There was a difference between being dead and being brain dead. The distinction was subtle, and mostly technological, since until sometime within the last century, dead was simply dead, and a person – a body – could not have been kept alive indefinitely on machinery. It seemed to provide false hope, as if to say look, she's still breathing, her heart is still beating, as though that meant anything.
To die, in the mind, was well and truly death. What use was a body that only pumped blood and consumed oxygen without any awareness, without any hope of regaining consciousness, without possibility of relighting the spark that made a body into a human being?
Well, of course, the machines supplying oxygen and keeping the blood moving kept the organs alive, which was vital for transplant. And then there was some sentimental nonsense about saying good-bye.
There's no one left to hear, Sherlock thought.
There had been a trip back to the flat, packing bags, then a longer car ride north into Buckinghamshire. This had not passed in as much silence as Sherlock would have liked, because Mycroft was filling them in and John was asking some medical questions and it was all so pointless. Why did people have to speak when there was nothing to say? He'd watched out the window, in the growing darkness as England flitted by, his mind automatically cataloguing details that were, for once, unimportant.
London fell away first, and then its suburbs, yielding to the rolling hills, the farms, the hedges, the thatch-roofed houses and sprawling manors that defined where Sherlock and Mycroft had grown up, until they'd both gone away to school. Where they'd come for the longer school holidays and for summers, when summers were not spent in other parts of Europe – France, Italy, Greece, Spain. Despite the Germanic love of order and their parents' reserved British attitudes, they had never once travelled to Germany when Sherlock had been young. He'd asked, and then negotiated, then wheedled, but they had not budged, for whatever vague but set reasons they had.
When he'd been fourteen, he'd purchased himself a plane ticket and gone, alone, knowing no one, speaking only snatches of phrases – Guten Tag (hello), Kannst du mir helfen? (can you help me?) Wo ist der Bahnhof? (where is the train station?). Somehow, he'd managed to make it three entire days, the best of his young life up until that point, and he'd been so assured, so enthused, that no one questioned an adolescent English boy travelling in fairly newly reunited Germany at the time.
Then Mycroft had been sent to round him up – the indignity. But his parents hadn't said anything reproving, no. His mother had enquired if he'd enjoyed his trip. His father had seemed surprised to see him back – or perhaps surprised Sherlock had even been gone. It may be that Mycroft had sent himself to round up his errant younger brother.
He wondered why he remembered that, during the car trip. Certainly it wasn't important.
There had been no time to stop at the house, which made no sense whatsoever, because what was there but time when machines were dictating life, when the body's breathing was being controlled from outside and there was nothing to hurry for, because nothing would change? But they'd gone straight to the hospital, to the ICU unit, and Sherlock knew that John did not want to be there, that he hated ICU units even now, years after the crash, with Moriarty long dead and nothing but some twinges remaining in Sherlock's left leg when the weather got bad too fast or he hadn't slept enough for too long. The man who was John overrode the doctor in all aspects of this, and he couldn't rationalize away the dislike, despite his medical degree, despite all of his experience.
Sherlock disliked it for different reasons. He could barely stand the tense silence, the anxieties that actually felt physically heavy, like the air was thicker, made of some substance that wasn't gas, that required more effort to walk through, to breathe in. He hated that everything was so utterly silent, not in a way that was conducive to thinking or even recovery. It was as though everyone was waiting with baited breath, hoping against hope, but anticipating the worst.
Well.
No need for them to do so. The worst had already happened.
Their father was already there, formal in a suit, cool, composed, reserved, precisely how he was every day of his life. The nurses didn't want to admit all of them at once, but Mycroft dispense of this immediately and without fuss, which was annoying to Sherlock.
And there was Sibyl, half-buried under a mess of machinery, a ventilator, monitors of all kinds, and crisp, white hospital sheets, almost the same shade as her white hair, the same colour Sherlock's hair would turn, had already threatened to start, but only a strand here and there that was easily dealt with.
No, he thought vaguely, That's not her. There's no more her.
Somehow, that thought was oddly comforting when looking at the body on the gurney, which seemed dwarfed by and lost in the equipment that was sustaining something that passed as life. John was casting an expert eye over the monitors, assessing, because it was easy for him to do this, habit, reflex. There were things he could see in the readouts that even Sherlock could not, because John spoke the language of medicine so much better, of course.
No need to ask what had happened: Mycroft had told them, and it was simple and straightforward. She'd had a stroke, William had found her unconscious in their rooms, had her rushed to the hospital, but the stroke had been too severe and had left her brain dead. She was being kept alive until family could arrive, and now they were here.
Sherlock knew his mother would have preferred it this way, rather than be trapped in a cage that had been her body, unable to move or communicate properly, taking time and pains to recover, if recovery were possible at all. Never being quite the same, most likely. When he thought of her, he always thought of her as brilliant and vibrant, but also sometimes distant. Like a star. Whatever restraint and coolness she'd always shown had not entirely hid the brightness of her mind, even when she downplayed it, made it seem inconsequential. He'd never understood that.
"Has she signed her organ donor card, or do we have to make this decision for her?" he asked, uncertain whom he was asking, his father or his brother. A flash of distaste touched William's features at that, only around the edges of his lips and eyes; he kept his expression in schooled remoteness otherwise. Mycroft looked annoyed and almost angry. John looked surprised and cast him a reprimanding glare, which made no sense.
Out of everything that needed to be addressed, this was the most pressing question. Sherlock had no experience with organ donation, of course, but what he understood from John was this: there were never enough donors, never enough organs, and people died all the time while waiting for the one thing that could save their lives. While they stood round the bedside of a woman who was no longer there, there were people who could be given back that opportunity, entire families who could be kept whole, if this one did not delay.
"It's the only practical decision," Sherlock said. "She's not using them anymore."
His father turned his dark eyes away, as though he could simply avoid the unpleasantness of the conversation by refusing to acknowledge it, which was fairly standard, for him. He stood beside Sibyl's bed, opposite Sherlock, one of the few people Sherlock knew who was of a height with him. Mycroft stood near the foot of the bed and John beside Sherlock, but half a step away, as though getting too close now, in this company, made him uncomfortable.
"Well?" Sherlock snapped at Mycroft.
"We need at least a little time to say good-bye," his brother said, in that tone that suggested he thought Sherlock was doing a poor job of being a decent human being. But when had that ever mattered? And, indeed, how did it make anyone a decent human being to ignore the others who were dying while waiting for something Sibyl was no longer using?
"Then I'll go arrange it," Sherlock sighed.
"No," William said suddenly, speaking for the first time, dark eyes moving back, smoothly, to his youngest son. Youngest of four, Sherlock knew, even if he wasn't supposed to know that there had been two who hadn't survived. John had never mentioned this but probably because John thought Sherlock knew. Which he did.
This threatened to become complicated in his mind and he stopped thinking about it.
"I'll do it," his father said, speaking calmly, almost disinterested, as though he were discussing some instruction to give to the manor staff, some inconsequential thing. "I've been here since we arrived. You two do what you must."
This surprised Sherlock somewhat but his father didn't notice or didn't acknowledge it, because he was doing what needed to be done. Nothing more or less. Typical. But it made sense; William had power of attorney, and neither Sherlock nor Mycroft had any say in that regard - although Sherlock strongly suspected his brother could arrange whatever he wanted, should he choose to do so.
Without another word, without any indication this troubled him, William left the curtained-off space, his shoes clicking sharply on the hard floor marked with years or generations of scratches and scuffs from the movement of gurneys and IV stands and other equipment.
When he was gone, footsteps receding past the nurses' station, John touched Sherlock's arm.
"Come on," he said quietly and didn't look back, leaving Sherlock to follow without any question that he would. Sherlock did so, wondering when John had started to be able to do that, when he had realized he could. He followed his husband into a small waiting room which was unoccupied but for the two of them and John sank into a chair, looking at him.
"Let Mycroft say good-bye and then you can," John said.
Sherlock stayed standing and gave him a puzzled look.
"I don't need to say good-bye, John. She's not there. She can't hear me. It would be pointless."
At this, John frowned, then sighed, his shoulders rising and falling abruptly and Sherlock was distracted by the concern that this might cause his left shoulder to ache or hurt. Then he wondered why – it was not a jarring action.
"Well, not for her, for you," John offered.
Sherlock's frown deepened.
"I don't need to do that," he replied.
John gave him a long look, one that searched him, looking for something.
"Maybe not right now," John agreed. "But you'll need to know, one day, that you did it."
Sherlock wanted to ask why, and how John could possibly know that about the future, but sensed it would start a row, and did not want to get drawn into that. He disliked acquiescing with silence, but it was less trouble that way, because John could be unbelievably stubborn about his opinions. So he sat down opposite his husband, crossed his legs, and waited in the unnatural and oppressive silence, the tick of the clock on the wall the only disruption. It was irritating, a steady metronome of their lives slipping past, and Sherlock was suddenly annoyed that he had to spend time here, wasting moments of his life unnecessarily. Because his mother was dead, and him sitting in the hospital was not going to change that.
Mycroft came in after some minutes and John gave Sherlock a pointed look. His eyes asked if Sherlock wanted John to accompany him, but Sherlock shook his head no and left the room, because it was simply easier, would get things over with quicker, than if he protested and delayed. He stepped back into the curtained-off area and looked at his mother's body, still breathing artificially, her skin still pink, oxygenated by the blood her heart kept pumping through her arteries and veins. He wondered if they'd take what blood they could as well, because certainly it would also come in handy.
Did people actually say things in this sort of situation? If so, what? What was the point? She couldn't hear him; she was well past that. Was it to alleviate feelings of guilt or loss? He felt no guilt and of course he felt loss, but talking inanely wasn't about to change that. He had nothing he needed to say to her that he hadn't said before she'd died. Did people try and bridge gaps that had existed in life? How? Why? Surely that sort of thing needed to be done when both parties were alive and conscious. Did they proclaim love? Sherlock loved his mother, but she knew that. And he knew she'd loved him. That was not in question, that was not doubted. He despised it when people espoused all sorts of emotional issues with their mothers, blaming entire lifetimes worth of problems on complicated maternal-child relationships. His mother had been who she was, and that was that. He was who he was, and that was also that.
It wasn't complicated.
Well, he thought. Who cared about appearances in this sort of situation? Was there some sort of scorecard people kept about how well you said good-bye to someone you loved? If so, that was stupid.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead, lightly, because it did seem like a fitting farewell, if not for her then for him. But he said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She couldn't hear him and he didn't need to speak his own thoughts out loud to know them. She'd had a stroke. She was dead. She was gone.
That was simple.
And now, others would live because of her, and that was important. Sherlock wondered if John would be surprised that he thought this. But it was important, and it was practical, and it was possible. If her life was over, there was no need to waste those of others needlessly.
He left the ICU ward again and returned to the waiting room to do what it was designed for – wait.