Fic: A Hole In The World (Chapter 3)
Jun. 19th, 2012 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sherlocksscarf
“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world,
which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime,
and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay
Author note: Part 5 of the "No Heart For Me Like Yours" series. This story contains quite a few spoilers for the rest of the series, so it would probably make much more sense to read the series in order, as it tells how John and Sherlock got to this point.
Thanks to arianedevere and the detailed transcript of “The Reichenbach Fall” at her LJ site: http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/tag/transcript
Many thanks to my beta, Skyfullofstars. Sky, thank you for making me stop and think harder about this story. It’s better because of you.
Disclaimers: Sherlock belongs to Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss, Sherlock Holmes originally belonged to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I own nothing. This makes me very, very sad.
Warnings: Sherlock/John. Slash, slash, somewhat graphic slash. Major, major spoilers for Season 2.
Trigger warnings: Suicidal ideation; references to previous abusive relationship, non-con, sexual assault.
Please read and review!
Chapter 3: The Memory of Joy
oOoOo
“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.”
― Aeschylus
oOoOo
It has been 56 days, and some odd hours since I watched him fall, since I saw his silver eyes stare unseeing through a mask of blood. I’ve stopped counting the minutes and seconds now. Does this mean I’m making progress? And if so, progress toward what?
Mrs. Hudson meets me at my new bedsitter, and I can tell that she is searching for some compliment to give the cheerless room. I hurry her out, saying that we shouldn’t keep the taxi waiting, but mostly I want to keep my worlds separate. She is Baker Street, and part of my life with Sherlock, and I need to keep the bedsitter separate. I can sleep there, in the little divan bed, without groping blindly for Sherlock if I wake. The walls aren’t imprinted with memories of him. It’s what I need right now.
The taxi pulls into the long, semicircular drive of the cemetery. Walking slowly to accommodate Mrs. Hudson’s pace (and seriously, who wears kitten heels to a cemetery?), we make our way toward an isolated area under a lonely pine.
Christ. I don’t know if I can do this.
Mycroft chose well. The headstone is perfect, highly polished black granite, very sharp, clean lines. Very Sherlock.
Mrs. Hudson walks forward and places her bouquet in front of the headstone, sweeping away a stray pine needle from the base. She glances back, and realises that I’ve halted a dozen paces from the grave. She comes back, gently takes my arm, and leads me forward to stand at the foot of the grave.
Sherlock’s grave.
The earth has settled, but the grass hasn’t filled in yet. The lettering on the headstone is gilded, sharp, and ruthless: “SHERLOCK HOLMES”.
The tremor in my left hand is worse than ever. Mrs. Hudson feels it, and squeezes my arm tighter in sympathetic support before releasing me.
“Take your time, John dear.”
We stand in silence for a while, then she speaks again.
“I wish you’d come back to the flat, John. It’s lonely there with just me. Mycroft paid the rent through the end of the year. I could help you go through his things, whenever you’re ready.”
She pauses, then adds, “There’s all the stuff, all the science equipment. I left it all in boxes. I don’t know what needs doing. I thought I’d take it to a school.” She looks at me. “Would you…?”
I shake my head.
“I can’t go back to the flat again – not at the moment.”
oOoOo
Eventually, I’m able to get her to return to the taxi, so I can have some time alone. I give myself a little shake, trying to pull it together. I can do this. The voice of Ella, my therapist, fills my head.
Go to his grave, John. See it for yourself. Tell him the things you wanted to say, and never did. Give yourself a chance to move on.
I try. I really do. I say the things that I wanted to say; tell him that he is a hero; that I believe in him completely. I thank him for all he did for me. And eventually, I resort to pleading with him.
“One more thing: one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t…be…” my voice breaks as I struggle to hold back tears. “…dead. Would you…?” I gulp back a sob. “Just for me, just stop it.” I wave my hand, indicating the grave, the cemetery, the whole sodding mess.
“Stop this.”
I sigh, hanging my head, and simply stand there, broken. The tears fall freely now, and I cover my eyes with my hand. After a moment, I wipe my eyes, sniff back the tears, and raise my head, coming to attention in front of the grave of my best friend, my lover, my reason for living. Nodding in salute to him and giving myself permission to dismiss, I execute a smart about-face, and walk away.
oOoOo
The following two weeks are purgatory on earth. My days are spent staring at the walls of my tiny bedsitter, or pointlessly browsing the internet. There’s only so much time one can spend browsing YouTube or the BBC Online, and after losing a startling amount of money in a 3-day online poker binge, I delete my account on Party Poker. I watch too much crap telly, but even that can’t keep my mind off of Sherlock – I can hear his scornful voice ranting back at the “mindless idiots” on the screen, as clearly as if he were in the room.
If the days are purgatory, then the nights are hell.
Every night I fight to stay awake as long as possible, knowing what awaits me. Before the trip to the cemetery, my nightmares were bad, combined visions of Afghanistan and Sherlock’s fall. Now they have ratcheted up to an unbearable level. I’m not sure if I get anything but REM sleep anymore – it seems as though my sleep is one constant nightmare.
The dream starts innocuously enough – Sherlock and I are strolling hand in hand, as we did so often during our weeks together, but we are in Afghanistan. Most people think of Helmand Province as a desert, but in my dreams, the glorious greenery and flowers are what comes back to me. We are walking through lush, high grass beside the River Helmand. Petals from blooming apricot and almond trees drift down to land in Sherlock’s dark hair. Nearby poppy fields are a riot of colour.
Sherlock is chuckling at something I’ve said, and his rich, warm baritone laugh warms me from head to toe. He turns to me, cups my face in his hands, and bends to press his warm lips to mine. We sink into the thick grass, and stretch out to lie together, kissing and stroking. I twine my fingers into his thick, warm, wet curls…
Wet?
Puzzled, I break the kiss, pull my hand away, and stare at my fingers, drenched in blood. I look down at Sherlock. He lies beneath me, smiling mirthlessly up at me through a mask of blood. Scrambling back in horror, I lurch into the path of an oncoming bicycle, and am knocked onto hard, cold pavement.
Feeling a horrible, terrifying sense of dread, I look up to see the façade of St. Bart’s pathology building, looming over me, several stories high, sharply outlined against a cloudy, grey sky. Etched around the cornice of the building are the words “TOO LATE TOO LATE,” repeated endlessly just below the roofline.
As I stumble back from the building, I realise that there is a tall, austere figure on the roof, silhouetted against the sky, arms spread wide. Sherlock tips forward and plunges toward the ground, his arms and legs flailing. I lunge forward to try and catch him, but my legs won’t move, and I know that I’m too late, always, always too late…
I jolt upright in the bed, screaming, clutching wildly at my sweat-soaked sheets. Desperately trying to hold back the sobs, I sit on the edge of the bed, rocking back and forth, my head in my hands. There’s no point in going on. Ella was wrong. Visiting the grave did nothing to help me move on. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s still here, his graceful figure always in the corner of my eye, disappearing when I look for him. For God’s sake, I even thought for a moment that I saw him at the cemetery, watching me from nearby as I wept at his grave. Moving out of the flat hasn’t stopped Sherlock from being everywhere that I turn, his face and his voice filling my head.
It has been 71 days since Sherlock left me. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to catch up.
oOoOo
“John, dear, I was hoping that we could go out for tea. I haven’t talked with you since we went to visit Sherlock’s grave, and I’d like to spend a little time with you.”
Mrs. Hudson. So much more than a mere landlady to me, and practically a surrogate mother to Sherlock. Sherlock never talked much about his mother, and I’ve never met her, but I have the distinct impression that Mrs. Holmes is a cold, remote woman. I’ve always had the feeling that Mrs. Hudson filled some of that void for Sherlock. I know that she has always mothered both of us, providing little treats, tidying up (despite her insistence that she was not our housekeeper), and showing her affection in a hundred little ways.
Now she’s here at my charmless bedsit, asking for my company.
I’ve already made the decision. This very morning, after the worst dream yet, I decided that I can’t take it any more. Life is just not worth living without Sherlock. But, Mrs. Hudson doesn’t ask for much. Spending an afternoon having tea with her is little enough to offer in return for all that she has done for both of us.
“I’d be glad to have tea with you, Mrs. Hudson,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face. I reach for my jacket, and follow her into the dreary corridor that always smells faintly of urine. I’ll put on a cheerful face, if I can, and spend a few last hours with her.
When I get back to the bedsitter, I’ll write a new note, and finally keep that long-held appointment with my Browning.
oOoOo
Mrs. Hudson chooses one of those cafés with tiny tables and chairs, where there is hardly room on the table for teacups and saucers. We squeeze into the chairs, and I remember sitting with Sherlock in a café in Paris, while tracking down an international jewel-smuggling operation. He refuses to eat, of course, but I bully him into drinking a cup of coffee and he unbends enough to nibble at a galette.
We are at a tiny, marble-topped table, in two ridiculously dainty chairs made of wrought iron. The tables are so small that our knees are knocking together, and it is so crowded that Sherlock is afraid to move much, for fear of elbowing the diners seated around him.
I don’t believe for a moment that he is worried about hurting them – Sherlock doesn’t worry about the feelings of others very often. I am fairly certain, however, that he is reluctant to move much for fear of looking clumsy.
As we sit there, I notice his comical posture – elbows awkwardly held tight against his sides, sitting far too low for a man of his stature, knees pressed against the bottom of the tabletop. Suddenly, he looks for all the world like a praying mantis.
Once my mind has made the connection, I am gone, giggling like a small child. His bewildered half-smile only fuels my hysteria.
“I’m sorry – you just look so…so…” my words dissolve into howls of mirth, and I laugh until tears roll down my cheeks.
Apparently my hilarity is contagious, because he begins to chuckle as well, and we laugh, and laugh…
I thought we would be able to laugh together forever.
Mrs. Hudson sees my misery, and she tries to chat about neighborhood gossip: Mrs. Turner’s married ones are in the process of adopting a baby; Mr. Chatterjee’s wife from Islamabad showed up at Baker Street, and the scene the wife from Doncaster made needed to be seen to be believed; Croque Monsieur has added a new prawn and avocado sandwich to their menu that is the best thing she’s ever tasted. Every mention of the place where Sherlock and I were so happy is another punch to my gut.
I have to tune her out to keep from shouting at her to just shut up and leave me alone. Her chatter becomes white noise, and I fall into my memories, remembering the café in Paris, the thrilling chase of two smugglers through tiny alleyways, and tackling the legs out from under one of them while Sherlock knocks the other out with a sharp punch to the side of the neck. I remember the walk back to the hotel after we finish at Interpol, holding hands, stopping periodically to snog against picturesque walls, until we stumble, so tangled together that we can barely stand, into the hotel room. And, ohhhhh, I remember pulling Sherlock down into the cool, crisp sheets, remember him gently working me open with fingers and lube; remember sinking slowly onto him, moving together in a timeless rhythm, admiring his beautiful, beautiful face in the moonlight that streams through the window, murmuring his name softly in his ear as he throws his head back and fists his hands in the sheets…
“John, dear?” Mrs. Hudson is holding out a tissue, patting me on the arm, and I become aware that silent tears are rolling down my cheeks.
I clear my throat, take the tissue and blot my eyes and cheeks, and try to collect myself. I’m overwhelmed with embarrassment at my loss of control in front of so many people, and I have to force myself to sit up straighter, firm up my chin, and clench my jaw.
“I’m sorry, dear. I should have realised that talking about home would be too much for you.”
Home. She thinks that Baker Street is home to me. While she’s right so some extent, it’s only because Baker Street is inextricably linked with Sherlock in my mind.
Sherlock was home to me. And now I can never go home again.
Mrs. Hudson squeezes my hand, and says, “When you get back to your flat, you should have a little lie-down and get some rest.”
“I’ll do that.” I’m eager now to get back to the bedsit, write my note, and move on to whatever comes next. As long as Sherlock is there, death can’t be that bad.
I’m so ready to see him again.
oOoOo
I’ve tidied the bedsitter, and now I sit down at the tiny desk, pulling a notepad toward me. I write a short, simple note. My tremor is fairly mild – it’s as though my hand knows that it’s almost over.
To whomever finds me, I am sorry. I wish there was a way to do this without hurting someone, but that’s not enough reason to stay here. I can’t do this any longer – I need to be with Sherlock. He was my reason for living, and without him, I’ve just been marking time.
Harry, I’m sorry for putting you through this. I love you.
PS. For what it’s worth, if anybody out there cares, I will never believe that Sherlock was a fraud. He died to save me, to save his friends. He was real, he was extraordinary, and he was a miracle. My miracle.
I sign it with a flourish, glad to be finished with the last detail.
Now, for the gun.
I sit on the divan bed, open the drawer of my bedside table – and freeze.
Resting on top of the gun, impossible to miss, is a postcard of the Cross Keys Inn in Dartmoor, where we stayed while solving Henry Knight’s case, and where we returned for our first holiday as a couple. With trembling fingers, I pick it up and turn it over.
In bold black ink across the back are five large capital letters, with full stops drawn after each one. Below them is a short note, also written in block letters.
U.M.Q.R.A.
COME TO THE VALLEY OF FEAR.
I have no idea what “the valley of fear” is, but I only told one person about my mistaking the flash of headlights from a car for Morse code, spelling U.M.Q.R.A., and that person threw himself off the roof of St. Bart’s. I was certain that no one else knew about it. Obviously, I was wrong.
I pick up my Browning, check the clip, and place it on the bed. “I guess our date will have to wait a bit,” I say to the gun. It doesn’t reply.
I pull out a bag and start packing, making sure the gun and ammunition go in the side zip pocket. Looks like I’m headed to Dartmoor.
oOoOo
