Two and a Half Days Earlier

It smelled bloody awful.

One of the two men opening the barrel fainted.

"Shit!" One of the suited guys – I think they were MI5 – ran over to help, but it was too late. The barrel was too heavy for just one man, and it tipped over, spilling the body onto the rocks.

"Christ," I heard Lestrade say. I watched as the MI5 guy and one of his compadres helped carry the unconscious man off to one side. My eyes wandered back to the body.

We'd managed to find the barrel after nearly two hours of searching through the murky waters of the river. We'd called it in, and within minutes, the beach had been swarming with officers and suits. They'd cordoned off a section for us and the boat, and after receiving clearance, we'd all come ashore to open the barrel.

The barrel was, like the last one, stamped in big white letters proclaiming that it belonged to Avalon Enterprises. And inside, just as Sherlock had predicted, was another dead mermaid.

Literally a mermaid.

Well, a merman, at any rate. His upper body had been crudely attached to the back end of a shark. I scrutinized the dead man's face. It did, I realized, look an awful lot like Sherlock. Same build, similar facial features. I glanced back worriedly at my friend, who was prowling around the victim. He didn't seem to be acting out of the ordinary. Still, I thought, I had better keep a closer eye on him.

We didn't know for sure, of course, whether Avalon was targeting Sherlock or not. But the similarities between my friend and the dead men were troubling at best. Lestrade was right, I reasoned. No such thing as a coincidence when it comes to murder.

I resolved to stay close to Sherlock, at least until this case was closed.

"John, come here," Sherlock said. I shook off my feeling of unease and stepped closer to the body. "What differences do you notice between this body and the last one?"

I sighed, pinched my nose shut, and knelt beside the victim.

"Well, besides the obvious, erm… well, the tail… this victim seems to have bled quite a lot." I pointed to the seam where fishtail met skin. "Looks like the skin didn't take."

Darkish blood continued to ooze from the wound. The tail was grafted onto the man's lower body, and was held together with what appeared to be stitches – though whoever had been playing surgeon had done a poor job. The graft wasn't holding. I supposed the two different kinds of skin had rejected each other. Whatever the case, the tail was starting to come loose from the man's lower body.

The conscious MI5 guy wandered back to the scene, saying something discreetly into his walkie.

"John Watson, I presume?" he asked. "And the ever-popular Sherlock Holmes."

I stood, brushing some of the muck from my knees. Sherlock didn't even acknowledge the guy. I rolled my eyes, and offered my hand. The man eyed it, and very conspicuously did not shake it.

"And you are?" I asked.

"The person who is going to tell you to vacate the premises. This case has been taken into the hands of the government."

"Hang on, you're telling us to leave?"

"That is correct."

"The guy whose creepy secret service friend just passed out at the sight of a body is telling us to leave," I shot back.

The suit made no response. He simply waited for us to go.

I planted my feet firmly on the rocks. "Nope. I woke up at three in the bloody morning, sat on a freezing boat for nearly two hours, and helped pull a dead body out of the Thames. I haven't even eaten breakfast! We are not being taken off this case!"

Sherlock walked up silently, pulling a set of latex gloves from his wrists. I glanced up at him. He seemed to approve of my little tirade. He tossed the gloves at the guy's feet.

"Not to worry, John," he said conversationally. "I'm sure that the government has everything under control. Come along." He began walking away. Then, as if forgetting something, he turned back to the suit. "Oh, and give Mycroft my regards, will you? Good day."

He continued walking along the beach. I glared once at the suit before trotting along to keep up with my friend. We passed under a line of yellow police tape. No one tried to stop us. Lestrade was nowhere to be seen.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"Idiots. They've no idea what they're getting into." My friend frowned, but didn't look back at the crime scene.

"Yeah, I figured as much. Why did we get kicked off the case though? Lestrade seemed hell-bent for keeping you on the case."

Sherlock smirked. "Lestrade seems to think the best way to keep me safe is by keeping me close, while my older brother believes that distance is key. I have to say I preferred Lestrade's method of confinement. Unfortunately, my older brother actually has the resources to enforce his punishment."

"So Mycroft thinks you're in danger?" I hazarded, sifting through his explanation.

"Mm. Lestrade too."

We walked in silence along the beach for a while until we came to a bridge. We scrambled up the embankment and found ourselves in the welcome embrace of the city once more. I shivered as a gust of wind caressed my neck and face.

I had to ask.

"Are you? In danger, I mean," I voiced the question as neutrally as I could, as we made our way vaguely back in the direction of Battersea.

Sherlock looked at me and smiled. He actually smiled, crazy man.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Would you like some breakfast?"

Present

They've shaved the fur off his waist.

It's standard procedure, of course – they need to be able to assess the wound, make sure that the new half takes – but it's still disconcerting to see.

There's a moment of "oh-god-he's-naked" before my world lurches back into place, and I remember that no, that isn't actually Sherlock's lower body. Those aren't Sherlock's genitals.

Except, yeah, they are his legs and his genitals and his-

No. I run my hand down my face with a sigh. It is way too early to even begin thinking about this. I spare a glance back toward Sherlock's face. If he's seen my reaction, he doesn't show it. His eyes are closed and his breathing even. I hope he's asleep.

I shake my head lightly and go into the hallway to buy a coffee from the machine. It eats half a pound before finally spitting out a thick brown liquid into a plastic cup. I grimace and down the foul stuff in one go, before discarding the cup and walking back into Sherlock's room.

The caffeine helps. The world rights itself as best it can.

My muscles ache. Everything aches. I sit beside my friend on his bed, very careful not to brush against the painful-looking join in his skin.

I watch him for a while. Even in sleep, you can see the tiny creases by his eyes. He's hurting so badly. I want to touch him, to smooth out those lines – but I'm so fearful of disturbing his rest that I don't. I let him be.

The nurses come and go, writing on their clipboards. Their soft chatter drills into my brain:

"-pelvis is relatively unharmed, but the entire femur is taken from the deer-"

"-abdominal aorta fused just above the pelvis-"

"-need to monitor closely for infection-"

"-moderate inflammation of the skin at the incision-"

"-nerve endings are still alive."

That gets my attention.

I look up. "What did you just say?" I ask the last nurse, who turns toward me.

"The nerve endings of the deer. They're still alive. They were reattached without tension – it looks as though the deer's femurs were shaved to fit into Mr. Holmes' pelvis. We're pretty sure that given time, he'll be able to feel his- the legs."

"Right," I say breathily, looking down at Sherlock's new lower half. I can't believe it. There's no way…

Then again, if the deer had been kept on ice and was fresh enough…

The nurse goes on, obviously seeing my skepticism. "Of course, we can't hope for much more than that, at least not at this stage. But he'll be able to feel his legs, and with a bit of hard work, be able to achieve some independent movement."

I look back to my best friend's face. He's not sleeping, like I had hoped. His eyes are open and scrutinizing me.

He's heard everything that's just been said.

"You should be asleep," I say, fretting. I turn away from the nurse, who goes back to whatever job he had been doing before.

Sherlock shakes his head slowly.

"They planned for me, you know," he says quietly. "Those other dead men? They were used for a reason. Avalon needed to establish my height, my weight. How I would respond."

I make a face. "So you're saying those victims were just practice for when you came along?"

"Essentially, yes." He sighs and closes his eyes in a grimace.

"Still hurting?" I ask as gently as I can.

He smirks. "They won't give me anything for it. A former-addict-turned-medical-anomaly does not receive the privilege of morphine, I'm afraid," he grits out.

I look at him with concern. "What does that mean?"

He glances at me, sighs, and closes his eyes. "When I was twenty, I used heroin… often. I found it an adequate, if not ideal, form of distraction."

I feel my eyebrows knit together. "Distraction… hang on. Sherlock…"

"I know you didn't want to believe I was ever an addict, John, but I was." He looks away from me, focusing on the small plastic table beside his bed. A glass of water sits there, untouched. "Just as human as the rest of you."

I try not to analyze that last sentence too deeply.

So Sherlock really had been an addict. All of Lestrade's "drug busts," it seemed, had actually been, well, drug busts.

"And the doctors won't give you painkillers because they think it will reignite old habits." I finish his thought for him.

"It's been nearly a decade, John," he says, very quietly. His eyes remain on the glass of water. The surface of the liquid is smooth, serene. Untouched.

I feel a surge of anger flash through me. Ten years clean? With an injury like Sherlock's, a drug relapse should be the least of a doctor's worries. I turn to the closest nurse, voice seething.

"Would you please get him something for the pain?"

She titters. "I'm sorry, I-"

"No," I say, stopping her before she can refuse. "Don't tell me what you can and can't do." I stand, pushing her clipboard down so that she is forced to look into my eyes. "I want you to take a look at this man – a long, honest look – and see him as a human being. Which he is. And I want you to tell me, after doing that, whether you think he deserves to be deprived of painkillers."

The other nurses in the room go silent. The only sound is the soft beeping of Sherlock's heart monitor.

The female nurse bristles, but swallows her pride. "Very well, Doctor Watson," she says with barely-hidden disdain. She leaves the room, and a minute later comes back to refill Sherlock's IV drip with a rather more generous supply of the drug.

I relax. "Thank you," I say, returning to my friend's side. I sit a bit awkwardly.

Sherlock looks amused. And… proud?

I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks. "Yeah, yeah," I mutter. "Don't get used to me fighting your battles for you." He huffs a tiny laugh.

"Don't get used to me letting you," he replies, a touch slowly.

The nurses go back to their work around us.

It feels… nice, to have Sherlock's approval.

The drug does its work quickly, and my friend sinks gratefully back into the pillows. "John," he mumbles, head lolling to one side.

"Yep," I reply. I rest my hand on his upper arm. He's firm, and warm.

"Thank you," he slurs. And he's out like a light.

I smile, and squeeze his arm gently. Then I look down at his legs with a sigh. The angry red shaved skin at his hips, the mottled brown fur at his knees. The cloven black nubs of feet.

For the first time, it really strikes me that Sherlock will never be normal again. He'll never be able to go out in public without attracting attention. He'll never be able to run wildly through the streets of London, chasing villains.

Christ, he might never even be able to walk.

I look back at the detective's face, now smooth and free of pain.

And some awful, dark part of me fervently hopes that Sherlock Holmes will never wake up again.