I Can't Stand You, Sherlock

Chapter 18: I Don't Get Sick

I woke up coughing for the fourth time this night. I laid in bed for a good a while, hoping that I would fall asleep again but every time I got close I would started coughing and sleep never came. I slowly rolled out of bed, feeling terrible. That's it, I had a cold. I shuffled my feet out of my room a sat down on the couch. I needed some OJ and I knew we had none. After I coughed for another couple of minutes Sherlock came out of his room, his hair messed, still in PJ's.

I knew I must have waken him. He was such a light sleeper. "Sorry I woke you." I said to him feeling guiltily.

"You caught something." He stated to me.

No duh Sherlock. "Yeah." I said, too tired to say anything more.

"John is coming over soon and I'll have him pick you up some medicine." Sherlock said and took out his phone and called John.

"What time is it?"

"11." He said and then said into his phone, "John, yes, Rori is sick can you pick her up some things that sick people use?"

I raised my eye brow and said, "Sick people? Really?" I said as I sneezed into my arm. "Man, I feel cruddy."

"I don't get sick."

"Me neither."

"And that worked well." He said and gestured to me.

I didn't have anything to say so I kept quiet. After about another 30 minutes of coughing, sneezing and light headedness I spoke, mainly to myself, "I am dying."

"You're not dying." Sherlock said in the kitchen as he made something to eat.

"I feel like it." I said and sighed. "Wait Sherlock." I said before he walked into his bedroom. I don't know if it was me being sick or me just being tired but I finally had the guts to ask him a question that I had never had the guts to ask him before. Ever since I was with Zane, I had been thinking about it and I thought now was a good time to ask. "This has been eating away at me for so long now, can you please tell me why you locked me in prison when clearly I did not do the crime you accursed me of. You out of everybody should know that. I just want to know why."

I watched he face change into regret as he sighed. "That's a long story."

"I have time." I was sure I was going to die on this couch.

"I don't. John's here." And as if on command John came through the door with a bag full of things.

I frowned then let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding. I was never going to find out why he did what he did. He would never want to tell me. But I knew that he regretted it. But what made him do it. All this time I had spent with him and he didn't ever say sorry or tell why he did it. I thought he owed me just a reason why. It infuriated me.

I watched John look at me for a second then say, "Rori, you look awful."

"Thanks John, nice to see you too." I said sarcastically as I lay on the couch hoping death would be kind to me and take me away from this.

"I got you some cough medicine, some Orange Juice, tissues, soup, and a couple other things." John said and laid out everything he got me on the coffee table that was in front of me.

"Thank you." I said kindly to him. I was grateful for him. I know understood why Sherlock kept him around, he was useful.

"You're welcome. When was the last time you got sick?"

"Years ago, I was with my Nan in Ireland at the time, I think I had to be like 12. My mum had just left me a couple nights before. We played cards until I got better." I said as I thought about it. I was in bed for a week with that cold. That had to be the worse week of my life.

"Do you still talk to your Nan or you mum for that matter?" John asked.

I closed my eyes, realizing that I probably said too much. "kind of, I write letters to Nan. She never did like me emailing her." For some reason I couldn't hold back the honest answers I was thinking. I blame it on the cold.

"Do you plan on seeing her again."

"I hope so. I just need to get out of all of this before I do anything. And as far as my mum goes, she can might as well rot in hell." I stated as if it was a fact.

"Was she there for you?" John asked me as he took a seat on the chair next to me, finding this conversation very interesting.

"Hardly ever. It was always my Nan that watched me. I don't care for my mum. She never wanted me to begin with." I said and closed my eyes. I felt so worn out I could fall asleep in this conversation.

I heard a clap of hands then Sherlock say, "Well, are you ready John?"

I felt a cold hand on my cheek and then my forehead that made me shudder. Why was some one touching me? I didn't give them permission. John said, "you feel a bit warm."

"I feel cold." I said as I opened my eyes again.

"I'm going to take your tempiture and Sherlock, get her a blanket."

"Go for it, but I don't know what that will do." I said as I shivered.

After Sherlock got a blanket and poured me a glass of orange juice and John had taken my tempeture I started to fall asleep again. It felt kind of nice to have them take care of me. "38.8." John said suddenly which caused me to open my eyes again to look at him. "It's a bit high. Maybe we should stay here." He said and sighed.

"You had plans to go out today. I think I'll be ok for time alone. I'm just going to lay here anyhow."

"Are you sure?" Sherlock asked skeptically to me.

"I'm sure; I think I'm going to take a nap."

"We'll be back in a couple of hours." John said as he patted my shoulder. "Call us if you need anything."

"You'll be the first." I said as I closed my eyes again.

"Feel better soon." Sherlock said just before I heard the door close. Before I had time to react to that statement, they were out of the flat. Did he really just say that or was I really that sick? Did he just show some human emotion toward me?

I woke up about 2 hours later when Sherlock called. I looked franticly around my body to find my phone on the ground right beside the couch. "What do you want?" I asked into my phone, half awake.

"Can you pull up my computer?"

"Sure. What do you need?" I mumbled as I shuffled my feet to the kitchen table to Sherlock's laptop.

"I need.."

"Wait, are you outside of the flat?" I asked as I heard the stairs creak as if someone was coming up them. If he was just outside the flat and made me leave the couch, I was going to throw a fit.

"No. I'm about an hour away."

"I think I'm hearing things...." As soon as I said that the door opened and a man with brown hair and freckles came walking in. He smiled lightly at me as he shut the door behind him. I knew him immediately but I was too in shock to do anything.

"Aurora." He said with a small smile.

I had to blink a few times to make sure I was seeing things correctly. I had to be seeing things, I must have been really sick.

"It's me." He said as he walked over to me with slow careful steps.

I shook my head at him. This was not real. I hadn't seen him in so long but yet he looked the same, his hair was perfectly styled and he was dressed in a T with a sport coat over it. I missed him so much. "Kale." I said. "What are you doing here?"

"Rori? Are you there?" I heard Sherlock's voice said on the other end of the phone. For a minute I forgot I even had him on the phone. I didn't even bother to tell him goodbye, I just simply hung up.

I had so much to say to Kale but I didn't know how to start. I just stood there, staring at him.

"It's been a long time, I know." He said and shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked guilty, ashamed almost. By the way his head was slightly down, not looking at me in the eyes, I knew that he was here for something else.

"What do you want Kale?" I finally spoke up.

There was a minute of silence as he chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking about what to say back. "I need some money."

"How much?"

"200, maybe 3?"

I frowned at him. He was only here for money and that hurt, what was I to him? Just a bank? "Why do you need it?"

"I'm trying to out run them, Rori, but it's hard. I need to disappear for a bit." He shook his head at me as if knowing what I would say next. "You don't want to get in with them. they're bad news Rori."

I frowned at him. I was a big girl, I could handle myself. Who was he to tell me what to do. "If they are so dangerous, maybe they need to be stopped. You don't know how long I have been looking for you and I'm not about to let you leave with no questions answered."

He frowned at me. "You don't get it, Rori, just stop looking for me, turn around and run back where you came from. I'll call you when I am safe."

I frowned at him. I was too sick and tired to argue but he should know me well enough that is not what I was going to do. As soon as he would leave I would go back to hunting for the group to try to find a way to stop them. This shouldn't be all on Kale's head to do, after all, we were partners.

I walked into my room and fished out 250 quid that I got from picking pockets about a week ago and gave it to Kale.

"Thanks." He said as he put his hands into mine then stared into my eyes. In his dark green eyes had longing in them as if he wanted to stay here longer. But something was stopping him from doing that.

"How much time do you have?"

"Not much, maybe 50 minutes." As soon as he said this I felt my stomach drop. 50 minutes was no time at all. I wanted to be with him longer, I didn't want him to leave.

He looked around the room with a ghost of a smile and said, "who knew you would be working with Sherlock Holmes."

"I didn't." I shrugged at him. As much as I wanted to say that I hated it here, that was a lie, I was really starting to enjoy my time working on cases and solving murders.

"You're doing really well Aurora, I can tell you're happy. I haven't seen you look quite like this for a while."

"You really think I'm happy?" I asked him as if I didn't know the answer myself.

"Yeah, don't you think so?"

I paused and though about it. I never did pause to think if I was happy. I thought I would hate every minute here because I was with Sherlock and the bobbies. But if I thought about it, I liked my time spent here. I had grown to like this place. I like solving crimes. I liked being out of prison. I liked that I had more freedom. And as much as I hated to say, Sherlock wasn't as bad as I thought he was at the beginning. I didn't realize it before but I was happy here.

"Sit with me? Like old times?" He said and lead me to the couch. I sat down next to him and he put his arm around me. His arm warmed me up instantly. We sat there for about 10 minutes in silence until I sneezed. I wanted time to stop so we could have this forever. "I'm sorry." I chuckled after I sneezed.

"It's ok. I thought you told me that you don't get sick."

"Well I seemed to have got something." I sniffled. I stared at his face for a minute and then said, "you look tan. Where have you been?"

He let out a small laugh, "the question should be where haven't I gone. I have been all over Europe the past year, I just got back from Spain." As soon as he said that he got out his phone and said, "I have to go soon. They probably saw me get off this Tube stop by now. I can't lead them to you. You mean too much to me."

"Then I did you leave me?" I asked, a little to sharply.

He frowned. "Because the night that you got caught, so did I. I knew that I wouldn't be able to save you from prison if I was working for the group. My hands were tied. I decided prison was the only safe place for you to save you from this group. They really wanted you, but I convinced them that I was worth more. And let me tell you, being with Sherlock is a much better fate then being with this group, Rori." He explained to me.

I was silent. He gave himself up to save me. I was speechless. "I could have helped you if you told me what had happened." I said to him after a minute.

He shook his head at me. "No, I couldn't risk it." He said and got up from his seat.

Our time was up. "Don't go." I said as grabbed his hand and looked at him right in the eye. "Stay. bring them down together, we can do it you know. We're..." I let my voice trail off when I saw the look on his face, he wasn't buying what I was saying to him. He knew he had to leave.

"Aurora" he sighed and cupped my cheek with his hand. "I have too."

"No." I said to him as I held back tears.

He sighed and then kissed me on my cheek and said, "I have never stopped thinking about you."

He let go of my face and then walked out the door.

I stood there for a minute in shock, not sure what I should feel and then sat back down on the couch. my mind was spinning and I couldn't think straight. "what just happened?"