A/N: Takes place after Riding Job.

John had so looked forward to a quiet afternoon, he really had. But he should have known that that was never meant to be. It sounded too good to be true in the first place.

He's in the back room catching up on his reading – actually sleeping – when the knock comes to the door, jolting him awake. Times like this, heart racing, it takes him a moment to realise that no, he didn't doze off on night-watch duty. The knock comes again and he sighs. Client, probably. Well, he'll just have to explain that Sherlock is currently on business.

Another knock. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he grumbles. "Christ, such impatience." He gets to the door and flicks over the cover on the peephole. Lorena is the other side, leaning against the doorframe looking bored. Well, she's unexpected. He undoes the latch on the door and opens it. "Sherlock isn't in. He and Mycroft are off carrying out some sort of analysis."

She sighs, the bored look falling away to be replaced with one of relief. "Good. I was hoping I wouldn't run into him."

"What have you done?"

She looks him right in the eye, having learned not to shift her view while lying years ago. Sometimes John wishes he never taught her about that. "Nothing."

"Well obviously you've done something, and you're here anyway so you may let me have a look at it."

She sighs and takes her left hand out of her coat pocket. It's wrapped in a strip of a sheet, but the blood has soaked through in places. John sighs. "I see. Well, you'd better come in."

"It's not that bad," she protests, stepping into the hallway so John can close the door behind her. "I would have patched it up myself but mother insisted that I come to you." The irritation in her voice is a new one, having only started creeping in a few months ago. She's chaffing against the bounds put on her by – as she sees it – everyone. John's listened to Sherlock musing to himself about it more than enough to know how she feels.

"She only insists because she cares and you worry her." He leads her into the front room, which he still occasionally uses as a surgery when there's a drought in cases and he wants to pass the time. Moving to New York may have brought him and Sherlock closer to Irene and Lorena, but it wasn't enough to keep the boredom away.

John sits Lorena down in the patient's chair and unwraps her hand. There are several cuts of varying depth, one or two still bleeding, the deepest gash being at the base of her middle finger, almost gone through to the bone. "What happened?" he murmurs, turning around to his desk and raiding the drawers. Carbolic acid, iodine gauze, bandages and clips.

"I miscalculated the quantities and one of the beakers exploded."

"Christ, Lorena, were you trying to get yourself killed?"

"It was completely accidental."

"You're lucky this wasn't an awful lot worse." He cleans her hand carefully – each individual gash and Christ knows what was in the exploding beaker. She winces, her face a grimace, but she knows by now not to pull back. "I hope you've forgotten the formula so Sherlock won't try to replicate the results."

"Well –"

"He told you about it, didn't he?"

She looks briefly ashamed. "He may have made reference."

John groans. "I will kill him someday for these things."

"Please don't. I'm sure he didn't mean for me to try it. What can I say? I was bored."

"You are s-"

"So like him. Yeah, I know. Mother says so at least once a week."

"I was going to say you're such an idiot, but it's nice to see that the message is getting home." She whimpers when he swabs a particularly deep cut. "It's your own fault."

She sighs, actually looking remorseful for once. "I know."

"Just remember this the next time you want to do something stupid. You're not going to be able to play the violin until that heals. Now, those two are going to need stitches. Hold still."