Really long chapter with some pretty hard feels. Not sorry
Sherlock had received hundreds of letters from John. Each one as happy and hopeful as the last. He had written a hundred letters in response, but had sent not a single one. All he ever sent to John was an address change, which occurred only a total of three times. Regardless, they kept coming each week.
The one letter he received informing him that John was to be sent off on leave by the end of the month had come too late and Sherlock hadn't been able to make seeing him one last time. To his despair, he had been busy and had forgotten about the mail for two weeks and opened it a mere day late.
He had, though, gone to visit the address the letters had been coming from and found a very nice flat where the landlord allowed Sherlock, with the help of a pick-pocketed police ID, into the flat and he simply sat in one of the chairs. John had always been a simple man and there was no evidence John had a lover. There was a surprisingly large space on his writing desk cleared off and small notes written on a few papers scattered around the desk and the small space atop.
The notes held what appeared to be reminders of events. Sherlock remembered reading each one inside the notes. Each event had been scribbled quickly by John and he had obviously taken time and effort to write each note.
Feeling longing at the boy he'd fallen in love with, Sherlock had stayed the night and slept it John's bed, smelling the boy for the first time in years. Upon awakening, he straightened anything he'd rustled and he left quietly.
Thankfully, for Sherlock's sanity, John wrote while he was away. The letters were vague and small and came about once a month now, but it was enough to satisfy Sherlock's nervousness towards John's health.
Until a few months passed and not one letter came.
John felt the uneven ground perfectly under his boots. He had received orders to move from one tent to the other. A soldier was in need of greater attention in the tent towards the end of the medical encampment. The sounds of a ruckus unfolding traveled through the wind. A loud, sharp shout came a scant second before the gunshots started.
Ducking and running, John burst through the opening of the nearest tent. Two men lay on the beds, both throats sliced open. Shocked, John stumbled backwards, leaving the tent behind. The three tents he checked after that had few men or women in each but all were killed silently. He ran to the next tent but before he could enter it, he heard a cry for help. Spinning on his heel, he ran out from between the tents and into the open area that was part of the desert. Twenty feet from the medical camp lay the bigger, heavier equipped camp for the soldiers.
The cry for help, as well as the others that had traveled from that direction and John felt he'd do more there than the seemingly empty tents that made up the medical camp. Looking briefly over his shoulder, he saw two men chasing after him, one raising a gun. He pulled his own weapon up and spun to face the two chasing him. It was obvious they were part of the raid.
Before the gun was fully up in his hands, John heard a loud pop and pain exploded in his shoulder. He felt blackness curl in his stomach as he fell backwards, the momentum of his turn making it hard to find a footing and he saw the ground racing up to him.
The ground bit into him rough but he managed to roll onto his good shoulder and rise up on an elbow. The pain was immense but he tried rising, tried getting up to fend off the attackers. By this time, one of them had run up to him and with the butt of his gun struck John hard upon the temple. John's body whipped around and he fell to the ground.
As his vision slipped quickly into darkness, John envisioned Sherlock smiling at him. The crooked, goofy smile that only John could ever work out of him and the words that kept him going.
"I will miss you."
John woke up to a bright light. A steady beeping started to agitate his migraine and he groaned, trying to move from teh light. A female voice gently asked him to be still. John tried his best but he couldn't stand the light, he kept squeezing his eyes shut.
"Does your head hurt?"
Throat dry but he figured he could manage speaking, John croaked out, "yeah." This action threw him into a fit of coughing that escalated his migraine. A heavy hand rose halfway to his head before the woman pushed it back down. By now, his eyes were used to the light and he was looking at her, seeing her. She had shoulder-length red hair, a peppering of freckles danced across her cheeks and nose. The eyes she put on him were young but at the same time aged with all she'd seen working in the hospital.
Stilling, John realized he was in a hospital.
"I'm sick?" He asked, trying to sit up. The woman, he figured she was a nurse, panicked and tried pushing him back down by the shoulders. "Why am I here? Why am I in a hospital!"
"Please lie down! You're not well." She finally muscled him enough to be tired so he stopped trying to get up. Surprised, he found himself rather winded. "I can explain if you just calm down." She assured him and he nodded once, gently.
She checked his vitals and he patiently waited. Right before she was to leave, she leaned down close to his face so their eyes were level.
"You've been awake on and off about a week. Your condition was severe. You're in the hospital because you were shot. Do you remember?"
John frowned and realized he was particularly numb and he ached more where he did feel then usual. But he couldn't remember how it happened.
"I don't know. I don't remember what happened." She eyed him and smiled softly.
"You took a bump to the head as well. Rather viscous, cut your head open. We'll be able to give you more information once you're more stable."
"I'm perfectly stable right now, please, just tell me. How bad is the gunshot? How bad is my head? Do I have amnesia? Where am I?"
"Sir, please. I know how it seems to you but I assure you that you were awake yesterday and demanded the same things. We need you to be more stable and focus on you getting healthier." With this, she stood straight and walked out of the room. John couldn't argue with her, since he didn't remember at all getting up previously. He was nearly certain he had amnesia but does knowing mean it might not be true? He was tremendously confused.
Over the next two weeks, John was awake normally, slept fitfully with nightmares of things he couldn't remember once he woke. The nurses and doctors were optimistic about his recovery since he woke up every day and was up and about most of the time they allowed. They revealed small snippets of information to him over that time.
He was not in London. He had been stationed in Afghanistan and was in a main hospital far from the fighting, but still in the country. If his condition stays the same or even gets better, he was to be scheduled to head back to the United Kingdoms. His shoulder wound had been infected and they'd been sure he was a goner for at least three days. As well, his head wound healed just fine but he did have amnesia.
One of the days, John sat down with a man who'd been at the camp and received a grazed bullet on his back, missing the spine somehow, and talked about the day. Apparently John was struck unconscious just as the group two miles down had shown up, answering the distress call that had been sent and his life had been saved by the troops racing in. A minute or less earlier and he'd have been killed.
John, of course, didn't remember any of this. He told his new friend this, Ryan, and the man understood. Still, when John asked him to continue, John spoke at length for many days about the day, or other days that were not so horrible.
One day, laying in bed, a man in an army uniform came in and presented John with the knowledge that he was to be sent to London after an evaluation scheduled tomorrow, his flight leaving two days afterwards. John was so happy he told Ryan, who was given the same information, and the two men talked of home.
"So you remember home, then?" Ryan asked calmly after an hour or so of speaking with John.
"I do, bits and pieces. Not whole things but I can remember school. I remember signing up for the army-daft idea that was." The two men laughed and John played his memory loss off like the shrug of a shoulder.
During the evaluation John proved he could stand and walk, albeit a bit wobbly, with the help of a cane. His headache was low enough to disperse every now and then and he never blacked out from pain. They inspected his shoulder which was blossoming into a nice scar. The amnesia was not a problem, the memories would either come back or they wouldn't.
As he received a pass, John sat back in the wheelchair provided to him and he smiled thankfully. He was glad to be going home. He conversed with Ryan who was to go home as well, his back having just a scar and his muscles stitching back together just fine.
John woke screaming, as usual. Only this time, he heard loud voices outside his room. He stopped his screaming the moment he realized it was his own and that he was safe in the hospital, though he still had no idea what he dreamt. Rising to a sitting position, John readied himself to get out of bed, damn the early hour.
Just as he grabbed for his cane, the door burst open and a tall man threw himself inside. His hair was dark, ruffled and uncontrolled. His skin was pale enough to seem almost a soft luminescent in the darkness of the hospital room. John frowned at the look on the mans face when he spotted John in the bed, something close to glee but then again it was hard to tell with the exhaustion lining the mans features.
Three nurses and a doctor burst into the room behind him, all exclaiming that visiting hours were far from over and he couldn't be in here, as well as to let John sleep.
"He's awake, you insolent swines! Let me see him!" The tall man shouted at them.
"No need to be so angry," John called out and they all paused. The mystery man smiled at John warmly and John got a strange feeling crawl up his spine. "He can come in if it's so important."
The doctor and nurses, though they weren't supposed to, backed out of the room and closed the door. The tall man walked up to John with a large smile, reaching out for him and grabbing John's hands.
"Mycroft wouldn't let me come until you were labeled fit for travel. He wants me to bring you home. Well, to our home." John frowned and the tall man seemed confused at the expression. "Ah, well, you don't have to. You can go see Harry if you want, or your parents. I'm sure they're running themselves ragged worrying for you."
"I bet, yeah." John said calmly, though he felt a trace of worry. He'd let the man grab his hands but suddenly he felt a bit anxious. Was this man family? He couldn't remember. Who was Mycroft?
"Are you feeling well?" The man said suddenly and John was startled.
"Yes, I mean, considering."
"Of course. How would you like to go home? I was flown in by Mycroft's personal plane. He didn't want to come with. Too much hospital for him, apparently."
"Uh, sure." The two men looked at one another a moment before the tall man realized there was something very wrong.
"John are you... do I make you uncomfortable? I know I never wrote and we haven't seen one another in a really long time. But when Mycroft mentioned you were hurt I knew I couldn't stay away."
"Oh." John licked his lips and realized he couldn't keep quiet any longer. The man would learn soon enough and it was better than way. "Listen, um, I have to tell you something. I have no idea who you are."
The man stared blankly a moment before ripping his hands from John's touch. Oddly enough, John felt an ache in his chest at the loss. The man didn't pause and straightened fully in his chair.
"John, don't be silly. I'm Sherlock."
John shook his head and the man, Sherlock, stood stiffly.
"I don't know that name."
"John..." The look of absolute devastation about pushed the ache in John's chest to a sharp pain.
"I'm sorry."