Written from John Watson's pov. Set during the second season.
Here be dragons
"Boring! Boooorrring! BORING!"
After ten days of monastic silence and melancholic violin, Sherlock's voice finally burst in our apartment of 221B Baker Street.
Ten days that I was on the lookout for a sign, an expression, anything that would indicate an emersion from his catharsis, and he catches me off guard! My bloody coffee spilled on my laptop, I can now assert with confidence that Sherlock Holmes is by all standards and beyond the most extraordinary specimen of Asperger syndrome.
"Ouch! I think I twisted my calf..." he whines as I pick up a napkin in a desperate attempt to save me four hundred pounds.
"One can't twist one's calf, Sherlock. Perhaps you should take a walk outside. Surely your legs would appreciate moving a greater length than the two meters between the chimney and the couch."
"Two meters seventy-six centimeters precisely between the chimney, the couch, and the kitchen table. This perfect triangle helps me focus. It helps you too, even if your ordinary brain cannot realise it. Pure geometric shapes elevate everybody's mind no matter how low they are."
"Says what scientific study?"
"Says me. For instance-"
"I believe you, Sherlock. Tell me on what have you been focusing those last ten days, four hours, twenty-three minutes and... twelve seconds?"
"The depth of my boredom! And yours."
"Mine?!"
"Yes. Isn't that obvious?"
"That's it!" say I, leaping from my chair. "We're going out."
"No, we're not."
"Yes, we are. Doctor's order."
"You dare use medical authority on me?"
"And my military one along. Now grab your coat before I make you do push-ups! Go! Go! Move now, soldier!" say I, pushing him toward the door.
"Soldier?! Me? A simple soldier? Wait! I'm still in my pyjamas!"
"Your coat will cover."
If Sherlock keeps on whining all his way down the stairs, he stops dead in his tracks once on the sidewalk, not liking one-bit attracting attention on himself. It is quite a sunny and surprisingly warm morning for the season. The cherry tree across the street is already showing a bit of white on its swelling buds, and there is this feeling of lightness hanging in the air, the relaxed smiles on people's face that show an anticipation of summer and pleasant times to come. Gently, I push my pale friend on the right, and together we head toward the park three blocks down on Baker Street. I count the steps of silence, expecting to hear from him before twenty. It will be twenty-one. I'm definitively getting better at predicting his reactions.
"I'm too hot in my coat."
"Take it off, then," say I, removing my own jacket.
"Surely you find your pragmatism very amusing right now but let me tell you that I do not."
Making an obvious effort to keep the volume of his voice down, all too aware that his get-up indeed attracts unwanted, detestable attention, Sherlock lifts the collar of his coat as if the fiercest of all the north winds was blowing right on his neck, proudly straightens his back, and starts walking like a man with a goal, his childish, contradictory mind shining brighter than the sun on his back. Damn me! I hope I will not find him with a heat stroke this evening. But then, he is way too pale and thin. His body needs exercise and a shipload of vitamin D.
"Let's cross the street," say I, catching sight of a pause in the traffic. "Why-"
"If you're wondering why there are so many cars in our street today it is due to a weird road accident between a city transit bus and a tourist one this morning at eight-thirty-six."
"Casua-"
"Two deaths at Saint Peter's morgue, six in intensive care in St Bart's hospital, forty-two wounded, two-thirds of them should receive a discharge in the coming hours while the rest will be kept overnight for observation."
"Are you a doctor now?"
"I could be if I found any interest in the profession. Interest that you seem to lack yourself lately or you would not…"
A silhouette on the sidewalk catches my eyes and suddenly, Sherlock's voice drowns in the stream of noises coming from the city. Vaguely, I am conscious that my heart rate just jumped from one hundred to two-hundred-and-fifty beats per second. It is not possible… He's looking at me. He's looking straight at me.
"John? I did not want to insult you. I should apologise."
"No…"
My voice comes out as a whisper. I am aware of that. And it is because it's just not possible. Not possible. It cannot be him, looking at me from the sidewalk. I should check with an ophthalmologist or my therapist. Yes, my therapist. What's her name already? Perhaps I should have kept her professional card. Why was I so sure I would not need her services anymore? That makes no sense. No more sense than him… here… standing in… front of… me? No! We got him in the end. I got him. I'm the one who shot him. But I couldn't check his vitals… no time for that. Extraction… the chopper… Major Sholto dragging me, carrying me out of the building and in the street before I could check. You had passed out, remember? I remember... I remember that I had put a damn bullet in the bastard's throat. No way he could have survived. No. No way. Drowned in his own blood in less than five minutes, no hospital, no ambulance. No.
"John?! Step on the sidewalk now! That's an order, soldier!
"Soldier's not my rank, major…" I whisper to Sholto's ghost, wondering why he sounds like my friend Sherlock, barking orders above all the honks, the engines, the rifles spitting deadly bullets, the explosions and the cries… What the hell is my friend doing in Afgh… wait a sec. I shook my head and rub my eyes. When I open them again, in the crumbling building has disappeared.
"I'm in London," say I, sending a disbelief look around me. Oh dear God! What is happening to me?
"Yes, you are, but more precisely, you're standing right in the middle of the bus lane!"
Sherlock's hand suddenly grabs my arm and violently drags me forward. With astonishment, I realise that one of the angry honks my mind registered in the background comes from a city bus. The driver is standing up behind the wheel... breaking! With dread, I watch the forty-thousand pounds projectile stopping a good meter past me. Though my mind acknowledges that the impact would have probably been fatal, somehow I don't seem to be able to care. My eyes are going back toward the real threat.
"Where is he?" I mutter, not seeing him anywhere.
"Who?" asks Sherlock again.
The bastard who dug his knife into my thigh to keep me from running ever again. I don't understand. Dead people don't come back to life. I'm a doctor. I know that. But why would my imagination playing me tricks? I never had such a vivid hallucination about him, nightmares tons of them; hallucination in broad daylight? Never! Then the only explanation is that I just saw someone who looked like him. It's not impossible after all.
"Are you okay?"
I raise my eyes to meet Sherlock's worried glance.
"Yes, I'm fine."
I am not in Afghanistan anymore, I am safe I tell myself like a mantra to persuade my heart to calm down and my body to relax.
"Let's go back to the apartment."
"No. We were going to the park and it is exactly where we will go now," I reply, starting to walk again, dragging my looking-for-a-reason-to-escape friend along with me.
"Care to explain what happened?"
"Nothing happened to me."
"Alllll right. I'll go back to silence then."
"Silence's good. Thank you," I say, happy not to hear any tremor in my voice but definitively worried to feel on edge, to the point that I force my eyes to lock on a phone box fifty yards in front of me before commanding my legs to walk.
"John?"
"Yes?"
"The park's this way."
"Okay," I say, my eyes quickly locking on a cherry tree as I swiftly rotate on my heels.
No sniper in London's streets. No sniper on the roofs. Reflection on that car windshield is just the sun. Facing windows are clear.
My leg's hurting.
