John left the room at half seven to call Mary with an update. When he came back less than five minutes later, he got his first adrenaline jolt for the day. Dr. Lawson was standing at the foot of the bed along with the nurse, and they were blocking his view of Sherlock. "What's happened?"

Lawson turned. "The propofol and midazolam have been discontinued. I wanted to check on him before I go off shift." She had added the midazolam to the infusion to enhance the effect of the propofol. Unfortunately, it would likely increase any memory impairment as well.

He could see, of course, that they weren't dealing with a crisis, and blamed his knee jerk reaction on worry and exhaustion. "Yes, right. I remember. How long before you expect him to come around?"

She smiled. "It shouldn't be long now. He's already triggering the ventilator himself. We just need him to wake up a bit more before we try taking him off of it."

"That's sooner than you'd planned."

"A bit, yes." She touched his arm briefly. "He's doing better than I expected. We'll give him another half an hour and then do a spontaneous breathing trial. If that works, then we can think about extubation. Dr. Harris will be consulting today. He'll be around to speak with you."

He thanked her, then waited for them to leave before he sat back down in his chair. Sherlock's night nurse was going off duty as well. She came over to do her final check, and John thanked her for her again for letting Molly come in to see Sherlock.

She nodded, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "About that..."

"You won't get in any trouble, will you? I won't mention it to anyone if you'd rather I didn't."

"No, no. That's not a problem. Dr. Lawson said it was okay." She paused again. "I couldn't help hearing what she said to you. Your friend. I try not to listen, but sometimes..." She took a deep breath. "Family members often feel that their loved one's addiction is evidence of some failing on their part. It's not. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."

"Thank you. I do." He smiled. Believing it was another matter entirely.

"Good." She nodded toward Sherlock. "I hope he's better soon." The day nurse arrived then, and she left him to officially hand over her patient.

He had no idea what he was going to say to Sherlock when he woke up. If Mary and Molly were right, as he was now beginning to believe, this was as much his fault as it was Sherlock's. After all the times John had bemoaned Sherlock's insensitivity, it seemed that his own was even worse. Sherlock routinely trampled the feelings of strangers, and the Met collectively, and especially his own brother, but not John's. Not for years now. He still sniped about the blog, and John's wardrobe choices, but never with the callous disregard he inflicted on the rest of the world. What had inspired the change? And why was he only asking himself that question now?

Sherlock indulging in something as nakedly sentimental as reading John's blog entry about the day they met simply beggared belief, but that's what he'd been doing. He hadn't even bothered to deny it. Not really. He'd said it helped him to see himself through John's eyes because John saw him as so much cleverer than he really was. Sherlock downplaying his own genius... The more John thought about it, the more it made him reconsider what Mary had been telling him, and what Molly had been trying to say last night. Sherlock was upset about something that both of them seemed to think had to do with John. That he'd gone back with Mary? It had been his bloody idea! Sherlock had been relentless in trying to persuade him to do just that. Insisting that John had to forgive her. Making him realize that he still loved her, in spite of the lies. It was what she had done to Sherlock that had been the hardest to deal with. Forgiving her for nearly killing him was more than John could manage. He had come to terms with it, but only because Sherlock himself had forgiven her, and had tried so hard to make John do the same. Why would Sherlock do that, if he didn't want him to leave?

He knew what Molly would say. Without even hearing the question, she had tried to answer it last night.

"You're his best friend, John. There's nothing he wouldn't do for you."

"No power on earth could have made him leave you unless he believed it was what you wanted him to do."

If Sherlock had not made it his personal mission to get him back with Mary, John would still be living at Baker Street. There was no question about that. Hell, he was still dreaming about Sherlock every goddamned night. Lying in bed next to his wife, dreaming about his friend. He had made the mistake of telling his therapist about the dreams shortly before the wedding, and she had leaped instantly to the utterly unhelpful conclusion that he must be having second thoughts.

"John, we talked about this before you knew Sherlock was still alive. Your relationship with him has always been extraordinarily complex, and it would seem that you're still not reconciled with how you feel about him."

And whose bloody fault was that? John had been in more relationships than he could remember, starting when he was thirteen years old, and not one of them had been with a man, or even a less-than-curvaceous woman. He was one hundred per cent not gay. And yet, he had never loved anyone in his life the way he loved Sherlock. It was completely without a trace of sexual attraction- he couldn't even imagine touching Sherlock with that kind of intent- , but he was undeniably attracted BY him. Drawn to him. Destroyed when he'd been 'dead'. Never completely happy when they were apart.

When he'd pointed out to his therapist that he had bedded women on three continents, she had asked him dryly if he was at all familiar with the term 'overcompensation', which of course he'd deserved for letting her goad him into such an obvious display of it. It wasn't that he'd been exaggerating, but blurting it out to his therapist had been wildly inappropriate.

He had tried to cover his embarrassment by asking her if-

Sherlock squeezed his hand and he nearly knocked the chair over jumping out of it.

"Sherlock, it's John." It was an unnecessary statement given that Sherlock was looking directly at him. "You're on a ventilator. Don't try to talk."

His eyes were not just open, they were wild with rapidly mounting panic. His grip on John's hand was painfully intense, and he was beginning to thrash, fighting the vent.

John gently but firmly disengaged his hand so he could put both of them on Sherlock's shoulders and press him back down on the bed. He heard the nurse speaking on the intercom, calling for assistance. A moment later, she was on the opposite side of the bed.

She snagged one flailing arm and nodded to John to grab the other one. "Sherlock, you need to lie still. You're in intensive care. There is a tube in your mouth that's breathing for you. If you stop struggling, we can remove it."

Sherlock's panic was rapidly escalating, his eyes on John's face with a plea that could not have been clearer if he'd been shouting at the top of his lungs.

John spoke calmly to the nurse. "It's the tube that's causing this. We need to take it out."

She shook her head. "The doctor will be here in a moment."

"Does it look to you like he can wait that long? I can do it, just get me a syringe and some gloves."

Sherlock's struggles eased a fraction, and he turned pleading eyes back to John.

The door opened and John glanced up to see the day consultant, Dr. Harris, start into the room. "He's panicking about the tube."

Harris came quickly to John's side. "I can see that," he said mildly. He put his hand next to John's on Sherlock's wriggling wrist. When John didn't move immediately, Harris lifted an eyebrow. John let go of Sherlock and stepped out of the way.

Sherlock's agitation ramped up again the instant he lost sight of John. "Sherlock, I'm right here." He moved to the foot of the bed and locked their gazes. "You know the drill. Just do what the doctor tells you, and it will be over in a few seconds."

The only parts of Sherlock he could reach were his feet, so he put a hand on each one and felt wiggling toes through the blanket. The extubation process required a cooperative patient and a properly timed deep cough. With John in physical contact with him once more, Sherlock provided both on command, and the tube was out. Sherlock coughed to the point of gagging for a moment, then sagged back against the pillows, completely spent.

"Not yet, Mr. Holmes. You can sleep in a few minutes. I need to have a look at you first."

Dr. Harris began asking orientation questions, assessing his patient's overall condition. John stayed at the foot of the bed, still holding onto Sherlock . As he watched the doctor do his evaluation, John's momentary relief began to evaporate.

The glassy, unfocused gaze, and slow, slurred speech were expected under the circumstances, but the rest was not. Sherlock had no idea where he was. He got the year wrong, and the month. He of course could not say who the Prime Minister was, which John quickly explained was a personal quirk, not a sign of brain damage. When the doctor asked if he knew why he was being treated. Sherlock immediately lifted his left hand to the healed scars from the bullet Mary had put in his chest, and frowned at John in utter confusion.

As Dr Harris began to test Sherlock's coordination - asking Sherlock to touch the clinicians finger and then his nose- John watched with growing concern. There was no tremor but Sherlock was struggling, his finger making a meandering path between the two, and on several occasions he overshot the target entirely.

The doctor finished his evaluation and turned to John. "If you could join me for a moment?"

"I'll be right there." He walked around the bed and put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "I'll be right outside. Will you be okay for a few minutes?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" He attempted an eye roll that didn't quite come off.

John was torn between needing to hug him, and wanting very much to shake him until his teeth rattled. He settled for squeezing his shoulder. "Do not get out of that bed."

Harris was waiting for him outside the door.

"When you first came in, I hope you didn't think I was questioning your-"

Harris waved him off. "I know how hard it is, having to stand back and watch. I've been there. He's your...?"

John found himself surprisingly unsure of the answer to that question, and it created a pause that lifted Harris' eyebrow. "Friend," John said finally.

Harris' expression flickered for an instant. He cleared his throat. "Your friend is confused, obviously, but that's to be expected at this point. His lack of coordination is fairly pronounced, and that does concern me. It could still be the drugs, but we have to consider the possibility of brain injury. If we don't see improvement by this evening, I may schedule an MRI to rule that out. He's going to be here for at least another twenty-four hours, but we should have a good handle on where we are by then. And of course, his mental status will have to be evaluated before he can be released. That's standard procedure in these cases."

"He's not suicidal."

The doctor's smile was professionally neutral. "Let's hope the mental health evaluation bears that out. I'll be back to check on him in a few hours."

Sherlock had gone back to sleep in the few minutes John had been out of the room. John stood next to him for long enough to satisfy himself that Sherlock's breathing was keeping pace, and his pulse was behaving properly before he settled back into his chair.

The nurse was no longer required to remain in the room now that Sherlock was off the ventilator, and they were alone for the first time since those last moments before they had boarded the helicopter to meet with Magnussen. It felt like a lifetime ago; the other side of an instant in time when he could have changed everything that happened afterward with a single act. There was no justification for bringing the gun. None whatever. As far as he had known at the time, the entire purpose for going to Christmas dinner was to reconcile with his wife. He told himself now that he'd been too consumed with what he was going to say to her, and what it would mean, and if he could actually go through with it, to analyze Sherlock's request for the gun. It had made no sense, but what could be the harm?

The answer to that question was all too clear now.

The last seven days had passed in a fog, with Mary practically tiptoeing around him. Whatever she must have imagined their reunion would be like, this couldn't have been it. After more than six months apart, they had needed time to talk through their problems and settle back into living together, but it hadn't quite worked out that way. They had talked for hours the first night, but most of it had been about Sherlock, and every moment since had been the same. If he wanted their marriage to have any chance at all, he would have to commit himself to doing his part.

Wait.

Not 'if'. Of course he wanted their marriage to work. It was just that-

"John?"

The belief that Sherlock could actually read his mind had grown out of moments like this. It was as if Sherlock had sensed he was losing John's undivided attention, and knew just how to draw it back. "I'm right here. How do you feel?"

Sherlock's eyes were still closed, and he was frowning. "Smells like hospital."

"Good deduction. How do you feel?"

The frown deepened. Sherlock cracked one eye open and peered at John. "What are we doing here?"

John resisted the impulse to ask if he remembered what had happened ten minutes previously because the answer was obvious. "You've just come off twelve hours on a propofol and midazolam infusion, and it's messing with your memory. It should clear up in a few hours. How do you feel?"

Sherlock scrunched up his face as he took stock. "Odd."

"Odd, how? Are you in pain? Do you feel sick?" He reached for the basin on the nightstand.

"Not sick." More scrunching. "Muzzy."

John replaced the basin and sat back. "I'm not surprised. What do you remember?"

"Where are we?"

"Royal London ICU."

Sherlock opened both eyes are frowned at him. "Hospital?"

John got up from his chair and cupped Sherlock's face to get a good look at his eyes. "Yeah, we just had this same conversation a moment ago." His pupils were normal. John shadowed the left eye with his hand for a moment, then watched the pupil retract when the light hit it again. He did the same with his right eye. Normal pupillary reflex.

Sherlock reached up to swat the hand away, and missed.

John checked the monitors and noted a slight increase in Sherlock's heart rate. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Sherlock's left hand drifted back to the healed bullet wound. He rubbed at the spot for a moment, then looked up at John. "I don't know." He was becoming increasingly anxious.

John sat down on the edge of the bed and calmly repeated himself. "It's all right, don't worry about it. You've been on a propofol and midazolam infusion for the past twelve hours. Do you know the effects of that?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked almost like himself for an instant. "Of course. It..." The smirk died, replaced instantly by confusion. He reached for John's shirt but closed his fingers on air, and his hand bumped into John's arm instead. "What's wrong with me?" Anxiety was turning rapidly to alarm. "John?"

John put his hands on Sherlock's shoulders and tilted his head to connect with Sherlock's darting gaze. He spoke calmly. "You're all right. You just need to sleep this off a bit more. Don't get yourself worked up."

Sherlock made another clumsy grab for John's shirt. John intercepted his hand in a firm grip and held on. Sherlock's fingers curled around his with strength born of panic, his eyes fixed on John's. "What happened?"

"You took an overdose, Sherlock. Multiple drugs. You had to be hospitalized." It was impossible to keep the anger out of his voice.

Sherlock obviously heard it. He let go of John's hand and turned his face away.

John held onto the hand and pulled it back. "Do you remember now?"

"No." The word was barely audible.

"Sherlock, it's all right if you don't want to talk about it right now, but I need to know how much you remember. Do you remember taking the drugs?"

He looked up at John finally, and his eyes were brimming with tears. It was so unexpected that John drew back, momentarily dumbstruck.

"I need to sleep," Sherlock said in a voice that sounded almost normal. And a few seconds later, he had settled back and closed his eyes.

John watched him for a moment, still holding on to his hand. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock's breathing slowed and deepened. John looked up at the monitors to verify it, then gently placed Sherlock's hand on the bed. He was sound asleep.

A/N - Kudos as always to sevenpercent, kate221b, Jolie Black, ThessalyMc, and Amanda for patience and persistence.

End of chapter 3