If You Love Me, Get Clean

Chapter Twenty Four

July 2015

Somehow, I just want you more
Wooden floors and little feet
A flower bud in concrete
Feelin' so incomplete
Wonder will we ever meet?

Of course he breaks out of hospital.

And of course, in the process, he does himself even more damage than he was initially admitted with.

The day after she sat with him for over twenty four hours, after his second surgery to repair the internal bleeding he'd caused playing hide and seek, Alice woke to cramps, the sheets beneath her red with blood, and an ache deep within her chest that was almost definitely the feeling of dread and realisation.

She stared at the patch she was sitting in for what felt like forever, then she grabbed her mobile, because it was all she could think to do. She couldn't call Sherlock, he was still in hospital and barely able bodied enough to reach his phone let alone answer it, not to mention he doesn't even know. She thought about Jenny, who has been there with her through every up and down in life, but she never told her either.

She scrolls down her contacts until she finds the one person who does know, and set the phone on speaker, slowly climbing out of bed to begin the clean up. It looks like there's been a murder. That thought makes her feel even worse.

"Hello?"

"Mary," Alice says weakly. "I'm– I lost the baby." Her voice is hollow.

There's a rustle of something that comes through the phone that tells her Mary is getting up and out of bed. "Oh, Alice."

Alice sobs wetly, pulling the duvet off the bed and tossing it to the floor.

"What do you want me to do?"

Alice is a scientist. She knows how miscarriages work. She knows that, statistically, most miscarriages happen in the first trimester. Usually because something is wrong with the foetus, or due to trauma, but it feels like she's lost it.

She'd only just decided how she felt about it. About a baby, about Sherlock's baby, about her own baby. She wanted it. She wanted Sherlock to want it.

"Alice? Talk to me," Mary says. "Do you want me to pick you up? I'll take you to see Sherlock–"

"No," she says, wiping her eyes, beginning to undress. "I still haven't told him. He..." she covers her mouth with her hand, sobbing into it. "He doesn't know."

Alice stands there beside her bed, naked from the waist down, staring at the pile of bloodied clothes and bedding. She at least isn't really bleeding anymore. She's definitely going to have to scrub the floors.

"I really think you should let me come over."

"I'm sorry for ringing you. I shouldn't have woken you up."

"Don't be silly," Mary says softly. "I'm glad you rang. I don't want you to do this alone."

Alice sighs, picking up her mobile and walking on wobbling legs towards her bathroom, turning on the shower. "I'll just... I'll clean up, then book an appointment with my doctor. They'll be open in an hour. I'll be fine."

"No, Alice. I'm coming over. Please, let me. Let me."

"Okay," she sniffles. "Okay. I might still be in the shower. Do you have a key?"

"Yeah. I pinched one from Sherlock's weird secret stash."

Alice chuckles, the sound choked and dry. "He loses his keys all the time so he has spares hidden around his flat."