A/N: This story-idea has sitting in my head, screaming to be unleashed, for a while now. But until this morning I didn't know how, exactly, I wanted it to come out. Aaaand, here we are. (grins) First things first, though…
WARNINGS: some language, adult themes… tissue alert?
DISCLAIMER: Oh, if only…! But nope, I own NOTHING save the DVDs I've bought. (pouts) Nor do I own the lyrics that I quoted. (That song is freaking brilliant and fits the post-TRF feels perfectly!) NOR, do I own the picture. (AWESOME work, you fantastic person who created it!)
TAKES PLACE: A couple of months post FALL. Pre-Mary, pre-TEH.
Awkay, because stalling is just rude… Let's go! I really hope that you'll enjoy the ride.
Wait!
/ It's been a long day without you, my friend
And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again
We've come a long way from where we began
Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again /
(Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth: See You Again)
"Greg… I think… I may have miscalculated."
It was two thirty in the morning and DI Gregory was barely awake. Those words succeeded in striking all reminders of sleep from his mind. And not only because they weren't coming from the mouth of one Sherlock Holmes, couldn't be. The DI was sitting up so fast that he felt dizzy and almost fell right back down. "John?" He sounded terrified even to his own ears. He didn't give a damn.
This was the first time he heard Dr. John Watson's voice since Sherlock's funeral and the former soldier didn't sound like himself, either.
For a much too long moment there was no response and Greg checked to make sure that the phone call hadn't been disconnected. His heart was beating incredibly quickly when he was able to catch a tiny, pained gasp. "John! Answer me because you're scaring me!" And he wasn't ashamed to admit it. "What the bloody hell is going on?"
"Yes, right. Sorry." John's speech sounded slurred. Not good. There was another torturous pause, during which Greg had enough time to get fully dressed and charge towards the door, barely remembering to take his keys along. "' bloody cold, here, with the door open. 'wish they'd hurry up."
That… might just be the first positive thing Greg heard since picking up. "So you've called an ambulance? And you've opened the door for them?" There was no use in trying to fish out what, exactly, the doctor had been an idiot enough to do to himself. Right now Greg focused on the tiny beacon of light that apparently help was on the way.
"Hmm. 'f course. 'don't wanna die." There was a strange, chilling sound and it took a moment to realize that it was John's teeth chattering. "Sherlock did." It was the first time since the fall John mentioned the late detective's name. The name was also the only word that didn't sound the slightest bit slurred.
Greg felt like someone had plunged a knife right into his guts. By then he'd slumped to his car but John's words paralyzed him. His eyes grew misty and while he wiped them his free hand trembled. "I know", he murmured, hating how his own voice broke. "But you don't. So… So stay awake, yeah? Keep talking to me."
When John sighed heavily there was a great deal of moisture in it. Yet again it took worryingly long before any words came and they weren't anything to ease one's mind. "… 't up and lemme sleep. Please. Lem'…" And then John's voice faded out completely.
Cold, the icy kind that chilled him to the core of his being, took over Greg. So intense that he could barely breathe. "John?" No reply. "JOHN!"
That was when Greg heard the sounds of sirens and it took him a second or two to realize that the noise came from John's end. Soon there was loud clattering and barked commands as the ambulance crew rushed in. With a baited breath Greg listened how they tried to rouse John. There was no response from the former army medic. Something was said about pulse and blood pressure, and a million other things, but his head too full of static and chaos to catch on.
Sherlock would've been appalled.
And then an unfamiliar female voice was talking to Greg. "Hello? Who is this?"
Greg blinked several times. It wasn't until he attempted to talk he realized that he hadn't been breathing properly for a while. "I… ah, I'm DI Gregory Lestrade. I'm…" He cleared his throat. "I'm his friend." 'Is', 'was', what difference did it make right now?
"Alright." The voice was somehow authoritative and calming all at once. Quite close to the tone that Greg used often at work. "John called us just in time. He's not out of the woods but we'll get him to a hospital and he'll receive all the help that he needs."
Greg nodded, then remembered that she couldn't see it. John had help, that was important. But… Help with what? "What happened? He never managed to tell me."
She sighed. "A benzodiazepine overdose." As though somehow hearing that he didn't comprehend she clarified. "Sleeping pills." Her colleague shouted something. "I'll have to go now. But Dr. Watson is in good hands, I promise."
No, Greg didn't understand anything. Not at the very moment. Tears, those that he'd been holding back since that horrible day on which Sherlock took his leap, pooled into his eyes. Some of them rolled down his cheeks, fat and heavy. "Wait!" Who was he calling out to, anyway? Sherlock? John? The stranger? He had to clear his throat again when his voice threatened to disappear entirely. "Which… Which hospital are you taking him to?"
The night wore on horribly slowly. By the time Greg made it to the hospital no one would tell him anything. And so he sat in the awfully depressing waiting room, staring at the blank white walls. Trying desperately to keep himself from going crazy and a million worst case scenarios spinning around in his head.
At the break of dawn a nurse who'd been keeping an eye on him since he barged in took pity on him. Carefully making sure that her colleagues didn't notice she made her way to him with a tiny, comforting smile. "He'll be fine", she half-whispered and somehow the words were some of the loudest he'd ever heard. "He should be waking up right about now." She slipped a piece of paper to his hand and disappeared to her final round before the end of the night-shift.
Several seconds ticked by from her departure until Greg finally managed to take a look at what she left behind. Not a phone number, certainly, but that of a hospital room. A shiver went through him when '221' sneered back at him.
The bitter ironies…
It took longer than it should've before Greg reached the room. The sight he encountered made him freeze to the doorway. Whatever he'd been expecting… Somehow this wasn't it.
The room was shadowy and the only sounds he could hear came from a heart monitor the hospital staff hadn't dared to relieve John of. His attention, however, locked on the figure lay on the bed. John was a rather short man but never before had the former soldier seemed quite so small and… fragile. Like a piece of china that'd fall apart if you as much as blew at it too hard. The doctor was incredibly pale and despite the lack of light Greg could see that he'd lost a great deal of weight. Above all, however, he saw the dark circles, like bruises, around John's closed eyes. Never before had he faced anyone who would've appeared quite so exhausted.
"Are you just going to stand there staring at me or did you actually have something to say?" It was impossible to tell which startled Greg more. That John was awake, after all, or that the man's voice sounded perfectly normal, if not a bit thick from sleep. A pair of hazy, half open eyes turned slowly towards him. It took a mighty while before anything more was said. "I… guess they told you what happened, huh?"
Greg nodded stiffly. The questions were burning his tongue, desperate to crawl out. Somehow his courage ran out.
John seemed to hear, though. "I wasn't trying to…" The doctor looked away, appearing embarrassed. "Well. I'm sorry I worried you."
That was a massive relief. Of course it was. But for some reason the elephant sitting on Greg's chest refused to budge. "You're a bloody doctor! How did you…?" John, of all people, should've known enough to not overdose on accident.
John's eyes were suddenly alert when they turned towards him. Full of barely contained rage. "I haven't slept in two weeks, Greg! Or two months, I don't know anymore. I haven't dared to. Because…" John swallowed and visibly held back the urge to vomit. The man wouldn't look at him anymore. "Because every time I close my eyes I… It's one of two things. Him jumping, or my own voice, calling him a machine." The doctor chuckled bitterly and rubbed his face hard with both hands. "He trusted me, thought that I was different. The idiot." A different, pained sound crawled out. "I just… I wasn't thinking, forgot to count. I just wanted to sleep properly for once."
Greg didn't know what to say. Were there even proper words for a situation like this? "It wasn't your fault", he sighed although he had barely enough breath for a whisper.
John shook his head and their eyes met once more. Lost, pained, angry. "I stopped believing in him, Greg. Only for a moment but it was enough. Just like you did when letting your people come and arrest him. We both failed him." The man looked away and gritted his teeth so hard that it had to be painful. "His whole world was crumbling down and we let him fall. And… And maybe one day I'll be able to forgive us for that. But not yet."
They watched how the sun began to climb up outside. In the hallway the sounds of a morning shift coming in could be heard. Somehow none of it managed to make any sense.
Greg shifted with discomfort, the weight of the room's air and John's accusation becoming too much for him to handle. Especially after the terror of the night before. "I've… gotta go to work. Just… Take care, yeah? And call me. I'm expecting to hear from you." It didn't matter to him if their friendship shattered when Sherlock hit the pavement. He needed to know that John would be alright. That two people hadn't been lost on that nightmarish day.
John nodded, still not glancing his way, and that was all the answer he'd get.
Just before he left John spoke once more. The words were so quiet that he had to strain his hearing to catch them. "He asked me to tell you that he's sorry. Right before he jumped. It's… I think it was the only time I ever heard him cry honest tears."
Ten minutes later Greg sat in his car, without the slightest clue of how, exactly, he got there. He stared at the building before him, at the people who were laughing, chatting and starting a yet another day. And wanted to scream at the top of his lungs.
Instead, however, he merely whispered. Because as loudly as he shouted the words wouldn't carry where Sherlock was. "I'm sorry, too."
Finally left alone, John couldn't hold it back any longer. He hadn't a cried a tear since Sherlock's death. But now… Now the agonizing weight sitting on him became too much. And so, there in the solitude of his room, he buried his face into his hands and finally let the tears fall.
Like all his sorrow could've somehow brought a dead man back to life.
In the darkness of the following night, while John slept more or less soundly under the effects of strong medication, another patient walked into the room. Limping, which wasn't a surprise if one saw the deep, hastily stitched gash on his leg. The arrival's long, greasy hair covered a part of his face. But when he lifted his head his eyes were more than familiar.
Even with the moisture in them that the man himself was unaware of.
John twitched violently and unleashed an agonized whimper in his sleep. A nightmare, then. For a few moments the arrival stiffened and waited for signs of the other man waking up. John remained fast asleep, those heart wrenching sounds continuing. One of the doctor's hands jerked, as though trying to reach out for something.
For a few more seconds the arrival remained perfectly still. Observing. And then, his steps stunningly soundless despite the limp, made his way to the sleeping man. "A one more miracle, John", he whispered, his voice betraying only a hint of the emotional turmoil blowing insde. It was a secret deal between the two of them and the night cocooning them. "I promise. Just wait and you'll see."
By the time John's eyes opened two minutes later, dazed and full of a fool's hope, the visitor was already gone.
/ So let the light guide your way, yeah
Hold every memory as you go
And every road you take will always lead you home, home
It's been a long day without you, my friend
And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again
We've come a long way from where we began
Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again /
(Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth: See You Again)
End.
A/N: Oh, those poor things! (winces) But, thank gosh at least we now know that things worked out in the end. Even if it was after two years of pain and sorrow.
Sooooo… Any good? PLEASE, do let me know! I'd love to hear your opinion.
In any case, thank you SO MUCH for reading! Who knows. Maybe we'll meet again one day?
Take care!