It was another three hours until Mycroft pinpointed Sherlock's location, another half to put a team together, and another half to get there.
John felt he could have run there faster than wait for the car to weave in and out of traffic. Lestrade was leading the way in a squad car, sirens blaring, which he cut out a minute before they reached their destination.
It was a small unassuming house with a little garden out front. It looked like such a happy place.
John wasn't allowed to go in until the tactical team had swept the house and removed the man in handcuffs.
He was crying and shouting, pulling his arms away from the men who were leading him, begging them to let him go, that his little girl needed him, that he was only trying to make things right.
He paused for a second in front of John, stilling, and John could see the faint reflections of early morning sunshine off his face. He was sparkling. John hadn't imagined it while drugged. But there was more. John may not have been as observant as Sherlock, may not have been the world's only consulting detective, but he sure as hell recognized desperation when he saw it. The man was telling the truth about his daughter, his little princess who was liberal with the sparkles as well as the hugs, who very well did need him.
He'd talk to Mycroft after he found Sherlock and made sure he was safe.
Men searched the house while John gravitated towards a door that he felt was the right one. He opened it and peered down into the dark. Basement. An excellent place to hide a hostage.
"Over here!" he bellowed, fumbling around for a light. Someone thrust a torch into his hand and he shone it on the steps as he hopped down them, swinging the light around looking for Sherlock. Just as his beam hit something vaguely human shaped, someone found the lights, and they were flicked on. John really wished they hadn't been, because they revealed something he'd been hoping not to see for the past day and a half. Sherlock was slumped over, tied to a chair, his legs and hands bound. He looked mostly dead. Likely could be.
"God Sherlock," John gasped, running over to his side.
But he wasn't. His heart was racing, his breathing was shallow, and his eyes were sunken into his skull, a sure sign of dehydration, perhaps even septic shock. Likely septic shock given the amount of time he'd gone untreated for. One dose of broad spectrum antibiotics two days ago wouldn't have done nearly enough.
"We need to intubate, and get some fluids into him..." John trailed off, feebly grasping at Sherlock's hand. "He's in shock..." he tried again. But John seemed doomed to clutch at Sherlock's hand, unable to do much else but watch as the paramedics settled around him, shouting things he couldn't hear. He only watched the faint pulse jump in his neck and keep his fingers firmly around the one in his wrist, half convinced that if he let go it would disappear. He only looked away from Sherlock's neck when a hand was on his shoulder, trying to pull him away.
Lestrade.
John tried to jerk out of his grasp, who was he to pull him away, but Lestrade seemed insistent that John listen to him. He tried, really hard, to focus on the words, but they weren't making a whole lot of sense.
"Hospital." He could make that one out. But there was more. Damn his brain for not working right now, right when it was needed. He'd treated patients while surrounded by bombs and gunfire before, and yet now he couldn't hear Lestrade speaking right next to him, with nothing louder than the screeching of a hear monitor.
A heart monitor.
John wanted to apologize to Lestrade, he wanted to listen, he really did, but there were more important things going on now, like the paramedics that were pounding on Sherlock's chest, no doubt cracking ribs that were far too close to the surface.
But Lestrade was painfully insistent, grabbing both of John's upper arms and gripping them tight. It would have hurt if he'd had any attention to pay to how he was feeling.
"Leave them." Lestrade said firmly. "Let them do their job. If there isn't room in the ambulance, I'll take you in my car."
John nodded, dazed, and confused as to how he could hear Lestrade now. Perhaps because it was so quiet. No more screeching. Just the steady, albeit rapid, beeping that was expected of a heart rate. John let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and almost collapsed. Would have collapsed if not for Lestrade's tight grip that was still on his upper arms.
John heard the paramedics call out numbers, saw them lift Sherlock onto a gurney and wheel him away.
"Where's your car?" he managed to ask Lestrade.
Lestrade nodded and led him out of the room. He was probably relieved that John had realized it would be better for him to go in a car rather than the ambulance, not forced to drag him. But John knew he was in shock, not the same shock Sherlock was in, but shock none the less. And he would only get in the way, clutching at Sherlock's hand to tether him to life.
And although Sherlock would claim it wouldn't have mattered to him, John knows he would have preferred him to be in the ambulance. But if Sherlock hadn't gotten himself into this predicament- John made his brain stop there, cursing himself. How dare you think this is Sherlock's fault? It's not. So stop that, stop it right now.
He half laughed, half sobbed, and was thankful Lestrade pretended not to hear, even though they both knew that he did.
Lestrade just continued on in silence, speeding down the road with his sirens on, chasing after the ambulance that held the world's only consulting detective.
John couldn't hear the sirens, not over the sound of his own mind screaming at him that he should have done better, tried harder, not gotten shot with the damn tranquilizer dart. And while there was a tiny bit of him that knew he couldn't have, it was drowned out by the screaming bit.
John now understood why Sherlock sometimes just screamed at everyone, with all those thoughts in his brain bombarding him, vying for attention on top of all the people who kept nattering at him. He wanted to scream at them all too, but knew it would accomplish nothing. So he laid his head in his lap and breathed.