POVs:

* Lestrade's conscience;

* narrator.


["Oh, I should warn you, I think Lestrade filmed you on his phone…"]

~ The Words you left behind ~

His wife just left the flat they had bought together.

Emotionally, she had left him long before that stormy, wet Friday evening. All the sacrifices put into trying to create a happy life lost their sense.

They were way too similar to each other to be able to make it. He didn't care, he had known all along.

Denial? Were anger, depression, and acceptance soon to follow? No, he had already accepted, and he didn't care.

Denial? 'humpf'-Vicious circle.

He sighed, landing heavily on the stone-cold bed.
The drenched back of his shirt left its print on the immaculate dark sheets. The water on his pressed skin felt good, the silk sheets felt nice under his hands.

He let the sensation fill him in, he needn't use his eyes. Silky, soft, the fabric could have melted in his hot hands, he could swear it.

But he opened his eyes at once, (he had to!) when he found his hands weren't touching silk anymore. That was the past, that was so long ago, for now the cold, hard metal of his mobile-phone hit his fingers.

How quickly situations can change: from the simple, atavistic joy of a man; to the destruction of that very joy by the hand of mankind's evolution.

And all in two seconds on a bed in northern London.

Stop being so melodramatic. See the bright side for once, will you Greg? You have so many useless texts, missing calls and pictures to delete on that idiotic electronic device of yours, you might as well get on with that right now.

The idyll is gone, anyway.

'Let's see...' he starts off. Keeping your mobile hovering over your face like that didn't do any good to your nose last time, did it? Are you sure you want to meet gravity again?

'Texts.' All his wife's written messages are the first to go. Not so many, after all. No communication. That is of no good to a relationship, isn't it Detective Inspector?

Pictures and the endless list of missed, received or placed calls are soon to follow in the massacre.

Videos.
There's only one. Yeah, you didn't really use them much, did you?

What could that video be about, Greg? Maybe you pressed the wrong button, maybe you recorded it on a random subject just to try it…
but you know this is not the case, don't you? I know perfectly well what that is, Greg, and therefore so do you.

It is easier to hear someone breathing out than breathing in. Breathing out is more powerful, and lot quicker.

As he sat up in one inhumanly quick movement, though, the sound of Greg Lestrade breathing in one single breath could be heard clearly.
Maybe he knew he wasn't going to breathe for some time and decided to store some air. Maybe his mind had gone blank and forgot how to breath properly. Maybe it was a reaction to a shock, or to a shocking memory. Maybe it was because of Sherlock Holmes.

All of the above.

Seconds, minutes…

Hours?

Until, finally,

-'umph'- that one breath had completed its two-step cycle.

Open the file, Gregson. Open it and you'll hear you friend's voice again, and suffer. Don't open it and opening it will be the only thing on your mind, it won't let you alone… and suffer.

When his shaky right thumb presses play, Lestrade stands back a little looking scared, but feeling terrified. A hand on his mouth, the other ready to stop the masochistic process he had just began. It's a fraction of seconds, it would be a blink of his eyes, if his eyes could blink...

Then the air is filled with a strange voice, as if of a drugged man. It sound ghastly, or maybe just electronic.

'John!'

Just one word, that's what it takes. One word and salty drops wet the sheets once again.

A large stain in the middle of the bed, a much smaller one on the side. The latter much deeper, and so much more unlikely to ever go away.


I really hope you liked it. Let me know, please! :)

Lize