Always the Hero
Author: Lady Sam Mallory
Disclaimers: Boys not mine; I just borrow them from time to time when the muse moves me.
Special Thanks to: My exceptional Beta Queen, Zoe, without whom I'd be doomed to a life of grammatical inaccuracy. You are truly my conductor of light. Thank you for thirty years of friendship.
For my beautiful friend, Heather, whose incredible command of the English language allows her to provide me with individually needed words at a moment's notice.
Warnings: H/C, Angst, Smarm, Some violence, and usually a bit of colorful language.
Spoilers: None
Author's Comments: Post Return. Stand Alone. This story is a birthday present for my phenomenal beta and conductor of light. Happy Birthday, gorgeous. Takes place a few weeks after the events of Edge of Sanity.
John sighed and pulled his coat tighter around himself as he moved through the sparse foot traffic in the darkened night. Reaching up to push away the headache firmly entrenched behind his eyes, he rolled his neck and dropped his shoulders.
The clinic had been brutal today; too many cases and not enough staff to help them all. He was beyond exhausted and looking forward to a quiet night with a very hot cuppa and the new book Sherlock had picked up for him.
The weary doctor shook his head with a smile. Even after all these years, Sherlock could still surprise him sometimes. John remembered the hesitant, but seemingly knowing look in the man's eyes as he gave the book to him, muttering that it looked like something the doctor may enjoy.
John had looked down at the slightly worn cover of the hardback book and ran tentative fingers over the title displayed there, The Reconstruction of Warriors: Archibald McIndoe, the Royal Air Force and the Guinea Pig Club.
John smiled again at the memory. He hadn't even known there was such a book, but after the first few pages about the innovative and pioneering techniques of the British WWII surgeon, he was hooked. The man had been brilliant, advocating radical surgical techniques to save more British soldiers, utilizing civilians and whatever else he felt necessary to preserve the dignity, as well as the very lives of his patients.
Archibald McIndoe was legendary, one of John's unsung heroes and a man that the doctor had worked very hard to emulate during the hell that was Afghanistan.
John tensed as he heard a muffled scream off to his right. Immediately wired for action and forgetting his own weariness, he dashed down the alleyway following the gasping cries. Unbridled fury flashed through his steely eyes at the scene before him.
The doctor reached out and plucked one of the two men off the woman he was in the process of violating. John delivered a stunning blow designed to incapacitate the filth before him, before spinning to remove the other miscreant.
Seemingly effortlessly, the soldier cracked ribs with a roundhouse kick as he felt the sharp pain of what he knew was a blade in his right side.
Scowling, John turned round on the assailant, and sliding over the back of the hunched perpetrator gasping for breath, he wrapped two firm surgeon's hands around the attacking man's neck and broke it.
The doctor's breath wheezed as the burning from the stab wound poured liquid fire through his entire right flank.
"Fuck," John cursed, his right arm guarding the injury as his left came around to land an uppercut to the second attacker's throat which felled him instantly.
John limped over to the moaning woman, his hands held wide from his body.
"My name's John. I'm a doctor," he reassured her, reaching into his left pocket for his mobile.
"Yes, John," Sherlock answered on the first ring. "We need milk."
The doctor rolled his eyes, grimacing as pain seared across his nerves. "Sherlock, shut up and listen. Been stabbed."
"Where are you?" Sherlock demanded, throwing on his scarf and Belstaff as he darted out the door.
John gasped as he lowered himself next to the victim, "Call Lestrade. Woman was attacked."
"Irrelevant. John, where are you?" Sherlock demanded, his pace increasing as he rounded the first turn to the clinic.
"No, Sherlock. It's very relevant. Now, pay attention. Two men. One dead," the doctor reported, fighting to keep his eyes open.
Sherlock smiled wolfishly. "Saves me the trouble," the detective hissed angrily. "Now damnit, John, where the hell are you?"
"Don't know," Sherlock heard John reply and closed his eyes listening to the sounds coming through the mobile, before questioning his flatmate further. "Look around, John. What do you see?"
John paused and rotated his head to check his surroundings. "Rubbish. The victim. I have to help her. Leaving my phone on," he muttered setting the mobile off to his left.
The doctor slumped forward and dragged himself closer to the weeping woman.
"I won't let them hurt you anymore," John promised, slowly reaching out toward her to check that her vitals were stable, as the scenery around him began to fade and sirens could be heard in the distance.
Sherlock skidded to a stop, his Belstaff flaring out about him. Shaking his head, he muttered John's name as he dropped to the ground next to the doctor's trembling form.
"Shock," the concerned detective registered immediately.
Sherlock squatted down in front of John slumped against the brick wall, all the while holding the victim's wrist in his hand to monitor her vitals. "John?"
The blonde doctor's eyes fluttered and glanced confusedly about him. Seeing the injured woman, John jerked forward attempting to right himself.
"No, John," Sherlock's stern voice warned, and he laid a firm hand against the man's shoulder to keep him in place. "The ambulance has nearly arrived. You must lay still."
Sherlock removed his scarf and sighed at his flatmate as he shoved the scarf into the profusely bleeding knife wound on the doctor's right side. "Really, John. I bring more scarves to ruin this way," Sherlock mumbled as he increased the pressure.
John groaned opening his blue eyes, determined to find the root of his pain. He relaxed very slightly upon seeing Sherlock. "What…hap'…nd?" John slurred, his eyes darting about him and brows drawing together, trying to make sense of the scene before him as he shivered rather violently.
Sherlock removed his long woolen trench and utilized it to cover his flatmate and best friend.
"You were on your way to the flat from the clinic, when you heard this woman," the detective began, gesturing with his head and hand towards the felled woman, "in need of assistance and obviously felt the moral imperative to intervene."
John's mouth twitched at the corners as he gasped, "Sounds…something…I'd…do."
"It rather does," Sherlock agreed, as the medics pulled into the alleyway and disembarked from the ambulance, just as John moaned and slid down the unyielding wall further. "Really, John. How many of London's alleyways must we tour this way?"
John's indelicate response remained unheard as he further descended into blissful unconsciousness.
John groaned as he identified his location by the smells and sounds surrounding him.
"Hospital," he thought grimly, trying to move his heavy aching body or even open his eyes.
He felt a familiar hand settle on his shoulder.
"John?" the rich baritone immediately identifiable to him questioned.
The ailing doctor turned his head wearily toward Sherlock's inquiring voice. John struggled to open his seemingly sealed eyes, the lids fluttering with the effort.
Sherlock glanced down at his best friend repeating his name. "It would be most beneficial to wake up now, John," the concerned detective cautioned with just a hint of his usual aristocratic tone.
John's glazed blue eyes met Sherlock's gaze, and he coughed trying to clear his parched throat.
"Wat….er," John croaked, stretching his left hand towards Sherlock who grasped it firmly.
Sherlock turned away, scrubbing slender fingers through his unruly black hair. The detective quickly grabbed up the cup of water and helped his friend to drink of it.
John hissed out a breath shallowly, his body automatically adjusting for the new hole in his side. He nodded slightly as Sherlock removed the cool water deftly to the small table at the bedside.
Sherlock's clenched jaw relaxed slightly as the detective noted the fading of the fine lines of pain etched around the doctor's eyes. "At least your pain management regimen seems adequate after my necessary discussion with your doctor," he remarked, his eyes darting back and forth from the IV pump to John's weary expression.
"Terrorizing the staff again?" John questioned breathlessly, his face pinching with pain as he attempted, with Sherlock's aid, to push himself up in the bed.
Sherlock's mock outrage at such a suggestion brought a wider smile to his flatmate's face before the detective's blue grey eyes flicked away guiltily.
John noticed the movement and took as deep a breath as he was able while rearranging his blanket. "I don't always have to be the hero, Sherlock, but I will never just walk away from what's right," John reminded his friend quietly.
Sherlock paused to consider momentarily before nodding his head in agreement. "Which is precisely the reason I will always be fishing you out of trouble," Sherlock explained, his worried eyes meeting those of his blogger.
"Oh, yes… I am the only one who finds trouble," John clarified, his expression clearly challenging the younger detective.
Sherlock's gaze softened at the pronouncement as a thought occurred to him not for the first time. "I know you don't always have to be the hero, John," the detective admitted freely, causing John's face to break into a cautious smile, "but it is entirely accurate to note that you often are."
The End