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Science and Faith	By : ambersue Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 3734 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock (BBC). The show and all characters belong to BBC, Moffat, Gatiss, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I don't profit from a thing.

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Now they say I’m wasting my time
Cause you’re never coming home
But they used to say the world was flat
And how wrong was that now?¹
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John stands at the door to 221 Baker Street, back straight, heart racing. His hand is clenching and unclenching at his side. He thinks about schooling it to stillness and decides it’s not worth the effort. He has to release the manic energy building inside him somehow.

Christ, Watson. What are you doing here?

He hesitates. What is he doing here? Chasing a ghost? Or worse, chasing a psychopath who knows where he lives, has broken into his flat at least twice, and has successfully lured him to what’s almost certain to be an empty building. He curses under his breath as he realises his gun is still in his nightstand drawer. Oh yes, excellent soldiering instincts, Watson.

But his hands are steady. He has to know where this leads.

He reaches for the doorknocker—and freezes. Underneath the pervasive soundtrack of city noises, just at the edge of hearing, someone is playing the violin.

Cold sweat breaks out on his forehead, his palms. Every emotion he has ever known is clawing its way out of his chest, and his lungs are suddenly too small, his throat too narrow. He gasps for air, his leg giving way slightly as he catches himself on the door. He takes a few deep breaths. His eyes squeezed tightly shut, he somehow manages to clamp down on the storm inside him, wrestles it into a sleeper hold and waits until it has subsided to bind it, cast it into the darkest corner of his heart, and close the door firmly behind it. Emotion is no good here.

The weakness slowly leaves his limbs as something else takes over. John opens his eyes. Squares his shoulders. Sod this. Whoever is in there, they are about to meet a very tense, very determined, and very angry John Watson.

The door is unlocked. Of course it is. When John steps inside the entryway, the music is louder. Louder, and definitely coming from upstairs. Something strong and sad and achingly lonely, but John doesn’t let it touch him.

He glances at the door to 221A, but he’s certain Mrs. Hudson is out. Whoever planned this planned it carefully—no interruptions to interfere. The drama of it is not lost on John; it is, in fact, fueling his rage like a slow-burning campfire. He can’t shake the feeling that he is a puppet, only moving his limbs because someone behind the curtain is pulling his strings. He grips the banister and starts up the stairs.

When he hits the stair that creaks, the music falters. It is less than a heartbeat, less than half a heartbeat, before it picks up again, but at least John knows he’s not imagining things. Imaginary violin players don’t pause when they hear you coming.

The door to 221B is slightly ajar—an invitation. A curious feeling steals over John, one he has only had occasion to feel twice before. It’s the same feeling he had in Kandahar when a grenade sailed through the broken window of the storefront they’d set up as an emergency surgery, the same feeling he had as the red dot of a sniper rifle’s sight danced across his Symtex laden chest in a darkened pool. It is a sense of inevitability, a detachment from reality that leaves him empty and alert and rolling on instinct.

He watches his hand push the door open as if it belongs to someone else. His eyes take in the sitting room he hasn’t seen in years, and for a moment, it looks as though nothing has changed. His armchair and Sherlock’s facing each other to his left, the sofa to his right piled high with books and case files, the air glazed with the oily stink of whatever experiment is currently putrefying in the microwave…and a lean silhouette against the window, back turned, violin raised, bow drawing heavy notes from the delicate strings.

John blinks, and the vision fades. The armchairs are gone. The sofa is there, but it’s now covered in an old sheet to ward off dust. The air is clear and tinged faintly with mothballs. But the figure at the window is unchanged. The doctor’s heart skips one beat, then two, and then hurries to catch up, thudding in his chest like a machine gun’s chatter.

The man with the violin half turns, his eyes cast down, fingers still moving as he finishes his piece. John waits, mentally evaluating his body for signs that he may be having a stroke. The bow draws across the strings a final time, teasing the last note out into the air between them. The man sets the violin against the wall and studies the bow in his hand.

“Mozart,” the man says, and the voice is the same, cool and rich and dark as ink. John’s arms come alive with gooseflesh, and he wishes his hands would tremble. He doesn’t know how else to release this growing tension. Soon it will reach the breaking point, and like an over-stressed fault line, John fears his body, his heart, will simply shake itself to pieces.

“Requiem Mass in D Minor,” says Sherlock—oh God, is it? Is it really you? “When Mozart died, he left it unfinished.” Here, his gaze finally flicks upward to meet John’s, and there is no mistaking those eyes, green and luminous in the morning sun, the brown freckle in his right iris marking him like a fingerprint.

His voice is softer as he adds, “I thought it was appropriate.”

John isn’t aware that he’s crossed the room. He’s not aware his fingers have curled into a fist, or that his arm has decided that fist belongs somewhere in the vicinity of Sherlock’s jaw. He is not aware of any of these things until a wave of pain reverberates through his knuckles, and suddenly he is massaging his shoulder while Sherlock stumbles back against the window, looking almost as shocked as John feels. A thin trickle of blood runs from the corner of his mouth.

At the sight of the blood, John snaps back into himself. Instinct abandons him, along with the steadfast resolve that had accompanied it. John’s knees buckle, and he reaches out for the only thing nearby, which just happens to be Sherlock, pulling them both to the ground as he tries to steady himself.

Sherlock lands heavily and John lands half on top of him, digging his fingers in harder than is strictly necessary. He wants to bruise the body beneath his hands, just to know it’s real. Sherlock’s arms are poised awkwardly on either side of John, one near his head, the other underneath him, ready to catch him if he falls further. The hand near his head twitches, like Sherlock wants to touch him but can’t. John hopes he doesn’t. He has no idea how he’ll react. He’s just as likely to tear his arm off as to burst into tears.

“John, I—”

John shakes his head violently, fistfuls of Sherlock’s jacket sliding through his hands. “Don’t,” he manages to say through clenched teeth.

“But John—”

“Please. Shut up.” John’s head is suddenly too heavy for his neck, and he leans forward, resting it against Sherlock’s very firm, very warm, very alive chest. He can hear the detective’s heartbeat, a low, wild thrum under his ear. It’s surprisingly fast, given how calm the man seems to be. Sherlock’s scent is all around him, the peppermint and rosemary of his shampoo, a clean, subtle earthiness that John recognises but can’t place, until he realises this is the smell of Sherlock’s skin, a smell he didn’t even know he knew. A hint of cigarette smoke clings to his breath, his clothing: the bastard is smoking again.

“Oh, god,” John whimpers. “You…”

Sherlock’s hand stops hovering and lands gently on John’s head. John doesn’t immediately attack, which is good. Instead, he closes his eyes and leans in to the touch. Sherlock’s fingertips pressed into his hair, Sherlock’s palm against his ear. Sherlock alive. Sherlock here.

“Yes, John. I’m here.” As if he can read John’s mind. But then, he always could.

They are still like this for another moment, John’s arms and lungs and heart full of Sherlock, and then John becomes uncomfortably aware of the intimacy of the position. He pushes back, and Sherlock releases him immediately, as if John is something fragile, something Sherlock wants to touch but fears to break.

John’s chest is heavy with a dull ache, equal parts worship and hatred of the phantom before him.

“How…?” he starts to ask, but there are too many questions and not enough room on his tongue for all of them.

“How did I fake my death? How did I defeat Moriarty?” Sherlock looks pleased with himself, managing to sound smug even tangled with his former flatmate in an awkward heap on the floor. “Oh, John, I have so much to tell—!”

“No.” John is actually rather proud of himself, how steady his voice is. The delight on Sherlock’s face crumples into confusion.

“But John, I really—”

“No,” John repeats, louder this time. “You don’t get to talk.”

“John, be reasonable.”

“God, you arrogant prick. Can’t just be quiet for five seconds, can you?”

Sherlock opens his mouth and then closes it stubbornly, pinching his full lips together and raising one eyebrow in challenge. John fights the urge to slap him.

“Be reasonable,” John mocks. “I’m looking at a sodding corpse.” The anger slips a bit, and he feels his voice crack on the last word. He draws in a deep, shuddering breath. One hand untangles itself from Sherlock’s jacket and reaches hesitantly for the other man’s face. Sherlock flinches, his tongue darting out to taste the blood that hand drew on its last visit to his face.

John’s fingertips brush against Sherlock’s cheek, just a whisper of a touch. Sherlock’s eyes flutter closed. “But you’re not. A corpse, I mean,” John murmurs, wonder lacing itself through the heat in his voice. “How in the actual hell, Sherlock…”

Again, that quivering sensation in his chest that John isn’t sure how to interpret: he’s either going to melt into a weeping puddle that would put a Jane Austen novel to shame, or he’s going to bite through the very next thing he sees. He pulls his hand back from Sherlock’s face, and the detective opens his eyes. John rocks back on his heels. He still doesn’t trust himself to stand.

“When I jumped—” Sherlock begins, but John raises a hand to stop him.

“No. I don’t actually want you to tell me how,” John says.

Disappointment scrawls itself across the detective’s face, and John feels another flash of irritation.

“Why not?” Only Sherlock, in a moment like this, would find a way to be petulant.

John sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger before answering. “Because you don’t get to use this—This isn’t a chance for you to show off.” He fixes Sherlock with a level gaze, the heat behind his eyes threatening to give way to tears. Keep it together, Watson. “Three—Christ, three years! It’s not impressive, Sherlock. It’s just cruel.” He takes another breath to steady himself. He gets up, making his way to the sheet-covered sofa before lowering himself down again, distancing himself from the detective. His back is straight. His hands grip his knees so hard the knuckles are white, keeping him from reaching for Sherlock again—to embrace him or to maim him, John isn’t sure.

“I don’t want to know how you did it,” he says softly. “What I want to know is, how could you?”

Sherlock picks himself up from the floor, adjusting his shirt with a sharp tug, buttoning his jacket. John fights another pang of familiarity, of exasperation. To anyone else, Sherlock’s primping would look aloof and uncaring. John sees it for what it is: a stall, a way for Sherlock to buy himself time to think. It doesn’t make it any less annoying—and god, it feels good to be annoyed with him again.

The effort of juggling so many conflicting emotions is making John dizzy. He feels adrift in a dark sea, caught between the depths of his hurt and the heights of his relief. He sways a bit in his seat, clinging to his anger to buoy him up.

After a moment, Sherlock meets his gaze. “John.” He takes a step toward the sofa. John blinks, shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and Sherlock freezes. “John, I’m sorry.”

John weighs this. “No,” he decides, “you’re not.” Sherlock’s eyes widen. He looks—hurt, maybe? Surprised? John relents, sighing, “But at least you know you should be.”

The doctor hears the exhaustion in his own voice. He suddenly feels about a hundred years old, far too tired to hold on to the fury that is his only lifeline. He starts taking inventory, cataloguing the symptoms beginning to manifest as his body tries and fails to process this situation. There’s the dizziness, the sensation of vertigo like he’s stepped into an Escher painting and his world is not just upside down, but inside out as well. His palms are sweating, even pressed against the fabric of his trousers. And there’s the nausea; he finds himself wondering—somewhat absurdly—if it was really such a good idea to have that second helping of jam and toast this morning.

“John.”

He wishes Sherlock would stop saying his name like that, like a child who’s just had his favourite toy taken away. The sofa cushions are pulling at him, inviting him to rest. And why not? He deserves a bit of a rest, surely…

“John!” Sherlock is above him. Wait, what? John shakes himself, realises his head has fallen back against the sofa cushions. Sherlock is next to him, over him, all around him, producing a flashlight from somewhere to shine in his eyes. John swats at him weakly.

“Go ‘way,” he mumbles. “M’fine.”

Sherlock lays the back of his hand against John’s forehead, and John fights the urge to snort. “You are most decidedly not fine,” says the detective. “Pupil response normal, you’re not having a stroke. Skin clammy, pulse elevated, blood pressure presumably low, that would explain the fainting—”

“—did not faint. Just leave me alone.”

“I think you’re in shock, John.”

John laughs breathily. “Oh, brilliant. Couldn’t have gotten that one on my own. Me with my ordinary, dull little doctor brain.”

Sherlock frowns, his face still taking up most of John’s field of vision. “I suppose I needn’t worry if you’re well enough to be cross.”

John shoves him, and Sherlock flops down heavily on the sofa beside him. “Needn’t worry at all. I’ve managed just fine on my own, you know.” John’s voice is thin, coming between shallow breaths. When he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, they come away damp.

“I am sorry I’ve upset you,” Sherlock says. “I thought if I eased you into the idea, it wouldn’t be so difficult for you to accept.”

John is momentarily thrown, floundering as he tries to figure out what in the hell Sherlock is talking about. When it clicks, it’s almost enough to make him angry again. “The skulls? You’re apologising for the skulls? Christ, Sherlock.”

“So they were a good idea, then? I thought they were.”

“I can’t honestly believe we’re having this conversation. No, in fact, I don’t think they were a good idea. I’ve spent the better part of week thinking I was going completely mad.” Sherlock’s face falls. John takes several quick breaths through his nose, trying to stay calm.

“Perhaps I rushed it,” says the detective, and it might almost sound like an apology to someone else, but again, John hears it for what it is: just Sherlock revising his hypothesis. “But don’t you see? I was so eager to tell you—”

“Eager?” It’s John’s turn to interrupt. “No, Sherlock. Lying to me for three years is not eager. I don’t—I don’t even know what that is.”

Sherlock favours him with his most condescending groan, tangling his hands in his hair. “Ugh, John, you and your archaic notions of nobility. Lying was the only way, it was the whole point!”

The doctor’s eyebrows rise fractionally. “You’re insulting me now? Oh, fantastic, Sherlock. Just bloody great.”

Sherlock waves a dismissive hand, growing increasingly agitated. “I don’t understand why you’re pretending to be angry,” he complains, rising from the sofa to pace the room.

“Sorry, what?” God, John thinks, death has somehow managed to make him even more obnoxious. “Pretending? How the hell do you presume to tell me how I’m feeling?”

Not even looking at him, still striding back and forth across the room, Sherlock says, “Come now, John, three years is a long time, but don’t forget who you’re talking to. You are angry; I misspoke. But you’re hardly just angry, that’s just all you want to let me see. Why?”

John realises his mouth is hanging open and quickly closes it, pursing his lips and glaring up at Sherlock.

“You won’t tell me?” There is a gleam in the detective’s eye, a mix of pure, devilish delight and subtle menace that John simultaneously loves and loathes. “Fine, I’ll tell you, then. You’ve been angry before, been surprised before, but I’ve only once seen you look like you might faint—at the pool after I removed the Symtex vest. Relief, then. You’re not weak, not fearful—the only thing that makes you unsteady is overwhelming relief. You are glad to see me, so glad, in fact, you hardly even know what to call it. You lash out, you hit, you touch, and then you withdraw—you need to know I’m real, you want to accept it, but accepting it means losing something. What are you afraid to lose? And don’t say your sanity, John, sanity is dreadfully tedious.”

John’s glare softens to bewilderment, his hands pressed together between his knees. He laughs a little, because he’s honestly not sure what else to do. Sherlock is watching him expectantly.

“Don’t think I’m going to tell you that was amazing,” John says, taking some comfort from the sullen glower Sherlock offers him. “I practically fell into your arms when I first walked in. Telling me I’m relieved is not exactly a brilliant deduction.”

“True. And yet your first instinct was the punch me in the face.”

“Again, not exactly a surprise.”

“No,” Sherlock agrees, “but it proves my point. You’re using anger to mask what you’re really feeling. Why are you afraid to say it?”

“To say what?”

Sherlock growls in frustration. “Hell, John! That you’re happy to see me!”

“Happy?” John’s lips purse again. “Right then. I won’t tell you I’m happy to see you because I don’t bloody well want you to know. Because there’s consequences, Sherlock. You don’t get to just pretend to die, show up one day like you haven’t done, and expect that everyone will be fine with it! I am not fine, Sherlock. I’m not okay. With this.”

“John, you know me. You know—”

“Yes, that’s how I know you don’t understand how wrong this is.”

“—I wouldn’t do anything like this without a good reason.”

“A good reason?” Another incredulous laugh spills from John’s mouth. “There isn’t a good reason. Not for this. I…Sherlock, I grieved for you. I spoke at the funeral, visited your grave every year—”

“Not every year,” Sherlock interrupts.

There is an immediate, deafening silence. John can see on his face that Sherlock realises he’s said something terrible, but has no idea what. John is too appalled to feel sorry for him.

“Sorry,” the doctor says, “you’ve been watching me?”

Sherlock is silent. “Of course you have,” John answers his own question, pushing himself to his feet. He is still unsteady, and Sherlock reaches out for him, but the detective recoils when he sees his face.

John rights himself, refusing to look at the other man. “I have to go—I don’t know. Out. I need air.”

“John, you can’t just go, you have to—”

“Don’t tell me what I have to do.”

“Please, John. I need you.”

John laughs at this. The sound is harsh. It doesn’t sound like him, doesn’t feel like him, but he can’t stop it. “Right. Well, you’ve managed well enough the last three years. You can bloody well survive a little while longer.”

And John leaves, slamming the door behind him.

***
Mary answers her mobile by cooing, “Well, hello, sexy.”

John presses the phone against his ear and closes his eyes. “Yeah. Hi.”

“John? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I just…” He trails off, uncertain how to begin, uncertain what he even wants to say.

“John Watson, you are a singularly terrible liar.”

And in spite of everything, John finds himself laughing ruefully, and only the slightest bit hysterically. “You’d think I’d have learned that by now.”

“So,” Mary prompts. “What’s going on? And don’t tell me you’re canceling our dinner tonight, I’ve already phoned ahead for a table.”

“I don’t—No, I mean, dinner should be, well…Look, something happened this morning.”

“God, what is it? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I mean, sort of. I just need to…Well, I need to talk about it. And I…I don’t know. I just rang up the first person I could think of.”

“Oh,” she says, and he hears a chill slip into her tone.

Stupid, John. He backpedals furiously. “I mean, I’m glad it was you. Christ, Mary, I’m sorry. That came out all wrong. It’s been a hell of a morning. A hell of a week, actually.”

A pause. Mentally, John calls himself a variety of unflattering names.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asks. Still cool, but somewhat mollified.

“Yeah, I—I think I’d best do. Can you meet me?”

“Where are you?”

“Westminster.”

“Westminster? What on earth are you doing there?”

“I’m at Baker Street.”

“Oh. Oh.” Her flicker of understanding is immediately followed by poorly concealed disappointment. “But John, you said you were—”

“I know what I said, Mary.” John works to keep frustration out of his voice. It’s not her he’s upset with. And anyway, she has every right to be disappointed. He closes his eyes, shutting out a memory of the hope etched on her face when he told her he was finally letting go of Sherlock.

It takes effort to keep his voice neutral. “There’s a place nearby—Angelo’s. You know where it is?”

“I think you showed me, once. I can be there in…twenty minutes?”

“Right. Good. I mean, I wouldn’t ask if—”

“You never ask, John. I know it’s important.”

Damn you, John Watson. She’s so good to you, so good for you. The ache in John’s chest deepens, expands, threatening to swallow him. She doesn’t deserve this.

“I’ll see you in a bit, love,” she says, and rings off without waiting for him to respond.

He stands for a moment, phone still held to his ear. There was a time when she would have waited to see if he would say it back, that dangerous four-letter word that falls from her lips so easily. But John couldn’t, he can’t, he’s not sure he’ll ever be able, and he hates it.

He puts his phone back in his pocket and keeps walking. Damn you, he thinks. She doesn’t deserve this at all.

***

Angelo’s. Why the hell did he pick Angelo’s? First thing that came to mind. And it was close. Valid reasons, John supposes, but he’s still regretting the decision.

Every table and chair, every friendly wink Angelo tips his way, stinks of his old life, and his nerves are stretched taut, fraying, threatening to snap under the sheer weight of so much Sherlock.

Mary reaches across the table and touches his hand, making him jump. He realizes his breathing is too fast and too shallow, and he forces himself to draw in a proper lungful of air.

“God, John,” she says. “You’re a mess.”

His eyebrows bunch together as he tilts his chin down, his stare admonishing her for stating the obvious. After everything he’s just told her, how can she even…What is he supposed to be, if not a mess?

Her brown eyes blaze. “Don’t look at me like that, John Watson. I heard every word you said, and yes, it’s shocking, but…look at you.”

“Shocking?” His voice is several octaves too high. He clears his throat. “Is that all you think it is? He was dead, Mary. He was dead and I mourned him—and it was all a lie.”

“I know, I just...” Her face softens a bit as she watches him, and she seems to change what she was about to say. Her fingers brush his hand, soothing him. “What did you do? When you saw him, I mean.”

“I hit him.”

“John!” Her fingertips stop stroking and press into his skin instead.

“And then I…I don’t know. It’s a bit blurry, really.”

“You hit him?” She’s disappointed. He shouldn’t be surprised—she’s always been opposed to violence of any kind.

“Yes. Just once, Mary. I didn’t beat the man bloody.” Her fingers loosen a little. “Not that he didn’t deserve it,” he adds.

“It’s just not like you.”

But it is, he wants to say. How can she not know that? It takes him a moment to remember that she doesn’t know John Watson the soldier, John Watson who shot and killed someone just to prevent a man he hardly knew from taking a sodding suicide pill, John Watson who chinned the Chief Superintendent for calling his best friend a weirdo.

“Alright, there, John?” Angelo’s voice by his shoulder.

John looks up. Tries to smile. “Yeah, fine, mate.”

The heavyset man presents him with a pint of dark. “On the house,” he says. “If I’ve ever seen a man as needs a drink, it’s you.”

“Cheers.”

Angelo lingers, looking at John expectantly. John takes a sip, hiding his grimace. He’d really have preferred a nice lager, but there’s that old saying about gift horses and not looking them in the mouth; in any case, it seems to satisfy Angelo, who grins and ducks his head before heading back to the bar.

John stares into his beer. He finds himself thinking that if Sherlock’s voice had a taste, this would probably be it: deep, rich, bitter—like dark-roasted coffee beans or expensive wine, something his palette can recognise but isn’t refined enough to fully appreciate. He can feel Mary watching him. He takes another sip.

“What are you going to do?” Mary asks after a long silence.

“Hmm?”

“Well, he’s alive. What…what are you going to do with that?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.” But that’s a lie, and John knows it. He doesn’t want it to be, but there it is. “I mean, it doesn’t change my life, right?” Wrong. “It doesn’t change work, it doesn’t change…” He takes her hand, makes himself look her in the eye. “It doesn’t change us.”

He wants to mean it. Oh god, he wants it so badly. But in the back of his throat is a lingering taste—dark-roast coffee, pinot noir.

Mary’s hand grasps his. Silence is her only answer.

***
1. The Script. Science & Faith. Sony Music Entertainment UK, 2011.
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