Sherlock Dari Drabble Chapter 22

Coda

A/N: Hi all! Thank-you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter; a couple suggested a sequel, so here's a wee coda with Rae in it. The presents at the start are a nod to something that a lot of companies here do in getting involved with charities. The charity I worked for got presents, funding and wrapping services from different businesses-some of them year-in, year-out, and others on a short-term basis. The thought that went into them was just lovely.

The idea is that John came to volunteer regularly, but stopped at the later end of the decade as his experience became more valuable. This is post-Reichenbach so it's quite sad. Sorry all! The next chapter is super-cuddly, I swear.

2012

Rae glanced over the large pile of presents on the kitchen table, many of them beautifully wrapped by helpers from the big department stores. He checked the numbers off on their list of regulars, with a few extras just in case, then took a recce of the chipolatas and potatoes roasting in the oven. This was his first Christmas season as a Support Worker, and his third in his flat, and it still felt odd to be on the other side of the serving hatch. Janey smirked, handing him the napkins so he could set the tables as he made a face at her.

"Come on, Janey lass, you know decorating's not my strong suit..."

"Well then, maybe it'll do you good to learn a little bit of window-dressing!"

They laughed heartily, teasing each other good-naturedly for the fifteenth year in a row; Stephen, Graham, Suzette and Lisa bustled through the door with armfuls of Christmas crackers and bags of sweets, bundled up against the cold as Bob, Aiden and the others swapped their dog-collars for warm jumpers and got stuck in.

Over the hubbub, Rae turned to Janey again.

"So if that's us lot in, who've we got volunteering this year?"

"Erm, Alex, Jack, Claire, Saul, Mhairi, Rhoda and Rachel. Luke said he'd spoken to a couple of the old hands, but I'm not sure who else we'll get. We should be more than fine, though-that's fifteen just as we are."

Just as they were gearing up to open the doors, tinsel and paper chains strung across the hall and simple white lights twinkling on the tree, the side door creaked open. Janey's eyes turned sad as a slightly stooped figure, leaning heavily on a cane, slowly crossed the floor and slipped noiselessly into the kitchen.

They'd all heard of John's exploits with Sherlock Holmes. The ones with better computer skills had kept abreast of his blog, and many of them had gone to lay flowers at St Bartholomew's in the weeks after it happened. They had seen John on Newsnight, excoriated by Jeremy Paxman as 'an educated man become a sad shadow of delusion' and followed the stories about the evidence against Richard Brook as the policeman at the centre of the scandal had built a case through months of meticulous work. In a way, it was sadder to think that Sherlock Holmes had jumped out of the frame when a few more months would have changed the game. Many of them had been in his network and had relied on his generosity, so they were surprised to find a tall, auburn-haired man stalking the same streets with a brolly and a wad of cash, making the same payments to the same people and never missing one.

Now, though, after all the media coverage and the 'no smoke without fire' and the hurried apologies, Rae could see the true human cost of Sherlock Holmes' downfall. Although he looked better than the last time they'd run into each other in Montague Street, John wasvery different from the fresh-faced boy who'd given him his jacket. His gait was weary, his face more lined and gaunt than Rae had ever seen it, even in the Christmas after he'd been pensioned off. His eyes were rheumy and red, full of pain and rage. He looked as though he didn't have a home anymore; the word on the grapevine had been that he'd moved out of the Baker Street flat, so Rae supposed he didn't. He looked old and lonely, grey-haired and edgy. His left hand was trembling. A grim ghost of a smile flitted across John's face as he greeted Rae and set to work on the custard pot.

John stayed in the kitchen, silent and grave, as they chattered and doled out the Christmas lunch and the labelled presents. He puttered about washing dishes, then looked up as Luke poked his head 'round the door, Rae watching from the corner by the tree.

"D'you want to come out for the lighting of the candle, John?"

The doctor's face was half in shadow as he nodded, limping out and standing right at the back. After the last candle in the middle of the advent wreath was lit to signal the fact that it was Christmas Day, John gave a small, watery smile.

As they cleared up a little while later, Rae ambled over to John, who was putting the decorations back in their boxes, wrapping the glass angels in their tissue paper with doctorly tenderness.

"It was good to have you, John. It's always nice when people keep coming back-shows they've not stopped caring, doesn't it?"

The doctor's smile was uncharacteristically bitter as he turned toward him.

"I stirred the custard pot, Rae. Any one of you could have done that. I don't talk, I don't interact, I can't even bloody walk right anymore! I'm just a useless old bachelor who still makes two cups of tea when he gets in from work at night and can't live in his old flat because it's full of his best friend's mess!"

"And yet you still came. Why did you come, John, if you weren't sure what you could do? We give up so easily in this day and age, John, and yet you still keep going. You keep buggering on, and you never stop giving a monkeys about how other people feel. You could have sat at home with a bottle of good scotch and a box of mince pies, but you came halfway across London because we still count as people to you. That's something a lot of these people don't get, ever. Not a dicky bird. Even if you don't speak, they notice you're there. Even if you only do the custard, they still know you made it so that they could eat it."

It could have just been his imagination, but John seemed a little brighter as he picked up his coat and navy scarf and loped out into the frigid night.

The next year, when John came to St Martin's his easy camaraderie and his medical kit came too.

A/N II: Advent wreaths are lit in some Protestant denominations and in the Catholic church to mark the four Sundays before Christmas and the fifth candle, in the centre, is lit on Christmas morning. It's one of the things that makes me think 'Yay, it's Christmas'-the rule is that you can't listen to carols until the first Sunday of Advent. After that, there are no restrictions...