This is a fast-paced chapter.
7.
Greg felt terrible about the things that happened to Sherlock. It was evident in the death of the light in his eyes as he realised the detective was alive, despite all the odds. He wasn't the kind of man to anger easily—he had two daughters and they taught him both discipline and restraint. He was always a collected man, but his girls refined him.
Sherlock, though, was a constant test of his forbearance. An unstable part of Greg cracked in the knowledge of Sherlock's survival and he'd gotten much too turbulent from the start. Sherlock shooting down his apology was the only straw necessary to bring things to a quick-paced stop.
"Where have you been? I know you've had to deal with a lot, but you should've told us you were alright! John's been completely rewritten, Sherlock. He's not anything like the man I used to know!"
And Molly soon made herself the bullseye for target practice.
"He had to, Greg. Please calm down. He's been alright this whole time and needed to sort things out. You wouldn't believe the amount of stress he's already under. Just—"
"Did you know about this?"
"Yes, but—"
"You knew and you didn't say a word? Knowing how John reacted? How we all—" His gaze was on Sherlock again. "You—I can't believe you…"
It wasn't but a few seconds more until he fled the room. Fled the building. Fled facing two years of angst and regret and self-doubt.
And now Sherlock sat in a cab on his way back to Baker Street, leaning away from Rose in a manner that spoke levels of immaturity. This was his way of pouting.
"Sherlock," Rose started, fingers running delicately down the side of his sleeve to grab his attention.
He turned to her and began to scratch over-dramatically at the dark hairs on his face, over his chin and cheeks. "I need to shave. How long has it been since I did that? I was out a few days and I haven't had the time to do anything since then—that's not true, I had the time last night, but I didn't do it. Why didn't I do it?"
"Sherlock—"
The man's eyes were on her and he stopped, dropping his hands to his lap, then slipped the note from his pocket.
"Whoever wrote this wears scented hand lotion. I'd go on a tangent about the many different brands or shampoos it could be as really, molecularly, it's all the same, but it smells strongly of shea butter—you know," he circled his wrist, the paper making ovals in the air, "the cream kind people usually use when their hands are obscenely dry, usually to the point of cracked skin and those little white lines—"
"Sherlock."
"His hands didn't have to be cracked. I just never imagined Sebastian Moran as the kind of person to use hand cream. It's—"
"Why are y'avoidin' John?"
The detective's lips ceased their rambling, morphing instead into a scowl at her conclusion. "What?"
"John," she repeated, "Ev'ryone keeps sayin' ya should tell 'im ya're alive, but y'aven't. Why not?"
Clicking his tongue, the detective shook his head. Rose hadn't agreed to staying with him permanently. How was he supposed to face John? He couldn't come across desperate—like he needed John in his life to be a fully-fleshed being—or he'd put the army veteran in a state of indecision.
He did need John. All of this, all this chaos and retribution was solely for him. John was invaluable and needed to be protected from all harm.
Sherlock included.
And if he was completely honest with himself, he didn't want to face the possibility of John rejecting him from the start. Because John cared. John cared too much. Depression could lead to anger and indignation.
"Stay with me," Sherlock told her, and she had to double take to understand his message even as he clarified. "Stay with me and I'll see John."
"Wha' kinda requirement's that?"
"Please." Because it was always, always effective.
The blonde sighed quietly to herself, drawing her attention to her left hand as she examined a portion of her nail where the coral-coloured paint was chipped.
She only glanced over when she felt Sherlock's fingers through her tresses as he shifted in the cab's seat and soon his face was much too close for normal conversation and he was growing nearer centimetre by centimetre and it was killing her because all she could do was glance down at his lips, knowing exactly where he was aiming, closer and breathy and oh so warm. She met him, finishing through with the gap between their mouths as her heart stopped in her chest and she had to swallow before her lips could part sufficiently.
He didn't stay long, though. There was no climatic exchange or life-changing euphoria. He didn't tear her clothes off in the back of a moving vehicle like she imagined he would (it was the look in his eyes) or force his tongue down her throat domineeringly, controlling (the square of his shoulders).
Sherlock just sat back in his seat and Rose shivered lightly, eyes closing, trying to will the images away.
"Alright. I'll stay."
The detective nodded, an unreadable expression on his features. Leaning forward, he rest on the grey of the cabbie's front seat chair. The man had turned the volume of the radio up, ignoring them entirely. Time to change their course.
"Take us to the Docklands. Hertsmere Road."
Sherlock couldn't stop imagining Greg in the forefront of his mind. Posture offensive. Crazed.
He wondered if John would react similarly to his return. But, he and John… they had much deeper roots to their affinity which engrossed them wholly in each other. There wasn't one without his greater half, as they truly were two halves with a greater whole. John made him better in every aspect of the word. He liked to think he made John better, too.
But maybe Sherlock didn't know the man, anymore. Two years was agonizing. A selfish flicker of his subconscious hoped it was painful for John, too. Just to prove it, just for a second, that John wanted to be with Sherlock. That Sherlock brought him to his greatest extent of completion.
No.
He couldn't think like that.
John was something just out of reach, now. He could accept it, as long as the man was still in his grasp. Some of the time.
He'd come over for tea and to watch ridiculous telly. Ask about Sherlock's cases, though he had to be home before dinner. And eventually he and the woman would have children (that's what people did, after all) and there would be less time for Sherlock in his life.
It was alright.
Sherlock and Rose were a comfortable medium.
He understood she was little in the eyes of her hero and she was blind to his intentions, but acquiesced in all the mysteries defining the Great Sherlock Holmes. People were always dazed by him, that way.
The newspapers slayed a man, but it was the individual who revived him after the Fall. Fact and myth to be blurred eternally.
He supposed Moriarty never expected that.
Then again, Moriarty never expected most of Sherlock's implementation.
Rose was leaning against his form, hair splayed over his shoulder as their cab slowed to stagnancy.
He paid the cab fare and helped her out the door.
"John's flat should be on the left, here," he told her, still prudent enough to mask emotions. Sherlock never had a care for them, but suddenly they were upon him and they were nervous and itching to be regarded if only for a moment's time. He hadn't a moment to spare, so behind lock and key they went.
Surely, they could've knocked and Rose had recommended it, but this was John's residence (the woman was irrelevant) and John wouldn't mind. John knew Sherlock to do far more peculiar things.
"Are they home?" Rose asked, but Sherlock soon found lock-picking the door unnecessary as it was already unlatched for their entrance.
Sherlock looked her way and his voice was low despite his previous thought process on John's acceptance of his breaking-and-entering agenda. "It appears so."
A curly, dark-haired woman's attention was on them.
She was sitting in a chair, mug to her lips and an envelope in her hands (several others in her lap)—frozen. Eyes on the duo in the doorway.
"…Hello?" she started, eyes wide. Her mocha hair sprung lightly as she set her mug down and left her seat, the envelopes falling to the ground without a care. "Who are you? What are you doing?"
Silver ring embedded with small—or, adequately sized—diamonds on the left hand—engagement. Tendency to arch feet, arched inset—prior experience in dancing, ballet, though not overly extensive (or perhaps not recent?) as the weight of her bearing was more firm than airy. Hair and makeup perfected, though still dressed in nightwear—prepped for work in two or so hours.
"Mary," Sherlock started easily with a nod of his head, moving to make his way further into the flat.
The woman squeaked quietly at the sound of her name and swiped a book off the couch before circling around it to face him. "D-don't move any closer! How do you know my name?"
Sherlock rose a brow at her, eyes drifting to the book she held high to threaten him with. Nineteen Minutes, he read.
"What are you going to do? Throw poor literature at me?"
Mary sucked in a breath through her teeth. "John!" She screeched, turning her head in the direction of the hallway. "John! Help!" Sherlock debated moving toward her to silence her, but she'd only be startled further, so he allowed her to call, taking a step back.
Rose held her tongue as well, but she clutched onto Sherlock's sleeve and took him yet another step toward the door from whence they came.
The scientist could hear footsteps hurrying to his right and he kept his eyes on the pathway, seeing John emerge from another room. He seemed startled and his eyes were wild with worry at the tone of Mary's voice, but there was a hint of skepticism. Mary must've had arachnophobia or something equally absurd.
The doctor's sight drifted from Sherlock and Rose to his fiancée. It took only a fraction of a second for his focus to lay on Sherlock, again.
John sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, stumbling back before he ran into the buffet up against the wall. "Jesus," he muttered gruffly, gripping the wood of the table.
Sherlock was frail and drained of colour entirely, unshaven and long-haired, with dark circles his most striking feature. No matter how many times John was on the street and believed a man to be the one before him now—no matter what people said or who tried to make him believe they were him—this was unmistakably Sherlock Holmes.
The one who'd leapt from a hospital and plunged to his death.
John played with theories for a long time, trying to decipher codes that were never left and veering in and out of acceptance of the death of his best friend. Eventually, it became impossible to pay mind to that miniscule alert in the depths of his heart that begged for Sherlock to be alive, craved for him to have done something so ridiculously selfish like live.
All those little testimonies were faded now, but here stood a figure, an impression, something so unbelievable, it couldn't be real.
Yet, he was.
"…Get out," John told Sherlock, tone firm and soft all at the same time.
"…John."
"Go. Just go."
Opening his mouth to say something more, Sherlock began to move forward again, but John shook his head and Mary backed away and Rose tugged on his arm.
"I said get OUT!" John commanded, suddenly jabbing his finger in the direction of the doorway and Sherlock sunk back into himself, his chest cavity collapsing under the weight of a thousand words unspoken and pressure in the air so intense, his eyes began to well up against his will. "Go. Don't come back!"
John was making his own way toward the man—the ghost—now, forcing his finger into Sherlock's chest, pushing him with force before he was shoving him with his entire palm and Rose tugged more, making sure Sherlock would get out alright; trying to stop him from facing anything more that could hurt him.
"Le's go, Sherlock," she told him, shaking ever-so-slightly as a result of the other man's rage. This wasn't how she expected things to end at all.
Sherlock managed one more whispered, "John, please," before the door was slammed with might, shutting him once more out of the world of the only person he'd ever held on a pedestal.
Sherlock swayed for a moment, but he was frozen, his mind replaying the scene over and over again just to torment him, just to show him the unwanted emotions and overall vexation John displayed over and over again. He wasn't wanted here, that was more than clear.
What, in fact, just happened? John was not happy to see him.
"Sherlock…" Rose spoke, trying to turn his attention away from the event at hand with any combination of words she could muster.
Apart from a deep breath through his nostrils, he stayed relatively quiet as he darted a weary glance in her direction, then turned away from the door and began to trek back to the street to hail a cab.
Rose decided she needed to give him some space, as this was her fault after all, so she regarded her phone on the cab ride home, looking through old photos. She didn't at all expect the text she received, but she couldn't help but smile at it, even knowing the composition of the aura of the car they were in.
[February 8th, 12:57PM]
[From Jack] I hear you're in the area. Drinks?
They were nearing 221B now and she wondered if Sherlock and Jack would get on (they wouldn't) or if Sherlock would let a stranger visit despite knowing he probably wouldn't like him (perhaps).
[February 8th, 12:57PM]
[To Jack] How did you know? Did you speak to the Doctor?
Rose suddenly wondered where the Doctor was. He expected her to be out with Sherlock for a day, but she ended up staying in the flat and the Doctor hadn't said a word to her, tried to contact, or even called. Maybe there was an issue he had to attend to? Maybe he was mingling with an alien species that didn't belong here, trying to get them to go home?
A twinge of guilt hit her system as she thought about it. She'd promised two different men she'd stay and though Sherlock clearly needed her more, the Doctor still needed someone.
[February 8th, 12:59PM]
[From Jack] No ma'am. My Rose senses were tingling. ;)
[February 8th, 12:59PM]
[To Jack] Still the same as always, Captain.
Rose giggled softly as the vehicle slowed and the two exited, Sherlock sighing softly. He needed to let every inkling of emotion go. Caring never helped him. It wasn't necessary for human life and there was a distinct reason for that.
His hands in his hoodie pocket, he lead Rose upstairs, the woman just his shadow and nothing more as he settled into the reality of her. She was just a replacement—one he was using to fill in for not just John, but his mind, two things he thought would never fail him. He simply didn't realise he'd be using the organ in his head for ludicrous sentimental notions.
Come to think of it, upon careful observation, it appeared he didn't even have his Skull to talk to, anymore. Rose would have to stay, now.
Upon making their way upstairs, Rose thought she heard a noise from the main room, but dismissed it easily, trying to focus on Sherlock.
"D'ya wan' some tea? Maybe ya should get some rest."
"I don't have time for rest. And no tea."
"Wha', ya don't have time for tha', eitha'?"
Sherlock snorted quietly. He liked her spunk. It made things interesting.
"You could assist me if you like," the detective offered, soon whipping his head around at the sound of footsteps coming from the kitchen and a voice he couldn't identify.
"You don't have any milk," spoke the blonde woman. She was wielding a sleek, black, .50 caliber dart gun in her right hand. It swung at her side.
Sherlock recognised her on sight. "You're the woman from the street." The woman who took a photo of them on her mobile.
Rose swallowed hard and held her phone to the side to call for help in case it was needed. Sherlock seemed much too placid for that, though, as of yet.
"You don't look anything like your brother."
The scientist scrunched his nose in distaste. "What happened to Mycroft?"
"Nothing."
"Who are ya?" Rose asked.
"Better question: Who are you?"
The three stayed silent for a moment, then the stranger brought her tranquiliser gun high enough to aim, but Sherlock put his hand up defensively. "Wait. What do you want?"
She rose a brow, surprised by his action. From what she heard about Sherlock, he wasn't the sort to seem so panicked under fire. Even under that mask of calm and collected, she could see the flames in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Sherlock. But I have a deadline." She fired without a thought.
Rose gasped sharply and though her first instinct was to run, she threw herself to the floor in a roll, completing the distance between herself and the other woman before swiftly hooking onto her legs to bring her to the ground.
Startled, the woman nearly lost her grip on the gun, but she managed to hold onto it, her back thudding painfully to the ground.
Though Rose was much fiercer than she appeared, she still wasn't strong enough to out-will the strength of a tranquiliser dart, so the gunwoman fired as best she could as Rose attempted to wrestle it from her, managing to hit Rose in the thigh.
It would do.
Rose's world faded to black.
