A/N: I know I'm the worst sort of person, super slow updates and all that. Hopefully times will be easing up now that we are headed into summer semester, but who can tell. The point is that I didn't just quit! All the people that have story alerts reminded me that some people actually want to see where this goes and so I will keep on. Thanks for reading, guys!
"John!" Jim took a moment to look surprised before he grasped John's hand and began to pump it vigorously up and down.
His name, "John Watson," rippled through the crowd in a murmur, and then a wave of light crashed over them as cameras clicked away, eager to commemorate the moment by capturing it forever on celluloid.
John's left hand clutched the bottle of pills stuffed in his jacket pocket. It was an anchor to reality when nothing else made any sense.
"Why are you here, Moriarty?" he demanded.
Jim's grin faltered at the sound of the surname. But instead of being replaced by rage as John had expected, the actor's face was steeped in pity.
"I'm just here to help with a new project in the children's wing," he said, facing the reporters, an arm reaching up to pat John's shoulder with photogenic familiarity. After a few second's pause for the flashbulbs, Jim turned to John once more. "But please, John, call me Rich."
John could almost see the teeming press surrounding the St. Bart's entrance swell and ebb in a collective sigh. The best ending to their story was coming true before their eyes, the unexpected kindling of a redemptive friendship.
"Don't need to call you anything." John tried to excuse himself, but the crowd pressed closer, and then Jim's fingers had ensnared his arm and yanked him back.
"Please, John." His wheedling voice felt intimate, as though their exchange wasn't being recorded for the nightly news broadcast. "Just give me a chance to apologize."
"For what, manipulating my friend into suicide or strapping me to a vest of explosives?"
Jim winced. "Yes, John, I'm so sorry about that. You couldn't have known that it was fake, but it was. All a trick, just a magic trick."
Which was he talking about? He couldn't tell. John was speechless, his heart thumping in a sore chest as Sherlock's last words were thrown back in his face by his killer.
"That's what Sherlock did, invented things, for his own purposes. Didn't he tell you that?"
Maybe he would have punched Jim right then, but movement in the back of the crowd caught John's eye. A mess of dark hair that stood just a bit taller than everybody else, weaving around as though trying to find the best vantage point to see without being seen. It was impossible, but John stared.
Jim took in John's far away look and hopeful eyes for a long moment, then his grip loosened and his tendril-like fingers slowly fell away. "I'm truly, terribly sorry for the part I played in it all."
His head turned to follow John's gaze. In a whisper, he asked, "Isn't there anything you'd like to tell me, John?"
John ripped his eyes away from the spectre. "What, angling for forgiveness, are we?"
"Maybe it's too soon for that," said Jim, crestfallen. "But maybe I'm just looking for a chance. I want to make up for my transgressions, get to know you better."
Jim's voice rose up in volume, and John remembered that the media was watching, primed and waiting. "I've heard you've stopped your therapy. Maybe we could go together, I know a great – "
"I haven't stopped anything." John shook his head vehemently, even though it was true. He wanted to ask where he was getting his information, but he knew the man wouldn't tell.
"Nevertheless, it'd be good for us both to work out some things, spend time together. Think about it." Then, his intense sincerity gone, Jim smiled widely and threw his arm out to the public. "Or maybe you can help with my initiative here at the children's wing. I may be The Storyteller, but there's still a hole in our program for a ventriloquist!
"What do you say, John?" Jim nudged him with an elbow. "How's your pronunciation? Gottle o' geer, gottle o' geer…"
Jim grinned at him with a wink and went on to wave at the cameras as John's blood ran cold. The places on his arm where Jim had touched him seemed to burn with ice, each one a reminder of how easy it would be for the criminal to hurt him again. His shaken hand, his patted shoulder, his nudged ribs, all a symbol of vulnerability.
He had to get out of there.
The press formed a tight shield around the steps, and he knew they wouldn't let him out even if Jim began to vivisect him right there. They'd just raise their cameras with bated breath and watch the dissection. But he could return inside and try to find another way.
John ducked back through the doors, moving as quickly as he could on his aching leg away from the shouted questions of the reporters. If he'd had the opportunity, he'd have chased down Sherlock's phantom and demanded to know why it was haunting him, but now, he needed to make sure the fist holding the pills in his pocket wasn't used for another, more tempting, purpose.
He bristled as he hobbled down a quiet hallway, off the normal path for visitors. Its emptiness made a space for his thoughts to expand. It was all too much, to be at this place where he had last seen his friend and then be suddenly suffocated by the nation's finest tabloids, all panting for a sound bite. This wasn't the way to say goodbye.
His hand tightened on the pill bottle.
Fingers wrapped around the taut muscles of his forearm. John's alarmed jerk away combined with the halt in momentum sent him stumbling.
"Please, John," Jim begged. His eyebrows puckered in concern. Try as he might, John could find no trace of sly mockery in his expression to undercut the apology in his words. "I mean it. I know that it all seems like a bit of a show out there in front of them, but honestly, I think a joint therapy session would be good for us."
"Why," yelled John, "Do you think that there is an us?"
Jim blinked and pulled away. He really did look hurt. John almost felt sorry for his outburst, but then remembered that he knew better.
Tentatively, picking his words carefully as thought they were tiptoeing through a minefield, Jim said, "I know, all too well, that no one can ever replace someone special after they've gone, nobody can fill up an important hole like that, but John, if you'd let me, I'd like for us to be friends." His eyes shone with truthful eagerness.
It didn't make any sense, the maniac John had met before was nothing like the man in front of him. His mind raked through possible explanations, but his mind would never fly like Sherlock's, and with the drugs in his pocket, John decided it didn't matter.
It was a surprisingly easy fix. His brain clicked into place, and, decision made, future planned, it was simple to just stick to the patterns he'd already become accustomed to. No time left for growth, so to stagnate was acceptable.
"Friends don't let friends explode," he told Jim.
"Or walk off rooftops," Jim shot back.
Lovely, confirmation.
John nodded shortly and continued down the hall.
"Wait, please, John, that's not what I meant," Jim called out behind him. "Really, John, please, I hope you'll reconsider the therapy. I've got it all set up, we can talk!"
John blocked out the words and focused on the sharp clarity of Jim's last comment, letting it fester within him and burn through his thoughts until there was nothing else.
'Friends protect people' was what he'd said. A tombstone proved Sherlock hadn't had any, and tonight, John counted himself lucky that he didn't either.