The second day at Mycroft's base is even worse that the first. This time it takes me only six hours to go from enthusiast to arsehole.
I have spent three weeks in almost complete isolation. My senses are completely overwhelmed now. I try to stay calm, really, but the constant buzzing and bustling around of Mycroft's minions is scratching on my nerves. It leaves a residue inside my brain. When I am (sent) home (by my ridiculous brother), I can still hear it. Feel it.
I try to drown it in violin music, but fail. My brain feels like swimming in an ocean of remembered murmurs and whispers and trampling and mobile ring tones and mobile message tones and the clacking of keyboards and and the rustling of newspapers.
I try to lie on the sofa and think of something nice (John. Always John.), but my inner Mary sneaks her way into my thoughts and ruins it. Just like the real one did at Mycroft's base.
Finally, I quit and go to bed. But the busy buzzing follows me into my nightmare. It is not a spectacularly scary nightmare or a very inventive one. In my nightmare, I am in my mind palace. In a nightmarish version of it, that is. I am unfamiliar with the rooms. The wall paper is too bright, the furniture too colourful, the carpet too flamboyant.
And no matter where I go, I can always hear the noises I tried to ignore all day. They grow louder and louder in every room I enter. In the last room I enter, I am afraid of losing my hearing, so loud is the buzzing. There is a gun placed on a cushion. (John's gun.) I know that all I have to do to end the (irritating maddening resounding) noise is to fire the gun.
But when I take it into my hand, all colours around me turn to red. The same deep red I have seen dripping out of Magnussen's temple. My heartbeat speeds up, and (again) I feel like I cannot breathe. I want to fire the gun, but my hands are sweating and my pulse is erratic and my vision is blurring and something horrible will happen when I pull the trigger.
I wake up with the ring of the shot echoing in my mind (once more), sweat drenching my sheets. My brain is still vibrating from the noise. My body feels like I ran a marathon in my sleep, every single muscle is tense.
When Mycroft's car picks me up, I feel like hiding rather than going back to the pitfall of noise and activity.
This time, the transformation from enthusiast to arsehole happens within five hours. The noise and the endless activity around me is still haunting me. When I finally manage to reduce it to background noise, I nearly clash with Mary.
She finds me when I managed to find a quiet spot (in the kitchenette after chasing away two minions by loudly deducing their pitiful sex life). (Her timing surely no coincidence.) Tells me how glad she is that I am allowed to stay in London (for now). Touches my arm to feign sympathy. Pretends to be happy for John and me.
I feel the need to peel my skin off of my body with my fingernails in order to prevent me from calling Mary a lying cunt.
Then John enters and her demeanour changes ever so subtle. Becomes possessive. Kisses John. Touches her baby belly. Places her hand on his arm and thereby pushing him away from me. (Only 1.4 inches, but still.) Stands between us.
My mind starts spinning out of control. Does she know? Does she guess? She is good. Very good. And astute. But she cannot know. Can she? Is she just demonstrating that John is hers? Is she warning us not to get started? Does she tell us to stop?
Am I giving us away right now with my (childish stupid dangerous total) panic?
The air has become fluid, hanging inside my lungs heavily, turning every breath into a challenge. I barely see John's concerned face. Sweat dropping into my eyes. Burning.
"Too loud" I shout, scream, yell, in a desperate attempt to hide the true reason of my whatever-it-is. "Everybody is thinking too loud!"
They buy it. John is concerned, Mary pretends to be concerned, they tell Mycroft, and ten minutes later I am sitting inside the car that will take me home early once more.
Tonight's nightmare finds me standing on a well-kept (very English) lawn. The sky above me is blue, the sun shining, birds singing in the trees, the temperature just right. A perfect day. In front of me a tomb stone. I know that I should not look at it, should rather walk away, for as long as do not look at it is not real. But I look, and I read ("John H. Watson" it says, and below "GraceNotEmilia Watson"), and for a moment I forget that it is a dream.
I wake up because I am crying so hard that my pillow is wet and I am choking on saliva and tears.
Three hours into the next day at the base, I lash out at John in such an unforgivable manner that I instantly delete everything except the shame I feel afterwards and the hurt look in his eyes.
At that point it becomes clear to us all that I cannot work like this. Forty-six minutes later I am at home, installing Mycroft's super secret software on my laptop to keep in touch with the operations base.
Of course I am alone, for John stays with his charming, pregnant, non-lashing out, patient wife. I can barely concentrate on the data in front of me. We have been able to exchange two stolen kisses over the course of the four days. Way too few. I miss three calls from the base while thinking of kissing him.
I work until my brain is so tired that I can risk going to sleep without thinking of John and Mary (lying in bed side by side). Does not work. Why is it bothering me that much? I know that John loves me. I know he is with Mary to protect GraceNotEmilia. Because I told him to. And yet …
And yet I cannot stop tossing and turning until I finally fall asleep just before dawn.
When I get up in the morning, my flat is full of people who are working on the Moriarty Enigma. Not only John and Mary and Mycroft and the inevitable Anthea, but also Lestrade, Molly and Mrs Hudson. I am caught completely by surprise.
They look at me when I enter my living room, and all activity comes to a halt. "With so many of you here I am sure there is at least one who has time to make me some tea," I say, unimpressed and walk into the bathroom as gracefully as a naked man can.
John is still smirking when I return, now dressed. (Love how the purple shirt still makes his pupils dilate.) The little laughter lines around his eyes make my heart lose about two pounds of weight, and before long I am finally deeply concentrating on the Enigma.
I am concentrated so hard that I don't hear the door bell. But it must have rung, for Mrs Hudson makes a big fuss about opening the door and why should one of the younger ones move down the stairs instead of her? I concur, but telling her so seems to be a bad idea. When she comes back, she is followed by -
Janine.
"Hi, Sherl!" she says, smiling unobtrusively, and adds "Hi, gang!" She embraces me, and John's mood drops, instantly. Luckily, Mary is busy staring at Janine in a peculiar way and therefore misses her husband's reaction altogether. (He really needs to be more careful. Just like me.) Mycroft discreetly turns all laptop screens around to hide the operation from her.
"I need your help, Sherl," she tells me after I have led her into the kitchen, her hand still resting on my arm.
According to John, I still owe her something despite the cottage. "Your timing is a bit unfortunate," I start, but Janine interrupts me instantly.
"You still owe me something despite the cottage," she says, and I cannot argue with her without being contradictory with John. Who pretends not to listen to our conversation, like everybody else. So Janine and I settle at the kitchen table, and she starts explaining, "Someone is trying to gaslight me. Drive me insane," she adds when I don't react. (How very 19th century. I must admit that the idea is slightly intriguing. Mycroft draws a face, which only makes it more intriguing for me.)
"My brother died some time ago," she goes on, "Four weeks ago I suddenly got a text signed with his name. It was a mobile number I didn't know, and when I called it, nobody answered." (Well, that is not a very elegant way to drive someone insane. Easy to fake. Boring.)
"The texts became more and more personal, including stuff only he could have written." (A bit less boring, but still easy to fake. Too often people overestimate the discreetness of family members.) "Then I received letters, written in his handwriting." (A bit more elaborate, but still too easy to fake to be truly interesting.)
"Why would someone try to drive you insane?" I interrupt Janine's stream of words to see if maybe the motive turns out to be interesting. She sighs.
"Family business," she says, and when I fail to show an appropriate reaction she explains, "My father left my brother his Blue Book. It's a collection of business contacts, some of his strategies explained, dirty secrets of our rivals, that kind of stuff." She pulls a face, and Molly looks at her in silent understanding. (Her family wanted her to become a primary school teacher, like all women in the family). "When my brother died, it was handed over to me, just like my father wished. Not that I want to have it. Thank you, Dad." She crinkles her nose.
(Business information usually make a less interesting motive that love. But maybe I can do her the favour and investigate a little without boring myself to death when I have the time.) "I will need to take a look at this Blue Book," I explain the obvious (just to be nice).
She nods, "Of course. I'll get it from it's safety deposit box at the notary. Better come with me then, I feel so much safer when you're around, Sherl!" (Is she still flirting? It's an activity that seems to come naturally to her. John frowns. Better get back to safe ground.)
"So" I sum her case up, "you received texts and letters from your dead brother and want me to ..."
"And voice mails," Janine interrupts me once more. (Forgot how annoying that was. But voice mails make the fraud a tiny bit more interesting.) "At first it sounded like a voice computer faking my brother's voice," she elaborates. "But after a while it sounded exactly like him. And it was interacting with me, answering questions and stuff, like a real person."
"Is there any chance your brother is in fact still alive?" I ask (just to rule out the impossible), and she shakes her head vehemently.
"No way, Sherl. He's dead. Definitely." (It sounds like a nice little case now. Maybe it is something John would enjoy, he is a romantic at heart and would feel like some 19th century novel character.)
"And just when I convinced myself that someone was imitating his voice, I received a video clip," she goes on, and now it becomes obvious that behind her flirtatious easy-going façade she really is scared. "Sherl, it was him. But … older. Some new wrinkles, a few grey streaks. Seeing him was …" She is clearly fighting for composure now. (And I can no longer resist the urge to help. She was right at the hospital, we could have been friends. Well, maybe it is not too late for that.)
"I' will need the texts and the letters." I say, and she starts to work on her mobile instantly. Good girl. "And you will have to send me that video."
"Oh," she says, without looking up from her mobile, "I'm sure you have seen it already. It was broadcasted nation-wide four days ago."
The silence in the flat that follows is one of the best stunned silences I have ever been part of.