Chapter Text
The following days went by without further incidents. John worked at the surgery, Ellie went to school and Sherlock successfully solved the case. He was bored. When John and Ellie arrived late one afternoon, they found their flat to be in a big mess.
“Sherlock!” John exclaimed, “what have you done?”
Sherlock was lying on the sofa, eyes closed. “Nothing, that´s the problem. I´m bored.”
“Why did you make such a mess of our flat?” John asked further.
Sherlock opened his eyes, “did I?” He huffed and shrugged his shoulders.
Before John could start to scold him, the door opened and Ellie came in. She looked around, her eyes wide open, “what the hell happened here?”
“Sherlock was just about to tell us,” John said, eyeing him outraged.
Sherlock swung his legs around and sat up, “I´m bored, so either you provide me with input or you better go away.”
“I could tell you about my day at the surgery,” John offered.
“I´ll leave you alone then,” Ellie announced and turned towards the door.
“That´s it! Thank you John!” Sherlock exclaimed and sprang up.
“You´re welcome I guess. You know, I´ve got no clue what you´re talking about,” John reminded him.
“We still need to perform the last part of the experiment with Ellie,” Sherlock said and ran around agitated. “She might tolerate an examination in general, but she´s still afraid of stethoscopes and their use. It´s the experiment or this,” he pointed around the messy flat.
John sighed, “can´t argue with that.” He looked at Ellie, “you´re up for it?”
“No, but I doubt that I will ever be. I guess it´s for the best to get done with the whole thing. Let´s do it,” she said unenthusiastically and went into the kitchen to turn the kettle on.
John sat down on the sofa, putting his medical bag down onto the floor. Sherlock pulled his shirt off and by that messed up his already disheveled hair. In this moment Mrs. Hudson came upstairs, standing in the doorframe. She looked at the half naked Sherlock, his messy hair and John right next to him. She blushed, “Oh, sorry to interrupt you boys.” She was about to turn around, when Ellie came from the kitchen into the living room.
“With the girl in the room!” Mrs. Hudson exclaimed indignantly. “Sherlock where are your manners?! Ellie, come downstairs with me honey, I have biscuits and will make you a cup of tea.”
Ellie could hardly contain herself from suppressed laughing, John's expression was just indescribable.
Smirking she nodded at Mrs. Hudson and followed her downstairs. Halfway down she called upstairs, “remember, always use protection!”
She returned an hour later, still smirking, and sat down on the sofa. “Did you have fun?” she asked innocently. John just glared at her, Sherlock seemed unimpressed.
“We were interrupted,” he stated. Once again he pulled his shirt off and looked to John, “your turn, doctor.”
“Maybe we should start with Ellie just touching the stethoscope first,” John thought out loud, “so the item itself stops frightening her.”
He sat down beside Ellie, rummaged in his bag and got the stethoscope out. He held it on his outstretched hands. Ellie carefully took the stethoscope out of John´s hands. She shuddered and started breathing uneasily. “How long should I hold it?” she asked nervously.
John opened his mouth, but Sherlock spoke first, “Until you calm down.”
“I´m calm,” she said quickly, her voice higher than usual.
“Nice try,” Sherlock scoffed, “just hold it for a few minutes.”
She did and she wouldn´t have thought it possible, but she calmed down. “When you´re afraid your body starts a fight-or-flight-reaction,” Sherlock explained, “as soon as the body realizes there is no actual danger the vitals and hormones go back to normal. You can use it in the therapy of anxiety disorders.”
John took over. “I´m measuring Sherlock´s blood pressure now.” He took the blood pressure cuff out of his bag and wrapped it around Sherlock´s upper arm. He inflated the cuff, put the ear plugs in his ears and held the diaphragm of the stethoscope in the crook of Sherlock´s elbow. He slowly deflated the cuff and finally took the ear plugs out of his ears. “100/60, we haven´t eaten in a while, have we?” he glared at Sherlock.
John handed Ellie the stethoscope, “now you. You have to inflate the cuff and while you slowly deflate it there is going to be a “whooshing” sound. Be careful at which number it starts and at which it ends.”
Ellie nodded and followed John´s instructions with shaking hands. When she took the ear plugs out she smiled slightly, “100/60.” “Very good,” John smiled at her. “A bit not good,” he said sternly, facing Sherlock. Sherlock just rolled his eyes.
John looked Ellie in the eyes. “I think it would be the best, if you listen to Sherlock´s heart first instead of me. Remember it´s just an organ, you can´t hear any feelings while listening.”
She shook her head, “I can´t. I can´t do this,” the panic in her voice was obvious.
“Yes you can,” John reassured her. He motioned towards Sherlock´s bare chest. “There are different spots on the chest, on each of them you can hear one heart valve especially good, but on this point,” he laid his finger on Sherlock´s chest, “you can hear them all at once.”
Slowly Ellie put the ear plugs in her ears and raised the diaphragm to the place John´s finger was pointing at. She was startled by how loud the sound was and immediately withdrew her hand. After a few breaths she tried again and this time she hold the diaphragm in place. She could hear Sherlock´s slow and steady heartbeat, no feelings. She knew she wouldn´t hear any feelings, of course she knew, but the child in her still was afraid of somebody listening to her feelings with a stethoscope. Ellie concentrated on the sound, after a while she found the regularly beats quite calming.
Sherlock suddenly started breathing much faster and his heart reacted by pounding a lot harder and faster. Scared Ellie removed the ear plugs from her ears. She looked at John.
“The heartbeat was louder and faster than before, right?” he asked calmly. She just nodded, trying to keep her own panic at bay.
“Do you know what he´s feeling?” John questioned further. Ellie shook her head. “Listen again,” he prompted her and she did as she was told. When she was done John asked her again, “do you know what he´s feeling?” Again Ellie just shook her head.
“Exactly,” John said, his voice firm. “Sherlock has an accelerated heartrate, you can hear it, but you´ve got no idea why. He could be nervous, afraid, excited or really happy, angry, he could be aroused.” “I already told you: not my area!” Sherlock huffed, but John just waved his hand at him “oh shut up Sherlock.”
“You know what I´m trying to tell you?” John watched Ellie´s reactions. “Apart from a lot of medical reasons for an accelerated heartrate there are a lot of possibilities as of why a heart beats faster. Even the doctors in your past were wrong when they were guessing. Remember what you told me? That they asked you, if you were nervous? You weren´t “nervous”, inside you were panicking. You can only guess the reasons, but the only one who knows for sure is you and if you don´t want to tell anyone what you feel, you don´t have to.”
Ellie was caught in her thoughts. They tried to not disturb her and let her calm down.
When she emerged from her thoughts, John looked at her inquiringly.
“You think I can have a listen to your heart now?” he asked carefully.
She nodded slowly, her eyes stared into space. “Hey!” John shook her shoulder until her eyes focused again, “when you´re dissociating the whole thing is pointless. You need to be aware of everything, otherwise the “overcome-your-fear-technique” Sherlock was talking about is not going to work.”
“Okay,” Ellie said, pinching her arm every time she felt herself drifting away.
“Could you lift your shirt up?” John asked cautious, warming up the stethoscope with his hand.
She replied, “this way I can´t pinch myself. I can... I can pull my shirt off. I can do this.” With this words she pulled her shirt over her head and put it on the couch table, immediately starting to pinch herself again.
Ellie panted, she felt like someone was strangling her, like she wasn´t getting enough air.
John hold up the stethoscope so she could see it and asked silently for permission. She gave her okay by nodding her head. He placed the diaphragm of the stethoscope on her chest. Ellie immediately tensed up and stopped breathing for a second, before her breathing became erratic.
Sherlock started speaking, “everything is okay, there´s no reason to panic, nobody is going to hurt you.” While John moved the stethoscope to different places, Sherlock continued to calm Ellie down, “you´re safe here. We´re not like your mother, nobody is going to embarrass you, John can´t hear any feelings, it´s just an organ.” He went on like this the entire time, trying to prevent a full blown panic attack.
John went on listening to the different valves of Ellie´s heart while waiting for her body to accommodate. Her heart rate was quite high and it didn´t seem like it was about to slow down. Sherlock continued to talk to her and John waited patiently. At least he knew now that her heart was perfectly healthy.
After what felt like an eternity John could hear Ellie´s heart to slow down. It needed another few minutes to return to a halfway normal speed. Finally John pulled out the ear plugs of the stethoscope , startled by the sudden silence, and set it aside. He reached for Ellie´s shirt and helped her putting it back on. She was pale, slightly shaking and still a bit out of breath, but that was nothing compared to before.
All of a sudden Ellie sprang up and ran to the writing desk, starting to vomit heavily in the bin beside it. When her stomach had emptied itself, a worried Sherlock helped her walking into the kitchen to rinse her mouth. He steadied her on the way back to the sofa where she sat down, completely exhausted.
She started crying when the tension eased. Sherlock pulled her onto his lap and rocked her back and forth. John was taken by surprise. He had not thought Sherlock was capable of such a compassion.
It didn´t take long for Ellie to fall in an exhausted sleep. Sherlock sat still, arms wrapped around Ellie who was snuggled up against his chest.
After a while John´s and Sherlock´s eyes met. “Mission completed,” Sherlock mouthed. John nodded. “Spiders?” Sherlock mouthed grinning, nodding his head in John´s direction. “DON´T YOU DARE!” came the silent reply.