John kneels, looking not at the simple wooden cross hanging above him on the wall, but at the smooth lines and grains in the bench back. The fold out stool, though padded and cover with red velvet, does little to cushion the ache in his knees. He slides out his cane, laying it down on the floor next to him.
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."
The same words he learned as a child, the simple opening repetition of prayer.
"He needs your help. I've done all I can do."
He holds his good hand over his mouth, taking deep breaths.
"And Mary- she's..."
That wasn't what he wanted to say. That wasn't right. Mary was doing her best. They all were. He couldn't blame Mary for anything.
"She's tired. I know you can understand."
The door opens behind him. Soft footfalls, then the scrapping of a chair. He blocks out the sound, the same way he blocks out the beeping of the monitors and the drips of the IVs.
"God, please."
There. He's said it. He's begged. And with that, the tears start to fall silently down his cheeks. His body shakes, and he has to press his hand over his mouth to stop himself from crying out. He scrunches his eyes closed, trying to hold himself together.
"Can you hear me? Am I getting through tonight?"
He turns his face up, speaking to the cross with his hand still over his mouth. His vision is blurred by the tears, but he fills in the blanks with his mind. The man, held up by nails through his palms. Face ever frozen in kindness and mercy. John knows historically the depiction in incorrect. The Romans used X shaped crosses, not T shaped ones. But the shape is still comforting, still familiar.
"Can you see him? Can you make him feel alright?
The same question he'd asked a thousand times since that first and final day in the office. When their lives had been changed, and not for the better. The question he'd shouted at the walls of the flat after finding a lock of short blond hair on Hamish's pillow. Whispered while staring at the list of pills and injections, half of which escaped even his medical knowledge. Repeated in his head like a final confession every night until he fell asleep.
"If you can hear me," John wasn't sure if he believed that or not, "let me take his place somehow." Cloth rasped behind. Whoever was sitting in the chair was leaving. John was grateful. "See he's not just anyone. He's my son."
Instead of fading out like John wanted, the footsteps were coming gradually closer. Though he didn't mind praying in front of others even at the worst of times, he wasn't in the mood for explaining things to yet another meaning stranger that his son was dying of a rare cancer, that they'd tried everything, that the only left to do was to hope and pray.
"John..."
Only it's not a stranger's voice that interrupts his thoughts.
"Go away Sherlock."
"At least eat something. Mary made you a sandwich."
"I said GO AWAY!" John round on his feet, standing up without the need of his cane. "How am I supposed to eat when Hamish is dying in that room!" John's voice gets louder and louder. Sherlock doesn't seem even fazed, simply stands there with a plastic bag containing a sandwich in one hand and his mobile in the other. "Sometimes late at night I watch him sleep!"
"John, I know..." Sherlock speaks softly, a contrast to John's fiery rage.
"No, you don't! What do you see when you look at him? I dream of the boy he'd like to be. You just see another child!"
"No, I don't."
John breaks down, collapsing forward into Sherlock. Sherlock catches him, wrapping his long arms around John's thin frame. "I try to be strong and see him through."
Sherlock pats his back comfortingly, the mobile knocking against John's shoulder blades. "I know John. I know."
But God who he needs right now is you. John thinks it rather than saying it out loud. Let him grow old. Live life without this fear. What would I be, living without him here?
"John." Sherlock holds him close, even when John tries to pull away. "Hamish is so tired, and he's scared. Let him know that you're there."
"I can't. Not like this."
"You can let him see you cry. You're his father."
Sherlock had changed in the three years he'd been away, John already knew that. In the two years since his return from the dead, John had seen glimpses of the humanity that had somehow seeped into his being. He was gentler around John, polite with Mary, even playing the part of devoted uncle to Hamish. And when the hospital visits had started, he'd been there to carry John in a way that no one else could. He was brutally truthful, as he had been before his fake suicide. Yet there were moments when he snuck in something that made John wonder if this was the same man who'd sent Moriarty to the grave.
This was one of those moments.
"Yes." John said into Sherlock's shoulder. "He's my son."
A/N: For Let's Write Sherlock - Challenge 3. Song used was "He's My Son" by Mark Schultz