The Art Of Corruption ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book III}

Chapter 61- Bad Influence

Millie's POV

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The first thing I become fully aware of – other than the chill clenched around the curve of my ribcage – is the feeling of rough fabric against my cheek.

The material is cold, the fibres spiked with frost and solidified in hatched webs of iced polyester, and I shift against it, trying to use a strength I don't possess to push myself away.

It is only when my searching hands come into contact with the altogether unnerving surface of frozen human skin, do I open my eyes.

My fingers are curled around Sherlock's wrist, his own hands motionless and grey on his lap. I connect the coarse material with Sherlock's coat, which is laced with silver thistles; dustings of white clinging to the black fabric. It takes me a good five minutes to force the stiff muscles in my throat to contract enough to produce some hoarse replication of a voice.

"Sherlock." He doesn't move. "Sherlock."

I begin to panic, an instinctive sense of potent unease accompanying the observation of his unnatural stillness. I lift my head, and look around the room; both doors are open, watery sunlight streaking the floors with pale yellow, a sharp contrast to the sealed death sentence we were faced with hours ago. There is a repetitive dripping, the sound of water falling from different heights and at different rates, soaking the floor in filthy puddles – my shins are sopping, my palms are wet, and the canvas of my shoes is saturated.

I shake Sherlock's wrist with renewed vigour. "Sherlock, look."

"Millie?" John is staring at me with unfocused disbelief, his hair peaked with slowly defrosting ice. "You opened the doors?"

I shake my head. John's attention re-orientates itself around Mary, who is still unconscious, her eyes closed and head to one side, locked in a synthetic sleep.

"Mary? Oh God - Mary?"

Sherlock inhales sharply without warning, his shoulders rising and the tendons in his wrist tensing under my fingers. I watch as his eyes open, pupils blown wide and rimmed with fissured crystal; he makes an indistinct noise through closed lips, and then, after a moment of clouded perception, hauls himself up to a collected sitting position.

Mary groans, and John chokes back a sob of acute relief, picking up her discoloured hand and gripping it with atypically public affection.

I am no medical expert, but my limited knowledge persists in generating dark thoughts concerning pregnancy and dropping temperatures. I don't have the heart to vocalise them, though, looking at the expression on John's face as Mary begins to come round.

"The child," says Sherlock, his voice two octaves deeper than usual; splintered from disuse. "Is it alive?"

I could kick him, in that moment.

John's breathing hitches, then stops entirely. He looks down at Mary's stomach, and then at Sherlock and I, something akin to excruciating realisation tearing away palliation in sheets, exposing a raw, sickened vulnerability that hurts to observe.

"Try to get her moving, John," I say, wrapping my fingers around the pipe above my head and pulling myself to my feet. I try to ignore the sensation of congealed blood seeping from my abdomen, and offer Sherlock my hand, although I would very much like to watch him struggle after his unnecessary comment. Sherlock looks at my palm for some time, and when he does decide to accept my assistance, there is an air of hesitance about the way in which his hand clasps mine. With the added support of the pipe, I manage to get him standing, too. My legs feel wooden; detached and wholly unfamiliar. I take a few tentative steps away from Sherlock to test out my distorted balance.