Also posted to AO3.

"Sherlock."

It had been a long time since John had said that name, that prayer. Even now, he whispers it, and it is so soft that he wonders if he had said it aloud at all. The hour is late, and it is all Captain Watson can think about. The clock will soon strike twelve, or, John thinks bitterly, the more appropriate military time of 0:00. And when the time zeroes out, so will he.

There was a time when this countdown wouldn't have bothered him so much. John isn't so despondent that the irony is lost on him. After all, he had been sitting in another cell in another enemy base very similar to this one the first time he met Sherlock. Back then, he hadn't known Mustafa was the enemy or that Sherlock was...well...Sherlock. He had been a man with a mission, something he is sorely lacking these days.

The first time he met Sherlock, well, the celestial idiot had damn near ruined his mission of getting the Allied Force's inside man-Mustafa-to safety. No, John corrects himself, Sherlock did ruin his mission, because when a preternaturally beautiful man apparates right in front of you (yes, he's read Harry Potter and no, he isn't ashamed of it) and declares that the subject of your mission is a liar, a murderer, and a traitor to the Crown, that derails you from fulfilling mission objectives. Namely: saving Mustafa Khattab.

"Prove it," John had said to the spontaneously-appearing mystery man.

So the tall and (unnaturally) thin man did, citing everything from the clenching of Khattab's right hand to the extra button on the man's coat as evidence of his betrayal. When the man had finished his deductions, Khattab had pointed a gun at John's heart and said, "I am sorry, Captain Watson. I had to protect my daughters." Then he had pulled the trigger.

When John had come to, he was no longer behind enemy lines or, in fact, anywhere near the war at all. He was in a small room that was littered with scientific equipment and old newspapers. "Where am I?" he had asked the empty room.

"You are no longer in the warzone," a deep and quaking voice had said. "And you're also wondering why you aren't dead." It wasn't a question.

"A bit, yeah."

When the man appeared from nowhere again, John had known that his life as he knew it was over. This man, whoever he was, was going to change everything. And he did.

"You're not human, are you?" John had asked him. "

Your powers of observation are unbroken, I see."

"What, I mean, who...who are you?"

The switch in interrogative word had caused the man to quirk one eyebrow at John. "The name is Sherlock," he had replied. When the name was said, the walls trembled, and John had thought, "Yeah, probably not human, then."

"And you are alive because I brought you here instead of allowing you to be penetrated by a bullet...and as for your other question, I am a celestial guardian. Yours, to be specific."

"My...what?"

Sherlock had sighed, and even in remembering John thinks it strange because Sherlock doesn't need to breathe. "The more generic term is 'angel.'"

"Oh." Right. Right. "Alright, then."

"Surely this is the moment when you question the reality of your existence and ask me dozens of inane questions that I'll spend the next hour or so answering."

Instead of being insulted, John had smiled and said, "I should think not. You've saved my life and transported me metaphysically to God-knows-where. The proper thing to say, I think, is 'thank you.'" He stuck out his hand. "I'm Captain John Watson. Thank you, Sherlock, for saving my life."

And then Sherlock had disappeared with a flutter of wings (good to know that was true, then), and John didn't see him again for months after. John hadn't known how to explain to his commanding officer just how he'd ended up in Rome when he was supposed to be in Baghdad.

John peers out the miniscule window of his cell and sees a man carrying a sword across the courtyard. So he'll be dying the old-fashioned way. Right, then. For two years, he had relied on Sherlock to save him.

The first time after the first time was unintentional. He'd been in a military convoy that had gone under fire. Everyone else had made it to safety, but he had been trapped in the compromised vehicle. Sherlock had shown up, pulled him out of the vehicle, and dropped him off just outside his C.O.'s quarters. The prat hadn't said a word to him. After that, it had become a habit. John would almost die, and Sherlock would save him.

And everytime Sherlock saved him, John kept hoping that the next time, Sherlock would stay a little longer.

The last time Sherlock had saved him, John hadn't needed saving. The celestial guardian had transported him to a mountaintop in Switzerland before John could explain that he had just been sparring. Practicing.

"Your heartrate was accelerated and your stance indicated you were in a defensive position. I assumed you were being attacked," Sherlock had explained.

"Yes, Sherlock, that's what happens when you spar."

"In the future, then, I shall not intervene unless I am certain the termination of your mortal existence is imminent."

"Well, you don't only have to show up when I'm in mortal peril, you know." He didn't like the hurt sound in Sherlock's voice.

"What do you mean?"

"You could come round other times. We could...chat."

"Chat? What would we 'chat' about?"

"I'm trying to tell you I'd like to spend time with you, you prat."

"Oh." Sherlock had looked very uncomfortable, like the way John had felt when he had attended an ex-girlfriend's wedding. "There are...things that I must do."

So John had simply sighed and said, "Take me back to base, yeah?"

John regrets that last conversation with Sherlock, the same way he regrets every conversation they didn't get a chance to have. It must be very near 0:00 now, because he hears the scraping of boots on concrete in the hallway outside his cell. It's been a year since he's seen Sherlock, and he's been in a good many mortal peril type situations since, so he supposes that this really is the end. The clock strikes zero.

The cell door swings open, and there stands Mustafa Khattab. The man John once called "friend." "I am sorry," Mustafa says, "I tried to have them spare your life. They could not be persuaded, my friend."

All John hears is lies.

Mustafa says, "It will be very soon now."

John asks, "Can I have a minute to pray?"

A religious man like Khattab cannot refuse John's last wish for prayer. He exits and closes the cell door, to give John his last minutes in privacy.

John prays one last time, and he's sure he says it aloud this time. "Sherlock," he says. Nothing. No response. "Sherlock, I don't know why I'm talking to you. If you could hear me, you would have come by now, but, there's no one else that I really want to say goodbye to. So, goodbye, Sherlock. And...I guess I'll see you up there." He stops, doesn't know what else to say. There is always more to be said to Sherlock, but John is not the kind of man who knows how to say it. He finishes, "Thank you, Sherlock."

Khattab opens the door a few minutes later. It's time, then. 0:00. They take him down to the courtyard and strip him naked. Khattab explains that to ruin John's uniform with blood would be dishonorable. John doesn't think he'll care much when he's dead and he tells the Egyptian man as much. Khattab smiles, and John really regrets that the final smile he'll ever see is Khattab's.

He saw Sherlock smile, once. He had pulled John out Lake Habbaniyah after an operation had gone wrong. John, gasping for breath and drenched, had made a great effort to say, "You're not a half-bad fisherman."

"I am not a fisherman. I am a celestial guardian."

"Sherlock, it was a joke," John had said between wheezes.

Sherlock's eyebrows had furrowed in that way they did whenever he didn't understand John or humanity. And then, Sherlock's eyes glowed, and the angel had smiled. John hadn't known angels could have dimples.

John decides it is unfair that the last smile he sees is Mustafa Khattab's, so he himself smiles just to spite the universe.

"Why do you smile?" asks Khattab.

"Because I can," replies John.

Khattab instructs John to get on his knees, and motions over the man with the sword. The executioner. Khattab tells him that dying by the sword is an honor, that he's being given a warrior's death. John doesn't say anything, but knows that true warriors die in battle, not on their knees with a sword at their back. He feels the cool metal blade pressed against his neck.

Nothing. He's not dead. Yet.

He hears a whispered, "Run, John." So he does.

Later he tells Sherlock that he's a prat for waiting so long to save him. Sherlock replies, "Your mortality was not imminently threatened until that blade touched your neck."

"So you just watched me in that cell."

"And listened," Sherlock corrects.

"Prat."

Sherlock smiles, and John knows that he'll never tire of seeing it.