Permission Denied
Harry had had some wine with dinner, just two glasses, but that was enough to start the arguments with Clara again. Afterwards, Harry had shouted some horrible things about John being her brother and about Clara's opinions on his condition being irrelevant. Clara had gotten up and calmly gone back to their hotel room near Queen's Hospital. At least, Harry assumed that was what Clara had done because she, herself, had stalked away in a temper. John had had another febrile seizure early that morning. The infection was still rampant and the antibiotics and other treatments seemed to be having little effect. John's fever had spiked to 40.8C causing the seizure. She knew what Clara was doing, what she was on about. She had seen her conversing with the doctor. Clara was being calm and oh-so-steady because she was trying to prepare Harry for the inevitable. It would have been laughable, really, if Harry wasn't so very angry. She was angry at John, the stupid git, for getting shot in the first place, angry at the Army for always sending her brother away, angry at the useless doctors and nurses, and especially angry at Clara for everything else. If she stayed angry at all these people she wouldn't have to feel the open, yawning emptiness and aching hurt that was growing within. She could ignore the fact that she was teetering on the edge of an abyss so deep she couldn't fathom ever emerging from it. Her brother was dying.
/-/-/-/-/-/
A week ago Monday Harry had gone out for drinks with some of the lot from work. It was Tom-from-accounting's birthday and they needed to celebrate. She had dutifully sent Clara a text from her fancy new phone informing her spouse of her last-minute plans and then promptly turned the bloody thing off. Hopefully, Clara would assume Harry had mistakenly put the phone into stand-by mode again, something she had actually done at least a half-dozen times. She was free and clear for the next few hours anyway. Clara would be aggravated when she got home but then Clara always seemed aggravated about something of late. The party had started at the pub on the corner, The Talisman, and then moved on to The Galaxy for a bit of dancing. Danielle, that sweet young thing from Payroll, had lured her to the dance floor again and again. Who was she to say no? Harry had left the Galaxy around 11 pm (it was a work night after all) with shoes in hand and hailed a cab in her stocking feet. She was just trying to work the lock to the flat, whilst swaying slightly, when Clara ripped the door open wild-eyed and frantic.
"I've been calling you for two and a half hours! It's important! I ... it's important and ... you turned your damned phone off again didn't you! I really needed to ... it is ... important ..." Even in her inebriated state Harry could tell that Clara wasn't yelling in anger as much as she was yelling in fear.
"Whah? It's off again? " Harry slurred determined to stick to her story. She fumbled for her phone in her handbag. Clara just stared at her for a long second in something like disbelief crossed with equal measures of hurt and contempt.
"You've been drinking. You're drunk and you have no idea ..." Clara spat before a letting a sob escape. Harry was unable to make sense of Clara's distress.
"What? Clara, what!" she asked insistently reaching toward her wife. Clara struggled to compose herself and to meet Harry's eye.
"It's John, someone from the army called," she choked. Harry's breath caught and her face fell to a look of utter disbelief. She dropped her shoes and glanced toward the framed picture of John on mantle. She couldn't breathe. Clara was taking again,
"They called the land line about 9 and I tried calling you about a hundred times," but Harry couldn't quite parse the words. She just moved numbly toward the picture.
"They left a phone number, here," Clara was thrusting a crumpled piece of paper at her. "They wouldn't give me any details only that he'd been ... shot." Clara's voice cracked. "Privacy, they said. They'll only talk to you." Clara began to cry silently and in earnest. Harry hated when she did that. When Clara cried silently it meant she was truly inconsolable. She stared at the image of John in fatigues standing in a dusty landscape under a brilliant blue sky smiling slightly at the camera.
"But he just sent the photo?" Harry said quietly sounding bewildered. "Just two weeks ago. He's looks ... OK. He's supposed to be OK."
The photographs were a meant to be a bit of a joke between the three of them but they had always been much more to Harry. Through all his years in the army, Harry had never been able to adjust to John being deployed overseas. Every time he shipped out she got angry with him, like he had a choice. To her mind, he had always had a choice and why did he choose to be in the bloody army, anyway? She would never see him off when he left and never was there to greet him when he returned. Clara had hit upon "the photos" as a partial solution. She arranged with John for him to send her a photograph every few months while he was deployed. John made sure the pictures were innocuous and Clara would print them and put them in the frame on the mantel. Direct e-mails between the siblings were still sparse but the photos seemed to help bridge the gap. Harry was now staring at the photograph like she had never seen its like before.
"Harry, call the number. We need to ... just call the number." Clara said gaining some measure of control over herself. Harry did not move so Clara grabbed Harry's mobile out of her hand and switched it on. There were her 51 missed calls and 8 texts. She dialed the number and handed the phone back to Harry who was at least coherent enough to put it on speaker. LT Garrett Quimby was sorry to inform them that Captain John H. Watson, MD had been wounded in action in Helmund Province, that he was currently undergoing emergency treatment in theatre, and that he would be airlifted to the UK as soon as he was stabilized. His condition was currently listed as critical but the lieutenant assured them that once CAPT Watson was repatriated he would receive the best care and treatment available at Queen's Hospital in Birmingham.
/-/-/-/-/-/
Harriet stewed in both anger and despair as she walked past the rubbish in the ill-kept city park. She hated Birmingham. Finally realizing that she had no idea where she was, she flagged a cab and went back to Queen's Hospital. Visiting hours were officially over but she had noticed that the ICU nurses didn't seem to enforce those rules for the dying. As she walked on to the ward each nurse she passed gave her a sad sympathetic smile. She paused outside the open door to John's room, closing her eyes and steeling herself against the gut-wrenching sight awaiting her. Inside the room John lay motionless on the bed. He was surrounded by IV's and machines including the ventilator which breathed for him. He was naked under the cooling blanket except for some hospital-issue paper pants and his ribs were starting to show. The Foley catheter wound its way to the catch bag off the side of the bed. The small amount of urine in it was dark and cloudy. John's face was gray, not pale but truly gray, and his half-closed eyes occasionally fluttered open and then closed. His short blonde hair was dull and stuck out in odd spikes. The grotesque exit wound by his left clavicle was now covered only by a loose dressing and the drain was visible. The discharge stunk. Harry walked first to the end of the bed, in hopes that John would see her. Then she walked to the right side of the bed. She wrapped her fingers around John's fingers carefully avoiding the IV inserted in the back of his hand.
"Hey, Johnny," she said. There was no reaction.
"Are you ignoring me again, John?" she tried to jest. She searched her brother's face. No reaction. His eyes were dull beneath the half closed lids. A nurse came into the room to change some of the IV bags and to check the drain. Harry got up and moved back toward the door to give her room. As the nurse touched the drain, John emitted a weak, choked sound from around the tube in his throat.
"Sorry, John. Sorry. Almost done," she said quickly and gently as she expertly finished her examination.
At the sound of John's strangled whimper Harry had to bite her own thumb to keep herself from crying out. She didn't know what to do. How was she supposed to handle this? John hadn't seem to know whether she was there or not, or maybe he just didn't care. God, he looked so awful, and he was obviously suffering. This past week had been endless. She just could not handle this. What was she supposed to do? Her inner torment must have been evident because the nurse paused before leaving the room. She seemed to consider for a moment glancing back at John before speaking very quietly to Harry.
"You know, sometimes, the strong ones especially, they need permission before they can ... let go." She gave Harry's arm a consoling squeeze as she left closing the door quietly behind her.
They never closed the door. Doctors and nurses were in and out of John's room all day long. They never closed the door. Harry's heart was hammering in her chest. Was this really what it came down to? Her granting John permission to die? She thought of their childhood when she had bossed John around relentlessly. Or, tried to, anyway. She started to cry silently just like Clara. Several minutes later, with tears streaking her face she went back to the side of the bed and gently clasped John's fingers again. She had decided what she should say.
"Hey, Johnny. I think you can hear me. It's hard to tell. You never listen." In place of a laugh she let out a choked sob. "Johnny, I probably don't have to tell you this but you're doing rather poorly. They ... don't think ... you can make it." She inhaled a shuddering breath and more silent tears burst forth. John's half lidded eyes fluttered open then closed again while his chest rose and fell with the hiss of the ventilator. "They think that you are waiting for permission to ... go." Harry licked tears and snot from her top lip and sniffed. She paused to compose herself again before going on.
"I know you hurt, John, I know you do and you feel ... you're so sick. You've fought hard, I know. I am so proud of you. Do your hear me, John? I'm proud of my 'little' brother." She desperately searched John's face. The dull eyes seemed to struggle to focus and failed. Tears flowed down Harry's cheeks and dripped off her chin.
"I have no right to ask but this is what I want you to do. I want you to fight." She spit the last word. "I want you to hang on with every ounce of stubbornness in your whole, stupid, stubborn Watson body. Permission to let go, my arse. Don't you dare, Johnny. Don't you fucking dare." Harry squeezed her brother's hand. Fingers far weaker than a baby's twitched then squeezed back.
Harry stayed by John's bedside silently holding his hand until John fell asleep. She then opened the door wide before going back to her hotel where she drank vodka straight from the bottle until she passed out.
/-/-/-/-/-/
A/N – This scene came to me out of the blue this past week and I couldn't get it out my head. I hope you like it. As it says up top, this is kind of a companion piece to my story Meeting Clara, which you should read,in that they both deal with John's arrival back in the UK after being shot. Please review and let me know what you think.
As for the 'little' brother bit. I used to envision that Harry was 2-3 yrs older than John. But, given the age breadcrumbs left in John's blog and in the newspapers in ASiB, I now subscribe to the John and Harry are twins theory. But, I think Harry was born first and was definitely the bossy twin while John was the calmer one.
I don't own these wonderful characters.
Not beta'd or Brit picked.