New York was not the only city in the world that doesn't sleep, and this was only reinforced as Sherlock Holmes, worlds only consulting detective, tried desperately to dose off to the ever present grunts and groans of a drowsy, but not quite sleeping, London. He had been on a case for several days and, as was his habit at the completion of such an endeavor, had fallen into bed in hopes of a sound and reinvigorating sleep. But this was not to happen. He had dozed a bit, surely. But it was not the slumber which his body required to refresh itself. He had tossed and turned, disturbed by dreams he neither wanted to experience nor admit to. The last time his repose had been so disturbed by such dreams had been in his adolescence. A cold shower, while relieving the unwanted result of such dreams, had only served to energize him, and he found himself pacing the floors of the flat on Baker Street, body on the verge of collapse and mind racing.
Sherlock knew enough about the human body to know this was not a good thing. He knew he often pushed his body to its limits when it came to proper nutrition, and sleep routines when he was involved in an interesting case. The detective also knew that sleep deprivation could lead to many side effects, none of which were desirable. He would lose his ability to concentrate. It could impair his cognitive processes, and affect his memory. Supposedly, it could decrease one's sex drive, but this seemed not be be happening in this particular case, if his problematic dreams were any indication. Sherlock decided to go see his best friend and doctor, John Watson, to consult him about his problem. The fact that it was currently almost midnight, and that John, his wife Mary, and infant daughter were, in all likelihood, sound asleep in their own beds did not dissuade him. This could be attributed to an impairment in judgement due to his sleep deprivation, or simply his ego, selfishness, and self-absorption. Probably the later.
John Watson clad only in pajamas, rose to answer the door. He knew who it was. He knew who it had to be. He could only hope it was not some dire emergency which would require him to leave his house and his warm bed, and his even warmer wife, at this hour of the night. John opened to door to find a rather somber looking friend on his doorstep.
"Whoa, mate, you look like a bloody mess!" John said as he studied Sherlock's pale features, red-rimmed eyes, and wildly coiffed hair. The detective might have thought of clever comeback, had he not been so impaired by lack of sleep, and forgotten, for the moment, why he had made the journey to John's door. The onslaught of the biggest yawn he could ever remember experiencing brought it all back to him, however, and he pushed past John to take a seat on the couch in his sitting room.
"John, I can't sleep," he said rather matter-of-factly.
"So, of course, you came here to make sure I couldn't sleep either. Thanks!" But as he was saying this, he noticed the rather gray pallor to his friend's face, and the heaviness of his eyelids. Taking his pulse, he found it to be just slightly erratic. Nothing to worry about at the moment, but perhaps a precursor of things to come.
"How long have you been awake, Sherlock?" the doctor asked with some concern. He knew that his friend often went for days without rest, but when his work was completed, he had never had any problem collapsing into an almost catatonic state. This was different.
"I had been working for four days, John. I returned to the flat, and retired to my bed. But a sound sleep had eluded me. I keep waking. I keep dreaming, disturbing dreams, John…"
"Nightmares?"
Sherlock found that he could not meet his friend's eyes. "You could call them that, John. Some men may find them pleasant, but I…"
"Ah, those kinds of dreams, eh! Sherlock, give it a rest, huh…"
"That's what I'm trying to do, John. Have you not been listening?"
John Watson chuckled at his friends, perhaps unintentional, humor. "Sherlock, everybody has dreams like those. Just go with the flow. Allow yourself some release. You should be able to sleep after…"
"John, I am not some naive schoolboy. I have allowed myself some "release", but the dreams continue. A cold shower did nothing to relieve the, uh, tension, either. I am at my wits end!" Sherlock had practically shouted the last few words, and the loudness of his voice had apparently disturbed a sleeping infant, for her cries and shrieks were soon heard echoing down the hallway from her nursery. Mary Watson's cries and shrieks were even louder, however, and the two men looked at each other with trepidation.
"She doesn't keep a gun in her nightstand, does she, John?"
"She does, but I removed the bullets after our last argument, Sherlock. Better safe than sorry, I reckoned."
Mary soon joined them, screaming Claire in tow, firmly attached to Mary's chest. Sherlock glanced in their direction, but quickly looked away. "For god's sake, woman, cover yourself!"
"There's nothing to cover, you git. I'm not feeding her, simply cuddling!"
John looked at his friend, and said, "I could prescribe a sleeping pill, Sherlock, but…"
"Yes, I know, John, sleeping pills and addicts do not make the best of companions." Sherlock once again tried to stifle a yawn, but couldn't manage to do it. Yawning being contagious, John was soon joining him, and Mary. But there was no motion from little Claire. The detective looked down to find the infant sleeping soundly against her mother's chest.
"I envy her how quickly she dozed off, John. How do they manage it, do you suppose?"
"There is some evidence to suggest that an infant, or child, or anybody for that matter, is comforted by the sound of the heartbeat. It seems that the fetus can grow accustomed to the sound in the womb, and instinctually react to the comfort of that same sound throughout their lifetime."
John Watson could almost see a thought forming on his friend's face as the tall, and very sleepy, man glanced once again at the woman and child. "John, do you suppose…"
"Don't even think about it, mate. You are not crawling into bed with my wife simply to lay your head on her chest! That is strictly my territory. And occasionally, Claire's. Find yourself your own chest…"
John was ranting on, but Sherlock was lost in thought. And memories. Lack of sleep must be making him sentimental. He remembered being a young child, snuggled comfortably against his mother's breast. He remembered the sound of her heartbeat beating a slow tattoo which gently lulled him to sleep. Unfortunately, he also remembered his brother Mycroft staring jealously at him from across the room. Given Mycroft's Oedipal tendencies, Sherlock could only assume that this may well have been the beginning of the lifelong ambivalence of their relationship. But perhaps John had a point. He should go seek comfort elsewhere. Mummy, however, was frmly ensconced in the Surrey countryside, a rather daunting distance. And, given his advanced age, he did harbor some doubts as to whether Pappa would be any more obliging about sharing his wife's bosom with him than John had been. However, another alternative presented itself, and Sherlock rose to take his sleep-addled, judgement-impaired brain to his favorite bolt hole.
Mary looked over her sleeping infant's head toward her husband. "He's heading for Molly's, isn't he?"
"Probably," John said quietly so as to not re-awaken the baby. "Poor woman!"
"Nonsense. She'll give him what he needs."
"What he needs is a good night's sleep!"
"Among other things, love," Mary said with a wink and a chuckle, as she rose to put the infant back in her cot.
"Maybe she'll just knock him unconscious with her cricket bat!"John said somehwat hopefully , as he toddled off after her.
It was now after one o'clock in the morning, and Dr. Molly Hooper was sound asleep, pleasantly dreaming, once again, of a certain consulting detective. This mental excursion was one of the better ones. He smiled a lot, and made her tea. He even liked her cat, stroking it languorously as said cat stretched out on the couch next to him. The dream got even better as the cat morphed into herself. Much better, indeed, that the rather too vivid nightmare episode she had endured the previous evening, in which Sherlock had been dissecting the damned cat, which had, of course, changed into Molly at the first incision. But Molly was awakened from the pleasant reverie by the sound of her front door opening and closing, and she immediately reached for the cricket bat she kept by her bedside for just such an emergency. It was probably Sherlock, she knew. He was in the habit of entering her flat at all hours, without knocking, being able to pick her lock with ease. If she were asleep, he would call out her name, just to assure her that it was, indeed, he, and settle in for an uncomfortable night on her couch. But he had not, as yet, called out to her. Molly's fingers were still wrapped around the handle of the bat, ready to take on a possible assailant, as her bedroom door opened a bit allowing a sliver of light to enter her room, and a head full of wild curls to poke through the opening. Molly, angry at being awakened at this hour, thought, however briefly, about using the cricket bat anyway, and explaining to the investigating officer that it was just a tragic accident. But she reconsidered when she heard his rather plaintive voice saying, "Molly, can I come in?"
Molly spoke with a heavy sigh as she deposited the cricket bat back in its resting place, and sat up in her bed, reaching to turn on her bedside lamp. "Sure, Sherlock. What do you need?"
"Your breast," he said simply.
Molly Hooper thought to herself that this was, by far, the strangest dream she had ever had. She really thought she had been awakened, but now realized that she must, in fact, still be dreaming to have heard such a bizarre request. She was now considering her next move. She could either fling her nightgown across the room, and proudly bare her breasts for him to do with as he pleased, or she could once again grab the bat and give him a guilt-free sound thrashing for all his past transgressions, and, certainly, future offenses. It was a dream, after all. Remembering the dissection nightmare of the previous night, she reached for the bat, and was ready to swing when Sherlock commented on her technique. Bloody bastard had to be real!
"Sherlock, please explain your last remark."
As he approached her bed, Molly was taken aback by his pallor, his red eyes, and his slumping shoulders. He barely got out the words, "I can't sleep," before he plopped down on the empty side of her bed and tossed one arm across her lap. "Please lie down, Molly. I can't feel your heartbeat from this position."
Molly didn't know what to make of this situation, but she complied by settling back down onto the mattress on her back The exhausted detective scrunched down next to her, placing his head so that his ear was positioned right over her heart. He breathed a contented sigh as the beat resounded in his head. But his comfort didn't last for long.
"Molly, your heartbeat is speeding up. Please calm down. How am I expected to get any sleep!"
"Sherlock, I can only assume that you are not thinking straight. How could my heart not speed up when I am assaulted in the middle of the night by a crazed detective…" Even as she was speaking, Molly knew that it was not the surprise of his visit alone which brought about her rapid pulse.
"Molly, please be quiet and calm yourself. I am not 'crazed"! Merely sleep-deprived. I need to sleep, and you are not helping any! First the dreams, now this. It's a good thing…"
"Dreams? What dreams? You're not making any sense."
"Don't play the innocent, Dr. Hooper. The dreams," he said through yawns, "You've kept me awake for hours! You owe me! Just lie back and let me rest!"
So Molly lay back, and tried to calm her heartbeat. She brought her hands up to let her fingers card through the man's hair, and he let out a contented sigh. If she could make any sense of their conversation, it seemed that she had been haunting his dreams as much as he had been haunting hers. "Sherlock?", she said almost in a whisper.
The detective raised himself up to look in her eyes, seeming more content and less unsettled than he had seemed when he arrived. "Yes, Molly?" he said patiently.
"You know we're going to have to talk about this in the morning, right? These dreams?"
"Yes, Molly, I know. And we're going to do a lot more than talk about it," he said in a low and seductive voice before moving his lips over hers in a rather enticing kiss. "I have noticed that, contrary to medical opinion, my sex drive has not been adversely affected by my current state of sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, my physical reserves have been depleted to the point that I find I cannot follow through on it. However, allow me to replenish these reserves for a few hours, and I can assure you that any dreams will pale in comparison!" He then gave her a brief peck on the lips and returned his head its' previous position. Having become accustomed to the now rapid beat of her heart, the detective found himself drifting off peacefully, with his pathologist still carding her fingers through his hair.
Molly Hooper, however, found herself wide awake and staring at the ceiling, hoping that her own coming brush with sleep deprivation would end as fortuitously as had his.