Working on the Edges

Chapter Fifteen

Sherlock had a complicated spreadsheet that was an analysis of all the teams left in the hockey fight. He walked John through it for the quarterfinal game. John understood only some of it, because most of it seemed to involve a complicated statistical analysis about the physics of the friction of the ice and its diminishing returns over the time of gameplay, which didn't seem to John to be too incredibly helpful for winning hockey games.

Nevertheless, they did win, handily. John told Sherlock it was because of his gold medal magic, and Sherlock said, "And my spreadsheets," and John said, "Yes, they were amazing." Sherlock beamed and looked so pleased that John willingly sat through an entire afternoon's lecture about their semifinal matchup.

Semifinals, and now the gold was so close John felt like they could all taste it. Two games, just two more, and then there would be a gold medal. That was all they had to do.

Sherlock said he had run the numbers all different ways and they always came out victorious, headed for the gold-medal match. John didn't know if he found that reassuring or not.

But Sherlock turned out to be right: They won the semifinals, a nail-biter of a game in which the single goal was scored by Mike late in the third period.

"That was closer than it should have been, statistically," Sherlock told him afterward.

Sherlock's parents, who had been faithfully attending every game, told him he had skated very well.

John thought he just wanted it to be over. He wanted his gold medal.

But when it was over, he would have his gold medal, and there would be the Closing Ceremony, and then the Olympics would be over, and he would fly back to America, and Sherlock would fly to England. John couldn't sleep the night before the gold medal game, his stomach twisted into knots over everything.

Eventually, he slid out of bed and walked downstairs. Irene was in the living room, watching what looked like a telenovela.

"Can't sleep?" she asked.

He shook his head and sat next to her. "You sticking around to the end?" Because Donovan and Anderson had already left, much to Sherlock's glee.

"Well, I want to take part in the exhibition."

"The what?"

"The skating exhibition. For the medal winners. You know."

He didn't know. He'd have to ask Sherlock about that. He said, "Yeah. Of course."

"I'm so curious what Sherlock's going to skate at that, to be honest. Does he have some other secret program up his sleeve?"

"I'm not allowed to tell," said John. Also, he had no idea what Irene was talking about.

Irene shut off the telenovela and stood and stretched. "I'm off to bed. And you should try to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow."

"Yeah," John agreed, although there was no way he was going to be able to sleep. "Good night."

Irene tossed him the remote control and went up the stairs.

John didn't turn the television on. He sprawled on the couch and looked up at the ceiling and worried.

Eventually someone came down the stairs.

Sherlock, who said, "Are you going to spend the entire night on that uncomfortable couch?"

"I can't sleep," said John.

Sherlock yawned and crawled onto the couch with John. Which was sweet, but didn't do anything to help the couch's comfortableness. "It's just a hockey game, John. Just think of it as another hockey game."