I haven't been on in a while, but I found that I had some free time today so I pulled up Word and got to writing!
Summary: It took lifetimes of near misses, but never, in any of those lifetimes, had Sherlock Holmes and John Watson not met. The universe would simply not allow it.
Also, Series 3? Anybody? Anybody? Those 3 episodes deserve all the awards! Every. Single. One.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock.
From the fabric of realities (and destiny)
They meet at St. Barts in 1881.
They're both just a little bit scruffier, and a little bit older, but they're the same nevertheless. Dr. John H. Watson is a soldier recently invalided home, and Sherlock Holmes is just a man with calloused fingers from playing the violin.
But they're both there, standing in the same room, their eyes flickering over the other's for a second too long, and then, ever so slightly, they can feel the universe crack and shift into place.
They meet in a bookshop in London just after World War II ends in 1945.
The smell of vintage books and well-read pages waft through the smoke-polluted air, but the air is clear enough that John Watson can see another man about to barrel into him, seemingly stressed and oblivious to the man standing in front of him.
But, for some odd reason that John cannot place, he does not move out of the way – he lets the man with the piercing blue eyes crash into him, and the man in question stands, unblinking, on the spot in front of him surrounded by books on the carpeted floor.
The man shrugs the books that have fallen on him away from his lap and dusts his coat, and John Watson finds that he is rooted to his spot on the ground, watching the other man stand up gracefully.
Then the man looks at him, finally looks, and there's something that flickers in his eyes that goes by so quickly that John is unable to decipher what it is. But John feels something tug at his heart and at his soul when the other man lends a hand to pull him back up on his feet.
(It's the start of a new chapter in both of their lives, with a quill and ink at the ready, and the fact that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meet in a bookshop makes it all the more fitting.)
They meet on a train in 1976.
The loud hum of the engines disturbs Sherlock Holmes from his deep musings, but he dismisses this as the cause of the disturbance when he sees a short, sandy blonde-haired man with grey flecks hover at the sliding door of his compartment, his blue eyes gazing softly at his very own lighter ones.
"I'm sorry, but this is the only place left on the train."
Sherlock hums and waves his hand for the man to sit down, and his heart beats and slips just a little when the man smiles at him brightly (no one has ever really smiled at him before, he's not worth the effort).
He proceeds with his customary gaze on the man in front of him, but, unlike the others, the man doesn't seem to be perturbed at all, but rather, staring at him in wonder.
"What are you staring at?"
Sherlock glances up at the man, a tendril of his dark curls hanging loosely over his face, and tells him.
"You."
(Both men can't help but feel that something like this has happened before.)
They meet at an airport in 1995.
John has just missed his flight back to London by mere minutes and by sheer lack of time management on his part and Sherlock Holmes is just walking through the airport to get at his gate.
Both men are ten feet apart, and both men have no reason to choose the other when John timidly asks when the next flight to London is. He could have asked the pretty brunette at the shop beside him, or he could have asked the burly redheaded man standing in front of him, but for some reason, some inexplicable reason, John was drawn to the man standing – walking – ten feet in front of him.
He taps him on the shoulder, and the man with the wild curly hair spins quickly and John catches a glimpse of two very beautiful and very sharp blue eyes.
(They look like the sky.)
"I…er…sorry, but I was wondering if you knew when the next flight to London was?" John asks softly.
The features of the man in front of him soften, and he replies in a deep baritone voice, "2:30."
John feels something inside him snap and shift, and suddenly, he's felt more complete than he's ever been in his life.
Sherlock Holmes stands, blinking at the shorter man in front of him, when he sees something dance in the eyes of the man opposite him, and for someone who has made himself cold, Sherlock Holmes feels something akin to warmth spread across his heart.
"I'm on that flight. Care to join me?"
(Both men wander aimlessly together until they reach their gate, two minutes before departure, but feeling as whole as they could ever be, like something had been missing in their lives until that very moment.)
They meet at St. Barts in 2010.
This time, they're both just a little bit sharper, and a little bit younger. But both men feel as drawn to one another as they did nearly a hundred and thirty years ago. Dr. John H. Watson is a soldier invalided home from Afghanistan, and Sherlock Holmes is just a man with a closed off ice heart that is beginning to thaw.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?"
And John Watson knows that he has heard those words before. He hears them as echoes and whispers in his dreams, he heard them on the white-hot desert in Afghanistan, he heard them when he got shot. He's heard those words before, but he's just not sure how many times.
Once? Twice? John Watson doesn't know how many times he's heard those words before, all he knows is that they have been following him (and they haven't stopped).
And Sherlock Holmes sees the man in front of him. The man he has seen before in his rare dreams. The man who has been a ghost all his life, casting a shadow by his side for who knows how long (Sherlock Holmes doesn't like not knowing). But he has seen him.
Neither knows that the universe has been waiting for this. The stars and skies have been waiting for this moment to finally break and shift into place, because if there was one thing that the universe would get right, it was that Sherlock Holmes would have his John Watson, and the doctor would get his detective.
(The universe doesn't care if it doesn't get everything right, just as long as it gets this.)
They meet in the afterlife.
Their heaven is 221B Baker Street. The books and the furniture is just how it's always been, the curtains are flowing wistfully, and there's a faint smell of burnt acid in the air.
And it's just them. Just Sherlock and John. Like it's supposed to be.
There's a sound of a violin playing a melody, and the dance of floating dust by the windows, but the universe can finally rest, because their job is finally done.
(Everything has led up to this.)
It took lifetimes of near misses when John Watson was just a corner away from meeting Sherlock Holmes, or not-so near misses when Sherlock Holmes was hundreds of miles away from John Watson. But both of them, always, always, felt like there was someone waiting. The universe and the fabric of reality would tear and rip if Sherlock Holmes had not met John Watson. The stars would be in pain and shine brighter than ever as they start crying and burning when they would witness Sherlock Holmes and John Watson without one another. Because if there was anything, anything, that would make a star cry, it was a detective without his doctor, and a doctor without his detective.
And then there it is, just before the universe closes its eyes, the faint vision of a pale detective reaching out for his doctor, and the apparition of a doctor placing and locking hands with his detective.
The faint echo of a voice sounding through the ghostly air rings out, and the universe knows that it's finally time to sleep.
"I met you in 1881."
"I know."
And then they know. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson know everything. They can see the fabric of reality shudder and shift as they watch the lives they held flicker past their eyes. All those lifetimes, all those meetings, all those destinies leading up to their own personal forever.
Because now, they never have to meet again. They are stuck in their own ghostly world, in their own heaven, where time stands still and forever is inevitable, where they can live and breathe to the song of their many lives, undisturbed and untouched, until the world burns and they are nothing but stardust wandering through space.
So they dance to the violin, swiftly and wistfully, just as whispers of ghosts, but truly and undoubtedly alive.
(Because forever starts here. And forever is enough.)
That was cheesy. But I like cheesy :3 I'm a sucker for the universe planning things out, and destiny and such. And there's just a slight touch of Doctor Who here, don't you think? To be honest, I don't know what spurred this on, maybe because of the 'the universe is rarely so lazy' line about coincidences. So I guess I got to thinking that everything happens for a reason, so obviously, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meeting one another was anything but a coincidence.
Anyway, leave a review my lovely Sherlockians?
Have a cookie! :D