Thanks as ever to ThessalyMc and Sevenpercent for the advice, and to everyone for reading and for the lovely reviews. Glad you're all enjoying it!
This scene comes BEFORE the Mary running up the stairs in the hospital one, before anyone gets confused. All will be explained soon, I promise.
He texted Mary from the cab on the way home an hour later.
'On my way back. Hopefully catch you before you leave for work.'
'Everything okay?'
'I'll explain when I see you.'
He couldn't face telling her over the phone. Better to wait another twenty five minutes until he could get home. He fired off a quick text to a Lestrade too, telling him that Sherlock had survived surgery, that it looked as if he would pull through.
Then he pulled up Mycroft's number and sat there considering. He hadn't heard from him. Not a word. He couldn't still be in that meeting, surely? Had he contacted the hospital directly or did he simply not care? Logically, John knew that wasn't the case, but still, he found Mycroft's degree of disconnection frustrating. After Sherlock's jump from Bart's roof he had been the same. Cold, removed. It wasn't the disinterest that John had found so hard to bear, it was his entire disconnection with John himself. As if Sherlock's apparent removal from Mycroft's life necessitated an end to his connection with John also. After two years of being expected to drop everything at Mycroft's phone call to keep Sherlock safe, he was suddenly simply ignored, like a Victorian governess once their ward was safely married.
Despite his grief, John couldn't help but be offended by this. It wasn't as if he and a Mycroft were ever exactly going to be best friends, but there had been an acquaintance there, a connection in their concern for Sherlock. John had risked his life in the pursuit of cases for Mycroft, and suddenly it was simply switched off, like a light in an empty room.
He considered texting Mycroft to tell him that Sherlock was out of surgery; phoning Anthea even, but then why should he? Let Mycroft stew a little longer, if he cared at all.
The ringing of his phone made him jump. Damn the man, how did he always do that?
'Is he alive?' asked the familiar voice without preamble.
'Morning Mycroft. Lovely to talk to you too,' John said briskly.
'Is he alive, John?'
'Yes, he's alive. He survived surgery. He's on Intensive Care at The London.'
Mycroft Holmes let out a sigh of relief. 'Thank God,' John thought he heard him mutter.
'What happened?'
'He got shot. Mycroft, where have you been ? I phoned you hours ago.'
'I was in a meeting.'
'You were in a meeting for - ' John looked at his watch. 'Ten hours?
'Longer.'
John had no reply for this. 'What happened, John?' Mycroft asked.
'He got shot,' John said bluntly.
'I am aware of that. I am asking how and why he got shot.'
John struggled to control his temper, wondering why Mycroft Holmes always had this effect on him. 'You mean you haven't seen the police report yet? You're slipping, Mycroft.'
'I have just come out of a meeting which lasted for far longer than should have been possible. On my reemergence into the world of humanity, Anthea immediately informed me of the events of last night. She has done a little research to flesh out the details, certainly, but I have looked at none of this. Instead, my first reaction was to telephone you to discover if my brother was alive and to ensure that the culprit had been detained. So if you wouldn't mind, John, tell me what happened.'
John sighed, and sat back in his seat, rubbing his aching neck, and wondering how much he should tell Mycroft. But it would all be in the police report anyway, wouldn't it? And Mycroft might be able to help find the shooter who had disappeared like a ghost.
'We went to Magnussen's office,' John said.
'Why?'
'Sherlock was looking for something that he thought might be there,' John replied.
'Lady Elizabeth Smallwood's letters? For an intelligent man, my brother really can be remarkably stupid. They were bait, of course. Bait for a fool, and he fell straight into the trap.'
'You think it was a trap?' John said. 'And how the hell did you know about the letters?'
'I watch John, I observe. I knew that Lady Smallwood had been to 221b Baker Street. I was aware that Magnussen had made contact with her, and I was aware of the likely nature of her so called pressure point.'
John let out a string of soft swear words. 'Mycroft, if you knew what was going on, then why the hell didn't you do something to stop this?'
'I warned him John, if you remember. I warned him yesterday morning, but since when have I been able to stop my brother from doing anything that he felt was required for a case? Now tell me about the shooter.'
John gave Mycroft a brief summary of events. He told him of their entry into the building and the office. He chose not to include the use of Janine, and Mycroft, who was flicking through the police reports while John was talking by the sound of it, chose not to ask. He told him of finding Janine and the security guard out cold on the floor, of Sherlock going upstairs to Magnussen's office, and of finding Sherlock collapsed on the floor some ten minutes later.'
'Nine minutes,' Mycroft murmured.
'What?'
'It was fourteen minutes between you and Sherlock entering the lift and your telephone call to Emergency Services. Allowing for the seventy five seconds that it takes for that lift to reach the top floor, the three minutes it would have taken you to walk through the office and discover the staff members on the floor, and the average of forty five seconds that it takes someone to contact emergency services when they discover a loved one collapsed, that leaves nine minutes unaccounted for.'
'Do we have to do this now, Mycroft?' John asked wearily.
'I'm on my way back,' Mycroft said in clipped tones. 'I should be there by this afternoon. I suppose I could contact Lestrade in the interim for the finer details, if there's nothing else that you can tell me about the shooter.'
'He was left-handed, we think, if that helps.'
'Who thinks?' Mycroft suddenly sounded interested.
'James MacPherson, the surgeon who operated on Sherlock, based on the bullet trajectory. It's an interesting theory, although...'
'I'll look into it,' Mycroft said, and then he was gone in his usual abrupt way.
'Thank you, John, for saving my brothers life - again. Thank you, John for keeping a vigil for him all night, not knowing if he was going to live or die. Thank you John, for turning your life upside down, yet again. No of course, fucking not!'
The cabby slid back the partition to the passenger compartment as they stopped in traffic, half turning to ask, 'You alright,mate?'
'Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry.' John mumbled, realising that he had been shouting at his phone.
'We'll have you home soon. Been at work have you?'
'You could say that,' John replied.
...
Mary must have known from his expression when he walked in, because the first thing she did when he walked through the door was enfold him in a huge hug. 'You reek of hospitals,' she said. 'What happened?'
'Sherlock-' he started, then shook his head as his voice started to crack. Mary pulled him over to the sofa and sat him down.
'Sherlock what? Did he get hurt? Is he okay?'
Mary looked tired too, he registered. She was dressed for work, make-up partly hiding the dark shadows under her eyes, but she looked pale beneath it, as if she'd hardly slept.
'Didn't you sleep?' he asked, trying to delay the moment when he'd have to tell her.
'I had a late night with Cath,' she said. ' Stupid really. You know what we're like when we get talking, and then I kept waking up to see if you were home yet. But stop changing the subject. Tell me what happened.'
'Sherlock got shot,' he said, looking down.
'What? John, no. What happened? Is he okay?'
'He's been in surgery most of the night. But he's alive. Just. He's on ITU at The London. Christ, Mary. I thought I was going to lose him again.'
Mary's face was a perfect image of loving concern, as she pulled him into her arms, and let him rest his head on her shoulder. 'I thought he was going to die,' he whispered, and she held him, and rocked him, and he fought back the urge to cry.
'Is it bad?' she asked when he finally pulled away, accepting a tissue from the box that she handed him and blowing his nose loudly. 'I mean, where did he get shot?'
'Right side of his chest, but the bullet ended up going through his IVC.'
Mary went so white that he thought she might faint. 'Hey, hey,' John said. 'He's okay, well he's not okay, but the odds are on his side now. It was getting him through surgery that was dicey.'
'But you said he got shot on the right side of his chest. The inferior vena cava is in the middle, isnt it - so how did that happen?'
'It was on the right side, but closer to the middle than I thought initially too. His damned shirt must have been slightly off centre. From where the wound was relative to the buttons I thought that it would be a simple lung injury too, but it wasn't. It was a proper mediastinal injury. The bullet just clipped the right atrium, went through the IVC and missed his spinal cord by a couple of centimetres.'
He paused. 'You okay?' he asked, noticing that Mary's colour had gone from white to green. 'Back in a sec,' she said as she ran from the room.
Morning sickness. Of course. At eighteen weeks it was finally starting to abate, but it still took her by surprise at times.
'Sorry,' she said when she returned a few minutes later. 'The parasite is making it's presence felt again.'
'It's a beautiful parasite,' he said, putting a hand on her neat, and hardly noticeable bump. If you didn't know, you would hardly realise that she was pregnant.
'So is Sherlock going to be okay? Really? I mean, they repaired the damage? Is he going to have any long term consequences of that, do you know? Have they said?'
'Hey, slow down,' John said, reaching out her hand, feeling oddly as if he was comforting her. He'd known that she liked Sherlock, but he hadn't expected her to be quite so upset by him being hurt. 'He's alive. That's good enough for me at the moment. I thought he was going to die in the ambulance, or in the resus room in A&E, or in theatre. All of those looked very possible last night. But he's on ITU, and he's doing okay, and James, the cardiothoracic surgeon who I know from medical school is cautiously optimistic. We don't know what effect the prolonged drop in blood pressure will have on him in the long-term. I mean, he could have hypoxic brain injury, but lets just take it one step at a time.'
Mary pulled him into another hug. 'I'm sorry, John, I'm so sorry.'
'It's not exactly your fault, is it? But I appreciate the sentiment. Lestrade and his team are looking for the shooter, anyway. Let's hope they find him.'
'Any clues?'
'Not yet. He disappeared like a ghost. No DNA, no fingerprints, nothing.'
Mary nodded, thoughtfully. 'Professional job?'
'Looks like it.'
'Poor Sherlock,'she murmured. Then, 'Shall I run you a bath?'
'Don't you have to get to work? I don't want to make you late.'
'And leave you on your own after the night you've had? Not likely. I'll do a swap with Tracey. She's on admin this morning, I think. Good job you're on a day off. You going to cancel the rest of the week?'
'I don't know,' John said, running a hand through his hair, suddenly realising exactly how tired he was. 'Maybe. Depends what happens. I'll phone them later, get them to cut down on my clinic for tomorrow anyway, just in case somebody else does have to step in.'
He heard her on the phone while he was in the bath. 'All sorted?' he asked as he re-emerged into the bedroom, rubbing his hair dry with a towel.
'It's fine. I swapped my morning baby clinic for this afternoon's dressing one. I don't have to be in until two.'
'You swapped into a leg ulcer and stinky wounds clinic? You must really love me.'
'I must, mustn't I?'
And then she curled up with him in their perfect bed, arms tight around him, holding him as he fell asleep. And all he could think was, 'Thank God for Mary. Because even if I did lose Sherlock again, at least I'll have her. At least I'll always have her.'
