It's only forever, Not long at all, Lost and lonely

Nine years ago today, 52 people were killed on public transport in London. 700 were injured. Doesn't seem real it's nine years ago, feels like...months, maybe. Sometimes far far less.

And, as with all such happenings, as people ran, shocked, injured, horrified, other people went to help. Tube staff, police, bystanders. Some people who were down in those tunnels, injured themselves, didn't run, didn't leave, even though they could. They stayed and they saved lives.

I was at work, not one of the first responders, but once it became clear the scale of what had happened, teams were dispatched.

I worked on the Piccadilly, where the most people died. It was a long, painstaking investigation, with pressure to both explain who had been responsible, how they had done it, why they had done it, and also - and it is important, no matter how mundane it sounds - to get the transport system back working. And to allow the friends and families of the dead to mourn and move on. And that's hard, when the damage to the bodies is so vast. You don't get to see a body, have a final moment, say a proper goodbye.


Anyway, been thinking about that a lot today, as I've spent the day with John, and waved Mycroft off to work, and thought about a lot of things.

And now I've been writing this for bloody ages and still not written anything. I don't think I'm 100% back to normal. Or maybe I'm just examining everything I do too closely now. I feel like I keep sort of...zoning out. Or forgetting what I was doing/saying.

On Saturday, we were...well, I still can't say too much, but I'd been in communication with this man. On a Gay Sex Chatline. Because that had been the one link in a series of cases.

We expected him to try and talk me into going back to his. We didn't expect him to slip a drug in my drink. Or...well, I still don't know how he did it.

Luckily I had a wire on, and there were other officers in the club. So when I stopped talking, Sal could call up someone to get a bit closer, check up on me, and they knew something was up.

Ketamine, when you take enough, paralyses you. Your mind still works fine, or mine did, to begin with, except...yeah, well, before I even knew what was happening I was in trouble. The music was immense, I could feel it, it was as if it was slow motion, washing over me, and the lights were all...instead of strobes, they were wrapping around me, like something sci-fi.

I don't really know how to describe it. And it felt like it took a long time, hours, days maybe. Even when John arrived, it took me hours to reach him, because the noises and the lights still had me. I thought I was reaching out to him, but I wasn't. And anyway, he wasn't real.

The most lasting thing, I guess, the thing I still feel, in an odd way, was that I was incredibly lonely.


Upshot is, I think it's for the best that I don't go to the boat. Mycroft and I will have a nice night in, John can cope with what will seem like hundreds of tiny banshees all refusing to sleep, in a confined space, and we'll think of him as we relax with some gourmet food and maybe a bottle of wine ;)