Summary:
Ever wonder what motivated Sherlock to kick the drug habit and invent his consulting detective position? What if it wasn't one big event, but a series of small ones (the way life usually works)? And what if one of those little events was a conversation with a man who was dying...
Just a little bit of canon-compliant backstory. Enjoy!
May, 2003, A hospital courtyard garden, late evening. It's almost dark. There are walls surrounding all four sides of the garden with crisscrossing pathways set at right angles and benches arranged among the flower beds and hedges. Lights placed along the pathways have just come on. The only entrance/exit from the garden is through two sets of glass doors into the hospital building.
One set of doors opens with a quiet whoosh and a hospital patient pushes an IV pole across the threshold before slowly stepping through himself. He's dressed in pajamas, house slippers and a dressing gown, which he gathers tighter around him against the cool evening air. His dark hair is graying. He was moderately tall once, but now has the stooped posture and slow gate of someone much older than his actual years. A plastic tube connects a nearly empty IV bag to his arm. Another set of tubes is hooked under his nose and connected to a portable oxygen pump which hangs a bit precariously from a lower hook on the pole.
The man glances around the garden as the doors close behind him. It's almost empty. The only occupied bench is in a far corner, partially obscured by the low hanging branches of an ornamental maple tree. The man's IV pole clatters across the paved walkway as he makes his way toward that bench. It's occupant is a thin man in his mid-twenties, similarly clad in a dressing gown, but over a generic hospital gown instead of pajamas.
We recognize him as a young Sherlock Holmes. He's surreptitiously smoking a cigarette, holding it low next to the seat of the bench between puffs. He's wearing boredom like a mask, emotionless. He keeps his head down, watching the older man approach from beneath a curtain of long dark curls.
As the older man reaches the bench, Sherlock takes a long drag off his cigarette, makes to stub it out on the arm of the bench.
MAN (wheezing slightly): No need to stop on my account.
Sherlock's hand freezes on its way to grinding the cigarette out. His eyes flick questioningly to the oxygen pump.
MAN: Can't make things any worse. Besides, I miss 'em myself. Mind if I sit?
Sherlock shifts the cigarette back between his fingers and shrugs.
The man settles himself on the other side of the bench with a small series of grunts, the last of which morphs into a hacking cough that bends him nearly in half. After one particularly painful heave, the coughing subsides. A minute passes in silence while the older man recovers himself. Sherlock continues to smoke, carefully exhaling away from his companion.
MAN: You hiding out too? I figure I've got about ten minutes before one of my family drags me back upstairs.
SHERLOCK: Seven and a half, going by the state of your IV pouch.
The older man gives him an appraising look and a quick chuckle that ends in a wheeze, but thankfully not another coughing jag.
MAN (offers Sherlock his hand): Name's Will. I figure us escape artists got to stick together.
SHERLOCK (shakes Will's hand indifferently): Sherlock.
WILL (gestures to the cigarette): Got any more of those?
SHERLOCK: I've been told repeatedly that these things will kill you.
WILL (nodding and wheezing again): You got that right.
There's a pause. Neither man moves. The only sound is the recurring puff of Will's oxygen machine. Will takes several labored breaths and finally breaks the silence.
WILL: So, why are you here, then?
SHERLOCK: Emergency appendectomy yesterday.
WILL: Mmmm. That'd put your room clear across in the other wing...over here to make sure they don't find you too quick, eh? Shouldn't you have one of these, though? (gesturing to the IV pole.)
Sherlock lifts his head, a look of mild interest crossing his face for the first time since Will entered the garden. He lifts the sleeve of his dressing gown to reveal the plastic end of an IV needle inserted in and taped down to his arm. A short section of tubing hangs from it, obviously disconnected for this illicit smoke break.
WILL (nodding): Ah, wish I could do that. Wish I could do a lot of things... Mainly I wish everyone would just stop fussing.
Sherlock's eyes slide closed for moment as he takes another pull off the cigarette.
WILL: Listen, I know just because I'm not long for the world doesn't...
SHERLOCK (interrupting): Give you the right to dispense advice to complete strangers? No. But you're clearly going to.
WILL (chuckling and then wheezing again): Well, I'm dying here... Humor me, yeah? It's just that you got a look about you I've seen before. Bored, and underneath that...sad. Defeat just clinging about you. And, if I had to guess, I'd say your appendix is just fine.
Sherlock's head jerks up slightly before he catches himself. He doesn't speak.
WILL (ignores the reaction and goes on): I'm pretty good at reading people. Good thing too, in my line o' work... (he gives a quick smile that immediately fades) And, I saw the marks around that needle in your arm. Didn't come from here, did they?
WILL (Takes a quick breath, not waiting for a response): Those things (indicating the cigarette) aren't going to kill you because you're not planning to give 'em the time.
Sherlock stares silently into middle distance, his face unreadable. Will pauses to take several shallow rasping breaths. His oxygen machine puffs rhythmically, punctuating each one. His voice is almost a whisper and his sentences are separated by wheezing breaths when he continues.
WILL: I was just a kid when I picked up smoking, and drinking...Didn't care overmuch what I did to myself back then...Nothing held my interest, everything was pointless...But then it all changed...I found something, something worth living for...Something made me feel alive.
Will doesn't notice Sherlock roll his eyes (or possibly he chooses to ignore it). He takes a long pause to suck in several shuddering breaths. Talking is obviously taking its toll.
Sherlock stubs out the cigarette. He glances from one of the two doorways to the other calculating which one the Will's keepers will come through in their search for him. Sherlock stands up planning to exit through the opposite door.
SHERLOCK (sarcastically): And then you found Jesus. How nice for you. Good evening.
WILL (shaking his head): Nah, I found a job I really liked...Loved as a matter of fact. ...Changed everything.
Sherlock pauses, taken aback. He glances back down at the man wheezing on the bench and takes in the small details that comprise the man's identity.
WILL (smiling up at him): That's what I'm trying to tell you...You get yourself something you love and go do it, no matter what anyone else says...Do something what makes you feel alive...then you won't need the other stuff.
SHERLOCK: You're a mortician.
WILL (looks momentarily surprised, then grins widely): Yep. Was, anyway...Best job on the planet, not counting the embalming fluid. Nasty stuff that...(coughs) Well, second best job, maybe... My daughter is studying to be a doc...
Will breaks into another fit of coughing that cuts him off mid-word. Sherlock looks toward the doors on the south wall. A young woman with a ponytail approaches the glass doors down a long interior hallway. Will finishes coughing, catches his breath.
SHERLOCK: Your seven and a half minutes are up. Goodbye Will.
Sherlock takes two quick steps backwards, effectively disappearing into the shadows behind the maple tree.
WILL: You remember what I said, okay? You got something great in you, Sherlock...Go do it. (sadly, almost to himself) Be such a waste otherwise.
Will slumps a bit, his good humor evaporates into the night air along with his companion. He looks small and sad sitting alone on the bench.
The doors slide open and a young Molly Hooper steps out. She scans the garden, sees Will and stops, watching him with a concerned frown. After a long moment, she squares her shoulders, plasters on a smile and moves in his direction.
Will notices her, mimics her actions. He straightens and smiles back.
Molly hurries toward the bench. She helps her father to his feet. Will turns, eyes searching the dark corner behind the tree.
Sherlock is gone.
June, 2012. Bart's Hospital, Pathology lab. Afternoon. Sherlock sits eyes fixed to a microscope, muttering to himself.
MOLLY: What did you mean, 'I owe you'? You said 'I owe you'? You were muttering it while you were working.
SHERLOCK: Nothing. Mental note.
MOLLY: You look a bit like my dad. He's dead. Oh, sorry...
SHERLOCK: Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area.
MOLLY: When he was dying, he was always cheerful. He was lovely. Except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once. He looked sad.
SHERLOCK: Molly...
MOLLY: You look sad...(glances at John working at a desk around the corner) when you think he can't see you.
MOLLY: Are you okay? Don't just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.
SHERLOCK: You can see me.