3. Translation
I miss Mary Watson with an actual, physical pain in my heart.
You must understand how new I am to love, and how John Watson wove his dubious grasp about my psyche with his care for milk at breakfast and Pad Thai at supper. He was recently from Afghanistan and raw with the devastation of war, yet alive with the appetite for destruction that it brings. I saw him within an instant of taking his phone and will love him until the day that I die. But his wife…
Mary Morstan was the translation between John and I. She shouldered our occasional awkwardness and translated it into action before we understood ourselves. It would have been so very easy to determine a lifetime with John, but I remained realistic about his desires and allowed Mary to bewitch me a little, like she had bewitched my friend. Currently, I considered, she would be appalled at the both of us and impatient with our lack of action. If Mary was here, John would have stayed and we would have spoken to each other, even if it had required a gun to the head. Would he be able to recalibrate our friendship? Would our uneasy truce last beyond polite enquiries and guarded commentary?
Mary, it turns out, is also as irritating in death as she was in life.
"Always, Sherlock, always."
I stand in my bedroom as Molly Hooper watches dolphins regretting their friendliness towards humanity in a wildlife programme on my television in my sitting room.
"I'm sorry, but the lack of context to your comment renders it nothing more than a rather sentimental non sequitur."
"Play nice. I'm dead."
"Your rationale will only take you so far in a judicious discussion."
"Why? I'll be dead forever."
I am unable to allow this, so I return:
"Not while I live."
There is a slight pause while I realise I have been corralled rather neatly and Mary nods towards my bedroom door.
"Then you'd better get on with that, hadn't you?"
~x~
"Their brains are so developed Sherlock."
Molly and I are sharing grapes (as opposed to their more liquacious and troublesome cousin) left by a client (I suppose I have been in hospital for a while) whilst we discuss the documentary and await John's return. All sense of drama has lessened and we share a sofa in a carapace of normality which actually cheers me beyond understanding. We have eaten rice and some kind of fish which she concocted from the contents of my cupboards and a small carrier bag (a true experimental scientist) and I feel steady, I feel quiet, I feel calm.
"I have been a little troublesome recently," I begin carefully, ignoring the supposed genius of aquatic mammals and rummaging for an undamaged fruit amongst the leftovers. "I have caused… consternation ... amongst…" I pause.
"Your friends." She returns swiftly, as sharp, white teeth bite through fragile skin.
"Yes."
I have friends. I have people who care for me. I can behave badly and they will still care. I lie back amongst the cushions to consider.
(always, always)
I can make mistakes. I can be cruel, dismissive, rude and arrogant, but people who know me will still… care.
"Time, Sherlock." Molly leaves the company of delphinidae, looking me straight in the eye and I find myself shocked at the silent stealth of her beauty. "It will take a little time. John is proud, stubborn and emotional. He needs things to settle down, to find a pathway through his guilt that doesn't involve punching you in the face... and he will, Sherlock."
She truly means it and I fight down the urge to take her hand, now lying in her lap.
Molly glances away into the darkened corners of this Baker Street sitting room, where the light from the television cannot reach, then she sighs, closes her eyes and allows the flickering images to cast shadows across her face.
"He will, because he knows you are a ... a good man. He will, because he loves you."
I do not deserve such words, but accept them with the ragged thirst of a wretched survivor.
~x~
Data. Hard facts. Information. Contemplation. Memories.
Memories.
Learning from mistakes is something new, and the curse of having an expansive memory means I have too much available data to learn from. Terrible childhood events, so long repressed, have somehow paralysed my mind.
Yet here I sit, avoiding ennui and eating grapes with Molly Hooper; close enough to feel the heat from her body, but unable to deduce one single thing about her thoughts. I panic slightly, fumbling in an uncharacteristic cul-de-sac of information in an attempt to know what she is thinking. I breathe slower, calming and corralling what I see, what I hear, what I already know.
She is bright, quick, capable and aeons beyond my initial appalling judgements of her. She lives alone through choice and manages her expertise enough to gain professional kudos and recent promotion. She is self-depreciatory without dishonesty, talent without brag, and imbued with a glowing, quiet humour which enchants, intrigues and irritates almost simultaneously. I look at her, reflected in the kitchen glass and follow the lines and planes and perfect profile of her face and wonder why she sits here with me when she should be outside, beyond the bricks and glass, and owning the world around her. And then I understand; it is because she wants to be.
Suddenly turning her head, startling me, her dark eyes flash with something and I feel naked, transparent, open.
"Whatever it is you're thinking, Sherlock, you can tell me, and I will listen."
Without judgement.
Mary isn't speaking to me anymore but I know what to say and who I should say it to.
"I used to have a dog," I say, words carried across a sigh and into the great unknown. "And one day, he never came back."
4. Hands
Minutes or hours have passed but I have little idea of which, or how many. Time has become as redundant as a ticking clock to a blind man. Sherlock's words were initially slow, halting, awkward and catching in his throat as if he had been imprisoned on a lonely island without cause or need of speech, but, his hands do move as momentum allows, unravelling the tale as though weaving a skein of invisible silk, like Penelope at her loom. Long, slender fingers splay out wide and reel me in; but fists curl in frustration as true memory eludes a brain unused to poor recollections.
"More than pictures in my head, it is a feeling, an overwhelming panic that defines the loss-" Sherlock's hands are momentarily stilled, a crinkle between his brows and unaccustomed puzzlement clouding pale eyes.
"The loss of Redbeard?" Leaning forward, I curl my own fingers inward as the urge to touch soft stubble across his cheek is overwhelming.
He looks up at me: sadness.
"The loss of hope."
Something had changed in his home, his family dynamic, that day and it had never been put right. A growing, clouding fear, even horror, had poisoned nights and days and leached away true memories and accuracies. He lifts pale fingers (trembling slightly) to overcrowded temples, as if urging thoughts to return and explain themselves.
"He never came back. We never found him, and things were never the same again. Mycroft went away to University, we moved away after the fire... or something like that. I just can't see it clearly. Clarity, logic, firm deductions and eventual outcomes. These have been my adult aspirations to rid myself of things I cannot explain."
"Everyone determines to make some sense of the world, Sherlock. It's what I try and do in my job every day, but sometimes you can't see what shaped you." The clock ticks out four beats before his eyes find mine, sunken and shadowed but still his own. "So, if you couldn't make sense of your early life, you decided you'd make sense of other people's mysteries… and a pretty good job you made of it too."
My smile is pretty lame, but he sees my efforts and rewards them with a smile of his own.
"Thank you Molly Hooper," he says, hand uncurling and reaching out for mine. "For being my friend, in a world full of loss (warm, dry, strong fingers hook around my own and hold them still), thank you."
"There is hope Sherlock." It is my voice now dry and crackling. "There is always hope."
And we sit, suspended in a moment, an in-breath, a tock-less tick.
Then -
"Sherlock! Molly!"
The squeal of a yielding lock and dull thunk-thunk of an opening door; bringing the outside in and breaking the spell.
"Bloody Tube again!" John Watson is stomping his feet and uttering curses between the loquacious flapping of a saturated umbrella. "AND, it's pissing it down - for a change!"
Sherlock looks wide-eyed momentarily then relaxes into the trust we have and smiles at me, and it almost disarms me completely, as a totally unbidden lump forms suddenly in my throat and threatens to spill out of my eyes. He sees it all in a nanosecond (of course he does) and grips my hand tighter;
(whispering)
"If you don't cry, I'll tell you a secret, an entirely accurate one."
"Mmm."
(steps upon the stair)
I swallow and he looks so pleased, I will my brimming eyes to dry up. Sherlock then leans in and my hindbrain does nothing to evade him, but he doesn't kiss me (for God's sake, Hooper!) but brings his mouth so close to my ear, I feel the heat of his face, his beard across my cheek.
"Today," he whispers, a tiny smile curling about the words as I breath him in, "is my birthday."
~x~
Epilogue (and cake):
John and Molly are fussing about cabs downstairs. I know it will be late, since Mrs Pinkerton has been sleeping with cab company owner Mr Pinkerton's business partner and it was only a matter of time before the silk scarf in the rear window was recognised (I had warned him to be less cavalier about his dalliances. He usually was an extremely reliable and well-priced cabbie) and impatient fares were now least of his worries. How amusingly well-timed, then, was the carnally-charged utterance of my text alert.
Let's have dinner.
Irene, I am currently recovering from a near-death experience at the hands of a most unpleasant serial murderer.
There's always something, darling boy. Where would you like to go?
I'm not hungry.
But terribly thin.
You can't see me.
Can't I? I rather think that's up to you.
It is, which is why I'm going out for cake.
Well, well, well. It's about time.
For what?
For cake, my darling. Happy birthday.
Thank you Irene.
My pleasure. And I think you are hungry, Sherlock.
Goodbye, Irene.
Goodbye Sherlock.
And as I gallop down the stairs towards a long, sleek car that bears no resemblance to Pinkerton's and every resemblance to Mycroft Holmes, I stop suddenly and peer inside to where my friends are waiting-
- and I find that she is right.
I am ravenous.
The End
A/N: Thank you so much for reading. :)
(and did I mention? - this is Pt. 1. See you soon, lovelies.)
PS: Irene knows. :)
