Title: And A Doctor
Author: Still Waters
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Summary: It was only when people actually saw John working as a physician that they began to understand: that it wasn't just about bullets and IEDs and trauma care under fire. That "doctor" actually covered a pretty wide field. And that John was bloody good at covering ground. 5 times Dr. Watson treated others and 1 time he treated himself.
Brit-pick: Many thanks, once again, to the wonderful mrspencil, who somehow manages to find time in her busy schedule to cheerfully look over my work and teach me new things.
Notes: This ended up being both the shortest and least time-intensive chapter of the whole story. It pretty much came out fully formed and unlike other chapters (I'm looking at you, chapter 5), required almost no editing. As always, I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading.
2.
The sudden stop of maddeningly slow typing, the measured release of breath, the sound of wool shifting over tensing muscles…..Sherlock didn't even have to glance up from the microscope to know who was ringing.
"Harry," John answered his mobile carefully, attempting calm, brotherly openness over the visible stiffness of anticipation.
"I can't take this anymore, I really can't," Harry launched past any pretense of pleasantries.
John sighed, signing out of his blog. "Can't take what?" he asked, already dreading the continuation.
"This bloody flat. The sink's backed up, the sodding Robertsons are at it again, and the stupid alarm's broken for the fifth time this month - kept waking me up all bloody night."
"I thought you were looking for another flat," John recalled.
"Yeah, well, I'm still in this bloody one right now, aren't I?" Harry shot back.
John closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. "Anything look promising?" he tried to direct the conversation back to something productive.
"Without a second income? Not bloody likely," Harry snorted. "If she didn't….."
"No. Harry, no. We're not talking about this, remember?" John had made it very clear, after the last vitriolic rant about Clara where Harry refused to even call her by her name, that he would not take part in that line of conversation again.
"I wasn't going to…"
"Yes, you were. Now stop." John's voice was a weighty mix of firmness and weariness.
"No, I….." Harry sighed heavily. "I just want to sleep."
"So sleep."
"I can't sleep. Aren't you even listening to me?" Harry demanded, voice stretched high and thin.
John blew out another measured breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Call your landlord about the sink, then."
"I don't care about the bloody sink."
"Then put in earplugs and close your eyes while the Robertsons wear themselves out," John tried to keep his voice level.
"I don't have earplugs."
John's next breath was a little less controlled. "Did you phone me just to argue, then? Because I really don't know what else to tell you, Harry."
"'M not arguing. I just…need to sleep," Harry mumbled.
John tensed at the repetition; a tension markedly different from the one usually associated with his sister. "Harry…."
"'M just going to sleep," Harry's mumble moved closer to a slur.
Sherlock's eyes never left the microscope. "Oh, just hang up already," he groaned.
John's eyes flickered over to him even as his mind worked furiously to make sense of the sudden unsettled feeling in his gut: heavy, yet vague enough to defy definition at the same time.
"Please," Sherlock scoffed, actually looking over at the sitting room table this time. "I don't need to properly hear your sister to know she's drunk and argumentative. The real question is why you insist on continuing to subject yourself to it."
John frowned as Sherlock continued in a bored tone, "Normally, you'd have ended the conversation within the first minute."
Sherlock was right, of course. Normally, John would have stopped the call as soon as it was obvious that Harry was drunk and incapable of listening to reason. But he hadn't today. Why?
The realization suddenly slammed into him, that unsettled feeling screaming its true identity: clinical intuition. The inexplicable, but never incorrect, knowledge that something was not good. His mind raced back over the conversation, looking for what he had missed, what was so….
Oh.
Shit.
"Harry," John jumped up from the chair, posture tightening into near-military attention as adrenaline shot through his body. "Harry, what alarm was going off last night?"
Intrigued by John's sudden change in tone and position, Sherlock stood up and crossed the room to better hear the other end of the conversation.
"Doesn't matter. Does it all the time and they always say it's fine. No fire or anything. I'm just…." Harry trailed off.
"No, Harry, don't sleep," John insisted.
"But you said…."
"Forget what I said," John's voice was firm, demanding focus.
"John," Sherlock said, head slightly tilted as he listened to Harry through the phone. "Surely you hear the slurring. Expecting her to listen to reason at that level of inebriation is….."
"She's not drunk, Sherlock," John ground out, keeping his back to his flatmate, focus completely fixed on the phone. "Harry, you need to get out of the flat."
"Bollocks. I'm tired, John. I'm just…."
Sherlock had barely opened his mouth when John whirled around, leveling a firm finger at him. "No she isn't, Sherlock. I bloody well know what my sister sounds like when she's drunk, and this isn't it." He got back to the phone. "Harry, listen to me. You need to get out of the flat now."
"John…."
"Harry," John's voice was calm and controlled, urgency without panic; a man who knew how to give orders in a tone demanding they be obeyed. "Listen to me carefully. There's no fire because it wasn't the smoke alarm – it was the bloody carbon monoxide detector. You're tired because your flat is filling up with carbon monoxide and you're short on oxygen. I need you to get outside now."
"But…."
"No, Harry. Now. Walk to the door." He waited a moment, giving her a chance to move. "Are you at the door?"
"Hold on a bloody…." Harry mumbled, exhausted.
"I know you're tired, but this is important. You need to do this, fast as you can. Tell me when you're at the door."
"Okay," Harry reported sluggishly. "Opening the door."
"Good, now start walking to the front of the building. Keep talking to me," John encouraged, shoulders back, spine ramrod straight. He turned to Sherlock. "Get a fire crew and ambulance to Harry's flat, now." His eyes narrowed as Sherlock drew in a breath while reaching for his mobile. "And don't pretend you don't already know her address."
Sherlock looked vaguely chastised as he made the call.
"Good, now go outside and sit on the steps," John continued with Harry. "That's right. Are you sitting? Great. Take deep breaths now, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Nice and slow. Just like that, good. Keep going."
Finished with the 999 call, Sherlock took advantage of the pause in John's conversation. "The alarm wasn't going off in the background," he reminded him. "Perhaps…."
"The alarm's apparently gone off five times this month for no reason at all. If it's been that dodgy, she could've taken the batteries out for all I know." John's tone left no room for argument as he focused back on Harry. "How are you doing?"
"A little….clearer?" Harry offered, still taking careful breaths as instructed.
John let out a breath of his own. "Good, keep going. You're doing great."
Several minutes later, Harry's measured respirations were drowned out by fast-approaching sirens and the slamming of vehicle doors. One paramedic took the phone from Harry while another began looking her over. He listened to John's assessment, confirmed which hospital she was going to, and informed Harry that her brother would check in on her later, before ending the call in order to start transporting her to A&E.
John set the mobile on the table and stared, purse-lipped, out the window.
"John…." Sherlock said quietly.
John didn't turn around. "Irritability and restlessness are early signs of hypoxia. Add the drowsiness and it's classic carbon monoxide poisoning."
"I…..shouldn't have presumed that her behavior was due to alcohol." Sherlock managed to sound both apologetic and angry at himself for making such an assumption without full data at the same time.
"I almost missed it, too," John sighed, running a hand across his face as he leaned further into the table, right forearm cording under the thick jumper as it took the brunt of his weight.
"You didn't," Sherlock pointed out.
John smiled softly. "Are you saying that you did?"
Sherlock's lips quirked at the reassuring display of John's reflexive humor. "I'll leave you to your deductions."
John snorted softly, dropping his chin to his chest as some of the tension left his neck.
"Tea?" Sherlock offered.
John turned around in surprise at the offer, only to find Sherlock putting on his coat and scarf rather than filling the kettle. "Yeah," he smiled, seeing through the seemingly contrary action to its true intent.
He kept a brisk pace through the chilly night air, working off the energy of long-distance diagnosis and lingering adrenaline, grateful that Sherlock had chosen the long route. By the time they got to the café, John's mobile rang with an update that it was carbon monoxide poisoning, but a mild case, and that Harry was on oxygen and would be released later that night.
"Forgot how bloody good you are, Doctor," Harry teased as she took the phone back from the nurse. "Thank you, John," she sobered.
"Just make sure the bloody landlord actually fixes the alarms this time, okay?"
"Oh, he'll be hearing from me as soon as I'm out of here," she promised.
"Poor sod," John grinned.
"Shut up," Harry tossed back with a laugh. "I'll talk to you later, yeah?"
"Yeah. Good night, Harry."
"Good night, John."
John sighed and looked up at the stars, searching out familiar constellations as his mind wandered. Sherlock came back out of the café and moved to John's left side, joining him in his study of the night sky, silently holding a cup of tea close enough for John to reach out and take it, yet not so close as to crowd him or make demands.
His self-professed sociopathic flatmate, who was always quick to invade his privacy and personal space, while also being the only person who knew him well enough now to know when not to touch him.
"I would have hung up on Mycroft," Sherlock said, eyes still on the stars.
"You always hang up on Mycroft," John pointed out.
"Hmmm," Sherlock acknowledged. He glanced over as John took his tea and began warming his hands through the cardboard insulator. Better?
John dipped his head in a short nod. Yeah, thanks.
The silence on the walk back to the flat was comfortable and the tea exactly how John liked it.