I Don't Want To Believe

Love Can't Save the Day

    When John woke up it was mysteriously quiet. For some reason he suspected he would be awoken with alarms, the alien swat team breaking down his door and demanding he return the disk. As soon as John's eyes opened he dove under his bed, falling out from underneath the bunchy comforter and landing on the cold metal floor, rummaging around in his cape to make sure it was still there. As promised, there was a little disk shaped lump in the fabric and when John dug it out, the disk was still there, still black and mysterious, with the words Alpha Project still scribbled on there. John sighed with relief, bunching the cape back together and stuffing the disk back inside, obviously he didn't need to see it any more this morning. John still had a faint headache, one he had assumed would just go away with sleep, but apparently this frustration wasn't so simple. John's stomach growled in annoyance, and he realized that he hadn't had the much of a dinner the previous night; it had been more sneaking around and one hundred questions with Molly. The question was whether Sherlock would pick him up for breakfast, Molly would bring him breakfast, or if the two of them would completely forget about him and his hunger, preferably the second option. John really didn't feel like talking to Sherlock, with all of his tears and his feelings, it really wasn't good for his appetite. And if Molly showed up, well, maybe John could trust her enough to tell her about his stolen disk. So John waited for a while, and when he imagined it had been an hour since he had woken up, John decided that no one was coming for him, and he might as well entertain himself until lunch. He decided that maybe he should just kick the soccer ball around, or maybe do some pushups to make sure he was still in soccer shape when he returned to earth, but the lure of the disk under his bed was almost unbearable. There were secrets, secrets beyond anything he could possibly imagine in that disk, and he simply couldn't access them. It was like the one ring, it was driving him insane. So John once again dove under the bed, grabbing the disk and running his thumb over the smooth black metal. John sighed, maybe it was voice activated?
"Open." John tried. Nothing happened. He sighed again. "Project." He muttered. Nothing. Maybe if he threw it really hard against the wall it would finally do his bidding. Just as John was about to throw the thing to the floor, the door opened. John quickly grabbed the disk and hid it behind his back, worried that it might be Magnussen once more. But when Sherlock walked in, John kind of wished it was Magnussen, coming to get him so that he didn't have to talk to Sherlock anymore.
"Hello John." Sherlock said in a sad, dreamy voice, closing the door and walking over.
"Hello Sherlock." John agreed, trying to stuff the disk under his blanket the best he could.
"What are you hiding from me?" Sherlock asked.
"Nothing, I'm not hiding...anything." John shrugged, holding up his now empty hands.
"Your heart beat has increased, and I heard the ruffling of your comforter. You just hid something from me." Sherlock decided.
"What could I possibly have that I wanted to hide from you?" John asked. Sherlock looked rather confused but also very powerful, walking with an air of authority that made John a bit nervous. Would he report John's thievery, or would he help John crack the code? "How's the baby doing?" John asked, trying to distract Sherlock a bit more.
"It's growing at a considerable rate, now it looks like a human fetus." Sherlock sighed, still walking over very slowly.
"Yes, well, that's good. It should...hatch any day now, right?" John asked.
"I'd give it another two days." Sherlock decided. He walked right over to where John was sitting on the bed, very close so that John was worried he was going to either kiss him or hit him. Instead, Sherlock reached around John and felt under the comforter, his fingers closing around the disk and pulling it out with confusion.
"What...where did you get this?" Sherlock asked in awe, reading the writing on the top.
"Oh, um, I found it lying in the hallway; it caught my attention I suppose." John lied. Sherlock looked at him with amazement.
"This is top secret, only the Three Leaders are allowed to access such information, did you steal this?" Sherlock asked. John sighed, looking at the ground guiltily.
"The door was open, after I left the amphitheater, it was on a table and I thought it could be of some use to us." John admitted. Sherlock examined the disk as if it were more precious than gold, his multicolored eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Well, I suppose it might be." He decided. John looked up in amazement, not wanting to believe that Sherlock was actually going to help him with this.
"You mean, you know how to open it?" he asked in amazement.
"Of course I know how to open it, everyone does. There just are secret ones, like this, and there are not so secret ones." Sherlock decided, sitting on the bed. John was so amazed that he didn't mind how close Sherlock was, or that their elbows were slightly pressed together. Sherlock pushed his thumb to the top of the disk, right over the letters, and suddenly a blue light streamed out of the front, a projection, almost like a hologram.
"I tried that, why didn't it work for me?" John asked with a frown.
"Sort of like the door handles John, it's human proofed. If Mycroft knew I was showing such important information to a human, well, he'd disown me." Sherlock decided.
"Well, he can't know that you've seen it either, so I guess he doesn't need to know." John decided.
"Yes, I don't think he should." Sherlock agreed. There were four folder icons glowing in front of them, not unlike the folders you find on a drive on a human computer. One was labeled Creation, one was labeled Testing, one was labeled Human, and the last was Volunteer. John could only guess that these had to do with the baby, with himself, and with Sherlock. Sherlock reached out and pressed the folder labeled creation, and suddenly papers and files appeared in front of them. They looked like handwritten notes, written in several different handwritings. Sherlock studied them for a moment, and John could only try his best to read the scrawl. There was also a diagram of what looked to be a human man, with arrows pointing to things like the spine, the brain, the eye, and the arm.
"That must have been where they took the parts." Sherlock decided.
"Through my eye?" John asked, covering his eye in disgust.
"There was a reason they put us to sleep." Sherlock agreed with a smile. "Bone marrow, spinal fluid, brain cells, blood, it was all very precise."
"Oh my god, that's horrible." John decided. "Will part of my brain be unable to function?" he asked, thinking of how many brain cells they might have extracted.
"How should I know? Obviously you're not too damaged, you can function alright." Sherlock decided in a bored tone.
"Wow, thanks for your concern." John snapped. Sherlock just laughed, sliding his finger across the air and bringing them back to the four folders.
"This is my folder I'm sure." Sherlock decided, clicking on the one labeled Volunteer. There were only a couple of pages, medical records, birth certificate, a funny picture of Sherlock that had to be somewhat like a driver's license, with him staring expressionless into the camera. There was a page that Sherlock clicked on, showing many lines of information, his birth date, his age now, his full name, parents, siblings, relatives, medical history.
"William, your real name is William?" John asked with a laugh.
"Shut up." Sherlock snapped.
"That's a very human name." John pointed out.
"Shut up." Sherlock repeated. He was reading a line now, it said Outcome: Caregiver.
"That does that mean you're supposed to raise the kid?" John asked.
"It's hard to be a single mother." Sherlock agreed with a smile, swiping back to the folders.
"You're not a single mother; first off, you're not even a woman." John pointed out.
"Yes well. This should be your folder." He decided, clicking on the one labeled Human. As promised, there was a grainy picture of John walking out his front door, his backpack slung over his shoulder as if he were going to school.
"Did you take that?" John asked.
"I played paparazzi for a day, yes." Sherlock agreed with a smile. There were pretty much the same files on John as there were on Sherlock, although he couldn't imagine how they had his birth certificate and medical records, unless they had raided the Watson family's private files. Sherlock pressed on the same file he had opened for himself, and John was quite amused with reading back his family tree rather than the rest of the information. Sherlock, however, had suddenly become still, and when John looked over his usually pale face had turned a ghostly shade of white.
"What's wrong?" John asked.
"The...the outcome." He muttered. John wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion, but read along the line that Sherlock had read. Outcome: Extermination. John's mouth dropped and he scurried off of the bed, through the projection and to the far wall, away from his executioner.
"You're going to kill me?" John exclaimed, ducking behind the overturned table. Sherlock dropped the disk onto the bed, the hologram disappearing once more.
"No, John, I had no idea, this wasn't..." Sherlock started, but obviously he couldn't think of the right apology on the spot. He looked terrified, betrayed, like a child once more.
"You said I was going back home, you said that I was going to live!" John exclaimed.
"I didn't know about this, I thought you were, Mycroft never said you were going to die!" Sherlock insisted, getting to his feet as well.
"Stay away from me!" John exclaimed, fearing for his life. Was Sherlock's job here to befriend John, maybe get him comfortable and then kill him in cold blood? Was Sherlock the exterminator here?
"John, please, no, I didn't know, I won't let them kill you." Sherlock begged, taking a step back in defeat. John straightened up a bit, deciding that with the destroyed look on Sherlock's face that he had been as clueless about John's fate as John was.
"Sherlock, why would they kill me? What had I done to deserve this?" John asked, realizing that his life was now on a timer. The aliens were going to kill him, he was never going to go back to earth, he was never going to see his family again...
"They can't let you go, you probably know too much, no, I can't let this happen, you know I can't let them kill you!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"What are we going to do?" John breathed, imagining all the cruel and unusual ways the aliens could dispose of him. If all of that torture was for science, what could actual torture be?
"Well, for now, um, maybe..." Sherlock turned in a little circle, as if completely unsure of what to do.
"We need to get you out of here." he decided. Wow, really?
"We can't just leave!" John insisted.
"Yes, we have to, you take the child, you get as far away from this ship as you can, where Mycroft can't find you..." Sherlock decided.
"What do you mean, why should I take the baby? This was your job, you're the caregiver!" John exclaimed. Sherlock just shook his head in sadness, as if he knew something John didn't.
"John, if we are to have a family, then we can't leave each other behind to suffer. Our child, it was never going to be the Alpha Male, it was going to be the first of many, it was an experiment. It wasn't going to grow up, or have a life, it was to be tested on like a monkey, so they can find any flaws and then make the ultimate male, it was only the first trial." Sherlock admitted with a sigh. John stared at Sherlock in amazement, all of this time he had been told his child was going to be a leader...why had Sherlock kept such important information from him?
"You mean, all this time, I was no more than a part of this...this experiment? We were never going to amount to anything? And when they're done playing with me, they're just going to throw me out?" John asked in rage. Once more there seemed to be tears running down Sherlock's face, obviously he didn't know how to respond to John's sudden anger. He pretended to be powerful, to be strong, but he was as weak and pathetic as a baby.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, all I've ever wanted is a family and Mycroft keeps tearing that opportunity away from me!" Sherlock exclaimed, starting to look more angry than sad. "All I've wanted was to be loved."
"How can we have a family if I'm dead? How can we have a family if our son is constantly strapped to machines, being tested and prodded for science?" John exclaimed.
"We need to get you out of here John, we need you to live. I need you to live." Sherlock begged.
"And how are we going to do that? Sneak me past your Three Leaders with the Alpha Male in my pocket? Or sorry, patient zero." John snapped. Sherlock sank onto the bed in defeat, taking slow, deep breaths, as if he were trying to adjust to this sudden betrayal.
"I don't know." He admitted. John was too exasperated to even speak, this was great, an escape plan that wasn't even a plan at all. "But we'll figure it out, I'll find a way." Sherlock promised. John just groaned.
"Are you going to save me because you love me, out of the goodness of your heart? Do you love your human, were you planning on tell me right before they threw me into the incinerator? Do you love your son? Obviously not enough if you're okay with him being taken apart and put back together, what kind of love is that?" John growled. "If you had loved us you wouldn't have pulled us into this mess in the first place!" John roared. Sherlock looked heart broken, cradling himself in his arms and staring at John with such hurt in his eyes.
"Stop, John, please stop!" Sherlock begged, tears running even harder down his face, as if John's words had actually hurt him.
"Open your eyes Sherlock, we not a family and we never will be, there's nothing like family than being dead!" John yelled. Sherlock cried even harder, like a boy whose pieces were being scattered all over the place, his fragile shards getting mashed underfoot. John stopped talking, suddenly feeling a little bit guilty about using Sherlock's weaknesses against him. Of course he didn't know John was going to die, and now, as an act of love, he was going to risk his entire life and reputation to get his new family out of this mess safely.
"Give me time, please John, I'll find a way to save us all." Sherlock begged, his eyes still swimming in tears. John sighed, not wanting to hurt Sherlock to the point where he lost all love. Because if John made Sherlock too mad than he might not want to help get John home, and that was counterproductive.