CHAPTER 18: HERE COMES THE STORM
"Two days have passed and still no news from that voice," Sherlock sighs flopping heavily down on the couch. He can do nothing but wait for the next move of his rival. And this is driving him crazy.
"I'm sure that our dear killer is planning something great. Don't worry: he will turn up soon," Giulia tries to cheer him up tuning in with his not-so-subtle admiration for psychopaths and murderers.
"I fail to see how this would be reassuring," John comments tersely.
"My brain is rotting. I am doomed," the detective whines dramatically sinking his head in his hands.
"We all are with you in this state. Now relax: I'll make you a cuppa," Giulia volunteers heading to the kitchen with a soft smile on her lips.
Sherlock springs to his feet and rushes to the kitchen door shielding the entrance with his body. Giulia stops just in time to avoid colliding with his bare chest peeking out of his blue gown loosely tied around his body.
"I appreciate your kind offer but no, thank you! I'll make it myself," he fakes a grin, steps in and shuts the door behind his back.
She does a double-take and stays disoriented on the threshold. "What's the matter with him? Does he still fear that I would poison him?" she murmurs with a hint of sarcasm addressing John.
He shrugs, "He is just restless and impatient. I'll try to convince him to go to Scotland Yard. Maybe we can gather some more information about the murder on the Alpes or talk with Lestrade, who is back from his eventful holiday. All Sherlock Holmes needs is a distraction."
She stares sadly at the closed door as if it represented the impenetrable gates of Sherlock's mind palace. She feels that their delicate balance is falling apart. Sherlock used to be the one with trust issue with her, but now she is not so sure she can trust him.
The doctor eventually succeeds in dragging him out of the flat, and they head to the police station. When they come back home, a few hours later, Sherlock walks into the kitchen and immediately storms out.
"Where are they? What happened? What did you do with them?" he shouts at Giulia who is reading a book on the couch.
She placidly looks up from her book and frowns, while John turns confused towards him, "Sherlock, what are you talking about? Just calm down, please!"
"No, John, this is essential. Where are my experiments?" he furiously asks the girl.
"On the shelves, where I always put them when I try to sort out your mess," she breathes out rolling her eyes.
"No, I'm referring to all the other things I had left on the kitchen table," he stomps his feet enraged.
"Oh, you mean all that trash? I threw it away," she affirms candidly with a proud smile.
"You what? Where is the bin now? Where's the garbage?" he looks around the flat and turns the living room upside down rushing from one corner to the other.
"Simmer down! The bin is over there, but you won't find anything."
"Why not?" his tone is livid.
"Because I flushed everything down the toilet," she shrugs innocently.
"I can't believe it," he yells out of his mind. "Please tell me you're joking. This must be a very bad joke. You couldn't have done such an absurd thing!"
"Did you really flush all Sherlock's experiments?" John looks at her in disbelief. That is incredibly disrespectful of her.
"Experiments?" she spits out the word in disgust and contempt. She shakes her head slowly and flashes a hurtful look at Sherlock, "What a cunning front, detective. Above any suspicion." She addresses the doctor with heartache gripping her voice, "They weren't real experiments, John. We should wise up. It was his drug lab."
Sherlock remains unperturbed and teases her, "How could you recognise those substances among all the real experiments? Have you ever been on drugs?" the detective inquires with diffidence.
"No, I haven't. Unlike you, apparently," she snaps back. "I was helped. I grew suspicious when you practically banned me from the kitchen, yet I couldn't be 100% sure so I looked for an expert and found the phone number of Dr Molly Hooper. Did you know that she is keen on chemistry? I asked her to come and she analysed everything. We borrowed your microscope, by the way. I hope you don't mind," she replies with a cunning smile desperately trying to put up a credible facade while her heart is sinking: her flatmate is a liar embarked on a self-sabotaging mission.
"Molly came here to analyse my possessions?" Sherlock definitely loses it.
"Not only that," she answers reaching out and grabbing a folder on the coffee table. "She also wrote this summary containing every single drug she found. She has been very methodical, I have to admit it."
"Let me see," he peremptorily orders stretching out his hands, but she keeps it out of his reach and gets close to John, instead. "What for? You already know what was there. This is for your doctor, to let him know the status of his miserable patient."
John takes the document and flicks through it, growing immediately pale, "Jesus, Sherlock! This can't be true. You can't take - or even possess, all this junk..."
"Don't worry, John," Giulia cuts him short, "He doesn't possess it anymore."
"This is utterly ridiculous!" Sherlock bursts out. "You can't do such a thing, you simply can't. Now, listen carefully and pay attention to my words: this is my house..."
"Our house," the doctor corrects him.
"Not now, John, I'm trying to make a point. This is where I live, and if you want to share this flat with me, you cannot behave like that. You are crazy, completely out of control," he throws his hands in the air.
John glowers at him and hisses, "Sherlock, stop."
"No, I won't stop because this is unacceptable. She threw my experiments in the toilet," he almost screams.
"They - were - drugs. You're not even allowed to have them in the first place," his friend spells out every syllable.
Sherlock looks almost hurt by John's hostile reply. "Are you on her side now?"
"Side? What are you talking about? This is not a war, Sherlock, nor a bloody game of yours. Your life is at stake," John raises his voice to match the detective's fit of anger.
"Precisely. My life. And you two have no right to mess around with it. I make my own decisions, I adopt the lifestyle I prefer."
John snorts, "Yeah, and yours is leading you straight to the grave."
"Who cares?"
"We do! That's exactly why she did what she did: because she cares," John exclaims nodding to the girl.
"And I'm sure you're an expert about caring, given the number of girlfriends you have had. Practice makes perfect, right?" Sherlock jeers at him. "Therefore, if you are so good at it, why don't you lecture me in what caring is really about?"
John gives him a tight-lipped smile, his disappointed grimace. "You want to know what 'caring' is about? Easy: when someone cares about you, they will do their best to save you."
The detective arches his brows, "Save me? From whom?"
"Your biggest enemy: yourself."
"Oh shut up, John," he grumbles.
"I will. I'm out," John states turning around and heading for the stairs. He slams the door with a loud thud making Giulia jump in her seat.
The flat falls silent. The girl doesn't speak for several minutes: she looks like a sand statue on the verge of crumbling. Eventually, she stands up and walks to the window turning her back to Sherlock and trying to hold back the tears that threaten to stream out of her eyes.
The detective ignores her movements and sinks into his armchair feeling suddenly drained. Is it the abstinence kicking in? It must be. What else could it be? Remorse? He never felt remorseful in his life, he doesn't feel those little impractical emotions, he doesn't... he mustn't feel. It clouds his judgement; that is what he has kept repeating to himself from a very young age. Emotions don't apply to him: remorse is the sentence of the guilty, and he is beyond the concepts of right and wrong. Isn't he?
After a while, the girl breaks that awkward stillness, "John was wrong about me: I didn't want to save you."
"Why not? It seems to be the purpose of caring," he replies sarcastically.
"Because you can't save people that don't want to be saved, you cannot spare them the fight with themselves. Sherlock, you have to face your demons on your own. Nobody can help you, only you can. I was simply trying to keep temptations away, far from your addiction."
"I'm not an addict," he retorts.
"Yes, you are. You are addicted to the thought that you absolutely need all that rubbish. Your addiction is the idea that you can only work by taking it, that it helps you think. God, you are so intelligent, so how do you not get that it is burning your brain, instead?"
He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, "I need it, I really do. You don't understand."
"I never tried to. I was scared, okay? When I realised what you were doing with your life, I was truly terrified. I got rid of that junk because I do hope that you won't use it again."
He looks into her eyes and bitterly sneers, "Why? Because people could find it out and it would be a scandal?"
"No, because I could find it out and I would be very disappointed," she says through gritted teeth and heads for the door, but Sherlock murmurs to her back, "You've set the bar far too high; I will never live up to the idea you have of me. You should lower your expectations."
She turns around and looks straight into his eyes, "I have no high expectations on you. I never made you into a knight, a hero or Prince Charming. The only idea I have of you is the same thing you think of yourself: you must always be the smartest person in the room. Well, you really let me down today: you proved me wrong," she gives him one last pain-ridden glance and rushes downstairs.
He takes a deep breath, looks around and wanly whispers to himself, "But I am the only one in this room."
Giulia goes out and begins to walk on the street when she spots a familiar face beyond a shop window. She steps into Speedy's and sits down at a table smiling slightly at the person across from her.
"I thought you went a bit further away," she comments fiddling with a napkin.
"I just needed to get out of that flat," John answers lowering his pensive gaze.
"Yeah, me too."
They remain silent for a few seconds, then John speaks again looking directly at her, "I hate that Sherlock talked to you like that. And the way he behaved... why didn't you react? You just sit there while he shouted at you."
She bites down her lip and grimaces, "I study International Relations; I know how to handle a tough situation with the right calmness and diplomacy."
"Sure. But had he yelled at me like that, I would have punched him in the face," he replies.
She chuckles but immediately becomes serious again. "John, why has no one ever told me anything about his drug habit?"
"I guess I thought he was doing just fine. I thought he was clean. I could never imagine he had relapsed. I - I..." he stutters embarrassed. "I should have seen it coming. What kind of a doctor am I? What kind of a friend?"
"The one who has been busy with his work, and this is not a crime. You can't blame yourself for thinking that he was more mature than that. It's not your fault," she reassures him placing her hand on one of his on the table.
"Sometimes I just wish my life was a bit easier."
She raises a brow. "I can relate. But where would be the fun in that?" she smirks. "Don't worry. We'll try to talk sense into him. We will find a solution." She smiles kindly at him and leaves, holing up in her room.
After a while, John comes back home and finds Sherlock on the couch, eyes closed, hands folded under his chin, wandering around in his mind palace. The doctor stands next to him for a couple of minutes staring at his motionless figure, weighing his words, choosing carefully what to say. Sherlock, well aware of his presence, snaps his eyes open and gazes at his silent spectator, "I know that face and I can clearly see what you are thinking right now as if it was written on your forehead."
"Read it, then," John rebuts.
"You want me to apologise to her, don't you? Oh, John, you are so predictable."
"And so are you, since you haven't done it yet."
The detective sighs and gets up, "Don't you get it? She knows me even better than I thought, she reads through me more easily than I expected. She doesn't need a stupid apology."
John looks daggers at him, "I don't care if she needs it or not, if she knows you or not. The only thing I know is that you have to go to her room and apologise. It's a matter of manners. I can bear your angry outbursts, and I will overlook the dark sides of your personality, but I will not allow you to be rude. Not with her, not ever."
"And what should I say?" Sherlock asks with sincere curiosity crossing his arms on his chest. Social interactions are not his area of expertise - to put it nicely.
"Something like I'm sorry, forgive me."
Sherlock rolls his eyes as John stands still in the same spot, his hands on his hips.
"Fine," the detective grumbles and goes downstairs. He walks up to the door of 221C and is about to knock when a voice coming from within the flat prevents him, "Don't."
Sherlock freezes speechless.
"Don't knock on my door and don't try to apologise," Giulia anticipates his moves.
Sherlock smirks, "I was right, then. You don't need this trifle."
He hears the soft sound of her footsteps approaching the door and her voice resounds closer, "No, you were wrong. I don't need to see you at my door just because John begged you to apologise to me."
"He didn't beg," he specifies leaning against the jamb and attempting at easing up the tension.
"You know, we could get on really well if only you were sincere with me," she feebly states resting her hands and forehead on the door but refusing to open it.
He squeezes his lips together with his fingers while his brain looks for something to say: what does 'honesty' mean with a person who can apparently see through his soul?
"Well, I don't have sincere apologies to offer you."
She doesn't talk back so he nods uncomfortably at her silent treatment. "Good night," he mumbles and turns around. He is going back upstairs when he hears the key clinking in the lock. Giulia peeks out from behind the half-open door, "Speaking frankly, what's happening?"
He frowns at her with confusion in his eyes, "What do you mean?"
"I thought that we were doing fine and everything was okay. But now you are on drugs, you are rude most of the time, and my mere presence bothers you. What's the problem?"
He shrugs, "I suppose I am the problem. These are just the cons of living with me."
"I haven't had any problems living with you so far, but something has changed. It's like dealing with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You changed and now your attitude towards me is different. I am not blind nor stupid. Sherlock, what happened? I thought we found a balance."
He snorts and averts his gaze, "You want me to be honest, right? Great, so here's what I think: balance is fiction, it's just a ticking bomb. And when the timer goes off, there will be a huge explosion."