"Mind does not feel sorrow, if for it happiness is unknown. Heart does not weep for those who are unable to call for its sympathy. No being grieves for the blood of fish, but tears may fall, for bird stolen from its wing's. Blessed are those, who have voice."
Simple, undeniable truth, prove of live. Heart beat. Like he had never felt anything like that, so strong, like his whole existence was about that rhythm. The sound of it echoed in his chest, calling back distant memories, more dream like, than something that had actually happened. Images of nightmare, that has never been more than blurry vision trough closed lids. It makes mind question reality itself, but at the same time it tells him, that he had consiousness, and he was really here. Where ever this 'there' was.
From somewhere so far, that it might as well be forgotten more easily, than be worth of trying to call it closer, he received this disturbance in created, fragile peace of mind. Something, too amorphous to be named as a thought, still at the same time more reliable than a simple feeling. If he'd wanted to name it, he would call it... War. That word would be enough to include all of it. Loss, pain, fear, blood, loyalty, courage, damage, heat... Death.
That was right, he shouldn't be alive... His body wouldn't move, it simply kept breathing, heart in his chest, beating, blood in his veins, flowing. His mind suddenly felt like a stranger in this body, that didn't seem to take any orders from it. Another memory flashed trough his so called vision, but more than see it, he could hear it. It was a tale like thing, about a soul, that was caged into already death body. Comforting...
Suddenly there was violent pulse of pain, inside his suffering, he recalled that he had felt something similar to this once, no, identical. Then he was drowning, unable to breath, unable to move a muscle to do something about it. It was only natural, he was supposed to be dead, this mistake that he was still somehow here, must be corrected. He surrendered to the pain, to the feeling of slipping away, last time he had fought, it had been in vain. An honor of death was a lie, it was just dying, nothing more. It was funny, how his heart kept beating, like it still had will to live that he himself lacked.
Just when his consciousness was about to dismiss, he heard a voice. It was magical, like his ears had just started working for the first time. It was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, his mind could only think, that it must belong to an angel that came to get him. Even thought he couldn't make sense into the words, he felt peace, satisfaction and then, a touch, like a first his skin had ever really received, and it resurrected him, blew life into him, his mind his body, and he gasped for air, suddenly able to breath.
His eye's shoot open, first it was so white, so bright, that he couldn't see anything, it burned. Then, darkness started slowly closing around him, blurring his vision, narrowing it away from the corners. He tried to blink, it was a natural reflex, but it didn't really help, he couldn't chase those shadows away. Then, just before everything disappeared again, he received his first vision. Eyes. There was no blue that he had ever seen, that could match that blue, now in front of him. Depths of ocean, heights of bright sky, and mysteries of darkening nights, all of it trapped in those eye's, you could loose your soul in there, he though, and then... There was nothing, but a lightness of a feather in his sleep.
Time does not wait for anyone. He wasn't even sure was it hours, days or months, he prayed it wasn't years, that passed by while he wasn't able to catch up with anything. From time to time, he heard voices, or was able to think, but nothing more there really was, he was in darkness, with just a faint memory, that felt more alive than anything else. Blue eyes, vision of them seemed to be painted to the black canvas of his mind and vision. He had realised long time ago, at least it felt really long, that he would never be able to recreate what he had seen back then.
His will to stay alive, if this current state of his was worthy to be called that, it waved, but he hadn't felt that kind of surrendering again. He more like accepted what was happening, cause he had no choice. And he was unable to let go, before he had seen those eyes again. One day, he had started to count his moments of clarity as days, according to his current count; he had been a live for two weeks. One of those days, he had heard music, violin, played so well that it almost made his cry by every note.
Sometimes he felt pinches, or touches, and there was always this mechanical sound, that seemed somehow familiar. It took him almost week to realize, what was going on. He was probably in some kind of hospital, he was surrounded by life supervision systems and he was kept in coma chemically, most likely he had been in major surgery, cause such thing was usually recommended to recover from that kind of operations. After that conclusion, he realized he must have been a doctor.
Pieces slowly fell on their places, he had lots of time to think, and so that was what he did. He still wasn't able to remember his name, but he could pretty much remember everything else. He had a younger sister, Harriet, parents still alive, he had been graduated as a doctor, and he had served in war. He had been shot to chest twice in one combat, on his third year of service. After that it was pretty much blank before his reawakening. He assumed he had been moved to some hospital, because of the fatalness of his injuries, he was lucky to be alive.
And then, came a day, when he really woke up. No annoying beeps of machine, that kept supervising his vitals, no oxygen mask, no pinches, no violin... No blue of those eyes. He had come to conclusion, that he must have been hallucinating them; paranormal experiences were common during major surgeries.
But now, he was crystal clear, more awake than he remembered he had ever been. He opened his eyes. Ready to face the reality, damn, he longed to face it. White sealing, he took a moment for simply looking at it, he felt a smile climb on his lips. He lifted his hands up, and looked at them, he almost teared at the sight, his hands, his own hands, he recognized every shape, scar, everything. He touched his face, the same face he remembered. It felt utterly joyful. He existed, he was really here.
When the bliss of being alive, being real, finally passed that much that he was able to think straight, he started to investigate his own body more clearly. He was just the same as he remembered, just the scar on his chest was new, it was big, like his whole chest had been torn open, but it was cut clean, and nicely patched up. It was already so old that it didn't have bandages to cover it, just some scar tape. State of his wound lead him to the conclusion that he had been in coma about two months. That made him wonder why was he able to move this effortlessly. But he really didn't question it that much, he was just glad about it.
After a while, he dared to carefully stand up from his narrow, yet comfortable bed, to investigate the room. He was stunned a moment for the feel of standing on his own two feet. He soon realized that there was absolutely nothing interesting in this room. The small toilet in the left corner didn't keep him amused for long, it was just a normal, only disturbingly clean, hospital toilet. Everything was white, his pants were white, yes he only had pants, wall, sealing, door. He suspected that it would annoy him after a moment.
He saw a surveillance camera above a locked door when he went to try and open it. That was when he realized that he was being watched. It was understandable, most people were a little unstable after huge operations, and coma. Caution was logical, especially with a soldier, brought in straight from the battlefield. But, he still didn't like it. He backed up a little and waved at the camera. He figured that who ever was monitoring him, would likely be able to hear his voice, and when he realized he could speak, he couldn't hold back the urge to do so.
"Hello? I am awake, and I can assure you I feel very stable, physically and mentally. I would much appreciate if someone would come here and talk with me, I guess I have a right to ask some questions, right?" He felt kind of silly talking to the camera, but he kept his voice even and calm, just in case that his supervisors would have a behavior psychologist behind the camera, it too, was likely.
It didn't take more than few minutes, for a speaker beside the door started to rattle, and there came a pleasant, kind of shy woman voice, asking him to take two steps back and stay as calm as possible. John did as told, and kept his eyes on the door as it opened. He figured it must be electronic lock. When a slim, young woman stepped in, closing the door behind her, John was almost sure he saw pale, tall figure behind her back, but he didn't have time to look again, as the door closed.
John looked at the woman, she wasn't exactly a beauty, but her being gave an instant image of kindness. She had a long white coat, brownish hair, rust seemed like a right word to describe it, and brownish green eyes. She lifted a shy, a bit nervous smile on her narrow lips. "Good morning, my name is Molly Hooper. " She said breezily and offered her hand for a shake. John reached his hand to take hers. It felt nice, the warmness of another living being. "Nice to meet you miss Hooper, I'm sorry, but I can't quite yet remember my name", he admitted.
On the other side of the camera, sharp, blue eyes were monitoring every movement, listening to every word said in that room. Long, pale fingers were pressed against equally pale chin and shapely, full lips. Molly's voice echoed from the speaker just a little late from the movement of her lips.
"That is unfortunate, I'm sorry, I'm really no good with explaining things, I'm afraid the person who can answer your questions will come visit you a little later. I am here to check how you are doing, just basic stuff, if you don't mind"
Watcher was just a little surprised how well his patient handled this situation that would make most people more than very nervous. He just smiled and co-operated. He supervised how Molly performed basic physical examination on the man. Results seemed to come out better than expected, he felt victorious, almost unable to hold his excitement. It wouldn't be such along wait, until he would get his turn to examine that man...
He picked up his phone from the pocket of a long dark jacked hanging from his left, and started typing a text. His bright, blue eye's never left that mans face on the monitor screen, he had never been this interested, and this exited in his live.
Come at this instant if convenient,
and even if not, come anyway.
- SH
Time had moved slowly in his sleep, things had seemed to stay in place, like they were waiting, and he had got used in that dream like reality. This one, where he had woken into, was so sharp, and it moved so fast. It felt like he had jumped into a rollercoaster and couldn't get off the ride. So all he could do was just to try and hang on to the carriage that dashed forward on the rails. Toward some unknown destination, he wasn't even sure he wanted to reach.
That feeling was all created by this man that had come into the white room, into his little world to crack apart the reality he had built. He was tall, slim guy in a suit, carrying an umbrella like it was a sword. He had named himself as Mycroft Holmes, and around him hung this feel of importance.
"... My name is John Hamish Watson. Doctor." He mumbled again, keeping his gaze on the file that Mycroft had handed to him, that file was his life on the paper. Name still didn't sound familiar to his ears, but everything he had remembered matched the information this file was holding, so he figured it was a real deal. From there it went surrealistic.
"And you are absolutely serious, when you tell me that it is year 2012, not 2010. And that I... Died in service two years ago?" It sounded so ridiculous that it made him fear that it was the truth. The tall man in a suit looked at him straight in the eyes and there was no sign of joking, or lying in that gaze.
"Yes John, you were shot in the chest, twice. Your heart stopped after 12 hours of the impact, you were declared death, died in an action. According to your wishes, your family gave your body to the science. I was there when your body was chosen for the purposes of this department. And now, you are alive, woken from the death. You can ask about the details from your... Surgeon. When he manages to get in proper contact with you." Mycroft stated, his voice was pure facts and business.
It felt like the whole room was spinning around him. He was so full of questions that it felt like he was reshaping into a question mark, but he couldn't get his mouth open to ask any of them. He realized he was in a shock. "I assume you understand that technically you have been pushing up the daisies for two years now. You can't return to the life you used to live." That was when he passed out.
Soon his life became routines, boring routines. Molly came in every day, to do his health check and tell him, with the kind voice of hers, how well he was doing. And most of those times, they had nice converstations, but Molly carefully kept her lips sealed for any information.
Then his breakfast was brought, like a clock work, by little older and rounder woman, who refused to talk to him, no matter how many times, he said thanks, and asked how she was doing. She delivered all his meals, he had four of them every day, and they were very nice. Every other day he had some deserts added. And he always ate it all, cause he knew with out Molly saying, that right amount of nutrition was importand for his recovery.
Between lunch and afternoon tea, he had a talk with his behavior psychologist trough the speaker and camera. Apparently Andresson didn't trust his mental state enough to actually enter the room, even if he had given permission for other people to do so. That and other things man said, made john guestion his logic most of the time.
And most of the time he was alone, used it exorcising by Molly's instructions, and reading those few books she had given him. Sometimes he had this feeling that someone was constantly observing him trough the camera, like he was some kind of labrat.. Well he guessed he was, in more than one way, but he still didn't like it. He was a human, if they were going to stare at him and poke him with a stick, they might as well tell him.
He also observed his surgery scar, cause that was almost the most fascinating thing he had to do here, since he really didn't want to use rest of his time weeping after what he no longer had, like personal privacy. He was really healing nicely, and physically he felt great. He had been right about one thing, the whiteness of this room was starting to drive him insane.
Andresson had asked him to keep a diary about everything that was happening to him. It was supposed to help him sort things out. And as he againg just stared the empty pages, he wondered just how Andresson expected him to write something into that freaking notebook, since there was absolutely nothing happening to him?
He settled with counting days, Molly had helped him to start. And when he woke up this morning, three weeks came full of since he had woken up in this room. That day, he had his first ever panic attact, and some male nurses he didn't recall seeing before, dashed in, pushing him down. He was injected with relacine, and his consiosness flashed off.
When he came back to his consciousness after, what the guessed few hours, he was in completely different place. He was laying on a couch, in a really messy living room kind of place. He almost jumped up, gazing around him like a wild, frightened animal. His brain were whispering him hoping words, that it had all been a dream. Then he realized something really odd. This place was his apartment from Bakers Street. 221B, there was no doubt about it, all his things were right there, it just seemed like someone, with no sense of decoration and how to organize things had moved in while he had been gone.
He let out a laughter of relievement, when his first, natural conclusion to familiar surrounding was, relievemnt, and believe that all the horrow he has felt had been just a nightmare. Then he realised what he had on. The same, white pants, he remebembered too well, and his bubble was bursted broken.
He was just about to speak out his mind, when he heard a voice, deep, beautiful voice, he recognized from the first, stretching note. "I assume that your reaction means you like it? I certainly did, and I decided to move in", the voice spoke.
John turned over on his seat, to meet the source of that voice. It was a seemingly tall man, even if his posture was a bit funny and made it hard to tell, and pale, like he hadn't seen sunlight in quite a while. He had dark clothes, denim jeans, a blue blouse and a black jacket, that made him seem even slimmer than he was. Those long, kind of delicate fingers of his were pressed against his chin and lips.
John tough that he hasn't most likely ever seen such a sharp cheekbones than the ones of that man, all his features were kind of delicate, despite their sharpness, and that complex face was framed by dark, messy curls. John's though was that he had never seen someone like this man this close in real life. That kind of thing belonged in the pages of some of those fanzy magazines.
He had never liked that kind of faces, which had too much strong features..
But what really made him unable to turn his gaze away, were the man's eyes. They were The eyes. The blue from his time between reality and dream. All kind of things circled around his head, and from all kind of things he could have chosen to be his first words to this man, he had mistaken in an angel that had come to take him to heaven, he chose to say this. "What the hell have you done to my apartment?"
That sharp, inhumanly sharp and blue gaze never left his, when the man spoke again, with a hint of amusement in his voice. "This isn't your apartment, this is a look alike I had made for your comfort, and judging from your reaction towards it, I made a really good job while designing it. And like I said, I liked this place so I decided to move in, with you." He said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. John just stared at him. "Who the hell are you?" he blurted out when his vocal nerves finally returned from the edge of permanent paralyzing.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes."
It seemed like this reality thought that everything needed to be even more confusing. John felt like he had gone to sleep in a normal world, and then woken up, just to find himself thrown into wonderland or freakish science fiction slash horror movie or something as retarded. He didn't even like science fiction.
He had pinched himself more than once, he hadn't woken up from this dream, but that didn't convince him that this was actually real. With every chance he had he tried to escape this reality. It just couldn't be real. Died two years ago, resurrected from there, no one hadn't even explained how that was possible. No way of returning back to normal live, copy of his apartment, and now a freaking supermodel telling him that they lived together.
"It seem that it is difficult for you to handle all this new information. I tough that we managed to avoid brain damage, maybe I was mistaken." Said Sherlock's soft voice, with a wondering tone. He felt those unrealistic eyes on himself, and he was suddenly feeling really irritated, to the point where his confusement and fear faded further to the background. "Brain damage? Are you serious? Any normal humanbeing would feel what I am feeling now after what I have been through. Are you retarded?" He retorted and gazed the other man under his together pulled eyebrows.
Sherlock sat on the arm of one of the couches, knees close to his chest and feets on the seat. It irritated John even further, that the other man had shoes on, and that couch at least looked like one of his furnitures. But he swallowed his anger, it felt more urgent to know more about his current situation. Knowing the enemy, was a fight half won, and this one was about to tell something.
"I like that determination in your eyes right now, there is the soldier you are supposed to be. I assume that now you are ready to receive some new information. I don't want to push your confused, lazy little brain too far, but there are things you need to know just for plain surviving in this new surroundings." Sherlock seemed to talk faster than more humans were able to think, that might be the reason for the things, that what he had said cleared to John after Sherlocks mouth had already stopped moving. He had the kind of way with words, that what ever he seemed to say, meant more than the actual contence of sentence, and John assumed it made, more than often, people want to to hit him.
John bit his teeth together and nodded, putting meaningly aside all the insults hidden in between those few lines. It seemed most likely that his fist would be forced to have a serious conversation with that face on one of these days, but now wasn't the time. There was a ghost of a self-satisfied grin on Sherlock s lips, but it disappeared before John was sure of what he saw. That was for the best, with no doubt.
"First of all, you and this appartment, are currently inside of an government research laboratory. This is now, your home. And you, who officially are a corpse, have no human rights. Soon there will be a handler named for you, which in simple terms means a babysitter, to take care of you. And I sincerely pity you, cause she is one of the most irritating life forms I have ever met, even if you count in mosquitoes and babies." Now this feeling was already familiar, the wave of simple horror and disbelief in this moments realisticality. No human rights, a handler. "You are no longer Dr. John Watson, you are now, subject 01. The heart."
After those words he went numb. Sherlock didn't explain any further, he didn't ask more. He didn't want to know, and that what he had been told, he wanted to simply forget. He just sat there, on the couch that seemed and felt so familiar, and he just felt empty, like the white room he had been hold in was now in his mind. It was kind of funny, to be resurrected from death just to learn that your life was over.