A/N: This piece has been taking unexpected turns, adding layers upon layers. -csf

4.

There is a dead body in the library. Unceremoniously crumpled upon the central rug. The door was locked until Hetty came down, using the only available key. We're one murder weapon short of a board game or a paperback detective novel, Sherlock ponders in distaste.

While Sherlock swoops in on the cold corpse on the rug, Henry gathers his fiancée in his arms to calm her, and John takes quick control of the scene, in an authoritarian Captain Watson voice that leaves no margin for arguments.

The other Watsons – the suspects – are marshalled out into the dinning room, and John comes meet the detective leaning over the dead man.

'That's Hugh Watson.' John shakes his head. 'Damn it, he was a good man.'

'John… Can you help?' Are you capable, right now? Do you need time? Am I on my own on this?

John nods, jaw clenched so tight that veins protrude from his neck like spears of war.

Sherlock reads his stance. John needs to do this. For his cousin.

'COD, doctor,' he leads, emotionless. John nods. This is what John needs right now, otherwise it's too much, it's already threatening to overwhelm him from the shadow of his memories, and Sherlock knows him only too well, providing the respite needed. The doctor can allow himself to feel later.

Cause Of Death. John leans over the dead body and pushes away the memories of a shared childhood, bringing to the forefront of his mind his medical knowledge.

Signs of vomit, white foam at the mouth. Jaundice of the eyes. Muscle contraction, still abnormally stiff for a body being dead for about 2 hours, going by the temperature of the skin. The autopsy will reveal more, but it clearly points towards—

'Poisoned, Sherlock. Muscle paralysis and likely ingested orally going by the body's attempt to vomit the cause of the discomfort. He was otherwise healthy, no known chronical conditions, no apparent signs of any either.'

'This is the oldest brother.'

John nods. 'Hugh is… was three years older than Henry.'

'When did you last see him?'

John surprisingly chuckles. 'Am I a suspect now? Can I be the performing pathologist and a prime suspect?'

'Don't be daft, John. I'm attempting to establish a timeline. You are my best friend and my witness, if you must bear labels.'

John's blue eyes jump up from the body to Sherlock's eager face at this. The doctor looks young, vulnerable, for a moment. Touched by the rare acknowledgment of the depth of their friendship. Of course, this moment would come with a dead body between them.

'Well… Hugh was very drunk. We helped him to his room. That's upstairs. We left him to sleep it off. He wasn't so drunk that he'd choke to death on his own vomit, though.'

'Again, no need to be daft. I know your conscientiousness both as a doctor and a friend.'

'He could have come down for a number of reasons, I guess.'

Sherlock looks across the room, spots something on the desk, before he starts patting the dead man's pockets.'

'Sherlock! Fingerprints!'

'Just drop it, John. You know I'm not about to leave the murder of your cousin for the local police to solve on their spare time. They can suss out my fingerprints from the records and eliminate them from the results. Ah-ah! As I suspected. The victim knew he was poisoned, he dragged himself downstairs. You can see the rug's corner closer to the door is curled over, he was dragging his feet, muscular paralysis setting in.'

'Why come down here, of all places?'

'He wanted to call an ambulance from the landline on the desk, John. His own mobile phone is missing. Presumably the killer took his phone, either to keep him from getting help or as a memento of his killing.'

John blinks slowly. 'We need to check the belongings of every suspect. I thought that only happened in old detective novels.'

Sherlock looks up. 'Maybe we don't have to. What is the easiest way to get rid of that phone in this house?'

John looks at the night outside of the window. 'Throw it out into the lawn?'

'Easier than that.'

Right on cue a phone rings in the room next door. Aunt Maggie's voice is heard in a haughty demand: 'Will someone put an end to this infernal blast? My skirts are making such a racket!'

John lowers his head and presses his eyes firmly shut.

'Did someone give her the phone, or did she kill her nephew, Sherlock?'

The detective shrugs. 'Non compos mentis people are always so unpredictable. The only thing we'll know for sure is that it's fairly pointless to ask her because she won't know for sure herself.'

.

The local police are up in the house in a short while, setting up an efficient line-up of interviews to all the guests. There are a lot more of them now, Sherlock notices.

The bride, Hetty, is being consoled by an older couple who are clearly genetically related to her, her parents then. A number of dolled up women potter about uncomfortably, a couple still sporting a "hen I do" sash over their outfits.

The nurse/maid from the morning is trying to direct a couple of locals, clearly brought in temporarily to help with catering for the wedding party.

Sherlock is standing broodingly at a corner of the room with his phone, trying to get hold of DI Lestrade, to tell him to come over, and work for him, instead of an imbecile local police force.

When Lestrade flatly refuses to pull rank on the local police force, Sherlock disconnects the call, and his gaze roams the room to search for his friend. He finds him standing quietly by the window, staring sightlessly into the night.

John Watson's frame is trembling, the epicentre of the small quakes belongs to his left hand. Intermittent tremors. Sherlock frowns.

Snapping out of his exhaustion, John seems to suddenly become aware of his tremors and he shakes his left arm, followed by flexing his hand open and closed. Finally, he finishes by rubbing his hands on the jeans over his thighs, chasing the feeling back into his left hand.

Sherlock's grey eyes flash. Found it. The missing link. John's mysterious new pattern of behaviour has a deep-set root in his army injury. His stiff shoulder, embarking on the train in London. John sat on the bed in front of the starry night seen through the window. John jumping down from a tree he climbed. John seeking reassurance and handing Sherlock a flax-coloured jumper.

It's a pattern of behaviour that John engages in when he is feeling pain or fragile.

Sherlock looks at John. I mean, he really observes John now. He is surprised to find more grey hairs and facial wrinkles than he had previously accounted for. How long has it passed since he last saw John, properly observed John? He also notices the withdrawn pull of the lips, the tightness around the brow. John is in pain right now.

It comes as a shock to Sherlock, that he has missed the obvious. Worse, that he has missed seeing John. That is unacceptable.

Sensing something, the doctor turns his head to meet the detective's powerful gaze, and he smiles briefly, the smile of fake reassurance that Sherlock hates so much in John.

He rather have an irate John, a berating John, a scathing John. Those are honest facets of a complex man. This layer of societal politeness is a decoy launched to deflect Sherlock, to keep him at bay.

Sherlock feels angry, he doesn't know his anger comes from a feeling of betrayal, and a sense of failure as well. Failure to see John in his entirety.

When someone is your friend, you see them through a constructed lens of past shared experiences. It is easy to overlook the evidence in front of your own eyes.

John's shoulder is bothering him. Fact. He is in pain. Fact. He has hidden this from Sherlock. Fact. Likely cause: it is, at least, partly psychosomatic in nature. Conventional medicine will do very little to ease the ache etched deep inside his mind.

John is in pain because he has come to face a place where he was turned away from, when he needed a safe refuge the most, when he was at his lowest in his life.

Sherlock brought him here. Sherlock was curious about the Scottish Watsons.

Now there is no turning back.

Now Sherlock must move forward and see John through this.

As quickly as possible.

.

They finally return to the guest lodge in the early hours of the morning. Somehow, John is past any sense of pride and he just leans exhaustedly against the door frame while Sherlock twists the key on the lock. As the door opens, they realise they are yet not done for the night.

The place has been ransacked. Their belongings – mostly John's – are scattered all over, the bed unmade and beddings strewn about, pillows slashed and chairs overturned.

John emits a strangled noise of protest and drops himself on the rug by the overturned sofa, facing an empty grate.

Sherlock quickly looks around and sees too much chaos to find clues without a painstakingly slow analysis. Their valuables seem untouched, so robbery is unlikely to be the reason for the intrusion.

As the detective returns to the main room, John is still sat cross-legged on the rug, looking down on something he is holding on the palm of his hand.

'John?'

'I think I know what they were looking for, Sherlock.'

The taller man comes into the living space slowly, eyeing John suspiciously. John is acting out of character, he should be incensed, agitated, protective. Instead, he is an empty shell of the soldier Sherlock knows him to be.

'Go on, I'm listening.'

'Aunt Maggie gave me this earlier when I asked her for a fridge magnet to give you.' A small spark of recognition goes past John's eyes and he smiles briefly to his friend, acknowledging him at last. 'You know, because of what you said in the forest about the bits of ferrous rock.' Sherlock comes closer slowly, as if afraid to spook away a wild cub, and takes a seat on the rug by John's good side. 'I thought it might be better to ask, rather than to nick something she cared about. She remembers so very little as it is… She gave me a fridge magnet alright.' John extends his good arm to hand Sherlock a magnet of a bear in a Palace grenadier uniform. 'I think I gave it to her, she still remembered it. Funny that. I didn't think she'd care enough to hold onto the magnet, let alone to that memory of me bringing it to her.'

'She was an extraordinary lady. Clearly impacting you with her penchant for a bit of madness.'

John smiles but it barely reaches his lips. John is experiencing so much mourning right now. A favourite aunt's lucidity, a murdered cousin, and the life that could have been had he been taken in when wounded in action. Would John have been happier without meeting Sherlock?

'She also gave me this,' John brings out a broken piece of stone, just a fragment like Sherlock found in the forest. A bit bigger, heavy, and dulled by erosion and time. 'She insisted I needed to keep it, that it was important, that I needed to show you, that you, Sherlock, would explain it to me. Why would she think that?'

Sherlock reaches out a hand to take the piece of rock and John, foolish from exhaustion, tries to hand him the rock with his dominant hand. Instantly he flinches and recoils, cradling his left arm by the elbow against his chest.

'For crying out loud…' Sherlock rolls his eyes, pockets the piece of rock and makes John face him by splaying both his hands on the sides of John's head and gently turning his attention to the detective.

'Do you trust me?'

'Yeah. Wait, no, why?'

'Turn around, lay back against me.'

'Sherlock, I'm not well enough to—'

'Hurry up, John, we haven't got all night.'

Looking a mixture of suspicious and hopeful, John assumes the odd position of reclining against Sherlock. The softness of the borrowed jumper and the slow movements inhaling and exhaling are a sharp contrast to all of John's jagged edges.

'Breathe with me. Slower. I've got you, John.'

'I can't,' he hisses.

'We'll do it together. Follow my lead.'

John nods and sets his jaw in determination.

Not even fifteen minutes later where they focus on breathing exercises, John is softly snoring against Sherlock's shoulder, completely knocked out by exhaustion and grief. Sherlock leans back against the overturned sofa and heads deep into his Mind Palace.

.

DI Lestrade is eyeballing a wandering pheasant with the suspicion only an urban man can have for a land fowl. He knocks on the door and almost immediately the door is pushed back by Sherlock Holmes. At least, it would be him, if it weren't for the flax-coloured jumper a size too short on him and the wildly protective look in his eyes that only lessens fractionally at the recognition of the visitor.

Lestrade looks over Sherlock's shoulder to the messy living room and comments: 'Really love what you've done with the place, Sherlock.'

'I thought you said you couldn't come.' The consulting detective's voice is sharp, clipped. Uh-oh, Lestrade is in trouble.

'That was before I heard that the deceased was John's cousin. Did you know John had cousins?'

'Well, the man was not grown in a Petri dish. It stands to reason that some relatives are to be expected.' Finally the detective steps away from the threshold, allowing entrance. Somewhat forgiven, Lestrade carefully makes his way inside.

'Where is John, by the way?'

'Resting. He's had a difficult night.'

'I can imagine, blimey.'

Sherlock thinks Lestrade can't imagine but prefers not to say so at this point. He needs the inspector on his side if he is to solve this case and deliver John back into 221B for a full recovery.

'What's that?' the inspector points at the bits of chiselled stone on a coffee table, the only island of order in the ocean of chaos around them.

'Some kind of homemade mystery concocted by an eccentric old lady with Alzheimer's. It could be nothing, or it could unravel the whole thing.'

'Not a very strong lead, then.'

'Nothing is, until we hear back from the lab with the exact poison that killed Hugh Watson.'

Lestrade nods and takes out his notebook and pen.

HW – victim; poisoned?

Sherlock glances over his shoulder – no sense of social distancing for the snooping genius – and protests: 'No, no, don't do that! The victim's name is Hugh Watson, the main two suspects are Henry and Hetty Watson, even John is a H Watson!'

'The old bird too? You know, the one with the clues?'

Sherlock stops very still in the middle of the living space. 'Oh,' he says. 'I need to investigate. Stay here. Take care of John. I will be back as soon as I can.'

'No. Wait, where are you going? You can't just walk out. Sherlock! What about John? He's going to be mad at you, you know that?'

.

TBC