Sherlock hadn't left Riley's side for the past two days as she lay asleep. He hadn't left the room with the exception of human errands, like going to the bathroom or to get food. The only other time he'd left was to take a phone call from Lestrade, who wanted an update on Riley's condition but saw no need to phone hospital officials or send an agent for that sort of thing.
Lestrade seemed to have completely forgotten that he and Donovan had almost accused him of murdering Peter- and even of potentially hurting Riley- and Sherlock saw the phone call as a sign of an apology for accusing him of the former of said two accusations, and he wasn't sure he'd ever forgive Lestrade for the moment of pain the latter accusation had caused him. According to Watson, who had dropped by the previous day to check up on both of them, the morticians had determined that the damage done to Peter's body in correlation to the hight of the fall was too mild for it to be a murder; had he been pushed, the damage would've been much worse.
Sherlock had always assumed that it would've been nice to sit in the same room as her in silence, alone with his thoughts yet devoid of loneliness; but there was nothing nice about this situation, where Riley was stuck in limbo between life and death, leaving Sherlock waiting for her to hopefully- to maybe, just maybe- wake up and create a flurry of wonderful noise, a noise comprised of all her witty, compassionate, fragile words… And he found that for once, he wanted someone to inquire as to what he was thinking, and he wanted someone else in the room to be thinking at his side…
A lot of visitors came to see Riley, but in her comatose state, most left in tears after saying a few words. Judging by their ages- and from recognizing a few familiar faces- a lot of them were her students, and Sherlock assumed that the older visitors were her colleagues, based on their formal attire. The students came mostly in medium-sized, annoying groups, and brought typical, thoughtless gifts like flowers, "get well soon" balloons, cookie baskets, teddy bears, and cards signed by her entire class. Her colleagues splurged on nicer sets of flowers, though no one but Sherlock managed to buy purple carnations, and he took it as a source of nervous pride (even in this moment of darkness) that he, indeed, knew her best.
None of her visitors stayed for more than a few minutes, though Sherlock assumed that his presence had something to do with that. He didn't introduce himself or speak to any of them. He just kept an eye on Riley, and occasionally his gaze shifted back to the visitors, as though he didn't trust them or want them close enough to touch her, even though he himself had a gentle grip on her hand and refused to let go of it.
A few people that visited asked Sherlock to notify them when she woke up, leaving their telephone numbers and email addresses with him. If it had been for anyone but Riley, he would've scoffed at such offers. But somehow he couldn't. And somehow, their innocent comments of "I didn't know she had a boyfriend, it's sweet of you to stay by her side" made him feel more inclined to take care of her.
It was obvious to Sherlock that she was well-respected and well-loved from the amount of attention her accident received. He hadn't expected this, and in his countless hours of paralyzed thinking as he waited for her to wake up, he revisited the differences between the two of them over and over again and worried that he wasn't worthy. He admired her tenacity, her unwillingness to let all the negatives of her life hinder her wants and needs… She had friends, and colleagues, and even if only briefly, she had faced her fears and tried to be intimate with someone else… She had survived, and she had just caused to keep her guard up, whereas Sherlock- with no outside trauma and only the pain that being himself seemed to cause- found himself yet again wondering how she'd managed to do all that with a smile on her face, and with a willingness to care, when he'd convinced himself all his life that caring was not an advantage.
Caring about her education had saved her. Caring about her friends had saved her. Caring about Peter, from what she heard, quite literally saved her by buying time for Sherlock to rescue her…
Sherlock wanted to tell her that he loved her while she was asleep, so she wouldn't hear it, and so he could hear himself saying these words for the first time- he'd never said them before- without any worry about what her response may be. But every time he tried to speak, the words stuck to his throat, and he found himself swallowing them quickly with a sense of aching fear that he'd never known before. He fell asleep mid-afternoon on that second day, slumped over in the chair and still holding her hand, with three little words stamping around his head like impatient children wanting to go outside and play.
Not soon after he'd fallen asleep did he feel a gentle rustle at the other end of his arm, and a finger lightly brushed against his skin. He snapped awake- he'd been waiting for this moment far too long to let is pass while he slept- and looked over at Riley, who was blinking ferociously to combat the bright lights of the white hospital room, and who was heaving in a few laborious breaths, now completely conscious. Half her face was cast in a strange dark shadow from the light that flooded through the open windows, but she looked as beautiful as ever…
He moved to withdraw his hand but she curled her fingers so his couldn't slip out of her grasp. Sherlock stood slowly, staring at her hand and then back at her. She looked not like she'd just woken up from a coma, but like she'd awoken from a pleasant dream and felt well-rested.
"You look awful," she said quietly. A pleasant, out-of-place smile crept up on her lips to show that she was obviously kidding.
The most frustrating woman in the world… There she was, half-alive, stitched up and left in the intensive care unit after she'd almost just been murdered… And she was making jokes.
And that was why he loved her…
"It was a joke," she muttered. "Comedy is a relief mechanism in tense situations. And you look like you could use some of that…"
She rubbed her eyes and winced ever so gently as her wrist pressed against her cheek. Putting pressure on her stitches was unwise; he wanted her to just lay there and rest until she was better, and to take all the time she needed- and then some- to heal… He needed her to be okay physically, and he couldn't imagine the mental recovery that this might take… But of course, this was Riley. And she as tenacious, and right now she was smiling. Just a moment after she'd rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and wrapped herself further in the blanket, she'd risen to sit up and turn slightly towards Sherlock, looking alive as ever and ready to converse.
""How long was I asleep?" Riley looked around the room at the masses of gifts. She was frowning in a subtle, surprised sort of way as she took it all in.
"I was obviously out long enough for a few people to notice," she muttered.
"It's only been two days," Sherlock said.
"People care that much?" she said quietly, almost to herself, still looking at the various gifts in her room. How could she not know that everyone felt this way about her?
"Apparently they do," he murmured. "You had a lot of visitors."
"How- how do you know?"
Sherlock hesitated. He hadn't planned on telling her that he'd been there the whole time. But even so, he explained, "I haven't left."
Her attention turned from the various and apparently unexpected gifts over to him. Last time they were alone… It had almost ruined their relationship. And then she'd almost died. And there they were now, alone again, and he was telling her that he had been there holding her hand- touching her- for two days straight, and somehow she was smiling, just as she'd been when she was limp in his arms, barely conscious...
He didn't understand it. Death didn't frighten him, but it did frighten most people- and yet again, he reminded himself: she is like you, not like other people...
"Did- did Peter escape?"
"He jumped out of the window once he realized the police were outside. He's dead."
Riley shut her eyes. Was she going to cry? To mourn the loss of her student- the student who had tried to kill her? Sherlock felt no compassion for Peter, obviously, but something in Riley did. It intrigued him.
Sherlock contemplated telling her exactly what happened- he wanted to brag about how he had rescued her, how he'd carried her out of the dark, abandoned factory to safety, and how he had stayed by her side, waiting for her to wake up… He wanted to let her know that he cared…
And then suddenly he didn't. Because every time he got close to her, he lost himself- his genius, his cunning, his investigative skills… And every time he tried to get closer to her, he actually lost her- she ran off. Or she almost died. And he was beginning to wonder if staying at a distance and having her tangentially in his life was better than trying to get closer with the risk of losing her entirely…
He tried to remove his hand from hers, but she lightly gripped her fingers around his and he found himself trapped. Partially out of fear, and partially out of the realization that she might not have been conscious enough to appreciate her surroundings or even realize that he'd been there, he casually asked "do you remember anything?"
"Not much after I started bleeding. I-" She cut herself off mid-sentence with a look of nervous urgency, and then added, "did you come for me? At the factory..."
"I got your call and heard you recite the location. So I came to get you with a police unit. I found you in the bathtub, bleeding out."
"You were the first missed call in my phone," she admitted sheepishly. "But I-"
"You redialed the first number as it was easiest to do from your back pocket without being detected. I know."
"No, not entirely," she defended, sounding a bit impatient now, "I wanted to-"
"To call someone who could figure out your location using minute details over the phone," he said, "and seeing as I'm the only one for that job, it's understandable that you chose to call me."
He withdrew his hand from hers firmly and this time she didn't try to fight it. She was frowning now, her bright green eyes wide and sad.
"I could've dialed the police," she said seriously. "But I-"
"It would've been difficult to dial a number in your pocket without seeing your phone, Riley. Near impossible. You calculated your odds, figured out your best means of survival, and you-"
"Sherlock, think," she said patiently. She sounded as if she was talking to one of her patients and he suddenly felt insulted. "Do you really believe that of all the people I could try and call, you'd be the one I chose just because it's most convenient?"
"Yes, I do. Because it's logical."
"It was convenient," Riley said, "but in a situation where my chances of survival were already slim, I might as well have taken the chance and called another number. I could've begged Peter for one last phone call to say goodbye to someone… He probably would've let me, I had him at my will, and-"
"Did you?"
"Yes," Riley said, "Sherlock, I had it under control, until I-"
"Oh, yes," Sherlock said bitingly, "you certainly had it under control." He gestured towards her wrists and then around at the room at large.
He stood up and moved away from her. Had it under control. Had she realized the severity of the situation? How could she when she hadn't seen it from his perspective… When she hadn't carried a person she loved away from almost certain death, blood dripping and soaking her naked body… Only then could she realize…
"You weren't there," she said. "Not everything is a calculation of risk. I thought I would make it out until I realized that his problems were far deeper than just a student trying to scare his professor… Until I realized that he was a serial killer, and he started explaining himself and I realized he was like me and you- that he was cunning, extremely observant, high functioning even if a bit off his rocker…"
"A bit," Sherlock repeated. "A bit."
She looked down at her lap, frowning, and a pang of anxiety tore at the pit of his stomach. She looked like she might cry. He just didn't grasp how anyone could think that a situation in which she had been coerced into slitting her wrists was considered under control…
"You didn't speak to him like I did," Riley pleaded. "I'm not saying what he did wasn't wrong, but he- he had a rough childhood, his dad beat him, and he was-"
"You cannot excuse his behavior because he had a tough time as a child," Sherlock hissed, like he was scolding a reckless child. "Look at you… You two are born of similar circumstance yet you chose two different paths. Are you really going to try and tell me that he didn't have a say in his fate? That he didn't choose what he became? You're not looking at the facts. And the fact is that you both began the same way and ended inherently differently-"
"He just wanted the pain to go away," Riley said, "he didn't study how to make that a reality, like I did, and he didn't-"
"Your compassion is clouding your judgement," he said firmly, "because you feel sorry that someone like you didn't end up as happy as you think you are."
"As happy as I think I am?" she repeated.
"Don't fool yourself," he said, his anger rising, "you're still as damaged and torn apart as you were years ago, Riley. There's no excusing Peter for what he did."
"I'm not excusing him," she said, "I'm saying there is a reason he is that way, a reason beyond his free will, a reason-"
"Riley. You've devoted your entire life to studying human behavior. And you really mean to tell me that free will isn't-"
"Yes," she interrupted stubbornly, "because people are inherently good, until someone who has previously been corrupted corrupts them, and the vicious cycle continues. It's difficult to break out of it unless you know how. Most people don't."
"How could you be so incredibly aloof?" Sherlock asked incredulously.
"Because I don't want to believe otherwise," she said. "The alternative is painful and lonely. And you-"
She cut herself off mid-sentence and heaved a sad sigh. Sherlock turned away from her.
"-I would know all about that," he finished for her, staring out the bright window.
"That's not what I was going to say," Riley said softly. "I was going to say that you deserve to know otherwise. And I really wish you would try."
Sherlock considered this. He sat back down in the chair next to her as she watched him, wiping a stray tear from her eye. You deserve to know otherwise. No one had ever told him he was worthy of anything except perhaps a medical evaluation or a good slap.
"Don't do that," she said sadly. "Please don't try and convince yourself that I don't care, or convince yourself that you don't, either."
"Give me a reason not to," Sherlock said, "seeing as last time we were alone you ran the other way when-"
"Your emotions are clouding your judgement," Riley said, echoing his own words. He sighed, but before he could retort, she added, "a few days ago as you were carrying me in your arms I asked if I could make you dinner, and now you're the one running off, Sherlock." She hesitated, then added, "and I don't want you to. I'm tired of us running away from each other."
So she remembered what she had said to him… He thought it had been a dying request- and at the time it had been dying- but now he realized that she had meant it… She wanted this… She really did. She was being honest in a way that he couldn't be, or at the very least never had been before. And he was surprised that she remembered any of what he had said at all…
"I remember," she whispered. "And I really did mean it."
He closed his eyes momentarily. No one had ever wanted him before. No one had ever made an attempt to tell him that they cared… And he'd never done someone the courtesy of the same…
"And you never gave me an answer about dinner."
He looked up at her again and she was smiling in a broad, obvious and mesmerizing sort of way. Her green eyes weren't covered with a haze of tears- they were alive and excited. She twisted a bit in her hospital bed to face him better and he got out of his chair to lean over at her bedside. She extended her hand slowly and shakily, reaching for him now, and before he knew what he was doing, he was sitting at the edge of her hospital bed, one arm twisted in the strands of her hair to keep her close and the other hand on her cheek, his lips meeting hers slowly as he held her there, like that, and kissed her for as long as she would have him.
He'd never let another person hurt her again. He would never do anything that would put her in danger ever again, either. And he would certainly never do anything to drive her away from this very spot, where he was quite inexplicably happy having her close to him.
"I know there's not much left of me," Riley said quietly, "but you can have it if you want. And I'll try to unlearn all my bad habits."
"And what sort of bad habits are those?" he asked curiously.
"The ones that keep us apart," she said sheepishly. And she leaned forward a bit and began kissing him again, for as long as he would have her- which could be quite a long time.
