John
Shock
He's numb.
It's a strange feeling, like he's floating above his body looking down. Almost like he's not physically there. His body is grounded, but his mind is wandering higher and higher, until he's high above the tallest skyscrapers and all the silly, little people with their silly, little lives are ants from his view. In the back of his mind he wonders vaguely if he should feel scared of the height, the possibility of a fall, but he brushes it away. He's not feeling anything; it takes too much effort - strength he doesn't have - to feel afraid, or worried, or scared, so he pushes the thoughts out of his mind and just floats unburdened.
~ John! Can you hear us? John! John! ~
It's not calm, nor peaceful, this place in his mind… it just is. But, always the determined soldier, he scrunches his nose in concentration and braves the fray, as he reaches deeper into his head and grasps for an adjective to describe his surroundings, before giving up and sinking his shoulders in defeat. It's impossible. There aren't any words to describe where he is – at least, no words in the English language. The closest he could come to describing it were memories, sensations for which he has no name, experiences from his past in which he'd come to this place. This…palace. His palace in the clouds.
~FLASH~
He's 8 years old and he's at home, in his room, hiding under his bed. It's late, or perhaps, now it's early, but he can clearly hear what's going on downstairs through the thin floorboards. He hears his father stumble in banging against the counters, cursing and swearing and banging as he knocks things off the counters in a drunken rage. He listens to him stagger up the stairs, and he whimpers softly, pressing himself closer into the floorboards, hoping – no, praying – that his father will forget he's here.
He freezes as the door cracks open and he's silently begging
Pleasenopleasenonononono-
~FLASH~
He's 13 years old and he's hanging out with his mates at the park near his house. Suddenly, the sun goes behind a cloud and they notice for the first time that the white, fluffy, clouds they'd seen on the horizon earlier had reformed, hanging heavy above them. There's a flash of light and a sound like a thousand lions roaring, before the sky falls down upon them. They yell and fumble with their belongings, running haphazardly under the tree line in possibly record time. He's about to suggest that they go home for the day when Sam, dark-haired, tall, and athletic, pulls out a football with a grin and they start a pickup game. They're laughing like maniacs - falling, slipping, tumbling, getting soaked in mud and rain and sweat as they tussle and play. He's content, happy, and carefree before the black car pulls up into the lot. They freeze as a man in a black suit with a somber face steps out of the car.
"John? John Watson?" He calls over the beating of the rain.
His friends glance at him in confusion, and he shrugs. Probably nothing important.
"That's me." He raises his hand to affirm his point.
The man stares him sadly, and he beings to feel awkward standing there, a mess in comparison to the man's striking suit.
The man swallows. "We were sent to pick you up. There's been an… accident. Your mother-"
~FLASH~
A city, cars whooshing, sirens ~John? Can you hear us? John, PLEASE, say something!~
~FLASH~
He's 26 and on his first tour to Afghanistan. It had surprised him, actually, he hadn't known what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this. He's been there a month, now, and there haven't been any battles for one. No shootouts with terrorists, no fighting, no bullet wounds or operations. It's rather boring, if he's honest. Of course, they've had daily training, and drills, and free time where they can watch telly, but there hasn't been anything for the DOCTOR in John to do. In fact, the only injuries he's seen so far are a hangnail and a bad case of sunburn. Not that he's complaining. The less injuries people had, the less people died, the better; but still, he'd been expecting to be able to use his skills.
Which is why, when he is woken up at 2 A.M. to the sound of screaming and gunfire he nearly panics.
"Doctor! We need a doctor!"
Cacophonous screams echo through the halls of their bunker, and his mind unfreezes and goes into action. He doesn't think, he just does, quickly sliding into his uniform, but hesitating over his gun. With grim determination, he grabs it, and straps it on. All his instincts are telling him to leave, to get away, to flee from the danger, but he swallows them down and hurries to the operating room, sleep long forgotten in the midst of his adrenaline rush.
It's chaos. Literal chaos. There's blood, and sweat, and tears mingling into one, and around him the tortured screams and cries and sobs of his fellow comrades, his friends, clashing and burning into his mind, and he wants to throw up and-
~FLASH~
He's 28 now, and he's seen enough blood and gore that when he runs into the operating room it's stopped fazing him. He starts treating his troops without hesitation or a second thought, his normally unused gun always strapped to his side. He goes through triage, categorizing injuries based on severity, treating the worst first and then moving on to the grazes and scratches and burns, stitching up gashes and handing out meds. By the time he's through, he's exhausted and ready to collapse on the nearest hospital bed and sleep. But then he hears it, the sound of rushed footsteps and heavy panting, as well as cries of disbelief and shock. His mind is in instant overdrive, and he fumbles with his gun, when the door opens and Sergeants Roberts and Davis rush in holding a bloody mass of flesh in between them. It takes him a second to realize it's a body.
He doesn't freeze as he orders them to put the body on a bed, and he gets to work doing the only thing he knows, stitching and sewing and cleaning the wounds and trying his hardest to fix this man, but there's just so much blood, and deep inside he knows that whatever he does won't be enough because only a miracle could save this man now. If they were in a fully functioning hospital, with blood donors, and state-of-the-art equipment, and the best surgeons in the world, maybe then this man would have a fighting chance, but they were stuck in this godforsaken hellhole of a wasteland.
Suddenly, he feels a hand grasp his weakly. He nearly jumps, and he turns to look at the owner. Until then he hasn't looked at the face, hasn't wanted to realize and recognize this man, knowing that it would hurt too much if the man doesn't remain nameless. He is right. Staring into the eyes of Private Smith, he feels a piece of his heart break. This man, this child, on his first tour, who talked nonstop about his family and his girl waiting for him back home, who enjoyed simple pleasures in life and could make anyone smile, is sentenced to die in an unfamiliar land far from home.
He goes to pull away, to continue to try to do something – ANYTHING GODDAMMIT! – that can possibly save his life, but when he sees the sadness and fear in Smith's eyes, he stops. With what seems to be a lot of effort, Smith opens his mouth, and John leans in close to hear.
"Her… name – it was Jenna… tell her I loved her."
Then he presses his dog tags into Watson's hand, the metal warm and slick from being so close to his body, so close to his heart. The heart that, for once, is working against him, in pushing his life out, draining him. There's a plea in his eyes, a question, and John knows his own reflect a promise, a promise to this dying man. The fear and uncertainty in Smith's eyes fade, replaced by calmness and gratitude, and John strains to hear the last whispered words.
"Thank… you."
It's only later that John realizes that he hadn't even known Private Smith's first name.
~FLASH~
He's 36 now and headed off to a dentist appointment for the first time in three years. His tooth is hurting him: he'd gotten socked in the jaw a few night's back, and it's a right pain in the arse, no matter what other people say about transport not being crucially important.
He waits patiently in the crowded waiting room, skimming through the day's paper, remarking absently that the crime rate in London had gone up by a shocking percent. He blocks out the noise of the screaming children having tantrums, the hushed whispers of the gossiping old ladies, and the snoring of a man across the room, and focuses completely on his breathing. In 2-3-4, Out 2-3-4. It's a technique he picked up in the army to handle stressful situations, and while this isn't nearly as bad, he reckons that he has enough stress in his life that it won't hurt to practice it.
He's called in, thankfully, a short time later, and is seated by one of the nurses into a chair. He gives her a gracious nod, and she returns it with a flirty smile. He keeps his happy facade up but inside his heart sinks, and he mentally makes a note to get rid of whatever paper she writes her phone number down on before he gets home to the flat.
It's not really different than the hospital, he notes with a smile, which he then regrets as the ibuprofen he'd taken earlier has worn off and pain flares up the side of his face. When the pain recedes to a dull throb, and he can think something other than "owowowowowowowow", he realizes the there's a man in front of him trying to get his attention.
"Sorry." He manages to gasp out.
The dentist chuckles. "It's quite alright. May I have a look?"
It's a rhetorical question, and without John's reply, he starts probing and prodding at John's jaw and cheek, marking every wince and flinch. When he's finished, he stands back with a nod. John opens his mouth to speak, rethinks it, and quirks an eyebrow instead. It gets his point across.
"Broken tooth. You'll need surgery, but I want to take some x-rays first."
He gets through the x-rays with only a wince, and then he is seated back in his chair as the nurse hurls yes-or-no questions at him rapid-fire. She pats his good cheek when she's finished, her hand lingering a few seconds too long to be innocently intended, then excuses herself as the dentist walks in. From his low vantage point he can't quite see the results of the x-rays, but the other man's face says it all, wincing in sympathy.
"Emergency surgery."
They move him to another room, alone and cut off from the others, with harsh, fluorescent lights that leave his eyes stinging as he's led to another chair, and made to lie down. The nurse comes again, this time with a needle, which she pokes in and the pain in his jaw fades to nothing, as does every other sensation.
As unnerving as it seems, the feeling is almost good, and he wonders if it's this sensation that Sherlock-
~FLASH~
Sherlock. Oh god. Sherlock.
Gone is the novocaine numbness that had surrounded him in his palace, replaced by an emptiness, into which a tidal wave of emotion floods and he's falling - falling, just like Sherlock - through the clouds, past clouds and buildings, closer and closer to the deceitfully hard ground until he's cruelly jerked back into reality once more.
His lungs are burning, but he's not holding his breath, and he gasps and flails trying desperately to get the air, clawing his way to the surface through the salty rivers that are blinding him and drowning him. The air is getting in but it's not enough, it's never enough, not without Sherlock-
Sherlocksherlockohgodsherlock.
He wishes that the rivers would block out his other senses as well, because the sirens and the voices calling his name and the hands shaking him, putting an orange blanket around his shoulders, trying to lead him inside the hospital are annoying him to no end, but he doesn't say anything - can't say anything other than "nono-ohgod-nopleaseno!". He only notices when the rough hands are replaced by small, slender hands which gently pick him up and hug him until he's sobbing into 's shoulder. They guide him away from the blood, and flashing lights, and the unwelcome prying eyes. He cries until he can't cry anymore and his tears change from physical to metaphorical because even if he can't show it, he's crying on the inside.
He barely moves as the doctors examine him, staring unblinkingly ahead at the dreary hospital wall, seemingly in a world of his own. He's stopped speaking, stopped thinking, shutting himself down to blockade against the pain. It's not working. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Mrs. Hudson holding back her own pain with her hand over her mouth, and he wonders if his eyes are as red as hers are. He doesn't even flinch as Lestrade rushes into the room, face gray and ashen. He can hear their murmured words, though he pays them no heed.
"Concussion... checked in to hospital...in shock...who'd have guessed?...any information...statements needed...Moriarty..."
Moriarty.
John doesn't know what happened. One second he is sitting down, the next his hands are grabbing at Lestrade and he's yelling nonsense as Mrs. Hudson watches with fear.
"Don't you dare! YOU! You didn't even believe in him! How dare you!"
In the midst of his fit, he sees the doctors and nurses rushing in restraining him, but then his army mode kicks in and he's punching, and kicking, and shouting and using every dirty trick in the book.
"Restrain him!"
"Goddammit, we have to sedate him!"
"Get him to calm down!"
He barely hears them through the roaring in his ears, the pounding in his head, each and every laboured breath, but he glares at them, a death stare through the haze that clouds his vision, tinting it red. Then a doctor comes in, and even through his screen of emotional pain, he feels the tiny prick of a needle that severs his connection to reality, and he drifts off into the clouds again.
Denial
He's been in the hospital for 5 days now and he keeps wondering why Sherlock isn't coming to see him.
He's had loads of other visitors, sure. brought cookies, prattling on about how awful hospital food was and reminding him - albeit bleary-eyed - that she wasn't his housekeeper. Lestrade came and awkwardly talked to him about work around the Yard, shooting him anxious glances when he thought John couldn't see him. Molly rushed in quickly and stammered something about how happy she was that he was feeling better, before sprinting out the door, not meeting his eyes. Even Sally Donovan popped in for a little chat the day before, acting unusually nice. But not Sherlock.
He brushes it off and assumes that Sherlock is away on a case, not wanting to bother John as he rests and recuperates (though he continues to check his phone for texts just in case). After a few days with no contact, however, he begins to worry. What if Sherlock is hurt? He could be lying injured in a ditch on the side of the road, or (and this makes John the most worried)captured by Russian spies, or possibly he's slipped in his control and is off in an abandoned warehouse, overdosing.
He's asked the nurses, of course, but all they do is smile in a fake-cheerful kind of way, and ask him if he needs more painkillers for his head. He doesn't. He needs to find Sherlock. Sherlock is worth more than a temporary headache.
He's not deaf to their sympathetic murmurs of 'temporary amnesia' and 'addled brain' after they leave his room, either, but he pays them no heed. His head is perfectly fine, thank you very much, after all he's thinking clear enough to worry about Sherlock.
He also wonders when this man began to mean so much to him. Actually, he wonders when anyone at all ever meant as much to him as Sherlock does. He'd do anything - has done everything - for Sherlock, and that should scare him, but it doesn't. No, it makes him almost proud, because Sherlock approves, and his opinion is the only important one.
So he's concerned (and a bit disappointed) when Sherlock doesn't contact him, and he makes up his mind to ask someone about it the next time he has a visitor.
Luckily, that visitor is Mycroft.
He isn't surprised to see the coldly intelligent, umbrella-swinging man saunter into his room, in fact, he's surprised that the man hadn't come sooner. As always, Sherlock's brother is a near clone in his mannerisms, his face an impassive mask of no emotion - but for a fraction of a second John thinks he sees something behind it, a flicker of pain, perhaps? When he blinks, it's gone, so John reckons the drugs they gave him haven't completely worn off yet. After all, Holmes' don't show emotions.
He wastes no time in getting to the point. Before Mycroft can even open his mouth, he's sitting up and the questions that he's been dying to ask are spewing out of his mouth at a breakneck pace.
"Where's Sherlock? Is he alright? Why isn't he texting me? Is he hurt? On a case? Does he need my help? Oh dear god, did he get himself injured by doing something stupid?"
Mycroft just stands there, looking a bit overwhelmed at everything John's saying.
"...John."
He continues to prattle on, oblivious, despite Mycroft's trying for his attention.
"He probably did something stupid, didn't he? When ever I'm not there, he always does something stupid. You need to get me out of here right now so I can get to him. Please! Sherlock needs my he-"
"John!"
Mycroft's voice is firmer this time, and it causes the conflicting urge to sit there (because it's only his flatmate's brother) or to stand at attention and salute with a "Yes sir!". He opts for the former. Much less embarrassing. There's a pause for a moment in which Mycroft doesn't speak, only stares at him with a sense of regret.
"John," he says, much quieter.
"Yes?"
John can see the mental struggle drawn in the tense lines on his face, as Mycroft searches for the right words. Patiently, he waits, sitting there with his calloused hands folded neatly in his lap, masking the sense of dread that is pooling ice cold in his stomach. It's a while before Mycroft finally speaks, voice barely above a whisper.
"He's dead."
Silence. John's mind stops, shuts down, a blank slate of nothingness. As colors begin to slide together into black, his brain kicks back into motion, and he pulls himself away from the brink. He realizes that he's breathing hard, and that his palm his hurting from where fingernails - his fingernails he's shocked to find- had dug into it. He starts to speak, John can only manage a rasp, so he clears his throat and tries again.
"...What?" John searches Mycroft's face intently, in an effort to find the lie that he knows is there. Mycroft just swallows, and purses his thin lips.
"You heard me."
John snorts. "Yeah, well, I obviously heard you wrong. Because what you said isn't possible."
The other man's eyes narrow. "I'll repeat it if I must. Sherlock Holmes is dead."
"No he's not."
There's a mix of pity and confusion in Mycroft's eyes that John instantly dislikes. He doesn't need other people's pity, it reminds him of the dark days after being wounded, with his bad leg and tremor, the way people whispered when he walked down the street, and made sure to do extra to help him. Now he's fully capable of taking care of himself. Though, he doesn't understand why Mycroft keeps insisting that Sherlock is dead. Because that's not possible. Sherlock doesn't die. Ever. He's seen the man bleeding out, cut up, and bruised, but even through all the tumbling and fighting, he emerges from situations in which he - for all rights - should have died. So Mycroft is obviously wrong, because. Sherlock. Doesn't. Die.
Except.
Except.
John stares at Mycroft, trying to comprehend. When it suddenly clicks. The nurses chatter. Amnesia. There is something he's missing, something they pity him for.
But Mycroft can't be telling the truth.
"No!" The word filled with all his dread, and pain, and confusion, a word meant to be shouted at the top of his lungs, comes out a whisper. Mycroft doesn't respond. It's been 5 days. 5 days and he hasn't even wondered why he was in the hospital in the first place, only concerned about Sherlock.
The Sherlock that is potentially-
He tries and searches his mind, searches and hunts, and tears down the brick walls he's placed around it. Around...
Sherlock.
Jumping.
And.
Falling.
And.
Hitting.
The.
Ground.
He tastes the salt water before he feels it, leaking down his cheeks in a steady stream. He wants to say something to deny it, to deny what he saw, but he can't find words, so he just lets the sobs come and wrack his body, until he can't cry anymore, at least, physically. His mental anguish is still there.
Mycroft was right.
Sherlock is gone.
Sherlock is d-
"Sherlock is d-" He can't bring himself to say the words, let alone think them. Mycroft just stares at him a minute longer before walking out without another word. John knows that the words don't need to be said.
A/N: Okay! Done parts 1 and 2 out of 7! Whew! Don't worry, folks, I have part 3 and 4 in the making, as well as the plot lines of 5, 6, and 7. This is my first time writing anything angsty so please tell me how I did. Oh, and who should I do after I'm finished John?
~ .E