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Indispensable for Gossip
John's bed was nice, even though it still smelled like boy. It wasn't lavish like my bed at that prison was, or practically a piece of cardboard like my bed, but it was simple. It was comfortable.
The other thing that was comfortable was that I was safe, Moriarty held at bay by two men that seemed over competent. And Mariella was back in my life, and I could resume my morning café trips with Lizzie and Neal criticizing my life.
"Elaine," someone said. They were far away. I didn't want to listen.
"Elaine," the voice came again, louder, closer, clearer.
"Elaine!" The voice was loud, but managed to maintain decorum… Sherlock?
"Why are you in John's room?" I grumbled, keeping my eyes closed and rubbing my temples. I could feel a headache brewing.
"He's… Busy." My eyes shot open. Sherlock stood over me, staring at me like I was a fish in a bowl. I swatted at his face.
"With Ella?" I asked, wondering if Sherlock was using my makeshift room as a hiding place from Ella and John make outs.
He cleared his throat and slid his eyes away from me to study the pile of clothes in the corner. "Not exactly."
"Why are you here then?" I rubbed my eyes and slid my feet from under the covers to touch the floor. It was cold. I remember this very clearly. The floor was cold.
He huffed a little. "John isn't capable of delivering the news so the responsibility fell to me."
"Could I wait for John?" I asked, grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around my shoulders. "You guys need to cool it on the air conditioning."
Sherlock returned his eyes to me. "Your friend Ella… Moriarty's inferiors thought she was you. They told him he could give up his position to their leader or they'd kill you. They saw them together in the arts shop and…"
He kept talking. I let him. Maybe explaining it felt better to him. But he wasn't the only one who could partake in the science of deduction.
I clutched the blankets tighter, keeping the cold away. My knees were in front of me, knobby and bare. Why was I wearing shorts to bed when it was so cold? Oh, they were John's boxers. I hadn't anything else to wear. The… the…
"She died quickly, they shot her through the head," Sherlock was saying.
"Can I see her?" I asked, digging my nails into my palms through the gauzy blanket.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at me. Probably wondering if this was a normal sentimental person's reaction. "I can ask John, but I see no reason—"
"You're going to ask John if I can see the corpse of the girl he was making out with six hours ago?" I asked, making my voice as harsh as I could. Tears pooled at the corners of my eyes but I couldn't. I couldn't cry.
He nodded, a sharp downward motion. His hair flopped. "Let's go."
"I must admit I'm relieved to find you didn't react as emotionally as John did," Sherlock said, staring out of the taxi window while his hands fidgeted with each other in his lap.
"I'm sure you noticed it was hard for me not to," I said, watching his hands. His right index finger and thumb grasped opposite sides of his left hand's thumb, before moving on to the index finger, middle finger, ring, and pinky.
He hmmed. He hmmed? Jim—
"Did Jim know it wasn't me?" I asked, watching Sherlock's face. Would I be able to tell if he lied?
"No," Sherlock said, his mouth twitching. It seemed like a more regretful twitch than anything. "He called. He said it was strange a girl as dim as you could escape our watch. John raced upstairs, but you were still knocked out in his bed." Sherlock cleared his throat. "John came back, relieved. He told me they got the wrong woman. When Jim hung up, when I didn't smile back, he started thinking and figured it out on his own."
I cupped my hand around my forehead. The headache was blooming. "Jim thought it was me and he just let them kill her."
I should've made him like me more. I should've slept with him or something. What could I have done differently that would've made my best friend come back from that situation unharmed?
The morgue was empty. Besides Sherlock and this skinny diffident girl occupying his attention for me, it was just the body of the best friend I made in England—no, ever, the best friend I made ever, and me. She wasn't there. My best friend. She wasn't there.
The table, she lay on the table, or what she used to be. She lay on the table, in a bag. If children came into morgues more often, the bag would surely carry a "Choking hazard" sticker. But the people that went inside those bags didn't… They didn't have to worry about choking.
At least not anymore.
Sherlock and the girl spoke softly in the corner. I appreciated that Sherlock was trying to keep it down, or maybe he was just trying not to let me hear something, but I really wished they'd leave the room altogether. The girl seemed to want to come bother me, but Sherlock pointed out the door and jabbed his fingers a few times.
Why was I watching them? I came here for my friend. To say goodbye.
I slid toward the bag with my friend. The zipper, where was it?
I didn't want to touch the bag. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. I could see my friend later, when she was made up for her last performance.
God, she was just a teacher. A teacher that was too nice to the impersonal American. A teacher that harbored some desperate need for romance, the stem of which she couldn't even tell me…
"I'm sorry," a voice croaked. It didn't sound like Sherlock, but it was deep, so I turned around to tell him it was fine.
It wasn't Sherlock. It wasn't Jim. It was Jay. His face was relaxed, falling into a state that was much too calm for the everchanging faces of Jim Moriarty, Top Criminal.
"I know," I muttered, looking down and turning back to my friend. I should open the bag.
"Don't," Jay said, reaching over my right shoulder to clasp my hand. Inside his hand, inside my hand, was the zipper that kept the bag up around my…
"It's why I came," I replied, but didn't move.
"It's a bad idea," he said. I could hear his scowl, probably because he was my only company for the past month. "I don't know why he let you come here."
"Why is he—" I turned to the corner he was fighting with the girl in. Empty.
"She told him the proper thing to do would be to stop you, but he had a sample he needed to examine," Jay said, drawing our hands behind me, turning me in the process.
"There are like ninety machines in here," I replied, blinking. Blinking. Blinking. I would spend the rest of my life blinking.
"I made sure the one he needed wouldn't be," Jay said, slipping into Jim. Another second, then he slipped back.
"So you heard…" Was he really slipping back and forth or, in my time of need, was I inventing another side to him I could not hate?
He nodded. I tried to turn back, but his hand.
"You let them kill me," I said, looking at our joined hands.
"I did."
"You didn't. You didn't," I swallowed the bubble stampeding up my throat. "You didn't save her." I swallowed again. Swallowing and blinking.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, but it wasn't a switch. Nothing changed. She was still dead. She was still my best friend. I was still swallowing. Blinking. Breathing.
"Time's up," Sherlock said, holding the door open and looking at me. I didn't wipe off the tears that broke from the bubble in my throat and through my defenses. He'd know anyway. "A friend from the Yard wants to talk to you."
I filled my lungs with the deepest breath I could give them and nodded. "You know whatever was happening. It stopped now, right?" I asked Jim or Jay or whoever was in that body. I asked him without looking. Sherlock's expression changed for less than a split second before his head popped back through the doorframe and the door followed it.
"I know," he said. And despite the time I spent with him, I didn't know what his face would look like.
But I didn't look. I swallowed, blinked, breathed, and took back my hand. I walked through the door, away from my friend and my… Ex.
"You can stay with us as long as you want," Sherlock said after my meeting with Lestrade. "John likes sleeping on the couch. Gives him something to complain about."
I nodded, glad Sherlock wasn't the type to expect a smile. "I'll think about it."
