Title: Detour Down A Rabbit Hole
Author: Ethelinda's Window
Chapter 1/3: The Pool of Tears
Rated: MA, for language and to be safe
Spoilers: Maybe. But there are three episodes. Seriously, just watch them.
Crossover: Torchwood. But you don't have to know it to get the story. I don't even know it that well and so apologise for any misrepresentation.
Warnings: Drug use (abuse), language, weird narrative perspective. No slash but be my guest to read it like that if you want to.
A/N:Third time lucky - I don't know why, but my computer's going nuts and not registering that I'm posting this at all. So I'm going to remove it from the 'crossover' category. Hopefully this works...
Okay, so I have to tell you – the idea for this fic? My dog. Yup. When she was attacked by another one and I had yanked her away and started applying pressure to the puncture wounds, all my brain kept doing was supplying useless information like "Subscapularis!" and "Granulation tissue!" I mean really. Shut up.
The rest? I have no idea; just a vehicle to convey my amusing experience. =P And it was 4am. Nuff said.
Points for: Guessing where my chapter titles have come from. You only get one point though since it's freaking obvious.
Disclaimer: I own it. I own it all. I am Moffat and Gatiss. Or a broke and bored Uni student. You decide.
The clattering of shoes war for dominance with your uncharacteristic stridor. You're remotely aware of the back of your throat constricting under the influence of nothing short of pure panic. Had you not been running, you dispassionately observe, you'd be hyperventilating.
At first you think you spot him, just for a moment. Rounding the corner you've seen the silhouette of a long dark coat, but the dimensions are wrong, the hair is wrong. He turns to face you and it's all wrong. He's looking at you with that look. You're a doctor and you know that look. It's the look that surgeons give families before they invite them into the 'quiet room'. You know to be afraid of the 'quiet room'.
"Jack?" You almost careen into the Captain but he has your shoulders. He steadies you and you steady yourself.
"We think he's alive," he knows you need facts. "Ianto and Gwen are looking for another way in."
You realise he's talking about the hole in the wall. You hadn't realised it before but it now gapes at you, laptop sized and ominous. You suddenly don't want to know.
Don't be stupid. Of course you want to know. You look back at the Captain.
"He's in there?" Your military instinct is heightened by the epaulettes on the other man's shoulders.
The Captain nods and hands you a torch.
The wall is made of stone, like the rest of the ruin; solid limestone blocks. The hole was made recently, you notice – an entire block chiselled from its mates. The part of your brain not freaking out realises it's quite clever and wonders how Jack ever found him. The part of your brain that is freaking out tells the other part to shut up.
Awkwardly jamming your head along with the torch into the other side of the wall, it's not at all what you expected. It's not just another room, it's a cavern – a tall, thin cavern that stretches from the roof to the ground at least four floors below. And below's where you spot him.
It's an odd angle, to be sure, but an unmistakable one. They've thrown in four fluorescent light tubes that cast a sickly green glow on his figure. The cavern's filled with about a foot of water, and the lights gently float on top like wary will-o'-the-wisps.
The stench is putrid. You know it well, both from the public toilets at the rugby stadium and the ill equipped Afghan field hospital right after a mass admittance of casualties.
His hair's matted and filled with God-knows-what, but it's his hair. The only other features you can make out are his knees, since his legs are pulled up towards his body – good man, conserving body heat – and one arm that's lying softly by his side, as if he's about to push against the ground and get up.
He doesn't get up.
"Sherlock!" You know your voice will echo, but it hits you smack in the face and boxes your ears. "Sherlock!"
"He never responded when we called." Jack 's still standing behind you, his voice is resigned.
Fuck that.
"SHERLOCK!"
A cacophony erupts behind you. You remain quiet while you hear what the owners of the new footfalls have to say.
"There's no other way in," it's the Welsh woman and she's breathing hard.
"There are other openings but they're inaccessible," Ianto sounds less panicked but no less despairing. "Whole floors have collapsed. This is the only access point."
"Sherlock." The word comes to you like a tardy echo and you're not quite sure if you've actually heard it. You wait a few moments. Perhaps you did imagine it.
"Sherlock?" Your voice does not smash at the air, but this time is sent purposefully towards the figure below. It doesn't move. You breathe through your mouth to dampen the sound.
The others must have noticed the change in your voice, for they remain blissfully silent.
You will it forward with a mental chant of 'Come on, come on, come on,' which increases in frequency the longer you wait. It becomes a monotonic hum in your mind. But then you hear it.
"Sherlock?" That's not your voice.
It's a noise so delicate you consider second guessing yourself.
You discard the consideration.
You rip your shoulders and torch from the small opening and give just as much thought to your jacket as it's discarded on the floor.
"I can fit," you tell them, because even though the hole's small, you're sure it's do-able and there's not enough time to chisel out a bigger one.
You expect them to tell you no. You expect some kind of resistance because three years of living with the man sitting at the bottom of the room-come-cavern next door has taught you the necessity of validating your argument. Instead it's as if you've given them life - a purpose that they're all too happy to assist you with.
You realise they're humouring you.
The hole is small. Shit it's small, and the rope that's tied in an attempted harness-fashion isn't helping matters. One of the knots is digging into your hip as you wriggle back, inch by inch. Bloody hell it hurts. Gwen is folding bits of cloth and rope into the non-space around you, like stuffing a sleeping bag back into its original carrier. The universal flaw of the sleeping bag – it's almost impossible to repack.
Your hips are free, even if they are tingling with the abusive effort. Now it's just your shoulders. Shit. Your medical training tells you that when a baby comes out of the uterus, it's the shoulders that present the greatest problem. You flash-back to the few emergency birthings you've attended. Once the shoulders are out it's clear sailing and the baby practically shwooshes out. That's it, just the shoulders and it's smooth sailing.
The gunshot wound doesn't help. Has it ever? For a few long moments you think you're stuck. Know it.
"Shit." Gwen seems to fully understand and starts shoving your shoulders closer to your head and through the opening.
Fuck; They're going to dislocate. Your legs provide leverage on the other side of the wall, and the limestone cuts at your skin as your shoulders are freed. Swoosh. Just like that. Gwen hands you the torch.
You hold tightly to the edge of the opening. "You got it?" Gwen steps behind Ianto, who's behind Jack, all three acting as belay. They nod and take the slack.
You've abseiled before, but this is agony. The improvised rope harness cuts into your groin and shoulders, but it's better being too tight than too loose. The haphazard lowering of your belay crew means that you miss your footing a couple of times and connect your knee with the wall.
You judge your distance from the ground. Getting a good look is difficult, but you've gone down about two stories. You hope you don't land on Sherlock's head. He wouldn't appreciate it.
"Keep going, that's it, half way there," you instruct your crew through the earpiece they slapped on you haphazardly. You know they can't see your progress. You hope the rope is long enough.
Bloody hell the smell is rotten. Really, truly rotten. You really, seriously, know that smell but you're refusing to acknowledge what it means. Your body is disallowing deep breaths because of the insult of it and you briefly entertain the thought of telling your belay team to stop, give you a moment please. But only very briefly.
By the last floor you've given up trying to prevent scraping against the wall, and instead prepare yourself for landing.
"Five feet...Three feet. Almost there. One foot, come on!"
"Okay, let it go," you hear Jack instruct through the ear piece, and your feet splash into fetid water below. It comes up to mid-calf but not before splashing up almost to your face. A single drop lands on your lip and you notice vaguely that there's a salty undertone. You try to ignore it. You pull down on the rope to give you some slack and point the torch at the figure that the green luminescent bars are lighting so defectively.
White light doesn't reveal much better. He's still in the same position as the one you saw looking down on him from above. Knees curled up, his right arm's by his side and his left's tucked to his chest. But there's something you didn't expect; His eyes are open.
Your suddenly become very aware of your heart for a few beats before it resumes its place inside your chest.
'Atrial premature beat', a disassociated part of your brain supplies.
Shut up.
He's breathing. Oh lord he's breathing. Bradypnoeic. Shallow. But breathing.
"He's breathing," you commentate for the benefit of the others.
"Fuck me." That's Jack.
You crouch down, subconsciously keeping as much of your body out of the water as possible. The water that you know is more than just water – the murky, viscous properties aren't the only clues. Amorphous masse, some as large as a football, are disturbed and move with the new current. Your eye catches something that looks suspiciously like...a syringe?
You're glad you're wearing your solid hiking boots. That's the last thought that runs through your head before the part of your brain that you really want in gear kicks into it and sends you a stream of information to be catalogues and triaged.
Carotid pulse present – weak, thready, approximately 70 beats per minute. Unclothed. At least it looks that way, you can't tell from below the waist to mid-thigh because he's sitting in the gunk. Potential for: Hypothermia, water immersion injury, epidermis sloughing leading to skin infection, aspiration pneumonia, shock, urinary tract infection, malnutrition, dehydration...you will your brain to stop when you realise there's nothing medically you can do for him at the moment. Your goal is now simple. Get him out.
His eyes may be open but they don't look at you. No wonder, you think, you're shining a light in his face. You point the torch just above his head, trying to rebound the light so you can both see each other equally. It's a bit of a lost cause but it's the best you've got at the moment. His face is relatively clean – he's probably attempted to keep it that way, but it makes the dark circles beneath his eyes incredibly prominent, especially in the current lighting.
His mouth is slightly open, as if poised to make a comment, but none is forthcoming. He still hasn't moved from when you saw him first.
You steady your breathing.
"Sherlock?" It's the tone you've used countless times before, but never in association with his name. Not like this. It's the type that, as a doctor, you're expected to perfect and pull out during tense moments like after treating an OD in Emergency.
His eyes flicker.
"Sherlock?" He repeats. His voice is nothing like you remember, which is probably why you weren't really sure if you heard it the first time. It's thin and only incorporates vocal resonance on one syllable. Still, you'll take it. Bloody hell you'll take it.
"That's it," you realise you're essentially cooing. Whatever. "Sherlock, it's me. It's John."
"Sherlocks'me...s'John." He's echoing you, you realise. The currently superfluous part of your brain supplies you with 'echolalia', and 'where was that word when you needed it in fourth-year exams?' Your mouth vomits forth a half-laugh-half-sob noise that you stifle when he flinches.
"Sorry. That's right," you move slowly to place your arm on his shoulder, "It's John."
"Aahs'right. S'John." The pressure you're providing on his shoulder encourages him to turn his head towards you, but there is still no recognition in his eyes. He's cold. Very cold. Definitely hypothermia but you can't do much at the moment. Not just yet. External body heat would be a good idea if you knew what his reaction would be were you to pull him close.
You keep your hand on his shoulder. It takes effort, you can tell, but he slowly focuses his eyes on the warm contact. Another couple of moments before he realises the contact has an appendage and another couple still to realise that the appendage belongs to a body.
His eyes finally find your face and you can almost feel the concentration he's exuding. It's fine, you tell yourself, just the effects of the hypothermia. He'll be fine.
You try to contort your face into something that resembles a smile. His mouth is open again and this time he's attempting to say something. The something, though, seems stuck in his throat.
"Hello Sherlock," you supply. His concentration increases, but without observable results. "It's alright now," you congratulate yourself on your ability to infuse the phrase with a matter-of-fact overtone. "It's time to go home."
He's still looking at you intensely, and you're reminded of the countless times you've been the recipient of that look. Almost that look.
Go on, Sherlock, that's it. Deduce where I've been and how I got here. Tell me that I've been searching for over a week with a team that's almost as dysfunctionally functional as we are. Notice that I would have been searching for longer if I'd have known you never turned up to that conference in Cardiff. Come on, Sherlock, it's all there for the deducing.
His head begins oscillating slightly left and right. You're not quite sure if he's trying to tell you something or if it's involuntary.
"It's time to go home," you tell him again, this time providing a bit of pull under his arm to encourage him to stand alongside you. You figure it's a long shot but it's worth a try.
His head-shaking heightens and you release the pressure, knowing that forcing anything can lead to nowhere good.
Shit.
You crouch down again, getting close to his face and notice just how dilated his pupils really are. You try a different tack.
"Sherlock, can you tell me where you are?" Yep, if all else fails, head for the concussion questions.
It seems a little too complex to comprehend because he's not responding. But he is looking at your face and you try to shine some more light on it so he can see it more clearly. It means that his is almost lost in darkness though, and your legs are beginning to burn from holding your weight in so awkward a position.
"John," the name comes out of the darkness and you can't help shifting the light towards his face to be sure it was he who actually said it. He's staring at you again, as if he's just realised you're there and you notice a spark of recognition.
You smile, genuinely this time, and nod.
"That's right, it's me. It's John." You don't care that the others are witnessing your palpable relief.
"John," he repeats, a little more urgently.
"Yes, Sherlock," you place your hand under his arm again in preparation for a second trial at standing.
"John," his voice is louder now, but it's filled with a kind of despair completely foreign to the individual who's producing it.
"It's alright, Sherlock," and you hate yourself for the empty platitude but it's really all you currently have.
"John!" He's panicking now, but you've gotten him half way out of the water without him even realising. The skin that's been soaking in the water is raw. Infection moves from your 'potential' to your 'likely' list. He's clothed, you notice. Underwear that was probably white in a previous manifestation. You realise exactly how thin he is, and malnutrition joins in with the 'likelies'.
"It's fine, Sherlock, it's time to go now."
But he's not listening, not really, and now he's breathing faster. Probably doesn't help that he's standing for the first time in god-knows how long. Orthostatic reflexes are probably kicking in.
"John, s'not my fault!" He's holding onto your arm that's grasping his shoulder, but can't yet stand fully upright.
You're not completely sure you've heard correctly, the words are heavy and laborious but incredibly urgent.
"Of course not, Sherlock," but you're now busy assessing whether it really is a good idea to harness him with the rope that's currently around you and haul him up separately, or try your luck and go together.
"It wasn' me!" His legs are trembling with the exertion of standing and you realise you need to make up your mind now.
"Of course it wasn't you, Sherlock," but you hardly register what you're saying. "Jack, can you bring the two of us up together?"
"Interesting you should ask," Jack's voice is deceptively casual, "Ianto's just rigged up a pulley gizmo, so it may just be doable." You could kiss Ianto.
Next is how do you get a six-foot-something skeleton with flesh (because that's really all there is at the moment), attached to you and up four storeys to the exit? One thing's certain, he's certainly not going piggy-back style because there's no way his arms are capable of holding his weight, slight though it may be, for four storeys of reverse abseiling.
That really only leaves one configuration.
The acute panic seems to have left him, but he's muttering "It wasn' me!" over and over.
"Can you take up the slack?" You hope that Ianto's pully system is as awesome as it is in your mind's eye.
"That okay?" The rope is pulled taught and you nod. Then roll your eyes.
"Yep."
"It wasn' me!"
"Sherlock, look at me," You are now in full command mode. You have a job to do and if there's one thing you know how to do it's doing jobs. That sounds ridiculous but it puts you in a state of calm. "Look at me now. That's it. This is going to hurt but I need you to hold on, okay? Hold on very tightly and don't let go. Understand? Sherlock?"
He's a little shocked at your tone, you think, which is maybe why he doesn't answer straight away. When he does it's merely to repeat your name again, but you take that as a yes and go with it.
You place his arms around your neck and wrap your left arm around his back. Your right will be busy holding onto the rope so you both don't get turned upside down during the ascent.
"Okay, let's go," you instruct and a moment later there's the familiar pull of the improvised harness.
In the brief minutes since you've been down there you've forgotten how painful it is, and the discomfort is compounded by the lanky weight you're struggling to keep from the wall's surface.
"You good?" A voice in your ear after you're about a metre up.
"Yep," you manage, because you can't really afford to breathe out completely.
Progress is slow. Sherlock's right leg has come up to try to wrap around your waist, but it's not finding very good purchase. You try to reposition to provide a better tethering point. Your arms are shaking.
One floor.
"It wasn' me," a plaintive voice in your ear startles you.
"I know," you think that this is really not a good time for a conversation.
"John! It wasn' me!" Bloody hell.
"I know, Sherlock, it's fine. Please shut up." You kick yourself. You're supposed to have more self control than that. "It's alright," you add because you can't really end a conversation on 'shut up'.
His low litany of "It wasn' me!" starts up again, but they don't seem to necessitate a reply so you just concentrate on hanging the hell on.
Two floors.
His arms convulse around your neck. You think it's just a shiver, but it happens again, stronger.
Not for the first time in your acquaintance do you have a sliver of inkling into how his brain must function when on an 'exciting' case. Instead of being upset, your overtaxed mind is grinning, because your suspicions concerning what substance he's been exposed to have been fuelled.
He convulses again and this time it's strong enough to break his chanting and elicit a sharp intake of breath and weak moan.
"S'alright, Sherlock," you really can't afford the energy to speak at the moment but you know you need to.
Three floors.
Almost there. You're almost there. How the hell you're going to be able to fit back through that hole you have no idea, but you figure it's a secondary concern compared with everything else. Like how you're going to get Sherlock through when your belay crew are busy...well...belaying.
'Cross bridges,' you remind yourself, but don't bother to finish the idiom.
Your arms are on fire, your groin is on fire and your legs are on fire and you hope to crap you don't drop to the bottom and have to start all over again because you seriously don't think that you'll be able to do it. Or survive the fall.
Don't think about falling.
"Almost there," you alert the others, and finally you draw almost level with the opening. Ianto has certainly managed to MacGyver up a crude pulley system but you have no idea where the parts came from. It's not like they were well-equipped when they set out on this expedition. God, that felt like a lifetime ago.
They pull you as high as they can and start tethering the rope while you try to talk Sherlock off your shoulders.
Tethering complete (God please let it hold), Jack helps you pry Sherlock off your body and through the damn hole. It's proving incredibly tricky.
"Come on, Sherlock," you try, whilst peeling an arm from your shoulder, but it's not exactly eliciting the required response. He convulses again. And again. And holds tighter.
You're in agony. You need to get him off you but if anything he's now less likely with Jack pulling at his shoulders.
"Let me try," Gwen gently manoeuvres Jack aside and places her hands on Sherlock's shoulders. "Come on now, sweetheart, it's time to let go."
You could laugh. You don't think anyone, aside from maybe his mother, has ever called Sherlock 'sweetheart'. He just isn't a 'sweetheart' type of person. And yet from Gwen it sounds...right. You imaging that she's probably had a lot of experience coaxing friends from bars at three in the morning before safely depositing them into their beds. Good old Gwen, you think.
After about a minute Sherlock's grip begins to relax.
"That's it," you contribute to the litany of low words coming from the Welsh woman. "That's it, that's right. Good good good." You doubt if you're actually contributing anything. Whatever. It's working.
"That's it sweetheart, just duck your head like that, okay, I've got you, that's it."
Gwen will make a really good mother one day. You try to remember to tell her that when all this is over.
With Gwen pulling and you pushing, you finally manage to fit the square peg into the stupidly small hole. Then it's your turn. They have to dismantle the pulley system before you're able to get out, and even then it's not easy. You're once again reminded of the childbirth analogue, but this time you're coming the right way out. Jack and Ianto provide the forceps and suction and you wonder how your skull's going to look afterwards. You almost laugh again. Your shoulders pop through and the urge to laugh dies. You're almost sick. Pain. Bloody hell there's a lot of pain. But you don't care. Because Sherlock's having a quiet little panic attack just a few feet over, even with Gwen doing her best to assuage it.
You're finally pulled free and it takes a moment for you to make sure you've not done any serious damage. You can move. Good enough. You grab your discarded jacket.
"Sherlock?" Your body's practically shaking with exhaustion. You kneel down next to him, sitting on your left leg while the other's tucked up against your chest.
The light isn't strong out here, but it is natural, courtesy of a nonexistent roof that probably disappeared hundreds of years ago. Despite his pitiful appearance, he looks marginally better than he did in the pit. Raw, emaciated, cold and caked in god-knows-what, but he's a little more aware. A little more with it.
You notice the track marks running inside his left elbow and your heart sinks. You go to put your jacket around him but another is offered instead. It's Jacks, and its size and comfort far outweigh your own. You take it gratefully and wrap it around his frail frame,
"John," he answers through laboured breaths, and you don't think he's ever said your name so much in one day without it being followed by an imperious command.
You long for an imperious command.
"That's right, Sherlock, it's me, and you're okay." Could you think of a more banal statement? Nevertheless, they seemed to be working. His breathing begins to slow, even if a slight hum comes with each exhalation.
He convulses again, a sharp movement originating at the shoulders and spreading down his entire body. His face crumples and he lets out an involuntary sob.
Your heart doesn't know whether to break or to leap for joy when he catches himself and tries to replace his impassive mask. But the mask is cracked and ruined and there's nothing for it but to create a new one. You know that it's going to take time, but it's time you have.
He looks at you again and you place your hands on his shoulders, rubbing gently.
"You're going to be fine," you say again, and now you believe it. At least you try to. Because you've reminded yourself that worse things have happened to a person (you've seen some of those things) and they have managed to get up and move on. And if anyone can do it, Sherlock can. It seems like an empty platitude but you've sure you've never had a truer thought.
"John," he says again, but this time he seems to be asking for permission to sleep, because his eyelids are drooping and his eyes are beginning to roll backwards.
"You need to stay awake," your doctor instincts reply. His breath intakes sharply as he tries to comply, but it's a useless battle and he lowers his forehead to rest on your knee that's pushed up against your chest. You let it rest there.
'Tableau,' your brain supplies, and you tell it that if it interrupts once more you're going for a lobotomy.
So where the hell did the second person narrative come from? My overtaxed, overtired brain, that's where. I didn't even notice I was doing it 'till about a paragraph in. What the hell? My thoughts exactly. I never set out to do it, so I'm sorry if it's weird and disjointed. I thought I'd run with it though since I've never written anything in second person, aside from poetry, so do let me know how I can improve it. =)