A/N: I'm back, and I was correct when I said updates would be slower than before. Hope you enjoy anyway.
Sherlock stared at the wall across from him, as still as the empty chair on his left. Not even thinking. Barely breathing. Or maybe he was caught up in his thoughts. John couldn't figure it out, even as he approached from an outside perspective.
He sat in the empty chair and offered Sherlock one of the two cups of cheap coffee he held in his hands.
The detective took it from him as if out of reflex, holding it in his hands but making no move to drink it. John didn't address it – it tasted terrible anyway.
"This entire time."
John looked over at his friend, the quiet voice had come from him. "Sorry?"
"She's been alive this entire time," Sherlock whispered softly, John barely hearing him above the standard hospital rumble.
John nodded, not sure what to say.
Sherlock's eyes glazed over slightly. "Whose ashes are on the mantle?"
John imagined the question was rhetorical since he knew Sherlock hadn't expected him to have an answer.
They both were silent for a long stretch.
"Five days."
"What?" John didn't hear him, actually.
"He had her for five days," Sherlock repeated, loud enough for John to hear. "She was alive and I hadn't known. I should have insisted on seeing her before the cremation process."
John frowned. "Didn't Martha confirm her identity?"
"It's easy to fake a corpse when the cause of death was head trauma during an explosion," Sherlock said. "And when the identifier is an old woman with poor vision and no correctional lenses."
John looked away to the wall opposite of them for a moment before starting abruptly. "Has anyone phoned her yet?"
"Martha?" Sherlock asked, before shaking his head. "I haven't."
"She should know."
"Of course." Sherlock agreed immediately, but it sounded like a reflexive response.
John turned to him more directly, concern coloring his face and voice. "Are you okay?"
Sherlock closed his eyes tightly, dropping his head into his hands without a verbal response.
John eyed the head of curls with a thick hesitancy before he spoke again. "Sherlock…?"
There was a sharp exhale from the detective before he looked up again. "She's still alive, John. She's been alive and I missed it. I didn't see." His voice was still quiet but sharper than a blade's edge.
"You couldn't have known."
"I should have." Sherlock disagreed, his head snapping around to look at John directly for the first time since they arrived at the hospital. "I should have known."
"It wasn't your fault."
"You know, John, you're right." Sherlock agreed, bitterness in his voice. "It wasn't my fault that the entire terrorist attack that killed thirty-five people in America – and injured forty-three more – was staged so someone I cared about could be used against me."
"That's not—"
"And I was too scared to see her dead that I didn't confirm that she even was." Sherlock spat out the sentence with a venom that echoed self-berating. "I was too…." He struggled for the correct word, his mouth tightening into a thin line.
John shook his head. "You weren't too anything."
Sherlock rolled his eyes as if at John's apparent idiocy. "I was—"
"Stop it, Sherlock." John's words weren't harsh nor were they particularly tender. His tone was mild but serious. "Stop it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You do, actually, and you need to stop." John was grim. "Beating yourself up over something you can't go back and change. It's a pattern for you and it's unhealthy."
Sherlock was staring at him then. John was used to him staring. He did that to everyone, especially if he wanted to thoroughly understand them. It was like he could catch everything so long as he didn't blink. John had gotten past being uncomfortable with it after the first week.
"Pattern?" Sherlock asked.
"Foresight is tunnel vision." John quoted.
Sherlock looked as if he'd remembered something. Whether that something was the conversation they'd had on the plane to America or if it was the original memory of the phrase, John didn't know. And Sherlock never said.
They went back to looking at the wall without a word, both of them holding a room-temperature drink and waiting.
And waiting.
Sam couldn't breathe. She could barely move, her head too heavy. It took all of her existing strength to sit up, her arms made of bags of flour. She saw a room but had no idea what was in it. And a face, but not who it was. She flinched away, trying to curl up but hands were holding her down. She just wanted away. Away.
She needed help.
"Sam – Sam, it's okay." A familiar voice. "It's all right. You're safe."
Fake. It was fake – and he wasn't there – and this was a hallucination or—
"Samantha May, look at me." Gentle but firm hands on her face.
No, don't touch—
"Look at me."
Better to concede than be in more pain. She opened her eyes.
There, staring into her, was his face. His hands on her cheeks. His eyes meeting hers. His mouth moving to form words. "You're safe now."
Safe.
That's fake.
He looked so sad. "It's not fake. I promise it's not. I promise."
Tears shoved their way out of her eyes to race down her cheeks. She felt them get stuck between her skin and his palms.
"I'm not fake." He sounded almost desperate. She couldn't imagine William Holmes ever desperate.
She couldn't imagine…
"I'm not fake."
Couldn't imagine… so it must not be…
"You're safe."
Must not be imagined.
Her throat hurt. "Will?"
He looked immediately relieved, his eyes looking glossy.
"Will?" She asked again, almost desperate, reaching up and grasping his wrists.
He nodded.
She sobbed.
Sherlock moved instead to embrace her, holding her close to him. She was crying – hard. He could feel it in her shaking shoulders. Her arms were weak but gripping onto him with all of her strength. She cried. He felt near tears himself as an overwhelming relief poured over every other emotion.
Samantha was alive.
"I don't want to leave."
It was all Sherlock could do to even make out the words with her face pressed against his shoulder and tears slurring her words.
He squeezed her as tight as he dared.
"I don't… I don't want to…" Her sob sounded almost like a cough then. Her throat was still raw from the chlorine water.
He hushed her, trying to ignore the reflex to rub her back as it would probably pain her wound. "It's all right now."
They sat like that for a long while. Sherlock couldn't guess. He only knew it was long enough for his foot to go numb from how it was hanging off of the bed. And he didn't care.
She calmed eventually, her arms going mostly limp. But she didn't push away. She stayed there and allowed him to hold her. Sherlock brushed his fingers against her hair, feeling the tangle of curls – clean because of the nurses that cared for her.
Eventually – sometime after Sherlock's elbows began to tremble from the effort of holding her up – Sam's breathing evened out.
Sherlock paused for a moment. "John?" He called softly, unsure if his friend was still present.
"Here."
"Can you help me lay her back down again?"
With John's assistance, Samantha was laying properly in the hospital bed again. The nurse readjusted her wires and bandages, saying nothing about what she had witnessed.
Sherlock didn't move from where he was sitting on the edge of Samantha's bed.
After the nurse left, they were quiet for a long time. Sherlock continued to stare at his ward. John alternated between his friend and the girl.
"She's traumatized."
John startled at the abrupt words. "What?"
"She's traumatized, John," Sherlock spoke softly.
"Well…" John hesitated. "I would imagine, after all of that—"
"You misunderstand." Sherlock interrupted, his voice still very low. "Before all of this, she had a stress disorder developed from childhood trauma. Very mild, really. Or she'd gotten so far in recovery it was mild. She was… she was so highly functioning." Sherlock laughed, but it sounded more like he was going to cry himself. "She actually went to a party. On her own. One with loud music. She phoned me afterward." Sherlock sniffed. "Called to tell me that she'd felt close to a panic attack only once the entire night."
John felt his throat constrict, looking at the side of his friend's head. He saw Sherlock's eyes – already red and puffy – fill with hopeless tears.
"And now she has to start all over again."
A/N: Yeah, that's sad. Anyway, many MANY thanks to the reviewer Idris ' Doctor. Love the Username, and I appreciate you. Here's an update for you!
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