Greg is at the coffee machine when the power goes out. The corridor is plunged into darkness. An emergency alarm goes off somewhere deep in the building. Out on the stairwell a woman turns her ankle and yelps. The whole scene is lit only by the dull green of the emergency exit sign, run off a separate generator.
All of this, in total, without exception, Greg misses entirely.
All he sees, or rather doesn't see, is the design on the front of the coffee machine vanishing as the lights go off inside. And the noises stop. The chugging, rattling noises, so disconcertingly to an outsider, that he's seen so many witnesses stare fearfully at like a fresh trauma, but which are such familiar comfort to him… It all just… stops.
The breath that finally breaks from him forms, just barely, "No…"
For a long, long time, he stands perfectly still. Not wanting to disturb anything. In the rest of the building life starts to go on. Police officers, after all, tend to keep a torch about, whether on their belt or their keys, in a pocket or a bag. And they do tend to be an adaptable breed.
But Greg is still, still.
To the tentative 'no', he adds a more heartfelt, "Please!"
The last of his change. He's going to be here all night with this bloody double murder, and that was the last of his change and now the power's out and the noises have stopped and there is nothing, nothing, that one man who is no engineer and knows nothing about this machine but that he feeds it coins and vile liquid spews out into a paper cup and that he needs it, nothing he can do.
And nothing is happening, either.
A few seconds later, he looks secretly both ways up and down the corridor. In about an hour's time when the main power comes back on, the bloody thing still won't be working.
Molly Hooper is sitting very, very still. She is not moving, not one hair, not at all. Except to tremble, of course. Even that, she wouldn't bother if she could help it. She can't, so there's no sense in complaining. Trembling is relatively safe, anyway. Moving any more than a tremble just isn't something that she wants to do right now. No, Molly is staying very much centred on her stool, thank you very much, and she won't be going anywhere, and she'll just wait here, very quietly, until the lights come back on. Not a word. Not a sound. Except that little one that just sort of ekes out between her sealed lips, but again, that's something she can do nothing about. It's done now. She just won't do it again, that's all.
Except for that one just now, as she thought about.
And the one that follows, but then that's it, no more noises out of Molly after that. And she knows she doesn't have to worry about those transgressions which went before, because it's not like they were loud. Not even loud enough to wake a mouse. Never mind wake up anything bigger than a mouse…
It's all utterly ridiculous, of course. She's the only living thing on this whole floor, probably. Molly has absolutely nothing to be afraid of. She knows that. She's fully aware of that. She was wrist-deep in the chest cavity of a forty-five-year-old smoker with fourteen stab wounds and a tumour he probably hadn't noticed yet when the lights went out, so she's having just a little bit of trouble believing it right now.
And then, miracle of miracles, but the blessed grid upon which the happiness and functionality of the capital hangs is restored, lifted out of Death's warm embrace like Jairus' daughter, dragged back into this world with a crackle and a whir and a string of swearing as one man in one flat on one unimportant little street has all his fuses blown by the resultant surge.
Jim Moriarty stops slamming doors and stomping because he has to go about lighting bloody candles and begins instead slamming doors and stomping because he has to go about blowing out bloody candles. But this ire doesn't last long. His mood is lifted when his toast pops up. The toaster, it seems, had done just enough work before it lost the will to live, that when it picked up and started again it has produced beautifully even, golden toast. He butters it, makes a cup of tea, checks the bolt is on the front door so nobody can visit, and goes to the living room.
Just because the lights went out doesn't mean it's not Tuesday. Holby's on, and it's very possible Jac is pregnant again, totally impossible to know who would have fathered it, and he intends to find out. He switches on the telly. Waiting for the black to turn to colours and lively hospital chatter, he crosses himself. Two other people have a key to his door. One of them's in Madrid and one's supposed to be shooting a Malaysian dignitary outside his embassy but you still never know.
But he shouldn't have had time to complete this prayer.
He looks over. There's nothing. Just black. And a little message that says, 'No signal'. There's a light flashing on the Tivo box. There's never been a light flashing on the Tivo box before.
He grabs, scrabbling, for his mobile. "Moran! Moran, change of agenda. Urgent change. Get Richard Branson. Get him stat – I mean, now."
"TV's still down," John says, with only mild interest. Sherlock is not going to notice. He, characteristically, is playing with his phone. He was before the lights went out, he still is now. Matter of fact, John has all but given up on even being heard by the time the actual reply comes.
"Mmh. Internet too. The power surge blew out a breaker at the main plant. Service could be down for a day or two."
John Watson, who has had bullets fired at him, who has pulled bullets out of people in circumstances that would send other doctors running, oath or none, is not ashamed to call what stabs him now by its true name. Panic. Pure, simple, how-quickly-can-I-get-out-of-this-flat-and-where-can-I-spend-the-night panic. Cautiously, word by careful word, he manages to sound out, "And you know this how?"
Sherlock waves his phone briefly in the air like a prize, "Because my network is fine."
Relief is like having been held a thousand years in iron bands and now to be suddenly free of them. John sighs and thanks whatever passing spirit might have been responsible for that moment of great serendipity. Only to have it all taken away from him a second later, when Sherlock, still behind his phone, still sounding bored and disinterested, "Real question is, what are you going to do with your evening now?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You are wearing your good shirt, or what you at least think is your good shirt. You have not worn aftershave because the last time you wore both aftershave and the good shirt, given that the good shirt is already taking on that scent semi-permanently, it was too much. I had to warn you about it or you would have choked her to death in the smog. Conclusion, you had a date planned and you had learned your lesson. However, since it's gone eight o'clock and you're showing none of the usual signs of nervous agitation and rapidly crashing self-esteem, I'm led to assume that this date was cancelled-"
"That's it, Sherlock, needle the nerve…"
"-Which would, when all the electrics were at full functionality, would usually lead to you and Lady Laptop taking off into some secluded corner of upstairs and-"
"Sherlock!"
"Please, say no more; I don't need to hear it. I was merely enquiring if you had some sort of back-up plan before you become frustrated and very, very difficult to live w…"
But there the voice stops. Trails off. And when John deigns to look over again (though he honestly doesn't see why he should, in the light of such insult) he is shaking, staring at and shaking, the dull, dead plate that is his phone.
"Oh, that's right," John says. Can't help himself. "You were working last night. Never got charged, did it? You know, now that I think about it, I did hear a sort of crackling noise near the door of your room when the lights came back just then."
And he can watch the words 'charger' and 'power surge' and 'fused', fast as the electric and impeccably spelt, flash through Sherlock's head as he dives for that door to check, to be sure. He'll be alright, of course; John didn't really hear anything. But he looks over at his flatmate, pitifully distressed, on hands and knees at the plug, studying his charger with all the same determination and will with which he studies mysteries and… Well, when a little victory like that offers itself…