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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.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
I’m falling through the doors of the emergency room
Can anybody help me with these exit wounds
I don’t know how much more love this heart can lose

And I’m dying, dying from the exit wounds…

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
John sits, still gripping Mary’s hand, still hoping she’ll say something. So far, she seems content to let him wait. The pulsing vibration against his thigh makes him jump, and Mary raises an eyebrow, questioning.

“Phone,” John tells her, working the thing out of his pocket. The text is from a number he doesn’t recognize, but he has no doubt who sent it. He may not be a sodding genius, but not every deduction is beyond him. He opens it.

2:08 PM
Know you’re angry. You’re entitled. Need you anyway. -SH

“What is it?” Mary asks.

“Hmm?” John only half hears her as he works to sort out how to feel about this. Irritated? Yes, there’s that. But there’s something deeper, something darker, in the way his stomach clenches at Sherlock’s words.

Need you anyway. Is that neediness what frustrates John? Or is it the way he almost stands, so ready is he to come when Sherlock calls? Is he angry that Sherlock would dare to ask, or that he can’t help but answer?

“The text,” Mary says, drawing him from his thoughts. “It’s him, isn’t it? God, John, your face.”

He looks up at her, offering her the phone so she can read it herself. “It’s him,” he confirms. Her eyes skim the message, and he rests his forehead in his hands, his breath leaving his lungs in an exhausted sigh. “He’s giving me…Christ, like I need his permission to be angry with him.”

Mary taps the screen of his phone. “Need you?” she reads. “What does he mean he needs you?”

John shrugs, still agitated. “That’s just…that’s how he talks.”

Her eyebrows manage to climb higher. “He goes about telling you he needs you?”

“Yes, and usually rather urgently.” His laugh is hollow, and a hysterical edge creeps into his voice as he remembers: “Once he told me there was an emergency and he needed me straight away. I left work to get there, and when I did, I found him lying on the sofa. He told me we were out of salt. Salt. I told him to get himself down to the Tesco and get some more, and he said that was stupid, since I was already dressed and he wasn’t.”

Mary is studying him like he’s some sort of fascinating but possibly dangerous insect. “I don’t understand,” she says, and John finds himself wishing she knew Sherlock, wishing he’d told her more about the impossible duality of him. It had just seemed easier to close the door, to separate the two pieces of his life, his heart. Sherlock belonged in the past, Mary in the present. But of course, Sherlock makes his own plans, and he never could be arsed to get John Watson’s opinion on any of them.

Mary is still staring at him, puzzled. “You always talk about him as if he was your best friend.”

“He was.” John balks on the verb tense, alarmed to find he isn’t really sure how to answer her. “He…well, yes, he was.”

“He sounds a bit…”

John’s breath catches. If she says strange, or awful, or freakish, I’ll…You’ll what, Watson?

“…demanding.” Mary finishes. John exhales.

“Yes,” he agrees. But if she knew all the stories, she would understand. Because he really isn’t painting her a fair picture of Sherlock—an accurate one, yes, but not a fair one—he adds, “He made up for it in other ways.”

His phone vibrates again in Mary’s hand, and they both look at it.

2:13 PM
Not speaking figuratively. Need you at Baker Street at once. -SH

2:13 PM
Bring Margaret if you must. You’re in danger. -SH

“Danger?” Mary looks at John, eyes wide with alarm. “John, what is he talking about?” A beat, and then, “Who’s Margaret?”

John plucks his phone out of her hands. “He means you. God, I don’t even think I told him about you. It’s not worth asking how he knows.” He busies himself with typing out a response.

2:14 PM
You’re not forgiven. Don’t know who the hell Margaret is, but I will bring Mary. Play nice. -John

The doctor pushes send, standing to fish out a few quid to cover their drinks. Mary, still sitting, stammers, “What does he mean, you’re in danger?”

He holds out a hand to help her up, less out of chivalry than to politely indicate she should join him. “Well,” he says, “this is Sherlock. It could mean an international criminal has placed a bounty on my head…”—her mouth falls open, but she takes his hand, allowing him to lead her to the door—“…or it could mean it’s likely to rain later and he’s worried I’ll catch cold.”

“Are we going, then?” She is still hesitant, letting him pull her along but staying behind him, ready to dig her heels in if needs must.

“Of course we’re going,” he says without thinking.

“Oh, of course,” she mimics. “Dead best friend who you can barely talk about without starting to punch things—”

“It was one punch, Mary, for god’s sake, don’t make it sound like—”

“—and of course you’re going.”

He stops outside the door of the restaurant, rubbing at his temple with his free hand. “Look,” he tells her, “I know I’ve not done a good job of explaining this to you. I know it seems—well, mad, I’m sure. I’m sorry.” His eyes find hers and hold them. “I really am. For all of this, Mary.”

Again, the hard veneer that has started to form around her eyes cracks and softens. The tension in her arms eases a bit, and she steps closer, looking up at him. “John, I just—”

He leans down, resting his forehead on hers. “I need you, Mary. I…he’s a force of nature, and I can’t explain him any more than I can change him. But if you’re with me, then maybe…”

Maybe I can survive it. Maybe I can just be ordinary John, who doesn’t need the excitement and the brilliance and the ridiculous drama of it all. Maybe I won’t drown in him.

She kisses him softly, and John finds he has pressed his eyes closed. “I’m worried about you, John. I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising. I just want to…I just want to understand it, that’s all.”

He kisses her again, because it makes him feel a little more normal. A little less insane. “I have to go. He’s ridiculous, but he’s usually right. If he says I’m in danger…well, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. But you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” He sighs. “I don’t know how I’ll be. I’ve not exactly been myself today. I’m not even the me I used to be, when I was with—”

—when I was with him, is how the sentence goes, but John pauses, unable to say it.

“—when we were…working together.” And god, that’s miserable. Relegating his life with Sherlock Holmes to those two words. Working together. Colleagues.

“I ought to meet him,” Mary says, her thumb tracing his lips, trying to smooth away the frown lines there. “There’s something in you, John, when you talk about him…I don’t know. Like there’s a whole John that I’ve never met. And if I don’t go with you now, I think you’ll keep hiding him from me, and that isn’t fair.”

That tugs at something in him--something tender, something that hurts. “You might not like that John,” he whispers.

Another kiss, that’s maybe meant to be reassuring, but falls short. “We’ll see,” she says.

She laces her fingers through his, and they go forward together.

***

John’s mobile goes off again as they walk the short distance to Baker Street. It’s Lestrade.

“Is this for real, John?” Lestrade asks by way of hello. So Sherlock’s called him, then.

The doctor almost smiles, he’s so relieved to speak to someone who may actually understand. “He’s really alive, if that’s what you mean. Solid enough to take a punch.” He feels Mary flinch at that, but he doesn’t look at her.

Lestrade barks a laugh. “God, I wish I’d seen that.”

“Wasn’t as satisfying as you’d think.”

“Still. Christ.”

“He called you?” John asks. “I mean, he liked you. I’m sure he’d want to tell you he’s back. I just didn’t think he’d do it so soon.”

He can almost hear Lestrade’s eyes rolling. “Yeah, well, he needed something, didn’t he?”

“Needed something?”

“He didn’t mention it?” John’s silence is answer enough, so Lestrade continues, “A case—a murder. Happened last week. Not too far from your place, I think.”

“God, a case already? Didn’t take him long.”

“This one’s different,” says the DI. “High profile barrister. It’s a bit of a nightmare. But I think Sherlock knew him.”

John stops walking, and Mary bumps into him. The list of people Sherlock knows is short enough to fit on a Post-it note. “Knew him how?”

“Uni, I think. He was talking a bit fast.”

The doctor breathes a little easier, but his chest still feels strangely tight. Mary is watching his face, worried. He gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile and keeps walking.

To Lestrade, he says, “Can’t help you there. He never spoke about school. Not to me, anyway.”

“Yeah, well. Where are you now?”

“Headed to Baker Street, actually. Mary too.”

Lestrade laughs darkly. “Think that’s wise? Last girlfriend you introduced to him broke up with you before the night was out.”

“You really don’t need to remind me.” John grips Mary’s hand a little tighter, the hand on his phone tightening reflexively. “Greg, he said he thinks I’m in danger. He mention that to you?”

“No,” says Lestrade, “but he was out of sorts. More so than usual, I mean…God, it’s weird.”

“What’s that?”

“Talking about him as if the last three years didn’t happen.”

John closes his eyes for a second. “Yeah,” he breathes.

“Well, look. I’m headed out there, too. He wants in on this one, and god knows we’re not getting anywhere with it. I’ll see you there?”

“Yeah.”

John says goodbye and gets off the phone. He can see the question writ large on Mary’s face, and he finds himself wondering what he’s gotten her into. The poor girl won’t even kill a spider, and she’s about to step into a high profile murder case, with the World’s Only Consulting Show-Off presiding over the investigation. And it’s not like he can trust Sherlock to keep a civil tongue in his head.

“I probably ought to warn you,” he tells her. “About Sherlock, I mean.”

“Oh?” she says.

“He’s…well, he’s incredible. Most brilliant man you’ll ever meet. The thing is…”

“He thinks a bit much of himself?” she offers.

John snorts. “Yeah, a bit. And, well, he’s rude.” But John doesn’t like the way that sounds, so he hurries to explain, “He just doesn’t know how to control all that intelligence, and sometimes it all comes out of him in a rush, and then people start getting their feelings hurt.”

“So I shouldn’t take anything he says personally.”

John takes a deep breath. “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Because sometimes it’s an accident, the way he hurts people, but sometimes…well, sometimes it’s not.”

“John, forgive me for saying, but he doesn’t seem terribly nice.”

“Nice?” John huffs a laugh. “Uh, no. Sherlock Holmes is not nice. But he’s not heartless, either, no matter what he tries to make you believe.”

They walk a few steps in silence. “What was Greg on about?” Mary asks after a moment. “That was him on the phone before, yeah? You sounded upset.”

“Yeah, that’s the other part. There’s been a murder.”

“A murder? God, John…”

“A few days ago. Someone Sherlock knew, apparently. Greg’s on his way over with the files so Sherlock can take a look.”

“I thought you said he was banned from helping with police cases.”

“Yeah, well, either Lestrade doesn’t care or three years is long enough to make the chief superintendent forget. In any case, they need his help. He sees things they don’t see, things no one sees—well, they see them, but no one can put them together the way he can. It’s like watching a magic trick, except you get to the end and it’s not a trick at all, it’s just brilliant, and—”

“John, slow down!” Mary interrupts him, and John realises his feet have begun walking faster of their own accord.

“Sorry,” he says, slowing to match her gait.

“God, people would think you’re actually excited that someone’s been murdered.”

John feels heat rush to his cheeks—and a smile tug at his lips. Because while he’s a little ashamed for Mary to see him react like this, part of his brain is giggling with gleeful familiarity: A murder? It’s Christmas!

“You are, aren’t you?” Mary says with wonder. “You’re excited.”

“I…” He’s not sure how to answer her. “I’m not happy someone died, if that’s what you mean.”

She looks like she wants to say something else, but she takes in his deep blush and closes her mouth again. They walk the rest of the way in silence.
***
The door to 221B is already open. John can hear voices coming from inside as he mounts the stairs, keeping Mary behind him as though he can shield her from whatever’s on the other side of that threshold.
Lestrade’s voice rises above the murmur. “Look, I said you could see the files. I never agreed to take you to the scene.”
“I can’t work off of photographs,” Sherlock retorts. “You can’t possibly be concerned that I’ll contaminate evidence—Anderson’s probably drooled in half the blood samples already.”
“Sherlock, really—Oi, John. Thank god. You talk to him, yeah?”
John steps into the flat, pulling Mary after him as he takes in the scene: Sherlock stands in the middle of the sitting room, several glossy photographs clenched in one fist, his other hand on his hip. Lestrade has both hands in his pockets, only a faint tightening of his lips belying his outward calm. On the sofa, Mycroft is reclining, legs crossed, the rest of the case file open in his lap. The look he gives John is unreadable.
Hell. Both Holmes brothers at once. Poor Mary.
“Greg,” the doctor says, clearing his throat. “You know Mary.” Lestrade nods in her direction and she smiles at him nervously.
“Mary, this is…well, Mycroft.” John gestures to the elder Holmes, who offers Mary a smile that almost makes John shiver.
“Mycroft?” Mary echoes, looking from John to the man on the sofa and back again. “Calls you out at all hours of the night for clandestine surgeries in government bunkers, Mycroft?”
“That’s the one.”
“Pleased to meet you,” says Mycroft.
“Wish I could say the same,” Mary replies. On the other side of the room, John sees Sherlock’s lips twist slightly before he can catch himself.
“And this,” John sighs, turning to the detective, “is Sher—”
“Sherlock Holmes,” interrupts the detective, moving forward and offering Mary the hand not clasped around the photographs. She reaches for it hesitantly, still standing half behind John. The doctor watches them, wary.
“Yes, I’ve…I’ve heard a lot about you,” Mary says, shaking his hand.
“Have you?” Sherlock’s voice is low, his eyes darting sideways to glance at John before returning to Mary.
John sees him siphoning information off the pair of them, as easy and natural as breathing. In the space of a few sentences, he’s already noted their hands, fingers still loosely entwined, noted the way John is hiding her behind him, the way John tenses when Sherlock touches her, the way the doctor’s breathing stutters for a moment when Sherlock sweeps into his personal space. Sherlock sees, and John sees him seeing. He feels exposed and vulnerable.
But Sherlock steps back without saying anything, and John breathes a little easier. Maybe the detective really will play nice—for once.
John clears his throat, looking at Lestrade. “You were talking about the case?”
“Victor Trevor,” says the detective inspector. “Barrister to several heads of the criminal underworld in the U.K.”
Mycroft leans forward, offering John the file, and the doctor releases Mary’s hand to take it. He flips through the pages until he finds one that is immediately legible to him: a coroner’s report.
“Extensive burns,” he reads. “Good lord—heart removed?”
Sherlock flinches, and out of the corner of his eye, John sees the blood drain from Mary’s face. “Sorry,” he says, glancing back and forth between the two before settling on Sherlock. “Sorry. You—you knew him?”
The detective nods but doesn’t meet his gaze. Mycroft speaks for him. “Victor and my brother were…friends…when they were at school.” The way Mycroft twists the word “friends,” combined with the red-faced glare it earns him from Sherlock, leaves little doubt in John’s mind about the nature of the detective’s relationship with Mr. Trevor.
Well. Hasn’t always been married to the work, then. That’s one mystery solved.
Still, Mycroft is enjoying his brother’s discomfort a bit too much for John’s liking.
“Honestly, Mycroft,” John says softly. “Don’t you owe him a bit better than that?”
The doctor isn’t sure who looks more surprised, Mycroft or his Sherlock. They are both staring at him with eyebrows raised. John glances at Sherlock, shrugging slightly: I’m not heartless, you know.
Sherlock’s head dips minutely, embarrassment still staining his cheeks, his lips parting: Thank you.
There’s an uncomfortable silence, which John breaks by clearing his throat. “So,” he says, “barrister to a few dozen criminals. Doesn’t seem like it’d be difficult to find the one that did it. Just figure out who didn’t get the ruling they wanted.”
“That’s the trouble,” says Lestrade. “All groups he’s currently representing say they liked the bloke. He was damned effective. Hell, his clients want to know who did it as much as the Yard does, and I’m willing to bet their justice will be a sight more bloody.”
They pause, and John realises they are both waiting for Sherlock to interrupt with some observation or cry of lament over their idiocy. Instead, the detective is strangely silent.
“Right,” John says after a moment. “Well, if he’s that good, maybe it’s the other side wanted him gone.” He glances pointedly at Mycroft. “Wouldn’t be the first time the good guys got their hands a bit dirty.”
“Careful, Dr. Watson,” says Mycroft. His voice is razor wire dipped in ice. “People in glass houses, you know.”
Mary shifts next to him. “What’s he talking about, John?”
Walked right into that one, Watson. John works very hard not to look at her. Sherlock is watching the exchange, his face carefully blank—but for just a moment their eyes meet, and John sees the spark of realisation there as the detective adds another bit of data to his memory bank.
A light bulb goes on in John’s brain, and he kicks himself for thinking Sherlock was actually being polite. Of course not. He’s sizing up John and Mary, searching for weaknesses. First rule of combat is know your enemy, and for whatever reason, because god only knows what Mary’s done to him, Sherlock Holmes is preparing for battle, stockpiling information like ammunition.
Fan-bloody-tastic.
Lestrade comes to the doctor’s rescue, waving in Sherlock’s direction. “If I could just get that one to look at the photographs…”
“I’ve told you,” Sherlock says, tearing his eyes away from John’s and brandishing the photos, “I need to see the scene.”
“And I’ve told you,” Lestrade shoots back, “it’s all there in your hand.”
“Ugh, you’re not listening!” The detective groans in frustration, tangling his hands in his hair and crumpling the photographs in the process.
“Hey! Watch it with those!” Lestrade grabs the photos from Sherlock.
“Boys, please.” John hands Lestrade the file and he slips the photos inside. “Sherlock. What’s at the scene that’s not in the photographs?”
The detective pauses his hair-pulling, his eyes flicking across John’s face before fixing on something in the middle-distance. The colour has seeped from them, grey clouds rolling in over their normally bright blue-green, and they are rimmed with red around the edges. “I just…” Sherlock says, his voice barely above a whisper, “I just need to see.”
And while he’s no less furious with him, John understands what he can’t say. Whoever this Victor Trevor was, Sherlock had cared about him. How would he feel, if it were Mary? No, strike that. He doesn’t have to imagine. He knows how he’d felt when it was Sherlock. God, he’d watched Sherlock die—believed he had, anyway—and he’d still gone back sometimes, just to stare at the pavement, at the rooftop, not really expecting to find answers, but not sure where else to look.
“Right,” he says. Then, to Lestrade, “Greg, why can’t he go?”
The detective inspector throws up his hands. “Oh, come on, you too, now? Look, the chief superintendent has a long memory. I can sneak files out all day long, but bringing him to an actual crime scene is out of the question.”
“I can have a word with the superintendent.”
All heads swivel to look at Mycroft, who pushes himself up from the sofa. John narrows his eyes suspiciously. “And why would you do that?”
“As you said, John”—Mycroft’s lips purse around the words like they’re bitter on his tongue—“I do owe him.”
Lestrade shrugs, throwing up his hands and walking away as Mycroft pulls out his phone, disappearing down the stairs to make a call. The doctor turns to Sherlock, who is watching him warily. He lowers his voice, pulling the detective aside.
“I’m still angry with you, you know,” John says.
Sherlock tilts his head as if considering this, but doesn’t reply.
“So what is it then?” The doctor’s voice is barely above a whisper.
The detective’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “What is what?”
“What is it that you’re not telling us?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m not actually an idiot. You’ve been far too quiet—no opinions to shove down anyone’s throat, no casual insults to hurl about. And you told me I was in danger. Of course, you could’ve been lying—”
“I wasn’t lying.”
“—but if it’s true, that means you know more about this than you’re letting on.”
Sherlock’s lips twitch with the suggestion of a smile, but it’s gone so quickly John can’t be certain he’s not imagining it. In any case, the detective’s face is serious when he says, “I know who did it.”
“You know?” John’s voice rises, and Sherlock motions for him to be quiet. Lestrade is on his phone now across the room, but he is watching them suspiciously. Mary is still standing in the middle of the room, her eyes boring holes into John’s back. John shrugs his shoulders uncomfortably, hissing, “Christ, Sherlock, just tell them and be done with it!”
“Not that simple,” says the detective. “The man who did this, he’s the last of Moriarty’s operatives. The only one I haven’t—” He stops talking, glancing at John.
“Oh my god,” the doctor sighs. “Tell me you’ve not been on a three-year murdering spree.” Then, when the other man says nothing: “Good Christ, Donovan was right.”
Sherlock’s face contorts so violently that John almost laughs in spite of his horror. “I’m joking, Sherlock.” The detective relaxes a bit, and John adds, “Sort of. Only…please tell me you’re not serious.”
“I can’t tell you much of anything,” Sherlock says unhelpfully.
“Oh, naturally. And why is that?”
“You said you didn’t want to know why I faked my death.”
John closes his eyes, drawing on reserves of patience he’d forgotten he possessed. “You know you’re infuriating, right?” he remarks mildly. Sherlock ignores him, staring out the window. “Alright, fine. New rule. If I ask a question, you can answer. But the minute I hear anything that smacks of boasting, your time is up. Got it?”
The detective cuts his eyes toward him, nodding almost imperceptibly.
“Good,” says John. “Now—”
“Your brother might be an arrogant sod,” Lestrade calls out, interrupting, “but he works fast, I’ll give him that.” The detective inspector is striding back across the room toward them.
Sherlock is immediately alert. “Crime scene access?”
“Granted,” Lestrade confirms. “For you and for John, on the condition that you’re under the supervision of a forensic unit.”
“Oh god. Not Anderson?”
“He’ll likely be one of them, yeah.” Lestrade ignores Sherlock’s grimace. “That means you’ll have to make do with the bloody photographs until tomorrow.”
“Why not today? Ah, never mind. Sunday. Wouldn’t want important police work interfering with an afternoon of mindless television programmes.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not pulling my guys away from their weekend just because your big brother threw his weight around.” Sherlock scowls at him, but Lestrade is unmoved, telling John, “I’ll have the body transferred to Bart’s, if you want a look.”
John opens his mouth to respond, but Sherlock is ahead of him. “We do,” the detective says. Then, his brow furrowing, oblivious to John’s glare: “Why Bart’s? Why not the Yard?”
“I’m not having you anywhere near the Yard morgue,” the detective inspector says. “I’ve not told anyone else you’re back yet, and I can’t have you giving half my officers a coronary, now can I?”
An eye roll from the detective. “I don’t see why not. Does Scotland Yard have a minimum percentage of ineptitude they’re trying to maintain?”
“Oh, good,” John mutters sarcastically to Lestrade. “He’s being funny.” Sherlock glances at him, and John sees a flicker of uncertainty thin the full lips for a moment. Ignoring him, John asks, “How long will it take? The transfer?”
“Tomorrow night, maybe. His brother’s name will speed things up, but the paperwork alone will take a few hours.” Lestrade hands the case file to John. “See if you can get him to look over this lot in the meantime.”
“Me? Oh, no. I’m going home.”
“No!” Sherlock cries. All heads turn to him. “No,” he repeats, softer. “John, you can’t.”
John glances at Mary, the alarm on her face mirroring his own, Sherlock’s warning echoing in his head. You’re in danger.
“What, my flat?” he asks. “These people know where I live?”
“John—?” Mary begins, just as Lestrade asks, “What people?”
Sherlock’s face closes in on itself, giving nothing away.
“Right,” says John under his breath. “International criminal it is, then.”
“What?” Lestrade again, his voice growing heated.
“Nothing.”
“John, if you know something…”
The doctor flaps his hand at Sherlock: “Ask him.”
“Sherlock?”
The detective breaks his inscrutable stare long enough to glance at Lestrade, but his mouth stays firmly shut.
“Sherlock,” repeats Lestrade, insistent. “You know the rules. I don’t give a damn who your brother is, if you’re withholding information relevant to an ongoing investigation, I will—”
“It’s just a theory,” Sherlock interrupts smoothly, his eyes still fixed on John.
“A theory.” Lestrade does not sound convinced.
“Man I used to know turns up dead, I have to entertain the possibility that this was a message to me. If I’m correct, I have to assume anyone else close to me is also in danger.”
The detective inspector scrubs at his face with his hand. “If you’re correct. And since when do you ever not believe you’re correct?”
“I assure you, when I know something that will be of use to the police, I’ll tell you.”
Lestrade looks at John, who can only shrug. “I don’t like this,” he says, pointing first at the doctor, then at the detective. “You’re hiding something. Both of you.”
John folds his arms across his chest and looks away. “Alright, fine,” says Lestrade, adding in a sullen mutter: “Like bloody children.”
“John can stay with me,” says Mary, coming forward to stand beside John. The doctor jumps a little as her fingers curl through his. He’d almost forgotten she was there. Lestrade and Sherlock look equally nonplussed.
“Well,” she says, “you said he can’t go home. He’ll need a place to stay. It only makes sense—”
“If they know where John lives, they’ll know where you live as well,” Sherlock points out.
“God,” says Mary, blanching.
“No, no, no need to fret about it,” says the detective dismissively. “They’re not after you. They want to hurt someone I care about. What would hurting you accomplish?”
“Sherlock!” John’s voice is louder than he expected, and the detective’s head whips around. Mary’s hand tightens around his. “Enough,” he says, the words almost a growl.
Sherlock’s nostrils flare, one eyebrow twitching upward. “You’ll stay here,” he says.
“Here?” John and Mary echo in unison. John shakes his head. “No.”
The detective plucks the case file from John’s hand, shuffling through the papers inside. “If you go back to your flat alone, you make yourself a target. If you go to Mary’s, you make her a target as well.”
“How am I any less of a target here?”
“You’re not,” acknowledges Sherlock. “But if someone wants you, they have to go through me, and I rather think that would ruin their game.”
Lestrade, hands on hips, glares at the detective. “Theoretically, you mean.”
Sherlock’s head tilts in mocking agreement.
This day. John cradles his head in his hands, sighing. This fucking day.
“Right,” he says. “Right, so I’m to stay here? And what about work?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, John. I can hardly keep an eye on you if you’re at work.”
Mary snorts incredulously. “He’s not serious. John?”
“Of course I’m serious,” Sherlock retorts.
“John,” Mary says, pointedly ignoring the detective.
“Yeah, I—” The doctor curses silently, taking Mary by the arm and guiding her away from the others. “Look,” he says softly. “I know—I know it’s crazy.”
“What is he hiding?” she hisses back. “If you’re really in so much danger, if he really cares so much, why isn’t he telling the police what he knows?”
“What, you’re asking me to explain the way he thinks?”
“He’s your friend.”
“I don’t have an answer, Mary. But I also don’t really see another option.”
Her mouth is slack with disbelief. “So, you’ll just, what, move back in with him? Skive off work?”
“It’s only temporary.” Again, John has the uncomfortable sensation that he’s lying, even though he was quite sure he was being honest right up until he heard the words come out of his mouth. Mary hugs herself as if she’s suddenly cold.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor says. He’s not entirely sure what he’s apologising for, but he can honestly say he’s never felt so remorseful in his life. “All this…it’s bloody and messy and dangerous. It always is, with Sherlock. But we can still…what if you stay? Stay here with me tonight.”
Mary glances over his shoulder, and John follows her gaze to Sherlock, who is hanging the photographs from the case file on the wall above the sofa. Enlarged prints of badly charred limbs and a gaping chest cavity now fill the space between the spray-painted yellow smiley face and the stray bullet holes. She shivers, and John knows her answer without her saying.
“Right,” he mutters. “Christ…”
“I understand.” Something in her tone crawls under his skin, sinking sharp claws into his chest.
He works to keep the worry from his face, his hand sliding up so his thumb can stroke her jaw line. “You do?”
Mary nods. “You’re right, John.” She doesn’t pull away, but she keeps her arms wrapped tightly around her body, preventing him from getting too close. “Bloody and messy and dangerous…and you’re part of it.”
His thumb stops moving, perhaps out of sympathy for his heart, which has suddenly taken a holiday from its regular duties. “Well, yeah, but…”
Brilliant, John. Absolutely smashing oratory skills.
“Look,” she says, drawing in a shaky breath. “I’m not angry. I just…I didn’t realise.”
“I don’t…I don’t have to go, Mary. I can just stay here, until it’s safe again. I don’t have to be part of…I don’t have to do this again. With him.” John is starting to worry he may be having a coronary. He can feel his pulse pounding loudly in his ears, but he’s quite sure his heart hasn’t beat once in the last fifteen seconds.
“You want to go, John. You want to go, and I don’t want to stop you.” The smile that touches her lips is small and sad. John wonders how it’s possible for something so soft to cut so deeply. His heart does beat, then—a painful thud that echoes hollowly in his chest, like a caged, dying beast throwing itself frantically against his ribs.
“Mary, I…”
She kisses him once on the cheek, her lips cold against his suddenly flushed skin, and steps back. “I’ll call you,” she says.
She is at the door before John thinks to move, taking a few halting steps after her. When she’s halfway down the stairs, he stops, standing lost in the middle of the room, suddenly keenly aware of Lestrade and Sherlock behind him.
“I, uh…” Lestrade coughs into the awkward silence. “Alright, John?”
John blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, I don’t…”
Stop talking, Watson. It’s a simple enough choice: go after Mary and try to mend whatever it is he’s managed to break, or stay here with the ghosts of his past. If someone had asked him just a few days ago whom he’d have chosen, he’d have said Mary in a heartbeat. But his body doesn’t ask him his opinion, and as it turns out, it isn’t much of a choice at all. His heart aches for Mary, but the ache is overshadowed by the newly rekindled spark burning low in his belly. It’s nice to feel safe, to feel cared for, but she’s not wrong when she says he wants this other thing too, this thing that is bloody and messy and dangerous and oh god yes, please.
The moon will escape its orbit before John Watson learns how to escape Sherlock Holmes.
The doctor shakes himself, looking at Lestrade. When he speaks, his voice is firm. “If I’m to stay, I’ll need some things from my flat.”
“Make a list,” says Lestrade. “I can take you to pick up the essentials, and I’ll send a couple of guys by tomorrow for the rest.” The detective inspector twirls his car keys on his finger. He is already heading for the door.
Sherlock is standing back, examining the grotesque new artwork he’s plastered onto the walls. He’s pretending to ignore them, but John can see the small smile playing about his lips.
“You needn’t look so pleased with yourself,” the doctor tells him. “You’re paying the full rent until I’m able to go back to work again.” He lowers his voice. “And we’re having a long chat when I get back from getting my things. You owe me some answers.”
***
1. The Script. Science & Faith. Sony Music Entertainment UK, 2011.
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Science and Faith