot, not the last desperate plea of a broken man, but something else entirely, a code, a clue, a message I was meant to see.
Sherlock falling falling, not to his inevitable death but taking a calculated risk.
Sherlock lying on the pavement, not dead, bloody and broken but not dead.
Sherlock on the mortuary-slab, not dead, washed clean and ghost-white, but not dead.
Sherlock telling me that it was a trick, just a magic trick.
It was two weeks after the funerals of my wife Jill and her young son Oscar and I had been sitting at the table sorting through a jumble of papers and junk mail, when I pushed my chair back and I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the horror of the thing. The horror of what he had done, the magnificent, joyous horror of what I was contemplating. I couldn't be certain. I didn't have certainty. A Sherlock on the pavement, not dead, a Sherlock on the mortuary-slab with no obvious visible cause of death did not lead inevitably to a Sherlock alive and well right now, today. No I didn't have certainty, I had something far stronger, I had hope.
Sherlock had fallen, fallen and I had shattered. I had shattered into a multitude of Johns. The John who saw Sherlock fall and knew it was too late to save him, to do anything useful, even before I started running. The John who felt the hint of a pulse. The John who saw the pool of blood and thought surely there would be more if it was a fatal head wound. The John who accepted Mycroft's grave announcement that Sherlock was dead and lying in the mortuary. The John who saw Sherlock's still pale form stretched out on the mortuary-slab and yet saw no obvious cause of death. The John who heard Sherlock plead for forgiveness, when Sherlock never pleaded. The John who had stood silent and strong beside the grave and watched his friend buried. The John who accepted the condolences.
Then I began to think of Sherlock's own methods and to try to practise them.
But I was crap at deduction, crap at observation, crap at remembering. Somehow in my feeble attempts at deduction something wonderful happened. All those shattered pieces of me came together and together they formed the idea of Sherlock not dead.
I did not mention my idea to anyone. I was a coward, afraid of what they might say, what they might think. I had learned that lesson pretty quickly, back when I had tried to convince people that Sherlock hadn't been a fraud. No I had kept my idea to myself, hugged it close and nurtured my hope. The next two months were spent in a kind of frenzy of theorising and list making. I had started with the how-question. I had wasted a lot of time on the how-question. How had he done it? How had Sherlock fallen from the roof of St. Bart's and smacked onto the cold hard pavement and survived? A trick, just a magic trick. I generated so many theories. The bicycle guy had figured prominently in most of them and the crowd of onlookers, keeping me from Sherlock. Then there were the conspiracy theories, Mycroft mostly, sometimes Mycroft and Molly. Then the layout of St. Bart's. I even went back to West Smithfield and stood on the exact spot where I had stood, where Sherlock had insisted I stand and looked up at the roof and noticed how the Ambulance Station had blocked my view of Sherlock's fall.
Took me weeks of frantic theorising to realise that was the wrong question. How didn't matter, how got me nowhere. So I moved on to why. Why? Why Sherlock? Why, why had you forced me to watch you fall? Why had you insisted you were a fraud? Why weren't you here? Why had you disappeared? Where the fuck were you and why didn't you come home, instead of leaving me to go slowly insane, inventing stories to convince myself that you had done the impossible and survived an almost definitely fatal fall, and then convinced everyone that you really were dead while melting away into anonymous obscurity.
So much for hope, hope was a fickle bitch. The why question had threatened my hope and I almost abandoned the why question. But you can't kill an idea, can you?
I had to tackle the why question. Sherlock must have had a damn good reason. Well no this was Sherlock, Sherlock whose reasons hardly ever made sense in the normal scheme of things, Sherlock who shot the wall because he was bored, Sherlock who harpooned a pig to prove a point, Sherlock who left eye-balls in the microwave and a severed head in the fridge.
So okay maybe Sherlock faked his own death because he got bored or to prove a point to Mycroft, maybe Sherlock just got lucky and hadn't faked anything, or maybe he was just a sick sadistic bastard. I still had to tackle the why question. I had started down this road and I had to keep going if only to save my own sanity.
Note: the following text : “I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the horror of the thing. Then I began to think of (Holmes's) own methods and to try to practise them.” is a direct quote from The Final Problem by Arthur Conan Doyle, where I have substituted the name Sherlock for Holmes.
Continued here Under the Supervision of Mycroft Holmes