A/N: Thank you for your kind reviews, guys! I will respond to them as soon as possible and catch up on your posts too, including my own submissions (still working on prompt six!). Where is this month going?!

Prompt 08: From Domina Temporis – Someone goes on a long sea voyage. I took some teeny liberties with this. :-)


"I was despatched accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined."

John H. Watson – A Study in Scarlet


Voyage


He was dreaming of Afghanistan, of deep trenches out of which climbed hounds made of sand, when a sharp sound like a riffle crack abruptly penetrated the scene and set the hounds retreating.

Watson awakened fast, his heart pounding, ice skirting across his skin. It took him too long to realise where he was, pale moonlight pushing through the circle of glass above his head.

Nine days at sea and his nerves were shot to hell, footsteps aboard the HMS Orontes sounding like gunfire as men stomped across the deck, sudden shouts reminiscent of the wounded he had left behind and their cries tugging at Watson's chest like finely woven thread. He felt as delicate as china, cracked and pieces of him missing, lying buried in the Afghan dirt.

He ran a hand across his damp forehead and tentatively touched his shoulder, fingers gently probing the wound there until he felt sick. He'd left some of his shoulder behind too, thought bizarrely that he wouldn't be able to get it back. He hadn't contemplated that he may not have come back at all.

Watson turned over onto his side, the part of him that hadn't been broken, and closed his eyes, trying to remember why he had wanted to study medicine in the first place.

/-/-/-/

Thirteen days at sea and Watson was pacing, four swift steps from the door of his cabin to the porthole and back again. His hands kept clutching and tugging at his hair. He was thinking about dirt and dust and blood, couldn't get it off him. His shoulder was throbbing, a centred point of pain, increasing significantly whenever he raised his arms.

He didn't want to be here, wanted to walk out of the tiny cabin and onto the deck, step overboard and trek across the water to England because he didn't feel the ship was moving fast enough. He could see the vast expanse of ocean outside the porthole, as thick and deep as liquid ink. The moon had vanished some time ago; he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen it.

He wondered whereabouts he was, and then realised it didn't matter too much. He felt as brittle as a shipwreck, splintered and abandoned.

/-/-/-/

Seventeen days at sea and the ocean had turned on him.

A storm had gathered from the East and for the past two days the Orontes had sailed valiantly through, steel groaning and wood cracking beneath the assault. Gone were the calm sways of the ship to be replaced by harsh, untimely jerks.

Watson had not left his cabin; the pounding footsteps and yells too much for his frayed mind. He was thinking of different cries to the barking orders he could hear penetrating the door, cries of anguish and fright. If he concentrated he could hear the singular voice of his orderly yelling at him to get up, a sudden weight on his back.

They were coming for him, Watson thought, guns cocked and waiting to place a bullet directly through his heart, where it was supposed to go the first time. He fisted his hand in the sheet on his bunk, white-knuckles pushing against skin, muscles quivering. He recited medical abbreviations and prayed that whatever happened would happen quickly.

/-/-/-/

He was dreaming of Bartholomew's, the white-washed corridors and gleaming floors blinding in their intensity. He was talking to one of the students about nothing in particular. It couldn't have been important anyway; things didn't really matter here.

The student's hair was matted on one side and he was leaning heavily on crutches. His right leg was cut at the thigh with nothing beneath, flesh torn, copious amounts of blood pooling onto the floor, and Watson thought brokenly he should do something about that, but they were both pretending not to notice. Watson was sure he knew the lad's name, but he couldn't place it.

The lad was smiling at him. He was laughing at something Watson had said, but Watson couldn't remember it. The blood was splashing onto Watson's shoes and he wanted to step back, but he thought it would be rude.

The lad moved closer, a small hop, and asked, "What did you leave behind, Doctor Watson?" and suddenly Watson knew who he was, who he had been. Young Thomas Heath, who had laid on the bed opposite him in Peshawar, his screams ripping through Watson's soul as he cried out in agony. That cramped room with rust-coloured sheets. Stretchers that had carried the wounded with missing limbs and broken spirits, howling like the undead, one breath away from joining them.

Watson had left them all behind. He had survived.

Watson started, took a step back. The scent of blood suddenly filled his nostrils. Heath grinned at him, but it was crooked, the skin at his jaw peeling away. He lifted one of his crutches and used it to tap Watson's shoulder.

"What did you leave behind, Doctor Watson?" he asked again, and Watson heard a noise like cloth ripping, looked down to see his arm tearing at the elbow, tendons and muscle and bone showing through.

He woke shouting the boy's name, turned abruptly on the bunk to empty his stomach. His hand shook as he checked his arm, the bend in his elbow, shaking fingers curling around his thin wrist.

Twenty-six days at sea and he did not think the nightmares were going to stop, did not think his corrupted mind could cope with any more.

/-/-/-/

One day shy of a month since they had set sail, Watson alighted at Portsmouth, and within a week he was back in London, the city beckoning him like a beast of brick and smog, tendrils encasing and taking hold.

It was raining heavily and the sky was a dull grey. Watson hailed a cab and headed to the Strand, clutching a small case that contained most of his belongings and pension, nothing else to his name but memories he carried like a tattered coat.

As he stepped from the hansom, he was overwhelmed by how much he missed the vastness of the sea, the enclosed walls of the troopship. He could feel himself tensing beneath the crush of so many bodies. His mind stuttered to an abrupt halt as he contemplated what lay ahead. He wondered how long it would take for the broken pieces of himself to come back, how long it would be before the pain that had lodged behind his ribs faded. He wondered if he should retreat to some seaside idyllic and live the rest of his life in solitude, to be plagued upon by nightmares as his mind saw fit.

He was suddenly jerked from his thoughts when he bumped shoulders with a grime-coated worker, felt the muscle in his own shoulder twinge fiercely as he stumbled. A hand reached out to steady him and Watson tore his arm away fast, caused himself further pain.

He mumbled an apology and received a glinted, annoyed look in return, which quickly softened when he was given a cursory glance by a pair of sharp, grey eyes.

For a moment neither man moved, the rain falling between them. Watson wondered what the fellow had seen, mistook it for something akin to pity and began to lower his gaze.

"Doctor," the man said. He smiled and tipped his cap in farewell, and then he was gone before Watson could ask how he knew that.

/-/-/-/

No dreams haunted John Watson that night.

The doctor slept fully for the first time since the HMS Orontes had delivered him to English soil, pain dulled and thoughts gently scattered across an ebbing tide, to await a new voyage amidst the dawning sun.


End


A/N II: There's angst in the kettle, I swear! :-p Did you guys know I have a particular weakness for writing AUs/drabbles in which characters meet for the first time? I can't help it. There are too many what-if potentials.