As Sherlock sank into his mind palace he found himself watching the memories of his time living and working with John Watson stream across his consciousness. He constructed a home theater around himself and the images continued to play on the newly imagined big screen in front of him. However, as he began to get comfortable the images turned from random images to images of all the times that John almost died. Sherlock felt trapped in his seat he felt his heart rate and breathing began to increase, his hands began to sweat profusely. He tried to wipe them on his trousers but it didn't feel like sweat. When he looked down he saw that his hands were soaked in blood and he had left red smears on his legs when he had attempted to wipe them off. The more he tried to clean the blood the more it seemed to seep from his skin itself. He looked down at his feet when he felt moisture working its way into his socks. He saw a crimson liquid rising up from the ground. It was one of the few times in Sherlock's life when his mind palace had turned against him. He was no longer in a home theater he was in a dark empty room that was slowly filling with blood and there appeared to be no exits. O god he was going to drown in John's blood, he had to get out he had to leave. He began to move around the room frantically in search of an exit. The blood was up to his waste now and the sharp metal tang of its smell and the way it clung to his body was beginning to make him nauseous.
"…Sherl's…" He thought he heard his older brothers voice drift towards him as if on the wind. He whipped his head around towards the direction the voice had came from and found a door. Ripping the door open Sherlock sprinted from the room. He felt completely out of control of the images confronting him in his own mind palace. He could still feel his shoes squishing beneath him still soaked with blood and he dared not look down at his hands again. He attempted to bring to focus doors to rooms like he normally did to move through his mind palace but it wouldn't work. He searched for a room he knew was devoid of emotions, he focused on his current experiments room but could not see it in the hallway. The hallway morphed around him into an alleyway. He thought about his rooms on cigar ash and bullet fragmentation patterns but they would not appear either. I need to get away he thought I need….I need somewhere safe. He nearly screamed internally. He felt as though if he slowed his pace the blood would over take him in a wave and drown him. Then like a lightning bolt it hit him, HOME! Just as quickly his surrounds turned into a street he turned a corner and found himself on Baker Street. He sprinted for the entrance to 221B. Sherlock burst through the mental door sprinting up the stairs and into his flat, their flat his and John's. Right in front of him sitting in his arm chair as though nothing was wrong was John Watson reading the evening paper. JOHN! Sherlock mentally cried out collapsing at his friends feet. I am so sorry, it is all my fault. I should have…I should have listened. Had I just labeled my things…or kept my experiments out of the kitchen…you…you wouldn't be hurt. I am so sorry. He half sobbed into John's leg showing emotions that he could only show within the safest confines of his own mind palace. I'm so sorry John. He repeated over and over again.
"Sherlock…" He heard his own mental projection of John's whisper above him and felt a hand gently on card through his hair. Sherlock stopped his chant hesitating for a moment and then slowly lifting his head to make eye contact with his friend. John gave him that beaming smile of his and said echoing his words from early in their friendship. "It's fine Sherlock, It's all fine."
With a gasp Sherlock's eyes burst open. He was sitting on a couch in a hospital room his coat was draped over the armrest and his hands were thankfully devoid of any blood. And Mycroft says that I'm too sentimental. Sherlock thought after deducing what had occurred while he was in his mind palace. Glancing at his watch he realized that it had been about half an hour since John was carried off to the operating theater. Pulling out his phone Sherlock quickly typed out a text.
Where is the operating room, I want to know as soon as he is out of surgery. –SH
After a brief pause the phone vibrated with a response.
There is an operating theater if you wish to watch the remainder of the procedure. Tell the man outside the door he will show you where to go. –MH
Sherlock shut his phone and stood up with his usual dramatic flourish. He found a man stood just outside his door looking like every other nameless face who followed around Mycroft.
"My brother informs me that you can take me to the room they have John in" Sherlock stated in his usual calm detached voice. His brief respite in his mind palace had allowed him to reapply his mask of the cold calculating sociopath. Inside though he was still shaken to the core and he wasn't sure as he began to follow the man down the hall if he would be able to enter the actual operating theater and watch the doctors work on John.
"Its just through there Sir." The man informed Sherlock as they stopped in front of door to the operating theater. Since St. Barth's was a teaching hospital several of their operating rooms had theaters located above them or to the side that allowed people to watch the ongoing procedures. Sherlock hesitated once he was on the other side of the door, not quite sure if he could bear to move close enough to see what lay on the other side of the window across the room. Surveying the dimly lit room he was surprised to see his brother umbrella in hand standing at the window observing the proceedings in the room below.
After a moment Mycroft began to speak. "His condition really isn't that bad Sherlock. The current operation is removing the subdural hematoma, which formed at the skull fracture. The doctors informed me that his intracranial pressure is currently high but is not yet in the danger area and if they act quickly it is likely that Mr. Watson's injury will be classified as a moderate traumatic brain injury. As is typical of their profession they did not want to speculate yet at recovery rates or possible long-term effects but they are hopeful. They have just finished the intubation and are about to drill a hole in the skull in order to drain the hematoma. After this is complete they will return him to the room. He will be regularly monitored after that to insure that his intracranial pressure is stabilizing." Mycroft finished continuing to look into the operating room allowing his brother the privacy he needed to either decide to move forward and watch at the window or take a seat in one of the chairs along the sidewalls. After a few moments he heard his brother slowly move up the window beside him. The two Holmes brothers stood like sentinels unmoving as they watched the operation unfold in the room below them. Mycroft felt the briefest pang of empathy pull at his heart when he saw his brother flinch out of the corner of his eye, after the whirring of the bone drill started up in the room below. It was the tiniest of movements imperceptible to anyone who was not a Holmes, but still there.
Once the main procedure was complete the head surgeon looked up at the window and nodded at the two brothers signaling he was on his way up. He left the anesthesiologist and the nurses to finish reversing the paralytics and sedatives in Johns system and bandage up his head. Sherlock continued to watch the room below unable to pull his attention away from John wanting the visual assurance that his friend was still alive. His mind was still taunting him with periodic flashes of John on the ground surrounded by fire with a large pool of blood blossoming from his head.
The head surgeon cleared his throat behind Sherlock to get his attention. "Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson listed you as his emergency contact." The man began. Sherlock whirled around at this information in shock. He had assumed that the hospital had been providing himself and his brother with information on John's progress simply because his brother had used his influence. He never suspected that John would trust him to be his emergency contact.
"His sister…?" Was the only questioning response that he could manage.
The Surgeon took another cursory glance at the clipboard in his hand. "No you are the one he has listed as his primary contact…Sherlock Holmes." He read off the sheet. "Actually I see no mention of a sister on here at all. Should we be contacting her?"
"I don't have her information and if John did not list her then he does not want her to know when he is injured." Sherlock responded. "How was the surgery?" He asked attempting to get the conversation back on topic.
"Ah yes, the procedure was a textbook removal of a subdural hematoma. Dr. Watson was lucky to have been so close to St. Barth's, we have one of the leading neurosurgical departments in Britain. In addition, the fact that Dr. Watson's injuries are relatively localized should also cause his recovery to be fairly quick. The actual damage to the skull was minimal in this case but the force of the break caused some damage to the meninges. It was necessary to drill a hole through the skull in order to drain the layer of blood which was forming underneath the skull as a result of this fracture. Since Dr. Watson was brought to the hospital shortly after the injury and there will hopefully be minimal damage caused as a result. However, it is important to remember we are talking about an injury to the brain so Dr. Watson's could experience a wide range of symptoms. Medically we divide these effects up into five major categories; physical, cognitive, sensory, perceptual, and social-emotional symptoms. Dr. Watson arrived with a surprisingly low Glasgow scale reading considering the size of the skull fracture and force involved during injury. Although other factors such as previous head injuries while deployed and the secondary impact with the ground during the accident could have played a part. What we hope to see over the next several hours is a marked improvement on the Glasgow scale with the reduction of intracranial pressure. If his ICP doesn't reduce it may become necessary to do a more drastic surgery if this is necessary I will be Dr. Watson's surgeon again. Otherwise my colleague Dr. Barlow will conduct the remainder of his care."
The surgeon relayed the information in a way not to dissimilar from Sherlock's own restrained excited ramblings when he was aware of the fact that the subject matter which he found highly fascinating left others feeling uncomfortable. He was beginning to understand now why some family members had punched him when he finished talking. Sherlock simply nodded his head in response to the surgeons explanations and turned back to the window looking down on John dismissing the man from his presence. How could he have forgotten about the possibility of brain damage when a head wound was involved. He berated himself, he had been so focused on if John would live but he hadn't considered the possibility that he could have permanently altered who John is. As Sherlock looked down at the still man lying in the bed below him with patches of his hair shaved and large swaths of bandage around his head there was one all consuming thought spinning around in his head.
What if John Watson lost whatever it was about his personality that allowed him to tolerate living with Sherlock Holmes.
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I am working to try and do longer chapters with this but I also like to keep the chapter changes at logical locations. Also I apologize in advance if it takes a couple of days before I am able to post the next update. Please feel free to give me any kind of feedback you have negative constructive criticism will only help improve my writing. Thanks a bunch to those who have followed my story, I'm only really continuing with this because of you guys ^_^.