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mithenTitle: A Distant and a Simple Thing
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3700
Summary: Experimental therapy has robbed John Watson of his memories of Sherlock Holmes. When he starts receiving mysterious emails and then is sort-of kidnapped by a stranger, John has a mystery to unravel.
Notes: A continuation of Normal, Sane, and Not All Right, but stands on its own, I believe.
It's then that what I want is to speak to your silence
in a speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring.
You are quiet like the night, and like the night you're star-lit.
Your silences are star-like, they're a distant and a simple thing.
--Pablo Neruda, "I like it when you're quiet"
Mycroft Holmes was working behind his mahogany desk when the intercom buzzed and Anthea's placid, unruffled voice came over the speaker: "Your late brother here to see you, sir."
"My--"
"He seems rather insistent," she added, with the faintest hint of an apology in her voice just before the door burst open and Sherlock Holmes strode into his office, coat flapping like a storm crow's wings, eyes blazing.
"What did you do to John?" hissed Sherlock, bringing his hands down hard on the dark polished wood and leaning close.
After a moment, Mycroft closed his mouth. It made little sense to argue with Sherlock about his relative lack of being dead, after all. "We did nothing to him," he said instead, glancing away from his brother's set face and making a mark on a piece of paper. "We helped him deal with his tragic loss. Oh, I'm sorry--his apparent tragic loss."
"Helped him by making him forget--" Sherlock's voice faltered just a fraction, and Mycroft's eyes narrowed. "--forget our cases? I fail to see how that is helpful."
"We didn't make him forget anything," Mycroft snapped. "It was an unforeseen side effect of the therapy."
"Give him his memories back."
Mycroft felt his lips press together into a thin line. "My dear not-deceased brother, memories are not something that you can 'give back' like a pair of cuff links. That's not how it works." He looked up at Sherlock, looming over his desk. "And it is helpful because John Watson needed to forget something that caused him terrible pain. It was his defense and his choice--at least at the subconscious level."
"I see," Sherlock said. He straightened, looking down at Mycroft. "I see that you won't help me." His voice was a whipcrack, clean and sharp. "This is why I didn't trust you." He spun away and went to the door. "John Watson will remember me. He must."
"Sherlock." Mycroft kept his voice level with some effort, and his brother paused, one hand on the doorframe. "I beg you to consider: many people would give perfectly good money for the chance to forget you. John Watson has managed it for free. Would you deprive him of such a gift?"
Sherlock looked at him then, and after a moment Mycroft Holmes looked away from what was in his eyes.
When he looked back, his brother was gone again.
: : :
John Watson's phone buzzed, and he felt his body jerk in alarm. He looked over at the table where it sat as if eyeing a dangerous serpent. Then he stood up with some effort, his leg failing him yet again, and picked it up.
An unknown sender, just like the ones before. He kept blocking the addresses, but every time it was a new one. A photo attachment again. His finger hovered over the "delete" button, but somehow he find himself opening it again, just like all the others.
This one was a brocaded couch, rich beige upholstery, with an ornate fireplace behind it. That was all, just a couch.
John found himself smiling, looking at it.
Then he frowned and filed the email away with the others. The photo of the pink suitcase. The image of the Chinese pottery. A country inn somewhere. They had been coming every few days--starting shortly after he ran into that lunatic on the street, actually. And every night after receiving one, he would have nightmares. Terrifying, vivid, thrilling nightmares: being hunted by a giant dog, being stalked through a library or museum by an faceless gunman. He didn't know if he dreaded them or if--
Well, it didn't matter. They were just dreams anyway, gone in the morning, meaning nothing.
John Watson shrugged and made his careful, slow way out the door and into the evening.
He was walking down the pavement when a cab pulled up next to him. The door opened and John blinked at the sight of the lunatic from the other day, his hair wildly tousled and his eyes bright, glaring at him. "Get in the cab," said the stranger.
"What?"
"Shall I articulate more clearly? Get--in--the--cab," he hissed.
"Now, why exactly should I--"
"--it's a matter of life and death." The man bit his lip. "Please, John."
John looked both ways and then slid into the cab.
As the car pulled away from the curb, the man stared out the back, eyes scanning the buildings. The city lights washed over his face in the darkness, casting strange shadows along his skin. "Don't have much time now," he murmured, seemingly to himself. "I knew he'd catch up to me soon once I tipped my hand."
"John Watson," said John, as if this were somehow the least bit normal. "Nice to meet you." He held out his hand.
The man's eyes flicked to it and then up to John's face. He didn't take it. "Indeed."
"Care to tell me who you are?"
The man said a name.
John frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."
The man said the name again.
"Right." John looked out the window. "So. What's the life and death, then?"
"Mine," said the man. "In more ways than one."
"Right." John felt his eyebrows twitch in perplexity, but he kept his voice level.
The cab stopped in front of a school, empty in the dark. "Come with me," said the man.
The school was deserted; John trailed after the man as he strode down dimly-lit corridors until he led John to a window. "Look," he said, pointing through it.
John looked through and saw another building, with a room beyond it. "Fascinating," he said.
The man leaned forward sharply--looking at John's face, not the room beyond. "Really?"
"No."
"Oh." The man peered through the window. "It doesn't...seem familiar at all?"
"Not a bit. Look," said John, "I don't know what's going on. I don't even know your name--" The man snapped out a few syllables, but John kept talking over them, "--but I assure you, you've got the wrong man. Maybe you're looking for a different John Watson?"
"In a manner of speaking," the man muttered. "But no, you are the John Watson I want." He looked at John, his lips pressed tightly together, considering. "Let's go," he said, swiveling to billow down the hallway once more.
Shaking his head, John fell into step beside him, a half-step behind.
Strange how it felt right, somehow.
: : :
The man gave the cabbie another address, and they pulled away from the school. The man steepled his fingers and put them to his mouth, gazing straight ahead. "Khartoum was sweltering," he said as if picking up a conversation in the middle. "You would have loathed it. Mecca was more interesting. Ran into a spot of trouble there, but gathered some important information about my quarry." He kept talking, as if once he got started he couldn't stop: an endless stream of words, topics changing like a rock skipped across water, the trajectory invisible but the ripples spreading. John listened because there wasn't much else to do when a madman in a moving cab insisted on telling you about coal-tar derivatives, about the rainforests of Iran and the mountains of Tibet: "Annapurna and Dhaulagiri and Machapuchare, pure against the sky, high and cold and empty," the man said. He stopped then, his eyes distant, and took a long, slow breath.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," John said into the gap of silence, not knowing when he would have another chance.
"That's because you're an idiot," the man murmured, almost gently, not looking at him. "And here we are."
The next stop was a municipal pool, eerie in the low night lighting. "Well?" said the man, turning to John with an eyebrow raised. "Remember anything?" His voice resonated oddly off the tiled walls, blending with the lapping of the water into a strange tapestry of sound: "Remember?--well--remember well--anything."
"I've never been here before in my life."
"You don't--don't you--there was a thing you did. Here. A--a good thing. At least I thought it was." He was pacing, staring at the water, his voice gone choppy and abrupt, as if all the long, formal sentences in the cab were spoken by another person entirely. "Maybe you don't--think so now." He looked at John and for the first time John saw a flash of emotion beyond irritation cross that unearthly face: desperation.
"I don't know what to say," John said to that glimpse of stark fear. "What do you want me to say? I can't even remember your name--"
The man threw out his arms, threw back his head and yelled a name at the ceiling, where it bounced and warped and echoed and had no meaning at all.
"--I'm sorry," said John as the echoes died.
"All right," said the man, almost breathlessly. "All right. One more stop. One more, John."
He got into the cab and gave an address to the cabbie.
"No," said John. "No. That's--that's enough now. No."
"One more chance," whispered the man, more to himself than to John. He raised his voice and repeated the address: "St. Bartholomew's Hospital."
"No," said John.
The cab pulled away from the curb and started to carry them toward the hospital.
"Look," said John, "Why are you doing this?" His heart was pounding. Fight or flight, he thought, but how can you if you don't know what you're fighting, or what you're fleeing? "You've got the wrong person. I'm just an average guy, nothing special, and I live a nice quiet life--or I did before you came barging into it, and--"
"--are you happy?" The man wasn't looking at him.
"Happy? What's...what's happy got to do with anything?"
The man looked at him as if John had answered him, then away again. "Stop here," he said to the cabbie.
The driver frowned. "Hospital's a block over--"
"--I'm aware of where it is. Stop here."
"I remember this place," said John, his voice tight.
The man leaned forward, light kindling in his eyes, something like joy illuminating the cold features, something close to a smile. "Yes?"
"How did you know I got hit by a bicycle here?"
The smile emptied into a rictus grin, ghoulish and hollow. "John," he said, almost a groan. He jumped out of the car and dragged John by the sleeve. "John. Come here. Come with me."
John's leg hurt like fury, and his head ached. He put his hands up to block out the sight of the hospital, its gray empty roof cutting the sky in two. "Stop it," he muttered.
"Do you have bad memories of this place? Tragic ones?"
"You're going to have tragic memories of this place if you don't leave me alone," snarled John. "I can't--don't you understand, I can't--"
The man leaned forward and took John's face in his hands, his touch urgent but gentle. "John, please," he whispered, bringing their foreheads together. Then he slid his hands down to John's shoulders and began to spin them around in circles, the hospital looping by with every revolution, looming empty and empty and empty in his sight. "Please, John. I need you--" a startled breath, "--to remember, I need you to remember."
He stopped and started to pull John toward the hospital, toward a patch of pavement, toward--no, and John's legs gave out entirely. "Stop it!" he yelled, and swung wildly at the man as his knees buckled.
One of his fists connected squarely with the man's mouth, and the man made a surprised sound and staggered back. There was a long silence as John knelt on the pavement, panting, and the man touched his lip, the trickle of blood running down his chin.
"Oh," the man said, very softly. "Ow."
"I'm sorry," gasped John.
"Don't be." The man's voice was cool and distant once more. "If anyone is owed an apology, Dr. Watson, it is you. It appears my brother was right." He inclined his head. "And so I will say that I am sorry, and I will leave you in peace." A quick glance away. "One way or the other, you shall be safe after tonight anyway."
John's leg throbbed in agony, and he squeezed his eyes shut against inexplicable hot tears. "I wish I could at least remember your name," he whispered. "I don't know why I can't remember your name. I want to."
"If you want to, I am certain that you will."
John pulled himself to his feet. "Please, tell me one more time."
The man took a long breath, looking at him. A drop of blood dripped from his chin and vanished into the muffler below. "It's...not important," he said. He smiled suddenly, a burst of unexpected radiance. "Goodbye, John."
Then he turned and walked away, leaving John with no name to call him back, no voice left to him at all.
: : :
He hobbled into his flat, hissing in pain as his leg refused to move the way he wanted it to. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took a long breath. Well, at least that insane interlude was over with. Nothing more to worry about. Nothing at all.
His phone buzzed.
Gingerly, he picked it up to read a text: Need your help. Come at once if convenient. An address followed.
John blinked at his phone.
Another buzz: If inconvenient, come anyway.
John sat, holding the phone in his hands, turning it over absently. As if he were waiting for something. Some final piece of the puzzle, some key, some trigger to pull--
The screen lit up: Could be dangerous.
John Watson nodded slowly to himself.
Then he rose and got his gun out of the drawer and went outside to hail a cab.
The address was an abandoned warehouse. John frowned up at its crumbling exterior and began to limp toward it.
When he heard gunshots, he broke into a run.
Inside, fluorescent lights bathed everything in cold and flickering radiance. Something tinged hard against one of the lights and it went dark, leaving only the far end of the warehouse lit. A figure was silhouetted briefly against the white wall, a lanky form with a flapping coat, running.
More gunshots. John charged toward the figure, his eyes scanning the crates and boxes, searching for the gunman. And then the lunatic (the damned, beloved lunatic) was running right at him, and behind him a man with a gun emerged from behind a crate and--
John heard himself scream a name, and then: "Get down!"
The man dropped without hesitation, throwing himself on his back and skidding along the floor of the warehouse as a bullet pinged across the space he was just in. The gunman was aiming again: John threw himself across the man on the floor--hipbones sharp as knives pressing into his chest--as the air above him buzzed once more.
Everything seemed to be happening very slowly, as if suddenly there were all the time in the world, no need to rush at all. His hands steady, his eye sure, John Watson raised his gun and fired.
The bullet caught the gunman in the throat and he went backwards without a sound as time moved back to normal. John waited, gun poised, until it was clear the sniper would not be moving again and there were no further threats. Then he holstered the gun and turned his attention to the man under him whose chest was rising and falling in great heaving gasps.
"Sherlock," John said, "Would you care to explain what the hell is going on?"
"Oh," said Sherlock, looking at him. "Oh, John."
John waited, but Sherlock somehow seemed to find that explanation sufficient. Finally, John prompted him: "Were you really here trying to take out an assassin on your own? Unarmed?"
Sherlock blinked, and some of the rapt look went out of his eyes. "I was improvising," he said loftily.
For a long moment they just lay there, breathing heavily together, and John Watson had never found breathing less boring. "It's difficult to punch you when you're on your back on the floor," he observed at last.
"I believe you've already punched me."
"Doesn't count. Didn't know how much you deserved it. But you've made it a challenge. Bad angle. No momentum."
"Indeed," Sherlock said with a hint of a smug smile.
"It's difficult to hug you, either," John pointed out. "Can't get my arms around you."
The corners of Sherlock's mouth turned down. He lifted his head slightly, looking at John's face. "So what will you do?"
"I guess I'll have to improvise too," said John.
Sherlock's mouth tasted of blood; the back of his head thumped against the floor and their teeth grated together in something perhaps closer to a punch than a kiss. He made a sharp sound against John's mouth that could have been pain, except that he was grabbing John's shoulders and yanking him closer at the same time. He kissed John as if they could bruise the empty months out of each other, as if each lost day had to be annihilated in bliss.
When John broke the kiss Sherlock made a small sound of protest, his fingers locked in John's hair. John let himself be reeled back in until their mouths were almost brushing each other again. "Thank God you didn't give up on me," he murmured, feeling Sherlock's breath on his lips. "When I got those texts, I just knew--I still couldn't remember, but I knew--"
"--Texts?" Sherlock's mouth turned down again, and feeling the motion against his lips made it impossible for John to resist kissing that frown. "Um," Sherlock said when the kiss broke again. "I didn't send you any texts."
"You--but--" John blinked at him. "The emails?" Sherlock shook his head. "All those pictures? The suitcase. The inn. If you didn't send them..."
"...Then who did?" Sherlock finished the thought.
As if on cue, the sound of slow clapping started to resound through the warehouse.
Sherlock dropped his head back to the hard floor. "Mycroft." The name was an exasperated sigh.
Mycroft Holmes emerged from the shadows, skirting the spreading puddle of blood from the gunman fastidiously. "Don't let me interrupt, boys," he said with a wave of his hand.
Realizing he was sprawled on top of Sherlock--and had been, until a moment ago, kissing him rather soundly--John cleared his throat and started to pull back. Sherlock grabbed his lapels and stopped him, leaving John blinking awkwardly between the brothers.
"Didn't you say John would be better off without me?" Sherlock said, sitting up without releasing his grip on John.
John glared at Mycroft. "You said what?"
Mycroft shrugged.
"So what changed your mind?" Sherlock asked.
Mycroft raised an eyebrow. "Did I say I'd changed my mind? John Watson may well be better off without you, Sherlock Holmes, but all evidence suggests Britain is better off when you two are together." He lifted his hands apologetically, looking at John. "I'm afraid you'll just have to make the sacrifice, for the greater good of the nation." His eyes flicked from John to Sherlock and back again. "I'd advise you to close your eyes and think of England, but you seem to have figured that one out on your own." He turned around and started to stroll off again.
"Mycroft," Sherlock gritted, and his brother stopped without looking back. Sherlock swallowed hard. "...Thank you."
A wordless wave--caught somewhere between dismissive and acknowledging--and Mycroft was gone again.
Sherlock's hands were still locked on his lapels; John looked down and realized that the knuckles were white. He reached up and touched them lightly. "Hey," he said, "I'm right here. Not going anywhere." Then he frowned as a thought struck him. "You didn't send those messages? You didn't ask for my help?" Sherlock was looking at him. "What were you trying to do, get yourself killed?"
He meant the question to be angry and rhetorical, but it wobbled suddenly at the end as Sherlock's gaze went sharp and luminous.
Then Sherlock smiled briefly, his expression shifting back into cool and distant. He released John's coat in an abrupt motion and stood up, brushing himself off. "Well. It wasn't boring, at least. Less boring than Khartoum, anyway." He held out a hand to John. "Shall we get some dinner and then start moving you back into 221B?"
John glared at him, scrambling up without taking his hand. "Sherlock, do you really think you can just come waltzing back into my life without any explanation, without even an apology, and just think you can pick me back up and everything will be exactly the same as it was? Just go right back to--"
Sherlock swooped at him and kissed him again, and it was--well, it was very distracting.
"I was rather hoping for one thing that wasn't exactly the same," breathed Sherlock. Then he pulled away and started to walk off into the shadows of the warehouse. "But otherwise, yes. That is more or less what I was thinking."
"Well, all right then," John called after him. "I was just checking."
And he hurried to catch up with Sherlock Holmes and fall into step beside him, at his right hand and only a half-step behind, as always.
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3700
Summary: Experimental therapy has robbed John Watson of his memories of Sherlock Holmes. When he starts receiving mysterious emails and then is sort-of kidnapped by a stranger, John has a mystery to unravel.
Notes: A continuation of Normal, Sane, and Not All Right, but stands on its own, I believe.
It's then that what I want is to speak to your silence
in a speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring.
You are quiet like the night, and like the night you're star-lit.
Your silences are star-like, they're a distant and a simple thing.
--Pablo Neruda, "I like it when you're quiet"
Mycroft Holmes was working behind his mahogany desk when the intercom buzzed and Anthea's placid, unruffled voice came over the speaker: "Your late brother here to see you, sir."
"My--"
"He seems rather insistent," she added, with the faintest hint of an apology in her voice just before the door burst open and Sherlock Holmes strode into his office, coat flapping like a storm crow's wings, eyes blazing.
"What did you do to John?" hissed Sherlock, bringing his hands down hard on the dark polished wood and leaning close.
After a moment, Mycroft closed his mouth. It made little sense to argue with Sherlock about his relative lack of being dead, after all. "We did nothing to him," he said instead, glancing away from his brother's set face and making a mark on a piece of paper. "We helped him deal with his tragic loss. Oh, I'm sorry--his apparent tragic loss."
"Helped him by making him forget--" Sherlock's voice faltered just a fraction, and Mycroft's eyes narrowed. "--forget our cases? I fail to see how that is helpful."
"We didn't make him forget anything," Mycroft snapped. "It was an unforeseen side effect of the therapy."
"Give him his memories back."
Mycroft felt his lips press together into a thin line. "My dear not-deceased brother, memories are not something that you can 'give back' like a pair of cuff links. That's not how it works." He looked up at Sherlock, looming over his desk. "And it is helpful because John Watson needed to forget something that caused him terrible pain. It was his defense and his choice--at least at the subconscious level."
"I see," Sherlock said. He straightened, looking down at Mycroft. "I see that you won't help me." His voice was a whipcrack, clean and sharp. "This is why I didn't trust you." He spun away and went to the door. "John Watson will remember me. He must."
"Sherlock." Mycroft kept his voice level with some effort, and his brother paused, one hand on the doorframe. "I beg you to consider: many people would give perfectly good money for the chance to forget you. John Watson has managed it for free. Would you deprive him of such a gift?"
Sherlock looked at him then, and after a moment Mycroft Holmes looked away from what was in his eyes.
When he looked back, his brother was gone again.
: : :
John Watson's phone buzzed, and he felt his body jerk in alarm. He looked over at the table where it sat as if eyeing a dangerous serpent. Then he stood up with some effort, his leg failing him yet again, and picked it up.
An unknown sender, just like the ones before. He kept blocking the addresses, but every time it was a new one. A photo attachment again. His finger hovered over the "delete" button, but somehow he find himself opening it again, just like all the others.
This one was a brocaded couch, rich beige upholstery, with an ornate fireplace behind it. That was all, just a couch.
John found himself smiling, looking at it.
Then he frowned and filed the email away with the others. The photo of the pink suitcase. The image of the Chinese pottery. A country inn somewhere. They had been coming every few days--starting shortly after he ran into that lunatic on the street, actually. And every night after receiving one, he would have nightmares. Terrifying, vivid, thrilling nightmares: being hunted by a giant dog, being stalked through a library or museum by an faceless gunman. He didn't know if he dreaded them or if--
Well, it didn't matter. They were just dreams anyway, gone in the morning, meaning nothing.
John Watson shrugged and made his careful, slow way out the door and into the evening.
He was walking down the pavement when a cab pulled up next to him. The door opened and John blinked at the sight of the lunatic from the other day, his hair wildly tousled and his eyes bright, glaring at him. "Get in the cab," said the stranger.
"What?"
"Shall I articulate more clearly? Get--in--the--cab," he hissed.
"Now, why exactly should I--"
"--it's a matter of life and death." The man bit his lip. "Please, John."
John looked both ways and then slid into the cab.
As the car pulled away from the curb, the man stared out the back, eyes scanning the buildings. The city lights washed over his face in the darkness, casting strange shadows along his skin. "Don't have much time now," he murmured, seemingly to himself. "I knew he'd catch up to me soon once I tipped my hand."
"John Watson," said John, as if this were somehow the least bit normal. "Nice to meet you." He held out his hand.
The man's eyes flicked to it and then up to John's face. He didn't take it. "Indeed."
"Care to tell me who you are?"
The man said a name.
John frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."
The man said the name again.
"Right." John looked out the window. "So. What's the life and death, then?"
"Mine," said the man. "In more ways than one."
"Right." John felt his eyebrows twitch in perplexity, but he kept his voice level.
The cab stopped in front of a school, empty in the dark. "Come with me," said the man.
The school was deserted; John trailed after the man as he strode down dimly-lit corridors until he led John to a window. "Look," he said, pointing through it.
John looked through and saw another building, with a room beyond it. "Fascinating," he said.
The man leaned forward sharply--looking at John's face, not the room beyond. "Really?"
"No."
"Oh." The man peered through the window. "It doesn't...seem familiar at all?"
"Not a bit. Look," said John, "I don't know what's going on. I don't even know your name--" The man snapped out a few syllables, but John kept talking over them, "--but I assure you, you've got the wrong man. Maybe you're looking for a different John Watson?"
"In a manner of speaking," the man muttered. "But no, you are the John Watson I want." He looked at John, his lips pressed tightly together, considering. "Let's go," he said, swiveling to billow down the hallway once more.
Shaking his head, John fell into step beside him, a half-step behind.
Strange how it felt right, somehow.
: : :
The man gave the cabbie another address, and they pulled away from the school. The man steepled his fingers and put them to his mouth, gazing straight ahead. "Khartoum was sweltering," he said as if picking up a conversation in the middle. "You would have loathed it. Mecca was more interesting. Ran into a spot of trouble there, but gathered some important information about my quarry." He kept talking, as if once he got started he couldn't stop: an endless stream of words, topics changing like a rock skipped across water, the trajectory invisible but the ripples spreading. John listened because there wasn't much else to do when a madman in a moving cab insisted on telling you about coal-tar derivatives, about the rainforests of Iran and the mountains of Tibet: "Annapurna and Dhaulagiri and Machapuchare, pure against the sky, high and cold and empty," the man said. He stopped then, his eyes distant, and took a long, slow breath.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," John said into the gap of silence, not knowing when he would have another chance.
"That's because you're an idiot," the man murmured, almost gently, not looking at him. "And here we are."
The next stop was a municipal pool, eerie in the low night lighting. "Well?" said the man, turning to John with an eyebrow raised. "Remember anything?" His voice resonated oddly off the tiled walls, blending with the lapping of the water into a strange tapestry of sound: "Remember?--well--remember well--anything."
"I've never been here before in my life."
"You don't--don't you--there was a thing you did. Here. A--a good thing. At least I thought it was." He was pacing, staring at the water, his voice gone choppy and abrupt, as if all the long, formal sentences in the cab were spoken by another person entirely. "Maybe you don't--think so now." He looked at John and for the first time John saw a flash of emotion beyond irritation cross that unearthly face: desperation.
"I don't know what to say," John said to that glimpse of stark fear. "What do you want me to say? I can't even remember your name--"
The man threw out his arms, threw back his head and yelled a name at the ceiling, where it bounced and warped and echoed and had no meaning at all.
"--I'm sorry," said John as the echoes died.
"All right," said the man, almost breathlessly. "All right. One more stop. One more, John."
He got into the cab and gave an address to the cabbie.
"No," said John. "No. That's--that's enough now. No."
"One more chance," whispered the man, more to himself than to John. He raised his voice and repeated the address: "St. Bartholomew's Hospital."
"No," said John.
The cab pulled away from the curb and started to carry them toward the hospital.
"Look," said John, "Why are you doing this?" His heart was pounding. Fight or flight, he thought, but how can you if you don't know what you're fighting, or what you're fleeing? "You've got the wrong person. I'm just an average guy, nothing special, and I live a nice quiet life--or I did before you came barging into it, and--"
"--are you happy?" The man wasn't looking at him.
"Happy? What's...what's happy got to do with anything?"
The man looked at him as if John had answered him, then away again. "Stop here," he said to the cabbie.
The driver frowned. "Hospital's a block over--"
"--I'm aware of where it is. Stop here."
"I remember this place," said John, his voice tight.
The man leaned forward, light kindling in his eyes, something like joy illuminating the cold features, something close to a smile. "Yes?"
"How did you know I got hit by a bicycle here?"
The smile emptied into a rictus grin, ghoulish and hollow. "John," he said, almost a groan. He jumped out of the car and dragged John by the sleeve. "John. Come here. Come with me."
John's leg hurt like fury, and his head ached. He put his hands up to block out the sight of the hospital, its gray empty roof cutting the sky in two. "Stop it," he muttered.
"Do you have bad memories of this place? Tragic ones?"
"You're going to have tragic memories of this place if you don't leave me alone," snarled John. "I can't--don't you understand, I can't--"
The man leaned forward and took John's face in his hands, his touch urgent but gentle. "John, please," he whispered, bringing their foreheads together. Then he slid his hands down to John's shoulders and began to spin them around in circles, the hospital looping by with every revolution, looming empty and empty and empty in his sight. "Please, John. I need you--" a startled breath, "--to remember, I need you to remember."
He stopped and started to pull John toward the hospital, toward a patch of pavement, toward--no, and John's legs gave out entirely. "Stop it!" he yelled, and swung wildly at the man as his knees buckled.
One of his fists connected squarely with the man's mouth, and the man made a surprised sound and staggered back. There was a long silence as John knelt on the pavement, panting, and the man touched his lip, the trickle of blood running down his chin.
"Oh," the man said, very softly. "Ow."
"I'm sorry," gasped John.
"Don't be." The man's voice was cool and distant once more. "If anyone is owed an apology, Dr. Watson, it is you. It appears my brother was right." He inclined his head. "And so I will say that I am sorry, and I will leave you in peace." A quick glance away. "One way or the other, you shall be safe after tonight anyway."
John's leg throbbed in agony, and he squeezed his eyes shut against inexplicable hot tears. "I wish I could at least remember your name," he whispered. "I don't know why I can't remember your name. I want to."
"If you want to, I am certain that you will."
John pulled himself to his feet. "Please, tell me one more time."
The man took a long breath, looking at him. A drop of blood dripped from his chin and vanished into the muffler below. "It's...not important," he said. He smiled suddenly, a burst of unexpected radiance. "Goodbye, John."
Then he turned and walked away, leaving John with no name to call him back, no voice left to him at all.
: : :
He hobbled into his flat, hissing in pain as his leg refused to move the way he wanted it to. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took a long breath. Well, at least that insane interlude was over with. Nothing more to worry about. Nothing at all.
His phone buzzed.
Gingerly, he picked it up to read a text: Need your help. Come at once if convenient. An address followed.
John blinked at his phone.
Another buzz: If inconvenient, come anyway.
John sat, holding the phone in his hands, turning it over absently. As if he were waiting for something. Some final piece of the puzzle, some key, some trigger to pull--
The screen lit up: Could be dangerous.
John Watson nodded slowly to himself.
Then he rose and got his gun out of the drawer and went outside to hail a cab.
The address was an abandoned warehouse. John frowned up at its crumbling exterior and began to limp toward it.
When he heard gunshots, he broke into a run.
Inside, fluorescent lights bathed everything in cold and flickering radiance. Something tinged hard against one of the lights and it went dark, leaving only the far end of the warehouse lit. A figure was silhouetted briefly against the white wall, a lanky form with a flapping coat, running.
More gunshots. John charged toward the figure, his eyes scanning the crates and boxes, searching for the gunman. And then the lunatic (the damned, beloved lunatic) was running right at him, and behind him a man with a gun emerged from behind a crate and--
John heard himself scream a name, and then: "Get down!"
The man dropped without hesitation, throwing himself on his back and skidding along the floor of the warehouse as a bullet pinged across the space he was just in. The gunman was aiming again: John threw himself across the man on the floor--hipbones sharp as knives pressing into his chest--as the air above him buzzed once more.
Everything seemed to be happening very slowly, as if suddenly there were all the time in the world, no need to rush at all. His hands steady, his eye sure, John Watson raised his gun and fired.
The bullet caught the gunman in the throat and he went backwards without a sound as time moved back to normal. John waited, gun poised, until it was clear the sniper would not be moving again and there were no further threats. Then he holstered the gun and turned his attention to the man under him whose chest was rising and falling in great heaving gasps.
"Sherlock," John said, "Would you care to explain what the hell is going on?"
"Oh," said Sherlock, looking at him. "Oh, John."
John waited, but Sherlock somehow seemed to find that explanation sufficient. Finally, John prompted him: "Were you really here trying to take out an assassin on your own? Unarmed?"
Sherlock blinked, and some of the rapt look went out of his eyes. "I was improvising," he said loftily.
For a long moment they just lay there, breathing heavily together, and John Watson had never found breathing less boring. "It's difficult to punch you when you're on your back on the floor," he observed at last.
"I believe you've already punched me."
"Doesn't count. Didn't know how much you deserved it. But you've made it a challenge. Bad angle. No momentum."
"Indeed," Sherlock said with a hint of a smug smile.
"It's difficult to hug you, either," John pointed out. "Can't get my arms around you."
The corners of Sherlock's mouth turned down. He lifted his head slightly, looking at John's face. "So what will you do?"
"I guess I'll have to improvise too," said John.
Sherlock's mouth tasted of blood; the back of his head thumped against the floor and their teeth grated together in something perhaps closer to a punch than a kiss. He made a sharp sound against John's mouth that could have been pain, except that he was grabbing John's shoulders and yanking him closer at the same time. He kissed John as if they could bruise the empty months out of each other, as if each lost day had to be annihilated in bliss.
When John broke the kiss Sherlock made a small sound of protest, his fingers locked in John's hair. John let himself be reeled back in until their mouths were almost brushing each other again. "Thank God you didn't give up on me," he murmured, feeling Sherlock's breath on his lips. "When I got those texts, I just knew--I still couldn't remember, but I knew--"
"--Texts?" Sherlock's mouth turned down again, and feeling the motion against his lips made it impossible for John to resist kissing that frown. "Um," Sherlock said when the kiss broke again. "I didn't send you any texts."
"You--but--" John blinked at him. "The emails?" Sherlock shook his head. "All those pictures? The suitcase. The inn. If you didn't send them..."
"...Then who did?" Sherlock finished the thought.
As if on cue, the sound of slow clapping started to resound through the warehouse.
Sherlock dropped his head back to the hard floor. "Mycroft." The name was an exasperated sigh.
Mycroft Holmes emerged from the shadows, skirting the spreading puddle of blood from the gunman fastidiously. "Don't let me interrupt, boys," he said with a wave of his hand.
Realizing he was sprawled on top of Sherlock--and had been, until a moment ago, kissing him rather soundly--John cleared his throat and started to pull back. Sherlock grabbed his lapels and stopped him, leaving John blinking awkwardly between the brothers.
"Didn't you say John would be better off without me?" Sherlock said, sitting up without releasing his grip on John.
John glared at Mycroft. "You said what?"
Mycroft shrugged.
"So what changed your mind?" Sherlock asked.
Mycroft raised an eyebrow. "Did I say I'd changed my mind? John Watson may well be better off without you, Sherlock Holmes, but all evidence suggests Britain is better off when you two are together." He lifted his hands apologetically, looking at John. "I'm afraid you'll just have to make the sacrifice, for the greater good of the nation." His eyes flicked from John to Sherlock and back again. "I'd advise you to close your eyes and think of England, but you seem to have figured that one out on your own." He turned around and started to stroll off again.
"Mycroft," Sherlock gritted, and his brother stopped without looking back. Sherlock swallowed hard. "...Thank you."
A wordless wave--caught somewhere between dismissive and acknowledging--and Mycroft was gone again.
Sherlock's hands were still locked on his lapels; John looked down and realized that the knuckles were white. He reached up and touched them lightly. "Hey," he said, "I'm right here. Not going anywhere." Then he frowned as a thought struck him. "You didn't send those messages? You didn't ask for my help?" Sherlock was looking at him. "What were you trying to do, get yourself killed?"
He meant the question to be angry and rhetorical, but it wobbled suddenly at the end as Sherlock's gaze went sharp and luminous.
Then Sherlock smiled briefly, his expression shifting back into cool and distant. He released John's coat in an abrupt motion and stood up, brushing himself off. "Well. It wasn't boring, at least. Less boring than Khartoum, anyway." He held out a hand to John. "Shall we get some dinner and then start moving you back into 221B?"
John glared at him, scrambling up without taking his hand. "Sherlock, do you really think you can just come waltzing back into my life without any explanation, without even an apology, and just think you can pick me back up and everything will be exactly the same as it was? Just go right back to--"
Sherlock swooped at him and kissed him again, and it was--well, it was very distracting.
"I was rather hoping for one thing that wasn't exactly the same," breathed Sherlock. Then he pulled away and started to walk off into the shadows of the warehouse. "But otherwise, yes. That is more or less what I was thinking."
"Well, all right then," John called after him. "I was just checking."
And he hurried to catch up with Sherlock Holmes and fall into step beside him, at his right hand and only a half-step behind, as always.