CHAPTER 32: ONE LAST FAVOUR
Sherlock collapses to the ground howling. As Giulia witnesses the shooting, her hands drop the wooden table making it crash loudly on the floor. Yet, not a sound seems to reach her: a continuous ringing in her ears is all she is able to perceive in that instant. She is in utter shock.
When another shot is fired, she is forcefully awakened from her trance and violently brought back to that frightful reality. In a moment of lucidity, she runs by his side, slides her hands under his armpits and heaves his torso up dragging him across the threshold of the rear door with great effort.
She stares horrified at the crimson stain spreading across his chest. "Oh God, I didn't see it coming," she whines as fear and horror get hold of her causing an unbearable tingling in her extremities. It feels as if she was detached from her own body; her hands are still gripping at Sherlock's clothes, but she has no perception of it. She has the impression that the whole world is spinning around her. Is she about to faint again?
"Neither did I," he grunts more annoyed than worried: he is not referring to him being shot but to what he has just discovered about her secret.
She takes his left arm and passes it over her shoulders, helping him stand up and walk unsteadily as fast and far away from the house as possible. They stumble while crawling on the cobbled path in the garden.
"Don't worry. We'll get to the hospital. You'll be fine," she states starting to panic when they reach Mrs Hudson's car in the driveway. They take cover behind the car as Fred comes out of the front door and shoots at them.
"Take these," he throws the car keys at her, and she gives him a confused look.
"You want to take me to the hospital, don't you?" he implicitly points out the obvious: he is in no state to drive.
She nods rapidly realising all of a sudden what that means: driving on the left side of the road, something she is definitely not used to. She told him earlier; she joked about running into a tree, but not entirely.
She helps Sherlock climb in the passenger seat, then she slides in the driver place and starts the engine of the sports car mumbling under her breath, "I can't do that. This the wrong side of the car and the road."
At that moment, a bullet shatters the back window, and she cries out pushing her foot down on the gas pedal and making the car jerk in reverse out of the driveway in a cloud of gravel.
"Yes, you can. I'll lead you. Now breathe, put in the gear and drive as you always do. Just try to do everything the other way around," Sherlock encourages her as the car stops in the middle of the main road.
She exhales and does as instructed: they peel out, and the car springs forward in the direction of the highway. She holds tight onto the steering wheel making her knuckles turn white. "It's complicated," she complains. "And the road sign we have just passed indicated that the nearest hospital is 30 miles away. I'm not sure I can go on for that long."
"Oh no!" Sherlock exclaims.
She turns towards him alarmed, "What?"
He pokes his finger into the hole pierced by the bullet in his clothes. "This was my favourite coat," he whimpers.
She rolls her eyes, "You're so dramatic! If we both survive, I'll buy you another one."
He gives her a condescending look, "Do you have the slightest idea of how much it costs?"
She clears her throat still concentrated on driving, "You know, I'm not a doctor, but I think you should save your breath at the moment," she snarls at him.
"Doctor! We should call John," he realises.
She fishes her phone out of her pocket and speed dials him. Phoning while driving: as if her driving style wasn't illegal enough already.
It rings endlessly, but he doesn't answer.
"Pick up! Please, pick up. Come on, John, I need you," she hisses at the mute line before leaving a message to the voicemail, "John, it's me, Giulia. I'm with Sherlock, he is... injured. Badly, I fear. We were at the town of the murder and are now on our way to the nearest hospital. Please come. Hurry up!"
She ends the message and shoves her phone in her pocket placing both her hands on the wheel: not much of an improvement, anyway.
"You're absolutely awful at communicating information," the detective smirks trying to lessen the tension, but the slightest movement sends a wave of pain throughout his body, and he wails monstrously. Whenever she hears him groan and suffer, her chest tightens, and she can hardly breathe. She steals a preoccupied glance at him and swallows hard trying to fight the numbness in her head at the sight of his desperate conditions. "It's alright, you're going to be okay," she whispers in a quivering voice.
"You're awful at reassuring, too. Also, this is the wrong side of the road," he mumbles feebly.
His voice is barely audible over the roar of the engine, and she frowns, "What else is there?"
"You are on the wrong side of the road. This is not how you approach a roundabout in England. You should turn clockwise. Now, move to the left, for God's sake!" he yells staring in horror while they rush against traffic. Two cars honk furiously at them as they steer away from the racing car's trajectory.
Once out of the turnabout, she swerves violently guiding the car in the correct lane, "Sorry, it's so difficult. My brain is playing against me."
After a few seconds of unusual silence, she comments ironically, "Don't you have a witty comeback to belittle my intelligence?" She turns her head to Sherlock only to find him unconscious in his seat. Little does she know that he has just entered his mind palace.
"Brother mine, what are you doing here?" a replica of Mycroft appears in front of Sherlock and contemptuously looks around the corridors of his mind palace.
Sherlock cringes at that figment of his imagination. "I'm dying, I need to find a solution," he affirms as if it was plainly obvious.
Mycroft sniggers, "Gosh, you always were the slow one. There is nothing you can do about it now. You can't find a way out of the pain: you are quite the expert on human bodies and death, you should know that much. Haven't you figured it out yet? Right now, all you need is a reason to stay, to live. Something to hold on to."
The detective flares his nostrils. He hates to admit that his brother (or rather, the most rational part of his brain that he, more or less unconsciously, associates with his brother) is in fact right.
"Let me look for it, then," he pronounces pushing that vision aside and rushing down the corridor. He desperately throws open a few doors, peeking inside. One of them leads to a random crime scene; nothing special, no particular case, just a crime scene like many others: this is his mental room dedicated to his beloved work. He adores being a Consulting Detective, solving mysteries, feeding his restless brain with enigmas and riddles, putting Scotland Yard to shame. That's all very entertaining, but it is not enough. Not enough for him to stay.
He steps out of the room and bursts open another door. This time he is catapulted in the middle of a street with an ongoing car chase. He instinctively smiles at the familiar tickling sensation at the end of his fingers. Oh, how adrenaline pumps in his veins! But the rush of excitement washes away quickly as his eyes follow the cars heading to the riverbank. He gazes at the Thames, he looks around at Westminster, Big Ben... That is the room devoted to his London: the battlefield only he sees when he travels across his hometown. London: his favourite set to any decent crime. He furrows his brow at that sight: that is still not enough. To him, a city, even his city, is not worth the burden of surviving.
He reluctantly leaves that scene behind and heads toward a black, unmarked door. He carefully lowers the handle and steps into a room mostly plunged into darkness. In the middle, a candelabra sheds some tremulous light around. He rolls his eyes at his own vivid imagination. Theatrical and overdramatic; now, that is one hell of a room.
The dim glow of the candles casts vermilion shadows on the bare walls and on a figure at the centre of the room. As Sherlock walks closer, the features of a well-known face emerge from the darkness: Jim Moriarty. The 'Napoleon of crime' is lying peacefully on a Roman triclinium while sipping champagne from a flute. When he sees Sherlock approaching, he smirks and raises his glass to him in a mocking salute.
The detective raises a brow. Theatrical, indeed. Still, what else could be expected from two dramatic personalities such theirs?
Sherlock fixes his eyes on his enemy while circling around the triclinium. Moriarty holds his gaze and a mischievous grin never fades from his lips.
"Why are you here?" Sherlock finally talks.
Jim brings a hand over his heart, seemingly offended by his rhetorical question. "In your mind, you mean? Oh, Sherrrlock," he rolls the 'r' on his tongue lasciviously, "You know why. I am your nemesis, your greatest mystery. You might consciously think of me as a mere diversion to kill off boredom, but we both know the truth: you haven't defeated me, you haven't solved our dilemma. So you won't stop thinking about me. That's why you put me in your mind palace; the thought of our enthralling duel will keep haunting you until we meet again."
Sherlock slowly shakes his head, "You might be my greatest challenge, I'll give you that. And having to confront you, playing a game with you: it's enticing, but it's not good enough a reason to live."
As that realisation dawns on him, he turns around and marches out of the room slamming the door behind his back and leaving that ghost of Moriarty with a desolate expression on his face.
Sherlock is in the corridors of his mind palace again, and he feels like he is suffocating. His whole body is in pain now. He starts gasping for air and takes his head in his hands murmuring disconsolately, "Nothing. There is nothing of value in here. Nothing important enough to make it worth surviving for."
Mycroft appears again in front of him. His brother: the image of his conscience, the most rational part of his brain - the one that keeps reasoning even when he is losing a lot of blood and spiralling out of control.
His brother looks down on him with his air of superiority, "Of course it isn't here, brother dear. You will not find a reason to live in your cerebral, analytical mind; you would never allow such sentimental issues up here."
Sherlock raises a questioning look on him. Mycroft snorts annoyed by Sherlock's slowness, which basically means that Sherlock is annoyed at himself and his lack of comprehension.
His brother prods him with the tip of his umbrella, "I'll ask my first question again. What are you doing here? You won't find a reason to live in your mind palace, you silly boy. All you need right now - your only reason to stay - is currently sitting next to you on a car that she doesn't know how to drive, on the verge of panic. Time to wake up, Sherlock."
He regains consciousness blinking repeatedly as he is overwhelmed by a stabbing pain in his arm (in the same exact spot where Mycroft had poked him inside his mind palace): Giulia is painfully shaking his arm with one free hand trying to wake him up, as she screams, "Sherlock! No, no, no! Wake up. Stay with me. Stay awake!"
His eyes flutter open, and he groans, "Ouch! That hurts."
"I'm sorry, but I won't let you lose consciousness," she declares as her trembling hand clings to the steering wheel.
He takes some short, fast breaths, and asks, "How long have I been out?"
"Just a couple of minutes, but it looked like forever. Don't do it again, please," she begs and her voice breaks at the end. She turns to look at him, and they lock eyes. There are a thousand unspoken words between them, and it would just be wishful thinking if they truly believed that they could communicate everything through a one-second look.
She averts her gaze to pay attention to the road, but she isn't quick enough: Sherlock has noticed that she is misty-eyed. No matter how many times she clears her throat, she can't hide the fact that she is getting more choked up with each passing second.
"You can't close your eyes now. Stay with me. Try not to-"
"Die?" he talks over her and lifts a brow.
She glowers at him, "I was going to say 'sleep', actually."
"Yeah, death is a particular kind of sleep, quite a permanent one. Could you go a bit faster, please?"
She shifts to a higher gear retorting, "I'm trying to, but this is entirely new to me. And, frankly, I'd like to avoid having us both killed in a car accident."
"I'll die anyway if you don't hurry," he protests and fixes his gaze on her, studying her every move.
She is clearly panicking but she isn't losing her mind. She struggles to keep a cool head and dominate her emotions, and she keeps trying her hardest. She has definitely been trained to respond to emergency situations, which unleashes a long streak of questions: Who drilled her and why? Is it the result of the time she spent with the British Secret Service? Was she really the daughter of an Italian diplomat? And if so, what truly happened one year ago? Did she fake her own death? That seems improbable, given the fact that both her parents lost their lives in that explosion of the Consulate, as John said when reading parts of the newspaper article to him. The whole family could have faked it and survived, just like she did, but he knows that it isn't the case. She told him that her father is dead and it is likely that her mother is too; she didn't look like she was lying: she would have had no interest in lying about that, anyway.
Then, why was she the only survivor and how? Is she a threat, is she dangerous? There must be a good reason if she wants the whole world to believe that she died one year ago. So, ultimately, who is she, really?
He stares at her unflinching expression; she passes a hand under her watery eyes and regains her composure. She is determined to save him, or at least attempt at it.
He whispers, "No matter what, no matter who you are: right now I trust you."
Giulia turns her head to him and smiles weakly, "Good because I've just had a terrible idea."
She pushes her foot on the gas pedal while the car speeds up rumbling. He furrows a brow and jests, "I thought you were ruling out the possibility of suicide."
At that moment, he notices a police car sitting by the side of the road a few metres ahead, and she replies, "Suicide: out of the question. Prison... still on the table."
Their sports car hurtles in front of the police car, which immediately turns on the flashing lights and starts chasing after them. Giulia checks the situation in the rear-view mirror and accelerates even further. The police pursue her until she suddenly hits the brakes and pulls over. She quickly turns off the engine as two policemen jump off and stride closer commanding the driver to get out of the vehicle. She opens the car door and stands up slowly with her hands in the air, pleading, "Please, help me! There's a man in the passenger seat. He is wounded and in desperate need of medical assistance. I'm on my way to the hospital. You've got to help me!."
One of the police officers comes menacingly near her, while the other approaches the left side of the car.
"You have far exceeded the speed limit," the first officer scowls at the girl.
"I know. I'm terribly sorry, but we need to hurry. He is dying. I was just trying to save his life."
"She's telling the truth. This man is severely injured. He needs to reach the hospital immediately," the other policeman intervenes.
"Help him out of the car: we're giving them a lift," his partner affirms. "You, inside the car," he gestures pointing a finger at Giulia.
"Yes, sir. Thank you, thank you so much," she obeys climbing in the backseat where a pale, suffering Sherlock takes place next to her.
He doesn't even have the strength to smile at her as he murmurs, "I'm almost impressed: you realised that these gentlemen would drive much better and faster than you, thus giving me one more chance at reaching the hospital on time. I must admit that it wasn't your most idiotic idea." That is his peculiar way of complimenting another human being.
She bites down on her lower lip desperately trying not to break down in front of him. She remembers the basic rules of first aid and applies pressure to his wound pressing her hands against his blood-stained shirt. Sherlock winces and stifles a cry. Then he places one of his hands on hers: she immediately feels how cold that is. He is losing too much blood. His touch feels so foreign to her and yet somehow calming. She wishes she didn't have to worry about stopping his blood flow. She wishes she could hold his hand and tell him that everything is going to be okay. But she is so hopelessly unsure...
Why are things always so messed up between them? Every time they touch, the odds are invariably against them; the circumstances are always desperate, like when he took her hand to help her lay down in Baker Street when she was about to faint, a few hours before. And now, when she is pushing her trembling hands against his chest to keep his life from slipping out of him.
"Sherlock, I've never asked you anything, not a single time. I never told you to shut up when you were annoying; I never complained about your violin sessions at 3 a.m." she starts off, but he interrupts her, "I thought you loved listening to me playing."
"I did. I do. And I want to hear your violin again and again, regardless of the hour, despite our neighbours. Well, I wouldn't argue with Mrs Hudson, though," she forces a smile, and he smirks, "Neither would I."
"Since I've always been so respectful and obliging, I think I have every right to ask something of you now."
"Right now? Can't you wait for a more suitable moment?"
"No, this is the moment. Please, survive. I never asked you anything, and just this once you can't let me down."
"I could have prepared you a cup of tea, you know, if you'd asked me," he jokes trying to suppress a grimace of pain.
She fights against a lump in her throat and breathes out, "I'm asking this, instead. As a personal favour: stay."
At that moment, the police car stops in front of the ER, and the police officers rush out of the car and place Sherlock on a stretcher with the aid of some paramedics. She runs inside the hospital beside the stretcher, incapable of taking her eyes off him.
When the doctors come to a sudden halt demanding her to leave him and stay in the waiting room, she bends over to give him one last look. Sherlock lifts a hand to caress her face streamed with tears, and with great effort, he draws closer to her. His lips brush against her cheek as he whispers in her ear, "I told you, the Wizard of Oz was right: breakable hearts are so impractical."
When his stretcher darts through the glass doors of the surgical room, Giulia's eyes follow his curly head until the last moment. Then she lowers her gaze on her bloody hands and clothes.
As if she had just woken up from a confused dream only to sink into a real-life nightmare, she suddenly realizes that what she has on her hands is Sherlock's blood, and she eventually passes out on the hospital floor.
This time there is no one there to stop it from happening; no talking about the periodic table, no ill-timed sarcasm, no clumsy sociopathic detective to hold her hand.
The last thing she can think about before she faints is that Sherlock is not by her side at that moment, and he might not be there ever again.
To the amazing guests that are leaving reviews on this story (only a few of you used a name, so shout out to "mr. clever", and "Mia", and to one anonymous Hamilton fan). Since you logged in as guests, I cannot reply to your reviews, so I'll do that here: thank you for all your love and support.
If you manage to find a way to create an account, we could also be able to have a chat and message. I'd love to hear more about you!
More broadly, a huge Thank you to whoever took the time to review this story: it means the world to me.
Any kind of feedback (and constructive criticism as well) is highly appreciated.