CHAPTER 18: HERE COMES THE STORM
"Two days have passed and still no news from that voice."
Sherlock sighs, flopping down on the couch. He can do nothing but wait for the next move of his rival. And it is driving him crazy.
"I'm sure that our dear killer is planning something great. Don't worry: he will turn up soon." Giulia tries to cheer him up, tuning in with his not-so-subtle admiration for psychopaths and murderers.
"I fail to see how this would be reassuring," John comments tersely.
"My brain is rotting. I am doomed," Holmes whines dramatically, sinking his head in his hands.
"We all are with you in this state." Giulia rolls her eyes at his dramatic reaction. "Now relax. I'll make you a cuppa," she volunteers, heading to the kitchen with a soft smile on her lips.
Sherlock springs to his feet and rushes to the kitchen door, shielding the entrance with his body. Giulia stops just in time to avoid colliding with his bare chest peeking out of the blue gown loosely tied around his body.
"I appreciate your kind offer, but no, thank you. I'll make it myself." He fakes a grin, steps in, and shuts the door behind his back.
She blinks, standing still on the threshold, stumped.
"What's the matter with him? Does he still fear I would poison him?" she murmurs with a hint of sarcasm.
John sighs. "He is just restless and impatient. I'll try to convince him to go to Scotland Yard. Maybe we can gather some more information about the murder on the Alpes or talk with Lestrade that just got back from his eventful holiday. All Sherlock Holmes needs right now is a distraction."
She stares sadly at the closed door as if it represented the impenetrable gates of Sherlock's mind palace. She feels that their delicate balance is falling apart. Sherlock used to be the one with trust issues with her, but now she is not so sure that she can trust him either.
John eventually drags Sherlock out of the flat, and they head to Scotland Yard. When they come back home, a few hours later, Sherlock walks into the kitchen and immediately storms out.
"Where are they? What happened? What did you do with them?" He shouts at Giulia, who is reading a book on the couch.
She placidly looks up from the page and frowns without uttering a sound.
John glares at his unnecessarily high pitch. "Sherlock, what are you talking about? Calm down, please."
"No, John, this is essential. Where are my experiments?" He furiously asks Giulia. His eyes are flaming.
"On the shelves, where I always put them when I try to sort out your mess," she says in a jaded tone.
"No, I'm referring to all the other things I had left on the kitchen table." He stomps his feet, enraged.
"Oh." Her mouth turns into a perfect circle shape as she fakes surprise, but the sparkle in her eyes reveals she was waiting for him to mention it. "You mean all that trash? I threw it away," she affirms candidly, resuming her reading.
"You what? Where is the bin? Where's the garbage?" He looks around the flat and turns the living room upside down, rushing from one corner to the other.
"Simmer down. The bin is over there," she points a finger at it, "but you won't find what you're looking for."
His livid face whips towards her. "Why not?"
"Because I flushed everything down the toilet." She shrugs innocently, putting down her book.
"I can't believe it," he yells out of his mind. "Please tell me that this is just a terrible joke. You can't have done such an absurd thing."
"Did you really destroy all of Sherlock's experiments?" John looks at her in disbelief. That is incredibly disrespectful of her.
"Experiments?" She spits out the word in disgust and contempt, then shakes her head slowly and flashes a hurtful look at Sherlock. "What a cunning front, detective. Above any suspicion."
She turns to John with heartache gripping her voice. "They weren't real experiments, John. We should wise up. It was his drug lab."
Holmes remains unperturbed and inquires with diffidence, "How could you recognise those substances among all the real experiments? Have you ever been on drugs?"
"No. Unlike you, apparently," she snaps back. "I had some help. I grew suspicious when you practically banned me from the kitchen, yet I couldn't be 100% sure, so I looked for an expert and found the number of Dr Molly Hooper stuck on the fridge. Did you know she is keen on chemistry? I asked her to come over, and she analysed everything. We borrowed your microscope, by the way. I hope you don't mind." She plasters a cunning smile over her face, desperately trying to put up a credible façade while her heart is sinking. Her flatmate is a liar who has embarked on a self-sabotaging mission that could cost him his life.
Sherlock loses it. "Molly came here to analyse my possessions?"
"Not only that," Giulia answers, reaching out and grabbing a folder on the coffee table. "She also wrote this summary containing every single drug she found. She's been very methodical—I must admit it. I actually wouldn't mind having her over more often. We have lots to discuss."
"Let me see," he peremptorily orders, stretching out his arms towards her, but she slaps his hand away and walks up to John, instead.
"What for? You already know what was there. This is for your doctor, to let him know the status of his miserable patient."
Watson takes the document and flicks through it, growing immediately pale.
"Jesus, Sherlock, this can't be true. You can't take or even possess all this junk."
"Don't worry, John," Giulia cuts him short. "He doesn't possess it anymore." She simpers, but the sarcasm can't mask her bitter disappointment.
"This is utterly ridiculous," Sherlock bursts out. "You can't do such a thing, you simply can't. Now, listen carefully and pay attention to my words: this is my house—"
"Our house," Watson jumps in to correct him.
"Not now, John. I'm trying to make a point. This is where I live, and if you want to share this flat with me, you cannot behave like that. You are crazy, completely out of control." He throws his hands in the air, fuming with rage.
John glowers at him and hisses, "Sherlock, stop."
He spins around and shakes his head with a stony glance.
"No, I won't stop because this is unacceptable. She threw my experiments in the toilet."
"They – were – drugs," his friend spells out through gritted teeth. "You're not even allowed to have them in the first place."
Sherlock looks hurt by his hostile reply. "Are you on her side now?"
"Side? What are you talking about? This is not a war, Sherlock, nor a bloody game of yours. Your life is at stake." John raises his voice to match the detective's fit of anger.
"Precisely. My life. And you two have no right to mess around with it. I make my own decisions; I adopt the lifestyle I prefer."
"Yeah, and yours is leading you straight to the grave."
"Who cares?"
"We do. That's exactly why she did what she did: because she cares," John exclaims, nodding to Giulia.
"And I'm sure you're an expert about caring, given the number of girlfriends you've had. Practice makes perfect, right?" Sherlock jeers at him. "If you are so good at it, why don't you lecture me on what caring is really about?"
John gives him a tight-lipped smile—his signature disappointed grimace. He hates him for what he is saying. He detests his haughty attitude. But he asked for a lesson and that's exactly what he was going to get.
"You want to know what caring is truly about? Easy: when someone cares about you, they will do their best to save you."
Holmes arches his brows. "Save me from whom?"
Watson holds his gaze. "Your biggest enemy: yourself."
"Shut up, John."
"I will. I'm out," he states, turning around and heading for the stairs. On his way out, he slams the door with a loud thud, making Giulia jump in her seat.
The flat falls silent, but the air is still electric, more similar to the preamble of a storm than its aftermath. Giulia doesn't speak for several minutes: she looks like a sand statue on the verge of crumbling. Eventually, she stands up and walks to the window, turning her back to Sherlock and trying to hold back the tears that threaten to stream out of her eyes.
Sherlock ignores her movements and sinks into his armchair, feeling suddenly drained. Is it the abstinence kicking in? It must be. What else could it be? Remorse? He never felt remorseful in his life. He doesn't feel those impractical little emotions; he doesn't… he mustn't feel. It clouds his judgement; this is what he has kept repeating to himself from a very young age. Emotions don't apply to him. Remorse is the sentence of the guilty, and he is beyond the concepts of right and wrong. Isn't he?
After a while, Giulia breaks that awkward stillness. "John was wrong about me, you know. I didn't want to save you."
"Why not? It seems to be the purpose of caring, after all," he replies sarcastically.
She turns to him with misty eyes. "Because you can't save people that don't want to be saved; you cannot spare them the fight with themselves. Sherlock, you need to face your demons on your own. Nobody can help you, only you can. I was simply trying to keep temptations away, far from your addiction."
"I'm not an addict," he retorts.
"Yes, you are. You are addicted to the thought that you need all that rubbish. Your addiction is the idea that you can only work by using drugs in the mistaken belief that it helps you think. God, you are so intelligent, so how do you not get that it is burning your brain instead?"
He wrinkles his nose. "I need it, I really do. You don't understand."
"I never tried to," she talks over him. "I was scared, okay? When I realised what you were doing with your life, I was truly terrified. I got rid of that junk because I do hope that you won't use it again."
He looks into her eyes and sneers bitterly.
"Why? Because people could find out about my problem, and it would be a scandal?"
"No, because I could find it out, and I'd be very disappointed," she says with a broken voice and heads for the door, but Sherlock murmurs to her back, "You've set the bar far too high; I will never live up to the idea you have of me. You should lower your expectations."
She turns around and looks straight into his eyes. "I have no high expectations of you. I never made you into a knight or a hero. The only idea I have of you is the same thing that you think of yourself: you're always the smartest person in the room. Well, you let me down today. You proved me wrong." She gives him one last pain-ridden glance and rushes downstairs.
He takes a deep breath, looks around, and wanly whispers to himself, "But I am the only one in this room."
Giulia goes out and is about to walk down the street when she spots a familiar face beyond the window of the coffee shop next door. She steps into Speedy's and sits down at a table, smiling crookedly at the person across from her.
"I thought you went further away," she says, fiddling with a napkin.
"I just needed to get out of that flat," John answers, lowering his pensive gaze.
"Yeah, me too."
They remain silent for a few seconds, then John speaks again, looking directly at her.
"I hate that Sherlock talked to you like that. And the way he behaved... why didn't you react? You just sit there while he shouted at you."
She bites down on her lip and grimaces. "I'm doing a PhD in International Relations. I know how to handle a tough situation with the right calmness and diplomacy."
He nods understandingly. "Still, had he yelled at me like that, I would've punched him in the face."
She chuckles but immediately becomes serious again.
"John, why has no one ever told me anything about his drug habit?"
"I guess I thought he was doing just fine. I believed he was clean. I could never imagine he had relapsed. I - I..." he stutters, embarrassed. "I should have seen it coming. What kind of doctor am I? What kind of friend?"
"The one who has been busy and preoccupied with his work, and this is not a crime. You can't blame yourself for thinking that he was better than that. It's not your fault." She reassures him, placing her hand on top of one of his on the table.
"Sometimes I just wish my life was a bit easier."
"I can relate. But where would be the fun in that? Don't worry. We'll try to talk sense into him." She winks at him and leaves, holing up in her room.
After a while, John comes back home and finds Sherlock on the couch, eyes closed, hands folded under his chin, wandering around in his mind palace. John stands next to him for a couple of minutes and stares at his motionless figure, weighing his words, choosing carefully what to say.
Sherlock, well aware of his presence, snaps his eyes open and gazes at his silent spectator.
"I know that face, and I can clearly see what you are thinking right now, as if it was written on your forehead."
"Read it out loud, then."
"You want me to apologise to her, don't you? Oh, John, you are so predictable," he whines.
"So are you, since you haven't done it yet."
"Don't you get it? She knows me even better than I thought. She reads through me more easily than I expected. She doesn't need a stupid apology." Sherlock twitches his lips at that mundane social code.
"I don't care if she needs it or not, if she knows you or not. The only thing that matters now is that you go to her room and apologise. It's a question of manners. I can bear your angry outbursts, and I will overlook the dark sides of your personality, but I will not allow you to be rude. Not with her, not ever." His tone is icy, his fierce gaze nails Sherlock on his spot with no escape.
"And what should I say?" He asks with sincere curiosity, crossing his arms on his chest. Interpersonal interactions aren't his area of expertise, to put it nicely.
"Something like I'm sorry, forgive me," Watson suggests.
Sherlock rolls his eyes, but John doesn't budge, his hands on his hips.
"Fine," Holmes concedes and grumbles. He descends the stairs heavily and is about to knock on the door of 221C when a voice prevents him from within the flat with just one word: "Don't."
Sherlock freezes, speechless. Giulia anticipates his moves.
"Don't knock on my door and don't try to apologise."
Sherlock retracts his hand, and his arm falls lifelessly to his side.
"I was right, then. You don't need this trifle."
He hears the soft sound of her footsteps approaching and her voice resounds closer, but the door stays closed.
"No, you were wrong. I don't need to see you at my door just because John begged you to apologise to me."
"He didn't beg," he specifies, leaning a shoulder against the jamb and easing up the tension—attempting, anyway.
"You know, we could get on really well if only you were sincere with me," she feebly states, resting her hands and forehead on the door but refusing to open it.
He picks at his lips with his fingers while his brain looks for something to say. What does 'honesty' mean with a person who can apparently see through his soul?
"Well, I don't have sincere apologies to offer you."
He waits for a few seconds for a reply that doesn't come. She doesn't talk back this time. He nods uncomfortably at her silent treatment.
"Good night," he mumbles and turns around.
He is going back upstairs when he hears the key clinking in the lock. Giulia peeks out from behind the half-open door.
"Speaking frankly, what's happening?"
His brows knit, and confusion swims in his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I thought we were doing fine, and everything was okay. But now you are on drugs, you are rude most of the time, and my mere presence bothers you," she lists. "What's the problem?"
He shrugs. "I suppose I am the problem. These are just the downsides of living with me."
"I've had no problems living with you so far, but something has changed. It's like dealing with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You changed, and now your attitude towards me is different. I'm not blind or stupid. Sherlock, what happened? I thought we found a balance." She can't hide a crack in her voice.
He averts his gaze and turns towards the staircase, climbing another step before stopping to murmur, "You want me to be honest, right? Great, so here's what I think: balance is fiction; it's just a ticking bomb. And when the timer goes off, there will be a huge explosion."