The Quiet Man

However Improbable

Here you are: just standing here, keeping me from collapsing into the floor, as if it’s nothing. As if it’s not a dream or a miracle. Is it? You’re here, in this place of all places, this place I’ve been avoiding. How long have you been here? Sherlock, how long?

The water is bubbling in the kettle, there’s a hiss of steam. You’re going to step away in a minute and vanish, aren’t you. Don’t vanish. Not yet.

My heart is beating too fast. I need to breathe. I can’t. If I hold him tighter, I just feel more of him. He’s solid. He doesn’t disappear, or disintegrate. His shoulder blades seem sharp even under his suit jacket. He’s all bones and expensive tailoring. I’d forgotten about the smell of his skin, that unique and particular smell I can’t describe, but there it is again. I’d recognise it anywhere. It’s you, Sherlock. It couldn’t be anyone else.

“So you didn’t know,” he says. It’s not a question: of course I didn’t. How could I? “You didn’t guess.”

He shifts, he’s stepping back from me. The fabric of his jacket slips under my fingers: I can’t hold on. I don’t trust my knees. Don’t let me go, Sherlock. He takes me by the shoulders and looks at me. Breathe, I need to breathe. I’m shaking. I might faint. He’s evaluating me. I don’t need to say anything: he’ll read everything he needs to know on my face.

Of course I didn’t know. I didn’t dare guess; I couldn’t. Not without losing my mind.

“No, I suppose you didn’t.” He smiles at me, a sort of awkward, wry smile. I’d call it apologetic, but I don’t think it is. Sad? I don’t know. I’m out of practice reading his facial expressions. “I had hoped...” He sighs, and looks over his shoulder. “Well. Come, sit here, I’ll make you some tea. All right?”

Tea. The kettle’s just boiled. I can see the steam. No time at all has passed since Sherlock reappeared in the world. Three years: three minutes. Time makes no sense anymore. His bloodied, pale face: his wry smile. It’s all blurred together. Which is real? Neither. Both. I don’t know anymore.

He steers me into the kitchen. My legs feel like they’re not mine; I need to orchestrate every muscle, each shift in weight. Each step is an accomplishment. He doesn’t complain.

It’s just the shock. Combat stress reaction: I’m too thick, too slow, too weak. I can’t take my eyes off him. He sits me down; my hands are shaking. I need to breathe, I need just one deep breath, I’m going to hyperventilate. Inhale, exhale. Watch him. It’s impossible, but there he is. Alive.

He moves like music: what does that even mean? Smoothly: he walks, he takes milk from the fridge and puts it on the worktop. I can’t understand him. He doesn’t make any sense. How can he be here? How can he open the cupboard, take down the cups, how are his hands moving at all? They’re not stitched back together, and he’s not a ghost. He’s not a monster made of corpses, he’s not a product of the morgue. How?

He’s so thin; his clothes are hanging off of him. Like the day I met him: rail thin, pinched. Where’s he been all this time? He hasn’t been eating.

His hair is too long: it’s wild and standing on end. Usually you’d relent and get a haircut before it gets this long, before it gets to be a halo of mad curls. I’d have teased you for it by now. There’s a bit of grey in there too, at his temples; he’s aged. Like me. Like a living man. How can you have? You’re alive. Breathe: I need to breathe.

“I’ve given you a fright,” he says. Matter-of-factly. Is he disappointed? He is, isn’t he. I was supposed to work it out. I know his methods: I was meant to apply them. Figure it out. Deduce it.

How was I supposed to do that? From code posted in the classifieds? That’s not enough to go on, Sherlock. That’s not enough to make an entirely irrational leap of faith. Dead men don’t come back, not without founding a religion. Not after three years.