"You were late," Sherlock spat.
John's throat felt dry and scratchy; his eyes wouldn't open. The sounds and smells that surrounded him were familiar and strangely comforting. He was in hospital, then. He couldn't exactly remember why he was in hospital, but the twinge of the IV in his arm and the steady beep of his pulse monitor both told him that he was alive, alive, wonderfully and blessedly alive. And Sherlock was here. Sherlock…
"If you had followed Doctor Watson's instructions and stayed down-" Mycroft. He sounded very nearly flustered, for once. John didn't think he'd ever heard Mycroft sound anything but bored and condescending.
To his further amazement, Sherlock sounded completely distraught as he moaned, "I know! Don't you think I know? If he had died-"
Sherlock, John wanted to say, but the noise that left his lips was more like: "Hrrrnghh."
"John!" Instantly, there was a warm hand clasped around his own. "Don't speak. You've been severely injured."
"Quite," Mycroft said tightly, all trace of humanity wiped from his voice.
John turned his hand so that he and Sherlock's palms were pressed together and ran his thumbs carefully over Sherlock's knuckles. He remembered, now, why he was in hospital. He could survive a bullet, he knew, but John would never have survived Sherlock's death, not again. Never again.
Mycroft cleared his throat and said, somewhat stuffily, "I need to speak with Doctor Watson's team. I'm having him moved to a private suite as soon as they're able."
Sherlock didn't say anything, just tightened his grip on John's hand as Mycroft's shoes clicked against the tile and down the hall. John felt strange, distantly aware that he was in a great deal of pain but unable to feel any of it. He realized he must be on a morphine drip or something like it. His brain was still too muzzy to be sure, and he hardly cared. Sherlock's hand felt good in his, like it belonged there, and he fell asleep still tracing Sherlock's knuckles slowly with his thumb.
x
When John woke up again he was able to open his eyes and look around blearily, though his throat still begged for water. Sherlock was sitting the wrong way in a chair beside his bed, his long legs draped over one armrest while his back was supported by the other. He was flipping through one of John's medical periodicals carelessly, his foot twitching. John noticed the peaky, drawn look on his face and the loose fit of his clothes with displeasure.
"You look awful," John managed, hoarsely.
Sherlock swiveled around, eyes wide, the magazine forgotten and dropped hastily on the floor. He searched John's face for a moment and then said, with a small smile, "Speak for yourself."
John laughed (which hurt, intensely) and cleared his throat. His voice was still gruff as he said, softly, "Water?"
In a flash Sherlock was tipping a pink plastic hospital cup to John's lips. The water felt amazing going down his throat, cool and blissful, but it hurt to swallow, hurt to have it down in his belly. Everything hurt. "What happened?" John groaned, leaning back against the pillow and screwing his eyes up against the pain.
"Do you remember killing Sebastian Moran?" Sherlock's voice was steady, but John thought he could hear something like nervousness running through it. He nodded, slowly. The memory hurt, but yes: he did remember. "And you remember…being shot?" Again, John nodded. Sherlock sighed and took his hand again, more carefully this time, though, as if he expected John to pull it away at any moment. "I put you at unnecessary risk by concealing some truths from you, John, and I will understand if you decide to sever your ties with me after today."
"Sherlock-"
"Let me finish before you announce something you may well come to regret," Sherlock snapped, and John looked at him worriedly. Sherlock really did look dreadful, his skin so pale and his hair limp, unwashed. Had he been in hospital beside John all this time? (And how long was "all this time" anyway? A few days? A month?) "I told you that our plan was to fool Moran, to make him believe that the trigger had worked. That was never my plan. I fully expected to face you as an adversary, and to possibly injure you if required. I wouldn't have killed you," he said quickly, "couldn't have done…but I knew, before I sent you into that pub, that Moran would have full control of you the next time we met."
John swallowed, his throat still too dry. "Sherlock. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because…because I needed to see. What he had done to you. What he was planning to do." Sherlock shook his head, angrily. "I had to know." Suddenly, Sherlock yanked his hand away and ran it through his greasy hair listlessly. "But I was wrong, fundamentally wrong, about Moran's plans. I knew he was going to use you against me, of course, but I thought…" Bitterly, he said, "I thought he would have you harm me, physically. I never once considered that he would make you harm yourself."
"I…I don't remember…" John shook his head, trying to claw through the memories that seemed to be hiding in a dense fog in his mind. He remembered meeting Seb at the pub. He remembered the needle. After that, things were vague. Seb kissing him, dressing him in a suit. The wind. Music, something fun and catchy from the seventies. The heft of the gun in his hand. Laughter; anger; not a trace of fear. "What did I…"
Sherlock took his hand again. "It doesn't matter, John. It's over." But his eyes looked haunted, far away, and John knew that whatever he'd done it had been horrifying for Sherlock to watch. Sherlock seemed to come back to himself all at once, his sad eyes focusing on John's. "I need…I need to apologize. For…for this." He gestured at John's stomach and John glanced down, for the first time, at the thick bandages that pressed up under his hospital gown.
"Don't ever apologize for that," John said fiercely, meeting Sherlock's eyes again. "That was my choice, not yours."
Sherlock seemed, to John's great astonishment, wildly angry at this pronouncement. "It should never have come to that!" he shouted, leaping up from his chair and pacing the room. John hadn't seen him so wound up since the incident at the pool, after he'd torn the Semtex vest from John's body and flung it away. "Mycroft's team was supposed to be in place. I was to secure your safety, get all the information I could from Moran, and then stand aside. But they were late and you had that gun in your mouth and-"
"Jesus." John sat up a little, wincing and gasping as he did it, and Sherlock was immediately at his side, touching him, whispering for him to lie still, not to hurt himself. "Sherlock, I'm okay," John said softly.
"You're not." Sherlock slumped back into his seat. "I couldn't catch my breath. That was it. You and Sebastian were on top of me, and I couldn't catch my breath. I heard the helicopter and I thought we were safe and I…John, I was so stupid. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Sherlock, Christ, it's okay," John mumbled, pulling Sherlock to him even though it hurt desperately, tugging at the wounds on his stomach and shifting the IV in his arm. "I'm okay, see?" Sherlock's head was on his chest, his body halfway on the hospital bed, and John stroked his hair gently. "Hey," he said softly, so that Sherlock looked up at him, "we're all right. Both of us. It's going to be okay."
"If you had died…" Sherlock whispered, and John swallowed hard, his eyes burning a little as he whispered back: "I know. I thought the same thing about you. I know." For a long moment they were quiet, Sherlock shifting so that he could stretch his full length out beside John on the narrow hospital bed. When John realised Sherlock was asleep, he smiled and laid his head back against the pillow, listening to Sherlock's slow breaths until he drifted off himself.