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Please read the A/N at the bottom! I have a medical explanation if you are so curious :D.
"Sherlock you didn't knock yourself out, for the hundredth time!" John said in exasperation, "Why would we be lying to you about this."
"I remember! I always remember!" Sherlock replied, clearly agitated.
"Look, you are remembering bits and pieces now, it should all come back clearly soon, so why don't we take a break?" Kylie suggested.
Sherlock glared at her for a moment, before shutting his eyes in pain.
God, his head was killing him.
They had been at this for hours. Ever since he had woken up, Kylie and John had slowly been explaining that he had forgotten a few key issues that had happened. Though John kept saying this was typical in people with head injuries, Sherlock doubted falling qualified as a "severe head injury" despite the fact that it felt like one.
Granted, bits and pieces were coming back to him. He remembered Thomas. He remembered what he had done to Kylie. He remembered jumping off the roof, the Serbian forest, his time abroad spying for Mycroft and hunting down Thomas and Moriarty. Everything was coming back to him with the help of Kylie and John filling in some of the gaps and some his own synapses filling in on their own, but he couldn't for the life of him remember how in the hell this hospital bed or why Kylie and John were bruised.
"You've been in a coma for four days," Kylie told him gently squeezing his hand and rubbing his arm, seeing his pain, "You need to rest."
"I'm fine," he muttered stubbornly, causing John to sigh loudly in exasperation.
"Why was I experimenting?" he muttered to himself, not realizing he was talking out loud, "Ivy… you were getting ready for the Ivy."
"Yes," Kylie smiled as he remembered a little bit more, "But we went to dinner. We were undercover, you were taken by the broken heart killer and then Thomas. That's how you ended up here."
He just stared at her.
"No, that didn't happen," he told her, sure of himself, "I would have some trace of it if it had."
"Why would we make this up?" John asked in frustration once more, "We aren't yanking you around Sherlock!"
Sherlock just stared at John blankly before he felt Kylie's hand on his chest.
"I know it's difficult for you, but you need to trust us over your brain," she told him softly as she began to rub circles on his chest, her eyes shining with tears as she smiled at him. "Sherlock, both of us care for you, we wouldn't lie to you about something like this. Your injuries do not suggest the fact that you just hit your head. Your wrists were slit, you have seven broken ribs and were beaten within an inch of your life. You didn't just fall."
She paused and shut her eyes, the image of him hanging lifelessly from that meat hook flashed through her mind once more.
She opened her eyes to find Sherlock looking at her with concern, making her stomach do a back flip of joy.
He did care. He still did care.
"I know you rely on your brain and your incredible memory more than anything else, but you need to trust John and I when we tell you that this time, your mind is betraying you. You have three skull fractures and an extremely severe concussion. Your memory is bound to be slightly affected with those injuries."
"Most people with those injuries have a very similar sort of memory loss," John inputted.
"I'm not most people," Sherlock said, never taking his eyes off of Kylie.
John rolled his eyes.
At least Kylie was getting through to him.
"What we are telling you happened Sherlock," she told him softly, "Give it time and it will all come back. You can't expect yourself not to be effects by multiple blunt force trauma. Your short-term memory will come back, just like your long term did. But its not a flaw, its not a weakness. Everyone understands that. But right now, you need to trust John and I."
Sherlock just stared at her, as Kylie smiled at him once more, running a soft hand through his curls as a single tear slid down her face.
John watched in amazement as his best friend lifted his hand to his girlfriend's face, gently brushing the tear away that was threatening to fall. Kylie radiated with joy at the gesture, covering his hand with hers as it cupped her face.
John was literally in shock. Sure, he knew that his friend was in love (though, he doubted he would ever admit that out loud), but he had never seen him act so… tender towards her. He had seen them sleep on the couch, make out, cuddle, but it always seemed a little forced for him. This was a whole new side for John to see; a side that he knew Sherlock only reserved for the moments they had of complete privacy, a side in which he was completely infatuated with the woman in front of him. He was amazed to see Sherlock comforting her in a way that he had never seen his friend comfort another human being before.
Usually Sherlock's form of comforting came in the form of telling said person to shut up and berate them with logic in some way shape or form (which was usually not quite comforting), but with Kylie, it was completely different.
John couldn't help but smile as he witnessed Kylie press a kiss into the palm of his friend's hand, causing a small smile to break out on the consulting detectives face. It was as if both had completely forgotten that he was in the room with them as well. They completely lost themselves in each other, as cliché as that sounded. But one thing was more evident than ever; these two needed each other, both a lot more than either of them knew.
They had something that John was slightly jealous of. Most people looked for true love their entire life, and never find it. Hell, John had been looking for a while now and nothing. Yet Sherlock Holmes, his sociopathic, narcissistic best friend had found someone who turned him into an even better man; someone who softened his edges, yet pushed him to his greatest potential. Never in a thousand years would John have thought that he would have seen Sherlock show his true feelings like this. Unlike most, John knew that he truly did have emotions, but it was difficult for him to show it, let alone so openly.
John got up silently, trying to tip toe out of the room without them noticing, wanting to leave the pair alone.
"Where are you going?" Sherlock asked as he dropped his hand from Kylie's face and back onto the bed, blushing slightly as he realized John had still been there.
"To… Um… get coffee," John told them with a smile as he walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him to give them some privacy.
Sherlock and Kylie just stared at the now shut door with a raised eyebrow in bewilderment with John's behavior.
"You okay with all this?" she asked him quietly toying with his hair once more.
He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment.
"I will be once I remember it all," he muttered to her.
"Good," she smiled at him, "You remembered a lot since you woke up. You thought it was three years ago this morning. Your brain just needs time."
"My brain has never betrayed me before," he told her as he looked at her.
"Well, I guess there is a first for everything, isn't there?"
….
"You have a weird obsession with my hair, don't you?" he asked her.
Kylie grinned at him sheepishly, her hands gently toying with the dark curls, "I like it. Its neatly chaotic. I think it fits you pretty well."
He frowned at her, "Did you just turn my hair into a metaphor?"
Kylie laughed and nodded, "Yes, yes I did. But I like it all the same."
She trailed off for a moment as she felt his eyes examining her face closely, before a thought dawned on her.
"Wait, does that hurt when I do that?" she asked, halting her movements.
"No," he told her softly, dropping his gaze to her bandaged arm, "No, its actually… nice."
Kylie smiled as that warm fluttery feeling returned in the pit of her stomach.
"Good," she replied, "How are you feeling? Do you want me to talk to the nurses about more pain medication?"
"No," he responded shortly, his attention focused on the bandage on her forearm, "You never did tell me what happened to you."
"Don't worry about it," she told him as she pulled her bandaged arm off the bed, hiding it in her lap, "If you are in pain, you should get more pain meds. Being in pain isn't going to help you heal at all…"
"Who hurt you?" Sherlock asked her, protectiveness bubbling to the surface that he had been trying to sequester all day.
"No one," she told him gently, yet firmly, trying to calm him down. The machines were beginning to beep faster as his heart rate and blood pressure elevated.
"Don't lie, Kyleigha," he told her, "You and John have been avoiding the topic all day. You know I see through that."
He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to push away the pain.
God his head hurt…
"Maybe I should go get those pain meds…"
"No! Who hurt you?"
Kylie paused, staring at him in shock. He never yelled at her…. Ever.
His larger hand covered hers, intertwining her fingers with his.
"What happened?" he asked a little more softly, trying to coax her to tell him.
She met his eyes once more, finding sincerity and caring written all over his face, pain behind his eyes.
He really was hurting. But maybe John was right? Maybe he did love her?
"You were unconscious by the time John and I got to you. A man tazed John unconscious and pulled him out of the room and when I tried to defend him, Thomas shot me in the arm before he tried… before he tried to uh, take me once more," she explained quietly, "That's how I ended up with these bruises."
Sherlock remained silent as she felt him looking over her fading bruises.
She finally looked up at him after a moment, seeing a much different expression on his face as he stared at her bandaged arm.
"You shouldn't have done that," he muttered to her.
Shock went through her body as his words.
"What? Not come save you?"
Sherlock didn't answer, he just kept staring at her arm and face, touching a bruise on her arm gingerly.
"Are you KIDDING me?" Kylie asked in exasperation, "You don't want me to come save you just because I got a little banged up?"
"Its not worth you getting hurt," he admitted to her, unsure of why, but at least he had a concussion to blame it on, "its not worth you nearly reliving what Thomas did to you."
Sherlock felt a hand on his cheek, forcing him to look up at her and look her in the eye.
"Sherlock Holmes, I would take a bullet for you any day," she told him firmly, her eyes searching his. "When we couldn't find you, I was scared; scared that I had lost you once more. I literally cannot bare the thought of you being killed, let alone because of me."
Kylie paused as she felt herself quickly losing control of her emotions, tears starting to pour down her face once more.
"When I saw you in that room, unconscious, covered in blood, I thought that he had killed you. That, was one of the worse moments I have ever experienced, seconded only by that year I thought you were dead. So don't you EVER say that you are not worth saving, because you are. You are Sherlock. You have saved me from more than you know, and I refuse to let you go. I mean you are by FAR the greatest man I have ever met and I would willingly take a bullet for you any day. I would die for you! I… I love you!"
Kylie paused, shutting her eyes and trying to compose her thoughts as the heart monitor stopped beeping for a moment before continuing at a faster rate.
"I know you care for me, and that's more than enough. But you need to know, I love you. I've fallen completely and utterly in love with you, faster and harder than anyone I have ever loved before. You make me crazy; absolutely, over the top crazy. I have never bickered, argued, laughed, and loved with someone so much in the same day, and I simply adore it. I'm in love with you, and I just need you to know that."
Sherlock just stared at her, blankly. Not a single expression showing on his face.
Kylie stayed silent for a few minutes, hoping, praying that he would say something, anything.
She laughed slightly in disbelief with herself for pouring out her heart and soul, trying to wipe her tears away and keep her heart from shattering from the silence.
She didn't know what to expect when she had poured her heart out to Sherlock, but she would have hoped it would be more than this. She knew that she shouldn't expect anything, the fact that they were in a relationship was a miracle within itself, but she had hoped John was right. She hoped he really did love her back.
So much for that delusion.
She looked back at Sherlock. She wasn't sure how long they had been sitting in silence, but it had felt like ages. He was still staring at her blankly, unreactive to her words.
Kylie felt a fresh wave of tears come to the surface as nodded.
He didn't love her. That was the reality.
He cares though. That's enough Kylie. It has to be enough if you want him.
"Okay," she told him through her tears, attempting to smile at him, "it's okay." She bent down to gingerly kiss him, a few of her tears, dropping on his face.
"It's okay," she whispered more to herself than to him as she got up and silently walked out the door trying to pick up the pieces of her breaking heart as she did.
Sherlock watched her leave in slight shock, trying to calm down the incredibly warm feeling of giddiness take over his body. With her words, he couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he couldn't think, he couldn't feel any part of his own body; just the numb, tingling pleasure.
Kylie loved him.
Him…
He never thought a day would come when someone actually loved him; let alone someone as amazing as her.
Love…
He shut his eyes as the pain was beginning to take over once more as the warmth and giddiness was beginning to fade.
Confusion was taking over his mind along with that pounding headache.
Did he feel the same?
Love? Was he even capable of the feeling?
That word had crossed his mind more times in the last few months with Kylie than it had in all of his other years. Each and every time he convinced himself that he was above that unempirical, irrational feeling. Sure, he cared deeply for her, but it didn't cross into love. He was above that.
Yes, that's exactly why a small part of you was never satisfied with the answer that you weren't in love with her.
….I'm not.
John thinks you are.
Since when is John right?
Since when are you right with emotional issues?
He groaned in frustration with himself. His head was throbbing. His ribs were hurting. He couldn't think. It was painful to breathe.
It hadn't been this bad when Kylie was here.
It couldn't have been because of her, could it?
There is that theory that love has healing properties…
UGH! There is that word again…
God this was so confusing. Emotions were empirical. They weren't factual, they were arbitrary. He had never put much thought into emotions until Kyleigha Gibbs had came along and forced these annoying feelings on him. He could understand Quantum physics and organic chemistry, but this woman showed him he had didn't have as great of an understanding of people and the world around him.
What was this?
Was this love?
Okay, so… Pretty much I just wanted to clarify a few things… in this situation, with the injuries Sherlock has, some memory loss would def be a side effect of all the swelling (even though he did have a shunt to relieve the pressure). He forgot the last three years for a bit and things slowly start to come back. That's how the brain works. Its funky… the brain isn't black and white, but if there is some damage, It would either have to be memory, speech, language, cognitive function… ect. I thought that memory would be the best suited for the plot so that is why I sort of delved into the clicheness of amnesia. I believe that he would start to remember with some prodding (mainly because of his mind palace… I would see it as sort of a flicking screen in which he is trying to stroll but cant) if he really were a medical patient in this situation.
Hope this makes sense. :D
Much love you guys!
Review? Pretty please?
