I had to go to get his things from the Yard today.
Couldn't Lestrade bring them over?
He was out- Donovan called me.
Oh. Interesting. What did she say?
She told me that it had been three months and that they needed the space. That I needed to move his stuff out by tonight or she'd get rid of it.
How did you react to that, John?
I was so, so angry. And also so sad. She's moved on. Anderson too. They don't even know that it's their fault. They think they were right.
The files say they were.
That's what Donovan said when I told her that she could have some sensitivity considering how it was her fault that he's….gone. That bitch told me that he was a lying, messed up, homicidal, egotistical sociopath.
Isn't he? Again, the files, John.
No. He isn't. Everyone thought he was this huge, cold, robotic thing and he wasn't. That's just how he kept himself safe. Everyone gets bitten by the world. That was just how he coped. Donovan and Anderson think he is….was….some beast that was incapable of loving, or even living, or smiling from happiness rather than spite, or dancing…
Dancing, John?
There was a day…a couple months after I moved in…we hadn't had a case in a while, I was working at the surgery, and he was doing experiments all the time. Heads in the fridge, poisonous chemicals next to the food and such. It was a gorgeous day. Blue skies, and warm. A rarity for London, so I left work a couple hours early and walked home. And as I approached the house I heard, lo and behold, an absurdly loud drumbeat was blasting from the house. I honestly thought he'd exploded something again. My first thought was "Oh, Jesus, Mrs. Hudson's going to bloody kill him."
But it wasn't an explosion.
No. It was All American Rejects. I went racing into the house to try to get to him, I bolt up the stairs, and he's dancing. In his bathrobe, at the kitchen table with a pipette in his hand, and he's dancing while he mixes chemicals. To Dirty Little Secret. The last thing I would have every expected from him, and yet apparently he liked rock. So there we stood, me with my jaw on the floor, him shaking his hips and spinning to the guitar riff in his bathrobe, and he just looked me in the eye and grinned. I got used to his insensitivity, his running, his violin, but his music tastes, they were so uncharacteristic that I never asked. I just watched. I still have his IPod sitting in the IHome. I never told anyone he had an IPod. I'm afraid to go through it. I feel like it would ruin his mystique.
You should, John. It might help.
Yes, well, maybe. For now it's just fine.