Chapter 21: Out of Darkness
Deep down in a crevice out in the center of a desolate river bed somewhere in the wilds of a dying moon Sherlock pushes himself into a sitting position. His head throbs and he can feel pain in small bursts where his Na'vi self will be bruised tomorrow. Even with the tough skin of the avatar, the body will still show contusions, only they will be lighter colored against the blue. He moves around in the dark, using his hands to feel for somewhere to rest. He finds it and sets his back against a rough wall. His feet still dangle in the water, as there is barely enough room for him to sit up down here. He turns his face upward but it is too dark now to see anything save for the faint glow given off by the foliage around the dry river bed.
Sherlock closes his eyes and taps at his ear piece, only partially hoping that someone will answer. The device gives off a slight hum, and then there is the crackle and buzz of dead air space which is cut off almost as quickly as it started. In frustration, Sherlock rips the thing out of his ear and tosses it away; it smashes against the rock not far from him and he growls a little under his breath. Damn. The only hope he has left now is that the tracking device is still giving out a signal and that he will be found before hypothermia sets in.
Sometime later, Sherlock is unsure whether he is sleeping or staring into darkness. He is in his own body once again sitting in a chair in an otherwise empty room. There is light, though it is muted, hazy. With the blink of an eye, a three-legged stool appears in front of him; another blink and Grace Augustine settles onto the stool. She reaches into the pocket of her lab coat and retrieves a cigarette with seems to light of its own accord. She takes a deep drag with her eyes closed. When she opens them, the smoke from her lungs begins to coalesce into shapes as her low voice resonates off of the walls. Sherlock's last thought in the second before her narration begins is one of confusion.
"Mycroft, what did you do?" Greg's voice is stern in his attempt to hold back the anger slowly clawing its way towards the surface.
Mycroft stares around the room at the crew, failing to meet their eyes. John has stepped in closer, still too far away to take a swing at the admiral. Mycroft sighs heavily, bringing his hand up to rub across his forehead. He thinks quickly, wondering if he can change the subject enough so that they forget about it. "We do not have time for this; we need to get to Sherlock…"
The air in the lab has changed to something supercharged and ominous. John's voice is the crack of a sharp blade through bone when he speaks. "What have you done, Mycroft?" The tone brooks no argument, even from a superior officer.
Mycroft holds his arms away from his body, palms outward as if begging for forgiveness. "I believed that if Sherlock could find the reason for Pandora's state, for want of a better word, that perhaps we would be able to set up a base here, possibly start mining again…"
"Asshole." Greg mumbles under his breath, but still loud enough for everyone to hear. "We trusted you. You said the IA sent us here to save the people, not finish the job of destroying what they have left."
"They did." Mycroft turns towards him, feeling suddenly naked and emotionally stripped under his lover's angry visage.
"So, then, what? You thought you could get a piece of the pie?" John asks as he takes another step forward. "After all these weeks…after Le'tay and Sherlock…after the Tree of Souls…how could you still be unable to understand what is happening here?" John is now within striking distance, and with Greg at his back, Mycroft is effectively trapped.
"John, you must believe me. I was wrong." The admiral drops all attempts at faking his way out of this predicament.
Greg reaches out and lays a hand on Mycroft's shoulder. John nods and steps back a pace. "You were wrong, Mycroft. Thank you for saying so. That explains a few things to me." John crosses his arms over his chest as he talks, sounding so much like Sherlock that Una and Greg can feel the other man's presence, even as he sleeps not far from them. "It explains why we are still here, even after all this time. It explains why you allowed Sherlock to get so bonded with his avatar that making him leave it almost causes him physical pain." John's face scrunches up with the effort to hold back the words and leaving me alone; he manages to keep them from escaping his mouth. "It also explains why your ship is orbiting this moon. But." John pauses and his expression is stormy as he moves his gaze from Mycroft to the psionic machine and back. "It absolutely does not explain why you aren't doing everything in your power to get the people off this godforsaken rock before it implodes."
"John, I am." Mycroft actually recoils at his own pleading. "I am. Three of the public access areas on my ship have been readied to accommodate…"
Mycroft's words are cut off by a sound like an explosive blast. The lab shakes a little under their feet and then steadies. John knows full well that they are standing on a ticking time bomb, though according to Sherlock's calculations they were to have been safe for several more months.
"Apparently, this is the time for the Holmes brothers to be wrong." Una calls as she moves back towards the oxygen pumps. No one disagrees with her.
"It doesn't matter now, Mycroft." Greg states, though he is still miffed about his lover's confession. "Our plans just got moved up for us."
George hoots and snorts, his tentacles flying over the keyboard. Greg tilts his head in the Odal's direction then nods at him. "He's found Sherlock."
"Sherlock, you must understand that there will be no recovery for Pandora." Grace explains as she runs the fingers not holding the cigarette to her lips through her hair. Though she has taken enough drags to finish at least half of the thing, it seems to never end; no ash builds up at the base of it. All of the pictures that she has been weaving through the air disappear as rapidly as they form.
He takes in her neat appearance, the keen wisdom in her brown eyes and finds that he has absolutely no words to convey to her his utter grief at being wrong.
"No, Sherlock. You were led to the wrong conclusions." Grace gestures around the room. "You will eventually figure that out on your own. Suffice it to say that the matter has been resolved…" here she hesitates, her eyes going up towards what Sherlock assumes is a ceiling high overhead. She takes another drag. "…right now." She uses the orange-ended stick as a pointer. "There really is nothing you can do to save the moon, Sherlock."
He watches her closely. He nods and she continues.
"The bonds were broken. What little remains is too fragile to withstand the hollow core of this moon. Its time is up. You saw the fault line in the dark, didn't you, Sherlock?"
"Yes." He is surprised at the weak sound he makes.
"What did that tell you?" She asks, pinning him to the chair with her eyes as if he were nothing more than a specimen under her microscope: hers for the experimentation, the questions to be asked.
"I saw what John and Le'tay and the others had been attempting to explain to me. I saw the web of life that connected everything here; I saw it in John's eyes earlier…it is not just here, the Omaticaya will live on. They will move forward, though they will never be able to go back to what they were."
"Yes." Grace's voice has been replaced by a much more masculine one. A Na'vi man sits where she had been, one leg crossed over the other and leaning forward onto his arms.
"Jake Sully?" Sherlock queries.
"You know who I am. I was in the legends long before I set foot on Pandora. I will remain so. They knew things would change once I arrived—I did not understand it until much later. The Na'vi, they were the most forward thinking of all the Omaticaya, Sherlock, understand that. Because that is the only way you can help them."
Suddenly, Jake looks down at the silver watch on his wrist, an incongruous sight. Funnily enough, Sherlock thinks blending what had been with what could be. Then everything is dark and he is alone again.
Sherlock's eyes snap open to a bright light and the sound of rotors overhead. Suddenly, there is a rope and then John—not John's avatar, but the man himself, dressed to be out in the wilderness- appears and holds out a hand. Sherlock grasps it with his own, suddenly fully aware of the difference in size between the Na'vi and themselves. He needs to talk to John, to tell him that he was wrong, but now is not the time. He needs to get back to the lab, and soon.
Alright, this is purely self-indulgent, but please tell me the three-legged stool was not too obscure a reference :) And yes, the title is a little nod to Into Darkness, as well as Heart of Darkness.