Just Johnlock- The Big Book of One Shots

Third Generation

When the first generation left Earth, there were twenty humans. The spaceship was ill fitted to hold so many survivors, and before long eight had died to disease, and one from suicide. Space was no place to live, no place to raise a family, and hardly a place to survive. Though survive they did, at least long enough to produce the second generation. The first generation was the one to watch the world fall away, the light of the sun fade off into the darkness of space, and the stars to glow much brighter. They did what they must, they reproduced, and gave birth to the first generation of children doomed only to see the inside of a space shuttle.  A world of metal, though hardly a world at all. A tube of metal, more accurately, with enough rations to support an army though hardly any space to hold what people they had left. There were six in the second generation, and they lived long enough to watch the first planet come and go. It was an unnamed system, looming throughout the darkness with the illuminance of a very distant star. It was the first light they had seen for a long while, the first natural light. The electricity they were producing on the ship was hardly enough to keep the cabins illuminated, though in the end they had started to prefer the darkness. The lights were harsh, taunting even, as if they had been installed merely to remind the humans of a time they could see without the fluorescents. They painfully reminded the survivors of the sun, or rather those who had ever lived to see it. The children didn't know what light was, and when at last they grew old enough to see this distant sun in the distance of the vacuum, well it was as frightening as anything could be. When the first generation died, the second generation was left with their own children, the small children they had managed to produce. Three children were born before the second bout of disease hit, and three children were all that remained when at last the second generation found themselves unvaccinated and vulnerable to the common human diseases that had been lingering about the usually unneeded medical supplies. They were dead in an instant, gone too quickly to tell their children much about the earth as they remembered their own parents describing it. Gone too quickly to remind their children what it was they were living for, and what hope they needed to maintain in order to continue the human population. They were gone too quickly to remind their children that there was a reason to live, here in this tin can, even though the second generation didn't entirely understand. Gone were the ones who remembered the world, the color green that was not captured in a photograph, or in a smear of paint along the wall. Gone were those who remembered water flowing freely through a stream, not from the cap of a plastic water bottle. Gone were those who remembered the sun, and the shadows, and the night. The stars looked so close from here, though gone were those who remembered the constellations. The third generation was left on their own, mere children by the time they were abandoned. The third generation were the ones born without hope, simply because they couldn't understand what was left for them except the same unfortunate deaths as their parents. As far as breeding pairs went, the probability of a successful repopulation was looking more and more slim. The only woman aboard the ship was Mary, and she wasn't overly excited about doing her duty to the human race. There was not much enthusiasm from either side, as her two companions grew into terribly modest, terribly confused men. Sherlock Holmes grew long and lanky, pale as the white walls and shy as any distant planet. John Watson was equally pale, though grew into a rather broad shouldered, muscular man. He dedicated what little life he had to exercise, as there was nothing better than feeling physical pain, rather than mental. When your body hurt your soul could relax, and suddenly it was that muscular pain that was the bane of your existence, rather than the fact that you're floating so far away from home that it would take another three generations to get back to where they started from. Yet Earth was not there any longer...at least not in an inhabitable state. If Sherlock was ever asked why he could not explain, as the first generation had not been willing to pass down the stories of their mistakes to their children. All he knew was that home was gone, and that they were floating light years away in an attempt to find a place hospitable enough to hold the beginnings of the human race once more. That was if there ever would be a human race any longer. It was dependent on them, was it not? Depending on their willingness, their ability, and their survival. At the moment, all three seemed terribly slim. At the moment Sherlock was left sitting in the dim lights of the cabin, staring out the thick glass window at the everlasting view, the only view he knew and the only thing he didn't want to see. Stars...stars stretching for miles around. They were the only source of light prominent enough to appreciate, though Sherlock was told that they were each supposed to illuminate a system of planets. At the present moment it seemed as though all stars were too far out of their reach to find such a place, and the darkness of the space was so overwhelming that he knew enough to realize he would never see their future home. Sherlock knew ever so well that he would never touch foot on solid ground; he would never feel the pull of naturally created gravity. The only reason his feet could touch the floor was because of the technology flowing through the ship, though he couldn't begin to explain it. In all honesty Sherlock understood that their lives were threatened as soon as something went wrong, as they were not very good with machines nor the comprehension of what it was that was keeping them alive. Sherlock dared not ask where the oxygen was flowing from, or were the gravity was created. He knew that there were precious few things humans needed to survive, and while all of that was being supplied at a ration they would surely not be enough to support the forth, even perhaps the fifth generation. At the present moment their stocks were becoming low, and the occupants on the ship were growing terribly skinny, terribly unhealthy. Sherlock almost felt bad submitting an unsuspecting child to this world, though it wasn't as if he was going to stop it. It wasn't as if he had a choice but to realize that this was their duty, surely. This was John and Mary's duty, together. And Sherlock's duty was to pretend not to notice. It was a terrible thing to listen to, really. The privacy on this ship was limited, and while the door was shut and locked he could still hear what seemed to be audible sounds of pain. He had never been explained the process of child bearing, and the three of them had to learn from a rather grotesque pamphlet they had found in the ship's compartment. Thankfully they had been taught to read, though there were picture aids to help the illiterate along just fine. Sherlock hadn't volunteered for that position, no it sounded positively unnatural. And so here he was, looking out the window once again, trying not to wonder just what was happening, and what was going to happen in the span of nine months. The second time he had to listen to screams of pain was when that nine month span was over, when Mary's stomach turned from abnormally thin to positively bursting, to the point where it was hard to look at her sideways without wincing. She seemed proud to have been able to raise the thing inside of her for so long, and while her rations had been doubled she was beginning to look a little bit threatening. Her face was growing paler, her hair was beginning to shed, and her eyes were becoming blood shot. It was symptoms of a disease that Sherlock could not think to name, though it seemed to be taking ahold of the poor woman before she ever had time to meet her baby, or to name the little thing. She gave her life for the child, using the last of her strength to push it out into the world, and when it appeared with its first screams her own had been silenced. It seemed to have taken the whole of her life force, using her strength to echo off its own wails, as if to mourn his mother before he had even gotten to see her face.
"A boy." John announced quietly, huddling the little thing into a white blanket and trying to wipe off the blood from its small and rather disgusting face. Sherlock had never seen a baby before, though this one proved to be quite startling. It looked more alien than the rest of them, slimy and red, without any trace of humanity in its small and toothless features.
"A boy." Sherlock agreed, looking towards Mary's lifeless body and feeling a horrible pang of regret. Well surely that was the end of it. He stepped closer to the woman, where she lay with her eyes still open and her mouth stretched in an expression of pain. She was cold to the touch, though Sherlock was just able to set her eyes shut, to make her look a bit more restful. John was too occupied with the child to at first grieve for the woman's passing, though before long Sherlock was sure he would be in tears. There had hardly been love aboard this ship, mere acceptance. The loss of one of their own was not a personal pain, but a species wide defeat. Their last capable female had just died, surely dooming the population. The fourth generation, that little child wriggling in John Watson's arms...that was the last of them, wasn't it? That was the species doomed to die alone.
"John, is he alright?" Sherlock whispered, at last moving away from poor Mary Morstan and focusing again on the little creature.
"I don't know." John admitted. "He's awfully red."
"Perhaps they're supposed to look like that." Sherlock offered.
"Perhaps." John agreed. At last his eyes settled on Mary, finally he mustered the strength to look upon her corpse and wince. Sherlock noticed a look of horror fill the man's eyes, though just as soon as he noticed Sherlock watching he turned his attention away, focusing once again on the baby as if he was determined to hide his emotions on the matter.
"She's dead?" John clarified, though in a passive sort of way. The sort of way one might mention a common nuisance, rather than a catastrophe such as this.
"No pulse." Sherlock agreed simply.
"Dead, then." John muttered, nodding his head for a moment before pursing his lips in defeat.
"I suppose." Sherlock agreed, as he could not force himself to muster up any emotion. He was just as afraid of crying as John was, perhaps more so. He hadn't much of a connection to Mary, other than being stuck on the same ship with her for the entire span of his life. The woman was a mere object in his world, as complex of a character as any person could be when they weren't exposed to anything more than a metal container and a view full of stars. She wasn't interesting, she wasn't lovable, she was nothing more than...than just there. They were all just present in the end, present up until the moment they died. And now here she was, dead. Perhaps the second most interesting thing she had ever done in her life, coming in right after her birth.
"Do you know how to...how to feed it?" Sherlock wondered apprehensively, beginning to find the baby's constant crying to be quite annoying. The survival of the human race was a lost cause, though he still felt rather entitled to keep this little thing alive. Perhaps it was better to let it die now; perhaps it would be more humane to let it have a natural, crowded death. A death quick enough that he would never remember, one that he would never fully comprehend. Sherlock rather envied him, now wondering why his parent's didn't just give up on him the moment they knew he would be doomed to a world such as this. Perhaps it would be considered rude, or unethical, to leave a little baby to starve. Then again, it was rather rude to leave a baby to grow up without seeing solid ground.
"I'm sure there's something it can swallow." John presumed, swaddling the baby a bit tighter into the blanket so that its arms would stop waving about.
"It's loud." Sherlock decided at last, and with that he gave a little sigh of regret before moving back into the main corridor. He wasn't sure what to feel when trapped inside of that room, for he was sure that death was supposed to be pitiful and birth was supposed to be exciting. Though when the two of them were combined, when a birth brought along a death, well perhaps the feeling should be neutral. Perhaps it was okay to feel nothing at all. Sherlock sat down on the floor, staring out one of the lengthy windows and curling his legs into a knot underneath of him. The stars looked especially brighter now, as if they were veering closer than before. From what Sherlock understood of the world, which admittedly was not very much at all, he imagined they must be being pulled by something. An invisible force, perhaps a string attached to their ship, well something was moving them along through space. The engines had died long before he had even been born, though still they were moving. Perhaps they were getting close to a system, then. Perhaps something was pulling them in, and would realize the urgency of the matter. The world only had about only one human lifespan left, for when the little child died he would surely be the last of them. He was doomed, they were all doomed.
"You think we should give it a name?" John's voice wondered, followed quickly by his footsteps down the metal hall. Sherlock craned his neck, though fell back unimpressively and shrugged.
"I suppose it needs one, yes. We can't just call it...it." Sherlock decided at last, wincing a bit at the rather demeaning title.
"Do you know any names?" John wondered quietly, starting down towards where Sherlock was sitting and standing a bit awkwardly above him.
"Only my own, and yours." Sherlock admitted quietly.
"Our parents had names." John pointed out. Sherlock sighed, though he couldn't imagine himself naming that little thing after their parents, especially when they had hardly known the people. It seemed almost a death wish, imposing the names of the fallen to their only glimmer of hope.
"I don't think I like that." Sherlock admitted quietly, to which John nodded his head in slight agreement.
"Well then...my middle name. Hamish? I think that was my grandfather. I think he...well I think he lived to see the earth." John decided, finally sitting down heavily against the same wall that Sherlock had perched on. Sherlock recoiled, not entirely sure why he had to insist on sitting so close. There was something entirely foreign about being touched, something almost threatening about the way John's shoulder brushed upon his own.
"One Hamish to leave a planet, and the other to see a new one." Sherlock proposed at last, trying his very hardest to think positively. It was a rather strenuous affair, and after a single optimistic thought he had to sit back and stare more out the window at the wasteland, trying to remind himself that there was no room in his brain for cheer, or for hope.
"Hello little Hamish." John said, managing a smile as he prodded at the boy's chin with his finger. The little thing was regaining a more human like composure, as the red seemed to be fading away and his skin was adopting that same pale, sickly color as the rest of them. He was beginning to look normal; oh dare he even look cute! Sherlock smiled as well, just for a moment, as the baby's eyes turned towards his direction. It was a very difficult strain on his muscles, and such a foreign feeling that he was almost shocked when it didn't fade away. He continued to smile...he continued to feel happy.
"Are we going to love this baby?" John wondered at last, looking up towards Sherlock a bit hopefully.
"What do you mean by that?" Sherlock wondered with a bit of a sour taste in his mouth. The word love, well it had not been spoken on this ship since their parents had died.
"I mean, well are we going to treat him like our own? Are we going to be his fathers?" John wondered at last.
"I'm not his father." Sherlock pointed out in defense.
"But you're going to have to be, I'm afraid." John muttered, looking over towards his companion with an incredibly soft expression. It looked like appreciation, or perhaps something more serious than that.
"Are we...are we going to love each other?" Sherlock whispered nervously. John hesitated, though at last he shrugged his shoulders as if he could find no reason not to.
"If we're going to be a family, perhaps we should." He offered quietly, though with such a voice that it sounded like he was forcing the words out. As if he had thought of them for the longest while, and at last had decided to say them aloud.
"That wouldn't make sense." Sherlock defended.
"It doesn't have to make sense, really. We're the last three humans alive...who's there to judge us?" John offered with a rather pitiful smile. He meant that to be a joke, and in some ways it did have an air of humor to it. For the most part it was rather depressing.
"I suppose I could love you, John." Sherlock decided at last. He thought about it for a while, and with his very narrow definition of love it seemed as though perhaps they could manage it. He was attractive, and in a way he was gentle enough to admire. He would make a good father, and perhaps a good husband as well. What did they have to lose, really, by committing to each other?
"I could love you too." John agreed, smiling again in such a foreign way that Sherlock was taken aback.
"Okay." Sherlock muttered. "There you have it, then."
"There you have it." John agreed, settling the little baby upon his lap and reaching his hand over to Sherlock, an offering of sorts. Sherlock hesitated; grinning quickly to try to make sure John knew he appreciated the gesture before at last taking his hand in his own. It was a curious feeling, the touch of human skin. It was something he had not remembered for the longest time, something that was all together alien to him. John's skin was very smooth, not unlike his own, though his fingers seemed stronger. They felt quite odd, now as they slid between Sherlock's own fingers and held him there closely. It was a bond of love, perhaps. A bond of commitment. Together they decided that was enough communication, for Sherlock's lips weer already tired of speaking. There were words unsaid, however, words that were passed between their interlocked fingers, words spoken on the tips of their fingers and the crevices of their palms. Words of appreciation, and perhaps of acceptance. It had been a long while since Sherlock had ever felt like someone noticed him, and it had been even longer since he noticed anyone else. Perhaps it was for the best, their bonding now. They were, after all, the last humans with the potential to love. Maybe they were the last of anything out there, the last of all life. It was their goal then, not just to reproduce, but to love. To use the hearts they had been given, and the hearts that would surely fade away in a long while. Each and every carefully planned blood vessel, every cell churning and fighting...all of this miraculous chances of nature just lost. Lost by their inability to keep themselves alive, and lost by the fight of time, and the curses of the universe. It was their job now, no longer to continue the race, but to appreciate the race. Appreciate each other, and perhaps even themselves. The stars were proof, each one twinkling there out in the distance. They were proof that this universe was bigger than ever could be explained, and larger than ever could be traveled by a little spaceship creeping along by the unseen force of gravity alone. Though they were proof of hope, proof that maybe somewhere out there lived another race of creatures, another civilization that proved more successful than the human races. The stars out there were proof that they may not be alone in this universe, no matter how far away another heartbeat seemed. For the only heartbeats that mattered now were the ones contained in the tin can, three little heartbeats that beat in unison all of the sudden. Heartbeats that grew to appreciate the melodies of the others, all the while they were still singing their individual songs.