Sherlock had been a bit off the mark with his prediction. They hadn't had to restart his heart on the way to the A&E. They didn't even make it to the door of the flat before he crashed. They had shocked his heart three times so far, and nothing. All John could do was stand and watch.
Mary was doing the same from the other side of the room where she'd remained since Sherlock had collapsed in the middle of defending her with what might literally have been his last breath.
In less than an hour, the world had turned into an unrecognizable horror that not even his worst nightmares had ever approached.
Mary wasn't Mary. Nothing he knew about her was true. She was an assassin, and she had tried to kill Sherlock. And from what he was seeing now, she may well have succeeded.
The medics had been performing CPR for ten minutes now, and they were beginning to get that look John had seen too many times in his career. Determined to keep trying, but coming to accept that it was futile.
If his heart had held on for just five more minutes, they would have been in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital. Instead, they were trapped between two equally bad alternatives. Keep working on him in the flat where each passing moment reduced his chances of survival, or stop CPR for as long as it would take to navigate the gurney down the narrow stairs and around a 180 degree turn while his heart and brain quickly died of oxygen deprivation.
It was impossible to imagine tomorrow.
"Hold compressions. I'm gonna shock him again." The medic doing the chest compressions pulled his hands away and straightened up on his knees. The other medic applied the fourth shock, and immediately pressed two fingers to Sherlock's carotid. A moment later, he nodded to his partner. "He's back. Let's go."
John grabbed the doorframe and held on when his knees threatened to drop him. Across the room, Mary made a sound that could have been a muffled sob. He refused to look at her.
Sherlock's heart was working again, but whatever had caused the arrest was still going on, and time was critical. The medics were halfway down the stairs before John could get his legs in motion.
The race to the hospital was a nightmare of déjà vu, except that this time Sherlock was conscious and in such intense pain that all he could do was gasp into the oxygen mask, tears squeezing from tightly clenched lids.
Neither of them spoke. John couldn't trust his voice. Sherlock couldn't afford the oxygen.
John kept his eyes on the heart monitor and prayed.
It took eleven minutes to reach the A&E. John let go of Sherlock's hand and waited until the gurney disappeared through the doors to the treatment room before he backed up to a chair and collapsed. He had let Sherlock's condition deteriorate to this point because he was so wrapped up in his own misery that not even his best friend bleeding out in front of him had registered until it was too late. If Sherlock hadn't had the presence of mind to call for help before he came up those stairs, he would never have left the flat alive, and that was John's fault. All of it was his fault. Sherlock had risked his life for him again. Maybe for the last time.
They took him straight to surgery because there was no time to wait and see if he could be stabilized. John had robbed them of that.
Three hours later, the surgeon took John and Mycroft to a private consulting room. There were spatters of Sherlock's blood on the front of his blue scrubs and his shoe covers. John couldn't stop looking at it.
"He will be monitored in Recovery for another hour or so before we move him to his room. We've repaired the damage, but this is a very serious situation. He didn't have the reserves for another hit like this." He ran a hand through his hair, grimacing in frustration. "I would like to know what possessed him to do something so foolish." He looked questioningly at Mycroft and John.
"We don't know," Mycroft said smoothly. "I will station security outside his room now." He glanced at John. "I see that I should have done so from the beginning."
John listened only peripherally to the rest. The bottom line was that nothing made sense anymore, and Sherlock may have killed himself trying to put it right.
Mycroft had very little to say to him. He was outwardly calm, but John knew he was seething with fury at both John and Sherlock. Mostly at John. The clipped delivery of the few sentences he had spoken to John said it as clearly as a slap across the face. He blamed John for this, and if Sherlock died, John would never be forgiven.
If Sherlock died, the last thing John would care about was what Mycroft Holmes thought of him.
He got a text from Mary as they were taking him back to see Sherlock. I'm sorry. I love you. He deleted it and turned off his phone.
John's vigil was a solitary one this time. Mycroft left shortly after Sherlock was moved back to his private room. He had asked for a few minutes alone with his brother first, and John waited in the hall. He watched them through the window, though, and Sherlock seemed to be speaking as well as listening to whatever Mycroft found important enough to justify taxing his meager resources.
When Mycroft left, he stopped briefly to speak with John. "I won't be able to return for several days. Call immediately if he needs me." He walked away without waiting for a response.
Mycroft wasted no time getting in touch with Mary Watson. He called her from the car before it pulled away from the hospital, and she picked up on the first ring. He would come to her home to discuss their current situation. He was intentionally giving her home turf advantage. She was already backed into a dangerous corner, and he had no desire to push her any further.
She opened the front door when he pulled up in front of the house. When he walked inside, she was standing across the room.
"How is Sherlock?" She was apprehensive, but doing her best to hide it.
Mycroft glanced around the room. "Can we sit?"
"How is he?"
Mycroft walked to the nearest armchair and sat down. "His surgeon is concerned that he may not have the strength to deal with this latest blow. However, as I just told Sherlock myself, this was his own doing. If you were worried, I am not holding you responsible for his current condition." A necessary lie.
"He's out of surgery?"
"I wouldn't be here otherwise."
She moved to the chair facing him and sat down. "How's John?"
"I'm sure you can imagine how John is." He let that sink in. "Do you know what Sherlock was concerned about when we spoke an hour ago? Your welfare. He wanted me to promise not to hold this against you. Any of it." He smiled. "Apparently, we have no cause to be concerned with your being able to regain his trust. You already have it."
"He said that tonight," she said slowly, "but I thought it was just for John's benefit."
"Everything he does is for John's benefit. Surely you know that by now. His motives are very similar to your own. That's why he trusts you."
She studied him for a moment. "But you don't."
"If you were in my position, would you?"
She let her silence answer for her.
He nodded. "So we understand each other. I fully intend to carry out the remaining part of our arrangement with regard to Magnussen. Sherlock will convince John to reconcile with you. It will be up to you to regain John's trust. You still have his love, and his child. Those are powerful bargaining chips. You will then be able to fulfill your part of the bargain with regard to protecting Sherlock." He stood. "However, I will promise you this. If you ever threaten my brother again, there will be no corner of this planet remote enough to hide you from me. Do I make myself clear?"
She stood. "Perfectly."
"If you feel the need to contact John, I would recommend restraint. Allow him to come to you. Sherlock will be your greatest ally in this. Keep that in mind."
He left her standing in her living room. He stopped on the way to his office to meet with the surveillance team he had assigned to Mary Watson. If they allowed her out of their sight, they would answer to him. Personally.
It took thirty-six hours for Sherlock's condition to show improvement. John sat with him the entire time, talking when Sherlock was able, praying when he wasn't. At one point, Sherlock was stressing himself so badly trying to convince John that Mary was not the enemy that John had finally said he agreed, just to get him to rest.
The coma that had terrified John last time was not the issue this time around. For Sherlock's sake, he almost wished it were. His dangerously low blood pressure demanded a reduction in morphine dosage, and it left him in a lot of pain. Sherlock had tried to ride it out by clutching the bedrail. John let that go on for almost a minute before he gently pried Sherlock's fingers from the rail and gave him his hand. They quickly settled into what amounted to an arm wrestling grip, and it seemed to help him. It also provided John with a moment-by-moment gauge of how much pain Sherlock was suffering. By the time his condition permitted a return to adequate pain relief, Sherlock and John were both exhausted.
The days became routine, and certain points were agreed to without the need for discussion. The hospital staff placed a second bed in Sherlock's room, and John all but moved in. At first, he just recycled the clothes Mary had brought for him during Sherlock's first hospitalization. Mrs. Hudson took them home and brought them back next day, laundered and ready. He would eventually have to replace what he'd left behind with Mary. There was no question of going back to get his belongings, or of allowing Mary to come bring them to him. Sherlock suggested that once, and the look John had given him put an end to the topic. For nearly an entire afternoon.
"John, you need to keep the lines of communication open, for your child, if nothing else. It's never wise to cut off all options."
That immediately brought to mind the moment when Sherlock had seemingly cut off all options for all time. "It's not like I'm throwing myself off a building though, is it? Mary knows I'm still alive." It was cheap shot that he regretted the instant he saw it land. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"
"Yes, you did. And you're right. I know what a mistake you're making because I have empirical proof." He twitched the corner of his mouth in an almost-smile. "You may not believe she saved my life, but you know that she saved yours, and so do I. She needs to believe that there's still a chance." He went silent until John made eye contact, then held it for a long moment. "Please, John. Do it for me."
He wrote a letter that night, after Sherlock was asleep. There was a pad of hospital stationery in the bedside table, and a ball point pen. He wrote a half dozen drafts before he settled on the final version.
Mary,
Sherlock is going to recover. I know I don't have to tell you what that means to me, or what it would have meant if he hadn't. I let myself get so wrapped up in what was happening between you and me that I ignored what was happening to him. He could have died right there in the flat. I think I've been making the same mistake by not letting you know what's going on, so I'm fixing that now.
I don't know what's next. I'm trying to make sense of it all, but it's not going to be easy. It's going to take time, and I need you to give me that. Please don't call me, or text me, or contact me in any way unless it's a matter of life or death. That is how critical it is for me to have the distance it's going to take to work through it all. I hope you see that as a positive sign. I'm thinking about us and the baby. I haven't given up, and I don't want you to give up.
It would be so much easier if I didn't love you.
I will be moving back to Baker Street when Sherlock is discharged. I've resigned my job at the clinic so I can take care of him. He's going to need someone to do that, and I'm the only one he'll listen to, as much as he does. I need to be there. I think you understand. I hope you do.
Take care of yourself, and take care of the baby. I promise that I will get in touch as soon as I can.
John
It was what she needed to hear, and what Sherlock wanted to believe. Whether it would turn out to be true was still very much in question. He showed the letter to Sherlock the next morning before he sent it. John thought it would please him to have gotten his way, but it didn't seem to have that effect.
"That's good, John. Hope is important." He handed the letter back to John, and then spent the rest of the day until the dinner tray was delivered pretending to be asleep. It didn't fool John, but he didn't push. He was familiar with the mixed blessing of getting what you thought you wanted.
They watched telly for a few hours, and Sherlock still seemed subdued. John asked once if he felt alright, and got a somewhat clipped response. When he tried to feel Sherlock's forehead, he got an arched eyebrow and a light slap on the hand. His eyes looked fine, and the monitor readings were acceptable, so John let it drop. Sherlock finally drifted off about midnight.
A sound woke John at two in the morning, and he got out of bed to check on Sherlock. He seemed to be sleeping, but his face was damp with perspiration. John touched his forehead. "Shit." He looked at the monitor readout. Temp thirty-eight. "Shit."
Sherlock opened his eyes. "I heard you the first time." He coughed. "Fever. I noticed." He reached up and wiped the moisture from his upper lip with his fingertips, then rubbed his thumb over them, inspecting the dampness like evidence at a crime scene.
John flipped on the lights and started untying Sherlock's gown to get a look at the wound site. Sherlock blocked him. "That's not where the infection is." He reached for the dressing over where the original central line had been on the left side of his neck. "This has been bothering me. Couldn't get a look at it."
"Wait, let me." John said through clenched teeth. "Why didn't you say something?" He pulled the dressing back gently, and then closed his eyes in frustration at the inflamed flesh.
"It was just a little tender."
It seemed pointless to remind him that the removal of a central line is normally done with sterile gloves, and with a lot more care than he'd apparently given it during his daring escape from the hospital.
Sherlock was uncharacteristically quiet while the on-call doctor checked him over and ordered a broad spectrum antibiotic. When the new med was added to the collection above his bed, he leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
John sat in the chair he had spent so much time in during the previous crisis, scrubbing his hands over his face.
"I'm sorry, John."
John looked up. Sherlock's eyes were still closed. "Don't be a prat. It's not your fault."
Sherlock opened his eyes. "You look worse than I do."
John managed a chuckle. "Thanks."
"I'm serious. You need to go home. I'm fine."
John took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You're not exactly fine, and I'm not going home until you can come with me."
"You know what I mean. Go home to Mary. She needs you. You need her."
"You are relentless." John tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
"Only when I'm right."
"You're never wrong, remember?" John sat forward and looked at him. "And you can barely keep your eyes open. Go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
Sherlock smiled. "Don't think I'm too feverish to remember you said that."
Neither of them remembered it in the morning, because two hours later, Sherlock's temperature shot up to 40, and he was wrapped in cooling blankets to get it down. They fought the fever for 12 hours before the meds took hold and started to knock the infection back. Sherlock was miserable, shivering with cold and burning up at the same time. Before the fever finally broke, he was delirious, talking to Mary and John back at 221B. He was out of his mind with fever, and still pleading with John to trust her. John still didn't understand it, but he now knew it hadn't been an act for his benefit. Sherlock believed her.
The central line infection was the first setback.
Pneumonia followed, due in part to the shallow breathing pattern he'd adopted because it hurt to take normal breaths. Coughing to clear the infection was a necessary torture, and John dreaded it almost as much as Sherlock did. It hurt to watch. It was ghastly to endure.
Finally, a staph infection and another raging fever that held stubbornly at 40.5 for two days nearly finished what Mary had started. By the time he was discharged in early September, Sherlock was bored out of his mind but too weak to do anything about it.
John was ten pounds lighter and felt ten years older the morning he wheeled Sherlock out of the hospital and helped him into a taxi for the ride home to 221B. Helping him up the stairs to their flat was exhausting and frustrating. Sherlock was unreasonably surprised to find how weak he truly was, and the revelation made him sullen and snappish for a couple of hours. John understood, and let him work it out.
"It's been two months, Sherlock. Don't give yourself such a hard time."
Sherlock's campaign to get him to reconcile with Mary began almost from the first day home. He was infuriatingly persistent.
"I'll be fine on my own, John. I can get around perfectly well as long as I don't try to run, and there's isn't anything in this flat that's likely to make me chase it." He was sitting in his chair, having moved gingerly from the position John had left him in on the sofa, just to prove that he could.
John chose not to point out the perspiration the activity had put on his upper lip and forehead. "The only reason you're not still in hospital is that you have a full-time resident physician. If you're that eager to go back, just let me know. I'll have the flat to myself."
Sherlock huffed at that, then tried unsuccessfully to hide the wince. He had weaned himself off the morphine while still in hospital, and the non-opioid substitute was barely up to the task.
"I'll make you some tea. It's about time for your next dose."
He huffed again, but with noticeably less energy. "May as well drop them down the drain."
"We could try that. After you see what it feels like without them, you might have a bit more respect."
They developed a routine after a few days. Sherlock needed help with anything that would put stress on his chest or abdomen, and his balance was iffy. It was surprisingly easy to get food into him. He didn't tuck in like a hungry man, but he did eat. It was a deliberate sort of intake, like refueling an engine. He didn't seem to care what he was fed. He just put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed until the plate was empty.
John made sure he took his meds, and used every trick he'd learned over the years to keep him distracted and out of trouble. Mrs. Hudson did the shopping, and fussed over them at every opportunity, but there was a shadow over it. She had witnessed the destruction of John's life, after all, and he sometimes saw her looking at him with sympathy that turned instantly to a bright smile when she realized he'd caught her.
By the end of the second week, Sherlock was moving around the flat steadily enough so that John stopped hovering nearby, waiting to catch him.
Sherlock never seemed to miss an opportunity to mention Mary, and it began to wear on John's nerves.
"But you said you believed me." He followed John out to the kitchen where he'd gone in a futile attempt to discourage the current discussion. "She is not the enemy, John. Don't let Magnussen win."
John put down the tea kettle and rested both hands on the counter for a moment before he turned around. Sherlock was standing in the kitchen doorway, not leaning on anything, hands on his hips. He suddenly looked more like himself than he had in months. It completely washed the anger out of John, and made him smile.
Sherlock's determined expression slipped. "I didn't actually intend that to be funny."
John dropped his gaze to the floor and shook his head before he looked back up at Sherlock. "You just looked so... normal, all at once." He sighed. "I know what you're saying, but you have to let me work this out on my own. It doesn't matter how many times a day you say it. It has to be my decision." He turned back to the kettle.
To John's surprise, Sherlock let it drop, and didn't mention Mary's name for the rest of that day. Or the next. At first, it was a relief. As time passed, the topic became conspicuous by its absence. After nearly a week of telling himself that Sherlock was just using reverse psychology, he threw in the towel.
Sherlock was at the kitchen table peering into his microscope. He had resumed this activity just that morning, and it was an excellent indication that his pain was no longer an issue. That posture would have been impossible for him to maintain for long just a week ago.
John leaned against the counter and folded his arms. "Ok, you win."
"Win what?" He didn't take his eyes from the microscope.
"I'm ready to listen. Tell me why you're in such a hurry to get rid of me."
Sherlock sat back in the chair and looked up at him. "I'm not in a hurry to get rid of you." He took a deep breath without a trace of a wince. "Have you talked to Mary at all?"
John looked down at the floor.
"I thought not. I have."
That made him look up. "When?"
"Four times since we've been home. Once in the hospital. She came to see me the first day, but I..." He looked away for a beat. "I don't remember much about that."
"What did she say to you?" John was suddenly angry without being sure of his target.
"She never meant to hurt you, John. None of this was planned."
"She shot you." He had a target now. A clear one.
"She didn't mean to kill me. It was a carefully aimed-"
"Stop saying that!" He ducked his head and took a long breath. Then he looked at Sherlock and enunciated very carefully, keeping the emotion out of his voice. "She didn't shoot you in the leg, Sherlock. She missed your heart by a centimeter. You died before surgery, did you know that? The doctors had given up on you, and then your heart just started up again on its own." He puffed out a breath. "She either meant to kill you, or she didn't care. The outcome was the same."
Sherlock really looked at him then, deduction mode at full power. John lifted his chin and let him.
After a moment, Sherlock nodded to himself. "Have you asked yourself why she would want me dead? If that was her intention, she would have had a motive. What was it?"
John had asked himself that question many times. "To stop you from telling me that she was a fraud."
"But she knew I wouldn't. I offered to help her, in fact, with whatever Magnussen had on her. She could have left the way she came, and you would never have known she'd been there. She knew Magnussen wouldn't tell you because it would cost him his leverage. Absence of motive supports her statement that it was an accident."
John looked at the ceiling. "I don't understand any of this, but you defending her is..." He shook his head. "Nothing I thought I knew about her is true. She completely fooled me. And you, apparently. How is that even possible?"
"But she didn't fool me. I saw the person she really is, and so did you. Trust you instincts, John. You were right."
"The person I thought she was would not have tried to kill you."
Sherlock pressed his lips together, looking past him for a moment. "She was backed into a corner, and she let her reflexes take over. It was an anomaly. It's a mistake to let a single piece of data invalidate everything else you know."
"It's not a bloody experiment that went wrong, for Christ's sake!" He ducked his head to get his voice and his breathing under control. Shouting was pointless. "Sherlock, if you had died, I would never have known that she killed you." He looked up. "Do you have any idea how that feels?"
"But I didn't die. It makes no sense to punish her for what might have happened." He sighed in frustration. "John, you gave me the chance to apologize, and I don't see that her mistakes are any greater than mine. Everything she's done was to protect your marriage. She didn't set out to be a killer. She chose a profession that she thought would allow her to make a difference in the world. She fell for the recruiting poster propaganda, and she tried for too long to make it work. When she finally accepted that she'd been fooled, it was almost too late to quit, but she managed to get away at the risk of her own life. She became the person she was meant to be. The person you fell in love with. Magnussen was threatening her with exposure, and she made some mistakes in trying to protect herself and you."
John clenched his jaw and swallowed to dissipate the adrenaline. "There's nothing she could say that would undo any of it. It's too late for explanations." It had sounded like righteous indignation in his head. Saying it out loud smacked more of wounded pride.
"Mistakes can't be undone, John. That's why they require forgiveness."
John took a breath and puffed his cheeks blowing it out. "I'm not ready to talk to her. I'm not sure I ever will be. I'm asking you to stop this. Please. If you want to keep talking to her, that's your business, but do me the courtesy of keeping it to yourself."
Sherlock closed his eyes and tilted his head in a way John recognized. He wasn't happy about it, but he was going to give in. "I won't bring it up again." He walked past John and went down the hall. A moment later, John heard the bedroom door close.
The next afternoon, John was coming back from a trip to Tesco, plastic shopping bags in both hands, when he saw Mycroft Holmes step out of Speedy's. John stopped a few yards away from him. Mycroft stood looking at him for a moment. "John, my car is around the corner. I wonder if you wouldn't mind joining me for a few minutes."
John's shoulder sagged, but he nodded. The man never seemed to tire of snatching him off the street for these clandestine chats. "Fine."
John followed him to the car, climbed in after him, and placed the bags on the floor. He sighed. "What's on your mind, Mycroft? I have frozen stuff that's going to thaw. That gives us about ten minutes." He looked at his watch for emphasis.
Mycroft came directly to the point. "Sherlock is correct. You have to reconcile with your wife."
It was all he could do to keep from hurling himself at the man and throttling him where he sat. Instead, he took a deep breath and smiled. "I won't bother to ask how you know what Sherlock has been saying, but this is so clearly not your business that I don't even know where to begin."
Mycroft's smile was a false as John's. "I'm afraid it is very much my business, John. Sherlock's reasons for wanting you to go back with your wife are purely altruistic. Mine are practical. By continuing to refuse contact with your wife, you are leaving her no reason to hope. At the same time, you are living with someone she has every reason to see as the cause for her life coming undone. I am asking you to imagine for a moment what desperate measure you might be forcing her to consider."
John was speechless for a moment. "Even if I thought there was the slightest chance that she blames Sherlock for any of this, she's not going to come after him."
Mycroft lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? I believe she has already demonstrated her willingness to do whatever she deems necessary to protect herself and you. How can you assume she won't do so again?"
John's fury made him calm. "You're insane. This is what Sherlock has been trying to tell me all along, isn't it? He was in so much pain he could barely talk for those first few days, but even then he wouldn't stop trying to get me to forgive her. He was afraid for her, wasn't he?" He tightened his lips into a smile. "He was right all along."
Mycroft remained impassive. "Reconcile with your wife. Make her believe you've forgiven her, and she will cease to be a threat. I will remove the threat Magnussen poses to her freedom, and you can resume your life. Sherlock will be safe. Go home, John."
"I am home."
"But that's no longer true, is it? Do you truly intend to put your friend's life in jeopardy just to prove a point?"
The urge to wipe the smug smile off Mycroft's face was nearly overwhelming. "You will never get it, will you? This is why your brother does the crazy shit he does. You've smothered him his entire life, and now you're trying to dictate my life as well. What do you think he'll do when I tell him about this? Are you ready to have him cut you out of his life completely, because that's going to be his reaction, if he doesn't try to kill you first."
Mycroft's eyes turned dangerous. "I can't stop you from telling him about our talk, John. But I promise you this. If you do tell him, you will virtually guarantee the worst possible outcome for all of us. You're right. He will disown me, and all of the protection that's currently keeping him alive. Mary will kill him, or one of his enemies will kill him. Or he'll persist in trying to help you, and it will cost him his life. I'm asking you to consider the consequences, and make a choice for Sherlock's benefit as selfless as the ones he keeps making for yours."
John picked up the bags from the floor. "I won't do anything until I've had time to think it over. But I'll make you a promise, too. If anything happens to my wife, I will come after you, and not even Sherlock will be able to stop me." He got out before Mycroft could respond, then stood on the kerb and waited until the car pulled away.
Sherlock woke up on the sofa to find the flat silent and dark.
He made his way to the kitchen by the light coming through the windows from the street, flipped the switch for the overhead fluorescents and stopped. The groceries John had gone out to get hours ago were on the table. "John?"
He walked through the flat turning on lights. He walked to the bottom of the steps and called up the stairs. "John, are you up there?"
He returned to the kitchen and poked through the bags. The milk was warm. And then he saw John's phone on the counter, and the note beneath it.
Sherlock, I'm going out for a while. Just need some air. Don't worry. J
He had pressed John too hard. Mary had warned him not to, and had predicted that it would drive John away from him without sending him to her. She was afraid they would both lose him. But he'd thought he knew John better than anyone, including Mary. It was beginning to dawn on him that there may be no limit to how often he could be so disastrously wrong.
When she had sent him the first text asking him to call her, he had sent a text back telling her he needed to think about it. She had replied that she understood, but he needed to know that time was a factor. He'd taken it as a thinly veiled threat, and called her without a second's hesitation.
It wasn't a threat. Nor, she insisted, had her visit to him on that first night been anything but an apology. He had let her explain, comparing what she claimed to have said to his memory, and it made sense. Even knowing how skilled she was at deception, he listened to her during that call, and the next a few days later. They had to time their contacts with John's absence. Sherlock called her when he knew he would have an hour. He listened, and he asked questions, and he believed her.
She had told him during the last call that his brother had promised to stop Magnussen, but only if she would work for Mycroft. He had already heard the same thing from Mycroft. His brother had been so furious about his escape from the hospital and for his having told John the truth, that he'd never returned to the hospital. Somehow, knowing that Mycroft had tried to manipulate her like that made her a kindred spirit. Sherlock was familiar with Mycroft's intimidation, and it put him firmly on her side in a way that nothing else could have done.
He tried to think what he might have said or done before John left for the store that could account for his running off now. The note said not to worry, but that only told him that there was something to worry about. So, of course, that's exactly what he did.
Two hours later, John walked through the door to the kitchen and started putting away groceries as if he'd just taken a short break.
Sherlock was sitting in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin. "Have a nice walk?"
John glanced back at him. "Cold. Want some dinner?"
Sherlock got up and came out to the kitchen. "Did something happen?"
"Nope. Everything's great." He stacked a bagful of tinned vegetables in the cabinet and shut the door, then gathered up the empty bags and stuffed them in the bin. "How about scrambled eggs? I'm starved." He smiled.
Sherlock put his hands on his hips. "You're not going to tell me what made you drop everything and run out of the flat four hours ago."
John turned to the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs. "Eggs sound great to me. Sure you don't want some?" He shrugged out of his jacket and turned on the taps to wash his hands.
"John, what happened?"
John turned off the taps. "I needed some air. I got a little stir crazy. It's not a big deal unless you make it into one."
Sherlock studied John's expression, replayed his voice, measured his words. "I was worried."
Their eyes locked for a long moment. John blinked first. "I'm sorry I worried you. Forget it, okay? Next time, I'll drag you along. You need the exercise." He pulled out a pan and resumed his dinner preparations.
Sherlock watched him for a moment. "Eggs sound fine."
John smiled.
Mycroft returned to his desk at the Diogenes Club and turned on his laptop. When he clicked on the surveillance update, he was surprised to note that John Watson was not at 221B. He had left the flat only twenty minutes after he and Mycroft had parted company, and had been in motion ever since. Walking it off, Mycroft supposed. His mobile was still at 221B, which would explain Sherlock's agitation. The black and white image from the only camera he'd ever successfully hidden for more than a few hours showed his brother alternating between standing at the window, and pacing in a tight circle in the middle of the living room. The camera was tucked into the shadows at the top of the right hand bookcase flanking the fireplace. Its wide angle gave a full view of the living room and a sliver of the kitchen. That this one had managed to escape detection, Mycroft attributed to his brother's still fragile health. That knowledge erased any sense of satisfaction that the camera was still in place.
Mycroft scrolled back through the images. There was John entering the flat, viewed from the front of the building. Switching to the inside camera, he didn't pick John up again until he came to the doorway and looked over at the sofa where Sherlock was sleeping. He stood for a moment, then turned and moved out of camera range. Two minutes later, the exterior view showed him leaving the flat and turning to his right. He switched back to the interior footage and fast-forwarded through Sherlock waking, realizing he was alone, and hunting for his friend. The images caught up to the live feed, and Sherlock was standing still in the center of the room, fingers steepled under his chin.
"Sit down, Sherlock," Mycroft uselessly told the image. "You're wearing yourself out."
But Sherlock wearing himself out over John Watson was hardly new. Risking his life for him wasn't new, either. The most recent example had been to show John the truth about his wife, something he could have told him from the sane safety of his hospital bed, but chose to demonstrate because he couldn't bear to say the words. Mycroft was furious with his brother, but he was just as angry with himself. He should have anticipated that Sherlock would do exactly what he did.
His frustration at Sherlock's unutterable stupidity had made him lash out at him when he'd been barely an hour out of that second surgery. It had also kept him away from the hospital, angry enough to push aside his fear. Sherlock had been just as close to death the second time as he'd been the first, and already weakened by the first episode. Mycroft knew how fortunate he was that Sherlock had not died while he'd been off nursing his temper, but he simply could not understand how Sherlock could have risked his life so needlessly. Nothing angered him like waste, and this would have been the greatest waste he could imagine.
Mycroft knew he was risking his own relationship with John. Their confrontation this afternoon had been the result of a carefully considered set of data, but dealing with human emotions was still a roll of the dice, and there was little he hated as much as leaving anything to chance. John needed to side with Mary, and Mycroft had offered himself as a very plausible threat to force John's hand. And it had worked, if only for that moment. John leaving the flat without talking to Sherlock, and leaving his phone behind, were indicative of the emotional impact, but did not yet point to an outcome.
John Watson had accused Mycroft of being insane, and there may be some truth to that. Mycroft had offered salvation to the woman who had very nearly killed his brother. He would have kept his word. He'd been in the process of it, in fact, when Sherlock had blown it all to hell.
In defiance of all logic, Mycroft was still trying to put their lives back the way they'd been before Magnussen came on the scene. Magnussen was the only reason Mary Watson's true colors had come out. Sherlock was the only reason she had not succeeded in stopping him. He was also the reason Mycroft's plan had failed. Mycroft felt his anger rise quickly once more.
And then he looked at the live feed and saw Sherlock standing at the window, looking down at the street. Suddenly, he leaned into the glass and bowed his head, and Mycroft was on his feet in spite of the fact that he could do nothing to help. But Sherlock wasn't collapsing. He looked up, almost straight at the camera, and the expression on his face was so filled with relief that Mycroft knew what had just happened. John must be coming up to the door.
A moment later, Sherlock turned and sat down in his chair, eyes on the door. Seconds later, it opened, and John Watson came home.
End of Chapter 9
