Chapter 7:

John was on his feet before he could think straight. He knocked the teacups onto the floor. Sherlock sighed and bowed his head into his hands.

Lestrade was twisting his hands in his coattails unsure how to say what he'd come to say, John felt damning words on the tip of his tongue. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to swing that sword. Lestrade was his friend once. In a way, he still was. It was just in such a far-flung sense that it was almost out of sight.

"John…I...I don't know if this was poorly timed or not. I can come back." Lestrade sucked his teeth. He eyed Sherlock curiously, afraid to address him. John nodded, feeling the blood sucked from his face.

"That's for him to decide, Greg." John thought maybe it was time to mend the hole he'd knocked in the crumbling fence. If they were going to part ways, they should do it peacefully, shouldn't they?

He swallowed and looked at Sherlock. Sherlock whose whole body shivered for a second, lifting a hand to his chest. He plucked a handkerchief from his blazer pocket, and spit blood into it. The bright red drew both of the other men to stare at him in a numb stupor.

"Let him say his peace, John. It's not like it could cause any more harm." Sherlock's voice was muted to a fault that was completely out of his character. He was shifting, sliding away from the person that they knew. Whoever this was, he was broken and old. Someone, they should be more gentle with, more respectful of than the Sherlock they'd known him to be.

"I...I, well…"Lestrade got light-headed. John pulled up a chair. Sherlock didn't look at him. He stared off into space, forehead resting against his trembling hand.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade swallowed and finally, the detective looked up, brow furrowed. He was a centenarian at that moment, smiling patiently at the young and foolish man seated before him.

"I...I'm sorry, mate. Sorry for all of it." Lestrade was near tears. Sherlock shook his head and waved it off.

"What in hell are you sorry for? You weren't any part of what's been done to me?" Sherlock shifted, hand going to the wound that the Chief had crushed blood from.

"I...Well, Mycroft told me some of why you went off and...Just today. I called him first and…"Lestrade swallowed, pressing his fist to his lips. Sherlock looked up at the roof.

"Oh, you called him, did you? Mm, how is he, then? I suppose I should care. I suppose that I don't really. He disowned me after it all. Sure he was glad to tell you all my failures, then."Sherlock was talking as if he was talking to himself. Lestrade and John exchanged a glance. Lestrade shrugged.

"Well, no. No, he told me that I should not trouble you. But...Well, I had to see if...I just wanted to make sure you were alright?" Lestrade bit his lip. With the old Sherlock, this would have been a poor choice of words. With this Sherlock, who was to say?

Sherlock let his head roll on the edge of the couch. His eyes were suddenly dead set on Lestrade as if deductively observing him for the first time. It occurred to John that perhaps Sherlock, after all his trauma, was unclear on all the details of who Lestrade was to him.

"It's...I suppose it's good of you to inquire as to my status, Inspector. To answer truthfully, I am not alright and I never will be. Not ever again. I wouldn't waste any more time wondering after me, then, if I were you." Sherlock's voice dropped an octave as he studied his old friend with smoldering sadness in his eyes. The rest of his face was cold and calculating to a fault that frightened his companions for a split second.

Lestrade gasped. Sherlock tried to smile. The Inspector swallowed a gasp and pulled the financial report Sherlock had been looking for earlier from his jacket.

"I brought you this…" Lestrade passed the paper to Sherlock. Sherlock held his finger up and coughed wretchedly into his handkerchief again. Blood rolled up from his lips, crimson and even purple now. His fingers were dyed indelibly with it. Growling, annoyed, he snatched the paper with his other clean hand.

"Thank you. Sorry. This...A bit irritating. I'll have it under control soon. Also, I won't be coming back into the Yard office anymore. Fax me things. John has a machine." Sherlock nodded dismissively at them both and bent to the task of reading the report, for whatever evidence he'd unearthed there.

Lestrade stared at him, slack-jawed. He wanted to say so many things, but he had no idea how to approach his old friend. Friend he had taken so for granted. That's why it surprised him deeply when John answered his questions for him:

"Greg...What you have to understand is...Sherlock, he sacrificed his life for us. For me and for you. It's so much worse than dying that I think...I think that you can understand that, right?" John ran his hand over his throat, trying not to cry. Sherlock did not look up. He had checked out on them, completely absorbed in his craft. It had become his anesthetic to reality.

"But...But why? Who did this to you?" Lestrade was struggling with tears now because Sherlock was talking out of his head.

"Oh, not important. I have solved the Lancaster Holdings case actually. It was obvious. Too obvious for my befuddled conscious to catch up with my mind. The man you are looking for is at Chelsea and Co's Marketing Firm on Trafalgar. I wonder why he couldn't see it? Silly little Inspector..." Sherlock passed the paper back to Lestrade. Lestrade who stared at him wide-eyed as he continued to talk to himself.

"Oh, why do they insist on being so horrified? It's not like it means anything, does it?"Sherlock eased himself to his feet then, turning away from them, pacing to the window.

"It's not as if there should be any tears from me, should there? I did what was required of me. Queen and country, all that rubbish. Bled and kept bleeding. And the bits I did pro bono publico, for people I considered to be good colleagues away...That was right, wasn't it?" Sherlock coughed again, into his bare hands. He let his blood drip off his fingers, roll onto his trousers. He snickered then. He snickered completely oblivious of his mortified friends.

"It's all dreadfully unimportant. I was a machine. And machine I remain. It's just that they drew the god of their inspiration from my machine. It's just that the art, the design of unmaking the human genome was at their fingertips, perfectly encased in my volatile DNA. Ordinary people scream and make messes of themselves under their knives, but I...I could worship at the altar of their art form because I understood it. I suppose likewise I deserved it. What an obnoxious excuse for android I was...That genius could not walk as a human companion so it became obsolete...Soon I will be replaced by computers, friendlier faces with better emotional intelligence than I. Even the robots are better with people...Hmm..." Sherlock scoffed and slammed his blood-filled hands on the window glass, watching as said blood dripped and stained.

"I wonder why they come here, mm? Asking their questions...As if they could derive a different response from my computation. I wonder if the lesser pieces of my invention were cut and burned away in torment. It was all just a school of sorts. The academy of penance. If I could, I would use that knowledge to make sense of their silly little puzzles. Philosophy and gospel eluded me as long as I was flesh and bone…"Sherlock traced an equation in his blood, tilting his head in a sort of sorrowful fondness. Lestrade gasped a sob into his hand and stood up. He thought maybe he should leave and let Dr. Watson care for his peculiar patient. John was frozen where he stood.

"I would face the sun if I thought the light from it would somehow give me dimensions. Walk with them again. Their silly little worlds and lives. I could learn from their frequent haunts and do better this time. I won't, though, will I? Couldn't even enter a bloody office in their space without grave trouble. This...I think this bleeding is normal, isn't it? Oh, but I've not seen you in a while, dark blood, my somber friend." Sherlock smirked, showing all his teeth. It was a wolf-like expression.

Sherlock then snapped to. He turned to them, looking to each man for guidance. Where was he? How'd he get in here?

"Oh? Sorry...I was...I was thinking. I must not have noticed the both of you come in. Did you bring the file, Lestrade?" Sherlock folded his hands, unaware that blood now fell in soft tear droplets at his feet.

"It's on the table." Lestrade indicated with a shaking finger. John took a step forward.

"Your...your stomach wound is bleeding again. I should give you something for that. See, it's an inflammation of the viscera walls. It's not that it bleeds frequently, it just sort of leaks small amounts of blood from the sores upward into your stomach as if you had an ulcer. When your stomach gets full of the blood you can't digest, you have to expel it." John talked mechanically to keep from alerting his friend that he'd just had a psychotic episode.

"I...Oh, right. I remember now. The Chief, he must have unintentionally forced an internal sore to be irritated. John's been teaching me the medical terms and what not for my condition, Lestrade. It's very informative. I can use it in further investigations." Sherlock smiled at Lestrade then.

"Well, certainly, then. Alright, I'm going to...See myself out, then?"Lestrade nodded over his shoulder.

"I'll text you when I've solved the Lancaster thing…" Sherlock nodded, unaware that he already had. They chose not to tell him this.

"Right...Thanks, Sherlock. For everything you do. And, sorry." Lestrade nodded and fled.

"Mm, I wonder why he's so tense? Must have had a run in with the bloody Superintendent too, then?" Sherlock turned to John.

"Dear God, you look like you've seen a ghost. You alright?" Sherlock caught John whose knees were giving out. John felt like a heel then, knowing that he should be the one supporting Sherlock at this moment.

"I-Oh, I'm just...I didn't feel like seeing him after all that rubbish today. Here, let's talk about that medicine then. Come on." John took Sherlock's wrist, realizing then that this entire day would no doubt soon fade from his memory. Maybe that was for the best.