{Hey guys, thank you so much for being patient. Have been dealing with a lot of IRL stuff, but here's the new chapter anyway, haha.}
In the next two days, his eye movement continued to slowly improve. His eyes flickered to meet John at the door the next day and, on the Saturday, he managed to shakily follow his movements from the hall to the chair.
Of course, once he had settled down and started to read, those clever eyes fell shut for a while. He chose to believe that Sherlock only needed to rest- and not that the articles that he had printed off at the library were just as boring to him as the articles from the Metro had been.
He breached the issue five minutes before he had to leave.
"I looked you up on the internet the other day."
He creased the print-outs in his lap, folding them inside of the day's issue of the Metro.
"Found your website. The… Science of Deduction."
Even though he was across the room, even though he was paying particular attention to one of the cuticles that he had been chipping away at with his thumbnail, he felt those eyes open and focus upon him again.
John looked up and wished, for the thousandth time, that he could at least express himself- but he still fancied that he caught the edge of a smirk in Sherlock's eyes for a fleeting moment.
"You said that you could identify a software designer by his tie, and an airline pilot by his left thumb."
Sherlock said nothing, but the corner of his lip seemed to twitch. He blinked, and John could almost hear the unimpressed 'And?' resonating in the silence that spread between them.
"Whether or not that's even possible, I'm sure that you've noticed that I've started going online for articles. You… probably need something more substantial to keep your mind occupied."
Another blink.
He did not want to ask what Sherlock knew about him. It would be rather self-indulgent anyway, especially when the man was still unable to reliably communicate. For now, he worked as hard as he could to suppress his morbid curiosity- and to convince himself that he did not want to know.
Dr. Stein caught him as soon as he left Sherlock's room and took him for a cup of tea in the doctor's lounge. In a way, it was a welcome change of scenery. Everything was different from his old hospital, but the familiar, soft humming of a coffee machine in the background seemed to make him feel better immediately.
"He's making a lot of progress," she told him, legs hooked one over the other as she daubed the tea bag against the side of her mug. "You've probably already noticed his improved eye movement. It's far from perfect, but he's able to move out of a fixed stare, when he applies himself."
The spent tea bag went onto a napkin and Dr. Stein took a small, slow sip.
"Physiotherapy could be better, but his finger movement is already improving a little faster than we expected it to. It's a bit unusual, but we aren't about to hold him back."
Dr. Stein managed a smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Something turned slightly in his stomach.
"You didn't take me aside just to talk about Sherlock's improvement, though," John said. There she was again, dancing around the damn issue as if he was likely to break down crying like a child. What was it now? Was Ms. Monroe ill? Was she getting worse? She had been looking pretty pale, he supposed, and her family had made a trip over to visit just the other day…
"No," she admitted. "I didn't. I wanted to remind you that even though this is very good- and even though he's doing better than we generally would have anticipated-"
"He might never recover fully, or he won't walk or get his voice back- it's fine. I know that it's against the odds."
But he still completely expected that recovery to eventually happen. Could she tell? Was that why she stretched out a hand to rest on his shoulder?
Dr. Stein picked the bad one and he winced. She pulled it away apologetically.
"There's that- and there's the other risks. You weren't a neurologist, were you, John?"
He shook his head.
"Well, I just wanted to explain that it's not just against the odds. With locked-in patients, there's a very high chance that they'll contract pneumonia within four months of consciousness."
"How high?"
"About ninety percent."
Oh. Right.
John let her guide the rest of the conversation- and bits and pieces of it washed over him every so often. They were keeping up physiotherapy. The laptop was being configured and calibrated that afternoon, but it probably would require a lot of tweaking before it could be easily used. Mr. Holmes was still trying to throw his weight at the board of directors to have them do something else…
He couldn't remember the walk from the doctor's lounge to the elevators, or from the elevators to the edge of his road. He realised that he'd left the newspaper and the articles from the library on the table when he reached for his keys.
The next day, the laptop sat on the pull-out table in front of Sherlock Holmes, and his eyes flickered up for a moment to watch him move over to his chair. He was definitely getting better at following John's movements, but the light of that screen had to be straining his eyes.
"Doesn't that hurt at all?" he asked, fussing with the paper and thumbing through it. "I wonder if it's difficult to control."
He didn't get an answer, but he hadn't really expected one, even with the laptop in place. Sherlock would have to expend a huge amount of energy into controlling it and, although he was doing well, it all seemed a bit too optimistic to John. They probably weren't too easy to calibrate…
He flipped past an article about a nest full of duck eggs that had been found inside a bank and he nearly skimmed through to the Sudoku puzzle before…
'CAMDEN WOMAN REPORTED MISSING'
Flipping back as quickly as he could, John let a quick "oh god," pass his lips before he began to read:
"A missing persons report has been filed for ALICE RUCASTLE after she did not report for work on Thursday. She is 31 and she was due to return from visiting family members in Hampshire earlier this week. Her family has denied knowledge of her whereabouts…"
A photo, smaller than the length of his thumb, showed a blurry facebook photo of a smiling woman with her hair cut back in a short, chestnut bob. Just as Harry had told him, she looked strikingly similar to the laughing woman that he had seen in the window the week before…
"I have to make a call," he said quickly, folding his paper and pulling himself to his feet. He paced back and forth between the door and the window. "I have to go to Hampshire and make sure that Harry doesn't do something to get put in prison… God, I need to figure out train times- I can scarcely afford…"
He forced himself to stop.
Sherlock was looking up at him again. Then, his eyes flickered back to the chair on the other side of the room, where his cane was still propped up against the wall.
John made himself move slowly to his usual spot at the foot of Sherlock's bed as his leg began to cramp slightly.
"I have to go," he said awkwardly, grabbing the handle of his cane and dragging the seam of the plastic along the inside of his palm. "I'm really sorry that I have to cut this one short, Sherlock. I don't know when I'll be back. Hopefully in time for tomorrow, but I- god, I have to go."
John Watson made it to Waterloo Station in thirty minutes and, for the first time in his life, he allowed himself to go into his overdraft to pay for the train ticket. He had forgotten his Metro in Sherlock's room again, but what he really missed most of all was the Browning that had been left behind in his desk drawer.
He spent the next hour trying to convince himself that he would not need it.
{Next chapter is the big one. I think I've put all the establishing pieces in place... this is going to be fun! Thank you all for your lovely comments and for being so patient with me! :D I'll do my best to be faster with the next one.}
