Chapter Text
Life gets busy.
Greg was usually in the middle of something.
It took a while for him to even realize that something was wrong.
One night he had come home.
It hadn’t been anything dramatic like finding someone’s underpants on his side of the bed.
He’d walked into their bedroom and found her stretched out in bed with her mobile in her hands. But the look on her face had been one of shock. Like she hadn’t seen him, hadn’t expected him, like it took her a moment to remember that he even lived there too.
She had smiled. It was a fake smile. A fake smile that never reached her eyes.
She tried to sound happy as she had said, “Honey! You’re home! Wonderful!”
It had all been so phony that he’d actually taken a step back.
His survival instincts had kicked in and he had forced himself. “You look great, love. Sorry I’m late. Want to watch a movie together?”
He hadn’t even known that he’d said it.
His mouth had been faster than his brain.
She had looked away too quickly and said, “I’m tired.”
She had held up her mobile and added, “I’m just going to finish a few emails and tuck in for the night.”
He had just nodded and wandered towards the bathroom.
It had been hiding behind that door that he’d realized. His stomach had tightened, and he’d felt nauseous as he realized that she was cheating. His gut had been screaming it at him.
It had been such a powerful moment. It had been the most powerful moment of his adult life and absolutely the most emotionally charged moment in recent decades.
He remembered staring down at the cluttered bathroom counter. All of her different products, miscellaneous items, and makeup-stained cotton balls.
The bathroom had felt steamy from her shower.
The smell of her lotion and shampoo had filled the air.
It was the image that always filled his mind when he’d thought about the divorce.
It was the image that filled his mind as he lay dying on the freezing cold asphalt of an abandoned street.
He had turned when he had realized that there was a vehicle bearing down on him. He’d gotten a mere glimpse at the driver before the speeding car had slammed into his body.
Greg’s ears had filled with the sound of breaking bones, and screams.
Someone had screamed.
There had been a dull thud as he hit the frozen asphalt.
The taste of blood had filled his mouth.
His entire body felt broken.
Pain filled his senses.
His mind was instantly slow.
Everything was happening in slow motion.
He moved his arm trying desperately to find his mobile.
His only available lifeline for help.
A moment later, he heard the car again.
The moment that the headlights illuminated him, he knew that it had made a U-turn and come back.
The engine revved.
A big engine.
The rubber of the tires spun and squealed as the tires tried to find traction on the icy asphalt.
He dropped his head and said, “If I could do it all again. If only I could…again.”
Greg felt the second impact.
The tires shredding him, destroying his mid-section. His lungs squeezed to nothing, seemingly at the same moment that his head crunched audibly.
It felt as if he were fighting from nothing to something.
And then, he was able to get that lungful of air.
He gasped taking it in and breathing hard.
The shock.
Instinctively, he reached up for his face.
Greg saw his image in front of him.
It took him a very long moment to realize that he was looking at himself in the mirror.
Only a moment ago he’d been bleeding out on a dark, frozen street.
Now, he was… not.
He looked around and realized that he was in a bathroom.
Warm steamy air.
A smell he instantly recognized before his brain could even supply him with a name.
It was a bathroom that he recognized. It was the bathroom in their old apartment.
Before the divorce.
Before he’d moved out into a cheap place so she could move in the new guy.
In the air, he smelled steamy air. Vanilla shampoo. Cocoa and bergamot scented lotion.
He stared down at the sink counter and saw the usual mess that his Ex had often left behind for him to clean up.
He stared at it.
Greg touched his face and felt no pain.
He looked up at the mirror and saw his face. It was unmarred. The stress filled lines hadn’t set in yet.
His hair was still more brown than silver.
He hadn’t gone completely grey, sallow, and tired.
His back was visibly straight.
He looked…healthy.
Greg turned his head towards the door.
He took a step towards the door.
When his hand was on the doorknob, he hesitated.
Quietly, he said, “I’m either delusional or…”
He couldn’t finish the thought out loud. It was simply too insane.
Still, he found his courage and opened the door.
It was her, laying on what had once been their bed. She was wearing the same nightgown that he remembered. A cotton night gown with a lace fringe. A small nail polish stain from all the times she’d done her nails in bed while watching something on her phone.
She still had her mobile in her hand.
She looked up from the screen with questions on her face.
Instead of saying something, he closed the door.
Greg took a step away from the door and simply said, “Fuck.”
For a long moment, he didn’t know what to do.
Finally, he checked his pockets.
The first thing that he noticed was his old car keys. The keychain that he’d used before the car accident that put him in a hospital for a month with a concussion. His ex had taken the opportunity to get him to sign papers for a loan…for his hospital bills.
Only the money hadn’t been used for his hospital bills. And he’d wound up with hospital bills and a loan hanging over his head. He’d made payments for years and had paid well over $90,000.00 pounds with interest and fees that had piled on.
Greg set the keys on the counter.
When he found his mobile, he checked the date and time.
The last thing that he’d remembered was early December. It was winter. A hard snow had fallen over the city for weeks.
Five years… in the future.
No.
Not five years.
It was summer.
It was five years, five months, and one week.
He was in the bathroom at the moment when he’d realized that she was a cheat.
It was a month before she had even filed for divorce.
It was a three weeks and two days before her grandmother had died.
April.
April 4th to be precise.
He didn’t have to think long.
He hadn’t been home for a few days because they had been closing the latest case. The latest mess that had been unraveled by Sherlock. And then the subsequent arrival of Mycroft Holmes’ people.
The paperwork.
The final sanitized version of reality that Greg had to make stick.
The murder of Alex Woodbridge’s body on the riverbank of the Thames had led to a fake Johannes Vermeer painting.
A freakishly, tall hitman called the Golem. A fight with Interpol regarding jurisdiction, the body, and evidence. Three different reports for that great, big body and all the bad the man had done while he’d been alive.
Kidnappings. Another report. Witness statements and an interview with John.
Sherlock facing off with a shadowy lunatic hiding somewhere in the darkness.
A kid’s voice.
The museum curator’s confession. Witness statements, an interview that took several hours, and a very detailed report.
They got a name.
Moriarty.
A lunatic that would eventually force Sherlock to jump off of St. Barts in a year.
John’s kidnapping.
An explosive vest at a pool that had needed the bomb disposal unit and an entirely different kind of report that had taken hours.
So many reports.
John had reported multiple snipers with weapons. A different investigation and report. Witness statements.
John had called it The Greatest Game on his blog.
Greg was tired just from remembering it all.