Hello everyone! This is a long chapter, but I guess you deserve it (plus I had to include many things in it) since you showered me with reviews last time! Thanks a lot, and that also goes for everyone who puts me or my story under Alert or Favorite lists. I expect the next chapter will up in a few days since I've written half of it. Now; enter drama...

Chap. 11 The coldness

With fluent efficiency Sherlock reached for a cheap phone buried under a heap of papers on the desk, plopped down on the chair before the computer, and pressed the buttons for Private Miles Stewart's number. His mind was keen and sharp, ready to deduce but then he realized something.

John came to his side and brushed a hand over his chin.

"I think it's best if I make the call. And I will abandon the manuscript," Sherlock stated slowly and gazed at the doctor who shrugged but his tense stance revealed his nervousness.

"You do have a strong feeling it can be him then. We haven't used the pay as you go phone before and you've only once improvised in a call," John noted with a hushed whisper as if they were outside in a dark alley waiting for a criminal to expose himself; which they sort of were. "I can't remember a Miles Stewart," he added with an apologetic smile.

"Let's see if he recalls you. After all, he is the only one so far who could be the man we are looking for. I wouldn't want him to know our phone numbers, or trace our location," Sherlock replied and held the phone to his ear while crossing his arms and leaning back into the chair. Apparently John chose to remain standing, although he did grip the edge of the table and Sherlock found himself not completely unaffected by this sudden change with the case.

"Miles here," a bored voice drawled and Sherlock dived straight into trying the man's emotional state.

"Hello, Mr. Stewart. My name is Charles Anderson," John gave him a dubious look, "and I'm writing an article for the Daily Telegraph about the company you served with in Afghanistan…"

"Go to hell! You journalists are just as bad as the other bastards who secretly work for the government! You lot don't call me; I call you!"

Sherlock heard from the fainter sigh after the furious growl that Mr. Stewart was about to hang up. "John Watson!" he cried out and caused the edgy doctor to jerk but thankfully Mr. Stewart returned the phone to his ear.

"What about him?" he asked darkly and Sherlock was unable to determine whether the man was angry with the journalist or John.

"I interviewed him recently. The doctor recommended me to contact you. As I understand it, Dr. Watson treated you after the accident with your hand," Sherlock said, knowing full well that John, like him, was unable to tell if the scenario was true but he took a guess and could play the part of a mildly ignorant journalist who occasionally mixed up his facts.

A mutter came from the veteran and getting an ominous feeling, Sherlock pushed the speaker button so John could follow the conversation and placed the phone on the desk.

"Well, then he's lying or suffers from bad conscience. He never took care of me." The two men in the living room exchanged one look and waited for him to explain. "I was transferred to that company and spent three days there before the terrorists busted my hand. And all I heard throughout the three days was brag about their heroic army doctor. Dr. Watson, the brave. Dr. Watson the hero."

Sherlock noticed Stewart's second mention of the word hero and John began to frown as the grim snarl continued with venom.

"The famous doctor who performed miracles and saved two fatally wounded men in the field single-handed. But that didn't exactly help me when I got in the way of a grenade on the third day. Because the brilliant doctor had thought it convenient to take a bullet to his shoulder the day before! So all I got was a pissing scared medic brat who wouldn't know the difference between nerve-ends and veins. Which is why I'm surprised Watson remembers me at all," Mr. Stewart rumbled and Sherlock listened to him destroying something made of glass.

He gritted his teeth to implore himself to stay calm and collect information while not blowing his cover. No matter how hard he wanted to defend John, it wasn't in a journalist's place to do so and one part of him relished that Mr. Stewart turned out to be quite talkative, even though his demeanour was hostile.

"I'm terribly sorry for my mistake, sir. I'm not familiar with the details concerning the military. Although, I admit this brings me to my actual reason for calling. How do you fare today? What kind of support have you received after your return to Britain?" Sherlock said carefully but was unable to use a soft voice to the vicious man who seemed to hate John.

"Want the ugly truth, do we? Well, put this in your patriotic article because I'm not embarrassed; I'm a wreck in a lonely cottage with liquor as my only friend. I've got no money, had to sell my medal, and can't get a job with a monstrous hand like this one. My wife left me when I came home. She was disgusted by my hand. And the snotty psychologists they sent after me were wrong; it doesn't get better!" Mr. Stewart spat and Sherlock began to feel as if he had underestimated the man. He could be dangerous, almost acting like a psychopath by making up his own world in that cottage somewhere in Britain.

He turned his eyes to John who now looked very troubled and unsettled as he tentatively, without making any noise, placed his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"Is that so? I'm getting interested in this personal approach. So your wife's leave didn't have anything to do with," Sherlock read the proper line on the laptop, "your four long trips to the war in three years, according to my sources?" To invade a stranger's life was always risky but could be revealing, going by provoked people's reactions.

"How dare you? I knew it from the start; you're a fishy fucker who's conspired with the others against me! Well, I don't give you my permission to use anything from this conversation in your fucking article, and if you call Watson again, tell him to leave me and my severed hand alone. I'm sure a shoulder counts higher than a hand in his book so he can fuck off. And you can bugger off as well!" Mr. Stewart screamed with a mad tone before he ended the call abruptly.

A shocked silence filled the room. For once, Sherlock was dumbfounded as he stared at the device on the desk whereas John put his arms on the hips and commented drily, "I never was one of the popular kids at school so I can't say I'm terribly hurt."

Sherlock pursed his lips and turned to the doctor. "This could be interesting. What did you find out during this conversation?"

John huffed with apprehension. "Wouldn't you already have figured everything out? If this is to mock me…"

"It's not. I do value your opinion," Sherlock interrupted as he intensely studied him.

"Fine then. Like before I can't for my life remember Stewart. But if what he said is true, and I only saw him in my company for two days before I got shot it's quite possible he resents me for not being there for him when he was hurt. But I believe he blames more people than me for his misfortune. And if he in addition to all this has avoided therapists and such, his clearly depressed mind could make him think he is still at war. For that reason he could be reckless and unpredictable," John trailed off and then shook his head while looking at Sherlock, as if to indicate that he didn't have anything else to say.

"Good, John. I think you covered Stewart's current emotional state very well. However you forgot to perceive his physical ability," Sherlock said and stood up to begin to pace the room out of eagerness to share what he had learnt.

"First of all he claimed to have a badly healed hand, and the documents we have say he lost three fingers on his right hand; the middle finger, the ring finger, and his index finger at the first joint. But I heard him hurl an item of glass against a surface with too much force than one can manage by sweeping with the arm. He used his hand. So no matter in which hand he had the object or the phone, he can use the impaired one for purposes that require some motor skills."

Sherlock altered between holding one hand to his ear while using the other to throw something invisible.

"That brings me to my second point; without doubt Mr. Stewart can't afford, doesn't want, or doesn't need prosthesis. So he would be able to sneak into our flat, steal the dog tags and use pliers or other tools to remove one of them, return to the flat with the stealth of a soldier while you were sleeping with pills in your system, and drench the place with probably gasoline, which often requires two hands. Ergo; he's not the cripple he makes us believe. And then there's the wife."

"What about her?" John asked curiously and Sherlock stopped walking with one foot in the air. "I…need data," he murmured and frowned.

"A loving wife rarely runs off because of a disfigured hand. I think there are more to this story than Mr. Stewart let on. I upset him when I brought up her. The question is; was she only tired of waiting for her husband and devastated to know how much he had changed when he returned wounded from the last trip, or did she have another reason?"

John ruffled his hair a little and his shirt moved over his chest upon the stretching movement. "This seems bloody impossible, Sherlock. To find a wife we don't even know the name of, and dig up facts about Stewart's private life; no documents from the army would help us there. Can we ask Lestrade to assist?"

"He would not come within five feet of the case. To investigate a known war hero is always sensitive. And we still have no solid proof that Mr. Stewart even could be considered as a suspect. We are on our own, my friend."

John suddenly hung his head and sighed. "So it seems. He did sound pretty aggressive, didn't he?"

Sherlock sensed John's fear. "Don't worry, I will find his wife and other necessary data if you give me a couple of days. But I assure you I have never heard of a veteran threatening a fellow soldier in a vendetta."

"Well, you never read the papers," John retorted but lifted his head and the troubled expression melted away.

Sherlock smiled reassuringly at him and commented, "Besides, maybe we are fooling ourselves. We can't know for sure that it is Mr. Stewart who was behind the fire so I want you to keep calling the soldiers on the list. We are almost finished with the British ones."

John nodded and Sherlock was happy to see him immediately stroll over to the laptop and bring out his own phone.

Five days later a storm arrived to London and once the brutal winds had ripped the last brown leaves from the trees, snow began to fall. And not just a little. No matter how fast people fought to get control over the white mass the whole center of the capital turned into an idyllic landscape, had it not been for the icy streets and layers of crammed snow on the pavements that the huge distribution of salt and sand couldn't beat.

The temperature dropped to below freezing point and every day the newspapers reported about elder men and women who fell on the slippery streets, cheeks that had been left uncovered and got frostbites, and the chaos with the gridlock that happened every day. The winter had inevitably arrived and taken the busy city as hostage.

A few days later John found himself struggling in the evening through the heaps of frozen snow. The sky was black but the colourful lamps helped him see where to place his feet. He was on his way home after a full day at the clinic and although he had been tempted to take a cab he knew it would be impossible to find an unoccupied one, let alone be able to drive through the paralyzed stopper of honking cars and buses.

So he had relied on the underground but in the warm train he had remembered that he really had to shop groceries today since he had postponed it for two days. And that was why he now fought his way from the supermarket with two heavy plastic bags in his gloved hands and his own satchel slung over his shoulder.

A gasp escaped him and he groaned when the breeze developed into a strong wind that carried small but hard crystals of snowflakes which stung his face until he lost the feeling. With clenched teeth the ex-soldier determinedly pressed on, comforted by the knowledge that the house was close.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" John growled and deeply regretted his decision to not take the fluffy, windproof winter coat with a hood he kept in his closet. The jacket he currently wore didn't offer any protection from the piercing wind or the big flakes that soon melted on the thin material and made him wet and shivering.

And there, there was the large building at last! John breathed solely through his mouth to get the quantity of air he needed but felt relieved that he finally was home. He pressed the code, reached for the door and stumbled inside only to see a woman with a baby carriage enter the lift and make no room for another human. John helplessly watched the doors close.

He refrained from cursing out of frustration since the echo would travel far in the tall building. He glanced at his burden and then at the stairway. It was a long way to the seventh floor but on the other hand at this point John just wanted to get to the flat and defrost. It was better to move than wait for the lift and so, he tightened his grip on the bags and pushed out his cold chin.

'I was in Afghanistan and lives with Sherlock. This is a piece of cake,' he thought to encourage himself before he began to climb the stairs. Once he reached the right floor he was thirsty, sweating on his back but still numb on the face. The thighs burned, his knees ached and his arms shook from exertion of holding the weight of canned food, vegetables, milk, and packages of meat.

With great effort John took out the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He more or less shoved the bags over the threshold with his feet and entered with one hand on the wall to steady himself. His own bag dropped to the floor and John tried to hear if Sherlock was somewhere but could only make out his own labored pants.

"Hello?" he spoke and was met by a distant greeting from the living room. John's energy had vanished after the last thirty steps and he felt utterly drained and cold. So he did what he had learnt to do in the army. He called for help. "Sherlock, I've bought food. Can you give me a hand here?"

"Fine, fine. Come here, John. I've discovered something interesting about our infuriated veteran," Sherlock replied and John removed his damp jacket and threw it carelessly on the hanger. Never mind responsibilities. All he desired was to gain his breath, fall onto the sofa and hear what progress Sherlock had done today. His flatmate could and should take care of the groceries.

John shuffled towards the living room while rubbing his hands to work the blood into them. Sherlock sat by the desk and his fingers pattered on the keyboard. John could only see the back of the tailored jacket and the bobbing black curls.

"I'm here. Now tell me," he said breathlessly and then the detective began to talk to the screen but little by little turn in his seat.

"Mr. Stewart is in Wales. I'm not sure of the village's location or name but I did find out more about the wife's whereabouts and it actually surprised me that…"

Finally Sherlock tore his eyes from the computer and looked at John but his voice died and John was confused by his slack jaw and the widened eyes that stared at him.

"John, your nose," he said haltingly and John reached up to touch his nose. Something made his fingertips slick and once he held up the hand he saw that they were red.

"Oh, dear. I'm sorry," he apologized politely and took out a white handkerchief from the jeans pocket. He dabbed the area between his upper lip and nostrils while feeling embarrassed; with his frozen face he hadn't been able to feel blood trickle from his nose. When he was done Sherlock continued as if nothing out of order had happened.

"It's surprising that the missing wife works as a nurse. So it doesn't make sense that she would be disgusted by, as Mr. Stewart put it, a monstrous hand. He's lying, which I of course already suspected so our main goal from now on is to talk to her and see if she can tell us more about her…John."

Sherlock said his name with a serious tone and gestured at his nose. John understood and whipped out the cloth again.

You've never had a nosebleed before," Sherlock reflected and John didn't like the frown that appeared on the man's pale forehead.

"Only as a child. But I suppose it's the cold air, and then the stairs would make the blood run faster and once I came into the warmth in the flat the skin over the shallow vessels burst," John mused with his doctor voice before he lowered his hand from the face and gave a small laugh. "There. Better?"

At that moment he felt something give high up in both his nostrils and then fluids flowed down and made his lips warm.

"John!" Sherlock called sharply and flew up from the chair. With four long steps the tall man was by his side and took him by the elbow. John feebly pressed the handkerchief against his nose and allowed Sherlock to guide him to the sofa and lower him onto it. The detective even went so far as to lift his legs until his whole body lay horizontally on the soft pillows.

"Pinch your bridge hard. That way you can easily prevent the blood from pouring out of the wound, and tip you head back," Sherlock calmly instructed and John didn't care that he as a doctor already knew how to treat a nosebleed. He complied obediently but grimaced in disgust when blood also started to trickle down his throat. He swallowed and could taste the foul, tangy goo on the far end of his tongue. He held the white fabric that was tinged with red to his nose and breathed through his mouth. Then he located Sherlock who sat perched on the very edge of the sofa.

"Danksch," John mumbled but his funny accent failed to make the detective brighten. In fact, Sherlock seemed a little shaken.

"Scherlock?" The consulting detective stiffened and raised himself but kept his eyes fixed on John. "Did you want me to do something?" he asked with a strained voice but John ignored it, thinking it had something to do with the unusual man's odd behavior.

"Take care of the groceries. At least make sure the vegetables and the milk get into the fridge. And put the meat in the freezer," John sighed, too tired to worry about Sherlock making a mistake with the food. His lids drifted shut and then he heard how Sherlock left the room. He relaxed against the pillows and felt his pulse even out. After a while he could tell the nosebleed was over, as he didn't need to turn the handkerchief so often.

A faint groan from hinges on the cabinets alarmed him momentarily and he warily opened his eyes. A metallic sound from the kitchen answered his silent wonder why Sherlock wasn't back yet; he was unpacking everything and had probably placed the cans in the cabinets. Grateful for his assistance, John shouted to him, "Can you fix me a glass of water, please?"

A second later he heard the tap run and tryingly lifted the cloth from his nose. Nothing streamed down. He stopped pinching and comfortably rested the hand on his stomach. Hurried strides came through the hallway and drew nearer.

"Here. And do not move too quickly," Sherlock advised as he leaned down and promptly thrusted a glass in John's hand. John expected him to leave, or resume the clever rant he without doubt had anticipated the whole day, but Sherlock simply loomed over John.

"Thanks for the help," John uttered and rolled onto his side and supported the upper body with his elbow to be able to drink. Then all hell broke loose.

Something opened inside his nose and when he by accident exhaled out of surprise, a shower of blood rained down and stained his chin, the fabric of the sofa, his hand that was clutching the glass, the water in the glass, the beige carpet on the floor, and Sherlock's trousers and shoes.

"Oh God, the carpet!" John moaned before he fell back against the sofa and in vain tried to find the semi-white handkerchief.

Oh, dear. What is happening? And is this a cruel cliffhanger or what? Rest assure, your torment will end soon. Review if you are kind!