A/N
Well, here we are again! Sorry about the, er, *unexpected* hiatus. Time flies when you're living in NYC(!:D). The past month has been amazing and probably the best thing to happen to me in two years, I swear...However, I'm going back to school in just a few days, and I have planned to wrap this story up by the end of the month. I've had the arc laid out in my head for ages, and we're nearing the finish line.
This one, as I've previously warned, is a doozy. I sincerely hope I've done it justice.
And yes, it's not called "FUBAR". (Though it might as well be.) I changed my mind: that will probably be the next section's title.
It was definitely one of the most difficult chapters to write. (Heh. I feel like I keep saying that...) First of all, it's just logistically really really challenging, since all (well, both) of the story-lines need to converge at a precise moment, and then things need to happen extremely specifically. Additionally, I went through one of those painful but obligatory 'writer's block' phases, where I suddenly realize that everything I write sounds cheesy and hackneyed and repetitive. Again, this fanfic has been - and continues to be - a huge (and overall very positive) learning experience.
CHAPTER WARNINGS: Just...Angst. So, so much. A bit of impassioned cussing.
DISCLAIMER: The crazy plot tangent is the only intellectual property I can lay claim to. I don't think the actual owners of the BBC Sherlock characters would write anything this messed up. WTH brain?
Also: Over 100 reviews! Wowza! *confetti* *dancing*
I want to pay a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who takes the time to read my work: commenters, fave'-ers, followers, and lurkers. I don't take any of you for granted for a single second! xoxoxo
/
Molly set down her bags to fumble with the key to her flat. The deadbolt clicked, and when the door swung open she wrinkled her nose at the scent of disinfectant that wafted out to greet her. She'd forgotten how strong it was...
From the moment she stepped inside, she knew that something wasn't quite right.
"Sherlock?..."
Mostly it was the smell that tipped her off; underneath the truly ridiculous quantities of bleach she could detect the faint stench of vomit.
"I'm fine..." answered a weak voice from the vicinity of the sofa.
Seriously doubting the validity of that statement, she kicked the door closed with her foot and hurried over to the living room, setting her bags on the coffee table.
"Sherlock, are you alright?"
"I said...I'm fine..." The annoyance in his tone was somewhat diluted by the fact that he had to pause between syllables to catch his breath.
She turned around to tell him off, and almost stepped right into a plastic bowl filled with vomit that was sitting on the floor between the coffee table and the couch. It had had proper food in it when she'd left for the launderette; evidently he hadn't been able to keep it down. He was breathing shallowly, and there were traces of sick on the front of his shirt.
"I'll get you another t-shirt, shall I?" she said, stooping down and gingerly picking up the bowl.
His hairline and his collar near the base of his throat were beaded with sweat. She placed her hand onto his forehead - and found that it was cold. No fever. On the one hand, no fever was good; it meant no infection. But cold was a different problem. Besides that, his skin was deathly pale again, and altogether with the cold and the shallow breathing and the general sense of lethargy she got the feeling that his blood pressure and his blood cell count were both still too low, and she wasn't sure what could be done about it.
"Sorry..." he mumbled, referring either to the vomit or to the way he'd snapped at her a moment ago.
"It's okay," she said to both.
She threw away the bowl and brought him a glass of ginger ale. He sat up and let her take off the soiled shirt and then leaned listlessly against the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling, while she re-checked the bandages on his torso. She pressed the glass into his hand.
"I'd drink the whole thing," she advised. "You need to increase your blood volume."
He nodded and didn't retort that he already knew that, even though that was probably the case.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
He blinked several times before answering.
"Indistinct."
Right...
"Woozy?" she translated hesitantly. "Are you going to faint?"
"No."
She bit the inside of her lip, hoping he wasn't just saying so. His eyes had a worryingly glazed-over look to them.
"I'll...I'll get you that clean shirt," she said, standing up. Sherlock nodded resignedly. He took a sip of the ginger ale and grimaced faintly at the carbonation.
Molly opened her mouth to add something reassuring, or insightful, or decisive, but the words simply weren't there.
/
It was so easy.
Part of John's mind - buried by now under the accumulating feelings of anxiety, and anticipation, and fury - half hoped he would have forgotten where she lived. But the cab pulled up onto Molly's street and her apartment building practically jumped out at him, plain as day.
So very miraculously simple.
That forgotten part of his mind half wished he wouldn't get past the door. But even as he walked up the steps one of the tenants strolled out - she held it open for him and smiled briefly. He nodded in thanks and smiled back.
It was something he was so good at - outward calm, inward rage.
That brute wasn't going to know what hit him.
/
Molly leaned sideways against the kitchen counter and pressed her face into her hands, wondering just how long she'd be able to keep it up; this 'playing doctor' business. Because that's all it was, really: playing a role that she didn't quite fit, and trying to pretend like she knew what she was doing when in reality she was entirely out of her depth.
She'd saved Sherlock's life in a pressing emergency, and that was all well and good. But he ought to be recovering in a proper hospital, in a clean white room with beeping monitors and nurses and IV drips. Instead he was sitting on the sofa in her living room in a borrowed t-shirt. Even though he'd seemed fine before, now he was getting paler by the hour and he was too weak and he couldn't keep down food...
Would it pass? Was it something serious? Honestly, maybe it was all this bleach that had made him sick just now; the fumes were giving her a headache, and they certainly couldn't be doing anything good for his stomach.
The simple truth was, Sherlock was injured - or ill - or both - and she didn't know quite what was wrong with him.
She suspected it probably had to do with his blood count, but that wasn't good enough. Molly could analyze the components of healthy blood in her sleep, but that was in a sterile lab under a microscope where everything boiled down to neat bits of data that got entered into a computer, whereas this was a real life situation, and she didn't know the first thing about practical administration because she was a pathologist not an EMT and therefore, for all intents and purposes, entirely helpless.
Dammit. Dammitdammitdammit.
If she only knew what he needed...
But she didn't.
Actually - strike that - she did know. Except knowing didn't even help, because she couldn't get one for him.
He needed a proper doctor.
Molly remembered the time when Sherlock had walked right up to her and looked her in the eye and said, "You do count." It seemed like another lifetime. She knew by now that it was true; she definitely counted to him. At the moment, though, it felt like she counted too much. She was the only one that mattered, she had to shoulder all the responsibility, and she had no idea how that could possibly be enough to fix him.
It was too much pressure.
Molly was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the knock on the door.
/
No one answered. John waited for what felt like ages, anxiety rising, debating whether or not he ought to knock again, or ring the bell, or just kick the whole contraption down and barge in. The latter seemed a bit rash, even at this point, so he rang the bell and waited, growing increasingly impatient.
/
"Molly."
She vaguely heard Sherlock saying her name.
"Molly."
He sounded worried. She hoped he wasn't going to throw up again. Or pass out. She didn't know what to do if he did. She didn't know what to do in general, at the moment.
The doorbell rang.
Wait.
No.
The doorbell.
Molly's head snapped up. Her heart had stopped. She met Sherlock's eyes over the back of the couch, and he looked equally panicked. They were both frozen in place. Trapped.
"I'm not at home," she mouthed silently, praying that the mysterious caller would go away.
"I'm not at home.
I'm not at home..."
/
Out of desperation more than anything, John tested the handle. It turned without protest. Odd...
/
Molly's eyes were suddenly drawn past Sherlock's shoulder. To her keys, which she'd tossed thoughtlessly onto the coffee table.
She'd never locked the door.
/
It was too easy. Far too easy.
John pushed on the door experimentally. The first thing that hit him, as it swung open, was the overpowering smell of bleach. It stung his nose and compounded the bizarre, gut-wrenching sense of wrongness that pervaded the whole situation.
Automatically, his fingers twitched towards the gun behind his back. He'd brought it on a whim, intending only to use it as an extreme measure...but also, if he was being honest, because he'd grown so used to its presence while in the military and while solving crimes with Sherlock that it just felt wrong not to have it.
That it slid easily into his hand was a base protective reflex; one he didn't even have to think about.
He scanned the flat; there was a kitchen to the left, and straight across from the front door a carpeted hallway leading presumably to the bath and bedrooms. He saw Molly immediately, caught like a deer in the headlights between the counter and a small kitchen table.
"John - What -?..."
John didn't know what he'd expected to find, but somehow everything he was seeing seemed off, like he was trying to look at the scene through a warped sheet of glass. He wasn't sure why, or how, but right then he knew, instinctively, that coming here had been a mistake.
Not knowing what else to do, his brain reverted to the 'script'; the way he'd imagined the confrontation to play out. Even though it no longer quite seemed to fit...
"Where is he?" he blurted out, harsher than he'd meant to sound.
The question obviously meant something to her. Molly's face turned pale. Her eyes shifted back and forth rapidly as she began to stammer in shock.
"Wh- I- I don't-"
Suddenly she looked down at his hand and her breath caught.
"John, i-is that- ?"
She took a step back, staring with horror at the gun he'd not even noticed he was holding.
He looked at Molly, unexpectedly taken aback. The urgent, focused anger which had driven him to her doorstep had mysteriously dissipated.
"I..."
I'm here to rescue you.
I'm here to pound some sense into whoever's been hurting you.
At the look on her face, neither seemed like a particularly stellar option.
"You called me," he said finally, hating how defensive the words sounded. "You remember, surely? Two nights ago. Something was wrong. And...You haven't been at work. You didn't answer your phone."
He heard the message play once again in his head - remembered the unmistakable note of frantic fear in her voice. His grip on the gun tightened.
"I thought -...I had to make sure that you..."
Then, his eyes swept over the couch in the living room.
/
Of all the people who could have walked through her door at that moment, John Watson was possibly the worst.
Okay, in fairness, perhaps an armed police squad would have been worse, but at the moment she'd have taken the entire precinct in a heartbeat.
In the bewildering exchange that followed, her brain tried desperately to keep up with everything that was going on.
He knows about Sherlock!
How does he know about Sherlock?
Oh, God - he has a gun -
He got the phone message?
He doesn't know about Sherlock -
He still thinks there's someone else -
She followed his gaze to the couch. To the person sitting on the couch.
Oh, no.
/
John's face went stark white. His right knee buckled, and he fell back against the door with a thud.
"YOU."
Everything stopped. The Earth abruptly ceased to rotate. The expansion of the universe ground to a halt.
The gun dropped from John's shaking hand, clattering harmlessly to the floor.
/
Sherlock Holmes was sitting on Molly Hooper's sofa.
Dead Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes who'd probably - no, definitely - saved his life, though he'd never told him so. The Sherlock Holmes he'd chased around London during the most bizarre, spectacular year and a half he'd ever experienced. The Sherlock Holmes who now haunted his thoughts on a daily basis. The Sherlock Holmes who had committed suicide over a month ago by jumping off the roof of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital while he'd had to stand and watch.
That Sherlock Holmes.
"Sherlock?" he uttered, more mouthing the word than actually emitting any audible sound.
The - apparition? - didn't answer him. He looked as stunned and frightened as John felt.
He honestly did look like a ghost; he was pale enough, at least.
Maybe...he was a ghost?
It seemed, admittedly, a bit odd that a ghost - especially one resembling Sherlock - would be dressed in pajama bottoms and an over-stretched t-shirt. But then again, what would he know about incorporeal fashion?
John remembered Molly. Could she see him too? Perhaps he'd finally gone mad?…He turned his head to check.
No.
No, he hadn't. She knew. She looked guilty. And, as he watched, she threw not-a-ghost Sherlock a quick glance - half alarmed, half apologetic.
"John, um...He's-"
"Alive?..." he choked, sounding a bit hysterical. "Sherlock's...alive?"
He couldn't even bring himself to address the man directly. Because that would be acknowledging something impossible...something he hadn't dared to hope for, because it was too painful...
"It's a bit of a long story..." Molly said weakly.
"But - you - you..."
John suddenly remembered the reason he'd come to her flat in the first place. Where was the attacker? The dangerous and possessive boyfriend? Had he really so thoroughly deluded himself that he'd invented a threat that didn't even exist? But, if that was so, why had Molly nearly jumped out of her skin that day in the morgue, or practically burst into tears in the Tesco's car park? If all that had been an act, which he highly doubted, it was an awfully cruel one.
And Sherlock?
The more he thought about it, the less it made sense.
"Molly?...What's going on?"
/
Molly's heart clenched painfully. The gears in her mind spun at an alarming pace.
This was her chance. Maybe, if she could convince John that the only thing she'd been hiding from him was that Sherlock was alive, then a true disaster could be averted, before things spiraled out of control...Maybe, maybe...
"John..." she said shakily. "I've been lying to you."
A heavy silence fell in the room. She plowed ahead, even as he gaped at her in shock.
"N-no one hurt me," she said. The words came reluctantly; each one ripped away a piece of her heart as she voiced it. "It was meant to be a cover-up. I'm so sorry. I - I shouldn't have misled you. It was just...just..."
She swallowed, lapsing into silence. The story rang false in her own ears, and she knew by the look on his face that he didn't buy a syllable of it.
"Molly - don't. I know what I saw. It wasn't guilt. You were terrified!"
He kept looking at her in confusion, obviously hoping in vain for a glimmer of rhyme or reason to appear, a magic answer that would somehow make everything make sense. Molly tried to force herself to argue again, to prove him wrong, to help, but she couldn't seem to get her jaw to work. She was no great actress; not now, when the stakes were so high.
And if he could figure out that much, she realized, then there was only one conclusion to be drawn. In the silence before the other shoe dropped, she held her breath and prayed futilely that he would reach a different resolution.
But it didn't work like that. For once, and at the worst possible time for it to do so, logic prevailed. John's shallow exhalation resounded like a death knell.
"No..."
Molly watched helplessly as two and two came together behind his eyes. At first he looked shocked, his expression turning to dull horror. But then something in him seemed to snap; he smiled - he actually smiled, chuckling weakly as if it was some sort of joke. It was blood-chilling to watch. She could literally see his world collapsing.
"'It's complicated'..."
With a jolt, Molly remembered her words to him in the car park.
"Oh, that's bloody rich. I see it now..." He turned to Sherlock.
"You," he said softly, staring at him. "It was you?!"
Molly had only a split-second's warning; she saw his nostrils flare and his fingers twitch, and then -
"No!"
She grabbed his arm as he lunged forward, trying to stop him.
"John, stop, please!"
He shoved her away. It barely registered in his mind what he was doing; John couldn't see straight anymore - blinded as he was by rage, blinking back angry tears.
"You BASTARD!"
Molly could only watch in terror as he stormed over to the couch, where Sherlock was cowering away from him with shock and panic in his widened eyes. John seized the collar of his shirt, shaking him roughly.
"What the HELL have you done?!" he demanded hoarsely; the question seemed to encompass everything that had happened over the past month. Not waiting for an answer, he shoved Sherlock backwards into the couch cushions and began punching him in brutal outrage.
Molly let out a strangled yelp.
"Please - please don't - h-he has a broken rib!"
"Yeah?" John's voice sounded equally anguished. "Then I'll break all the rest of 'em for you - don't think for a second I won't!"
The blows landed over and over, and suddenly there was blood too, blossoming onto Sherlock's newly patched-up face and quickly splattering John's knuckles, but he couldn't stop - his fists kept pounding Sherlock's chest and face in a deranged frenzy, even as tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Stop it! STOP IT!" Molly was screaming at him, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.
She ran to the couch, tearing at John's jacket, and then - when that didn't work - she used all her weight to shove him sideways, so that he lost his balance, stumbling and crashing onto the carpet. Molly landed next to him on her knees. She scrambled backwards to collapse against the coffee table, and clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle her sobs as her body shook uncontrollably.
The inferno behind John's violent rage seemed to have gone out. For a while he just lay on the floor, seething and shuddering and broken, completely unable to come to terms with his best friend's sudden resurrection and immediate cruel betrayal. After a moment he pushed himself shakily onto his hands and knees. Then he dug his fingers into his scalp, and fell apart, sobbing wretchedly.
Molly glanced up at Sherlock, and her heart stopped. He wasn't moving.
She couldn't see from her vantage point whether it was from the shock of John's devastating reaction, or because he'd been beaten senseless.
(Then again, was there really much of a difference?)
Finding herself, she leaped shakily to her feet and rushed to his side, nearly crying out with relief when she saw he was still conscious - though, only just.
His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was breathing raggedly in shallow, sharp gasps. He flinched when she put a hand to his cheek. As if he expected to be struck again.
"Sherlock?"
His eyes blinked and fluttered open, and she suddenly realized that he was trying desperately not to cry. His gaze darted around the room, looking anywhere but her, anywhere but John, as tears began leaking out in a steady stream. His chest contracted - he let out a strangled sob, and immediately winced as his abused ribs protested.
But the single sob was like a fissure in the walls of a floodgate inside his chest, and once it started he could do nothing to hold it back - he couldn't stop, and he choked and began to weep in earnest, because of the pain, and because of John, and because of Molly, and because of his whole ruined life and the self-loathing that could never, ever leave - not now - not anymore.
Nearby, John had finally managed to stumble to his feet. He seemed to be trapped in a nightmarish daze. He looked at Molly crying, and at Sherlock sobbing and covered in blood, and down at his own knuckles, also covered in blood, and he backed away wordlessly, trying to escape. His back eventually hit the bookcase, whereupon he sank to the floor once again and stared without seeing at the opposite wall.
Molly looked at John, empty, and at Sherlock, broken, and for a long moment - the longest in her whole life, perhaps - she could feel nothing but despair.
.
.
.
/
"You know what?"
Molly started when she heard John's voice cut jarringly through the suspended air. He feigned an almost casual tone, but the words were quavering with subdued emotion.
"I think Sherlock is dead."
His red-rimmed eyes drifted towards the couch, and he stared at Sherlock with something approaching hatred.
"Because I sure as hell don't know who you are."
Sherlock flinched back as though the words were a physical blow. He wouldn't - or couldn't - look at John; instead he shrank further into the couch as though he wanted nothing more than to disappear entirely.
Slowly, painfully, Molly felt a shift taking place in the back of her mind. The cogs clicked reluctantly into place, and then, all at once, the world began to speed up again, dragging her back into the present moment.
Everything had gone wrong. It was just a huge misunderstanding, and the only thing that mattered to her was to fix it.
"W-wait!"
Her tongue felt sluggish in her mouth as it tried to catch up to her racing thoughts.
"You don't understand - Please just listen and we can-"
"Explain?" John spat. She gaped at him. The incredulity in his tone brought her up short.
"You think I want an explanation?" he went on, "I want nothing to do with this. This man" - he pointed at Sherlock - "has already ruined my life once, and if he thinks he can just waltz back to the land of the living so he can do it again - then - then he can fuck off."
He was seething.
"I don't know why he's still here, or what he's done. All I know is that he lied to me - to his friends - to everyone - and I've been going through hell for weeks because he let me think he was dead..." John suddenly rounded on Molly, and she shrank back. But his eyes were filled only with helpless bewilderment.
"And you knew," he said. "You helped him. And he hurt you! What - did you threaten to tell me he was alive?"
She shook her head frantically.
"John - no - no! It wasn't like that at all! I wanted to, of course I did - and so did Sherlock - but it was -"
"No." John cut her off again. "No! I don't care. I don't want to hear it. I...ahh-"
His voice cracked. He gritted his teeth and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He took a slow, controlled breath. Then another. Molly stood next to the coffee table and watched him trying not to cry again and didn't say anything at all. A minute passed during which she could do nothing but count heartbeats.
"Oh, God..."
she heard him mutter after a while, in the most hopeless-sounding voice she had ever heard from him.
"Molly, I'm so sorry," he said quietly. His hands dropped to his sides, and he glanced at her with bloodshot eyes and shook his head.
"I'm so sorry I couldn't help," he said. For the briefest instant his eyes flicked towards Sherlock, but he quickly caught himself, and his expression turned to stone.
"I'm done."
Without looking back, he strode briskly out the door.
/
A/N
Gee, that went WELL.
(Can you sense the sarcasm?...)
Oh, wow. The emotions were soooo hard to pin down. It was a constant juggling act, from moment to moment, balancing aggression and confusion and outrage...
But finally things have come to a head! And now I just need to resolve this mess...
I promise not to make you wait so long again. My internship duties are wrapping up; I will try my utmost to post the next chapter in no more than a week.
Oh yeah - con-crit, please! I welcome it! Did the characters over-react? Under-react? Were they noticeably 'off' in any moments?
The whole reason I'm on the site, other than the cathartic experience of typing out fanfictions, is to improve as a writer. :)
Last note, in case anyone wants to put in their two cents...
One more minor thing that made this chapter a pain: I've recently learned a thing or two about apartment buildings, having lived in one for the first time during my stay here in NY. I realized, while writing John's section of the chapter, that the way I'd been portraying Molly's flat in previous parts might be inconsistent with how they actually work. :/ As in, how the heck would Sherlock have gotten to her front door if the building was locked and no one buzzed him in? HOWEVER, I've decided that he must have hidden a building key somewhere near the entrance, because that just seems like something he'd do, and he didn't take the flat key with him because he didn't initially expect to be coming back. (Also, apparently only first-floor flats have doorbells, but that works well enough, since I'd imagined her living on the first floor anyways.) If anyone wants to confirm this, or has a better idea, feel free to share!