John led the way to the Emergency Room. Sherlock's mind was fogged and clouded as they stepped out of the cab. He hadn't felt this way in years. He followed mindlessly behind John and mirrored his every movement. He knew that if stopped for even a moment he would collapse.
John gestured to a seat and he dutifully sat down in a heap. John then raced to the intake desk and asked a series of questions that Sherlock was too rattled to understand. He needed details. He needed information. It was the oil that lubricated his mind. Without it he was just as ignorant as the rest of the world and it infuriated him.
He tapped his knee wildly just to keep his blood moving. John was talking to them for far too long. Children ran in front of him and screamed at the top of their lungs out of pure boredom. Their shrieks rattled in his brain sent him further inside of himself. He wanted to drift away. He wanted to not feel. It hurt so badly to be so scared.
John turned with a blank expression and walked towards Sherlock.
"What did they say?"
He collapsed into the chair. "She's in surgery."
Logical. Stab wounds would require that.
"But they needed to resuscitate her on the ride over."
The look on John's face gave the words a grim tone. He looked at John expectantly.
"That means she stopped breathing at some point. They didn't sound optimistic at the desk."
Sherlock groaned quietly and batted his eyes away from John. If he didn't listen then he wouldn't have to hear anymore.
John touched him on the arm but he pulled away. "Do you want to wait?"
He nodded.
1984
The weather had finally cleared and the first sunny day of spring had broken through the doldrums of winter. Martha Hudson cleaned the last of the dinner dishes from the night before and gazed out at the wisps of clouds that floated over the blossoming trees. It would be her first spring without her little Dorothy and the thought of a flower picking and apples pies without her little girl brought a tear to her eye. It had been almost a year but just the utterance of her name still tightened her chest.
She saw so much less of the boy across the street since Dorothy passed. For months he'd traipsed her hallways in his quiet somber way while her little girl laughed and led him around. It was a joy to have him around.
Ever since the accident, she'd only seen him as he got into the car in the morning for school. His mother would occasionally stand at the door and wave goodbye but, recently, there had been less and less of her. Now it was the lanky silhouette of Gregory Holmes that haunted the front seat of the car. They'd never shared more than a few words and she was perfectly content with that.
That was what made the sudden appearance of the small Holmes boy in the front yard so unusual. He was dressed in his school uniform with a book in hand. With one uncoordinated motion, he jammed his foot into the side of the large maple in their yard in a fruitless attempt to climb it. The tip of his shoe got hardly centimeter into the bark and promptly slipped out. He tried again and took a leap in the hopes that it would somehow propel him to the top but it only succeeded in dropping him on the ground in a heap.
She could hear him groan from across the street. The mother in her wanted to rush over but she'd been chastised by the Holmes enough times to stay out of their business. She hovered over the phone to call Evelyn, his mother, if he stayed down too long.
Sherlock wriggled on the grass and rubbed his aching leg just as the front door opened. At first she was sure it was Mycroft home on a school break but the bellow quickly cued her into Gregory's presence. She grimaced in anticipation.
He marched over to Sherlock and grabbed him by the arm. In one swift movement he pulled the seven year old to his feet. He gestured at his son's clothes which were surely soiled from the dirt and grass and Sherlock bowed his head.
"What is wrong with you?" he shouted.
"I was just playing," Sherlock said.
"What have I told you? Jesus. Are you stupid or just an idiot?"
Sherlock didn't move.
"Get inside," he shouted.
Martha held her breath in anticipation. She wanted so badly to jump through the window and grab the boy herself. When Sherlock didn't get up, she moved her hand over the phone, ready to call the police herself.
He grabbed Sherlock's arm and tugged him so hard and so fast that the boy fell to the ground instantly.
She gasped. "Get up," she whimpered.
Sherlock cried as his father pulled him up again. "Stop crying!" Gregory shouted.
Martha watched as Sherlock scampered back to the house and clutched his arm. Gregory looked out towards to street to see if there were any witnesses to his outburst. Satisfied that he had gone unseen, he shut the door behind him.
The next morning she waited for them to leave. All night she could barely sleep. All Martha could hear were the shouts and the screams from inside the house as Gregory and Evelyn fought loudly. The light from Sherlock's room on the second floor shone bright until far into the night and didn't turn off until nearly dawn.
Evelyn wasn't at the door that morning. Sherlock held his books in his left hand with his right held tight against his body. As he maneuvered towards the car she saw him wince in pain. It was injured.
She could have killed Gregory right there. Her mind went blank with rage as he didn't even bat an eye as his son struggled just to open the car door with his hurt arm.
"Hurry up!" he shouted from the front seat. Sherlock laid all his books on the ground and used his left hand to open the door. He then gathered them all together and placed them gently on the seat. The production went completely unnoticed by his father.
The behavior was escalating. Whenever Sherlock came around her house, she'd always seen small hints of what his father was capable of doing. There would be the occasional oval bruise around his wrist or at the scruff of his neck but it came so infrequently that she didn't put the pieces together. One day, when Dorothy somehow convinced the boy to swim in their backyard, she saw a large welt on his back. It was the size of a man's hand and she knew instantly where it had come from. She pulled Sherlock aside and asked him about it and the boy looked more terrified than anyone she had seen before. He adamantly denied any insinuation that it was his father's doing and insisted that he'd fallen at the playground.
But it had always been in private. Yes there was shouting that bled through their windows and onto the street but it was always under the guise of privacy that the Holmes aggression was contained. This time it was in public. Anyone could have seen.
Sherlock came home with another family from school. No mother met him at the door and his father was at work. Martha took her opportunity. The moment Sherlock stepped out of the car, she ran outside.
"Sherlock!" she shouted.
The boy winced at the sound of his name.
"It's Mrs. Hudson," she said.
He turned around with a blankly pleasant expression.
"I made dessert. Would you like some?"
He looked towards his own house and then back at her. His shoulders were rounded and tensed at the decision. "I'll call your mother. Come inside. I made your favorite."
Call his mother. She'd rather eat a bag of nails but it was what made him begin to walk over.
He still cradled his arm as he walked. It was nestled against his chest and he desperately tried to hold four textbooks in his little left hand. She grabbed the books from him as he neared. "Let me help," she said.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
They hadn't spoken much since Dorothy's accident. In fact they hadn't spoken much since she'd known him. There was something oddly endearing about the boy who barely communicated with those around him. It was his eyes. They were always looking, always observing and he remembered everything that was told to him. It was so exceedingly unusual that she couldn't help but want to be around him.
"What did you make?" he asked.
She gestured him inside of the kitchen. "Apple custard. And strawberry lemonade."
His little face lit up. "Apple custard?"
She smiled. "Your favorite, right?"
He nodded enthusiastically.
She placed the bowl in front of him and he instinctively went to grab the spoon with his right arm but yelped in pain.
"Love, what happened to your arm?"
His eyes raced as he forced himself to concoct a story on the spot. "Fell down," he said. "I was trying to climb a tree at school."
Half truths. He was a boy full of bits of the truth surrounded by lies. "I see," she said. "May I look at it?"
He turned his body from her as she stepped forward. "I'm okay," he said.
"I believe you," she said. "I just want to make sure you didn't break it."
He felt reassured that his story had checked out and let her come close to examine his arm as he sloppily shoved custard into his mouth with left hand.
The arm was filled with bruises and his wrist was swollen. She touched the pinkish skin at the forearm and Sherlock shouted in pain. His wrist was fractured, if not broken. "Sherlock, did you show your mother your arm?"
He shook his head. "She was asleep."
"I see," she said. She didn't bother to ask about his father.
Dorothy had hurt her arm when she was seven years old after a run-in with a nasty swing set. For some reason, Martha had kept the bandage and sling the doctor had given her.
She draped the sling around the back of his neck and slipped his injured hand through the opening. His limp arm rested on the fabric. "Does that feel better?"
He nodded. "Much better."
"Tell your father that school gave it to you, all right?"
Sherlock didn't need to be prodded to lie. It was second nature for him to bend the truth when Gregory was concerned. "Can I keep it?"
She rubbed his back and gave him a kiss on the head. "Of course, love. Of course."
2013
It was taking too long.
What was taking so long?
"John?" he asked.
John looked up from his magazine with bleary eyes. "What?"
"Ask again," he said. He pushed down on his knees to keep them from shaking. Why couldn't he stop shaking? So human. So ordinary. Control, Sherlock. Gain control.
"They'll come out," John said. "Just be patient."
Patient? How could he be patient at a time like this?
He kneaded his hands together just to give them something to do. Stabbings were deadly. He'd seen enough of them to know that they were unpredictable and caused irreparable damage. Mrs. Hudson was not young. The probability of her surviving without lasting damage…
Stop.
Stop doing this.
"Sherlock?" John said.
Stop thinking about it.
She will be fine. Of course she will. Mrs. Hudson is always fine. She's always there.
"Sherlock!" John hissed.
He forced his eyes to focus on John who was staring at the entrance to the hospital.
Lestrade was there with his head bowed and flanked by officers.
"What is this?" Sherlock asked.
"I don't know," John said. "Maybe they have news."
Lestrade came over to Sherlock and sat down next to him as the officers stood back a few feet, ready to pounce. "I need you to stand up."
It sounded like gibberish. He surely wasn't asking him to stand. "What?"
"Please. Don't make me do it for you."
"What is this?"
John stood up first. "Greg, what's going on?"
"Sherlock," Lestrade said. "Stand up."
He did as he was told, his mind still reeling at the request.
As soon as he stood, two officers came on either side of him. One wrenched his arm back behind him and he felt the cold sting of the cuffs pinch his skin. Lestrade spoke in a weary tone. "Sherlock Holmes, I'm arresting you for the attempted murder of Martha Hudson…"
"What?" he shouted.
John stepped forward. "This is ridiculous."
Lestrade put a hand out. "John, please…"
He couldn't hear the words. The cuffs clicked into place and before he knew it he was being pushed towards the exit. John shouted with Lestrade in the waiting room but it all faded to white noise.