Lestrade was quite correct in saying that the ambulance would be there any minute; only a few moments after finishing his tirade against the Detective Inspector's force, Sherlock heard the door burst open and the sound of a gurney coming up the stairs. The room was quickly flooded by yammering strangers with shiny little tools, and Sherlock felt himself being abruptly thrust away from John as the paramedics descended upon their patient. Slightly perturbed by his sudden loss of usefulness, Sherlock stood to the side and watched as John was loaded onto the gurney. His attention didn't waver from the prone form until Lestrade sidled up next to Sherlock and cleared his throat.

"You might want to get your coat and shoes. It's a bit nippy out tonight."

Sherlock looked down at his sock-feet and sighed. His room was out of sight of the lounge, and he didn't want to leave John's side until he was satisfied that he would be alright. Nevertheless, he dashed into his room leaving strict instructions for no one to leave until he got back. Jamming his feet into his shoes was a more trying task than it ought to have been, and Sherlock was frustrated by the waste of time. He didn't even bother with the laces, opting to just stumble back into the lounge only slightly less disheveled than he had been before. He nodded at the paramedics, and in a miniature swarm they left 221b.

John was connected to a variety of monitors once in the ambulance, small tubes and wires threading into and around his body in an almost artistic arrangement. What concerned Sherlock most was the small bleeps issuing from the heart monitor. They had no regular discernable pattern; instead, John's heart seemed to be speeding up and slowing down at an alarming rate. The detective suspected that this had to do with whatever toxins had been injected into John's bloodstream. Clearly, they were not interacting well with one another. Sherlock counted seven track marks on John's elbow, and another in his bicep. This left the possibility of eight disparate drugs working their way through the doctor's system. The paramedics had apparently come to the same conclusion as himself, because they were drawing copious amounts of blood samples for testing.

Sherlock was drawn out of his medical deductions by the sound of a weak gasp coming from the head of John's stretcher. He looked up to see watery blue eyes peering down at him. "Shrlk?"

Cursing his mother once again for her peculiar taste in names, Sherlock leaned closer to John, gripping his hand once again. "I'm here, John. We're on the way to the hospital now. Everything's going to be fine."

"M'leg..." John's voice was nothing more than a weak croak. He looked so pale and vulnerable as fear became evident in his features once again. "Can't feel it..."

Sherlock couldn't help letting his eyes dart down to glance at the wounded leg. The paramedics had removed John's home binding and cut away his pajama pants to reveal the gaping hole. Sherlock forced himself not to react outright, even though he suspected that John wouldn't notice anything more subtle than turning aside and vomiting. Instead, he forced his gaze back to meet John's and gave a reassuring smile. "Perfectly normal. They gave you some pretty strong painkillers. I would be surprised if you could feel anything below your hips." It was a lie, but Sherlock believed that the situation called for one.

"Oh." John's head rolled back against the gurney, and for a moment Sherlock thought that he had passed out once again. His assumption was proven false when John's hand tightened its grip in Sherlock's, and he looked up at the detective with a fevered sort of intensity. "Don't let them amputate it, Sherlock. I need it. Need it so I can run after you and cabs and bombers and-and stuff. Just don't let them, please. Please, Sherlock?"

"John, I-" John's heart rate monitor had accelerated to an alarming speed, and John's whole body had begun to shake. Sherlock understood what such stress could do to a concussed person, and none of it was good. He quickly pressed his free hand up to John's face, stroking his fingers along his skin. "Hey, hey. Calm down. Everything's going to be fine. It's all fine. I'm going to let them do whatever is necessary to make sure you stay with me, okay? You just have to trust them to do their job, and me to watch out for you. Alright? Just relax. Can you do that for me?"

John took a couple of slow, deep breaths and nodded. He looked worn and frayed, soft and beaten. Sherlock felt his chest tighten as he tried to imagine what Moriarty had done to cause this.

"John, can you tell me what happened? Do you remember?"

John nodded once again and anxiously licked his lips, closing his eyes as he tried to gather the energy to tell Sherlock at least a succinct version of the night's events. He knew that explaining the whole ordeal would take much too much time; he could already feel his mind trying to burrow back into the pleasantly void recesses of his skull, and he didn't think he could fight off the pending wave of exhaustion much longer. Instead, he chose the less complicated, abbreviated version of the story. Enough to satisfy Sherlock's need for knowledge, that is all.

"He had five drugs, one right and four wrong. The right was a mixture of adrenaline and an anti-toxin. The others caused seizures, a burning sort of pain, extreme itchiness, and hallucinations. I had two doses of the first two, and I fell and got a concussion. Jim shot me." John's jaw clenched as he began to relive the ordeal, began to feel those flames licking at his insides once again, feel himself losing control and breaking into pieces.

"It's okay, John. It's over now. You don't have to think about it; just go back to sleep now, okay?" Sherlock threaded his fingers through John's hair, careful not to come too close to the rather large and oozing bruise on the right temple. John sighed and leaned into the touch, allowing himself to drift away. Once Sherlock was sure that he was unconscious once again, he leaned back against the wall of the ambulance and steepled his fingers underneath his chin. He knew that he hadn't gotten the full story, but even the fragmented pieces he had received didn't make much sense. Why had Moriarty struck out at John? What had caused John to play along? How did Moriarty manage to break into the flat unnoticed? What had been done with Sherlock during all this?

As they pulled up to the emergency entrance of the hospital, Sherlock resigned himself to the fact that these questions were going to have to go unanswered for now. He wasn't going to leave until he knew for certain that John's life wasn't at risk, and that was going to take a while.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Sherlock had been sitting in the waiting room for slightly over an hour before the first of the well-wishers began to trickle in. Lestrade stopped by on his way back to the Yard. Apparently, they had finished their preliminary investigation, which essentially amount to nil at the moment. Sherlock assured him that John had been doing as well as could be expected the last time he had been given news, and that he would be back at the flat as soon as he could. Lestrade protested his involvement in the investigation once again, but Sherlock waved him off.

Mike came a bit later after he finished his last class for the night. He had heard that John was in the OR from another physician in the on-call room, and had come down to gather more information. He cringed as Sherlock described the leg wound, a gesture whose significance was not lost on the detective. He had figured that the prognosis was bleak, but now it was confirmed.

Harry stumbled through the waiting room door a little before the three hour mark rolled by. Sherlock had been aware of the receptionist at the desk desperately trying to get John's next-of-kin on the phone, but he had rather thought it was a lost cause. It was a Friday night, after all, and Harriet Watson was a notorious bar crawler. Yet here she was, slightly drunk but significantly less so than she typically would have been. She asked a few questions of Sherlock (What the hell happened? How is he? And what the fuck were you doing while he was being tortured?) before lapsing into a stiff silence. Tension began to radiate between the two, and Sherlock could feel his agitation at himself, at these slow-as-sloths doctors, at this whole damn night mounting into a simmering rage.

It wasn't until Mycroft walked into the room that Sherlock finally snapped.

"You fucking bastard!" He was out of his seat and lunging at his umbrella-toting brother before he fully realized what he was doing. "We had a bargain! You said you'd watch out for him and keep him safe, you lousy sod!" He was throwing punches and not really caring where they landed. Suddenly, it was all Mycroft's fault; all John's pain, Sherlock's confusion, and Harry's accusations were on Mycroft's shoulders, and it felt so just, so right. "You've got your god damned eyes all over London, and you can't stop your primary target from breaking into my fucking flat?" Somewhere, a little voice was reprimanding Sherlock, telling him that he was being childish, but he could barely hear it over the roar of anger swelling through him.

Such was his anger that it took him a few seconds to realize what had happened when his body suddenly smashed into the tile floor of the hospital. He looked up, his jaw hanging slightly agape as he tried to gather what had just occurred. If he was not mistaken, Mycroft had used his umbrella to sweep Sherlock's feet from beneath him. Bastard. Always did fight dirty.

"Sherlock, control yourself."

Sherlock indignantly rolled so that he was sitting on the floor with his lanky legs tucked beneath himself, a pout already blooming across his lips. "Bugger off."

Mycroft sighed, looking ever so much like the teenage brother being forced to look after his nuisance younger sibling once again. "I understand that you're upset, Sherlock, but my men and I can not be blamed for this. Moriarty was clever; we didn't even notice the disruption he put into camera feed until just before the explosion in your flat."

"We had a deal." Sherlock had his fingers tangled in his hair; whether out of stress or frustration, Mycroft had yet to determine. "I said you could keep those damn cameras in the flat as long as you kept an eye on John, too. That was the bargain, and you fucked your end up pretty miserably." His voice had descended in both tone and volume, causing it to sound incredibly menacing. To any lesser man, it would be terrifying, the voice of a man about to kill. To Mycroft, it was simply the voice of Sherlock in the middle of a fit of anger.

"We have been making every effort to keep John out of harm's way. We were not prepared for a direct assault. Next time, we will have better protocols in place for such an event."

"And what if there isn't a next time, Mycroft?" Sherlock spat from the floor. All signs of childish anger had been replaced by something deeper, something far more threatening.

Mycroft's breath caught in his throat as he processed the meaning behind Sherlock's words. Surely he didn't mean..."He's not that bad off, is he?"

Sherlock's head turned to glare at the door to the surgery. "He's been in there for over three hours now. How bad off do you think he is? Because I believe he's just going to hop off the table and moon walk right on out here any moment now."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, brother. Have they given you any updates? Do you at least know what the damage done is?"

"They told me that they identified seven foreign chemical compounds in his bloodstream. One was a paralytic that was mostly worn off, one was an adrenaline-based mixture, three were toxins, and two were hallucinogens. They couldn't tell me anything about his leg other than they were still examining it to determine if...if amputation would be the best course of action." Sherlock thudded his head onto his knees, suddenly feeling far too overwhelmed. He was vaguely aware of being pulled into a nearby chair, but he simply flopped down and shrugged Mycroft's comforting hand off his shoulder. "He asked me not to let them do it. In the ambulance, he asked me. I-I didn't promise anything, but still..."

Mycroft sighed. He had once predicted that John would either be the making or the undoing of Sherlock, and it was seeming that the tides were turning in the favor of the latter. It was unfortunate, but not altogether surprising. "He's a doctor, Sherlock. If they do have to take such drastic actions, he will understand. And I doubt he even remembers the conversation in the ambulance."

"You'd be surprised. He has a rather good memory. It's a most unfortunate trait at times, especially on last New Year's Eve when we celebrated together by getting drunk." Sherlock's lips twisted upwards at the memory. "I had no clue what had happened, but he remembered all of it and wouldn't tell me. For the next week I kept finding little clues that he had planted over the apartment, each reconstructing an event from that night."

Mycroft was alarmed by the blatant emotionalism Sherlock was showing at the moment. He rarely saw more than cold indifference or slightly sadistic excitement on his brother's face, and yet now he was showing a range of emotions from sadness, to fondness, to fear, to humor. It was...disturbing.

"Well, I'm sure that things will turn up eventually, Sherlock. Just wait, in a few weeks you'll be plunging into your next case and this will be just another bump along the way."

Sherlock laughed outright at that, and suddenly he was back to his usual, condescending, arrogant arse of a self. "Please don't be so sentimental, Mycroft. Lifetime may come to contract movie rights."

"Of course, Sherlock. We wouldn't want me to get my own movie before you even got your own television show. I believe that would end the feud quite properly in my favor." He gave Sherlock his best, tight-lipped, patronizing smile. No point in trying to maintain a deep, meaningful conversation with his brother when he had so obviously cast aside any desire to do so.

They had fallen into their familiar snarky banter before long, each poking at one another's most sensitive buttons to try and get the upper hand in the argument. Mycroft thought that the least he could do given his security force's failure would be to distract Sherlock with some decent mockery. What are brothers for, after all?

Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the whoosh the door being thrown open. Sherlock spun around in his chair, knowing before seeing that it was Lestrade. "Inspector?"

"Sherlock. We need you back at Baker Street now. We've found something."

"Yes, of course." Sherlock bounded to his feet, about to run out of the waiting room with Lestrade when the door to the surgery opened. A doctor bearing a chart stepped out and cleared his throat.

"Is there a Harriet Watson?"

Harry stumbled out of her chair and made her way towards the doctor. "That's me. Is John okay? Are you done?"

"We have him stabilized, but we need to talk about what treatment options are available now. Since he is still unconscious, I'm afraid that you'll have to choose which course we take. Now I can answer whatever questions you may have..."

Sherlock's chest tightened as he heard the doctor describing the complex operations involved in attempting to repair John's leg versus simple amputation. He felt the world narrowing to a single point of focus, all information but that which the doctor was giving completely blacked out. He watched Harry nodding, heard her murmuring questions to the doctor, saw the older man's hands gesturing as he tried to describe all that would or could take place in the surgery.

"Sherlock...Sherlock." The detective's attention was being called back to the rest of the world, forcing him to resurface from his reverie. "I need you back at the crime scene. Donovan found something that you need to have a look at." The inspector's eyebrows were furrowed in concern as he watched Sherlock's head jerking almost spasmodically from Harriet's conversation with the doctor and then back to the Detective Inspector.

"Yes, of course, I-" Sherlock gnawed his lower lip as he saw consent forms being passed between John's sister and doctor. He scowled, suddenly torn. Should he stay? Should he interject his opinion and force Harry to take the treatment he preferred? But what about the crime scene? They must have found something deliciously clever, or they wouldn't be forcing him to come...Would the mystery finally be solved if he left?

Would John ever forgive him if he left and Harry chose the wrong treatment?

Author: Rhetorical questions are rhetorical. But this is not rhetorical: At this point, the story can turn slashy or stay bromancey. Which would you prefer? Leave your opinion in the reviews, please!

Also, thanks to lovejaystar, I am planning on doing a sort of AU of this story in which Moriarty's plan isn't foiled. Please keep a look out for that as it comes!

You are all wonderful for leaving such gracious reviews, and I look forward to writing more for you!