Damage Control - part 3

"Mary? What..." John's expression was unreadable. He tried again, "What's..." Apparently finding her in tears at Sherlock's bedside two minutes after he'd left the room had rendered him speechless. And then realization seemed to dawn. His eyes went wide. "Is he all right?" He covered the distance to the bed in two strides and quickly checked Sherlock's pulse. Then he scanned the bank of monitors, and his expression changed from alarm to confusion.

*He hadn't heard them, thank God.* Relief buckled her knees, and John grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling. He guided her to the chair and crouched in front of her, holding one of her hands in both of his.

"God, Mary, I thought he'd died." He reached up and touched her face. "What happened?"

Her mind was spinning. She needed to stall for time to come up with an explanation. "Where's Mycroft?"

He frowned at the jarring non sequitur. "Uh...Mycroft got a call on his mobile before we even got to the lift. He said he'll be back as soon as he can." He gave his head a quick shake. "I was only gone two minutes. What happened?"

The short reprieve had given her time to both recover her composure, and come up with a story. "I guess it just hit me how easily it could have been you lying in that bed. You never told me your work with him was so dangerous. You said the two of you solve crimes. How did he get shot in the chest at a crime scene?"

John looked down at their joined hands for a moment. Then he nodded. "Okay." He got to his feet and brought the other chair over next to hers. He sat down and took her hands back. "We weren't at a crime scene. At least, it didn't start out as one. To tell you the truth, I don't know why we were there." He sighed. "It was the office of a man Sherlock is bent on bringing down. Charles Augustus Magnusson."

"The newspaper publisher," she said, since he seemed to be waiting for her to respond. "Sherlock is after him? Why?"

"He called him 'the Napoleon of blackmailers'. That's what all the drugs business was about, apparently. I'm not actually sure. We went there last night because Sherlock thought the office would be unoccupied. It wasn't."

He went quiet for a long moment, lost in thought.

"What happened, John?"

He shook it off and looked at her again. "I found him on the floor in Magnusson's flat. They were both there. Magnusson had been knocked unconscious, and Sherlock had been shot."

She was afraid to ask the question, but he would start wondering if she didn't. "Did Magnusson say who shot him? Did he see it happen?"

John looked at her with an expression that was too fleeting for her to classify, but it chilled her. "John?"

He shook his head. "He said he didn't know. Greg Lestrade arrived just as we were taking Sherlock down to the ambulance. He may have gotten more from him, but I doubt it."

Another dangerous question had to be asked. "Who do you think it could have been?"

This time, the fleeting expression stayed long enough for her to recognize it. When they had first started seeing each other, he had come to her flat for dinner one night and commented on a jigsaw puzzle she'd been working for days. While she prepared their food, he had worked on her puzzle. After they had finished eating, they had worked on it together and finished it. She had teased him about the way he screwed up his face when he was concentrating. He had laughed, and it was the first times she'd felt that this might be the man she could spend her life with. She called it his puzzle face. That was the expression she had just seen. He had found a missing piece of a puzzle, and he was looking for a place to fit it in.

"A man like Magnusson has a lot of enemies. My guess is, one of them chose tonight to kill him. Sherlock walked in on them and got shot."

He got to his feet so abruptly that it startled her. A split second later, an alarm on one of the monitors began to sound.

Mary pushed both chairs out of the way and quickly scanned the monitors. His heart rate had jumped into the high 180's, and his blood pressure was bottoming out.

"Sherlock!" John kept shouting his name while the room filled with equipment and people.

Mary pulled him into the hall with difficulty. "John, you can't be in there. You know that."

He was shaking his head in disbelief. "This shouldn't be happening. He was stable." He looked at her. "What happened while I was gone?"

The accusation in his tone was unmistakable. "I told you, John. Nothing happened. What are you saying?"

Through the open door, they heard the whine of a charging defibrillator, and John was back in the room before she could stop him. Mary leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

end of part 3

Author's notes: It's beginning to dawn on me that every story I've posted so far (Simple Truths, Damage Control 1 and 2, Crossfire) is part of the same story, "Simple Truths". I may have invented a new form of fanfiction (new to me, at least) where chapters are published out of sequence as inspiration strikes. I have to admit, it's a lot of fun, but I'm not sure how to classify these when I post. Suggestions? Oh, and please do stay tuned. -GW