Title:Thursday Again
Summary: My name is Gabriel and I, Sherlock Holmes, am your guardian angel. I can turn back the clock and give you a second chance to make things right with your husband, BUT, there is a catch. You see, Johnny boy died still being in love with you. If I turn back the clock I think it's only fair to him if I make it so he gets some retribution. If you so choose my offer of a second chance, this time around it'll be John who has lost interest in you. John will be alive once more, but he will not love you. So which is it going to be? Continue to live without a John who loved you even though you didn't deserve it? Or have a living John who will not love you?
Tick tock goes the clock, the good doctor is dead.
Tick tock goes the clock, cold and empty now is your bed.
Tick tock goes the clock, you wish to make things right.
Tick tock goes the clock, you want to bring back the light.
Tick tock goes the clock, a deal will have to be made.
Tick tock goes the clock, is your sanity something you're willing to trade?
Chapter one: Breathing Slowly
The alarm in John's mobile goes off and I reach over his place to get it. John's mobile is always on the bedside table of his side. It was set for five in the morning. It was the time John would wake up in order to have time to get ready and leave the flat so he and I wouldn't have to be together in waking moments.
Thoughts like those are sometimes random, sometimes on purpose, but always cause a massive pain in my chest. I haven't changed anything in John's phone, not even the alarm. I wake up when he did. When I place the mobile back down gently I turn to the picture that's on my bedside table and smile.
"Good morning John. I hope you had a pleasant night. Mine was...the same. I miss you. I miss you so much."
Today is Thursday so today is one of the days in which I actually leave the flat. I go and complete my morning routine which includes a shower. Like I have done so in the past year of his absence I use his shampoo, his body wash, and his after shave. I spray his cologne on my coat and scarf and relish in the smell every moment it lingers.
A while ago I hacked into the CCTV videos and tracked down anything I could find of John. Mycroft warned me against it but like always I ignore him. There wasn't much because Mycroft deleted most of it but there was one video footage that I managed to get my hands on.
Normally John would wonder around London until 8:30am and then catch a cab to work which starts at 9. On Thursday's however John would have a routine. He would walk through the park, it starting at 5:10am when he's gotten ready. The ache comes back when my mind tells me John became quick to avoid me. There would be a small duck pond and he would go feed the ducklings every morning.
After the ducks he would continue his walk and visit different locations. There was no markers or names or anything, but John visited those places and leave a single hand picked flower he obtained on the way there. From the small smile on his face and relaxed posture it seemed like a promise he and some friends from his childhood had made.
The fact that John still did it to this day and left a flower said something. Those friends were now dead. And now John was too. There was no one left to take them flowers. So I made it my responsibility to do so.
Maybe it was a bit childish but I copied John's idea and after I placed picked flowers on the third tree in the park, the stone water fountain, and the bird feeder someone made themselves years and years ago, I would go to places that used to mean something to us. It took a lot to remember but I did. Angelo's, Tesco's, the little Chinese place we'd visit on Friday's, the cinema John dragged me to they were showing some of the James Bond movies for an event. That date turned out successful that we went plenty of more times...but I can't remember why. I curse in every language I know for my stupidity.
My impatience gets the better of me. I've been gone too long and return to 221B quickly. This is when the other part of my routine returns.
I go into the kitchen and take out John's most used cup. I places it with utmost care on the counter as I wait for the kettle to whistle. I make myself some Earl Tea and then go drink it while sitting in John's chair.
I look through the scrapbook Mrs. Hudson gave me. It holds pictures of John. Some from when we first met, some articles of when we were solving crimes together. A few of our 'wedding'. They were mixed with some she had somehow obtained from him and his family. I didn't know she knew them, but here was the evidence in this book. Photos of him far younger then when we met. Of him on Christmas opening a present. Of him in school with his friends. Of his prom...I admit some hatred rose inside of me when I saw my John in a nice suit with a girl in a white dress. It seemed like they were going to their wedding, not a dance. But it passed when I see a picture of us in a very rare moment that Mrs. Hudson took of us on the couch, asleep, in each others arms.
Once my Earl Gray is finished I look at the clock and see that it's 10 in the morning. I hug my knees to my chest and go into my mind palace. I walk down the now familiar path and go down a long hallway until I come up to a door oh so the same as the actual one. I turn the knob of the 221B door replica of my mind palace and smile when I see John reading the paper in his chair.
"I'm home," I announce.
He looked over his paper and smiles at me, "Hello love. How was the case?"
"Boring, as usual. They're all useless down there at the yard," I say with a pout that only he sees. He rises and we meet up and kiss. His image flickers for a second but in a blink he's the perfect John Hamish Watson I saw in a picture. The same clothes too. The well worn jeans that were beginning to fade, that ridiculous tan jumper, and his black shoes he left behind in the closet.
"Sherlock?" my John asks with concern. I smile and kiss him once more. And again for that second it takes to blink his image flickers and in his place it's the blonde male couple I found when I googled 'kissing'. I needed this piece of information to complete this replica. This time there would be more romance, more love. But I had no memory of us intimate so I had to recreate and I did a find job but sometimes...it wasn't enough and I'd need more information.
"Are you okay?" he asks again. My John can't be too different from the original. I love (present tense)the original. The original would have been skeptical and worried about such actions of affection.
"I am. I...I just miss you," I reply and he smiles. My mind reminds me that he is a figment of my imagination and I curse at my mind in all the languages I know. But I am thankful for my imagination. It's brought John back to me and I can feel him and talk with him. And if he let the tenses pass him by then so be it. Because I really do miss him. I want to believe that when we're alone I can be allowed to act like this. The humanity I never showed him. So he smiles and we kiss once more, again the image flickers because it's not perfect because it's not actually John, and he goes to make us tea.
The taste of Earl Gray is still on my actual tongue so it makes the happenings in my mind the more real. I ask him the questions I know the answer to, so my John answers. Unfortunately one of my answers somehow relates to Surgery and I don't know enough about it.
The entire room flickers and I am once more in 221B. The real one. My breath comes out unevenly and then in a shudder. I look around and hate the place. It's too dark. It's too quiet. It's too lonely. But it's John's home. The only reason I returned was because this place, the memories, the objects, the sounds, the smells...they could help me recreate John in my mind. The only place where he can be alive.
I have almost all of the information I need to keep me in my mind palace with a somewhat living John who responds to me, but there are those few moments in which I don't have all the data. And in that small moment the fantasy shatters and I am forced back into the reality.
I take a deep calming breath and close my eyes. Reinventing everything. John's strong body from his army days, his fades blue jeans, my favorite of his jumpers, the tan one, the three different shades of blue that make up John's iris, the dark sandy blonde hair that has those few graying hairs. His replica has far fewer than the real one but that was my own selfish wish. The idea of John getting older means he was getting closer to death...to leaving me. That was unacceptable.
As I reopened my eyes I'm once more in 221B but it's brighter, it's cleaner, it's noisier. I look around frantically and call out, "John!"
There are loud footsteps as my John comes running towards me, panicked, "What? What's wrong?"
"I...I didn't know where you were...I panicked..." I answer and hug him as tight as possible. He hugs me back awkwardly and pats my back.
He replies with, "You went to your mind palace to mull some things over for the new case Lestrade texted you. I just went upstairs to shower and get ready for bed."
I nod. That was plausible. I'm sure it's happened before.
"Let's go to bed," I say.
"What about the case?" he asks.
"It can wait," I smile as I follow him to our bedroom. Some nights in the real world I will have a wet dream of us together and even though it's great and feels amazing it saddens me because it can never be as good as the real thing and once more, I can't remember.
In my mind palace however it's nothing sexual. He lies on his side and I in mine. He turns his back to me and I face him and we spoon. I intertwine our fingers and he turns back and smiles at me. We kiss goodnight and he drifts off to sleep. I watch him and I am still wearing my coat and scarf in the real world so his scent is very strong. I watch and feel as his chest rises and falls with each breath.
"Well isn't this just pathetic?"
I jump away from the bed and stare at the figure in my room. There is brunette man standing in my mind palace. He's wearing jeans and a dark brown coat. I've never seen him before. He shouldn't be there.
"Who are you?" I demand.
He makes a face and then sneers at me and John who is still asleep because of my will power. He then smirks and snaps his fingers.
I am no longer in my mind palace but in John's chair in the reality I loath.
"That's better...oh wait. It's not for you is it? Not with Johnny boy dead and all," the stranger says and I curse for flinching.
"What are you?" I ask this time.
"Oh, very good. Always so smart. I think all my wards are like that. I think Cassy boy got the brave ones while I got the smart ones. He having Dean, Harry, and of course John. While I get Sammy-whammy, that Hermione, and you...then again he did get Tony Stark, but he has some serious daddy issues...and a drinking problem. But then again I do have Draco Malfoy. Now that's a serious case of daddy problems."
I say nothing as he rants on.
He shrugs his shoulders and rolls his eyes, "I'm an angel smart ass. You know, of the lord? High up in heaven...all that jazz."
"There's no such thing," I reply quickly.
"Really? Well that's a shame. And to think I came all this way to offer you a second chance," he said obviously baiting me. In my weakened state I fall for it.
"A second chance?" I echoed.
He brightens up and it sickens me that he reminds me of Moriarty. It sickens me even more that I can still remember that bastards face and not John's smile.
"To have Johnny boy back of course!"
"That's...that's not possible. John's dead. And this is cruel," I tell him.
"Uh, hello? Angel here? Your rules of physics don't apply to me," the angel said.
I stay silence for a moment and let it sit in my mind for a while, "How?"
He rolls his eyes again and says, "I'm Gabriel. An archangel. I have the power to bring back the dead if I so choose."
My throat is dry as my mind runs that over. John back alive...with him.
"But I can do you one better," he says and I look at him, "I can place you back in time. Give you ten years back. Put you just were the separation started. You can have the option to fix things between you and your husband."
Without thinking or analyzing I shout out, "YES!"
He smirks and raises his hand, "But! There is a catch."
"What?" I asked, "If I have to sign my soul I will!"
He laughs, "I'm an angel not a demon, geeze pick up a nonscientific book once in a while."
"Then what's the catch?" I asked.
His smirk is lethal and almost makes me shutter, "You see...Johnny boy died loving you. If I turn back the clock I think it's only fair to him if I make it so he gets some retribution. If you so choose my offer of a second chance, this time around it'll be John who has lost interest in you. John will be alive once more, but he will not love you. So which is it going to be? Continue to live without a John who loved you even though you didn't deserve it? Or have a living John who will not love you? I'd say choose wisely but when do romantic idiots use their upstairs brain for decisions like these?"
For MrsCumberbatch and Sequel to Thursday's Child
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