I'm back. More of a delay than anticipated - this did not want to be written! SO I'm shooting from the hip here. This chapter is the result of stubborn-minded refusal to leave it alone. Let me know what you think!
(Thanks as always for your feedback - your reviews, follows and favorites are lovely to have o/ememn stressful days)
-M
Years of muscle memory aided Sherlock's fingers as they engaged mindlessly to grasp the end of his bow – balanced perfectly, controlled effortlessly with a soft grip. His forefinger sat low, over the stick. His middle and ring fingers draped over the frog, his little finger perched on the nut. He was a musician capable of virtuosity, and it showed in the easy competence of his bow hand, the splay of his fingers – just so – as the fingertips of his left hand danced across the fingerboard of his violin.
The elegance of his stance contradicted the assault of sound pouring forth from his instrument. Violently, cacophonously, with abandon, he dragged the bow across the strings. This was not the time for beautiful pieces. This was an elemental release, management of the forces besieging the mind palace where his performance hall dwelt.
This was raw energy, confusion, suspicion, and apprehension. This was the terrible realization that in addition to the things he didn't know, there were things he had never even suspected not knowing about his flatmate – his friend – and, furthermore, somehow Mycroft seemed to know about it.
Time passed differently in the mind palace. When he'd warned John he could spend days on end without speaking, he hadn't exaggerated. Sherlock's transport could –and regularly did - spend entire days out in the "real" world while his mind did the valuable Work that solved him cases, honed his skills, and rendered him all but insensate to all external stimuli in the interim.
John and Mrs. Hudson had learned to ignore or navigate around him when he was struck by the need for serious thought. They understood the concept, or at least humored him with vaguely false sounds of agreement when he announced he was visiting his mind palace. Mycroft had known about the mind palace, of course, since its early development.
He had a similar mental construct of his own creation, which Sherlock imagined to much more resemble a crystalline ice structure preserving connections and data in cold storage to maintain optimum usefulness – like keeping a collectible in the original packaging to allow appreciation in value rather than enjoyment. It was a stark contrast to the lavish mind palace Sherlock spent his own time in, rich with his mental talents, his time investments, and treasured gems of knowledge.
Mycroft had always left Sherlock to his own devices – whether from lack of care or understanding of purpose he'd never been sure. Mrs. Hudson had scolded him when he'd slipped into his mind palace unexpectedly and fretted over him when he didn't respond to her. John had developed a disturbing habit of interrupting. It was a feat only his mother had managed in past.
Sherlock added it to the ever-growing-library that was now part of John's rooms in the mind palace. The fact that John's Captain Watson voice and his Doctor Watson voice worked in equal measure to break him from the mind palace disturbed and thrilled Sherlock. Of course, he quickly learned to stop himself from being startled – or bullied – out of the mind palace and developed safeguards against this.
He had learned greater control and awareness of the external world while immersed in the mind palace. It took form in different ways – a knock on the door indicated someone wanted attention. A breeze in the halls may indicate his body was cold. The sounding of a dinner bell alerted him to a demand from Doctor Watson that Sherlock "Just eat something!"
He'd spent the evening immersed but aware in this way after returning to the flat from rescuing John and Sarah from the Black Lotus. John had seen himself promptly to bed, and no sooner had the door closed than Sherlock had likewise checked himself out for the night.
He processed the data for days inside his mind palace, though the outside world only registered it as a single night.
He recalled and dissected his return to 221B earlier, when he'd discovered John and Sarah's abduction. When emotion had clouded his judgment for the first time since his days as a drug addict. When sentiment had muddled his thoughts for the first time since he'd realized he hadn't been expected to feel but he had been expected to think as a young boy.
Of course it was John's fault. Finding violent evidence his abduction had sent Sherlock's logic off track. He'd seen, he'd observed everything, of course. But it felt out of control, as though some observations were more salient than others, even though they were among the least helpful. The speckles of dried blood, through which a man had been dragged between two others, on the pavement outside the door of 221; the smudged, rusting, gloved fingermarks on the iron railing next to the door; the small concentration of blood, just congealing behind the door at the bottom of the stairs; the crusted-over droplets descending the seventeen steps to 221B; the empty green wine bottle smudged and darkened on end of the base; the signs of collapse after a fight.
The blood. The blood. The blood.
He had continuously come back to the blood. He'd pieced together the rest quickly enough, but he hadn't even registered the message on the windows of the sitting room until he was already ready to leave.
For the first time since learning the science of deduction, Sherlock had failed to look at all of the pieces of the scene. He'd taken what he'd needed and ignored the rest of the facts.
They'd been stored in the back of his mind, but neglected in the moment.
It was as singularly terrifying as the thought of losing John. It was as terrifying as realizing he was afraid of losing John. It was terrifying to be capable of such a banal emotion at all.
And so he pulled his bow across his strings, releasing the confusion, frustration, the impotence and rage as inside the mind palace, he attempted to restore calm and order once more.
It was the gentle touch to his arm more than the sound of his name that had pulled him from the mind palace.
"Oh!" Mrs. Hudson squeaked when he turned with a flourish, bow ready before him like a baton to ward off assailants.
"Ah." Sherlock didn't sound surprised to see her at all. Her touch had startled him out of his meditation, but with one look he understood her purpose entirely. "Mrs. Hudson," he greeted her with the smile only Mrs. Hudson managed to pull from him.
"Oh, Sherlock," she smiled at him, hands smoothing her sleeves. "It's only you've been at it for hours," she began, looking uncomfortable.
She'd looked irritated before surprised; more irritated than upset, and more annoyed than concerned about being polite. She was wearing one of her most flattering dresses, the purple jacket she thought was so fetching and went with her eyes (it didn't), and her hair was neatly done. She looked uncomfortable, almost bashful – if such a word could ever be applied to Mrs. Hudson.
"Just finished, actually." Sherlock smiled at her in his own – very rare – form of fondness. He loosened the hairs of his bow and wiped the rosin dust gently from the violin.
"Oh good!" She sighed in relief, startling herself with her honesty, she offered Sherlock slightly contrite and almost embarrassed expression, shoulders raised around her ears.
"What time will Mr. Chatterjee be stopping by tonight?" Sherlock asked, eyebrow raised, face straight, but with just enough warmth in the set of his lips and the light of his eyes to let her know he was teasing.
Mrs. Hudson startled slightly, then scolded him with her pointer finger, "Oh there you go again! Just try keeping secrets from Sherlock Holmes in his own home!" She was only mildly embarrassed, more amused by their interactions. "It'd do you some good, young man, to realize that other people are allowed secrets, too!" She chided.
"Not if they can't manage to keep them, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock countered with a wink and the smile reserved only for her.
"Oh, you!" She admonished as she pulled him in for a brief hug before scurrying along to finish getting ready for her date, having unknowingly touched upon the very subject he'd been pondering.
John had been keeping secrets from Sherlock, - many secrets that he had thoroughly begun analysis to decipher in the mind palace - all interrelated. Some of the data seemed outlandish, even fanciful, but Sherlock did not doubt his power of observation. Even altered, as it was the night before - by a sight that had never bothered him (all that blood) until John was the victim - Sherlock trusted his observational ability above every other competency he claimed.
He had collected sound data.
He possessed an internal reference library cross-cataloguing every crime scene he'd ever visited or studied.
He was a dab hand at using existing data to create models to interpret input like: blood spatter, total blood loss, severity of wound, weapon used, time spent without treatment.
Sherlock Holmes knew the facts. And from what he had observed in the flat, on the stairs, and outside of 221 in addition to the wetness on the back of John's head in the tunnels and the mess that had covered a good portion of his face and poured down his back, John Watson should be a dead man.
He'd been so relieved to see him alive, to hear him bickering with that old hag, Shan, in the tunnels, that Sherlock had nearly failed to connect the new input of the blood on John with the blood back at the flat. He hadn't bothered processing it as he'd noticed, but had filed it away with a thousand other observations (ricochet trajectories of bullets glancing off of curved walls, strain marks on Sarah's cheeks from where she'd been gagged which indicated the duration of her imprisonment, John's speech, the way his eyes had been drawn to the shadows as though he'd seen something there no one else could) to contemplate later.
When Sherlock had fought the idea that he'd been wrong. He knew he'd observed accurately, though John had not only survived the night, but was well enough to return home and sleep in his own bed! Sherlock should have insisted taking him to Bart's to at least be stitched up, but John had blustered so convincingly about it looking worse than it was. He'd been so lucid and clearly functioning that Sherlock hadn't pressed the issue.
Once he'd fallen asleep, Sherlock had feared he might not wake again. That he'd slip into a coma as his body attempted to recover from the trauma and the blood loss.
He needn't have worried.
When John had lumbered down the stairs that morning, looking thoroughly worked-over, groggy, and mildly out of sorts, it was emone more thing/em Sherlock could not explain about the well-mannered (though occasionally short-tempered) blogger. The fact that Mycroft was in on whatever secret John had only served to further upset the detective.
Until he'd visited his mind palace after Mycroft had left. He reviewed the data again and recalled his old mantra: eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains – however improbable – is the truth.
It was impossible that Sherlock's observations were wrong.
It was impossible that a man could survive a head wound of that severity without prompt medical treatment.
John Watson had not received prompt medical treatment.
This lead to a variety of outlandish explanations: John Watson had died last night, but hadn't stayed that way. Or, he was somehow able to recover impossibly fast from blood loss. Or, he had a general healing rate that far exceeded the general populace. Or, etc.
However, Sherlock had observed John feeling poorly before.
Sherlock had met John because he'd been invalided home from Afghanistan following the best possible scenario for being hit by a sniper.
Sherlock had not failed to notice the various scars from John's resulting surgeries and a lifetime of activity besides.
Therefore: As unlikely as it seemed, John Watson had somehow escaped death last night. And likely not for the first time, now that he considered the wound from the sniper's rifle once again. He'd never seen the actual scar from the wound itself, just hints of it from the edge of John's collar when he wore a loose fitting shirt or didn't fasten his robe tightly enough.
The corners of pale lips quirked up and the slant of his eyes sharpened as he raised his almost prayerful hands to his chin. He'd have to investigate more closely.