Chapter Thirteen Re-Edit:
•••
That word echoed in Sherlock's mind, trying to force him to accept something he wished he hadn't even heard.
'Weeks.
Oh God.
No.
Please.
No.'
Sherlock raised his face from his hands and rested his fingertips under his chin. Everything he saw and heard around him seemed to blur, as though there was static interference.
Physically, he was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, attempting and failing to process this, but at the same time, he wasn't really there. He was a stranger, on the outside looking in.
A hand gently laying on his shoulder dragged him back to reality, and he glanced up to see Mycroft.
The look on his face frightened Sherlock; he'd only rarely seen even an ounce of emotion from Mycroft. Now he seemed almost on the verge of tears, though his strain to hide it was apparent.
Sherlock had been expecting to get a repetition of the 'caring is not an advantage' speech, but Mycroft's thoughts were clearly so far from that.
'My brother searched his whole life for something to care about and now he's going to lose that' was practically written in Mycroft's eyes.
That just tore Sherlock apart even more. He knew how much it took to upset Mycroft.
•••
Mycroft had been rather close with their father, more so than he had ever been to another person. He'd seemed to be the only person who understood him. The only 'friend' he ever knew.
The day he died, Mycroft didn't shed a tear. Sherlock thought that, just for a moment, he'd seen Mycroft's mask falter, but in an instant it was expressionless again. He hid what few emotions he had well.
He couldn't imagine how upset Mycroft must be to bring him so close to crying.
A single tear rolled down Sherlock's cheek, and he turned his face away from his big brother. Almost hesitantly, Mycroft lifted his hand from Sherlock's shoulder and began to walk away. When he thought he was out of audial range, he pulled out his mobile.
"Make sure they're comfortable for the next few weeks," Sherlock heard him order the person on the other end.
For the next few weeks.
For the remainder of John's life.
•••
Hours later, Sherlock was finally allowed to go in to see John.
When he walked in, his eyes flickered to the monitor, watching the faint spikes that registered the sleeping man's heartbeat. He thought that it was such an inadequate representation of the life force of such an amazing man.
Dragging a chair up to the side of the bed, Sherlock sat and slipped his fingers under John's palm, clasping his would-be husband's hand in his own. He awkwardly cleared his throat.
"You know, they say people can hear you if you speak to them during something like this. If they're unconscious in the hospital. I'm not sure if I believe that, but then, I talk to you constantly, whether you can hear me or not," the barest shadow of a grin flickered on his face as memories passed over him, "so here it goes."
•••
"I've been thinking a lot about that day." He smiled softly. "That first day we met. I owe Mike Stamford big for that." He looked over at John's sleeping face.
"Did I ever tell you that my phone did have signal, then? I didn't need to borrow Mike's. I knew that he didn't have it on him, anyways, and that you'd offer yours. A conversation starter, in a way, and an opportunity to learn a little more about you."
He smiled for a second before continuing.
"I just..." He shook his head. "It's something I can't really explain. Love is like that, I suppose."
Sherlock glanced down at John's sleeping form before continuing.
"At our first meeting, there was nothing whatsoever to distinguish you from everyone else. All those simple-minded people, who don't even bother trying to understand something that's the least bit 'complex', let alone something like me. And yet, somehow I just knew you were different.
I didn't have anything at all, before. My life was my work, which of course was very important to me, but whenever... this," his gaze involuntarily dropped to his wrists, and he shuddered and lifted his head up, "set in, there was nothing to pull me back. Nothing to stop it, nothing to counteract it. I just fell deeper and deeper into it."
Sherlock stopped talking for a moment and took in a deep breath.
"Until you, of course. Then everything changed. It didn't have to be that way all the time. I didn't have to know sadness and nothing else, because for once-" he swallowed. "For once, there was something in my life that could make me happy. I had never realized that people could actually be pleasant company, because the great majority is so marvelously irritating, but when you were around, I didn't want you to ever leave."
•••
Sherlock stood up and began to pace around John's hospital bed.
"I know you always thought I talked to you when you weren't around because I didn't notice you'd gone out. But I talked to you when you weren't around because I didn't like that you'd gone out, and so I just acted as though you hadn't." He quietly to himself.
Sherlock was silent for a moment.
"Did you ever wonder why I was so rude to your girlfriends, or did you think that was just how I was? I don't like most people, but all of those women I genuinely despised. Not for the reason you'd think, either. Well, maybe a bit for that reason, though it took me a while to realize it. No, I couldn't stand them because they genuinely thought they were good enough for you, and I marvel at how they could think so. In fact, a couple seemed to think they were too good for you, which would have been funny if it weren't so bloody annoying.
I had to try to take it into my own hands to get rid of them, because you couldn't see that they didn't deserve you.
It's funny, the things you must have assumed about me back then."
'Back then.
Before this.
Before all of this.'
"I was never a show off before. I was better, and I knew it. There was no reason to prove it to anyone. But then I had to prove it to you. Every stupid, annoying, smart-ass thing I did, I did because I needed to impress you." He paused, considering. "I'm not sure how well that tactic actually worked, but it turned out alright in the end."
It was deathly quiet when Sherlock paused. It shouldn't have been. John should have been able to respond, to laugh at him.
This was wrong.
•••
Sherlock frowned a bit before continuing to speak to his fiancé.
"I've tried, often, to remember specifically when I fell in love. I think it was much earlier than I realized. It just sort of took me by surprise; I'd never expected to find someone. People like me don't. We grow old and die alone. I think it's against some kind of unspoken rule that I could ever be happy with someone." He drew a deep breath.
"But I needed you," he almost whispered, "I was so alone. There are seven billion people on this planet, and I was so completely alone in the world.
People don't realize why a frightening thing it is, loneliness. When you realize that there is nobody you trust, that there is nobody who knows or understands you in the slightest, that everyone around you has family and friends and you have nothing, it just..."
He stopped and blinked the tears out of his eyes.
"I was afraid. God, I was so afraid. Because I didn't understand. Superficially, I knew everything. I could see everything, about every other person on earth, and yet I didn't understand me. If I tried to think about who, or what, I really was, I came up short. But then you came along, and helped me understand. I never realized just how confused I was until you made everything clear."
Sherlock stopped pacing and stared at John's sleeping form.
"You've done so much for me. I can't imagine how difficult I must have become at some points, but you never gave up on me. That faith you had in me saved my life. You are the only reason I was able to hold on. The only reason I even wanted to recover, to stay strong, was that you believed I could do it. I didn't feel I could, but I didn't want to let you down. And eventually, you convinced me that maybe I could do it.
One day it struck me that I am not who I used to be. I am a different man, a better man, now, because of my love for you. I didn't think anyone could ever change what I was. I'm so unbelievably glad that I was wrong."
He sighed.
"Of course, Jim Moriarty had to go and screw that royal," Sherlock's eyes lit up with rage, and he tried to cool down. Finally, he said, "There will never be words to describe how much I hate that man. I had less than nothing when he took you away."
'And he's doing it to me again,' he thought, but decided it wasn't a good thing to say out loud.
•••
Sherlock closed his eyes as he began to remember what had happened multiple weeks before.
"The only reason I couldn't let myself..." he wasn't even able to say it, "was that I knew you wouldn't want me to. It was like being revived from the grave when they told me you were alive, but at the same time it just cut me deeper; I knew what Hell you must have been going through all that time, and it was my fault. That's why I couldn't bear to see those injures; it was like I'd given them to you."
He walked closer and gently lifted John's hand, running his fingers over the ring, and brought it to his lips. "I am so, so sorry for that," he murmured.
"I think it was during that period of recovery when I first knew just how grateful I was to whatever higher power might exist, for bringing me to you. I knew that there was no one else I could ever spend my life with.
Truth be told, I'd had that proposal planned for a very long time, but I never thought I'd have the chance to execute it. It was quite a shock when I did. Of course, I expected that Mycroft would take charge of the planning and go way overboard with it, but it didn't matter. You and I were going to be together, and everything was going to be perfect." Sherlock choked on the last few words, and took a moment to collect himself.
This once, he could be strong and not cry. He was just so angry at himself.
"I ought to have seen this coming. I could have stopped it. I should have known who it was, when we had that break in at the flat. I should never have let you keep taking those pills." Sherlock's voice was shaking, and he wiped the tears that he could no longer hold back out of his eyes.
"I'm so sorry, John." he tried to say normally, though all he could manage was a whisper.
"I love you," he said in a more audible voice, "I don't think I say that often enough. There are a lot of things I should have said, a long time ago, but-" he struggled to keep his voice steady, "I just thought we had all the time in the world." He smiled sadly.
"I hope you know how much I love you."
It suddenly hit Sherlock how little sleep he'd gotten recently, and how exhausting the past twenty-four hours had been on top of that. He barely sat down next to John's bed before his eyes slowly began to droop shut.
•••
Sherlock gasped as he jolted awake and sat up in the chair, which really could have stood to be a bit more comfortable.
John's eyes were open, staring into his, and he feebly reached out a hand. Sherlock quickly took it, locking their fingers together. John gripped his hand with more force than his entire body appeared to have at the moment. John's smile said that he could fight this, that he was strong, but he was blinking back tears.
Sherlock began to realize that he was John's rock just as much as John was his. They were both so dependent on having the other around; they needed to be together.
He and John were absolutely two halves, more so than any other people had ever been. Apart, they could never be complete.
After that sad silence of realization, John weakly said, "You know what, fuck this. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in a bed." Sherlock stood and reached a hand toward him, but didn't really do anything as John carefully sat up. However, when he tried to stand, his knees buckled immediately and Sherlock had to catch him.
John laid back with a terrified, hopeless expression on his face.
Neither of them thought it had progressed to that point yet.
He couldn't walk anymore. He couldn't stand anymore- never again.
John turned to Sherlock, and he looked like a lost child. He had never been so scared.
They knew things were going to get much worse.
•••
Though he had left the hospital, it was all Mycroft could do to sit and stare at his phone, anxiously tapping the table in front of him. He hadn't touched the food on it; that made even his secretary worry about what could possibly be so wrong.
Finally he received an update text, informing him of the main events since he'd left. Almost instantly he wished he hadn't.
The motor function in his legs, lost already. He was worse off than Mycroft had realized.
He typed out a response:
'Justice Lowe. MH'
•••
The door to John's room opened, and he and Sherlock looked up to see a man they didn't recognize standing just inside the doorway.
Sherlock's eyes darted from his head to his toes and back. 'A justice of the peace.' He thought to himself.
"Are you ready?" He asked them.
John and Sherlock glanced at each other.
"Mycroft," John mused softly. Sherlock gave a thin smile. Mycroft wasn't going to let John die without making sure they were married first. He supposed his older brother wasn't always such a prick.
•••
Once the 'ceremony' was over and Justice Lowe had left, Sherlock sat gingerly on the great empty space beside John on the hospital bed. He leaned down to plant a light kiss on his husband's lips and laid down beside him, still watching him like a hawk.
•••
Dr. Ryan Matthews was rifling through some paperwork when he came across the records of the patient in room 135, and squinted at it for a moment.
"John Hamish Watson" had been written on the original, but "-Holmes" was added onto the end with a thick black marker.
•••
John was discharged from the hospital the next day. Nobody said it outright, but the doctors knew he didn't have much time left, and thought he'd prefer to spend his remaining days in his own home.
Sherlock held his arm around John, essentially carrying him up the stairs while he tried to take steps. He had really only pretended to sleep last night, so Sherlock wouldn't worry, and once he was sitting on his own sofa, back in 221B, he leaned his head on Sherlock's shoulder and began to doze off.
Sherlock cautiously slid his phone out of his pocket, to check whether there might be any cases they could solve without leaving the flat.
Text Message:
'It isn't too late, you know. JM'
Sherlock knew this wasn't a man to be trusted, but he couldn't help the tiny spark of hope those words lit in the recesses of his lusterless heart.
His fingers shook as he typed out a reply.
'What do you mean? SH'
Instantly, another message jumped onscreen.
'You can still save him. If you want.
The only way to cure his illness is to give him the antidote formed from the original poison itself. Which, obviously, I alone have.
If you come to me, I'll be sure it gets to him. You'll die, but he will live.
Or you could sit at home and watch helplessly as the life is drained completely from his body.
The choice is yours. -JM'
•••
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