CHAPTER 19: WHEN THE SMILE FADES AWAY
"I can no longer bear this wait," Sherlock exclaims springing to his feet from his armchair and pacing the empty flat. He stops in front of one of the walls of the living room, takes aim with his British Army Browning L9A1 and shoots twice at the yellow smiley face painted on the wallpaper.
A few seconds later, he hears frantic footsteps coming from the staircase and Giulia bursts into the room, her hand wrapped around her phone already calling 999.
"Dear Lord! I've heard gunshots. What happened?"
"I was bored," Sherlock laconically replies hinting at the smiley face.
She frowns at him in confusion, lowers her gaze on the gun he is still holding and gapes. Before she could even formulate a question, he lazily nods at the holes in the wall. She follows his gaze and immediately walks to the wall inspecting the unconventional 'redecoration'. She brushes her fingertips on the mangled wallpaper, "So you chose the wall as your target?"
He shrugs, puts his index in the trigger hole of his weapon, and nonchalantly swings it around in the air.
"999, what's your emergency?" a voice echoes from the phone in Giulia's hand.
She feels like she has just woken up from a dream and quickly apologises, "I'm sorry, everything's alright, apparently."
She hangs up but keeps the phone next to her ear and gives him a challenging look while pronouncing what she wishes she had said, "I'd like to report a murder."
Sherlock rolls his eyes at her over-dramatic demeanour. She sighs, "Why do you even have a gun?"
"Recreation. And protection, of course. I have enemies."
"I wonder why," she replies sarcastically. "Can I see it?" she stretches out her hand like a demanding kid.
He furrows his brow, "It isn't a toy."
"You've just called it recreational," she underlines.
"Good point. Here: you can have a look at it," he hands her the gun without a care in the world.
She weighs it in her hands and holds it tightly roaming theatrically around the living room as if she were in a spy movie. "My name is Bond, James Bond," she acts.
"Hey, 007, put it down," Sherlock warns since she looks like she slipped into character a bit too enthusiastically.
She turns towards him grasping the barrel with both hands and pointing it at his chest. Sherlock turns pale but tries to keep a poker face. "What are you doing? Put - it - down," he commands keeping his hands in the air to play along with the joke even though he is not that sure about the playful act anymore.
"Does it make you nervous?" she cocks a brow smugly.
"Weapons never scared me," he replies unperturbed.
"What about death?"
"Nope," he pops the 'p' with a loud click of his lips.
"Wouldn't you be sad to leave this world behind?" she philosophically asks.
"Isn't it the good part of dying?" he jokes studying her movements, buying time.
"Has it ever occurred to you how easy it would be to kill someone?" she inquires in a light tone that seems to clash with the seriousness of the situation.
"Yes. That's exactly why I am so mad at the criminal classes these days. Why can't they just provide me with a simple murder?" he wanders off calmly as if he wasn't held at gunpoint.
At that moment, John enters the room, takes a quick look at the scene and immediately drops the shopping bags he was holding.
"What on Earth is happening here?" he cries out.
"We were both bored, you know, the usual," Giulia shrugs.
"If such a thing becomes usual, I swear I will instantly move. Now, let's stay calm and try to reason. You could start by lowering that, for instance," he commands in a stern voice pointing at the firearm.
She glowers at him, "I'm not a threat, Captain."
"Says the girl who's pointing a gun at our flatmate. Do you mind if I don't believe you?"
"I do, actually. I'm offended," she snaps back annoyed. She looks at them both lowering the weapon. "Look at your faces! I truly can't believe it. You both think this is real. It's just a game," she murmurs looking down at the gun in her hands and smiling faintly as she puts the safety back on.
"Sorry, are you implying Sherlock's definition of a game? Because you ought to know that I do not approve of it," John states.
"You can relax now. I was just enjoying myself," she hands it back to Sherlock who cautiously takes it from her hands with an enigmatic look on his face.
"It was really a joke, then?" John asks dazed massaging his forehead with two fingers in a failed attempts to flatten the furrow that has been permanently sitting between his eyebrows.
"Well, you were the ones who made it serious. What's the matter with you? We've been living together for months now, and you still can't trust me?"
"Given our lifestyle and the psychopaths and murderers we've met..." John tries to justify his reaction.
"I'm not one of them. At this point, I thought you knew me better than that," she cuts him off. Her voice trembles slightly towards the end, soaked with disappointment.
"I always feel like I don't know you at all, for the record," Sherlock says scornfully.
"Here we go again," she sighs recalling the night of her release and the barrage of questions that Sherlock had poured on her on the way home. "And what would you like to know about me?"
"What are you still doing here?" he sternly inquires. He gives her an icy stare she had never seen in his impenetrable eyes.
"Sherlock, drop it. I don't want to go through another argument," John grumbles.
"It's not an argument, John. Just a piece of friendly advice for our dear flatmate: leave," he hisses.
"What's wrong with you?" the doctor gapes at him with shock painted all over his face.
"There's nothing wrong with me. She ruined everything. Look at the kitchen: she turned it upside down touching and throwing away my possessions."
"What the hell are you talking about? She did her best to tidy up your chaos and she rightfully disposed of your drugs."
"I cannot accept it anymore," the detective stamps his feet.
"You're making it all out of nowhere. What's her fault, now?" John clenches his jaw, upset and angry.
"Nothing new. Her original sin was to move here, in the first place. I wish..." Sherlock stops talking mid-sentence as if he suddenly regained a dose of self-control.
Nobody knows it, no one can hear the deafening sound of a thousand alarms blaring inside his mind palace. Somewhere in his conscience, he knows he is about to do something terrible, to say something dreadful that he could never unsay. Nobody knows it, but he is held back by a grain of common sense and humanity. He would still have enough self-control not to hurt her, not more than he has already, anyway.
What he doesn't expect, though, is for her to push him to take the step there is no coming back from.
Giulia looks directly into his eyes: all she wants is the brutal truth, at this point, nothing else matters. She challenges him, "What is it? I've always encouraged you to speak freely in front of me. Do it. Say it out loud: what do you want?"
Sherlock takes a deep breath and pronounces his verdict, "I wish you had never entered our lives. I wish I could go back to normal, back to our existence... before you."
His words float in the air for a few seconds. She nods slowly as the meaning sinks in, "Thanks for your candour."
She keeps her head down and bites her lips desperately trying not to cry in front of them; then she runs downstairs and slams the door of 221C.
John silently processes what has just happened. The discussion turned incredibly bad in such a short time, and everything just fell apart.
He inhales and exhales methodically before giving Sherlock an ironical smile, "Well done."
"I did nothing. I was simply being honest."
"Yes, sure. But since you're so honest, tell me: what did you do to my friend? Because I can't recognise the person in front of me. Who are you?"
"You know perfectly well who I am: a high functioning sociopath. This is just the sociopathic side of my character. I thought you'd got used to it by now," he snarls flopping down on the couch.
John glares at him, "Yeah, I thought the same thing." Then he goes downstairs and gently knocks on Giulia's door.
"I don't want to talk, John," the girl speaks from inside.
He flinches, "How did you know it was me?"
"Was there really a possibility it could be him?" she replies as her voice slightly cracks at the end of the sentence.
The doctor doesn't talk back. She's right: Sherlock would never show at her door after what he said.
He tries again, "Can I come in?"
"I'm frankly too busy to stop you."
When John opens the door and steps in, he finds the room in complete chaos; clothes and books are scattered all around the small entrance, and Giulia whirls around the small place like a hurricane.
"Slow down. What are you doing?" he reaches the girl who is fiddling with the zip fastener of a suitcase.
"I am packing, John. I'm leaving," she points out the obvious.
"No, don't," he takes her hands in his to stop her, a sudden sense of urgency in his tone.
She looks into his kind eyes, "Didn't you hear him? I think he has explained his will crystal clear," she slips her hands out of his hold and goes back to her preparations.
"He's just angry and discouraged. I'm sure he didn't mean the things he said," John clumsily tries to find a justification, a reason for her to stay.
"Of course, he did. But, what is more, I think he's right," she declares emptying her closet.
"You can't say that."
She turns around to face him, "He has every right to want his old life back. And you should too. Maybe I just made a mistake; I should have never come here, a few months ago." She looks hurt and lost, but she's trying her best not to break down.
"Please, stay," he begs in a low, pleading voice.
"What for? He doesn't want me here anymore and this is his home."
"I live here, too. Do I have a say in this? Why is my opinion always ignored?" he complains annoyed.
"I'm not ignoring you. I simply think that you should agree with him; you should ask for your previous life, too. Everything is going to work out in the end. Trust me: you will be fine."
"And what about you?"
She smiles slightly at his concern for her but doesn't reply. She gets close to him and gently caresses his cheek, "John, I want to thank you for everything you've ever done for me. You've always been kind to me: you took me into your house, into your life. You allowed me to live stunning adventures with you."
"And put you in grave danger too," he recalls.
"That's true, but it was part of the game, wasn't it? Now I am not a player anymore: my time is over. I will never get to thank you to the fullest, so I think I'll just stop here."
He stands still, arms down at his side, fists clenched, upset. "You're very welcome for everything."
She is turning away but she stops as if she was reminded of something. "I- I'd thank him, too, but I'm not sure he would listen to me right now. So, could you..." she hesitates but forces herself to complete her sentence. "Tell him I've met many men in my life and he's surely one of the most flawed. But in the end, he turned out to be one of the most extraordinary, as well, and I am glad I had the fortune of meeting him. Also, tell him I am truly sorry for all the trouble I caused him, for my arrest, and everything."
A faint smile flashes on her face as she mentally adds, Well, I'm not really sorry for what I did with his drugs, to be honest.
She raises her gaze on John: he is shifting from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. She shakes her head as if she was trying to erase all her words or simply rewind, "Actually, I think I was just rambling. Just tell him that he is finally having his life back. It's what he wanted."
"Giulia..." John begins, but she cuts him short. "Please, now go," she pleads.
He has no choice but to turn around and walk away.
He climbs the stairs and enters the living room only to find Sherlock lost in his mind palace. He sighs and sinks in his chair. No one speaks for several minutes, then they hear some commotion downstairs. Sherlock grumbles but doesn't come back to reality. John stares at him while gathering all his might not to punch him. They go on like this for half an hour: the doctor plotting Sherlock's murder, and the detective guessing what original insults John might come up with.
After a while, Sherlock breathes out, "She is finally done raising hell down there. I'm glad the noise stopped."
John groans, "You won't have to worry about it anymore. She's moving."
The detective ponders that statement for a while, then pronounces flatly, "Good."
"That's all you have to say?" John blurts out. "Jesus, Sherlock, you've just kicked out a girl sending her out there homeless and alone!"
"She should have never come in our way. She'd better keep her distance."
"How can you go on like this? She is our friend," the doctor protests.
"This was our first mistake. Call her like that, consider her like that," he spits out.
"And what's wrong with friends?" John asks but immediately raises a hand in the air to prevent his predictable comeback. "No, don't bother to answer. I wonder why I keep asking you these questions."
"Being friends with someone is not a problem, it's normal - or at least you all make it look like that. But being friends with us ... that is masochistic. We are dangerous, John, can't you see it? We are, in fact, dangerous people who tend to run into very dangerous situations more often than expected, than humanly plausible. This is what we are, this is our lifestyle and we are used to it. But she shouldn't be involved in this; it wouldn't be fair. Because we chose it in the first place, and she didn't," Sherlock explains calmly.
"You're wrong. She did choose this lifestyle, this mess, even the danger. Everything she did was based on her own choice. Nobody has ever forced her to be around us, Sherlock. We are dangerous and she knew it. Yet she stayed... Until you showed her the door," John retorts lowering his eyes.
"Oh, forgive me if I wanted her out of the most perilous place in London!" Sherlock sarcastically snaps back.
The doctor turns confused towards him, "What are you talking about?"
The detective rolls his eyes, "I will not deny that I am the most selfish, obnoxious man in this city, but I didn't get rid of her on a whim."
John does a double-take and frowns clueless. "I don't understand."
"I phoned a killer a few days ago," he reminds him.
"I know."
"But you don't know that he threatened me during our short call. And not just me: he said he would become a concrete presence in my life," Sherlock recalls those obscure words.
"What does it mean?"
"Haven't the faintest. But it was quite obvious that everyone around me was in danger."
"Including Giulia," John finally realises completing his sentence.
"Yup. That's why I've been so hateful and mean to her lately. I was just trying to get her to walk away from me. I simply wanted to..."
"Save her," John concludes his sentence again as his brain starts working frantically.
"Yes. Would you please let me finish?" he intervenes annoyed.
"Shut up, Sherlock! Shut up and listen," John places a finger on his lips signalling him to keep quiet.
The detective pricks up his ears but then shakes his head. "To what? I can't hear anything."
"Exactly." The doctor is struck by a sudden realisation and pales, "Oh God!"
He whips around and sprints downstairs.
"Wait, John! Where are you going?" Sherlock follows him.
"The noise we heard previously, all that commotion: it came from Giulia's room," he specifies dashing along the staircase.
They reach the door of 221C on which they find clear signs of a break-in. They freeze and slowly push the door open, peeking inside.
Most of her clothes and books are now packed inside her suitcases and bags. There's no sign of all the chaos John saw, but also no sign of Giulia.
The detective inspects some dirty footprints on the floor and kneels down next to a white tissue thrown in a corner. He grabs it and carefully moves it close to his nose. He immediately wrinkles his nostrils and throws it away. "Chloroform," he states.
John gives him a desperate look, "She was kidnapped. You didn't save her, after all."