Author's note: Here's the next-to-last chapter :) Enjoy!
Chapter 10: A trip to No-man's land
I lied. Back at the non-beginning, I mean – I lied, then. I don't know whether death feels like running really fast. It might. I don't know. It might feel like taking a hot bath, or eating a lot of sugar. It might not feel like anything at all. I don't know. (Unlike Sherlock, I obviously don't have a problem with admitting that I don't know something.)
I don't know, because John Watson doesn't die that day. What an appalling thing for a storyteller to do – lie. Don't hold it against me, though. I can honestly say that I have believed it when I said it. When you joined me, I was stranded in a dark, still place of John Watson's unconsciousness, one that felt mostly like nothing, and just a bit like the number thirteen. Anyone would have mistaken it for the afterlife, really. I had no way of knowing what would happen while I told the story as it unravelled up until that point. Well, while I've been bringing you up to speed, there have been ...developments, so now I know what happens...and what happens is John Watson doesn't die that day. Or any other day that has, till now, been entrusted to me and put under my supervision, for that matter. So, I guess I lied out of ignorance, then.
Also, I had to get your attention somehow, in order to tell this story, didn't I? And opening with the impression of an omniscient narrator privy to secrets of death seemed dramatic enough at the time, wouldn't you agree? I promise the lie was a one-time transgression.
Well, even if I am condemned for my conduct, I guess that's a fair price to pay for the chance to tell the story. Because it's not just any story. It's a story about clocks and chemistry and caring. It's their story.
As previously stated, John doesn't die. He does, however, earn a horrendous headache and some slight chemical burns around his mouth and nose, where the chloroform-soaked dish cloth had been pressed against his face in order to extract his consciousness (for the second time) through intoxicating evaporation. He wakes with a start, on a stretcher in the back of the paramedics' bus. The whiff of scented salt is still lingering around his nostrils when he pushes himself into a sitting position, adamant not to give into the dizziness that threatens to overcome him. The medics try to push him back, but he fights them, so in the end they agree on letting him sit as long as he keeps still.
John pushes himself to the edge of the stretcher, just as Lestrade walks into his field of vision. John's eyes snap to the Detective Inspector, and a word – half a question and half something else (a plea? An invocation?), heavy and rough, like grit on his tongue, grates against his aching ears.
"Sherlock –"
"Is being held down by three very exasperated officers in order to stop him from rushing over here before the medics have done their job on you. And, if I am very lucky, giving his statement to pass the time. He is fine, John."
John lets his eyes flutter closed in relief, but opens them back, quickly, dreading the darkness of closed eyelids. He's had enough darkness in the last few hours. Lestrade is still standing in front of him, eyes worried, but soft as he looks at John.
"How are you feeling?"
"Spectacular." Lestrade just smirks at John's sarcasm and moves to sit next to the army doctor.
"How much do you remember?"
"I remember the new tech – Clemence, was it? – offering me a ride back home. Then he took me here, though I don't remember the entire trip, because he drugged me with something on the way over. I woke up, hanging off a hook like half a dead pig. He told me he killed all those people, and then pretty much told me I was next. I tried to loosen the chains he used on me, but he said he couldn't afford me to be loud, and pressed something against my face...that's all I remember."
Scribbling sounds of Lestrade's pen fill the confined space of the vehicle, until John speaks again.
"He wasn't making much sense...when he was telling me about why he did it, about why he was going to kill me, I mean. He was rambling about time and clocks. I called him mad, and he said he's been called that by doctors before."
"I checked his file – he had a history of mental illness, but since he was on his meds and didn't carry a service weapon, it wasn't a disqualifying factor for his job."
John gives a curt nod, staring pensively at the plastic wrappers littering the floor of the bus. He is just about to replay the whole scene in his head for the fourth time, when Lestrade closes his pad and speaks again.
"Apparently, the bloke drugged you with just enough of the stuff to knock you out, at first. The medics say it shouldn't leave any permanent damage. Later, he used chloroform to get you to black out again. As you said, he didn't want to risk you tipping off anyone by yelling. He was just about to give you the shot – the real deal, this time – when we came in. We gave him fair warning, but he didn't listen, and...well, you know the rest."
"Yeah, I do. Thanks, Greg." It's strange – thanking someone for taking a life. Then again, I am pretty sure John is thanking Lestrade for saving a life – his life. Funny, isn't it? Thanking for one, but not the other, when both are really the same thing, united in a single action.
"What did he ramble about, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Hm?"
"Clemence – what did he say about why he killed all the victims? About why he took you?"
"He said something about stopping their time, how powerful it felt. Then he compared Sherlock to a clock, said he wanted to study him, take him apart. When I asked why, he simply said it was fascinating."
"Now that sounds awfully like...John, you don't think this could be..."
"What?"
"I mean, you don't think this is somehow linked to Moriarty?"
"No." John shakes his head with conviction. "No, this wasn't like that. Moriarty is a sadists, he gets off on other people's suffering. This one, he wasn't like that. I know it sounds strange, but there was no real malice to it all. He didn't do it to see people in pain. He really was fascinated. I don't even think he looked at all of them – at me – as actual people. I think, to him, we were more like bits in a puzzle he enjoyed piecing together."
It isn't until he finishes his account and casts a glance at Lestrade, who is pointedly looking anywhere but at John, that John realises the parallel he has inadvertently drawn. He can read Lestrade's look, which is saying 'Now, who does that sound like?', and feels an intense urge to set the record straight.
"He isn't like that, you know."
Lestrade's head whips around, confusion colouring his features.
"Who isn't?"
"Sherlock."
John can see the man's eyes widen a bit, as his expression is torn between shame at being transparent, and offence at being suspected of such doubtful thoughts.
"John, I never said he was."
"No, but your face was saying it pretty loud."
There is a teasing note to John's tone, and the Detective Inspector relaxes.
"He's rubbing off on you."
"Yeah...yeah, I guess he is." There is something in John's tone that makes Lestrade feel as if he is intruding on a private matter, despite the fact that they are the only two people in the bus.
"But really, Greg – he is nothing like that. I mean, he is, somewhat, with the fascination and the inconsiderate behaviour and the inappropriate glee over dead bodies, but he would never do something like this. He forgets himself, most of the time, and I won't lie and say that he cares much for the victims, but at the end of the day, he is nothing like the guy you just had to shoot. He is brilliant and loves a good puzzle, but just look – all he's ever done was help you solve cases. They are nothing like each other, because Sherlock has always been on the side of the good guys. On your side." On my side, John thinks, but even that thought isn't completely correct, because John forgets (and we shall forgive him for it – the man has just been drugged, twice, after all, for goodness' sake) that for a while now John's side has been Sherlock's side, as well. So, in the spirit of accuracy, I think the proper thing to say is that Sherlock has always been on their side.
"I know. I never meant to imply –"
"I know" John says, with the slightest of smiles. Lestrade nods, and then stands up.
"Well, I better be off then. This one's going to be hell; I can already feel the pain of staring at paperwork all night long. I'm going to go and tell them they can let Sherlock over. God knows they couldn't keep him down much longer. Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine. Thanks, again."
"Don't mention it."
With that Lestrade steps onto the pavement, waving his hand at someone John can't really see from where he is sitting (probably the poor souls tasked with keeping an agitated [worried, scared] Sherlock away from the medics' bus).
John expects a flurry of limbs and coattails to come galloping his way. He expects Sherlock in his full force, and something along the lines of 'Alright? Are you alright?!'. He expects...well. It doesn't really matter what John expects, because whatever it is, he doesn't get it.
What he gets, instead, is Sherlock approaching him as if there are invisible shackles around his body. There is something almost...subdued about Sherlock's conduct. Restrained, suppressed. Tempered. All things one would rarely (if ever) relate to Sherlock Holmes.
John is still busy trying to work out what is that makes Sherlock so distinctly unsherlockly, when Sherlock covers the last of distance and proceeds to speak, back board-straight, hands clasped being him.
"I told you, what brings them down is always a mistake or an anomaly. Straying from the original. He never used chloroform on the others. He always killed them straight away. If he had maintained his usual pattern..." Sherlock's voice seems to dry up abruptly, as he straightens his back even further, eyes flitting down, left, right – anywhere but John. He seems as tense as a wire of his violin, with a current of restlessness evident around him. John just clears his throat, and states the obvious.
"Well. I'm glad he decided I was special enough for him to make an exception."
Sherlock just nods, hands still clasped behind his back. John can almost see the long stretch of no-man's land that is separating them again (still), and suddenly he feels so very heavy. His legs are lead and his head is mud, and he can barely move, let alone trudge miles of tension, spoken and unspoken words, and all that fills out the rest of the space.
"The medics say we can go home. They say I'll be fine, as soon as this bloody headache blows over."
Sherlock finally looks back at John, and there is something that seems to shrink the distance between them. John catches a glimpse of something – relief? – and it seems to make the smallest of shifts.
"That's...good."
The stretch of barren land decreases minutely – a single step – but the shift is there, and John feels like it might not be as hard to make the next step, soon. Soon, he might walk, or even run, to Sherlock's side, and Sherlock to John's. Soon, they might run and meet in the middle – on their side.
Soon, but not just yet.
Thank you for reading :) See you tomorrow!
