A/N: Team! You're astounding! Thank you! Secondly, I need to make a confession: I am scared to death of Mary Morstan. But, seeing as she's ACD's and obviously coming whether I'm ready or not, I thought I'd practice liking her before she actually arrives... Preemptive positivity, if you will. Here's hoping.
Sherlock Holmes is not a soldier. War, he realizes, with its unrelenting deluge of sights and sounds... well, he wouldn't last. Nevertheless, he once heard his brother claim that life with Sherlock inevitably leads to the battlefield... Perhaps, there is something to that.
On this day, the battlefield is a stand-off. One gunman, one man with a knife, Mary held roughly between them, standing in an old stone church. John at the far end of the nave, steadily pointing his L9A1, Sherlock standing opposite the men, hands held carefully out to his sides. The knife is pressed against Mary's throat, but John has the case the men have been looking for. A trade is about to commence. Mary will walk to Sherlock; the knife-wielder will walk to collect the case from John. John will not shoot the men; the gun-wielder will not shoot Mary or Sherlock. This is a gamble—both Sherlock and John know that the L9A1 is empty. They're just praying that it won't matter.
"Start walking," the gunman growls. Mary glances toward John, sees him nod once in encouragement, and on the wake of that movement, she unlocks her knees and steps into no-man's-land. She fixes her eyes on Sherlock, and the closer she comes, the more Sherlock can see:
Mary's eyes, wide.
Her hands, shaking.
Her lips moving soundlessly, but he reads the word: "Easy, easy." Speaking to herself then, trying to hold back the sob that is obviously building, trying to meter feet that want to run. He can see that in every line of her body. Mary is desperate to run to him, to complete the connection she's started with her eyes, but it's John back there, holding the gun that is maintaining this stalemate, John on the line. Mary would be willing to crawl if she had to.
She's nearly there when it goes wrong. Sherlock has just lifted a hand to receive her, when he detects the sound of approaching feet, voices. The gunman hears it too, recognizes the arrival of reinforcements—the tipping of the balance of power in his favor. Sherlock sees the gunman's look of recognition, plans suddenly change, the door between Sherlock and gunman opens, and then everything happens at once.
Sherlock yanks Mary forward, her momentum sending her skidding across the floor and out of the way. With his other hand, Sherlock hits the first newcomer hard in the windpipe, knocking him back. The gunman hesitates—his cohorts are in the way. Sherlock ducks a blow from second newcomer, coming up underneath with an uppercut. The second man drops a gun, which goes sliding. Sherlock hits him hard in ribs and head, then pushes him into the gunman.
There's a cry from across the room. John and the knife-wielder are scuffling. Sherlock, distracted by this, pivots to see, then whips back around too late and comes face-to-face with the end of a revolver. His eyes widen and a shot rings out.
Sherlock's body flinches in on itself involuntarily, but his brain is already telling him that the sound came from the wrong direction, that there is no smell of burnt powder in the air. His eyes flash open in time to see his attacker start to drop. The man hits the floor, his gore-splattered head mere inches from Sherlock's shoes.
John has reacted in the meantime, using the beat of surprise to level his attacker with a crack of the pistol handle across the back of the head. As John's assailant tumbles earthward, Sherlock spins toward the source of the shot—someone standing near the windows.
Mary.
Sherlock thinks, Mary is not a soldier.
She still holds the gun in both hands, panting around furiously gritted teeth. She's not blinking.
There's a skittering sound as John kicks the assailant's knife away across the flagstones. Mary doesn't react.
"You all right?" John calls. At the sound of his voice, Mary's expression slackens, her shaking hands lower a few inches, but she still doesn't blink.
It's not until Sherlock is at her elbow and murmurs her name that Mary's eyes finally move. They rise to his face, the hardness replaced now by glassy inquiry.
Mary has been resilient, has shown remarkable fortitude in the last few hours, but they've reached the end of that now. Mary is not a soldier, and there is a gun in her hands, powder burns on her fingers, and the contents of a man's head splattered across the floor.
Sherlock reaches for the gun. As soon as his fingers brush the weapon, Mary sags, knees giving out. Sherlock snatches the revolver, grips her elbow, but it's John that catches her weight.
Mary is not a soldier, but John Watson bloody well is.
He has her seated and taking deep breaths, he's checking her pupils, pressing the back of a steady hand to her forehead as his other tracks her pulse, and within a minute, John's confident murmur has put a touch of color back in Mary's cheeks. He lets her grip on to his lapel as she nods or shakes her head in response to his questions. He keeps himself between Mary and the remains of the danger behind them, shielding her. Shielding Mary and Sherlock, the detective realizes when he takes a step and John unconsciously shifts his weight to compensate.
Sherlock watches all of this and feels the muscles around his eyes and mouth soften. He's not sure why, but there's something about Mary's grip on John's lapel that pleases him.
He doesn't say thank you, doesn't apologize. The thought doesn't even cross his mind. He simply shrugs out of his black coat and bends to set it around Mary's shoulders.
Mary blinks up at him, grateful, but it's the glance he gets from John—swift, affirming affection—that tips Sherlock's lips toward a smile.
"It's for shock," he says, earning half a grin from John at the shared memory.
Mary wraps her fingers around the coat's collar. She's still pale, still shaking, still battling the desire to start sobbing, but she manages a semi-serious nod. "I'll try not to throw up on it."
Mary's holding both coat collars now—Sherlock's and John's. Sherlock finds that this, inexplicably, pleases him, too. They wait there for the police to arrive. They do not have to wait for long.