When John awakened, he was furious.
He was furious because he was in an ambulance heading for the hospital, rather than a limousine heading for the cemetery.
He was still furious an hour later, after the doctors at St. Bart's had drawn blood, run an electrocardiogram and checked his vitals.
"There is nothing wrong with me," he insisted for the hundredth time. "I feel fine now. Why won't anyone listen to me?"
"Because you have suffered an enormous emotional trauma," I said.
"Because you fell on your face in the middle of a church," said Lestrade, who was leaning tiredly against the wall of the triage room.
"Because you haven't been eating," Mrs. Hudson added. "You've barely slept at all this week. Honestly, John, you're acting just like…"
Her voice drifted off, but the unspoken name hung like smog in the air. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and held it to her nose. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.
I reached to touch her arm. "Don't be sorry," I soothed. "It's all right to cry, you all have suffered a terrible loss and it's a perfectly normal response to-"
"Enough!" John shouted. "Enough psycho-babble!"
Mrs. Watson startled at his shout. "John Watson!" she scolded. "Shame on you!"
John closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples. "Okay, look, I'm sorry. I just… I need to go home. All right?"
In truth, I was eager for us to leave as well, but for an entirely different reason.
I had desperately hoped the paramedics would take John to a different hospital, but knew it was a futile wish. St. Bart's was the closest hospital to the church.
The flat I'd shared with Sherlock this week was located directly below the emergency room of St. Bart's, and we would occasionally hear sounds of distress
from the emergency room above our heads: doctors barking orders, patients moaning in pain.
The night before, after Sherlock had drifted off to sleep I had sat in the office area, listening to a child crying. He'd broken his arm, from what I could gather from his mother's frantic reassurances. The doctor had called for an X-Ray machine to be brought to room 7A.
And here we were, sitting in 7B in the emergency room of St. Bart's.
If my calculations were correct, we were right above Sherlock's bedroom. If he pounded on the ceiling, we would be able to hear it. If John cried out, Sherlock would know.
I was glad when the doctor on call arrived, John's paperwork in his hands. "All right, Dr. Watson, it looks like you're going to be just fine," he said cheerfully.
"Is that what I'm going to be," John muttered. "I'm going to be 'just fine'?"
The young doctor offered John a small, sad smile. "I heard about your friend," he said quietly. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thank you. Where are my clothes?" John pushed back the blanket covering his lap, but the doctor held up a hand to stop him. "Your blood sugar was a bit low," he told John. "I'm having a supper tray sent to you, and I'd like to check your blood again after you've eaten."
"That's ridiculous," John snapped. "I'm fine. I'm a doctor, or has that escaped your notice?" He spied the wardrobe in the corner of the room and got unsteadily to his feet. "Everyone clear out," he ordered. "I need to get my clothes."
"John," I began, but he whirled on me before I could say another word. "No, you shut up," he snarled. "I came around as soon as I hit the ground. I was unconscious for just a few seconds. I would have been fine, but you insisted on calling an ambulance. Thanks to you, I missed my best friend's burial. Once again, I wasn't there for Sherlock. Once again, I should have done something for him and once again, I wasn't able to do a bloody thing!"
The young physician tried to intervene, but I raised my hand to stop his footsteps. I kept my eyes on John.
"What happened to Sherlock was not your fault," I said calmly.
I saw the pain flicker in his eyes, but it was replaced quickly by fury. "Don't, just… don't!" he shouted. "All right? Don't try to tell me what I'm feeling."
"You're feeling guilt," I said. "And I'm telling you none of this is your fault. Now I need you to try and take a deep breath before you fall over again."
"SHUT UP!" John shouted, slamming his hands over his ears. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
He wobbled a bit, and Lestrade stepped forward to help but John shoved his hand away. "Get the hell away from me!" he screamed.
With a few strides, I closed the space between John and I. Taking hold of his shoulders, I forced him to face me. There was so much pain, so many tears in those eyes and I wanted to weep with him. Instead, I met his gaze. "You need to take a deep breath right now," I said. "If you want to go home to Baker Street, you need to show the doctor here that you are fine."
An orderly stepped into the room, carrying a dinner tray. The emergency room doctor thanked her and took the tray into his hands. "All right, Dr. Watson," he said. "Just a few bites of food and we'll repeat your blood test and you can go home-"
At that moment, the lights overhead flickered. Alarms mounted in the ceiling began to blink, and a mechanical voice came over the sound system.
"Your attention, please. We have an intruder alert. This area has been put into lockdown. I repeat. This area has been put into lockdown. Follow emergency procedures immediately."
Several orderlies, dressed in full scrubs with their faces covered in surgical masks, ducked into the emergency area, locking the doors behind them and pulling window coverings down to block the light from the hallway.
We had all frozen in place- except John, who began to sway on his feet. Lestrade and the doctor caught him before he could swoon and deposited him back into his bed.
The shuffling of feet was the only noise I could hear. Silence was part of the lockdown drill, and an unsettling quietness fell over the emergency area.
Even as I stood there, careful not to make a sound, I knew. I just knew Sherlock was somehow involved in this.
Stay there, I silently begged him. Stay in our flat.
My begging must have worked. A few moments later, the alarms were silenced, and the mechanical voice overhead announced the "all clear."
The emergency room doctor exhaled loudly, as if he'd been holding his breath. "Well, then." He placed the dinner tray in front of John and whisked off the lid. "Give it a try, Dr. Watson."
He excused himself, expecting his orders would be obeyed, but John just sat in the bed, grimacing at the tray as if the perfectly harmless sandwich was going to crawl off the plate at any moment. Eventually, he picked up his fork and jabbed at the food in front of him.
I couldn't help but smile; he looked so much like Sherlock at that instant. He had adopted Sherlock's mannerisms; he crossed his arms the same, he lifted one side of mouth up to sneer like Sherlock did, he clicked his tongue in classic Sherlock fashion.
In fact, I mused, if his hair had been darker, if his eyes had been lighter- more of a blue green, like the eyes of the orderly who had entered the room during the lockdown- then John would be the spitting image of…
Wait a minute.
My eyes flew to the orderly standing in the corner of the room, studiously reading a chart.
Or, rather, pretending to read a chart, while those blue-green eyes bore into John.
John was distracted by his food, and hadn't noticed the intense gaze aimed in his direction. But the orderly noticed me, and his eyes locked with mine.
At that moment, I could have murdered Sherlock Holmes.