CHAPTER 38 – Wrong Turns
As Sherlock arrives in the foyer, he takes in the size of the crowd waiting for the lifts. He needs to get away from people, not be trapped in a box with them, so he bolts through the door to the stairs instead. He runs down, as fast as his legs will carry him, using the panic to overcome any clumsiness. He nearly collides with a wall on a landing between floors, vertigo messing up his ability to evaluate his momentum.
Amidst the buzzing in his ears and the thudding of his heart which he can hear as well as feel, his thoughts stutter like exploding fireworks.
Now, he knows.
He knows that there's no hope of him ever putting the Guillain-Barré out of his mind. It may never relinquish the last vestiges of its control over him, and it can return at any time, and the worst thing is that everyone else seems convinced that all this is going drive him right over the brink of sanity.
What a victory for his traitorous body - the Transport will finally drive his mind crazy. The house always wins.
Mycroft must think he has it all worked out, that he's going to be unable to deal with it, and now he's managed to convince even John. All the assistance rendered, and the encouragement expressed now looks like a front. Mycroft has clearly been planning this contingency for a while, possibly right from the start of his hospital stay.
This 'assessment' was never going to be objective; putting Doctor Johnston into the frame would make sure of that. She would have been perfectly aware of Sherlock's identity when she walked into that appointment room.
As for why do this now - the answer seems rather obvious, now that the scales have fallen from his eyes. Mycroft knows about the cocaine - John had freely admitted to having a related discussion with the man. Sherlock realises he must have failed in his attempts to evade CCTV.
The game is being rigged against him. This time, it would have started with therapy and ended up just where it had years ago. John would happily, naively agree that therapy is the right thing to do here, because he hardly knows what had happened in 2007. John would easily believe that Mycroft's intentions are noble - that there's nothing major going on here, just some harmless counselling. When John finally realises what is going on, he will have been already stripped of his power of attorney, sidelined, and Sherlock's fate put in the hands of psychiatrists handpicked by Mycroft. How convenient for the man it would be, no longer having to fear any scandals or having to suffer the inconvenience of having a brother like Sherlock.
No one is on his side. Not any more. He needs to save himself.
Alone protects me.
Sherlock comes barrelling out of the stairwell onto the ground floor corridor at speed and nearly collides with a trolley being pushed by a porter toward the adjacent lift.
"Hey, careful! Slow down."
Jamaican accent/Kingston/been here in London for six years/left handed/has a second job at a private care home/wife pregnant/badly healed old wrist fracture/chemical burn scar on neck-
He painstakingly forces his brain to stop, throws a wrench in its proceedings. When he's starting to go off the rails, the deductions pour into his mind whether he wants them there or not. Useless.
He whirls around, disoriented and alarmed, and right then a set of hasty footsteps and an unfamiliar rolling sound begins approaching.
EMTs are transporting an unconscious patient lying on a trolley past him in the corridor. The patient is intubated, hooked up to a portable ventilator, and the sound of it makes a deluge of memories come flooding back, unencumbered, as though someone had stormed his brain and released, at once, everything he's been trying to keep contained. For a moment he swears he sees his own face there, before he can manage to focus on the fact that the patient is female.
He stumbles backwards, and the wall he makes contact with grounds him for a second.
He hears himself breathing hard, gasping as if he's out of oxygen. Is he on a ventilator again, is he back at the- No. That thought needs to be kept where it belongs, behind lock and key, but it's hard, so hard, when there's a smell of antiseptic assaulting his nose, triggering associations intensely etched into his memory in this very place.
He tears his eyes away from the patient, who is now disappearing behind a set of double doors.
He needs to get out. He knows for certain what is coming, and it must not happen here, where people will see him and draw the wrong conclusion - that he belongs here, somehow.
His day-to-day ability to function is a balance between the input and his ability to process it. And the tipping point is right there in front of him now, as he realises he's been pushed into the abyss by his brother's meddling and John's betrayal.
He can stand up to Mycroft with most things, but not this. He has already lost this battle once. And, with a doctor on his side, one who knows Sherlock dangerously well, Mycroft's opinion might just turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Guillain-Barré had always threatened to drain all his coping reserves, and now, finally, there seems nothing left to ward off a freefall.
He just about manages to keep himself from running again. Mustn't attract attention.
In his rising panic, he takes a wrong turn, and finds himself in some place he's never seen before.
Suddenly he's unsure what's going on. Where is he? Why is he in a hospital? Is he being discharged? Has he just arrived? Where's John?
He spots signs on the wall. Arrowed to the left is Stroke unit. He stares at the words, the shapes of the letters, but nothing makes sense. To the right is Neurosurgery administration. The letters in the words blur, becoming symbols that might as well be an alien language.
He swings around on his heels again, dizzyingly confused and lost.
Everything feels sharp, crystalline, cold, incomprehensible and dangerous. His hands are shaking worse than when he'd left the appointment room.
There are people walking past, but they seem unreal as though they were projections from somewhere.
Reality is splitting in two, the other half trying to drag him back into this world, where he nearly lost his life along with everything else important. There's another world somewhere, where everyone else moves on with their lives, but it suddenly seems impossible to reach. This one, in the hospital, where he had been trapped and left behind, is threatening to swallow him whole.
There's a tightness is his chest, a constriction in his throat that makes it hard to breathe.
The lights are too bright, making him feel as though his skull is being drilled into through his eye sockets. He hums to drown out the noise he hears. His heart is pounding, the rhythm erratic, blood is ringing in his ears and suddenly he's drowning in everything he doesn't know, can't categorise, can't recognise-
He sags against the corridor wall, but he doesn't fall. Something, someone with a pair of strong hands catches hold of him. At least he thinks they're hands. This has happened before, and last time what followed had been- No. Not going there.
A voice is too loud; he can't make any sense of what it is saying, but the hands are holding his arms too hard. He tries to struggle free, but the fight is gone, along with the rest of his willpower to try to hold onto whatever reality this is. Is he even awake? Is this a nightmare? If yes, then where will he be when he wakes up?
If it's the last thing he does, he's going to escape, before whatever horrifying reality he's going to have to face hits so hard that he can't tune it out no matter much effort he puts into it.
He turns to the darkness in his mind that surrounds the Palace, disappears into the shadows, sinks deeper until he can't hear or see anything. He can't even feel himself breathing anymore.
The silence is blissful, like a blanket, and he lets himself fall.
oOo
John plunges his fingers into his pocket, frantically fumbling around for his phone. He fires off a quick text to tell Sherlock to meet him at the main entrance of the hospital in five minutes, hoping he'll receive the communication. They had both put their phones on silent before the appointment.
He looks up, slipping the phone back into his pocket, and comes face to face with three of his fellow doctors, all in various degrees of confusion. Johnston seems the most perplexed, but John feels no sympathy for her. "What's in that article?" John asks bluntly. "What did you do?"
"Nothing!" she says defensively. "I hadn't even met Mr Holmes in person before today, though I was aware of his enrolment. I certainly didn't expect the study to come up. It was a cross-sectional, non-interventional study that didn't impact the treatment of those enrolled in any way. Consent was obtained from both the subjects and their immediate family members. I assure you, mister-"
"Doctor Watson," John corrects brusquely.
"Doctor Watson, let me assure you that the highest of care was taken in adhering to the regulations concerning research ethics, since nearly all of these patients had been admitted against their will."
"I'm sorry," Dr Perwit interjects, "I'm having trouble grasping the relevance of this."
"So am, but it's obvious that it's pretty damned relevant right now. I was told all the post-MITU clinic appointments include a psychiatrist?" John asks. He's not sure whether Sherlock had been aware of this. If he had, he probably would have declined. He seems very much not fond of that particular medical specialty.
"They do," Dr Gul answers, "Two physicians: a neurologist and a psychiatrist. I'm here due to our current research interests."
"You never treated him?" John asks Johnston.
"No. It was a multi-center study; I enrolled patients from Maudsley, and ours were numbered from nineteen to twenty-five. I think Lee Barnes was in charge of recruitment at Bethlem Royal. We carried out extensive cognitive testing, and MRIs were taken. As I said, nothing that would have caused the patients any discomfort, and no medications were involved. Most subjects were happy to participate, since it at least gave them something to pass the time."
John glances at the wall clock. It's been five minutes already since Sherlock had stormed out. His phone shows no received messages, and his text hasn't been read.
There's something amiss here, something he can't put his finger on. So what, if Sherlock did participate in a research project years ago? It even sounded like something that may have been of interest to him. He hasn't personally met Johnston, hasn't been treated by her. John can understand that he would be reluctant to interact with a psychiatrist, but why would he object to Johnston in particular? Is it just because she's peripherally connected to 2007?
Sherlock would probably tell him he's asking the wrong questions. Unfortunately, John doesn't really have time to analyse this further right now. If Sherlock is upset, then his greatest duty lies in finding him and defusing this disaster. "Could you please forward me a copy of that article?" John asks Johnston. "My email address is on my blog. Just google me. Or him."
He grabs his coat and walks out, after saying a hasty farewell to the rest of the group. Had he time, he would have made some sort of an apology on Sherlock's behalf - a task that often falls to him when Sherlock manages to piss people off. Is one warranted now, or not? It's getting very frustrating, this constant deciphering of Sherlock's volatile whims.
Heading for the elevators, he tries calling Sherlock. The calls gets through, but there's no answer before it goes to voicemail, which Sherlock never even checks.
"Where are you," John mutters to himself while hitting the elevator button twice. He could do a walk around of the same floor, but he doubts Sherlock would have lingered in the building. Should he head straight home under the assumption that it's what Sherlock would do? As he gets into the lift, John wonders why he is even worried. Sherlock never saw the point of this appointment anyway, so it's not exactly surprising that he would cut it short.
It's the start of lunchtime, and the smallish entrance hall on the ground floor is busier than when they'd arrived. It still takes John little time to survey it. Sherlock isn't there. It's now fifteen minutes after John had been left behind at the appointment.
John strides out of the main entrance. Looking north and south, as well as across the green space of Queen Square, he sees no sign of Sherlock. An ambulance is arriving, blue lights flashing, and turns a corner, probably to deposit a patient through the back entrance on a side street designed for that purpose. Standing on the pavement, John tries to call Sherlock again. No answer, and no received messages. Should he be alarmed, or not? Most likely Sherlock has marched off to sulk somewhere, probably not feeling up to talking to any doctors right now, possibly even including John. Maybe this is a time just to let him cool down, instead of adding yet more fussing to the burden.
Still, before he leaves the hospital, John would like some reassurance that he's not missing anything obvious, so he returns to the foyer. The reception desk is currently busy with patrons, so he walks up to the security guard and asks if he might have seen someone matching Sherlock's description - 'tall guy, long dark coat, curly hair, looking really pissed off '- going past. Receiving a no for an answer doesn't actually tell him much. They could have just missed him - or Sherlock, a master of subterfuge, could have simply walked out of a staff entrance to avoid attention. There's no plausible reason for him to still be in the building.
John does one more circuit of the ground floor main halls, and just as he's about to leave through the ambulance entrance, a couple of EMTs come through the automatic doors, pushing an empty trolley. One of them calls out to a nurse walking past: "Where's the Neuro-psych ward? Got a call out."
"Up in the lift to the second floor, turn left when you come out and then it's the third left along. Follow the signs. Is someone waiting for you? The doors to the ward are secured," she says.
John steps around them and heads out to the courtyard. Which direction would Sherlock have gone? More important, where would he be headed? Baker Street? Maybe his frustration at being interrupted on the case means he'd head off to New Scotland Yard? Even fuelled by anger, Sherlock would probably decide it was too far to walk, given his current level of stamina, so he'd probably head for a street likeliest to have a steady flow of taxis.
John cuts through Queen Square to reach Guilford Street, then walks west to the intersection with Russell Square. The tourist hotels clustered around the eastern side should ensure a taxi. He stops in front of the Hotel Russell, a huge mouldering Victorian pile, and asks the doorman if he'd seen a tall man with dark wavy hair wearing a long dark coat hailing a taxi about fifteen to twenty minutes ago, but gets a negative shake of the head. "Can't help you there - I only just started my shift, sir."
John decides that he'd better enlist some help. He swipes his phone unlocked and makes a call.
"Hello, John. What's up?" John doesn't ring Lestrade that often, so the DI doesn't need Sherlock's skills of deduction to know that if he's calling, then it's probably about something serious.
"Sherlock's not with you? Or contacted you just now about the case?" John tries to keep his concern under control; no need to start other people getting anxious.
"Nope; not heard from him since yesterday's news about the poison. I've been at the Coroner's office this morning with the evidence, getting his okay to keep the investigation open, although I can't say he was very happy about it. What's going on?"
"He walked out of a hospital appointment, and now he won't answer his phone."
"Hmm. Pissed off with it all, I expect. Have you tried Molly yet? Might have gone back to Barts to carry on the work. He said he wanted to know more about the guy's intestines or something."
John finds himself agreeing. "Yeah, that's the logical thing." Sherlock had been so preoccupied with the case last night and this morning, that he might well decide to channel his frustrations into work in that way. "If he gets in touch with you, give me a call, will you?" When the DI agrees, he rings off.
Barts is within Sherlock's current walking range. Annoyed with himself for not realising the option himself, John flags a cab of his own and tells the driver to head for St Bartholomew's Hospital.
Once on the back seat and heading south, John scrolls to Molly's number on his phone.
The call goes straight to voicemail. "You've reached zero triple seven four seven one four one. Leave a message after the beep. If I am at work, it may be some time before I can return your call." Professional, clear and exactly in line with the recommendations of security for women medical professionals - no names and no identification of one's current location.
After the beep, he says, "It's John. I'm after Sherlock. Is he with you? I need to talk with him and he isn't answering texts or calls at the minute. Give me a call, even if he isn't there."
John sighs. This is turning into a Wild Sherlock Chase, and it promises to be far harder to locate a man who does not want to be found, than it would be to find a goose in the whole of London.
For a moment, he considers alerting Mycroft and seeing if the man's access to CCTV and traffic cameras could offer a shortcut. But, that would mean alerting big brother to the situation. The conversation the two brothers had had in the morning comes to mind; John had heard Sherlock's side of it, and it seemed obvious that Big Brother was rather busy. Mycroft would probably be annoyingly amused if John begged him for surveillance data just because he'd misplaced Sherlock for twenty minutes, as though it was John's job to keep the man constantly within earshot. Sherlock used to sometimes disappear for days, and it never used to bother John, until he got sick - and until they stopped hiding behind such woefully inadequate words as 'friend'.
John is not sure he wants to explain to Mycroft why he is worried about Sherlock. No need to add fuel to the fire. Right now, he's is only acting on a hunch, but he has an instinct that says Doctor Johnston's involvement with the follow-up appointment bears all the hallmarks of Mycroft's interference. She is too senior for her presence to be a coincidence; her knowledge of Sherlock from 2007 is more than a tad too convenient. John finds himself, to some extent, in sympathy with Sherlock's reaction. If he'd been suddenly confronted with the doctor who had done the surgery on his shoulder and with whom he'd had some colourful conversations, John isn't sure he'd have been able to act entirely neutral. Even though the surgeon had done nothing wrong, John had certainly taken out his frustration and grief on the hospital staff, especially his trauma surgeon colleague.
With Sherlock's mood already on edge and volatile, this just might be the worst possible thing to have happened. What should have been a routine appointment - one that was designed to help Sherlock accept that he'd made huge strides towards a full recovery - has now become something rather different; a reminder of a past he is probably adamant not to discuss, and John still can't quite grasp why whatever had gone on in 2007 has such a huge relevance in Mycroft's opinion. What the hell could be the point of deliberately testing Sherlock's nerves like this?
John finds himself getting very, very angry with Mycroft. How dare he?
He decides that he needs to take a belt and braces approach, and reaches for his phone again as the taxi takes the right-hand fork off Theobald's Road, onto Clerkenwell. The next call he makes is answered before the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Mrs Hudson, it's John. Has Sherlock just got back?"
"No, dear. Is there something wrong?"
She must have picked up the anxiety in his tone of voice. Trying to get it under control, John asks more soberly, "Not sure. Sherlock walked out in a huff from his hospital appointment, and I'm trying to track him down."
"Oh dear. I hope he doesn't do anything silly like the other day."
There. She'd put her finger on exactly what is worrying John. Might Sherlock be so angry and on edge about the whole thing, that it might be seen as an excuse to relapse again? A two fingered gesture of rebellion to anyone and everyone who might want him to be following a steady recovery plan?
The words Mycroft had used the very first time John had met him come to mind: 'I worry about him. Constantly.' Even through his anger towards the older Holmes brother, John can certainly relate.
His intuition has usually served him well, when it comes to Sherlock. It allows him to tell a garden-variety, bored sulk apart from a serious issue, to push past walls Sherlock puts up. Maybe it's just for the sake of his own peace of mind, but he can't simply go home and not make a serious effort to find Sherlock right now.
The taxi is on Farringdon Street, waiting for the signal to turn left onto West Smithfield when his phone rings. A quick glance tells him it isn't Sherlock; it's Molly.
"Hello, John. Sorry about missing your call. I had the sternum saw going; I can never hear the ring tone above all that racket."
"Molly, is Sherlock with you? Have you spoken to him this morning?"
"Um… no. I thought he had that doctor's appointment you mentioned yesterday?"
John's stomach feels like it's twisting into a knot. "Yeah, well; it didn't go so well. He walked out after it barely got started. I was hoping he'd be with you."
"Sorry. Not today. He usually texts before showing up here, because he knows that Doctor Ashraf isn't keen on his being around the mortuary." The newly appointed head of the forensic toxicology laboratory had been known to call security on Sherlock if either of them were in a bad enough mood.
"Hang on a minute, will you?" John taps on the window and thumbs on the red button by the door to activate the microphone connecting him to the cabbie. "Sorry, mate - change of plan." He points to the phone so the driver can see it in the rearview mirror. "No need to get to Barts now. Have to head off to Baker Street, will you?" He switches the intercom off.
When he puts the phone back up to his ear, John cannot control his sigh this time. Wearily, he says to Molly, "Well, if he does show up, give me call. He's not responding to my texts."
The taxi does an abrupt right turn onto West Poultry Avenue, heading south and then onto Smithfield Street.
"Oh. Are you two okay?" It's said a little tentatively, as if Molly is hesitating about whether she should ask about something so personal. But she does know about their relationship, and when Sherlock was at the National, she'd been the one and only person that John felt able to really talk to. She seems to have an uncanny ability to decipher Sherlock.
"Yeah. It's not me. And not us, if you're asking about that. Just he got pissed off at the hospital and I can't help but think I'd like to…" To what? Now that it's out on the table, he's not sure what he really would be able to do to fix this. Or, what he actually wants Sherlock to do. Is there a point to booking another appointment, or giving Mycroft an earful?
Molly fills the gap. "…To help him talk about it? Yes, I understand. But you need to realise that he's not used to having anyone he can turn to when he's upset. You shouldn't take it personally. Before you came along, he used to come to the lab to just sit and think, when he was like that. That's what he does - goes someplace where he won't be bothered."
John's dry laugh sums it up. "Yeah, I know that. I really do. But it doesn't stop me from wanting to be there for him. And being alone, trying to process things, clearly hasn't been working for him lately."
It's all a bit like a case Sherlock can't solve - he ends up trapped between not wanting to quit but getting disheartened at the lack of progress.
"Well, if he shows up here, he'll get told by me to call you straight away," Molly promises. "I hope he realises that he doesn't have to be alone like that anymore."
John's phone beeps. "Molly - got to go; there's an incoming call." He closes the connection with her line and pulls up the number. Disappointment takes over when he sees that it isn't Sherlock's number or any other one he could recognise. He still answers with a hurried hello.
"Hello, is that John Watson? This is nurse Sheila Kirby, phoning from the Accidents and Emergency Department of University College Hospital. We understand you are the emergency contact for a person we have here with us, a Mister Sherlock Holmes. Our records also note a lasting power of attorney order?"
"Yes, what's happened? Is he alright?" John tries not to let the panic intrude, but can't really stop it from adding an edge to his voice. "How did he get there? Was there an accident?" John's head instantly begins leaping into possible conclusions. Had Sherlock stormed out and got hit by a car? Has he overdosed? Or has Moriarty-
"No, not that I know of, but he was brought in by ambulance from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. They don't have an A&E there, so he was transported to our unit."
John closes his eyes momentarily when the realisation hits. The ambulance arriving at the main entrance. That had been for- "But what happened?"
"I'm afraid I don't have all the details. Perhaps if you could come in, we could tell you more."
"How is he? Is he stable? Is he conscious?"
"Yes, now he is, but he was found collapsed-"
"Collapsed? What do you mean, 'collapsed'?" John demands harshly and incredulously. That expression could mean just about anything, from fainting to full cardiac arrest.
There's a pregnant pause at the other end. The nurse is probably hesitating to divulge so much information on the phone, but John had asked a specific question. "Judging by eyewitness reports, he seemed to have lost consciousness briefly, and when he was being assessed by the EMTs he woke up, very disoriented and combative, complaining of chest pain. We've had to sedate him, whilst investigating some cardiac irregularities."
John bangs on the window separating him from the cabbie, and fumbles for the intercom button. "University College Hospital A&E, NOW - it's an emergency."
"Make your bloody mind up, will you?" the cabbie grumbles.
John ignores the man, his mind desperately scrambling to comprehend how Sherlock could have ended up in such a state so quickly.