Keeping the Strength to Fight

Chapter 19- Lestrade

Lestrade gritted his teeth as he sat in the passenger seat of the police van, the back filled with armed reinforcements.

How could he be so stupid?

The day had started how he had expected, but the surprise call from Mrs Hudson about John had messed up his usual routine.

He liked to think that he was a friend of John's, even if only a work friend, so he was always happy to help him -if and when he needed it.

Of course, he could never compare to... Him.

...So he had gone to visit John, and had seen the awful state he was in.

At the time, he never paused to wonder at the cause of his decline, or why the entire apartment looked a tip too, and had just proceeded to patronize him along with everyone else.

He must've hated it.

He should've believed him, listened to him, trusted him.

And not for the first time.

There should have been some kind of inquiry, things like that dont just happen overnight! He could have informed someone at least.

But he didn't, and this realisation only came after the rest of the day revealed itself.

A few hours after John left with his friends in the ambulance, Lestrade had took time out to visit the hospital to see how he was doing, confident that they would have arrived by then.

But when the receptionist informed him that no one by that name had been checked in, he began to get suspicious.

Then, not half an hour after his visit, the yard got a call from the Hertfordshire police saying that there had been reports of gunfire at the abandoned station, but they didn't have the manpower to deal with it themselves.

Apparently, a terrified citizen called Margaret Davis said she heard the shots a little after noon, not long after seeing an ambulance swap its passenger into an unknown vehicle.

She gave a detailed description of each of the men, and they matched up perfectly to that of John and his 'friends'.

He had been kidnapped.

He hadn't been going mad.

He was being tortured.

Lestrade drew a hand over his face, why didn't he notice? He should've seen the apartment as a crime scene like... He would have. He should have pieced together what had happened, but instead he assumed that what he had been told was true.

Why did he keep doing that? Believing what people told him instead of searching for an alternative. God, the amount of times he had sat at home on a night just tearing himself up over what he had done. It wasnt supposed to end that way; it wasn't supposed to end at all!

No matter what he said to convince John, or himself, about Him, he knew they were lies. They had to be. He knew Him.

He knew Him.

He hated that he let it come to that; that they would actually even contemplate him being...  what they said.

But he had listened to that twerp Anderson - and even Sally, who he trusted to always make the right choices for the Yard.

He wouldn't have died if it weren't for him.

Lestrade took a deep breath, now wasn't the time to be thinking about this. He couldn't save Him; but he could save John.

If he wasn't already dead too.

Lestrade turned to look out of the window, refusing to believe that he had killed the both of them. If he had, he knew that he would go mad. The idea that the two people who he actually considered as friends, whether or not they thought the same of him, had both died by his hand, was too much to handle.

So after he recieved the call, he gathered together a group of officers, explaining the situation, and that one of their officers may be in danger.

Many of them already knew John, and had worked with him on many of their recent calls. Most of them liked him, but some were jealous of his natural talent for the work, and how quickly he resolved the situations.

He always knew what to do, and his theories were almost always correct. Probably due to working alongside Him for so long.

He must have started to see things the same way.

In truth, he did believe John's theory that something else had happened on that rooftop, but if word got to his superiors, it wouldn't take long for him to get sacked, unless he kept it quiet like he had been.

So he pretended to truly believe the impossible, which in his eyes, was unforgiveable.

Lestrade shook himself as they finally pulled up to the road near the station, feeling tense and anxious as to what they might find behind those walls. They all speedily jumped out of the van, blocking off the road and surrounding the building in minutes.

"Be prepared for anything lads," He spoke through the walkie-talkie, hearing it crackle from everyone's jackets, "We don't know what we're up against."

But what happened next, Lestrade would never have been prepared for.

The front door swung open, and Lestrade watched with disbelief as John Watson appeared, limping, and leaning onto the shoulder of the one man who's name he has been unable to say for years.

Sherlock.