Sherlock

They won't let me go. There is nothing else they can do for me, observation is showing them nothing I couldn't tell them myself and, though I have promised a hundred times to return if anything is amiss, they won't let me go. And isn't it funny, but I can't get hold of my brother, either. It's almost as though they're in some sort of conspiracy, keeping me here. No doubt it's all for my own good and all supposed to be helping, but this is exactly my point…

I can't explain it to the staff because they'll offer platitudes and reassurance. Somebody will say the word 'counselling' or worse, 'group' and there will be violence on my swift and unstoppable way to the door. And there's no one around I can explain it to who will actually understand. I'm alone, and not just because there's a private room off the main ward being paid for.

In all of this, I have found only one small respite. Provided I'm back for them to take their next set of measurements, I am free to wander at will down the corridor to the waiting room, where there is a fire door permanently propped open with a bit of breezeblock, to smoke on the fire escape. Lucky me. This has been going on for a couple of days now. It's the farthest I go. Regularly, over and over, it's the farthest I go. I'm making myself feel ill with all the smoking.

It's not working, this hospital business. I'm leaving. I'm out having a smoke (again) when the decision strikes me nice and clear, undisputable. I am leaving. They cannot legally hold me if I want to go and I'm not a danger to myself. By this afternoon, I will be back at home, and in my own bed. Nothing will be different except that there will be nobody there, and I can stop thinking about the ward sister with the wayward teenage daughter and the consultant with two ex-wives already and a new divorce in the works, and how none of them knows any of this about the others, and how that elderly lady who pushes the food trolleys round used to wear safety pins in her ear because you can still see the marks.

This one last time, after dumping the fag butt in the conveniently provided fire bucket full of sand, rather than turn straight back inside I start down the metal stairs. Not leaving just yet. There are belongings of mine up in that room. No, I'll go back for the next set of probings and numbers, and then vanish as though I was never there. First, though, I might as well wander a little farther than I have to date.

For instance, on the next metal landing, I pass another door. It's not propped open like the other, but neither is it fully shut, as though someone inside was enjoying the breeze. Or having a sneaky fag and is letting the smell circulate out. It's hard to tell, that could just be off my pyjamas. It was a doctor, y'know. Left their white coat behind and everything.

Not that that's anything to worry about. People who work in hospitals end up living in the places. Naturally you treat it like your own. It's not as if a coat like that is just going to vanish, now, is it?

Unless, of course, I swing past and slip it on. Why? Please don't ask stupid questions; I have made this very clear by now, hospitals are boring.

I mean, yes, every so often there's an incident like the one happening just down the hall, where there's shouting and scuffling from a ward, around a bed… That's why he left his coat, he ran to help. Somebody's just gone in to cardiac arrest.

There's a trolley abandoned in the hallway. Whoever was piloting it must have run to fetch the crash cart, which would carry slightly different stock to this more-general selection. I've seen these trolleys before, several times. They're interesting in that they are always laid out in exactly the same fashion. A veteran doctor can put their hand on whatever they might need blindfold. So that, for instance, if one were to reach into the third tray from the bottom, and knew where to count along and by how many, one could safely remove a preloaded morphine dosage, in a capped hypodermic needle, in a sealed packaging, from in between two just like it so it's not going to cause problems for anyone.

If. I mean, you could. It's a possibility.

And even if you did it, there's a chance it would be a purely academic exercise, it wouldn't mean you were planning to use it or anything like that. You might well do it just to see if you could. Which you could.

The other thing you could do is just walk past and leave all medical supplies where they are and intact. That's definitely another thing you could do.

You could just go back up to your own floor and enjoy your white coat as the only victory, hide it in the bedside locker, submit to all the tests for one last time as another nurse comes round and tells you the numbers, to which you respond, "Well, that's alright and I can go home then." She'll tell you to wait for a doctor, during which wait you pack up your few belongings, both the ones that belong to you and the ones that belong to the hospital. Enter Doctor, studies figures then, like you're an idiot who doesn't know all of those figures are completely normal, says, "Just one more night, I think." You'll get the feeling he'll just keep saying that forever and ever.

The moment he leaves, what you could then do is get dressed, shove your pyjamas in with the rest of the stuff, get presentable. Then you'd put on the borrowed white coat again and use it to leave the hospital. Nobody questions a white coat. Not even if you look half dead and you're watching to see who's suspicious and you've got your bag on your shoulder. Actually, especially not then. Student doctor, borrowing supplies for recreational use, yeah, I'd buy that…

Then you could go home and play with your new morphine needle for a while, trying to decide what to do with it.

Jim

Moving out, as previously discussed, took less than ninety minutes. Moving back home is a much longer process. And it involves far too many people for my liking and all. They have to be expendable sorts, because there's really no choice. First things first, an unknown party has to check out Danielle's place. They have to see that it hasn't been turned over. They check a list of areas she gives them where documents are kept (though the woman keeps putting her big eyes on and swearing to me there's no sensitive information there) and look of any signs of disturbance of infiltration. Then another somebody has to go in and run the place for bugs, cameras, microphones, tapped phone lines, Wi-Fi hacks, all the technical stuff. Moran, being presumed dead to those who pursue us, goes along to check the surrounding area for wandering souls and black-tinted windows. And once that little corner of the city is declared clean, Dani goes home to get dressed for dinner with her happily-married director of operations, the two strangers are replaced with two other strangers and everybody does the same job all over again at the flat which is actually important, where I live, with the bulk of my belongings still in it, where I really would very much like to get back to if it's going to be a possibility, please and thank you.

I want moving out to have been a purely precautionary measure.

It's the bulk of a day before Moran drives back up outside. And, like I'd hoped, he doesn't even get out of the car but blows the horn like a midnight minicab and I just drag the bags out to him. Drop into the passenger seat saying, "Thank fuck for that…" He laughs. Not much or loud, but he laughs. "Hm?"

"You're not used to danger, are you?"

Cheeky bloody bastard… Me? Not used to danger? I ought to be, anyway. I've been in and out of it since I was fourteen years of age. I can't believe he just said that to me. No, what he must mean, what I'm really not used to, is running and hiding. Doesn't matter what's going on or what's happening to me, that is not my automatic reaction. That must be what he means. Getting in the cupboard and staying quiet and hoping the scariness goes away, that's what makes him laugh, that's the part that isn't me. He better hope to God that's what he meant.

I've been quiet too long and he develops this need to explain, "What I mean is, you're not a fighter, per se."

He doesn't even know what per se means, the daft prat. He hasn't a clue what he's talking about. All I've ever done is fight. There is absolutely nothing, not one scrap of a half an idea of a thing in my life, that I did not have to fight for. And yes, we're getting to the stage now where I'm just standing at the bottom of a gentle slope and letting all the good come tumbling gently down to me, but I fought to get here. Even him, as he was so blunt in point out earlier, I had to fight to keep him. I had to send another man away to be publicly executed in his place to hold on to the Artist Formerly Known As Jon fecking Darcy.

"…Physically, I mean," he fills in, in light of this new silence.

"Moran, stop digging."

"Yes, sir."

This time it's his silence that gets to me. Gives me too long to think about his initial question, what was really being said there. "Do you mean I should get used to danger? Of this sort that you were going to such lengths to define."

"No," he says, loud and lying. "No-no-no-no-no-no… Not what I meant. No, I've given you the wrong impression there, what I meant was-"

"Moran."

"A bit, yeah." With something like compassion, "It's not a safe and easy path you've picked, mate."

"Glory-alleluia…"

There's a look from him, but I miss it. Sort of glad to, as well. Gives me a chance to change the subject. Get off talking about business and get on to… well, business. "That house we just came from, we're shutting it down. Used it too many times already, neighbours are starting to twig. Should have seen the blinds getting twitched when Dani arrived yesterday, it was like interference on the telly, whole street was going. Close it up, get it sold. I'll start looking for a replacement. As of today, soon as I get back and set-up, we're closed to new work. No requests. We have only two priorities; Holmes and… and this murderer business… This car's safe, isn't it?"

"There's still an RF scanner in the boot, so I think we'd know if it wasn't."

"Well, yeah, the Creep, then."

"You don't sound too happy about him."

Of course I am. Wouldn't have done it if I wasn't sure about it, would I? "He just needs upkeep and contained. Keep giving him his little challenges, he'll be fine, serve us well. I only mentioned him because we can't forget him, with everything else that's going on."

"I've seen the fella, Jim; he doesn't lend himself to being forgotten."

"Sidelined, then. Since when are you the pedant here? He'll be on the back-burner, but he still needs attention, that's all I was saying. Holmes is going to be a fecking nightmare, so it would be easy to leave the Creep to his own devices, if we were careless like that, which we're not."

"He knows too much for that, doesn't he?"

"Oh, God, Moran, please just drive the car."

I don't regret it. Because it wasn't a mistake, so I don't regret it. Regret isn't something I usually bother with anyway; didn't get where I am now looking over my shoulder. I just need to get home and get set back up. Once I'm back to work I'll know what to do. Get a good long think about it. That's the one thing that's been missing. Sit down, take all the factors that need to be considered, and figure out how to make them work for one another. Take disparate fragments and turn them into a useful whole. There's a way to make all this come out in my favour. I can't see it yet, but I will.