CHAPTER. 29. In DREAMS
John was standing in the gray of smoke swirling around him, he could feel it trying to swallow him whole, choking him, drowning him. The sounds around him where of men yelling for his help except he couldn't see them, and there were so many cries.
"Doctor!"
"MEDIC!"
"We need A DOCTOR!"
"Oh! GOD! I'M DYING!"
John stumbled pushing through the fog, "Oh! DOC!" someone was helping him stand. "Doctor it's his leg!" and the soldier tugged on John's medical pack, motioning which way to go. Both soldiers crouching down as the bullets sped past over head. They made their way to a ditch where other soldiers peeked over the side returning fire.
"This way Doc, you gotta help!"
John had a job to do, he knelt down to examine the young soldier with a bloody stump where a right leg should be.
"He's bleeding!" the younger soldier pointed out.
"This man is dead. I cant save him." John couldn't feel a pulse, and the young man's eyes were blank his face expressionless, no light, he was gone.
"We all are." The soldier frowned removing his helmet John could see the side of his skull covered in the thick blood and gray that was brain matter. Turning away, horrified John wanted to run, but the soldiers in the ditch no longer holding their guns were looking at him, with blank eyes. And now were reaching for him, pleading for help. A variety of fatal wounds scarring their bodies, one man had a hole clear through his chest, John morbidly found himself staring into the gaping to the ditch wall on the other side. They wanted help.
Frantic now, he tried to crawl out of the ditch, the dead were pulling him down, frenzied and begging. But he couldn't save them, he couldn't they were beyond his aid. There were others out there calling for him, he had to get to them, but the dead were yelling angrily. He kicked and pushed at their gripping hands and bodies, every time he had nearly pulled himself from the ditch they would only pull him back.
"I cant help you! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Still they pulled him down, down into the ditch the sand of this place filling his mouth and blurring his vision. He covered his head with his arms, wishing for the walking dead to go away. To leave him. He couldn't repair what was to far gone.
The hands stopped pulling at his arms and medical pack. Slowly his head came up from his knees, his arms no longer hugging them to his chest. The bodies were gone, the ditch empty, but the wind was howling, not a fierce howl, a little softer. Was it wind? He couldn't tell, the battle continued on somewhere in that fog.
Still, something was pushing past the haze of smoke, penetrating the confusion of the haunting pleas belonging to the dead and dying.
The soldier strained to hear more trying to identify where it was coming from.
The sound grew like a warm camp fire given oxygen and more kindling, crisp at first, and it demanded his attention, was it a parade march?
Heavy legs allowed him to stand slowly, and with arms of jelly he pulled himself up and rolled out of the ditch. The smoke of battle still unrelenting, but the desperate cries from the long dead seemed to fade into the back ground just a bit, taking back seat to the mysterious music.
His feet carried him forward, wanting to find the source, with every step the sounds around him grew softer and softer and the music louder, impatient, and playful, if music could be given feelings or emotion.
He came to a sudden stop, out of the fog stepped a young boy with dark curls and curious gray eyes.
John's first thought was for the boys safety, what was this child doing in a war zone? John looked the thin child over, dressed in the white garb of an Afghani child, but the blue scarf on his head wasn't right, the material was a heavier cotton, like a winter scarf. The boys skin wasn't bronzed or sun kissed by the hot desert sun, it was a flawless porcelain.
This child ignored the soldier, his face pinched his sandaled feet shifting from side to side. He was looking for someone. Who?
John kept himself directly in front of this mysterious boy, not wanting him to see the gruesome scene that was just behind him.
A familiar grin started to tease the edges of the dark haired kid's cupid bow lips, one that spoke of mischief and curiosity. Then the inquisitive eyes narrowed, "Have you seen my friend John?"
"Sherlock?" John felt like crying and laughing out of the sheer confusion, his voice hoarse barely a whisper, was it from the yelling? Had he been yelling?
"He's out here somewhere I think, lost." The boy sighed impatiently scrutinizing the soldier in front of him with one cutting glance.
"That is me. I'm John." Still nearly inaudible.
"No, John isnt at all like you. He is something quite the opposite."
"It is me." John let his AK and pack fall behind him, removing his helmet. "Sherlock why are you out here? You shouldn't be. It isnt safe." John took a step forward the young Sherlock shook his dark head the blue scarf hanging loosely around his shoulders swaying with his dark curls.
"You shouldn't either." He stated irritably. "Besides. As I said I'm looking for John. He's out here lost. He wont be able to find his way back. I have the map." He waved a folded piece of paper at John.
"Dad?" John turned hearing another boys voice, it was himself but 12 wearing a white t-shirt and ripped Jeans.
"No-"
"Come on John." The younger Sherlock quickly grabbed his friends arm the other boy flinched away from the soldier moving past, looking over his shoulder their eyes met.
"Don't! Don't go out there! It's not safe!" and just like that they disappeared through the haze.
John wanted to follow them, he thought he could hear laughter, when had the shooting stopped? In it's place the music had taken over completely and somehow it had changed when John wasn't paying attention to it.
The music, not as stern and stiff, if music could be this, it had transitioned into something warm, and even the sun seemed to respond, he wanted to be near it to be blanketed in the sound.
Away from this, this place that threatened to drown him, he didn't want to be here surrounded by the dead, the desert and hopelessness.
Shuffling forward he broke into a run, his booted feet coming down on something else, grass and sand. Softer sand, lighter than the scorched earth of where he had just come from. The army Doctor tilted his head back glancing skyward, welcoming the sun on his face.
Not the same sun of the desert, this one warm and welcomed, instead of burned and punished.
The sound of waves, no-it was the music soft like the resonance of an ocean, like a warm summers breeze combing over gentle waves. The air was clear, he could breathe, he could breathe. He found himself standing under the shade of a tall oak tree, an ocean to his left and just to the right of him in the distance, on a hill of green grass and cream colored sand, someone was playing the beautiful melody and John yearned to be closer but feared to interrupt the man in a dark suit with even darker curls.
Instead he sat beneath the shade of that tree, searching now over the green of the grass, beyond the sand of the empty beach, and onto the waters of a temperate ocean. Two small figures were running along the edge of the water, the music carried the laughter to the soldier still in his blood stained fatigues.
John hugged his knees to his chest, the drowning feeling the pulling and the stretching of his heart eased, this place seemed to blur and some other kind of dream took the place of what had started out as a nightmare.
~0~
The Doctor awoke the next morning feeling rested, he'd actually slept in, even his shoulder didn't feel so stiff. He could hear the familiar sounds of a flatmate moving around down stairs.
"John, sleep well?" His flatmate didnt look up from where he perched, (yes perched) in his usual chair.
"Actually-" John started to say something but thought better of it only answering with a simple "Yes. Yes. I did."
"Hungry dear? Oh! What did you do to your arm." Mrs. Hudson popped her head out of the kitchen. For not being a housekeeper most days she could be found in their kitchen stocking their fridge, or tidying up. She didn't give John a chance to reply instead she was pointing a finger at Sherlock.
"You. What trouble did you get the Doctor into? He is still on the mend."
"Oh, its nothing Mrs. Hudson just a bit of a strain nothing some pain relievers couldn't cure." Her face eased. "And I would love some breakfast." John was trying to change the subject, but his stomach growled in response to the offer of food, instead of revolting at the idea.
"Good, I've been trying to get this one to eat all morning. I was afraid the eggs would go to waste. It's still warm go on sit down. I'll get you some beans."
The Doctor caught his friend smirking from across the sitting room, hacking away on a familiar looking laptop.
"I wont ask if that's my laptop."
"Good I hate redundant questions."
"Some tea dear?" Mrs. Hudson placed a fresh mug of steaming tea next to his plate.
"Thank you." John wasn't used to being waited on, even as a child his sister was never home and it had been left up to him to fix dinner, although his father more often then not left his plate untouched.
"You know dear, you should eat more, it's not right for you to be so thin. You have to get your strength up. I know it's the fashionable thing these days. You young men looking frail and thin wearing your hair down in your faces.-"
"Mrs. Hudson do shut up. John keeps his hair relatively short."
"Yes, he does." She smiled affectionately. "Now Doctor Watson, I will be making some chicken casserole and bread for dinner, I expect you two to finish it all. Lord knows it isn't safe to put leftovers in that fridge."
"Ah, thank you Mrs. Hudson. I will try." John offered her a warm but tight smile, an uncomfortable flush coloring his neck and cheeks, unused to such open affection, "As for the fridge I will attempt to uh, get it a bit more organized."
"That's a good boy." She patted his head and John kept himself from stiffening, like many returning from the battle field he didn't like to be touched. It would take some getting used to, Mrs. Hudson after all had a big heart and he didn't want to offend the older women.
"How's the shoulder?" Sherlock asked without looking up from the laptop balanced on his skinny knees, it couldn't be comfortable perched like that on the small chair. Still, the consulting detective made it appear so.
"A bit stiff but it'll be fine, I'll just wear this damn sling for a week and be done with it."