Gift of Silence
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Chapter 8: In Russell Square
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Still a week before the car explosion… and more than an hour after the Nurse's Story.
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After dashing from 221B, John did not actually know his destination, but when he found himself in Russell Square Garden a half-hour later, the urgency to continue running ceased.
Late afternoon had settled on a mild spring day. School children were skipping home alongside their mothers taking a brief jaunt through the green space enclosed by giant sycamores. Heavy morning rains had dispersed and shafts of sunlight drizzled through the wet canopy making the fountain sparkle. The scene was in such stark contrast to John's mood that it seemed decidedly surreal.
He had taken a seat on a dried park bench, his lungs no longer heaving from his anxiety and his hasty retreat from Baker Street. There he watched several giggling toddlers splash through puddles as they chased the pigeons attempting to bathe. For nearly an hour he sat, quietly nursing a tepid coffee he had purchased from the park café upon his arrival, but the bitterness he tasted made the otherwise decent brew difficult to swallow.
Surrounded by happy human chatter, the squeals of children, and birdsong calling overhead, John closed his eyes and merely listened. Although life had no reset buttons, this place, this very spot, had once helped reset him years ago and allowed him to begin his civilian life in earnest. It was here that he had accidentally met Mike Stamford and made a preliminary decision to try and find a flat mate. Had he and Mike passed each other like strangers, had Mike not recognized him, things would have been so different.
Recalling the excitement of his first case with Sherlock improved John's mood.
John opened his eyes to the persistent rustling of a newspaper which intruded on his memories. His current bench-mate to his left, a portly, grey-haired gent in tie and suit jacket, had just finished folding up his paper. After stifling a soft yawn, he stood, loosened the knees of his trousers, and tucked the newspaper under his arm whilst mumbling to himself. Slowly he crossed toward John's right, limping slightly on only one side, as he headed toward the café.
Gout, John diagnosed as he tracked the limping man with his eyes. The older man had barely left, when John felt someone quite swiftly claim the seat beside him, nor could he control his double-take when he realized who it was.
Sherlock had found him.
"Ordinarily, I'm the one with bad behavior," the baritone voice confided from the side of his mouth. "You know, the usual good-cop, rude-cop routine we have with potential clients?" As he sat beside John on the bench, Sherlock was a prime example of someone who did not visit the park for relaxation. Rather, his back was ramrod straight, his shoulders squared. He looked uncomfortable and deliberately kept his eyes forward.
John exhaled a sigh. "What if I fancied a change to 'the usual'? Now that wouldn't do, would it?" Spotting the gout-ridden man, John watched intently as he slowly made his way out of the park.
Remaining quiet for several minutes, both John and Sherlock kept their faces turned away from each other. Whilst they did not speak, the silence they shared became an opportunity to listen—to nearby casual conversations, the gushing fountain, the muted traffic passing the park. Yet, they both were aware that there was more to be heard in what remained unspoken between them. Indeed, John's question suggested a blatant shift in the scheme of things—one that Sherlock had never considered before.
Finally, Sherlock had had enough silence and turned toward John.
Feeling his stare, John tilted his head looking askance at his friend. "What?" He knew his feigned nonchalance was likely to be ineffective at deflecting Sherlock's scrutiny.
"I have not accepted the case." Sherlock caught John's eyes and held them with his own.
"Huh?" Startled, John was transfixed before he blinked free and swallowed. "That's a surprise."
"Well, I do think we ought to accept it,…" Sherlock squinted as if taking a bead on the Duke of Bedford statue. "I told the nurse that, until I discussed it with my partner, I couldn't answer her. 'So unlike him to skip out like that….' However, she was quite sympathetic about your moodiness…good attributes for a nurse, don't you think?" A half-grin teased his lips.
Sherlock's attempt at humor fell flat. John crumpled the empty coffee cup, set it beside him on the bench, and looked down at his hands. "You don't need me on this investigation…."
"That may well be true," Sherlock replied, "at least on some cases. But, when it comes to the profession of medicine, I rely on my expert for guidance. Your advice would be useful in determining what sort of behavior should or shouldn't be expected from a doctor's bedside manner. I could do this without you, yes, but I prefer your assistance to solitary work …." Sherlock looked down at his own hands.
"Heh! Listen, Sherlock. I'm not—"
"—You are…"
"—Not ready for something like this." Any case involving kids was clearly implied within the subtext of his pause. "The best I can do is lend my assistance with your other cases and be your sounding board …."
"… stimulating…"
"Shut up! I'm not finished—"
"…a conductor of light…"
"—Shut up!" Distressed, John leaned forward, planted his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in his hands. He continued with his voice lowered to a whisper. "Not anymore, especially not if I can't keep focused. It can putyou in bloody danger." Sighing, he rubbed his face and sat upright again as he continued in a hoarse whisper. "Things…. have changed a bit. I cannot be fully 'present and accounted' for…and I haven't been for a while now…since…since…, Hell! I shouldn't have to explain. This should come as no surprise to you. You're the world's most observant man!"
Another spell of silence followed and lasted for several minutes. John's attention was drawn to a little girl romping with high steps and splashing, her infectious laughter prompting snickers from her delighted mother. Sitting quietly beside him, Sherlock seemed to be studying the assortment of humanity inhabiting the park, but John knew Sherlock was mostly focused on waiting for his answer.
Might be a long wait.
For a while John was content to watch the mother interact with her daughter until they had finished playing. Gently clasping the little girl's hand, the woman walked toward a buggy, lifted her daughter up, and with cooing sounds to sooth her, strapped the child in—like he and Mary would do with their daughter. John could not quite speak until the two had strolled out of sight beyond the park.
To shut out the painful memories that triggered an angry flash-over, John closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, but he could not shake the tremendous injustice he felt. He had lost his chance at a family whilst some bloody psycho persisted in abusing children with impunity. The thought became unbearable and suddenly the park was stuffy, oppressive, suffocating. He could no longer listen to the sounds of laughing children and happy parents. Rising from the bench, John inclined his head suggesting they walk a bit.
Springing into action, Sherlock set a quick pace for them out of the park. He always took the lead—always—and John most always allowed it. Ordinarily, to keep stride with Sherlock meant John needed to double his steps. He couldn't this time. After depositing his rubbish in the bin, John felt weighed down by his mood, impeded by an unusual heaviness. Expecting John to catch up, however, Sherlock neither slowed down nor looked back as the distance widened between them.
In that instant, John could have decided to go his separate way, quietly, but the call to duty rather than retreat was the greater need, and he mustered the reserve to advance. With quicken steps John swiftly gained on Sherlock to be by his side.
Clearing his throat, John was the first to speak. "A case like this makes me bloody-hell livid, Sherlock, for the children and their families. Whoever this man is, for the sake of argument let's say it is Prius, he is still a predatory physician taking advantage of a doctor's special privilege, relying on the trusting nature of his patients—children—who cannot defend themselves when he has them disrobe in a private room and does whatever his deviant urges require. Yes—I do want this fucking bastard captured—I don't even care if he's the same man or another bloody pervert who ought to be locked up where, God help me, he gets a little taste of his own medicine."
Sherlock nodded as they headed toward Guilford Street. "Despite being prone to exaggeration and her excessive yammering, the nurse was remarkably unhelpful in providing us with correct information, but still John, her story sounded familiar, didn't it?"
"They all sound familiar to me. It never changes. Whatever discipline measures Prius should have received for his alleged sexual misconduct, it was obviously not a deterrent." John grumbled until he reconsidered Sherlock's question. "What do you mean?"
"Three months back, we came across a seventeen-year-old Met cold case about a missing child, a little girl named Heather, up by Cambridge…."
"Yes. I remember." Abruptly, John stopped walking. "We passed—well, I passed on that one." John glanced away and then down towards his feet. "And you decided to do the same. Or did you?"
"I reconsidered. For future reference, I read through the report…." Sherlock kept his voice at a low volume so as not to attract attention from passers-by. John noted they were standing outside the wrought-iron fence surrounding the Coram Fields Park Memorial playground. The private park sign specified "adults may only enter if accompanied by a child." Given their topic of discussion, the location struck John as ironic.
John suspected Sherlock didn't see the irony as he continued relating the facts of the seventeen-year-old case. "It involved Francis P. Willard, a second-year at a hospital in Suffolk. It seemed as a favor to the families who 'requested' it, Willard had been seeing some of his attending's cancer patients out-of-hours, on his own, and without his superior's knowledge. Initially, his fellows thought well of him for his volunteering to help out the disadvantaged, but when Heather went missing, all his 'good works' came to an abrupt halt. His attending, learning what he had been doing, forbade him from seeing anyone out of hours. Later, the police questioned Willard as it was thought this little girl might have been one of those out-of-hours patients. Finding no connections to Willard, however, the police explored other avenues, but came up empty. The girl's parents were under suspicion, but eventually they too were cleared. As you know, the girl was never found."
Listening as best he could, John quashed the roar of rage that filled his ears —How many of these waste-of-breath, sexual deviant doctors were there? —but the mask that he showed his friend betrayed little of his thoughts.
"In that open file on Heather," Sherlock continued, "there was a newspaper clipping—a separate article from several years later about this same doctor—showing that the police had remained suspicious about him even though their initial investigation turned up nothing. In this later article, Willard had made a staff member suspicious, but her accusations that he was performing 'criminal, intimate examinations' were expunged as he always had a plausible explanation whenever his conduct was challenged. Interestingly enough, F. P. Willard's full name is Francis Prius Willard."
"Hang on! Aidan's doctor was W. F. Prius!" John's eyes widened.
"Willard Francis Prius, to be precise. Nurse Hardings told me after you left," Sherlock reluctantly admitted. "It fits the timeline. Two years ago Aidan was nearly assaulted by Prius. The nurse said fifteen years before that, the same man had been accused. Except it's all circumstantial nonsense right now. We don't have hard evidence."
"Bloody Christ! Can't be all coincidence, though!" John stamped his foot and rolled his eyes skyward in exasperation. "Okay, so maybe Meghan and Jill did not have all their facts straight but this is hard to ignore—they thought it was an overzealous medical student who was preying on drug-addicted homosexual teens." John felt a rush of fury, and his left shoulder constricted with tension. "But is it possible? Is this the real story—a licensed doctor targeting disadvantaged or vulnerable patients—children with cancer?"
Growling under his breath, John's agitation increased. It was unthinkable, which was why no one believed it could happen and why the sex offenders got away with it. Fists clenching for a fight, John needed to punch something. Instead, he drew in a deep breath and tried to recover his rationale to offset his wrath. When he spoke again, his voice was just a bit shaky. "It's the slimmest connection, a remote similarity, but do you think there is some credence to Jill Hardings' suspicion?"
For a moment, Sherlock eyes grew distant as if there were something more he had wanted to add, but instead he shifted his gaze towards the traffic, idly tracking a lorry as he pondered his answer. When his focus returned to John, he seemed to have become closed off, detached, but firm about his conclusion. "I know I've declared it a mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment. And whilst it is tempting to twist the facts to suit the theories, I am eager to collect the data to prove or disprove her suspicion. That is the best and only method."
John nodded his agreement.
"Well!" Removing the heaviness from his voice, Sherlock rubbed his hands together. "To start, I believe this 'doctor' who visited Jeremy was wearing a disguise, a black wig and fake mustache which he removed before he was picked up by hospital cameras. We might be looking for a clean shaven man who is probably balding." Sherlock paused. When he spoke again his tone had slightly shifted from "matter-of-fact" to encouraging. "You know I abhor repeating myself," he continued, "but I will say this again, I could use your assistance—"
"—Why? You already know who he is, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure everything else out in a matter of hours; I'm superfluous, merely there to be your audience." John was doing his best to talk himself out of involvement in the case. It so outraged him on an irrational level that he could imagine pulverizing the bastard, if he ever got his hands on the pervert, for committing such a grotesque betrayal. That uncontrolled urge scared him.
Vexation creased Sherlock's brows. His lips tightened as if he wanted to hold in his deepest frustration. Glancing up and down Guilford Street, he waited for several approaching couples to walk past. After, he turned toward John with a serious face and a fierce radiance in his eyes and spoke with measured care. "Being a detective requires an infinite capacity for 'taking pains' during an investigation, but John, my capacity for your pigheadedness on this subject has nearly reached its limit. Yes. You are an audience, but an invaluable one. No. You are not superfluous. And do not suggest that my two-year hiatus supports your opinion to the contrary. I could easily argue that the opposite is true, that since my return, I have been superfluous in your life!"
Sherlock's anger reached John's ears, but his words conveyed a strain on their friendship John had failed to consider until now.
It was true.
The timing of Sherlock's resurrection—the "don't be dead" promise John had extracted at the grave site—had been fulfilled at the most inopportune moment, at a time when John finally attempted to get on with his life. It had taken him nearly two agonizing years to recover from the crippling and devastating blow of losing both his best friend and the wonderful, dangerous, fascinating, intoxicating life he and Sherlock had built for themselves. Until he met Mary, John had never thought he'd get over it. When Mary offered him a chance to begin again, John leapt at the opportunity to try and find contentment in an ordinary life. It was time to move on, even if he could never forget what he had with Sherlock or entirely stop grieving that loss.
The immense shock of Sherlock's return, however, hit John like a sledge hammer. Intense rage at being duped, being kept in the bloody dark, had been John's initial reaction, even though deep down—well, not so deep down—he was euphoric that his friend was alive. Under the smokescreen of his stubbornness, John had tried his ridiculous best to hide his joy and relief. To keep a safe distance, he channeled his justifiable anger at being deluded and abandoned by the man he trusted the most. Gradually, thanks to Mary, John had overcome his hurt feelings—and after the whole Moriarty scheme became water under the bridge, at least that's what he had apparently managed to get Sherlock to believe—life somehow, went on and Sherlock settled precariously into his life again. Or had he?
As thankful as John was to have both Mary and Sherlock, his life also had become complicated. It never came to a full-out a tug-of-war between them, but he often felt his obligations to them both pulled him in two directions. Yet, when he compared this abundance of good fortunes, having two loved ones in his life, with his lonely days as an invalided soldier living in a bedsit in London, John repeatedly told himself he was a lucky man, that everything was fine, and that he should make the most of it.
So, for a short time after, John had found himself straddling the best of both worlds; he had a loving wife with a child on the way and a fast friendship that defied definitions. And while it all appeared fine, it soon became apparent to the friends that a beloved wife was a husband's foremost responsibility, and more so a child. Without petulance, Sherlock had acquiesced to the rightful place of the Watson family, whilst going to extremes on John's behalf, often putting himself in harm's way to give John the life he seemed to have wanted.
The life John had, until five months ago.
Superfluous? It all suddenly clicked in John's memory: Sherlock's furtive retreat from the wedding and his increased drug use thereafter were just some signs of isolation, of feeling superfluous to John. The man had risked bleeding out to ensure the Watson marriage. To keep Mary's assassin past secret, he had assassinated Magnussen for her, with full knowledge of the consequences for such a crime; he had nearly overdosed on the jet back from exile, not to mention his general protectiveness to keep the Watsons from harm, staying alert to possible jeopardy—even though, in the end, it was to no avail.
Torn by this revelation, John realized he been so wrapped up in himself, and later his personal grief, that it hadn't occurred to him to consider how his family life with Mary, as well as their loss, would have affected Sherlock.
Clearly, John had been blind. "You see but you don't observe." Goddamnit!
Up until this moment, John had operated on the assumption that Sherlock always took what he needed, when he needed it, from the world around him. Nor did he seem to care if it required being abrasive, demanding, and arrogant to accomplish his goals. He had at his command the logic of the greatest scientists and philosophers, the talents of the most accomplished artists and musicians, the athleticism of Olympic champions, the recklessness of the most devious pirates, and the incredible eye for minutiae that justified the title of world's only consulting detective. As long as that massive brain—likely the swiftest thinking machine possessed by a human—was focused on a challenge, John thought Sherlock had everything he wanted.
But maybe there was something more he wanted, something more than just intellectual stimulation. What had Sherlock just said moments ago? "I prefer your assistance to solitary work."
Despite its complexity and circumspect formulation, the gist of Sherlock's statement was simple and moving: I want you by my side.
And John wanted to be there. Feeling awkward with this realization, John met Sherlock's glower with an accusing smirk. "You, superfluous? No, no, no. Don't give me that. Never! More like intrusive, meddling... attention-getting even when out of sight—even more importantly, when you were out of touch ... you see, that argument can go both ways, mate. The more you pulled away, the more effort it required to reel you back in. We worried constantly..." John faltered after hearing he had used the plural and turned away. Neither of them needed a reminder of all that right now.
More silence ensued until John swallowed and dispelled his regrets with a wave of his hand. "Maybe I haven't figured out where my place is right now or how to put things right again," John acknowledged before resuming their walk, "but I am working on finding the reset button."
"Could the reset button entail accepting this case? Exposure therapy of sorts?" Sherlock prompted, his irritation replaced by eagerness.
"Not too fond of this whole case, but you make a hard sell, and despite my lingering objections, I guess it could."
"Good. 'Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.'"
"Who said that? It sounds familiar."
"Samuel Johnson. A very intelligent man if you believe his Boswell."
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As always I am grateful to have had the guidance of kate221b and especially baillierj who have taught me much.
