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BACK STORY TO THIS CHAPTER:
From the very beginning, whenever Mycroft snatched John away "for little talks" about Sherlock, John had usually been disadvantaged by the timing, place, and nature of these meetings.
In this scene from TRF, however, John chooses the timing, controls the topic, and dominates his meeting with Mycroft. And although John appears composed for the duration, the subtext of his seething fury and fears, borne from his allegiance to Sherlock, deserves greater scrutiny. (Without question, the masterful performance by Martin Freeman is riveting and chilling.)
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It was worse than he had imagined.
Whilst awaiting Mycroft in the private room at the Diogenes Club, John thoroughly reviewed the contents of Kitty Riley's folder on Sherlock, the truth mixed with the lies. The details she had collected from Sherlock's real life were staggering. In fact, some of the contents John had never known, but they appeared true. Some he had picked up anecdotally, from the Holmes brothers, from Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, Mike Stamford, everyone who knew Sherlock before John had entered his life. There was even evidence of personal documents John had seen in their flat.
How else could she have got her hands on these except from…?
The whole picture she had assembled for her damaging exposé, spanning years, was like one enormous jigsaw puzzle. Only someone who was intimate with the great detective—a number counted on one hand—would be able to discern the fabricated pieces from the authentic ones.
Hearing Mycroft cross the threshold behind him, John imagined the powerful man's dismay upon discovering him seated, back turned away, in one of the fine leather mahogany chairs. Using this tactical advantage of surprise, the ex-soldier immediately took the offensive.
"She has really done her homework, Miss Riley —" Giving a disapproving shake of his head, John slapped the papers on his knee, twisted toward the doorway behind him where the elder Holmes stood, and acknowledged Mycroft's presence with a sidelong glance. "These things that only someone close to Sherlock could know." It was a statement of hard facts, spoken by a man in firm control, both of his simmering temper and the room. Yes, he had learned well from the Holmes brothers. Sentiment and emotion would have been thrown back in his face. The only indicator that conveyed his bottled rage was that he remained seated. Trained to stand in deference to his superiors, John did not rise from his chair when Mycroft entered the room. He had lost respect for the man he blamed for Sherlock's predicament.
"Ah," was Mycroft's inadequate reply.
As the elder Holmes closed the polished wood-paneled door, John suspected, Mycroft had some trepidation about John's unbidden appearance. The tables had been turned at last. Unlike so many of their previous encounters, John had not been summoned or abducted, nor caught off guard by the machinations of the supreme but invisible power wielded by Mycroft Holmes. John finally held the upper hand, and he gladly used it.
"Have you seen your brother's address book lately? Two names…" John gestured with the loose pages in frustration, pointing first to Mycroft than pounding his own chest with them. "…Yours and mine." His eyes, fixed with contempt, were trained on Mycroft who slowly walked by, "…and Moriarty didn't get this stuff from me."
"John…" With his umbrella in his right hand, his attaché case in the left, Mycroft paused in front of the seated combatant, looking down, as if he could intimidate John with his towering figure, like he tried in the past.
Not intimidated before, John was certainly not intimidated now; nor would he yield his advantage. Dismissing Mycroft's insufferable voice, he continued to gain ground by dominating the interrogation. "So how does it work, then? Your relationship? D'you go out for a coffee now and then, eh, you and Jim?"
Seeming resigned to the unavoidable confrontation, Mycroft had reluctantly seated himself in an identical chair facing the doctor, deposited his attaché case on the floor, and clasped the umbrella like a monarch's sceptre. Even as Mycroft opened his mouth to respond, John wouldn't let him utter a word.
"Your OWN brother," John waved the pages with a bluster and rage that choked his voice, making him feel breathless, "and you BLABBED about his entire life TO THIS MANIAC." With impeccable aim his words drove through the heart of the target.
Looking shamed and defeated, Mycroft swallowed softly, arched his eyebrows, and dropped his gaze. "I never inten..., I never dreamt ..." His right hand rose in weak protest.
Interrupting again, John couldn't bear hearing the turncoat's excuses. "So this ...th-th-this —" His eyes fell to the pages in his left hand, flipping from one to another before he leveled his glare on Mycroft once more. "... is what you were trying to tell me, isn't it: 'Watch his back, 'cause I've made a mistake.'" With one final sweeping gesture, he swung the papers to his right and smacked them down on table beside his chair.
Drawing in a sharp breath, John bowed his head and released a sullen sigh. It took only a moment to regain his self-control. When he raised his head, his eyes were clear and focused on Mycroft. "How did you meet him?"
Mycroft seemed restrained and hesitant. "People like him," words moved slowly through his viscous voice, "we know about them; we watch them. But James Moriarty," Mycroft's face wore a mix of admiration and dread, "... the most dangerous criminal mind the world has ever seen, and in his pocket? The ultimate weapon: a keycode." His hand parted the air like a door opening. "A few lines of computer code that could unlock any door."
"And you," John looked ceiling ward for the right word, "abducted him?" His change of tone, his emphasis on the word indicated he was aware of the irony, "to try and find the keycode?"
"Interrogated him for weeks," Mycroft's focus turned inward as he recalled the events: "He just sat there, staring into the darkness…The only thing that made him open up ... I could get him to talk ... just a little, but ... "
He didn't have to finish, John understood.
"... in return you had to offer him Sherlock's life story." The doctor quickly made the connection. "So one big lie—Sherlock's a fraud—but people will swallow it because the rest of it's true." John didn't need to say "okay, I get it;" his hand gesture of thumb touching fore finger expressed it for him. Tilting his head to reconsider the skewed logic of sacrificing Sherlock for Moriarty, John pressed a forefinger to his lips and raised his brows with sudden incredulity —it was all TOO unbelievably OUTRAGEOUS. But as he shifted forward in his seat, a seismic shift in his emotion occurred—savage rage trembled beneath the surface. "Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed, right? And you have given him…" John delivered the last two words with cataclysmic intensity "…the perfect ammunition."
A fierce grin that compelled Mycroft to bow his head with remorse lingered on John's face. Inhaling with a deep sigh, John quickly pulled to his feet and turned to go.
"John ..." Mycroft appealed.
John paused and looked down, realizing he felt complete disgust for the man.
"I'm sorry." The words seemed surreal, distant, coming from an introspective Mycroft.
"Oh, please ... " John sneered with a bitter laugh, but as he headed out of the room—purposefully leaving the door wide open behind him—he could not shake the sense of desolation that followed him.
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"Sod off, the lot of you!" John Watson thought aloud, grumbling under his breath. His fists curled by his side, he strode through the sitting room of the Diogenes Club. Stormed through was more like it, though none of the "most unsociable and unclubbable men in town" took notice, which was all well and good.
Curbing his roiling anger after his "little talk" with Mycroft, John wanted to roar at the top of his lungs and drive the silent and sleeping club members right out of their upholstered chairs as he passed, but his common sense maintained control. Once, he had been nearly expelled for loudly demanding to see Mycroft Holmes, but tonight John needed to keep a low profile. He was certain the Met would apprehend him soon enough for evading arrest. Chinning the Chief Superintendent was his crime, although his "escape" was at gunpoint as Sherlock's hostage. However, they were both still fugitives of the law, and despite Lestrade's sympathies, John knew they were on borrowed time.
Yet, the stunt did buy them a little more time, and time was what they needed to rip out the seeds of doubt that had been sown by Moriarty's plan. Richard Brook was the fake, not Sherlock Holmes! John could only hope Sherlock had a solid plan underway by now. When they had parted earlier that evening, his friend seemed to be onto something. With few other options of his own, John had decided Mycroft could use both a late-night visitor and, based upon his own suspicions, a sound thrashing.
Sound thrashing delivered, John did not feel better. He couldn't get away fast or far enough from the manipulators who played with real peoples' lives. His bad day had become a very bad night. He could only hope that the nightmare would end by morning.
A sudden gut-wrenching sensation hit John, nearly doubling him over, and he raised a steadying hand in the doorway to the alley. Although surprised, John immediately recognized his PTSD symptoms exacerbated, he imagined, by the serious allegations with which Sherlock was being charged, the smear campaign against Sherlock's reputation, and the inevitable incarceration unless they could fight the lies. John knew that if he closed his eyes, the tug of anxiety would make him feel as though he was falling from a great height, so he resisted.
"Damn you, Mycroft!" John scrubbed down his face and blinked several times to reset his sensory perception. If the plan had worked, Mycroft would have been using his influence to set things right. Instead, moments ago, John had learned the truth. What influence? he scoffed. Mycroft was worse than useless.
As careful to depart the Diogenes Club as he was to arrive, John ducked his way out through the service door and into an alley where he leaned against the masonry wall to think things through. With the promise of dawn, the night sky was beginning to pale much like John's former hope that Mycroft would have provided assistance.
"I'm sorry." Admitted the formidable brain-trust within the British government—the man who was so closely tied to the British Secret Service, it was unimaginable he couldn't pull some strings. Instead he seemed genuinely distraught by his helplessness, which sickened John even more. Mycroft's final words echoed in John's mind. "Tell him, would you?" John had often left their past "meetings" in a sour mood; tonight he tasted indescribable bitterness.
"Geezus!" His stomach clenched again, and he shook his head as if trying to clear his mind of unsummoned emotions he feared to name. Mycroft's betrayal was not something John had ever seen coming. Without Mycroft's aid, they were truly and terribly alone.
Tremendous foreboding, grief, and weariness gripped John. His legs were suddenly too tired to bear his weight. Sliding slowly down against the wall, he slumped to the ground, settling on his haunches in a crouching position.
Sherlock, my brilliant friend, if you cannot protect yourself, what could I—an ordinary man—possibly do to save you?
Cupping his face into his uplifted palms, John massaged his stinging eyes, his mind too fatigued to sort out the web of deceits strangling the truth he protected in his heart. As an army doctor, he knew the dangers of succumbing to utter desperation, often identified as Combat Stress Reaction. In Afghanistan, Captain John Watson, MD, BAMF had seen it as a direct result of the trauma of war in the soldiers he would treat. He had observed their despondency, their sluggish reaction times, their disassociation with their surroundings, and their inability to find order or decide priorities in the simplest tasks.
In the face of what seemed to be a most hopeless situation, John realized how easy it would be to surrender to CSR and teeter into the abyss of despair.
But despair was the real enemy. Despair was the coward's retreat, and John Watson would not be a coward. He had never before felt so vulnerable, but he would be strong, he would protect his friend because he feared he was Sherlock's one and only… hope.
Lifting his head from his hands, he raised his eyes skyward recalling a soldier's prayer and softly murmured those all-too-familiar words that spoke of strength and courage derived from the Almighty:
… Sustainer of all mankind… Be thou their strength when they are set in the midst of so many and great dangers….
Taking a moment to find solace in this silence, John dropped his head to his chest, swallowed hard, and inhaled deeply. Then he raised himself up along with his spirits, back to his feet once more, and knew it was time to push through and carry on.
But where to now? Their flat was under surveillance. Contacting Lestrade would only get him locked up at NSY, held for bail, and leave Sherlock totally without support. To what bolt hole did Sherlock retreat, where, chances were, he was formulating an opposing strategy?
On cue, as if the Sustainer of all mankind and his friend had heard his thoughts, John received a one-word text that spoke volumes: Bart's.
Setting his chin in defiance against the odds, he straightened his shoulders and pulled in a long deep breath. He would not show Sherlock any weakness. If nothing else, this was the least he could do. Ordinary or not, John would find some way to help as long as Sherlock needed his trust, needed his belief, needed him.
Whatever else Sherlock needed, John Watson was willing to do, even if he had to die trying.
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Your feedback/review is always greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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A.N. [spoiler] (We know later that Mycroft did not forsake Sherlock, but John does not know this when he confronts him at the Diogenes Club.)
Special thanks to englishtutor for her unflagging encouragement, indispensable help, and faith in me. Also, while I do diligently review (over and over and over) Sherlock episodes to transcribe dialog (over which I claim no rights) from the BBC show, I shortened my labors immensely again, during the course of composing this fanfiction, thanks to the wonderful and brilliant transcripts by Ariane DeVere aka Callie Sullivan to whom I am now greatly indebted.
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