Let The Shadows Win

The Farther You Fall

    "No he's not sick, your father's just had a big shock. He just needs to lie down for a moment, he'll be just fine. Now while I pick this up, Rosie why don't you run and get your dolls all dressed up?" Mary suggested with a note of urgency in her voice, as if she needed to do something yet couldn't bring herself to do it around her daughter. Rosie merely nodded, racing up the stairs to her room to hide away from the unnerving scene that was unfolding downstairs. As soon as she had disappeared Mary wrung the remote out of John's hands, and despite his weak protest she turned the news on to see the story had long since passed. The same anchor was talking; however the woman seemed so unaffected by what she had just reported, almost as if the idea of that psychopath walking free didn't bother her one bit! As if she couldn't care about what he would do now that he was free, who he would go after, or what he might expect to be waiting for him. All of those broken promises, those that John had never upheld, would Sherlock be angry when he came back to find that he had been virtually forgotten? Would he retaliate, would he kill again? This was what he had been trying to avoid when he knew there was no escaping prison, he wanted to make sure John could never wander away from him. And yet he hadn't succeeded, John had moved on with his life, a feat he never thought he would see the consequences of! He had never imagined that after thirteen years the state had just decided to let him go. Was there some sort of therapy he had to go to in order to get out, were they treating him with compassion since he had been arrested as a minor? Did they just assume he had been crazy, and that some simple therapy over the years had done enough to cure him?
"What did you see, John what's happening to you?" Mary asked urgently, sitting down on the couch next to her husband only for him to tremble away. He was afraid to let her touch him, simply because he wasn't sure how long her presence would linger on his skin. When Sherlock discovered him once more, he didn't want there to be any recognizable traces of his disloyalty.
"Don't make me have to lie. I don't...I don't want to talk about it just yet. Don't make me talk about it." John begged quietly, staring blankly at the screen of the TV that was now flashing some car commercials. He still saw Sherlock's mugshot, he still recognized it along the corner of the screen, almost as if Sherlock was waiting for him to notice him and listen to his story. All John knew now was that he was being released, yet in what state? Were they putting him under constant observation, were they transferring him to a mental hospital instead of a prison? Was he alive, was he dead? Was he cured? These were all things John didn't know, and frankly they were things he would much prefer not having to know at all. He didn't want to have to think about them, he didn't want to have to come to grips with the fact that Sherlock's release was going to be his new reality. Just when he had recovered, just when he thought he had truly escaped!
"Something serious?" Mary presumed nervously, touching John's shoulder once more to which he could do nothing to refuse. He hated the idea of her hands on him yet he knew that he couldn't do anything to prevent it. He had to at least keep up the façade that he was enjoying his life; he had to put on the mask of normality and insist once more that it was all fine. Because it had to be, in the end it had to be fine. It was what he deserved, wasn't it? A proper happy ending, an ending where Sherlock stayed far enough away so that he couldn't get his tendrils wrapped around John once more. In which John stayed so far away from Sherlock's shackles that the two of them never realize they lived relatively near each other anymore.
"Can we move?" John muttered fearfully, looking over to Mary with an almost pitiful expression on his face.
"Move? Move houses or move rooms?" Mary asked with a little laugh.
"Move countries. How does...I don't know, Japan sound? Or Brazil, or even Canada! I don't care, just far from here, as far as I can get without..."
"What on earth are you talking about John? What are you going on about? Are you delirious, have you lost your mind?" Mary questioned in deep concern, reaching over to try to pat her husband's brow, to which he ducked away once more. He didn't want her touch, not now, not again. Already he could feel the shadows from the walls beginning to resurface into his brain, already he could feel his heart beginning to pound the same way it had all those years ago. Pounding in a two syllable beat, something that sounded ominously like the name he was trying to keep off of his lips.
"He's back...he's coming back." John whispered frightfully, shivering once more with the very idea of that man's return.
"What do you mean, who's coming back? John what's wrong with you, you're worrying me! Do we need to go to the hospital, are you sick?" Mary asked anxiously, getting to her feet only to crunch through the glass of his broken wine glass and curse quietly.
"We just need to get away, from him. He'll get me. He'll want to keep me. I can't let that happen again." John whispered, shaking his head urgently before lying back on the couch and staring up at the ceiling fearfully. He didn't remember going to sleep, he didn't remember passing out. It was his only memory to look up at the ceiling and recognize the shadows that were taking over his vision, the very shadows that had clung to him from every corner of that house, of that freezer, of that bedroom. They were back along with their master, come to reclaim John and the life he might have had if he had escaped for good.