Title: Scrooged
Author: sorion_writes on DW; sorion on LJ/AO3/FFnet
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock+/John
Genre: angst, humour, friendship, strong emotions
Warning: POST-REICHENBACH: SPOILERS SEASON 1 & 2
Word count: ~4000
Rating: PG
Summary:Sherlock finishes his solitary quest after Reichenbach. He begins to think that John might be better off without him. It takes some interference to prove him wrong.

Scrooged

Sherlock sits in front of a tiny laptop and stares through it, neither seeing the screen nor the threadbare and shabby hotel wallpaper behind it. He's read the month-old entry so many times, he knows it by heart. Every single word, every comma, every period.

This can't go on like this. I have to move on.
Sherlock Holmes always has been and always shall be my very best friend. I believe in him and love him dearly. But I have to let him go.

Goodbye, Sherlock

Your John

Sherlock has worked for many gruesome months – nearly a year – to finally get to the point where he would be able to return home. His work, his city, his 221B, his… John. Now, he isn't entirely certain anymore if the first three are worth anything without the last. John has let him go, has found a way to move on. It would be cruel of Sherlock to interrupt the life John must be leading by now. Surely, he has found new friends, possibly even a girlfriend (that hasn't been driven away by Sherlock and his demanding personality).

The screen blurs from the fatigue that finally seeps from the very depth of his bones where it has accumulated. Perhaps… John would be better off without him. Would it not be… kinder… to let him go in return? (He can almost hear John's reply – "Bit not good"– but Sherlock has a very stubborn mind… Intransigent…

He jerks awake by something jostling his chair. Had he been asleep?

"Goodness me. You are in poor shape."

Sherlock jumps out of his seat and turns towards… no, surely this could not be… his brother. His heart beats in his throat and it takes him too long to find his voice, so Mycroft resumes speech before Sherlock can respond.

"Yes, yes. This is impossible. Quite right."

"Mycroft?"

Mycroft merely tilts his head and sends Sherlock a superior look.

"I'm dreaming," Sherlock concludes.

Mycroft frowns in mock-contemplation for a moment, then snaps forward, twists Sherlock's chair and makes him slump into it. "That would indeed explain your poor reaction time, dear brother."

Sherlock's head buzzes.

"On the other hand…" Mycroft continues and with a second twist hits Sherlock in the shin with his umbrella. Hard.

"Ow!"

"Hm. Yes. How would you be able to feel pain if this were a dream?"

Sherlock stares at his… whatever he was. Not a dream, then. Not a hallucination, either.

"Tell me, Sherlock," Mycroft says calmly, "has Dickens managed to avoid deletion from your mind palace?"

Sherlock frowns at him. Both a figment of his imagination and his brother should know very well that mummy's favourite would not have been deleted. Then the words sink in, and he hears the hidden question beneath the voiced one… then his jaw goes slack (as far as Sherlock Holmes ever allows it).

"The prodigy catches on," Mycroft teases.

Sherlock pushes back his chair and stands, firmly. "This is beyond ridiculous, Mycroft!"

"Oh, yes," Mycroft emphatically agrees. "Your decision to not return home has to be among the top three of ridiculous things you have ever done."

Sherlock scoffs. "So, what? My subconscious decides I need to revisit some Christmases to change my mind?"

Mycroft slowly raises an eyebrow and swiftly hits Sherlock again (on his backside, this time). "Not your subconscious, I assure you."

Sherlock jumps at the sharp pain, but remains firm. "This is absurd! It is impossible!"

"As I have said before," Mycroft agrees. "Do try to keep up, Sherlock, I don't have all night. You have a plane to catch, tomorrow morning."

Sherlock shakes his head. "This is for the better…"

Mycroft grabs Sherlock's arm (much faster than he should be able, the fat bastard), and twists him around, making the room and the world beyond spin… and spin… "No time, Sherlock," Mycroft's voice sounds from everywhere.

Then the world stops, and Sherlock feels like he might throw up. He bites his lip and sets his jaw, instead, and looks around, straightening to his full, haughty height. "Fine, Ghost of Christmas Past," he bites out. "What do you think I should see?" he says mockingly.

Mycroft (definitely not Mycroft) rolls his eyes. "John, of course."

Sherlock looks around the unfamiliar surroundings.

"John before he met you."

Sherlock expects to see the bedsit John has briefly inhabited after Afghanistan; instead, he stands next to the open door to a pantry (when did they get inside a house?) and hears shouting from upstairs. He turns towards Mycroft who nods at the door.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and pushes it open further. Inside, he finds a boy of perhaps nine or ten years, huddled in the corner holding a worn, stuffed animal.

"He can't hear or see us," Mycroft explains. "You can talk."

"What am I doing here?"

Mycroft towers next to him (much more than he should be able, the bastard). "His trust issues are not as recent as his discharge from the army."

"Yes, obviously," Sherlock snaps. It would have been inexcusably unobservant of him to not know that.

Somewhere above them, the front door of the house slams, leaving only two loud, slurred voices. Harry has left, then.

"One day…" little John says to his, well, Sherlock assumes it's a dog, "… I will have my own house. And I will have someone with me. Someone who won't go away."

Sherlock feels frozen to the core. "So you're telling me," he chokes out, "that I was feeding into his abandonment issues? That is hardly news, Mycroft."

"On the contrary," Mycroft replies. "You're missing the point." He turns to look at his brother. "People have left him, that is true. But nobody has ever truly come back…"

Sherlock notices a spark of treacherous hope and squashes it. "Harry returned."

Mycroft huffs, cynically. "Hardly when he would have needed it. And nowadays, she is barely capable of tending to herself."

Suddenly, the voices grow louder and hard steps trample down the stairs. Sherlock instinctively attempts to shield the boy who does his damndest to hide behind the crates… but the room spins and shifts before Sherlock can reach him.

Sherlock knows that John has not been physically abused as a child, but abuse can take so many forms… and he has added to them…

When the world stands still once more, they are in the bleak bedsit of post-Afghanistan John. A John who is currently sleeping, restlessly. Next to the bed lies that blasted cane. Sherlock frowns at it.

Mycroft clears his throat next to him. "I thought I would spare you the trip down memory lane and show you the almost exactly mirroring scene of little John with little Sherlock and bring you here, instead. After all, you seem to have convinced yourself that you're doing John a favour. You already know that you're not half the man you could be without him."

At a wave of Mycroft's hand, John's laptop comes to life, showing his blog.

Sherlock almost dismisses it. After all, he knows that there are no entries prior to his meeting the doctor. And there wasn't… Sherlock blinks and looks closer. There are no public entries prior to their meeting, apparently. John must have deleted any traces of them, or only saved them as drafts for a while.

Sherlock reads a page full of the same sentence. Nothing ever happens to me.

"It would appear that not only geniuses get bored and are driven to insanity by it," Mycroft muses.

Sherlock takes a step back and straightens his back. "Mycroft, would you agree that, even though John at this point misses the war, a return to it would have been the wrong course of action?" He raises an eyebrow, sounding very sure of himself. "John might miss me, but he. Has. Moved. On."

Mycroft ventures a bored look at his pocket watch. "Intransigent as always," he sighs, grabs his umbrella with both hands, swings it wide… and hits the handle square in Sherlock's forehead.

Sherlock falls on his backside and shakes his head, taking in his surroundings. He's… still in his hotel room. And though his head and buttocks hurt, that must mean…

"Before you jump to any… 'logical' conclusions, you were not dreaming."

Sherlock stumbles to his feet to see a grinning Lestrade sitting in his chair, feet on the table, hands still raised (obviously from making air quotes around 'logical').

"What are you doing here?"

Lestrade swings his legs down and leans back in his seat, crossing one leg casually over the other.

Sherlock fidgets. "Here to show me the present?"

Lestrade tilts his head. "Well, strictly speaking, no…"

Sherlock huffs, annoyed.

"No need for that, now," Lestrade says, calmly, holding up his hands, placating. "You've already seen John pre-Sherlock…"

Sherlock looks uncertain at that. "I remember John while he was with me quite well. I hardly need…"

Lestrade smacks his hands on his thighs and stands. "Maybe I just want to peek at the private moments." He grins and holds out his hand.

"What?"

"Coming?"

Sherlock hesitates. In the end, he tells himself it's curiosity that makes him take the hand and not the desperate wish to see his life with John one more time.

The world spins… and stops to the sound of twin laughter in a hallway. Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut and refuses to turn around. He knows this scene.

"That was ridiculous. That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done."

"And you invaded Afghanistan…"

There's more laughter, and Lestrade joins in, tapping Sherlock on the shoulder. "Hey, you're missing the best part!"

Sherlock turns in time to see John open the front door, take back his cane and beam at his newfound friend. Sherlock doesn't have to look at his younger self to know that the smile is being returned. Genuinely.

Then there's Mrs Hudson and the two men run upstairs, John without a hint of his limp…

Sherlock shakes himself. "He can walk again, now. Could do so for a very long time, as you've just shown me." He sends a levelled stare at Lestrade. "He doesn't need me anymore. I… am not good for people."

The world shifts, and… the air is full of chloride.

"Sherlock, run!"

Sherlock refuses to turn around, this time. His breathing is harsh and too fast, his eyes dart back and forth, frantically, unseeing.

"Good! Very good!"

The voice nearly makes him vomit.

Lestrade stands next to him, not watching the scene, either. "He would do anything for you."

Sherlock rubs his face, angrily. "Well, he shouldn't!"

Lestrade sighs and there is another shift.

"Are you wearing any pants?"

"No…"

Sherlock does look at that. He can't help himself. He almost smiles at the scene before him. Almost.

Lestrade smugly crosses his arms. "Shouldn't he?"

The almost-smile disappears. "Silly jokes on the job aren't worth his life," he grits out.

Lestrade's expression darkens. "You think you were nothing but a job to him? A flatmate?" He sounds dangerous, very unlike the Lestrade Sherlock knows.

The scene shifts… no, it… darkens. There's rain falling on both of them.

They're standing on a street, John running towards them, through Sherlock, gasping his name.

"I'm a doctor, let me come through." John sounds weak, as if a part of his life, his soul, leaves his body with every syllable. "Let me come through, please. He's my friend! He's my friend! Please!"

Sherlock's world spins, again, and he knows that it's not the ghost's doing, this time. "Get me away from here," he chokes out, grabbing Lestrade's sleeve. "GET ME AWAY FROM HERE!"

"GET ME AWAY FROM HERE!" he's yelling into his empty hotel room. He can see flashing white dots dancing in front of his eyes and realises that he's hyperventilating.

He's turning around his own axis, yelling some more. "I don't care who else you're sending! He will never forgive me! I can't go back! Not after that! And you CAN'T MAKE ME!"

"So sure about that, are you?" a calm voice says from behind him.

Sherlock freezes. After a long moment, he rubs his treacherously burning eyes and turns. Yes. There is one person he cannot ignore. Even if he's not real.

His friend just stands there, a soft but determined expression on his face.

"John."

John smiles a bit. "You're being a right tit, you know that?"

Sherlock valiantly resists from smiling. "You're not him. You're a figment of my imagination," he declares.

John raises an eyebrow. "I can get Mycroft back, again, to smack you around some more, if you like…"

Sherlock narrows his eyes, looking almost like his old self for a moment.

It makes John's smile widen. "You already know that it's not your imagination, or a dream, or a hallucination, or whatever else you can come up with."

Sherlock wants to avert his eyes, but he can't make himself.

"Shall we?" asks John.

Sherlock's lips twist and his throat tightens. "I… I'm not going to like what I'm about to see, am I?"

John holds out his hand. "No. But that's the point, isn't it?"

Sherlock doesn't move.

"You wouldn't want to jump to conclusions without having accumulated all the facts, would you?" John sounds amused.

Sherlock takes his hand.

They reappear next to his grave at the cemetery. Sherlock remembers this day. He'd been there.

"Yes," John agrees. "But you couldn't hear what I was saying."

And so they stand, silently, next to a broken John Watson talking to black marble.

"You were the best man… and the most human human being that I've ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie."

Sherlock's throat works furiously.

"I was so alone, and I owe you so much."

When John finally makes a move to walk away, Sherlock hastily intends to do the same, but his ghostly friend keeps a hold of his arm.

"He's not done, yet," he says, firmly.

"There's just one more thing. One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be… dead. Just for me. Just stop it. Stop this."

Sherlock gasps for breath and once more rubs his burning… no, wet eyes. "Okay, enough. You've made your point."

Not-John's hand is steady on his arm. "Not quite yet, Sherlock."

Sherlock doesn't know the room he's in nor the voice he hears when they reappear. He turns to look at the woman sitting across from John. Ah. Therapy.

"John, you can't go on like this."

John sighs. "Like what? I…" he clears his throat, "… get up every morning. I go to work. I eat regular meals…"

Sherlock can tell from John's slumped form and slightly hollow cheeks that this is a lie.

"I function. I am… a functioning member of society," John continues bitterly.

"You don't talk to anyone," his therapist disagrees. "You hardly know your co-workers. You haven't met with any of your friends in well over three months. From what you've told me, you don't even talk to your landlady, who is your friend and worries about you, beyond wishing her a good morning."

John's smile is painfully bitter. "What…" he has to clear his throat again.

Sherlock recognises the clearing of the throat and the erratic breathing from the cemetery, and his own throat tightens, again.

"What do you expect me to do?"

"You need to move on," the woman says.

John huffs. "To move on, there'd have to be something to move towards." He shakes his head. "I survive. That's got to be enough."

She leans forward. "Set some goals. Something simple. Meet with a friend once a week," she suggests.

"You know I can't… They all remind me of… before."

They've talked about this before, Sherlock realises. She probably wanted him to share his grief with the likes of Lestrade or his infernal brother. He can imagine that this did not go over well.

"Make new friends. Your co-workers, for example."

John huffs. "They're all very polite. Some regard me with pity, others think I must be crazy to still believe in Sherlock. Most of them do both," he bites out.

Sherlock notices a flicker of an expression on the woman's face. One look at John tells him that he noticed it, too. (This must have been over three months ago, then, before the truth about Richard Brook came out.)

John's face turns into a frightening mask of stony pleasantness. "Like you."

She sighs and puts down her pen. "John. He was your friend. I don't doubt that he was everything you said to you and more. I…"

John stands. "I will not be bothering you with my… delusions, anymore."

"John!"

He leaves.

Sherlock turns to look at his ghost friend. "See? He can manage just fine. He never needed his therapist, anyway. And he did move on. He said so himself!"

The room around them vanishes, and disembodied voices fly around them instead.

"Seriously, John! Just get over it!" A slurred voice. Harriet.

"John, dear, you need to get out more. It's breaking my heart, seeing you wither away…" Mrs Hudson.

"One would think he'd be glad to be rid of that liar…" A stranger, Sherlock doesn't know him. A co-worker, perhaps?

"John, don't do this to yourself. He wouldn't have wanted…" Lestrade. He is not allowed to finish his sentence.

"His name was cleared. Isn't that what you wanted?" Donovan.

They stand in the living room of 221B. John is sitting at his laptop, writing a blog entry. Or, rather, staring at an unposted blog entry.

Sherlock recognises it. It's the last blog entry. The one marking the beginning of John's new life.

Ghost-John steps closer to him. "Does that look like he's moving on?"

It does not, though Sherlock does not say it. John is… surviving. Functioning. He is crying silently because he can hardly make himself press the post button.

"Do you know why he wrote that entry? Hm?" Ghost-John nudges him with his shoulder. "Come on. Deduce it."

Sherlock doesn't have to deduce. "To make them shut up."

"That's right. He can function. Barely. As long as people leave him alone." Ghost-John turns towards Sherlock and stares at his face until the man returns his look. "You know John. Is this your John? Is this a life that needs to go on like this because you…" John nearly chokes on his words, "are too fucking afraid to face the consequences of what you've done to him?"

John takes a deep, shuddering breath and presses post.

The room around them shifts but doesn't change. John is now seated in his chair, wearing different clothes. A new day, then.

Sherlock walks closer. John is asleep. The skull from the mantelpiece is being held securely in a hand on his lap. It reminds him eerily of the little boy in the pantry with the toy dog.

Ghost-John nods. "Except that this John here?" He points at the sleeping man. "He stopped believing in fantasies. He has accepted that the best part of his life is behind him, and that he will go on living with the dream of a past that is not coming back."

"He will never forgive me," Sherlock whispers.

"Oh, he will be absolutely furious with you, oh, yes." He nods, then grins.

Sherlock can't help but grin back, weakly.

"Of course he'll forgive you, you idiot," John admonishes, smacking Sherlock's arm. They share one of their 'moments', though it's a tense one. Then John turns serious. "You were so loved, you have no idea."

Sherlock just looks at him, uncertain.

"I don't want you to come back for him. I don't even want you to come back for yourself. I want you to come back because the two of you have only begun scratching at the surface of a bond that has every chance to last a lifetime."

Sherlock contemplates that. "Why don't you show me what it will be like, then?" he dares the ghost.

Ghost-John snickers. "Oh, no. No spoilers. Spoilers are against the rules."

Sherlock tilts his head. "They were not against the rules in Dickens."

The ghost grins. "We're not in a novel, here, Sherlock. And Scrooge only got to see what would have happened if he hadn't changed his ways." He gestures at the sleeping man again. "You want to know what that future would be like? Like this. Just like this."

Sherlock watches the sleeping face. John is not twitching in his sleep like he did after Afghanistan, but he doesn't appear relaxed, either. He seems tense. Old. Empty. Functioning.

"Come home, Sherlock. Come home to me."

Sherlock's eyes are wet, but his jaw sets. "You're not him! Stop acting like it!" he shouts, angrily.

The ghost's expression softens and he walks backwards towards his chair. "But I am. I am, Sherlock." More steps… one more… until the backs of his legs bump into the seat, and he falls back, limp, moulding into the form of the sleeping John before he closes his eyes.

Sherlock panics. He can't stay here! He needs to… "John!"

John jerks awake. "Sherlock?" His head swivels around, and he stares right at Sherlock for a second, before his eyes lose focus. He blinks, rubs his eyes, tries to find the mirage again. The room is empty, and gradually, John's face empties in return.

"John?"

John absently strokes the skull in his hand and stares out the window into the dark night. He doesn't cry; there is nothing left to cry for.

"John!" Sherlock tries again. He knows that John could see him, earlier. For just the fraction of a second. "John, I'm here!"

"One more miracle," John whispers, and his eyes glisten for the first time since he made that horrendous blog post one month ago, no matter how hard he fights it.

Sherlock doesn't think, he acts on instinct, and he rushes towards the chair, crouches in front of it, tries and fails to take a hold of John's arms with his incorporeal hands. "John! I know a part of you knows I'm here. Focus! I need you to focus!"

John's lips barely move, but Sherlock can make out the words: "For me…"

"Yes! For you! John, I'm coming home."

But John's eyes are closed, and he hides them behind the palm of his hand.

"John, I'm coming home. Tomorrow night." Mycroft had said something about a flight in the morning, hadn't he? "I'll be home tomorrow night!"

John merely squeezes his eyes shut more… and then suddenly stands and walks away.

Sherlock gasps, and his eyes open wide as the cold air rushes through him, and he falls backwards, falling, falling…

Sherlock stands up from his wobbly chair so quickly it tumbles to the floor behind him. It takes him several torturously long moments to find his equilibrium and stand without his legs threatening to give in like the chair.

He shakes his head to clear it… and sees his computer screen. A computer screen that no longer shows the page he's had open before he… well. Before all this. He takes a step closer and reads the information presented to him.

You have a plane to catch. –MH

Sherlock memorises the flight information and where he will be able to get identification. Then he decisively puts on his coat and grabs his bag.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

END

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