More than Nothing
Title is taken from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll:
""Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."
"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing.""
Chapter One
It had become a habit. Cupboard. Mugs. Two of them. Pull them from the shelf and set them on the side, his hands steady.
Teabags. Two – one for each mug.
Flick off the kettle. The automatic shut off had broken, some time ago, he should get that fixed. Without manual intervention it would continue to boil in perpetuity, steam rising from the spout and pooling upward against the underside of the cupboard above.
Water on teabag. The mug on the left. Stir. The teaspoon is basically clean, retrieved from the drawer, a shadow of hard London water not rubbed completely from the bowl.
Fish out bag, abandon in haphazard pile against the side of the sink.
Retrieve milk from fridge. Pour. Stir again.
Drag across the sugar bowl from its position against the wall. Stare at it for a moment.
Sigh.
Push it back.
Rescue teabag from the mug on the right. Cowering against the bottom, untouched. Still dry. Drop the bag back into the box. Lift the mug from the side and slide it back against its mates in the cupboard. Until next time.
He should remember that making tea is now only a one mug process.
Two if you count John himself.
Though he knows he'll only do it exactly the same way next time.
It's a quiet Tuesday night in Baker Street. Not that any night is loud any longer. He is still here. Just him. Only one seat sits in the centre of the room now, facing the shadow where a second used to be. He moved it some time ago. That chair. It sits in what he now strongly remembers to refer to as "the downstairs" bedroom. Ownerless. As if it's always been.
In the shadow of where that chair no longer rests he's moved the coffee table, left front leg a bit dodgy from years of misuse, so he can rest his tea there. Amongst the papers and his laptop: glowing faintly against the growing shadows of the evening.
Putting it all in order had seemed like a good idea all those weeks ago, when he'd started to sift through the objects in the flat, the books and the papers and the notes, sheet after sheet of sloped handwriting that seems to sing with personality: here it is careful, structured; lines following ordered steps of logic, turn it over and find wild ideas, scribbled haphazardly in margins and pushed up against other text – as if it has no real idea of personal boundaries.
Sometimes he looks those pages and has to close his eyes against the memories.
He's always doing that.
He'd tried moving away. At first. Right after it happened. This place was too painful for him then. The memories suffocating: an empty chair, an un-stepped-on coffee table, the wonky yellow face with the gaps in his smile. Bored.
Two mugs for tea on the countertop.
But the blank box of a bedsit he'd found in Islington had been too painful for him too.
He'd tried working through it. Long hours of non-descript faces and standard ailments. Summer colds and winter burns. Allergies. Sprained ankles. STDs. He became the best locum a surgery could ask for – available any time, day and night. He'd stopped sleeping. It seems his flatmate wasn't the only one with a talent for consciousness.
He found new ways to fill his time. He took up running. Not short, dramatic sprints like his days from the training barracks. But long, time-consuming, lung-burning slogs. Drowning pain in lactic acid as his eyes watched battered trainers slapping the pavement below him. Until the moment he'd look up from the tarmac and see the looming end of a familiar street and he'd realise that his tired feet and his tired lungs and his tired mind had brought him here. Here again. Every time.
He'd given in. Eventually.
Mrs Hudson's voice on the phone had been delighted:
No, no, it's just a surprise. So lovely to hear from you dear.
Don't be silly, no need to apologise, I understand how it is...
Well, of course the room is still available.
I left it just as it was.
Why? Well it didn't seem to be my place now,
Well of course I don't need the rent; his brother still sends the cheques. 2nd Tuesday. Every month.
Tell you the truth I thought I might enjoy the quiet, but well…
You must miss him.
No, sorry, of course dear, tomorrow will be fine.
He'd hung up with a lump in his throat.
Back to the notes, and the memories. His tea half-drunk by the time he surfaces from them: consumed automatically from the mug in his left hand while his right holds on to the past. This is my note.
A noise downstairs. He pauses, mug in hand. Key in the lock, front door swinging open. Feet on the hallway floor.
Mrs Hudson must be home. She'd been with her sister for a few days.
Country air, cups of tea with a view, you know dear, some time away from Baker Street. It'll do me good. Do you good to get out a bit too. Since you've been back I've barely seen you. Working so hard. All those papers. Oh John, the mess you've made. Don't they need you at the surgery any more dear? Are you eating? I'll make you some tea shall I? Just this once mind…
No doubt she'll leave her bags and head straight upstairs to tell him she's back. He glances around the room, suddenly aware of the state if it. Perhaps he should tidy before she sees. The books and the papers and the notes. His laptop left haphazardly half open amongst it all, as if he will ever really begin to start committing these words to keyboard. He sets his mug down in the only available three inch square of space on the table top, finding his way to his feet. He can hear her steps on the stairs. Climbing slowly. Perhaps she's carrying something. It sounds heavy. He casts around again, but feels unsure where to start. He can't tidy untold weeks of hermit-living in seconds. Perhaps he can clear some of these plates. Jesus, he really has let the place go. Memories don't mind mess.
In retrospect it's unfortunate that he's holding crockery when Mrs Hudson opens the door. In retrospect it's unusual that she hasn't already called out to him from the landing, voice high and sing-song: It's only me. In retrospect it's strange that the sound of her steps on the floorboards is much heavier than her usual gait. Stronger. Slower. Firm. These steps are certainly not executed in heels.
In retrospect it's really quite obvious that when the door swings open the figure it reveals isn't Mrs Hudson.
A stunned silence.
"Hello John"
He drops the plates.
Of course he does. It's what one does in such a situation. A mime. A mimicry. An external physical representation of an internally incapacitating emotion. Or just the complete ignorance that the world continues to move on around you, expecting you to carry out your small purpose within it. Like holding crockery. Or breathing.
"Sherlock," He whispers.
One word.
He hasn't spoken it out loud in what feels like a lifetime. Hasn't needed to. It's always there. Balanced on the tip of his proverbial tongue. To others it is always "him" or "he". When he's alone: "you". When he speaks to you. When his memories speak to him and he feels he should reply.
"You're not Mrs Hudson,"
"No, John"
Sherlock.
Just standing there. In the doorway. All long coat and cheekbones and turned up collar. A blank expression. Unreadable. No. Patient. There was no chastising for stating the obvious.
"You're…" John starts again. Unable to form the words he wants to say. The external physical representations of an internally incapacitating emotion: "You're not dead."
A faint twitch of the right corner of Sherlock's mouth. "No, John"
Silence.
John doesn't know what to do. Laugh? Cry? Fall to the floor and rend his clothes? Move forward and touch him? Hit him? Move away and pretend this hasn't upset his entire world? Make him tea? Stand and stare in total silence for a length of time that should have made the other man uncomfortable, but hasn't, because this is Sherlock Holmes, who if he hasn't made half a dozen people uncomfortable before lunch it's been a good day?
Hadn't.
Hadn't, not hasn't. Remember the past tense John. Sherlock is dead.
You must keep reminding yourself of that.
Sherlock is dead and he is standing in the doorway. Still patient. Waiting.
Waiting for you to laugh. To cry. To fall to the floor and rend your clothes.
Sherlock is alive.
Sherlock isn't past tense. He's present.
Future tense.
Tense.
Perhaps that tea would be a good idea.
Minutes pass. They watch one another, seven feet of space between them. Books and papers and notes between them, broken crockery and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor between them. Memories between them. Years. Lost years. Death.
"What…" John speaks, finally. That internal world splitting apart silently behind his eyes. All that pain. "What are you doing here?"
"It's over." Obvious. Sherlock's words are obvious. His tone: obvious.
"What's over?"
"The reason I had to go away."
"Go away?"
"Yes."
"You didn't go away,"
Silence.
"You fell. You…" John continues, eyes wide "You died."
"It was necessary."
"It was necessary to die?"
There's a subtle shift in that blank gaze then. Pale eyes darting away from an accusatory stare, down. To the right. Was that a marker for a lie? John can't remember.
"Yes."
John still doesn't know what to do. What to feel. Anger? Joy? Confusion? Perhaps a dumb stare will suffice. Dumb. Dumb in every sense of the word.
"There was a threat to your life," Sherlock again. He hasn't moved. Feet pressed firmly to the ground, standing in the doorway. Alive.
"I thought there was always some kind of threat to my life?"
"This one was serious,"
"And the others were some kind of a joke?" John's voice is louder than he expected.
"Don't be stupid John."
A huff of a laugh: "I don't need you to tell me I'm stupid."
"You're not stupid."
"You just said I was," Slowly John can feel himself falling from that delicately balanced knife edge of shock, and into something like hysteria.
"Generally."
"What?"
"You're not stupid generally."
"Just specifically?" The volume of John's voice is still rising. He can't stop it.
"Stop being ridiculous."
"Ridiculous?" Louder, ""I'm being ridiculous?!"
"I…" Sherlock starts, John won't let him.
"What's ridiculous is you standing there telling me I'm being ridiculous! You're dead! I'm being insulted by a dead man,"
"John…"
"You can't just stand there being dead Sherlock. Come in." John finds himself gesturing wildly at the doorway. "Come in out of the hallway. Dead men should always insult you from inside the house don't you think?"
"John,"
John stops. Suddenly. The velvet sound of his own name finally permeating the mania.
He has to close his eyes against the memories.
For a long stilling moment he contemplates the inside of his eyelids. A deep breath. Another. Perhaps when he opens his eyes the doorway will be empty again. Perhaps this is a dream. He will have fallen asleep, working so hard. All those papers. He will have fallen asleep and dreamt of that voice saying his name.
John opens his eyes.
Sherlock is still there. Still patient. Still watching. What they call a fixed gaze. Pupils fixed and dilated. A dead man's stare.
"I'm sorry." Sherlock says.
A pause. Moments frozen in amber. Preserved.
Finally John exhales, a huff of air:
"I've not heard that from you very often,"
"I mean it."
Another stiff pause. They contemplate each other.
Slowly, gradually, John finds the strength to step sideways and ease himself back into the chair he vacated a lifetime of eleven minutes ago. In that time before. The time when Sherlock was dead.
He drops his head into his hands: clutched before his mouth in an unconsciously desperate imitation of a pose he'd seen so many times in his flatmate.
Minutes pass. A lifetime.
The creak of a footstep in the doorway. John's head snaps up.
"Don't…" He cautions. Sherlock freezes in the headlights of John's gaze, one step further into the room, "Just…" John continues, "…don't."
"Really, I'm not going to stand in the doorway all n…"
"You'll stand wherever I sodding well tell you!" Anger. There it is. It draws him up. Off the seat. Back onto his feet.
"You died Sherlock!" John's voice is too loud. Again. "You died! You fell and you died. I should know. I was there!"
"…that was necessary…
"You've already said that!"
"No, I said that my death was necessary…"
"Now we're arguing semantics?" John's hands are in fists at his sides. "You died!"
"You've already said that."
"It's an important point!"
"So is mine,"" Sherlock is frustratingly calm. "It was necessary that I died, it was necessary that you watched me,"
"'It was necessary that you watched me'" John mimics, "Do you have any idea what those words mean?!"
Sherlock's gaze is level. John continues,
"Do you have any idea what that did to me? I watched my best friend fall off a roof. A roof for Pete's sake. No. No, not fall. Jump. Jump Sherlock. You. Jumped. Off a roof. In front of me. Your best friend…"
"I…" Sherlock begins, again John doesn't let him continue.
"'Do this, for me" you said. You had no idea!"
"John,"
"What that was, what you were asking…"
"John,"
"And now, now, well you're alive. And it was 'necessary'?!"
"If you'd let me explain,"
"No!" John's anger feels like a physical being in the room. Standing between them. A yawning space: six feet and books and papers and notes and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor and rage.
"You died, Sherlock. You. Were. Dead. I watched that. My best friend."
There's a long pause.
"I'm sorry." Sherlock speaks again.
John has to tear his eyes from him. "You already said that."
John's hands on the back of his own head. Turn around. Calm.
Look to the ceiling. Shouldn't this be joyous? How often has he thought of this? He even asked for it once. Right out loud. Standing next to his gravestone, your gravestone.
"We had a funeral for you." John tells the hairline crack in the corner of the ceiling.
"It is customary,"
"Lestrade said some nice things. So did Mrs Hudson."
"Yes,"
"You were there?"
A silent affirmation from behind him. John continues: "Of course you were there."
"You didn't speak," Sherlock's accusation.
"They asked me to. I couldn't."
"You couldn't?"
"Find the words."
"You're a writer."
"I'm a doctor."
"You're a blogger." Sherlock supplies.
"How did I begin to explain you to them?" John asks, away from him.
"Them?"
"Friends, acquaintances. Mrs Hudson. Lestrade."
"You wouldn't have needed to explain me to them. They know me."
"Does anyone really know you Sherlock?" John asks,
"You do."
"I thought I did."
"You did."
"I thought I came close once. Then you jumped off a roof."
"Ah."
"You hit the pavement and then got right back up and attended your own funeral."
"Wouldn't you?" Sherlock asks,
"Wouldn't I what?"
"Go to your funeral." There's a smirk in Sherlock's voice.
"Seriously. You're not making a joke out of this. Not... Not this. Not yet."
John stares away from him. Away from the doorway. Toward the kitchen.
"I need a cup of tea."