It was no longer with a heavy heart that I lived my day-to-day life. I wasn't entirely happy, and I was still lonely. But in a few of those quiet moments, I'd remember that eventually, he'd come back. Eventually I'd wake to find him swanning about the flat in his normal, irritating way.
I looked forward to the chases, the mysteries, and the danger. I wanted more to hear Sherlock do what he did best, pull clues from what seemed like nothing, fit everything together to form a clear picture and solve everything in one breath. It never stopped being amazing to me, and I never stopped telling him. I never will, because even though he knew he was brilliant, and never doubted it, I know that someone else telling him, while others were resentful, would make him just that little bit more confident. Just that tiny bit happier.
I sat in front of my laptop, which displayed a screensaver. Normally, when I pressed a button or tapped the touchpad, it would wake up. The coloured display cleared, now showing just a black screen. I could have worried, but I didn't have much use for the thing anymore. I had very few emails to send, no cases for Sherlock to solve via Skype, and no blog to update. It was, at most, an annoyance. But before I could try anything to fix it, white, pixelated characters flickered across the screen. The shapes formed letters, and the annoyance of a broken laptop changed to something more of a mixture. Fear. Hope. Amusement. Nervousness.
And still annoyance.
Hello, John.
The car is waiting outside.He had my phone number. A quick call, or a brief text would have been enough to get my attention. The doorbell worked too. But no, Mycroft Holmes just had to hack into my laptop.
I took my time, although I couldn't do much to stall, as I walked down the stairs and out onto the street. Sure enough, the sleek car with blacked out windows was parked in front of me, with Anthea stood by it. She paid me no attention, phone clutched in her hands. I said hello anyway, and got into the back seat. She slid in beside me, but offered no explanation.
It was a worry. The last time he'd brought me to see him... well, it was a long time ago. Years. Why would he want to see me now? I was no Holmes, but from what I knew of the situation, it looked bad. The last time I met him, it was about how he sold his brother out to Moriarty. The last time I met him, I found out that he had, in effect, killed his brother, my best friend. I knew that he was aware that Sherlock was alive. I knew that he only wanted to see me when there was something wrong, regarding Sherlock. Put those things together, and it didn't look good.
The journey seems long, with the other passenger silent, always smirking at her phone. I wasn't interested in her any more.
When the car stopped, I wasted no time in throwing myself out of the door and running towards the mansion we had parked outside. I took the steps two at a time, and was greeted by Mycroft before I could even reach for the doorbell.
"John, it's been a long time." He smiles.
I cut in, not caring for his shallow pleasantries and wanting to get to the heart of the matter, whatever it was. "Where's Sherlock? Is he ok?"
He laughed "He's fine" his smile twisted slightly, the look on his face was bitter now. "He's Sherlock, as usual."
At this point, I realised that there was a problem, but not one that I should be particularly worried about, nor a problem that I hadn't encountered.
"Please, come in." He stepped aside to let me into the vast entrance hall. I heard the clicking of Anthea's shoes as she walked in behind me.
I was led through the house to a fire lit room in the middle of a corridor of closed doors. I looked around at the deep red wallpaper, and glossed wood paneling that lined the walls, the chandelier that hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room. Then I saw Sherlock sat in an arm chair, scowling.
I shot him a questioning look, and I knew he was about to make some scathing, sarcastic remark, but Mycroft spoke before he could.
"We have come to the unanimous decision that it would be better if Sherlock were to return home to Baker Street." when he met Sherlock's eyes, his expression grew irritated. "I see no further threat, and there is no sense in keeping him here any longer."
"There would have been no problem with me returning earlier, if you weren't so overbearing." Sherlock spat from his seat.
Mycroft's face contorted further "Mummy was upset enough as it is, you should be thankful that she didn't move in too."
"Mummy didn't ask you to keep me prisoner here because you had no idea how to handle Jim Moriarty." he stood up, raising his voice, and at this point, I decided to intervene.
"You two... have been living here, in the same house, together, for three years?" I asked. It seemed impossible that neither had died at the hands of the other.
"I can assure you the time did not pass quickly." Mycroft replied in a stern voice, still glaring at his brother.
"So you called me here, no... You broke into my laptop, to get me to take him home because you've had another argument?" I clarified, my patience with the bickering men wearing thin "You sell out your own brother, to the point where he has to fake his own death, and hide for years... and now you suddenly change your mind, and decide you've had enough?" I throw my hands up in defeat. It's like there was never a gap where none of this was part of my life. Once again, I bear witness to the two children inside them squabbling. I turn to Sherlock "Are you ready to go?"
He nodded, picking up the cabin bag left by the chair. For a bag that was supposed to contain three years of his life, it seemed very small. I started to wonder how he'd been, if he'd been lonely, or had managed to find something to take up his time while keeping a low profile. I wondered if he'd missed me, but I shook the thoughts from my mind, because it wouldn't be Sherlock to let things like loneliness or companionship bother him the way it had bothered me.
Leaving the mansion with no goodbyes except for a mutinous glare between the two Holmes, we were sent back to Baker Street in the car. It was another silent drive, and the quiet was only broken when it came to our footsteps up the stairs to our flat.
My laptop sat on the table, the screen still blank, but the power lights flickering. I pressed a random key, but instead of it waking, the white letters appeared across the screen again.
D.I Lestrade should be calling with a case for him tomorrow.
He's been unhappy; it's about time he was sent home.
I tried to type back; although nothing appeared on the screen when I did
wouldn't it be easier to text?
I'm not surprised that he ignored that and returned my laptop to normal.
I turned to Sherlock, who sat on the sofa, fingertips pressed together, a steeple under his chin. He watched me for a second, before I asked him what had happened.
"I got sick of him and asked you to take me home." he stated plainly.
"You were the one that sent the message to my laptop?"
"I did just say that, yes."
"Right. And what about the rest of the three years?"
"Boring."
I stared at him for a few seconds, at a loss for what to say to him.
"What happened on the roof?"
"The key, hidden in our flat, it was a trick, there wasn't one at all. There were three snipers, one for you, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, you'd all be killed unless I jumped."
I felt almost guilty, for being angry. I wasn't entirely angry at him, just at the whole situation in general. But he wouldn't be here now if there was still a threat.
"What about Moriarty?"
"He shot himself, so I had no way of calling the gunmen off. Put a bullet through his head the moment I suggested there was a way out."
"And he's definitely gone? Because people seem to have a tendency to die and then it turns out they're not dead." I reminded him.
"Mycroft looked, searched for any trace of him for years, but it was like he never existed. We went back to the roof top; someone had already taken him away."
I frowned at this "He could have just got up and left."
"No, no, no, the traces of blood, it was obvious he'd been carried away."
"Obvious, of course... so... Things can go back to how they were?"
He didn't answer, only giving me a strangely derisive look.
"Does anyone else know you're still alive?"
"I assume so, Mycroft would have alerted people to make sure he could keep tabs on me. Molly knew long ago, insisted on visiting to keep me company. That was tedious, but still better than Mycroft."
I felt betrayed then, that I'd been kept in the dark so long, while she was allowed to see him when she wanted.
With a sigh, I shook my head. It seemed this was a normal day again, only one where Sherlock would remain silent. I settled into my chair, and turned on the telly, another crap reality program.
Later in the day, Mrs. Hudson came up to check on me. This was entertaining, for me at least. She looked like she'd seen a ghost, which was understandable.
"Mycroft got sick of babysitting him, so he sent him home."
Tears welled in her eyes as she hugged him tightly "What have you done, Sherlock? Leaving us like that and all this time- Oh, I probably don't want to know all the trouble that evil man caused."
I laughed silently at his face as she fussed over him, which caused his expression to become even sulkier.
We were called into Scotland Yard, as Mycroft had said, the next day, an overcast Wednesday. Lestrade met us outside, and warned us to just ignore everyone else, should they react. We made our way down the halls to his office to collect the case file. There were a lot of looks, shock and fear mostly. I assumed they had no warning before Sherlock's arrival, they wouldn't believe it if they had.
The case wasn't one Sherlock was particularly interested in, but I tried talked him into it. Then Donovan walked in, two coffees in her hands, dropping one when she saw him. Lestrade took the other, taking a gulp from it "Oh, well done." he grumbled, looking at the wet patch on the carpet.
She didn't answer, staring wide eyed at Sherlock still, who looked away with a sneer on his face.
"Fine, I'll take the case."
"What's going on?! He's supposed to be dead. He was a fake; he made all those crimes and killed himself when he got caught!"
"Sergeant Donovan!" Greg shouted over her.
She looked to him, not answering.
"Shut up."
She eyed Sherlock one last time, before turning and scurrying down the corridor.
Now disinterested in Donovan, Sherlock sat in Lestrade's chair, flipping through the file. When he finished, he gave Greg a disdainful look "Boring."
"Sherlock." I warned him. He was lucky to be let back in at all. Whatever had happened, Lestrade was clearly more in the know that me, and any suspicion had been thoroughly cleared.
We spent most of that day, taking taxi from place to place, taking a quick look around before moving on to the next destination. The case of multiple burglaries of shop storerooms was straightforward enough to pull the evidence together, and by the end of the day, Sherlock had determined the general whereabouts of our final destination in the way of solving it.
I wasn't paying much attention to the details, and I was probably being more useless than usual to him, but I was more interested in everything I'd missed.
That was one of his complaints about my blog, that I missed out everything he thought was important. It was because I only really cared about the feeling.
I walked briskly behind Sherlock, torch in hand to light the way we were headed, down by an abandoned industrial estate. I'd missed what clue lead us here, but Sherlock seemed to know where he was going.
Down the black, damp side alleyway, turning corners suddenly, until the path seemed to open out slightly. We stood at the back of a warehouse, and it seemed this was where we needed to get into.
"Maybe through one of the windows?"
He shook his head, walking further along, and into another side alley. He disappeared down a few steps which went below ground level, and after the wet splintering of rotten wood, I followed inside. He took the torch from my hand, and warily shone it around. What we could be looking for in here, I had no idea, because aside from bare, warped metal frames, the place was empty.
"Are you sure this is the right one?" I asked.
I saw him do a double take, and point the beam of light up and down one of the walls. He wasn't hesitant now, as he took long strides towards whatever he'd seen.
"John... we have to get out. Now."
His voice shook, and instead, I rushed to his side. The torch revealed, sprayed in yellow on the wall, three letters: IOU
"Why? What's that? It just looks like some graffiti."
"It's new, no more than an hour." He shook his head, backing away, taking my hand to pull me with him.
"What does it mean? Why do we have to leave?" I pulled him to stop, and from the weakest light of a dusty window above us, I saw a tear slip down his face.
He pointed the flash light down to the floor in front of the letters. All I could see was an apple core.
"Sherlock, what's going on?" My voice rose from the whisper it had been, as he dragged me to follow him.
We got close to the door, but were stopped in our tracks when we heard something far behind at the other end of the warehouse. An unhealthy whirr and buzzing, as slowly, the lights flickered on, row by row.
It was a soft voice that spoke, a smile audible in his voice. He had such a gentle voice. To someone who'd never known it, it was a friendly tone, but to me, it was nothing but evil and hatred. It was Jim Moriarty, the threat that had never died, calling out to us from the dark.
"You didn't stick to the plan, Sherlock... You didn't keep your side of the deal."
Another row of lights came to life, but I closed my eyes, because I didn't want to see him stood there. Instead, I looked to Sherlock, who tore his eyes from him, and looked down at me.
"Your choices were clear, you die, or your friends die." he paused, and when I turned to him, he smiled "Since you can't decide, I'll let you have both!" his smile grew into a giddy laugh. "I'm feeling generous!"
He started walking towards us, and my stomach turned, but he stopped a few meters away. "Welcome back to the outside world!" he opened his arms, and spun in a small circle "It must be nice, being let off your brother's leash after all this time." he shook his head, sadly, or with what could be mistaken for sadness. "I'll bet you were looking forward to the rest of your life, solving cases with your pet Ordinary."
He started walking backwards, further from us again. "It's all such a shame, such a shame, just when things started looking up for you both." he stopped and spun to look at Sherlock "Oh, my apologies, I'm so rude. I haven't introduced you to my own live-in one. I told you I'd get one, didn't I? Good old Seb. Slightly more entertaining than your doctor, not that it was a competition, but he's even better with a gun than yours is!"
A red speck of light appeared on the floor in front of us. I didn't care to look for where it came from, I knew what followed.
"Now for the fun part!"
His voice softened again, almost a sigh. "I told you what would happen, I warned you. Over and over, I was too lenient!"
His smile disappeared, as he began to shout, getting louder with each word.
"Time and time again, I told you. And I'm glad, I'm glad you never left it alone, it's been a pleasure.
You knew that this was coming, and you thought you could cheat it. Do you see now? I told you Sherlock, and you didn't listen!" he screamed the last words, face blank, but his eyes furious.
Sherlock looked back to me, but closed his eyes to try and keep the tears from spilling out "I'm sorry John."
He never liked to apologise, and was rarely wrong, except for when it came to understanding someone's feelings. When he did apologise, it was bitter and reluctant.
But now, I knew without any doubt, that this was the most sincere, regretful and heartbroken apology he would ever make.
He opened his eyes, and looked in mine.
I watched it all flash before both our eyes: Every case, every conclusion, and every step on London's battlefield. We felt each moment of frustration and admiration, each moment of fear and excitement. The first time I met him at the hospital. We relived that crazy run after a taxi. And that text.
Could be dangerous.
