Again: thank you. I mean it.
Personal Message
John stared at the login page of the phone, taunting him with a cryptic I AM **** LOCKED.
A four digit code. He had no clue what the password was. Not the slightest. He felt tempted to throw the phone at the wall but suppressed the impulse immediately. Instead, he looked at Sherlock. "Brilliant, Sherlock. Kindly give me a clue, would you?"
The face remained impassive, of course.
John sighed and took out his own phone. He scrolled through the list of contacts until he found the British government and pressed the call button.
Mycroft Holmes answered immediately. "Yes, John?" Was there a faint note of amusement in his voice?
"The phone is locked," John bit out angrily.
"Ah, well yes, of course." There was definitely amusement in his voice. John regretted not having punched Mycroft earlier. "I don't have the password."
"It is very simple to guess. This is of course not the original password," Mycroft explained in a condescending tone. "A four digit code would not be secure enough. The original was much longer, involving a combination of random numbers and characters, impossible to crack."
"Yes, thank you, Mycroft, I need the current one," John said tersely, feeling ridiculed. He was certain Mycroft had set up this code for him to work out, taunting him.
"I am not taunting you, John," Mycroft replied to his unspoken accusation. "I did not have the original password. Sherlock was too careful for that. He did, however, reset the password himself to this extremely simple code so that I could unlock the phone easily while the content was still protected from any outsiders trying to access it. But more importantly, he wanted me to give you the phone locked."
"Why?" John rasped, his anger briefly directed at Sherlock, who managed to throw him puzzles even while he lay unconscious.
"It is not a code, John," Mycroft drawled. "It is a message."
John coughed. "A message. What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He suddenly felt tears pricking in his eyes – he was angry, but exhaustion had eroded his last shred of calmness, making his temper volatile. He felt he was heading for a serious breakdown. And most of all he was fed up being teased by the Holmes brothers; his sense of humour had been blown to pieces by that bullet, and after spending days keeping vigil next to Sherlock, he was at the end of his tether.
"As I said, the current password is easy to guess for those close to Sherlock," Mycroft continued, pausing expectantly.
"221B?" John quipped, choosing the first thing that came to his mind.
"I said it is a message, John," Mycroft lectured, sounding as if he was about to end the call.
"Mycroft!" John yelled, anger and frustration bubbling over. "I'm not in the mood for guessing! I've spent far too much time guessing what's going on in that bloody mind of your brother's, I can't –"
"John."
"I can't take it anymore!"
"John."
"Tell me the bloody password!"
"John."
"I am listening!" He roared, so loud that a concerned nurse pushed the glass door open, poking her head inside, frowning at him. He made an apologetic gesture and waved her off hurriedly.
He heard a deep sigh. "No, you are not listening," Mycroft said, suddenly sounding tired. "The password is John." He hung up.
John stared at Sherlock's phone. John. The password was his name. He closed his eyes in exasperation. Of course.
He carefully punched in the characters: the login page glowed, and the phone was unlocked.
John bent over Sherlock, holding up the illuminated screen to his impassive face. "Johnlocked. Is that your idea of a joke, huh? What kind of a message is that anyway?"
He sat down again, sighing. "So, what have you got on here? Any secret confessions? Scandals? Vices?" He looked at the screen, displaying a number of folders, one labelled Diary. He clicked it, revealing a list of documents, consecutively numbered.
John sighed. "No titles, of course, no Hot in Paris or Naked in Naples. Wouldn't have expected anything else," he muttered. Looking up, he suddenly smiled. "Sherlock, if this isn't a good read, you can keep it! I'm not gonna sit here listening to you droning on about 200 different types of tobacco ash! Though, technically, I'm not listening, I'm reading, as you would be keen to point out," he snorted, "and it's two hundred and forty-three, I know." He opened the first document. "Okay, so what have we got here … What's that?" He stared at the phone in surprise.
It was a picture. Sherlock's face, a bit blurry, obviously taken with the phone held out at arm's length. He was looking into the camera, his head turned slightly sideways. John narrowed his eyes. Sherlock was wearing a scarf and perhaps a coat, the collar up, that much was visible, but everything else was dark; he hadn't used the flash, hence the blurriness. Impossible to say where or when it was taken. His curls were shorter than at the time of his death, but he looked much the same – no, not quite, John realised, he looked not just grave or stern but sad, if not to say sorrowful. Underlaid with suspicion.
John shook his head; maybe he was reading too much into it, after all it was just a snapshot. He scrolled down and found a date at the bottom of the picture: now he knew. It had been taken exactly one year after the fall. He bit his lips. One year; he remembered that day vividly. It had been bleak and rainy, the black tombstone glistening wet, flowers rotting at its base. He did not want to think about that day.
Scrolling down, he finally found the text.
John,
Mycroft has told me to keep a diary for you to read. You may be surprised that I do as told; however, it is possible that I will not survive, and then I have no means of explaining myself to you.
Strangely, Mycroft refrained from pointing out that in the event of my demise, this should no longer be important to me – but it is. Therefore, I will try to write about my current endeavours, should you care to learn about them. I think you care.
I have included a picture of me, believing that – for some irrational reason – you would want to know what I currently look like.
I cannot guarantee that I will find the time and patience to write regularly, although I believe it may be a meaningful occupation during surveillance stakeouts and other boring tasks. I promise, I will try to write in a comprehensible way, but I am not used to keeping a diary or writing personal letters. I will do my best, and hopefully I will improve my skills in the course of time.
Bear with me.
S
John stared at the phone. It was strange to read a message from Sherlock to him; his friend suddenly seemed both closer and more distant, the words sounding aloof and stilted. Still, his concern was perceptible – I think you care. 'I certainly do,' John mused. 'You do know me, don't you? After all, you thought of including a picture. ' He felt a smile sneak onto his face as he read the text one more time. Bear with me … it was a plea, he realized, not just to keep reading, but to understand.
He would do his best to heed it.