It had started young. He and his parents were going to pick Harriet up from their aunts house. They were arguing in the front seat while John played with his dinosaur in the back seat. The yelling changed and Johnny looked up. He saw the van just as it crashed into the front of the car. When he awoke in the hospital, Harriet was screaming and his aunt was trying to calm her down. Later, he asked the nurse where his parents were. Died on impact. He snuggled his dinosaur closer. Nobody had the heart to take it from him, even with the blood soaked into its bottom claw.
He got older, and so did Harriet, now Harry. Harry said she liked girls. Their aunt said that Harry didn't. The arguments were fierce and would've made less stubborn women break down into sobs. Eventually, Harry moved out, and her occasional drink to spite Aunty turned into a few drinks on the weekends. Which turned into a bottle a night. Which turned into drunken phone calls to John while he stayed up studying for his anatomy final. He passed it.
He left on his 27th birthday. His aunt would've called to say goodbye, but, well, it's a bit hard to call your nephew when you can't even remember your name anymore. He thrived in the military. He had brothers. His experience being the reliable older one naturally blended into his position in the unit. He was quickly promoted to captain. The work was hard, and intense, and he felt the the eye of the storm. It was perfect. Then, their unit was restationed. This was a much less friendly zone. The first bomb was the worst. They hadn't expected it, and the first 3 casualties in his unit were taken hard. He pronounced them dead, and moved down the line to Murray, who needed 17 stitches in his right arm.
It was bleak. The housing was small, and old, and eternally drafty. No wonder everyone who could get out did. It was filled with blokes like him, who used to have a purpose and used to feel capable. He'd been there for a month when he heard the paramedics rush through the hallways. The came back through the hallways carting out Jimmy McHenry from down the hallway on a stretcher. He was foaming at the mouth. John figured he must've used the Vicodin Jimmy had gotten for his eye pains. He looked out his window and watched the young paramedics efficiently stow him in the back of the van and drive off. He went back to his desk and fished out the psychiatrist's number he'd been given when he first cam back.
He didn't quite know what to do. So he went back to 221B and told Mrs. Hudson. She cried, he comforted. He went back upstairs, and went to sleep. The funeral was a week later. He couldn't look at Mycroft. He and Lesteade exchanges a few polite words. After he had said a few final words, he rode the taxi back home. He gave Mrs. Hudson notice that he'd found a new apartment. She understood. Another week passed and he moved into the small flat on the other side of the city. It was a stone's throw away from the new small hospital. The next day, he got up, got dressed, and applied for a job as an ER doctor. His credentials had been smoothed out a bit with Mycroft's influence to hide some ASBO's and such. They took him on. Every now and then, an attempted suicide rolled through. He took charge of everyone of them. He'd survived everyone else dying, he could survive this.