Title: Moments Like This
Author: Still Waters
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Summary: Sherlock had to win, to solve the puzzle, to have the answer and figure out what 'ordinary' people couldn't. And Lestrade….dammit, Lestrade just needed this kid to live. (TGG scene/character study)
Written: 4/28/15
Notes: This was one of those 'came out of nowhere' pieces that brought me back to "The Great Game." It takes place during the scene near the end where Sherlock is at the museum trying to figure out why the painting is a fake while the little boy counts down on the phone. I was watching both John and Lestrade's nonverbal responses, and found a lot of little character detail in Lestrade's general stillness throughout the scene. This piece, a chance to delve into Lestrade's humanity, was the result. Dialogue quoted from the episode does not belong to me. As always, I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading. I cherish every response.
"It's a kid."
Lestrade spoke the hushed realization out loud; looked to Miss Wenceslas with a pained 'if you know anything about this and now there's a kid involved….' disbelief.
"Oh God, it's a kid."
He looked to John next; John, who was already ramping up, adrenaline rushing, trying to gather more information, to understand the new twist himself. Lestrade's grimace intensified under eyes that were more anticipatory grief, more hurt and anger at the world, than they were surprised. Between his career and his relationship with Sherlock, he had seen too much to be surprised anymore.
But the day it stopped hurting, he figured, was the day he walked away from the job. The day he stopped being human.
So here he was.
Lestrade stood a step behind John's radiating disgust and desperation and watched Sherlock's back as he worked to solve the puzzle. He wasn't quite angry enough to say that Sherlock didn't care about the kid, but he also knew the man well enough to see that it was the need to prove himself, to have all the answers, to refuse to allow that anyone else was more clever than he was, that shot Sherlock into panicked deduction mode – not the voice of a frightened, abducted child. Sherlock was racing for his reputation, his cleverness, while Lestrade and John's hearts raced with another potential loss of life. Sherlock had to win, to solve the puzzle, to have the answer and figure out what 'ordinary' people couldn't.
And Lestrade….dammit, Lestrade just needed this kid to live.
Sherlock was speeding into a frenzied deductive staccato as the countdown pushed the game into overdrive. John ground out a single word that was equal parts prayer, exclamation, and curse, hand scrubbing over his mouth in a brief mirror image of Lestrade, until, practically vibrating with the need to act, John paced away, putting his back to the scene before swiftly turning and stalking back into the thick of it, shaking his head, grimacing, lips curling at what was happening, at the madness of it all.
But Lestrade stayed where he was, face shadowed, but determined; disgusted, angry, grieving, desperate, resigned…..but present. He turned a slow circle in place only once, wondering briefly, not for the first time in his career, what was wrong with the world sometimes, why he did this. But he stayed. He stayed with hunched shoulders, head slightly tilted, instinctively listening for information in tone of voice and background noise per his training, but mostly, just listening. Bearing witness - a silent attention to a life whether it was counting down to its continuation or to its end.
"He's speeding up," Lestrade pointed out as the numbers changed.
And so did Sherlock, angry and distressed at not seeing the answer right away. Lestrade watched his tight shoulders and bouncing hair, watched the stupid painting that was holding the key to an innocent kid's life, watched John's internal war between wanting to harm and wanting to heal. But he stayed, and listened, and watched, until Sherlock suddenly began rambling about planetariums and moved away from the painting, thrusting the pink phone at John and pulling out his own mobile, the excitement of a win in his voice and loosening his movements, and the utter gall to start throwing out words like "gorgeous", "beautiful", and "brilliant" and - so help Lestrade - "I love this" when there was a kid counting down the last seconds of his life because of a fake painting and two geniuses treating the rest of Lestrade's city like a damn chessboard. And it was only then that Lestrade let loose a fraction of the anger burning in his gut, shouting a raw, rough, "Sherlock!" to get the man to deliver the answer and bloody end this.
"The Van Buren supernova!"
Eight syllables. Eight syllables that let a kid who was maybe that old, get a little older.
"Please, is somebody there? Somebody help me."
I'm here, Lestrade thought. I'm coming to help you.
He closed his eyes briefly, mind already leaving the museum, before bringing his attention back to Sherlock, who handed Lestrade the pink phone like a cat delivering a prize.
"There you go. Go find out where he is and pick him up."
Lestrade tilted his chin to Sherlock with a brief, disapproving, angry flash of the eyes before letting it all go, taking the phone, and going where he belonged most.
Because while Sherlock lived for the challenge of the game and John lived for his seemingly lifetimes-old bond with Sherlock, Lestrade lived for his sense of humanity, his duty to the ordinary people of London. And so he left Sherlock with the painting, left John with Sherlock, and followed the pink phone to a frightened little boy bound in the dark, his story forever altered by a madman's boredom and a genius's need for stimulation and validation.
Looking into the tear-streaked face of the voice he'd been prepared to witness to the very end, handing the trembling little body into the equally shaky arms of the boy's parents as they half-sobbed, half-laughed through a jumble of gratitude and prayers, Lestrade felt himself take what seemed like his first breath in days.
These were the moments he lived for.
And maybe, just maybe, this one would be enough to let him sleep tonight.