Dust in the Air
by Flaignhan
As if everything hasn't been enough, here they are again.
Back to square one.
"Is there even any point to me doing this?" She glares at him, hard, her gaze alight with fury, her skin prickling with piercing disappointment.
It's the one thing that hurts her most in the world, and he's doing it again. He's acting out, because life has had the audacity to be hard, and so he grabs the nearest syringe, ties off a tourniquet, and starts pumping his fist until the vein bulges under the surface, ripe for poisoning.
He sits on the edge of the gurney, hunched over, forearms resting on his knees, hands clasped tightly together. He must be in want of another dose.
"There is a reason," he mumbles, his words directed to the floor.
She lets out a humourless laugh. "Is that what you've told yourself?" she asks, and she throws out a hand to steady herself as the ambulance pulls away, the engine roaring with life.
"There is - "
"No Sherlock," she sighs. "You just look for the first excuse - the first opportunity, and then you're off again." She turns away from him, and opens one of the drawers, rooting around for a cannula.
At the very least he needs rehydrating.
She grabs a pair of surgical gloves and sits down on the stool, wheeling closer to him as she pulls them on.
"You lied to me," she says, detaching her words from her heart, just for now. She won't fall apart, she can't afford to, not when she's the only one still standing. "All those times I checked in on you, and you swore I didn't need to worry about you."
"I'm so-"
"Your kidneys are struggling," she says. She's not interested in apologies. Not now, not when they don't mean anything. "Too many toxins." She fixes him with a look, but he cannot hold her gaze for long. He looks away, his eyes landing on one of the laminated protocol posters instead.
Maybe he knows he's gone too far.
She takes his left hand, turning it over, palm down, so she can find an appropriate vein in the back of his hand.
"Kidneys?" he asks. She glances it up at him. In his drug addled state, this is news to him.
"Squeeze," she murmurs, and he does, squeezing her index and middle finger, the veins becoming slightly more pronounced. When he releases her, she tears open the packaging of the cannula, cleans the back of his hand, then inserts it smoothly.
He doesn't bat an eyelid.
Needles aren't new.
"Your shoelaces," she says, in answer to his question. "The bows."
It's high time he did a bit of thinking. He's clearly been avoiding logical thought for weeks.
She hooks him up to a bag of saline, and presses the buttons on the drip stand. They haven't got long, so she increases the flow - just a fraction more per second than she'd normally administer. It's not for long.
"What about them?" he asks, looking down at his feet. She hears a faint 'oh' of recognition and she doesn't bother elaborating. The bows are smaller, thus, the laces are looser, thus his feet are swollen, ergo kidneys.
She gets up and dumps the cannula packaging into the bin. Acid burns in her throat and she can't believe he's done this to himself. He's spiralled so quickly, and so terribly, he must have spent the past few weeks in a constant state of near overdose.
She blinks, shoving the thought from her mind, but then Sherlock brings it straight back with his next question.
"How long?"
She turns to face him, and she feels as though the energy has been drained from her. She can hardly bear to look at him, but she has to. She must. She needs to give him an estimate, a conservative estimate, so there's still some hope in case he takes this nonsense even further.
"Weeks," she says. "At most. It depends on your kidneys. If they fail then..."
She doesn't need to tell him what will happen. He already knows.
She turns away and swallows the lump in her throat. She can feel the tears building in her eyes, and she holds on to the counter, the rumble of the engine keeping the silence at bay.
She sniffs, and a tear escapes, trickling down her cheek. She raises a gloved hand to her face to brush it away, the latex pulling gently at her skin. She peels the gloves off impatiently, and then she hears movement behind her. Sherlock's hand closes around her wrist, and he gently turns her round to face him.
She can sense something that might be guilt, buried deep in the back of his gaze, and he pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her. At first she resists, but then she caves, because everything is too much, and this added on top is just the last straw.
She can't carry on like this. She can't.
She clutches the fabric of his shirt, and it feels grubby beneath her fingers. Despite this, she rests her head against his chest, reassuring herself with the sound of his heartbeat.
He's still here.
He's going to stay here.
He'd talked about them getting old.
She tries to fight her tears with steady breathing; she's determined that there will only be one tiny smudge of eyeliner today, but it's no good.
Here they are again, after she finally thought he'd managed to pull himself together. But no, this is them, and it's the same old shit.
"Don't do this," he mumbles. "Not over me."
She looks up at him, her face stained with tears, and the sight of him doesn't comfort her. He's a wreck, and she can see the muscles pulling in his jaw, as he tries to keep himself from grinding his teeth.
His fix is wearing off.
"So we lose Mary and we're supposed to what, sit back and lose you too?" Her voice breaks, and she looks down. She's still clutching his sides, still hanging on, even after all this time.
"She died saving you, and this is how you decide to respond? By killing yourself anyway?" Her words are small and soft, but when she looks up at him again, she can see the tug of his lower lip as his teeth pull against it.
He knows.
"What a stupid, pointless waste." She shakes her head and goes to push him away, but he catches her hand, holding it tenderly in his.
"There's a good reason for this," he says. "I promise."
She shakes her head again. "No," she says. "No reason is good enough for this." She breathes in deeply, another attempt to keep herself together, but all she gets is the stench of stale sweat and the breath from a mouth which hasn't seen a toothbrush in weeks.
"John," he says. "John Watson."
"You think this is helping him?" she replies incredulously. "You think after he loses his wife, becomes a single dad, and is estranged from his best friend, that the best thing said best friend can do is go on a suicidal binge?"
He's lost it. Really and truly lost it. Any ounce of logic he once held dear has been flung out of the window, replaced only with thoughts of syringes and solutions.
Maybe this is it. Maybe she needs to call it quits. She can't keep going round and round in this same circle, if, whenever there's a problem he can't solve, and he shoots himself up into oblivion.
"Mary's idea," he says, and she looks back at him immediately. There is a glint in his eyes, and she can tell he knows he's got her.
"Mary's idea," she repeats, her tone heavy with scepticism.
It doesn't sound like Mary's idea, and she wonders if it was a drug fuelled hallucination, if, in the middle of one of his highs, she had given him her blessing and said 'When that wears off, why don't you do a bit of cocaine, too?'
"The only way to save John, is to make him save you," he says, and then he blinks. "Me."
The ambulance takes a sharp corner, and Molly stumbles backwards. Sherlock catches her, one hand at the small of her back, holding her against him, while the other collides with the store cupboards behind her, his drip line hanging like a wire between two telegraph poles.
Her heart is pounding, and she lets out a breath, one hand resting against his chest.
She repeats his words in her head, Mary's words, apparently.
Regrettably, it adds up.
"You didn't need to do it like this," she says. "You didn't need to actually try and kill yourself."
"Yes I did," he says, and his hand is still at the small of her back; she can feel its warmth through the layers of her clothes, and the tremor he just can't shake off. She can taste his breath, and it's disgusting. The life of a junkie is the furthest thing from glamorous.
"If I'd just gotten into a bit of trouble, he'd expect me to smart arse my way out of it. But I can't do that with this, he knows it."
"Couldn't you have just..." she trails off, knowing that what she'd thought about saying goes against every principle she has as a doctor. And it would sound stupid to boot.
He waits for her to continue, his eyes boring into hers.
"Well, couldn't you just have gotten run over a bit?"
He raises an eyebrow and she rushes to clarify.
"You know, just a slow moving car, maybe a fracture or two, something that would put you in the hospital and sounds more serious than it is." The words fall out of her, stupid after stupid after stupid.
"That's not bad actually," he replies with a hint of approval. "Sherlock's been hit by a car sounds pretty serious doesn't it?" He lets out a sigh. "Should've come to you sooner."
"Yeah," she says. "You should've."
"No," he says, after giving it a few moments of further thought. He shakes his head. "It had to be this. Nothing else would have worked."
"You keep telling yourself that," Molly replies, and she reaches behind herself, grabbing the counter as they bob over a speed bump.
"It's not just about him," Sherlock says. "What about Rosie? I'm her godfather, I need to do right by her."
He's being serious, and Molly can't stop the laugh that escapes her.
"This? This is your idea of being a responsible godfather?" She tries to move away from him again; she's finding it hard to look at him, to acknowledge the drug fuelled delusion in his eyes.
He really thinks this is a good idea.
Her hand is still in his, and though he's holding it gently, loosely, she feels like if she lets go, she'll lose him forever.
"Where is she?" Sherlock asks. "Where's Rosie?"
"With friends," Molly replies. "He can't cope at the moment."
"But she's not with me," Sherlock says, "And she's not with you. And unless Mrs Hudson's keeping her hidden under the kitchen sink then she's not with her either."
"Because putting a baby in the same house as a man who's pumping himself full of heroin would have been such a bright idea, wouldn't it?" And then, before he can press the point of her any further, "And I work sixty hours a week, I can't look after her."
"But who is? What friends has he given her to?"
"It's just temporary, while he tries to get things sorted," Molly says, but he's not getting the point. He's grown up with two loving parents and an older brother, and he's never had to look after anybody in his life. He can't even look after himself.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is? To be a parent? A new parent? Do you know how hard it is to be a single parent? A widow?"
He doesn't have anything to say.
Sherlock Holmes knows a lot of things, but he knows absolutely nothing about any of that. He doesn't know a thing about ordinary lives - he has only ever been wrapped up in his own, extraordinary self.
"He's lost the love of his life," she says, and she doesn't know how much point there is trying to get through to him. His comedown's starting, his mind is elsewhere, but she'll try nonetheless. "He lost her to murder, out of the blue, no warning at all. And amazingly enough, astonishingly, it's destroyed him. And as a result, he doesn't think he's in a good enough place mentally, and emotionally, to be the best caregiver to his baby."
"But Mary would want - "
"Mary's not here, Sherlock. That's the problem."
He flinches at her words, but he needs to be reminded, he needs to understand that the world is worse without Mary, and that her death, rather than being a pebble hitting a lake, the effects rippling outwards, has for John, been like a meteorite hitting a puddle.
"She would have wanted to be here," she says, more gently now. She smoothes the collar of his shirt, damp with days (weeks?) of sweat. "She would have wanted to be here with John, to raise their daughter together. So what you think she would have wanted, now she's gone, is completely null and void. The rest of us have to work out how to function without her, and for John that's..."
Sherlock's eyes are bright, and he swallows hard, looking away from her.
"I'm sorry," she tells him. "But you need to come back to reality."
"This is working though," he tells her, his voice cracking. He wipes roughly at his nose, then looks down at her. "It is working."
Molly shakes her head. "It's stupid," she says. "It's a death wish."
"It's about to get stupider," he says, and Molly can feel the ambulance start to slow.
"Don't you dare..." she can't finish the sentence, cannot face that possibility, not now, not today, not ever.
"Couple of days, max," he says, and he presses a kiss to her forehead, as though he thinks this will give him a free pass to do whatever he wants for the next forty-eight hours. "I promise."
Molly can feel tears prickling at her eyes again. Even like this, even in this god awful state, she still can't contemplate a world without him. It's not an option.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"You're always sorry."
"I know." He says, and he brushes her fringe back from her face, his touch delicate, if a little shaky. "I like it by the way. I never said."
She frowns. "Like what?"
"This," he gestures to her fringe. "I didn't say when you got it cut in, but I like it."
She narrows her eyes at him. "Are you trying to win me over? Get my blessing?"
He lets out a short, breathy laugh, and Molly's nose twitches at the odour.
"God no," he says, and his hand comes to rest on her shoulder, thumb grazing against the side of her neck. "I know that's impossible."
"Then what?" she asks.
"I do like it," he says. "But also maybe I'm trying to change the subject."
A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth before she can stop it, and she hates herself for it, for that silent approval she gives him, just because he can catch her off guard.
Just because he can make her smile when the world is too much, it doesn't mean he gets to do what he wants.
"My breath stinks, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," she says, glad that he's finally realised. "D'you want a mint? I think I've got some in my bag."
He moves away from her, and the assault on her nostrils lessens immediately. "Molly, I've strived for realism these past weeks. Do you honestly think I'm prepared to ruin that now with a mint?"
She rolls her eyes, and moves towards the gurney, picking up his discarded dressing gown and folding it up.
"I'll take this home," she says, and then she gives it a tentative sniff, but pulls away immediately. "And I'll put it on a hot wash."
She places it on the counter, and there is a clunk of something hard. She frowns, and looks towards him, his mouth open a fraction, then she finds the pocket amongst the folds, reaches in, and pulls out a silver bangle.
If nothing else, it confirms the binge was entirely premeditated.
She feels like an idiot for not noticing its absence. Maybe she should keep it on a hook on the wall in her bedroom, and every time it disappears, it should serve as an alarm, a call to arms, as it were.
She's been wearing her beaded bracelet recently, the bangle forgotten and abandoned in favour of something newer.
"Can I have it?" he asks. "Until this is over?"
She holds it out to him and he takes it, picks up his coat, and slips it into the pocket.
Here they are again.
"Can you be angry with me?" he asks tentatively. "In front of John?"
Everything's a game.
"He won't believe it's real if you're not angry with me."
She closes her eyes and turns away. She can't lie to John, she just can't do that. She's not angry, not really. She's upset, more than anything else. Devastated, even, that he would consider this to be a great idea, that he would do this to try and help his grieving friend.
That he thinks this is the epitome of being a good godfather.
"This might help," he says. "Needs an update though."
There's a rustle of paper, and he draws closer to her, his fingers plucking a pen from the pocket of her lab coat. He moves her pony tail so it falls over her left shoulder, then leans against her, using her back as a makeshift writing desk. She can feel the point of the biro, scrawling across the paper, his left hand spread wide to hold the paper still.
"There's a perfectly good counter," she says. "You can always use that."
He ignores her and continues writing, and after a few moments, he is done. She turns around, and he hands her his list, which, to her horror, continues onto the second side of the page.
"Jesus Christ," she breathes. "You're even more of an idiot than I thought."
He shrugs, and then leans across to see the list. He points to a dangerous cocktail, taken a few days ago, according to the scribbled date next to it. "Not really," he tells her. "That felt fantastic."
She shoves him away, knowing that he's just trying to get a rise out of her, to jab at her temper with a stick before they face John.
The ambulance finally stops, the handbrake cranks into place, and Sherlock sits down on the gurney, swinging his legs up onto it, and reclining back onto the mattress. He closes his eyes, his emaciated frame all the more apparent now he's lying still.
She can't take it, and so she opens the back doors of the ambulance, breathes in the fresh air, and sits on the floor, her shoes brushing against the concrete.
She undoes the top button of her shirt, fanning the material to try and cool herself down. Twenty minutes in a stuffy ambulance with a sweaty junkie is not how she'd wished to spend her morning.
She stares ahead, hands clasped in her lap.
Two days. She will give him two days. After that, she tells John.
Her heart is screaming at her to tell him straight away, to let him know what his best friend is doing in an attempt to try and drag him towards readjustment.
But the little voice in her head, the one that always sounds irritatingly like him, reminds her that there's actually a disappointingly strong possibility that this might work.
And that's the hardest part to swallow.
After she has shouted at him in front of John, Sherlock's flippancy enough to stoke her temper, after he has assessed her with sharp eyes and announced his concern for her, Sherlock walks away with Culverton Smith and his gaggle of reporters. He turns back and fixes her with a piercing look.
Molly's breath catches, and she wants to say something, but her words vanish on their way to her mouth.
She has the horrible feeling that for once, he can see right through her.