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Published:
2016-01-27
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2016-03-15
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15/15
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The Ground Beneath Your Feet

Chapter 15

Notes:

I have loved each and every comment I've gotten on this, and I've tried my absolute best to reply to each and every comment. If I missed yours--especially if you commented on an earlier chapter when I was posting a later one, that gets me every time--please accept my sincere apologies! I love you all.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Excuse me, but may we have another blanket?” John asked. “He’s a bit cold.”

“It’s the drip,” the pretty dark-eyed nurse said kindly, spreading a blanket over Sherlock. “Drops the body temperature. And those gowns aren’t exactly warm, are they? I wanted to let you know they’re just about ready for you, should be along any moment now.”

Sherlock cracked an eye and peered blearily at her. “Your family will come around,” he told her. “They’re upset your fiancé’s not a Sikh, but when—“

“Thank you so much,” John said loudly, cutting him off. “Sorry, he gets a bit unfiltered with the sedative,” he added in an undertone.

“It was meant to be reassuring,” Sherlock protested.

“It was meant to distract you from thinking about being wheeled off to surgery in a bit.” John put his hands on either side of Sherlock’s face. “Now listen. I’m going to be right here when you wake up, and when it’s all over, you’ll be able to walk without pain.”

“Possibly.”

“Certainly.”

“Probability of eighty to eighty-five percent, hardly—“

John kissed him to shut him up. “You will. Faith, love; faith can move mountains.”

“That’s utter nonsense.”

“Shhh, you’re making the blood pressure monitor beep.”

Sherlock subsided, looking cross and unfocused. “Do you know what I’m going to do if you’re right?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go with you to see those falcons. They can’t possibly be as fascinating as you make them out to be.”

John beamed at him, surprised and pleased. “That would be lovely. I’d really like that. In the spring, when you’re fully recovered and they’re nesting.”

Sherlock’s eyes drifted closed. “And then I’m going to tear all your clothes off and—“

“Ready to go?”

John jumped and clapped a hand over Sherlock’s mouth. “Yes! Sorry. Yes, he’s quite ready.” He pulled his hand away and leaned over to kiss Sherlock once more. “I’ll see you soon, love.”

Sherlock’s eyes opened in confusion and he reached up to try to grasp John’s hands. “John—“

“Go on now,” John said briskly, straightening up. If Sherlock wouldn’t let go on his own John would end up blubbering like a baby. He tried to smile reassuringly, but that much was beyond him, so he settled for looking calmly confident. He hoped. The trolley went round the edge of the door and the last John saw of Sherlock was his pale thin hand, hovering in mid-air as though he could still catch hold of John.

John’s brave expression fell right off his face and he had to swallow hard a few times. Right. Surgical waiting room. Loo first; he’d been dying to go for ages but hadn’t want to leave Sherlock. Then a cup of coffee. Yes. John took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and marched out.

Planted in the most isolated corner of the waiting room he could find, John took a sip of coffee and grimaced. Terrible. Why was hospital coffee always vile? It wasn’t even hot. He sighed and took another halfhearted sip, then looked at his watch. This was going to kill him. It hadn’t been five minutes; Sherlock might not even be properly under yet.

A hand materialized in front of him with a takeaway cup that just had to be better than John’s. It even smelled better. The hand, unsurprisingly, was attached to Mycroft.

“Hey,” John said, surprised. “I thought you were still out of the country. Is that for me?”

“I returned day before yesterday,” Mycroft said, handing him the cup. “But matters required my attention.”

John sipped gratefully at the hot coffee. “This is brilliant. Thank you. I’ll never let Sherlock say a word against you again.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll wear you down quite soon.”

“You’ve only just missed him—they took him back a few minutes ago.”

“Yes. I planned it that way,” Mycroft said blandly. “There is not enough coffee in the world to repay the enormous boon you have given me by relieving me of the responsibility for caring for my brother in hospital.”

“Oh, he’s not—okay, he is. So how did everything go?”

“Quite well. I am assured by our mutual friend that there are no remaining loose ends. I have also met with the Americans, for whom Neil Garrison had become something of a concern before his disappearance several months ago. They do not seem dismayed to learn that he will not be returning to active duty. And as for the other matter…I am advised that there is no interest in pursuing the whereabouts of Kristin Amburgey. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ seems to be the presiding sentiment.”

John honestly had no idea if Mycroft had persuaded the Americans of the mutual benefit of this, or whether he now owed someone an enormous favor. He decided he didn’t want to know.

“I have a letter for you.” Mycroft pulled an envelope from his jacket and extracted a folded piece of paper, which he handed to John. It was thin and crinkly, a bit like the old air mail stationery John remembered from his youth.

Dear John,

I am so terribly sorry about what happened. I swear to you I had no idea that Neil could still be alive. No matter what else I might be guilty of, I never would have left him out there to die if I had known.

John found himself biting back a smile. His former wife’s moral code, like Sherlock’s, was highly specific: she wouldn’t have saved the man who tried to double-cross her, but she would have shot him in the head rather than let him suffer a lingering death.

I never wanted all that money. I just wanted out. I didn’t want to go and live on a yacht someplace, I wanted a life; a real life, one not built on lies, where I could help people. So I went to London and went to nursing school, and I made sure Rehan’s family was taken care of, and I set up a fund I could get to quickly if I had to run. And then I just let the rest of it sit. I thought about giving it all to charity, one of the ones where they build schools for girls, but it’s surprisingly hard to give away once you have it. Mycroft is going to help me. I want to use some to make amends to Sherlock, and he’s going to help me with that too.

Mycroft told me about you and Sherlock. I am so very happy for you both. I think Sherlock has loved you for a very long time, and if I can’t have you, then I want it to be him.

As for the other person we both love: you would be so proud, John, I wish you could see her. She is beautiful and clever and healthy and happy. She will grow up hearing what a wonderful man her father is, and when she is old enough she will know the rest. I will look after her, and you will look after Sherlock, and perhaps one day we will see each other again.

Love always,

Mary

John read the letter over twice. He was smiling, although his vision was a little blurry. She would always be his wife, just as his parents would always be his parents and Em his child. He would certainly never have another—although now it occurred to him for the first time that he might one day have a husband. He knew if he and Mary had tried to stay together their relationship would have dissolved into bitterness and acrimony, but now, in its own way, their friendship survived.

John handed the letter back to Mycroft, who folded it, took out a cigarette paper, rolled the letter into the paper, and sealed it. Then he tucked it into his breast pocket as John watched in amusement.

“Going to smoke that?”

”It’s surprisingly not unpleasant, although sadly lacking in nicotine,” Mycroft replied.

“What does she mean by making amends?”

Mycroft lifted the folder he had placed on the chair next to him. “When Sherlock was small, our family stayed several summers at the estate of a family friend in Sussex. There was a cottage nearby where an old man kept bees. Sherlock had no interest in the things our parents hoped would interest him—going to the beach or learning to ride a pony—but he was fascinated by the bees and he visited the old man every day. For years he was adamant that when he grew up he too would be a beekeeper and live in that exact cottage. A few months ago, when it became evident that Sherlock would need single-storey accommodation rather soon, I made inquiries, but it was far too expensive to rent for long. However…” Mycroft took out a sheaf of stapled pages and passed them to John. “Thanks to our mutual friend’s troubled conscience, you now own it.”

What?”

“It’s much closer to London than Reigate Abbey. If Sherlock decides to return to his former profession, you could keep it as a weekend house, or sell it. If not…I think he could be happy writing music there.” Mycroft flipped past the first page, which showed a ridiculously charming little cottage overgrown with wild roses. “There’s a room downstairs currently used as a study that could easily be used as a bedroom until Sherlock is able to manage stairs again. The kitchen has been recently updated…”

John stared as Mycroft talked on about plumbing and roofs and the state of the hives. The cottage was lovely, but somehow he couldn’t picture Sherlock there. Sherlock belonged in London, or someplace that would not constrain his restless spirit. John thought with a pang of the tower, with its mournful winds and sweeping views—a place for a wild falcon. This place was, well, tame.

“The upstairs bedroom and terrace have a view of the sea,” Mycroft said as though reading his mind. He flipped another page.

“Oh,” John said softly. Sure enough, there was the long slope of grass and the sea beyond, rocks and cliffs and wheeling birds. This, John could picture—Sherlock out on the lonely downs, wind whipping his hair about, the ever-changing sea and sky making his eyes a kaleidoscope of green and blue and grey. “Yes. Yes, that could work.”

“I rather thought so,” Mycroft said, looking smug.

“How long? He’ll be in hospital some time, but if he doesn’t have to go to an inpatient rehabilitation unit—“

“Not long at all. I’ll take care of arrangements for the downstairs bedroom, or more likely have Mummy do it. She’s going to loathe his hair,” Mycroft said, looking deeply pleased.

John snorted and Mycroft handed him the folder. “The rest of the details. I must be going; I’ve quite a lot on my plate today and must make time for a cigarette before I go.”

“Hey—“John said and Mycroft paused, looking back. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said with none of his usual archness. He paused, looking oddly uncertain. “There are no decent restaurants near your new home, but the village has a pub with a rather passable selection of beer.”

“Darts?”

“I may have noticed some when I stopped in.”

John grinned. “Then I’ll expect you,” he said. “Twice a month at least.”

“Text me when Sherlock is out of surgery.”

“Like you won’t know before I do,” John said, and Mycroft cocked an eyebrow, pulled out his weird secret agent cigarette, and strolled off.

 

Time passed. It inevitably does, although the peculiarly elastic nature of time was something John pondered more than once in the long weeks ahead. When you were dreading the Sunday train, a whole week away from the person you loved, time seemed to fly by at the speed of light. When the person you loved was suffering, time crawled at a snail’s pace. But always it passed.

A man was buried in an unmarked grave. Somewhere a file was closed.

In Sussex, four physiotherapists demanded transfers or quit altogether. At least one had a nervous breakdown.

A man in Yorkshire prayed every day for the soul of Neil Garrison.

A tiny nation in the Caucasus celebrated the anniversary of its new national holiday.

The Malala Fund received an extremely large anonymous donation, and began planning for several new schools, as well as expanding their existing operations in Syrian refugee camps.

Leaves fell, and a memorial was dedicated in Regent’s Park.

A man of middle age thought of all he had learned in the past few years: to be patient, to recognize miracles, when to hold fast and when to let go. He decided that perhaps he was not, after all, too old to learn to drive.  

A woman of a bit more than middle age, feeling lonely, closed up her house for a bit and went to Paris to study advanced pastry-making. Pour mes garcons, she told them there.

Winter came, and the days grew dark and cold. A new heating system was installed in an old cottage. “Top of the line, and I made a few tweaks myself—it’s like a sauna in there now,” the man who installed it told his mates over a pint. Then he wiped his mouth and went to take on the posh git whom—to his amazement—he finally beat at darts. He secretly suspected the man in the suit of losing on purpose, but that did not make the cheers of his companions any less sweet.

In London, a crisply professional woman went down on one knee before a thin edgy one and proffered a diamond set in a nose ring. “Yes,” Nose Ring cried, “Yes, oh my God, of course,” and burst into tears. The restaurant politely applauded, the waiters with secret relief—proposals were notoriously chancy, and this particular restaurant had had that incident a few years ago, when the hopeful suitor and the pretend waiter had…well, at least things turned out well this time.  Nose Ring’s corner at Speedy’s stayed empty for a bit, but soon new regulars filled it, just as they had the seats that had once belonged to John and Green Jacket.

On the other side of the world, a little girl turned two.

Her mother fell in love.

Time passed, as it inevitably does. Spring came. The days grew longer and warmer, and the peregrines returned to their scrapes.

 

“Come on, John!”

“You might want to wait for me,” John called back. “Seeing as I know where we’re going and you don’t.”

“Of course I do. You’ve described it enough times.”

John rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Sherlock had been able to outpace him for weeks now, but he still took a childish joy in it, like a toddler scampering away from his mum. Now he loped ahead on the rocky trail, the spring wind tearing at his hair in a way that John knew meant an hour working through the knots later. Sherlock had already announced his intention to get it cut when they were settled in Baker Street, a decision John mourned in private.

Sherlock was out of sight ahead of him now. This trip had been a good idea, John thought. They would be moving back to London for good the following week, and although they both knew he was ready, Sherlock’s residual anxiety had made him tense and snippy. John had proposed the trip back to the Reigate Abbey Retreat Centre mostly as a way to distract him, but it also served to remind Sherlock of how far he had come.

John rounded the bend and found Sherlock crouched over the trail, peering down at some footprints barely visible in the hard soil.

“Woman’s,” Sherlock said, “New, 39, but the length of her stride shows she’s taller than her shoe size would indicate. Her boots are too small. That’s why she was hobbling a bit when we met her. I’ll tell Simon to inform her she needs to take her boots back.”

“Who? The composer?” They had met Sherlock’s replacement as composer-in-residence, a dark-eyed, restless woman who wrote a great deal of crashing discordant music and according to Simon spent hours walking the countryside.

“Obviously.” Sherlock stood back up and the wind promptly whipped his hair into his face. “I should have cut this before we came,” he muttered.

“You know, the whole point of taking a walk in the dales is to enjoy the beautiful scenery and your charming companion,” John remarked. “So you might slow down a bit.”

Sherlock gave him a look of pure disdain. “Scenery is boring. I want to see these nesting falcons you went on about last year, and then I’m going to have you over a rock, and then we’re going back and getting out of this horrible wind.”

“What? I thought you were just babbling that time to distract yourself before the surgery!”

“I don’t babble,” Sherlock said superciliously, and he bounded off, turning unerringly onto the barely-visible path that led to the peregrines’ nesting grounds.

John shook his head and started after him. He rather hoped Sherlock wasn’t serious—the air was warm, but the wind was brisk enough he didn’t much fancy dropping his trousers. Still…John had grown to appreciate and even enjoy bottoming over the past months, but if anybody was getting fucked over a rock, it wasn’t going to be John. He could feel the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he anticipated Sherlock jumping out to tackle him and getting knocked on his arse.

It had been a long journey, much of it rockier than the path under John’s feet. The first month after Sherlock’s surgery had been particularly horrible; if John had a mind palace, he would have consigned the memory to the dungeon next to the hospital in Germany. There were still times even now when Sherlock had trouble breathing in crowds or on trains. He had not gone to the dedication of the memorial in Regent’s Park last autumn, and that had broken John’s heart a little: all those people falling silent, moved to tears by his music. Even Mummy. Even Mycroft. The coldest parts of the winter had been especially hard, and John had woken many nights to find Sherlock shivering and lost, fingers digging bloody gouges in his scalp.

But he always calmed in John’s arms, was warmed and soothed, found his bearings again. He’d stopped wearing his knife after that last night in the tower. In January they had begun going to London, to have dinner at Angelo’s and stop the night in Baker Street, where Mrs. Hudson made splendid desserts and shrieked at Sherlock’s hair, and Lestrade had come around casually with a few case files—“Just in case you’ve a bit of downtime; I know you’re busy with the music. Are you going to keep your hair like that?”

Molly had come to visit them in Sussex to bring Sherlock a grisly set of autopsy photos. “Is that some sort of revenge for John’s mustache?”

In February Sherlock stopped taking commissions, although John didn’t know about this until the day they had been riding the train back from London and Sherlock had said abruptly, “In the spring, I think. When I finish the rest of the pieces for Brigid’s Cross.”

Brigid’s Cross was the women’s choral group, with whom Sherlock was collaborating on an album. They had already recorded the title piece, also called Brigid’s Cross (“obviously, John”), and John thought it was the most beautiful thing Sherlock had ever done: the voices folding into a four-part canon and then into a single harmonious whole, much like the structure of the cross for which it was named. “Well, that shouldn’t take you much longer,” he said as casually as he could.

Sherlock had sniffed and looked out the window. “I’ve done all the fun ones and now I’m down to virgin martyrs. Dull.

But he’d finished. And now everything was settled: the bulk of their things already moved to London, the flat cleaned and aired (and probably full of pastries). They would have the cottage to escape to for the next two months, but they’d arranged to let it for the summer—the extra income would come in handy in case business, or Sherlock, was slow to pick up. John had stopped work when Sherlock had his surgery and had no plans to return. Sherlock had an appointment to cut his hair. A new chapter: John and Sherlock Back at Baker Street (Finally!), and John couldn’t wait.

But Sherlock had got so tense and twitchy that John wouldn’t let him go to the shops for fear he’d return to cigarettes, so all in all this trip had definitely been one of John’s better ideas.

“Ha!” Sherlock shouted, pouncing on John and knocking him—fortunately—onto a springy hillock. “About time. I don’t see any falcons and I’m bored.”

“You bastard, I’ll make you wish you were bored,” John said, wrestling him over, and they rolled around getting grass-stained and winded until Sherlock pinned John and announced triumphantly, “You’ll need to make it up to me now that we’ve wasted all this time walking out here.”

“You have to use the binoculars, you git,” John said, reaching for them, and then promptly flipped Sherlock and pinned him in turn. “Who’s going to be making it up now—“

“Hallooo?” a voice called from the direction of the path.

John leaped up, mortified, but Sherlock groaned and grabbed his wrist, trying to tug him behind a large boulder. “Let’s go back here, nobody will see us.”

“Sherlock!” John hissed and then the voice came, a bit closer: “Sherlock! Sherlock, are you there?”

“That’s Simon,” Sherlock said, letting go of John and sitting up abruptly, alert as a retriever on point. “Something’s wrong.” He grabbed for John’s shoulder to get to his feet; he still had a bit of residual weakness in his leg.

“We’re over here! By the overlook!” John shouted.

Simon came around the bend, heaving for breath and clutching at his side. “I’m too old for this,” he panted. “Sherlock—I need—can you—“

“Is it someone missing or is someone dead?” Sherlock asked eagerly, and John gave a snort of laughter that he was too late to turn into a cough.

“Dead! The vicar—Thorpe Hesley—I knew something was wrong, asked to see me—“

“And he never showed up,” Sherlock said, already striding toward the path. “So you went to his room—shot or stabbed or poisoned? You haven’t called the police yet, have you? They’ll muck everything up.”

“Are you sure—“ John started.

Sherlock swung around and grinned at him, a fiercely joyful, wicked grin that lit his whole face. “Come on, John, holiday’s over. Time to go be us.”

And John felt himself grinning back. “Yes. It is.”

Notes:

Cue the obligatory backstory: I've spent a LOT of time in coffee shops over the years, and because I am both nosy and easily distracted, I like speculating about my fellow patrons. Years ago I used to see the same man week after week, always dressed for work and reading the papers. What was this guy doing, I wondered, sitting in a coffee shop at ten in the morning on the same day every week, all dressed up in a suit and tie? He must be staking someone out! Maybe he was an assassin! (He wasn't. We struck up a chat at the counter one day, and it turned out he'd lost his job and was going to a weekly networking/support group that met nearby.) Still...I wish he'd been an assassin, and I could have foiled his dastardly plan in some daring way, although more likely I'd just have been collateral damage.
A great deal of my fics have been written in coffee shops (I'm sitting in one right now, and if you're in here talking on your phone, I'm giving you the stink-eye). In its little way, this story is my love letter to every one I've spent happy hours reading and writing in over the years. If you are nodding in agreement, please raise your mug or your cup or your glass or your go-cup and join me in this toast: to coffee shops! Haven of the tired and inspired! And Suit Guy, I hope you found a job.
A short list of excellent PTSD fics:
Augustbird's "Burn Down" (this may be the most brutally realistic fic out there--be warned that it does not have a happy ending, although "Reignite", which was written earlier but takes place later, does.)
Achray's "Nothing Else Matters"
This one is recent but if you haven't read it: CatilinFairchild's "Your Perfect Offering"
The PTSD is a small subplot in Merripestin's "Safe Distance" , but it's just a terrific story so read it anyway.
I know there are others so send me the ones I missed and I'll add them!