#baker street

10:48 pm: 221B Baker Street, Westminster London

- Brother and Sister -

John gazed out at the busy passers-by from his comfortable chair by the window. Long shadows were cast as the sun began its slow descent on a familiar path it takes each day.  Once, the shadows symbolized the darkness that threatened to overwhelm his aching heart. The shadows cast were far from the menacing incarnations they once represented. His heart was no longer plagued with the grief and sense of less that used to characterize his days. The shadows of buildings, cabs and people danced around each other in the cracked pavement below, greeting each other like old friends once lost but now reunited.

Workers were now returning to their families, busy business men were speeding along cabs to retire in their estates and school children were making their way home hand in hand with their parents. The world continued to move as it always did

John tore his eyes away from Baker Street. The flat was tinged with an orange light, like flaming embers from a dying fire. The sun shone through the panes, the china glinting in the low rays  of the London sunset. The doctor fingered his teacup, watching absentmindedly as the small movements caused ripples in his afternoon tea.

The ripples reminded him of a time long passed; time spent in a quaint house far away in the London countryside.

—–

John was four when he learned he was to become a brother.

A much younger John Watson held a teacup much too big for him. The cup wobbled dangerously despite his tiny fingers enveloping the cup. He walked towards his mother’s room to see both his mother and father leaning over a tiny bundle that was in his mother’s hands. John walked towards his parents, careful not to spill the tea in his hands. He looked up to his mother, a mother whose face he couldn’t even remember. He placed the teacup on the bedside table a bit too high for him and climbed the bed to see the contents of the bundle a little better. He perched on his mother’s lap as the bundle was brought closer to him. A loud cry was heard as the little baby opened her tiny eyes and stared up at him. John gazed back down at the strange bundle eyeing it with shock and wonder. He reached out towards the baby. Small fingers, even tinier than his own, tried to grasp his fingers.

“Meet your little sister, Harry.” His mother said quietly.

His father placed a firm hand on his shoulder. John looked up at him, absently trying to shake his finger from Harry’s surprisingly firm grasp. 

“You’re a big brother now, John. It’s your job to take care of your little sister.” He said gruffly.

John nodded, not quite understanding what all of it meant.  He could only gaze in wonder at what was called a sister.

This was his earliest memory, the only time he could remember his family being together and somewhat happy.

*

John was five when he learned what loss meant. Being five years old, there was only so much little John Watson could comprehend.  

There had been a lot of shouting and banging around their house lately. It wasn’t uncommon for little John to wake up in the middle of the night and hear shouts coming from his parent’s bedroom or the breaking of glasses or plates from the kitchen. Sometimes he would build forts with his blankets and pillows. It was his own place in his own little world. In his fort he felt safe. He would usually cover his ears in his hands and will himself to get lost in one of those fairy tales he always read, fairy tales that usually had a happy ending. Yet, there were times when even the walls of his fort could not shut out the shouts, the cursing and the threats.

One night he awoke to more shouts. He curled up in his blankets, trying to find some comfort in their warmth. The shouting grew worse through out the night. He could hear Harry’s crying above all the noise. He got up from his makeshift fort and crept towards his parents room. Before he could peak inside the tiny crack the door afforded however, it was thrown wide open and his mother stormed out with bags in hand. The resounding bang of the front door closing rung in John’s ears like a gunshot. He walked towards Harry’s crib and tried to calm her by cradling her in his arms.

In the morning that followed, John mustered his courage to ask his father where his mother had gone. His father stared blankly into the fire of their living room before turning his gaze towards John. His gaze was one filled with both loss, anguish and hate yet those were emotions beyond little John. He simply knew his father was sad.

“She’s gone.” He said quietly.

“Gone?”

“Gone! And She’s never coming back!”

After that day his father never spoke of his mother again. Any trace left of his mother was immediately chucked into the fire the very next day. John had watched his father throw their family portraits in the fire. John watched from the shadows as his father threw everything of his mother’s into the fire in a blind rage.

He never asked about his mother again.  

*

John was ten when he experienced true fear. When one was young, one learned to fear a lot of things; imaginary ghosts in the closet, the loss of one’s favorite sweet in the candy shop. But it is rare for a child to experience true fear and it is rare for a child to experience the harsh realities of the world.

There weren’t a lot of kids around their home in the countryside. Their father didn’t have the patience nor the time to drive them to the neighborhood to play with the other kids so both John and Harry had learned to entertain themselves with what they could find around them. When not playing with his sister, John spent his time reading books that were lying around the house.

This one particular morning, the both of them decided to play a game of hide and seek. John was never good at this game. Harry, who had become a rather rambunctious six year old, always managed to find better hiding places. John was about to give up looking for his little sister when he heard a scraping above him. He looked up in time to see Harry climbing to the top of the roof.

“Harry!” John called out to her.

Harry looked down from her perch on the cobbled roof and smiled at her big brother.

“You found me! John!” She called out to him in her playful tone.

“Harry! Get down from there! How many times have I told you to stop going up there it isn’t safe” His anxiety slowly building with each passing moment.

“John, don’t be silly! It’s –“ Before she could continue  her sandal caught in one of the loose cobbled panes and she slipped. John could do nothing but call out to her as she fell from two stories from the roof.

John wiped away the tears that were forming in his eyes as he ran towards the crumpled form of his sister on the ground. Her leg was bent at an odd angle. He called out to her name again and again but her eyes remained closed. His father was nowhere to be found so John took matters into his own hands. Somehow, due to some book he has read, he managed to make a splint for Harry’s broken leg. In the interval wherein John waited impatiently for help to come, Harry had woken up. In shock, John drooped the wet cloth he was using on he forehead. John could remember the feeling of relief that welled up inside him during that instant. He could remember crying hard against Harry’s small shoulder. Death wasn’t something John could fully comprehend at the time but he knew for a fact that he could have lost his sister.

He looked up when a tender hand was placed upon his shoulder. He looked up to see, not his father but a man in white. John felt safe around him, and he knew at that moment that Harry was going to be okay.

“I’m a doctor, were you the one that called us?”

John simply nodded, not quite able to speak.

“You did good, kid. We’ll take it from here.” The man in white had said, patting John in the back.

The man in white, had others with him and together they made Harry better.

“Your sister’s going to be alright, thanks to you.”

It was during that day John decided he wanted to become a doctor. In the years that followed he never told Harry that she was the reason he wanted to become a doctor.  

*

John was twelve when he learned not to rely too heavily on his own father.

It was during this time when his father wouldn’t come home for days on end. Most of his teachers saw John as a shy yet responsible boy who seldom gallivanted with boys his own age. When he wasn’t studying, he would be busy with chores around the house and taking care of his younger sister. In short, John grew up fairly quickly.

Harry was allowed to live her childhood. John tried to shield her from the problems that were so evident to him: a neglectful father, bills, debts, lack of money for food.

*

John was seventeen when he experienced his first heartbreak. This was one of his fondest memories of his sister. John always considered Harry quite a strong woman, both physically and emotionally. This was one of those instances that this became evident.

John, still being the shy boy that he was, couldn’t tell the girl of his dreams what he felt about her. So, Harry, being the straight forward girl that she was, marched up to the girl and told her herself. The girl didn’t even know who John Watson was and scoffed at Harry when she pointed out John from the crowd.

John could still remember the loud smack that echoed throughout the hallway when Harry’s fist came into contact with the girl’s face. 

“Never insult my brother! Only I get to do that.” Harry had said, towering over the girl with her fist in the air. It was something they had laughed about afterwards (YEARS AFTER), but after the initial embarrassment of having to drag his sister away from the poor girl, John was very thankful he had a sister like Harry.

*

John was twenty one when everything had begun to fall to pieces. Throughout his stay at uni, John had less time to check on his little sister.  John tried very hard to protect his little sister from the world. Yet, with all his ministrations, he still failed to save Harry from her own greatest enemy: herself. Harry had developed a rather nasty addiction to drinking. Sometimes John wouldn’t attend his classes to take care of his rather wasted sister or nurse her during her nastier hang overs. Each and every time she had promised John that she would stop, but promise after promise was broken.

When John went to train at Bart’s Harry’s condition deteriorated with their relationship along with it.

*

John was twenty seven when his father died. He had already been serving in the army then. Brief letters were exchanged between Harry and himself during his time in the army. The closeness that they had when they were kids was now reduced to something that could be simply called civil.

John rushed back to London to momentarily return to the only family he had left.  His mother was nowhere to be found, his father no lay six feet underground and now he was left with his addict of a sister. It pained John to see his sister lost in the throes of alcoholism. Like everything in his life at the time, all of it has seemed so out of his control.

And so, John did the only logical thing he thought he could have done at the time.

He walked away.

No longer did he involve himself with his sister’s life. For years their relationship continued on like that. His last words to her during their father’s funeral still etched in his mind.

“You know what, I give up.”

——

A knock echoed through the room snapping John Watson out of his reverie.  John stood, with teacup still in hand, and crossed the flat, laying his hand against the doorknob. He twisted it, opening the door and revealing the person on the other side. Harriet Watson stood there, framed in the doorway. She had her hands in her coat pockets, and a guarded expression crossed her features. 

John smiled sadly at the sister he pushed away. The supposed death of Sherlock Holmes had broken John in many ways. John himself became an addict, pushing his already sober sister further away from him. John had condemned his sister for doing what she did all those years ago, yet Harry did not do the same.

His relationships were mending all around him. He had his other half return to him, he made peace with the memory of his father months ago. It was time to make peace with his sister as well. The past didn’t matter now, what mattered was his family.

“John.” She called to him, in very much the same manner as her younger counterpart once did.

“I’m sorry.” John said, looking into brown eyes that were so much like his own.

Harry rushed towards her older brother and hugged him as tightly as she once did when they were kids.

“I missed you, John.”

“I missed you too.”

Harry sat in the couch and John sat there with her, after making her some tea. Harry was no longer that little sister he had to take care of once before. Without realizing it, she had grown up. They were adults now, trying to mend their own broken relationships. The hours passed by as both of them got lost in their memories, coming to terms with their past. The sun faded into the darkness of the night yet John still felt like the sun was shining.

And the time came for Harry to leave. They were no longer the siblings they once were because now they had their own lives to live, yet John knew from this day on it would be different.

Harry made her way towards the door, but before she could open it, the door opened of its own accord to reveal Sherlock Holmes behind it. Harry stopped, regarding the consulting detective with a certain melancholy conviction. Sherlock returned her gaze steadily, his hands firmly clasped behind his back, and his chin held up in typical Sherlock fashion. A sort of silent understanding seemed to pass between the both of them, before a ripple of calm washed through the both of them. The younger Watson stepped around the consulting detective, pausing just for a moment to say something that only Sherlock could hear. Sherlock simply nodded before looking at John and giving him a small smile.

Sherlock never told John what Harry had whispered to him that night, but John had a pretty good idea.

The second series’ final episode, “The Reichenbach Fall”, was based upon “The Final Problem”, in which Sherlock plunges to his death (later, “The Adventure of the Empty House” reveals that Holmes faked his death, though Conan Doyle had meant to kill him off), but Steven Moffat felt that he and co-creator Mark Gatiss had outdone Conan Doyle in their version of Holmes’ fall and Moffat added that, in that much-discussed sequence, there was still “a clue everybody’s missed."After the end of the final episode of the second series, Moffat and Gatiss both announced on Twitter that a third series was commissioned at the same time as series two.A part of the resolution to "The Reichenbach Fall” was filmed alongside series two.

Executive producer Beryl Vertue confirmed, in March 2012, that the third series is expected to start production in ‘early 2013’, although it was too soon to relate any transmission details. Moffat aspires to tackle the fact that eventually Watson will be living apart from Holmes, though he’s uncertain whether or not he’ll have Watson get married in this adaptation. Moffat also wants to use other villains and adversaries from Conan Doyle’s original stories. Without revealing whether or not Moriarty faked his own death at the end of series two, Moffat has suggested that Moriarty will not feature heavily in future series of Sherlock.