Author's Note: This story is a one-off or a tag to an existing episode that I couldn't get out of my mind. This is not SLASH. Friendship only between Sherlock and John in this one. Although if you squint you can read it anyway you like.

**A tag to the scene in "The Lying Detective", what if John went too far in his anger? And the injury to Sherlock was more than just the damage of the drugs? How would the doctor deal with learning what Sherlock had done to 'save him' and what he had to Sherlock? I was struck by John's reactions as he watched Mary explain her final request to Sherlock.** LOTS OF ANGST IN THIS ONE…

PLEASE REVIEW: This will only be a couple of chapters, but it deals with the aftermath of the morgue beating. I think it was glossed over and I wonder what would have happened if John had gone too far and risked losing Sherlock as a result of his own actions. Cheers!

Disclaimer:Sherlock does not belong to me…such a shame…it is the brainchild of Arthur Conan Doyle and the current iteration belongs to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and PBS Masterpiece (although the genius behind the relationship between Sherlock and John is the character interpretation by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman). I am not making any money off this; it is purely for the story monkeys in my head and anyone else that wants to read.

Chapter 4

Darkness Falls

The day had passed in relative silence. The former army doctor had spent much of his time simply trying to stay out of the way of other medical professionals. His aching back and eyes were starting to take a toll on his ability to simply stand silently in a corner.

John watched as yet another doctor checked over Sherlock's current condition. It appeared that his vitals were holding stable, though his brain scans were still showing reduced activity. Even with John's limited understanding of neuropathology, he knew that this wasn't a good thing.

The nurse carefully drew more blood before quietly stepping from the room and eventually leaving John alone with the silent figure in the bed. He needed to go home and take a shower, but he couldn't quite bring himself to think of actually leaving, not even for the time it would take to catch those five minutes under a hot water spray. Because he knew that if he wasn't in the room when Sherlock woke up, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. And John already had too much guilt resting on his tired shoulders.

So he chose to sit, watch, and wait. Keeping silent vigil over his friend with the hope that Sherlock would regain consciousness soon. Because they had a lot to discuss and John didn't want to have this conversation with a sleeping Sherlock…he wanted the real thing. He was so engrossed in his internal debate that he missed the soft knock on the doorframe.

"John?" Mrs. Hudson's soft query had him lifting his gaze toward the doorway. She was wearing one of her favorite dresses and it looked like she'd recently had her hair styled. Leave it to her to go out and get dressed up just to come see Sherlock. The kind smile she presented was like a dagger to his heart, John watched resolutely as she shuffled into the room, settling on the end of Sherlock's bed. Her worried gaze shifting between the doctor and the detective, assessing the two men. "Any change?"

He shook his head. John couldn't bring himself to look over at her again as she stared silently at the bruises littering Sherlock's face. Deep down he knew that she had put his involvement in the consulting detective's current condition into context. She knew what had happened. Mrs. Hudson had a way of seeing things that many people thought were hidden from the world. In that way she was bit like Sherlock, only with the ability to read people instead of visual facts. In all the time that John had known her, he'd never had a reason to feel ashamed in her presence…he did now, and it felt bloody awful.

She sighed pointedly and then turned her full attention on him. "Did it make you feel better?" she asked softly. There was no judgment in her voice, just her not-so simple question, because John didn't have an answer for her, not a real one. He averted his eyes before shaking his head. "No. I thought it would…but…no." he picked absently at the edge of the white blanket near Sherlock's hands. His eyebrows crinkled in distress at the distressingly still hands of a man that was movement and gesticulation. Sherlock was rarely still and when he was it was for good reason.

There was a soft huff of air and then she shifted so that she could see him more clearly. He could tell that he wasn't going to like whatever she was about to say.

"John, he has been killing himself trying to get your attention. How could you not see that?" She shook her head in disappointment when he failed to meet her intense gaze. "Oh, that's right, you cut him out of your and Rosie's lives, didn't you?" The edge to her words cut him deeply as he listened.

His blue eyes flashed up and his eyebrows cut down in an automatic response. "I couldn't be around him. All I could see…was her absence." His voice faltered and he swallowed thickly. "And his responsibility in that."

Mrs. Hudson raised an eyebrow at that before her eyes shifted to the bruised unconscious form of the consulting detective. "And now?"

Several emotions flitted across John's face. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt now; he only knew that he no longer blamed Sherlock for Mary's death. "I don't honestly know."

"That might be the best thing you could have said." She responded with a slight smile and soft clap of her hands. It was something she did when she was please with the direction of a particularly difficult conversation.

"Why?" he asked, a little uncertain if he actually wanted an answer.

She shrugged. "Because it means you're actually thinking about this whole thing instead of simply reacting to it."

John's gaze flicked over to Sherlock's unconscious form. "Little bit late for that piece of advice."

"Better late than never, that's what I always say." She shrugged simply before patting him on the shoulder and turning to leave the room. "He'll pull through John. He always does."

The doctor blinked several times before he finally shook his head in resignation and moved to stand next to the small window. Night had fallen in a dusky swirl of colors and a light misty rain that signaled the changing of the seasons. John stared out and wondered if his life would ever get back to where it had been several months before all this tragedy had torn it apart. He certainly hoped so.

A low sigh slipped between his lips before he moved back and settled into the uncomfortable chair next to Sherlock's bed. The steady beeping of the monitors was the only thing he could hear inside the room. The strangely illuminated back wall offered a soft glow and he could feel his eyelids growing heavy.

The creak of the door as it was pushed opened caused John to frown. He raised an eyebrow when Culverton Smith stepped into the room. His eyes were glued on Sherlock's unconscious form. The short portly man pulled his lower lip between his teeth in a way that sent a chill of disgust racing down John's spine.

The man was so intent on his prey that he didn't even notice the doctor sitting, half hidden, in the darkened corner. But John saw the predatory expression on the billionaire's face as his hands clenched and unclenched in anticipation of something only he was aware of. It was like someone had let the fox into the henhouse and he was just biding his time until he attacked.

It was also the first time that John was absolutely certain that Sherlock had been right. Standing right in front of him was one of the only men that could make the consulting detective nervous and considering who Sherlock had dealt with over his career, that was more than a bit scary.

"Can I help you, Mr. Smith?" He finally couldn't stand the man's presence any longer and he wanted him away from Sherlock.

Culverton's head snapped up and his face shifted to a more congenial expression when he finally saw John sitting in the corner. "Oh, Dr. Watson, I didn't realize you were visiting." His eyes drifted back to the unmoving detective, there was a hunger there was more than a bit distressing to the doctor. "I wanted to see that Mr. Holmes was getting the best care."

John narrowed his eyes. "That's very nice of you. Do you do that for all the patients in your hospital?" He knew the answer to the question, but he was curious how the man would spin it.

"No. But Sherlock Holmes isn't just any patient, now is he…?" he took a step closer to the bed causing John to stand up and move closer in a protective gesture that was not lost on the billionaire. "Of the two of us inside this room, which one of us do you think is more dangerous to Sherlock Holmes? Me or the man that beat him until his brain started to bleed?"

John's gut twisted at the truth in the man's words. But he stood his ground, regardless of whether or not he had any right to. "I don't believe you want me to answer that question." He struggled to keep the true nature of his feelings on the subject hidden from the other man.

A sadistic smile slipped onto Culverton's face and he laughed. "If you really thought that, why did you trounce him in order to save me?"

The air in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees as John straightened his back and rolled his shoulders as he gathered his emotions into a tighter ball. "I'm wondering that same thing." He answered tightly.

The smarmy little man tilted his head to the side and snorted in derision as his eyes shifted over Sherlock and then shifted back up to meet John's intense stare. "I do hope he recovers soon. Waiting can be murder."

With that final statement he swept out of the room and John allowed his breath to escape in a huff of anger before he collapsed into the chair. He was fairly certain that taunting a serial killer was not one of his better ideas. But the way the man had been looking at Sherlock…it had been evil incarnate. Guess I'm not getting that shower any time soon.

221B 221B

Sherlock felt his way along the rough wall that separated the living room and the kitchen. Not for the first time he was grateful for his memory of where things were located inside 221B. The light had dropped to such a low level that it was making it nearly impossible for him to see anything in the flat. He had a tendril of fear picking at his brain, a fear that was telling him this was something bigger than just a failure in his mind palace.

"All I wanted was a cup of tea." He groused as he made his way back to his leather chair. Pain lurched up his left shin as he scuffed it against the edge of the table. "Bloody hell." He reached down and ran his hands over the offended limb several times before finally making to the chair. He dropped down into the relative safety of the leather and groaned as pain shot up his side.

He'd gotten pretty good at ignoring the pain that continually radiated along his ribs, but he still hadn't figured out the answer to the loss of light. The one person that he wanted to talk to was the one person he was certain did not want to talk to him. And as much as he ached to speak with John, he didn't think he could handle another rejection from the doctor…real or imagined. The morgue had been traumatizing on several levels and only one of them had to do with Sherlock getting his ass pummeled by the doctor. John had 'wanted' to hurt him. He'd been bursting at the seams with anger and rage and it finally found an outlet. But that hadn't been the worst part.

No, the most devastating moment had been when John had agreed when Sherlock admitted to killing his wife. A miniscule part of him had hoped that John would argue with his statement, but the profound anger on the doctor's face had shattered that small hope. And yes, Mary had told the consulting detective that he wasn't actually responsible, but that was only his own mind trying to make things better. Sherlock knew that John would not be so ready to forgive and he would certainly never forget what had happened in the aquarium.

"You really thought it would be that easy? Apologize and you would just go back the way things were?" Sherlock's head snapped toward the rumble of a new voice. One that he had thought he would never hear again. Jim Moriarty… "It's a bit dark in here, don't you think?"

Sherlock bit back the anger and instead schooled his baritone to one of indifference. He must be truly out of sorts with the world if he'd allowed that maniac to roam free inside his mind palace. "What are you doing up here?"

A huff, "I get tired of the basement, Sherlock. No one ever bothers me down there. I get lonely." There was a shuffle of shoes on wood as Moriarty moved his position; Sherlock's head followed the shifting sounds trying to keep track of exactly where the man stood in relation to him. "Besides, I was curious..."

"Curious? Curious about what?" Sherlock continued to listen carefully as the consulting criminal continued to move about the flat with a familiarity that disturbed Sherlock.

"About the absence of a certain doctor. He's always shuffling around this place. Where is he now?" The clink of a glass turned Sherlock's pale gaze toward the couch. Apparently Moriarty was making himself comfortable with the decanter.

He bristled at the tone as much as the question. "John's been busy. He is new a father, after all."

There was a brief silence and then suddenly a hand grabbed Sherlock by the throat. His arms flailed as he tried to grab onto man that was now trying to choke the breath from him. There was a burning sensation in his throat and then pain blossomed behind his eyes. It felt like an icepick was being shoved into his brain. The muscles in his back arched as Moriarty's grip tightened. "I asked a simple question. All I wanted was a simple 'civil' answer."

Sherlock gagged as his awareness spiraled down to just surviving this heated encounter. The fact that it was all happening inside his head wouldn't save him. "You're in a coma, Sherlock. You can't wake up from this."

The new information was useless in his current state. He knew now that there was no escaping whatever was happening to his transport, but he needed to wake up. With the last bit of strength he possessed, Sherlock threw himself to the side landing hard against the wooden table, the one that sat next to his chair. It was enough to throw Moriarty off him allowing Sherlock to heave in a few precious breaths before he hauled himself upright and scrambled toward the window.

The only way he knew to wake up, was to fall…

He wasn't entirely sure where he was going, but his memory, if it was correct, placed the window five steps behind his chair. Without thinking about the consequences, Sherlock threw himself at the general area where the window should be located. He felt the glass panes give beneath his weight and the fiery slicing pain that washed along his side reminded him that he hadn't been one hundred percent before he'd jumped. Probably wasn't going to be a good thing when he did finally manage to wake up.

The wind whipped through his curly hair and the part of him that was still connected to reality wondered why it was taking him so long to either hit the ground or wake up.

221B 221B

Five hours later…

John felt something move against his hair, he surged up from where he'd been sleeping and blinked rapidly. He wasn't even sure when he'd fallen asleep, but he obviously had. He scrubbed his hand down his face as he waited for his eyes to adjust. It was still dark outside. So he hadn't been asleep for long.

"John?" It was the last voice he'd thought he'd hear and the one that he wanted to hear most in the world. The low baritone was soft and questioning and stole the doctor's words as he struggled to respond. He had been lying on the bed near Sherlock's shoulder, obviously he hadn't meant to fall asleep there…people would talk.

He sat back and stared down at the man lying quietly in the bed. Sherlock was indeed awake, but he was staring straight ahead at the illuminated wall. He was not looking over where John was sitting. At least that's what appeared to be happening; it was just dark enough in the room that he couldn't be sure.

"Sherlock?" he swallowed the thick ball of emotion that threatened to silence him and allowed his eyes to drift along the bed. The blanket had settled around Sherlock's hips like he'd been shifting for a while. "How do you feel?"

The consulting detective's eyes darted over to where John was sitting. But they never connected with the dark blue of the doctor's gaze. "John…are the lights on?"

"Sorry?" he asked. He looked around the low light in the room and while it wasn't bright or anything, there was enough illumination that Sherlock should be able to make out where John was sitting at the very least.

"The lights, in the room…are they on?" A tremor vibrated through his baritone as he repeated his question. His hands clenched the blanket in a white-knuckled grip that was out of character for the generally calm detective.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah the lights on." He took a breath before he continued, his stomach was twisting again as he considered what this new complication might mean. "Why?"

Sherlock's hands shook slightly as he lifted them in front of his wandering eyes. The myriad of emotions racing across his face was so uncharacteristic of the consulting detective that John wasn't sure exactly what he was seeing. "I can't see anything."

TBC…

Author's Note: So this got a lot more complicated than I'd initially set out to write. But it is what it is…and now it's out there and must be written. Leave a review if you have a minute…thank you.