Trigger warning: Like so many chapters ago, there is a trigger warning AT THE END of the chapter so those who do not want to read it won't be spoilered.
John is determined to protect me. I doubt that he could put his finger on what exactly it is he is protecting me from but that does not lessen his determination. When we decide to call it a day he follows me into the bathroom. Things get a bit awkward but in the end, we are both ready to go to bed.
Of course he follows me into my room afterwards.
On his way to my bed (which is so narrow that we will have to lie very close) (which is perfect) his eyes wander to Emmi who is still sleeping soundly in her cot.
"She is fine," I assure him.
There are oh so many emotions flickering over his face. Love and fear and regret and hope and so many more that I cannot name them all.
"I'll protect her as well," he murmurs.
Of course he will.
I feel the urgent need to touch, to comfort him. Yesterday, I would have hesitated but our long embrace has made me reckless. So I place my hand on his shoulder. He tenses but only for a split second. Then he leans into the touch. From the side I can see his mouth open and close a few times. He is trying to tell me something, several things, in fact, but cannot make up his mind.
"Let's go to bed," he finally says.
We really have to lie very close. Finding a comfortable position for John requires some shuffling and re-arranging of limbs. In the end we are facing each other, my face pressed against his chest. Our legs are tangled up. His arm is lying on my side, holding me tight.
It is perfect.
There is a little pang of guilt trying to get hold of my mind. We are only lying this close because John is scared to death. And yet, I enjoy every second of it. I force the guilt away with grim determination. John has to be scared to death. He desperately needs this chance to see that nothing will happen to Emmi or me just because he loves us. He needs to feel like he can protect us again.
Besides, he starts to softly caress my back. My mind is completely busy with storing every second of it in my mind palace now. There is no brain capacity left for feeling guilty. Despite my intention to stay awake all night, I feel myself slowly drifting into sleep.
###
When I wake up I realise that I cannot have slept for more than two or three hours. Something is different but I cannot quite figure out what. Then I realise that John has changed his position. His forehead is now leaning against mine.
"Sorry," he whispers, "I didn't mean to wake you up." His breath is tickling my nose. I cannot resist pressing a little kiss onto his chin.
"Never mind," I say, trying to sound casual while really being more than happy to be awake again.
His body stiffens but not as a reaction to my chaste kiss. He wants to talk about something but does not know how to start. Instead, he shifts a little, again and again.
"Just say it," I try to quip. It comes out gentle and warm instead.
The shifting stops and John takes a deep breath.
"I couldn't protect you in the cellar," he presses out.
Of course he could not. That was the whole point of Mary's cruel orchestration. Before I can tell him so he goes on, "All the time I could only watch and watch and I tried to protect your soul at least but I failed and you didn't start talking again and I knew I let you down and … "
Now he is talking absolute nonsense. "Shut up," I hiss (more fiercely that I had intended).
It is too dark to see his face but I feel him shaking his head. I also feel his tears running down my cheek. "Sherlock, I am sorry," he moans, "I am so sorry."
"You saved my life," I remind him. Why do I have to remind him? He had been there, too. He must know that I would have given up without him. I would be dead by now if it had not been for him.
What was silent crying now turns into ragged sobs.
"You saved my life," I say, again and again until he finally calms down once more.
Could I, need I say more? He knows that Mary has tried to systematically destroy him down there. He knows that he is not to blame for what happened and he knows that he saved my life. He knows that I love him.
Well now, that is the one thing I should say once more, just in case. So I tell him.
I do not quite know how it happened but we end up with his face pressed against my chest now, my arm around him. The exact opposite position of how we started the night. After a while he calms down. I can feel him shaking a little. The aftermath of his little emotional breakdown. His breath evens, his body relaxes.
Then the shifting starts again. But this time I know what he is about to say and can forestall him.
"Maybe you can forgive yourself more easily, now that you know that I forgave you," I suggest when he does not start talking on his own.
It feels like his body is melting against mine, boneless, creating a vacuum between our skins by moving so close that there is no place left between us, not even for the smallest atom. He sighs deeply.
"Maybe," he carefully agrees.
Now that everything we are capable of saying is said, I start slowly rubbing his back until he falls asleep.
###
Protecting me is rather easy here on Amrum. Protecting Emmi is a different matter. She is learning to walk which means that she is falling down from or bumping into something several times a day. She has (harmless) bruises all over her body, plus scratches she got from God knows where.
John is a doctor. He knows that is perfectly normal for an active child like her. He also knows that it is important to let her fall off of things because she has to learn how to fall. And yet, he spends most of New Year's Day holding his breath and STAYING CALM.
I can tell that he wants nothing more than to go out, vent some steam on his own for a while but he stays with us. Something terrible could happen to us while he is away. So instead of seeking for the solitude he needs, he does not leave us alone for a second. He even lets the door slightly open when he has to go to the bathroom. I pretend not to notice, and he pretends to believe that I do not notice.
I am waiting for a nervous eruption but none happens. It is because protecting is part of who he is, I realise when he makes a swan dive to catch Emmi when she jumps off the sofa. All the time after the cellar he felt like he was no use, like he could not protect us anyway. And he was missing it. Missing it with every cell of his body.
I have to think back on how we ended up together first place. His very first move was to be helpful (by lending me his mobile), then he felt useful (by coming to the crime scene with me and running over rooftops), and the next big step was him protecting me (from my own stupidity by shooting the cabbie).
Then I cannot help but imagine him sitting in Scotland, alone. With no one to protect, no reason to feel useful, no need to be helpful. How did he survive? The answer he gave me yesterday was not enough. So when Emmi takes her afternoon nap, I pluck up courage and ask him.
He looks at me for a while without saying a word. I would deduce him but my heart is beating so loud that I cannot concentrate on his face. He does his entire routine that always comes before he says something important (pursing his lips, looking away, shuffling his feet even when sitting, stiffening his back and pursing his lips again).
"You," he says then. When I fail to respond, he draws in a deep breath and goes on (reluctantly), "I … there was a plan already. I … I wanted … "
We are sitting face to face at the kitchen table. Not the proper setting for a talk like that, I realise (belatedly). Wordlessly, I take his hand (well, I rather grab his arm but anyway) and lead him outside into the garden. We can still hear Emmi from here but now there is no table between us. It is cold but the sky is clear. The grass is frozen. We can see the sea from here, the high tide with spilling waves. There is salt in the air and the promise of snow later this month.
"This place is why I came here," I tell John when I embrace him while he is standing in front of me, leaning against my chest with his back, and his shoulders finally relaxing again. "For many years this has been my safe haven inside my mind palace. I couldn't access it after the cellar, so I needed to come here."
We share a moment of silence. A lonely seagull screams somewhere high above us.
"I have been there before," he says then. "In Scotland, where I was after leaving you. My aunt used to live nearby. A peaceful, deserted little hut in the Highlands." He needs to dwell in memories for a while. When he goes on, his voice is so low that I have to press myself against him even closer to hear him.
"After your Dad agreed to bring you Emmi, I thought I would do it any day now." (He does not have to say the word. I know what he is talking about.) "I was waiting for the perfect day, you know." He is shaking a bit but soldiers on. There is no place for retreat now.
"I always watched the sunrise, every morning. Everything was so peaceful then and … I was longing for peace, Sherlock, so much that I thought … " He swallows. So do I. Unlike last night, his voice is completely free of tears now. It is all right, because I am silently crying for both of us.
"I knew exactly what I would do. I would take my gun and go outside before sunrise. And then I would watch the sky turning red, then blue, and then, when the day would have begun and my heart would finally be at rest, I would put the gun inside my mouth and end it."
I am holding him so tight that he should not be able to breathe. (My mind flickers to another man who put a gun into his mouth and ended it. And I cannot help imagine John lying on the ground the way that madman had, eyes open, blood slowly seeping out of his skull onto the flat roof. No, the grass. With John it would have been grass.)
My face is pressed into John's neck. I am sure that he feels my tears running down his throat.
When he does not go on, I ask him again, "Why didn't you?" My voice sounds awfully small. He sighs.
"I always imagined you coming all the way to Scotland to investigate. It was … " He laughs humourless, "It was stupid to imagine it like that. As if my body would still be lying in front of the hut when you would arrive. But I saw it like that in my mind." He shifts his weight, reaches for my arms that are locked around him. He clings to my forearms. I will have bruises there tomorrow. But that is okay. In exchange, the bruises on our souls will be a lot better tomorrow.
"I imagined you coming and … In my mind, you couldn't believe that I ended it myself. I saw you frantically looking for clues to prove it to be a very clever murder. There was so much panic in your face … That look hurt me so much." His breaths are heavy now. He is shaking rather badly but he is not yet done with his tale.
"So I thought I would need to leave you a note. I even sat down to write it but … I couldn't make up my mind on how to start it. 'Dear Sherlock' seemed too formal, 'My love' inappropriate, … I couldn't decide. I was sitting in front of that stupid sheet of paper the whole day." He leans into my embrace even harder.
"Then I heard your voice in my head, from the rooftop, you know? Telling me this was your note. And I remember how angry I was when I thought you were dead, how mad at you for throwing away your life and how disappointed in myself for not being able to stop you. And then I thought that the only way to end my life would be to get my gun and blow away my head right there, right now because I would never find the courage to do it if I kept thinking about you."
He is crying now too.
"I sat in that hut, the gun inside my mouth, the whole night. In the morning, the sun rose again, and then it was noon, and I was still sitting there thinking of what I was about to do to you and Emmi. And then, before I knew what I was doing, I was standing at the next train station, buying a ticket. I can't even remember packing my bag."
He has used up all his strength telling me that. He is only still standing upright because I am holding him in my arms fiercely. I am sick, terribly sick. I knew that he had been close to doing it but never have I dreamt of it being such a damn close call. When I can no longer stop my own legs from shaking, I am slowly descending down. We are sitting in the ice-cold grass, not quite sure which of us is weeping. Not that it matters. Time passes. Peacefully.
"We will both catch pneumonia if we won't get up soon," he says after a while, so dryly that I have to laugh. He chimes in, and we are giggling hysterically. When we are finally able to control ourselves again, he turns around in my arms so we can look at each other. There is sadness in his eyes and regret but something else too.
Love.
Without a word he pulls my head close and kisses me, fiercely and demanding and feral and consuming and hot. Somehow I manage to pull us up without breaking the kiss, and we stumble into the warm kitchen again, sinking down onto the floor, still kissing, still re-conquering what once belonged to us.
We continue until Emmi's impatient wailing breaks the spell.
John draws back, and our eyes lock once more. There is one more thing John needs to say right now, I can tell from his eyes. And I know what it is and I patiently wait for five seconds before he says, his blue eyes still looking deeply into mine, his hands holding mine so tightly, "I love you, Sherlock."
I cannot answer but that is all right too. I simply nod, and his face bursts into a smile. Because he does not just love me. He knows me, and he understands me, and he belongs to me. Because he no longer is the almost broken man who arrived on Amrum two months ago.
I love him too, and he knows.
Trigger warning: Very detailed talking about suicide.
Further note: I have the best betas in the world. 3