Father
It was a day like any other day. Well, not any other day of a regular human being. It was a normal day for the Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes and his best friend and room mate Dr. John Watson. It started with Lestrade bursting through the door into the living room while John and Sherlock were having a cup of tea.
"This is not an office you can just storm into!" came the agitated voice of Mrs. Hudson from downstairs. After Lestrade was compelled to clean his shoes on the doormat outside, he entered the living room again, this time a little bit more relaxed. Sherlock and John had finished their tea and John overheard the conversation from the kitchen where he cleaned the used cups. They had a new case. A man had been murdered in his own apartment with the door closed from the inside. He had been shot right between the eyes but nobody in the house had heard any shot being fired. Sherlock and John followed the DI to the crime scene and soon Sherlock found out how the murderer did it. John found out that the bullet must have flown a long distance before hitting the target and he also identified the murder weapon as a sniper rifle. According to the posture of the corps and the angle of the wound, the man had been standing in front of the window and the shot came from the house directly across. Sherlock used a laser pointer to find the exact window where the murderer must have been when he shot. The DNA they found on a cigar stump in that exact apartment in the house across was already in the data base of the police. The sniper was already known and luckily enough Lestrade knew the men from a former case.
"Thanks for your help guys. I know the man and I also know where he is normally around. I know some of his friends and I will do some digging. It won´t be long before I find him. I can take it from here" the Detective escorted them outside.
"Well, if you don´t you know where to find me" Sherlock turned around to walk home but something was wrong.
"John..?" John was still standing next to Lestrade furrowing his brows. Suddenly he looked up and it seemed as if he saw something because in an instant he was in action.
"Get down!" he screamed and pushed against the DI until they both were laying on the ground behind a parked car. Sherlock whose reflexes were quite extraordinary covered himself behind a pillar in the fraction of a second. While all the men were in action a silent air draft could be heard.
"What the hell..." Lestrade started to protest when another air draft was audible and shortly after that one of the windows of the car shattered into a million peaces.
"Stay down, damn it" John commanded but his voice wasn´t as steady as it usually was when they were in situations like this. And they were in similar situations all the time. But Sherlock had no time to think about that. He had to find the sniper. He fished his cell phone out of his pocked and used it as a mirror to locate the shooter while Lestrade called for backup. The suspect tried to flee but the officers got him on his way down.
A few minutes later the murderer was in handcuffs as usual. Sherlock walked over to the car when Lestrade came up from his ducking position.
"That was really close. Thanks John for...John?!" Lestrade had turned around to thank John for saving his life but found that the former soldier wasn´t standing behind him but was still sitting on the ground leaning against the car. Sherlock noticed the sudden change in the detective´s voice and came running around the corner of the car to find John smiling weakly at him.
"There is a doctor present...but I guess you...should call an ambulance" he said and it was only when John looked down on his hands that Sherlock noticed the blood they were covered in.
"Call an ambulance! Now!" Lestrade screamed at the next policemen that were standing a few meters across the street. Sherlock knelt down next to John with eyes wide open.
"Tell me what to do" he simply said.
"What?" John was confused for a moment by Sherlock´s sudden will to help.
"You are a doctor so you know what to do in this particular situation. But you are also the patient so you can´t do everything yourself. So, tell me what I have to do" John needed a few more seconds but then he snapped back into his doctor mode and Sherlock did what he could. When the ambulance finally arrived he had nearly stopped the bleeding and John was still conscious when they brought him to the hospital. Sherlock followed John wherever they brought him but at some point a nurse stopped him and since then he had been sitting in this dumb waiting area while nobody was willing to tell him what was going on.
"Any news?" Sherlock nearly jumped when the door opened and Lestrade came in.
"He´s still in surgery."
So they waited...and waited...and waited.
When John´s doctor finally came into the waiting area both men jumped.
"How is he?"
"You are John´s next of kin I guess then" the doctor took a look at both men and raised his brows in question.
"Well not exactly...I´m Detective Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard and this is Sherlock Holmes...my...consultant. We are his friends"
"Enough of the formalities! How is he?" Sherlock asked impatiently.
"Your friend´s wound hasn´t been very serious. The bullet missed all the important organs and we had no complications during surgery. Doctor Watson is now in recovery. We will keep him here for a few days to make sure everything heals in order"
"Can we see him?" Sherlock was relieved that everything was going to be alright but he needed to be sure that his friend was okay.
"Normally we woulnd´t allow it but in this case I can turn a blind eye. Follow me, please." The doctor leaded them through the long hallways to a small bright room with a big bed in the middle. John had his eyes closed and his breathing was deep and even. He was connected to a monitor that showed his regular heart beat. The minute Sherlock entered the room he instantly relaxed.
"You can stay here if you want but your friend won´t be awake in the next few hours" Sherlock took the chair from the corner and sat down next to the bed while Lestrade stood on the other side of the bed. The doctor turned around to leave but stopped before he arrived at the door and turned around once again.
"Detective Lestrade, Mr. Holmes, can I ask you a question?" Sherlock and the DI looked up at him but the doctor didn´t get anymore of a reaction from both men so he continued.
"When we walked here I looked in Dr. Watson´s papers and found that there was nobody listed as his next of kin. Do you have an idea who we should inform about your friend´s current state by any chance?" Lestrade took a questioning look at Sherlock who himself was now deep in thoughts.
"No I can´t think about anyone at the moment. But I´ll tell you when I can think of someone" he therefore answered for the both of them.
"That would be great, thanks" The doctor disappeared through the door and shortly after Lestrade had to leave too, to finish the stack of paper work that was waiting for him on his desk.
Sherlock sat cross-legged in the chair next to John with both hands folded under his chin and was still thinking about what the doctor asked before. John´s next of kin. Who would John want to be informed when something like this happened to him. He had a few girlfriends but none of them was really important to him and not a single one stayed longer than a month. Family. Why don´t I know more about his family. Well, of course I know about Harry but I never met anyone of the Watson´s and he never mentioned a family celebration or meeting his family over the holidays. He wouldn´t want Harry to know when he was sick. The times he called her decreased and when he was on the phone with her he always sounded stressed. Probably because of her alcohol problem. So Harry is not the one to be called. John never talked about cousins, uncles and aunts but what about his parents? Are they still alive? Did John ever mention his parents? The old watch he´s hiding in the top drawer next to his bed surely was his father´s at some point but that doesn´t mean that he´s dead. But he is hiding the watch so what does that mean? John is blaming himself for something...something involving his father. He never meets anyone from his family. One possibility is that there is not much left of it but even then John is too kind to not visit the remaining members of his family. Another possibility is that something happened in the past that makes it hard for him to meet family members because he blames himself or because the others blame him for it, or even both. But what could have happened that John, the kindest and most sympathetic person I know, would avoid his own family...
Sherlock didn´t move an inch that night. He was deep in thoughts when the sun sank, when the moon wandered over the dark sky and finally when the sun rose again. He sat there with closed eyes and the nurses that checked in from time to time thought he was either sleep or meditating. Finally Sherlock came to the conclusion that he had not enough data to solve the case of John Watson. So he opened his eyes, drank some tea the nurses brought him and waited for his friend to wake up.
After an additional hour John stirred in his sleep. When he slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings he found himself closely watched by his friend who was sitting right next to him. Sherlock was wearing the exact same things from the day before, not even noticing the blood stains on his sleeves.
"You look terrible" he said noticing the circles under Sherlock´s eyes.
"Says the man who was shot only a few hours ago" Sherlock countered. He was still watching John closely, the question he wanted to ask him for hours burning on his lips but he didn´t say a word because he knew John was tired.
"What is it?" Of course John noticed the look on Sherlock´s face.
"I wanted to wait until you feel better.."
"I feel great...What is it?" John is interested in what could possibly make Sherlock so uncomfortable.
"When you were asleep the doctor told us you had nobody listed as your next of kin." John looked down at his hands and he fumbled with the bedcover.
"He asked if we knew anyone who would want to be informed...Is there anybody who would?"
"So that´s the reason why you didn´t sleep last night...you went through every conversation we ever had in your head and tried to figure out what is going on with my family..." John said to his hands.
"What happened that you avoid them so much? It has something to do with your father doesn´t it. There must have been a reason that Harry started drinking. I guess she started when you went away and joint the army. When you were then forced away she was left behind with your parents...You have an old watch that was your father´s once. You never used it so the marks are from your father. There are a lot of scratches all over the lid where you have to open the watch in order to change the batteries. You have to be careful and skilful to open the lid without scratching the metal but your father opened it with force every time and it didn´t matter to him that he thereby destroyed the beauty of that watch. He was a brutal and rough man and according to the watch he always has been that way. So he was mean when you were kids and I guess he got mad very easily." John felt sick. He didn´t lift his eyes at Sherlock because he feared that tears would roll down his cheeks.
"You never talk about your family and your father is the only one I could think of to be the reason for it but I don´t know enough to..."
"Stop" John had said that very quietly but with enough force to silence Sherlock immediately. Finally John glanced up at Sherlock and found an expression he didn´t know Sherlock was able to make. Deep concern.
"If you wanted to know about my family, why didn´t you just ask?"
"Well, because..."
"You don´t like to ask for things. You rather brood over it for hours and hours until you finally find out something you could have known in a few minutes just by asking" Now it was Sherlock´s turn to look at his hands.
"You are right, I don´t like to talk about my family very much. You know about Harry and you know about her alcohol problem. You now also know that my father was not the ideal father figure. But you don´t know the half of it." John knew he would one day have to tell somebody this story but he never saw it coming that this somebody would be Sherlock Holmes. He took a deep breath.
"My father was, as you said it, brutal. He would punish us for everything we did wrong. Sometimes he just did it for fun when he was drunk. I took a lot beatings to protect my sister and my mother but at some point I couldn´t do it anymore. I had to leave or I would be stuck there forever. Harry wasn´t so lucky. She could find the courage to just leave home behind so she stayed and it destroyed her. I was in trainings camp when I got the message that my mother was in the hospital so I got a few days off to visit her. The moment I entered the hospital room I knew it was him. She had been beaten really hard, had bruised ribs and a swollen eye. It took some time but after a while I found out that she had met a friend after work and had come home an hours later as normally. That was his reason to beat her nearly to death. Harry was already drinking at the time so I was the only to stand up against him so I confronted him at home. I only had to tell him to let my mother alone and he attacked me. But this time I was trained enough to fight back. I didn´t know that he had a gun...everything went so fast...one second we were fighting for the gun and the next there is a loud bang and he lies bleeding on the floor. I tried to stop the bleeding and called an ambulance but it was too late. He died before the medics came.." Sherlock hadn´t moved while John was telling him this. He knew some parts of this story through his deductions but to hear it directly from John made it more intense and he felt truly sorry for his friend.
"It was an accident and the police knew my father from bar fights and other stuff so I could walk away from it without bigger problems. My mother died soon after this accident, Harry´s drinking problem got even worse and I avoided any contact with family members after that" Sherlock wanted to say something. But what? What do you say after hearing a story like that?
"I..." in this moment the door was opened and the doctor came in. Sherlock threw an apologetic look at John.
"Ah, Dr. Watson, you are awake. How do you feel?" After the doctor checked John´s vitals and heard that he was feeling okay despite the fact that he was shot the other day he turned around to the door but then again remembered the question of the next of kin.
"Uhmm...I already asked Mr. Holmes here but I would like to ask you now in person. We need to have somebody listed as your next of kin. So who do you want to be called first when something happens in the future? " John´s look turned very sad and it hurt Sherlock to see is friend like that. When he noticed that John couldn´t think of anyone he looked him directly in the eyes and said without blinking:
"The name is Holmes. Sherlock Holmes"
I needed a long time to get this together but I think it turned out okay.
Hope you liked it! I´m still open for new ideas if anybody wants a special story:D