Lighting Fires
Thank you for your lovely reviews - so glad you're enjoying my take on the post-Fall months! If you've left a guest review, I'm sorry but I can't respond individually.
Inspired by the song Fires by Ronan Keating
Disclaimer : not mine, no money
John hears the cut-off scream as he sprints up the canal, risking life and limb on the wet, slippery tow path. Straining his eyes, he can just make out two struggling figures, one of them much smaller than the other. The attacker's intent is clear; as the doctor approaches, the smaller person is being dragged towards the dark, still water of Regents Canal.
The man has picked his spot well. There are no boats moored along this section, positioned between Camden Market and the Zoo, it's a cloudy November evening, and he has pounced on his victim in the extra shadows of a bridge.
It's perhaps unfortunate for him that John has been trailing the same individual for the past 2 hours.
John speeds up as he sees the pair teetering dangerously on the edge, his thighs burning and chest hammering. Time was he could have sprinted this distance in half the time, but he's out of practice, damn it. The five months since Sherlock's 'death' have not involved any occasions where he's had to run this fast. No more midnight sprints over the moonlit roofs of London. It doesn't help that he's being weighed down by a heavy pack on his back.
With a roar, John makes a final, desperate leap towards the figures, twisting his body so they are all thrown away from the water as he slams into them. Both are knocked to the ground and the impact separates the two, with John falling on his hands and knees in front of them. Before the man can react, John leaps up, ignoring the sharp pain in his knees, and is on him, pulling him up by his coat and pushing him hard against the walls of the bridge.
The man starts to react. He's tall, easily 6 inches taller than the doctor, and muscular – a trained fighter. John can't make out anything useful, the man is dressed top to toe in black and wearing a balaclava; he has only an impression of a big-framed but fast man. A killer. Ex-military, John thinks with the hind part of his brain as he struggles to dominate against the odds, dodging a well-aimed punch.
He feels his feet skidding on the damp, leaf-strewn ground as he does, and his grip loosens briefly. The man takes full advantage – knocking John's hands away and grabbing for his throat, squeezing with one hand as he manoeuvres him back towards the wall.
Gasping for breath, John aims a kick at the man's shins, trying to trip him, but he's firm on his feet and the doctor is helpless against his superior strength. For a moment, he lifts John right off his feet, holding him up by his throat with one hand, and John sees stars. This guy's not as strong as the golem, but it's pretty close.
He makes a last desperate attempt to remove the remorseless hand that is currently cutting off his oxygen supply, as a greater darkness descends. As he scrabbles at the man's arm, he feels himself being pushed backwards against the wall of the bridge. With a quick practised move, the man slams his head back against the rough brick, letting him go as he does so.
John feels his legs giving way. There's a fog over his vision as he slumps to the ground, helpless to prevent the man running away. All he is aware of are footsteps hurrying in the direction of Camden and his own harsh breathing as he fights to get air back into his starved lungs.
For a moment, it seems impossible – he can't gasp the life-giving oxygen in fast enough, and his chest screams with the effort. Bit by bit, his galloping heart starts to calm and he forces himself to take slow gulps of air. The mist recedes somewhat.
He struggles to sit up. There's a hand on his shoulder suddenly, helping him. He blinks quickly, feeling his sight returning, and looks up into a small pale face.
"Thank you."
"It's OK." She sits back on her heels, quite calm. She clearly doesn't intend to thank him for her rescue – possibly she believes she would have got the better of her attacker eventually. John doesn't think she's right, though – the man was quite clearly a trained killer.
The big question is why he hadn't killed John when he'd had an ideal opportunity. It's unlikely he was worried about witnesses. Possibly he had intended to – the severity of the blow to the back of John's head has been reduced somewhat by the backpack he's carrying; the man probably wasn't able to get quite the angle he wanted.
His breath starts to come more easily and, as his eyes adjust to the dark, he gets a better impression of the woman he had been shadowing prior to the attack.
He'd been strolling around Camden Market earlier this afternoon. To all intents and purposes, he'd been just another idle shopper, but he'd been keeping a casual eye on the usual beggars that hung around the area. He'd been doing this for weeks, with no great expectation of success, but on this occasion, he'd finally recognised a member of Sherlock's homeless network.
He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him to approach them earlier. During the first days and weeks following his revelation, he'd gone through that final day with Sherlock in his head, over and over, trying to spot the clues he'd missed. He'd spent hours rifling through the files and notebooks Sherlock kept in his room; having no compunction about going through the detective's private papers. He'd been hoping to discover some former friend or colleague of Sherlock who might be helping him now. It saddened him to realise after a while that the lonely detective had almost certainly been telling him the truth when he'd said that John was his only friend.
So, who then? Was Sherlock working alone? Or with someone's help – maybe Mycroft? He'd dismissed that idea as soon as it came to him – he didn't need to be a detective to recognise the devastation in the older Holmes brother's eyes, almost but not quite hidden behind the civil servant's usual blank expression. No – whoever was in on Sherlock's plan, it certainly wasn't his brother. Not Lestrade, either.
He'd briefly considered Molly. She'd carried out Sherlock's 'post-mortem', so was quite clearly in on the detective's secret. However, he doubted that she was playing any part in Sherlock's post-Fall plans – he wouldn't have trusted her not to give anything away. Besides, John couldn't approach her without giving away the fact that he knew his friend was alive, and if she knew, she might give him away to someone else, which could put Sherlock in danger - well, more danger, anyway. Molly was a rotten actor – that was clear from her body language at the burial.
And then, quite suddenly, he'd thought about the Homeless Network.
He remembered the biker who'd knocked him down, disorienting him immediately after The Fall. He could see now that this was obviously a ploy, and, looking back, he seemed to remember the lad as being one of Sherlock's contacts. He didn't know if the kid was actually homeless, but certainly some of them were, or appeared to be. It was somewhere to start, anyway.
It was difficult to work out how to contact any member of the Network. In the first place, he had only met a few of them – individuals that Sherlock had contacted during cases. And homeless people could be notoriously mobile – often moved on by the police or hanging around different spots. In between shifts at the surgery, he'd taken to wandering around likely locations in the hope of spotting someone he recognised, but it was a frustrating business.
But today, at Camden, finally, after weeks of trying… the woman - girl, really - was someone that Sherlock had slipped a note to once. She was hanging around the stalls, chatting to some of the stallholders as they packed up. She certainly seemed to know quite a lot of people.
He'd lingered, sipping a takeaway coffee as he watched her rifling through the bins. One of the food vendors handed her a bag of leftovers. As she disappeared down the steps by the canal, onto the tow path, he followed her.
It had been hard-going. He couldn't afford to get to close, in case she'd become aware of him and slipped away, but at the same time, it was a grey, drizzly evening and visibility wasn't that good. He'd had to sit on a bench with his now-cold coffee for some time while she'd lingered, talking to a couple sitting on the bank and sharing her donated pasties with them. He'd strained his eyes, but didn't recognise the others.
Eventually, the group had dispersed, and she'd carried on alone. It was now quite dark, on a lonely and dangerous stretch of the canal – he knew that women had been raped here – but presumably she knew the risks she was taking. She didn't seem nervous – just kept walking without looking around, making John's pursuit easier.
She'd obviously reckoned without the six foot nutter that had leapt out at her.
Looking at her now, he can see that she's older that he'd first thought. She's the size of a thirteen-year-old but is clearly early twenties, at least. Scrawny but not frail, a firm jaw in a thin white face, eyes that are far, far older than her years. A veteran of the streets. But still hungry.
"Here." He pulls his backpack off his shoulders, unzips it and finds an energy bar, which he holds out to her.
She gives it a strangely dismissive glance, but takes it none-the-less, giving him a brisk nod of acknowledgement as she tears off the wrapper and crams it into her mouth. She doesn't even look up as he hands her a second bar, the doctor in him noting her unvoiced desperation.
He takes the chance to pull his medical kit out, along with a bottle of water. He swallows a couple of ibuprofen to ease his aching head. He winces as he feels the bump on his head cautiously, but the injury doesn't feel too serious – no more than a bad bruise and a minor graze. He can deal with it later. He doesn't bother to check his cut knees, but he suspects that his jeans are ruined.
He becomes aware of the woman's glance at his medical kit.
"Do you have any injuries? Do you need treatment?" Even as he says it, he recognises the stupidity of such a question. Clearly, her mind is on the drugs that she presumes he has packed away in there.
But then she surprises him by shaking her head. She looks back at him again, and her eyes are knowing, amused almost. It's this that puts him in mind of his missing friend – this all-seeing gaze – rather than the fact that her eyes are also that indefinable shade of blue-green-grey that he associates with Sherlock. Either way, he feels a sudden ache at his loss, and has to look down quickly.
"What do you want, Doctor Watson?" Her voice is low and husky – lungs scarred from pneumonia at some point, his inner doctor tells him.
"You know who I am?" He's surprised - he doubts he's made that much impression on the Homeless Network. Who would, standing next to Sherlock Holmes?
But then it occurs to him that he hasn't been all that bright after all. She hadn't looked around once while he'd been following her, precisely because she'd known all along that he was there. She'd been testing him, trying to work out how far he'd go. For all he knows, he may have been perfectly obvious to the homeless people he'd been covertly observing for weeks – in fact, it may even be his fault that she's been attacked this evening. Perhaps he was the intended target – or the man was trying to stop a potential source of information. He feels his neck prickle with humiliation – some spy he'd make.
"Yeah. A friend knows all about you."
His head shoots up at this. "You've seen…him?"
She gives him a level look. "Go home, Doc." She gets up and starts walking away from him, in the direction of the Zoo.
"What! But…I can't leave you here." It's weak, but it's all he can think of saying, as he scrambles hastily to his feet. Part of him is convinced that she will lead him to Sherlock; he can't bring himself to let her go. However, it's equally clear that she won't tolerate his company further.
She casts an incredulous look over one shoulder and keeps walking.
"But, wait, look, there must be something I can do?" He's thinking desperately – he can't let this source go. "Something you want? I can get you food, money, anything –."
She stops and regards him again; her eyebrows have risen at his last word. "Yeah? Anything at all?" Her eyes drop to the kit in his hands, her intent clear.
He holds it out to her. "Here, take it. There isn't –" he winces a little, "- there's nothing illegal in there… but there's bandages, pain killers, antibiotics. If he – your friend – or you – need anything…"
She reaches out to take the kit, but he stops her, stashing it back into the large backpack and holding that out instead. "Here - take it all. There's food, water, cigarettes and matches, some warm clothes, a blanket … I'm sure you – or someone – will be able to find a use for everything." He doesn't tell her that there's also money – five hundred pounds in notes, stashed in the inside pocket of a thick dark jacket, brand new, in Sherlock's size. She'll find it eventually – or someone will. It might get to the right hands.
She hesitates, looking up at him. He knows his eyes are desperate – he sees the same expression often enough in his mirror each morning.
"It's all I can do." He hardly recognises the voice that emerges; it's no more than a croak.
She seems to accept this, taking the backpack and shrugging it on. "OK."
She turns away from him again, and this time he lets her go. He's done all he can. He feels his shoulders slumping in defeat as he makes no attempt to follow the small figure.
But then she comes back anyway – comes right up to him, her mouth ghosting his ear.
"He still needs to be dead, Doctor Watson."
He doesn't quite know how it happens, but his reputation spreads.
It starts off with the sixteen-year-old boy who is hit by a car right outside 221B. John's just getting in from work, having popped into Tesco's for milk on the way, when there's a screech of brakes and a thud. It's raining hard and there's no one else on the street to witness the minor accident. It's fortunate the car wasn't going too fast – it looks as if the boy ran in front of it and didn't quite make it.
He drops his shopping bag and hurries over. After shouting at the kid, the driver has speeded away, too quickly for John to catch the number. He mutters a few choice words about selfish drivers and attends to the boy. He has a few cuts and bruises, but doesn't look too bad.
The scruffy teenager refuses medical treatment – obviously homeless and wants to avoid the police - and won't even go up to the flat, so John brings his new kit down. He manages to coax the boy into the dryness of the porch as long as the door stays open and cleans the wounds up, kneeling on the floor, while Mrs Hudson brings sugary tea and biscuits and generally fusses around the boy. He smiles his thanks at them both, and makes off quickly without a word, leaving the doctor and his landlady standing on the step, wondering what has just happened.
About a week after that, there's a tentative knock at the door. Another kid, with a nasty cut on his ankle caused by rusty barbed wire. It's puffy and he's clearly waited until things got bad, so, after cleaning and bandaging the wound, John gives him some paracetamol and digs out the last of his stash of antibiotics.
As he instructs the kid about dosage, with no real hope that his instructions will be followed correctly, he realises that he'll have to forge another prescription. He knows that Sarah, who keeps the records at the practice, has turned a blind eye in the past to any irregularities – she probably thinks it preferable to the dreadful alternative of Sherlock Holmes turning up at the surgery for treatment. He prays that she will continue to do so, out of loyalty to her colleague and ex-boyfriend. He'll have to be careful though. If she suspects addiction, she'll take action immediately – and she'd never believe the truth.
The following week, another infected cut. A wrist fracture, which John refers to A&E. A suspected broken rib, which he binds tightly and hopes for the best when the man refuses 'official' treatment. A neglected case of pneumonia – this time, John does call an ambulance, although he doubts the woman will live through the night.
More casualties as the weeks and months go by. More fake prescriptions. Sometimes, John fears he might be supplying some third party, though it's unlikely anyone would bother obtaining such small quantities of drugs from an NHS doctor. He wonders where on earth these people went for help before they started knocking at 221B Baker Street.
He doesn't attempt to question anyone about Sherlock. There's a tacit understanding between himself and his unusual patients that he will just assess and treat, without any acknowledgement. And besides, he's not sure he recognises any of the people he sees. He doesn't know for certain that they are connected to the detective, although he guesses they may be. Part of him – the ever-hopeful part that he keeps buried deep inside - believes that Sherlock is sending these people here for a reason. He's trying to communicate John's continuing usefulness – to make him feel less helpless.
So John continues in his role, quietly and without fuss. It's all he can do. Sometimes he rifles through Sherlock's clothes as well as his own, to retrieve and pass on spare socks, pants, scarves, gloves and jumpers (which the detective, rather surprisingly, owns a number of - many of them clearly never worn). He doesn't think Sherlock would mind – it's quite clear that life has changed dramatically for his friend. No more comfortable flats with a generous landlady, where he can play his violin at 3AM and steal his flatmate's laptop with impunity. Sherlock's thrown his lot in with his homeless friends for the sake of anonymity, and the rules of the game have changed.
He wonders how the circumstances have affected Sherlock's self-diagnosed sociopathological tendencies (a diagnosis that John has privately never agreed with). Has the detective abandoned at least some of his individualism for the sake of communal survival? He can't imagine it, but one thing's for sure - Sherlock has never been without a ready supply of money in his life, even if he cares little for it. John doesn't think the detective has ever realised what it's like not to know where your next meal will come from or whether you'll have a bed to sleep in tonight. It might just affect his attitude towards warm food and a comfortable bed if he's ever in a position to return to his former life. When...when he returns, John tells himself firmly. And it might just give him a little more empathy towards those without the same comforts.
It's certainly opening John's eyes to a new world. As a doctor, he's always been abstractly aware of those on the periphery of society and has had a vague undirected desire to do something about it... but now he's learning that it's not quite as simple as throwing a handful of cash at a charity box.
Sometimes, Mrs Hudson mutters a complaint about the extra and somewhat undesirable traffic coming through her front door, but usually she keeps silent.
Perhaps she's seen the look of intense determination on John's face as he tends his patients.
The look that says he will keep on treating the wounds and binding up the broken bones and handing out the food and spare clothes and blankets. The look that says that each time he does this, he's doing it for Sherlock. These injuries are his injuries, this hunger is his hunger, this exposure to the cruelty of a wintry London wind is - potentially - his exposure.
And, one day… one day, just maybe…
"Will you come?"
John's thoughts fly away, with painful clarity, to another occasion when he'd been sitting in this chair and Lestrade had made that same heartfelt request…but not to him. On that occasion, he'd felt unimportant – sidelined. This time, though, the request is addressed to him – and, oh God, how he wishes it wasn't.
For a moment, he's not sure whether to laugh or cry.
But this isn't a request to attend some mysterious crime scene, oh no. Lestrade's kept his job, but he's been assigned to lesser crimes – the humdrum domestics; the fights between rival gangs of teenage boys that have ended in tragedy; the beatings meted out to vulnerable prostitutes and homeless people. It's while on one of those cases that Lestrade's seen something that has troubled him, hence the request.
John glances up at him over the top of his journal. He hasn't done the DI the courtesy of getting up or inviting him to sit down – why the hell should he? It's 7PM, he's just come off a long shift and is looking forward to a cup of tea and a flick through the classified section of the British Medical Journal – he's vaguely looking for a part-time job that might give him more time for his other activities. He's recently started volunteering a couple of evenings a week at a health clinic held in a Salvation Army hall for homeless people.
It's not his fault that Mrs Hudson let the DI in.
"To the station? With you? Don't think so, mate." He puts a savage emphasis on the last word.
He hasn't been anywhere near New Scotland Yard since The Fall; hasn't seen Donovan or Anderson or anyone apart from Lestrade since then. A team did eventually pay a visit to the flat as part of the on-going investigation into Sherlock's assumed crimes, but Lestrade had got wind of it from Donovan and phoned ahead to warn him. John had made sure he was out when the team arrived. As far as he could tell when he returned, Mrs Hudson having rung to let him know the coast was clear, they'd not caused any damage and had scrupulously returned everything to its proper place. It was the very least they could do. Not least because he'd gathered, from what Lestrade had very carefully not said in his brief phone call, that they could find no evidence of any wrong-doing. It looked very much as if Sherlock's name would soon be cleared.
Anyway, right now, he's not disposed to be of any help to the police whatsoever. He focuses his gaze back on his BMJ, ignoring the hovering DI.
Lestrade sighs. "Can't say I blame you. Ain't a whole barrel of laughs up there at the moment. Donovan's in big trouble for stirring it all up in the first place – she's not on my team any more but that's what they tell me –"
John cuts him off by lowering the journal and glaring up at him. "Not interested, Greg. Really not interested." That bitch, he thinks in his mind.
Lestrade heeds the warning; waves his hand in mute apology.
"Yeah, of course. Anyway. Thought you might react this way, so I got a copy made."
John takes the photo held out to him, interested despite himself. It's a picture of a murder scene; he can make out a foot sticking up in the bottom right hand corner. But this photo is not focused on the body.
He keeps his face carefully blank as he reads the words scrawled on the alley wall with a spray can. Two foot high letters, in white. He's aware of the DI's attention as he moves the photo closer to his face to see if there are any clues.
"Interesting, eh?" Lestrade comments.
John hands the photo back, feigning nonchalance. "Where'd you get it? One of your scenes, was it – they got you out of domestics now? Or are you just scrabbling around in other people's cases, looking for something interesting to do?"
He doesn't know why he has to be so unpleasant to Lestrade. He's not the real enemy, not really. He did at least try to understand Sherlock…
Lestrade frowns, ignoring the jibe. "But – the words, John! I Believe in Sherlock Holmes. Who'd write that now? You must have a theory, surely?"
John shrugs. "What do you want me to say, Greg? It's got nothing to do with me. You know what he was like – he attracted fans. Perhaps one of them actually believes he's inn - he was innocent." He corrects himself quickly, hoping Lestrade hasn't noticed the slip.
The DI is too busy staring at the photo, trying to make sense of the message. His eyes are tired, his face puffy, and he's almost completely grey now; too much stress, too many sleepless nights, too much strong coffee, and too many takeaways in lieu of a decent meal. John wonders if his unfaithful wife has finally left him, or whether it's just that he can't bear to be at home in her company for long enough to cook properly. Lestrade cuts a lonely figure, and he feels a brief twinge of concern. The man just screams increased risk of cardiac arrest at John's inner doctor.
He relents. "C'mon, Greg, take a break, why don't you? You must be off-duty now, right?" Otherwise, there's no way you'd come anywhere near me, he adds silently. It's quite clear that Greg has officially been taken off the Sherlock case.
He gets up and pushes the man towards his chair in a friendly manner. "I'll cook us something, alright? Just take it easy for a bit."
Lestrade sits down gratefully and looks up at him. "You sure? Don't wanna put you out."
"No problem, was going to cook anyway." John walks towards the kitchen, thinking about what's in the fridge right now. He can probably cobble together a veggie curry – Greg looks like he could do with a good dose of vitamin C.
"It's weird though, innit?" Greg's voice floats through the archway between the kitchen and the lounge. "What's even weirder is that forensics reckon the body'd been there for about an hour – station got one of those anonymous tip-off phone calls. And yet, the paint from this was still wet when we got there. So someone did it after the kid was murdered."
"Kid?" queries John, feeling something cold trickling down his spine. Surely not…
"Yeah, eighteen-year-old. We recognise him, was part of a trafficking gang we've been after."
"Eighteen-year-old involved in trafficking?" John doesn't bother to keep the scepticism out of his voice, as he digs some broccoli out of the fridge. All the time, his mind is racing as he thinks of the boys he's been treating over the past few weeks.
"Yeah, son of one of the traffickers. Chinese gang," Lestrade elaborates, and John feels a rush of relief as he chops mechanically. Doesn't fit any descriptions – not of the kids he's treated or of Raz, the graffiti artist that Sherlock knows.
His mind turns to the message. Interesting idea – he wonders who came up with it. Could be Raz, but it's not what he remembers of the boy's style. And why would anyone write the message after discovering the dead body… and then, apparently, leave without contacting the police?
I Believe in Sherlock Holmes.
In the next chapter, John takes on a new challenge... and the mystery of the messages deepens.
