Chapter 4: A Bit Wrong


The hospital is ready to release John for good. They did what they could with the surgery; well, for the physical portion of it, they did what they could. The rest is left up to John and the care he receives from his family and friends.

I aim to take him home. It could spark his memory, seeing our flat. I'll give him a short tour, and make him tea how he likes it, and show him his blog.

I will do any forthcoming cases on my own, but if I really need his assistance, I will ask him. Ask, not drag him along out of obligation. Being at a crime scene, seeing Lestrade and even the regrettable Anderson and Donovan will ignite nostalgia as well.

He will be home, he will see things, and he will be the John who knows me again.

It should go smoothly.

#

I enter the front of Bart's, and John and his sister are already at the receptionist's desk.

"Oh… hello again," John says, looking at me strangely. He blinks. He is groggy. He is dressed in his own clothing, and he is leaning on Harry to help with his leg. It hurts worse, even when he stands. His body is compensating for the other pains by focusing it on his nonexistent leg muscle pain. It can't remember to forget about the limp, even when he stands. Not a good sign. He licks his lips, looks me over, frowns. "You're, um…"

"Sherlock," I remind. I need a drink of water; my throat has gone dry. I stand rigidly, fingers clenching in my coat pockets. "I'm here to take you home."

"Er," John says sheepishly. "I don't… feel comfortable with that."

"Why not?" I frown. "We're flatmates. Mrs. Hudson could vouch for me. We have documents of our taxes indicating our flatshare. Others know that you live with me. What's the problem?"

"Yes, I'm sure, but… I don't know you," John says as gently as possible. "It might feel… awkward."

"We were strangers when we moved in together," I supply earnestly. I am not pleading with him. I am stating facts. "How is this any different?"

"I don't know a thing about you. I don't know if you will be able to…" He sighs, hand on his head.

Don't know if I will be able to what, take care of him? I can. He has done the same for me. I can mimic from memory. I can be his doctor for a change. Let me, John. Let me take you home. I can care for you.

John's voice lowers an octave. "Look, I just feel a lot better about this if I stay with my sister for the time being. Okay?" John tells me with a faint smile.

"But I know everything about you." I refuse to drop it. I swallow purposely to maintain a straight face. I make no deductions as I had the day we met. I relay via memory, "I know you take milk in your coffee, not sugar. You are left-handed. You snore when you fall asleep after being drunk, but not otherwise. You enjoy reading a light novel at night to help you fall asleep. You tuck your sheets with hospital corners, trained to make your bed like you had in the military, but you kick them free to the point where your sheets are torn off the bed entirely because you are prone to nightmares. Your eyes are not only dark blue, but also flecked with brown-gray, only seen when someone is in your personal space. The last words you thought while you were shot, thought to be dying, were, 'Please, God, let me live.' And you prefer jumpers over every other type of shirt because they are warm – you are prone to chills – and they hide your scarred body completely."

Harry looks at me, stunned. John blinks rapidly a few times, the bleariness gone, his senses heightened from intrigue and alarm. "How… how do you know all that?"

"I told you," I reply softly, "We are flatmates. We have been for the past two years."

John shakes his head slowly, repeatedly. He grips one side of his face with his hand again, fingers brushing his hairline. "I… I'm sorry. I really don't remember." He peers up at me. "But…" And John, amiable as ever, adds, "After a while, once I acquaint myself with you, I'll gladly move back in. I'll need a place to stay, anyway, after Harry here gets tired of me." And he chuckles airily.

Harry sends him a pleasant look, but her eyes soon return to me. "John," she says beside him, hand tight on his waist, "Go out to the cab, all right? I'll be right behind you."

"Sure," he says plainly. He nods and waves me goodbye before walking away.

Harry turns on me after faking a smile for her brother. I can't smell alcohol on her breath; a miracle. I roll my eyes as soon as she starts talking. "What the fuck was that?"

"What was what?" I glower.

"That," she answers, irritated. "That little shtick about all the things you know about my brother because you've lived with him. What was that meant to prove?"

"That I know him, of course. And that he can feel safe with me because I know him well, and it is a minor technicality that he doesn't currently feel close to me, like he knows me," I answer minimally.

Harry reels, crossing her arms over her chest. "Really? Because to me, it sounded a bit like a stalker, and it seemed to me that you just creeped him the fuck out! –God, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"According to many, there is plenty 'wrong' with me. But I am never wrong, so that makes up for it, I believe," I shrug, dusting imaginary dirt from my shoulder and sleeve. She is being outrageous.

Harry scowls and grinds her teeth subtly together. "You can't do this to him. I won't let you."

"Do what?" I inquire innocently, quirking an eyebrow at her. "I haven't done anything to John. I don't plan on doing a thing to him whatsoever. All I want is for him to recover, to remember –"

"That's just it," Harry snaps, "I know how you work. I don't want you to perform your shitty little experiments and use them to force him to remember you. He's better off without a dick like you in his life."

"I already explained to you that he is not," I answer venomously. "Now please, Miss Watson, go to your brother. He's waiting in the cab for you."

She takes a step back. She sends me an intent, malicious look. "This isn't over," she retorts. "I'll be keeping an eye out for your shenanigans."

"I am trembling in my scarf," I say with heavy sarcasm, tugging lightly on the end of the article of clothing around my neck.

She cusses me out under her breath, a warning flag sent through the air. A warning that will go unheeded, because there is nothing to fear, and nothing occurring that is in the wrong here. She is being overdramatic. But then, she is stressed, and it does not help that she is overly hormonal at the moment (feminine napkin wrapper just barely visible in the half-open zipper of her bag).

I walk to the windowed doors of St. Bart's and watch the Watson siblings pull away in the taxi. John glances back through the rear window at me. When he sees me watching them, he turns away again in a hurry.

For once, I don't know what to make of that. Something feels a bit wrong in my gut, a little Not Good, but I trust I know why I feel put-off: John and I got along swimmingly, even as strangers, so why is this happening the way it is? I… I am out of my depth. I don't know how to handle a situation of lost memory conflicting with a relationship.

I have never had a need to build a lasting relationship with someone. I have never actively engaged in the perusal of another human being, outside of chasing down criminals. But here I am, put in a position where I wish to do so. I wish to gain back John's trust, affections, and companionship.

Because without it, I feel… alienated. Lost at sea. John tethers me. John keeps me from feeling like the freak people like Sally Donovan label me as and disregard me for being. This unexplainable need to seek him out, draw him back in; I have never felt it before.

It's dangerously close to more-than-platonic fondness.

"You're treading hazardous water, Sherlock," I murmur to myself as I flip up my coat collar to conceal part of my mixed facial expression, heading out the double doors and onto the street to hail a taxi of my own. "Even sharks would flee these infested waters." The metaphor is weak, but I feel it to my very core.

This is definitely more than a bit wrong.

#

John rings me, but of course it isn't actually John on the phone. It's Harriet. "Sherlock," she greets irately.

"Hello," I answer, my guard in place. "Couldn't stay away?"

"Shut the fuck up," she barks. "I need to tell you something."

"What do you want?"

"I'm coming to Baker Street this afternoon to pick up John's clothes. And his laptop, and whatever else he will need. He's living with me for awhile, so he has to have his things."

I clench my jaw, swallow tightly. "I understand. Come by when you please; I'll be here."

"Don't you fucking dare talk to me when I get there," Harry adds with a slight slur. Drinking already. "Because I won't have anything nice to say to you."

"I won't. Because I am likewise," I answer bitterly, my tone as icy as hers. We both care too much about John, and that makes us rivals of a sort. Protective sister, protective best mate. We were doomed to be at odds with one another since the moment John fell unconscious.

We hang up without saying goodbye.

#

"So he will not be living with you for a couple months, I expect?" my brother informs me. I ignored all his calls, but he decided to ring Mrs. Hudson and force her to give me the phone. Bastard. "How ever will you pay the rent, Sherlock? Not making much money these days, I hear."

"You don't hear, you see," I growl. "Because you just love using your 'sources' – CCTV cameras and little inserts in the police force and crowds of London – to spy on me. It's become obsessive, Mycroft. Watch yourself."

"I am merely looking out for my little brother in a way I failed to do when he was a child," Mycroft prickles; his tone sharp, but his words give the illusion of softness. Contradiction: not sure which to believe. Going with the tone seems like the safest bet. "And making sure that he doesn't make London come undone, or is allowed to run rampant."

Controlling bastard. He's moved up in rank to that long ago, but sometimes I forget. I like to forget everything I can when it comes to him. "What is the point of this conversation?' I sigh, ready to drop the phone and leave it on the floor forever. Mrs. Hudson, confused and wringing her hands, frets nearby, waiting to have her phone back.

"I bear good news, as a matter of fact," Mycroft says brightly. "I am willing to pay John's half of the rent for you so you can save some of your money and not go bankrupt within a month."

"And what do you want in return?" I mutter sourly, picking a hair off of my trousers and letting it flutter to the floor.

"Nothing," Mycroft says gently, and I am not sure if he is acting, or actually being generously sincere. His coming words and tone secure the latter as the truth. "You have been through enough, I think, by losing him this way."

"Temporarily," I shrug. "Really, all of you overreact."

"It would seem," Mycroft comments idly. He sighs and says, "Well, I best let you go. I have other things to tend to. Goodbye, Sherlock."

"Whatever," I say, hanging up and tossing the phone to Mrs. Hudson. By some miracle, she catches it with a little bend of her knees and both hands clasping together. "Why are you still here, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Well, Sherlock, dear… I wondered where John is? I was going to pop in and ask shortly after you came back from the hospital, but then your brother rang me, and… Well." She shakes her head. "I just want to know why John isn't with you."

"I am a stranger to him," I state tonelessly. "He didn't want to come home with me. His sister is coming by later to pick up his clothes, laptop, and so on."

"What about your brother? What did he have to say?" she requests, subdued.

I make a grunting noise. "My brother agreed to pay for John's half of the rent until he returns. That's why he called."

Mrs. Hudson makes the worst face at me: something that screams disappointment, pity, and sorrow. "Such a shame," she remarks with tearful eyes. She blinks the water away and sniffles, turning to the door. "This feels like goodbye."

"It's not," I reply crossly. "I refuse to allow it to be. John just needs some time to heal and remember, and then he will be with us again. I hate that everyone thinks otherwise! Pushing all your doubts onto me. I don't appreciate it!"

Mrs. Hudson turns back from the door and looks at me. She frowns, puts her hands to her hips, and stares me down like a Texan at a gunfight. "Now see here, Sherlock Holmes," she reprimands, bringing up a finger to wag at me like an admonishing motherly figure (which, in some ways, she is). "All your friends want to do is empathise with you, because John is our friend, too! And we're trying to help you, dear; you seem to not want to face reality about this. It's rather dire! Don't you feel like it is? Even deep down, past all that rubbish in your head telling you the opposite?"

I bristle like a porcupine. There are six things I could say on the matter, four of which an be construed as cruel and insulting, both of which I don't wish to inflict on Mrs. Hudson, although I have half a mind to. To abstain from causing her further pain (or admitting anything I don't wish to admit by voicing the other two), I look away and curl up on myself, knees to my chest, arms around my ankles.

Mrs. Hudson sighs loudly and takes my body language as an admissive response all its own. "Oh, you poor thing," she says quietly. "I didn't mean that." And she comes over to me, wraps her frail arms around my shoulders. Her perfume is very strong; elderly women's senses must dull with age, because she has put on too much. It itches my nostrils; I rub my nose against my shoulder, faced away from her, to keep from sneezing.

"Yes, you did," I gripe, pressing my forehead to my knees. "Leave me be," I mumble at last.

Mrs. Hudson sighs again, shorter this time. She kisses my temple, and then the warmth of her arm around me is gone, and I am left alone in an empty flat.

The silence deafens and envelops me.

#

They want me to feel something, to react. They expect an outburst of some sort, but don't they know me at all? I am not the type. Besides: I don't know how. This is so very, very out of my league. How do normal people function with this scenario? Not well, I imagine. So how, then, am I meant to, being who I am?

I don't know. And it is the worst feeling in the world, this uncertainty and muddled emotion. I dislike it intensely.

#

When Harry Watson comes by, I say nothing, as promised. She glares at me a few times, but also respectfully upholds her end of the bargain.

I made it easy for her: I put all of John's clothes in a suitcase of his and set his laptop in a carrier of mine and placed it atop the case. I even put his toothbrush and razors and other things in a separate bag, plastic, and set it on the floor near the rest of it.

She takes it wordlessly. I don't know what she's thinking. She might be thinking that I want her in and out of here quickly; it's true. I do. That's why I made it easy for her, gathered it all up for her: I don't want her to stay a second longer than strictly necessary, be it on a hunt to find a missing sock or debating what to take, or anything else of the sort.

However, she could be thinking I put it all together because I am glad she has taken responsibility of John, because I wanted him to leave/because I don't want him to come back, because I like having him off my hands.

None of these things are true. I pray she doesn't think them; if she does, she might tell John so. And if she tells John, then he might not want to try to return, and that will trouble me. I don't want her to wrench him away from me. We are an item. Not romantically, but we are a duo nonetheless. Anyone who has read the papers or has seen John's blog knows that this is true. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: our names even compliment one another. And his sister can't take that away from me.

Harry leaves quickly, arms full of John's possessions. I try to ignore the sensation of someone reaching in and brutally clenching my stomach in their clawed fist.

Once she's gone, Mrs. Hudson returns in my doorway. She has a loaf of spice cake in her hands. I smelled it baking an hour or so ago. It's still warm, judging by the sweat under the clear wrap over it. She offers, "Want me to cut you a slice, sweetie?"

I nod my head.

She does so and comes over to me, holding up a fork from a plate. I open my mouth. Warm sweetness, dense and flavourful, fills my senses. It's delicious. If there is one thing Mrs. Hudson does right, it is baking. She is a master.

I chew, swallow. "Thank you," I say.

"Oh, it was nothing. I had the ingredients lying around and thought it would be nice to make something for you. Well, and for myself," she replies with a wave of her hand and a small chuckle. "I do so enjoy spice cakes of all sorts. Pumpkin in the autumn, cinnamon in the winter, and so on; you understand."

I nod, although I wasn't thanking her solely for the baked good. She knew I would need cheering up after Harriet came and went. She knew, somehow, in her way. Mrs. Hudson, like John, is a marvel and a treasure. I am fortunate to have such relations in my life. I never tell them so. I hope they know anyhow that it's true. I don't want these people to leave me. It's a lonely existence, being the genius I am. I have lived it all my life. Baker Street has been my only reprieve from the loneliness I used to endure.

I take the plate from her, the fork as well, and eat the rest of the slice. She brings me a cup of water – "You're out of milk, Sherlock!" – and I drink it down to the last drop. Then she rubs my back in soothing circles and sits beside me on the sofa for a spell.

"Mrs. Hudson," I whisper, and she peers over at me. I look at my feet, for the most part. Can't quite say this to her face. I glance up only once, to assure her that I am being genuine. "Really. Thank you."

And I think she understands this time, because she coos, "Aw, honey," and wraps her arms around my shoulders, leaning her head against my left arm, squeezing lightly. She pulls away, patting my back, and then is stroking my cheek. "You're a little confused, aren't you? That's what's had you in a mood this whole time."

I am confused. How does she know? Mrs. Hudson has her moments when she can read people better than I. –She can read me, at least, when she tries hard enough, and that is highly impressive, because I purposely make it difficult. I don't like to be read unless I am blatantly displaying my annoyance in someone's incompetence.

"Well, dear, we're all confused. It's not like one of your puzzles; this is our John we're talking about, and he doesn't remember that he's ours, and that hurts. You have hope, I can tell, but I'm so worried, dear. I'm worried you'll be disappointed when he can't come to remember you, and his amnesia is permanent. I hate to see him break you like that, all without meaning to. And I worry you will think he means to, when he wouldn't do that, not on purpose. And then I worry you think this is all your fault, when it isn't, Sherlock. Your adventures are dangerous. John knows that. You do, too. Bad things happen sometimes, but he knew what he was getting himself into. And I see now that you don't know," she relays with a calmness that can't be matched, her face soft, despite her leathery skin, and her eyes are watery, like always, but deeper than usual.

I blink at her and nod slowly. I see what she's getting at. "Now that I grasp as much, I can work it out," I reply. "Thank you for clearing that up."

"Always happy to help, dear," she says with a smile. She pats my arm one final time before standing. "Now, I have some laundry to do. I'll see you later."

I nod briskly, and then stand to retrieve my violin. I feel like composing. It will help me think; stir me in a more emotional direction. My coping mechanism, like Molly with her hair. Personal justifiables can work wonders, after all.