Dust in the Air

by Flaignhan

It's the short one who answers the door. He has a baby resting on his hip, and Rosie is just as cute as the pictures, if not cuter.

But she's not here for that.

"Oh," John says. "Come in, come in."

Stacey steps into the lounge, and John grabs the chair tucked under the table, lifting it with one hand and plonking it down next to the two armchairs. He gestures for her to sit down, and Stacey does.

But, she leaves the rickety old chair for Sherlock, and settles herself in the squashy leather armchair.

"Oh no, not in that one, that's Sherlock's seat, he'll be out in a minute."

Stacey smiles, because the charm offensive is always her best weapon, and John opens and closes his mouth. With her not saying anything, he can't argue back.

"Sherlock?" he calls, angling his head towards the hallway. "Client."

Stacey rolls her eyes and settles back in the chair, fingers tapping against the arm as she waits.

This is going to be hugely enjoyable, even if she does have her serious face on today. She's also got her mental knuckleduster ready for use, but she hopes it won't be necessary. Sort of hopes, anyway.

The bathroom door slams and Stacey can hear his feet slapping against the floorboards as he heads back towards the lounge. He peers around the corner, eyes narrowed, but his expression drops when he sees her, before he pulls himself together and scowls at her.

He steps into the lounge, and Stacey looks down at his bare feet, black and blue around the gaps between his toes, bruises refreshed again and again.

It'll take months for them to go.

"That's my chair," he says, and he points to the rickety old seat that John placed between the armchairs.

"I'm not a client," Stacey tells him. She can feel John's eyes on her, and he has no idea who she is. She has been a part of Sherlock and Molly's bubble for years, before John had ever even been deployed to the Middle East, and she's kept her place. Until now.

"That's still my seat," Sherlock argues, and he reaches forward, taking Stacey by the wrist and hauling her up.

She tries to stay in her seat, clenches her muscles in an attempt to make herself more difficult to shift, but for a junkie he's surprisingly strong.

He must be itching for a fix.

"What's going on?" John asks, his eyebrows drawn together in a deep frown. Rosie bats a hand at his jumper, but the gesture goes ignored. "Who are you?"

"This is Stacey," Sherlock says, before she has a chance to introduce herself. His eyes are fixed on hers, his hand still clasped around her wrist. She has the distinct sense that he is trying to read her mind.

"She's here to shout at me," he continues. "Probably something to do with drugs."

"And the fact that you're a selfish bastard. That makes up a majority of the shouting." Her eyes are dry from her refusal to blink, and she wants him to break first. He will, she's certain. She can one-up the drug addict in the staring contest, easy peasy.

John sniggers. "Well, I'll leave you to it then, sounds like a long conversation."

"I'm Molly's friend," Stacey tells John. "Seeing as the smackhead here has failed to introduce me properly." She grits her teeth, focusing on not breaking the stare. She's here for Molly, not for herself. She can cope with a little bit of discomfort. Or a lot. It's definitely a lot.

"Is she all right?" John asks, his humour vanishing, face creasing with concern. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Sherlock says, and his eyelid twitches, briefly covering the top section of his bloodshot iris. "She texted me this morning."

"Oh well, she must be a-okay if she's still got both thumbs," Stacey retorts. She's about to give up, brush things off with a witty comment or some sort of drug related insult thrown in Sherlock's direction, but then his grip on her wrist falters, and she knows she can hold it, just that little bit longer.

"Amazingly, Stacey is a doctor," Sherlock says, turning to face John and dropping Stacey's wrist. She smirks, and then blinks, rapidly.

She's not sure whether the blinking feels best, or the victory. Either way, she's thrilled.

"Oh right," John says, repositioning Rosie on his hip. "Well, he likes doctors." He offers a smile, but he's edging towards the door, sensing the ensuing argument.

"I know he does," Stacey says, raising her eyebrows cheekily. She earns a smile from John, but Rosie is not quite at the appreciative audience stage yet, and so she gurgles, and then rests her head against John's chest.

"You're labouring under the delusion that I like her," Sherlock says, and he stalks towards the kitchen, snatches the kettle from its stand, and fills it with water.

"He does like me," Stacey says in a hushed voice. "He's just confused. Must be all the heroin."

Sherlock throws her a filthy look, and slams two cups down onto the counter as the kettle begins to boil.

He likes her well enough to make her tea then.

John's noticed too, because a smile tugs at his lips. She's not sure about John, because he's lived with him so has undoubtedly seen more of him, but it's the first time Stacey has ever seen Sherlock boil a kettle. She wonders if Molly has ever witnessed such a miracle, and she makes a mental note to ask her later.

"I'm leaving Rosie with Mrs Hudson," John says. "Got an appointment with my..." he trails off, and Sherlock turns his head, craning his neck so he can see him. There's a moment's pause, in which Stacey supposes that John's appointment is either with an STD clinic or a therapist, and then Sherlock nods, apparently coming to an accurate conclusion.

"See you later," he says, and then he turns to Stacey. "You're not allowed to shout too loud, there's a baby in the house."

"I'm sure I can still make my feelings known."

John takes the stony silence as an opportunity to disappear, raising his hand in farewell to Stacey while Sherlock opens the fridge door to get the milk and slams it again, giving it a kick with his heel for good measure as he walks away.

"Sugar?" he asks stiffly.

"No thanks, honey."

He gives her a cold look, and Stacey is certain that he doesn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense from Molly. The nonsense that Molly has to deal with however... Well, that's why she's here.

She has the good grace to wait until tea is served before she begins, but she takes Sherlock's seat again, before he has the chance to nip into it ahead of her.

He gives her a dirty look, but gives her her tea anyway, and rather than taking John's chair, or the rickety chair intended for clients, he paces back and forth in front of the fireplace, teacup rattling in its saucer.

"She's burning out, Sherlock." Stacey's serious now, all the jokes and insults out of her system. Now it's time for some real talk.

"Well she doesn't have to babysit me," Sherlock mutters.

"Oh don't be ridiculous," Stacey snaps. "Of course she does. Every time you make a mess of yourself you end up snotting all over her lab coat, telling her you're sorry, that it won't happen again, and she gives you chance after chance after chance, and still, every time you let her down, she always picks you back up."

He has the look of a sulky teenager about him, the sort of look that is very familiar from her uni days, if she dared to ask Sherlock to hang his jacket up instead of leaving it sprawled over the sofa. She knows that look well. But he's an adult now, it doesn't fly. Not with her.

"She will never abandon you," Stacey continues. "But you have to realise what you're doing to her."

"What am I doing to her?" Sherlock asks haughtily. "What exactly has changed from last time?" He sips his tea, hands shaking with the comedown, and he fixes her with a bloodshot gaze.

He thinks he's got her in a corner.

"Nothing," Stacey replies, and she sinks back in his chair, her hand waving dismissively towards him. "Twenty years and nothing's changed."

"I've got a new dressing gown," he quips, and Stacey almost wants to smile. But not now. There will be other times to smile.

"Sherlock, you can measure it in decades. Can't you just quit? Properly? You're not Keith Richards, you're not immune."

His eyebrows twitch at the reference, and it flies straight over his head. She doesn't know how to get through to him.

"She's given you so much, and you always take take take, without hesitation." Stacey shakes her head and looks towards the empty fireplace. In her peripheral vision, she sees something change in his expression, an acknowledgement of his bad behaviour perhaps.

"What could she need from me?" Sherlock asks, his tone measured, controlled, each syllable carefully crafted.

A shag, is the first thing that comes to Stacey's mind. Sobriety is second, which is odd, given that that's really the most pressing issue.

Possibly.

"You need to be better to her," Stacey says, and now it's her choosing her words carefully. "There will come a day when she needs you and my god, you'd better be there. You'd better give her everything she needs, and when she needs you, you'd better be there without anyone having to tell you to."

"Is there something specific you're alluding to, or are you just foreseeing some sort of crisis in order to validate your point?"

"Just go round there," Stacey sighs, her patience wearing thin. "Just go round and hang out with her! Go and be there for her! Ask her how she is!"

His eyes flash at Stacey's words.

"How is she?"

"You need to ask her," Stacey says, and she's sticking to her guns. He really is an utter imbecile. He doesn't need a shove in the right direction, but rather a bloody catapult to send him smashing through her window. "She's a twenty minute walk away, it's not difficult!"

"I don't really like her new flat," he says, scrunching his nose.

Stacey waits, to see if there is a valid point coming, but Sherlock takes a sip of his tea instead, then places his cup on the mantelpiece.

"Sorry," Stacey says, leaning forward. "Is that an excuse?"

"Well," he says with a shrug. "There was nothing wrong with the old flat, was there?"

Stacey stands up. She cannot believe what she's hearing. It's pure nonsense. Utter, utter nonsense. It doesn't have any relevance, and yet he's using it as a distraction. It's conversational slight of hand, to try and get her to talk about the fact that Molly has a garden now, and doesn't have neighbours on five sides anymore. It's meant to pull her away from her point; that he's not being decent to the person that has hauled him through his addiction and kept him alive for the past twenty odd years.

"That's not relevant." Stacey's voice is chilly, and she fixes Sherlock with an icy stare until he manages to find something to say.

"I always went to her place for the comedown, to get better."

"And was it the altitude that helped, or was it her? Call me crazy, but I don't think being on the fourteenth floor ever had much of an impact on your recovery, however temporary it might have been."

He glares at her, and apparently she does not understand the complex nature of addiction. Apparently, she doesn't realise that it's nothing to do with the people who love you, and everything to do with the fact that they live in an ex-council flat in a high rise block.

Or maybe he's just upset because she's made so much progress, and after twenty odd years he's still the same whinging addict, who can't say no to a needle.

"It was the first place I went after rehab," he mumbles. "It was home."

Stacey pauses; she has a feeling that the old flat means a bit more to him than he's ever admitted. In times of trouble, people come to 221B. They come, and they sit in that old chair, and Sherlock and John hear them out, and decide whether they want to help them.

But where does the inhabitant of 221B go, when all feels as though it's lost?

"The new flat can become home too," she says gently. "You just need to spend some time there."

He scrunches his nose. "It's too..."

"What?"

"Nice."

Stacey sighs. "She's worked really hard for it," she tells him. "Don't make her regret it."

He looks down at his bruised feet, hands dug deep in the pockets of his dressing gown.

"Home is wherever she chooses to love you."

He glances at her, and she thinks for a second, she may have cracked the surface, she may have wormed her way into his brain, and her words will stay with him long after she leaves. Maybe, just maybe, he might head over to Molly's, ask her how she is, and listen to the answer.

There's a knock at the front door, and Sherlock's eyes shoot over to the window. He walks towards it, peering down to the pavement, then turns around.

"Real clients," he sighs, he grips his hair for a moment, then breathes deeply, and shrugs off his dressing gown. "Can you let them in? I need to put some shoes on."

Stacey scowls. She's not here to help him hide his sins, nor is she here to be his assistant. But she'll help just this once. Just in case he might actually listen to her.

She heads down the stairs and opens the door, to find a portly husband, with a rather fed up looking wife. She leads them upstairs, fetches an additional chair from the dining table, and places it next to the one that was meant for her.

They sit down, and Stacey takes Sherlock's chair once more. She steeples her fingers, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, as she has seen him do so many times at Molly's place over the years. She fights to keep a straight face, eyes slightly narrowed, and when Sherlock reappears, he looks startlingly presentable. His eyes linger on her as he walks into the room, and she knows he's not impressed. He doesn't say a word, however, nor does he sit in John's chair. Instead he waits by the fireplace, the look of displeasure on his face increasing, as though he can't believe he put on a jacket for this.

Stacey isn't sure what the protocol is, when some middle aged half wit claims his wife is channeling Satan, but she's quite sure she's not supposed to laugh. It's difficult, but she manages to keep a grip on herself, lips pressed together, with the occasional wobble whenever his protests become too stupid.

It's less than three minutes before Sherlock has thrown them out of the flat.

"What a waste of time," Sherlock hisses, pacing back and forth across the lounge. "Have people gotten stupider, or is it just me?"

"I can't speak for people, but you've definitely gotten stupider."

He inhales, a barbed retort ready, but it dies in his throat. His eyes are fixed on something, and he steps forward, reaching behind a set of drawers to pick up a piece of paper.

It's as though he's found the Holy Grail. He brushes the dust from it, and he's transfixed, utterly enchanted by a single sheet of notepaper.

"What is it?" Stacey asks. She gets out of his chair, and heads towards him. It is messy handwriting and a splatter of blood.

"She was real," he breathes, and then he lifts the paper to his nose, inhaling. His nostrils twitch, and he shakes his head, then breathes in again, as though he's searching for something that's just out of reach.

He holds it in front of Stacey's nose, and she gives it a tentative sniff. Apart from the lingering smell of dust, there's something, something that smells a bit like cooking, but a bit more chemical, something she can't quite put her finger on.

She's amazed he can smell it at all, given the endless packets of cigarettes she's seen him chain smoke in the past. Perhaps the ones she bummed off of him have helped preserve his senses.

She'll remind him of that next time.

"Linseed oil?" he asks, voice quiet.

Stacey shrugs, and then he's off, darting into the kitchen, switching out the lights, hunting through the drawers until he finds what he's looking for.

There's a blue glow, and Stacey realises he was searching for a blacklight. She heads over to the kitchen, to see what the fuss is about, and there is a message illuminated by the light, scrawled with a fingertip.

Miss me?

She's not sure how he does it, but the room changes immediately, a tension fills the air and her breath feels sharper in her lungs. Maybe it's in the way his shoulders stiffen, or the sudden intake of breath. Maybe it's because the lights are out and there's a creepy, threatening, glow in the dark message on a bloodstained piece of paper.

Either way, Stacey's skin prickles uncomfortably, and she swallows the lump in her throat. Her mind flashes back, to her trash telly marathon being interrupted by a pale face, with jet black hair, and a mouth that moved like a ventriloquist's puppet.

"Moriarty?" she asks, her voice hushed.

Sherlock clicks the blacklight off and throws it back into the kitchen drawer, slamming it shut.

"He's dead," he says, through gritted teeth. "He's dead."

He moves past her, knocking her into the cabinets when his shoulder catches her. She lets him off, just this once, because his movements are tight with worry, his jaw set. He grabs his phone and unlocks it, and paces around the flat, apparently not knowing who to call first.

She's never seen him worried. It's always Molly who has overflowed with anxiety, who has tensed up and bottled up and shut up, but now Sherlock is letting out shaky breaths, raising his phone to type a text message and then deleting it, his arm dropping back to his side. He grips his hair, knuckles popping under the skin, his face even paler than usual.

He's scared.

Actually scared.

The dead man can still terrify him. Maybe because this time around he has a wider circle of potential collateral damage.

He has a goddaughter.

"If it's any consolation," Stacey says, forcing a brave face on. He looks across to her, unwilling to accept that there are any words that can make him feel even the slightest bit better.

"Yes?"

"Well, Molly said he only managed a few minutes before he - "

Sherlock closes the gap between them with one long stride, and covers her mouth with the palm of his hand.

"I don't need to know that." His voice is firm, but Stacey's overshare has the desired effect. It pulls him out of his reverie, and he is galvanised into taking action. He removes his hand from her mouth, and she's aware that it's sweaty, though whether from fear or withdrawal remains to be seen.

He makes a decision with regards to his phone, but as he's about to dial, the phone starts to ring, the loud sound jarring in the heavy silence of the apartment.

He taps the green button, and quickly presses the phone against his ear.

"John? Are you all right?"

His face is etched with concern, then morphs to confusion, then downright befuddlement.

"What do you mean sister?" he asks. "I don't have a sister."

They're not exactly the words Stacey expected to hear. She ought to be making a move, her lunch break's nearly over, and she still has to leg it back to the hospital, but this is far too interesting. She folds her arms, while John talks, Sherlock's face contorting more and more with each and every sentence.

"Mycroft doesn't misspeak." His tone is solemn now, and he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. There's a long pause and then, "Come over, we'll figure it out. Are you sure you're all right?"

John must be okay, because Sherlock hangs up once he's received his answer and lets out a long, slow, breath. He rests his hands on his hips while he thinks, and Stacey stands there, unsure as to whether she needs to do anything. Should she suggest that he calls the police? Should he call his brother? He needs to do something because this is huge, it's clearly huge.

She wonders what Molly would do.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

He looks towards her, and he's so obviously not, but he nods anyway, his teeth pulling at his lower lip, anxiety twitching through him.

"Will you look after her?" he asks at last. "Until I get this sorted?"

Stacey nods. Of course she will. She always will.

"I know she's stressed, and I know it's my fault, but..." he ruffles his hair with both hands, as though he's trying to shake the dust out of his brain so he can think clearly, so he can focus on the situation at hand. "I need to talk to her, I know that, but this is..."

"I know," Stacey replies, her voice soft. "You're about to get involved in something stupidly dangerous."

He nods, his chest expanding with a deep, steadying breath.

"Does she know you're here?" he asks, and Stacey shakes her head. This is entirely a stealth visit.

"Don't worry," she says. "I'll do food and a rubbish film tonight. Tide her over until you get your shit together."

He nods, though he's staring into space, his mind whirring at a hundred miles per hour, while his mouth embraces a caretaker role.

"Until I get my shit together."