Author's Note: My flash-back mojo has continued longer than I anticipated... this is what happens when John wakes in the hospital. Chapters four and five are very short and take place in the hospital, and then chapter 6 will finally loop back around to where we started in chapter 1. I hope you're enjoying this! Please leave a favorite quote/moment in your review.
Understanding
Chapter 4
When John woke up, the first thing he became aware of was the pain and the hazy pattern of his thoughts. It took him a second to remember. Ah. The injuries. And now I'm in a hospital. I'm disoriented because of the morphine.
The second thing he became aware of was a shape sitting in the chair besides his bed.
"Harry." His voice sounded extraordinarily scratchy and raw.
"John. You're awake."
"What are you doing here?" John asked stupidly.
Harry rolled her eyes. "I'm your closest living relative, dumb-ass. Of course they're going to call me when you suffer through a near death experience. What the hell were you thinking?" Ah. So they'd be jumping straight to the lecture part of the conversation. Funnily enough, John had never actually been on the receiving end of this exchange before. "Risking your life for some guy you've known for two seconds? Getting yourself blown up?"
"Technically," John rasped, "I didn't get myself blown up. I'm fine."
"Badly bruised ribs. Two of them are cracked. Deep lacerations to the back of the skull, jaw, both arms, and your left leg. A partially collapsed lung, and a wrist shattered so badly that they had to do reconstructive surgery to – "
"Shit, how long have I been unconscious?" John interrupted, his hand jumping to the bandaged wrist.
"Three days," Harry answered. And then, feebly, as if needing to finish her checklist, "And a concussion."
Three days. Three days since… Since Moriarty, then. There was something important there; It was something he needed to know. The morphine was making his brain fuzzy.
"Oh!" Harry said suddenly, jumping up from the chair with a surprising grin on her face. "I've got to tell Sherlock you're awake!"
She headed for the door, but John's brain suddenly took a few very frightening leaps forward. "Wait! Harry, you've… met… Sherlock. Is he alright? And you're sober. You're sober?"
Harry's eyebrows raised up and disappeared into her hairline. "Not entirely sure how the two things are related, John. But yeah, Sherlock's fine. And yeah, I'm sober. My baby brother is in the hospital. I'm not likely to be drinking in that sort of scenario."
John chose not to mention that it was exactly that sort of scenario which had driven Harry to drinking in the first place. But still – there was something very wrong going on here. "You've met Sherlock."
"Yeah…" Harry said. She took a step forward, staring at John's head as if seriously worried about brain damage.
"You've met Sherlock Holmes and yet you're willing to go seek him out to bring him here?"
"Sure," Harry said, still looking confused.
"You don't hate him?" John finally asked, point-blank. He had been avoiding the inevitable introduction between his sister and his flat mate. He had been absolutely certain that the two of them would not get along at all. Sherlock would be incapable of holding himself back from deducing all of her dirty secrets right out into the open. And Harry would yell, and rage, and make rude hand gestures, which Sherlock would pretend to disdainfully dismiss, but which would secretly fester until he finally took it out on John a few days later.
But this? Harry actually laughed. "Oh! You mean the fact that he's a total and incomprehensible asshole?"
"Yes!" John said. "Well, no. But that's how I thought you'd see him."
"I do! It's fantastic!" Without another word, Harry stepped out the door, a bounce in her step.
The morphine was making John's head pound. Or maybe that was the concussion.
Author's Note: Reviews make me write faster. True story.