Hello, hello, hello! I just want to say THANK YOU to all you lovely readers who have been patient in waiting for this next chapter. The spring semester started up so my time has been a bit stretched, but it felt so good to be able to get back to this story. I hope it's long enough to satiate you all. Also thank you to everyone who reviewed. It really does mean a lot.
Finally-a shout out to the guest reviewer (I haven't figured out how to reply to you personally) but you are awesome! I really really appreciate your gumption and enthusiasm. Rock on, and please enjoy! :)
John Watson was angry. No—angry didn't even begin to cut it. Angry was a small word, soft, weak, inadequate, and, for this situation, only covered the basic feelings that rushed through his heart, thoughts clouding over in his brain threatening to explode at any moment.
He couldn't believe it. How did he—of all people!—he who had lived with the great Sherlock Holmes (John was almost surprised when his mind spat that word out, fuming, almost sneering, seething) get roped into being conned by a murderous, lying, woman!
He couldn't help but think of Molly in this moment. Molly, who had been fooled by perhaps the greatest criminal mastermind the world had ever known, a man who had crafted layer upon layer of lies to deceive those around him. Moriarty had called himself Jim, pretended to be Molly's boyfriend—as well as gay to mess with Sherlock's head—and then turned out to be a murderer and a psychopath as well.
John felt a fool. How judgmental his thoughts had been towards Molly when he had found how Moriarty's true nature. How could she not know? How could she not have at least suspected? Were the thoughts that had raced around in his brain when Jim Moriarty true colors were revealed.
What an arrogant sod, John thought of himself, defeated. He had thought Molly such a blind fool, and, how ironic then, that he should turn out as such, too.
He had loved Mary. Or did he still? He didn't know. But he had loved her for a while at least. Like, really, truly loved that woman. She pulled him out of his darkened life when Sherlock fell to his death (a façade for which John still wasn't entirely sure he had forgiven his friend completely). But Mary had been there when no one else had. She understood his pain, she sat with him during those dreary afternoons when his mind couldn't help the grief that settled itself in his heart and refused to let him even get off the couch. So she would come over and just sit with him. Just sit. She knew he didn't have words to express his pain but that he appreciated her company. And so she held his hand and became his beacon. His glimmer of hope. His foundation.
John felt shattered. He didn't know who to trust anymore. And why was Sherlock—Sherlock BLOODY Holmes—defending her? She shot him! She straight up shot him! If he had been the one to be shot, John knew he would be damned if he didn't at least give them the silent treatment until he had finished healing, for God's sake. It had been less than a bloody week and already Sherlock was on Mary's side. He still had a bullet hole in his chest and yet he was defending the woman. John couldn't wrap his mind around it. Maybe it was the whole "high-functioning sociopath" thing. Sherlock Holmes didn't work on the same frequency as the rest of the world and so he didn't understand that normal society delegated the allowance of bitterness towards the person who knowingly inflicted physical injury on another. Maybe that was why Mary seemed to be able to form words at this point, too. Was she a sociopath as well? It would just fucking figure, John thought.
He didn't trust himself to say anything right now, not after his outburst when they had arrived in 221B. His best friend had been standing in the doorway (having taken quite a while to pull himself up the staircase to the flat), clutching the wall as if his life depended on it, skin unhealthily pale and eyes slowly getting more and more unfocused. The doctor in John disallowed him from ignoring thoughts of worry and concern for his friend, who really should have stayed in the hospital, but greater still was his anger. It took all of his willpower not to walk out of the room.
It just didn't seem fair. What had he ever done to deserve this? Sherlock seemed to think, "no harm done. Let's move on," was a fair motto to live by at the moment, though John found it anything but. His wife had shot his best friend! How do you even process that? To hell with Magnusson and his confounded Apple Dur! To hell with his reign of blackmailing people! To hell even with this bloody case! Mary had shot Sherlock. And both of them seemed okay with the outcome of the situation. Strangely able to cope.
Fucking psychopaths, John muttered to himself. Had Sherlock been in a more physically-capable state-of-mind and Mary not so tense, perhaps they both would have corrected him, explaining the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths with Sherlock's favorite phrase "high-functioning" swirled in there somewhere. High-functioning, my ass! John thought. It's hard even for the Great Sod Sherlock Holmes to function properly with a bloody bullet hole in the flesh.
He couldn't help it. John's mind kept coming back to three words. Bullet. Mary. Sherlock. Those three words seemed so foreign and out-of-place and yet here, today, they fit so perfectly. No, not perfectly. It felt so wrong, yet it fit.
Anger flashed through his mind every few seconds, his heart beating rapidly, fists clenched, finding it difficult to even look at Mary in the eyes.
But you know what, I have a right to be angry! I have a right to be bloody pissed off! John thought loudly in his head. Righteous anger. It's what his therapist called it. During one of the few times he found his feet carrying him to her office after the events of St. Bart's hospital rooftop, he had burst out angrily that he wished Moriarty were still alive, so he could kill that bastard himself, in the most gruesome and violent and painful of ways. He wanted vengeance for Sherlock's suffering.
"You have what we call Righteous Anger, John," her voice had cooed quietly. He always hated her tone. It seemed condescending, somehow. Like she was talking to a child. Like he needed to be coddled and held and that he needed to talk about his feelings. "You feel that you are owed a moral justice for what has been done to your friend. You think that since Sherlock was your mate and Moriarty is responsible for his death, that makes you justified to commit murder. That makes you immune to the moral line. Anger is good, John. But hate is unhealthy. It's a poison and you need to learn to let go."
John had held desperately onto that anger for as long as possible. And then he had met Mary.
But now look at the mess that turned out to be. His friend sagging slightly in the armchair, breath coming quicker each minute. He was shifting uncomfortably in an attempt to alleviate the pain from his bullet hole, John thought, glancing at Sherlock.
John was pulled from his spewing thoughts by a phrase which caught him by surprise. Sherlock was saying something to him.
"You're using what happened to me to fuel your anger for Mary. You are mad at her for causing me pain and so you're letting that be the forefront of your hate. But what you really hate, John Watson, is that fact that she lied to you. Your posture—the way you're angling yourself away from her and your clenched fists and the fact that you can't even meet your own wife's eyes gives away the fact that you are very upset. Using my own experience and the fact that when we were on that train and I was trying to defuse the bomb and you thought I couldn't do it I could see in your eyes that what hurt you the most was the fact that I had made you suffer in grief for two years before approaching you again. You hate liars, John."
John's eyes snapped up at Sherlock.
"What do you know of what I hate?" he growled at his friend. Sherlock closed his eyes for a second, apparently regretting that John wasn't understanding a vital point. Sherlock, paler now than ever, grasped the side of his chest, as if John's words were causing him even more pain.
John loathed when Sherlock got all high and mighty and liked to parade around his pleasure at the fact that he thought he understood people better than they understood themselves.
"You think that if you can read body language and eyebrow movements and postures and things that means you understand me? Well, not this time Sherlock. Not this time." John was almost screaming by now. Again.
Sherlock drew in a shaky breath, eyes clenching tight for a bit as he shifted in his seat, hunching over, a hiss of pain abandoning his hard-sought-facade, but his voice was solid and strong when he spoke.
"John—" he started but the doctor cut him off.
"No, Sherlock. No. I'm done. With all of this. Just no." Sherlock leaned back in his chair and looked at Mary. John fought the urge to stand up and run out of the room. He felt stifled, pressured, cornered. His skin was crawling by now, so desperate it was in fighting the desire to escape, flee the two people he had once cared most about in the world.
But right now he hated both of them. Mary most of all. Sure, he was worried about Sherlock, but that little mind-reading stunt he had just pulled made John furious. What did Sherlock understand about love? Or fear? As the great detective so often liked to point out, he didn't think like most people. He didn't want to be seen as human.
Well now, John was going to give him that satisfaction.
"Just let us finish, please." Sherlock persisted. John was caught off guard at the softness of Sherlock's tone. Almost as if he was pleading. He knew John was angry, he knew that he needed patience.
John sighed, unable to retain his anger whilst his friend was in such obvious discomfort. The doctor in me, John admitted to himself.
Another sigh. Then, "Fine. Fine, Sherlock. But this is for you, not her," he spit that last word out like a poison. Sherlock sat upright a bit more, looking at Mary once more, who's eyes had begun to water again at John's harsh words. She cleared her throat though, and the conversation began again.
Thanks for reading! Chapter 4 to come soon!