.
I look up, over my computer screen. There's John, hesitant at the centre of the living room, tense shoulder muscles. The soldier pose. Stern washed out features, determined unfocused gaze, something is bothering him. I doubt he's seeing 221B at the moment, his mind seems to belong somewhere else at the moment. As I see clearly his physical presence by the coffee table, the pale morning sunlight bathing his blond greying hair, the skull artwork on the wall just over his shoulder reminding me of the load metaphorically carried by those shoulders. The left one is practically stiff from the effort to brake the tremors that still spontaneously create in his left hand. He's learnt to control them by now, and he thinks I can't tell when he's focusing hard to make them stop, internalising one of his biggest tells.
Something is up. The tremor has been absent these past few weeks.
He's about to make himself a cup of tea – coping mechanism #1. He'll probably make me a cup as well. He doesn't ask me if I want one anymore. He just makes two, sometimes even a toast (a single one, he rarely has one this early in the morning) to induce me to eat more when I'm on a case.
He's worrying about me and I'm worrying about him. How quaint. Sentiment.
I can never let him know I go in for Sentiment every once in a while now.
Specially after the Fall.
And the Absence.
John has finally accepted his fate and he moves silently towards the kitchen to prepare the two cups of tea. I follow his movements by the corner of my eye, I don't want to pressure him just yet.
Mary insisted that John should come around to Baker Street once in a while. Old times' sake, she tells him. Sentiment, John finds it logical. She knows better than to tell me that. She tells me nothing, I take what I can get of the fuller 221B I miss, of the old days. No, scratch that, delete, I miss nothing, sentiment is abhorrent.
Sentiment is seeping through my pores as I see John. He's not happy. I can't reach him.
John takes hold of another sigh, imprisoning it deep inside. He just stirs the tea to dissolve the sugar – my mug then. Three left handed concentric circles, gradually smaller, clockwise, as usual. He clicks the spoon down, grabs the sugared coffee to bring it over.
I need to talk to him. I need to ask him something. He'd do that for me. Don't know what to say. Talk about what is troubling him. Talk about his nightmares. Scratch that. Don't EVER bring that up. Don't talk about his nightmares. Don't talk, keep quiet. Silent is best.
John puts down my mug at the table, close to my right hand. Attentive. Probably thinks I didn't catch on his offering before.
I look over to him but he's already turn, leaving. I missed my chance. I still don't know what to say, how to breach the subject. I know what his nightmare was about. It's the only one of the three nightmares that lingers. The one that the sight of a familiar 221B can't smooth away as fast.
This is not the fiery hot desert in combat one.
This is not the exploding shoulder pain and realization that all is lost one.
John is taking his seat on his armchair. Still abhorrently silent, lost unfocused gaze on the morning light outside the window.
This one is about the Fall.
He knows that it was faked, a trick. It should have ended. Scratch that – it should have never started. Delete that – delete all of it. Delete his memories too. ERROR – invalid command. Damn!
'John...'
It was my voice, but it trailed off as I didn't know what to say. Maybe my voice was too weak. He didn't show signs of reaction. My voice couldn't reach him where his mind is, too far.
'John.'
My voice is stronger now, breaching the distance.
He looks back at me, slightly startled in his blue eyes.
My words fail me. Somehow he still rewards me with a smile. A quirky twist of the lips that doesn't spread into his eyes or his soul. A knowledgeable smile. He seems to have understood my unspoken words.
'A new case there, Sherlock?' he asks me, helping me, breaching the distance, filling 221B with a new warm start.
John always says the right things.
His unspoken words heeling us both.
'Indeed. Want to take a look, John?'
'Need a doctor's opinion?'
I nod. Despite the fact that it's a Three out of Ten. And it's a blackmail. In the City. And no medical issue in sight.
I change pages before John reaches me, and I show him a Seven I solved last week. A poisoning case in Sussex. He'll probably notice. Seven minutes, thirty seconds before he notices.
John looks at the crime scene photographs earnestly. He doesn't flinch at the gruesome pictures. He's seen worst. There's a slight crinkle at the corner of his eyes, he's empathetic with the victims and their families. Three minutes, seventeen seconds.
'Twin brothers?' he understands of the two victims what Scotland Yard didn't see until I pointed out the hair dye on one of the victims and the plastic surgery on the nose of the second. The genes dominance traits on the hair line and eye shape should have been an easy clue for the police officers as much as it was for John now.
'Suggesting...?'
'Inheritance issues.' One minute, twenty seconds.
'Tanned skin, premature wrinkles on the first one shows he lived abroad. A Mediterranean fishing village of Greece, going by his dirt and his clothes', I add the obvious.
'He was called back. To meet someone. His twin brother.'
'There was an appointment to see the dentist in the British brother's phone agenda, John.' Thirty seconds now.
'It was a poisoning gone wrong. The poisoner poisoned himself as well, by mistake. He had every intention to live longer than his brother.'
'Very well, John.' Twenty seconds too early.
'You've solved this, Sherlock.'
There it is.
'So have you.' I try, but it's a lame distraction.
'You've solved this already.'
'Lestrade needed a second opinion from a doctor.' Lame again. Unbelievable. What happened? Sentiment is getting in the way.
Wait. What?
John is smirking. There is a light in his eyes. His light found a way back. I take a deep breath, I don't even know where all the air is coming from. I didn't know I was almost holding my breath.
'Drink your tea, Sherlock. I'll fix you a toast as well. We both need breakfast.'
I nod calmly, hiding the relief his nagging gives me. Just this once.
I know he can't help the nightmares or the state they leave him in. Frightened, powerless, hollow, emptied.
They don't happen so often anymore. I can only hope this may have been the last one.
Hope. The great detective is reduced to hope.
Strangely, the great detective isn't ashamed to hope, when it comes to John.
'Here, John. Have a look at this Three. It's a blackmail', I invite, vacating the chair in front of the computer for him. 'I'll get those toasts done for us.'
He seems surprised. I pretend I don't see it. He's not fooled. It's starting to feel like old days again.
.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or their previous feats.