No matter what John did, no matter how good he was, as soon as people see him like this, he was treated like something he's not.
A child.
If he had remembered something when he was older... Maybe a nice almost adult eighteen, fifteen, ten even. But he's not. And he always looked young anyway. It's not so bad with children, with adults, everything is you can't. No matter what he said, the reply was always no. It hurts so much. He felt sometimes like screaming at the sky, (please God let me live) I am not a child!
He was so alone.
He knew that if he revealed too much to adults, how much he knew about medicine then not only will it be no, it would be him shut up in a glass jar while they talk to him about tests. This he hadn't experienced yet, he refused to be put into a glass jar. He wasn't going to do intelligence tests and special schools. He couldn't compete. They would once again assume he's something he's not, a genius.
There was something a doctor from Canada had told them the first day in the combat hospital. Dying is your new normal. Adjust. So John adjusted, running around London, carrying his world on his back.
When John first began to try and be a doctor again, in the beginning, he was captured by Bailey. Captured may be a little too strong of a word, but that's what it had felt like. He had trespassed on Bailey's gang's territory on accident and they had accused him of spying for Bad Davey, a local drug pusher who was making quite the name for himself.
John had fought them off swinging and kicking close to drawing his gun. That's what you feared in Afghanistan, capture, being turned into some sort of publicity stunt in front of a camera, not knowing how long you'd stay alive. Not that Bailey's crew was quite the same as masked men with AKs. They were just terrified. Bad Davey really had a habit of being… bad.
"I don't work for Bad Davey!" John broke a boy's nose with his elbow, blood spilling on his jumper.
"How do we know?" Bailey barked at him in a heavy brogue, swinging around an iron pipe.
"Because I don't! I'm a doctor!"
"A doctor?" Bailey asked. "What are you, six?"
"I'm eight!" John yelled indignantly, cracking his Grey's upside someone else's head. "And I'm quite good actually."
"Can you do broken bones?" Bailey asked him and that was the beginning of John's new life.
"Of course," John said, "Although it depends on how clean the break is. If it's shattered…"
"Nah," Bailey said motioning off his crew. "Clean. Come on." The capture ended as quickly as it started at Bailey's quick agitated movements. "We need you. It was just an accident."
He was dragged by the shoulder of his jumper to a back room; dark and smelling faintly of bad curry where there was a rail thin red head curled around his broken arm in the corner. This John can do. "I'll need something stiff for splints," he said over his shoulder. "I don't have anything to make a cast with either."
"Don't," the redhead was crying, curling himself up in an even tighter knot. Everything about him twitched in parts, like the boy had been electrified.
John's hands were practiced at being professional, at being gentle and calming. "It's alright. I'm a doctor-"
"But you're so small," the boy interrupted. He would always interrupt.
John gritted his teeth a little at that, "I seem to manage just fine. What's your name?" The boy looked fearfully up at Bailey and then over at him.
"R-Rooster."
"Rooster," I'm going to have to set your arm. It's not going to be very pleasant. But I'll need to or it won't heal correctly."
"Do you have to?"
"Yes, but it will be okay, once it's set and starting to heal it won't hurt so bad." One hand rested on Rooster's shoulder, gentle, grounding him to John's voice. "You'll be okay."
"I got the stuff," Bailey charged in.
"It'll be okay Rooster," John said gently, in his best army medic voice. "You'll be alright." Phrenic energy drove Rooster, feet twitching, side hitching, creeping fingers, heavy tears. John tried to calm him; talk to him let his voice wash over the boy, drawing him out of his panic.
"How did you break your arm?" he asked taking Rooster's elbow in one hand and feeling for the break. It was clean; all he had to do was realign the bone.
Bailey hissed at him, a cross sound between his teeth.
"Mike pushed me down some stairs," Rooster barked, the sound of a panicked animal. Twitching his feet in slow motions like he couldn't stop, pain heavy and panicky.
John's eyebrows came together, getting things ready, "Why did he push you down the stairs Rooster?"
"Because I'm Bad Davey's little brother," Rooster started, and then screamed as John realigned his humerus.
"It was an accident," Bailey whispered. "Mike didn't mean to, but now we have to keep him. If we let him go Davey will kill us all. I got kids to protect Doctor."
"Idiot," John growled at him. "You can't push a man's little brother down some stairs."
"He needs to go to the hospital to get a proper cast."
"He can't, if the Yard finds out than Rooster'll be arrested as leverage. Then Davey'll kill us."
"I'll talk to him," John said stoutly.
"Are you crazy?" Bailey yelled at him and then launched into a monologue of what John could only assume was Gaelic.
"The worst he can do is kill me," John said. "Just tell me where to go."
Bad Davey was not pleased; he threatened to hang John up by his pudgy little toes. Maybe it was the Browning underneath Davey's chin, but he finally settled down and listened to John.
Davey couldn't let a slight like that go unpunished, he was up and coming, new to the scene and the drug lords were watching him.
John couldn't allow the deaths of innocent children.
Davey could call his men in and have John killed in half a second.
John doubted Davey's guards could move faster than the bullet could exit the top of Davey's head.
Davey allowed this and grinned at John, "You've got the eyes mate. You'd do it too to save all those little brats. Can I offer you a drink? I'm sure I've got water somewhere."
He was utterly unique, he wasn't Bailey's crew, he wasn't interested in being part of a gang or choosing sides. Only in helping people, he made this clear, he wasn't choosing sides. But he usually slept in the tunnels with Bailey's, sometimes curled up next to Rooster who was a whole different story all together.
John was walking very slowly back from a very long surgery when a couple of ominous looking men walked up on either side of John to sweep him along with a Mycroft-esque style. They swept him down a back way and into Bad Davey's building. Bad Davey waves him into his office shifting around stacks of papers. "Doctor," Davey said not looking away from his paperwork and motioning at the teacup on the edge of his desk. "Hope this isn't an inconvenience." When he finally looked up it is only to find his cigarettes and light up with a blissful sigh. His red hair flashed back and forth in the light from auburn to burgundy.
"They didn't try to carry me again," he said simply while Davey blew smoke rings.
Laughter, harsh and ragged, "That was funny that one time." He looked at John out of the corner of his eye. "Tom couldn't walk for three weeks."
John sipped his tea.
"Roost's always saying how you follow around that Shamrock-"
"Sherlock," he corrected.
"Cause that's better. So I thought you should know, it's been noticed he's been poking around by new folks in town.
"Not my thing, but they've been poking around asking for something. Creeping stuff," he did that thing with his eyes that meant bad things. "Spray paint all over while I'm trying to move merch. Don't appreciate it. But I thought you should know. Trouble."
The Case of the Blind Banker, John remembered this case.
Davey's face shifted, he became a little pensive, "How's Roost?"
"He's doing fine, learning a lot. He lives for memorization."
Moving so his expression was obscured by his business, Davey only replied, "He's a complete and utter pain."
"He's been sleeping. Close to six hours a night now."
Crushing his cigarette viciously Davey barked out for an escort for John, "If I become interested in something as lame as my brother's sleeping habits, I'll let you know kid," he said, but he wouldn't look at John in the eye. There was a relief to him that made him vulnerable, and he couldn't afford to show that to anyone.
The Case of the Blind Banker, John still remembered he thought as he walked. Sherlock carried the case (the case, of course the case), as he carried every case, but John remembered a few things that he did help this one. Someone had to take a picture of the code, but Sherlock was working alone now.
No one paid attention to small children. Usually the bane of his existence right next to doorknobs, but now John's counting on it. Slipping away into the dusk, he hoped no one will notice a little boy in the shadows. Snapping a picture of the Chinese numbers, John looked over his shoulder. It's just like before, one snap with his phone, but this time he can't hunt for Sherlock to show him what he found. He didn't know who it was that covered the message with the black paint, he only saw them from a distance as he ran away. Finding a little alcove to sit in John took a deep and steadying breath and types Sherlock's number into his phone.
He didn't know why he was so scared. This wasn't a scary thing. This isn't surgery in the back of a convenience store or car bombs on a street that's far too busy. But somehow he was terrified anyway. Before he can think about it anymore he sends Sherlock the picture of the numbers. He was looking at the stars with his fingers keeping warm under his knees when his phone beeped at him.
There wasn't a reason John should be surprised really, but he was anyway. He could feel his heart against his breastbone.
Who are you? –SH
Of course he would be on John's message as soon as it hit his phone. What would he say? Your best friend? Your flatmate? Oh, you don't remember me? Not surprising actually. He was probably triangulating John's position by his consonants and vowels. Running was the only thing he could think of, so he ran back toward town. Toward hiding really. He hadn't gotten too far when the phone rang again.
Who are you?
No signature this time, John was surprised the first text got one, but then that was Sherlock. He looked down at the screen and chewed on his lip a little. There was no way he could hold up against a direct attack of Sherlock's wits.
Wrong question. He tried instead.
Every shadow looked like a crouching form, every bit of gravel hiding something. He wasn't this jumpy since he first deployed. Shaking himself out he waited for the response.
What's the right question? –SH
Not what John was looking for but it would work.
What do you need?
This way John could hint without blowing his cover too much. There was a long pause and John was getting nervous when the phone went off again.
What are the symbols? What do they mean? – SH
John stared at the phone; that question made no sense, they had already been to that little shop where that lady had tried to sell him that ugly cat. Well, not them this time, only Sherlock. Of course Sherlock had figured it out by now. But maybe John was getting confused, it had been a while, maybe this was before they had gone to the shop and Sherlock had figured the symbols were numbers, sprawling off about ancient numerical systems and merchants. John must have just had the timeline backwards.
No harm in telling him early.
They're numbers, it's a code.
Halfway before composing a farewell text Sherlock blasted him with: I'll find you Moriarty. – SH
The side of John's mouth quirked up,
Not Moriarty. –W
The initial was an afterthought, one he hoped he wouldn't regret. He got twenty seven different messages over the next ten minutes, and had to turn his phone off so he stopped getting funny looks and hoped that no one was dying.
He was smiling for the first time in a long time.
Science of Deduction:
Are you there? You already knew before me. How did you know?