Bless you all for sticking with this awful story so long. Serves me right for trying to plot!

The visit to the morgue was uneventful, all it did was confirm the theory that someone was introducing the disease into the victims through injection. John reported as much to Sherlock, who was growing weaker before John's eyes, though you wouldn't know it from his angry mood. Doctors and nurses were avoiding him like the plague, which was a rather apt comparison considering the circumstances. After the disappointing day, John returned home to 221B. He hated the unnatural silence that hung about the flat like a ghost. By morning he was ready to start investigating again. He was up early and headed straight to Northwind for his instructions. However, fate seemed to have other plans.

"He hasn't awoken yet, he seized twice during the night and his breathing is becoming hindered." Dr. Jackson informed John, who was staring in despair at the sleeping form of Sherlock Holmes.

"Is he eating?" John asked, knowing that would be the most problematic part of Sherlock's cooperation with treatment.

"No his appetite is non-existent." Dr. Jackson sighed.

"Yeah, well that's normal." John stared at his friend a moment longer, his friend who was dying before him. His eyes stung and he swiped at them with the back of his hand.

"Call me if he wakes up." John ordered the doctor, who nodded slowly.

John was on his own for this one, he'd have to think like Sherlock and find clues on his own. He needed to find a way to connect all the random deaths.

"This disease has only targeted doctors from Northwind Hospital, that's where I find my unlikely coincidence."

"We can only guess at this point. Unless the other victims have the same mark. There needs to be a connect-"

Sherlock had been looking for connections, so that's what John would look for. There had to be something the victims had in common besides their place of employment. John looked around and quickly found a stray nurse walking down the hall in his direction. He motioned for her to stop and drew her in close.

"What can you tell me about Doctors Cummings, Kolton, Deerhart and Jenning?" John asked, invoking the names of every doctor killed so far.

"Like...what about them?" The nurse put her hands on her hips. "They're the best doctors we've got...well...had. They recently saved this guy's life. He had this weird African disease, he was the last one they saved before they died."

"Really?" John could picture the triumphant smirk on Sherlock's face, he could hear him tearing into the nurse with snarky comments: "Finally something of importance! You may return to your mediocre job now."

"Can you tell me about the patient?" John asked.

"Uh, no sir. That information's private." The nurse chewed her lower lip nervously. "Look if you need something I can take you to one of the doctors..."

"No, that's all. Thank you." John waved the nurse away and she returned to her work. John didn't need the nurse to find out who this patient was, after all this was a hospital and he was a doctor. He knew his way around easily enough, it would be simple to find the record room.

I wonder if he'd be proud of me. John thought to himself. He sighed, and for some reason remembered Sherlock pulling his cold hands into his to warm them. He'd miss that, and he'd miss the sarcasm, the violin playing at two in the morning, the dark curly hair and the soft looking lips...

John shook his head. He was talking about Sherlock like he was already dead, not to mention he appeared to be...admiring him. He really didn't need this kind of emotional confusion right now, things were emotional enough as it is. Besides, he had patient records to find.

He found the records room after a bit of poking around, and was able to lift the key from a distracted secretary (who had seemed to want his number). He'd waited until the doctors had cleared from the area and then stole his way into the records room, looking the door from the inside.

"Alright...recent files." He muttered to himself, pulling open file cabinet drawers and pawing through their contents. It took him half an hour but he finally found the patient he was looking for. Robert Smith, returning from a safari trip to Africa came home showing symptoms of an unknown disease which caused flu like symptoms, seizures, delirium, and finally spread its way through the body causing a complete fatal reaction. He'd made it, but barely. Strangely there wasn't much about the disease on record, and if Sherlock was suffering from the same disease then how come none of the doctor's recognized it? And where was the cure? John took down the emergency contact phone numbers on Mr. Smith's file on his phone, which began ringing shortly after he was done.

"Hello?" He answered it.

"He's awake if you wish to talk to him." Dr. Jackson's voice said through the phone. "But he's in a bit of a state. You won't get anything out of him, nothing that makes sense anyway."

The third stage...delirium. John thought. "Alright, I'm on my way." He cleaned up the files and exited the room, leaving the key in the lock so the workers would assume someone forgot it there. He could have returned it to where he found it, but he was too worried about Sherlock to waste time. He near ran to where they were keeping the detective, and waved Dr. Jackson out of the room so he could speak to the man in private. He approached the control panel.

"Sherlock?" He asked. The detective was sitting on the bed with his knees curled up to his chest, his eyes looked wide and terrified.

"John?" He croaked. "John, tell me you're here."

"I'm right here, Sherlock. What's wrong?" John swallowed nervously, this didn't look good.

"Moriarty." Sherlock hissed. "He's...he's everywhere." He held his hands against his head as though he were afraid his skull would split and fall apart.

"Sherlock, it's fine. He's not really there." John tried to reassure him.

"Don't lie to me!" Sherlock yelled, his face angry and scared, he stood and walked over to the window pointing an angry finger at John. Then he doubled over in a coughing fit. When he'd recovered he looked back up at John, his eyes desolate. "John you have to go. He's everywhere at once, he'll kill you. It's me he wants, if I die you'll be fine." Sherlock leaned against the window, unable to stand.

"I'm not leaving you." John replied softly. "Not now not ever."

"You'll stay with me?" Sherlock voice sounded hopeful but weak. "I always feel stronger when you're around, John. Always..." He trailed off and sighed. "You should leave, John." He shuffled back to the bed and curled up into a ball among the tangled sheets. John waited a moment longer and then turned for the door, he couldn't waste time he had to find patient zero.

He called the emergency contacts from Robert's file and claimed to be a friend of Robert's that he'd met on his safari. He said he wanted to meet up but didn't have his address, and that he wasn't answering his phone. The contact was only too happy to help, and so in a few minutes time John was standing in front of the door to Robert Smith's place.

"Robert? Mr. Smith?" John knocked on the door for the third time, there was still no answer. John was just about to leave when the door finally opened slightly. John pushed it open and peered inside. "Hello?"

"H...help." John looked down and fell to his knees to help the man that was bleeding out on the floor. It looked like he'd been shot, and the place was in tatters. John heard a window slam shut and ran just in time to see whoever had killed the man making his escape. John made to follow him, but the cries of the wounded man reached his ears. Swearing, he turned back around and ran to Robert Smith's side. He hated himself, he was letting Sherlock's potential cure run away with that man, but he couldn't ignore the patient laying right in front of him.

"D-doctor..." Robert coughed.

"Yes, I'm a doctor. I can help." John grabbed a dishrag from the nearby counter and pressed it to the man's wound, trying to staunch the bleeding. He didn't think he could do much, but he had to try.

"No." Robert shook his head. "The doctors...they're the ones...they tried to sell my disease."

"Tried to sell it?"

Of course! A disease that controllable, that appeared harmless at first, that killed so quickly within a day or two, they'd make millions selling it as a form of biological warfare!

"But...Dr. Kolton tried to warn me...said he had evidence on his computer..." Robert shuddered.

The missing laptop from Kolton's flat. John held Robert's head up. "This is important, I need you to tell me. Who's been killing the doctors?"

Robert opened his mouth, but choked and coughed out blood before shuddering one last time and falling silent. John felt his heart sink into his stomach, another man dead and nowhere further. He let the dead body sink slowly to the ground and tossed the bloody dishrag aside.

No time to beat yourself up. You have to find the guy who did this. John pushed himself up and ran for the door. He texted Lestrade about the murder with one hand and tried to follow the murderer's tracks at the same time, but he was no Sherlock and he couldn't track worth a damn. He gave up before long.

Sherlock...Sherlock will know. Surely he's making sense by now, I'll go tell him what I found out and he'll deduce it. John tried to reassure himself, but no matter how many times he repeated it in his head he could only feel as though this last trip to the hospital would serve no purpose other than to inform Sherlock that he'd failed him.

John was starting to hate the look of the hospital this whole plot was centered around, but he forced himself down the hallway to where Sherlock would be. When he got there he found the room empty. It looked like Sherlock was sleeping except...no...his chest wasn't moving. John ran for the window and pounded on the glass, trying to get Sherlock's attention. Somehow maybe...he could wake him up? If he ran in there to get him breathing again the doctors wouldn't let him out for fear of contamination. Then it would be over for real...but it could all be over in a heartbeat if someone didn't get Sherlock breathing again. Finally John swore and opened the door, running into the room. He started resuscitating the detective, thinking up a million insults he could sling at the man once he woke up for making him worry so much. Finally Sherlock's breath hissed past John's lips, and he groaned as he blinked open his eyes.

"John..." He whispered. "...idiot."

"Yeah, I know." John half-sobbed. "Shut up. You were dying."

"I'm still dying." Sherlock chuckled. "Your powers of observation never were too keen."

"Shut. up." John laughed just a little, though he didn't appreciate the gallows humor. He sighed and pulled himself up onto the bed with Sherlock. "Guess...I'm staying put."

"Couldn't have asked for a better companion at a moment like this." Sherlock replied, his voice deep and quiet. He wrapped an arm around John in order to pull himself up into a seated position, but John just leaned into the embrace and pressed his head against Sherlock's chest.

"Just...go to sleep, Sherlock." John whispered, hearing the detective's heart speed up at his sudden closeness. Guess we'll never find out where this is going... He thought bitterly, blushing. Well, if Sherlock was dying there wouldn't be anymore time to muddle out why exactly Sherlock's touches had been lingering lately, or why John had begun admiring the detective's good looks, or why Sherlock's heart had started racing when John had leaned against his chest. There wouldn't be any time for denial and reveal, so John just leaned in and pressed a kiss to Sherlock's forehead as the dying man fell asleep. Slowly but surely John was asleep as well.

Sherlock opened his eyes slightly, the room was pitch black and he felt cold and dizzy. There couldn't be much time for him left. John was still there, a comfortable and constant weight on his chest. He reached out a shaking hand and ran it through John's short neat hair. The doctor was snoring away, and it looked like he needed it.

Dark circles under his eyes, he hasn't been sleeping or eating. He's really been worried.

Sherlock's train of thought was broken as the door to the room opened, and a figure whose face was invisible in the darkness of the room entered. Sherlock narrowed his eyes so they appeared closed and watched the figure move closer to the bed. Instinctively his grip on John tightened.

The figure withdrew a syringe from his pocket and approached the couple on the bed, that's when Sherlock acted. Using what he had, he grabbed the pillow from under his head and tossed it at their attacker, who was hindered for only a moment by his surprise and blinded vision. Sherlock shook John awake and stood to face the man. Unfortunately his legs had other ideas as his knees buckled underneath him.

"John." He called weakly, the doctor was still rubbing sleep from his eyes but reacted quickly enough when he heard Sherlock's voice.

"What...the hell?" John looked up to see the man headed towards him with the syringe. He kicked out and the two of them fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. John knocked the syringe away and threw a few punches while his brain made the connection. Someone was in the room, most likely the murder and most likely he was there to infect John with the disease. Tying up loose ends.

John grabbed the man around his shoulders and held him. "You're going to tell me where I can find the cure. Right. Now." The murderer struggled and finally turned around. "...You?" John gasped. It was Dr. Jackson, the murderer had been right in front of John the entire time. Completely obvious all along, it was almost a little embarrassing.

"You and the Yard just had to poke your nose in where it didn't belong." Jackson snarled. "If you had just left things as they were you would have lived, but you just had to try to save your friend here."

"I said the cure! Now!" John slammed the man's face against the ground.

"Why should I give it to you?" The doctor laughed. John's eyes searched about and finally lay upon the abandoned syringe on the ground, which had by some miracle not broken upon impact with the floor. He grabbed it and instantly Dr. Jackson started struggling. "No! Get that away from me!" John calmly and professionally injected the disease into the murderous doctor.

"That's why you're going to tell me where to get the cure." John's voice was cold as ice. "Because if you don't, I'll let you die."

"John..." Sherlock muttered, he was curled up on the ground and attempting to push himself up.

"I-it's in my office! In the freezer!" Dr. Jackson wailed. "Get it! I don't want to die from this I've seen the way people die from this!"

John shook his head, he couldn't believe this man was a doctor. John knocked the doctor to the floor to stun him, then scooped Sherlock up in his arms. The detective's breath was getting shallow and his fingers gripped to John's shirt front weakly. John locked the doctor in the quarantine room and then leaned Sherlock against the wall.

"I'll be back." He promised, kissing Sherlock's forehead.

It took him way too long to find Dr. Jackson's office, but the cure was there just as the murderer said it would be. John grabbed a fresh syringe and ran back to where he'd left Sherlock. Dr. Jackson was beating against the window and yelling threats and profanities, Sherlock wasn't even awake enough to give him a snarky look. John was about to inject the cure into Sherlock when he thought: maybe Jackson is lying...this could be something else just as deadly. The cure could be hidden somewhere else and he could have tricked me. But there was no time to check, Sherlock was fading and so John gave him the supposed cure.

"Now me! Give some to me!" Jackson demanded, beating against the glass. John looked at the remaining cure and then back at the man that had nearly been responsible for Sherlock's death and was surely responsible for the death of so many others.

"Should I?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the murderer.

"You know you will. You're a good man." Dr. Jackson insisted.

"Well you're wrong. I'm not a good man." John muttered and Dr. Jackson's face froze in terror. Then John opened the door and injected the man with the cure. "I'm not a good man, I'm a doctor."

"John have you seen the eyeballs?" Sherlock shouted from the kitchen. He was kneeling in front of the fridge and searching through its contents for the aforementioned eyeballs. "I was going to microwave them."

"Honestly...Sherlock we have a rule, if a body part is in the fridge for more than a week I get rid of it. Those eyeballs are long gone." John rolled his eyes and put down his phone, turning to look at his boyfriend. He was looking better, though you could still see traces of sickness about his gaunt face and thin body he definitely had his normal Sherlock attitude back.

"I seem to remember being in the hospital for at least half of that week. That shouldn't count." Sherlock pouted, slamming the fridge door shut. John chuckled and shook his head. He stood and walked over to where Sherlock was standing and pressed a soft kiss against his lips.

"I'm sure you'll find something else to do, but no eyeballs to microwave today." He smirked. Sherlock rolled his eyes. John turned to go back to the couch, but then he remembered something and turned around.

"Sherlock...back when you were sick...when you were delirious, you thought that Moriarty was after us." He began. Sherlock seemed to freeze for a moment, stopped in his movements and stood absolutely still. Then he shrugged and busied himself examining his chemistry set on the table.

"What about it?" He asked.

"You were ready to let him kill you so that I could live. You do know that's not an option right? You wouldn't ever sacrifice yourself for me right?"John reached for Sherlock's hand and gave it a small squeeze.

"Well..." Sherlock muttered. "I'd never thought of that..."