Magpie: One for Sorrow
Chapter Twenty
"Excuse me, sir."
Mycroft stood aside as Lewis went by carrying a duffle bag of equipment on each shoulder.
"Lewis, can you ask Mister Hayter to join us here, please." However polite the last word might sound, it wasn't a request, but an order.
While Sherlock was working with Diane in the living room of the middle house, Mycroft was next door in the Big House, standing guard in the kitchen. He was blocking John's exit, because the doctor would come to realise, if he had not already done so, that there would soon be fewer obstacles stopping him from going next door to see Sherlock. Mycroft had no wish to get involved in a physical confrontation with John, especially if the sound of it carried next door.
He had to work fast, and he knew it. For Sherlock's sake, he had to banish the heavy brigade. But, even once Hayter was in the room, he was not sure he could keep things under control. He decided to stall. Distract with debate.
"John, I appreciate your concern. But the more you push him, the more protestations of loyalty you make, the more likely he is to run away. Believe me, I have had years of experience in similar situations with him. It would be best if you and Mary left tonight- my car can take you back to your flat. After the holidays, then he will get back in touch."
"No. This isn't something that can wait. I'm going to sort this mess out."
Mycroft could feel the frustration coming off the shorter man. Mary was sitting on the kitchen stool, watching her fiancé pacing the length of the kitchen, fuelled by the discomfort of his psychosomatic injury. The thump of the crutch added sound to the visual image of anger on the move. Mycroft waited until John's back was turned and gave her a pointed stare. She owed him some support here.
"John, just calm down. Let the therapist do her work. A time-out makes sense."
It was a voice of reason that had as little effect on the heat of his anger as a water bottle on a raging inferno. The doctor turned to her, eyes blazing and a fixed smile that was anything but happy. "I'm not going anywhere. Even if Sherlock himself was standing in front of me right now telling me to piss off, I wouldn't go." He turned back to Mycroft, jabbing his finger at him, "And you don't scare me enough to make a difference, Mycroft."
He wondered if he was about to become a punching bag for John as well as for Sherlock. "I'm not asking you to leave permanently. Anything but, just leave him alone for a few days. Let him settle."
"I don't agree with that assessment. You aren't his keeper, whatever delusions of grandeur you might think you have in that department. And I don't think any therapist is going to make a blind bit of difference to Sherlock."
Mycroft decided that it was time to remind John of a few facts. "You may have 'trust issues' with therapists, but perhaps you should let Sherlock make his own decisions. He's agreed to talk with her. He wants this. Do you remember our very first conversation? In it I mentioned the 'bravery of the soldier'. That is what I am seeing right now. You will recall that I also said that bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity. Provoking a confrontation now with his therapist is the last thing that Sherlock needs from you."
John's smile became pure ice. "You've used that brother-knows-best line once too often with me. I'm not afraid of you." Then he looked down at his crutch for a moment, trying to get his temper under control. When he looked up again, he was colder. "I am only afraid of what Sherlock is going to do if I don't get in there to tell him he's being an idiot. He might know what he wants, but not what he needs."
The ginger-haired Arthur entered the kitchen on his way out, slipping behind Mycroft, to exit with his shoulders also burdened by equipment. Almost immediately, the door re-opened, and George Hayter arrived, accompanied by a blast of December night air. The ex-Army doctor took in the situation in an instant and cocked his head at Mycroft. "In need of reinforcements?"
John had been on his way back down the kitchen towards where Mary sat. But he turned at Hayter's comment.
"Don't get involved, Colonel; this isn't your fight." John's stance was like a coiled spring, and he looked almost like he would enjoy releasing some of that anger on anyone standing in his way.
How does Sherlock engender such loyalty? Mycroft found himself wondering, as he often did, about the origins and depth of John Watson's attachment to Sherlock. He had once made the mistaken assumption that it was all about missing the battlefield, that the army doctor saw Sherlock as a means to an adrenaline end. After the past five years, that assessment had changed. Even so, knowing what he knew about both men, he found it hard to describe their relationship.
Mycroft's phone rang. He looked annoyed at the interruption but pulled it out of his jacket pocket. As he read the text, his expression cleared. "It's Miss Goodliffe; she requires your presence, Miss Morstan. Next door, they're in the living room."
She was on her feet and stepping around her fiancé before John could react, but he recovered fast enough to blurt out, "Mary, just hold on."
She stopped and turned.
He pointed at himself. "If anyone goes in there, it's me."
She seemed torn. "I'll tell you what's going on. And you know I will tell him what he needs to hear from you."
He was shaking his head. "Sorry, not good enough." He looked pointedly at Mycroft. "Text her back and tell him I'm coming instead. Or just stand aside or let me go in unannounced. It's either, or."
"It's neither, Doctor Watson." Mycroft snapped the title for a definite reason. "Doctor Hayter, tell me if I am wrong, but isn't it true that interfering in the middle of a PTSD therapy session can be very detrimental to the health of the afflicted patient?" Mycroft was not about to let this get out of control.
The big man nodded. "Watson, because you are in some way a trigger for his episodes, your arrival would be akin to pulling a grenade and throwing it at Sherlock. Whatever you might want as a friend, your medical professionalism tells you I'm right. Let the therapist control the situation."
Mycroft watched John's emotions warring with his own profession's logic.
It was Mary who settled it. She walked up to John and enveloped him in a hug, leaning in so she could say something quietly. "Trust me, John. Let me test the water first."
His initial stiffness in her arms slowly eased and then his shoulders dropped. He closed his eyes and just breathed, "Mary…"
Then he pushed himself away from her and turned to face the two men again. "I need to know what's going on; I just can't sit out here and pretend this isn't happening."
It was Mycroft who broke the tension. "So say all of us. Because I happen to share your concern, I may have a solution." Mycroft turned to Hayter. "I believe you have something in your pocket that I asked you to recover?"
The big man nodded, reached into his pocket and handed over a phone.
Looking rather pointedly in Mary's direction, he explained. "This was an interesting surprise. We located it, hidden in the barn. Someone rather naively thought that we wouldn't detect its use. It was 'borrowed' by the nurse, Lidiya Kitanova, to communicate to the person who got her the job here."
John looked a bit confused, "why the hell does it matter?"
Mycroft's smile was rather more knowing. "It doesn't, in the great scheme of things. It seems I'm not the only one who wanted to keep an eye on things."
Mary had stopped in her tracks and was now staring at the phone. He imagined that she was deciding on what story to offer. "Don't bother explaining, Miss Morstan. No harm done, was there?" He put a tinge of menace in his voice that he believed she would pick up on, although he hoped that John wouldn't.
"And it will serve a purpose here," Mycroft continued. He switched it on, and tapped in a number. His own phone trilled a reply. "Carry this with you." He stepped forward and slipped it into Mary's pocket. "Find an excuse to put it next to you so the microphone will pick up." He looked at John. "The next best thing to being in there yourself is to have ears in the room. You will hear what is happening, and so will I. Together we can decide what steps to take next." As Mary exited, he touched the screen on his own phone, and the loudspeaker came to life. They both exchanged glances as they listened to the crunch of gravel beneath Mary's feet.
oOo
"… if I hadn't come back, he wouldn't be standing there next to me; he'd still have a future with you."
As he heard Sherlock say these words to Mary, John remembered how distraught Sherlock been at the time- the tears, on his knees asking for forgiveness. All that had been swept aside in John's memory, in part because of his own suspicions. He'd wagged his finger at Sherlock. This is a trick…another one of your bloody tricks. He'd accused him of trying to make him say something nice, to make him look good even though he'd behaved so badly. The forgiveness when it finally came was grudgingly given. Reluctantly, forced out of him. No wonder Sherlock was still traumatised. And then when the bomb had been disarmed, he'd seen the laughter as Sherlock taking the mickey out of him, of laughing at him, making fun of him at his gullibility. But, then he remembered what Sherlock had said on the recording; when he got stressed he tried to defuse awkward situations by humour, even if it seemed inappropriate to others. It was his way of trying to deflect anger. And like an idiot, I just got angrier.
Hayter was looking a little perplexed at the conversation, but then he didn't know about the bomb, apart from what he'd read in the papers, so John wasn't surprised. Mycroft was still standing, listening to the conversation being relayed from next door. His face was impassive as he listened to his brother recounting the saga, and Mary's reply that he'd saved John.
Unaware of his listeners next door, Sherlock had continued talking to Mary. "…I see a scene where you're sitting in front of me, but the words that come out of your mouth are "John is dead. And it's all your fault."
John actually winced at that. Mary wouldn't do that; at least he didn't think she would. She knew what being with Sherlock meant to John. She'd said as much last night when he was ranting with frustration about being kept away from Sherlock when he was clearly in need of medical help, if not moral support for whatever hell he was going through during his flashback.
The baritone continued and John listened until he heard the words, "I'm toxic. Father explained it to me when I was ten. Said I had killed mummy."
That provoked a groan from John, who glanced up at Mycroft to see a flicker of pain cross his features, followed by a rather world-weary sigh when Sherlock told Mary what Mycroft would have said about his mother's pancreatic cancer.
They exchanged looks again when Sherlock mentioned Pirate. The memory of uncovering the mystery behind that trauma was still reasonably fresh for both men, from the time when Sherlock had taken an equine kidnapping case at Musgrave Hall*. It had involved loss, but also physical trauma, which left Sherlock scarred in more ways than one. Somehow, it was all the more telling that he didn't mention now the physical side of the experience.
John didn't recognise what Sherlock was talking about when it came to the dog, but watching Mycroft confirmed his thoughts that it must have been distressing. When Sherlock talked about finding his chemistry master dead "because of my weakness", John had to ask.
"What happened?"
"It was, as he said, an aneurism. The first we knew about it was three days later, when Trinity College rang Parham to find out why Sherlock hadn't showed up. He left Harrow with nothing but the clothes on his back, and spent the next six months living rough on the streets of London. By the time I caught up with him, he was addicted to drugs."
John put his elbows on the countertop and lowered his forehead onto his folded hands, looking down at the phone warily. What more secrets were about to be revealed?
As the story unfolded about Sherlock's treatment in China, John became even more disturbed. When Sherlock started explaining the 'What if' scenarios, he could no longer bear it. "Oh, God…"
But, of the three men listening, it was George Hayter who really broke first, just after Diane Goodliffe explained what happened to a hypervigilent, hypersensitive mind that was deprived of sensation. "Shit, that's torture; it's worse than a physical beating any day."
It was Sherlock's description of Moriarty's men "frogmarching" John up to the roof of St Barts and throwing him off that brought John to his feet. Sherlock's comment that he would have assumed that he did not understand what John had gone through cut him like a knife. Damn right, Sherlock; good deduction- that's exactly what I thought. Once again, he'd proved what an idiot he was. He rocked forward, propelled into movement as Sherlock recounted the variety of deaths he had imagined for John, and the pain of not being able to know what was real and what wasn't. As horrible as Sherlock's death had been for him, and no matter how many times he'd replayed the scenes, John could not imagine what he might have done if every time it was new.
When Sherlock said that he'd had no plans to return to London, John turned and glared at Mycroft. "You forced his hand, then?"
Mycroft shrugged. "It was for his own good."
But it was when Sherlock said "That's when I understood that Moriarty has won" that John finally erupted.
"Fucking HELL; he thinks the bonfire and tube bomb have something to do with Moriarty. But he's dead! Or, are you telling me that that's all a fake as well?" John marched up to Mycroft and looked up, absolutely fuming with rage.
"Calm yourself, John." Mycroft was icy in his composure. "The Irishman is dead. Sherlock's concern is still a valid one, however. You have heard of a 'dead man's switch'? We cannot be sure what contingency plans he would have left behind, to be activated only in the case of Sherlock reappearing."
John smacked his cane on the tiled floor of the kitchen. "And just when the hell were you going to tell me?"
His only reply was an arched eyebrow, which John took to be a criticism that only he was too stupid to have deduced that possibility which so clearly distressed Sherlock.
Then he heard Sherlock beg Mary, saying "You need to convince him it's for the best, and then get on with your lives. Promise me you will do that, Mary."
John growled, "That's enough. As much as I love Mary, this is not her call. I'm going in there. And nothing you do is going to stop me."
Mycroft sighed. "I can't let that happen."
John just laughed. "Mycroft, you aren't enough to stop me. Even with a crutch, I can take you down if you don't get out of my way."
"Mister Hayter?" Mycroft turned to George and raised an eyebrow, before responding to John. "Two against one is a different matter, especially when one is trained in commando martial arts."
John flicked a glance at the big ex-Army man, who had been sitting casually but was now getting to his feet and moving to block the exit. Each of the two men topped him by at least six inches and their combined weight was three times his. Any sane man would not contest this battle.
John stood up as straight as he could and squared his shoulders as he walked forward. "Colonel Hayter, tell me this. Your mission is to recover a member of your team, lost behind enemy lines. He's been held by the enemy and tortured; he's right off his head. The platoon is under fire, and your acquisition target thinks he's the threat that's going to get you all killed. Would you listen to him when he tells you to piss off?"
John cast a sideways glance at Mycroft before returning his eyes to Hayter's. "Do you listen to the commander back at base who says abandon your man?" He came straight up to George Hayter as he kept talking, "Would you leave him behind, Colonel? Or would you go in there, and convince him that you can make it happen- you can all get safely home. What would you do?"
He watched as the emotions played across Hayter's face.
John allowed himself a small smile. "No, I didn't think so. Do us all a favour and keep Mister Holmes in here while I go see what I can do to rescue this mission." He walked pointedly around Hayter and out the door.
Author's Notes: * In Periodic Tales, various chapters. The story of Pirate is the gist of my story Musgrave Blaze and also in Ex Files, Excruciate. The story behind Redbeard will be covered in an upcoming Periodic Tales, entitled Sodium.