A/N: Sorry for the delay again everyone! I'm off of school FINALLY, and I'm finished with my bachelor's degree! . Anyway! Expect more updates in the next few weeks as all I'll be doing before grad school starts is FINISHING THIS FIC. WOOHOO! Enjoy today's relatively shorter chapter. :)
"SHERLOCK!"
John bolted upright, breathing like a wounded elephant. He inhaled sharply as a searing pain reverberated through his shoulder and neck. Then he remembered everything at once.
His head pounded with the nightmare he had woken from. His stomach flew into his mouth. Looking out the window and into the night, he saw the stars beginning to disappear. The sky was turning a dull, pale gray. Dawn was coming, and it was coming swiftly.
June 18. It's June 18.
The phone. Where was the bloody phone?
"Nadya! Nadya!" he called out, his head splitting from the pitch of his voice. The dimly lit hospital room echoed. Cold, soulless lights buzzed eerily. The gray walls were almost closing in.
The image of Jim Moriarty standing in the open hotel door was still in his head. A slight shiver ran up his spine and he exhaled vigorously. His right shoulder ached with what he felt was failure.
Gingerly, he raised his arm and felt for the pocket that had last held the device. But he was wearing a hospital gown, and his jacket was nowhere in sight. His heart fell into his toes.
Perhaps Nadya had taken the phone when he had lost consciousness, but he couldn't be sure. Today was the day.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" he called out, slowly getting out of his bed. He wobbled for a bit before finding his balance, and his good right arm held the bandages on his left one. Pain still throbbed threateningly beneath.
Suddenly, a sharp intake of breath caught his attention and he turned. There was a thin curtain beside his bed. Behind it, the rhythm of someone's breath came out all shaky, like a feather balancing on the edge of a knife.
John's eyebrows met above his nose. His curiosity mastered him, and he took a few short, cautious steps toward the thin sheet. Timidly, he lifted his good arm and pulled it back.
Horrified, his mouth stood ajar. He blinked a few times to be sure what he was seeing was real.
Irene Adler was lying there, completely motionless. He would have thought her dead if those few breaths a moment ago had not interrupted the fragile silence. Her usually glowing complexion was almost white with death, and her thin mouth eerily resembled a flatline. He cursed himself for even making the connection.
"Oh God . . . Irene?" he began, staggering forward almost drunkenly and taking her wrist.
"Irene."
He didn't remember ever having said her name before. As the water stood in his eyes, he wrapped a thick finger around her arm and felt for a pulse.
Slow, steady, but there nonetheless. She wasn't dead. Not yet.
He stared at her arm in silence. He looked along the white length of flesh for a vein, and he saw it: purplish blue, too thin for comfort and snaking into her palm. He was almost forgetting to breathe. His eyes glazed over.
All of a sudden, she took a harsh breath through her mouth and it startled him. He drew back instantly, dropping her arm at her side and grappling with an outstretched hand for the curtain.
His flailing fingers finally found it, and he concealed her once again as she had been before. Heaving a sigh of relief, he fell back on his own bed. His consciousness was muddled, drunk.
Then he remembered the phone. He rose again and staggered to the door at the opposite end of the room, intent on finding a doctor. Before he could make it there, it burst open of its own accord.
"John!"
"Sherlock! Oh, thank God."
"John, John—" Sherlock started, and John's footing began to falter as the detective bounded through the door. John reached out, and Sherlock steadied him before his legs could buckle.
"John, are you alright? Are you hurt? How are you feeling? Nadya's just told me everything."
"No, no, don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm great. What about the baby? Is the baby okay, Sherlock? What happened to the baby?"
"The baby's alright, John. They had to stitch up his foot, but I was with him most of the night as he slept. He's doing considerably well. They're taking good care of him while Irene is . . ."
The detective stopped, unable to continue. John searched his face, finding mixtures of emotions swimming in his eyes and in the curt corners of his dismal mouth.
"Sherlock—" he began.
"I don't know what's happened to her, John. No one's told me. I think she—"
He looked away, sucking in a quiet breath of air as he did so. Sherlock put a shaky hand over his mouth.
"Sherlock, she's alive."
The detective said nothing, but his eyes solemnly met John's. They looked almost afraid.
"What?"
"Come here," John said under his breath, walking toward the curtain once more.
Sherlock seemed to exercise the same caution John had as he pushed back the curtain. The doctor could almost see the detective's muscles tensing as he looked beyond the thin veil.
"Oh, God," Sherlock breathed. His thick fingers delicately handled the woman's thin wrist, holding it aloft. John saw him press the veins for a pulse. But Sherlock's eyes never left the sleeping woman's face. He breathed through his nose, his mouth a shut iron gate.
"How long has she—"
"I don't know," John replied. "I only just woke up myself."
He watched as Sherlock bent to press a kiss to Irene's forehead. She didn't stir, and the steady, hoarse breathing through her mouth sent shivers up John's spine. She seemed to be almost hovering between the thin veil of life and death. Her eyelids looked like they could flutter open any second or stay lowered forever. All of it was such a ghastly thing to behold.
Sherlock hovered over her for a moment, and John turned away. He thought he heard muttering. He closed his eyes and strolled toward the open window at the other end of the room. The sun was peeking over the horizon, and a sharp ray of reddish orange light charged through the glass. John squinted as he watched the sun rise over Kirov.
Then he remembered the day.
"Sherlock," he started briskly, turning to find the detective standing upright once more. "Sherlock, it's June 18. Where's the—where's the phone? Did Nadya give it to you? How much time have we got left?"
He rubbed his bad arm. It felt like a burning glass bottle.
"What do you mean where's the phone?" Sherlock suddenly asked, his eyes sharpening with the intimation of panic. "Nadya said you had it. I thought you'd . . . I thought you'd have it."
John's mouth went dry.
"You don't—"
"No . . . I . . . I don't."
"Nadya . . . didn't have it?"
"No, she didn't. She said you'd have it. Where'd you see it last?"
"Well it was . . . it was in my jacket, but I can't find that now, can I?" John blurted, beads of perspiration beginning to pop up on his already pale forehead. He was beginning to feel lightheaded again.
"Oh God, Sherlock. Oh God, what have I done?" John cried out as Sherlock ushered him back toward his bed.
"This isn't your fault, John. It's not your fault. You were shot. This isn't your doing."
"Yes, it bloody well is," he retorted, and he thought he could hear a hitch in his voice. "AHH!" John cried out, his knees buckling, and his hands bracing his fall. The pain radiating in his shoulder was shooting through his chest and neck. He squinted and gritted his teeth.
"John!" Sherlock hoisted him to his feet and led him to the bed, forcing him to lay upon it. The doctor shut his eyes and looked at the ceiling, tears trickling down his cheeks. This was all his fault.
"John, look at me. Look at me," Sherlock ordered, giving the doctor's shoulders a firm shake. John met his gaze through bleary eyes.
"This is not your fault. None of this is. Do you understand?"
"It bloody is! I swear, Sherlock, if everything goes wrong, I—"
The violent hissing of a mobile phone interrupted him, and his head cleared instantly. His eyes shot open. He wiped them aggressively and watched as Sherlock met his gaze in horror.
John realized they both knew what was happening.
Sherlock's first words were not a greeting. He didn't need to put on civility and pretend he needed explaining to. Instead, he asked a question and demanded an answer. His brows made a straight line and his mouth was bent sourly. John's mouth opened just a touch.
"Where are you?"
Sherlock took a breath through his mouth as he waited for the answer.
"No. I don't have time for this. You listen to me. Where are you?"
John waited in silence. Sherlock turned his back to him and paced the room, turning first to the window then toward his wife's bedside. He slid a shaking hand into his pocket. He's nervously fiddling with loose threads, John guessed.
"You wouldn't give yourself so little time," Sherlock finally said at last.
Silence once more. John ran a hand across his forehead. Sweat. So much sweat. His back felt like a slick mountainside. He shut his eyes.
"Challenge accepted." And the phone clicked off. Instantly, John hopped out of the hospital bed once more, his nerves fraying at the ends, and he fired off the questions circling in his brain.
"Where is he?"
"Upstairs."
"What did he want?"
"A display of intellect in exchange for the phone."
"A what? But he's got it?"
"Yes. And I've only an hour to beat him before he blows up the whole of London."
"Christ, Sherlock. What the hell is going on?"
"John, I need you to listen to me," Sherlock began as he threw on his coat. "Phone Mycroft. Tell him Waterloo's commenced and that it's time to send Minos to guard the Inferno. Can you tell him for me, please?"
"Sure, but, Sherlock—"
They said nothing for a fraction of a second, but that was all it took. One glance, and John threw his arms around the detective. He felt Sherlock return his tight embrace, and their brotherhood never felt stronger.
"This is it, Sherlock."
"This is it, John."
John clapped Sherlock's shoulder hard and turned his eyes up to look him dead in the face. Sherlock's eyes were glistening slightly, and he turned briefly to look at his sleeping wife. John looked as well. She radiated a sense of calm, and he imagined Sherlock took courage when he looked upon that sleeping form.
"Phone Mycroft."
"Yeah, right," John replied, blinking back into the present.
"If she wakes, tell her I'm coming back. I am coming back, John. I promise."
"Of course, Sherlock. You always do."
Another moment of silence, and the two men clasped hands once more.
"We'll be here. I promise," John said. "Now, hurry up. Go, Sherlock. You'd better get on, mate."
"Right," Sherlock breathed, turning his eyes to the floor and striding towards the exit. John watched the black trench coat swish and envelop him in blackness as he disappeared behind the massive metal door.
John didn't consider himself a praying man, but as Sherlock disappeared from sight, he mouthed the smallest of prayers under his breath.
"Oh God, if you're even there . . . protect Sherlock Holmes. Bring him back, bring him home . . . and make this right."