Five minutes later, Jim came striding out of the lift, eyes sharp. He headed for Lorna immediately. "What's happening?"

"Jim, fuck," she muttered, shaking her head at herself. She'd completely forgotten to tell him, she was so wrapped up in worrying about Moran. "He passed out, unable to breathe. He's been coughing worse and worse all week. I told him to get it checked out..."

"Have they told you anything?" he pressed, walking over toward the triage room and stopping just short, as if leashed, his whole body straining forward.

"No," she replied, shaking her head, tapping her fingers anxiously against her leg. "Nothing. It hasn't been long enough, I don't think."

"Go n-ithe an cat thú, is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat," he spat at the curtain, shoving his hands into his pockets, and closing his eyes. He took a slow breath, and when they opened he was calm. "No sense waiting here. I'll be working. Keep me posted."

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

Doctors and nurses moved in and out of Sebastian's room over the next few minutes, but it wasn't until almost a half an hour later that a nurse approached Lorna. "We have him stabilized," he said before she could ask. "He had fluid in his lungs, but we aren't sure of the cause as yet. We're running tests. For right now we have him on oxygen and we're giving him an antitussive to help with the cough."

She nodded, pulling out her phone and quickly updating Jim before looking back up at the nurse. "Is he out? Can I see him?"

"He's awake," he said with a nod. "Actually we were hoping you could talk him into staying. At the moment he's attempting to discharge himself. And making rather graphic threats of violence if we don't comply."

"Of course he is," she muttered under her breath, then nodded. "Yes, of course. Take me to him."

He nodded, bringing her back to one of the rooms adjoining triage. Moran was there, sitting in the bed and cussing out a nurse holding an oxygen mask. She seemed unphased by his ire. "-have plenty of work to do and the last thing I need is you goddamned people breathing down my fucking neck," he said in a voice that was rough and broke frequently.

"Sebastian, stop," Lorna said in her most authoritative tone, stopping at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed over her chest. "You know you're just being childish."

He looked over at her, and then waved his hand. "Go," he muttered to the nurse.

"Sir, I have to insist that you-" she started, lifting the mask, but he cut her off.

"Leave it and go." She sighed, but set it on the bed beside him and left.

She relaxed a little as the door shut behind the nurse, and sighed, moving to sit by his bed. "They're running tests. Until they say you're okay, please listen to them."

"Don't patronize me," he said stiffly, shifting to sit cross-legged. His chest burned, and his throat was raw.

She raised her eyebrows. "I'm not patronizing you," she retorted. "Nor, by the way, to head this off at the pass, do I think you're soft or anything similar for.. what you said earlier," she said sternly, glancing towards the door, her voice hushed. "I saw your look. Don't do that shit. You know I hate it."

He sighed, pressing his face into his hands and rubbing at his eyes. His chest was tight, breathing more difficult than usual, but like hell if he was going to sit there with that fucking mask on. "You were pitying me. You know I hate that ."

"Sebastian, I'm allowed to feel bad for you!" She snapped, years tired of his macho tendencies. "It's not pity! It's empathy."

"I wasn't looking for any of that," he shot back, and had to pause to hold off a cough. "I just wanted you to understand that I didn't want to be with Keira's mother. That's all."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. "I know. But I can't help it. Please don't think it's a weakness of yours when I empathize with you. It's not a reflection of you, it's a reflection of me. It's me caring about you."

He looked away, and sighed, reaching up to rub at his eyes. "I know. I just... it's a failure on my part, Lorna. I'm going soft." He reached out to flick the oxygen mask away in disgust. "And it's eating me alive."

"The obsession with not being soft is going to kill you, Sebastian," she said tiredly. "It's only you and Jim and any other crazy ex-soldiers. No one else cares. They're too afraid of what you'll do to them."

"Yeah, well, it's not really anyone else I give much of a shit about, Lorna," he retorted. "Jim is my primary concern."

"Well it's not like I'm going to go tell Jim," she said, exasperated. "And Jim isn't psychic, as much as he'd like to be."

He looked over at her, and he knew he was being unreasonable. He shifted slightly, elbows on his knees, and looked away again. "It doesn't make me want this any less. Want you less."

"Okay," she said softly. "I believe you. Sorry I was... Unreasonable."

He shrugged. "I wasn't exactly reasonable, so we could probably call it even."

She nodded, then reached out to put a hand over his. "Did you make any progress with Keira?"

He glanced down at their hands, then turned his over to grip hers. It didn't mean much to him. She was here, that was what counted, but he knew she'd feel better. "A bit, I think. I don't know. We got cut short."

She smiled a little sheepishly. "Sorry. At least there's sushi in the flat now."

"If they ever let me out-"

The nurse from before opened the door. "Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we're ready to take x-rays now."

Lorna nodded, retrieving her hand. "I'll wait in here, shall I?" She doubted he would enjoy it if she hovered.

He nodded a little, swinging his feet off the bed and standing, going to follow the nurse.

They returned him twenty minutes later, and then it was just sitting and waiting. He was impatient, and hungry, and annoyed, and was about to just go walk out and deal with the consequences later, when one of the doctors entered, nodding to him and Lorna. "Hello, sir. I'm Dr. Katryn Davies. I have some preliminary information..." She glanced at Harrison, but he waved off the concern.

"She can stay."

The woman hesitated for a moment until Lorna gestured impatiently for her to get on with it.

She sighed, but nodded a little. "I want to preface this with the fact that we aren't sure of anything at this point. I've ordered more extensive testing be done, and it will be a few days before we get those results," she hedged. Then she turned on an x-ray viewer on the wall and dimmed the lights. She pulled a sheet out of her folder and put it up on the viewer. The view was of his ribcage, and his lungs. There were two blue circles drawn on his left lung, around two large whitish spots that weren't on the right. "These," Davies said, pointing to the circles, "Shouldn't be there. As I said, I cannot be certain until our cultures of your phlegm come back, but I've seen similar growths many times and you need to prepare yourself." She shifted, turning the light back on and looking Moran in the eye, her own expression careful. "Mr. Moran, I believe it likely that you have stage two lung cancer."

She said other things after that, but he wasn't listening, his gaze shifting back to the x-ray on the wall, at the two masses that shouldn't be there. He reached up absently to touch his ribs.

Lorna owed it to all her grifting skills that she didn't break down into tears as soon as the woman said the word 'cancer'. She did her best to pay attention to what she had to say, about the odds of survival and estimated times, but when the doctor finished she was very near to losing it, her hands clutching her thighs, hard.

"The most important thing is not to give up hope," Davies was saying, looking earnest and sounding cliche. "If it is cancer- and we don't know that it is- It's at an early stage. It's treat-"

"Thank you, doctor, I think that will be all for now," Moran said calmly, staring her down. She nodded.

"Of course. I'll give you two some time." She turned to go, and Moran called her back.

"Oh, and Dr. Davies... Don't tell Moriarty about this. I'll inform him myself." She hesitated, but then bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment and left without a word.

He stayed silent, too. What was there to say?

She waited until the door was shut before she got up and walked over to lock it, then walked back to climb into the bed with him. She let the silence stand.

He reached out after a moment and pulled her into a hug that was almost too tight, tucking her in against his chest and just staring at the wall, expressionless, his breathing robotically steady, a slight wheeze the only indication that anything was wrong.

She couldn't think of anything to say. Not one thing. This was too scary. Too real. Yet still, it felt like such an intangible threat. Cancer. She realized that she was crying silently.

He felt the damp patch slowly growing on his rumpled shirt, and rubbed her back a little bit, finally blinking and focusing on something but the wall. "Hey. Come on, none of that."

"Sorry," she said softly, wrapping her arm around his side. "Just kinda happened."

"Yeah..." He trailed off into silence again. "Faced worse odds than that on plenty of missions," he said finally. "Mycroft Holmes is more deadly than cancer, I am positive."

She nodded a little, resolutely. "You're right. You can beat this, no problem. We've escaped worse."

He nodded, chin brushing the top of her head. Then he took a breath. "I need to tell Jim. He'll be furious if I delay."

She nodded, shifting off of him after a moment. "I assume I should stay away from that conversation?"

He took a slow breath, then nodded. "Yeah. I'll meet you back in the flat. I'm sure as hell not staying here."

"Okay, but I'm going to ask if there's anything I can take to the flat that will help with your lungs. A humidifier, or dehumidifier, I don't know," she sighed, sliding off the bed and standing up.

"Fine," he said, standing as well. He didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to think about what this would mean, about the treatment and the sickness and the fucking machines... He straightened his shirt and headed for the door. "I'll see you there in a bit."

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Alright. I'll see you there. Sushi, remember."

"Sushi," he called back over his shoulder, before heading to the lift and pressing the call button. He was running the situation over in his head- not the implications, not remotely. Those he was avoiding like the plague. But how to tell Jim... That was a different matter entirely. He still hadn't come up with a solution by the time he reached Jim's door, and found himself knocking out of habit before he had a chance to suggest to himself that he pause to strategize.

"Come in," he said, looking up in anticipation at Sebastian's knock. So he was up and about. That was good.

He opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it behind him and taking a breath- an action which felt so much more sacred now. He walked over to stand in front of Jim's desk. "Sir... We need to talk."

Jim's attention was completely undivided. "Speak, then."

He was quiet for a moment, eyes on Jim, and then on the window behind him. Then he sat in the chair, elbows on his knees. In the end, he went with the only approach he had ever really taken with Jim- blunt. He looked up, held the other man's gaze, took a breath. When he spoke he was vividly aware of how gravelly his voice sounded. "They think I have lung cancer, boss. They aren't sure, but they seem pretty confident."

Jim was still for a long time after that, his mind short-circuiting for a bit. Cancer. He'd always imagined Moran dying in a pool of blood, or under a scalpel, or underneath the barrel of his gun. Cancer. He threw the glass on his desk at the wall, unblinking as it shattered. He looked back at Moran. "How bad is it?"

He turned to watch the glass shatter, some part of him interested in the dispassionate way Jim had thrown it. As if he had just done it because he felt he should. "If they're right? Stage two. I'll need surgery, probably chemo... About a thirty percent chance of making it five years." He spoke calmly, as if briefing Jim on a mission's specs.

"Fucking Christ, Moran," he said wearily, dragging a hand down his face. "Of all the bullshit ways..." Really, he was angry. They'd already watched him die once.

"Believe me, I'm not thrilled," he agreed. "I'm not planning on dying, but if you're going to put me down I would appreciate it if you decided to do so before I deal with chemo."

Jim snorted angrily. "No, I'm not going to put you down. I expect you to fucking fight this. I'm not losing my right hand man of at the very fucking least the better part of a decade to a fluke."

Something in him eased slightly, and he nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but paused to cover a cough instead. He took a moment, then returned his attention to Jim, and nodded. "Then I'm going to need access to specialists. Some vacation time. And we should start discussing a replacement, because at the very least I'm going to be out of commission for a while fighting this."

"Yes, agreed," he nodded, drumming his fingers on the desk. "Start thinking about replacement material once you've gathered the specialists you need. Fly them in, if you need to. The closer you are the more Harrison can continue doing her job. I assume her usability will be similarly limited with you sick," he said, irritated but pragmatic.

"I'll do my best to prevent that, sir, but it's likely," he agreed. He stood. "Anything else, sir?"

"This was shit timing, Tiger," he muttered, then waved his hand. "Have them prep one of the live-ins. I need to burn off some steam."

He nodded, and headed for the door without another word. He didn't have the energy to spar with Jim at the moment. He felt empty. He called down to the basement as he got into the lift, and hung up by the time he was at the flat door. He paused for a moment, then scanned in.