They say Doctors tend to make very bad patients. In the case of John Watson this was most definitely true. And it was a small mercy to the staff of the NHS that John's stays in Hospital were infrequent.
When they had brought him back from Afghanistan, it had taken perhaps half an hour before everyone in the hospital knew that the small blond soldier with the shoulder trauma was in fact a Captain and Surgeon in the RAMC. He had been covertly and quickly moved to a private room. Because taking care of your own was very important.
John had been so high on Morphine he thought he would never come down again. Never come down from the clouds of warm, pain free sunshine he was skydiving through. And when he did have a few moments of lucidity in amongst the heat haze of drugs, it was as though the real world was reduced to a series of snapshots. Shutter clicks in his brain. Harry and Frank were there, both looking concerned. A nurse was adjusting his drip. A tall man with silver eyes was looking at him from the foot of the bed. His CO, just back with his Uniform trailing sand onto the floor was talking to him. A nurse tutting at the sandy mess. A man with silver eyes holding his hand and stroking his hair. More drugs. A man with silver eyes. Looking at him.
When they withdrew the drugs and brought him back to the real world, he knew he was dying. The pain. All of his blood was filled with glass splinters. And his body had been set on fire. He tried to get out of bed. He tried to scream. He tried to make them stop it all. He tried to find the man with Silver eyes because he would know the answer. He would know what the question was.
And finally when his shoulder was healed and there were no more drugs or splinters, just a dull ache in his bones that barely reminded him he was alive, they had let him go home. Or at least they had let him leave. And he had spent his days limping through the city like a wounded animal, looking for something he couldn't quite remember. Something he would never find because he was dead.
John screamed. He didn't want to be dead. He didn't want to be a ghost. He carried on screaming as he felt hands shaking his shoulders and then the same hands on his face.
"John? John look at me. Please." The silver eyes were filled with concern. Mercury tears forming in their depths.
"I knew you'd come back for me." John held on tightly. "I knew you wouldn't leave me."
"It's okay I'm here." Sherlock had no idea what reality and nightmare was currently mixing together in John's head. He only understood that he was needed.