Chapter 3: Memento.

"Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join our dance?"

-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

The rise to awareness was sudden. One moment, John was floating in the darkness, and then he was propelled upwards into the light, suddenly gasping for air. The brightness hurt his head, and he doubled over, holding his head in his hands. He focused on his breathing, trying to regain some sort of control. In and out. In and out. The pain faded into the background, and with his eyes closed, he quickly judged his situation.

He had been knocked out by Moriarty. But the blow from the pistol should have knocked him out for a minute or so, maximum. The change in setting; he was on a couch; meant that he must have been drugged shortly after. With some trepidation, John opened his eyes. The light didn't hurt as much this time, and he waited for his eyes to adjust.

He half-expected to be manacled to a wall, or tied down in some way. He had imagined waking in a bare room, with bars and a security camera watching him. So when he looked around, he was completely surprised to find himself back at his flat. He was on the couch in the living room, with a pillow under his head. Someone had taken off his shoes, but as he looked around, he saw them in their usual spot by the door. His gun was gone, but his wallet was in his pocket, untouched, everything still there. His cane was lying beside the couch on the floor, within easy reach.

The utter normality of the scene hit John suddenly, and he started to laugh uncontrollably. He'd confronted a dead man yesterday, and today he woke up in his living room with a pillow under his head. The contrast was sickening in its irony. He shook his head once, and calmed down, the laughter draining away. When he was calm, he took a deep breath and stood up.

Instantly, his head started hurting again, and he groaned. He didn't know what Moriarty had used to knock him out, but it had left him feeling like he had a hangover. His leg hurt, too. Apparently the lack of a limp in the graveyard yesterday had only been a brief reprieve. John leaned down and picked up his cane, carefully keeping most of his weight on his steady leg. There was a card tied to the handle of his cane with a blue ribbon. Cautiously, he flipped it over. It was a short note, made out of cut-out letters from a magazine glued onto white craft paper.

The Venworth Café

July 19th

6PM

-JM

John stared at the paper for a moment. There was no way he was going. He didn't want to die; not at Moriarty's hand. And he had no intention of being pulled into one of his games. But at the same time, could he really just let this go? He could give the note to the police… No. He was forgetting that no one else believed in Jim Moriarty anymore. Poor Richard Brook, framed and then driven to committing suicide. If he gave the note to the police, they'd just think he was crazy. But Johncould go alone. Moriarty wouldn't be missed; he was already supposed to be dead. His hand went to the place where his Browning was usually kept, and he remembered that Moriarty had his weapon.

Well, that settled it. He definitely wasn't going weaponless. He'd ignore the note. He tore it off his cane and threw it into the garbage, then looked up at the clock, and swore. It was noon; he was supposed to have been at the clinic three and a half hours ago. Wasn't it so ironic, that the day he wrote a letter complaining about his routine, it would be disrupted in the worst way he could think of? The letter!

He put a hand into his pocket, where the letter had been. Gone. Why had he not thought of it earlier? He quickly ran through what he had written, trying to decide if there was anything there that Moriarty would be able to use against him. He'd know John's routine, but he could learn that by trailing him for a few days. It still rankled, to know that he'd written all of that for Sherlock, only to have it fall into the hands of his killer.

Yes, John had no doubts that if Moriarty was alive, he must have killed Sherlock. John didn't know how, but he knew Sherlock, and he'd never commit suicide. No matter what happened, Sherlock knew there was more work, more criminals, and he'd never allow himself to die until they were all gone. Well; all the interesting criminals.

He pushed the entire incident out of his mind. Without his gun, there was nothing he could do, not without getting pulled into an elaborate game that John doubted he'd win. Instead, he called in sick to work, apologizing between fake coughs. Once he hung up the phone, the silence of the flat hit him all over again, and he realized that he didn't know what to do with his day.

It was Friday today, July the 19th. Aside from a dinner date that he wasn't attending, he had nothing to do, and as he looked around the tiny apartment, he felt the foreign feeling of boredom creeping up on him. Somehow he had avoided it, even as he plodded through the monotony of his predictable life. He'd been feeling so dead that it hadn't occurred to him to be bored. Life was dull, it was all meaningless, so why should John feel boredom, an emotion that was an urge to do something else?

But as he sat on the couch, trying to focus on the television, the unfamiliar itch was in his bones, pushing him to go out, to find someone to chat with, find anything to occupy his time. John ran through a list in his head. Getting drunk. No; it didn't help anything, and it usually just made bad memories worse for him. Meeting up with Harry. No. A thousand times, no. Mrs. Hudson? No; that would mean going back to Baker street. There was Greg Lestrade, who had been an unexpected friend, but John didn't appreciate his matchmaking attempts on his behalf. And… that was it. That was all he could think of.

He had turned the telly off at some point, and was staring at the dark screen. He could see his reflection in it, and behind him, the reflection of the table, and the innocent looking paper on it. 6:00. JM. Venworth Café.

John couldn't stay here. The small rooms seemed to be mocking him, with their white walls and impersonal furniture, without clutter, without personality. Mocking him with what his life had become. John had never been depressed. Blank, yes. But never actively unhappy. Today was a day of terrible firsts.

John limped into the bedroom, letting his body go to auto pilot. He pulled on new clothes. Jeans, a lighter long-sleeved shirt. In the middle of July, most people were out in T-shirts. Not John. Too many scars on his arms, memories that weren't for other people to gawk at. But he did forgo the jumpers in the summer. That was crossing a line into heat stroke, and John wasn't an idiot. Well. Depending on who you ask, he wasn't. Sherlock would…He cut off the thought, and pulled on a pair of shoes, wincing. That was the last straw; he was going out.

He hobbled to the door and shut it behind him, slipping the key into his pocket. He was on the second floor of the building, and the stairway was quiet as he made his slow way to the ground floor. Again, he had accepted the return of his limp as a natural consequence of Sherlock's death. But since it had gone away for a moment, he was now back to cursing its inconvenience, thinking back to the original injury, feeling unhappy and undeservedly punished. Then, of course, his mind was happy to provide him with all the people he'd killed, actively, passively, or through ineptitude.

John felt like he was sighing too much, so he suppressed the exhale that he wanted to let out, hoping that it would take all these memories away with it. Instead, he came out onto the street, and stood in the light drizzle. It wasn't enough to need an umbrella. Just enough to slowly weigh down his hair, wet his shirt drop by drop until it clung to his arms uncomfortably. John started walking, maneuvering through groups of people on the sidewalk. He didn't know where he was going, but the direction was unimportant. As he walked, he attempted to focus on the things around him, hoping to forget the turmoil inside him.

The traffic was heavy, and John spent a while seeing how many license plates he could memorize before his brain got too cluttered to remember the original plates. He managed to get above average, but not enough when he thought of Sherlock. Being trapped with geniuses made you think differently about your intellectual level. It was never enough…

John quickly switched his focus to the people around him, trying not to think about Sherlock, and trying to deduce the passer-by as they swept around him. The two activities were impossible to untangle, and every deduction that John managed to make was in Sherlock's voice at the back of his head. And then, inevitably, it was criticizing.

"You look, but you don't see. Use my methods… Idiots, all of you. Pretend you're smart. You miss everything of importance. Try again, John." It wasn't enough that he could tell the married people from unmarried, even without their rings. It wasn't enough that he could tell who had been away, and who had children. No, because he should be able to tell the state of their marriage from their shirt cuffs, and how long they'd been in which country, just look at their glasses, John, don't be dim, how can you miss it?

John turned and pushed his way into the first store on his left. It was an antique shop, full of old furniture and cluttered collectibles. The owner, an elderly woman, looked up and smiled.

"Hello, dear," she called. John nodded at her, trying not to let her remind him of Mrs. Hudson. He turned to the shelves, and had a strange sense of déjà vu. There were glass bottles, old 45s, and odd, twisted, metal implements that John couldn't discern the purpose of. As every low-budget college student, John was no stranger to second-hand shops. But this seemed stronger than a throw-back to his college days. As he looked around, trying to pinpoint the feeling, he saw it. The gaping eye sockets, stretching grin, the distinguishing stain on the left side. It was the skull from 221B.

John walked over and picked it up, remembering how Sherlock had taped cigarettes to the back of the skull so that they couldn't be found, even if John or Mrs. Hudson picked it up to check underneath. John flipped it over. There were no cigarettes now. He brought it up to eye level, and realized that this must be the shop where he'd dropped two boxes of Sherlock's things, two months ago. He'd kept nothing, wanting a new start. John went to the front, and bought the skull.

"Is that clock accurate?" he asked the woman at the front, gesturing to a grandfather clock behind her that was ticking away loudly.

"Oh, yes. I check it every day. The radio announces noon, you know, so I always turn it on to make sure. I never listen to the radio otherwise, it's bad to have radio waves coming in, you know, there were studies…" It was, apparently, just after six. John had never eaten lunch, and he was suddenly aware of his stomach's emptiness.

"Is there a good place to eat around here?" he asked, once the woman paused for breath.

"Try the café next door… I know the owner, he's such a nice man. He dog-sits for me sometimes, you know. Anyhow, good food too. Sometimes, when I give him pottery, I get a free lunch. Their chicken salad is exquisite. And the owner is such a nice man…" John thanked the woman quickly, and left as soon as he could, sensing another speech coming on.

He glanced into the open-window shop next door, and decided it looked good enough. Then he looked up at the name, and froze. The Venworth Café. He suppressed the urge to swear, and turned quickly. He'd find somewhere else to eat. He hadn't taken more than a step away, before he heard the voice, rising over the noise of the crowd.

"Johnny boy, over here!"