Disclaimer: I do not own characters and I don't make any profits on writing.
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Author's note: Arianka – thanks!
Critical state
John Hamish Watson, a doctor and a captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers learned to live with the war rhythm, these long, very long times of the immense boredom and waiting interspersed by shorter ones, when the waiting lacked of this boredom, and even shorter times of the overwhelming chaos. But only when he got to know his colleagues' work from the other side and when the war ended for him, when he found himself in the noise of London, with a veteran card and a walking stick in his hand, he understood how much this rhythm of war became second nature to him.
So when that slim man with strangely pale eyes acted so openly towards him, as if they had already spent many Afghan winters in the same barrack, and when he offered him sharing a flat, Watson agreed without hesitating, glad that he didn't have to explain who he was and what he was doing. It soon turned up that his new flatmate lived with the war rhythm too and Watson's world was normal again. The doctor almost heard the crack, as if a dislocated joint went back on its place, when the reality was again made of the time of waiting and the time of chaos.
So he had his war or maybe its substitute and he had a comrade-in-arms. But war reminded him of its other feature. That the people who fought could disappear in one moment. And so doctor Watson had to watch helplessly as the dark silhouette was falling from the roof, like he had watched a smashed helicopter or a transporter burning on a mine. But this time there were no colleagues he could curse or cry with, or just know that they had watched too.
Oh, of course there were other people. But Mrs. Hudson, despite her open mind, didn't know anything about the war loneliness. About what made you trust someone more than yourself. She couldn't know what was it like to be a soldier and suddenly find himself away from war. Maybe John could look for her support, she suffered too after all, but during last year and a half he had learned to protect her, just like Sherlock had used to. He didn't want to burden her with his feelings.
There was also Greg Lestrade, Detective Inspector Lestrade. He knew the war on the London streets. He knew and understood it, but John in his grief and loss still couldn't forget the cold of the handcuffs on his wrist and that crazy run. He couldn't trust. For him, Lestrade had stood on the other side when he came to arrest Sherlock. Because there were sides. That night there was John Hamish Watson and Sherlock Holmes. The rest of the world were enemies, these declared ones and these who were just disturbing: potential allies and possible innocent victims. Civilians who weren't concerned by the war and who shouldn't have been on it. So Lestrade was outside John's world too. A world, in which doctor Watson needed only one thing – a man who would understand what he felt, who could be trusted enough to allow himself to feel.
He tried to explain it all to Ella, knowing that the therapist really wanted to help him. But like she couldn't guide him between the world of war and the world of peace earlier, she couldn't do it now, at least in his mind.
"It will pass, John," she kept saying, professionally calm and warm. "You know it will. You just have to name what you feel and accept it."
"And I don't?"
"You said that, John."
"If you say so..."
"You can't run away from it, John."
"I am not."
"Yes, you are. You keep escaping, building an illusion around yourself. It is a dangerous way for soldier, and you still try to be one."
Watson sighed. It had no sense. Though the therapist was trying to help him, he couldn't tell her what he felt. He guessed that in her mind he was again on the beginning of the road he had to make to exist again. Maybe she was right, but he couldn't do that. Not in front of her. The history repeated itself and John felt like he had felt before that meeting in the park. Except the fact that the war in London wasn't an illusion. And if so, he had to live with its rules.
So John Hamish Watson woke up every morning in a rent room, ate and went out. He visited his therapist, but he usually walked around London streets, trying to tire himself enough to sleep without dreams. To make the pain in his leg shade everything else he felt.
He lived because he was too stubborn to let the war win.
For the time being.
Xxx
Greg Lestrade had had many cases, more or less difficult. There were some he forgot about in the moment he closed the acts, but there were also ones returning then in bad dreams. But the worst nightmare was feeling helpless. And so, in desperation and attempt to defend himself from that feeling, he had once broken rules and asked for help a person he could never officially call his friend. He withstood his fancies, his harsh comments, strange wishes, but he was sure that this friend would lead him to the end of the case, so Inspector would be able to breathe freely again.
He didn't foresee one thing, though. His friend took cases not only from him, and there were some so complicated that one day he himself became a case for Greg. He was suspected, arrested, a fugitive and at the end he was a body in the morgue and left Lestrade ungrateful obligation to inform his family. A painful obligation, but also theending the whole story. All inspector was left were the consequences of his first decision.
And then it appeared that in fact it wasn't the end and that the case was still in progress.
To be continued…
