Handle with care

Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC and the guys who invented them. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made.

Chapter 7 was beta-ed by Graveofthefireflies! Many thanks to her and her medical advice.

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Chapter 7

It took him almost two hours until they were through every detail. John stopped the stream of words several times with questioning looks or gestures or something else, that made Sherlock tag a fact for further discussion later because John might want to add something.

When he was still listing what he had tested without result two nurses and Dr Herald came in. He saw in John's eyes he knew they came to take the tube out… and that he was not looking forward to the procedure. It was good to get better and better reading John's facial expressions.

After a short conversation in which John nodded or shook his head several times they asked Sherlock to step out, he refused and John nodded, so this was permission to stay.

John gagged when they removed mucus with a suctioning device.

Sherlock winced inwardly, now remembering when he had been extubated. This felt quite ugly, why hadn't he deleted that sensation?

A few moments later they pulled the thing out and John heaved, his face was red and he tried to suppress the urge to vomit and cough.

"You need to cough it up, don't force it, but don't suppress it either, Dr Watson."

John raised his hands, shaking his head.

"'m fine" John whispered and visibly regretted to have tried to speak immediately. They elevated the head of the bed slightly and put an oxygen mask on his face.

"Okay, take your time and settle down. You'll get lunch in two hours, relax until then." Doctor and nurses vanished and they were left alone again. As soon as they were out John removed the mask from his face and let his head fall back, sighing.

"Thank you…" he whispered.

"What for?" Sherlock didn't understand.

"For stayin' with me, for be'ere… for… baggin'e… for bein'there, then. For… " He coughed and retched slightly.

"Shut up… your throat is irritated, don't talk more than necessary."

"It's ne'sary." He coughed once more, then let his eyes close.

Sherlock sensed the other man's exhaustion. Did he need to rest, again?

"Sleep, John." He ordered in a low voice, though John looked as if already asleep.

John was already drifting and then gratefully let himself fall back to sleep.

Sherlock placed the oxygen mask back on his face.

Now that John was asleep he could… try to sneak into a lab and do some tests he hadn't the bulky equipment that was needed for those special tests. He needed to find out about that dried liquid… and the fibre.

…Maybe he should do some other tests he hadn't thought off. Those he had in mind wouldn't require him to go down to the labs, he could do them with the stuff he had in the room, but they were not as significant as the other ones. But the benefit was he could do them without leaving the room…

He did the tests, but they brought no new insights. Frustrated he spent quite some time walking up and down their current habitat.

.

At lunchtime he was still pacing the room when the nursing assistant brought some soup. The canteen kitchen dishwasher smell of the tray, plates and cutlery made him loose all concentration and left him unnerved, but the stinky soup itself made him nauseous. Gladly John slept through it, not affected by the smell at all. He once more wished he could dial down his senses sometimes. When he was ready to throw the thing at the hallway floor the girl came back.

When she saw John hadn't eaten she got ready to wake him, probably with the intention to make him eat the disgusting liquid, Sherlock stepped between her and the bed.

"You will not wake him just to make him eat that poor washings you dare to call a meal!" His voice was low and transported enough anger and authority to make the young thing hurry out with the smelly tray. John didn't even stir. Sherlock felt as if he had prevented another attack at John's life… or was that concoction something that would have helped him heal faster? This was a hospital, it was supposed to do things that heals people, but on the other hand…

Sherlock's thoughts continued to run in circles, around the case, the meal, the investigation and his course of action. Every minute detail had been thought about hundreds of times during the night, and what unnerved him the most was that there had been no news since last night.

He texted Mycroft, demanded to get news.

Mycroft ignored him.

Next he texted Lestrade and told him to come and discuss the new evidence he had found on the package… Although he still hadn't been down to the labs to know what they were.

Since when was he so unorganised?

This was ridiculous! He grabbed the evidence bags and headed to fetch a cab that would bring him to Bart's.

The guard at the door tried to make him stay but he ignored him.

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He had only spend about thirty minutes in the lab when Molly joined him.

"Hi." She shyly stated.

"Leave."

"Uh, good day to you, too. Nice to see you, actually. What are you doing?"

"Molly, I need to concentrate, this is important."

"What happened?" She had decided to ignore his rudeness long ago.

"The Chinese syndicate we talked about earlier… John was attacked. I need to find them before they strike again."

"Oh god, how is he?" Molly frowned alarmed.

"He is in the hospital, ICU. Several scorpion bites, they send them in a package, disguised as a delivery."

Molly raised her hands to her mouth, kind of overwhelmed with the bad news.

Sherlock ignored her.

"How is he?…" Molly tried again.

"Resting. He was given the antidote fast and will make a full recovery if everything goes as planned."

"God, I'm sorry. What can I do to help?"

Sherlock had already taken a breath to refuse any of her offers for help and send her away when he realised she might be of help with the substance. Ca2+ 2-O-Cl or Ca(ClO)2

"I found a minute concentration of Calcium Hypochlorite and… silver ions in a dried liquid and I am trying to find out what this combination is used for."

"Anything else in it?" Molly asked coming closer.

"Water… I need some internet, can I use your account?"

"What for?"

"I can't go home to…."

"You don't need the internet. This is used in caravanning. Micro-pour or something like that."

"What?" He lifted his head from the microscope and looked at her, kind of flabbergasted.

"You are sure?"

"Of course… My family used to go camping and my father loved to lecture me about every chemical at hand. This is used to keep the water in the tank drinkable. Needs to work for about thirty minutes after pouring it in. The advantage is minor bad taste in comparison to other stuff…. "

"Oh, Molly, this is great!" Sherlock praised her insight. She raised her eyebrows.

"You're okay?"

"Yes, why?"

"You look kind of… tired… Is John okay?"

"He'll be fine. He's sleeping it off."

"There was something else on the package, some hair that was covered… that was in contact with some other liquid. I assume it was urine, but I am not sure what kind, the equipment I took was not good enough to figure that out."

"Oh, so you were the thief! We had police here all morning because half the lab was missing. Why didn't you just ask?… Or at least informed me afterwards."

"Who else would've taken it, I thought it was obvious."

"Right, of course. I should have known." Was there a sarcastic undertone in Molly's voice?

They started an analysis of the urine, letting the computer run a comparison with the database.

As soon as it was running Sherlock scanned the fibre itself for another analogy search.

It had only ran for about two minutes when the alarm sounded. Molly turned towards the screen and giggled.

"What is it?"

"Hylobatidae excrements."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, this is great! They can't be this dumb, can they?"

"What?" Now Molly was lost.

"Could you be so kind to prepare those two for evidence?... This is important, Molly... Thank you so much." He was out of the door before Molly had understood what had happened at all.

"Sure..." She answered the empty room.

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Sherlock was in the elevator to the ICU when Lestrade texted him.

Already on my way to you anyway. Lestrade

Sherlock entered the ICU room and found John sleeping exactly in the same position as before... the room was also unchanged. He sat down in the chair again to think about this. It was so obvious he asked himself if they had planted a false trail to mislead him.


A/N:

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