Ok, I know the ending of this is a bit sentimental but I blame the drugs.
Mycroft returns with a determined look on his face. Sherlock hasn't moved. He is still clutching the cup but at least he has drunk the tea. Mycroft crouches before him. He really wonders what is the best course of action. To treat Sherlock like normal to try to snap him out of it and restore some semblance of normality or to take care of him and coddle him like the grieving relative he is acting like at the moment. He tries for an in-between.
'Sherlock? Come on Sherlock, snap out of it and listen to me.' Sherlock looks up his gaze a little more aware than before. 'I'm not sure how much of this you'll remember later on but John is stable, critical but stable. Do you hear me?' He shakes he brother's shoulder slightly and for no apparent reason Sherlock reaches out and hands him his cup. 'They're moving him to a room and you can see him. I just want you to be prepared that he isn't looking so good. He's back on the ventilator and they also have him on dialysis. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's a precaution because his kidneys took a bad hit with the blood loss. They just don't want them to give out. Do you understand?' Sherlock looks up at him and nods standing on shaky legs. 'Ok, let's go.' Sherlock seems quite capable of following on his own now and Mycroft avoids having to touch him after what feels like an awful lot of touching lately.
A guard they haven't seen before is standing outside John's room when Sherlock and Mycroft enter it and the latter gives him a curt nod of recognition. Sherlock however has eyes only for John who lies in a bed just inside the window attached to more machines than Sherlock thought feasible. There is the familiar ventilator and a fairly standard looking IV apart from the fact that one of the bags hanging from it is clearly filled with blood, but also a heart monitor which beeps reassuringly and a strange contraption that Sherlock has never actually seen before but assumes is performing the dialysis. It's attached to John's arm with numerous tubes and if Sherlock was not feeling quite out of it he would find the blood flowing through them fascinating.
Mycroft allows him to stand there just looking for a minute before he gets on with his plan. 'Sherlock! Now that you've seen him are you awake and aware enough to listen to what I have planned?' he asked but Sherlock ignored him and moved up to John's side brushing his hand absentmindedly across the blanket.
'Sherlock, listen to me or this won't work.' Still no reaction from his brother and Mycroft's innate desire to push his brother picks up even in this sensitive situation.
'We need to make the world see him die.' Mycroft's words are intentionally provocative in order to get his brother's attention and it works. Sherlock whirls on him, dropping the blanket draped around his shoulders and looking, despite the sedation, like he is about to try to throttle him.
'You unimaginable, utter bastard, how can you even suggest that?' Sherlock shouts, loud enough to bring a nurse running who pushes them out of the room and into the corridor, claiming that they will upset John even though John is clearly dead to the world…. An unfortunate phrase if ever there was one.
Mycroft pushes Sherlock back into another room. Something which is easier than it has ever been since they were children. 'I didn't say that we let him die. I said we let the world see him die.' He corrects the assumptions he knows his brother has been making somewhere in his currently more than usually confused mind. But he sees Sherlock's mind gaining understanding with a level of recovery that to anyone but them would be remarkable. However to Mycroft it is slow and torturous and he knows that fast as his brother's realisation is it still is nowhere near his normal mental acuity.
'The entrance to the clinic is packed with reporters. You were seen leaving Baker Street and the news are going viral. We can use this.' Mycroft argues. 'If we let them think that he has died we will be sure to find that Karl Larson does not try to attack him again, or any of his friends or relatives. It will put him off his guard; make him think he has won. Sherlock it's the best option we have.' And to Mycroft's surprise Sherlock nods in agreement.
'What do I have to do?' he asks a little wearily and Mycroft forces himself not to smile at what is possibly the first time since their childhood that Sherlock agrees to take orders from his older brother. 'Go back in there, sleep for an hour until the drugs wear off, then we'll need every ounce of your acting ability to make this plausible.' Sherlock nods reluctantly.
'Once you are more yourself you need to go out and put on a show for the media, play the mourning friend. We need to make the most of it and make them publish stories that will show that Sherlock Holmes has truly broken down over the death of his best friend. Do you think you can do that?' Mycroft asks.
'I'm a good actor.' Sherlock replies. He doesn't add that he has an arsenal of material to draw from based on the past day. Material that will allow him to know exactly how to act. He knows what it feels like to think your world is falling apart. He knows what the beginnings of a panic attack feel like. He knows what it feels like to realise that you have humiliated your friend and that he might never be around to shout at you for doing it. Oh no… Sherlock will be able to act the part he is certain of that.
'After that you can't see him. Not until we catch this guy. I can probably bring you in here once again under the guise of a breakdown but as soon as we move you back to Baker Street you can't come back and even if he's fine I can't bring him there. I can set up a video link but that is all I can do. Can you come with that?' Mycroft asks and there are several minutes before Sherlock hesitantly nods.
'I'll have them move the beds together. They said you liked to sleep in his but you can't right now, he's not well enough.' Mycroft offers and Sherlock doesn't quite know whether to scream at the fact that his brother is digging his claws into what feels to be the most private parts of his still raw bundle of feelings, or to thank him profusely for the chance to sleep for an hour close enough to John to touch him before their world is once again turned upside down by Mycroft's machinations.
Once the beds are pushed together he curls up, surprisingly willingly and probably still very much under the influence of he drugs, on the bed, wraps the blanket over himself and pulls his pillow as close to John's bed as possible so that he can reach out and touch the fingers of John's right hand. He can't hold him but he is clearly there, and in the silence of the room he can hear the slow beating of the heart monitor and it lulls him to sleep.