John stood at the foot of a hospital bed, staring at its occupant. He concentrated on regulating his breathing, trying to quiet his storm of emotions. His fists opened and closed periodically, but he was otherwise still.
Sherlock, he told himself. That's Sherlock in that bed and you helped put him there.
John waited for any glimmer of guilt or concern to rise up in him. He felt nothing.
Closing his eyes, he cast his mind back a few hours to a room on another floor of the hospital. He'd completely lost his temper, flying at Sherlock with fists and feet in an attack as brutal as any he'd ever been a part of. His memory of the beating was blurry, but he remembered being fueled by a rage so pure it wiped out all rational thought in its path.
John did recall knocking Sherlock to the floor and following up with kicks to his midsection. Could be kidney damage, the doctor in John considered, but the thought was dispassionate. It could be anyone lying in the bed for any reason at all. All John felt was professional curiosity about the extent of the damage Sherlock had suffered. That and a sense of vague horror at how little he cared for the answer. Was he really such a monster that he could pound another human being to a pulp like he was swatting a fly?
Sherlock's the monster, his mind responded. They were right, they were all right about him.
John's fists clenched tight. A memory of begging for information from Greg Lestrade surfaced through his calm.
"What happened, Greg? Why did she shoot? Why did she shoot Mary?" John remembered his voice breaking as he demanded how his wife had become the victim of a fatal gunshot weeks before.
She'd gone with Sherlock to meet a criminal suspect at the Royal Aquarium while John arranged for child care before following them. When he'd arrived at the scene, Mary was lying on the ground, blood blooming from a gunshot to her chest. Sherlock was standing by her side and police were leading the shooter, an elderly government worker, away. After sharing all too brief words, Mary had died of her injury.
Sherlock had slumped to the ground, wordless in his shock. John had been similarly speechless in his grief. It wasn't until later, as Greg came up to him outside the morgue that John had been able to voice the question of how.
"Why her?"
Greg shifted uncomfortably, opening his mouth to speak then snapping it shut.
"Greg," John begged.
"Well, she got worked up. Mrs. Norbury. We had her dead to rights—no way for her to escape—and I guess she felt she had nothing to lose." Greg said, knowing his answer wouldn't satisfy.
"But why Mary? Did she try to talk her out of it somehow?" John could imagine Mary trying to take charge of the situation, to minimize potential damage to others. An ex-assassin, Mary rightfully had a high opinion of her skills in highly charged situations. It would have been like her to think she could talk a desperate, gun-wielding woman off the ledge.
"Er, no, not really." Greg swiped a hand over his head. "See, the woman fired before there was much time to do anything."
"At Mary?" John still couldn't understand how his wife had come to be in the path of a fatal bullet.
"No, at, um, Sherlock. Norbury shot at him." Greg took a deep breath. "Mary jumped in front of him, John. She saved Sherlock's life."
John stared at Greg in shock. His mind froze, the image of Mary leaping in front of Sherlock simply not processing. She wouldn't…she couldn't. They had a child. She was a mother. Why would she do such a thing? And why would Sherlock have been the intended victim? Had he tried to talk the woman out of shooting?
Talk. Sherlock talking. Suddenly, John knew what had happened, as clearly as if he'd been in the room. He'd known Sherlock for 7 years and knew what an ungodly destructive weapon the man's voice could be.
"He deduced her, didn't he?" John asked, voice flat. "Norbury. He poked and picked and tore at her until she broke."
"Well, not intentionally…" Greg began.
John laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. "Oh, yeah. I know. He never means to rip people to shreds, or maybe he does. Doesn't matter, really, the end result is the same. The great Sherlock Holmes just can't stand not being the most clever person in the room. Has to say everything he knows, or thinks he knows. Can't stop himself. Damn the consequences, so long as he gets his say."
"Well," Greg tried again.
"That's what happened, isn't it. That, that…son of a bitch talked my wife to death. Norbury wasn't shooting to kill—she was shooting to SHUT HIM UP!" John shouted the last, causing Greg to flinch and voices to silence down the hall. Breathing hard, John lost control. He slammed his fists over and over onto the wall as Greg made incomprehensible and useless soothing noises.
Looking back now, John was amazed that, in the interim, he'd ever thought he could forgive Sherlock. They'd moved into an uncomfortable détente over the past week which had the superficial appearance of a restored friendship. But, as his attack on Sherlock proved without a doubt, John still blamed the man for Mary's death.
Whether or not that was fair seemed beside the point—it was how John felt, and he wasn't sure that stone cold anger would ever really go away. Or that he could live with Sherlock as a constant reminder of it in his life.
Better to make a clean break, he decided. His old cane, the one that adventures with Sherlock had once rescued him from a life of using, leaned against a wall of the hospital room. He'd brought it along, thinking that it would either serve to remind him of the good times in their relationship or be a symbol of its end.
The latter then, John thought. He picked the cane up and hung it from the unused visitor chair beside Sherlock's bed. Pausing, John searched his emotions. Seven years of friendship with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Was he really just going to walk away?
As he examined his feelings, Sherlock's nurse came in. Yes, John thought. Let him be someone else's problem now. A small wave of sadness rose in John's mind but he crushed it. I'm done, he told himself. With a sharp nod to the nurse, he left his friend, and their friendship, behind.