Author: Howlynn
Realm: Sherlock
Story Title: A Statue in the Temple of Mendacity. Part two
Summary: John is safe and sound with Sherlock. What happens if he isn't? What if things don't go as planned, and of course, they never do.
Character/Relationships: John and Molly would never have noticed each other if he were not dead. The thing is, Molly knows he isn't and she never expected things to get this complicated. Welcome back to Part two, If you thought the first part was complicated, well you are in for a bit more. Please keep your hands inside the compartment at all times.
I Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
So it came to pass in the year of sorrows that John Watson stands trembling in the rising sun on Waterloo Bridge before three students with a video phone and his two Holmesian-directed shadows sprinting toward him. It has been a night that would make history, set in the record books of merry England as the largest temperature drop ever recorded overnight. Watson has no idea the havoc his death is about to create, he only knows he's about to embark upon the most singularly stupid happening of his life.
He slips the cable tow, left in place by another unknown person and supposedly attached to a boat up the river, standing by, over his boot and prays the damned thing doesn't yank his foot off. If the boat operator doesn't manage to amputate his foot in his initial burst of power, and he doesn't get tangled or impale himself on hidden debris and the tanks don't bash his head in as they rush toward him sliding unrestrained down the accelerating metal cable of death, he might live. Of course that is assuming that he can stay underwater, against the current and the boat speed, right himself, figure out how to ride the cable underwater, while trying to work an air tank, in the murk, he's never laid eyes on, before he drowns and they reel him in like a dead sea-turtle.
Provided all those things fail to kill him, he has hypothermia, and probable pathogen borne infection to contemplate, while praying it's a low chemical load day and that nobody dumped anything near the river that will cost him his eyes or all his skin for that matter. Swimming in the Thames was a bad idea, no matter how confidently a Holmes said it would work.
John mumbles under his breath, speaking to the invisible legends of fate in his last probable one-sided conversation, pretty sure he's about to learn all the answers of man's quest to look beyond the veil. "Yeah, I get it, God. Death by Holmes is my, set in stone, fate. Try not to make it hurt, and I promise God, the next suicide note, I will take much more seriously. No jokes, I swear. Okay. Well, I do hate this by the way, just in case you care."
He glances out upon London, snaps a smart salute, as a farewell to Rat, should this go horribly as he expects it to, and then Molly and Sherlock firmly fixed in his mind, he plunged forward.
He manages to hit the frigid water in rescue diver position, butt first and sinking. It is only after he has managed to get a firm grip on the cable and get it well positioned in the arch of his foot, that he has a bit of hope. The tank is there within thirty seconds and does not kill him on impact and he actually has his first breath of compressed air before he'd begun praying to Sherlock, Shiva and the Flying Spaghetti Monster to let him live.
'This insanity might actually work' he is thinking when he feels the tug of further acceleration jerk painfully at his foot and now he begins rotating. Quickly he has lost control and is spiraling and trapped by the tanks and cable. The new problem causes drift, which knocks him into the side of a bridge pylon with enough force to damage a tank and break his ribs, thus pushing the regulator mouthpiece out of his mouth. The pain reflex causes him to suck water into his lungs and now he's choking and he can't get his head above water. If he lets go to try to replace the mouthpiece between his teeth, he's going to lose his tentative grip on the cable. He has no idea how much time has passed or if it's safe to surface.
He knows his only option is to let go and hope that he can make it to the bank before the current drags him right back to the rescue boats. That would be an automatic section. NHS would pull his medical license and he'd sit in a cell with a little paper cup of colorful drugs he would no longer remember the name of, while Sherlock dies again. No, he won't let go.
John holds on as long as he can, but he knows his limits and he finally makes the decision to give up on the plan and improvise as best he can. He's far enough away by now he ought to be able to reach one bank or the other. The water rushing past feels like the enemy, and it is trying to find a way into his shrieking chest. He lets go, expecting to be carried away.
Theoretically, letting go was the wise choice, unfortunately the random guest list he'd invoked in prayer were not on the same page and he struggles desperately and without any benefit to detach himself from the death cable.
Now his lungs have taken over command and all he can think of is getting a breath of air. His abdomen is involuntarily convulsing and trying to override his brain that is chanting 'don't breathe'. The struggle is causing pain to shoot through him from the fractured ribs. He makes a valiant effort to surface and manages one precious lung expanse of beautiful cold air. His head has broken the surface, which aligns him precisely with an oncoming boat. He hears the propeller just before he hears a loud noise.
"What was…"
John knows there is a lot of activity going on and someone is kissing him as he spews something burnt, oily and nasty like a frigid volcano. Everything hurts and something is determined to shove at least one of his broken ribs into his lungs. He shoves the kisser aside and vomits, nearly aspirates before hands guide him to lie on his side and still there is more erupting from him. His pain level is so great that he feels his bowels and bladder release and he doesn't care in the least.
He assesses his condition as best he can and grabs the kissing man, who is of course Rat, by the front of his shirt and hisses in short broken syllables, "CPR is over. Share your Morphine. Now! May go into shock, head injury, internal bleeding possible. Watch my pressure."
Rat nods and moves in slow motion to John's pain filled mind. He feels a stick and there are a few more seconds of agony before he feels the pain begin to ease enough that he can think straight.
Rat's eyes are wide and he is out of breath. "Just relax, I've done this a time or two."
"That could have gone better. This is drowning, complicates a field injury." John manages to get out between coughing and choking.
"What else?"
"Oxygen. Warm me up slowly. Check my pupils. If one blows, you need to get me to … hospital."
He closes his eyes just for a moment, just to rest for a second and thank whatever answered that he's still breathing.
He awakens bundled up, wrapped much like a cocoon, warm, dry, and naked. "It's about damned time, Rhino. You made a mess of that. Heart stopped. Mine nearly and yours did."
"Ahh. They had an AED on that garbage scow?" John rasps in the direction of the voice. He can barely see in the dim light, with one eye only, willing to open and focus.
"Not exactly. We made do with what we had."
"Jesus. Did you restart my heart with…"
"Jumper cables." Rat says with a wink.
"Yes. That would explain the burns. " John says peeping at his chest in disgust.
"Told you it would work," Rat says, as if a near death experience for John had been in the plan all along. Disney adventures had nothing on Ford Hall, the Giant Rat of Sumatra and zombie dead father of the zombie dead love of his life.
Now John is among the walking dead, too, and it felt like there had been a mistake because post-mortem exams, conducted whilst one was alive, could not hurt much more than he did at this time. John tried to move and grunted in pain. "Jesus, what did you do? Feel like I was hit by a train."
"May have miscalculated a little, but it worked out fine. Well, except for you getting hit by a boat. Sorry about that," Rat says as if he's lightly trampled a toe by mistake.
"You call this a success? I think not. Failing to factor in the bridge structure may have been a slight bloody oversight too. Started off fine, then someone hit the throttle and I was spinning like fish bait out there and met up with a pylon hard enough to hope I don't get sued for intentional structural failure in a few years. Couldn't get untangled and then took a beam from the Matilda Briggs." John grouched satisfyingly. He and Rat had a long standing joke about their excruciating time spent on a ship of that name."You would call that a good outcome."
"Yes. I do. You're here, alive to bitch another day. Worked out…swimmingly."
"You half-witted, cockeyed son of a—"
"Ah, ah. Language, my dear," The Rat says, rolling his eyes with mock offence.
John glares at him, closing his mouth and yet conveying every bad word he'd ever learned just as clearly with his expression alone.
Rat laughed in a relieved, slightly hysterical way, and admonished, "Careful, your pretty face could get stuck that way. And you'll never graduate to 'Four-Continents Watson,' unless you significantly lower your standards."
"I can tell how worried about my face you were when you came up with the plan to slam me into a bridge…and a boat." John grumbles then winces. "Where the hell am I anyway? And why do I smell like garlic?"
"France. We had to smuggle you in as cargo, due to the unfortunate difficulty of you not currently resembling your fake passport. No need to thank me, I don't mind a little detour. Your company is well worth any trouble you have been."
"Wait, what? How long have I been out?"
"Two days. But, not to worry, we'll catch up. I know where he's headed. You made the news, by the way. BBC2 did a lie-umentary all about you and Sherlock, solving crimes, tragic lovers, dead before your time. Blah, Blah, Blah. It was quite moving," he says, purposefully crossing his eyes to convey that it was probably ghastly and sentimental twaddle.
"Okay, good. That's good. I'm..dead then? Officially?" John asks, ignoring how many shades of tits up and gutted he is discovering as his thoughts jump first to Molly and how she must feel right now. Mrs. Hudson would cry and he deserved to hurt this bad for making that dear woman cry. Greg would get drunk, probably tell everyone what a stupid git John Hamish Watson was, then get weepy and maudlin. That's what he'd done when Sherlock died. Strangely, when he imagines what Sherlock must be thinking, he smirks with satisfaction.
"You are now without a name, a country, or any taxation worries. Taxes are much more certain than death in this instance, yes? How does it feel to be nobody?"
"I'm bandaged. Did you take me to a doctor then? Feels like torture. Guess that Jadda in Bagdad told the truth? I am officially burning in hell…no surprise who my reaper turns out to be," John says with a slight cough.
"Thank you. About time you picked up on my secret agenda. I'm only an apprentice reaper. Haven't earned my big scary sickle yet. I'll expect a gift upon graduation. Of course I took you to a doctor. You had a head injury. Only the best for my babies. Of course, he was not used to dealing with such small clients, had a bit of trouble calculating the dosages, but we got it all settled."
"Short jokes again or…no. What kind of doctor?"
"Oh, he had lots of awards and such on his wall. He was a very good one, I assure you."
"Uh huh? Did he leave any instructions?'
"Yes. I have followed them to the letter." Rat pulls out a slip of paper.
John looks at the heading. "It's in French."
"Of course. We are in their country."
John doesn't read French, but two words stand out after the doctor's name and he quickly figures out what they mean. "Chirugien veterinaire?"
The Rat sighs, face blank daring John to complain. "Yes."
"You took me to a veterinary surgeon?" John asks in bewildered fury.
The rat shrugs. "Told him you were a Rhino. A very small, Sumatran Rhino. It's written right there. Had to make his file look official, the French government is quite strict on its tax filings. He was rather skilled. Won't even be much of a scar."
"I got stiches?"
"Well we couldn't very well remove your spleen without them."
"You had a veterinarian…remove my spleen? Jesus…What the hell was I thinking?"
"Well, not all of it. He's an animal surgeon not a plague doctor. He didn't wear one of those pointy-nosed masks or anything. Cutting edge facility, I assure you. Even washed his hands. Call it more of a spleen repair. I'm just glad you are still thinking at all. Your skull will heal, have to be careful for a while. He was most concerned the brain swelling would affect your short term memory, but you're a tough little thing, Always have been. "
John closes his eyes and gently feels his scalp wrapped in far too much gauze. "He had no back up blood supply. I could have bled to death. God. Please tell me you did not have a horse doctor do brain surgery on me?"
"No. Of course not. It was unnecessary. You responded to the…"
"How did I not see it? I have got to be stupid. How did I miss that you are…without doubt…related to Sherlock Holmes? God, he's just like you," John says with annoyance and frustration.
Rat blushes in pleasure. A small melancholy smile appears and his eyes sparkle. "Thank you. You have no idea what it means to be able to have one person with whom I can speak of my sons again. To be told by someone that perhaps the small amount of time I had with them may have mattered in some trivial way. I know all the facts about them, but oh, to speak to someone who actually cares about them and knows tiny details only a loved one could. To step back through that door. You have no idea. You just can't conceive what it means. I have mourned not being part of their lives all these years and…"he trails off as if he can't quite finish the thought.
John waited for him to continue. He hadn't meant the statement as a commendation yet Rat's reaction broke John's heart, just a slight bit; he'd taken him to an animal doctor, after all. John pictured what it would be like to love something and never be able to tell them. He may not have lived that exact torment, but he could empathize.
He abstractly pictured what it would be like to go back to find Molly married. For a second he considered what it would feel like to see her pregnant with another man's child. It would be a bit like a second death. They hadn't spoken of it for a while, but there had been a couple of times that it had slipped casually into discussion. He had to admit that fatherhood had crossed his mind when he'd decided to propose.
He couldn't help but dream of such things. He wasn't sure there would be another chance. Live or die, he knew who he wanted to spend his life with. Molly had been his choice only because the other choice had been taken away. He couldn't say he felt he was settling for second best, but without Sherlock, he'd allowed his dreams to morph into new more comfortably traditional places and his heart felt split. He could not be without Sherlock if allowed the option any time in the future, but he wasn't sure he wanted to be without Molly. He'd made this insane decision to go with Rat on the fly, without really weighing his options.
He had not yet resolved that there was no going back. He is dead to that life now and he is just now hearing the first whispers of the grief for those insignificant everyday visions and modestly normal hopes. Truth is dawning on him that all those dreams were effectively dead with him.
Sherlock's words bear new light as John steps into the shoes of a man with no identity. He now exists outside his own life. He has no sister, no friends who will open their arms to him and acknowledge they know him. He isn't an official doctor now. He has the knowledge, but other than the desperate, who would he practice his craft upon? All those years of dues and sacrifice have just evaporated. Yes, it opens him up to a kind of freedom most people think they would want. It sounds like romance and adventure. He'd almost worshiped Ford like a super-hero fan.
Ford never bemoaned his old life. He seemed like a lucky, foot-loose, adventurous movie star come to life. That was what he wanted everyone to see. The actuality didn't look so pretty. It didn't even look real from this side of the lens.
John had wanted to be a movie star when he was young. He was going through that burn-out, rebel-against-your-parents, school-is-useless stage. There was a film crew in a neighboring town all the way from Hollywood. They were filming a romantic comedy set in medieval times. He'd run away and confidently offered his services. They had turned him down, of course, but he had shown up every day and hung around, just in the director's line of sight without being obtrusive. At the end of every day, he'd waited patiently outside, ignoring the dazzling actors and the chance to get one to sign a piece of paper to say he'd met a movie star who would forget him two seconds later.
The first day the director ignored him. As he left the main gate, John asked for his autograph. The director narrowed his eyes but complied obviously a little flattered, but not fooled by the kid who had shown his arrogance thinking he could walk on and be of any use to important people. The next day John arrived with a notebook and spent the day watching and scribbling. Again he asks for the director's autograph. He'd scrawled his name in John's notebook but in a less friendly way.
Every day he did this and finally after a week the man couldn't stand it any longer and had demanded to know what the heck the kid thought he was doing. John had smiled and said that he could learn a lot even if he didn't get to work on the set. "I'm studying you, sir."
"To what end? I told you, no."
"Yes, sir. But, so long as I'm not bothering you, I can still learn from you," John had said quietly.
"Oh really? So, what have you learned from way over there?" the director had asked making it plain that he thought John was a snot-nosed prat.
"Monday I learned that people bow and cater to you because you are the most important person here."
The director snorted, "Well, that was a waste of thirty seconds." He turned to go.
John kept pace with him and said clearly but in a much lower tone, "But, I also learned that they hide things from you because they don't want to look bad in your eyes. And that leads to a lot of stupid delays and mistakes while everyone rushes around passing blame instead of doing their job. That's stressful for you and you have every right to yell, but it just makes them all act that way more."
The director stopped. "Still not very impressed, but at least your truthful. What else do you have jotted down there?"
"You like your coffee with two creams and one sugar."
"So? Everyone on this set knows that." he says as if he's lost interest again.
"Yes. So why do you have to ask for them to bring it to you. You hate it cold and you don't order anything different, but they stand around and wait for you to ask. You should have hot coffee by your chair at all times, whether you drink it or not. But you don't ask them to do that. They make you wait."
The man tilted his head and slipped his hands in his back pocket. "What do you learn from that?"
"I learned that you put up with a lot and ignore the games they play with you, because you know what is more important. You pick what you get mad about."
The director's eyebrows shot up. "That's not so bad. I do. I also admit when I've missed something. Be here, Monday."
John had been hired and even been used as an extra in the movie. His torso could be seen walking by the speakers three times and his darkened head was part of the audience during a rousing speech given by the protagonist of the film. The thing is, it had changed the way he watched movies. He'd always loved the adventure and the rousing fights when swords clashed and dragons were battled. Being on the other side of the camera, seeing the fights looking like a ridiculous dance rather than danger had spoiled their mystique for him. To this day, he picked apart the fantastic moves and gym class antics of movie fights.
He'd never been able to shake the tarnish of that enlightening summer. The Rat had been John's movie star for so long he could barely recall a time when he didn't look up to him. Even when things had gone on between them that John didn't regret - but hadn't been prepared for - he'd never really seen Ford Hall as a man. He'd been a real life version of James Bond, Captain Kirk, and Rambo all wrapped up in an eccentric comedian.
John held his breath as all the magic bled away and he really looked at the man sitting beside him. His eyes still looked like ash as if he could burn the world down and never show a second's regret. His face had moved south slightly and now, in his early sixties, the first puckers of jowls could be discerned. He was still magnificent, but in the same way as a Lion who is days from losing his place in the pride he had built and fathered.
He was a lonely man who would no longer fit into normal society and it wasn't inconceivable that he might end up some unknown homeless scarecrow reeking of mouthwash and eating from rubbish bins if he didn't find himself that last high-noon gunfight to make quick work of his whispered deeds turned legend among a select few who knew more of him than they actually knew him.
Where had he spent last Christmas? When was the last time someone sung happy birthday to him? What will become of him in a few years, when he's aged beyond this life of battle and wits and stoic lonely searches for people who needed to stop existing? What happens to him when he can't run any longer?
He thought of Sherlock growing up thinking his father was dead. He wonders how different the man he loved might have been if he'd had this man's guiding influence. John felt his chest physically hurt with understanding. Sherlock had suffered so much for this man's adventures and causes. But this other man, this father, and friend John has loved most of his adult life has inconspicuously suffered too.
Ford was not a man to be pitied. He'd never tolerate that. But John had been wrong about him and he now knew he had been wrong about Sherlock as well. Sherlock needed John, but he was taking the bullet, to protect John from ever becoming nobody. Sherlock had watched John Watson suffer and finally move on. He hadn't been pushing John away at all. He'd been offering him the only salvation he knew how to give.
Sherlock had become nobody for him.
John had treated Sherlock as if his sacrifice was no sacrifice, but a betrayal. John understood now how that must have hurt his best friend. John had said that he would always believe in Sherlock, but it wasn't true. He had forgotten his promise. He had been so focused on getting what he wanted, that he had never looked at it from Sherlock's point of view.
His vision blurred and he closed his eyes, then very quietly, John began to speak, "Sherlock's never spoken of you casually, other than to say you died, but he keeps a picture of you. I caught him in an odd mood one day, his birthday, a month or so after we met. He said he was older than his father now. That was the only time he blurted anything about you. He didn't show me the picture in his hand, I found it later during one of his danger-night flat-searches. You couldn't have been more than twenty or so. I never made the connection to you. When I got back to London, the past was strangely distant and painful. I killed a man to protect him after knowing Sherlock for thirty-six hours. That's how quickly he had earned my trust, despite all the terrible things others tried to say about him. He's easy to misunderstand, and I'm no exception. " John's eyes slit open and he finds Rat leaning very close, attention riveted and a tear threatening to escape with the next blink from his left eye.
John reaches out his hand and Rat takes it, encouraging John to continue with a slight squeeze.
John swallows and nods. "Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade told me once that Sherlock is a great man. He said he hoped one day that he'd be a good one as well. At that moment, I didn't know what to say, because he was the first one who had said something that didn't sound like a warning label for serial killers. The thing is, he doesn't have to be good, or well liked or a cheerful ball of levity. People don't hate him and fear him because he's damaged, and he is damaged, but that isn't why they are cruel to him."
John paused, wanting to say the right thing. " Ford, he's an honorable man. I swear to you, he is deeply an honorable man. They both are, if you want my honest opinion. That's what the ordinary wretches can't abide. They could never be him, and they hate him so much for it. He's beautiful and they want to destroy what they can never achieve. I should have told him that. At exactly the wrong time, I was one of them."
Ford's eyes narrow as if it's just dawned on him that John is possibly filtering his comments. "Not what you said two days ago. Why has your tune changed? Is it just because he's my son, or did you bribe an angel for a task of penance while you were checked out on me?" Ford asked. "You don't have to speak kindly of him for my sake. "
"Neither. Didn't get bribed and not saying it just for you. I didn't understand." John chuckles bitterly. He takes a painful deep breath and tries to keep himself alert. His voice is soft, contented and almost peaceful, " He wasn't trying to push me off a bridge when he said I couldn't go with him. He was trying to keep me… from jumping off one," John said with eyes drooping closed.
Plague Doctors - were doctors who wore long bird masks fitted with nice smelling herbs during the outbreaks of the black death. Surpisingly the outfits of heavy oiled leather, mask, wide brimmed hat and goggles did offer some protection, not from the actual illness, but from the fleas that carried it, thus making the doctors seem almost magical.
The Matilda Briggs is a ship used in an ACD Sherlock Holmes story.
Deep cover is 'spy' for getting rid of your actual identity.
Sherrinford Holmes was ACD's name for his main character before he settled on Sherlock.