TIME WELL SPENT

Chapter 4

Well.

And Good.

There was no need to panic yet. John had determined that the sturdy chains shackling his ankles had a bit of slack and that he could twist toward the wall. Even though his hands kept slipping off the rock, he could wedge a toe into a crevice and gain a slightly higher elevation. The only problem he could see was that it required someone with the skill and stamina of yoga to maintain the challenging posture indefinitely.

If there ever was a good time to find my inner yogi, now would be it.

Treading water was not as viable a solution. The weight of the chains that hampered his foot action would impede his ability to stay above the water line for very long, and of course their length meant that, even if he had the stamina, he could not tread if the water rose higher than his chains allowed.

Refocus!

John pressed the earpiece tighter and cupped his hand over the other ear to mask the sound of the rushing water. Overhearing the sporadic conversation between the siblings, John sensed that Eurus was still performing brain surgery on Sherlock, messing with his memories, taunting him with blame.

If there ever was a good time to shut her up, now would be it.

"Don't listen to her…" John growled under his breath, unsure if his interference would exacerbate her inflamed attack. Whether Eurus' volume was turned louder or his mic had been shut down, John's words had not reached his friend.

"No one. No one." Her words stabbed repeatedly. "No one. No one…"

"Okay." Sherlock said. "Okay, let's play."

John's breath caught. Had he heard it right? There was a subtle shift in his friend's voice, the sound of determination. He recognized it well. Sherlock had had a revelation about something positive.

With his heart in his throat and hope coursing through his veins, John listened to the sound of Sherlock running.

And then his earpiece went dead. The loss was paralyzing, his mind emptied suddenly, his heart raced. He stood rigid with fear.

In the next moment, Sherlock's voice returned remarking softly about "…wrong dates. She used the wrong dates on the gravestones as the key to the cipher ... and the cipher was the song."

Over the din of the shower from above and so he would feel some reassuring connection with his friend, John shouted skeptically, "Is this strictly relevant?"

"Yes, it is. I'll be with you in a minute." Sherlock replied with genuine calm.

And that was their last two-way conversation.

**88**

The last stretch

It would be more than a minute. The time-lapse was difficult to gauge. Staving off panic creeping chin high with the water, John focused on Sherlock's voice when he could hear him talking to Eurus. When he could not, those were the worst stretches; Sherlock must have been talking with the girl on the plane. To keep himself physically and emotionally balanced during the intermittent audio of Sherlock at work, John stroked the water and gulped for air nervously, anticipating when gulping might become a necessity.

Faint sounds returned. Sherlock was reciting something John could barely hear. "I ... am ... lost ... Help ... me ... brother ... Save ... My ... Life ... Before ... my ... Doom."

"...help me brother..." John pondered the words as a weariness seeped into his thoughts. He blamed the cold, but he would not give up, he would not submit to the weakness of body, mind or spirit; most of all, he would not surrender his trust in his friend to "save his life before his doom."

Yes. We're friends. Best friends. Like brothers despite everything…

"I ... am ... Lost ... Without ... your ... love ... Save ... My ... soul ... seek ... my ... room."

I am not lost…not anymore.

Grunting as he struggled with the forces of buoyancy in a fast-changing environment, John shivered and shook his head. Droplets splashed like his regrets.

Rising water will not do us in. We've survived worse.

Up until now, nothing could have been worse than when their friendship had been severely tested by grievous mistakes—human error—made on all sides. If being duped by the phony suicide act off St. Bart's, which left him devastated for years, had not been bad enough, upon discovering Mary's deception, John was left shaken and unsure about believing the people he loved. It had all come back to the same problem: trust issues. Even during their happiest times when all seemed right—the marriage repaired, the detective returned from exile, the birth of their child—John's chary trust in the promises of his wife and his friend made him doubt himself.

In the background of his thoughts, John heard Sherlock declare, "I'm your brother. I'm here, Eurus," spoken with tender regard by a man who had matured emotionally. This was the voice John had needed to hear to ameliorate his suffering—his tragic loss—caused by Sherlock's bogus suicide.

Back then, Sherlock's "sorry" was incapable of it.

After Sherlock had "returned from the dead," it was Mary who had facilitated the uneasy reconciliation, reminding John how much he needed Sherlock, although hurt pride and self-pride, respectively, remained a niggling wedge between them. After her death, there was no one who could convince John to accept Sherlock back in his life. The damage had been done. The deed was too terrible to be forgiven, at least by John. Numb, John had lost the capacity to care about anything and anyone. As a single father, he was frightened, consumed by self-loathing for his mistakes that affected Rosie; as widower, he was determined to expel "the man who killed his wife" forever from his world.

These not-so-distant memories were as upsetting as the menacing tide that made his teeth chatter. John pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes trying not to let the raw emotions drown him in overwhelming melancholy.

Gutting …

Guilt and blame for errors made and vows betrayed were the reasons they had both stayed apart. Bereft, unable to cope, John sought isolation. Deflecting the consolation of friends, he accepted personal blame for cheating—texting the flirting girl on the bus—with punishing penitence, whilst banishing the only friend who could have assuaged his grief. In John's tortured mind, Sherlock was squarely to blame.

Without a doubt, Sherlock accepted full blame. Tormented by his culpability for causing her death, he capitulated to John's justified rage because he was convinced he deserved it. "Let him do what he wants. He's entitled. I killed his wife." If Mary's sacrifice had not made his life more valuable, Sherlock would have willingly surrendered it in restitution.

He nearly did.

Each in their own way had suffered terribly when they lost her, and much of their pain in the aftermath had been complicated by depriving the other of the inexorable companionship and comfort they would have shared.

Lost, needing to be found, they had found what they lost where it all began, in 221B Baker Street.

**888**

There, in a place he had once-called home, John could no longer suppress his emotions. Sorrow overwhelmed him. Tears he had not meant to shed in anyone's presence came unbidden, and he could not stop.

With utmost sensitivity, Sherlock Holmes—made humble by accepting his fallibility, made human by expressing his sentiments—had risen slowly from his chair. Pushing aside his own physical and emotional distress, he responded to his friend's need, tenderly commiserating and consoling, as he gently cradled John's bowed head.

Enveloped within his friend's hug, John's tremulous sobs slowly abated. Yet, he did not rush to break away, but lingered, comforted by the healing touch, the human contact, that he had sorely missed and which bound them both in mutual and silent appreciation. As he relaxed, John's resistance softened. He felt his resentments for past transgressions dissolve; a longing to forgive and be forgiven had taken their place, and hope pushed out despair.

"It is what it is." It was, in the end, a meaningful reconciliation between friends, a friendship restored in earnest, and a team reunited because only as a team would they persevere.

**888**

Now, teeming waters threatened the team.

"Open your eyes. I'm here," Sherlock whispered.

Startled, John blinked, not realizing he had clamped his eyes shut in thought, terribly disheartened when he saw no one. The earpiece had fooled him.

Sherlock still whispering to Eurus assured her, "You're not lost any more."

John listened intently. Sherlock was talking as though he was face-to-face with his sister.

"Now, you ... you just ... you just went the wrong way last time, that's all." Sherlock controlled his voice sounding both soft and strong to soothe her. Genuine sentiment supported each word. "This time, get it right. Tell me how to save my friend. Eurus ..."

Grimacing as he struggled with his balance, John stifled a groan, fearful he might break Sherlock's much needed concentration, but Sherlock's concentration remained unwavering as he made his final plea, "Help me save John Watson."

Moved by the cadence of affection Sherlock used to speak his name, John felt buoyant. For both their sakes, John wanted to be the friend Sherlock could save this time.

Bracing for Eurus' reply, John drew in a cautious breath, but there was no sharp or bitter comeback. John pressed his earpiece tightly to be sure. There was a bit of girlish sobbing, but no words of contemptuous blame, no remarks by an emotionless observer watching a game. Had Sherlock played the game well enough to satisfy Eurus' heartless curiosity? Did Eurus' silence mean Sherlock's success?

John felt his astonishment rise. Could it be that Sherlock had outwitted his opponents with the very attribute they had considered his weakness? Sentiment!

Not long after Sherlock's final words, the water falling into the well slowed to a slight trickle, buying John more time.

Game over!

Elated, John grinned with relief. Could it be? In an upset neither Moriarty nor Eurus ever expected, Sherlock had finally ended the Great Game, not through his enormous cleverness, but with his great compassion.

Immense satisfaction calmed John. His racing thoughts, like his earpiece, had also quieted. He raised himself on tiptoes, with his chin tilted upward above the water, resolved that he could wait this way until help arrived. With hope supporting his patience, tranquility settled upon him, suspending his mind in a meditative state.

When at last John heard the shouts of the search and rescue police, he had no clue how much time had passed or even what thoughts had drifted in and out of his awareness. He was chilled, and feeling sleepy, suspecting that the inner peace he had found, disrupted now by signs of imminent rescue, was likely the result of mild hypothermia.

A sudden brilliance blinded him. He shielded his eyes from the large spotlight and grabbed for the rope thrown down to initiate the rescue process. His muscles ached from tensing his body to keep his head raised, and he welcomed the support of a rope to assist him.

John knew the drill. At least his wait would not be long now.

Two harnessed specialists equipped with underwater suits and breathing apparatus dropped down on cables carrying bolt cutters, waterproof torches, and a harness for John. Oddly, their presence made the well seemed suddenly overcrowded. Verifying John's alertness and stable condition, one man attached John to a cable whilst the other snapped the chains to free his ankles. With the weight gone, John groaned in relief, feeling lightheaded and lighthearted.

Patting John on the shoulder, the one rescuer asked, "Ready, mate?"

"No time like the present," John nodded.

The rescuer gave the signal and immediately John felt the first lurch extract him, dripping and cold, from the water; then cautiously and slowly his elevation began. John clung to the lifeline in deep relief and reflection. He may have been lowered in the well as an unconscious man, chained by a past filled with disillusionment, but he was considerably conscious of the changed, contemplative man with a new lease on life who was being winched to safety.

At the top, the police and rescue responders made quick work of their rescued victim. John was whisked into the waiting ambulance, his wet clothes removed and replaced with dry ones, a blanket wrapped about him tightly, whilst his temperature was taken and his blood pressure and oxygen saturations checked. A warm beverage was pressed in his hands. The paramedics were doing a thorough job, fussing somewhat unnecessarily John thought. He was ridiculously eager to be free. At last, with John's persistent assurances along with his good vital signs, they released him.

John paused between the open doors in the back of the ambulance to survey the crowd, seeing the bustling police and rescue activity illuminated by light towers under a night sky, hearing the whomp, whomp of an approaching helicopter, and sorting anxiously through the faces that hurried past.

Observing a solitary and stationary figure several meters away amidst the blur of movement and bright lights, John lifted his hand to shield his eyes, peering harder. The one man not rushing about was staring back at him.

"John!" Sherlock called with one arm raised in a slow wave.

They approached each other with exterior calm, yet John's thoughts raced ahead. He wanted to tell his friend that he had heard nearly everything Eurus had said and that Sherlock should not take the blame; that Sherlock should not suffer alone in his guilt. Together they would get over the past. John wanted to congratulate Sherlock for winning the long battle of wits against Moriarty and Eurus. He wanted to remark that Sherlock's emotional maturity and sensitivity coupled by his intellect was the solution to the final problem. John decided he would even admit that his time spent at the bottom of a well had given him tremendous insights and perspective about his life, about his responsibilities, and about his friend. Most especially, he was grateful this new awareness had not drowned with him.

When they stood face-to-face, John could not bring himself to say any of it. Sherlock's intense scrutiny prevented him. Instead, they remained silent, appraising each other. John studied his friend, noting the mouth drawn and sad, the dark shadows beneath the high cheekbones, the brow ridged by deep worries. Yet, John sensed he was seeing a man who had found redemption after experiencing the fury of a woman scorned. This perception became confirmed when John saw in Sherlock's slowly growing smile the goodness of the great man who was his best friend.

John flashed a reciprocal smile, reached for Sherlock's hand, and swallowed his euphoria to whisper hoarsely, "You did it!" When their hands joined, John immediately realized that the words he had rehearsed in his head were not necessary. The man who could read him like an open book already knew what John had wanted to say.

Sherlock wrapped his free arm around John's shoulders and pulled him closer for a brief hug. When he let go and stepped back, Sherlock leant forward with his head bowed toward John and asked cautiously, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," John grinned softly. "Yeah, better than okay. I think now we're both good."

88888