Got My Eye on You
A post-Episode Three story arc. Here be spoilers for The Empty Hearse
Chapter 72 The Good Man -Part three
When Greg woke up the next morning, Sherlock was gone. So was the phone. It was a Sunday, so he strolled to the local newsagent, and then saw that the tabloids were already shouting the story- "Return of the Dead Detective". Someone leaked that in a hurry.
For the next couple of days, he decided he'd leave Sherlock alone. There'd be enough people buzzing around Baker Street, making the man deal with emotional reunions. And Lestrade had work to do. He called the HAT team and told Chambers to assign the Whitechapel skeleton case to his team. He'd sit on it for a few days. The skeleton was going nowhere, and it might make a suitable homecoming present for a certain consulting detective, once he got bored enough with the paparazzi hanging about the flat.
Watching the morning BBC news24 channel over a coffee, Greg noticed that none of the footage in front of Baker Street showed John entering or leaving the flat. He wondered when the doctor would get over his anger. He hoped it would be soon. Sherlock without John was less effective, less grounded, more volatile. That punch had hurt Sherlock more than he'd admit.
Lestrade was on his way into the kitchen with his empty coffee cup when his phone went off. One look at the caller ID, and Greg started to smile.
"Hello, Sam*. How's it going? Are you home this weekend?"
"Yeah. I've seen the news. How is it even possible?" His eighteen year old nephew didn't bother to hide his excitement. He could imagine the lad turning circles as he spoke on the phone.
"Well, you know Sherlock. He's capable of surprising most people."
"Have you seen him, spoken with him?"
"Yes, yes I have."
"Then I'm telling Mum you're coming to Sunday lunch today. I want to know everything."
His nephew ended the call without waiting for Greg's reply, leaving him smirking at the phone. It would be good to catch up with Sam. He'd started university in October, and Greg hoped that it was proving to be as good as the youngster had hoped it would be.
On his drive up to the north London suburb of Collingwood, Greg thought about how Sam would be dealing with Sherlock's sudden return to life. His nephew had been distressed two years ago by the stories of Sherlock's suicide- but not that you'd know it on the outside. Sam was never demonstrative. He kept his head down and his mind focused on his A level studies at college. It was what he lived for. When Sam got worked up, he never showed it, just became, if anything, even quieter. Greg had learned over the years that if he poked too much, eventually Sam would snap into a meltdown. So, he'd not pressed things. He'd been too depressed about the whole thing himself.
It had worried Carole so much. Greg remembered their conversations.
"You know what Sam thinks of Sherlock; he's put him on a pedestal for years. Now what kind of role model has he turned out to be? Someone Sam looked up to, and the guy goes and commits suicide. For God's sake, that's all I need! I live in dread of missing signs of depression. It's not easy to detect in people like Sam. He's just gone so quiet. He's never had 'friends'; tries to slip into and out of college without anyone noticing him. I'm so frightened of him being bullied. If it weren't for the school reports saying that his marks are exceptional, I'd be terrified."
She wanted to know if Sherlock had been depressed. "Surely, he must have been, Greg. All that stuff coming out in the papers? The drugs? Damn it, if you knew about that you should have told me, and I would have never let Sam anywhere near him. As it is, he practically worshiped Sherlock, and now he's learning that the man was an addict and a fraud."
"No, he wasn't. Not a fraud. That's just someone having a go at him in the papers. I know…" Greg then corrected himself. "...knew Sherlock; worked alongside him for years. The investigation will prove him innocent."
"That doesn't change the fact that he used drugs and killed himself," she snapped. "Just try to talk to Sam. He needs help to understand that this isn't something that is going to happen to him. Being a teenager is hard enough for normal people; for him, it's tougher. They say that suicidal thoughts are something that more than half of all people on the Spectrum will suffer. I can't just ignore this, Greg."
So, while he was sitting at home, suspended on gardening leave while the Yard investigated Sherlock's cases, he'd tried to talk to Sam. Tried hard, but without much success. The more Greg tried to be there for Sam, to be a friend with whom he could talk, the more Sam ignored him. In the end, a couple of months after the funeral, Greg was surprised when Sam finally accepted an invitation to spend a day up at Silverstone, watching a Formula 1 team practicing. As they drove up the M1, Greg tried to raise the subject.
"You alright, Sam? About Sherlock dying and all that?"
Sam just looked out the window.
"It's not like he was depressed. He wasn't. And he wasn't a fraud. I don't know what happened up there on the roof, but you shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers."
"I don't. I'm not stupid."
"Never said you were, mate. Just talk to your Mum every so often. She worries."
The skinny youth shrugged his bony shoulders. "That's her problem, not mine."
They spent a couple of hours watching the Williams team put their cars through their paces, testing the engines and their pit procedures. Sam was rapt with attention, and when they were walking back to the car, he nodded to himself. "Yeah. I've decided."
"Decided what?"
"I'm going to try for a place at uni. I know Mum thinks that I should go for an apprenticeship scheme at a car factory, but that's going to be too boring. Shop floors are full of too many people. Oxford Brookes has got a great BSc in automotive engineering; they won the Student Formula Team competition last year. I just have to get As on my A levels, and hope that they don't want to interview." It was the longest continuous set of sentences Greg had heard out of Sam for months.
"You'll do fine at an interview; just steer the conversation onto Formula One, and you'll amaze them." Greg was delighted, but held back his enthusiasm, lest it put the boy off.
On the way home, there was a companionable silence. Greg let him 'not talk'. That was something he'd learned from Sherlock, on the odd occasion when the consulting detective and he had spent any time together away from a crime scene. "You have no idea how difficult it is, Lestrade, to have to deal with people who want to talk all the time. Just makes me want to shout 'Shut up'. Silence is bliss; let's me think without being distracted."
So Greg was surprised when his nephew initiated a conversation. They'd just passed Watford Junction heading back into London, when Sam suddenly blurted out, "He told me I should go to university. Said it wouldn't be too boring. He said, 'Get to grips with the engineering theory; you'll like that more than having to talk with the grease monkeys .' I think he's right."
"That's great advice; good decision. Who told you this, Sam? One of your teachers at college?"
"No. It was Sherlock; he said I should never settle for what other people thought was good for me. I respected him. I get to choose, and I choose uni."
Greg realised then how wrong Carole was. Far from being a bad influence, Sam saw Sherlock as someone who made his own way through the world without compromise. His vision blurring a bit, Greg gave a shaky laugh. He could hear the baritone voice in his head. Sentiment, Lestrade? Don't be a bore.
And now, as he parked the Audi in front of Carole's house, he realised he was looking forward to telling Sherlock about what Sam had been up to during the two years he'd been away.
oOo
All day Monday, Greg kept an eye on the media coverage of the "Return of Sherlock Holmes". Because the man had refused all requests for an interview, the journalists' focus shifted to the steady stream of would-be clients turning up at Baker Street to the amusement of the waiting photographers. Some were admitted by Mrs Hudson, some were turned away. By late Monday afternoon, a note appeared, tacked to the door. "GO AWAY-YOU'RE BORING." That brought a smile to Lestrade's face. For a man who loathed contact with people he didn't know, Sherlock would be reaping the benefits of his instant celebrity status, combined with a two year backlog of clients bringing just the sort of weird and wonderful puzzles that the consulting detective loved. He will be able to pick and choose the most off-the-wall ones he can find. It would be light relief from the drudgery of the previous two years' undercover work.
Lestrade was working through the initial forensic report on the Whitechapel case when a thought intruded. He wondered if he had told Sherlock enough about John. He'd been so tired on Saturday night that he hadn't come out and said it as plainly as he probably should have. With hindsight, he regretted not being blunter with Sherlock over that plate of pasta. He should have said, No, Sherlock, I didn't tell John that you jumped to save his life, to stop the assassin from killing him. That's because John felt responsible enough for missing your suicidal intent; if I let him listen to the phone recording, he'd know that you jumped to save him. Knowing that would have broken him even more. But, now that he knows you are alive, you need to tell him the truth.
Was it his place to tell Sherlock? Would he welcome Greg's advice?
By Tuesday, Lestrade was still wondering whether he should push the issue with Sherlock. Whatever John might have done at first contact, Lestrade knew that Sherlock would be better for patching things up. And he figured John would too. They're both stubborn, and both in pain.
Over a cup of excruciatingly bad coffee from the office machine, Greg also went back to reconsider the fact that he'd been included in Moriarty's list. He now realised that Sherlock's explanation was probably a deflection. Not an outright lie, but certainly not the whole truth. The Irishman had destroyed Sherlock's reputation to the point where he wouldn't be able to work with the Met, even if Greg was alive, so putting him on the hit list wasn't about The Work. Once the Sun story had come out, there was no way he'd be working for the Met for some time, if ever. So why had Moriarty included him?
The DI figured that John was always the real target. By wrapping him up in a semtex jacket, Moriarty had exposed Sherlock's central weakness was his attachment to John. Greg figured that he'd been put on the list to stop Sherlock from scooping up the doctor and making a run for it. Sherlock had said as much that he expected a move against John, but the recording showed that he'd clearly been blindsided by Moriraty's extension of the threat to Greg and his landlady. He and Martha Hudson were in effect hostages to keep John in play. And that implied that Sherlock cared enough about the two of them for it to work. The fact that it had- and that Sherlock had not tried to contact John during the interval- was all the proof that Greg needed.
He knew better than to expect Sherlock to be able to explain it. If Sam can't tell his mum that he loves her in a way that sounds like he means it, what right do I have to expect Sherlock to be able to explain anything about what he feels about me or Mrs Hudson?
He knew enough about people on the Spectrum to just let it go. It didn't matter if Sherlock never told him what he thought about him. His actions spoke louder than any words he would never say. He'd thrown a CIA man out of a window because he had bruised and scared Mrs Hudson. He'd jumped off a roof, to make sure that John, Mrs Hudson and Greg lived. Those were facts.
To sacrifice everything he held dear- The Work, London, the comfort of familiar surroundings, faces he trusted- to push all that aside for the sake of saving a few people who had meaning to him? Well, selfish wasn't a word he'd be using to describe Sherlock in the future. Sherlock might never be able to explain his motivations in a way that Lestrade would find comfortable. So what? What mattered in the end was what the man did, not what he said. The man that he'd once called "great" had found a way to do something remarkably "good".
Author's Note: if you want to know more about Lestrade's nephew Sam and Sherlock, look back at Chapters 23, 42, 46, 48-50.
