Hey! Look, I'm posting a new chapter before three weeks have gone by! (Everybody cheers) Yes, I can do this sort of thing!
I like this chapter so much better than the last one! Okay, as promised, this is a John chapter so read carefully because there are tiny details that might be important. Things are gonna speed up a little so that there's actually gonna be some action going on.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock or Doctor Who. I do however, have access to a Netflix account which is almost the same thing but not quite.
Mary placed her sewing down on the table,
"John, darling, you've been acting out of sorts lately…are you alright?" John turned and looked at his wife, with an effort, he mustered up a smile. He had just gotten back from another appointment with his therapist and was going back over their conversation in his mind,
"You say that you saw Sherlock Holmes?"
"That's right, he was right in front of me with a woman dressed in black. She saw him too, but they both seemed invisible to everyone else. Well, everyone except for me, that is." His therapist had smiled,
"John, your life is still in the process of changing back to normal. This 'Sherlock' that you've invented is just a way for you to cope with what's happening to you. He's someone who's suffered, much like yourself; he's someone whom you feel you can relate to. That's why he's in your mind. Listen to me, Dr. Watson; you've got to let him go. He's not real and he never has been." John straightened up,
"What about that Mycroft fellow? I've never told anyone aside from you and Mary about Sherlock so how did he know?"
"I don't know everything, John. All I know is that you need to move on. Your wife is going to have a baby soon, focus on that." She had reached out to touch his shoulder but had then backed off, "I'll let you go now, John. You need to get home to your wife and child. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, then."
Now he faced Mary, ready to tell her everything but all that came out was a lie,
"I'm fine, it's work…there have been a few not-so-happy patients all of a sudden. That's all." Mary nodded with relief. John turned back to the window. How could he possible tell her what was really going on? The "signs" that Mycroft were talking about were beginning to show more and more. People would vanish as if they were being teleported away and other times everything would freeze in place. Sherlock made stronger visits where he was clearer and John could sometimes hear other noises too, but the visits were few and far between. Every now and again he noticed the same people on the streets as in his office. Sometimes they had slight changes such as a different hair color, different skin tone, a different outfit, or new facial features. Yes, the changes were suddenly obvious.
In a way though he'd always noticed the obvious things, he'd just never acknowledged that they were there or had never really thought about them. Now, here he was at 7:30 PM in an imaginary world, and somewhere in this imaginary world was a watch that could set him free. If he found this watch than he could go home, but what exactly "home" was he hadn't the faintest idea. There were fuzzy memories that came to him in dreams but were they an insight to the real word or just more imagination?
His eyes wandered from the window. Could he really give this all up? All that this world was made of was from his mind. His eyes rested on Mary as she sat reading. With a sudden feeling of cold dread he realized that he would have to give her up. The woman that he loved and that loved- he stopped and glanced at the round container of memory patches on the mantle as a new thought struck him. He reached for it and held it in his hands for a few moments,
"I don't want it." He muttered quietly.
"What?" Mary asked without looking up. John faced her,
"I don't want it." He repeated, louder this time. Mary's eyes locked onto him. "If this is a dream than I don't want it." John hissed. Mary looked at him like he'd just grown a third eye (but frankly at this point John wouldn't have been all too surprised if he had).
"I don't understand." Mary stuttered,
"Neither do I," John replied with a forced laugh before he became serious again, "But I can tell you right now that if this is a dream than I'm going kill it. I don't want it. If the people here are only happy, or hurting, or living, or dying because of what I want than I don't want to live here. If you only love me because I want you to love me than that's just as good as a machine programmed to love. I don't want that, Mary. I want you, and I want you to want me. So I'm going to find out what's really going on here and then I'm going to figure out what I can do about it." With that John turned and flung the patches into the fire. They caught immediately and went up in a flare of white smoke and steam. The army doctor turned and stormed out of the flat.
"Wait!" Mary screamed as he began to open the front door. He turned to see her rushing down the stairs, "Please, don't leave me." She begged with tears running down her cheeks. John stiffened, he had chosen a side and he was going to stick with it. He looked the blonde right in the eyes and there he saw, behind the tears, blankness. There was no love, no hurt, just a computer waiting for its next command.
"You are not Mary." John stated with a coldness that hurt him to his core, "And I could never love you as I could love my Mary Watson." The female's tears welled up more and she collapsed to the floor, pale as a sheet as John Watson turned and left her in the hallway of 221B.
He ran. Even though he had absolutely no idea where he was going, he ran. The dream, on default mode now, took him along his most used path. He soon noticed that it was his path to work. The streets were suddenly empty and it seemed that the sky couldn't decide between night and day. Everything was fuzzy. As he passed places the figures vanished and everything took on a gray hue.
"John!"
The man felt himself thrown to the ground. The name had hit him like a bullet and now he struggled to his feet once more. The world around him changed for a split second; the earth disappeared and he was standing in the middle of the sky. Stars twinkled around him and the sun burned furiously. Then everything went back to normal. He addressed the voice,
"Sherlock?" He called, "Sherlock, can you hear me? Please, you've got to get me out of here! I can't live like this! I can't live here!" John screamed at the empty road. Nobody came, nobody answered, and nobody cared. Watson was alone and he was the only one who knew that.
So he ran and ran and ran and ran. He ran like that would help him remember everything, help him wake up; help him escape this underworld he had built up around himself. He ran into the hospital, he ran down the hallways, he ran through the waiting room, he ran past his own examination room. Everything was empty, dim, and bare. Everything that he had placed there in his head to make it more real was slowly being stripped away. He ran towards the end of the hallway. He ran up to the door with his name. It was the only room that he'd been afraid of and what he wanted most now was a nightmare. After all, it's nightmares that wake you up. He slammed the door open and froze.
In the middle of the room were two chairs, facing each other. The chair turned in his direction was empty. The other chair had its back to him. It was from this chair that another figure stood up and turned to face him.
"Hello, John, do come in and take a seat," his therapist smiled a smile that dazzled with something other than joy, "are you ready for this? Good, then let's begin."
Sooooooo, do you guys want another John chapter or a Sherlock chapter? Either would work right now but the Doctor and his companions I'm saving for a special part.
~SimmonsButterflys