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There are two chairs set up. The wooden panels of the floor are old, one-hundred-and-seventy years. At least. The building itself is newer, however, which suggests the walls had been taken down recently in the last decade or so and put back up. The floors however, remained. Historical sentiment? Likely. The floor is chipped in some places, but has been finished twice since then, which means the owners went to lengths to keep the wood protected, looking glossy and new. The windows--
“Sherlock.”
He blinks, glancing from the windows to Ella.
“You’ve been sitting there for a while,” she says gently. “What are you thinking about?”
Sherlock turns away. “Nothing of importance.”
They lapse into silence. Ella is scratching a pen across a pad of paper. The scratches come quickly. Up and down, up and down, break. Pause. Up and down, up and down. The length of the scratches indicate the notes to be bullet points, not complete sentences, and the pattern indicates impassive assessment of his detachment and unwillingness to speak.
That was the entire reason he was there wasn’t he?
“Why don’t you tell me about a happy memory, then?”
To talk about John? Six years ago, the notion of going to therapy would have been ludicrous. Inconceivable. Now, it is his only hope. John wants nothing to do with him, and anyone else he could possibly speak to reminds him of John. Everything did. The flat, cases-- everything he is today revolves around John Watson.
“What about other friends?”
Sherlock looks back to Ella, surprised. He hadn’t realized she’d spoken.
“I’m sorry?”
She purses her lips. “I asked for you to remember a happy memory.”
Sherlock looks away once more. Happy? When he thinks of anything happy, happiness is the thread knotted through the eye of the needle that is John. Anything before that has been competition to be better, think better, more intellectual and admired. Is that all he’d wanted in the end? To be admired? And the solution he found to this aspiration had been to be smarter than everyone, and thus manifested his narcissism.
But not quite. Because narcissism implies self-appreciation and self-love, of which Sherlock has very little.
The clock behind him ticks rhythmically, methodically, reminding him he’d been asked a question. And that was it at the end of it all wasn’t it? Sherlock Holmes, ignoring those around him and trampling them in his own obsession with putting something else together as if something else is always more interesting than the person standing in front of him. It had taken Sherlock years to dig this part of him out and shove it to the surface, how much he craves the praise of others and how much he cares. Mycroft had always taunted him with the notion of sentiment, perhaps because he knew how susceptible Sherlock was to it.
“He gave me a note,” Sherlock mumbles eventually. He’d since forgotten the question.
Ella shifts, fingers the edge of the pad of paper, and clicks her pen. “What did it say?”
“It said,” Sherlock breathes shakily, “It said I should avoid any further endeavor to make amends for what I’ve done.”
The second hand on the clock moves seventeen times, each tick perceivable lengthier than the last. Ella scratches the pen on the paper. Three words, probably, judging by the breaks she took to lift the pen.
“That he doesn’t want to see me for the foreseeable future,” he takes a quick breath, and closes his eyes, remembering the letters of a shaky, angry scrawling of a letter, “and that he doesn’t want Rosie near me, lest I find a way to hurt her as I’ve hurt everything else he loves.”
Ella scratches the pen against the paper. Sherlock feels the urge to grab it, throw it. He doesn’t because it would probably be a bit not good.
“How do you feel?”
Sherlock wants to laugh. “How do you imagine I feel?”
There’s more scratching.
“This isn’t about me. This is about you.”
Sherlock sighs, and leans back in the chair. He’s never known how to express himself. How might he bring himself to unhinge his ribcage for someone he scarcely knows? His chest is ablaze with unknown, unspoken, unwritten emotion. He can’t place a name to what he feels, and he doesn’t want to. It goes deeper than mere sentiment, he’s known that for a while now. It’s akin to love, and he’s afraid.
Sherlock starts, “I feel… sad.”
Furious, quick scratches.
“Yes. Go on.”
“I… Am sad. That John won’t speak to me.”
Ella nods at him. He tries not to look at her, though. If he imagines he’s alone it’s much easier. He feels vulnerable. Too vulnerable. Like a dancer on stage without shoes, falling over himself in effort to finish choreography. He closes his eyes. The stage welcomes him.
“I wish I could have done more,” he says, “I wish I could have saved her.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” Ella interjects.
“No,” Sherlock refutes, “because I am directly responsible for her death.” And before Ella can argue, he continues: “I was cocky. Arrogant. I know I was. I always am, but I’ve never seen how treacherous and predatory it makes me until just now. Because of my need to prove myself right, Mary was shot by a bullet meant for me. This woman truly wanted to kill me because of my arrogance.”
Sherlock is out of breath by the end. Ella, with words and words on her closed lips, sits back. Sherlock knows she must have things to say, but she waits. She probably expects him to continue. Should he continue, then?
“Her blood is on my hands, and by extension John’s blood is on my hands. She was part of him, an extension of him,” he smiles grimly to himself, “because he chose her.”
A beat passes, and Sherlock collects himself. This is something he forbids himself to think of. It doesn’t matter, it has never mattered, and it will never matter in the future either, if there is even a future with him and John.
“I made a vow,” he says softly, “I made a vow to protect them. And I didn’t.”
“You couldn’t,” Ella says. “There’s a difference between ‘didn’t’ and ‘couldn’t.’ You couldn’t protect them. You didn’t have the ability to protect them.”
“I didn’t have to keep baiting her. I didn’t have to get her angry.”
Ella writes something down, then says, “There was nothing you could have done to prevent her death. It’s normal for people to think they could have saved someone who ends up dying. It’s natural. But believe me when I say there was nothing you could have done.”
A hasty breath makes its way into Sherlock’s lungs. It strangles him. Ella’s words sound cold and harsh albeit spoken gently and warm. They sound like lies, but no vocal inflection suggests dishonesty.
“I--” Sherlock stops.
“Yes?”
“I love him.”
More scratches. “I know.”
“I love him, but he doesn’t love me. He can’t love me. Not after what I’ve done.”
Ella breathes softly, and leans forward in her chair.
“Have you told him, then?”
Shaking his head, Sherlock laughs despite himself. “‘Hello, John. I know you want to see literally anyone but me at the moment, and I know I’ve just killed the love of your life, but I’d like to tell you I’ve been in love with you for five years.’ Is that a conversation you expect to go well?”
Ella says, “I don’t expect anything, and neither should you. All you can do is tell him the truth and let him do with that what he may.”
Silence follows her statement like a gentle punctuation mark. Sherlock forces his mind to halt because he can’t allow himself to touch the option of telling John how he feels. He can’t.
“I think you should tell him,” Ella continues, “But I also think John needs time and space to adjust to life without his wife. May I suggest something, Sherlock?”
Sherlock doesn’t respond, but he expects Ella to continue further. She does not disappoint.
“Write--”
“A blog?” Sherlock scoffs. “I could never.”
“No, no,” Ella waves a delicate hand as if to bat away the words. “But write a letter of your own for John, maybe a series of letters; however, don’t show them to him until he’s ready to see them.”
Sherlock presses his lips together in thought. The idea was not entirely unappealing.
Ella glances above Sherlock’s head.
“I believe that’s our time,” she announces. “I will see you next week?”
Sherlock stands before she says the first two words, already at the door by the end of the question. He nods stiffly, wraps his coat tighter around him, and braves out into the open street.