Author's Note: Yet again, a John-centric post-Reichenbach piece. This one was inspired by Jason Walker's "This City Never Sleeps"; I would highly recommend listening to it, before or after reading, because for me, it's very, very evocative of John and the immediate aftermath of Sherlock's fall.
Lestrade's managed to work his way into this story, as well. I've always liked him, but I think he's really growing on me still.
As always, thanks for taking a look, and do leave your thoughts if you've a mind. :)
One Last Ceremony
The afternoon of the funeral is a grey one. Not dark, not raining, not cold, just—grey.
It is the kind of day that brings a hush and a numbness with it, like the laying of a very sheer veil over every image and every landscape. The stillness is overwhelming. And yet, when the wind picks up—a warm, soft, caressing type of wind—you suddenly find yourself feeling more alive than you had on all the wet or brilliantly sunny days that might have come before.
It is the kind of day that begs for one of two things: to sit, quietly, with tea and bare feet and the warm glow of lamplight, or to walk—to walk on and on, thoughtlessly, into the wind and the blank, grey sky; to see faces without noticing them, and to hear your own breath more loudly than the passing of a whole street of city cars.
But as much as he wants to, John can do neither, because there is no force on earth that could have kept him from facing the ceremony that he sees before him now.
John dislikes ceremony. He dislikes the fuss that is made for the simplest things—things like honour, and remembrance, and human decency. Things like death. There is always something about it that rings false in his ears, though no one ever means it like that. But why pour pomp and circumstance around something that comes as naturally as the cycle of life itself?
That, he knows, is a rhetorical question, anyway. He knows why people do it, and respects their need to do so.
The kind of ceremony that John does like is the kind that isn't stiff, or black, or gilt-edged. It's tradition—the things of habit that become more important the longer you practise them, and these are almost always the little things you hardly notice until they're gone. Shouts come to mind, and stacks of crime-scene photographs, and smoke alarms in a second-floor flat.
Chinese take-out. Finding a clean mug. Taxis. Newspapers. Bad soaps on the telly. Fetch me my revolver.
John shuts his eyes, and opens them slowly again.
This ceremony is small, at least. He can see the man responsible for that standing nearby, a tall, long-coated figure with a stony mask of an expression not unlike John's own. He has angled his body away from the grave, and John can see his white-knuckled hand clenched around the smooth handle of an umbrella—the hand that is the only sign that Mycroft Holmes feels much more than a polite, passing regret at the whole business.
As the ceremony concludes, John continues to look at the grave, long after anyone else does so. It becomes harder with each second that passes, but he raises his chin slightly and does not back down, but keeps looking, because he needs to make sure that he realises, in as much totality as possible, that this has happened, and that he will be carrying it with him for the rest of his life.
Part of him still asks for understanding. Part of him will always be asking for that, because there is no one who can give it—and if there had been, he realises, clenching his jaw a little tighter, he wouldn't be needing it. God, but this is complicated.
His gaze drops, eventually, but at least it is of his own accord. His shoulders remain squared, his back straight, and it is another moment before he turns, with every intention of walking deliberately away again. He manages a few steps along the hard, dulled earth before movement catches his eye, and he doesn't need to look right away to know who is approaching.
John waits now, giving it a few seconds before he does a precise about-face and looks squarely into the eyes of a Mycroft who appears slightly startled at how quickly he's been turned on.
Nothing is said, at first. Half-questions and broken answers flutter silently between them, implicit in every movement of an eye and every slight twitch around a brow or lip. Another second passes, and John can see something more solid forming behind the other man's gaze—the calm and icy diplomat rallying where the shaken brother has lost his hold.
Like hell, John thinks. He isn't going to let that happen.
Right now, he wants nothing to do with Mycroft. He does not yet know whether he will forgive the other man, or whether he even can, but it isn't that simple; because something still lurks at the back of John's mind that tells him he doesn't know everything that's happened, and that there may yet be something more to it (It? The Fall? Mycroft's guilt?) and that to jump to conclusions so soon is perhaps not the wisest course of action. But that doesn't matter anyway, because to be quite honest, John just doesn't want to think about any of it.
Mycroft opens his mouth, draws a soft breath, but John beats him to it.
"Don't," he says.
One word, and nothing else. One word that Mycroft has heard before. But he knows that Mycroft will recognise it for what it is—not a plea, but a quiet command.
And though he is and remains a man with a thousand invisible strings at his call, Mycroft lifts his chin, and obeys.
He says nothing.
John breaks eye contact and turns away, his features still tight. There is no satisfaction, only a ragged sort of relief. He, too, is wordless all the way across the grey cemetery, but that is just as well, for he has no one to talk to, and no one he'd want to if he did. He glances back, just once, to make sure that Mycroft has not set anyone following him just in case, and focuses in time to see the other man walking steadily back toward the car park at the side of the church. John will return there, too, but only when everyone else has gone, and he is left, again, alone.
He makes another round of the cemetery perimeter, but does not return to the grave. Then he does it again, and a third time, until the path has become familiar; and then, at least, he knows he will be able to come back here later on without the sharp, stabbing feeling that he is walking into a place that is totally alien.
Mycroft has left a cab waiting for him by the church. The driver assures him that there's no need to get out his wallet, and the rest of the journey passes in silence.
John does not return to Baker Street that night. He rings Mrs Hudson before the cab stops, to let her know that everything's fine and that he just needs space for himself right now. It's true, but it's also more than that; after the cemetery, where he was forced to face exactly who was being buried there, it is too much to go back to the flat and realise the emptiness of who is not there, and too much to draw the final connection between the two.
He hasn't given the driver any direction, and they keep going until John picks a spot at random and gets out. He reaches for his wallet out of habit before a look from the cabbie reminds him that this is one favour already done for him.
There is nothing to do here—no place to go, no one to talk to. He has only a vague idea of where he is, and welcomes it.
Tonight, for John Watson, London is sleeping.
He walks. On and on, letting lights and faces and sounds and voices surround him without ever touching him, without ever making themselves more than a gentle hum at the back of his mind. His eyes are downcast at first, focussing on the dark tops of his shoes and the night-lit strips of pavement passing beneath them. He walks, and breathes, and walks on.
And though the city seems soft, and numb, and dark, John slowly begins to feel more alive than he ever has before.
Alive, and it is the quietest feeling of all, for the longer he walks, the more each breath and each footstep reminds him that he is here. He has wilfully dulled his senses against the pursuit of the surrounding, glowing city, and yet in his isolation there is something he has never felt before—a stark, terribly clear realisation that he is completely and utterly present, here in this moment, and that in this moment also he has come up empty. He feels everything, and nothing, because his everything has suddenly become nothing, and now he is trapped.
For a moment, he pauses, contemplating those walls that enclose him. Then he quietly builds them up, and keeps going. One foot in front of the other. Destination: nowhere.
But all he really needs is the pattern—the predictability of repetition, and a rapidly-formed habit, and he can convince himself that, for a while, nothing else matters.
At the very end, when his legs feel numb from his hours of wandering, he walks to Russell Square Gardens.
Because that's where it all started, isn't it? Other people might say it was Bart's lab, but for John, he will always remember that he took that shortcut through the park, and in a matter of hours, his life had been turned upside down, and he had never looked back.
He stops at the bench where he had heard the very first mention of Sherlock Holmes. Hardly a setting that reads 'life-changing', he thinks. He stares at it for a long time, letting his eyes adjust, and then he sits down.
As he sits there, silently, unmoving, John feels his layers of restraint beginning to crack just a little, and he drops his head into his hands. Long, slow breaths and a forcefully blank mind bring him back from the edge, and a few minutes later, he feels that he is enough in control to acknowledge one thing, right now: no matter what levels of hell the next years of his life bring, he will not regret the past two. He has to remain firmly convinced that it was all worth it, because if he can't believe that, why is he going through the terrible blankness that he is now?
Swallowing hard, John raises his head again. He's looking at something else besides the air in front of him when he whispers, "Thank you."
The bench is empty five minutes later. John flags down another taxi, and it is not too long before he is standing outside a door, and Lestrade is opening it. The DI looks less surprised that one might have expected, and the only questions he asks are whether John has eaten yet and how many pillows he wants.
Lestrade makes tea, but John has dropped, exhausted, onto the sofa, and is asleep within minutes. Without a word, the other man drapes a blanket over his friend, drinks both cups of tea to keep himself awake, and settles in the lumpy armchair at the other corner of the coffee table.
When John awakens suddenly at four in the morning, his features pale and open and despairing, Lestrade is there to put a hand on his shoulder and to quietly encourage him back to sleep. It takes a long time, but eventually John's shaking subsides, and his breathing becomes normal. Lestrade leans back in his chair and passes a hand over his eyes.
Whatever lingering resentments there may still be between them don't matter right now. It's likely that Baker Street will be empty within the week, and after that, John will be alone for a long time. It is the least that Lestrade can do to put that off, for now.
I'm sorry, he says silently. I'm sorry. I guess this is my apology.
Setep Ka Tawy has written a gorgeous companion piece to this called "Time To Say Goodbye". Do have a look, if you're interested in Sherlock's perspective on this night. :)