The Case of the Moebius Trip

by ShiningMoon

When John finally gives in and accepts a case for the first time since Sherlock fell eight months ago, he finds himself in a unique position: in possession of what his client calls a time machine, and desperate enough to give it a go. If it works, he could travel back in time. If it works, he could save Sherlock.

10. Through Galaxies of Apple Trees IX

Our lips were heavens opened up
You fit like coffee to my cup
Through galaxies of apple trees you were my first clean love
And in my last clean shirt I turned around and you were gone
I never got to say goodbye
Darling, don't you see that I've found my place in the galaxy?
My love, please tell me, were you real or just a dream?
—from "Laundry Girl" by Ludo

... ... ...

John decided that springtime in 2002 was as good a time as any. Sherlock might still be in university now, or shortly out if he wasn't. And besides: this was before the first time Mycroft met John; no need to worry about popping up in his radar, being swept or wrestled into a limo or something equally ridiculous.

He had a few things to do first, though, before he could check up on Sherlock, before he could make sure that he hadn't royally fucked up the past—like figure out where Sherlock lived, and maybe get a bite to eat. Maybe, he thought, now that he was back into a time where the internet was easily accessible, find out whether his help on the case with the belladonna-laced apples had led to a more favorable conclusion.

The library John opted to visit before he did anything else was one he knew well. It was, for one, the place he had occasionally visited when he needed to get out of the flat, when Sherlock was up to something ridiculous in which John wanted no part but which he also knew better than to try to stop (when he got working on his experiments, Sherlock gained too much momentum for John to hold back, like a train, like leaping in front of a train). He'd had a few other memories there, too: it was where he had gone to spend time when he couldn't stand 221B any longer for very different reasons, for loneliness and a lack of loud noises or fumes or violin-plucking. He'd met Mary there, too, yet for all the strangeness of that encounter—or maybe because of it—the library reeked of Sherlock, of avoiding Sherlock, of missing Sherlock, of, oddly, finding Sherlock—or a piece of him, at least. The library had become his bunker when evenings with Lestrade became too uncomfortably silent after Sherlock's death, when John needed quiet that no human being—no living human being, anyway—could sense that he needed.

God, John thought as he took the computer tucked far in the back corner of the library, it's good to be out of the eighties. With any luck, his tip to the police was enough for them to go on to eventually get the bloke apprehended.

It'd be even easier to do something like that now, John thought, with the advances in genetics. It was a wonder a similar case hadn't arisen.

John rubbed his chin for a moment before querying Bachmeier belladonna apple. Several results came up—mostly articles, even a few forum posts referencing the event, but not detailing it. Finally, he stumbled across a more detailed piece.

Nolan Bachmeier, arrested for two counts of murder on March 10, 1984…John paused. Two? He'd definitely killed more than two. He read on and found that, indeed, Bachmeier was suspected of more, but there had been no way to prove the others; in one of the victims' long-abandoned flats they had even found the remains of what was probably the genetically altered apple, but the defense claimed it too deteriorated to determine that it had contained belladonna at all, and argued that any remaining traces could have been just as likely to have resulted from the apple's proximity to a pile of green and sprouting potatoes. "Too deteriorated, my arse," he mumbled to himself.

"Sorry?" asked someone behind him, and John quite nearly launched himself out of his chair in shock before whipping around to face a woman carrying a box full of books. He gawked, and then glanced back at the screen and scratched his head to keep himself from gawking some more.

It was Mary.

"Do I know you?" she finally asked.

John could not stop an, "Oh, god," from falling from his mouth unchecked, and, at the way she shrunk back slightly to the reaction said, "Sorry, no, that's not what I mean. Uh. Hello. No. You don't know me." He snapped his mouth just in time to hold back a yet.

Mary, though, seemed to have caught on. "You could've made a pick-up line out of that one," she laughed, and rested the box against the table next to John's computer.

"And I regret to have wasted the opportunity," John said, smiling, quite nearly forgetting that this Mary was not, precisely, yet, his Mary. But—but she was—
John peered into the box—piles of unorganized books, a few journals; not yet printed, he noticed, with the library's name, not yet stickered with a barcode. "You st—you work here?"

"I s'pose," she said. "You can't really call it work if you love it, though, can you?"

"I've got a friend who'd disagree."

This is your life, John Watson, he said to himself. You are talking to your future girlfriend about your future friend who you've gone back in time to—

Wait.

You are talking to your future girlfriend.

John couldn't hold back a smirk.

Oh, no. You didn't, did you? You did.

"Well, all right then, we'll take the easy way and say I do." She craned her neck and looked at John's screen. "Ooh, I think I was about nine when that happened. Are you doing research for a story?"

"Mary," he said, before he could think about it, still inwardly smiling. Watson, you sly dog, you set yourself up with this woman.

"My god! You do know me!"

John cleared his throat. "That makes it sound weird."

"Did we go to school together? Were you that kid with the funny ears who—"

"Nothing like that," said John, and then he sighed. "Actually, really, absolutely nothing like that."

"Huh," she pulled a chair from the nearest desk. "I don't think you're a stalker…or you're not a very subtle one, if you are."

"Not a stalker. Uh. But I do sort of feel like one right now."

"You do know my name, that's one more than I've got on you."

"John," John said. He shifted in his seat and leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice. "Okay, this is going to sound worse before it sounds better. Er, Mary—the short version, the, er, the creepy-sounding version, is that I know you, but you don't know me."

"I'd love to hear the less creepy version of that," she said cautiously. John watched her size up the box of books just to her right, saw her calculating the most efficient way to stand and grab something heavy at the same time. Warmth washed over his heart; that was Mary. That was the loveliest thing about Mary. She wasn't helpless; she was capable. She was ready. That was Mary.

John took in a slow breath. "Right. Uh."

Because the thing about Mary Morstan was that she had been so unlikely, had cropped up at just the right moment, and then she was so—understanding. John bit his lip and held back another smile. He'd told Mary he was going to a rubbish heap to find a time machine. She'd said, "Good luck." He'd told Mary about the case. She'd said, "Bit far-fetched, isn't it?" –But she didn't believe that at all, did she? Because she knew.

She knew.

"Um, okay. I'll just…I don't know where to start. So, I actually have met you before. But it was in…" John rubbed at his temples for a moment, "it was in 2011."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow, but leaned in farther.

"I've been time-traveling."

"Prove it," she demanded.

John pulled out his mobile, and she held her hand open, palm-up. He set it there. "That model's from 2011, I think. Er, I left from 2012. February."

She turned it over in her hands, traced her fingers over the screen. "They get bigger, do they?" she said, her disbelieving frown melting a little. "Mobile phones?"

"Touch screens are the in thing." He swiped his finger across the front, keyed in his password to demonstrate, and raised an eyebrow, waiting.

Mary glanced up at John's computer again, still turning the phone over in her hands, tracing her thumb over it like a worry stone. "You're looking up something that happened in 1984…"

"I was there." John nodded toward the photo of Bachmeier. He took in a slow breath before deciding to add, "You can't tell anyone this, but I'm the person who gave them the tip that led them to him."

"No," she breathed, "no way. I don't believe it."

"I went to his house, and I found the shed where he kept the apples, and I, er, I sort of…tested one. It was definitely poisoned."

"This was the one where he gave the apples to just pretty, young women, right?"

"What, familiar with all the serial killers of the nineteen-eighties?" Sherlock was: he once listed off all of the nineteen-eighty-ones to John as punishment for moving his mold-and-tuber experiment out of the light before it had gotten the required dosage. He'd listed the name and the method and the number of victims, pausing after each method and squinting at John, and then pausing again at the number of victims, as if mentally adding one to the number. It was, John decided, one of the absolutely most childish things Sherlock had ever done, which was saying quite a lot. Still, childish was better than dangerous or murderous.

"No." Mary snickered. "No, just—well. I thought you were looking it up because you were writing a story, because that's what I did. I was just searching for people who'd died by belladonna..."

"Mm," John said. He'd never gotten to read anything of Mary's, the novellas she wrote in her spare time. She jokingly insisted that they were too mature for him; he never pushed the issue. Even if he'd spent the preceding year and a half living with someone who had no sense of privacy, it didn't mean he had any right to inflict that lifestyle upon anyone else. God, and he wouldn't. But he—of all things—missed it.

"So," she finally handed John's mobile back to him. "You travel back in time and save innocent young women from horrible deaths at the hands of serial killers. That's very noble of you." She smiled. "And you say you know me in the future?"

"Yeah."

"Do you save me?"

"Afraid not," John said. "But uh," he cleared his throat. "Maybe more the other way around."

"Do I get to be part of a shoot-out?" She leaned forward. "I've always wanted to be part of a shoot-out."

John shifted forward a bit, putting his mobile back in his pocket and taking her hand. "You really believe me, don't you?"

"Well, of course it seems a bit ridiculous," she shrugged. "I mean, really ridiculous. Unbelievable, actually. But…there's your phone, you knew my name, not that that's really…and you look at me like…" Mary looked away, staring off into the distance, or perhaps simply at John's computer screen once more. "S'pose it sounds crazy like that, just a mobile and some really stupid details to go from. You could just be a stalker who just happens to have access to unreleased mobile phone models. But you're not that kind of bloke, are you? And look, in your pocket there," she reached forward and gingerly grabbed a piece of paper, "you've got a receipt from a sandwich shop from 1989." She folded it up and tucked it back into the pocket. "It would've faded by now if you've just had it stuffed in your pocket for that long, not that you could've possibly owned that jacket twenty years ago." She tilted her head at John's lopsided grin. "I guess it could be that you somehow got that phone, and you had someone change the date in a cash register and had that receipt printed off just in the hopes I would walk by while you were stuffed into the corner over here and believe your crazy story about time-travel."

"Oh, you mean I didn't have to go to all this effort of actually time-traveling? What a shame." John pulled out the receipt again and looked at it.

"That restaurant doesn't even exist anymore," Mary added quietly, before smiling again. "It would've been a lot of effort either way."

"So you believe me because of my receipt?"

"I never actually said I believe you," she corrected, watching John with quirked lips as he looked at the receipt and then put it away. "I'll find out for sure in a few years, won't I? Unless, of course, you'd like to show me your time machine," she winked, leaning in closer to John.

"God, I love you," John whispered.

Mary drew back, and John flushed. "You…"

"It's not…" John started. "Christ, I've ruined it, haven't I?"

"Ruined…?" Mary seemed to be chewing over the word, her shocked expression settling into a frown as she opened her mouth.

"Mary," John said before she could speak, and he reached for her hand. She pulled it gently away. "Er. Look. You asked if I saved you, and I said it was the other way around, and I meant it. When you find me, I'm going to be in an awful state. And…I'm going to really, really need you."

"Why?" Her cheeks were burning red.

"I don't think I can tell you everything," John searched his brain for the right thing to say. "But..." He shook his head. "Well, I mean, I hope I can change it. But I'm not sure how what I do now affects things, so in case I need to do this to make sure I can come back and change it…" He licked his lips. "Something…terrible…happened to my best friend." John looked at her hand. "I thought of some pretty awful things after that. But then I met you, and you were…are…amazing. God, the things you helped me through." He took a deep breath. "I needed you so much that I told you about all of this right now, so that, if you're willing, you can come into my life just the way you have to, and help me."

"So when I meet you later, you won't know me," Mary said blankly, still processing. "You'll be…well, a wreck, I guess, and…"

"I'll be sitting over there, actually," John's breath caught as he nodded toward one of the plush chairs even farther out of the way than he already was. "I came to the library to get some fresh air…I had to get out of the flat. I think I was thinking of trying to hide in the library and sleep there overnight," he mused. "Didn't want to go to my sister's, wasn't really anyone else I could…" He coughed and averted his eyes from her, staring instead at the box of untagged books. "Anyway, I'll be in a chair over there. And you'll be somewhere else in here, bringing in some donations, sorting through them.

"You'll find this…this piece of sheet music."

Mary stared, rapt.

"It won't have an author, so you'll need more information on it." John pulled the receipt back out of his pocket, almost numbly, glancing around the library, just now puzzling it out, just now realizing it. "But instead of calling the person who donated it, our landlady, Mrs. Hudson…for some reason…" he paused, let himself be mystified again, as he was the first time it happened, "you're going to call me." John leaned forward, let the breath be sucked from his lungs as he took a pen from behind Mary's ear. He scrawled his number on the back of the receipt. John swallowed. "And you'll hear a mobile just over there, walk closer, and you'll look around that bookshelf, and it'll be me, sitting there, thinking of not answering it."

"How rude of you not to put it on silent," was all Mary could say, taking the receipt from him and folding it carefully before tucking it into her pocket.

"I'll pick it up eventually, and then you'll say something completely ridiculous, and I'll hear it twice: once from the phone, and once from you, here." John gulped down the memory. "And I'll look up and see you, and you'll bring the sheet music up to me."

"And then?"

"I think you can take it from there," John breathed.

"And we…date?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah. Er. I'll let you…figure everything out."

"I do like surprises."

John smiled. "I know you do." He shifted, considered pulling away from Mary as their knees bumped together, but he held his position. "We've been dating for quite a while. And, well…one night I'll tell you this unbelievable story about someone with a time machine, and I'll go to a rubbish heap to find it, and I'll go back in time, and here I am." He thought of Andrew's words from 1989 and sobered slightly. "I don't know what's going to happen before I go back. I might…I might be able to help my friend. I don't know if that will change everything or…or if I'm going to make the universe implode, or what, but…if it is even remotely humanly possible, I swear I will come back to you and tell you what happened. I can set what time I want to go to, so…to you it'll seem like I was only gone a few hours, or a day or two…" He shook his head. "I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry. I don't even know if you…er. Well. You didn't exactly sign up for this, did you? I'm just…asking. If that would be okay."

"It's a bit to take in," she said, obviously still in awe.

"That's not it," John ran a hand through his hair. "Well, that's not entirely it."

"Good job I'm already sitting, then." She gave a dazed laugh. "What is it?"

"You're, um…I think…I can say…without a doubt…the most fantastic girlfriend I've ever had. You will be," he amended, and added with a small smirk, "and I mean that in every way you can possibly interpret it."

"Golly." She blushed.

"I think that before this time machine thing came up…I was going to marry you. But…"

"But…?" she reached forward, laid a hand on John's hesitantly as his face twisted through a pained grimace. "But…you came back in time to help your friend. Was your friend…"

"I don't know," John shook his head, nearly choking on his own confusion. "I…Mary, if I can save him, I…I want to warn you that…I'm going to need some time to think. And if I can save him—when I save him—I'm going to…to move back in with him. Whatever else he is, and hell if I know anymore, he's…Christ, there's no way for this to not sound bad now that I've told you about me dating you."

"You love him more than anything else," Mary guessed. "Is that about right?"

"Yeah—yes. I mean, I'm not…well. I don't know."

"Yes, you do," she said softly. "It's fine. You know, I once had a boyfriend I never had sex with."

"Well, that's not…" John started, and then paused, his eyelids fluttering as he thought about it. He met her eyes, sober, sincere. "Do you think you can date me, knowing that I'll leave thinking of proposing and come back…"

Mary seemed to be steeling herself. "Do you love me, when you're dating me?" she asked, squaring her shoulders.

"God, yes. I do right now. But it's not," he struggled for words, "not really…the same as…"

"Of course it's not." She bit her lip. "God, I dunno. I only just met you, how can I know? I might change my mind."

John nodded. "Right…er…yes." What would happen if she did? Would he…would he not take the case? Would he…would things go bad, and worse, and worse instead? If they did, would he blip out of existence? But Mary couldn't just not…he had obviously set this up before.

"I mean, what if I don't want to stay here?" she said. "I might get a better offer. Become a…well, an actual librarian, rather than an assistant librarian. You're not saying I should…I can't just…stay here for…I mean, what if this is just some joke? I'm not going to stay here just in case you're for real," she finished decisively.

"Oh," John said. Right—Mary had mentioned this. It made sense, now—it had come out so odd, when she'd said it. She'd said, on one of their dates, "I should've known I'd never get the librarian position," and then, when John had asked when she'd applied for that, she'd said, "Oh, years ago, must've been five or six." When he'd asked why it was suddenly on her mind now, she'd been silent about the matter, and then made something up about thinking of applying again. (She tapped her index and middle fingers in a rapid alternating pattern when she lied.) "No, er—I mean—you don't—" she did have to believe him, she did, but pushing back against Mary's will was never, evera good idea, "I mean, I guess…it would be stupid of me to think you'd change your life around this. Just…er…you know. That's how it happened for me, when it happened to me, and…I thought…I don't really know how all this works, but…"

Mary's eyebrows rose.

"Time seems like it's kind of…sticky. Like it wants to keep on happening the way it did," John tried to explain. He thought of Andrew. "Things just want to try to be how they…how they are, I guess. And that's what happened to you before. Er, later."

"Okay," Mary breathed in and out a few times. "Okay, yeah. I see."

John nodded, and then felt a laugh bubble up his throat. Mary raised her eyebrows. "I can't blame you. How ridiculous must this sound? You've gotta be…creeped out." He ran a hand through his hair. "You're more than ten years younger than me right now, for god's sakes, and at your age—what are you, early twenty-something?—that's quite a difference."

The corners of Mary's lips tipped up again. "Well, up until about fifteen minutes ago, you really weren't my type, but, I dunno, John, Mister Time-Traveling Hero with a Tragic Past, trekking through space-time against all odds to save the man he loves," she rattled off, "seducing and setting himself up to date strikingly clever and beautiful women in his time of need to help him overcome his woes, and all the while solving crimes and eating sandwiches at historical sandwich shops…" She grinned, "I guess if I run into you about ten years down the road I might change my mind."

John grinned back. "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be flattered or insulted."

"Flattered," Mary said, "definitely."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, if I decide to date you, even knowing you're gonna be totally miserable at first, and even knowing of the inevitable fate of being abandoned for a better man than I," she winked, "that's pretty flattering, isn't it?"

"Well, when you put it that way…"

"But I haven't made my mind up yet, of course."

"Right."

"And I'm not gonna stop dating in-between," she said, "and if I already have a special someone and you turn up, I am not breaking up with them for you," she listed off. "Even if you are a time-traveler."

"Of course."

"Good."

John felt like sun and crisp morning air, like marshmallows melting in a cup of hot chocolate. It was nothing like puffs of winter from his mouth as he ducked under crime scene tape; it was nothing like the crackling ozone of being a lightning rod. It wasn't like that—it wasn't a thing like that—but it was still, given that, rather nice. Mary's eyes sparkled; she knew, she didn't mind.

"Can I kiss you, John? You know, bit of a…test run? See if I like it?"

John ran a hand through his hair and chortled. "You know, the first time we kissed, I wondered why it felt so much like you knew something I didn't." His eyes shone. "You were practically glowing, like it was this amazing, magical thing that we'd just done, and I couldn't help feeling like maybe you were right."

"I guess now you know," she puffed a laugh through her lips, drawn taut with her smile, her cheeks puffing up, the corners of her eyes wrinkling.

"It was almost too perfect." He leaned in and whispered, "Now I know it's because you had practice."

John closed the distance between them and their lips connected, Mary's as soft as John had ever remembered them; softer. She straightened her back and ran her tongue along the bottom of John's upper lip, and then nipped at his tongue as it ventured into her mouth. John dipped his head and swooped up, lifting Mary with him into the blinding white behind his eyes before gently pulling back.

"Wow," she whispered.

"Yeah," John said. "God."

"Is there anything else I need to do?" she asked, settling closer but still managing to be all business. "If I want to…you know…"

"Dunno," said John, "I guess…it'll just…happen. I'll make sure to mix the sheet music up so that you get the unlabeled one amongst the others."

"I mean…for you," she muttered. "Not just later, but…also…right now. Your friend is…I mean. Well. Is there anything I can do?"

"You're doing fine just as-is." John smiled. "Really. And…and thank you. I can't thank you enough. All you need to do right now is just…keep smiling like that."

"It's quite exciting, isn't it?" she laughed. "If—well, if it happens," she paused, gauging whether John understood what she meant by it, "and you leave me there waiting for you to come back…I'll be dying to hear about how you saved him. You have to tell me."

"I will."

"Anything else that I can help you with while you're here?"

"Actually…yeah. I'm…I'm making sure Sh—uh, my friend, is doing okay, that I didn't mess anything up mucking about in the past. I need to find where he is."

"Phone books?"

John nodded. Of course, he'd bet money that Sherlock wasn't in any sort of phone book, but much as he hated to think of the idea,he did know of someone who was likely to be there, and could probably locate Sherlock for him at this time.

Mary was already retrieving the phone book by the time he caught up.

"What's his last name?"

"Actually…" John said, "I don't think he'll be in there."

She simply looked up and waited.

"Look up…look up Sebastian Wilkes." When Mary gave him a curious look, John clarified, "I know they knew each other in university, so he can probably tell me where to find him, or at least tell me who I can ask."

"Oh," she began flipping to the W's. "Sure. Here," she pointed. "There's two. Which one, do you think?"

"Mm," John looked at the addresses. "I don't really know anything about him, but I'd bet anything that first one is his father's." He pulled out his notebook. "I'll write them both down, either way," he said, flipping it open. John paused at the map Sherlock had drawn.

"What's that?"

John laughed. "I told him I was lost." He paused, and specified, "This is from 1984."

"He was younger, then."

"Just a little kid."

"God," Mary breathed, and John lifted an eyebrow. "That's so romantic."

John flushed. "It's not—" he started, and shook his head, continuing to flip through the pages until he reached the nearest blank to the front. "Never mind." He scribbled down the addresses. "Thanks. I think I'll—well. I'll be off to look into this, now."

"Sure," Mary smiled. "Yeah. I need to get back to work, anyway."

John ran a hand through his hair. "I hope you…" he paused. "Well, at least, I know when I met you, you were crazy about your job. I just kind of assumed…"

"Oh," Mary said, "Yeah, I…I like it. I just don't want to promise…you know. I kind of want…well. I wouldn't mind taking on something with a bit more responsibility."

"I must just be a magnet for workaholics," John mused.

"Your friend, too?"

"It's his bread and butter. I think possibly literally, because I'm not sure how else he hasn't keeled over and died due to malnutrition." Mary giggled at that, and John pocketed his notebook once more. "I guess I'm not much better."

"No," she agreed, and then asked abruptly, as John's foot led off toward the front door, "Can I have a goodbye kiss?"

"Of course," John leaned in, and pressed his lips into hers. He paused there for several seconds before pulling back, and running one hand from her shoulder to her elbow. "Thank you—I mean it. I owe you more than I can say."

"Go," Mary nudged him. "Get going, so you can get back to me in the future and break my poor little heart and move out." Her smile was soberer than John would have liked. "Just let me visit you afterward."

"Definitely."

"Now, get out of here."

So he did.

... ... ...

John found that he was able to take a bus to at least the vicinity of where it appeared Sebastian might live—he disembarked and headed in what he was fairly certain was the correct direction. If it were just a few years later, he could've consulted his mobile to make sure—ah, well.

He was nearing the area, and started to turn the corner to the next street when he heard a voice he swore he'd heard before—

"I'm sure you understand the position I'm in, here," it said, and John paused, and its owner swept past John. It had to be Sebastian Wilkes. John paused, glancing down the street onto which he'd been about to turn—that must've been it, then; that was where he had come from. He must have just left his flat. John followed him at a distance, and tried to hang just close enough to hear him, just to make sure he had the right fellow. "No, I'm talking about a fair bit more than that," he continued, "although I've had rather enough with your ab—yes—what?"

He seemed affronted.

"No. The thing of it is, you're making it rather difficult for me to conduct serious meetings with potential clients and I—now listen here, you fre—"

Sebastian—and John was sure it was him, by now—huffed into his phone as the person on the other end spoke. John's belly was filled with a curling suspicion about who that person was.

"—Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing—we just spoke about this, Sherlock."

Sherlock's name sounded awful coming off of Sebastian's tongue, John decided, as if it were meant to be synonymous with the terrible names people called Sherlock, rather than with something more appropriate, something more like equal parts wondrous and frustrating. John shivered. Sebastian was, though, definitely talking with Sherlock. This was probably the closest to Sherlock that John would be able to get until he saved him; he held onto the conversation with bated breath.

"Well we can hardly call it breaking up, can we?" Sebastian laughed a slippery laugh. "Anyway, I—now hold on, I've only just left, you were fine th—how high are you?"

John froze.

"Look, Sherlock, I haven't the time for your theatrics right now. All I'm saying is, you need to start looking for someplace else." Another laugh, sharp and high-pitched. "Don't be so overdramatic; it's not the end of the world." And Sebastian pocketed his mobile and continued on, stopping at the corner to try to hail a cab.

How high are you?

I've only just left, you were fine then.

John glanced down the street from which Sebastian had come.

Sherlock was there—he had to be there. He lived with Sebastian—Sebastian had only just left—Sebastian was kicking him out.

How high are you?

Maybe Sherlock was just being overdramatic. But maybe he wasn't. Maybe—John shuddered and took off at a sprint down the street, playing the address of the flat through his mind like a mantra as he did. When he got to the door, he almost immediately buzzed Sebastian's room, and then reconsidered.

If Sherlock answered, he would definitely, definitely see John, up close, from the front. John could play it off as if he were visiting someone else, got the wrong address—but he doubted he could. His jaw would hang agape for just a split-second before snapping shut at the sight of Sherlock—older, again, now, or at least a bit older, no longer a child—maybe amidst a downward spiral, or maybe at the beginning of what John had witnessed in the Chinese restaurant after meeting Mycroft in 2008—high, apparently—John would have to squeeze his fists at his sides to keep himself from wrapping his hands around Sherlock's shoulders and trying to physically shake some sense into him. If he came face-to-face with Sherlock, not a hallucination, not a child, not a voice behind his head in a restaurant, not a voice from over his shoulder, but Sherlock, god knew what he would do.

Maybe, if he could sneak in some other way, he could simply peek in on Sherlock from a distance. He wasn't on the ground floor, by the looks of the address.

The door to the building creaked open, and a young woman stepped out. "'Lo," she said, pausing with her hand against the door, and John realized she was holding it open to let him in.

"Thanks," he said, and glanced at the panel of names by the buzzer. Must be the new one, he thought to himself amusedly, noticing that while none of the name tags were as new and temporary as a slip of paper, one was markedly less worn than the others. He paced quietly up the stairs and identified the door to Sebastian's—Sherlock's. John pressed his ear up against the door. He could hear a few faint noises, rustling of feet against the floor. Someone was there, and it was probably Sherlock.

There was a faint clatter and a shout, and then a heavy thud that shook the floor beneath John's feet that could only have belonged to something about as heavy as a body.

Sod 'being recognized,' John thought, feeling heat surge through his veins and slow time down. He knocked at the door. "Hello?" he shouted.

Nothing.

Fuck.

John took in a deep breath, and then stepped back, bracing himself, before lifting his leg up and, with a shout, smashing his foot against the door just beneath the handle. It creaked a little, and he gave it another go before the latch broke and John pressed his way into the room.

Oh, god.

John felt the entire contents of his chest cavity lurch.

Sherlock was sprawled out on the ground, next to an open box with supplies that had clattered out of it. He sprinted forward and knelt over Sherlock, over the bottles and boxes and blisters that had fallen out—and realized with a start that the box had been full of what usually served as treatments for overdoses of other various drugs—not that that made them any more legal; not that they, too, couldn't be used for other purposes. At least he was…well. At least he was prepared. Sort of.

Stupid, stupid git.

By the looks of it, this hadn't been intentional—otherwise, Sherlock would've been ready and prepared with the box, not desperately pulling it down from a shelf with shaking hands before collapsing. For here he was: collapsed. There wasn't blood dripping down his head and onto the floor, and his eyes were closed, this time, not that chilling-icy-open, but the sight still sent a shudder down John's spine and through his legs, making them weak, his knees threatening to collapse from below him for just a few slow, brutal seconds before his mind snapped back into trauma mode, into dealing mode, into fixing mode. John knelt beside Sherlock.

He pressed his forefinger and middle finger against Sherlock's throat, and—thank god—he was breathing, if too quickly, too shallowly, if his heartbeat was all over the place and—shit. Cocaine, probably, John thought, considering the possibilities and Sherlock's symptoms with calm and calculating ease that came back to him easily, flowing from his mind like Sherlock's deductions. He eyed the bottle of diazepam that Sherlock had probably been going for at the time. "You're gonna be fine," he muttered, preparing the injection with dexterous fingers and then holding Sherlock's elbow, carefully sliding it into the antecubital fossa, timing his depression of the plunger.

John breathed heavily, looking around the flat. Sherlock's mobile had to be someplace nearby—he'd just been using it, after all. John's hand paused against Sherlock's arm as he wiped the syringe and plunger down with his sleeve to remove any fingerprints and then carefully set it on a bookshelf, where he could deal with it later, or at least where a medic could find it and dispose of it appropriately. God, and Sherlock's skin was burning. John stalked to the kitchen, keeping his eyes sharp for the mobile, and fished ice out of the tray, wrapping it in a towel that had been thrown onto the table and hoping against hope that the towel was at least marginally cleaner than most of the ones at 221B had ended up being. He used the towel to wipe down where he'd touched the door to the freezer.

John pressed the ice up to Sherlock's forehead and tentatively slid his hand into one pocket of Sherlock's trousers, and then the other, to find his mobile.

"You'll be okay," John whispered, "you'll be fine."

You idiot, you complete idiot. What if I hadn't come by?

He might have come to—or maybe he wouldn't have.

Christ.

John dialed 999, and as he gave the address and as he listed Sherlock's condition, ran his fingers through Sherlock's hair. He'd have to leave before the ambulance arrived—the situation certainly brought up more questions than John could account for without sounding like he was insane, or possibly being arrested—but he had a few minutes. He wiped the mobile off, and holding it in his sleeve, slipped it back into Sherlock's pocket.

"Sherlock," John muttered. "My god." He ran his hands over his face before running them over Sherlock's, still hot and sweating, but cooled marginally by the swiftly melting ice left on his forehead. Rivulets of the water that weren't absorbed by the cloth flowed down the sides of Sherlock's head, and John ran his fingers through the curls, damp with ice water and sweat. "You idiot." He leaned farther over Sherlock, taking in all of him that he could. If he were more like Sherlock, he could identify every stray mark and feature that differentiated this younger Sherlock from the one he'd first met; as it was, the only word that came to mind was younger, and, beyond that, he found they looked quite the same. Of course older Sherlock, later Sherlock, his Sherlock, wasn't quite so rail-thin, the bags under his eyes not quite so pronounced, but from here, from just this snapshot, John could attribute any of it to a bad day, a long case over which Sherlock had scarcely slept or ate. If this were later, if this were the older Sherlock, if this were his Sherlock, not sprawled on the floor passed out from cocaine overdose but from sheer sleep deprivation, John would hoist him onto the sofa—or maybe leave him, and not risk waking him—and at the first stirrings of wakefulness, quietly call up some takeaway for them, and leave it sitting on Sherlock's chair, and pull out his laptop and log onto his blog and start writing up the case as Sherlock came to.

But this wasn't—well—none of them were his Sherlock, were they? Sherlock was his own. But this Sherlock was even less his, was less experienced and more desperate, maybe not even working with Scotland Yard yet, maybe only just figuring out that he was him and could forge his own path, if he wanted. Maybe Sherlock, like John, had spent some years stuck in a time when he was so unlike what anyone had expected of him that he struggled to be himself, rather than just not-what-they-think. Or maybe Sherlock struggled to be exactly what they thought. He called himself a high-functioning sociopath, didn't he? Like others called John mild-mannered, and he was sick and sick and sick of it until he let it bounce off of him, let himself reflect their assumptions on the outside, rather than letting them get in. Maybe Sherlock let them get in for too long. Maybe there was nothing John could've done for him, short of being there more, short of completely revising their history. But Sherlock wasn't broken. He'd had his days, but everyone did. Sherlock, no matter what he would argue, no matter how spectacular he was, was not so terribly different from everyone else, and maybe that was all he really needed to hear, over and over. He was different in good ways; he was things other people couldn't be. Sod what he said. He was a hero. A little hero to a lot of people. He waltzed through the battlefield of London saving lives and livelihoods. "You're not so different," John muttered. "You're like everyone else, but more amazing. You're a selfish git, but you've got just as much a right as anyone else, haven't you? Probably more." He removed the warming cloth from Sherlock's forehead and set it aside, running his thumbs over the wetness and across Sherlock's brows, letting himself be drawn downward.

John felt his breath slowing, if only slightly, his chest no longer practically bursting open. Heaviness replaced the extra volume air had taken up in his lungs; heaviness and a lower-grade panic, a long-term panic, the kind of panic that really did wear on him in the way that bursts of it did not. "Because us having a tiff about the milk every other week doesn't change the fact that you saved my bloody life, Sherlock. And I'm gonna save yours." He hoped. God, he hoped. John succumbed to the weight of adrenaline seeping out of his veins, and lowered himself onto his elbows, one on either side of Sherlock's ribcage. "Sherlock," he breathed against Sherlock's ear, and, noticing the smallness of the distance between them, pressed an impulsive, chaste kiss to the side of Sherlock's face. John shivered at the contact. John shifted his hands inward so that they rested against Sherlock's curls. He ran his fingers through Sherlock's hair until he reached his scalp, and then slowly raised them out.

He had to leave.

John ran his fingers over Sherlock's scalp again. On this Sherlock, unconscious but breathing, there was no devastating gash, no blood leaking from his head. John gently felt along Sherlock's skull—no fractures, no cracks. All John had felt before, when there was blood, when there was the gash, was Sherlock's pulse—his lack thereof. Now, as he lifted two fingers to just below Sherlock's jaw, his heartbeat was strong, if still quick. Such a fall would have broken any number of Sherlock's bones; as John lifted himself back onto his haunches, he ran fingers over Sherlock's torso, his arms, his shins. Nothing broken. Ribs: intact. His body had been rearranged by John, not splayed on the pavement by gravity and forces unknown. Nothing broken. No blood, just sleep, no blood. "Just sleep," he ran his fingers through the locks stuck with sweat and ice water to Sherlock's forehead, thumb pressing against Sherlock's cheek.

The ambulance would arrive soon; he'd be wise not to be in the process of walking down the stairs and out the door when it came. Sherlock would be fine; he was getting better. The diazepam had helped; the ice had helped; going to hospital would help, too. Sherlock would be in safe hands with the doctors once he got to them. He probably—and thank god, thought John—wouldn't remember any of this; unconsciousness aside, there was the likely fact that his overdose would result in anterograde amnesia. All for the best then, John thought as he shifted his weight to stand, and used that thought to justify lying one light kiss on Sherlock's forehead before rising back to his feet.

He glanced at the broken door and winced. Sherlock might not ever get the chance to see it—if, after he recovered, he simply relocated. Then again, whether he had anything here to collect or not, that wouldn't be like Sherlock at all. He'd want to know who'd done this. But it wasn't exactly a quick fix… With no other evidence, though, Sherlock would have to conclude that Sebastian had come back (no, because he wouldn't have kicked down the door, John thought), or one of the neighbors had heard (unless, of course, they were all gone at this hour, or something of that sort that Sherlock would immediately rule out), or that Mycroft had had a hand in it. John nodded at the door as he passed it. Sherlock would probably be the most eager to attribute the incident to something of Mycroft's doing. Anyway, there was nothing here that could link it to John. Presumably, Sherlock would have to eventually give up on it; probably, he'd be drawn away by something more exciting, something that made him think less of the possibility of his brother's involvement.

As if Sebastian needed any further ammunition against Sherlock—but John could only hope that Sherlock would soon enough be away, would be able to put that behind him.

John stepped down the stairs quietly and slid out the door. Farther down the street—far enough that he wouldn't draw attention—was a bench; he could wait outside there and make sure the ambulance arrived, that somebody finished the job he started, that somebody saved Sherlock. John took a seat there, pretending to search for something in his notebook to keep himself from staring nervously down the street.

If he couldn't save Sherlock, god, if for some reason he didn't save Sherlock and didn't die trying, he wasn't sure how he'd make it. Could he go back to the present and just keep on as before? Mary would be good to him. Mary would be good to him, and he'd try so hard, so hard to make it like it had been, but the world would be so grey. Mary was lovely but Mary wasn't enough, and he would ruin her, probably, slowly. Ruin her with worry, or else ruin her with trying to make her into something different, or ruin her by breaking her heart because whether he saved Sherlock or not, he couldn't marry Mary, not now. He couldn't go back to the military; his limp would be back, his hands would be shaking, he would be a rubbish field medic. He might not be a rubbish shot, but they wouldn't put a doctor on the front lines—they'd keep him in a tent at camp. And even then, or even if they did let him out where the action was, maybe things would still be grey. Would he hear the gunshots and catch himself searching for the mystery? The gunfire would die down and he'd be frozen in place, waiting for a clever explanation, waiting for the war to be solved like a neat little puzzle. "It was the small northeastern village you passed through last week," Sherlock-over-his-shoulder would mutter, and then detail the lives of each of its inhabitants and make John guess which one it was who had been the spy.

But there had been no Sherlock-over-his-shoulder now, here, in this time, no need for one with real Sherlock, with a younger and maybe foolhardier Sherlock, alive, just barely saved.

The world would be grey without him, just as it had been.

Andrew was right. So was Mary.

Of course there were moments he'd been along with Sherlock, or at Baker Street with Sherlock, and not been happy. But those were short arguments, bursts of anger or frustration or misunderstanding, and no matter how many there were, or how frequent they were, John knew that all in all he was immensely happier with Sherlock than without. He could at least fall asleep even when he was miserable with Sherlock, even when he was miserable at Sherlock. Maybe that was a poor example: a great many of their disagreements had been resolved by Sherlock picking up his violin at night. The music would start out vicious or agitated but that was enough for John to fall asleep, and occasionally when he drifted to wakefulness a couple of hours later Sherlock was still playing, calm and serene. Or he'd moved on to working on an experiment. Or: he was snoring, or lying on the couch talking to himself. If Sherlock were feeling particularly vindictive, he could remain completely silent at night—but he hardly ever did. John sighed, and his breath made Sherlock's hair flutter. The arrogant git just didn't know how to apologize any other way.

It was probably what they meant, Mary and Andrew and all the others—what they meant to describe, when they told John the name of what he felt, was that feeling of the world exploding around him, an IED every place he'd ever stepped, and all he could think of doing with the heat against his back and blinding light searing into his eyes was throwing himself over Sherlock, curling Sherlock's head into his chest, scooping his shoulders up, slipping an arm under his legs and pressing them in and running. Safe, safe, safe. Stay safe, Sherlock. I'll make you safe.

Sherlock had almost died, and John had saved him. What if he hadn't been there? God, oh god.

Andrew and Mary were right.

But John had never questioned that he'd loved Sherlock. He already knew that he would do any variety of stupid things to protect him: already he had killed people, already he had admitted he was willing to die for him. That, most people would agree, was love. It was a friendship more intense than many would ever experience, John knew; maybe that was why they made such assumptions about him and Sherlock. Maybe they were right, in some capacity, to have noted that theirs was more than a usual friendship.

No, John definitely loved Sherlock. That kind of fierce protectiveness that came through when they were in danger could be nothing else. But friends loved friends all the time.

What John was noticing now, realizing now, uncovering now, was that maybe all of these things that he thought about Sherlock were…were not so different, not really at all, from some of the sorts of things that couples thought about each other. Sherlock, of course, could have caught on earlier: the only explanation for all the facts was that they were a couple—they did a, b, and c, and the only people who did a, b, and c were couples, so it must be true. So what?, Sherlock would say, that they didn't shag? There was no proof that any other couple did, unless they were exhibitionists of some variety. No, Sherlock wouldn't say such a thing. He would be able to find proof, somehow. John thought of Sebastian's bitter comments back at the bank. No, Sherlock could find proof, even if no one else could.

So what?, Sherlock would say; not all couples had sex. What they were doing was clearly regarded by everyone else as a relationship of some kind; labels for relationships are defined by society (a and b and c); therefore, a relationship it was. No sex required. (No kissing required. No cuddling required. No anything required, apparently.)

Or maybe he hadn't. Maybe Sherlock had been just as oblivious as John, or more so, and the only reason he didn't correct others was because he deemed it not worth his time, deleting their words the second they came into his ears. It seemed more likely. Not his area, John thought. Well, that was fine. It was all fine. All he knew was that he felt so much about Sherlock, more than any person had a right to feel about anything, and that had to mean something. Maybe he'd tell Sherlock straight away after he saved him. Maybe he'd never tell him. If it was important, Sherlock would deduce it.

"Hardly a challenge," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, and John froze. "Did you see yourself?" John closed his eyes, knowing it was a rhetorical question, and listened to the gentle and wordless hum of Sherlock-over-his-shoulder listing exactly how John had been positioned, rolling from general features—the angle of his arms, the tilt of his head—to the smallest of details—the tenseness of his fingers, the reflection of Sherlock's closed eyes in John's wide and open and shining ones—like waves until the ambulance whirred down the street, speeding past John and pulling up beside Sherlock's flat, and John sighed with relief, and Sherlock-over-his-shoulder paused and waited as the paramedics rushed the real Sherlock out and into the ambulance.

John didn't know if what he felt for Sherlock was anything other than a particularly intense love between friends. John was used to intense, after all. He hadn't felt quite this way about any of his army friends, but that wasn't so unbelievable: none of his army friends were quite as remarkable, quite as unusual, quite as special as Sherlock. Of course anything relating to Sherlock would have to be different, more difficult, more amazing: even friendship.

John wasn't so humble that he would say he himself was completely unremarkable. He was a damn good doctor and a damn good shot, and there weren't very many people who were both of those things. But nothing about him or his life had felt so extraordinary as the minute in which Sherlock deduced him and then invited him to look at a flat, except perhaps the ten minutes they spent sprinting after the cabbie, leaping over buildings, except maybe when they had gotten back to the flat and leaned against the wall, laughing, John caneless, Sherlock's eyes gleaming…except maybe when… All of the most fantastic moments in his memory were after he met Sherlock. Even this—time travel!—it was all, in a way, Sherlock's doing. John took the case, he could admit now, in part on the completely unreasonable hope that he would be able to go back and do exactly what he was doing now, seeing Sherlock, saving Sherlock. But otherwise, Brian would have come to Sherlock with the case. John wondered if the machine could be engineered to carry two, or if he would have had to wait around (though maybe only minutes) for Sherlock to go on his own. Surely that would not be an acceptable arrangement to Sherlock. Sherlock would find a way to make room for the both of them, and they would travel through time together.

God, maybe that was a little too romantic. But Sherlock wouldn't see it that way. And if he wanted, John didn't have to see it that way either. They could be that, too, just two blokes with a relationship nobody else could understand: their loss. Whatever it was, this confusing thing that they had, it meant more to John than anything. He would put up with everybody in the world thinking he was gay (whether he was or not, god, he couldn't tell anymore—or didn't care anymore) if it meant he could go home in the evening with Sherlock, still riding a high from chasing down criminals, giggling and ordering Thai and subjecting him to bad spy movies. Now, here, John could imagine it in clear and photographic detail: Sherlock nearly leaned up against him, pouting about the numerous inaccuracies in the film. Sherlock would slouch over and lean his head against John's shoulder, and John would be a bit less sodding blind than all the times it had nearly happened before, and see the opportunity, and curl his arm up to pet Sherlock's hair. John would turn his head and, almost as if by accident, his lips would be pressed to Sherlock's temple. Sherlock could quickly scramble back, if he wanted, and John's heart would break a little, and life would go on; or, he would lean into it, and keep mumbling about how the only 'impossible' thing about the movie was the protagonist being able to chase anybody in that cut of suit. "And at that angle of strike, his shoes would leave scuff marks on tiled floor," Sherlock would say. "Even Anderson could track him down." John would squeeze Sherlock's shoulders and feel him there and he would be real and breathing and their pulses would interfere and come into line and go out of line like the rest of their lives. Constructive interference, destructive interference: as always, they would be a perfect team and then Sherlock would throw half his chemistry set across the room because John made some offhand comment about his blog having twenty times as many hits as Sherlock's that day. Like binary stars, except that for all his lack of knowledge about such things Sherlock was still more massive, was sucking John in bit by bit; he would have one day dragged all of John's being into himself, and then what? And then a nova. And then a supernova. And then Sherlock would be gone—but maybe, maybe, if they were close enough, if John had given enough away, then he would be gone, too.

But that was okay, somehow—very okay. It was what Sally Donovan and any number of others had warned him against, but what they didn't know—maybe even what he hadn't known—was that that was exactly what he wanted. His life would gravitate around Sherlock until he fell in too deep to get out.

He already had, of course.

And John had saved him, here, today. John had saved Sherlock this time, even when Andrew said he couldn't. Maybe Andrew wasn't right about everything. Maybe he was wrong about this. John had saved Sherlock, and he was going to do it again. He was going to save Sherlock, and go back to Mary with a story to tell and a suitcase to pack, and move back into 221B, let Sherlock have a field day with the dust before wiping it clean, let Sherlock call John sentimental or whatever else he wanted, as he looked at the treads on the carpet, at the unmoved furniture, at the only place John ever sat. Maybe John would tell Sherlock about this. Maybe Sherlock would deduce exactly how he felt, down to the mines, down to the fire and the bombs and the novae. Maybe Sherlock would like it. Maybe he'd set fire to something in celebration. Maybe he wouldn't; maybe they'd never speak of it again. But, John thought, but, it would be worth a try, because Sherlock was drawn to explosions like a firefly to the faint hum of electricity, subtle and unassuming and quiet.

They weren't so different.

Whatever happened later didn't matter, though, because later Sherlock would be alive, and now, no—now, John had things to do. He stood as the ambulance keened down the street and out of sight. What John was going to do now—the best way to save Sherlock—the best way to save a lot of people, but most especially Sherlock—was kill Moriarty. John nodded to himself and turned on his heel to set off down the street, opposite the direction of the hospital.

He was going to kill Moriarty.

He was going to save Sherlock.

END PART II