Sherlock tossed and turned in his bed, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't sleep.
He looked over at the clock by his bedside, '3:06' it read in bold red light. He laid still, listening, and the gentle creaking of the ceiling above him told him that John had turned over, turned quickly. Another nightmare.
Sherlock got up, slowly tiptoeing out of his room and up the stairs. The floorboards groaned as he headed towards John's room.
He stopped outside the door, waiting to hear John. He could hear faint cries coming from behind the door. He wished he could go in there, stop his fear and pain. He wanted to make it all okay, but he just didn't know how.
He slid down the wall, and sat beside John's door, listening to his breathing. It was fast, and rough. Tonight was a bad night.
"Please, no.. not that..." He heard him whimper in his sleep. He wanted nothing but to open the door, go in there and hold him tightly and show him that it was nothing but a dream.
He stood up, and turned his back on John. He could hear John turning over again, and again, as he walked back into the kitchen.
He flicked on the lights, and boiled the kettle.
"Can't sleep." He heard a voice from behind him.
"Me either." He told John, pouring him a cup of tea.
"Insomniac Central tonight, hey." Sherlock said, trying to be funny.
He took it, his hands still shaking, and sat down on the sofa.
He looked so small, a pale and fragile fragment of his true self. His eyes were red from the tears he'd cried in his sleep, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
Sherlock looked at him, and their eyes met.
"What is it, Sherlock?" He asked him.
"Nothing John, It's all okay now."
He stood up, and held his hand out for John, who took it gingerly and they went back upstairs.
John stood at the door to his room, still holding onto Sherlock's hand, as if he might fall if he let go.
"Are you alright, John?" Sherlock asked him, seeing the fear in his eyes and the shaking in his hands.
I'm okay Sherlock." He said back, giving him a hug before he went back to bed, leaving Sherlock standing outside a closed door.
He went back down to the kitchen, made more tea and sat on the edge of the sofa as he waited for the sun to rise.
Three O'clock, four O'clock, five O'clock. He counted the hours.
John rolled over in his bed, waking up to hear Sherlock playing his violin. It wasn't the usual, aggressive squealing and screeching that he was used to hearing when he was thinking, but instead it was a sad, slow melody. He crept down the stairs, pausing at the bottom. He watched as Sherlock slid the bow back and forth, and it was like nothing he'd ever heard before It had been months since Sherlock had last played, Even longer since he had actually played a piece of music.
Quietly, John crept behind Sherlock and into the kitchen where he made tea for the two of them, figuring that Sherlock would want it eventually.
Sherlock was in his own world, as he paced the living room floor to the beat of the music. John sat down on the bottom step, watching Sherlock's fingers dancing over the strings.
"John, did I wake you?" Sherlock said when he noticed John in the kitchen, his eyes closed as he listened to the music.
"What is that piece?" John asked, completely ignoring Sherlock's question.
"Nothing really, made it up." Sherlock told a stunned John.
The genius of the man never seemed to end.
"John?" Sherlock asked.
"Yes Sherlock?" He replied.
"I love you."
John nearly spat his tea out. He'd never heard Sherlock say anything remotely similar, let alone those three little words.
"I love you too." He said back finally, walking over and kissing him gently, but burning with passion. Sherlock kissed back, and they stood in the living room of 221b Baker St, and kissed, and kissed, and kissed.
They both stood there a moment, trying to take in what had just happened. This was the first time they'd expressed the love they so clearly had for each other.
"Well that was interesting. You're a good kisser, John." Sherlock piped up eventually.
John took his hand, and felt it shaking in his.
"Are you okay, Sherlock?" He asked as he held Sherlock's hand to his lips.
"Quite alright, John." Sherlock told him, quietly.
John kissed Sherlock's forehead, it was cool and clammy. The doctor in him knew something wasn't right.
Pulling away, John looked directly at Sherlock.
"I said, I'm fine." Sherlock reassured him, as he collapsed to the ground in a heap.
He woke up wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, and John sat beside him with a concerned look on his face.
"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?" John asked him, a scolding tone in his voice.
"Because I don't get sick." He retorted.
He was impossible to deal with when he was stubborn.
John was used to dealing with the sick and injured, and even the dead. This was too close though, he didn't like Sherlock being ill.
"You, sleep. We'll go to St Bart's in the morning, I need to run tests." He told him, authoritatively.
"Yes dear..." Sherlock mumbled as he drifted off, gripping John's hand tightly.
When John woke up next, he was curled up in an armchair beside Sherlock. Even for someone as short as John, an armchair was not a very comfortable place to sleep.
"You didn't wake up." John mumbled to Sherlock and was on the verge of tears when Mycroft came in.
"Watson." Mycroft nodded at John, and John ran over and hugged him. He was the calm one, the one that stood firm when bombs were dropping on them. It was he who had called the ambulance, he who had given Sherlock CPR when John was too much of an emotional wreck to function, and it was he who had calmed John down when the ambulance arrived.
"Thank you, Dr Watson. I think." Mycroft said, taken aback by John's gesture.
"Heart failure." The chart at the end of the bed read.
He'd known all along.
"Why hadn't either of you ever told me this!" John yelled, through sobs.
"I'll leave you be." Mycroft said, stepping out of the room.
"Don't bother!" John yelled, following him out into the hallway.
"How long have you known?" He asked angrily, grabbing Mycroft by his tie.
"For a few years." He said calmly, though John could tell that he knew the severity of the situation.
"A few... A few years? You didn't think that this might be something I'd like to know? I am a DOCTOR Mycroft." He shouted, letting go of his tie and pushing him back.
John walked back into the small room, finally noticing all of the machines, and wires that were covering Sherlock. The heart rate monitor tapped out an erratic rhythm which told John that Sherlock was not fine, that he hadn't been fine for a very long time.
Sherlock was asleep, and John was almost grateful for this. He watched Sherlock's chest rise and fall, keeping in perfect time with the ventilator, and the machines combined seemed to sing their own song.
Moving in closer, he got down on his knees at the end of Sherlock's bed, and hid his face in the blankets. He couldn't let the world see him like this. He was the strong one in it all.
"Not yet, Sherlock. Just wait a bit longer, for me. Please." He said quietly, but still loudly enough that anyone who passed the open door would be able to hear him.
His constant vigil by Sherlock's bedside hadn't been missed by the nurses, and in the two weeks he'd been there, he hadn't left his side once.
"Go home, John." A nurse told him.
He was stable, getting better, he told himself. It wouldn't hurt to leave for a few hours, would it?
He was only gone an hour, just sixty minutes, but from the moment he left, he knew something wasn't right.
He came back, showered and shaved and in fresh clothes, to find almost every machine in Sherlock's room beeping, sirens wailing and lights flashing.
"We're losing him!" He heard a voice shouting from inside the locked room
John pounded on the door's glass window, begging someone to let him in.
"PLEASE!" He screamed at the top of his voice, banging hard enough to smash the window.
The door opened, and he walked in. The machines had stopped. In fact, there were no machines attached anymore. Sherlock was breathing, but only just.
"We've done all we can, Doctor Watson." A nurse said, with tears in her eyes.
"Done.. done all... you can?" John murmured in disbelief.
"I'm so sorry." She told him, covering her face as she ran out of the room.
He stood beside Sherlock's bed for a moment, watching him closely.
John moved Sherlock's arm gently, and slipped in beside him, curling himself around Sherlock's fragile body.
"I love you Sherlock. I always have, and I always will. I'll never leave you, I promised I'd never leave you and that is no different now. Don't be afraid, I love you." John told Sherlock, hoping he could hear him, and he held Sherlock's hand as he took his last few breaths.