Define Vulnerability

Disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC, Mr. Moffat, Mr. Gatiss or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made.

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This took quite some time. I had this chapter already written, but when I re-read it I didn't like it, so I dumped it and started new. The thing was I didn't like the new one either and started a third. This is the fifth to be exact and it took me this long to create something I liked. Sorry this took so long therefore.

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Chapter 72

Friday afternoon

John called Mary around noon to tell her about the conversation he had with Sherlock. She was very uneasy with what he told her but explained she was sure her future husband had the situation under control and promised to pick up the meds on the way home, so Sherlock could start to take them as soon as possible.

In the early afternoon John decided to take a nap, too. His stomach had started to rebel from all the stress and he decided lying down for a bit would do him good.

Since Sherlock was still asleep and John also felt leaden tiredness constricting him he climbed up the stairs to his old room, but when he lay down he left all the doors wide open to be sure to hear any kind of trouble.

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A loud noise from downstairs made him sit up suddenly, before he was even fully awake.

He immediately knew it was Sherlock's voice that had woken him, but could not figure out if it was a bad or neutral noise.

Still half asleep he hurried down the stairs.

Sherlock was sitting on the edge of the sofa, rubbing his eyes in quite a forceful way.

"Hey," John greeted him, "What's happening?"

Sherlock opened his mouth as if to say something, but then just shut it again, out of words, it seemed.

"Sherlock?"

"He's… he's…." Sherlock burst out without introduction, "…he's in there."

"What the hell?… Who's where? What's going on?"

"Someone is in the mind palace and flooded a whole level... I need to find him! He needs to go…" Sherlock almost babbled, an odd mixture of disbelief and outrage.

"What?"

"I can't stand an intruder! Especially not him. I need to hunt him down."

"Who?… "John stammered dozily.

The other man was clearly uneasy and agitated.

"Calm down, Sherlock. It's fine, we'll find him," he tried to reassure his friend.

"I need to repair the mind palace."

"Yeah. No news, that one."

"I can't solve the case without the palace," Sherlock sprang up and started running up and down the room.

"You were the one who refused a 'mind-palace-fixing-session' on several occasions when I offered."

"Obviously, I was not in the mood and I didn't need assistance."

"You agreed to let me help," John stood up and stepped in Sherlock's way, interrupting his nervous pacing.

"Yes... Sorry, please do assist… Sorry. Habit... What do we do?" Sherlock stopped in his tracks.

"Okay, sit down…."

Sherlock did, on the sofa.

"So let's have some tea so I have time to wake up fully and then give it a go."

There was a long silence in which Sherlock obviously tried to calm down and get into the right mindset to do this.

"You get tea and wake up while I try to go ahead to the swarm-prison," the detective then suggested.

"Oh, it has a name, now? - No, you wait for me!"

"Well, I don't need names, you do. I know what I'm doing, but communicating content sometimes needs those, as your blog entries do, those are equally stupid."

"Hey, hey, I was not criticising, I was just doing conversation," John was halfway into the kitchen.

After he had switched on the kettle he decided coffee would be the better choice.

When he returned three minutes later Sherlock was lying down with his eyes closed. Dammit, why couldn't he just wait a few moments?

"How can we make sure you don't meet… the intruder? And how the hell do you know there is someone in there at all?"

"I saw him… before… No, sensed him, when I cleaned out the rubble.** I felt like being watched, like shadows lurking in the dark, movement behind me. I was not sure if I had really seen it, but now I am. I just dreamt about that mind palace session, and it was more… physical. It's more a ghost than a person, male, large, bulky."

"Hang on. You had a nightmare about your mind palace? Does that happen often?"

"No... Well, sometimes. Usually the building I dream about do not look like my mind palace, they are more like… a maze or a ruin sometimes, something abandoned or mysterious, haunted, dangerous… I dream of those kinds of houses since I'm a child, though I - in general - rarely dream at all. I also still revisit houses I saw first when I was a child," Sherlock informed, "… er, dreamscape houses I mean."

"That's odd," John frowned and wondered what a therapist would say about that.

"No, it's not," Sherlock argued.

"Well, fine. The more important thing is how do we protect you from that intruder?"

"Indeed. I have no idea, other than try to face him and throw everything at him I have. The part to prevent an ambush is the most… difficult."

"That's how it feels what he's doing?"

"What could flooding the palace be other than a hidden attack? Or burning things down?"

"You sure he did that?"

"To be honest - no. Might have been some other aggressor or… or… circumstances."

"We need a strategy. I mean grabbing a P90 won't do the job, right?"

"Such as? I doubt this is a problem solved by firepower... I could built a wall and prevent him from following."

"Okay, good idea. Something else?"

"Second thoughts, I might take a gun, it's not a bad idea overall."

"Erm, right," John smiled, imagining Sherlock with a machine gun Rambo style.

A moment later Sherlock just leaned back and stayed quiet.

After two minutes of just waiting John decided to speak.

"You think that's enough?"

When the other man didn't react he asked, "Are you there, yet?" in a low voice.

"Yes, just entered the lab… the prison I mean."

"Everything as it should be?"

It took almost two minutes until Sherlock answered, "Yes, everything as I left it… as it seems."

"Seal the door tightly and check the perimeter."

Sherlock grinned, it looked only a bit exaggerated and the former soldier assumed his previous occupation's typical language was the cause.

"You left in a bit of a hurry. Do we need to deal with something half finished?" John then asked.

Another minute passed.

"Er…" Sherlock seemed a bit disgusted.

"What is it?"

"The hive is still here, seems the containment measures were successful, though there are numerous smears on the walls and everything is a bit chaotic… It seems to have… moved around and has grown a bit…"

"Okay, you want to proceed like last time?"

"Yes, let me get the equipment."

In the meantime John went to get his coffee.

Four minutes later, when Sherlock was still silent, he asked, "You're ready?"

"Yes," Sherlock mumbled, hesitation clear in his voice, "The rat tail is in formaldehyde and smelling bad… I want to weld it shut… into something… or better burn it."

"Sounds good," John sat down in his armchair.

"D'… done," Sherlock reported, a suppressed coughing interrupted him, "preparing to dismantle the swarm further now."

John sipped his coffee and watched his fraught friend.

"Maybe you should construct a waste incineration… something for this, I mean there might be some more things you need to destroy, or maybe a dust bin would be good."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I need to do this one at a time and fully conscious to the process. If it happens out of sight it wouldn't work… no putting it somewhere else where it could cause havoc… and no other connections to the outside via a disposal system."

"Oh, right… That's… good thinking, thorough, I mean. Got your protective gear on?"

"No," Sherlock was mentally rolling his eyes, John knew from his tone.

"You know you should."

"Yesss," Sherlock hissed, "Happy now?"

"You know I can't see you, right?" John smiled.

"Eurgh... What the hell...?" Sherlock grunted, and a moment later gave another unnerved sound.

"What?" John asked, a bit alarmed about the disgust in the detective's voice.

"This… thing is already dead. Smells dead, acts dead, is decomposing…" he explained.

"You plugged something out off the swarm, didn't you?… What does it stand for?"

"I don't know. But a normal corpse smells like roses in comparison to this."

"Find out what it is about and get rid off it."

Sherlock seemed to suppress a gag when he pressed the back of his hand over his mouth.

"Hey, you said you are wearing the gear, aren't you?"

"Yes," Sherlock pressed out, "Forgot… forgot the sage leaves, getting them now," he explained.*

"What do you think it might stand for?"

"Me being dead?"

John winced, it was plump but it might be true, and Sherlock had answered without hesitation.

"It feels as dead as I did when I was…"

"Go on," John tried to encourage him when he kept silent for almost a minute after starting the sentence.

"I'm not sure this is wise…"

"Why not?"

"I don't want to… This is private."

"You think it can get any more private than this? This is about sharing. Since when do you care about privacy? You agreed, now do it."

"This is different..."

"This is about you not wanting to tell me something because you think I might react - I won't... So, tell me."

The other man hesitated for some long moments before he finally found the words to try to explain.

"I… was alone, it… it hurt. I was desperate. The need to have company was overwhelming and it did cause quite some damage while I was in Hamburg. I never felt as dead as I felt there."

"What happened?" John asked carefully.

"I had nightmares… night terrors. I felt myself… dying…. Not like normally people dream of dying and then wake up in the last moment. I felt it, felt the process. Experienced the life leave my body, beyond recall… final. Returning to London seemed to be out of reach."

"Jesus, I'm sorry. I know how that feels, Sherlock, I've been there, I had those dreams, too. Reliving the process of being near death... It's a devastating sensation. And you can't just switch it off. I couldn't… any ideas of how to deal with those memories?"

"No," Sherlock breathed.

"Okay, those belong to the most horrible experiences of the whole PTSD experience. Never found another way than letting out the grief and desperation. Scream, stamp on them, just let it go…"

"I don't understand…"

"Or maybe you can wrap them into something and hand them over to me?" John suggested.

"What good would that do since you can't handle them either?"

"To get them out of the palace… Right. Maybe I can't. How about you pack them tight so they can't move?"

"They're already dead, they don't move, that's the point. And I don't want you to have to handle those… You have enough trouble with this… thing"

John raised his eyebrows, in this moment he felt not like shut out but in fact protected.

"I… How about you try to give them a burial, spread their ashes somewhere far away, honouring the sacrifice this was for you and me?"

Ella had suggested something similar to John in his first bout of therapy, to ritually bury certain things. Although he had never done it, he now suggested it to Sherlock. It felt odd, but maybe the detective was able to convert this into something meaningful that might help him.

"That would confirm that I died and have to vanish from the face of the earth. The question is... does this… element need to be 'revived'... I'll put it down and think of it later… Next one."

John was not sure this was a good idea but went on with Sherlock's actions.

An hour later Sherlock had revealed a pile of new details and thoughts about Moriarty's web and the fight against it, his actions to hunt down the evil man's associates. One detail was more horrible than the next, but some brought light on things John didn't dare to ask, like Sherlock's damaged toes.

There were also some details they both grinned about, though those were rare and ridiculous, like Sherlock's long hair.

Then there were others the detective seemed even a bit ashamed about. John was glad they had something that was not breathtakingly horrible and provided some relaxation for a change. It went on easier after that initial first bad hour. Sherlock sank deeper into the task then, explaining less and less to John about what was happening.

In the end Sherlock had been on the sofa for three hours and besides a few surprised huffs and once or twice a suck in of air that sounded like another bad surprise he hadn't moved for quite some time, neither spoken nor reacted to his surroundings in any way.

The doctor started thinking of how to gently interrupt, because Sherlock would work himself into total exhaustion like this - again. On the other hand Sherlock needed to feel some self-determination, so John decided he'd let it happen, at least as long as it wasn't too absurd or Sherlock's reactions not too horrible.

Now and then he said something, just to signal he was still with his him and guarding the situation, expressed something soothing or relaxing when his friend tensed a bit.

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When Sherlock finally stirred John moved over to be a bit closer and asked in a low voice, "Everything alright?"

"I built a new level," Sherlock answered without having opened his eyes.

"Oh, all alone?"

"No, you were here the whole time."

"I was?" John joked, knowing quite well he hadn't left Sherlock alone for more than a few seconds to get more coffee or use the loo.

"You are mocking me, aren't you?"

"Yes," John smiled, "What happened?"

"I started to built a new level, took some time. I tried to create it without any connections to the old ones. It's more like a new palace on top of the old one. One just for this case, different entrance, only from the roof. And there are loads of one-way routes and safety mechanisms. I hope I can later build in doors and stairways that connect it to the old areas… as soon as it is safe."

"What use is it all alone? You said before it was futile."

"Well, it kind of is… Just giving it a go. Only the case information is inside, yet. I need to work on making the old one safe again, too, but not now. This was more important."

John smiled at him; Sherlock was putting effort in trying to work on his issues.

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"Sherlock, go with Lestrade. Do some deductions and solve something…" John said two hours later.

"Why aren't you coming?"

"I need some time to organise a few things. Just go, do something interesting."

"Oh, you mean you need time to do something… intimate... with…?"

John's mouth opened and he blushed, Sherlock had always been more direct about this topic than he liked.

"No… Yes… maybe… I mean…"

"It's fine… fine. Do have some nice-time with your future wife… I will stay away for a few hours."

John didn't even realise Sherlock was agreeing to leave his own home assuming they'd use the free time to have sex or whatever couples did, instead of suggesting they go to their real home and do it there.

His former flatmate vanished into the bathroom and when he returned to the kitchen he was in his dress suit and had the new scarf – the one he was wearing since his return - already in his hands.

John had just stood there, the whole time. He needed Sherlock safe and somewhere else. Those were his only priorities after he had texted Lestrade and told him he needed him to baby-sit Sherlock for the evening.

Greg had agreed without any further questions, Sherlock had asked to participate in the observation, anyway.

The doctor felt the urgent need for some alone-time.

"Are you frozen or something?" Sherlock asked while picking up this coat.

"No. I move quite a lot, just not in the past minute. I need to plan the weekend, I'll be busy."

"What about the weekend?" Sherlock slipped into the coat.

"Mary will come over on Sunday afternoon. She'll stay at our house the rest of the time."

"What? She is staying there? Why?" Sherlock stopped mid-movement and seemed honestly unsettled about this.

"She… she thought it would be better for the both of us to… do some… I mean… She wants to give us some space."

"Will she stay over at your place?"

"Yes. That's what I just said, didn't I?"

"Why? Did I do it wrong?"

"No, you didn't, she just needs to do… things. Not everything is about you, Sherlock," the doctor tried to explain, although this was all about the detective as far as he understood it.

"Well, she is… good for you… I mean she kept you alive and all…"

John gulped, the utterance hit him harder than it should.

Sherlock must have realised it because he frowned. "Not good?"

"No."

"Sorry. I meant… I..."

"I know. It's okay. I got it. Go out and do some surveillance or have fun hunting criminals."

A car horn honked outside and John assumed it was Greg.

"Coming," Sherlock hurried down the stairs.

John headed into his room.

He desperately felt he needed to do something - clear his head.

But before he had time to think of anything he was on his bed, his new book unopened in his hand, and had fallen asleep again.

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*The thing with the sage leaves happed in chapter 31 and 32, when Sherlock is quite distressed about some memories.

** Refers to Chapter 44 of this story.