A/N –This is the eighth multi-chapter in a Season 3 AU series that starts with After the Fall. Full information is in my profile.
The telephone screamed for attention in the grey light before dawn.
John, only half-awake, reached out blindly to where it lay on the bedside table, wrapping his fingers around it awkwardly. With one eye open, he checked the caller ID and was not in the least surprised to see that it was Sherlock.
Probably some breakthrough about the arson case, he thought. He sat up with a groan and glanced over at the alarm clock, noting the time: eleven minutes past six. Up at this hour? He's been at it all night.
"What is it, Sherlock?" he mumbled into the phone.
There was a tense pause on the line, like the moment before a thunderclap.
"Sherlock?" he persisted more urgently, remembering a litany of past incidents where Sherlock had called him but not been capable of talking. "What's up?" Please don't tell me you've managed to poison yourself with another one of your bloody experiments.
"You need to come over," Sherlock ground out roughly, like he was trying to talk through a mouthful of jagged rocks. "Mrs. Hudson is dead."
John sucked in a breath, as if he'd been punched in the chest. "Oh, my God," he croaked. "What?"
As he waited for Sherlock's reply, he felt Molly slip her hand into his. She was sitting up beside him. He squeezed her hand, rubbing his thumb along hers, but he couldn't look at her face. Not yet.
"I'm quite sure," Sherlock said, a little tremor breaking his baritone. He took a breath. "Two or three hours ago, I think, based on..." He trailed off for a few seconds. "I tried to wake her up. I..."
"Sherlock," John said sharply, releasing his hand from Molly's and pressing the heel of it against his eye as he tried to take it all in. "If you're kidding... if you're exaggerating... if this is a trick, just a trick to get me to come over for some stupid experiment..."
The line went dead.
Throwing the phone onto the mattress, John got up. He grabbed yesterday's shirt, pulling it on automatically and trying to make his shaking fingers fasten the buttons. Molly watched him, the coverlet scrunched up in her hands. He met her gaze for the first time, and saw the fear in her dark eyes.
"What's happened?" she asked softly.
For the first time, John found himself frustrated nearly to the point of fury that he had a family to think about at a time like this.
"Please don't ask just yet." A weasel tactic, and he knew it; but the last thing he wanted to deal with just now was Molly's reaction. Or the slow process of getting Charlie into a car seat she hated, with no breakfast and a wet nappy. "Just please, get up, get dressed, and get Charlie organised," he said, trying to keep control of the tremor in his voice. "I'll call you. I - I may need your help later."
He leaned across the mattress, kissing her without even really looking at her. Then he rushed out, taking the stairs three at a time; and for the first, last and only time in his life, John Watson left the house barefoot.
~~o0o~~
The street door to the flat was locked, and John knew that ringing the bell or even knocking would be a waste of time. He fumbled to unlock it, finally elbowing the sticky jamb open and nearly pitching headlong into the hall. Sherlock sat in the padded wicker chair, one long leg crossed over the other, looking blankly across at the shelf of little china cups that Mrs. Hudson kept there.
John stopped dead. Sherlock was so white and clammy that it crossed his mind that he might be bleeding. He wore the same expression John had seen on Mycroft's face the Christmas before, after he'd been attacked: Sherlock Holmes had completely checked out. His mobile phone lay on the other side of the passage. It was in pieces, and a jagged scar on the wallpaper above revealed why.
"Sherlock..." John made himself say, flinching as his own voice broke the silence.
Sherlock looked up, blankly at first, then frowning as if he'd only just recognised him. "In there," he said, pointing to the door of Mrs Hudson's flat.
John had never before been in Mrs. Hudson's bedroom. She'd made much of telling "her boys" that they were welcome in her flat any time they had a mind to visit, but she'd always kept that door modestly shut. Even with his heart still thumping so hard it hurt, John felt a twinge of guilt as he turned the door handle and opened it, as if he was violating her privacy.
Mrs. Hudson's bedroom was everything John would have expected it to look like – rose-patterned wallpaper, dusky-rose carpet, muslin curtains and a rail-framed bed of white enamel and brass, spread with a satin coverlet of pink and white.
Sherlock had tucked that coverlet around her.
John looked at Martha Hudson's still, serene face, and there he saw the seal of death.
His thoughts flew to the first time he'd seen that seal, at the funeral of his grandfather. He'd been seven years old, and frightened by those ashen features, with the sculpted cheekbones and the intractable mouth that would never again smile or scowl. But his mother had taken him gently in her arms and comforted him. It's all right, John. That's what you look like when God gives you a kiss and welcomes you home.