Mycroft had insisted that Sherlock stay in hospital for monitoring until his "condition improved." John wanted nothing more than to steal him away and tuck him into his own bed, far from the ward psychiatrist who wanted to push anti-psychotics into him. Mycroft had at least been permissible on the subject of all medical treatments first passing John's approval.
That's how they'd ended up with nothing but a fluid drip of antibiotics and nutrients, a heart monitor, and regularly changed bandages on Sherlock's leg. John himself performed checks for infection on the wound six times per day, avoiding at all costs the risk of fever and further delirium.
Sherlock was very rarely combative or hard to deal with. Most of the time, he honestly seemed to know what was going on, and could have normal conversations with John or with Mycroft or a passing nurse. However, just when it seemed that he had gained all mental faculties back, he would go stiff and his eyes would become unfocused. He never talked when he was like that, and he moved infrequently in a such a way that it seemed like he was being restrained by invisible ropes. John decided after the third time that this signaled Sherlock imagining himself to be back in the isolation tank and bound. At first John had offered comforting words and soft touches to Sherlock's arm, but that typically only agitated him further.
On the second night of Sherlock's incoherence, John tucked himself into the unoccupied bed nearby (thanks Mycroft, I think), setting an alarm for 3 am so he could check the bandages again.
/
John jolted upright in the bed. He was sure he'd heard something. He blinked at the digital clock on the side table. 1:49, it read. He glanced over at the rumpled and haphazard blankets on the other bed, hardly able to distinguish anything in the merciful darkness. He lay back down, convinced that Sherlock must have been talking in his sleep, or some nurse had been passing through.
/
This time the alarm woke him. 3:01 said the red numbers. John rolled out of bed and lay his upper body back on it for a few seconds, not quite looking forward to prodding and maneuvering a potentially non-compliant Sherlock. Finally, he stumbled over to the other bed and clicked the light switch button on the handrail.
"Holy shit," John said instantly. Sherlock was gone.
John immediately ran over to the small bathroom connected to the room. It was empty. He raced back to the bed to look for clues to Sherlock's mysterious disappearance. The IV had been none-too-gently ripped out, leaving little spots of blood on the white sheets. The pillow had fallen onto the floor and the heart monitor clip had been stretched across the bed, as if Sherlock had just gotten up and started sleepwalking without bothering to remove it first.
John went to the door, ready to burst into the hallway and knock off a few incompetent staff's heads, when he happened to glance back at the room. The window was leaning open.
"Oh my god," John said, his eyes growing wide with horror. Their room was on the 10th floor.
/
1:45 am
Someone had let him out of the isolation tank. It was marvelous. All his bonds were gone, except for some wiry bit that was clenched tightly around his arm. He was able to pull his hand free of that easily enough, although it did give a little pinch with the effort.
He planted his feet on the ground and moved through the darkness. The floor was cold and his legs were made of cotton or perhaps gelatin. He sauntered toward the silvery light that was flowing through a window.
Where am I? he wondered. Sherlock pushed the window open to gauge the outside temperature. That's when he saw a little sign in the courtyard that said HOSPITAL. Well that won't do. I shouldn't be in the hospital. I am not sick, nor am I injured. Sherlock enjoyed his conclusion and decided to leave.
/
3:05 am
John couldn't control his suddenly loud breathing. He slowly approached the window, the image of Sherlock's body lying cracked and broken ten stories down burning itself into his mind. Dead. He would be dead. There would be no question about it. John contemplated the noise which had woken him hours earlier. It had sounded like a thud, like a squeak and then a thud. A squeak when he opened the window, and a thud when he hit the ground…John forced his mind away from the notion. The noises had been muddled and assimilated into his subconscious. He'd been sleeping, for God's sake. There might have been no actual noise at all.
His stomach felt like it was plummeting down a steep hill. Every instinct he had about the situation was telling him that something had gone wrong.
John drew within three feet of the open window, and in the back of his mind, knew that if Sherlock was in fact lying on the ground below, that he would soon have company down there.
John forced himself to look and all the horrific images he'd been contemplating were suddenly materializing in front of his eyes.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," John whispered to himself as he turned away from the sight. His mind filled in the blanks regarding the object he'd barely taken a glance at. Blue housecoat. Hospital issue white pants. Sherlock's crushed face. Arms crooked and twisted.
"Oh shit, oh god…shit shit shit," John cursed. A rush of heat fell over him. He suddenly felt as if he might topple over. Tears stung him and threatened to spill.
John looked back down at the body…and realized that it wasn't a body. Only a housecoat.
"WHAT THE FUCK SHERLOCK, ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME OR WHAT?" John shouted. He would have screamed more obscenities targeted at Sherlock's mother, his intelligence, and his psychopathic tendencies, but he remembered that he was in a recovery ward. As a guest.
A cool blast of sensibility descended on him and he leaned against the wall to embrace it. His heart still beat uncomfortably fast, but he was tampering down the frantic breathing he'd been doing.
The door swung open across the room and a green-looking nurse came in. "Sir? Is everything okay in here?"
John pushed away from the wall. "Actually, do you know what's happened to the patient from this room? He has gone missing."
The nurse frowned and started to look through half a dozen pages on her clipboard. "Ok…this is room ten-oh-two…so the patient that is supposed to be here…is…"
"Holmes," John offered, quite apparently annoyed. "Sherlock Holmes."
The nurse bit her lip anxiously. "Hmm…Holmes…Holmes, Holmes, Holmes…"
"Never mind," John roared. "I will find him myself." He hastened past the conflicted nurse and into the ward's hallway. He considered heading toward the nurse's station, but after his most recent experience with the hospital staff, he didn't have a desire for another such encounter.
Instead, he tried to imagine where Sherlock would have gone. Laboratory? Maybe. Kitchen? No. Definitely not. Dangerous, experimental surgical ward where he could accidentally walk in and fall face first onto a surgery table and have his spleen removed? Most likely. Back to Baker Street? Perhaps.
John sighed a longsuffering sigh of a man who's endured far more than his fair share of irritation and aggravation. Then he nearly trampled poor Mycroft like a stampeding wildebeest running over a polite antelope.
"Dr. Watson," said Mycroft in his charming, pretentious way. "What are you doing up at this hour?"
John eyed Mycroft with suspicion. "What are you doing here at this hour?" he countered. Did Mycroft know? Mycroft knew everything…so probably yes.
"Well, I was just trying to give my little brother a visit-"
"Seven hours before visitation period," John mentioned.
"-and I found that he is not in his room," Mycroft finished, unhampered but John's comment. "Where is he?"
John couldn't escape the Holmes stare down. "I lost him," he admitted.
Mycroft sighed and looked mildly put out. "Why does that not surprise me?" he murmured.
"Have you ever been surprised, Mycroft?" John said flatly.
"Only by my brother," Mycroft replied. "Let's see if we can't find him."
"Oh, good idea, because I was just about to go grab some cooking oil and turn the hallway into a slip and slide, but your plan makes a lot more sense," said John with a completely straight face.
Mycroft narrowed his eyes. "There was no call for you to be impolite."
/
Marill: This chapter made me feel in such a good mood! :D So, where is Holmes? Why is his housecoat on the ground outside? Will Mycroft and John be able to work together without inducing an aneurysm? MORE SOON! :D:D:D:D:D