Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock.

Notes: I've seen people suffer with panic attacks, and the idea of someone having no one around is appalling. This came about from these thoughts and a self-induced Sherlock marathon. This is not slash. Please enjoy.

*Spoilers for The Reichenbach Fall*

Angel of Mercy

John's face drained of all colour. He was incapable of uttering a word. One moment he was doing his laundry like he did every week. The next moment he was on the ground trying to go through his breathing exercises. He'd been meaning to call his therapist, but then again he'd been meaning to do a lot of things lately.

Lestrade had been in the area, getting coffee before heading back into NSY. He supposed it was a bit odd that he still had a job there. No doubt Mycroft had pulled strings. He had just been thinking along those lines when he received a text from the man himself.

You look like you need to do the laundry - Mycroft Holmes

He shook his head and tried to decipher the meaning of this text. He took a sip of coffee and looked at a laundromat across the street. He scanned the windows, realising that he recognised someone in the window.

John.

On the ground.

He dropped his coffee and sprinted across the street, launching himself over the kerb and ripping the door open to the laundromat.

"Bugger, John," he muttered as he crouched next to the frozen doctor. "You told me these stopped."

The doctor couldn't answer, but then again, Lestrade didn't think it wise if he spoke at all.

"Just breathe."

Lestrade grabbed the front of John's shirt and helped him through the exercises. Gradually, some colour returned to the doctor's face, and his breathing became less frantic. Lestrade sat beside John, but he didn't take his hand off of the doctor. He felt like he was anchoring him to reality. Although sometimes, he felt like John anchored him to reality.

Especially after the fall.

"Cheers," John grumbled when he could finally talk again. "Greg, you didn't have to come all this way."

"Mycroft texted me. I was just across the street. Must've seen you on the CCTV. What happened?"

John took a deep breath. "I saw a green jacket - just like mine the night Moriarty strapped that bloody bomb on me. It was like I was back with him."

Lestrade knew he wasn't talking about the crazed villain but his (and Lestrade's) friend. Funny, he never thought he'd consider Sherlock a friend before all this had happened. Now, he couldn't name his friends without his name being first.

And he didn't even know his name. He didn't even bloody know his name.

Lestrade shook his head and loosened his grip on John's shirt. The doctor and the inspector. How they must look to the occupants of the laundromat. He didn't care. At the end of everything, he would be beside John Watson.

Because John Watson was his friend too.

And if that meant sitting on the dirty floor of a cheap laundromat, so be it, Lestrade thought. John grabbed his arm as his panic attack didn't end right then.

"C'mon, mate," he urged the struggling doctor. "Just keep breathing."

He leaned the man forward, trying to reassure him. John was still having trouble with his breathing exercises. He coughed into his own sleeve once he managed to find it. Lestrade found himself rubbing his friend's back much like he would have had he been sick.

A few minutes later, John finally found his voice again. "Greg, thank you." He tried to sit up, but he found himself drained.

"Don't bother," Lestrade stopped him. He sat down beside him and rubbed his hands together. "It's bloody freezing out there."

John nodded and leaned back against the washer. Lestrade followed suit, and the two of them just sat there, breathing steadily. He ran his hands through his short, silvering hair. Beside him, John coughed again and let out a puff of breath that told Lestrade that he was worried too.

"I don't know what the hell is going on with me," John admitted finally. He sighed (a bit dramatically, Lestrade thought absently) and picked at his jumper. His nervousness only underscored his own worry. With another sigh, he made a note in his phone to call his therapist. He hadn't talked to her since he went in after Sh- after the incident.

He still had trouble grasping what happened to Sh- his roommate. His therapist thought that it wasn't that he couldn't grasp it, but that he wouldn't. After she said that, he stormed out of the office and into the pouring rain.

The doctor stretched his legs and flexed his fingers. These panic attacks always made him want to stretch out and run - even though he knew that wouldn't help him at all. His breathing exercises helped him, but sometimes when he'd run or do anything strenuous, an attack would come on - regardless of whether or not he was going through his exercises.

Looking over at Lestrade, John felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude toward the detective inspector. He could've just as easily ignored Mycroft (he wouldn't have blamed him for that) and gone back to work where he was already on thin ice with the chief, but he didn't because that was just the sort of man Lestrade was. Kind. Generous. Merciful.

It hadn't escaped John's eyes (and certainly not Sh- his roommate's eyes) that Lestrade had made a couple of 'friendly' visits to Baker Street to search for a certain weapon that may have been used to kill a certain cabbie moonlighting as a serial killer. To John's knowledge, he never found it - or at least stopped coming around once he had - because the detective inspector stopped coming around for 'friendly' visits.

The few times that the two had talked after the incident hadn't gone very well. John distanced himself from those who knew Sh- his roommate. The inspector tried to keep in touch, but John rarely answered his calls, and he stopped coming by to check on him. John supposed he had worries of his own with his job hanging precariously in the balance. The fact that he even had a job spoke to the worth of the inspector himself (and, quite possibly, Mycroft's position in the government).

The laundromat was not crowded that day at all. It might have been because it was two in the afternoon on a lazy Tuesday. The street was not busy either. It was the definition of a lazy Tuesday, and John did his laundry at this time for that very reason. He liked being alone after everything that happened.

Realising that someone had to break the silence, Lestrade cleared his throat. "Have you been back to Baker Street yet?"

The quick shake of John's head was answer enough.

Lestrade sighed. "Have you talked about what happened?"

He shrugged and picked at his jumper again. Lestrade knew enough about John to not have to rely on his interrogation skills - namely, that John's picking at his jumper was just a distraction from talking. He didn't want to interrogate his friend.

Instead of continuing their chat on the laundromat floor, Lestrade picked himself up off the ground and offered a hand for the sturdy doctor. The ex-soldier (he thought he resembled nothing of the soldier he was in Afghanistan three years prior) took the hand and pulled himself off the ground.

"Do you want to go get a cuppa?" Lestrade asked cautiously, not wanting John to shut down completely.

The doctor nodded once and started to walk out of the laundromat - leaving his clothes behind. They didn't really matter after all. He could get them later if they were still there. Sh- his roommate would be pleased if some of the so called 'crime-to-fashion-and-the-sighted-world' jumpers disappeared. Not that what Sh- he thought mattered anymore.

Their stop wasn't far, and their walk was unsurprisingly silent. Lestrade was (pleasantly) surprised when John was the first to speak.

"The first time I went to Baker Street, Mrs Hudson was convinced that he and I were partners."

Lestrade laughed after John hinted at a smile himself. Sherlock was not gay, he thought, more asexual than anything else. Everyone, however, seemed to think that John and Sherlock were anything but just friends. Lestrade only said that they weren't just friends, they were brothers. Theirs was a bond much stronger than friendship. In fact, he reasoned that this was why John hadn't even mentioned Sherlock's name.

"He didn't know my name," Lestrade admitted after a silence had fallen over them again. He had a tea in his hand and was busy handing another to John from the lady behind the counter. "I suppose he thought it was You're-an-idiot or Do-shut-up."

John ventured a smile - probably one of the few he'd allowed himself since the incident. The inspector nodded appreciatively and sat down at a nearby table. He motioned for John to join him and was pleased when he did.

They spent the next hour or so not worrying about the present - about Lestrade's job or John's frame of mind. The two swapped stories about the consulting detective. Lestrade talked about how when he first met Sherlock, he felt like chinning him, but his sergeant at the time - Smith - had beat him to the punch (no pun intended). With a laugh, John agreed that he too had wanted to punch Sher-his roommate when he first met him.

"But then he tells you your whole life story, and you're too shocked to actually hit him," Lestrade finished for him with a smile.

"Sherlock was like that," John muttered, and at that moment, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders when he finally uttered the name. "He didn't really understand that sometimes people just want a "how are you" with a hello."

"He wasn't as bad when you were around," the inspector offered as consolation. "You made an impact, John. Don't ever think otherwise."

The answer was soft and barely audible. "I don't understand why he would jump in front of me."

The inspector shook his head. "I can't answer that, but I can tell you this: I did think he was a Good Man. I know he had his reasons. We just don't know what they were. Not yet."

The doctor nodded as he stood up to leave. He had a call to make, and he was keeping the inspector from his job.

"Where are you going, John?"

"I need to call my therapist," he admitted and took his phone out.

Lestrade watched him leave and sighed with relief. The doctor needed another doctor to help him, and the inspector was pleased to see him finally reach out for help. When he finally finished his tea, the inspector ambled along slowly back to NSY.

Along the way, he figured he probably should have arrested the young graffiti artist who scribbled a barely legible "I believe in Sherlock Holmes" on a well-trafficked wall.

But then again, he too believed in Sherlock Holmes. He never stopped believing, and neither had John Watson.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed it. Please review. Have a great day :)