Oh my god. Don't hate me, please. It has been the roughest couple of months imaginable. First and foremost was a move cross-country which had me without my laptop for two weeks. And then once I do get my laptop back, I sprang my wrist. And then just when I get it all typed up and pretty, my internet goes down for a week and a half. This chapter was then slowly beaten into submission by old ping hai and me over this last week, (she'd been busy and I'd been sick).
And then this is just HALF of it. But at 2700+ words it ends at a nice break. We plan to begin work on the next half next week and hope to have it out to you before week's end. And in other good news, the next chapter (after part 2) is half way typed up. So, there's that.
My deepest apologies for keeping you waiting. I hope the following chapters make it up to you.
Also, props out to Ariane DeVere for the post-script of A Study in Pink. I use to go to Planet Clair for all my quoting needs, but they only have half of The Empty Hearse up and none of the rest of season 3. That said, however, this IS an AU, there will be canon divergence. A lot of it.
Fate. I've believed in it since meeting that boy all those years ago. If you had told me before that rainy day that I would meet the one individual who would change my world forever, I would have laughed. It was supposed to be just another day on the battlefield. If you had then told me that after nearly getting annihilated in Afghanistan, the same individual would deliver me from from the clutches of depression and make me live again, I would have punched you. But these things did happen, and when Fate shows her hand, she always wins.
As I was walking (well, I say walking, but it was more like limping) back from my therapist, I cut through a park, intent on getting home as soon as possible, so I could be depressed in the confines of my own flat. My shoulders were hunched against the world, and my eyes were focused on the ground in front of me, hell-bent on avoiding anything in my path that might trip me up, when I heard someone call out my name.
"John!" My step faltered but I pressed on. "John Watson?" I sighed and turned around. There was no avoiding this conversation then. A round, cheerful man was waving me down.
"Mike Stamford," the chubby man probed. And when that failed to register with me, he added, "We were at Uni together." Oh, right. This must have been one of the times that government forced me to get "up to date" in their "medical science".
He smiled warmly at me. "I know, I got fat."
I fought to come up with something that wasn't a lie and that wasn't rude. I failed spectacularly. Mike was one of the few mortals who knew of the fae's existence. A fae, a noctiré in Mike's case, had befriended the young Stamford in his grandmother's garden. A story very similar to Sherlock's.
"I heard you were abroad getting shot at, what happened?"
I stared him frankly in the face and said, "I got shot." His eyebrows rose and he had me tell him the story. He wouldn't settle for anything less. He knew better than most the implications of that simple bare statement. It felt good to talk to someone who actually knew what I was and why the incident still haunted me. I shouldn't have needed the help of a faoladh to have survived. (If that's what he was, but in my mind there can be no other explanation.) I felt the ambush was a setup despite reports by the military to the contrary. There was a nagging sense of betrayal that did not abate no matter how many times I read the dispatches from the field.
"Couldn't Harry help?" he asked.
I had forgotten that Mike was unfortunate enough to have met my sister. I shook my head, "Yeah, like that's going to happen." I sighed. "I just need to get out of my military-funded bedsit, but I can't on my army pension."
"Have you thought about a flatshare or something?"
I laughed bitterly. "Who'd want me as a flatmate?"
Mike chuckled quietly. "You're the second person to say that to me today."
I reared my head back slightly in surprise, "Who was the first?" And with that simple question my world, which had been careening out of control since I had been sent home from the battlefield, suddenly righted itself.
I just didn't know it at the time.
He led me back to Bart's Hospital and up the elevator to one of the labs. He stopped a young woman to ask if he was still there. When she nodded in the affirmative, he opened the door to the right and walked straight in. It looked nothing like what I remembered.
"A bit different from my day," I told him before I set my sights on the other person in the room. He was tall with dark curls that covered his face. He was testing something on a slide, pipette in hand.
"You have no idea," Mike replied.
And then his voice filled room, "Hey, Mike, can I borrow your phone? I haven't got a signal on mine." He held up his phone as evidence. I stood stock still. I wondered if he would recognize me.
"Here, you can borrow mine," I spoke up. He looked surprised and then walked over.
"Thank you." He took the phone from me and began typing on it. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"
"What?" I was shocked but before I could say anything more, the young woman we had seen out in the hall came in with a cup of coffee. And then he proceeded to insult her, and she went off without even the barest whimper.
He took a sip of the coffee as he walked back to the microscope he had been using.
"Afghanistan. How did you know?"
He ignored me. "I play the violin when I'm thinking and sometimes I don't talk for days; would that bother you?" "What?" "Flatmates should know the worst about each other, don't you think?"
"Who said anything about flatmates?"
"I did. I told Mike I must be a difficult person to find a flatmate for and here he is just after lunch with an old friend, clearly home from military service; it wasn't that big of a leap."
Mike chuckled. Apparently, he liked this part of introducing people to the younger man.
Then Sherlock was grabbing his coat and scarf and heading for the door. "I have a nice place in central London in mind, between the two of us we should be able to afford it. Tomorrow evening at 7." He pulled on his coat and tied his scarf. "If you'll excuse me, I left my riding crop in the mortuary."
"Wait. I don't know where we're meeting and you don't know anything about me." Hey, I wasn't lying about that last part. I could have become a serial killer in the time since we had last met. Although, that probably would have made me more interesting to him.
He told me about my limp, my therapist, my sibling's drinking problem, and my wound. I stood there in shock.
"The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street." Sherlock winked and then just like that, he was gone.
I looked over at Mike and he just cracked a smile. "Yeah, he's like that all the time."
All the time, dear god, what happened to him?
That night I looked him up on the internet. Well, I'll be damned, I thought. The kid came out all right after all. He was a little rough around the edges but that could easily be excused by the life he'd had. All grown up and startlingly gorgeous. He was still too thin for my liking, but he had filled out his frame quite nicely.
I hurried to the address at the appointed time and was pleased when he stepped out of the taxi just as I reached the door. I was introduced to the landlady, a wonderful woman named Mrs. Hudson, who was giving him a deal because he had helped to insure that her husband got the death penalty in Florida.
She asked if we needed two bedrooms and while I hastened to assure her we did not, Sherlock blushed. But before I could ask the dozen or so questions on my mind, a grey-haired gentleman came in and demanded help from my friend with a case of serial suicides. The man's name was Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade.
Sherlock leapt for joy and then was gone. He came back briefly only to drag me along with him. He shoved me into a cab and we were off before I could blink.
He let me ask him questions on the ride over. I asked about his job, his ability to read me like he did and where we were going. And yet somehow we managed to avoid the most pressing question in my mind: did he remember me, the way I remembered him?
I met the inspector's team and I wasn't impressed. Unprofessional, rude, and arrogant beyond belief. It was a pleasure watching Sherlock take them down a peg or two by announcing that two of them were having affair.
Then I saw my friend in his element and the words "amazing" and "incredible" just flowed out. I don't think anyone had told him that before from the way he blushed. But again he was off after shouting "Pink!" and I was left with a cane and no way to get home. I asked the sergeant for directions and I got a sermon on how bad Sherlock Holmes was and to stay away from him along with it.
I walked back to the main road and after three taxis ignored me completely, I decided a bit of walk wouldn't be too bad. I limped down the street and every phone I passed rang, including one in a phone booth. Finally after seeing one stop when someone else went to answer it, I picked up the phone in the phone booth.
"Hello?"
The voice on the other end was smooth and arrogant. "There is a security camera on the building to your left. Do you see it?"
"Who is this? Who's speaking?" I growled.
"Do you see the camera," he pressed, sounding annoyed that I couldn't follow instructions.
"Yeah I see it," I huffed.
"Watch." And the camera moved to focus on me. "There is another camera on the building opposite you. Do you see it?" I spotted it and it too moved to focus on me. "And finally, at the top of the building to your right."
I ignored that one and instead I snarled into the phone, "How are you doing this?"
"Get in the car, Doctor Watson. I would make some sort of threat, but I'm sure your situation is quite clear to you." I was about to ask what car, when a nondescript, black number pulled up to the curb. I got in the back and was met by a pretty young woman. Who ignored me in favor of her Blackberry and gave me a fake name. A spy, I thought. Just lovely.
We pulled up to a large abandoned warehouse and I was told to get out of the car. I was just grateful the vehicle didn't pull away. "You know I have a phone," I said, as I neared the figure who was still shrouded in darkness. "I mean it was very clever and all, but you could have just contacted me on my phone."
"When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet," he raised his umbrella to indicate the warehouse around them, "hence this place."
I got close enough to the man and stopped. I sighed.
"Hello, Dr. Watson. Your leg must be bothering you, please have a seat." Again he pointed with his umbrella.
"I'd rather stand." I recognized him. Oh boy, did I recognize him. He was tall. Taller than Sherlock. Not by much, but enough. He had filled out well. His auburn hair was beginning to recede. His blue eyes were sharp and calculating.
"You don't seem frightened," he smirked.
"You aren't very frightening." Especially considering I've seen you cower before your father.
"Ah, the bravery of a soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?"
Deciding to play along with this weird charade, "Who are you?" I asked.
"A friend," his voice was smooth.
"Of Sherlock's?" Considering what I had seen over the last couple hours, I can't believe he went for that particular title.
He chuckled. "You've met the man, just how many friends do you think he has?"
I frown. So…you think you're my friend?
"I'm the closest thing he has to a friend," the tall man continued.
"Which is?" I hate master manipulators, I thought fiercely.
"An enemy." He tilted his umbrella up to look at the tip, unconcerned.
"An enemy?" I asked in surprise. That was even stranger title to use.
"In his mind, certainly. If you were to ask him, he'd probably say his arch-enemy. He does love to be dramatic."
I looked around me, "Well, thank god you're above all that." Adding in my head, Drama queen.
My phone went off (yes, I have a phone - "iron" and any other metals aren't the same as "cold iron", I don't react to them the way I do "cold iron", they don't hurt me), and I looked at it.
It read:
Baker Street.
Come at once
if convenient.
-SH
"Am I interrupting something?" the gentleman asked.
"No, not at all."
"I would make the usual offer of money, but something tells me that you would reject it out of hand."
My eyebrow arched. "Of course I would."
Again my phone sounded in the dark warehouse.
If inconvenient,
come anyway.
-SH
I rolled my eyes at the text and put it back into my pocket.
"You seem familiar, Dr. Watson. Who are you?" I opened my answer him, but he stalled me with a wave of his hand. "I've read your file. I know what you are. They never did give you a formal name for what you are, did they? We call the others elves and faeries and pixies. Not your kind, though," he sneered.
I clenched my fists and gritted out, "You know what the slur is. I know you do."
The tall gentleman smirked. "Ah, yes, halfing."
"Yes, yes," I drolled. "Let's make fun of the ancient being who taught Genghis Khan trick riding. Had tea with Benedict Arnold. Now there was a poor fellow. Convinced him to defect. Those stupid Americans had treated him so badly. I danced with Queen Maria in the court of Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles. And supped with Maximilien Robsepierre."
"The last two are a bit hypocritical, don't you think?" he scoffed.
"Where's your British empire? Something I've learned over the years. Empires fall, Mycroft Holmes."
His head rocked back in shock. "So I do know you. Where do I know you from?" I shrugged.
Mycroft fought to regain the ground he felt he'd lost. He pulled out a little brown notebook and began thumbing through its pages. "Your therapist isn't aware of your supernatural nature, is she?"
I frowned. "Your government doesn't like paying for the ones that have been 'read in,'" I said.
"Says here you have trust issues," he murmured, reading off one of the pages.
"Of course I have trust issues. I have met some of the world's most famous betrayers and my life has been a series of treachery and deceitfulness against myself. You'd have trust issues, too."
"Could it be that you have decided to trust Sherlock Holmes?"
"Who says I trust him?" Again my phone rang out in the hollowness of the wide and empty building.
Could be dangerous.
-SH
"Are we done here?" I growled.
"You tell me."
Yep, done. And I turned around to walk back to the car, but he called out to me.
"I would warn you off Sherlock, but I can tell by your left hand that you wouldn't listen."
I whirled around. "My what?"
"You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand." It wasn't a question. "Show me."
I held up my hand and he walked over to me. He put the hook of his umbrella over his arm and reached out to grasp my hand.
"Don't."
He gave me a look that said, 'Really? You are going to continue to be resistant?' And I gave him my hand with a huff. He examined it briefly before letting go and stepping back.
"What's wrong with my hand?" I asked.
"When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battle of the street. You've seen it already." I glared at him and he just smirked. "Your therapist thinks the tremor is caused by post-traumatic stress disorder." He leaned forward. "Fire her. You are under stress right now and your hand is perfectly steady. You aren't haunted by the war; you miss it." He walked away twirling his umbrella. "Time to chose a side, Dr. Watson."
I silently cursed him with all my being. I returned to the car and told the mysterious "Anthea" to have the driver to take me back to Baker Street, making a brief stop at my bedsit to grab my gun. Once at Baker Street, I hobbled up the stairs as quickly as I could, excitement burning my insides.
