Watch Me Play.

|FastForward|03012011|Play|

|FastForward|03012011|Play|

She returns to consciousness two days later.

The pain in her head is still there, a dull ache that throbs and beats like a pulse and her entire entity is heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the sea.

It is dark, she can tell that much. There is no light worming its way beneath her eyelids and the world is blissfully quiet. It is almost too quiet- almost, and yet not quite. She feels strangely at peace and it is a beautiful feeling. She is so used to the rush of being on the run, the sensation of being watched with every step, always having to take care, take precautions, think of safety… but maybe that is over now. She can’t hear the cars and she can’t hear the birds in the trees, the morning song of nature as the sun rises and the universe wakes from its sleepy hollow. She had even grown used to the clouds, ever present and smothering, suffocating her as she ran. She is in pitch-blackness, not even being submerged by shadow.

Maybe I’m not even awake, she thinks, maybe I am dead.

It seems unlikely, but then again, what does she know of death? She has never been one to believe in a higher power; the highest power she knows is her elders and they definitely aren’t here, wherever she is now. She feels as though this should worry her, sadden her, but it does nothing. She cannot feel anything. Just the scratching of fabric against her skin, the weight of something draped over her: a blanket perhaps? The beating in her head makes itself known and she stifles a whimper of discomfort.

Pain is in the mind, they had told her, so embrace it and do not cry.

She tries, she does and it is so, so difficult but she focuses on her breathing: in and out, in and out- in through the nose and out through the mouth. Or is it the other way around? She can’t remember and there seems to be a mist gliding through her memories; everything appears to be blurred around the edges, never quite clear and she feels lost inside her own head, her own thoughts. She hates her body for her betraying her, when her mind is… or used to be so transparent on what she needed to do.

Stop this.

She needs to open her eyes, move, and get out.

And so she does.

-x-

Sherlock knows she is awake before she does. The change in breathing, the rapid decline in REM… he can feel the atmosphere shift in the room and he watches and waits as she returns to stage one sleep. He can almost see the high amplitude theta waves emitting from her brain, dancing up the walls and around the room like lasers. He is growing impatient; he has been sitting there for well over an hour now, on strict instructions from John not to move unless it is absolutely vital for him to do so.

He watches her eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling. She blinks once, twice- that and the slow rise and fall of her chest are the only inclinations that suggest she is still alive. He says nothing, more interested in watching her than offering any kind of assistance. She hasn’t noticed him yet and he takes note of how long it takes her to absorb her surroundings.

Slow thought processes, delayed movement…

She realises she isn’t alone then, eyes widening as she notices the man sitting in his armchair, hands clasped together, finger tips resting just below his nose.

Sherlock watches as she tries to move, tries desperately to sit up and scurry away, but she lets out a cry of pain and falls back onto her elbows before she has even reached a sitting position.

“Don’t try to move,” he tells her. Nothing more. She turns her head to look at him once again, slower this time and squints to try and make out anything more than a silhouette in the darkness of the room.