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You stand in the shadow of a tree and watch him talk to the headstone over your empty grave.
All doctors come to know death, in the end. One, hallucinating from the brutal backwash of mind-numbing fatigue after being on duty for three days straight in the aftermath of some emergency/atrocity, even saw it. The cowl, the scythe, the terrible emptiness in its wake – in short, everything there is in the clichés dragged straight out of a medieval nightmare. You remember that she was shaking when she told you that every patient on her ward died that night, all in total silence. You wouldn't normally remember such trivia, but you tend to pay more attention to a fellow addict.
Military doctors know death much more intimately than their civilian counterparts. It follows them like a shadow, just as much as they follow it in an absurd dance of trying to defy the inevitable. They tend to be surprisingly frank and self-aware about the cognitive dissonance it takes to do their jobs. After all, the whole point of being on a battlefield is to kill and nothing will ever change that. Everyone wraps it up in euphemisms (saying 'neutralised' instead of 'killed' like it's an equation that has been solved, saying 'down' instead of 'dead' like they're going to get back up again when they've caught their breath, you could go on…), but there's nothing more absolute than a firefight where the winner really does take all, the loser only gets a grave if they're lucky, and no-one, hero or bastard or anything in between, gets to cheat death forever.
No. He's never spoken about what he saw out in Afghanistan, but you know what he would say. He would remember the hurriedly assembled field hospital where everyone was always half-listening for the tell-tale cough-whistle-crump of incoming fire. A triage grade scrawled on a forehead, half-faded away from the kind of cold sweat that doesn't belong anywhere in a desert. A blood type painted on a boot or a helmet out of fatalism or caution. Trying to read gore-doused dog tags or make out a shaky nine-liner written under fire with hands doused in adrenaline and blood. Anxious squaddies on CASEVAC duty either silent or asking questions, with the terrible dilemma of being unable to decide which was worse.
He's killed too, on the bad days. You've seen it happen – First do no harm didn't apply to that cabbie. A lesser intellect would see contradiction, but you see that certain je ne sais quoi of flexible moral strength that defines him. He is, like you, ultimately on the side of the angels but could never be mistaken for one. A killer doctor is a messy confusion of otherwise extremely clear identities, but he seems to handle it without getting lost in that nameless place where consciences fall apart and the blood-dimmed tide is loosed to drown what remains of innocence.
Ironic. You're both in grey areas now. You're between alive and dead, as far as the rest of the world knows, and he's trying not to lose his mind again from grief.
That's why he's defaulting to his past. It's right there in the way he stands and holds himself (together). You don't need to be a genius to see that, and he never did wear being a civilian well.
The military funeral in the field, like the firing squad, is more tradition than written requirement. Actually, even you don't know if it's all in a manual somewhere. You would say something about the relative priorities of the solace of ritual for the benefit of the psychological welfare of the living over the potential utility in hygienically disposing of remains, but there's no-one to say it to right now.
A detail digs a grave. They bury a rifle near the head by the fixed bayonet, rest the helmet on it and hang the dog-tags off the grip. Then they fire a volley over it.
You know he knows it, because he's seen it first-hand. He didn't save all of them. No-one could. No-one ever has.
Then, someone (CO or chaplain or friend) says a few words-
"You... you told me once that you weren't a hero. Umm, there were times I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this, you were the best man, the most human... human being that I've ever known, and no-one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, so there. I was so alone, and I owe you so much. But, please, there's just one more thing, one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be... dead. Would you do that just for me? Just stop it. Stop this…"
Then, when they've said all there is to say and all there is to be done has been done-
Stand to!
In your mind's eye, you see a firing party and ranks of uniformed mourners standing to attention on a dusty Afghan plain. Each of them alone with their thoughts, just for a second, enough for a conclusion/closure, and then-
About face!
Turning away, with mechanical precision and perfect control. It takes strength for that.
Then walking away. He doesn't look back. You don't think he'd see you if he did.
You watch. There's nothing you can do or say, for various reasons. It hurts.
Strange. It shouldn't.
You hear a discreet cough (subtype: male, light smoker) behind you.
Mycroft.
"He is seeing a therapist. The same one as before. I doubt much good will come of it," he tells you.
You remember that shrink. Idiot.
"You haven't told him?" you ask. There aren't many people you would trust with this secret, but John is at the top of the list.
It isn't a big list.
"And ruin plausible deniability?" he asks, eyebrows rising in mild reproof. Tsk tsk, little brother. You know better than that.
"Point," you concede. He is right, of course, but you agree with a reluctance that would have surprised the man you used to be.
He hands you an envelope. It's heavy, sealed and blank. You could guess what's inside, but you really can't be bothered to play right now.
"Is it my birthday?" you quip. He would roll his eyes if you weren't looking at him. Neither of you has acknowledged the other's birthday in over twenty years.
"My focus was on avoiding death, not recognising birth," he replies. He says 'death' lightly. People who know where the bodies are buried tend to.
"And?"
"A gun, money, a passport." Shrug. Just tools, nothing special.
"A gun?"
"Loaded. I was feeling generous."
It would be whatever the Security Service issue when the occasion calls for carrying a weapon – something off all the books and not likely to leave a trace. Difficult to arrange in this day and age, but there are ways. Some of them are even mildly interesting.
"Money?"
"A sufficient amount. An account will be available as well."
Tens and twenties, used and randomised. There's an office in the basement of a sub-department the Treasury will never admit exists where people with absolutely no imagination whatsoever count invisible money all day long. You'd bet this came from there.
"A passport?"
"The Director-General of MI6 was most accommodating."
Someone hoping for a KCMG tends to be. There will be a legend, no doubt, a fabricated identity to assume as your own, and those diligent people at Vauxhall Cross will have made it completely indistinguishable from the truth even if they needed to raid half the world's databases to do it.
"Who am I?" you ask, as if it matters right now.
"Nobody."
"Excellent. I take it a disguise is required?"
"Nothing that is beyond you."
"And?"
He smiles. It doesn't suit him. Civil servants (as if that's any kind of name for what he is) shouldn't smile like that.
"How do you feel about ginger?" he asks. He sounds perfectly innocent, but you know he's savouring the moment.
"Damn you to hell and back," you tell him.
"Yes. I thought you would say that."
There's probably a lot you should say to each other. He wants absolution for handing Moriarty ammunition to use against you and this escape-route-in-an-envelope that he will not want his masters to know about is probably his penance. That's why he's pushing all of your buttons; he's trying to hide that he's nervous.
Mycroft, nervous. Now you're savouring the moment.
But there won't be any reconciliation today. There's too much between you for that. You want your life back and you want to be able to talk to your friend again, and that means you don't have any time to waste until the last of Moriarty's people is dead or in chains. You don't much care which.
John is out of sight now. You turn and walk away without saying goodbye.