Turn Left – The Veteran's House
by Soledad
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Action-adventure, suspense. Alternate universe.
Rating: General, suitable for all
Series: none
Standard disclaimer: I own nothing and no money has been made.
Summary: What if John didn't meet Mike Stamford in the park on that fateful day. Would his and Sherlock's path ever cross?
Beta read by my good friend, Linda Hoyland, whom I owe my gratitude. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Chapter 01
He wakes up from a nightmare – the same one as every night.
The one that takes him back to the baking hot Afghan desert, with his team under fire and he desperately trying to shield a wounded soldier with his own body while treating the grievous wound of the much younger man at the same time.
The one from which he always wakes up with a jolt, sweating, distressed and panic-stricken.
He sits up in the unfamiliar, uncomfortable bed, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, Bill Murray's voice calling his name with desperate urgency still echoing in his mind. It takes him a moment to realise that he's safe, a long way from the war.
He is in the bleak little bedsit, provided by the Ministry of Defence, which is worse. Much worse.
Back in the war he was Captain John Watson, RAMC, career soldier and Army doctor, a leader of men and saver of lives, either with his weapon or with his scalpel. Here, he's just another poor, wounded veteran in post-rehabilitation care, whose temper flares the nurses endure with condescending pity. A patient, to whom the doctors talk as if he were but a slow-witted child, conveniently forgetting that he went through the same training as them – and then some. He has done the dual specialisation as a surgeon and a GP, after all, and probably has seen more in a week than they've seen in their entire safe, domestic, dull little lives.
He would prefer never to see them again, but he knows he must go through post-rehab if he wants to manage on his own again. He seriously wonders sometimes, though, how he's supposed to do it. His shoulder, almost completely destroyed by the Afghani sniper's high calibre bullet, is still a little stiffer and a great deal weaker than the other one, the fine motor control in his fingers is still unreliable. During rehab, he worked on it diligently, pushing the muscles within their limits to build up strength again, but he's still far from his ultimate goal.
It is a frustratingly slow process, but he must respect his own limitations. He is a doctor, after all (even though medical personnel tend to forget it), he knows what he can do and what he cannot, and the results show. He'll never operate again, but he's reasonably certain that – given enough time – he'll be able to do normal, everyday things again.
Like writing in a legible manner. He doesn't subscribe to the prejudice that all doctors must have messy handwriting. So he practices every day, and the headway is as good as it can be expected.
No, it is the leg that causes him the most trouble. His right leg that not only hurts like hell without a proper reason – the shrapnel wound in his thigh healed completely while he was lying delirious in the field hospital, fighting the infection in his shoulder and the resulting blood poisoning – but it also unexpectedly refuses to hold his weight from time to time, so that he ends up on the floor; especially when he's been stubborn enough not to use his cane.
His living conditions only make things worse. The bedsit is tiny: just one room, maybe half the size of an average living room (one on the smaller end of the scale), with a tiny stove, a bed, a wardrobe about as big as a matchbox and a desk a pre-school kid would find inadequate. Worse than that, he has to share the toilet and the bathroom with the other occupants of the floor. But with a pension that's barely above minimum wage and a small extra allowance for mobility and everyday living, he can't even think of looking for a better flat.
One that isn't right next to a busy railway line, where one can hear the trains go past at all hours of the night. One that is within easy walking distance of at least a corner shop. One from which he wouldn't have to hobble for twenty exhausting minutes to reach the nearest tube station.
To be able to afford such small luxuries, he would need a job – and who in their right mind would hire and invalided-out cripple with severe PTDS?
Flopping back onto his pillow, John tries to calm his breathing. Tries to persuade himself that this dismal hole in which the Army has dumped him after fifteen years of faithful service – far inferior to even his Captain's quarters in Kandahar – means, at least that he is home.
Only that London isn't home any more. He has no meaning, no purpose here.
Eventually, unable to stop himself, he begins to weep. He keeps weeping silently until exhaustion overwhelms him again.
When he wakes up for the second time – less than an hour and another nightmare later – he sits up on the side of the bed and switches on the bedside lamp. It's still dark outside, but John has given up on sleep for the rest of the night. Instead, he sits quietly, wrapped up in his thoughts, allowing his weary gaze to sweep over the small room.
There's nothing to see, really. Fifteen years in the Army have taught him to travel light, and what few possessions he still has, haven't been taken out of storage yet. He's not willing to bring the mute witnesses of his former life – left over from the time when he still had a life – here, to this place.
To do so would mean that he's accepted his fate; that this is all he'll ever have; and he isn't there yet. He's fighting very hard not to get there, but it's an uphill fight, and he knows it. He studiously ignores the cheap metal cane leaning against the desk and continues to gaze into the distance until the sun finally rises.
Only then does he get up. He pulls a dressing down over his pyjamas and resignedly reaches for the cane to hobble across the room in search for something resembling of breakfast. He finds an apple on the windowsill, next to his RAMC mug, both of which he carries to the desk and starts the morning ritual of making tea. It's a cheap substitute of what tea should be, the low-quality bags he's brought at Tesco's after his most recent therapy session, but it will have to do.
While he's waiting for the kettle to boil, he opens the desk drawer to get his laptop. As he lifts the computer out of the drawer, he briefly touches his only remaining companion: his Army pistol that he shouldn't even have any longer, but Bill and the other lads understood that he needed something to make him feel safe.
Knowing that the Sig Sauer lies there, properly cleaned and polished and ready, does make him feel safe.
Putting the laptop onto the desk and opening the lid, he folds his hands under his chin and looks at the webpage that has automatically loaded. It reads:
The personal blog of Dr. John H. Watson
The rest of the page is blank, and he hasn't got the faintest idea what to put down there. Even if he had anything to tell – which he hasn't – the only people who would understand are either in the same desperate situation, or deployed in various war zones and too busy staying alive for such trivialities.
The therapist's office is a subdued room, decorated in magnolia, beige and browns, with two large, white-framed windows in the background, whose beige blinds are half-lowered, giving the room a gloomy atmosphere. They have beige-patterned brown curtains that match the wallpaper, and identical potted plants – half-dead by the looks of them – are standing in the exact middle of each windowsill.
There is a large desk, made of dark wood, in front of one of the windows, facing the room, with a swivelling armchair behind it and a brown desk lamp and a white, marble-looking Neo classical bust on the opposite desktop corners. A square grey rug covers the middle of the room, with identical armchairs facing each other – the same kind as the one behind the desk – for therapist and patient.
The place is cold, almost antiseptic, impersonal, and it makes John very uncomfortable. More than that, actually: it makes him want to scream. He keeps drumming the fingers of his useless hand on the arm of his chair to fight the urge.
The therapist herself – Ella, her name is Ella Thompson, he reminds himself – is an even-mannered black woman who wears her professional detachment with the same ease as she wears her pale rosé skirt suit and the double row of large glass bead strings around her neck. John disliked her instantly at their first meeting, although it's nothing personal. He's come to dislike all medical professionals since he got injured.
At least Ella Thompson is a professional. She may not care for John personally, but he's her patient – and how he's come to hate that word! – and therefore she'll care for him professionally. That's what she got hired for by the Army, after all: to listen to the lost souls who don't have anyone else to talk to.
John has absolutely no desire to talk to her. In fact, he despises the whole situation. But he knows he has to cooperate if he wants to keep his medical licence. Which would be kind of essential, as he won't be able to live off his Army pension alone.
Not in London. Perhaps not even somewhere in the countryside. Not that he had any intention of moving to the countryside.
"How's your blog going?" the therapist asks, startling him out of the circular path of his brooding. John clears his throat and lies.
"Yeah, good," he's determined to cooperate or die trying. "Very good."
Ella recognised the lie, of course; John is a lousy liar, mostly because he doesn't see the point of lying. But if she takes offence at being lied to, she doesn't show it. Instead, she displays that condescending professional understanding all therapists seem to have mastered to perfection and that John hates so much.
"You haven't written a word, have you?" she asks, scribbling something on the notepad on her lap.
John checks it with narrowed eyes.
"You just wrote 'Still has trust issues'," he says accusingly.
"And you read my writing upside down," she ripostes calmly, without raising her voice. "Do you see what I mean?"
John smiles awkwardly because she's right. He doesn't trust her – not because he thinks she's untrustworthy but because he knows she won't be able to understand.
No-one who hasn't seen the battlefield could.
He doesn't answer.
She collects herself, clearly preparing for the obligatory encouraging speech. John knows what's coming and fights the urge to hit her.
"John," she begins, "You're a soldier."
No shit, John thinks, but he manages not to say it out loud. Barely.
"It's going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life," she continues. "And writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you."
She clearly believes that. She clearly doesn't know shit. John looks at her with a bitter smile.
"Nothing happens to me," he says flatly.
That kills the conversation (one-sided though it might be) quite efficiently, but John doesn't mind. These sessions are mandatory but useless, and while he's required to attend them, it isn't his job to make it easy for the therapist.
At least the weather has taken a turn to the better, and he actually enjoys the rare and welcome autumn sunlight as he hobbles across Russell Square Gardens, leaning on his cane heavily.
Until somebody calls his name from behind his back, that is. "John? John Watson?"
Turning around with a frown, he needs a moment to recognise the sender, auburn-haired woman in the charcoal grey business suit who's about to rise from a sunny bench.
"Clara!" he exclaims in pleasant surprise. He's always liked his sister's wife… soon-to-be ex-wife… whatever, even though he hasn't seen her since the wedding.
That was almost six years ago, but Clara Fowles hasn't changed much. She's still as stylish and beautiful as ever, but there is a strange vulnerability in the newly formed lines around her mouth and in the corner of her eyes that the decently applied make-up can't quite cover. John is not surprised. Living with a habitual drinker can do that to a person.
Clara seems genuinely happy to see him and insists that they go to the nearby Criterion for lunch.
"I'm working for the Fortescue Bank as a floor manager," she explains. "It's only two streets away and this is my lunch break, so we should have lunch. My treat."
John tries to protest but she waves off his objections.
"John, leave it. I can afford lunch for two without making a dent in my account. And it's been too long."
John still finds it embarrassing to let her pay – he's quite old-fashioned in such things – but it's true that Clara can afford it… and it has been too long. So he gives in as gracefully as an embittered, crippled war veteran can do.
A few minutes later they are sitting in the Criterion, where John feels that he is standing out of the business crowd like a sore thumb – not that anyone seems to care. Clara, on the other hand, has clearly been born to move in this milieu, and John can't help wondering just how stupid Harry must be to give up this – to give up her – only to creep deeper into the bottle.
Sure, he isn't entirely free of bad habits, either – his gambling did get him into a tight spot from time to time, but that was mostly born of loneliness. Of the bone-deep human need to belong. To no longer be alone.
Harry, though… she had a lovely, well-of wife who stuck to her in good and in bad times, who loved her and made her feel like she was something precious… and she let it slip. John would give anything to have somebody like that in his life.
"John?" Clara touches his tightly clenched hand gently with her own soft, well-manicured one. "Are you all right?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes, fine, why?" He tries to remember whether she was talking to him for a while – and fails.
"You've zoned out on me," Clara's pale blue eyes are warm and concerned; she always cared for him, more than his own sister. "What's wrong? Talk to me."
This is the first time somebody has asked him with genuine interest, so John does just that. Only the bare facts, of course, there's no need to upset his gentle-hearted soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law with the gory details, but he does tell her the truth. About his injury, resulting in the loss of both his distinguished careers. About his living conditions – if that can be call 'living'. About the useless but mandatory psychotherapy.
Clara listens to him with shocked compassion. What he tells her is way beyond her field of experience, but at the very least she's trying to understand.
"Won't Harry be able to help?" she finally asks. "At least until you've settled down again?"
"Yeah, 'cause that's likely to happen," John replies cynically.
Clara grins at him in sudden understanding. "The two of you had a row?"
"Several epic ones, until she stopped visiting me at the hospital," John admits ruefully, and for the first time since they ran into each other, Clara laughs.
"You are both too stubborn for your own good."
"No," John corrects. "We just have very different priorities. She disapproves of my joining the Army and getting shot; and I disapprove of her drinking and walking out on her wife. After that, there isn't much common ground left."
Clara nods in understanding, and for a moment they concentrate on their lunch which is better than anything John's eaten for a very long time. Perhaps it is the company – the fact that he doesn't have to eat it alone, in his bleak little bedsit… or in a hospital room.
"What are you planning to do now?" she then asks.
"I honestly don't know," he admits with a helpless shrug. "Perhaps I can find a job as a GP – I did do that kind of work on Afghanistan a lot, between field missions."
"Treating snotty noses, prescribing antibiotics and flushing waxy ears?" she asks, raising a finely trimmed eyebrow. "You will be bored to death within a month."
"It isn't that I'd have a lot of options," he explains grimly. "At the moment, I couldn't even work as a paramedic. I don't have the strength to perform CPR for more than a few minutes without relief, due to the damage to my shoulder."
"Is there any chance of that healing?" Clara has no medical background, but even a sensitive layperson can guess what that would mean for a surgeon.
John shrugs again. "I don't know. I'll have to wait months, perhaps even years to see if the fine motor function in my fingers will ever return – right now, I don't even have any feeling in them sometimes. But even if it does return, as long as I have this bloody tremor in my hand, I won't be allowed to come anywhere near an operation theatre again."
"Does the tremor come from the injury?" Clara asks.
"From the nerve damage; or from the PTDS; or from both… it's hard to tell," John admits. "In either case, I'll never be the same again."
Her gentle, beautiful eyes clouded over with compassion and – unlike with the doctors and the nurses – it doesn't bother him because with her, it's genuine. She honestly cares about him, about his future… such as it is.
But she has a life of her own to lead, now that Harry no longer weighs her down, and she glances at her watch apologetically.
"My break is nearly over; but I do want to stay in touch. Do you have a phone? We could exchange numbers."
"I don't think that will be necessary," John pulls out the phone Harry had pressed on him during her last visit at the hospital. "I believe your number is still saved on this thing.
Clara recognises the phone, of course, and her eyes are darkening with sorrow and hurt. "She gave you her phone?"
The 'She was awfully eager to get rid of any reminder of me' hangs between them in the air, unspoken.
"She does have the odd moment of generosity," John replies, deliberately misinterpreting his sister's gesture.
"As long as you're able to pay for the calls," Clara returns with brutal honesty, and John loves her for that. He's sick and tired of people walking on eggshells around him.
"In any case," she continues, "that will make it easier to reach you," she waves to the waiter to pay the bill and then rises. "I'm sorry, but I'll have to go now. Duty calls. Don't be a stranger," she then adds, kissing him on the cheeky, and then she's gone, leaving a faint smell of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.
John stares after her for a moment, wondering why all the best ones are always gay – well, lesbian in this particular case – or taken… or both. Then he, too, gets to his feet and leaves the Criterion.
He narrowly misses the big, chubby, good-natured man carrying a medical kit who comes in with the second wave of the lunch crowd.
Back to the miserable little foxhole he still refuses to think of as 'home', he takes out his laptop again. So far, he's made a total of 3 entries: one on December 14 with the title 'Nothing" and no actual words in the body of the blog; one on the next day titled 'Pointless', with the declarations Nothing happens to me, and a third one in this very morning, asking the world at large: How do I delete this?
Not that he'd believe in the usefulness of writing a blog, but if doing so gets Ella out of his hair, he can make a meaningless post from time to time.
Carefully, with two fingers and favouring his injured shoulder as much as he can, he types into the subject line: Happy now? And into the body of the blog: Look, Ella, I'm writing my blog – and presses the post button before he can change his mind. Ella isn't going to like that, but at least she can't say that he isn't cooperating.
At the same moment his email pings, and the phone buzzes an alert in his pocket simultaneously. John opens his email and stares at the notification in the corner of the screen,
Comment on your entry 'Pointless', it says. Surprised, John scales back to the entry… and his heart jumps into his throat at once. The comment is from Bill Murray. His former Army nurse. The one who saved his life – a deed he still doesn't know whether he should be grateful or bitter about.
Hi Cap, the message says. I tried emailing you, but it bounced back. How's things? I'm in London for the next two months. Do you fancy meeting up?
For a moment John isn't entirely sure that he wants to meet up with Bill Murray, despite the fact that the man did save his life. Bill was part of his former life; he knew Captain Watson, the battlefield trauma surgeon who used to operate under enemy fire calmly and competently, not this… this wreck he's become.
And yet he knows he won't be able to resist. Particularly because Bill used to know the real him, the man none of his old acquaintances in London ever got to see.
The man he isn't any longer and will never be again.
He doesn't want to answer via blog comment, though. Outsiders don't need to follow every aspect of his life. Fortunately, he has Bill's number saved to Harry's phone. Still unsure if that's truly a good idea, he dials the number.
They meet up in an old-fashioned little pub John knows from his university days. It's one of those places tourists never find, which is why he likes it. There are slot machines in the background and the telly above the counter shows some insignificant football play, a re-run from the previous week, but the volume is low enough to provide a pleasant, nondescript background noise.
Bill Murray doesn't look any different than he did a couple of months ago when they last met. He's a somewhat stockily built man in his mid-thirties, with curly blond hair and pale blue eyes, his features somewhat roughly-hewn, as if cut with an axe, although he's the mildest-mannered soldier – well, Army nurse – John's met in the fifteen years of his active duty.
He also seems genuinely happy to see John, It's a relief that he takes in John's current state with a single look (he has seen the wound in all its horrible technicolour glory first-hand, after all) and ignores it for the rest of their get-together. Even though his experienced eye seems to notice how John keeps clenching and unclenching his left hand.
Instead, he treats John with a detailed report about his recent wedding, including photos – real ones, not the sorry – substitute on his phone, although he does have those, too – provides John with the latest gossip about their shared Army friends, and finally with the news about Major Sholto, which is more than a little depressing.
It's a shame that something like that had to happen to such a fine officer, but life is seldom fair. John could sing a ballad of his own about that.
Only when they've discussed everything belonging to the past, only then does Bill ask about John's future plans. John gives him the same answer he gave Clara. And just like Clara, Bill finds the idea of Captain John Watson, RAMC, treating runny noses and ingrown toenails hard to imagine.
"That's not the John Watson I know," he comments, trying to go for a joke.
John doesn't look at him.
"Yes, perhaps I'm not the John Watson any more," he replies bitterly. Then, after a lengthy silence, he turns the tables. "What about you?"
Bill shrugs, looks to the side, a little embarrassed.
"I've finished my tour while you were in rehab and am getting an honourable discharge within the month. Then I'm gonna qualify myself as a civilian paramedic."
The news surprises John more than anything he's heard since his return to London.
"You're leaving the Army?" He always thought Bill was as dedicated a soldier as he himself.
Bill shrugs again. "Yeah, I never thought I would give it up voluntarily, but… the missus doesn't want to become a widow before due time, and I can understand that."
John can understand it, too… theoretically. He can't imagine giving up the very purpose of his life just to please someone else, though. But again, he as to meet a woman yet who'd be worth such a drastic step.
Well… who would have been worth it. The choice was taken out of his hand in the moment that bullet ripped through his shoulder.
He doesn't ask Bill if he has any regrets. He's happy for his old comrade to have found such a special someone… even if it makes him feel the weight of his loneliness even more. Bill has made his choice and is obviously content with it, and that is what counts.
They talk for another hour or so, the topic moving on to football (Bill, mostly) and to rugby, which is John's favourite sport. Then they part company, promising to stay in touch, now that Bill is back in England for good – and then John is alone again.
Still, meeting up with Bill helped to lift his spirits ever so slightly, and he decides to do something about his so-called future, too.
Job-hunting is added to the required activities of the upcoming week.
~TBC~
Note: I realise that some things I say here about John's career and future probably doesn't match the reality of the British health system. Neither does a lot of what it's said in the show itself, according to the very knowledgeable wellingtongoose, so I'm at least in good company. Chalk it up for the necessary dramatic effect. *g*