fugue (n.)
1. a musical form consisting essentially of a theme repeated a fifth above or a fourth below the continuing first statement
2. a dreamlike altered state of consciousness, lasting from a few hours to several days, during which a person loses his or her memory for his or her previous life and often wanders away from home
He expected it to feel different, being on the literal brink of his death.
He expected his nerves to be hyperactive, his mind to race madly like a screaming train, his body to be overwhelmed with…some emotion of some sort. Fear, anger, apprehension, nostalgia, the fabled 'life-flashing-before-one's-eyes' nonsense. Instead, he felt…like nothing; it was as though he were crafted of eggshell, and within that eggshell, his insides had been mysteriously thieved some time ago when he wasn't looking. Probably when Moriarty pulled the trigger and exploded his cerebrum across the rooftop.
Before his eyes stretched the city of London. Cement and glass buildings, reminiscent of the 1960s, amongst the narrow piers of cathedrals, reminiscent of the 1660s. Taxis honked, buses hissed their hydraulic brakes, and in the distance came the vague hum of a football stadium. It was the sound of a city (population 8.3 million at least) that had survived for thousands of years and potentially thousands more. It had seen the likes of Churchill and Shakespeare, kings and queens, and it had carried on without them after their remains were honored and buried.
Above the skies were gray and gloomy, without threat of rain or storm. They hung idly overhead, either oblivious or apathetic to happenings below on the streets. Or specifically, on rooftops. More specifically, on the rooftop of St. Barts facing west, where the sun daily ended its journey across the heavens.
No, the world would not care if he was gone. His life was a meager few decades in the timespan of millennia after millennia. What few lives he had saved were, to put it kindly, utterly insignificant in the grand schema of literally billions of lives being spent merely at this precise moment. He was a particle of dust in an ocean whose size he could never grasp, whose full depth he could never reach.
He was an observer in his own body as his feet stepped onto the ledge. He was a bystander as his hand raised listlessly to the side and the cellphone tumbled out. He tried not to wince as it cracked on the concrete roof.
He was an observer as his arms raised out like a bird's wings and a half-hearted breeze caught his coattails. He was an observer when the whole of his body tipped forward and his feet no longer felt solid ground.
He was an observer when he began to fall.
He was an observer while he was falling.
He was falling.
He was falling.
Falling
falling...
fall…
…ing…
….
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep beep beep beep…
The world before him was in a fog. His face was cold and damp and his entire body was filled with sand. He blinked once, twice; still hazy and muddled, going in and out of focus like a dirty microscope lens. Likely waking from the anesthesia, he supposed. Nothing unusual.
Arms bare, but still warm; he was tucked in a bed, his coat was gone as were the rest of his clothes, replaced with a cheap hospital gown. Hospital. Of course it was a hospital; the signs were all around him, between the machines beeping and whirring and the stark linoleum tiles and the smell of antiseptic and the fact that he was in a bed without his own clothes. He had deduced that just now in a matter of half a second. But Sherlock got the small, unnerving feeling that he knew that before the deduction had begun.
But how? He tried to rationalize it; he had expected to awake in a hospital, or the fact had seeped into his unconscious mind, or his brain was working faster than usual. Then why did the question nag him like a pinprick in the back of his mind?
Squeak squeak squeak. The sound of nurses' sneakers pacing on the white linoleum. One nurse actually, who was just about to walk in, he predicted. The assumption was correct, but the face of the nurse was one he never would have guessed.
"…Molly?" The name came out like a croak. His tongue felt clumsy against his teeth, and his voice hoarse and quivering, as if he hadn't used them in a while. The nurse froze at the doorway. And at the moment, she looked even more flabbergasted than he was.
"Molly, is that you?" Yes, it had to be Molly; even in his current haze, he'd recognize that drawn look and those painfully thin lips anywhere. "What on earth are you doing up here?"
"I need a doctor!" she squeaked outside, down the hallway. "I need a doctor quickly!"
Up here. That had rolled off his cumbersome tongue without thinking. Up from where? Molly Hooper was a mortician at St. Barts and she worked downstairs from the rest of the main hospital (which proved remarkably convenient for his own needs in the past, for there were rarely any administrators or other technicians there to snoop). Up here would imply that he was at…at…
No, he couldn't be. That would be ridiculous and totally contrary to the plan. He had arranged to be at a different hospital, at least 60 km from London. As far away as convenient to avoid running into-
"Dr. Watson!" Sherlock felt an icy hand squeeze his heart like an orange. "I need Dr. Watson right away, get him now!" No, no, no, no, no, not part of the plan-
"Molly," he struggled to say. She whipped her head around at him, thunderstruck. No, he can't know yet, no, not yet…
"No, no, no, don't try to move, it's ok." Molly rushed over to his bedside as Sherlock made an attempt to sit up. She didn't have to; that simple movement took all the strength he could muster and now had induced aches and pains in places he had never fully contemplated till now. John would know what muscles these are- oh shut up, John can't know you're alive right now, Sherlock.
"Molly, where…what…" What happened? Where am I? And tell me that Dr. Watson is the name of a hundred doctors in the Commonwealth and not who I think-
"Wha- he's awake?" The icy hand was replaced with a brutal, icy axe. Standing at the doorway was the very man Sherlock wanted to see him least, the very man Sherlock wanted to see most.
"J-John," breathed a horrified Sherlock. He jerked his arm to get Molly's frantic hands off him, but it was more of a sluggish shift. His eyes were deadlocked on the man at the door. "John, I can expl- it's complicated-"
"When did he wake up?" demanded John as he strode to Sherlock's bedside, glaring at Molly. He wore a full labcoat and even had an ID badge. Sherlock couldn't read the credentials but it looked very believable. A very good disguise indeed. Perhaps Mycroft's doing...
"Just now. His heart rate spiked and now it's spiking again!" Molly scurried to and fro around the bed, switching her attentions between the machine and Sherlock.
"John, I'm sorry- I couldn't tell you- it was Moriarty- three bullets…" Argh, why was it still so difficult to speak!? His palms became clammy. The room began to whirl and dance. The sound of someone drawing quick, ragged breaths; himself, he came to realize.
"Blood pressure's going up too quickly too." John was equally rushed as he beep-beep-beeped on a monitor, but his was a controlled rush. Ever the soldier, even in control.
A bright light flashed over Sherlock's eyes. "He's overloading, it's too much stimulation!" declared her pipsqueak voice. Sherlock yanked his arm away from Molly, but she grabbed it again with a tighter grip. "He's fighting me!"
"Stop…touching…" were the words Sherlock tried to say, but most likely failed miserably.
"I'll make the call," declared John, striding over to the phone. There was a tone there that twisted that icy axe blade in Sherlock's chest. It was in the way John was not surprised to see him there. It was in the way he would not make eye contact with Sherlock. It was in the way he did the buttons on the monitor and the phone, the way he shifted his weight and put his back to Sherlock without thinking. "Doctor!" cried Molly, her tiny hands tightening around Sherlock's wriggling arms. "Doctor!"
"Yes, I have a patient who just awoke from a coma- Nurse Hooper, hold him down! Hang on!- I need to give him 20mg of diazepam right away, just enough that to settle his agitation. Patient is Holmes, 221B. B as in Baker. Yes, yes, right bloody now!" The phone slammed into the receiver.
"J-John!" cried someone. Who was that? It sounded like a child's voice.
"He's calling for you, Doctor!"
John rushed over to Sherlock's bed. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong with that look. There was…something, just something missing that Sherlock could not name because he didn't know what was missing in the first place, something that made John John. And this was not John.
"Mr. Holmes, it's alright, I need you to calm down, it's alright, it's alright," urged John in that unnervingly not John voice. He wasn't looking at Sherlock, he was busy looking at an IV bag that he was injecting a needle into.
"N-" No! Sherlock tried to choke out.
"Nurse Hooper, it's alright. Let him go. He'll be alright in a moment." The hands released him and now he was reeling through the air. Swirls of black and red were curling into his vision now. He was flying and spinning and dipping while at the same time his limbs were filling with lead and sinking through the mattress.
"…my word." Another voice, female, not Molly, very faraway. "…alright?"
"…Hudson…his brother…down to St. Barts right away…"
No, must be a mistake.
"Please…" Something was wrong. Something was wrong.
"Mr. Holmes...alright, it's alright…"
The room was growing farther and farther away. The darkness was dragging him down. All wrong. Everything was wrong.
"J…J…"
It was falling apart.
He was falling apart.
He was falling.
Falling...
falling…
…John…
Dawn had barely arose when a sharp man in a sharp suit came bursting into the hospital room. Dr. Watson, standing nearby by the sleeping's man bed didn't even look up. He was busy frowning and scribbling on a clipboard.
"I demand an explanation."
Dr. Watson looked up wearily. The suited man was glaring daggers at him. "I would love to give you one, Mr. Holmes, but treating catatonic patients is always-"
"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?" snapped the man. "I demand to know why my brother, upon waking up from a two-month-long coma, was promptly made unconscious again."
Dr. Watson was unruffled. "Because upon waking, he became highly distressed and violent. He tried to attack one of our nurses. Standard procedure."
"He just came back to the world, how on earth did you expect him to react?" snarled the man.
"I understand that, Mr. Holmes. I administered just enough to calm him down before he hurt anyone, including himself. And I appreciate you getting down here as soon as you can because…well…"
"Because he'll be waking up again?"
"Yes. Shortly."
The man fell silent. One bed over in room 221, the TV blared per usual. "…'Reichenbach Falls' painting recovered last month after a lucky break for investigators…hanging at the National Gallery this weekend. Coming up next, animal rights activists continue picketing near Baskerville and another scandal strikes the heiress of Adler & Co. We'll be right back."
The suited man folded his arms and shifted his weight uncomfortably. "I'll have to tell him…"
"Yes."
"…what, exactly?" The man thrust his hands in his pockets. "What do people normally say, Dr. Watson, in this situation?"
For a moment, Dr. Watson saw the look of a concerned brother accidentally slip onto the man's face. It was a familiar look; one of weariness, confusion, fear, apprehension. The doctor felt a pang of sympathy for the man.
Suddenly, there came a murmuring sound. Both men's head snapped towards the bed. Sherlock's eyes were still closed, but he was shaking his head sluggishly side to side. His limp black curls clung to his slick forehead, which was no paler than usual. His lips were opening and closing, producing no more than a string of babble.
"Lestrade…tapping…three bullets…Moriarty…tell…sorry…not John…not John…"
And then the sleeping man fell quiet. A hush fell over the two men watching him.
"Mr. Holmes," said Dr. Watson. "I must tell you that often, patients in comas are not fully unconscious, that their-"
"Their subconscious remains aware of their surroundings, yes, I know. That's why you've been encouraging me to talk to him. And that's why, I assume, that stupid book of detective stories is by his bedside."
Dr. Watson clicked his jaw in irritation. Every night for the past two months, the doctor had been staying an extra hour beyond his duty (as unpaid overtime) at the bedside of Sherlock, reading to him from his grandpa Hamish's book of detective stories. Yes, the nurses could do it for him (and he sent them to do so with his other patients). But Sherlock, even in his catatonia…
To the naked eye, comatose patients seem all but to dead to the world, but Dr. Watson knew better. He saw the signs of life: a spasm, or a spike on the monitors, for example. He knew when someone was fully engaged with their surroundings despite their temporary disability. And it was remarkable just how responsive Sherlock was to these stories, the same stories that Dr. Watson had himself grown up adoring in his youth. And for that reason, the doctor showed no small amount of favoritism towards this particular patient.
"Yes, that's correct," replied the doctor evely. "Now in some instance, the subconscious is active enough that the patient experiences…well, imaginings, or visions."
"As in, dreaming, Dr. Watson?"
"Well yes, to put it mildly. They're more like hallucinations."
"Should I care about the distinction?"
"Yes, because a person experiencing hallucinations can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality," said Dr. Watson sharply. "And if said patie- person, I mean, has been effectively cut-off from reality by way of a coma-"
"Sherlock has been living in a dream-world these entire two months."
"Yes, possibly." Dr. Watson bit his lip. "Now I consulted my colleague, Dr. Thompson, about the psychology of what hallucinations Sherlock may be experiencing while he was in his coma."
The suited man nodded absently, listening in silence.
"She said that confusion with the present is common," continued the doctor. "He may not know when and where he is. His mind will likely take real things from his surroundings and his memories and he'll mix them up into a fantasy world of his subconscious' creation. This is even more likely if the patient had…well, unhappy memories. It's normal to want to change those, to form an escape, completely normal. The hard thing will be getting him to understand…well, that that wasn't real."
The man continued to nod, his expression grave and contemplative. Dr. Watson had no envy for Mr. Holmes' situation. Either of the Holmes', for that matter.
"It'll be tough," he added carefully. "No doubt about it, you'll both have a tough road ahead of you. But he can get there. His mind will slowly repair itself, and therapy can help it along. In the meantime, I can help recommend you…you know, a good program for him, where he can begin treatment."
"Rehab has been one disaster after another with my brother, Dr. Watson, and expensive ones too."
"I'll find him one," repeated the doctor firmly. "One that will work."
"Is that the sentimentalist speaking, or the doctor?"
Dr. Watson let out a huff of annoyance. "Both," he said defiantly. "I believe in your brother."
"You don't know him."
"...No, I don't."
The men fell quiet once more.
Behind the curtain, the TV blared: "…all for now, I'm Jim Moriarty, have a good morning. Bye-!" Cut-off.
"Alright, Mr. Anderson," said a cheery, grandmotherly voice. The clack of a TV remote set down on the table. "Time for your breakfast, dear." The response was a nasally whine that Dr. Watson didn't hear because Mr. Holmes - the standing one - let out a loud grumble. "That lad's voice - Moriarty - makes me want to rip my skin off."
Dr. Watson snorted in agreement. "They should let him finish puberty before putting him on the air. He'll creep out half the country."
The suited man smirked. Then, in a mocking sing-song voice, he repeated: " 'I'm Jim Moriarty. Hai!' "
A deep chuckle escaped the doctor. But another restless from his sleeping patient put both men in silence again.
"…not your housekeeper, dear," the grandmotherly voice chided behind the curtain. Then Dr. Watson heard the door click close; silence once again enveloped the room.
"So…" said the suited man after a long while. "What do I tell him?"
Dr. Watson scratched his chin and thought about it for a second. "The truth," he decided. "Packaged carefully. You'll know what to say."
"Right," murmured the man, rubbing his jaw as he looked at the uncharacteristically peaceful man in the bed. "Right…"
Dr. Watson bit his lip, unsure of how to ask this one question that had been irking him. Oh to hell with it. "Mr. Holmes?"
"Mycroft."
"Sorry?"
"It's Mycroft. You may call me Mycroft."
"Right…Mycroft, who is Lestrade, out of curiosity?"
Mycroft was quiet for a moment, letting out a loud sigh as he mulled over the question. "Detective Lestrade," he finally said, his eyes fixed on the lump of bedspread at his brother's feet, "was the arresting officer when my brother broke into the town library. Lestrade found a packet of coke in his jacket. That was when our parents first found out." Mycroft rubbed his nose. "Lestrade made a deal with the got Sherlock off a prison sentence and became my brother's parole officer. A bit dim, a bit naive, but always fair and not afraid to give Sherlock a talking-to when he needed one."
Dr. Watson nodded slowly. "Is he still around?"
"Yes, police chief, last I heard."
"Does he know?"
"About what happened? No," replied Mycroft sharply. Then his face softened. "I didn't want to break his heart."
Dr. Watson pursed his lips, nodding in understanding. Another murmur and his eyes snapped down his patient. Sherlock was stirring again. "He'll be waking soon." The doctor looked to Mycroft. "I'm just going to step-"
"John."
Dr. Watson stopped mid-stride. "Yes?"
"Dr. John Watson, is your full name, correct?" Mycroft was giving him an unreadable look.
"…yes." The doctor frowned in confusion.
"He's asking for you."
"Who-" But Dr. Waston already knew who, because who was fluttering his eyelids, which then, every so slightly, peeked open.
"John…" came a croak. Dr. Watson's heart skipped a beat.
"Erm, hello, Mr. Holmes," the doctor said awkwardly. "Welcome back."
"…John…" rasped the man in bed. His eyes were barely opening, but Dr. Watson felt them locked on him.
"I should go, I'll leave you two-"
"No." The doctor turned to find Mycroft staring at him curiously. "I think it'll be" - Mycroft quirked his lips to find the right word - "better, if you stayed for a bit longer."
Dr. Watson stood there dumbly for a moment, then bobbed his head. He took a spot against the wall opposite of the bed, where he stood with his arms folded. And as Sherlock, at long last, woke from his sleep, John ignored the warmth spreading over his chest.
Notes:
I TRIED TO MAKE IT SOMEWHAT HAPPY AT THE END, I'M SORRY, I TRIED
1. The first part is a ramble written similar to Doyle's style, but it's to show just how deep Sherlock is in his hallucination :(
2. Tried to imply how Sherlock tied the news stories to his imaginings, and imagined the whole conspiracy involving Moriarty because he always heard Moriarty's voice in association with them
3. Anderson continues to be an unimportant git
4. MYCROFT BECOMES SUDDENLY ADORABLE WHY
Hope you enjoyed. Enjoyed may be too strong a word, though. Don't throw things at me. Thanksbye.