Ch 20 In which our hero John is counting messages and dealing with questions.
Being threatened with a gun was hardly anything new but it didn't fail to bring horror to John's heart.
"At the count of three shoot Dr Watson," the American said and John cursed his luck.
As the only affiliation, Sherlock had, John has gotten quite used to being threatened at. Luckily for him, Sherlock was good at solving puzzles.
"Should I tell him," said Irene Adler as she dived out of the window. "It was my measurements."
She referred at the code to her safe that almost got them all killed.
"He did know where to look," she said at unconscious Sherlock implying that he wasn't all that lost on women's charms as he appeared to be.
John attended to Sherlock ignoring her stabs. She was a strange woman and John had no desire to see her again.
Drugged Sherlock seemed to amuse police officers, Lestrade even made a video about it. There was nothing John could do about that so he focused himself on getting Sherlock home and put him to bed.
As he sat in the living room, after he cancelled another date to tend to Sherlock's needs, John pondered his life. Was it really worth it? To be held at gunpoint, mocked by strange women and cancelling dates so he watches over so Sherlock Holmes doesn't choke on his own tongue.
At that thought, there was a tump from Sherlock's room.
John entered to find him confused and dazed on the floor.
"Where is the woman?" he tried to find out and it took John a moment to realize that he's asking about the Adler woman.
Of course, he was, John thought as he put him back to bed, she just beat him. John wondered how Sherlock will cope with being beaten. He liked to win after all.
It seemed that he took his defeat quite calmly in the end.
John was just satisfied that was behind them when the text message came. A moaning noise, a noise a woman would make when she got an orgasm. John knew that noise quite well. Everyone pretended to miss out on the nature of that noise. Sherlock refused to discuss it but it wasn't at all hard to deduce. The coat was back on the hanger, his phone was in that coat. The Adler woman took the phone and made that noise. She texted Sherlock.
John was annoyed with that sound and unconsciously started to count messages. The number just stuck in his head as an invisible counter. What was she texting Sherlock about? What could she think to write in forty messages?
Did Sherlock reply? If he did, what would he say?
In all of this, John wondered how would their meeting went. He tried to picture Sherlock somehow engaged with the Adler woman but it eluded him. He just couldn't picture Sherlock in any sort of intimate or romantic relationship with a woman. With anyone in fact.
'Married to his work' was what he told John that first night and it proved to be true. There was no one, Sherlock didn't let out any sign of any physical interest in anyone. The man barely remembered when to eat.
Still, the messages kept coming and Sherlock would look every time and just put the phone away.
It irritated John, not knowing. All he wanted to know was does Sherlock reply when John's not there. Why would he wait for John to be out of the room? If he doesn't reply, why is she so persistent?
He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he missed out on something Janette said and she noticed his absentmindedness.
"What was so important for you not to listen to me?" she crossed her arms across her chest, which was a bad sign.
"I just thought," John tried to think fast. "How you must come to Christmas to our flat, everyone will be there. They come around, you should too."
That was a good move, it made her smile.
"To meet Sherlock," she was satisfied.
"Yeah," John said carefully but then paused. "You know he's a bit rude."
"You like him, so will I," she said simply and John thought how that's going rather well.
Then at the party, Sherlock was rude enough to list all his girlfriends since he moved in and managed to insult her in the same sentence. John moved her away from him just to witness the most painful car wrecks he ever witnessed.
Sherlock was irritated at pleasantries so he went out on Molly to deduce away just to discover what everyone except him knew, that the big gift was for him as it was the dress. To see up close just how bad is Sherlock with women was just fascinating and he spoke so fast that there was no way of stopping him and sparing him the grief.
Then, to John's utter surprise, Sherlock did something John thought he never does. He apologized, really apologized and placed a kiss on Molly's cheek. That was a sight John thought he'll never see, Sherlock acting like a human being, just admitting his error, recognizing it.
Then the damn noise came again, and Molly started to apologize.
"57," John said out loud the current number of those texts.
The sheer amount was annoying, who had that kind of persistence to someone not answering?
Sherlock seemed upset this time, not just dismissive as usual.
"Excuse me," he said leaving the room.
"What's up, Sherlock?" John was alarmed now. "Do you ever reply?" he had to add.
It bugged him. Does he ever reply and was he going to his room to reply? Why would he do that? He was a mysterious man but never a man of secrecy.
After a short hesitation, John left the chattering guessing and went to check on Sherlock.
He approached the door just to hear him say the woman's name.
"You're going to find her dead," he said flatly and John froze.
That wasn't a good thing. Even if John didn't like her, that wasn't a good thing. The 57 texts and then she's dead. That wasn't right.
"Are you ok?" John asked all worried.
"Yes," Sherlock shut the door to John's face.
There was nothing usual in Sherlock closing his door on John like that. He was the one to seek out attention at all times. John returned to the party to tell them that the Adler woman died. That Sherlock thinks she did. Everyone went quiet. John had no idea how to approach this.
Did she mean enough to Sherlock for him to mourn her death? Could he mourn? Did he know how to do that?
"Stay with him," Mycroft said when he called from the hospital.
"I have plans," John tried to defend his private life from the invasion of Holmes brothers but he knew that was a lost fight.
"No," was all that Mycroft said and hung up.
And that was it, another girlfriend lost to Sherlock Holmes.
"Sherlock Holmes is a very lucky man," said Janette leaving him implying that he's Sherlock's boyfriend.
John was tired of that assumption. Sherlock wasn't his boyfriend, if he was he would surely have a much better time than scouring through his drawers in the search of the stack of drugs, cigarettes, or whatever Mycroft expected of him to find.
Janette was gone, everyone left and John was alone at Christmas Eve waiting for Sherlock as he really is his patient wife. He eased up that feeling with a glass of wine and a book.
"I hope you haven't messed up my sock index," was all Sherlock said upon returning but then again the Adler woman died.
For some reason, John was expected to act as that meant something. They saw that woman one time, she beat up Sherlock more severely than John in his anger and drugged him. Why would that constitute for an emotional affair, for a connection to Sherlock? That should go to 'stay away from me' category of things.
Yet, instead, John had to stand sad violin playing for days to follow.
"Has he ever got anyone, boyfriend, girlfriend," he tried to find out from Mr Hudson but she knew as much as John did.
Mycroft implied for Sherlock to be a virgin and he might be the one to know. Still, that was a disturbing thought. Sad somehow. And unlikely. There was no real reason to be so. Surely, even Sherlock could get curious at some point in his life.
If it was really so, it could at least explain that the Adler woman could have an impact on him just for beating him. People were strange like that, unpredictable.
Like that Adler woman just popping out alive. John was so angry to see her alive.
Then again, instead of having any response of human decency she played her games and asked him to help her. As he would ever help her steal anything from Sherlock.
"He never text me back," she said to John and he was in awe to that.
Not once on 57 messages. He always replies, to everything, just to start a fight.
"Does that makes me special?" she said sweetly.
"Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes," he said once again defending himself from being a couple with Sherlock, if they were a couple there would be more pleasant things than just staring at him playing that damn violin. "And if anyone out there still cares I am not gay."
With that line, there was that damn noise again, announcing to the world that once again Sherlock followed him around. How the hell will that help not making them a couple if he keeps following John wherever he goes?
"I don't think so," the Adler woman stopped him from running after Sherlock.
He stopped just because he wasn't sure what he would say to him. To what level of emotions did this qualify? If he mourned is he now angry like John was or was it something else.
When he got rid of the Adler woman, John ran anyway but was unable to catch up with Sherlock.
He was worried for him so he hurried back just to find Mr Hudson in tears and that damn American at gunpoint. Seeing the state of Mr Hudson John had no will to complain about Sherlock's methods. That awful woman brought this on Mr Hudson. That bloody phone.
John was worried for Mr Hudson beyond words, she looked so fragile, but then the two of them proved him wrong. John watched them in disbelief as Sherlock hugged her and smiled. There was a relief in that scene. Sherlock again acted like a human being, like he's after all capable of love. But why would he choose to love a woman like Irene Adler was beyond his comprehension?
Like a bad habit, Irene Adler came back.
"John, we have a customer," Sherlock said and there she was lying in Sherlock's bed as she belongs there.
John smiled at the sight because she looked ordinary, without her makeup she wasn't anything special.
The two of them sat like they would with any client but John, unlike himself, turned his back to her and busied himself on his laptop.
Sherlock was back to his old self, confident and cocky, as he should be and had her phone at hand just as John made a fool of himself making an elaborate plan for nothing.
Then he proved to be even cleverer when he switched the phones but the Adler woman was ready to see the false phone. Then it happened.
They looked at each other intensively satisfied with how clever they both are and John could finally see it. He could picture Sherlock crossing that step between them and kissing her fiercely.
"Hamish," he blurted out at the image. "John Hamish Watson, just if you were looking for baby names."
He turned back to his laptop awkwardly and they continued to talk.
"Go on, impress a girl," she said to Sherlock and he did show her just how he's clever, in just a few moments he knew everything about the flight.
"I would have you right here, on this desk until you beg for mercy, twice," she said to Sherlock and to his horror John could picture that quite vividly.ΒΈ
Unlike John's mind, which was stuck in that image, Sherlock's mind kept working. Soon he solved the puzzle and then got stuck, as he does on the piece of the puzzle. He held his violin and sat in his chair.
Usually, John would sit in his chair and took newspapers or a book and wait for him to come back from his mind palace, but now the Adler woman was here and she sat in his chair.
That was awkward. It was awkward to just be in the apartment with the two of them. He couldn't think of what he would do in his room. He just slept there, he spent most of his time down here. With her, in his chair, it was just nothing to do and he didn't want to chit chat with her about anything.
"He'll be like that for a while," John said to her. "Don't be alarmed if he speaks, he speaks to me even when I'm out. Help yourself with something in the kitchen. I'll be off."
With that he was out of the street, texting anyone to get to a pint with him. He needed some normality now. That is there, with that woman, wasn't anything normal nor comforting. John would choose comforting and normal any day of the week. He even considered Sherlock to be normal in comparison to her.
When he got back, everything was already sorted. Sherlock was back in the flat and the Adler woman was out of their lives.
"The woman lost," was all that Sherlock said to him.
After that, there were pieces of information here and there but John wasn't paying attention to the details but to the tone of Sherlock's voice and he could hear the contempt clearly. That made things easier. It was just a fight the two of them had against each other. That was easier to handle than a possibly heartbroken Sherlock.
It would be nice to have a confirmation that Sherlock has a heart, but not over that kind of a woman. John had no idea over whom Sherlock would get his heart broken but that was probably for the best. Sherlock liked to be married to his work anyway.
Everything was sorted as it should be, but then Mycroft came with the news of her death and John was again hit by sadness for Sherlock. If he cared, that was just disheartening. It was one not to want him to get involved with her, yet another for her to be just so brutally dead.
As he brought the news to Sherlock John tried to see was he affected, did he knew like he usually did but it was hard to look at him and pretend at the same time.
"The phone," Sherlock extended his hand not looking at John.
John hesitated. Mycroft gave no instructions about handling the phone, but he didn't want to give it to Sherlock. There's no need for him to carry a reminder like that, it was painful to have something to always remind you of a loss.
"Please," Sherlock said and John complied putting the phone in his hand.
After that, he returned the file to Mycroft and was unable to tell him did Sherlock believe the story, was he affected how was he affected.
Still, John knew he was affected deeply. Not because of Irene Adler dying, but because of Sherlock hurting. John hated to see him hurt.
"My brother has a mind of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce of his heart?" Mycroft asked and John refused to play along.
John would never say it out loud because it would mean expose Sherlock and his secrets to the world. The secret was that Sherlock did have a heart and that out there was Moriarty trying to burn it out of Sherlock.
Was this Adler woman a part of that play?
John didn't know. Like he didn't know was Sherlock really capable of feeling things like other people did, but he knew he wasn't willing to play by the same rules.
That's why he let Sherlock deal with his inner emotions as he felt fit. It was his inner emotional life, after all, something private. John was the last person who could object at someone being closed up. He wasn't even willing to replay his own reactions to the Adler affair, let alone guess Sherlock's.
They were back on the streets, doing the cases. John sat in his chair reading as Sherlock was thinking. Only occasionally he would lift his gaze up to see him there frowning and making faces. Often those faces made John smile.
That was enough for John to know that Sherlock was alright. After all, he was more thought than a feeling. Maybe it was best that way.
I had a pause of a few years. I'm back to fill in this void to the third season. And I started a new story which continues from third season onwards. I finally got an idea where this goes.
Sorry for the length of this but I didn't feel like breaking it to pieces. The painful episode to put behind us. And did you notice how this episode was all about Sherlock's and John's relationships with women and how poor they are?
Do feel free to review. Till the next time.