After much consultation, I'm dropping the rating, at least temporarily. More writing time cleared this week so it may be a bumpy ride. Try not to get sick of me! Pay your ticket and take your chances. This particular fic would be at a standstill if not for thedragonaunt and CreamoCrop, and I owe them thanks for keys to the cell. Rocking the Redhead, please let me know if I really mess up! Miz Joely, I love your work! Want to trade spoilers? Me, neither! Flavia, my lady, it's a bad patch for me as well. It gets better, promise! Deadgurlagain, you are a shining light even if you can't see it! Godspeed, speed us away! Susieqsis, Nan and pomwell, we're just getting started! Lot of track for this one. Pardon my sparks.
A small infection seemed to have settled into his upper respiratory system, but there was no deeper rattle that would have indicated pneumonia. Molly sat back on her heels with a sigh. "Any other physical problems I should know about?"
Spyder had gone to feeding him the water directly, her eyes watching closely that he swallowed before she gave him more. "His right shoulder was dislocated. I popped it back in without too much trouble, so I think it must have been out before. His first right finger and second and third left fingers were much harder, but he had passed out, so I put them back as well."
"He should have all that braced, taped up." Molly knew she had the materials once they got him clean. She held her hand up against the water bottle. "Give him a little time; let his stomach get used to it. How long has he been like this?" She knew she didn't want the answer.
"My lover would know. He only showed me where the Raven was two days ago." Spyder shrugged. "I would guess three weeks, maybe four if the Giant was careful as always."
"You knew Sherlock before? You're part of the network?" Molly started trying to figure out how to move him without straining his shoulder. Getting him out of his clothes was going to be a logistical nightmare. His usual buttoned shirts would have been easier on his shoulder than the t shirt he currently had on. Small blessing that the jeans were now too big on him.
Spyder had already pulled off his trainers and socks. "Media games. 'Boffin' Detective', 'Suicide of Fraud'. Should have been 'Fraudulent Suicide'!" She giggled briefly. "Sorry. My lover says I have a macabre sense of humor."
"That's okay; me, too." She gave the smaller woman a wisp of a smile. "If you can get him around the waist, I think I can get under his arm and we can get him in the bathroom."
It took several false starts and one near collapse, but they got him leaned up against a towel rack. Spyder kept him upright while Molly shook out a bath wrap, draping it around his waist. She shrugged at Spyder's questioning glance. "This is how I used to help my dad bathe after he couldn't do it on his own. I know it's dumb, but you have no idea how this would embarrass Sherlock."
"He's still in here, Lenore. He'll come out and play eventually." Spyder smiled gently. "Better to treat him like he's taking notes. Can you take him for a moment?"
Molly barely got under his arm as Spyder dropped, something flashing in her hand. The ripping sound startled her, but in seconds the jeans were pooling on the floor. Spyder lifted his foot, pulling the remains away. She stood, slitting the t shirt with the knife, and then ripping it up his right side. She repeated it, cutting the sleeve, pushing the shreds to Molly to finish removing. She leaned in, conspiratorially, whispering. "Commando."
Molly ignored the comment, more concerned with places she could see that his skin had reddened, inflamed. At least his damaged shoulder showed no bruising. Spyder must have gotten it back in the socket without pinching the surrounding muscle tissue. The clothes were a total loss anyway. She shifted her grip to around his waist. "Can you get his feet?"
Getting him into the tub was more of a controlled drop than a lift, but they managed not to send a wave flooding the bathroom. With her father, Molly would have pulled the towel out, bubbles covering his modesty, but she didn't want to risk abrading Sherlock's already irritated skin. She used an old measuring cup to pour the soapy water over his shoulders and neck, desperately trying not to look in his face. The few glances she'd already taken showed his eyes were still clouded, unsettled, unfocused. Spyder might think he was still in there, but she couldn't see any sign. His eyes hadn't been that empty when he had been stretched out on her slab. The fact that they were still moving only made it more heartbreaking, unnerving.
The word floated across her mind, in his missing voice. "Transport." She locked the sob down roughly. She couldn't begin to guess the amount of mass he'd lost. As much as that frightened her, she knew where his concern would be; his mind. His transport was here, but she had no idea where the rest of him might be.
Long ago, John had given her an explanation of what he called 'Sherlock's Mind Palace'. She hadn't been able to stop herself from picturing it as some kind of medieval fortress, complete with battlements, moats and drawbridges. She used to kid herself that she could see him deciding what made its way across the water and what didn't. Now it was far too easy to visualize it with the drawbridge up, battlements abandoned, the barbican unmanned.
Spyder drew close; carefully easing the cup from Molly's shaking hand. "It took the thunder to drive me away forever." She brought Molly's fingers up to a slab of old scar tissue hidden beneath the onyx hair at her temple. "The thunder echoed at his door, but it never touched him, Lenore, I promise. Wiggins told me how stubborn the Raven is. He protected himself with all his skill and he will come back to you. You just have to give him time to see the cage is far behind."
Molly reached and Spyder allowed her to run her fingers across the matching scar on the other side of the smaller woman's head. Only one thing she could think of would cause those puckered circles. Blindly, she dove into his curls, searching. Nothing. She forced her breathing to slow, her attention drawn again to Spyder. "You're bleeding. Your cheek, a little on your neck. Do you need…?"
"You believe me now." Spyder smiled. "I'll be fine. Always am. Why don't you get him some clothes and I'll try to untangle his hair. I've had some experience with knots." She lifted the end of her braid.
"How did you know?" Molly paused at the door. "How did you know I believe you?"
The smile grew. "You noticed someone else was in the room."
Everything was too loud, too bright. Focusing on individual noises was impossible, let alone what sounded miraculously like voices. Color had returned to his vision, screaming in intensity. Large smeary reds, yellows flickering. There had been a sharp pain, searing in intensity, but it had faded away into the dark, leaving a vague stiffness in its wake. He wanted to scream, break someone, but that hadn't gone well last time. Better to hold on, bide his time. Things seemed to be easing, but he couldn't make himself trust it. Some viscosity against his fingertips. Spheres with rainbow skins. Flames? No, candles; the flames were somewhere else. Swallowing had eased to less than tormenting. He wanted to curl back up, protect, but small hands were touching him, preventing it. One set of hands belonged to an image out of the Brothers Grimm: 'Skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony.' Fairytales had already been the death of him once. The other set of hands snatched life out of death's maw…no. Not possible. She always saw him, but she wasn't looking now. Don't let her look. Spare her this one heartbreak.
Molly wrapped his damaged left fingers together gently in the tape, careful to not to limit his circulation. They should brace each other effectively enough. After helping her get Sherlock onto her couch, Spyder had talked her out of trying to bandage his shoulder. Anything that could be perceived as restraining him might drive him farther away. If he somehow jarred the shoulder out again, Spyder swore she'd get it back in the socket.
Wiggins let himself in with the key Molly had given him. Spyder ran to him, burying her face in his shoulder, humming brokenly. For a moment, Molly wondered if the smaller woman's bravado had been an act to try to keep her spirits up. No, she'd been worried about him.
"It's okay, beautiful. Lot of noise, lot of smoke, but I never saw your giant, promise." Wiggins was rubbing between her shoulder blades. "How's the Raven been? Take good care of him?"
Molly stood as Spyder led him over. Wiggins gave Molly a subtle nod, recognizing she had questions but knowing how scarce answers were. "Spyder?" Molly folded the end of the tape over so it would unroll easier next time. "That pot of broth should have cooled by now. Think you could use that syringe trick again? No more than a cup, though, okay?"
Spyder nodded. "He could use the salt." She gathered the needed supplies and perched on the edge of the coffee table.
Wiggins was waiting a bit down the hall. Molly grabbed his elbow in a grip usually reserved for first year students attempting to walk out with pockets full of free needles. "What the hell happened?" she hissed.
"You can just talk, Doctor. I swept for bugs two days ago." Wiggins had the grace to look chagrinned.
Her mind hiccupped over the hundreds of questions that statement raised. She'd come back to it later. "Sherlock has been tortured." She choked on the word. "What the hell did he get in the middle of?"
"You think he let me in on it?" His own anger was flaring. "He told me to meet him, bring him a handgun. He went strolling off into that warehouse and didn't come back out! I was supposed to leave him there, but I just couldn't. Then Spyder found out and…"
Molly leaned against the wall, her head dropping back on the plaster. Of course Sherlock hadn't told anyone. The only person he ever confided in about such things thought he had died months ago. He wouldn't have made any backup plan; just assumed he'd been on his own as he'd been most of his life. So wrong, but he never seemed to understand it. She took a deep breath, pursed her lips, blowing slowly. "Who was using that warehouse?"
Wiggins shook his head. "Too many people in and out to tell. I think half the organized crime in London was keeping some kind of stash there. Spyder was the only one of us who could keep going in and out without getting caught. If she hadn't found him in the basement, done the whole recon, I don't think he'd have ever gotten out. She…she knew what they were doing to him, wouldn't let him end up like her."
"How does she know him?" Molly didn't want to be suspicious of his rescuer, but she couldn't take the chance, not when he couldn't defend himself. "And why 'the Raven'? His own name not distinctive enough?"
"Spyder never calls anyone important by name except me. She makes up code names, like she's hiding identities from someone. She's called him the Raven as long as I've known her. If she gets scared, she goes to see the ravens at the Tower of London, loves the legend that if they leave the Tower, England will fall. I don't know, maybe it was that damned coat."
"But they've never met?" Molly had thought 'Lenore" was just a Poe reference. It had been Spyder's way of making her important.
"No." Wiggins was emphatic. "When I saw she was keeping press clippings, looking up his blog at the library, I offered to introduce her. She didn't talk to me for days. She ran the whole length of King's Cross Station just to avoid him once. I even put off asking her to go into that warehouse, thinking she'd refuse if she knew he was inside."
"And the Giant, who's he?"
"No idea. Tonight's the first I've heard of him." Wiggins eyes shadowed with concern. "We got separated getting Sherlock away from the building. When she caught up to us, she just kept saying that the Giant had come back, the Giant was going to finish the job, but she wouldn't explain. He's why I went all the way back there. I thought maybe I'd see some big guy in the crowd, but no such luck."
"Lenore?" Spyder called softly. "The Raven isn't going to sleep on this couch. Can we move him to your bed?"
"Is the couch too short?" This wasn't the first time Molly cursed having bought a sleeper sofa. The building her flat was in made moving some larger furniture pieces through doorways practically impossible. The sofa had been one of the few that could be moved past her front door.
"He doesn't know where he is. He's unsettled." Spyder shrugged.
"I don't see how my room would help." Molly muttered, missing the smaller woman's eye roll. "Wiggins, want to give me a hand?"
The two of them maneuvered him down the hallway while Spyder ducked past into the room, pushing Molly's duvet aside and switching on the hardly-used bedside lamp. To be safe, Spyder pulled the alarm clock from the wall socket.
As she and Wiggins got him atop the mattress, Molly was rattled by how little he looked like the man she knew. Her oversize track pants and a battered old work shirt of her father's would be replaced tomorrow once she had a chance to get somewhere she could buy men's clothes discretely. He could put the weight back on, but it would be easier if he could help. The bandages would be removed as soon as she was sure his joints stabilized. Maybe tomorrow Wiggins could give him a shave. Molly had cut her father once like that and wasn't brave enough to try again. If she couldn't reach his mind, she'd at least take care of the transport.
Molly dropped into the chair she used for reading as Wiggins rejoined Spyder at the door. She'd call in to work in a few hours, take what holiday she could get in the spur of the moment. Leaving him like this was not an option.
Spyder gave her a small wave, and then pointed to the bed.
Sherlock spent a few moments staring down at the pillow beneath his head before his eyes darted elsewhere. A few seconds later, he repeated the process. After the fourth cycle, he reached up, wrapping his fingers in the case, his eyes drifting shut.
Molly held her breath. It was the first independent move he'd made since they'd gotten him in the door.
Spyder drew close, whispering. "He knows your scent, Lenore. Safety. He's starting to make choices again." A pause. "Can we use your couch?"