Sherlock Dari Drabble Chapter '37'

A Strong Constitution, part 2

A/N: This chapter follows on from 'A Strong Constitution', as I thought it was only fair to round the story off. The concluding part (or maybe parts) of the Charles Augustus Milverton arc will follow. I feel as though this whole story should take place after the Hiatus, given that Sherlock's already been a bit more of a softy than we might have expected. Comforting Greg is one thing, but trying to comfort Sally when she turned up in the last chapter seems a bit weird in a pre-Reichenbach universe, I think...

Seeing as my Masters is now finished, I promise I'll try to update more frequently-at least once a month, hopefully more often.

Greg stirred, wincing as he struggled up onto his elbow. He blinked the sleep out of his bleary eyes, looking around the room in confusion as his foggy mind caught up with his surroundings. Soothing eggshell walls with tasteful Art Deco blinds and a well-stuffed grey-blue armchair in one corner of the room met his vision, along with ritzy flats outside, made him smile gently. It didn't take twenty-five years of policing to work out that he was in a private hospital room.

Sherlock.

At that moment, the watery light of early morning filtering under the half-closed blind was joined by the fluorescent light streaming in from the corridor. A young nurse in mid-blue scrubs stood in the doorway, smiling gently as she took in his mild confusion and awkward angle-he hadn't quite managed to get himself up onto his right elbow as his shoulder had started protesting halfway up. He hadn't noticed he was in a sling until he looked down. She glanced to the side and nodded as she stepped through the doorway, and it was then he noticed the uniform standing to the left of it.

Stepping through the door, she smiled at him again, coming to a gentle stop beside his bed and resting her forearms on the railing.

"It's good to see you awake, Detective Inspector. I'm Jenny, I'm your nurse for today and tomorrow. I'll be in every half hour to check your obs, so if there's anything you need just press that button to your left and let me know. You'll have a visitor in a little while, I think."

She pressed two slim fingers to his wrist, counting the beats and scribbling the results on the chart at the foot of his bed before casting a critical eye over the IV in the back of his left hand and checking his blood pressure. Smiling, she moved back into her original position, plumping up the pillows and helping him sit up against them.

"What time is it?" Surprised by the extra gruffness in his voice and the dryness in his throat, he coughed, wincing as pain lanced through his abdomen. Grimacing in sympathy, she gently pressed a hand against his stomach until the pangs passed.

"Actually," he swallowed, "what day is it?" He'd realised that he wasn't sure where exactly he was, apart from 'somewhere-in-London-probably', and that he definitely didn't know how long he'd been in hospital for.

Leaning over to adjust the blanket, Jenny tucked her hair behind her ear as she straightened up.

"It's early on Friday now, and you were brought in on Monday night. You were in High Dependency until about tea time on Wednesday until they brought your temperature down and got your blood pressure up. You were fighting some sort of staph infection in a wound on your leg, but that seems to be clearing up nicely, and your BP's come back up now they've tackled the dehydration. You're on a general ward, but in the private wing, of the Chelsea and Westminster. Your friend was quite insistent that you should have a private space."

He snorted at the glaring irony, and she grinned. She'd obviously been on the business end of one of that particular friend's searching questions-must have been on duty when they'd transferred him as well.

"It's seven in the morning, and visiting starts at nine. You had a nasogastric tube in while you were in HDU. You started stirring late last night, apparently, so the night shift took it out before you woke up. They'll probably start you just on fluids, then build you back up to solid foods tomorrow morning, I'm afraid."

He must have looked glum at that thought, as her eyes danced with mirth.

"I'm sure Sister will sign off on the odd bit of toast before then. I'll see what I can do."

He smiled sleepily, stifling a yawn and settling back onto his pillows. She pulled up the blanket a little, then patted his hand and left the room, quietly pulling the door to behind her.

A little while later, he was woken by a gentle shake to his good shoulder. Jenny smiled down at him.

"You've got a visitor, as promised. Shall I let her in?"

Brow creasing in confusion, he nodded. Her?

The muted 'slap-slap' of flat shoes on the lino floor came from his left, and as Jenny swung the door open he was greeted by a very apologetic and frazzled-looking Sally.

Ah. Why didn't she occur to him? He vaguely remembered her being distressed when John had discovered him, but decided to focus on the present. She perched awkwardly on the outside edge of the bed, fiddling with the hem of her jumper as she asked how he was feeling. Her face cleared when he relayed what Jenny had said about the improvements in his condition, and she smiled, rather tightly, as he joked about the upcoming tea and toast party. Eventually, he tired of her reticence around the man she'd worked with for nearly eight years, and came right out with it in his usual fashion.

"Sally. What's wrong? You've been fidgeting fit to burst since you got here, and you look half-desperate to run away again."

She looked away as she murmured, "I...I'm ashamed, okay?"

"Ashamed? Why on earth would you need to be ashamed?"

"I couldn't handle it, si-Greg. When they found you, I couldn't handle how you looked, and I couldn't visit you when you were really ill. It was only when Dr Watson said you might wake up today that I thought I should come. I'm a copper, I should be able to rise above it! And I shouldn't have left you all on your own with the Freak."

Studiously ignoring the moniker, he sighed. Searching until he found her gaze, he held it stonily.

"It's always hard to deal with crimes against people you know, much less the ones you work with. Why else do you think we have a rule that says you can't investigate incidents involving close colleagues unless the Chief Super signs off on it?"

She smiled thinly at that, yet shook her head at the same time.

"I know, but Doctor Watson wasn't nearly as bothered. He must be so calm-he barely seemed rattled at all when he was looking after you with the paramedics."

A soft voice from the doorway startled them both, and Sally's head whipped around.

"John is far more used to treating friends and colleagues than most people-even most doctors. He spent much of his time looking after his comrades, after all."

Sherlock shrugged off his coat, smirking at the dumbfounded look on Sally's face and the wry smile that had somehow found its way onto Greg's. Pulling off his gloves and laying both over the foot of the bed, he came to stand by the bank of machines up against the far wall, regarding Sally with a kind of mild exasperation.

When, after a period of silence, she stood up, obviously uncomfortable and heading for the exit, he hooked long fingers around her elbow, just catching her at the door. Smiling surprisingly gently down at her with softer eyes that either of the watchers expected, he spoke, his rumbling baritone carrying over her head to where Greg was propped up in the bed.

"It may seem as though John is stronger than you because he stayed calm when he found Lestrade, but finding, assessing and treating a casualty is what he's good at. He wouldn't be a very good doctor if he couldn't at least partly compartmentalise his feelings for his patients while he was treating them, because his judgement could be clouded by emotions. His experience is just different to yours, Sally. He's seen friends in states much worse whereas you haven't. You can't be expected to have the same demeanour as he does. Besides, just because he doesn't show it in front of patients, it doesn't mean he doesn't feel compassion for them. You simply show your reactions in a different way."

It could just have been Greg's imagination, but he could have sworn Sally looked brighter when she left, nodding more courteously than usual to Sherlock as she retreated.

"So, come on then."

Sherlock looked up from texting John, mildly surprised to be talked to as Greg had stayed quiet through the whole exchange.

"How much of that did John parse for you?"

A hint of a blush suffused itself into those ridiculous cheeks as Sherlock leaned back insouciantly into his chair.

"Experience, friends, and different reactions. But you knew that."

Caught red-handed, Greg nodded, lapsing into companionable silence as they waited for the aforementioned man to finish his shift at Tommy's. Sherlock hadn't asked how he was, reading the look of him and the atmosphere of the space instead of verbalising his worry, but he was touched at his interventions just the same. Sherlock was another one with a different reaction, but as he watched the long fingers flitting over the keyboard in an irritated missive to his brother, Greg couldn't help but feel well looked-after-from lots of different angles, too.

A/N II: Cute or soppy? You decide! Personally, I'm going for 'soppy', but we all need a bit of fluff in our lives, don'tcha think?