I am typing to try and warm my fingers up! Damn cold and windy weather here in the U.K.! Anyway, sorry for the weird A/N, but I hope you are all finding the story relatively enjoyable. I wanted to do a John/OC because there aren't many and let's face it, who doesn't love John? He deserves a girl of his own for once! Anyway, I hope you are finding it okay! :)

2: The Confusing Revelations

John sprang into action, running the cold tap until it was really ice cold, and then filling a basin with the water. He grabbed a cloth from his doctor's kit and quickly wet it, then quickly returned to the girl's side. He began to bathe her forehead and arms with the iced water like a robot; he had dealt with situations like this so many times before that he barely needed to think about what he was doing.

But this time something was different. Normally, the cold water caused the patient to calm down a little bit, but the second that the cloth made contact with her skin, the girl just screamed even louder and cowered away from John's touch. John had only seen a situation like this once or twice before…it had not ended well. He had been in Afghanistan when one of his friends…Adrian, he remembered he was called…had come back from patrol one night almost hysterical, so one of the trainee doctors had given him a shot to calm him down and help him sleep. But the doctor was only an amateur, so he had administered a fraction too much, which had eventually proved to be fatal. The man had displayed symptoms almost identical to the ones of the girl in front of him – the same sheen of sweat on the forehead; shying away from the cooling water that was meant to help her; screaming hysterically although unconscious. John raked a hand through his hair. Obviously he had no idea who this girl was, but he felt an obligation to help her, if only to nurse her back to health so that he and Sherlock could solve her mystery.

John's brain went into overdrive. The wet cloth hadn't worked in Adrian's case…so it probably wouldn't work in the case of this girl either. He set the basin down on the floor next to him, and smoothed the hair away from her forehead. When he did this, the girl didn't cower away from him, and her screaming quieted ever so slightly, so John did it again. About thirty minutes later, she had almost stopped crying completely and wasn't writhing around as violently. John felt a strange sense of doing something immoral, being alone in his flat with a young woman of whom he knew absolutely nothing about, in the early morning. The close contact he was making with her by stroking her forehead gave him an even stronger sense of doing something wrong, although he knew that he was being ridiculous. He was just helping a patient, the same thing that he did every single day of his working life, so he should stop worrying about himself and start doing everything in his power to save the girl in front of him. But he felt oddly vulnerable. The fact that he'd only dealt with one case like this before in his life…and in that case, the patient had died…was not particularly reassuring, and he didn't really have any idea what to do. He knew what not to do – at least he thought he did – but he had no idea what active steps he could take to ensure the girl's security through the night. He tapped his fingers absentmindedly on his knee, momentarily stopping the soothing stroking of the girl's forehead. The second his fingers stilled, she let out another piercing scream, and her body was overtaken by the most horrible convulsions. All John could do was watch in horror. She began to scream, as if she was talking to somebody.

"NO! Please don't shoot…NO! How could you?! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" John's fingers hovered over her forehead, knowing that he should put an end to the young woman's suffering and resume his soothing motion. But the small part of his brain that had only surfaced since living with Sherlock told him to leave her alone. Perhaps he could discover something about the dark past that she clearly had by letting her shout, and he would just sit quietly and listen, noting down everything that she said and trying to retain the truly important statements. The girl's yelling had ceased and she just sobbed now, looking as if she was trying to disappear into the sofa cushions beneath her. John opened his mouth to try and speak gently to her, when the front door burst open downstairs and he heard Sherlock's quick footsteps bounding up the stairs three at a time. He flung open the door melodramatically, discarded his coat with flair and collapsed into his armchair, resting his chin on his fingertips.

"Nothing." He looked up at John disappointedly. "The only thing the x-rays and microscopes gave me was the information that the note was written with a black handwriting pen, probably a Berol, that was running out of ink and so had to be used a few times to get the note to actually come through. There were no notable fingerprints on the note except for the girl's, and the only other marks on the note were from rain, which means that she must have been outside for a fairly long time, in the rain, with that note in her hand. But other than that, absolutely nothing of use in tracing her whereabouts or anything about her." Sherlock sighed, and John subtly cleared his throat. Sherlock looked up, looking bored.

"What?" he asked.

"Okay…I'm not quite sure how to say this…" John wavered, and Sherlock narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him. "I've only ever seen one person in this state before, and that was in Afghanistan. It…it didn't end well." Sherlock looked at the sobbing girl, and then back at John, looking confused.

"What's she doing?" John just rolled his eyes.

"She's crying, Sherlock," he said, stressing the word 'crying' as if he was talking to a small child. "One of the usual effects of propofol is horrific nightmares, and she was crying out a minute ago. I expect she'll start up again in a minute." Sherlock leaned forward, his interest piqued once more. He grabbed John's shoulders and stared hard into his face.

"What did she say, John? Tell me the exact words that she said." John hesitated for a moment.

"She said, 'No, please don't shoot, no…' and then she said 'How could you? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you'." He looked at Sherlock. "Why?" Sherlock was staring absentmindedly at the wall behind John's head, as he repeated the words over and over. Realisation dawned on his face and he stood up rapidly.

"Okay…" he said, weighing up his options in his mind. "So the first thing that comes to mind when she's unconscious is someone being shot, probably a loved one if it's so important to her. It must have happened fairly recently due to the fact that she's still dwelling on it and already subconsciously thinking about it. She arrives on the doorstep of a specific address with a note directing her to that exact spot. The person who gave her the note knew of me and they knew where I lived, but I would expect that this said person is the same one that was shot." He picked the note up and read it again. "Yes…almost definitely a parent who has been killed. The way that it says 'I LOVE YOU' at the bottom obviously suggests someone who cared about her, but the note has general tone of wanting to protect a close one, but highly unlikely to be a husband or boyfriend." John frowned.

"How do you know that?" Sherlock just gave him a withering stare.

"Somehow, they knew who I was and trusted that I would help her…they wanted to protect her, John. The message has a tone of parental protection rather than the idea of a partner wanting to try and keep her safe." He tossed the note over to John, perched on the arm of his chair and drew his knees to his chest. His fingertips fused together and absentmindedly tapped his top lip as he thought. "Let's test you, John. How do you know that the note is from a parent rather than a partner?" John rubbed the side of his nose.

"Er…well, it's quite certain, almost as if the writer had met you before."

"Good!" Sherlock said enthusiastically. "Elaborate."

"I suppose if the writer had just heard about you, they might have put something like 'SEE IF HE WILL HELP YOU' rather than just 'MR HOLMES WILL HELP YOU'."

"Excellent, John! We will make a detective out of you yet!" Sherlock leapt up off the chair and began pacing back and forth, still with his fingertips pressed firmly together. "So the likelihood of a younger man having met me in the past is a considerable amount less likely than an older man. An older man would be more likely to…"

"Whoa, slow down…" John interrupted. "How do you know it's a man now?" Sherlock stopped pacing and huffed, exasperated.

"The writing, John, the writing!" he said impatiently. "This is written in block capitals, quite clearly masculine handwriting. Women are a hell of a lot less likely to write in block or with a Berol handwriting pen. No, it's most definitely a man's handwriting." John nodded.

"Okay. Carry on." Sherlock resumed his pacing.

"So, as I was saying…an older man would be more likely to watch the news – at home, by himself more often than a younger man would be. Therefore, the relation was almost definitely a father. The amount of times that I featured in the news around the time of…er…" he looked at John uncertainly.

"Reichenbach," John said. "It's okay, Sherlock. You are allowed to say it." Sherlock nodded.

"He could easily have been at, say…Moriaty trial and seen me there. He could have seen me anywhere! But where could he have met me to know that I was, as he put it, 'A GOOD MAN'…?" Sherlock thought for a moment before leaning forward slowly, realisation dawning on his face. "Oh, of course…he didn't have to have actually met me. As long as he had been on one of our cases, any of them, he could form an opinion about me. Perhaps he was…" Sherlock's eyes opened wide, and a half smile crossed his face. "The police!" He said, jumping and turning 180°. "Of course, of course, of course! The Yard! How could I have been so stupid?" He turned to John while putting his coat on again. "Her father – he must have been part of Lestrade's gang! That's how he knew me! He'd seen me working from a distance so many times when Lestrade brought me in! I've probably talked to him at some point!" Sherlock was almost dancing from excitement. "It fits, John, it fits! Working with us so many times…he would have had ample time to form an opinion of me. He would have known exactly where I lived, and known that I was his best bet to protect his daughter after he was gone…"

"But who would have wanted to kill him?" John asked, trying desperately to keep up with Sherlock's rapid deductions. Sherlock just shrugged.

"He was a police officer," he said. "He would have had enemies. It could have been anyone." He turned up the collar of his coat and pulled on his gloves. "I'm going out. I'm heading down to see Lestrade to see what I can find out about any of the police officers – did any of them have daughters, did they have any particular enemies… So how old is this girl?" He surveyed the young woman for a few seconds. "Probably early to mid-twenties…so that would mean that her father could be anywhere from about fifty. He must have been a widower, as why else would he choose to entrust his daughter to a man that he had only ever seen from a distance, rather than giving her over to his wife's care? He must have known that he was going to die, and made subsequent arrangements to ensure her welfare…John, this gets more exciting by the second!" Sherlock did a little twirl, his coat tails flying out around him, before bouncing downstairs once more. "You stay here!" he yelled from downstairs. "Note down anything else that she says or does – we can't afford to lose any clues! I'll be back later!" And John heard the door slam shut.

He sighed, did a quick check of the girl's pulse and breathing rate, and headed into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He had a feeling that it was going to be a long day.

Almost four hours later, John was flicking through the newspaper with one eye on the young woman on the sofa opposite him. He wasn't really concentrating on the paper: he looked at it but didn't see or read any of the text. The girl hadn't done anything else since Sherlock's departure apart from let out a few muffled sobs, but John couldn't help but worry for her. Her lips had started to return to their natural reddish hue once more, and she didn't look at tight as she had done when he had first brought her up, some six hours ago now. The doctor in John started doing some rapid calculations: propofol usually wore off after thirty-six hours maximum, but the shot that he had administered should have reduced that by at least twelve hours. So she had about twenty-four hours to completely resume consciousness, although she would more likely be awake before then, if not coherent. In theory, he shouldn't have much longer to wait, so he knelt down by her side once more and began to study the line of her jaw.

If Sherlock had prominent cheekbones, then this girl had a prominent jaw. It didn't stick out as such, but it was a clear, well-defined bone that gave her an air of determination, but also held its own unique beauty. Now that her face was not hideously contorted with sobs all the time, John could truly see how lovely she was. If she walked down the street towards him, he probably wouldn't have been bowled over by how stunning she was, but she was still undeniably beautiful, in an 'I enjoy life' sort of way. If he had been Sherlock, he supposed that he could probably have deduced all the places that she had ever visited, where she went to school and where she lived just from the contours of her face, but John had no such incredible skills. He could just look at her and think that she was a very pretty young woman who didn't deserve such horrific treatment as she had clearly undergone in the last few days. He hoped with all his heart that she would be okay and he wouldn't have the guilt of yet another death on his conscience. Without thinking, he began to trace the line of her jaw with his fingertip, and she inhaled sharply. He quickly drew his finger away, worried that she was going to start crying out again. But she didn't; her breathing rate merely increased slightly. John looked at her warily, and moved away again, back to his newspaper, unconsciously trying to turn the pages without rustling them too much.

About twenty minutes later, he heard a loud gulp of air coming from the sofa and pretty much leapt out of his chair with shock, his heart beating ten to the dozen. He saw the girl's eyes jerk open, although they were blurry and unfocused. Still, his heart leapt that she hadn't died – he could cope with her condition now that she had regained consciousness, although it remained to be seen how long for. He quickly knelt by her and felt her forehead with his fingertips, her eyes following his hand.

"Hello," he said with a smile. She looked back at him blankly, and he smiled again. "You're going to be okay." She blinked at him, and her slow brain could just about form the sentence that she had to ask.

"Mr…Holmes?" she whispered again, just as she had when she and John had first met. John shook his head.

"He'll be back soon," he said soothingly, his voice taking on the lilting quality that it did whenever he was dealing with a patient who was in a bad way. He gently shook her hand. "My name's Doctor John Watson. I've been looking after you." He smiled kindly again, and this time the girl could just bring herself to raise the corners of her mouth ever so slightly.

"Lucie," she said softly. "Lucie Ellery. When will…Mr Holmes…be back?" she asked weakly, every word being a struggle.

"I'm not entirely sure…" John said uncertainly. "He has a habit of disappearing off for a few hours. But he'll be back soon, I'm sure of it." He smiled down at her reassuringly, and to his surprise, she gripped his hand determinedly.

"Don't let me sleep again," she said obstinately. John just nodded.

"Okay. But I just need to send a text a moment…" she nodded, and he crossed the room to his phone.

She's awake and talking.

- JW

A reply beeped back within seconds.

I'll be there ASAP. Just keep her coherent until I can talk to her. Talk about the weather or something.

- SH

John rolled his eyes and headed back to Lucie, smiling again.

"He says he's on his way." She nodded, taking hold of his hand again and tracing the lines on his palm. John felt strangely uncomfortable, although not necessarily unpleasantly. They sat like that for about ten minutes before the door was opened and Sherlock walked in, with the smug look on his face that meant he had discovered something of great use and was about to try and extract even more information out of someone else.

So here we meet our heroine, Lucie, and solve a tiny bit of her mystery. Please, please review – any constructive criticism or ideas for the future are very welcome! Thanks for reading! :)