It started with a fever and progressed quickly. The sores were unmistakable. John had reeled at the first sight, hands thrown under hot water that scalded his flesh through the suds of soap as his pulse raced in terror. Had he touched the sores? Had they seeped through the cloth he'd helped to roll back? The part of his mind not shutting down to nothing more than fight or flight reminded him that he was better than that, more careful than that, that he'd seen the raised bumps long before he recoiled and even had there been any contact, he had no open wounds on the hands he took great pains to sanitize. That didn't help his patient, though. There was no hiding this and no way of treatment. If word got out that infection had returned to Newton Magna, the entire Grangerford house would fall and every wall would burn to ash over their cold corpses. John was looking at his death in bloodshot, feverish eyes as Sophie Grangerford wept in the center of the kitchen, sleeves rolled up over her elbow to expose her blistered skin.

He'd expected pregnancy in her plea for discretion, some generalized panic in what her family would think if they found out rather than a genuine cause for alarm. John never for one second thought it could be this. This required something Newton Magna no longer harbored-a current contagion. This was, by all accounts, impossible.

Sophie rolled her sleeves back down, cheeks red as tears streamed down them. "They're going to kill me," she said, a hiccup interrupting the last sound as her arms wrapped around to hold herself firm.

John swallowed hard. Yes; yes they were. "Sophie... I'm.. so sorry."

She squeaked on a sob and John wished he had lied if only to not be left to stand so many feet apart with no recourse but to watch the young woman cry. Even if general practice didn't allow for it, the instinct to hold and to comfort was strong. He saw her every day. He was more or less a friend of her parents. They lived in the same house. He tried not to be sidetracked by the fear that sentiment brought with it, wondering what surfaces she'd touched that could pass along the virus. He clenched his hands into fists beside him as they idled with intermittent tremors. "How long has it been like this, Sophie?" he asked, keeping his voice down more so not to frighten her than in keeping to any promise.

Sophie sniffled, rubbing at her eyes. "They were there when I woke up this morning. I thought-" she hiccuped, the convulsion springing snot along her upper lip which she wiped on her wrist as she wept. "I thought people would think I had it so I... but I never thought I really did!" She surged forward for comfort and John fell back, banging his love handles against the counter as he threw himself several more feet away than she gained in her outreach. She pulled back, hugging herself once more as her cries escalated into wails.

John concentrated on breathing evenly to settle his heartbeat as the pain in his side went unfelt along the rise in adrenalin. Everything in her room would need to be burned and the entire place put in perpetual quarantine. Every door she might have touched would have to be removed. Someone was going to have to kill her and the kinder option was certainly him when the alternatives were her own flesh and blood. If she hadn't already doomed them all to die.

He edged around the counter, keeping his eyes on her as she stood still in barely contained hysterics. There was nothing he could do for her, as he was sure she knew. But there was still something she could do for them. "How did you get it, Sophie?" he asked, the skin on the back of his neck growing tight with the thought of breathing in the same air.

She shook her head furiously. "I don't know," she said, sniffing back on snot as she shivered with fever.

"Sophie, you can't help them by hiding them. Other people will get sick."

She shook her head again, back straight as she steeled herself with deep breaths. It took a few moments but she seemed to get herself composed, bottom lip still trembling while her arms held herself in comfort. "This is God's judgement," she said at last with a voice much stronger than before. "The vicar was right. This is punishment. We can't escape God's will."

John pursed his lips. "Sophie... sickness doesn't work that way. There are rules of contagion. We know how this thing spreads. You had to get it from someone. Who else is sick, Sophie?"

If she heard him, she chose instead to ignore him. Sinking to her knees, she clasped her hands in front of her heart and began to pray, lips moving on words muttered too quietly to be heard. John stood and watched only for so long as it took to realize she would tell him nothing then smashed her in the skull with a cast-iron frying pan left in the sink to soak. He rinsed it off then threw it in the bin before making his way back into the hall.

Sherlock was there. His tall shadow caused mild alarm for only a second before its characteristics brought forth relief instead. John's hands were steady but his knees were weak. He fell into the first chair he saw and exhaled shakily on the breath he'd long held since his fingers curled around the heavy handle.

Sherlock kept his distance, head cocked slightly with interest like a bird of prey observing his meal. "Is she dead?"

John shook his head, lips white between his teeth. "Unconscious. I think. I didn't check but... guess it doesn't matter."

Sherlock nodded, pacing along the rug with slow, purposeful steps. "We'll have to have our actions mapped out before her parents wake. Convincing the family of what has to be done is a small matter compared to what the village is to know."

John's head was swimming with the taste of bile, his thoughts tripping over the image of the praying young girl now laying on the floor. He felt perhaps he followed well enough, though, as Sherlock continued talking.

"If anyone outside this house discovers Sophie contracted the virus, we'll all be considered among the infected and murdered. However, her regular church attendance means we have very little time to consider a believable alternate narrative. Then, of course, there's the matter of identifying who infected her and by what means. Do you see what we have here?"

"A case, yes, great, but can we spend maybe five minutes remembering the fact that I just smashed a teenager in the head with a blunt instrument?"

Sherlock stopped pacing, looking down at John with a blank stare before slowly marching back towards his chair. "Do you want me to see to her?" he asked, his voice respectfully lowered.

John shook his head, resting his face in his hands. "No. I don't want you going in there. I don't want anyone going in there. I just... I needed her not to come out either."

Sherlock watched him, keeping his distance as he allowed for silence to fall. There were creaks in the floorboards within the silence, the rustle of leaves on the wind through an open window, the sounds of footsteps overhead and the running water of a shower. Silence was never really silent when even John's own pulse in his head boomed loudly against his eardrum. But there was no talking, at least, and no more thoughts as the ones he had left set themselves to filter categorically by means which would allow him to move on. "So much for 'do no harm'," he said with a chuckle, allowing humor to bring him levity as was so often his means of coping.

Sherlock nodded, face impassive though peaceful. "You're not a monster, John. Far from it."

John smiled with a wince, allowing himself to nod and accept the words to some degree even though his own heart screamed otherwise. John knew well his answer to the call to fight or flee. Didn't mean he was proud that his answer to the smeared snot and pus stained sleeves was to grab at the heaviest object within arm's reach and swing to contain it.

The family would come down soon, though. They'd understand. Even in their grief and horror they'd rally to the call to murder and assist in their daughter's end. That was what the world had come to. That was the humanity left to the human race that was worth protecting and saving. John felt sick with the knowledge of it and his part to play in the whole. He knew but he hadn't known. It was so much worse to be a part of it than it had ever been to observe with judgement.

"We have very little time, John," Sherlock reminded him, still quieted under John's stress.

The soldier breathed deep and pushed the doctor aside as he sat up, nodded firmly, and clasped his hands in his lap against the retreating tremors. "Doesn't do to lie about it when we know there is someone out there infecting other people. We need to figure out who else is sick before we work out a story for the Grangerfords."

Sherlock smiled slightly with the warmth of grace and turned back to his pacing as though nothing had stalled him. "We've been in the Grangerfords' company for over a week and have observed the family habits in that time. Sophie has two haunts and two haunts only: home and the church."

"Yes, but we've both seen the church. It's generally full of people. Even if someone in stage two was there, someone would have recognized it." John crinkled his brow against a headache brewing amongst clouded thoughts. "Wait, no, even more than that. They've been infection free for over a month but this disease kills in a matter of days. For it to still be active in the community, we're talking about a mass contagion of at least ten people back-to-back keeping the disease in circulation. There is no way a village this size could hide that."

"Agreed," Sherlock said, his left brow arched in interest. "So who infected Sophie Grangerford?"

John didn't know. He didn't even have the heart to guess. He heard the footsteps on the stairs, the distinctive click of short heels, and felt his breath disappear from his lungs. From his stance on the rug, Sherlock looked over his shoulder at the yet unseen addition and hurried to John's side, pulling him up from his chair and shoving him back towards the kitchen door.

"Wha-?"

"Wait for me," Sherlock instructed, all but shoving John back through the kitchen door as he slammed it closed behind him, himself still on the side of the hall where his voice raised in a cheerful greeting to the inquisitive tone of Mrs. Grangerford's own. Whatever Sherlock was working on, it wasn't informing the family of the unfortunate morning reveal. John had half a mind to disobey and launch himself into the conversation he wasn't yet ready for but still should have been having. Half a mind was not enough to revolt against Sherlock, though. That required a majority vote which John was almost always set to lose.

Sophie was still laid out on the floor as she'd crumpled, not having moved in the slightest. There was a thin line of blood on her face but nothing substantial. He thought he even saw her breathing. It shouldn't have been a comfort, they were going to kill her anyway, but he couldn't lie and say there wasn't a bit of peace to be had in not murdering a young girl mid-prayer. He'd hardly moved at all when Sherlock joined him, shouldering him aside as he stepped over the body-not to investigate it as he nearly shouted at him not to do, but to get to the refrigerator and extract from within it a carton of fresh eggs.

"We're making breakfast this morning," he said, grabbing too the package of bacon left over from the day before.

John glanced from the unconscious body to Sherlock and back again with the stutter of thoughts unformed. "We're making-there's a sick girl on the floor who one way or another is probably going to be the death of us all," he said, reminding him of what only minutes before had been the agreed upon focus.

Sherlock nodded, kicking closed the door to the fridge as he walked his ingredients to the counter. "A girl who has been a part of an infectionless community for months-or, at the very least, a community that has shown no signs of infection."

John glanced again at the girl, the adrenalin rushing through him no longer linked to his previous actions. "You think this could be connected to you. Her or someone here, they could be just like you," he voiced to the tingle of realization.

Sherlock shifted through pots and pans with a noisy, hollow clang as he knelt beside the dark wood cabinets to further his dutiful rummaging. "It would appear to be the most likely scenario given what we know," he said, finding at last what he was looking for as he stood and spun the wide pan in the air. "If it is, though, and I'm right about what I suspect of Mrs. Hardgrove, it would appear I only have another week or so to live."