Wrote this for the Johnlock Party on tumblr, Team Mycroft, Day 4, Prompt: Confusion. Enjoy! Warning: angst!

Five Times Sherlock was Confused, and One Time He Wasn't

1.

"Have you seen my glasses?"

John looked up from his newspaper at the question, and grinned. "They're on your head, love. Did you forget?"

"Obviously," came the snappish retort. Sherlock snatched the reading glasses from his graying curls and slammed them on his nose, seething with indignation.

John suppressed a sigh and turned the page. This was the fourth time today that Sherlock had forgotten something. They were only small things, little short-term memory issues that still stabbed like a blade in John's breast. Sherlock was fifty-four, still consulting, but things like these were constant reminders that neither of them were as young as they used to be.

"John."

"Hmm?" He took a moment to finish the sentence, and then looked over the top of his narrow frames to where his husband was hunched like a jackal over his laptop.

"Are you allergic to bees?"

John blinked a few times, used to such odd and unexpected questions after twenty years of marriage. "No."

"Good. How do you feel about Sussex?"

2.

"John? John?"

Dr. Watson heard the voice from outside in the garden where he kneeled in the dirt, up to his elbows in mulch, with the summery hum of honeybees buzzing in his ears. Suppressing a sigh, he got creakily to his feet and brushed his hands off on his threadbare jeans before making his way into the cottage as quickly as he could manage.

Sherlock was in the kitchen, still. Once he got involved in his experiments, he could be reliably expected to be there for most of the day, and so John had been comfortable leaving him there. He wouldn't have been, in the old days, when experiments was synonymous with explosions, or squid tentacles in the bathtub; but then, Sherlock hadn't been an eighty-year-old fighting increasing amnesia then, either.

"I'm right here, Sherlock," he said, placing a hand on his husband's arm. The tight line of Sherlock's back relaxed, and he turned away from the front window to smile at John.

"Oh good, you're still here. I thought you might have gone to get groceries."

"Market day was yesterday," John reminded him gently, pressing a kiss to Sherlock's lined temple and feeling the evidence of forty years of shared smiles under his lips. "What experiment have you got going here, then?"

Sherlock glanced back to the table and frowned briefly, and John's heart caught for a moment before the reply finally came. "It's not really an experiment. I'm just observing the ingenuity of ants in a foreign territory." He picked up a thick-handled magnifying glass, arthritic fingers trembling slightly with effort, and leaned closer to the table where a veritable obstacle course of building blocks was laid out. Honey was drizzled about sporadically, and the entire surface was crawling with a good fifty ants. John bit his lip to hide a grin, and slid his hand up to Sherlock's back.

"What will Emma say when she finds out you've gotten honey all over her building blocks?" he inquired. He did this often, mentioning their family. It was one of his greatest fears that one day Sherlock would forget they'd even had children, let alone the three-year-old Emmaline who was sharp as a tack and Sherlock's pride and joy. He needn't have worried, not today.

"Emma will appreciate the necessary sacrifices made in the name of science," Sherlock retorted, absorbed with following the trail of a particularly foolish ant.

John laughed, a scratchy, withered sound he still wasn't completely familiar with, and squeezed his husband's shoulder. "If you're fine here, I'm going back to the garden, okay? Shout if you need anything."

A distracted hmm was Sherlock's reply, and John breathed a silent sigh of relief as he turned back to his tomatoes. The confusion had only been temporary.

3.

"How old are you, grandfather?"

Sherlock mock-scowled over his slumped chest, earning a giggle from the bright-haired young girl who was busily cataloguing the number of hairs on his big toe. "Very, very old. Keep counting."

John, sitting nearby with his cane within arm's reach and a plaster on his cheek where he'd fallen last week, shared a grin with their son and his wife where they sat in the loveseat by the picture window. "He's a terrible grandfather, isn't he," he remarked, well within Sherlock's hearing. "More of a crotchety science professor than a kind old fellow with candy in his pockets."

Sherlock snorted audibly over the titters of Hamish and Valeria. "If candy in pockets were the only requirement for being a good grandfather, you would make a very poor one. And I will have you know, John, that I have a fine selection of lemon drops in my pockets at this very moment." He moved his fingers into his pockets, careful not to dislodge the dead butterfly dissection currently in progress on his chest by the five-year-old Horatio. He felt around for a few moments, the crease between his brows deepening. "I seem to have misplaced… what was I looking for?"

"Lemon drops, grandfather!" Horatio supplied, grinning broadly around the gap between his large front teeth. "Did you forget?"

A shadow of a wince passed over Sherlock's face at the word forget. Then he smiled, a little bit sadly, and reached out to ruffle Horatio's dark curls. "Yes, I did forget. That's silly, isn't it?"

Horatio and Emmaline nodded in concentrated chorus, their bright eyes marveling at the forgetfulness of grown-ups, and John felt his heart give another little pang of regret at the sorrow behind Sherlock's cheerful mask.

4.

"It's okay, you know."

Sherlock glanced up from his tea, brow wrinkled in confusion. "What is?"

John bobbed his teabag up and down a few times before pulling it out and tossing it into the compost bin. "That you forgot about the lemon drops."

"Oh John, that was last week. It's not bothering me."

John looked up, meeting his husband's cool blue eyes. "It was yesterday, Sherlock, and I think it is bothering you."

Sherlock made a face and sipped his tea without replying. John sighed and set aside his mug so he could lean across the kitchen table and run one hand over Sherlock's silver hair. "Sherlock, this amnesia, it's only going to get worse. We can't just ignore it –"

"I'm not ignoring it," Sherlock snapped, jerking his head out of John's reach. "I'm fighting it. I hate it, John, you don't know what it's like, always losing things. It's like… like those dreams you have sometimes, where I'm walking farther and farther away from you but you can't catch me. I know the answer is there, I can practically see it in front of me, I just can't grasp it –" He broke off and stood abruptly, angry, and he staggered briefly against the table. John choked back a gasp and made as if to steady him, but his husband turned his face away. "Don't," he whispered, husky and shot through with disgust. "I'm not a cripple, John."

John faltered, and he let his hand fall back to his side. "Sherlock. I know you're angry, but that's hardly an excuse to mock me for having to use a cane."

Sherlock whirled back, arthritic hands braced against the table so hard John could practically hear the joints protesting. "We used to run, John! I remember that, as clear as day. Sometimes I wake up and it feels like we're back at Baker Street, us against the world, and we were winning." His mouth thinned, trying to hide the tremble, and Sherlock collapsed back into his chair with his arms folded protectively. "I despise this."

"I know." Slowly, John limped around the table and kissed Sherlock's wrinkled brow. "I know."

5.

"Eighty-eight today," John sighed to himself, gazing up at the early morning sun creeping slowly across the ceiling. "God, we're old." He stayed still for a while, trying to put off having to move and spark the aches and pains that accompanied each movement. But eventually, as the sun continued to lighten the room and warm the thick duvet they lay beneath, soft waking-up noises began to emerge from the other half of the bed. Giving a faint groan of effort, John propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over to kiss Sherlock good morning.

A sharp pain exploded in John's bad shoulder, pushing him back, and he let out a strangled yell as he fell back against the pillow. For a moment he thought he was having a heart attack; but then Sherlock was scrabbling up in bed as far as he could get, staring at him with wild eyes.

Oh, no. John scrubbed at his eyes quickly with his hands, fighting the bitter sting of tears. "Sherlock, it's me. It's John." His voice was shaking, and he made a herculean effort to keep it steady as he murmured, "It's okay, you've been having memory issues… just take your time, it'll come back."

Sherlock stayed where he was, the confusion in his eyes softening to cautious uncertainty. Then, gradually, his face slumped, and he buried his head in his arms. His voice issued from the cavern of his chest: "Oh God, John, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that." Even muffled by the thick fabric of his nightshirt, John could hear the tears shuddering in Sherlock's voice, and he felt another piece of his heart chip off and spiral into emptiness.

But instead of giving into the urge to cry, he reached out tentatively, putting his hand on Sherlock's back. His husband flinched, but didn't pull away, and John wrapped his arms around that emaciated torso until they were enfolded like puzzle pieces on the bed. Morning inched along their rumpled, age-worn forms by slow degrees, sinking them into late summer warmth, and John rested his chin on Sherlock's bony shoulder, whispering I love you over and over.

+1.

For the first time in six months, everything was crystal clear. Sherlock eyed the dark crowd, their mourning colors smudging like charcoal against the brilliant green of new spring grass. It was appropriate, he thought, that John had died in spring. It had always been his favorite season. The season for new life, when growing things began to grow again, and the wind tasted sweet on the tongue. The season for planting, for taking off coats and hanging up scarves, for running endlessly across the rooftops of London without pausing to let winter's sting fade from your lungs. The season they'd fallen in love.

Sherlock's hand tightened around John's cane, the arch of its handle worn smooth from years of use, and let his gaze drift away from the crowd. He'd already made his decision. It was probably the only reason he wasn't nearly hysterical with grief, and for that he was grateful. Knowing the pain would soon end made it that much easier to bear.

His only real regret would be leaving Hamish and the children behind. Emmaline and Horatio were such bright, beautiful things, twin flames leaping high. Their lives were just beginning. Even as they stood nearby, stone-faced as their grandpa was lowered into the soft spring earth, he knew their vibrancy would serve them well. They would bounce back from this tragedy – Emma might not even remember the short, stooped old man who taught her how to pick a ripe tomato without bruising the skin, or how to squint just so to best see shapes in the clouds floating overhead.

Even Hamish, his elegant features a younger mirror of Sherlock's own, would recover in time. Sherlock reached out his free hand, gnarled and crippled from the vicious rheumatoid arthritis that had stolen his music from him, and his son gripped them firmly, their long dark coats brushing hems. Hamish was holding a little tighter than was strictly comfortable, but Sherlock didn't mind. The pain grounded him, kept him from descending into the muddled haze that had been plaguing him for so long.

Then it was time for the last part of the ceremony. Hamish tucked Sherlock's hand through his arm and led his father forward, walking slow to accommodate the elderly man's painful gait. Blond, dark-eyed Valeria, her eyes swimming with tears, held tight to the children's hands and followed.

Sherlock looked down at the smooth walnut casket lying so far beneath his feet, and smiled. I'm coming my love, he promised silently, accepting the handful of dirt from his son and letting it fall.

Later, in the solitude of the bedroom he'd shared with John for nearly twenty years, Sherlock sat slowly on the edge of the bed and looked around. John's jumper from last week was still thrown over the desk chair in the corner, the tie he'd worn to Horatio's sixth birthday party dripping from the desk in silky folds. The drapes John had drawn the morning he died were still drawn.

Below, Sherlock could still hear Hamish as he moved around, tidying up from the small family gathering they'd had to celebrate John's life. Valeria had taken the children for a walk. It was just him, now.

Relief was thick on his tongue as Sherlock reached to the bedside stand and plucked two innocuous pills from the drawer. He rolled them idly in his palm, eyes flicking over their round, smooth perfection against the grainy hills and valleys of his skin. After this, there would be nothing. Nothing but John. Sherlock smiled and brought them to his lips.

END