Chapter 4
Sherlock remembered the dark red that painted his perfect cuffs.
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.
In a dash, all the starch went out of his charge and Watson was sliding from his gentle grasp. Shushing and stuttering, Sherlock eased his partner onto her side on the pavement.
Everything was wrong.
He managed to wriggle out of his jacket while keeping one hand splayed under her head and neck. Holding his jacket collar in his teeth, Sherlock managed to wad and fold the stiff fabric into something he could place beneath Watson's alarmingly limp neck.
"Sherlock" she whispered "tell me. Tell me what, what you see."
"Fuck. Watson. Here, Joan. Look at me, look here." He tried to catch her panicked-horse eyes. "There are two wounds. A hand span to the left of your spine. Just under your shoulder blade. You're bleeding Watson. Rather a lot."
An understatement if ever there was one.
He had to get the haemorrhaging under control and began tugging off his checked oxford shirt with the ruby cuffs while trying to keep a hand on the pouring wounds.
Buttons popped.
"I've got to get some pressure on this Joan. One moment. Here we go."
Holmes balled up the shirt and placed it at the source, at the head of the river of blood running out of his dearest Watson. He then gently rolled her onto her back, pressing this pathetic pressure bandage into place.
"Sherlock?"
Why did she sound so terrible? Already?
"Perfect. That's perfect." He was babbling he knew, but was—it seemed—completely powerless to stop. "You are going to be fine Watson. Fine. Help will be here immediately. An ambulance."
Dear God.
Watson's blood was running the pavement.
Soaking through his knees.
How could anyone so small bleed so much? So fast?
An ambulance.
Pulling out his mobile from his pants pocket, Holmes shaking fingers stabbed at the security screen, smearing the glass red.
Wrong code.
Again.
Again.
Fucking hell.
"My passcode! Please, Watson, what is my godforsaken passcode?"
Joan Watson's cool hand wrapped around Sherlock's naked wrist, her narrow fingers strangely free of blood.
White on red.
The pressure on his wrist drew the detective's eyes. Her expression was certain and insistent. The surgeon. "Don't. Sherlock."
He felt his head shaking, his entire body refusing her.
No.
No.
Absolutely not.
"Don't…Watson, we need an ambulance."
Holmes eyes were becoming strangely distorted. As though her were looking at Joan from the bottom of a pond.
His ears relayed unwelcome information that somehow made his vision blur further.
Watson's breath was heavily laboured.
But it had only been a moment...
Lungs.
"Sherlock..." she had to pause.
Couldn't catch her breath.
Sherlock thought he may die.
"Sherlock, don't," Another chilling pause "doctor's orders."
An oddly pure agony consumed him; wholly unlike anything he'd experienced before. Sherlock heard the words behind the words.
He could read it in her eyes.
Dr. Joan Watson did not want the last moments of her life to be spent jostled about by perfunctory faceless medics, clasped and wheeled on a stretcher as a bag of laundry might be, all light and noise. Sirens and blue.
Red.
Those tiny flashlights that look like pens. Clothing cut off. Monitors beeping. Terse questions and knowing professional glances.
And they'd take her from him. The medics. They'd take her.
For a moment, Sherlock thought he might vomit.
Some help that would be.
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.
.
Gregson's consulting detective had been quiet for long, painful, minutes.
He patiently listened to his too-loud clock tick off 500 more beats before breaking the silence quietly. "What do you remember next Holmes?"
"Please." The man in front of him begged. Begged. "Please, Captain. You know what happened. Joan was murdered—by a man, sent by my former lover whose covetousness knows no bounds. Because of me. Watson is dead."
It was clear to Tommy that Holmes was exhausted. Devastated. Furious.
Completely acceptable for a man in his position—pinned on the razors edge of guilt and loss. Holmes angrily thumbed one tear from the side of his nose before going on.
"Really? You need all the detail?"
Gregson quietly waited for whatever was next.
Sherlock's features screwed up, his breath hitched. "She said she loved me. You know. Watson. She loved me. That's what happened next."
Gregson truly wished he hadn't pushed him so hard; Holmes looked as if this was killing him.
It may have been.
The detective pointed a shaking hand at himself, "Me?"
"Joan loved you Holmes. I knew that. Everyone did."
Holmes broken hands covered his face. One quiet sound of pain escaped from behind them before his silence, his slack face, returned.
Gregson settled in to wait again. Holmes had gone back into his memories and he could only go alone.
.
.
.
The world flashed in on Holmes in broken images and sounds.
Music.
British.
A blinking red light somewhere off to the side.
Watson's hand was still on his wrist.
But weaker.
One of Sherlock's hands clutched his blood-smeared phone while the other had somehow found its way to Joan's face. He thumbed a tear from her cool cheek.
Sherlock's voice and his mind insisted "We need an ambulance" but yet his phone dropped, clattering from his red fingers as both hands came to Joan. So dear to him.
So pale.
Cold.
He'd nearly never touched Watson before.
I should have touched her more.
Watson's breathing was strained and then with a choke and a gasp, blood appeared at her bluing lips.
Her teeth awash with it.
"Please. Watson. It's going to be alright. You're going to be alright. Please."
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.
Joan Watson was not going to be alright.
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.
.
She was gasping and struggling. Sounds Holmes would never forget. Her face was full of fear. Watson was drowning.
God.
"Alright, ok, Watson. I'm here. I've got you."
Phone long forgotten, Sherlock lifted Joan gently up towards his shoulder so she could breathe. He knew he was crying.
"Please Watson. Joan. Please…stay. For me."
As if his plea might somehow change the stone-written future.
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.
.
Joan's forehead rested cold and damp, against the left side of his neck. Sherlock had one hand desperately pressing his soaked shirt to her back, other hand in her hair. Holding her head to him.
She was mumbling. Speaking. Sherlock couldn't make out her words, his own formless, begging, sounds had grown loud.
He quieted himself.
Be strong. Hold fast.
Watson choked and coughed.
Coughed again. He felt her nails digging for purchase, cutting and burning beyond his thin undershirt.
With each gasping retch, hot blood spattered his shoulder, his neck. Sherlock's chest constricted tightly. Spots formed in front of his eyes, his ears buzzed. Dizziness nearly won the day.
This cannot be happening.
Toppling off his haunches, he scrabbled them back until the two partners sat against the rough brick wall. Joan pulled firmly, safely, into his lap. After a handful of seconds, the dizziness receded. Joan's voice found him, coming out of the fog.
She spoke without panic, slowly and clearly.
Between gasps and rasps that truly made him want to die.
He couldn't look at her, throwing his head up to the sky instead, swallowing his sorrow.
"Sherlock. You are the best person I have ever met. I love you. Love you. You are loved Sherlock."
Over and over she loved him. Her voice burned a soul Sherlock Holmes never realized he had.
He could feel her dark hair tickling the side of his face, her body tense and hard. Her hands became frantic. Grabbing, ripping.
"You are loved."
Watson's movements began to slow.
As if underwater, her voice was muffled "Don't be scared Sherlock."
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.
.
He nearly laughed.
Nearly.
"But I am, Watson," he clutched her closer yet, rocking them "I am positively terrified."
"Sherlock, you are going to be alright."
He had no words, his head shaking and his chest heaving.
Alright?
No.
Never.
Not ever.
"You and Clyde." Watson chuckled, breathing heavily onto his neck.
Holmes felt a silent sob jerking his shoulders.
He could feel his face cramp in agony. But he had to hold it together, for Watson.
For now.
As if she'd read his mind Watson seemed to pull herself back, tightening her grip on his undershirt, his aching chest.
"No. Drugs. Sherlock. Just, live."
"Please. Watson. I cannot."
From beyond gritted teeth, from what must have been unimaginable pain, Dr. Joan Watson grated out what were to be her final words, "Promise me. Promise."
How could he deny her?
He could not.
"I promise."
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As Sherlock turned his face into Joan's he felt the last semblance of composure leaving him. "Please" he begged, burying his face in her neck as a sob escaped his aching throat.
"You. Watson. You are the person I love most in the world."
As the music thumped and the red light flickered, Sherlock could feel the body in his arms fighting to breathe.
Joan became heavier.
Harder to hold up; wobbling under his ministrations.
Her breaths became shorter and more ragged.
Joan's hands dropped away from his chest and her head slipped laxly, into the crook of his arm.
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