Of course it was the day after Mrs. Hudson had gone in for back surgery, and she was completely useless. She had been confined to apartment by pain and recommendations from herself, her doctor, and John himself. The landlady had been using her telephone to order John around, telling him to do various
chores. He thought it was better than drinking any day, but he still couldn't
forget. The last call had been "...a peculiar bouncing sound, it's very annoying,
John, be a dear and pick it up, would you? Thank you love..." John had been the
only one left to help her, since Sherlock was god-knows-where, probably some
hell, like he always said he was going to go.
The sound had been a child's toy, a little transparent green power ball.
Might have been glow-in-the-dark, if the doctor had bothered to check. "Mrs.
Hudson?" he said as he walked through the door. "It was just a bouncy ball..."
Bouncy. John secretly liked that word, except he knew Sherlock would have hassled him if the doctor murmured it around the house like a madman. Sherlock would hassle him if he murmured anything around the house like a madman. Another thing about living with a self-proclaimed sociopath-he liked being the only real nut job.
No use changing your habits once someone was gone.
The door was wide open, and the landlord was watching some television
show. Real bad one too, one of those reality shows about absolutely useless girls
with tough, even more useless boys drooling after them to win a competition.
Like any of it was real. None of the girls really caught John's attention, they all
looked too plasticy. A couple of the men did, however. Fairly adorable ones who
forgot to shave. John found himself wishing that they were a little paler, like they had stayed inside all day instead of sitting on tanning beds like- "Here you go, Mrs. Hudson," John said "it was this thing." He held up the toy, trying to distract himself, and the recoverer said "Oh John, you're such a dear, I think I'll knock off a few pounds of your rent, you didn't have to do..."
Suddenly, she stopped mid-sentence, and appeared to be sitting upright,
drinking tea. How did she do that so fast...with the back surgery and all... "I think
you're getting better quickly. Look, you couldn't get up that fast a week ago,
right?" Mrs. Hudson gave him a look. "Recover from what? Oh, I see, April
Fool's..." The landlord checked her watch. "...but you're a bit late. Just after one,
love. I guess that's what the sweater is about. It's positively balmy out, isn't it! Now, don't you have something to do?" Mrs. Hudson winked as the door jingled. John frowned and went out into the hall. He never had anything to do.
Sherlock walked in, his arms laden with groceries. The two pieces did not
quite fit together in John's mind. He stuttered, baffled and open mouthed"You
bought groceries." Sherlock rolled his eyes and grinned a smile which was not all
that evil looking-actually, the receiver would call it soft if given by anyone else.
"Of course. Remember, we cleaned out the fridge yesterday? Then you took
photos for the blog of those nasty radishes I took out because of that weird
purple mold you found on them." "Oh yeah..." John replied, not remembering
anything at all, then a strange impulse came from the back of his mind, the dark lagoon part which "I posted that today." Sherlock climbed the stairs, and John followed him with a soft patter of the bedroom slippers he was wearing.
Once in the apartment, Sherlock carefully put down the groceries-he had
actually been less careful with an explosive vest, John remembered. He then not-
so-carefully whipped around and pressed John against a wall, kissing him
fiercely. John kissed him back a little bit, but came up gasping for breath. "God I
needed that." Sherlock said, his eyes looking no longer flat as usual to John, but
very, very, 3-dimensional. "Rough day?" John asked weakly, his own brown eyes flickering to make contact with Sherlock's. He cursed himself as he realised that of course it had been a rough day-you didn't come back to your roommate postmortem every day. "Yes. Definitely." Sherlock released him. John rubbed his shoulder as Sherlock remarked, the detective's eyes steady on John "Do you even know what the extent of the Lestrade's insanity is?" "I bet I do," John said, remembering him about a month ago, when he had completely doubted Sherlock coming up with candy in wrappers coated in mercury fed to entrapped children as a kidnapping situation. Of course John had believed him; this was a man who kept severed fingers in the refrigerator and didn't know the earth went around the sun until John had reminded him-gently, always gently.
Or was it?
John wasn't too shocked about the fact that Sherlock had pinned him to a
wall and planted one on the lips; it was a bit like kissing your cousin. Awkward,
not quite right, but okay. More than okay, actually. Good. Really good. But
Sherlock wasn't John's cousin; it was worse than that. He was...Sherlock.
But maybe he wasn't, not like this. Normal. Grocery shopper. Gay. Not the
familiar introvert his blogger had become accustomed to.
If I am dreaming, John thought, this is just cruel. While one half of John thought that maybe this was better than the other Sherlock, the other part ached for the weird little ticks that came with 'his' Sherlock, the quips and how he looked at John and how he didn't pin John against walls.
Dinner was almost normal except for the nagging at the back of John's
mind about what the identity of the miracle in front of him was. Sherlock ranted and raved while he cooked some kind of Mediterranean thing with red peppers about how they had fired Sally in favor of a blond. Apparently, a tape of her and Anderson found its way onto the web. John had his suspicions, which he confirmed when he opened the laptop which wasn't his (he would never stick a smiley face sticker on his own) and found the video nestled inside several folders. Well, this Sherlock wasn't completely different. John began to doubt that Sherlock hadn't always been like this, and almost believed that this was the way things always had been until he noticed something different-how Sherlock moved, how he spoke.
Maybe this was a world where his best friend wouldn't disappear.
The pair watched a television program about albatrosses postprandially. John had been sitting stiffly at the other end of the couch when his roommate-and maybe something more-had scotched up right next to him. The veteran had
done what felt natural, and curled his feet up, leaning his head on Sherlock's
bony, but warm shoulder.
Albatrosses mate for life. They always return to the same breeding ground
to the same partner-no affairs, you'll be beaked to death by the gossipy ones-
the same time of every year, when they lay their eggs. You even find the occasional same-sex couple, though there was an argument in the scientific
community about if they had some kind of romantic attachment to each other, or
if they just liked being together sexually. For example, if there were two male
albatrosses together and one died, would the survivor move on to female
partner? Or would it move onto a different male albatross? Would it pick the
romantic option, and like with a female, never mate again?
Then they moved onto the infamous portion in Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, where the narrator shoots the lucky albatross which has flown behind
their ship, which they consider a horrifying omen. He had to wear the dead
albatross around his neck, which brought upon the crew a curse.
At this point, it was about eleven thirty at night, which prompted John to
get up, yawn, and say"I'm tired, sorry. Going to bed." He changed into pajamas,
and slipped into the double bed which he found in what was 'his' room (really
theirs, now) as Sherlock was brushing his teeth.
John didn't notice the rubber ball which he had so carefully placed on the
bedside table was teetering on the edge, as though it might fall any minute with
provocation.
Say, from Sherlock's hand as he slept.
As John woke up the next morning, he detected that something was not
necessarily wrong, but...different.
First of all, he woke up with no clothes on, but considering the Sherlock he had
just met had pressed him against the wall and kissed the living daylights out of him, this wasn't surprising. But what was surprising was that his partner had glossy, long black hair which was spread across the pillow. John wondered if the new version was one of those weird people who liked to change their clothes in the middle of the night, along with hair and the such.
Suddenly, Sherlock woke up, and flipped himself over, and John could see
that this was going to get a little stranger. He had thick eyelashes, and traces of eye makeup left behind in the corners.
"It's called a cornea," John remembered another version of Sherlock telling him. "I know," he had said "I went to medical school." His roommate, as usual, had
replied in a scathing tone "You can't usually tell."
John could see the little pointed chin, delicate but wide lips, petite nose, the
shockingly blue eyes which ate up most of what was Sherlock's face. She couldn't
be more than 20, John thought to himself with a burst of guilt. It was remarkable how calm he had stayed throughout this entire...whatever. Maybe it was shock; maybe it was the fact that it felt perfectly normal to him, though he felt like he was half-dreaming and half-awake. Where there wasn't any Sherlock; there was just himself. And his bottle full of vodka/gin/whatever caught his fancy at Speedy's downstairs.
"Sherlock?" asked John in a light stupor. The eyes were flitting around, a little like
John's roommate's. "Mmm," she said, drowsy and flirtatious "haven't been called
that in a long time." She kissed him clumsily on the nose, then grabbed something from the floor which she slipped over herself as she slunk into the kitchen.
She was cooking toast on the stove by the time John had dressed and
sauntered in cautiously. Maybe the doctor had an unusual, even unhealthy response to violent changes like this, because right then he decided to not go running and
screaming. "Well," he replied like he met a transvestite Sherlock everyday, "what
do they call you these days then?" He brushed her delicate bare shoulder with his
hand, his lips near her ear. If this was a dream, he thought, he might as well play
along. Would be suspicious if he didn't. Her soft skin was almost transparent, and
exceedingly pale, just like his Sherlocks. John was starting to miss being insulted. "Well, what do you call me when we're alone?" The answer was waiting for John, still in the back of his head. "Emma." "No, when we're really alone." "Emmabear? I thought you didn't like that." "I did, you just felt awkward." "Mhm." John now occupied with his own piece of toast. The crumbs were spread around his mouth. He lazily checked his watch, then spewed as he said, wondering if he could get a cab at this hour in the morning, "I'm going to be late for work!" John, like he had known Emma's name, also just knew that he had his own practice which depended on him. As John turned around, he nearly smashed his nose into the wall calendar, where it said in gigantic letters "ANNIVERSARY" "No, you took the morning off because the evenings are too busy to spend with your lovely wife." Emma looked at him with a mixture of amusement and alarm "You just forgot because it's the wee morning hours right now, right?" John, not wanting to argue with the obviously formidable force in front of him, replied "Yeah, that's it. So...what do you want to do?" "I have no idea." "We could see a movie..." "Sounds good. Which cineplex?" "Actually, they're showing a Hitchcock down at the university-do you want to see that?" Emma lowered her eyelashes as she said
"Yeah, let's go. I just need to get out of something other than your shirt..." She
thumbed the collar of a fleece shirt which dwarfed the rest of her.
She was ready and raring to go within minutes; John liked that she wasn't
fussy about hair and makeup; Emma simply wore her hair in a bun, plus a pair of
jeans and a button-down shirt. "Okay?" she asked, "I just have a weird feeling that
my hair is going to come out within the first scene so maybe I should-" She was
interrupted and startled by John getting up and reaching around her waist and
saying into her black hair "It's fine. All absolutely fine. Let your hair come out, and
let kingdom come, as long as you're fine, it's all good." Emma stiffened, then
relaxed in John's embrace. "Is everything alright?" she asked "Better than." He let
go of everything except for her hand as they walked out the door, through the
park, and into a small theater.
The movie captured his attention for the opening credits. John's eyes kept flickering back to the woman next to him, seeing little precious glimpses of her.
He was wrong; it wasn't a Hitchcock, it was Sabrina, the Audrey Hepburn version. John watches as Emma smiled a little bit at the beginning when Sabrina crawled up a tree to watch as David danced with a pretty blonde; laughed outright when she tried to make soufflé; then quietly cried a little bit as Sabrina and Linus run
away together on a ship. Even after seeing his wife go through the full range of
emotion, he was still absolutely absorbed in everything she did; her facial
expressions, how she moved, how she whispered even though they were then
only ones in a gigantic theater inside a balcony, how her hand felt in his...
Emma yawned as she got up, stretching and moaning, and John wondered
if this version of Sherlock was really...Sherlock. She didn't seem anti-social in the
least, nor did she hide her many emotions. But John guessed that the core of
Sherlock was inside of Emma, somewhere, the core which was clever and
deductive, with a strong sense of morals, the core which was so easily bored it
drove John's first version of Sherlock to shoot the wall, jump up and down, play
the violin terribly and get happy over a triple homicide.
Maybe it's better this way, John thought. Maybe it's better that she doesn't
keep heads in the fridge, or asks me to get her things when I'm not there. Or wrap
herself in a bed sheet in order to get out of solving a crime. But another part of
John's brain also said that he secretly liked these little tics, he liked it when
Sherlock did weird things because it was part of his...Sherlockyness? Was that a word?
Then the ground suddenly began to shake. It was a rumbling sound which made the building sway back and forth. Emma shrieked involuntarily. The shaking made both himself and Emma have unsteady footing, made them run for the doorway, because they both knew that the doorway was the strongest protection in the room because it was arc, unlike the rest of the room.
Large chunks of the ceiling began to fall to the ground in crater-sized hunks, and John knew in an instant that it would either kill him, or put Emma in a coma for the rest of her life, until he decided to pull the plug in 6 months.
Her life, or his.
John made his decision.
He quickly dove over her soft body, protecting her from the sky which was
falling all around them. A gigantic chunk fell onto his neck, severing it
permanently as the connection from his brain to the rest of his body
He fell into death just like he was falling asleep.
John hadn't expected to wake up.
He was disappointed and angry that death had decided to take Emma
Sherlock instead of himself, and was about to make some rude comments at the
orderly who was in front of him, except his voice came out all wrong. Too high
pitched. "Put me back!" he said, frustrated. "I need to protect her!"
Then he realized that he was not, in fact, inside a hospital, but instead he
was inside his mother's kitchen, which was impossible because he remembered
that they had sold the house. And second of all, why were his hands so tiny and
his voice so high pitched?
Third of all, why was his dead mother walking towards him with a plate of
jam and biscuits?
"No dear," his mother said. "We need to protect you from yourself." She
smiled kindly, and John remembered in a flash what this was.
John was learning how to read.
The book was in front of him, but the words were all wrong. The first book
that John had read had been 'The Runaway Bunny,' but the book in front of him
was entitled 'The Runaway Doctor,' with a picture of himself on the cover. He read
out loud, in his voice that was all wrong. "Once there was a little doctor who
wanted to die instead of his...whatever. So he said to his superior forces 'I'm dying
instead of he, or she, depending on the universe'" John looked up at his mum and
said "This doesn't even make any sense." "Keep reading," she replied. " 'If you
die,' said his mother, 'I will run after you, and take you to somewhere safe, for you
are my little doctor.'" John put down the book in frustration. "Can't you just
explain where on earth-" "Not on earth," his mother said with a smile. "The
afterlife." John looked at her, agape, as she sat down. "I am not your mother."
Obviously, John thought. My mother is dead. "I'm merely taking on the form that
you find the most comforting, then putting our ages into proportion. Then I find a
comforting memory of when we were both this old. So, if you noticed that
gigantic cut on your knee, you're about 5 years old. And I am 40. Therefore,"
John's mother looked sideways at him, like they were sharing a gigantic secret "I am 8 times your age." "You're bluffing." "Prove it. You're in heaven, literally. But not for long."
John looked at her in horror "You mean I'm going to hell?" "No, somewhere better
than here." "What's better than heaven?" "Sherlock." she popped the last word like it
was obvious. John started to understand an inkling of what was happening at
this moment, but still wanted answers. "Explain. Now." His mother sighed, and
began to talk concisely and quickly. "There was one of us-an angel-" she
explained before John could open his mouth any further "who one day decided to
play a prank. He contained the substance which could make a human-or angel- travel from universe to universe into a child's toy. A bouncy ball, to be precise."
John's mother reached into a pocket of her apron and pulled out the semi-
familiar glow-in-the-dark bouncy ball which had annoyed Mrs. Hudson so. "Then
he rigged it so it only switched whenever it hit the ground. And played a
documentary on albatrosses on your television to light your mind on fire. Then set which universes you would end up in." John nodded. It had, in fact, lit his mind on fire with possibilities of being more than friends with Sherlock. "Of course, he was fired, but not until he planted the bouncy ball near someone we were keeping an
eye on-you, namely."
"See, there's something special about you and Sherlock. There's a bond
between you across every single universe. Whether he's not a sociopath," She
drew up a polaroid of Sherlock holding groceries "or not comfortable with his
original gender and not a sociopath," John's mother showed him a photograph of
Emma, "an otter who pines for you endlessly because you're a hedgehog and
both of you have never met, or even your version." 2 photos this time, one of
John's Sherlock in his deerstalker and another of a very angry otter. "Do you know
how rare that is? It's a 5 in 11 quadrillion chance. Which is exactly why this slightly
sick and twisted angel decided to mess with you, called it an experiment to justify
it in his own mind. Of course, knowing my luck, you had to die in one of them."
John's mother sighed as she began the next part of her speech. "I'm kind of
the law enforcement here. Angelic version of Lestrade, I suppose. The plan for
to fix this transgression is to let the other world's version of John-the world that you died in, of course-pass over, and return you to your original world, but I have permission-" She held up what looked like a grocery list with a signature at the bottom "-to let you return a little later than you left. It's called Permission to Not Suffer, because being without Sherlock during 2 years for you would be worse than dying for
Emma/Sherlock a thousand times. Also, you would eventually drink yourself to
death." John hadn't spoken in a long time and now found that he was bursting
with one question. "What will my excuse be for my absence?" he asked in a slight happy daze.
"Oh, you won't need one. There will be an angel inside of your body for those 2
years, doing everything you would, except he won't remember some minor
details about you. Now, I just need you to sign this-" The angel pushed the
grocery list in front of John. He read it quickly; it was actually everything she had
said so far, word for word, except for a few additions saying that in essentials, it
was the opposite of a devil's contract-instead of signing over his soul to hell, he
was signing his soul over to the better side of the afterlife, and that nothing could
change that. Also, he would arrive the night that Sherlock came back.
"Yes," John said, resolute. "yes."
He arrived in the middle of the night on Baker Street, and a cab was
honking at him, of course.
After all, he was in the middle of the road, on what he sensed was New
Year's morning.
John, dashing across the road, began to laugh to himself, inside of his coat
which protected against the cold winter winds. He would see Sherlock soon, and it
would all be okay. John spun around in a circle, then walked down the street. He felt like Gene Kelly for some reason, except he wasn't meeting Debbie Reynolds,
John was meeting someone infinitely better.
John walked down the street, trying to compose himself, and found that he
couldn't until arriving on the doorstep of 221 Baker Street, hunched over with some strange brand of laughter. He ran up the stairs softly, trying not to make any noise in case Mrs. Hudson was sleeping. John opened the door to 221B, and found the apartment deserted. He checked the fridge, in case the Angel Lestrade had made a mistake and sent him there early or late. It was nearly empty except for a sandwich, so John figured he was on time. He took of his jacket, and walked into his bedroom.
Sherlock was sleeping in John's bed.
Not bothering to get undressed, John lay on top of the bed, closing his eyes
to go to sleep when Sherlock said "You're late." as a statement, not an accusation.
In his surprise, the doctor said "I'm not late, just confused." "It's okay, I am
too." John asked, with slight concern, "Sherlock, why are you in my bed?" Sherlock
replied, like this was an obvious thing, "The door was open." "I left your door
unlocked." "So?" "Ugh, never mind." "Aren't you more concerned about why I
came back?" "I don't care, you're back." John felt that if he had been left alone for
those two long years, he would be smacking Sherlock to bits right now. Sherlock
leaned over and did something which John thought was so out of character, he
immediately forgave the consulting detective for sins of the past, then asked
himself if this seemed like an alternate universe; Sherlock hugged his best friend,
reaching his arms from under the sheets.
John could hear his heartbeat.
Honestly, at this point, John didn't care where he was, who he was, and how the
miracle lying down next to him was there. His favorite sociopath said, quietly, like
it was a bomb about to explode, "It's a strange sensation, I thought it was some kind of chemical and mental instinct to trick humans into mating and bonding with each other, but I am starting to change my mind. Maybe it is some stupid...I dunno." John, startled that Sherlock had not known what to say, held his friend's gaze with one eye over oceans of comforter as he said into the pillow "What is?" "Love. I love you, in case you haven't figured that out." "Me too," John buried himself further. "You too? You love yourself too, or do you love me?" The doctor could feel Sherlock's smile. John suddenly felt drowsy, and asked in a small voice like when he was a little boy and his mother was an angel, "I love you too," then fell asleep in Sherlock's arms.
Across every universe, every John and every Sherlock sighed in unison.