Chapter Three, Part One: Baggage
Chapter Three: Baggage
Wrong-colored flames lick at Sherlock's face and fingers from a mentally untouchable world beyond his dreams. Soulless, almost colorless, void of emotion. Nothing. Except that everything right here and over there is black and white and grey like an Escher sketch steamrolled and flattened into a confusing matrix filled with nothing but a raging charcoal fire.
Sherlock's rational side knows it should hurt; he knows that the fire should be burning him but the only thing he can feel is the weight and the pain of guilt. Redbeard is crying and baying, having given up on barking either minutes or hours ago. Time is meaningless here as is life.
There's another voice intertwined with that of the screaming one belonging to the old house around him as with a bang like gunfire the rafters crack and split…that strange voice calling out, then there are gloved hands and a man in fire suit pulling him out but he's screaming that she's still in the house…she's still in the house! What doesn't anyone understand? He tries screaming in English, then French then Welsh and still no one is listening.
Without warning, everything is bright, colors leeching into one another while the unbiased, disloyal sun drives his sins out of the shadows and drags them, now fully hued, into the harsh light of day.
"Sherlock? Sherlock please?" Ophelia tugs on her brother's shoulder as hard as she can, though she's starting to grow weak from holding onto her corporeal body for so long without resting. Outside the windows, the sun is just doing its level best to break through the heavy grey clouds looming over the horizon. It still hurts her to hear him cry out like he does because it is surely her fault. On top of the obvious nightmare, the way he's twisted up in his chair in the sitting room looks so uncomfortable as to be painful, even for someone as limber as Sherlock.
"Ophelia?" he asks, blinking, chin balanced on his knees. His dazed expression takes ten years from his face and she can't help but rest her palm against his cheek. He tries to look up at her and winces from the crook in his neck and quickly reaching up to grasp it lightly with his fingers. She's almost fully corporeal at this hour.
"I'm here."
When he doesn't say anything else for a moment, she perches on the arm of his chair, caging her small hand in his bigger ones. She waits, knowing that it always takes him a little bit to calm his racing heart and bend his mind to his will. That doesn't happen this time, however.
Sherlock looks up at her, green eyes overflowing with tears and rimmed in red. With concentration, he's able to haul her down into his lap in order to hold her against his chest, the bottom of his chin resting against top of her head.
"Ophelia, I am so very sorry. I'm so sorry," he whispers between gasps.
All she can do is hold on tight and bear silent witness to the limitless depths of his turmoil. If she tries hard, she can almost feel his feather light touches.