The Quiet Man

Hostage

I’m not much of a cook, admittedly. I can manage; I understand the principles. But generally what I put on a plate is, shall we say, utilitarian at best. It ticks the boxes, it doesn’t do much else. But I can handle breakfast. I like breakfast: the options are limited, but obvious. Eggs, bacon, toast. Coffee. That’s easy. I can do that. Breakfast is nice.

Mary likes her eggs fried, which is a bit more difficult than boiled, but I’m getting better at it.

The hair dryer is loud and drowns out the radio, but I don’t mind. The sound of a hair dryer is like damp bras hanging in the bathroom or long hairs in the drain; you just get used to it over time. It’s kind of nice, really. A reminder that I don’t live alone, and the person I live with has priorities that are different than mine. As it should be. Damp hair doesn’t bother me, but it’s anathema for her. She says it goes all curly and frizzy if she doesn’t blow dry it.

I think it looks nice curly, but she hates it. What can you do.

I slept like the dead last night. I’d almost forgotten what that was like. I used to sleep like that all the time. In another life.

Maybe I should take up running. Or have Mycroft Holmes call me at random in the wee hours to make me momentarily worry that a nuclear war has broken out.

So odd: trite, pointless questions from Mycroft at three in the morning. He doesn’t do pointless, he doesn’t have the time or the patience for it. There’s always some meaning in what he chooses to do. Where was the meaning in that call? It’s like he just wanted to make sure I was awake. Why?

It’s been ages since he’s called me. He used to do it all the time.

I remember all those random calls: late at night when I was out on a date, or early in the morning, or in the middle of the afternoon, all to ask about his brother. Always the pointed questions I refused to answer; usually warnings or directives. He didn’t like Sherlock going anywhere near his old haunts. He didn’t like Sherlock getting mixed up in government business. Sometimes he asked me truly bizarre questions about Sherlock’s dry cleaner, or when he last got a haircut, or, that once, whether or not there was a powder residue on his shoes. I don’t know why he bothered to ask me at all; I never answered any of his questions. It was a point of pride. My allegiance was to Sherlock, not to Mycroft. He was always worried something was about to go horribly wrong, and these little details, if missed, would prove to be the final nail in his coffin. As if Sherlock always had his finger on some kind of trigger pointed at his own head.

Admittedly, I believed it too. I believed it the entire time I spent with him. I always assumed that Sherlock would be the death of both of us. I accepted it. His choices were rash and mad, and I wouldn’t have had him do anything any differently, most of the time. But Sherlock wasn’t the death of me. His own death wasn’t even his fault.

It was Mycroft’s fault. He should have paid more attention to what was coming out of his own mouth rather than spending all that time staring at CCTV footage and trying to anticipate Sherlock’s every move. Sherlock never did any of the things Mycroft worried most about: he never went back to the drugs, not that he wasn’t tempted to. And the trouble he caused was always worth it, in the end. He was only arrested the once, and I don’t think that time counts. All that worry and all those phone calls for nothing. Mycroft was the one who pushed Sherlock over the edge, in the end. He was the one with his finger on the trigger. And he pulled it. He pulled it.

He knows. I know he does. That’s guilt he’ll have to live with. There’s nothing I can do about that. Nothing a random phone call at three in the morning will fix.

So why did he call me? Why at three in the morning? I don’t buy that he didn’t notice the time. He notices everything. He’s a Holmes.

Time to put the bread in the toaster. Coffee’s ready. She should be out soon. I’ll drive her to work, maybe do a bit of shopping on the way home, then get back to the manuscr–