Chapter Text
You say “I don’t understand” and I say “I know you don’t”
We thought a cure would come through in time, now I fear it won’t
And the air is thick with loss and indecision
I know my pain is such an imposition
Now you’re running down the hallway
And you know what they all say
“Don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”
And I wouldn’t marry me either
A pathological people pleaser, who only wanted you to see her
“Choose something, babe, I got nothing”
“To believe, unless you’re choosing me”
- You’re Losing Me by Taylor Swift
“Why don’t they have Ribena,” I grumbled. My boyfriend blinked at me, then tilted his head. I grasped his arm, leaning up to speak into his ear, battling against the loud music and drunken chatter surrounding us on all sides.
“Ribena. Why don’t they have it?”
Sherlock straightened, adjusting his shirt collar. “Yes, that’s what I thought you said. I doubt they thought anyone would want it.”
“Or Capri Sun or something? You organised this thing, didn’t you?” I pouted at him. “Why the hell didn’t you think of Ribena, Mr Genius?”
Sherlock snorted. “You’re tipsy. How much have you drunk behind my back?”
“I’ve had one glass. Literally one glass of that weird amber thing. I don’t think I even finished it. I think…” I looked around. “I think I left it in the toilets’, actually. I didn’t want to offend anyone, you know? Someone went to all the effort of pouring it, and like, it might have ruined their day if I left it somewhere where they might find it…”
Sherlock watched me with amusement in his icy blue eyes. “You’re a lightweight.”
“Ohhh, you’re not one to talk, Mr Ended-Up-In-Jail-Overnight-Guy…” I poked his chest, or tried to. He brought his hand up, grabbing mine.
“Next time, I’ll make sure to add Ribena to the drinks’ selection,” he said sarcastically.
“Next time? That’s not very optimistic.”
“I did not mean John or Mary’s second wedding.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. He arched the opposite one back at me. “Are you trying to hint anything, Mr Holmes?”
He pulled a considering face. “What do you think?”
I shifted closer as two of the wedding guests leapt past, doing some sort of unhinged jig. We were standing on the dance-floor, after all. “I think…” I narrowed my eyes. “I think if I was next to be married, you should’ve thrown your bouquet to me.”
Sherlock grinned. “Astute deductions as always. The bouquet doesn’t suit your colour scheme. And you would have dropped it in your dessert within five minutes. Or used it as a weapon.”
I snorted. “Rude.”
“True, though.”
“Sometimes I hate you.”
Sherlock’s grin morphed into a cocky smirk. “And sometimes I love y-”
“Only sometimes?”
He held up his other hand in surrender, then proffered it to me formally. “Would you like to dance?”
I shrugged. “Why not.”
The night of John and Mary’s wedding was…fabulous. Sherlock found two glasses of cold, clear water and took me out into the even colder night, where we cooled our flushed faces and sipped the crystalline water. He put our glasses on a little brick wall when Careless Whisper came on inside and we did a ridiculous slow-dance across the dewy grass, shielded from onlookers by the condensed windows. Back inside, Sherlock went to check on a drunken John, and when the latter began to sing along loudly to the Rolling Stones’ song, Sherlock met my eyes through the crowd and winked cheekily instead of shutting his best friend up. We left when the others did, high on adrenaline and good spirits. He kissed my hand in the back of the cab, pulled me close at the top of the dark stairwell in 221.
That night, listening to his breathing, I wondered if this was it. Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to always keep a bit of my guard up, always keep bracing for the unseen catastrophe. Maybe this was meant to be. Maybe I didn’t have to look for, wait for, the ending.
****
I glared in disbelief at my surroundings. No towel. No goddamn towel, and the shower was already on, and I was already running late. And judging by the last time I’d seen Sherlock, crashed on the sofa with his hands steepled, Mind-Palacing, he wasn’t going to be helpful.
I growled and pulled my shirt over my head again, tugging the hem down. I still had my knickers on. Hopefully no one else was in the flat yet and I could dart into Sherlock’s room, grab a towel, and get back in here like a very domestic bolt of lightning.
I pulled the door open, darted my head to the right. No one. Two quick steps and I was in Sherlock’s room, yanking open the drawer where he meticulously kept his towels, folded in size-order. Not through any sense of neatness, just because he was a control-freak. I grabbed the biggest, fluffiest beige one, uncaring that his meticulous stack had been disrupted, and turned back.
In his doorway, I froze.
Down the hallway, sitting at his desk, in perfect view, Sherlock stared back at me, equally frozen. He’d shed his dressing-gown, and his shirt-sleeve was rolled all the way up.
Something twisted through my gut, lacing between my ribs. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be what I thought it was.
The shower pattered on, and the towel was soft and coarse in my hand, and Sherlock’s parted lips slowly shut. He pulled his sleeve down.
I snapped out of it. Walked forward. Kept my eyes trained on his hands, in case he tried to conceal a needle. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing? You’re going to be late. Very late.”
I stopped in the lounge doorway. “Are you using?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous.” My heart was racing now, my limbs shaky with adrenaline. “What were you doing?”
“I’m working.” He pointed at his laptop.
“Sherlock, please. Please don’t lie to me.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not lying. Contrary to popular belief, I am not actually an addict. And I can roll my sleeves up for reasons other than shooting up.” As he spoke, his hand shifted, fingers curling.
“What are you doing?” I was halfway across the room when he threw up his other hand irritably.
“Stop it! You’re being annoying. Ridiculous. Really, Y/N, I expected you to trust me more than this.”
“You’re not acting trustworthy!”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t realise I had to ask your permission to even adjust my own clothing.”
I watched him for a long moment. “You’re gaslighting me.”
“You’re being irrational.”
“Sherlock, you’re acting guilty and dodging my questions and sitting there like you thought I was in the fucking shower and you were going to get high-”
“Oh, shut the hell up!” Sherlock snapped, startling me. “You’re not my mother.”
I sucked in a breath. “Oh, right.” I looked down at myself; my baggy shirt and bare legs, and unbrushed hair wavering in my peripheral vision. A moment ago I’d felt completely secure here, comfortable enough to look like this. Now I wanted to cringe. Cover myself up. Not only that, but grief was crashing through me, drowning me under an avalanche of realisations as Sherlock sat there and studied me with his lip curling.
I turned and walked back to the bathroom. Shut the door. Changed into the clean clothes I’d laid out; brushed my hair; picked up my phone and bankcard from the closed toilet-lid, slid them into my pocket. I looked at myself in the mirror, long enough to see my hard eyes staring back.
I walked back into the flat. Sherlock had donned his robe again, tapping away at his computer. He glanced up as I pulled my boots on and opened the door.
“Y/N-”
I walked out, listening to the sound of the gurgling shower all the way down the stairs.
****
Radio silence from Sherlock, all day. I worked with my head down, ignoring the anger and frustration, pretending I wasn’t contemplating all sorts of horrible things.
At the end of the day, instead of turning left and heading towards the tube station that would take me back to Baker Street, I turned right. Stopped in an Asda. Picked up a set of pyjamas and a toothbrush and some biscuits.
Walked on, veering from main streets to smaller lanes, until I stopped in front of the familiar arches of a hotel.
****
My friend worked as a manager at the hotel, and I’d gone there a lot with a group of friends, to the bar, to the restaurant. First time I’d ever stayed there, though. I took my key and went up to my room, pulling the slatted blinds down and kicking my shoes off before I collapsed on the bed and screwed my face up against a silent scream.
What the hell was I doing? I hadn’t broken up with Sherlock. I didn’t even know if he’d been using or not. But I knew that the idea of going back to Baker Street was more than I could bear.
Maybe this was drastic.
I rolled onto my back. I’d always been more of a get-up-and-do-it-now girl. If I wanted to stay in a hotel rather than spend time with my own boyfriend, then I damn well would.
My phone was still silent. Had he been using all day? When would he even notice I wasn’t coming back? Would I ever go back? I’d have to, at some point. All my stuff was there. God, I’d have to find a place to rent - that’d be difficult-
I shook myself, scowling. No. Taking time away from Sherlock did not mean we were breaking up. Did it? Though, if all trust was shattered…
No, trust wasn’t shattered. It was just…precarious. Like a vase balancing on the edge of a shelf. It wasn’t my job to steady it. Sherlock needed to do something. Prove something.
I reached for my pack of biscuits. Who cared if I got crumbs on the bed? Who cared if biscuits was not a good, nutritious dinner? I could always go down to the restaurant later…
****
Nothing. Not a single text, not even a ‘where are you? Are you okay’?
It made my blood boil. Boiling blood was never a good thing, but especially not when you were half-asleep at three-am, having reached groggily for your phone and nearly blinded yourself before you could get night-light on.
“Fucking little bastard,” I mumbled. My voice was croaky, small amongst the loneliness of my impersonal room. I looked at Sherlock’s name for a moment, at the long threads of messages we’d sent, hilarious and sweet and fierce and matter-of-fact. Wasn’t I supposed to mean something to him? His girlfriend hadn’t come home. For all he knew, something horrible had happened. He hadn’t even tried to phone me.
Tears burnt up the back of my nose. I stabbed blindly at several buttons. The ‘Block this number’ was blurry in my vision, but I still got it right, first try.
****
A day passed. I didn’t have to go out, to work, so I didn’t. I stayed in my hotel bed, in my unfamiliar pyjamas, emerging from a cocoon of plain white sheets only to shower, once; go to the vending machine; and receive room-service. I’d never realised how crappy non-stop TV was. I realised it now.
I’d unblocked him at midday. Nothing. That made me angry enough to block him again and vow that I wouldn’t undo it this time.
There was so much stuff to sort out. Exhaustion seeped through me just at the idea of it. I wondered if I was a horrible unsupportive person for how I was handling this, but Sherlock hadn’t just lied, he’d gaslit me, insulted me, made me feel small and insignificant. I didn’t know how to compartmentalise that enough to help him, to go back for more.
At six-pm, there was a curt knock on the door. I’d ordered soup, so I slid out of bed, padding across the plain beige carpet. I pulled the door open.
Sherlock arched an eyebrow at me as I froze, looking me up and down, my dishevelled hair and pyjamas and surly expression.
“Hello.”
Coat. Scarf. Gloves. Perfectly arranged curls. Sharp pale-blue eyes. A tang of cologne. I’d be lying if I tried to say my heart didn’t skip a beat.
“What do you want?” was what I said, instead.
“I should have thought that was fairly obvious.”
I crossed my arms. “Spell it out for the dumb idiot, then.”
“I want you to come home.”
“Well, I want to be alone.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’re not being entirely honest.”
Damn him. I hated how he knew me, better than I knew myself sometimes; I hated that I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and take comfort in hugging him. He couldn’t comfort me, because he was the problem. But my body, my instincts, didn’t understand that yet.
“I’m not playing coy or some shit like that. I…” I hesitated. “You didn’t even try to find out where I was.”
“I knew you were safe.”
“Oh, yeah? I suppose you’ve got a tracker on my fucking boots or something.”
“No. Mycroft told me you were safe. He did not tell me where you were; I had to deduce that myself.”
I sniffed. “Could’ve just called me.”
“That lacks the personal touch.”
“Personal touch being that we’re physically in the same room?” I spread my arms. “Okay, I’m right here. Go on. Say your big thing, convince me to go back to Baker Street, because right now I’m feeling pretty fucking done, Sherlock, what with you and your ghosting and calling me ridiculous and-”
“Ma’am, your soup.”
We both jumped as the waiter sidled up, past Sherlock, offering a tray.
“Uh. Thanks.” I offered a pained smile. Sherlock stepped back, letting the waiter leave. The soup smelt nice, nice enough that I contemplated just shutting the door and leaving Sherlock in the hallway.
I sighed. My inbuilt manners wouldn’t let me.
Turning, I carried the tray over to the table. When I straightened, Sherlock was inside my room, looking around stiffly, hands interlaced behind his back.
“Sherlock,” I said softly. His eyes shot to me, his profile haughty, discomfited, above his coat collar.
“Are you using? Were you using?”
We stared at each other. At last, Sherlock bit out the curt word, his mouth barely moving.
“No.”
I watched him a bit longer. “The sad thing is, I don’t know if I believe you.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You know it’s okay to ask for help, right? It doesn’t make anyone think any less of you.”
“Come home.” He took a sudden step closer, his voice low, rough. “That is me asking for help, Y/N. Your help. Come home. Please.”
I swallowed, ducking my head to hide from the intensity in his eyes. “All right.” I turned back to the table. “But not before I’ve had my soup.”
****
Life continued, for another week or so. I didn’t see any evidence that Sherlock was using, and he didn’t call me out on my occasionally absurd tactics of pretending to do something else and poking my head around corners to see what he was doing. We fell back into our patterns; snarky banter, co-existing, mutually complaining about Sherlock’s ice-block feet when he came into bed late at night after solving a case.
There was a tension. I don’t think I was imagining it. But we surfed along, cresting the wave like the experts we definitely weren’t.
Problem was, I didn’t see the sharks until it was too late.
It was a cold evening, and it’d been a long day. Some guy on the crowded tube had shoved his way on and caused a domino effect that had nearly sent me toppling into an old man’s lap. I’d smashed my elbow against the pole, and it was still twinging now. Also, I was pretty sure I’d stepped in piss. Either piss or a spilt drink, but honestly, judging by the way my day had gone, it was probably the former. So I toed my ankle boots off in the hallway, and hung up my coat with a sigh. I could hear Mrs Hudson’s TV. More of The Chase, by the sound of it. She had a very public, undisguised crush on Bradley Walsh.
I began to climb the stairs, fiddling with my phone. The battery, which had lasted thus far, lasted no further. The phone died, and I scowled, shoving it in my pocket, turning the corner of the steps.
I could hear Sherlock, talking, voice low and deep, the way it was when he was trying to sweet-talk me. A small smile crept across my lips. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d tried to rehearse his lines before I came home.
Then I heard him chuckle a laugh, and goosebumps rose along my arms.
I stopped, not moving a muscle. The door at the top of the stairs was slightly ajar, light streaming down the stairs. I swayed backward into the shadows, just in case he saw me, and listened.
“Obviously,” I heard him say. “I did look at you.”
Silence.
“No, for the others, I would only have used the word ‘presentable’. You were the only one there who warranted the use of ‘beautiful’.” I could hear the way his voice softened, I could picture the way he would be smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners.
I reached out, fingers curling around the banister, slipping down the smooth wood. This couldn’t be happening.
“Well, I don’t advertise vacancies. You have to be interesting enough.” His voice dropped. “Special enough.”
A low chuckle. A few moments of silence. “…Goodnight.”
I waited. If it hadn’t been so dark, I think my surroundings would have been fading in and out of clarity. Nausea roiled. I felt too hot and too cold at once.
But somehow I forced myself to walk up the final few steps and shoulder the door open.
Sherlock was sitting in his armchair, face lit up by the glow of his phone, texting swiftly. He glanced up as I just stood there, and nodded curtly.
I looked at him, at his wildly curly hair and rumpled shirt and rapid-fire fingers. I looked around the flat, at the stacks of paper on his dusty desk, the battered cushions on the sofa, my pile of classic novels on the kitchen table next to his microscope, at the microwave with the remnants of an exploded tomato splattered across the window, at the window-sill, where my balled-up cardigan lay abandoned. Then I looked back at Sherlock, and I realised it had gone too wrong to fix.
“If you’re making a cup of tea, I’d like one,” Sherlock said, without looking up.
“Make your own fucking tea,” I snapped. “Like you even need any more shit in your system.”
He lifted his head at that, arching his eyebrow. “Are you hormonal?”
“Are you a dickhead?”
“Or was it a bad day? Or both? Both, I see.”
“Don’t just reduce me like that. You love shrinking people, don’t you? Dissecting them into bits and pieces and pretending they’re not real people with real feelings.”
Sherlock furrowed his brow. “I don’t dissect. I deduce. And I’m fully aware that the people I deduce are real. Unfortunately.”
I crossed my arms, hugging myself. “Sometimes I wonder if you even have a fucking heart.”
He tilted his head, squinting up at me. “For God’s sake, what’s your problem now?”
“What do you mean, what’s my problem? My problem is that you’re pretending you don’t even understand what you’re doing wrong right now!”
He stood up. “I should have expected this, I suppose. A girlfriend being petty and jealous. Searching for reasons to find fault with me. That’s what you’re doing, Y/N. You think you saw me using last week, and you went as far as staying in a hotel to…what? Prove a point? Great display of trust, there, Y/N, simply fabulous.” He rolled his eyes.
“How can I trust a single fucking word that comes out of your mouth anymore?” I yelled, advancing a step. “The fact that I don’t says-”
“More about you and your poor trust issues than me-”
“Don’t you fucking dare-”
“It’s no secret that your parents cheated on each other, that your first boyfriend broke up with you to pursue your best friend instead, you’re quite open about that. But it’s not that, is it? When-”
“Sherlock, shut the fuck up, I’m warning you-”
“When your old boss tried to seduce you, offering a raise, murmuring about a promotion, in exchange for sex - that’s when your trust in humanity really shattered, didn’t it?”
“How did you even find that out!”
“Oh, it was easy enough.” He twirled his fingers idly. “You could ask John for the name of his therapist. About time you overcame those trust issues if you want a sustainable relationship, I think.”
Two steps brought me right up to him. I looked up at his face, jaw clenching. “You,” I said, very very quietly, “don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He watched me, looking down his nose with his lip half-curled. “You’re the problem, Sherlock. Not me. Not my fucking past. You. You, right now, gaslighting me, lying to me, belittling me: you’re the problem.”
He took a step back, brandishing his hands. “I told you I was clean.”
“And I don’t believe you!”
“Well-”
“I can’t believe anything you say any more! So, if you tell me you’re not fucking another woman - I wouldn’t believe you, because I can’t trust you, and if I don’t trust you, how can I know that you even care about me?” My voice wavered, but I pushed on, each word punching air out of the room until nothing was left. “I heard you, just now, talking to someone, and don’t you dare tell me it was a client, because you don’t flirt with clients, you don’t tell them they’re beautiful - for fuck’s sake, Sherlock, if you didn’t want me anymore, you could have just broken up with me instead of trying to kill my goddamn soul!”
We listened to each other’s heavy breathing. Sherlock stood still, blue eyes fixed on mine. Didn’t deny it. Didn’t say anything to make it better.
“If,” he said at last, his voice low, “your ego needs continual boosting - continual reassurance - then I am the wrong man for that. And you really should have realised.”
I laughed. “Nothing’s ever your fault, huh? I stumbled into a relationship with a lying, cheating addict, and somehow it’s my fault? Oh yeah! I looked into the crystal ball, I saw all this shit happening, and I still chose to date you - no! Take some fucking responsibility!”
“Obviously-”
“Oh, wait, I forgot - Sherlock Holmes doesn’t take responsibility. Children don’t need to, am I right? And you never grew up. Not mentally, not morally. It’s just unfortunate that you lost all your innocence.”
“If,” Sherlock persisted, his teeth glinting although his face was very calm, “you needed such emotional reassurance in a relationship, you should have been aware. And I am not the right man for that.”
He sat down again, pulled out his phone, and lowered his eyes to the white-lit screen, like that was it.
I sucked in a sharp breath and threw the grenade. “Yeah, you’re right.”
His eyes flicked up. “Excuse me?”
“You’re right. You’re the wrong man. I just don’t know why I stuck around when I knew it since last week.”
“What?”
“I’m done. I’m breaking up with you.”
He blinked.
“You know, my friends actually told me to run, in the beginning. They said you’re insane. That you’d get me killed. Turns out they were right.” I was looking around now, everything washed over with a wavering fuzziness. In my peripheral vision, Sherlock was still, silent, still staring up at me.
I broke free of the square of floorboard that I’d been glued to, and marched off into the bedroom. Grabbed my old rucksack, hauling it off Sherlock’s wardrobe. Yanked drawers open, scooping familiar items of clothing into my arms, dumping it into the rucksack. In the other room, I heard a curse, a frantic rustling of stuff.
Maybe this was crazy. But my entire torso was aching, physically pained. I needed to get out before I actually collapsed. Pain pulsed behind my eyes, stung the back of my throat, stabbed inside my chest at the organs I needed to survive.
Enough clothes. My books. What were the things I needed most? Hairbrush. I ducked into the bathroom and grabbed my nail varnish. Books. I could fit that book in, too. There was so much I couldn’t take, couldn’t save. My shoes and coat were downstairs. I crossed back into the lounge, snatching up that abandoned cardigan, shoving it into the rucksack, forcing it down until I could wrangle the zip up. It rasped closed.
Sherlock stood up. There was something different about his face. “You’re serious.”
“Don’t know what’s a clearer red flag than someone fucking cheating on you.”
He inhaled, and I turned on him. “And don’t you dare say you’re not. Who is it? You know what - I don’t need to know. I hope you enjoy fucking her and charming her and breaking her heart.” I didn’t recognise my own voice. “Give her my best. Tell her, from me, that she should run while she still can. Or maybe you already ensnared her so bad that she can’t.”
He didn’t say anything, and my heart broke a bit more. He couldn’t even deny it. I would never had suspected Sherlock had the emotional capacity to cheat. Turns out he did.
“I always knew you were an abrasive arsehole,” I said quietly, picking up a different pair of boots and sliding them on. I straightened. Brushed hair out of my face, put a hand on the rucksack strap, hauled it off the sofa. “I didn’t realise you would try to hurt me. I guess the joke’s on me, for that.”
“Communication skills,” Sherlock said, raising his eyebrow. He dropped his phone into his armchair. “A key to any successful relationship. You’re doing wonderfully at communicating your side.”
“We’re not in a relationship anymore.”
“Oh, pfft-”
I started walking to the door. Don’t look around, don’t look back, just leave.
“-if you calmed down enough to - Wait!”
I swung the door open. Sherlock’s voice rose in pitch as he called my name again.
“Y/N, wait!”
Some part of me wanted to. His voice had changed, suddenly shocked, desperate. But ten minutes ago, he’d been murmuring softly into a phone. Acting, that was all it was. Acting, to get his own damn way about everything. Except now I’d called his bluff. He couldn’t be surprised to lose me when he hadn’t wanted me either. I gripped onto the banister, descending.
There was a flurry, a clatter, a crash; Sherlock thundered after me, leaping the first few steps. “Y/N-”
I carried on. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
“Let go,” I bit out.
“No.” His grip tightened. “You can’t go.”
I twisted, looking up at him. “You’re…” My words died away. His face was…manic. His entire expression screamed high!, his eyes glinting feverishly. That was what was different about him. As I’d been packing my clothes, he’d…
I shook my head, vomit rising in my throat. “Ohmygod.”
“No,” Sherlock insisted, shaking my arm. “You can’t leave, Y/N.” I tried to pull away, and he held on. “Are you hearing me? You can’t, I need you, you can’t just leave me, you’re meant to love me-” His voice rose.
I stared, powerless, his words washing around me. For the first time, I was scared of him. Actually, properly, terrified.
Sherlock stopped ranting. Looked at me for a long moment. Then comprehension crossed his face, followed by utter disbelief. He dropped my arm, lips parting, backing up a step.
Hurt and vulnerable and completely lost, I stood there, red static screaming through my brain. I couldn’t remember anything, couldn’t do anything, held there, wordless, by the sheer force of Sherlock’s manic, disbelieving scrutiny.
I knew one thing. My path had led me out the front door. I turned. The remaining steps felt sludgy. The hallway was dark. Mrs Hudson’s TV was off.
The night was cold, a breeze pressing against my flushed cheeks. Down the step. The door clicked shut behind me. Sherlock didn’t follow me. I knew I should have been grateful. I knew I could never feel emotion properly again.
I turned right and started walking away from home.
****
Greg Lestrade had been my best friend since we were seven and four years old, respectively. At eleven, he’d declared to his aunt that he wanted to marry eight-year-old me. When I was sixteen, we’d fake-dated when there was another boy who kept trying to ask me out. When I was nineteen, we went on a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam and nearly got killed by a tram. It was through Greg that I’d first met Sherlock, and it was to Greg’s flat that my feet led me, automatically; getting on the tube and getting off at his station; walking through the evening shoppers until I got to the flat he’d purchased after finally divorcing his wife.
His wife, who’d cheated him. My boyfriend, who’d cheated on me. My lips twisted into a pathetic laugh as I climbed the steps, the strap of my rucksack digging mercilessly into my shoulder. What a sorry pair we were.
Up the steps; into a dry porch that smelt of wet dog and feet. I narrowed my eyes at the row of doorbells and their faded labels, before finally stabbing the top one and crossing my fingers. I had to uncross them before it was painful, but a minute later, the door swung open and Greg Lestrade stood there, toothpaste in the corner of his mouth, wearing a football jersey and joggers, blinking blearily at me.
“Christ, Y/N.”
I burst into tears.
****
I could’ve gone to another hotel, and I did offer to, but only half-heartedly. I needed company, and I knew Greg didn’t mind me being there. That was the perks of being best friends with someone for so long, I suppose. You actually trusted them.
“It might be dusty,” Greg said, raising an eyebrow at the bedside table in his guest room, dumping my rucksack on the end of the bed. “I can come in and clean tomorrow. Room-service and all.”
“No, it’s fine. Sherlock always-” I stopped, gulping back a sob.
He looked at me. “Right, what the bloody hell did he do?”
I shook my head. “Using. Cheating. Shouting. Lying.” My laugh was brittle, Greg’s eyes widening incredulously. “A-acting like he doesn’t even c-care about me…”
“Jesus,” Greg sighed, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. “Right. Right. I’ll get you a - I’ve got some fancy juice, I think. And I need a beer.”
****
A day passed. Greg went to work, and so did I. My sleep had been shit, waking up in the night half-suffocated under the unfamiliar starchy sheets, reaching for Sherlock before I remembered.
There was a good portion of numbness, keeping me calm, letting me carry on like there was nothing wrong. Shock. It didn’t feel real yet, and that sensation of unreality kept me going, surfing along, even though I was already drowning. Anaesthesia, before the euthanasia, the deadly barbiturates.
We ordered takeaway in the evening. Talked about the old days. Made each other laugh. I hadn’t blocked Sherlock’s number again and I pretended I wasn’t hoping it’d buzz, that he’d call, that he’d show he cared. But nothing.
Another night, crying into my pillow until I nearly choked from the effort of trying to stay quiet. Another day, colleagues commenting on my swollen shadowed eyes, asking if I was alright. I headed home with my teeth clenched, holding back a guttural werewolf scream that would’ve terrified all the other tube passengers out of their skins.
I got out my key. It was freshly-cut, still harsh, requiring a bit of wriggling to unlock the door. Greg was sitting on the sofa as I pulled my new coat off - I’d forgotten my old one at Baker Street. He was staring dully at his phone.
“You okay?” I asked, kicking off my shoes.
He looked up. “No. Shit day at work. How are you?”
“I want to scream.” There was something else he wasn’t telling me about. If it was about Sherlock, I was better off not knowing.
But I wanted to.
He jabbed a thumb behind him. “There’s the freezer. It’s scream-worthy. I scream a lot into it. ‘Specially after His Lordship…”
“It’s okay,” I said. It’s okay, I don’t need to scream. It’s okay, to talk about Sherlock. It’s not okay but I’ll say that it is anyway.
It’s not okay.
***
The local Sainsburys was poorly stocked, this early on a Friday morning, but the upside was that it was deadly quiet. I skimmed through the aisles, picking familiar items, vaguely remembering Greg’s request for milk, grabbing some chocolate biscuits that held a faint glimmer of appeal.
I was the only person at the self-service checkouts. The till had an issue with the bread’s weight, and the assistant came over to help me. As she stepped back, a man entered the square of checkouts, tall, with a long sweeping coat.
My heart leapt out of my ribcage, lodged in my throat, my hand clamped around Greg’s milk as I tried to scan it. The man walked past, to a till opposite me. The milk scanned, and I put it down and blatantly turned around, all my body tingling.
The man had auburn hair. Too broad, not tall enough. I turned back to my unscanned items, my hands shaking.
I wasn’t disappointed. I was relieved. The symptoms were just…
No. They weren’t similar at all.
I got back to Greg’s, sprawled on the sofa, and ran my fingers down my face until I saw white stars.
He’d screwed me up worst than I’d thought.
****
Sunday morning, we were sitting on opposite ends of Greg’s sofa. I was trying to think of another counter-argument while eating a protein flapjack. Greg didn’t want me to pay rent, but if I was going to stay here much longer - which it seemed like I would, since I’d just automatically become his flatmate - then I’d need to contribute somehow. Greg, oblivious to the rebellious thoughts seething in my brain, was scrolling through his phone, mouth puckering occasionally, eyebrows furrowing, scratching his head.
I looked at him, and mildly wished, not for the first time in all these years, that we could have fallen in love with each other instead. We co-existed amazingly. We were great friends. We both found the other person…decent-looking.
There was just zero chemistry or attraction. Instead, Greg fell for a manipulative cheater, and I fell for a high-functioning sociopath who also cheated.
I sighed, and Greg’s phone pinged.
“What…” he murmured to himself. Then his eyebrows shot up. “Christ.”
“What?”
He glanced up. “It’s John. Apparently Sherlock’s…John found him in a opium den this morning. He was high. And now they’re back at 221b, and…um.”
“What.”
“Janine’s there. And…” Greg hesitated. “Sherlock’s…saying they’re in a relationship. Y/N? Shit. Shit, I should’ve kept my bloody mouth shut…”
I shook my head, rubbing my scorching eyes furiously until I could see pinpricks of black and white pressure. “No - it’s - fine,” I forced out. “I mean…I already knew he was…Dammit!” A tear escaped. A sob bubbled up. I turned it into a laugh instead. “Wow. That was fast.”
“Look, you don’t need…to pretend or something, you know that, innit?” Greg said, looking worried. “I get it, I know what it feels like.”
My smile turned genuine, jagged at the corners. “I know, Greg. It’s okay.” We silently acknowledged the stupidity of that statement. “It’s not okay,” I amended. “But…At least he’s not cheating on me anymore.”
His phone pinged again.
“Still John?”
“Yeah…” Greg compressed his lips. “Sherlock’s talking about dinner…a double date…and Magnussen…”
“He moved on quickly.”
“Hmm…” Greg shook his head. “There’s something off about all this, you know.”
There was. I couldn’t deny it. I showered; brushed my tangled wet hair into some shape of neatness; listened to Greg pottering around doing stuff. And I thought about it. Yes. There was something off here. Sherlock might have apparently moved on - split up with me, was now free to openly pursue Janine, the woman he actually wanted…But Sherlock Holmes didn’t do romantic entanglements. He barely even did friendships. It had taken a long while to realise that he liked me beyond what friendship strictly surrounded. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t imagine him being like this. Being…too ordinary.
The day dragged by. I went out; walked around a sunny little park. Watched some toddlers feeding the pigeons. Came back. Greg was out. I watched crap TV until he returned. We mutually decided that takeaway was the only decent thing on the planet, and he ordered pizzas. Just after he laid his phone down, it pinged. He picked it up again. “Bloody Christ,” he said.
“Wha-”
“He’s got a ring. He’s going to fucking propose.” Greg blinked, then looked up at me. “Shit. Sorry. Would you prefer I…”
“It’s okay. It’s fine to tell me. I mean…it helps me remember why I left.” I laughed feebly. “I think I got a lucky escape, actually.”
I was lying. We both knew it. But the truth wasn’t the one that John seemed to believe, either.
“Excuse me for a sec,” I said, and went into the bathroom.
I sat on the closed toilet and pulled out my phone, looking down at my shadowed reflection. Sherlock wouldn’t propose to Janine out of true romantic feelings. Maybe I never knew the real Sherlock, but I was pretty sure I had. This wasn’t right. And some perverse part of me really, really wanted to text him and tell him I knew he was bullshitting. To surprise him, the way I had when I’d walked out.
I closed my eyes, turning the phone over. Maybe I was hurting enough without punishing myself like that as well.
Are you trying to hint anything, Mr Holmes?
What do you think?
How could that only be a few weeks ago? How could I have stood there, close enough to feel the heat of his body, and believed I might marry that man? That he would genuinely be flirting with me about marriage, because he wanted to marry me?
He changed his mind quick enough. It was alright. I supposed I wouldn’t marry me either.
Another piece clicked into place. During the speech, Sherlock had made a comment about being ignorant of beauty. He’d gestured to the bridesmaids as he spoke.
To Janine.
My stomach lurched. That was what he’d been talking about when I overheard him on the phone. So, even when he’d been dancing with me, flirting with me, making jokes about Ribena at the next wedding…He’d still had her in mind. He’d thrown his goddamn bouquet to her, after all.
The doorbell rung. I stood up and went back into the main room just as Greg thanked the delivery driver. Warm, cheesy, tomatoey pizza smells spread through the flat. I reached eagerly for the boxes, helping him clear the messy table and prop the boxes open.
“You okay?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve got a broken heart and my ex is proposing to another woman. And I’m pretty sure that pizza has pineapple on it.”
Greg laughed. “I’ll think of a reason to keep him in jail overnight.”
We ate our pizzas and watched old quiz shows, getting every answer wrong. Fake it till you make it, fake it till you make it…
His phone pinged.
“I’m starting to get sick of John sending you continual updates on Sherlock’s snazzy new lovelife.”
“Yeah,” Greg said, reaching for his phone - it was wedged between a cushion and the back of the sofa. “So am I…might tell him to st - Fuck.”
“What is it?”
Greg was leaping up already, his pizza box falling to the ground, a slice tumbling, toppings sliding everywhere. “Fuck!” he barked again. “I need my car keys - car keys-”
“What is it?”
“Read it!”
I leaned over and grabbed his phone.
Sherlock’s been shot. St Bart’s. He might not make it. JW.
****
Greg had dashed out the door before I could get over my stammering shock. I was left holding his phone, shaking from head to foot.
“...and the grand jackpot this time is…!”
I snatched up the remote. Muted the TV, then turned it off. Grabbed my own phone, my fingers numb against the restraint of my jeans’ pocket. Stabbed at the first name in the call-log.
It rung and rung. I held my breath. Answer.
“Hello, this is Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. Don’t leave a message unless it’s a nine - For God’s sake, John, I’m trying to - Right, just leave a bloody message.”
I turned the call off, my body physically shocked at hearing Sherlock’s voice again, the sharp crisp baritone right in my ear. Then I brought up John’s name and called him.
It rung. I waited. It broke halfway through the fourth ring, replaced by crackles and the beeping of hospital monitors.
“Y/N…?”
“John, he’s - What happened?” I demanded.
“He broke into Magnussen’s office.” John sounded exhausted. “Well, by pretending to propose to Janine. And then…I don’t know exactly - Janine was knocked out, I stayed with her, and then he was shot…”
“Is he alive?”
“Yeah. Just. He…he flat-lined, Y/N, he was dead…but…” John barked out a laugh. “He’s Sherlock fucking Holmes, isn’t he, he just came back, like…” I heard the click of snapped fingers, “just like that. Are you coming to see him?”
I looked around myself, at the cold pizzas, the squashed cushion where Greg had been sitting. He’d knocked over his empty beercan. A trickle of liquid ran down the edge of the sofa arm. I watched it curling its way to the floor.
“Greg’s on his way, but I…”
“When he woke up - the first name he said was…Mary…” John hacked another laugh. “Second name he said? It was your name.”
My knees folded, the sofa impacting against me with a squeak of ancient springs.
“Y/N? You still there?”
“I…yes.” I cleared my throat. “I can’t, all right, John? Not…yet…I just…can’t. Will he make it?”
“Maybe, probably. Look, I don’t know everything that happened with you two - I know he was a dickhead, but he’s Sherlock Holmes. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing emotionally.”
“He’s just very good at acting.” My voice was soft.
There was a pause. Then John sighed. “Yeah, fair. All right.” A moment; his voice, muffled, calling “Just a sec, Mary.” Then, clearer, “Do you want me to keep you updated?”
“Yeah. I think…I think I do.”
****
Breathe in. Breathe through. Breathe deep, breathe out.
Break up, break free. Break through, break down.
The lyrics of Labyrinth were stuck in my mind, playing on autopilot like a mantra, like strict instructions that I needed to follow, as I got dressed, picked up my keys, left Greg’s flat. He’d already gone to work well before me. I traced the unfamiliar route to the unfamiliar tube station; got on the unfamiliar line. It was just after the chaotic peak of rush-hour, and I managed to snag a seat on the tube. I sat there, hands crossed over my knees, staring at the darkness rushing by.
The old man opposite me folded up his paper and left it on the seat as he stood. I didn’t pay any attention to it, until the train pulled out of the station and it jerked forward, almost sliding off the seat. My eyes shot to the movement automatically.
I blinked.
Sherlock’s face was on the front, staring to the left of the camera, impatient and confused all at once.
7 times a night in Baker Street…
I leaned across the aisle, grabbing it. The paper was thin and coarse against my fingers, smelling of the old man’s tobacco. I unfolded it, staring at the front page in disbelief.
An interview with Janine Hawkins.
I couldn’t bring myself to read all of it. There was absolutely nothing in there, no mention at all, of Sherlock’s injury. It was all about his romantic and sexual life. Bile rose in the back of my throat as I stood, swaying as the tube stopped at my station, leaving the newspaper behind.
Walking past the newsagents, I saw that almost every newspaper was a variation on the same goddamn theme. Janine had sold him out. Not that I blamed her. In fact, I almost admired her. She’d dated him for all of a week…maybe two, at a push…and she wasn’t taking his bullshit the way I had. Or was.
But she hadn’t loved him.
Or maybe she had. But if she had, and he broke her heart the way he’d broken mine, why was she so tough, so able to move on and get her revenge, when I couldn’t?
What was wrong with me that I was stuck in the same old pattern, plodding along and shielding all my messy feelings, stuck in a trough of numbness, drowning so slowly that I couldn’t even feel it?
****
Ever wanted to kill someone? Ever looked around a room and wondered what you’d bludgeon someone to death with? Even the smallest, most harmless things become a weapon. Oh, the amount of ways that you could inflict torture with a stapler if you were mad enough…
And I was mad enough.
“Fucking dickhead pricks…” I muttered as I walked past their offices on my way out. I stabbed the elevator button, just to prove a point.
Demotion. Being demoted. What had I even done to deserve that? Well, the answer was: precisely nothing. But I still got demoted. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t argue my point in case I lost my job entirely. It wasn’t fair that someone new was coming in to do my job.
We all go a bit crazy at times. That craziness was what led me across the road, across a concrete square, and out the other side at the taxi-ranks.
“St Bart’s Hospital, please.”
****
The sun came out as I vacated the taxi, coating the ancient hospital in a wash of golden and scarlet hues. I tore my eyes away from the place where Sherlock must have fallen. The reception area was quieter than normal, and I scanned a map of the hospital before heading up to roughly where I figured Sherlock would be.
I had to ask a porter for more directions, and then an internal receptionist for Sherlock’s room number. This part of the hospital was even quieter, luxurious, expensive and decadent in some hospital-ish way. I walked down the corridor, through beams of sunlight, towards the door. Nerves twisted in my belly. I wiped my palms on my wool skirt.
A nurse came out of the room, giving me a cursory glance. I gestured for her to wait a moment.
“Is that…” My voice was raspy.
“That’s Sherlock Holmes’ room. He’s asleep right now, though.”
“Oh…Good.”
She gave me a funny look.
“He’s my ex,” I explained weakly. “But…you know. He was shot. Um. How long has he been asleep?”
She shrugged. “Just dozed off recently, I think. He keeps turning his morphine down, and it’s not great for his healing. You can go in, if you like, he might wake up.”
I hope he doesn’t. I thanked her. The door was already slightly ajar, and I pushed it open, holding my breath.
The room stunk of antiseptic and aftershave, all at once. Sherlock lay in the bed, shirtless, one hand resting on the bedcovers, palm up, fingers slightly curled. His head was tilted on the pillow, lips slightly parted.
Love. Desire. Affection. An overpowering urge to wrap my arms around him and promise him he’ll be safe now. Whoever tried to kill him needs to be killed themselves and I’d do it. I want to hug him and tell him everything’s okay.
Heartbreak. Anger. Loss. He cheated on me. He hurt me, weaponised my past and pretended it was all my fault, lied to me, scared me, and then let me walk away. I want to hit him. I want to commission his would-be murderer to try again.
I stood there, at the foot of his bed, unable to move. After a few seconds, I realised my shallow breaths had synced with his.
He was so pale. And thin, too. He needed Mrs Hudson to feed him up. He needed me to drag him out on walks to get some blood in his face.
No. He didn’t need me.
But I…
I needed him.
And I had nearly lost him, in a very, very permanent kind of way. The kind of way where explanations, forgiveness, could only be murmured to a headstone.
Tears were running down my cheeks, but I didn’t really feel them. A trolley rattled by in the hallway and he shifted his head slightly, but didn’t wake up. I inhaled the bleach cleaner, the aftershave, the lingering trace of the nurse’s perfume, and exhaled again. How could this be the same man I’d danced with at John and Mary’s wedding? How long could we have been a sad song before we were too far gone to bring back to life?
I wanted to stay. But staying for nothing wasn’t who I was. And nothing was what I would get, when he woke up. I could see how it would play out, and I couldn’t mend any more life-threatening gashes to my heart. I wiped my cheeks and turned, walking back to the door.
Fingers over the handle, body braced for another step. Over the low hiss of the morphine pump, I heard him; quieter, hoarser, gentler than I’d ever heard.
“I am sorry.”
I stopped. Inhaled through the sharp pierce of pain and shock under my sternum. I could feel him looking at me.
“I am too,” I said quietly, and left.
****
Odd things happen on Wednesdays. Obviously, the oddest day of the week is a Tuesday. But Wednesdays have their own particular weirdness.
Greg was out late, hunting down a serial killer or something. Whatever it is that the Met’s finest detectives do when they’re doing overtime. Meanwhile, I was in my room at his flat, wishing that my headache would go away, doing Riddles on my phone.
This bed was actually more comfortable than Sherlock’s one. Probably because it was newer. The bedsheets smelt of my perfume now; the overpowering scent of lemon washing powder had faded into a pleasanter background. My pillow was too hot, even when I flipped it. It was nearly ten PM, and I knew I needed to go to bed soon. But since being demoted, I saw no reason to be a responsible adult.
Right as that thought crossed my mind, Sherlock’s name popped up along the top of my screen.
I stared at it, the phone vibrating in my hands, for a good ten seconds before my finger came up. It was meant to press the red button. Obviously. I didn’t want to speak to my hospitalised, drama-queen, cheating, lying ex. Especially not when I had a headache. But neurons misfired; limbs disobeyed; the phone blipped. Anyway, I pressed the green button. Then, because that’s what you do when you’re on a private phone call, I adjusted my head and pressed the phone to my ear, and listened to the static of another person’s breathing.
“Y/N,” he said at last. His voice was quiet.
“Sherlock.”
“I…I just needed to hear you.”
“Hear me?”
“Hear that you’re alright.” I heard a rustle of bedsheets and the faint beeping of a monitor before he spoke again, his voice stronger now. “I can control nightmares when I’m awake. Lock them up inside my Mind Palace. But…it’s harder to manage my subconscious when I am, myself, unconscious.”
And just like that, I was sucked back into Sherlock-jargon and Sherlock-world, like my absence was only ever meant to be temporary.“Oh.”
“Are you alright?”
“No.”
“I suppose you’ve seen the papers.”
“Yeah, it’d be hard not to.” I adjusted my position slightly, wincing as a shard of pain shot across my temple. “I can’t say that I ever noticed such amazing sexual prowess, but, you know, maybe Janine turned you on more.”
“Hmph.” I could almost feel Sherlock’s huff down the back of my neck. “At least you weren’t petty enough to run to the media about that.”
“Don’t call her petty. She was brave enough to get her retribution. I’m just not ready for my five minutes of fame yet.”
“Are you seriously defending my ex-girlfriend?”
“As another ex-girlfriend? Yes.”
“Huh. I…assumed you hated her.”
“Did she know about me?”
“What?”
“When you were still with me.” I could hear my words sharpening. I hoped he’d bleed. “Did she know?”
“.…No-o-o,” Sherlock said reluctantly. “I led her to believe we had already broken up.”
“So she wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“And thus, you don’t hate her? John has been misguiding me with the offhanded comments he used to make about his girlfriends.”
“She’s not the one I need to hate.”
There was a pause.
“I was going to ask if we could have a, a hiatus,” Sherlock began. He sounded uncertain. “In our relationship. So that I could pursue Janine.”
I heard myself laugh. “Did you seriously think I’d be fucking okay with that?”
“I had gone through the conversation and its possible outcomes several times in my Mind Palace. I had not considered that you would break up with me beforehand.”
“How could you think I’d be alright with that? With you just…You know? Having sex with another woman? I mean, even if I didn’t absolutely despise you for faking the feelings, for using her - even just leaving all that aside, how did you think I’d feel?”
“Bodies are merely transport. Fidelity is a mental construct-”
I laughed again. “Oh, okay! So, the other way round? Me breaking up with you for a bit to date another man? For the sake of my work? Kissing him, fucking him - you’d have been fine with that, right?”
The silence was deafening. Literally deafening, because I could hear Sherlock’s raspy breathing, static crackling straight into my ear.
“I already know you wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, yeah, you do. Because you somehow dug up my past and then flung it in my face to hurt me when you were the one lying your fucking arse off.”
“You hadn’t told me.”
“Because that’s trust, Sherlock. You had to earn my trust enough for me to tell you something as raw and upsetting as that. Look, though. I was right to not blurt it out during our first pillow-talk. You aren’t worthy of it.”
“Y/N…”
“I can hear your heartrate monitor,” I said flatly.
“It’s not from the conversation. It’s the…” There was evident pain laced through his words now. “Turned the morphine off.”
“For what?”
“Don’t deserve it right now.”
“Oh, so you punish yourself and reward yourself with your fucking morphine supply?” I shook my head against the pillow. “Spoken like a true addict.”
“Y/N, I-”
“Goodnight, Sherlock.”
I hung up.
****
Three days later, I heard the key in the front door and turned to Greg.
“This houseplant is beyond resurrection. It’s so dead. I’ve never met a more dead plant in my whole…What’s wrong?”
Greg took off his heavy coat. Threw it on the floor. “He’s gone and done a runner.”
“Sorry? Who?” But I already knew.
“Sherlock.” He groaned, running both hands over his head. “Escaped out the bloody window. We can’t find him anywhere. Don’t know what he’s doing, what he’s after. Christ.” He looked up at me, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Don’t suppose you’d have any clue? Heard from him at all? We’ve got nothing left to go on, so…”
I took a deep breath. “No, he hasn’t contacted me.” I wouldn’t have expected him to, after I’d hung up. But I hadn’t blocked his number. “Have you checked Baker Street?”
“First place we looked.”
“Behind the clockface of Big Ben?”
“You know,” Greg said ruminatively, “I didn’t believe Mycroft when he said Sherlock went there. Did he really?”
“He took me there once.”
“Huh.” Greg shook his head. “Yeah, no, we checked there too. Oh, Christ. He’s gonna bleed out if he’s not careful.”
Neither of us ate much dinner. I watched the sun’s rays slide across the floor, watched the streetlamps shine through the windows. The TV stayed off. We pretended to read stuff on our phones. I wondered where Sherlock was, if he needed help, what he was thinking, escaping hospital when he needed to heal.
Eventually I gave up and went to bed. A few hours later I heard Greg scrambling around. I got up and stood in my bedroom doorway until he noticed me.
“They found him. Got him back to Baker Street. Internal bleeding.” He shook his head, grappling furiously with his shoes. “Needed his heart restarted and now he’s back in St Bart’s. The wanker.”
“I’m having deja vu,” I said with a faint smile. “Drive carefully, Greg.”
He hesitated for a moment. “You don’t want to-”
“No, I don’t think I should.”
He nodded, and was out the door a second later. I stood there for a bit, staring at nothing, until my phone pinged from inside my room.
I went in. Sherlock’s name lit up the top of my notifications.
I’m sorry. Truly. SH.
I sighed, chewing my lip, and then brought up the keyboard, typing one-handedly.
Please stop nearly-dying. It’s getting boring.
Almost instantly:
I didn’t know you cared. SH.
You’ve had your heart restarted twice in eight days. Cool it.
Oh, I’m sure I could manage a third time if I tried. SH.
I sighed, the corners of my mouth pulling into a wry smile. Greg’s coming to yell at you.
Molly’s already here. So is John and Mary. SH.
Mrs Hudson will be here tomorrow, no doubt. SH.
They’re all telling me off already. SH.
Will there be a seventh visitor? SH.
Maybe, if you ask Mycroft very nicely.
I turned my phone on silent.
****
“...Having Botox at his age is inadvisable. As is the baldness therapy. A toupee would be cheaper.”
I grinned. “He can’t tie his ties properly, either. They’re always lopsided. And then he sees himself in whatever reflection is nearest and tries to straighten it, but…”
“Mirror-image.”
“Yeah.”
“A ridiculous excuse for a brain,” Sherlock huffed. “There are fifteen easy ways to murder a man like him.”
“I’m not murdering anyone, though. That won’t get me a promotion.”
“Promotions are overrated.”
“Says the man who invented his own career.”
He breathed a chuckle, and I stretched my legs out down the bed, half-expecting to feel his cold feet against mine. But no, it was just the angular shape of the phone, pressed between my ear and the pillow.
“By the way, stop hacking into my Spotify and creating ‘jams’ with me.”
“I’m in a hospital bed, Y/N. If I try to leave again without a nurse’s consent, John is going to handcuff me to the bed - No, don’t say it-”
“Ooh, kinky.”
He sighed. “I have nothing better to do than watch you slowly rot your brain by playing songs on repeat.”
“And also listening to them on repeat with me?”
“I dislike pop music,” he said unhappily.
“Even Houdini? Aww. That’s a good song.”
“It is better than some of the tripe the nurses listen to, I suppose.”
“How many times did you listen to it before you came to that conclusion?”
“Eleven.”
“And then you micro-managed my queue and stuck something else on.”
“Yes.”
“I snorted out loud and the whole tube looked at me oddly.”
“Your snorts are known to be alarming,” Sherlock said idly. “Try to play something different tomorrow, will you?”
“I come and I go, tell me all the ways you need me,” I sung softly, under my breath. “I’m not here for long…catch me ‘fore I go, Houdini…”
He sighed again, loudly. “You are an infuriating person.”
I grinned smugly.
“Stop grinning.”
“You can’t even see me.”
“I can hear your breathing pattern has changed, accommodating the gap between your lips which would suggest you are smiling. Stop it.”
“Nope,” I said, popping the P.
It was the fourth day of these evening phone calls. I’d started it, pressing on his name one evening close to midnight. He’d picked up. I hadn’t known what to say, but he’d launched into a grumpy deduction about a self-important doctor. Then he’d deduced my demotion, and I’d told him off for being reckless enough to leave his hospital bed.
I might have started it, but he was the one who phoned the next evening. Eleven-eleven…I’d made a wish when I pressed ANSWER. He’d phoned again, and again, and I’d answered each time. We’d talked for almost an hour a day, the calls ending soon after midnight. He was bored, stuck in hospital, a cacophony of depressing noises in the background. I lay in my bed, in Greg’s flat, and whispered into the phone like a secretive teenager. I didn’t think about it during the day; didn’t think about the fact that climbing into bed and waiting for my phone to silently vibrate was quickly becoming the best parts of my miserable days.
“I got A Tale of Two Cities from a charity shop a while ago.” He probably would’ve known this. It was one of the books I’d taken with me from 221b. God, I’d have to go back there at some point, preferably before he was released from hospital, so that I could gather up the rest of my stuff. “I started reading it. And…you know, it’s good. Gripping. Best thing of Charles’ Dickens that I’ve read so far, in my opinion.”
“I believe Mycroft may have read it. Guillotines? And…a child. A child called Lucie…” I could almost hear Sherlock rummaging through his mind palace.
“Yes! And so much drama, and I’m not even halfway through. There’s the famous opening lines…It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…I like that. And I like Sydney Carton, the ne’er-do-well with a wig…”
I carried on talking, telling him about the tragic romance of a single blonde hair that the wrongly-imprisoned man had on his shoulder, a strand of hair from his beloved wife that he would never see again, that he begged the guards to let him keep. I told him about Monsieur Defarge, and Charles Darnay, and rambled on about the Revolution, the metaphors, the startling similarities I had found between then and now.
At some point, I just…stopped, slightly breathless from having spoken so rapidly but so quietly too. I could still hear the faint hiss of Sherlock’s morphine pump.
“Did you zone out?” I whispered. “Start Mind Palacing?”
“No,” Sherlock said. “No. I listened. It’s interesting. Some of it, actually, may be useful future references for cases.”
“If you ever solve a case using A Tale of Two Cities…” I began, muffling a laugh.
“It wouldn’t be my first case to involve murder-by-guillotine,” he said calmly.
“What? Seriously?”
“Yes. This was long before I met you - or John, or even Stamford. It was…Devon, I believe?”
“Devon?”
“Keep your voice down,” Sherlock said dryly. “Gavin’s walls can’t be that thick.”
“Oh, shut up. Seriously? Devon?”
“Yes. An affair, a wrongly-suspected man, and a clumsily-fashioned homemade guillotine. It was a mess. The head rolled down a slope and into a river, and was washed up in a field several miles downstream. There was a very irate bull.”
I started giggling. “Are you joking?”
“No,” Sherlock said, sounding offended. “If I fabricated a case, it would be much more interesting.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. I’ll fabricate one tonight and tell you tomorrow. If, that is, my braincells don’t rot entirely from listening to whichever terrible song you choose to have on repeat during your commutes. That should be an interesting bedtime story.”
I listened to the cadence of his voice, low and rich with amusement and warm with affection. I could picture his expression, glacial eyes crinkled at the corners, lips quirking up reluctantly. There was a phantom shape behind me, a heavy arm slung over my waist, a hot breath against my neck.
“...after all, I often imagine how I would murder my nearest and dearest. Mary, I believe, would be the most difficult to murder…”
“Mary? Really?”
“Oh, yes.” There was a hint of wry laughter in his voice. “Very clever, that woman. You, I think, would be-”
“You’ve imagined murdering me? Wow. You’re an incredible charmer.”
“If you’d let me finish.” His voice dipped. “You would be exempt. The sole exemption.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “Oh.”
“No clever comeback?”
“Give me a few seconds. I’ll get back to you.”
“Very well. In the meantime…” There was a definite chuckle in his voice, and it made me smile, the duvet shifting against my cheek. I listened to him, to that irresistible voice talking about murder in the most endearing way possible, and the smile dropped off my face.
The way he talked - gentle, quiet, intimate, fond, amused - made me feel like the most important person in the world. Maybe, like the only person in the world who mattered. But the last time I’d heard him talk like this, he’d been on the phone to another woman. He’d been faking feelings for her. My smile vanished completely. How could I tell if he was faking it now?
That was the problem. I couldn’t. Nausea roiled through me, the bed suddenly tilting like it was caught in a storm at sea.
“...machete would be too clumsy…Y/N?” Sherlock’s voice changed as he listened to the silence. “Y/N? What’s wrong?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I said softly.
“What?” He sounded genuinely confused.
“Talking. Phoning. We’re exes now, Sherlock. We’re not even friends.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t.” My voice was small.
“Don’t hang up,” he said. “Y/N? Tell me. Explain. Please.”
“You cheated on me.” I kept my tone level, quiet. “And broke my heart. Lied to my face. Brought up my old issues with trust to twist the situation. We’re not together, we’re not friends, we’re…I don’t know what we are, but-”
“Y/N, I wanted-” he began, but I barrelled on.
“But you hurt me, Sherlock, you really truly hurt me, and then you…” I remembered standing on the stairs, dizzy and terrified, the pressure of Sherlock’s grip lingering even as he stepped back. “And then you let me walk away.”
“Y/N, it wasn’t - It was never my intention to-”
“Don’t.” I sighed, lifting my head enough to pry the phone free, looking at his name until it blurred, until the peripheral red of the hang-up button was all I could see.
“Don’t start caring about me now, Sherlock.”
****
My love, he makes me feel like nobody else, nobody else
But my love
He doesn’t love me, so I tell myself, I tell myself
I sat on the tube, headphones jammed into my ears, my eyes still swollen from crying myself to sleep the night before, grimly hoping Sherlock was listening, and would listen to the song I planned to have on repeat today.
One, don’t pick up the phone
You know he’s only calling cause he’s drunk and alone
Two, don’t let him in
You’ll have to kick him out again
Three, don’t be his friend
You know you’re gonna wake up in his bed in the the morning…
This was it. I was done. So why did I even care, why was I hoping, that Sherlock was listening to this?
I keep pushing forwards but he keeps pulling me backwards
Nowhere to turn, no way, no
Now I’m standing back from it, I finally see the pattern
I never learn, I never learn, no…
****
The V&A Museum was so big that you could go there every week and still see things you hadn’t spotted before. I hadn’t been there in about a year. I remembered the last time I’d come here; Mary and John had been newly engaged, and Mary and I had wanted to see an exhibition. John had said he’d let us have our girls’ day out. Pretty much as soon as we arrived, we spotted swathes of blue coat whipping around the corners, heard hushed but irritated whispers. Sherlock had felt left out, we surmised, and dragged John along with him. Once we’d finished messing with them - including bitching about them loudly and discussing whether we should just break free, emigrate together, and look for better men in Australia - we all went to the café together and had a great time. Even Sherlock.
It had been two weeks since the last phone call with Sherlock. Two dreary weeks. Greg had been working overtime, and my job felt like a pointless, sludgy drudge of existence. Sometimes when I stayed up too late, I found myself wishing his name would pop up on my phone. But it didn’t.
Here I was, walking around the museum on my own, spotting new things, rereading familiar information stands. I walked through the ironworks exhibition, resisting the urge to brush my fingers over the delicate, strong curves of metal framework. Down the centre of the room were benches. The first one was occupied by a group of tourists, but the second one was free and I slumped onto it with a sigh, rubbing my face.
I listened to the hum of people, the chatter so loud and concentrated that it blurred into an indistinct rumble. There was a screech of something heavy being moved; the echo of a door slamming further down the room; a toddler’s annoyed screams building into a crescendo before they were pacified.
A flicker, in my peripheral vision. The long edge of a dark coat.
I looked up slowly, up and up until I met Sherlock’s glacial eyes. His face was gaunt, strained with the effort of standing upright. His hands were interlaced behind his back. His hair was unbrushed. Shirt collar crumpled. He was so obviously unwell.
My heart still skipped a goddamn beat.
“Why?” I asked wearily. It was the first time I’d seen him properly, since that moment on the stairwell in Baker Street. I didn’t know how I could ever have felt scared of him. Right now, he looked weaker than a kitten. “Was it the window again, or the door this time?”
Sherlock’s eyes darted around before returning to me. “I need you.”
A blunt, flat statement. No undertones, no depth. Just three words, and yet somehow those three words, stripped to their most basic selves, still punched the air out of my lungs.
I recovered. “For what? Fake girlfriend, fake fiancé, fake wife? Fake ex, maybe? That’d be quite the plot-twist, I guess.”
Sherlock ducked his head. “I…I had thought of things to say. Planned them, actually. Meticulously worded an entire speech. But I…can’t remember it.”
Two young men brushed past him, and he swayed slightly.
“Oh, for the love of God, sit down before you fall,” I said curtly.
He did, putting a hand to his chest gingerly.
“Should I call an ambulance?”
“No. It’s fine. Just…Not used to the strenuous exercise yet.” Sherlock took a slow breath, fingers digging into his coat. “Y/N…It was never my intention to hurt you. You know how I am about my work. Destroying Magnussen was the only thing on my mind and - I suppose - I developed tunnel-vision. Magnussen remains undestroyed, and the stakes are higher now - Much higher - but the fact remains that I truly did not want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
I stared at our feet; his smart, scuffed black shoes a hands’-width away from my equally scuffed beige boots. “You know what, Sherlock? That’s somehow worse.” I looked up. “You managed all of that without even trying to? You hurt me that much and it wasn’t even intentional? Holy shit, what would you have done if you’d actually been trying, huh?”
“I wouldn’t try to hurt you,” Sherlock said. His forehead glimmered with sweat. I predicted I’d be ringing emergency services in a minute. Three old ladies shuffled by with Zimmers, and he waited until they’d gone by before meeting my eyes again, his expression earnest. “I am simply an arse, Y/N. That is all there is to it. But…when M - when someone shot me, I nearly died.”
“According to John, you were dead.”
“Yes. But in those seconds, I retreated to my Mind Palace. I saw a lot of people there. Mycroft, Molly, even Anderson. But…I saw you, too. You told me not to leave you, and then you slapped me, and I believe…Well, anyway. That’s why I’m apologizing.”
I broke the eye-contact, listening to the tourists on the next bench laughing riotously. “What do you expect to actually happen, Sherlock?”
Silence. I watched him, watched the play of thoughts and aborted sentences flicker across his face. “Stop thinking about you should say,” I said quietly. “Say what you feel. What you actually, genuinely feel.”
His jaw clenched. He turned his head, meeting my eyes.
“I love you.”
I didn’t realise I’d started to cry until he put his arm around me, awkwardly scooting us closer. I dropped my head to his shoulder. Inhaled the familiar tang of old tobacco and aftershave and formaldehyde, all hidden beneath a strong scent of antiseptic.
Then I took a deep breath. I needed to blow my nose. Sat up straight, pulling away; Sherlock’s arm fell limply to his side.
“I have to go.”
“No.” Sherlock sounded desperate. “Don’t. Don’t go. Y/N, please.”
I didn’t know if I’d collapse the moment I tried to stand. But I didn’t.
I walked away, unable to look back, and left him there.
****
I love you. SH.
It’s not the way I wanted to tell you. SH.
I’m sorry. SH.
I’m in love with you. Always have been. SH.
John would tell me to give you space. So I will. But please talk to me again. SH.
****
I sat on Greg’s sofa, listening to the birds chirping outside. The phone lay on the table in front of me, the black screen reflecting a square of window and blue sky.
The whole thing felt…unfinished. Like our breakup was only ever meant to be temporary, even though it wasn’t. Maybe that was why I’d been unable to achieve any true sense of closure. Maybe that was why I’d been surfing along, drowning, sharks circling, yet still carrying on numbly. Maybe that explained the way I’d been hanging in the ache between grief and resolution. Maybe that was why I wasn’t a stereotypical heartbroken ex.
It just didn’t feel finished.
Greg was out at the pub, doing his Saturday evening thing with the lads. I’d already been sitting here for an hour, watching the sun’s setting rays move across the flat, listening to the quiet tick-tock of the clock. There was a lot to choose between. A good few decisions to make.
But, I realised, I’d already made up my mind.
I leaned forward and picked the phone up.