A/N: 16/5/12: Just removing author-notes etc, no content changes.
Non Dimenticar
Means don't forget you are
My darling
Don't forget to be
All you mean to me
God help me, I don't know how it happened, but it was an accident, I swear.
I wonder if this is how everyone feels when they first stand over a dead body they've just put there, this blind panic, this roaring in the ears that sounds like my army-doctor-ish voice of reason panicking.
No, sorry, that's John realising what I've just done and actually panicking.
"Jesus, Sherlock. Jesus. He's dead."
You can always rely on Doctor Watson to give you all the relevant data. I try to say something scathing, a yes, thank you, John, I did notice, but my mouth won't move and it feels like there's nothing under my feet and I'm about to fall.
I don't know why I'm reacting like this. I've killed, been willing to kill, meant to kill before. It's not like he was a nice man – in fact, he was a violent child-molester. But it was an accident. I didn't mean to.
I manage to look up at him, his face with all its beautiful frown-lines standing out extra-sharply as he starts to really panic. "John, I… I didn't…"
Things escalate when the brother comes back into the room. I wonder, abstractly, if it's always like this, things happening so fast there's no way even my brain can process it all in time to calculate an acceptable exit strategy.
The brother. Elderly, but deceptively strong. Loyal to his family. Didn't know about the fifteen children his brother used and abused in this very library. Wouldn't believe me if I told him. Should be fairly easy to overpower – I could knock him out and run – but he'd still know it was me. Everyone knows who I am after the media storms that accompanied both my departure three years ago and my return four months ago. What can we do? Lestrade's on holiday. Mycroft's on a "business trip". Carter's the DI on this case – we'd never be able to explain. The man lying dead at my feet wasn't even a suspect in his eyes.
"Oh, my God," the brother rumbles – his voice sounds like gravel in a concrete mixer, but that's hardly important – "Michael. He's dead. You killed him!"
I could kill the brother too, easy as pi, and then call Carter and say I found them like this. Shouldn't be too hard to make up an excuse, a reason these two men are dead. Maybe the elder discovered the younger's endeavours over the past nine months and the fight turned ugly. Maybe I could feign cluelessness – might be a stretch – and take the case in some new direction. Frame someone else. No – bit not good, John wouldn't like it.
This situation looks uncomfortably familiar. Me, at the edge of a harsh drop with one way down and only the thin membrane of my reputation to break my fall. Jim Moriarty would be proud. Sally Donovan will have a field day. I killed someone. There's a man lying dead at my feet because I put him there, a man who is no longer alive because of me.
"It was an accident," I tell the brother. I sound so calm – how do I do that? "He tried to fight me, I'm sorry." Poor John – he always has to watch these moments. He shouldn't have to see me like this – I want him always to think well of me. Three years ago, it bothered me that I cared so much about what John thought of me. I've had time to think about it since then.
"John," I start quietly, and my voice is shaking now, not so calm anymore. "I want you to tell Carter the truth. Tell him you had nothing to do with it. Perry was his pedophile – I tried to confront him, it turned messy, whatever. I, um…" My voice falters. It's funny, John's the only one who ever makes it do that. "I'll come back. Mycroft'll clear it up when he gets back, and I'll come back for you."
It's not fair. I only just got back and now I have to run for my life again, run away from John, when I finally got the chance to understand the way I feel about him. I try my hardest not to cry but I'm not sure I succeed.
A strong, weathered hand shoots out to grab my arm and painfully hold it in a vice-like grip so I can't move. "Oh, no, Sherlock," he says, and his voice is shaking too. "You promised. You promised you'd never leave me again."
It's true, of course. And I never meant to. I don't want to. But what choice do I have? "John," I placate quickly. The brother's pulled out a phone and I can hear him calling the police with shaky fingers. "Please, I have to –"
"No," the doctor repeats. "We're in this together. You're not leaving me. I'm coming with you."
Is it possible for that to physically tear my heart in two? Scientifically, I'm sure it's not, but what else could feel like this? "John, we'll be fugitives," I warn him. How bad is it that I'm hoping and praying with all the pieces of my heart that he won't change his mind, no matter how much I want him safe?
"Well, God knows you can't do that on your own," he replies in a darling attempt at humour. "You'd never survive. Who's going to tell you to eat and sleep without me?"
I should argue further, tell him that I managed it for three years – not to mention the thirty-three before I met him – and I can do it again for two weeks until my brother gets back from Australia. I should. I should try to make him stay, but I can't. I'll always want John with me, and I'm selfish.
"Okay," I say finally, making a big show of weighing it up and being reluctant. "Quickly, then. Let's go."
He takes my hand – it crosses my mind that I ought to question this, but I can't, it feels nice – and together, we start running.
