Chapter Text
John’s hand tightens on Sherlock’s arm without his express direction. The world turns too fast and he feels sure that, however hard he forces himself to run, he cannot catch up or even move in the same direction as the carousel his life has become since the accident - no, he’s lying to himself again - since he loaned his phone to a pale looking posh git at the hospital that day. He feels like a drunkard, weaving his way through obstacles, hitting as many as he misses, his staggering steps woefully unequal to the goal of finding a way out.
The choking smell of the helicopter exhaust suddenly blows into his face as the wind swings around again and John freezes. He can do nothing to stop his mind from launching him back to the teetering edge of well-worn path to memories he avoids. He recognises the flood of sensation but isn’t in a position to fight - it seems to him that his current reality is equally as unlikely as finding himself back in Helmand. Sun-baked rock, glare and sweat, the battering of helicopter rotors on air already drenched with firearms and the shouts of the men who need his help - he’s slipping, he knows, but he has to find cover, has to plot a path to get to the injured. He tries to hold on to the rolling wash sound in his ears and the mineral taste on his lips, he thinks it’s important that he recognises those things but he can’t remember why.
“John!”
That’s Captain Watson to you, thank you very much, he thinks. He tries to pull away from the hands that are holding him too hard.
“John, listen. I’ll explain everything. Just, please, trust me. It’s Mycroft. He’s going to…”
Mycroft?
That isn’t a word that belongs here in this place.
A moment of disorientation and someone is taking his hand, holding it tightly. His jolt of recognition is physical; he lurches backwards but Sherlock doesn’t relinquish his grip.
Sherlock. Holding his hand. Grey eyes. Mad hair. Cold wind and sea air.
John sucks in a breath though his nose, his lips pressed tight. His eyes search his friend’s almost-familiar face and the world slows as pieces begin to settle into their new configuration.
Over Sherlock’s shoulder, there’s movement. Three of the figures are out of the helicopter now and are walking in the crouched, awkward way that people walking under rotor wash do. John has a handful of seconds, no more than half a minute, before he must make his next decision and he doesn’t even know what the options are yet.
He looks back at Sherlock, who watches him with an intensity that John recognises and a sadness he’s never seen. His hand is cold, wrapped around John’s, holding but not pulling. His eyebrows are drawn together and there is urgency, pleading and more than a hint of desperation in his eyes.
Can he trust this man?
Does he even know this man?
“What do you mean by your John Watson? You knew me?”
“I knew a version of you, yes.”
“And?” John prompts, barely containing the sense of betrayal that he feels as a desire to shake the man. Hard. He wants to laugh. He wants to congratulate himself that his initial instincts about this isolated, secretive man were correct - his mannerisms, his language - of course he was Sherlock all along. This man is no more William Holmes, marine scientist than he is himself.
“And I promise you that I will explain everything but right now this reality’s Mycroft Holmes is going to try and intimidate you into staying away from me. He’s relying on you keeping your mouth shut about the fact that there are a small but significant number of people from all over the world who remember a different version of history, who swear they lived it and can readily recount the differences between this place and they place they came from.”
“Does he know about you?”
Sherlock blinks a few times and shifts his weight. He hesitates for an instant before he commits. “No.”
“So who has been tipping you off that I…”
“Afterwards, John. Please, trust me.”
There’s a familiar sensation of resignation and inevitability that lodges in John’s chest. He understands that this isn’t the Sherlock he knew, but damn him if he doesn’t know how to get what he wants. He’s been on the losing end of these conversations a number of times. This is exactly how John has been manipulated and put aside before and he hates that it feels so similar. But he doesn’t have a firm grasp on what is going on here exactly - he’s one of the poor buggers experiencing this phenomenon but has been more than half convinced that he’s not in his right mind for several months. How can he promise to follow Sherlock’s lead with only the sketchiest grasp on the truth.
But how can he not when Mycroft’s rules are his alternative?
It seems his decision is made.
“Alright, but you will tell me everything once he’s gone. No bullshit. No more half-truths. Okay?”
Sherlock’s hand pulses around John’s and he seems reluctant to let go, an extra second stolen from the scant moments they left have before they
have to face the outside world again. Sherlock eyes are a gentle as he has ever seen them and he gives a nod and a tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth that John chooses to take as hisagreement. Then they turn together and face their uninvited guests.
John glances at the armed military bodyguard standing at Mycroft’s left shoulder and a woman he vaguely recognises at his right. He resolves not to give Sherlock’s twat of a brother the satisfaction of a reaction to either.
Mycroft Holmes takes a moment to straighten his tie and smooth his hair before he approaches with a pained expression on his face. John’s not surprised to find that it doesn’t matter what reality he’s in, the desire to slap Mycroft Holmes defies dimensions.
The elder Holmes’ cold eyes catch on Sherlock’s bruised face and flick, cooler than ever, to John.
“Not what you think, brother,” Sherlock says smoothly, his voice calmer now but brimming with contempt.
“Good,” Mycroft concedes with something that still misses a smile by several hundred miles. “I don’t think we’ve met?” He doesn’t hold out a hand.
“This is my friend, Dr John Watson,” Sherlock offers grudgingly.
“Friend?” Mycroft asks immediately, the slightest flicker of amusement in his tone.
“Friend,” John insists, making direct eye contact and refusing to be the first to look away.
“I’m sorry, my memory these days is quite shocking. Remind me where you met?”
Sherlock steps forward, slightly blocking Mycroft’s view of John and drawing his attention to himself.
“What do you want, Mycroft?”
“Oh, I was in the area…” He waves a hand indicating this storm tossed wilderness as if he was discussing afternoon tea in the Home Counties. “I thought I would see how you’d fared during the first storm of the season. Imagine my surprise at finding your friend here with you. He’s been quite busy recently, I gather, making a nuisance of himself and asking some frankly disturbing questions.”
“Well, as you can see there’s nothing for you to worry yourself about here,” Sherlock tells Mycroft, not bothering to hide his impatience. “John and I are simply enjoying each other’s company and some livelyconversation. I’d invite you in for tea only we’re not expecting to be re-stocked for a few days yet and there’s insufficient cake to offer someone with such a lust for all things blessed with buttercream likeyours. So sad. Maybe next time. Bye then.”
Mycroft isn’t wrong-footed in the least with Sherlock’s jibes. He smiles insincerely. “And how would this lively conversation translate into something that probably required stitches? How lively are we talking here, brother mine?”
“He was hit by debris during the storm. He didn’t need stitches. I assessed the injury and treated it. It may leave a small scar but there’s no infection and no lasting damage.”
“So the army doctor part of your outlandish tale is true. How about the part where you and my brother solved crimes to distract him from an addiction to opiates that almost caused his death on several occasions? Or the fact that he committed suicide in front of you due to the shame of being found to have fabricated all of his rather well reported cases?”
“That was a lie,” John says evenly even as his heart lurches to hear his life recounted so dispassionately.
“Which part? Frankly the entire thing sounds rather far-fetched. I know that you were invalided out of service and that you’ve been seeing a therapist who specialises in trauma related mental illness. Perhaps you might need more help than you are currently receiving. Something less voluntary and more… residential perhaps?”
John leans forward to explain what Mycroft can do with his attempts at intimidation but Sherlock beats him to it.
“That’s enough Mycroft,” he snarls, pulling himself to his full height, still shorter than his brother but just as quietly menacing. “ Tell us what you want and then kindly fuck off.”
Mycroft smiles as if someone has had to explain to him how to do it because has never actually seen it done in person. He settles the cuffs of his shirt so they are slightly visible beneath his jacket sleeves which does nothing to stop John from wishing any number of misfortunes down upon his arrogant head.
“The John Watson and William Holmes from this reality never met - they briefly attended the same university but on different campuses," he starts blandly, as if he's reluctantly explaining something simple, "So when a delusional unfortunate claiming to be looking for a dead stranger with almost the same name as my brother begins a campaign around London seeking information? Well, clearly I am here to ensure that he has not understated his intentions as regards your continued health given that I am to understand that his relationship with his alleged alternate William Holmes was…how can we put this delicately?” Mycroft presses his lips together for a moment of reflection. “Perhaps rather one sided?”
“Who told you this?” John says, his voice clipped but steady. “What the hell are you implying?”
Mycroft lifts his nose and clasps his hands before him. “There are a handful of people who share your delusions, one in particular was in a position to give you the information that brought you here, via the classified databases of the Metropolitan Police. She claimed to have known you both. Perhaps you remember her?”
She? Her?
“Detective Donovan?” John asks incredulously.
Mycroft’s lips twitch and he lowers his eyes, “Not any longer, unfortunately. Ms. Donovan proved to be less than equal to the exemplary standards required of such a sensitive organisation.”
John doesn’t know what this means or what to think. Sally Donovan had never been a big fan of his or Sherlock’s and had been outspoken in her views on the suitability of having them on active crime scenes. She had been one of the people who had been instrumental in Sherlock’s fall from grace, poisoning Lestrade’s ear with her theories and casting doubt on Sherlock’s motivation for working cases.
The fact that she’s here - like him - out of step with this world and at odds with its backstory is the validation that John has been looking for, hoping for, these last months. But to hear Mycroft describe his friendship with Sherlock like some twisted, pathetic, fragile thing built on uneven foundations and to know that those were Sally’s views makes his stomach churn. He wonders what Mycroft has done with her, wonders where she is now.
“Your brother and I have discussed this already, Mycroft. I don’t know what you were expecting to achieve here, but this is none of yourbusiness.”
“On the contrary, Dr Watson. This is precisely my business, only made more so by the involvement of William here. I’m glad you’ve had time to chat, as it were. Secrets are terrible things between family and friends, don’t you agree?”
Sherlock shifts at John’s side, easing his shoulder slightly in front of John again, as if subconsciously protecting him but John hasn’t needed to be protected in many years and particularly not from the likes of Mycroft Holmes.
“So you’ve had time to clear the air; that’s good isn’t it? So William knows all about your little obsession with…”
“I’m warning you, Mycroft…”
“Enough!” Sherlock hisses, his body twitching with anger, his clear desire to lash out only barely suppressed. But Mycroft is implacable.
“And William has of course explained the tragic circumstances of his husband’s death in his own theoretical alternate reality, I assume.”
Sherlock stills completely. His anger is gone in an instant, John watches it die as Mycroft delivers his coup de grace.
“A soldier’s death of course. It’s never an easy thing to face but I suspect you took some comfort from knowing that your John was doing what he wanted to do when his time came.”
It’s as if Sherlock’s strings have been cut but instead of falling to the ground he continues to stand there, unmoving, unseeing, just a mark for his alternate brother’s spite. John can relate. He knows that he must be breathing, that his heart still pushes sluggish blood around his body, that he can still hear and see and feel but everything seems like it’s coming from a thousand miles away.
For the second time that day there’s a mismatch between what John knows and what he has heard, and try as he might, he cannot integrate the new information into what he can believe right now - it’s as if his imagination doesn’t have the capacity to stretch as far as it needs to include the version of himself and Sherlock that Mycroft is describing. Sherlock’s not arguing, he’s not ridiculing his brother. He didn’t know that Mycroft knew he wasn’t the right William Holmes. He didn’t know that Mycroft had this information about John and him…
That they… He finds it hard to even think it.
John and Sherlock had been married. In the place that Sherlock came from there had been a wedding, a marriage, a life lived together before John had died. In that place it had been Sherlock who had been left behind to scrape his life back together after the other’s death.
It’s overwhelming in ways that John cannot grasp. Why wouldn’t ‘William’ have told him this? Why did he continue with the pretence of never having met him? All those questions he asked, and for what? He’s reeling at the revelation of the relationship and hurt that Sherlock has allowed him to find out this way.
Married! Him and Sherlock. How? When? What were the differences between their two worlds that allowed such a thing to occur? Is there something he could have done differently? Why did that John Watson do to make Sherlock fall in love with him when his own Sherlock couldn’t?
He can’t keep track of the emotions that this information has forced upon him. Yes, confusion and hurt, but also fury and disbelief. What is it about him that makes him a mark for every version of Sherlock’s deceits and misdirections? He might not have lied - and even his Sherlock had been careful not to lie to John’s face - but he’d let him into his home, they’d talked, John had told him things that he hadn’t told anyone else, not even his therapist. He’d thought that he was safe, that he knew what was going on, that Sherlock had levelled with him. Shit, he’d thought that they might even be becoming friends. How many times is this man - in whatever guise - going to make a fucking fool of him?
What’s funny is that John had thought he’d known better when Sherlock had called him an idiot. Turns out Sherlock was right all along.
He can’t do this. He mustn’t.
If he starts this now, he’s as good as useless. Mycroft has deliberately placed this piece of information here to enable him to achieve something. That’s what John needs to focus on. He can shred what is left of his soul over this later, once Mycroft has gone back to whatever government department deals with parallel dimensions and inconvenient truths.
But Sherlock… Sherlock looks as if all the fight has gone out of him. Perversely, John wants to reach out, to lay a hand on his back, to bridge this gap, share grief, offer understanding but he doesn’t truly know this man. Less than twenty four hours of acquaintance doesn’t give him the right to touch, to offer comfort no matter that every fibre of him is telling him that, despite everything, despite all the pain and the secrets, they are connected, that their connection is meant and that the very universe is telling them this by bringing them together in this impossible way.
“What do you want Mycroft?”
Sherlock’s hollow voice brings John back to the present. It sounds wrong, like defeat, something he has only once before heard from his own Sherlock.
Mycroft casts a meaningful glance at the woman beside him and she turns and walks towards the lodge while he addresses himself to Sherlock.
“The thing is, dear brother, that although quite fascinating, I’m sure, unexplained disappearances and appearances are not good for business. Affected governments have taken the decision to quietly and carefully contain all suggestion of the existence of other realities, if that is indeed what we are dealing with. We believe that the memories that these affected people have are fortunately impermanent - like a wound; with time it heals over and in all cases so far there has been nothing left to show that there was any alternate timeline there at all. Our studies have already strongly suggested that even without intervention, subjects simply assume the personalities and memories of their counterparts in this timeline. That you and John have retained your memories thus far is interesting and the longest span that we have yet seen reported. We don’t know why this should be but are confident that your experience will be sufficiently similar to the other subjects.
We will take Dr Watson back with us where he will be debriefed and permitted to return to his normal life where I am sure it is only a matter of time before he reacquaints himself with his role in this timeline. I think that’s for the best given the possibility that it’s your interactions that are prolonging the effects of the switch. With some rest and a return to his usual routine the good doctor will be feeling one hundred percent himself again very soon.”
“And what about William?” John asks quietly.
Mycroft’s gaze zeros in on him again, as if surprised he’s still there. It’s like attracting the attention of a snake - unpredictable and inadvisable.
“I can assure you that William is quite safe here - as far as anyone else knows, he has lived here for a number of years quite contentedly. Touching that you think that’s any of your concern, Dr Watson.”
John lifts his chin and tips his head, contemplating the stuffed shirt talking to him like he’s something unpleasant he’s stepped in.
“As much as he’s not my Sherlock, Mycroft, he’s also not your brother. You cannot simply decide for him. You can’t keep him tucked away under house arrest here forever. This isn’t a conspiracy, there’s no intention behind what has happened here; it’s just random individuals pulled from their lives into someone else’s.”
He steps forward, closer to the elder Holmes and leans in, ignoring the guard who carefully but visibly shifts his grip on his weapon. “Neither one of us asked for this… whatever it is. I’m not interested in the fate of the world or why this has happened. I’m not trying to change anything. I just want to be left alone, no interference, no threats, no oversight. I very much suspect that William feels the same way but has the disadvantage of being, at least nominally, related to you.”
Mycroft responds with a brief lift of an eyebrow.
“Let me advise you…” he begins.
“Just stop, Mycroft.” Sherlock says, quietly but precisely. “John is right. There’s no hidden agenda, as I’m almost certain you are already aware. The chances of you not keeping close tabs on anyone who has been through this are vanishingly small despite this. I have nothing to hide. Even you will get bored eventually. And in the meantime you will let John return to his home and continue to write and publish his stories - it’s a perfect excuse should anyone else come forward with memories of John and his Sherlock being able to say that the poor misguided souls have confused reality with the works of a popular blogger.”
Sherlock shifts his weight and straightens up. He takes a breath.
“Ms. Donovan was simply trying to fix something she thought was wrong - a cosmic second chance if you will. She wasn’t to know that the problem was more complex than anyone had considered. So you can crawl back into the sewers under Whitehall and plan your next military coup safe from whatever transdimentional interference you had anticipated. John is right. We don’t know each other. Despite the myriad points of correlation, I’m not even the friend he was looking for.”
“You can’t be serious,” John says, appealing to Sherlock’s sense of injustice. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Leaving you here in such an isolated location when it isn’t what you have chosen is inhumane.”
John’s stomach is rolling, worse for each second that Sherlock watches him dispassionately. He never could keep up with Sherlock’s mood swings or the close quarters sparring that he and his brother used to revel in - he knew he was always a hundred miles behind in understanding those particular exchanges, but despite that he still struggles to sort out the last ten minutes into a shape that means something. Sherlock’s distress at Mycroft’s arrival to him rolling over and playing dead like he just has makes absolutely no sense to him.
Mycroft’s assistant has returned carrying John’s belongings. She keeps a hold of the bag but passes John his jacket. It takes him a few seconds to realise that they are waiting for him to put it on. It’s almost surreal, the way that no one is speaking. Sherlock won’t look at him, Mycroft is watching him impassively as he shrugs out of the oversized waterproof he’s borrowed. On the signal from the guard, the helicopter engine begins to whine. Mycroft finally turns to his assistant and begins to speak to her in a voice low enough that John cannot hear it over the rotors just beginning to turn.
He cannot quite grasp that this is it and that the last months of seeking answers are at an end. There are much bigger ramifications, he knows, but right now all he can think about is that he is leaving Sherlock here alone again. Is that what Sherlock actually wants now John knows the truth? He has so much he wants to tell him, so much to ask. He has found the answer to one question but all it has done is given him a thousand new ones. Does Sherlock not feel the same way? Does he not want those answers himself? Is it as simple as John not being the ‘right’ John?
The guard is moving aside to cover John’s path to the helicopter and Mycroft is still giving instructions - it appears that John has the woman’s seat on the helicopter for the return journey. He bundles up the coat and hands it to Sherlock who takes it without meeting his eye. With only seconds left, John touches his fingertips to Sherlock’s hand under the pretence of settling the fabric more safely in the man’s grasp.
He’s not sure if he’s warning him, cursing him, saying goodbye or begging to stay. He just needs to know that Sherlock registers the gesture. It’s subtle and ambiguous but he blinks quickly at the press of John’s fingers before sliding his hand away, maintaining the contact until the last possible moment.
And that’s it; the end of John’s journey. He found what he was looking for and lost his friend again.
Sherlock doesn’t look up until they have already taken off. As the helicopter rises into the tumbling sky, strapped into the seat beside the guard, John watches his upturned face until distance makes it impossible to see him anymore.
He wonders how long it will take Sherlock to forget him. He wonders how it can ever be possible for him to forget Sherlock, whether he wants to or not.