impishtubist (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
impishtubist) wrote2013-03-17 09:48 am
impishtubist) wrote2013-03-17 09:48 am
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"The Fall of Gods" (21/24)
Warnings: Language, angst, mentions of suicide, implied past alcoholism, implied PTSD, religious themes, minor character death, sexual content, homicide, illness, permanent character injury, violence, hospital procedures.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20
Warnings: Language, angst, mentions of suicide, implied past alcoholism, implied PTSD, religious themes, minor character death, sexual content, homicide, illness, permanent character injury, violence, hospital procedures.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20
John is at work when Mycroft’s people come for him.
“Sod off,” he says the moment he sees the three men, suits impeccable, standing stiff and ramrod straight in the center of the room, severely out of place amid the ill children and harried parents. “I haven’t got time for this. We’re in the middle of flu season, could you have chosen a worse time?”
He turns away to speak to Sarah, and one of the men grabs his arm.
John, reflexively, punches him.
The entire room goes silent, except for the occasional sniffle. The man brings a hand to his now-bloodied nose and says, almost exasperated, “Mr Holmes said you would do that.”
“Look at that. Mycroft knows me after all,” John says dryly. “Now tell me what it is you’ve come to say, and then you can be on your way.”
The three men exchange glances. One finally leans in.
“Mr Holmes says that it’s to do with his brother,” he says in a quiet voice, “and that he would appreciate both your discretion and your presence.”
John goes.
----
Mycroft doesn’t waste any time with pleasantries.
“I know this may come as a shock to you, gentlemen, but I’ve brought you here today to tell you that my brother is, in fact, alive,” he says the moment John arrives and joins Greg in front of Mycroft’s desk. “He faked his death eighteen months ago in order to embark on a mission to destroy the network James Moriarty left behind.”
He gives a brief overview of Sherlock’s mission twice before John gives up trying to understand and simply lets the words wash over him in cold, shattering waves. He grips Greg’s hand tightly, so much so that the ring on his left hand digs into Greg’s flesh. His husband, as ashen as the cold embers in Mycroft’s fireplace, doesn’t say a word in complaint.
“Why tell us this now?” Greg asks finally. His voice is weak with shock. “Is he...?”
“No, he’s very much alive, I’m happy to report,” Mycroft says, though his face is actually impassive. “He completed the final leg of his mission some days ago. I decided it would be best to tell you after he arrived back on home soil.”
“We can see him, then?”
“You will be taken to him immediately.”
Greg asks a few more questions that don’t register with John through his shock, and then he falls silent.
“One last thing, gentlemen,” Mycroft says as they are getting to their feet, shaky with the news, John feeling the beginnings of anger start to stir in his gut. “Sherlock has spent the past six months believing you dead, Inspector Lestrade. It was a ruse used by Moran to flush him out, and needless to say, it worked. He is aware of the truth now, but do keep in mind that you are not the only ones to have suffered such a shock. Now, if you’ll follow me downstairs, I’ll have one of my men take you to the hospital.”
“Hospital?” Greg finds his voice first. “Was he injured?”
“No,” Mycroft answers, but he can be persuaded to say nothing more on the subject.
They are driven to the hospital after, and personally escorted to a private wing.
“He’ll be in there,” one of Mycroft’s men informs them when they come to a room at the end of a hall, and he leaves them there, standing awkwardly in the corridor.
The privacy curtains are open and, after trading hesitant glances, John and Greg turn from each other to look through the window.
John speaks first.
“That’s not Sherlock,” he mutters dully. The man in the hospital bed is far too slender--and his features far too average--to be Sherlock. He’s seen better days, though, John notes with a glance. His cheeks are sunken, indicative of him having lost too much weight recently, and he’s on oxygen.
“You’re right,” a voice says behind them, and they both turn.
“Jesus,” Greg curses, and for a moment they can do nothing but stare.
Sherlock’s hair is a few centimeters shorter and some shades lighter than the last time John laid eyes on him. The bones of his face are sharper and there are lines at the corner of his eyes, but beyond that he looks virtually the same. His gaze flits between them, but John notices that it keeps straying back to--and lingering on--Greg. After a moment, Sherlock gives them a weak smile that falls quickly from his face. He nods to the room behind them, looking grim once again.
“Associate of mine. He aided me in taking down Moriarty’s network.”
“Associate?” Greg asks, surprised. He turns to look through the window at the man again; after a moment, a frown cuts through his features, though John can’t say why.
“Friend.”
“You don’t have friends,” John snaps, suddenly finding his voice, and he relishes the way Sherlock flinches.
“I thought my brother had filled you in,” he says quietly. John snorts.
“Yeah, ‘cause apparently you were too much of a coward to do it yourself.”
Sherlock’s brows snap together and his lips thin.
“Then you’ll know,” he says in a tightly controlled voice, “that I had no choice but to fake my death. You’d have died otherwise, don’t you understand? Both of you.”
“We under -” Greg starts, but John cuts him off.
“No. I watched you die, you fucker. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you chose to stay dead.” He jerks his head over his shoulder, indicating the room behind them. “It was all right for you to trust a stranger with your secret, but not me? Not us? We were your friends; did you really think we would turn our backs on you?”
Sherlock glares.
“That wasn’t the issue and you know it,” he snaps. “There was a sniper with his finger on a trigger, and if I hadn’t walked off that roof he would have killed you. Both of you. And it wasn’t enough to just fake my death, John, because if had ever been discovered that I was still living...” Sherlock stops and sucks in a deep breath, visibly trying to rein in his anger. “I stayed away to keep you alive. I won’t apologise for that.”
John gapes at him.
“I still can’t believe you would trust a stranger with your life rather than your two closest -”
“John,” Greg steps in finally, “that’s not a stranger.”
John turns so abruptly he nearly elbows Greg in the side. “What?”
Greg glances hesitantly at Sherlock, and then says, “That’s Victor. Victor Trevor.”
There is a moment of silence, and then Sherlock says, “Yes.”
“‘But -” Greg stops; clears his throat. He continues, softer, “Victor died, Sherlock.”
“So did I.” Sherlock gives Greg an unreadable look, and adds, “And so did you, for that matter.”
There is another long moment of silence, and John’s on the verge of saying Does anyone around you actually stay dead? But Sherlock looks as though he’s been awake upwards of four days or more, his shirt is rumpled, his eyes are rimmed red, and his gaze keeps straying to the window behind John and Greg.
And so John asks, “Is he going to be all right?” instead.
Sherlock gives a slow nod.
“I believe so, given time.”
John’s not sure which of them moves first, but they go from staring at one another from opposite sides of the corridor to meeting in the middle of it in a fierce embrace. John’s chin knocks against Sherlock’s hard shoulder and he tastes blood as his teeth cut into the inside of his mouth, but it doesn’t matter.
“Sherlock,” he whispers, the feel of the name strange on his tongue.
Sherlock’s, “Hello, John,” is something that John never thought he would hear again outside sleep. He feels at once dizzy and faint with it all, and is acutely aware that for some seconds only Sherlock’s strong grip is holding him upright.
They eventually pull apart and then Greg, after a hesitation so minute that only John notices it, wraps Sherlock in a loose hug, whispering, “It’s good to have you back.”
Something shifts in Sherlock’s face, and when John realises it’s his composure slipping, he turns away to give them some privacy. But he isn’t able to ignore the muffled, “I thought you were dead,” that Sherlock mutters against Greg’s shoulder. John hears fabric rustling, presumably Greg tightening his hold on Sherlock. When he speaks, his voice is rough.
“I’m not going anywhere, lad. I promise you that.”
---
John and Greg return to Baker Street in order to regroup and gather some things for Sherlock.
They borrow some shirts that belonged to Mrs Hudson’s husband and John starts to put together a dinner of sorts to take to the hospital. Greg, weary and grey and looking, for the first time, all of his fifty-one years, finally shuts down. He goes upstairs to sleep off the stresses of the day while John finishes cooking.
John sits down and opens his blog as he waits for a pot to boil.
He spends ten minutes staring at a blank screen.
This, announcing Sherlock’s return on his blog--this should be easy, because his readers will rejoice with him in the same manner that they grieved with him a year and a half ago. Writing this post should be simple, especially in comparison to the post that announced Sherlock’s death. Three words; three words that are unexpected, but not unwelcome.
Sherlock is alive.
But what comes next, his readers will want to know. John can’t say, and it’s this that stumps him. Do things go back to the way they were, the genius detective and his blogger; their landlady and their detective inspector; the crimes and their perpetrators?
How can they?
Sherlock is back, but he’s a little bit broken; a little bit different. They all are. And so the truth that’s so plainly sitting before John is one he doesn’t want to write, and one his readers don’t want to know.
Sherlock is back.
It’s not all right.
When Greg comes back down that evening, it takes John twenty minutes to convince him that no, it hadn’t all been a dream.
Sherlock is alive.
----
Sherlock spends that night at Baker Street.
He sits with John and Greg before the fireplace in the main room and talks himself hoarse trying to tell them about all that happened during his mission, and about Victor’s reasons for faking his death. Their mugs of tea all go untouched and quickly turn stone cold.
“You and Victor,” Greg says finally as midnight comes and goes. He waves a hand vaguely through the air, and it takes John a moment to catch his meaning.
“We decided it was best not to rekindle things,” Sherlock says, picking up on the question Greg doesn’t know how to properly ask. He waits for a beat, watching their faces, and then gives a cautious smile. “That lasted for about a month.”
Greg grins and happily claps him on the shoulder.
At one point, John ventures, “It’s a bit warm in here.”
Sherlock, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace, nods absently. Charlie is curled up at his side, and Sherlock has one gloved hand resting absently on the dog’s neck. The other holds his mug of tea. He hasn't removed the gloves once today, not even at the hospital.
John tries again. “Surely you don’t still need those gloves on.”
Sherlock blinks slowly and then draws back, coming out of his thoughts. He stares at John, lips parted slightly, and then says in slow realisation, “You don’t know.”
John glances at Greg and then raises an eyebrow. “Know what?”
Sherlock sets aside his mug.
“My mistake, of course. I didn’t think - well, what with one thing and another...” He trails off, poised to tug off his left glove, and then says, “There was an accident when we were in Belgium.”
John is too experienced to show surprise when Sherlock pulls off the glove, and he’s seen far worse in his career than a couple of missing fingers. But the fact that this is Sherlock, that this is someone he knows - that colours the injury and makes it seem worse than it is. None of this shows in his face, but inwardly he cringes. Greg, who is equally experienced at masking a reaction, merely shifts in surprise.
“Oh, Sherlock.” John takes the hand in his own, examining the old wound. “Does it hurt you?”
Sherlock shakes his head. “No.”
He takes off the other glove, revealing a whole hand, and then says, “There was a bomb, and I got too close to it. It’s because of Victor I’m alive. The infection would have killed me had he not disobeyed me and found a doctor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Sherlock says swiftly. He moves to put the gloves back on, but John rests a hand on his, stopping him. “Transport, remember?”
“I don’t think that’s quite true,” John says quietly, and Sherlock looks away. “This wasn’t done in a hospital. Field surgery, that is.”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
“Christ.” John shakes his head, a thousand images springing to mind. “Still, it could have been worse. Do you have full use of the other three fingers?”
Sherlock nods and flexes them for emphasis. Greg squeezes his shoulder and then withdraws. John leans back in his chair and reaches for his tea, and they all lapse into a companionable silence.
Charlie lifts his head and rests it on Sherlock’s knee. Sherlock blinks down at the dog and then gives him a quick smile.
“Hello,” he says, scratching behind one of Charlie’s ears with his three fingers. “What is it?”
Charlie licks the damaged hand happily and then returns his head to Sherlock’s leg, where he promptly falls asleep again. Sherlock, astoundingly, doesn’t protest. John and Greg exchange glances. This is new, patience and tenderness being far from Sherlock’s strong suits before his fall.
John begins to suspect that he has much more to thank Victor for than just saving Sherlock’s life.
----
Sherlock sleeps that night in an unfamiliar bed in the room that used to be his own. His rest is far from easy, and he realises that he’s not used to sleeping without Victor nearby. He gives up on the idea of sleep in the hour before dawn, and spends his morning trying to catch up on everything he missed during the eighteen months he was away.
It’s strange, he muses while he pokes around on his computer, being away from Victor for so long. For eighteen months they were never apart for more than a few hours at a time, and it was rare for them to have been separated by more than a few streets. But now Victor is in a hospital on the other side of London, and Sherlock feels his absence acutely. He feels odd and wrong, as though he is missing a vital part of himself. It’s as alien to him as his mangled hand.
Victor is still asleep when visiting hours at the hospital finally begin, but Sherlock kisses him on the forehead in greeting anyway.
“You must wake up,” he says quietly to his unconscious friend. He strokes a strand of hair out of Victor’s eyes. “You must, Victor. I need you.”
----
John visits the hospital again the next evening.
“Any change?” he asks as he comes into the room, holding two coffees. He hands one to Sherlock and keeps the other cradled in his hands. Sherlock shakes his head. In the bed next to his chair, Victor sleeps on.
"He's been through a lot," John tries to reassure, though he does notice that Victor is now on four liters of oxygen. Yesterday it had only been two. He pulls up a chair next to Sherlock in the confines of the small room, made smaller still by all the medical equipment. They face one another, leaning forward on forearms braced on thighs, cradling their cups. "His body has been severely traumatized. It might be some time before things turn around, but they will."
Sherlock nods, and then pointedly switches the line of conversation.
They talk. Not about Moriarty or Istanbul or Athens or all of the other places Sherlock’s vendetta took him. Rather, they speak of old cases and the current crime spree that’s gripping the headlines; they talk of bees and football. John has so many questions that he doesn’t even know where to begin, and so he doesn’t. All of that will come in time, which they now--blissfully, miraculously--have.
As the dinner hour comes and goes, John tosses his half-finished drink in the wastepaper bin. “Come back to the flat with me. Please. You’re exhausted.”
Sherlock shakes his head slowly. “I can’t. Later, perhaps.”
John swallows hard, trying to clamp down on the anger that flares in his chest. He’s only partially successful. It doesn’t hurt, it shouldn’t hurt, that Sherlock is choosing this not-stranger over them. It shouldn’t infuriate John that they are once again the ones being shut out of Sherlock’s life, but damn it, it does.
“Okay. Well. If you need anything...” John trails off. Sherlock looks up.
“What?”
Don’t say it, John mentally berates himself, but he has never been very good at listening to reason. Eighteen months of running around after Sherlock is testament enough to that.
“It’s just,” John wets his lips, takes a breath, “well. At least you knew how it felt, to be left behind. To have someone waltz out of your life one day and stroll back in years later, as though nothing had changed.”
Sherlock is out of his chair like a shot. He crowds John up against the wall, fists a hand in the front of his shirt and holds John in place with a strength John never before knew him to possess.
“Don’t you ever,” Sherlock snarls, eyes flashing fire, “try to compare the two situations again. For eleven years he was mine and I was his. Can you even fathom that? When he died, the world stopped. Yes, I died, I left you, but you moved on. As you should have.”
Sherlock releases him abruptly and takes a step back, sucking in great lungfuls of air as he tries to regain control of himself.
“I don’t doubt your grief,” he says at last, soft, resolutely not meeting John’s gaze, “but don’t ever pretend to know how I felt when he died. Or how I felt at his resurrection. The only way you could know... is if it happened to Lestrade.”
Sherlock turns abruptly and goes back over to the bed. He resumes his seat at Victor’s side and takes a limp hand in his own.
“Good night, John,” he says stiffly, and John knows he has been dismissed.
They don’t speak of it again.
----
He goes from darkness to sudden awareness, his senses assaulted by white and bright light. There are voices and blurred silhouettes all around him, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t bring them into focus. He tries desperately to speak, forming the words clearly in his mind, but he can’t force them past his tongue. When he tries to move, his limbs fail to respond, and panic sets in. He is trapped.
Someone touches his forehead, and that’s the last thing he remembers.
The second time Victor wakes, it’s dark and he is alone.
His memory is vague. He can recall gunshots and blood, and doesn’t remember what happened after he shot Moran. Sherlock isn’t at his side, and Victor fears the worst. But his vision is hazy and his limbs are lead, and he can’t even pull himself into a sitting position, let alone ask for his friend.
He falls asleep again without meaning to, and dreams only of Sherlock.
The third time Victor wakes, the world has ceased being stubbornly blurry. He’s in a hospital room, and it is dark once again. Perhaps it’s night.
“It’s a snowstorm, actually,” says a voice to his right.
Victor’s eyelids are too heavy to keep open for long, but he doesn’t need eyes to place that voice. He drags a tongue across cracked lips and tries to formulate all the questions running through his mind, but this is Sherlock, after all. He starts to answer them without Victor speaking a word.
“We’re back in England now,” he says.
“How long?” Victor rasps.
“It’s been nearly a week since we left Rome.”
“And I’ve been unconscious for that long? Jesus...”
“It’s the chelation therapy. They’re still trying to target all of the poison you had ingested. It’s a lengthy process,” Sherlock says, and he runs gentle fingers through Victor’s hair.
Victor forces open leaden eyes and drags them over to Sherlock’s face.
His hair is in the process of darkening to ebony again, and it grew out during their time in Rome, enough so that it’s starting to curl at the ends once more. Gone are the coloured contacts, and Sherlock gazes at him through the stormy-grey eyes Victor remembers from Before. He’s dressed in his usual smart shirt and dark trousers, and he’s wearing the watch Victor gave him for his twentieth birthday.
To look at him now is like gazing into the past, back to when they were young and whole and on the brink of something they couldn’t name. Now, they are a little more lined, a little more broken, and a little more in love.
“I thought you were dead,” Victor croaks. Sherlock’s impassive face breaks into a bemused smile.
“Why?”
“Dunno,” Victor rasps. “Seems like something you would do. Dying on the eve of your return. Very poetic.”
Sherlock snorts and Victor closes his eyes again. He’s not sure how much time passes, but when he opens them again snow is still falling and Sherlock is still at his side. The darkness beyond the window is impenetrable.
Victor is too tired for words. He holds out his hand, palm up, and after a moment Sherlock takes it. He tugs, and Sherlock seems to take his meaning. He kicks off his shoes and then slides onto the bed, wedging himself between Victor and the railing. He’s skinny enough that the narrow strip of mattress is more than adequate. Victor sighs, satisfied, and falls asleep again.
Sherlock is still there when he wakes for the third time that night. His head has fallen onto Sherlock’s shoulder, and Sherlock’s left hand rests on his thigh. He’s holding a book in his other hand, reading at a pace Victor wouldn’t be able to keep up with even on a good day. When he notices Victor awake, Sherlock sets aside the book.
“Hello,” Victor murmurs. Sherlock kisses his forehead, and Victor feels his lips curve into a smile against his skin.
“Hello. Do you feel all right?”
“I’ve had worse,” Victor points out. “You?”
“I was uninjured.”
“Thank God,” Victor says softly. “Have you seen John, yet? Mycroft?”
“John, yes. Mycroft and I have spoken by phone.” Sherlock pauses for a moment, and Victor can tell that there’s more he wants to say. “Victor... about Lestrade. He’s alive.”
He explains Moran’s ruse, and Victor’s anger at himself nearly outweighs his relief. He should have known. But Sherlock can’t quite keep the smile from his voice, even though his face is largely impassive, and Victor finds himself returning it.
Lestrade is alive.
Sherlock’s silence after that is long, however, and contemplative. Victor knows what is coming.
“You gave up everything just to keep me safe,” he says quietly. Victor shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “No. If it kept you safe, then I gave up nothing.”
Sherlock turns his head to press his lips against Victor’s temple.
“Tell me,” he whispers. “Tell me everything.”
And so Victor does.
He speaks of the attempts on Sherlock’s life prior to his supposed death; he talks about secret meetings with Mycroft and his staff in order to discuss upgrading Sherlock’s security level. He talks about his continued work with Mycroft, the planned mission in Bolivia - and then the car crash.
“The car crash was an attempt on your life, that much was true,” Victor says softly. Speaking for long periods of time drains him, and he has to pause for breath between sentences. “But not because of me. And if I hadn’t been where I was sitting, you would have died. Mycroft took advantage of the unexpected opportunity and started the Bolivia mission early, but when it was over... I decided that the best way to protect you was to stay dead. That way I could watch over you more effectively. Root out the necessary threats. Protect you from yourself, even, when it came to that.”
“The night I overdosed...” Sherlock trails off. Victor nods groggily.
“Yes. I was the one who called Greg. Thank God he took to heart the word of a stranger; I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t.”
“So you did know everything. Everything about my life.”
“Not quite,” Victor amends. “I didn’t know what it was like to live that life with you. I was just an observer. But you were safe, and that was all that mattered.”
“You were there. At every turn.”
“You see?” Victor attempts to smile, but it’s more of a struggle not to weep. “I never truly left you.”
Sherlock turns, folds him into a tight embrace, and Victor loses his battle against the onslaught of emotion.
“Mycroft sold your flat,” Sherlock murmurs into his ear sometime later, after Victor has composed himself, “but he kept your things. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find you a new place. In the meantime, you’ll stay at Baker Street.”
“Mm,” Victor agrees groggily.
“You could even stay permanently, I suppose. John may yet move out and live with Lestrade.”
Victor snorts.
“Doubt it. John’s never going to leave you, and Greg is terrible at co-habitation. So are we, come to think of it, when we’re not saving the world.”
Sherlock concedes his point with a wordless grunt. “They got married.”
“Don’t be getting any ideas.”
“Never.” Sherlock’s hand tightens on Victor’s thigh. “We’ve kept your return quiet. You’re listed under your French alias here at the hospital, though we may want to revisit that name at a later point in time. Jean and John... might get confusing. And, needless to say, I’d rather not be calling out my flatmate’s name when -”
“Sherlock,” Victor whispers, bringing a finger to Sherlock’s lips and fighting back laughter. “Shut up. Forget about my alias. We’ve come this far. If I’m going to return to this city, it will be as myself. I’ll not live with you and pretend to be anyone other than who I am. And whatever comes because of that... we’ll meet it together.”
Sherlock is quiet for a moment. Then he turns and presses his lips against Victor’s forehead, murmuring, “We’re home, Victor.”
Victor tugs the corner of his mouth into a quick smile. “Doesn’t feel much different.”
He feels Sherlock shift in surprise. “Doesn’t it?”
“No.” Victor tucks himself against Sherlock’s side and murmurs, “Everywhere was home with you.”
----
Mycroft had organized their return to England and Victor’s hospitalization. But he doesn’t see Sherlock for nearly a week after his return. Even though Victor has woken, Sherlock can’t be pried from his bedside.
It’s only when Mycroft makes a personal visit to the hospital that something akin to hesitation flickers across Sherlock’s face. Greg Lestrade, who stopped by on his lunch break to bring Sherlock some decent food, lays a hand on Sherlock’s arm.
“Go,” he says quietly. “I’ll sit with Victor.”
Sherlock gives in, finally, and follows his brother from the room. They go to Mycroft’s office.
“I thought you should know,” Mycroft says, sitting behind his desk, “that we’ve finished bringing Moriarty back. Richard Brook is officially dead.”
Sherlock nods mutely.
“We’ve also,” Mycroft continues, “gathered the bodies you left behind at the warehouse in Rome. Their deaths have been passed off as a drug operation gone wrong. I’ve managed to explain away the majority of your activities across three continents. Enough so that no one will suspect anything, at any rate.”
“Right,” Sherlock whispers. “Good, then.”
“Indeed. Your work has been restored.”
“I’m aware.” Sherlock gets to his feet. “Is that all?”
Mycroft also stands.
“How are you, Sherlock?”
The question catches his brother off-guard. His damaged hand twitches, and for a brief moment he looks as though he’s going to give a caustic reply.
But then Sherlock sags. He looks grey and worn, his eyes red from too many nights awake.
“He’s not getting better, Mycroft.” Sherlock’s words are distant. “It’s been days. They give him painkillers, they give him medication, but still he struggles to breathe. Struggles to stay awake, struggles with pain, just... struggles. Everything is an effort, and he’s not getting better.”
Sherlock appears to mentally shake himself, and when he meets Mycroft’s gaze again his eyes are cold and clear.
“Apologies,” he says woodenly. “I’m fine, Mycroft, thank you for inquiring. If you’ll excuse me, I should be getting back.”
“He’s not getting worse.” Mycroft tucks his hands into his pockets and says it again, because his little brother is falling apart in front of him and Mycroft has never wanted anything more than to fix things; fix him. “He’s not getting worse, Sherlock, do keep that in mind. Relax. He’s been in more perilous situations than this, I can guarantee that.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sherlock says dully. “You kept all that from me, remember?”
He’s almost to the door when Mycroft decides to speak again.
“When Victor’s mission in Bolivia ended,” he says quietly, “I came to him with plans for his resurrection. He asked if something like that was going to happen again - not the mission, but the accident. The car crash. The attempt on your life. I told him it had, in fact, happened three times before--and that it would undoubtedly happen again.”
“Three,” Sherlock says weakly. Mycroft nods.
“I then made the mistake of mentioning that, if Victor hadn’t been sitting in that seat, you would have died. I said it was luck that he had chosen it. He saved your life--perhaps without meaning to, but that’s what happened all the same. Victor went quiet for a moment after that. And then he said, ‘What if I could? What if I could save his life?’”
“And you let him.”
Mycroft inclined his head.
“I knew that, in order to truly keep you safe, I would have to call on my best resources. He is one of them. And he has always been there for you, even if you never realised it. He never left you, Sherlock. And he never will.”
----
When Victor wakes again, Sherlock’s usual chair is empty. But he isn’t alone.
“Hello,” Greg Lestrade says. He gives Victor a lopsided, sheepish smile. “Awake, are we?”
“Such as it is,” Victor murmurs. His blanket has pooled around his waist, the result of a restless sleep. He’s cold and his throat is dry, but he can’t summon the strength to do anything about either of those discomforts. Greg leans forward and tugs the blanket back into place, covering Victor’s arms and chest in the process. It’s an absent-minded movement; automatic.
God, but he hasn’t changed. Victor feels his throat tighten.
“Bit of a shock, this, I take it,” Greg offers hesitantly into the silence.
“Sherlock told me about you being alive,” Victor rasps. “But yeah, it was... a surprise.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I had the two of you come back to life on the same day. It’s gonna take some getting used to all around, I think.” Greg leans back in his chair and crosses his ankle over his knee. “I’d ask how you feel, but to be honest you look awful. Anything I can do to help?”
Victor swallows and shakes his head, aware that he’s staring at Lestrade as though he can’t quite believe his eyes - which, in part, is true. Part of him fears, irrationally, that Lestrade will disappear the moment he blinks.
He wonders if this is how Sherlock felt, all those months ago, standing the shadowed foyer of Victor’s French home.
Victor catches a glint out of the corner of his eye and drops his gaze to see Greg fiddling with his lighter, twirling it between his fingers and tossing it from hand to hand. It’s a nervous gesture, and an old one. Victor remembers it from afternoons spent over at Sherlock’s old flat, watching him and Greg go over the finer points of a particularly difficult case.
“I heard about your dad,” Greg says, still looking uncertain but making a valiant effort all the same. “I’d say sorry, but he was a right son of a bitch, wasn’t he? You deserved better.”
“It’s all right,” Victor mutters, because he doesn’t really want to talk about his father right now.
“You’re something else, you know that?” Greg’s rambling now, they both know that, but Victor doesn’t particularly care and Greg can’t help it. Another nervous habit. “It’s one thing to fake a death. It’s another to stay away for Sherlock’s own good. God, Victor, the strength that must have taken...”
“Don’t,” Victor says weakly. “It wasn’t strength, it was cowardice.”
Greg cocks his head to the side.
“That’s not true.”
Victor sighs.
“My intentions were noble enough,” he says, almost bitter, “but there’s part of me that wonders... Well. I wonder sometimes if my motivation to stay away was fueled by the fact that I didn’t think I could face Sherlock after all that I put him through.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.” Greg leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and regarding Victor carefully. “You were keeping him safe the only way that you knew how. You died for him, Victor, so that you could protect him. I think that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Victor doesn’t know which of them moves first, but he does know that when he slumps forward Greg is there to catch him up in a crushing embrace, hands pressing flat against Victor’s back while Victor breathes in the scent of wet wool; feels the scrape of Greg’s coat against his face. Greg draws a halting breath, and when he next speaks, his words are barely more than a whisper.
“I’m so proud of you. So fucking proud, Victor. Welcome home, lad.”
----
For the alternate, happy ending, click here. For the proper ending, continue on to Part 22.
----
“Sod off,” he says the moment he sees the three men, suits impeccable, standing stiff and ramrod straight in the center of the room, severely out of place amid the ill children and harried parents. “I haven’t got time for this. We’re in the middle of flu season, could you have chosen a worse time?”
He turns away to speak to Sarah, and one of the men grabs his arm.
John, reflexively, punches him.
The entire room goes silent, except for the occasional sniffle. The man brings a hand to his now-bloodied nose and says, almost exasperated, “Mr Holmes said you would do that.”
“Look at that. Mycroft knows me after all,” John says dryly. “Now tell me what it is you’ve come to say, and then you can be on your way.”
The three men exchange glances. One finally leans in.
“Mr Holmes says that it’s to do with his brother,” he says in a quiet voice, “and that he would appreciate both your discretion and your presence.”
John goes.
----
Mycroft doesn’t waste any time with pleasantries.
“I know this may come as a shock to you, gentlemen, but I’ve brought you here today to tell you that my brother is, in fact, alive,” he says the moment John arrives and joins Greg in front of Mycroft’s desk. “He faked his death eighteen months ago in order to embark on a mission to destroy the network James Moriarty left behind.”
He gives a brief overview of Sherlock’s mission twice before John gives up trying to understand and simply lets the words wash over him in cold, shattering waves. He grips Greg’s hand tightly, so much so that the ring on his left hand digs into Greg’s flesh. His husband, as ashen as the cold embers in Mycroft’s fireplace, doesn’t say a word in complaint.
“Why tell us this now?” Greg asks finally. His voice is weak with shock. “Is he...?”
“No, he’s very much alive, I’m happy to report,” Mycroft says, though his face is actually impassive. “He completed the final leg of his mission some days ago. I decided it would be best to tell you after he arrived back on home soil.”
“We can see him, then?”
“You will be taken to him immediately.”
Greg asks a few more questions that don’t register with John through his shock, and then he falls silent.
“One last thing, gentlemen,” Mycroft says as they are getting to their feet, shaky with the news, John feeling the beginnings of anger start to stir in his gut. “Sherlock has spent the past six months believing you dead, Inspector Lestrade. It was a ruse used by Moran to flush him out, and needless to say, it worked. He is aware of the truth now, but do keep in mind that you are not the only ones to have suffered such a shock. Now, if you’ll follow me downstairs, I’ll have one of my men take you to the hospital.”
“Hospital?” Greg finds his voice first. “Was he injured?”
“No,” Mycroft answers, but he can be persuaded to say nothing more on the subject.
They are driven to the hospital after, and personally escorted to a private wing.
“He’ll be in there,” one of Mycroft’s men informs them when they come to a room at the end of a hall, and he leaves them there, standing awkwardly in the corridor.
The privacy curtains are open and, after trading hesitant glances, John and Greg turn from each other to look through the window.
John speaks first.
“That’s not Sherlock,” he mutters dully. The man in the hospital bed is far too slender--and his features far too average--to be Sherlock. He’s seen better days, though, John notes with a glance. His cheeks are sunken, indicative of him having lost too much weight recently, and he’s on oxygen.
“You’re right,” a voice says behind them, and they both turn.
“Jesus,” Greg curses, and for a moment they can do nothing but stare.
Sherlock’s hair is a few centimeters shorter and some shades lighter than the last time John laid eyes on him. The bones of his face are sharper and there are lines at the corner of his eyes, but beyond that he looks virtually the same. His gaze flits between them, but John notices that it keeps straying back to--and lingering on--Greg. After a moment, Sherlock gives them a weak smile that falls quickly from his face. He nods to the room behind them, looking grim once again.
“Associate of mine. He aided me in taking down Moriarty’s network.”
“Associate?” Greg asks, surprised. He turns to look through the window at the man again; after a moment, a frown cuts through his features, though John can’t say why.
“Friend.”
“You don’t have friends,” John snaps, suddenly finding his voice, and he relishes the way Sherlock flinches.
“I thought my brother had filled you in,” he says quietly. John snorts.
“Yeah, ‘cause apparently you were too much of a coward to do it yourself.”
Sherlock’s brows snap together and his lips thin.
“Then you’ll know,” he says in a tightly controlled voice, “that I had no choice but to fake my death. You’d have died otherwise, don’t you understand? Both of you.”
“We under -” Greg starts, but John cuts him off.
“No. I watched you die, you fucker. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you chose to stay dead.” He jerks his head over his shoulder, indicating the room behind them. “It was all right for you to trust a stranger with your secret, but not me? Not us? We were your friends; did you really think we would turn our backs on you?”
Sherlock glares.
“That wasn’t the issue and you know it,” he snaps. “There was a sniper with his finger on a trigger, and if I hadn’t walked off that roof he would have killed you. Both of you. And it wasn’t enough to just fake my death, John, because if had ever been discovered that I was still living...” Sherlock stops and sucks in a deep breath, visibly trying to rein in his anger. “I stayed away to keep you alive. I won’t apologise for that.”
John gapes at him.
“I still can’t believe you would trust a stranger with your life rather than your two closest -”
“John,” Greg steps in finally, “that’s not a stranger.”
John turns so abruptly he nearly elbows Greg in the side. “What?”
Greg glances hesitantly at Sherlock, and then says, “That’s Victor. Victor Trevor.”
There is a moment of silence, and then Sherlock says, “Yes.”
“‘But -” Greg stops; clears his throat. He continues, softer, “Victor died, Sherlock.”
“So did I.” Sherlock gives Greg an unreadable look, and adds, “And so did you, for that matter.”
There is another long moment of silence, and John’s on the verge of saying Does anyone around you actually stay dead? But Sherlock looks as though he’s been awake upwards of four days or more, his shirt is rumpled, his eyes are rimmed red, and his gaze keeps straying to the window behind John and Greg.
And so John asks, “Is he going to be all right?” instead.
Sherlock gives a slow nod.
“I believe so, given time.”
John’s not sure which of them moves first, but they go from staring at one another from opposite sides of the corridor to meeting in the middle of it in a fierce embrace. John’s chin knocks against Sherlock’s hard shoulder and he tastes blood as his teeth cut into the inside of his mouth, but it doesn’t matter.
“Sherlock,” he whispers, the feel of the name strange on his tongue.
Sherlock’s, “Hello, John,” is something that John never thought he would hear again outside sleep. He feels at once dizzy and faint with it all, and is acutely aware that for some seconds only Sherlock’s strong grip is holding him upright.
They eventually pull apart and then Greg, after a hesitation so minute that only John notices it, wraps Sherlock in a loose hug, whispering, “It’s good to have you back.”
Something shifts in Sherlock’s face, and when John realises it’s his composure slipping, he turns away to give them some privacy. But he isn’t able to ignore the muffled, “I thought you were dead,” that Sherlock mutters against Greg’s shoulder. John hears fabric rustling, presumably Greg tightening his hold on Sherlock. When he speaks, his voice is rough.
“I’m not going anywhere, lad. I promise you that.”
---
John and Greg return to Baker Street in order to regroup and gather some things for Sherlock.
They borrow some shirts that belonged to Mrs Hudson’s husband and John starts to put together a dinner of sorts to take to the hospital. Greg, weary and grey and looking, for the first time, all of his fifty-one years, finally shuts down. He goes upstairs to sleep off the stresses of the day while John finishes cooking.
John sits down and opens his blog as he waits for a pot to boil.
He spends ten minutes staring at a blank screen.
This, announcing Sherlock’s return on his blog--this should be easy, because his readers will rejoice with him in the same manner that they grieved with him a year and a half ago. Writing this post should be simple, especially in comparison to the post that announced Sherlock’s death. Three words; three words that are unexpected, but not unwelcome.
Sherlock is alive.
But what comes next, his readers will want to know. John can’t say, and it’s this that stumps him. Do things go back to the way they were, the genius detective and his blogger; their landlady and their detective inspector; the crimes and their perpetrators?
How can they?
Sherlock is back, but he’s a little bit broken; a little bit different. They all are. And so the truth that’s so plainly sitting before John is one he doesn’t want to write, and one his readers don’t want to know.
Sherlock is back.
It’s not all right.
When Greg comes back down that evening, it takes John twenty minutes to convince him that no, it hadn’t all been a dream.
Sherlock is alive.
----
Sherlock spends that night at Baker Street.
He sits with John and Greg before the fireplace in the main room and talks himself hoarse trying to tell them about all that happened during his mission, and about Victor’s reasons for faking his death. Their mugs of tea all go untouched and quickly turn stone cold.
“You and Victor,” Greg says finally as midnight comes and goes. He waves a hand vaguely through the air, and it takes John a moment to catch his meaning.
“We decided it was best not to rekindle things,” Sherlock says, picking up on the question Greg doesn’t know how to properly ask. He waits for a beat, watching their faces, and then gives a cautious smile. “That lasted for about a month.”
Greg grins and happily claps him on the shoulder.
At one point, John ventures, “It’s a bit warm in here.”
Sherlock, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace, nods absently. Charlie is curled up at his side, and Sherlock has one gloved hand resting absently on the dog’s neck. The other holds his mug of tea. He hasn't removed the gloves once today, not even at the hospital.
John tries again. “Surely you don’t still need those gloves on.”
Sherlock blinks slowly and then draws back, coming out of his thoughts. He stares at John, lips parted slightly, and then says in slow realisation, “You don’t know.”
John glances at Greg and then raises an eyebrow. “Know what?”
Sherlock sets aside his mug.
“My mistake, of course. I didn’t think - well, what with one thing and another...” He trails off, poised to tug off his left glove, and then says, “There was an accident when we were in Belgium.”
John is too experienced to show surprise when Sherlock pulls off the glove, and he’s seen far worse in his career than a couple of missing fingers. But the fact that this is Sherlock, that this is someone he knows - that colours the injury and makes it seem worse than it is. None of this shows in his face, but inwardly he cringes. Greg, who is equally experienced at masking a reaction, merely shifts in surprise.
“Oh, Sherlock.” John takes the hand in his own, examining the old wound. “Does it hurt you?”
Sherlock shakes his head. “No.”
He takes off the other glove, revealing a whole hand, and then says, “There was a bomb, and I got too close to it. It’s because of Victor I’m alive. The infection would have killed me had he not disobeyed me and found a doctor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Sherlock says swiftly. He moves to put the gloves back on, but John rests a hand on his, stopping him. “Transport, remember?”
“I don’t think that’s quite true,” John says quietly, and Sherlock looks away. “This wasn’t done in a hospital. Field surgery, that is.”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
“Christ.” John shakes his head, a thousand images springing to mind. “Still, it could have been worse. Do you have full use of the other three fingers?”
Sherlock nods and flexes them for emphasis. Greg squeezes his shoulder and then withdraws. John leans back in his chair and reaches for his tea, and they all lapse into a companionable silence.
Charlie lifts his head and rests it on Sherlock’s knee. Sherlock blinks down at the dog and then gives him a quick smile.
“Hello,” he says, scratching behind one of Charlie’s ears with his three fingers. “What is it?”
Charlie licks the damaged hand happily and then returns his head to Sherlock’s leg, where he promptly falls asleep again. Sherlock, astoundingly, doesn’t protest. John and Greg exchange glances. This is new, patience and tenderness being far from Sherlock’s strong suits before his fall.
John begins to suspect that he has much more to thank Victor for than just saving Sherlock’s life.
----
Sherlock sleeps that night in an unfamiliar bed in the room that used to be his own. His rest is far from easy, and he realises that he’s not used to sleeping without Victor nearby. He gives up on the idea of sleep in the hour before dawn, and spends his morning trying to catch up on everything he missed during the eighteen months he was away.
It’s strange, he muses while he pokes around on his computer, being away from Victor for so long. For eighteen months they were never apart for more than a few hours at a time, and it was rare for them to have been separated by more than a few streets. But now Victor is in a hospital on the other side of London, and Sherlock feels his absence acutely. He feels odd and wrong, as though he is missing a vital part of himself. It’s as alien to him as his mangled hand.
Victor is still asleep when visiting hours at the hospital finally begin, but Sherlock kisses him on the forehead in greeting anyway.
“You must wake up,” he says quietly to his unconscious friend. He strokes a strand of hair out of Victor’s eyes. “You must, Victor. I need you.”
----
John visits the hospital again the next evening.
“Any change?” he asks as he comes into the room, holding two coffees. He hands one to Sherlock and keeps the other cradled in his hands. Sherlock shakes his head. In the bed next to his chair, Victor sleeps on.
"He's been through a lot," John tries to reassure, though he does notice that Victor is now on four liters of oxygen. Yesterday it had only been two. He pulls up a chair next to Sherlock in the confines of the small room, made smaller still by all the medical equipment. They face one another, leaning forward on forearms braced on thighs, cradling their cups. "His body has been severely traumatized. It might be some time before things turn around, but they will."
Sherlock nods, and then pointedly switches the line of conversation.
They talk. Not about Moriarty or Istanbul or Athens or all of the other places Sherlock’s vendetta took him. Rather, they speak of old cases and the current crime spree that’s gripping the headlines; they talk of bees and football. John has so many questions that he doesn’t even know where to begin, and so he doesn’t. All of that will come in time, which they now--blissfully, miraculously--have.
As the dinner hour comes and goes, John tosses his half-finished drink in the wastepaper bin. “Come back to the flat with me. Please. You’re exhausted.”
Sherlock shakes his head slowly. “I can’t. Later, perhaps.”
John swallows hard, trying to clamp down on the anger that flares in his chest. He’s only partially successful. It doesn’t hurt, it shouldn’t hurt, that Sherlock is choosing this not-stranger over them. It shouldn’t infuriate John that they are once again the ones being shut out of Sherlock’s life, but damn it, it does.
“Okay. Well. If you need anything...” John trails off. Sherlock looks up.
“What?”
Don’t say it, John mentally berates himself, but he has never been very good at listening to reason. Eighteen months of running around after Sherlock is testament enough to that.
“It’s just,” John wets his lips, takes a breath, “well. At least you knew how it felt, to be left behind. To have someone waltz out of your life one day and stroll back in years later, as though nothing had changed.”
Sherlock is out of his chair like a shot. He crowds John up against the wall, fists a hand in the front of his shirt and holds John in place with a strength John never before knew him to possess.
“Don’t you ever,” Sherlock snarls, eyes flashing fire, “try to compare the two situations again. For eleven years he was mine and I was his. Can you even fathom that? When he died, the world stopped. Yes, I died, I left you, but you moved on. As you should have.”
Sherlock releases him abruptly and takes a step back, sucking in great lungfuls of air as he tries to regain control of himself.
“I don’t doubt your grief,” he says at last, soft, resolutely not meeting John’s gaze, “but don’t ever pretend to know how I felt when he died. Or how I felt at his resurrection. The only way you could know... is if it happened to Lestrade.”
Sherlock turns abruptly and goes back over to the bed. He resumes his seat at Victor’s side and takes a limp hand in his own.
“Good night, John,” he says stiffly, and John knows he has been dismissed.
They don’t speak of it again.
----
He goes from darkness to sudden awareness, his senses assaulted by white and bright light. There are voices and blurred silhouettes all around him, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t bring them into focus. He tries desperately to speak, forming the words clearly in his mind, but he can’t force them past his tongue. When he tries to move, his limbs fail to respond, and panic sets in. He is trapped.
Someone touches his forehead, and that’s the last thing he remembers.
The second time Victor wakes, it’s dark and he is alone.
His memory is vague. He can recall gunshots and blood, and doesn’t remember what happened after he shot Moran. Sherlock isn’t at his side, and Victor fears the worst. But his vision is hazy and his limbs are lead, and he can’t even pull himself into a sitting position, let alone ask for his friend.
He falls asleep again without meaning to, and dreams only of Sherlock.
The third time Victor wakes, the world has ceased being stubbornly blurry. He’s in a hospital room, and it is dark once again. Perhaps it’s night.
“It’s a snowstorm, actually,” says a voice to his right.
Victor’s eyelids are too heavy to keep open for long, but he doesn’t need eyes to place that voice. He drags a tongue across cracked lips and tries to formulate all the questions running through his mind, but this is Sherlock, after all. He starts to answer them without Victor speaking a word.
“We’re back in England now,” he says.
“How long?” Victor rasps.
“It’s been nearly a week since we left Rome.”
“And I’ve been unconscious for that long? Jesus...”
“It’s the chelation therapy. They’re still trying to target all of the poison you had ingested. It’s a lengthy process,” Sherlock says, and he runs gentle fingers through Victor’s hair.
Victor forces open leaden eyes and drags them over to Sherlock’s face.
His hair is in the process of darkening to ebony again, and it grew out during their time in Rome, enough so that it’s starting to curl at the ends once more. Gone are the coloured contacts, and Sherlock gazes at him through the stormy-grey eyes Victor remembers from Before. He’s dressed in his usual smart shirt and dark trousers, and he’s wearing the watch Victor gave him for his twentieth birthday.
To look at him now is like gazing into the past, back to when they were young and whole and on the brink of something they couldn’t name. Now, they are a little more lined, a little more broken, and a little more in love.
“I thought you were dead,” Victor croaks. Sherlock’s impassive face breaks into a bemused smile.
“Why?”
“Dunno,” Victor rasps. “Seems like something you would do. Dying on the eve of your return. Very poetic.”
Sherlock snorts and Victor closes his eyes again. He’s not sure how much time passes, but when he opens them again snow is still falling and Sherlock is still at his side. The darkness beyond the window is impenetrable.
Victor is too tired for words. He holds out his hand, palm up, and after a moment Sherlock takes it. He tugs, and Sherlock seems to take his meaning. He kicks off his shoes and then slides onto the bed, wedging himself between Victor and the railing. He’s skinny enough that the narrow strip of mattress is more than adequate. Victor sighs, satisfied, and falls asleep again.
Sherlock is still there when he wakes for the third time that night. His head has fallen onto Sherlock’s shoulder, and Sherlock’s left hand rests on his thigh. He’s holding a book in his other hand, reading at a pace Victor wouldn’t be able to keep up with even on a good day. When he notices Victor awake, Sherlock sets aside the book.
“Hello,” Victor murmurs. Sherlock kisses his forehead, and Victor feels his lips curve into a smile against his skin.
“Hello. Do you feel all right?”
“I’ve had worse,” Victor points out. “You?”
“I was uninjured.”
“Thank God,” Victor says softly. “Have you seen John, yet? Mycroft?”
“John, yes. Mycroft and I have spoken by phone.” Sherlock pauses for a moment, and Victor can tell that there’s more he wants to say. “Victor... about Lestrade. He’s alive.”
He explains Moran’s ruse, and Victor’s anger at himself nearly outweighs his relief. He should have known. But Sherlock can’t quite keep the smile from his voice, even though his face is largely impassive, and Victor finds himself returning it.
Lestrade is alive.
Sherlock’s silence after that is long, however, and contemplative. Victor knows what is coming.
“You gave up everything just to keep me safe,” he says quietly. Victor shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “No. If it kept you safe, then I gave up nothing.”
Sherlock turns his head to press his lips against Victor’s temple.
“Tell me,” he whispers. “Tell me everything.”
And so Victor does.
He speaks of the attempts on Sherlock’s life prior to his supposed death; he talks about secret meetings with Mycroft and his staff in order to discuss upgrading Sherlock’s security level. He talks about his continued work with Mycroft, the planned mission in Bolivia - and then the car crash.
“The car crash was an attempt on your life, that much was true,” Victor says softly. Speaking for long periods of time drains him, and he has to pause for breath between sentences. “But not because of me. And if I hadn’t been where I was sitting, you would have died. Mycroft took advantage of the unexpected opportunity and started the Bolivia mission early, but when it was over... I decided that the best way to protect you was to stay dead. That way I could watch over you more effectively. Root out the necessary threats. Protect you from yourself, even, when it came to that.”
“The night I overdosed...” Sherlock trails off. Victor nods groggily.
“Yes. I was the one who called Greg. Thank God he took to heart the word of a stranger; I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t.”
“So you did know everything. Everything about my life.”
“Not quite,” Victor amends. “I didn’t know what it was like to live that life with you. I was just an observer. But you were safe, and that was all that mattered.”
“You were there. At every turn.”
“You see?” Victor attempts to smile, but it’s more of a struggle not to weep. “I never truly left you.”
Sherlock turns, folds him into a tight embrace, and Victor loses his battle against the onslaught of emotion.
“Mycroft sold your flat,” Sherlock murmurs into his ear sometime later, after Victor has composed himself, “but he kept your things. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find you a new place. In the meantime, you’ll stay at Baker Street.”
“Mm,” Victor agrees groggily.
“You could even stay permanently, I suppose. John may yet move out and live with Lestrade.”
Victor snorts.
“Doubt it. John’s never going to leave you, and Greg is terrible at co-habitation. So are we, come to think of it, when we’re not saving the world.”
Sherlock concedes his point with a wordless grunt. “They got married.”
“Don’t be getting any ideas.”
“Never.” Sherlock’s hand tightens on Victor’s thigh. “We’ve kept your return quiet. You’re listed under your French alias here at the hospital, though we may want to revisit that name at a later point in time. Jean and John... might get confusing. And, needless to say, I’d rather not be calling out my flatmate’s name when -”
“Sherlock,” Victor whispers, bringing a finger to Sherlock’s lips and fighting back laughter. “Shut up. Forget about my alias. We’ve come this far. If I’m going to return to this city, it will be as myself. I’ll not live with you and pretend to be anyone other than who I am. And whatever comes because of that... we’ll meet it together.”
Sherlock is quiet for a moment. Then he turns and presses his lips against Victor’s forehead, murmuring, “We’re home, Victor.”
Victor tugs the corner of his mouth into a quick smile. “Doesn’t feel much different.”
He feels Sherlock shift in surprise. “Doesn’t it?”
“No.” Victor tucks himself against Sherlock’s side and murmurs, “Everywhere was home with you.”
----
Mycroft had organized their return to England and Victor’s hospitalization. But he doesn’t see Sherlock for nearly a week after his return. Even though Victor has woken, Sherlock can’t be pried from his bedside.
It’s only when Mycroft makes a personal visit to the hospital that something akin to hesitation flickers across Sherlock’s face. Greg Lestrade, who stopped by on his lunch break to bring Sherlock some decent food, lays a hand on Sherlock’s arm.
“Go,” he says quietly. “I’ll sit with Victor.”
Sherlock gives in, finally, and follows his brother from the room. They go to Mycroft’s office.
“I thought you should know,” Mycroft says, sitting behind his desk, “that we’ve finished bringing Moriarty back. Richard Brook is officially dead.”
Sherlock nods mutely.
“We’ve also,” Mycroft continues, “gathered the bodies you left behind at the warehouse in Rome. Their deaths have been passed off as a drug operation gone wrong. I’ve managed to explain away the majority of your activities across three continents. Enough so that no one will suspect anything, at any rate.”
“Right,” Sherlock whispers. “Good, then.”
“Indeed. Your work has been restored.”
“I’m aware.” Sherlock gets to his feet. “Is that all?”
Mycroft also stands.
“How are you, Sherlock?”
The question catches his brother off-guard. His damaged hand twitches, and for a brief moment he looks as though he’s going to give a caustic reply.
But then Sherlock sags. He looks grey and worn, his eyes red from too many nights awake.
“He’s not getting better, Mycroft.” Sherlock’s words are distant. “It’s been days. They give him painkillers, they give him medication, but still he struggles to breathe. Struggles to stay awake, struggles with pain, just... struggles. Everything is an effort, and he’s not getting better.”
Sherlock appears to mentally shake himself, and when he meets Mycroft’s gaze again his eyes are cold and clear.
“Apologies,” he says woodenly. “I’m fine, Mycroft, thank you for inquiring. If you’ll excuse me, I should be getting back.”
“He’s not getting worse.” Mycroft tucks his hands into his pockets and says it again, because his little brother is falling apart in front of him and Mycroft has never wanted anything more than to fix things; fix him. “He’s not getting worse, Sherlock, do keep that in mind. Relax. He’s been in more perilous situations than this, I can guarantee that.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sherlock says dully. “You kept all that from me, remember?”
He’s almost to the door when Mycroft decides to speak again.
“When Victor’s mission in Bolivia ended,” he says quietly, “I came to him with plans for his resurrection. He asked if something like that was going to happen again - not the mission, but the accident. The car crash. The attempt on your life. I told him it had, in fact, happened three times before--and that it would undoubtedly happen again.”
“Three,” Sherlock says weakly. Mycroft nods.
“I then made the mistake of mentioning that, if Victor hadn’t been sitting in that seat, you would have died. I said it was luck that he had chosen it. He saved your life--perhaps without meaning to, but that’s what happened all the same. Victor went quiet for a moment after that. And then he said, ‘What if I could? What if I could save his life?’”
“And you let him.”
Mycroft inclined his head.
“I knew that, in order to truly keep you safe, I would have to call on my best resources. He is one of them. And he has always been there for you, even if you never realised it. He never left you, Sherlock. And he never will.”
----
When Victor wakes again, Sherlock’s usual chair is empty. But he isn’t alone.
“Hello,” Greg Lestrade says. He gives Victor a lopsided, sheepish smile. “Awake, are we?”
“Such as it is,” Victor murmurs. His blanket has pooled around his waist, the result of a restless sleep. He’s cold and his throat is dry, but he can’t summon the strength to do anything about either of those discomforts. Greg leans forward and tugs the blanket back into place, covering Victor’s arms and chest in the process. It’s an absent-minded movement; automatic.
God, but he hasn’t changed. Victor feels his throat tighten.
“Bit of a shock, this, I take it,” Greg offers hesitantly into the silence.
“Sherlock told me about you being alive,” Victor rasps. “But yeah, it was... a surprise.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I had the two of you come back to life on the same day. It’s gonna take some getting used to all around, I think.” Greg leans back in his chair and crosses his ankle over his knee. “I’d ask how you feel, but to be honest you look awful. Anything I can do to help?”
Victor swallows and shakes his head, aware that he’s staring at Lestrade as though he can’t quite believe his eyes - which, in part, is true. Part of him fears, irrationally, that Lestrade will disappear the moment he blinks.
He wonders if this is how Sherlock felt, all those months ago, standing the shadowed foyer of Victor’s French home.
Victor catches a glint out of the corner of his eye and drops his gaze to see Greg fiddling with his lighter, twirling it between his fingers and tossing it from hand to hand. It’s a nervous gesture, and an old one. Victor remembers it from afternoons spent over at Sherlock’s old flat, watching him and Greg go over the finer points of a particularly difficult case.
“I heard about your dad,” Greg says, still looking uncertain but making a valiant effort all the same. “I’d say sorry, but he was a right son of a bitch, wasn’t he? You deserved better.”
“It’s all right,” Victor mutters, because he doesn’t really want to talk about his father right now.
“You’re something else, you know that?” Greg’s rambling now, they both know that, but Victor doesn’t particularly care and Greg can’t help it. Another nervous habit. “It’s one thing to fake a death. It’s another to stay away for Sherlock’s own good. God, Victor, the strength that must have taken...”
“Don’t,” Victor says weakly. “It wasn’t strength, it was cowardice.”
Greg cocks his head to the side.
“That’s not true.”
Victor sighs.
“My intentions were noble enough,” he says, almost bitter, “but there’s part of me that wonders... Well. I wonder sometimes if my motivation to stay away was fueled by the fact that I didn’t think I could face Sherlock after all that I put him through.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.” Greg leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and regarding Victor carefully. “You were keeping him safe the only way that you knew how. You died for him, Victor, so that you could protect him. I think that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Victor doesn’t know which of them moves first, but he does know that when he slumps forward Greg is there to catch him up in a crushing embrace, hands pressing flat against Victor’s back while Victor breathes in the scent of wet wool; feels the scrape of Greg’s coat against his face. Greg draws a halting breath, and when he next speaks, his words are barely more than a whisper.
“I’m so proud of you. So fucking proud, Victor. Welcome home, lad.”
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For the alternate, happy ending, click here. For the proper ending, continue on to Part 22.
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