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The woman in the video didn’t look the same, she wasn’t someone who Sherlock recognized. She wore Watson’s face, but it was bruised and bloody. There was a cut above her eye where someone had carelessly hit her hard enough to break skin. Sherlock may not have been a doctor like her, but he knew fighting, and he knew injuries. Just from looking at one still of the video, he could categorize every blow that Watson had been subjected to, every mishandling, the astounding lack of care shown to her fragile body and incredible brain. He could visualize how she had been forced into the car. He knew when she had been knocked unconscious and how many times, he could even picture her body limp and unresponsive. He was ready and eager to submit Moriarty’s useless goons to exactly the same torture and see how much they liked it.
These attackers were not sophisticated, and fairly unimaginative as far as kidnappings went. The ransom video had come like clockwork, demanding an ordinarily extraordinary amount of money. Moriarty was losing her touch. Or maybe it was Sherlock who was losing, because he hadn’t moved since the video was emailed to his personal inbox. He had watched the video over and over and over. He told himself he was looking for clues, but he never looked anywhere other than at Watson. He had this memorized by now, every wince and gasp for breath, every break in her voice.
When the video started, it was impossible to see her face. Her head was hanging forward, her hair falling like black mourning drapes. She may have been unconscious or just waking, aided by a burly man prodding her with a gun. His face was cut off by the camera, but Sherlock was confident he could identify him by his muddy boots alone. Again, unimaginative. If it had been anyone other than Watson in this video, Sherlock would be standing with her right now, laughing as the man was arrested. Instead, he was immobilized by the fear on Watson’s face when she opened her eyes. The man forced her head towards the camera. Her eyes were unfocused, having trouble finding the camera lens.
“Tell your partner what we practiced.” The man’s voice was distorted. He sounded like a character from a horror movie, but a simple voice disguised was no match for Sherlock. So why was he sitting like this, watching a video he had already seen so many times? It had been hours, he could have saved her three times by now.
Instead he watched as Joan nodded, then cut the movement short with a sharp inhale. Her hands tightened on the arms of the chair she was bound to. The ropes around her wrists had been tied too tightly. If he looked closely, he could see the red chafing of her skin, the tiny pinpricks of blood beginning to emerge. Watson had struggled. She had fought them, but it was clear that even just a nod hurt her. Sherlock was not an empath. If he had been, he would have cried, he would have felt that same pain so acutely he might have an actual excuse for not moving from this chair. Again, Sherlock worried about internal injuries, the parts of her that he couldn’t see. She had a mild concussion at the very least.
“Sherlock, they say you have 24 hours. They said they already told you what they want, and if they have to tell you again, you won’t…” Here she paused and her captor jabbed her with the gun again. “You won’t see me alive again,” Joan finished.
Her voice was trembling, but she was making the most of her time unblindfolded. Her eyes were darting around the room, searching for clues. Sherlock had trained her well, but it only went so far. It only helped if there was someone on the outside, doing everything in their power to get to her. He couldn’t leave her to fend for herself like this was some insane test, though it bore a resemblance to something he may have thought up as practice. An uncontrolled environment was different, though, and every human had their vulnerability, even one as strong as Watson.
“Now you’ve seen her, just like you wanted.” The kidnapper addressed Sherlock through the camera. “Time is ticking.” He took a step closer, presumably to turn off the camera, but at that moment Joan spoke again.
“Sherlock, remember the—“
The man whirled around, his back blocking the camera’s view of the scene. There was a flurry of motion, a cracking blow. He stepped away, out of the camera’s range. The image that lingered until the screen went dark was Watson, blood flowing down her face as she whimpered through gritted teeth. She tried to tip her head back to stop the bleeding, but she moved in short bursts, interspersed with tiny gasps. It was clear that even the smallest movement was painful.
Watson was strong, emotionally more than physically. Even before their partnership, Sherlock had admired her unwavering refusal to depend on anyone other than herself. Watson was no stranger to physical pain, but she was much more able to guard herself against emotional turmoil. As a counselor she had seen her fair share of grief and terrible things. She had worked with an entirely unrewarding population, one that Sherlock had once belonged to. She knew how to flush out emotions, work through them and regain functionality as quickly as she could. It was a skill that Sherlock occasionally envied, and never more than now. Watson would have been able to watch that video dispassionately, thinking only of the rescue— only of saving a life. Sherlock would have been able to disengage from his body, endure those blows with hardly any knowledge of pain. If their places had been switched… god, how he wished they could exchange places. It wasn’t out of sentimentality, it was the knowledge that Watson’s kidnapper had placed him in a uniquely difficult situation. Watson was not as equipped to withstand physical pain, and somehow the kidnapper had been able to foretell something Sherlock had not known about himself: He could not work as well when Watson was in danger. He could not manage one ounce of his usual focus for the most important job.
If Joan was in his place, and it was Sherlock tucked away beaten and bloody in some warehouse, they would both be safe and sound now. She was logical. She would not be immobilized by fear, swamped by a tidal wave of emotions, paralyzed by imagining a world with Sherlock. Her world did not revolve around him, she did not rely on him as he had come to rely on her. Watson would not sit, endlessly watching her partner succumbing to torture, and do nothing about it. She was better than that.
Sherlock sighed, and hit play again.