I Am Not There, I Do Not Sleep

by Michelle

※※※※※

The rustling sound of the rain lashing against the windows was interrupted by another sound of thunder in the not-far distance.

London was shrouded in a veil of darkness on that mid-August night. The pouring rain was only fitting to mirror the mood of the tall man in a night robe, standing at the living room window of the 221B Baker Street flat. He was staring through the cold glass pane, out onto the street - seeing but not observing at all.

That night, his eyes were blind to anything happening around him. His ears were deaf to the sounds of the hasty footsteps on the pavement below, rushing and trying to find shelter from the thunderstorm. His heart was heavy as it hadn’t been since his best friend’s wife died four years earlier…

The lightest of touches on his shoulder made him turn his face away from the window. When he looked into her sad, caring, warm brown eyes, a bittersweet smile appeared on his face. She returned it with her own small smile. Her gentle hand ran through his curly dark hair and lingered for a brief moment on his cheek, stroking it with her thumb. His face was pale in the dim light penetrating the room from the street. It had been pale for a few days.

“I’m all right, Molly,” he said, smiling, though his eyes were full of grief. “Go back to bed.”
“I’ll stay with you, Sherlock,” she replied softly, observing him with tired eyes. “I can’t sleep either.”

For a brief moment, he thought back at times, years before, when solitude was his best friend, when dealing with dramatic events was solely his own private matter. That was back then, though. Sherlock Holmes was a different man now. Different and yet, not so different at all…

He kissed her temple and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. Molly rested her head against his chest, watching the raindrops streaming down the glass pane in streaks.
“Even the sky has been crying for three days,” she remarked quietly, holding him around his slender waist.

His steel-blue eyes blinked several times in a stubborn attempt to focus the slightly blurry vision. In the end, he gave up and closed them, exhaling loudly into the semi-darkness. All at once, the ghosts of the past resounded all around him…

- Would you like some tea? The kettle’s over there…

- A nice murder; that will cheer you up...

- That was the doorbell. Couldn’t you hear it?
- It’s in the fridge. It kept ringing.
- Oh, that’s not a fault, Sherlock!

- I’m your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper...

- Oh, get over yourself! You’re not my first smackhead, Sherlock Holmes...

- Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street? England would fall!

Three days earlier, England had fallen… into grief. Mrs Hudson, the heart of 221B Baker Street had left the place she called home and had on and off shared with her beloved Baker Street boys for eleven years. She left it for good, having been called to a place with no return ticket.

Sherlock was re-living the past eleven years of his life. The small but always exuberant figure of his beloved landlady was always there. Always watching from the sidelines, watching over him, scolding him, guiding him with a maternal instinct and her sharp wit, proclaiming that reason was not always the way to solve a problem.

221B will never be the same again... Oh, you damned little woman, why did you have to leave so soon?

He swallowed the unshed tears and opened his eyes again. At that moment, his phone vibrated on the desk nearby. Molly reached for it and passed it on to him. Sherlock opened the received text and read it. His deep chuckle echoed in the stillness as he turned the phone screen towards her.

IF YOU DON’T GO TO SLEEP NOW, YOU’LL BE A USELESS MORON TALKING BULLSHIT TOMORROW AND MRS HUDSON WILL TURN IN HER GRAVE IF YOU START ANALYSING HER EX-HUSBAND’S DRUG CARTEL PAST. JW

“He’s trying to cheer you up.” Molly grinned and shook her head.
Sherlock sighed, still smiling. “Yeah, he knows me more than I should find it appropriate.”
“Oh, he better, after eleven years of bearing with your rather refined behaviour,” she replied with a cheeky half-smile, raising her eyebrows.
“You managed quite fine,” he countered with a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes, making her grin.

He chuckled again, his heart feeling lighter when thinking of his dear friend and looking at the woman who used to be only his pathologist once. His look softened, and his hand put a loose strand of her chestnut hair behind her small ear. Then, his eyes grew sad again.

“What will we do without her, Molly?”
His question didn’t require an answer. It was a mere statement of the undeniable fact that the heart of Baker Street was gone forever. But Molly answered anyway.
“The same as before.” She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Follow her advice.”

Sherlock tried to suppress a smile.
“As if I’ve ever done that,” he said.
“As if she ever gave up on you,” Molly countered, bemused.
His lips finally broke into a heartfelt smile when he lowered his eyes for a moment.

“You and John, you really were like sons for her, you know?” she continued. “It might sound cheesy but, it’s the truth. Anyone could see that, even Greg, and he’s not one of the brightest brains in these matters out there.”

Sherlock chuckled as she scrunched her nose at the last statement. The Scotland Yard’s pride and glory, DI Lestrade, was truly a lost cause in analysing human relations, though his heart was always in the right place.

A distant memory brought an amused smile to the detective’s face.
“The first thing she told me when you and I got together was ‘Don’t screw this up, Sherlock Holmes, or when I die, I’ll come to haunt you every night for the rest of your pitiable lonesome life, and even the poor excuse of your brother won’t help you!’”
His deep laughter filled the dark room, joined by her light, girlish one. Then, they grew silent again.

“Do you know what you are going to say tomorrow?” Molly asked softly.
“Don’t worry.” He chuckled. “One almost fiasco at John’s wedding was enough for a lifetime. And nope, I don’t need cue cards this time.”
She smiled back at him. “I know you’ll do fine; you’ll do her proud.”

Her trust in him made Sherlock think how grateful he was. For her, for John, for all the people he could call friends. Martha Hudson had been one of them, one of the dearest people on Earth, his second mother, and like Molly, she had often been his walking conscience. And she always would be, wherever her spirit was resting now.
“I hope so, I really do…”

His look wandered to the distance behind the window again. The raindrops were still racing down the pathways, but the thunder was getting quieter; the storm was subsiding…

※※※※※

John found Sherlock standing in the sun-lit garden, outside in the back of the funeral reception venue - his friend was smoking.
“You’re doing it again,” John said, amused, folding his arms over his chest.

The detective was startled and quickly hid the cigarette behind his back as he turned around. When he saw it was ‘only’ his best friend, he rolled his eyes and relaxed, though putting out the cigarette in the nearby standing ashtray.

“Five years,” John shook his head, pretending incomprehension. “You managed to stay off them for five years, and now this…”
“If you had a high-pitched voice, wore a slightly outdated dress, and your hair was back to its original blond colour as opposed to the grey you keep trying to dye - in vain, I must say - you could pass for my mother,” he said dryly, adjusting his black jacket. “Although…” He checked John’s feet. “Yes, I prefer you without high heels.”

The doctor chuckled. No matter how much Sherlock Holmes had changed in the years that John had known him, the most celebrated consulting detective in the world had not lost his sharp wit and his dry, seemingly insulting sense of humour.

“I hope Lestrade and Mycroft are not having another glass of Scotch. Brother mine has already crossed his average daily intake twice.”
“I honestly think Molly is a saint,” the doctor remarked, bemused. “No one else could live with such a git, let alone love him.”

An almost smug half-smile appeared on Sherlock’s face while he looked into the lush green space with colourful patches stretching out before them.
“If my memory serves me right, there was someone, a long time ago.”
“If you dropped that sexual undertone, I might have taken it as a compliment,” John replied earnestly.

They were standing side by side, both leaning against the wall. When they finally slowly looked at each other, all pretence was gone, and they burst into heartfelt laughter, bending over. It was the first lighter moment for both of them in a week filled with loss and grief.

The doctor sighed and shook his head.
“That was pretty impressive back there. I never knew you read poetry,” he said with admiration. “If I didn’t know you, I would even say that it was quite moving.”
Sherlock nodded a little, acknowledging his friend’s compliment with a small smile.

“Even geniuses have their weak points,” he remarked.
“Yes, I remember that from time to time, we might all just be human,” John replied knowingly. “No, seriously, I think she would have loved it,” he added with a subdued smile, looking at the face of the best friend he had ever had.
The steel-blue eyes of the detective found his eyes, and for the first time since the day the sad news had reached them, Sherlock’s eyes were glistening.

The emotional moment was interrupted by the thumping sound of little feet.
“There they are!”

Both men turned around at the sound of a child’s voice, and Rosie Watson ran into her father's arms.
“This garden is a paradise, but she was still missing you,” said Molly, following the little girl. “I guess fresh air and lovely flowers can’t replace Daddy and uncle Sherlock.”

She moved to take place next to the detective. One look at him made her smile fade away. He noticed her worried expression and quickly wiped away the unexpected stray tear before taking her hand into his with a smile. Then he turned his attention to his god-daughter.

“So, Watson, how many kinds of bees did you see in the garden?” he asked earnestly in his deep velvety baritone.
“Two,” replied the girl eagerly. “White-tailed bumblebees and common carder bees.”
“Male or female white-tailed bumblebees?” Sherlock inquired, raising John’s eyebrows.
“Male. They will be looking for females soon,” Rosie replied knowingly, and she started giggling while adding, “For mating.”

That and John’s shocked expression made Molly laugh. His stern look at her silenced her, though, and she shrugged innocently, suppressing a grin.
”You know I’m grateful for any form of education for my child, Sherlock, but isn’t it a bit too early for her to talk about flowers and bees?” the doctor asked, mildly alarmed.

“Relax, John, Rosamund is in many ways far more advanced for her age than you are,” his friend replied nonchalantly and ruffled the girl’s blond curls. “That is a trait undoubtedly inherited from her mother.” Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes, looking at the doctor. “By the way, when was the last time you had a date?”
“That’s it,” John said abruptly. “Come on, little lady,” he put Rosie down to her feet and took her by the hand. “Time for more tea.”

Sherlock and Molly chuckled while watching the father and the daughter disappear inside.
“Flowers and bees, huh?” she asked, teasing him. “I wonder how you explained the core of that topic to Rosie.”
He looked at her from the side with an almost seductive smile, pulling her closer.
“If you manage to get me a few fresh male thumbs, I might show you…” he whispered in her ear before looking at her again.
Molly laughed and laid her head against his chest, embracing him.

Sherlock’s smile reached his eyes, and when his arms locked around her, he exhaled deeply.
I won’t screw this up; I promise…

He lifted his head towards the deep-blue sky, seeing two turtledoves fly by. And then a soft breeze picked up and caressed his cheek, almost as if touched by an invisible hand. He shivered lightly but then smiled, and something deep inside of him told him that everything would be all right in time.

＊＊＊
 

“Aww, isn’t that a sight for sore eyes?”

“It certainly is, Mrs Hudson. If anyone had told me five years ago that Sherlock Holmes would be in a relationship, let alone a serious one, and for four years and counting, I would have thought they were high on something.”

“You mustn’t judge a book by its cover, my dear. My boy has always been a softie inside; he only hates admitting and showing it. He used to repeat some nonsense about romantic entanglements distracting him from work or something. Had it not been for all the horrible things happening back then... Oh, I’m so sorry, Mary, I didn’t mean to awaken bad memories...”

“It’s all right, Mrs Hudson. It is what it is. And you’re right. I always knew there was more to Sherlock than meets the eye.”

“He was very fond of you, Mary; he still is in his heart. It took him a long time to forgive himself for your death, though even John told him it wasn’t his fault. But that boy has some balls; you have to admit. He never gives up. Just like your dear doctor.”

“They are some pair, aren’t they? I’m glad Molly is there for them and for Rosie, too. My goodness... Have you seen how big my girl is already? John is doing a wonderful job with her. She’ll turn six soon, so beautiful...”

“She is as lovely and clever as her Mommy and has a big heart like her Daddy. And with Sherlock and Molly around, what could go wrong?”

“I suppose you’re right, Mrs Hudson.”

“I know I am, my dear; they call it life experience down there.”

“We just have to trust them and enjoy watching them from our place up here.”

“Oh, Mary, I certainly shall enjoy it! I’ll miss them all, but there’s one thing I’m glad I won’t have to do.”

“What is it, Mrs Hudson?”

“Haunt Sherlock for the rest of his life! And don’t you think it’s time you called me Martha? Who cares about formalities up here?”

“Damn right! Oops… I apologise… You’re right… Martha…”

“That’s better. Shall we leave the children to play and go stretch our legs, my dear?”

“Absolutely. Let me show you around; it’s positively marvellous and very peaceful up here.”

“Good! After all the dramas in those eighty-four years that I spent down on Earth, I could do with some peace and quiet.”

”And Martha, the best thing is, no one shoots in the walls here…”

“Splendid! Listen, Mary, do you know what is really strange?”

“What?”

“I can’t feel my hip at all, no pains and aches... This is truly... Heaven...”

※※※※※

 Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
(Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!)

-Mary Frye

※※※※※


In loving memory of Una Stubbs.

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Note: This was my first Sherlock story in 5 years, I wrote it in 2022...