Devonshire Squires Chapter Thirty Two

Third time unlucky

The next time Sherlock woke up, John was with him.

While he was still sleeping, it had been a good day. As the antibiotics pushed back the fever, Sherlock's kidney function had improved. The urologist now wanted to remover the Foley catheter- it was just another opportunity for infection to travel, and he wanted the patient awake and able to use a bed bottle or start getting to the loo on his own. Exercise would help his circulation. The vascular surgeon was also pleased with the sutures in Sherlock's neck wound; he checked while the nurse changed the dressing, and said they were healing nicely.

The general medical consensus was that it was now time to get the patient awake and eating again. So the pain medication had been dialed back quite a bit, the lorazepam stopped, and John waited for Sherlock to wake up.

Only he didn't. Five hours had passed and Sherlock was still in deep sleep. The good news was that some of it was starting to look like REM sleep, as the lorazepam started to clear his system. The drug was in the benzodiazepine family, and it suppressed REM sleep. Cocaine did the same thing. So, whatever else he'd been dealing with, Sherlock's sleep patterns would have been well and truly mucked about in the week he'd gone to ground. Maybe the morphine was not just a pain relief; the chemist in Sherlock could have been using it as well to deal with the insomnia caused by the anxiety and agitation. But, it too blocked REM sleep. In the end, the lack of that kind of restorative sleep would have exacerbated the pain, causing hyperalgesia. If the fever hadn't gotten to him first, the pain alone would have driven Sherlock right round the bend.

John sighed. I'm going to need Sherlock's deductive skills to sort out what's actually wrong with him. John had snapped at Mycroft for challenging his medical skills at dealing with his brother's behaviour. But, in his own mind, John wasn't all that confident. Surgery was just easier. The working motto summed it up- "when in doubt, cut it out." Only you couldn't do that to a brain that was malfunctioning.

He and Mary had discussed the challenges over a breakfast in the canteen. She had insisted on it.

"You need to eat. Hardly a role model, are you?" She cast a sceptical eye over John's rumpled clothes, unshaven face and drawn look. She had brought a carrier bag with a change of clothes and toiletries. "Ashley can keep an eye on him and if he so much as twitches a finger, he will text you." She gave the agent one of those You-know-who's-right looks. The agent was looking equally tired, but nodded.

"And when we're back upstairs, then I promise to phone Mycroft and bully him into sending someone to relieve you." She gave the agent one of her 100 watt smiles, which was gratefully answered with one of his own in reply.

Over a full-English, John had opened up a bit to her about his worries. "I am certainly not going to admit it to him, but maybe Mycroft was right. I don't know the first thing about how to treat someone with PTSD. I mean…" he waved a fork with a piece of plump sausage on it, "…you said it yourself. I'm hardly the best role model in that department."

"I was talking about something that a fry up and clean clothes could fix." She smiled as she put her orange juice down. "I've been thinking about PTSD." Pulling out her tablet computer, Mary popped open the apple green cover, swiped it three times and slid it across the table so it was beside his tray. "Take a look at that."

He popped up the stand, so he could read while he ate. "Combat Stress*…. So what? Of course, I've heard of them; they've been going for yonks, but they only treat service men and women."

"You didn't consider using them?" She asked carefully.

"No." John looked down at his plate. "I…um, well, to be honest, it seemed a bit strange that a doctor couldn't deal with it; you know, 'physician, heal thyself' and all that.**"

She looked at him with sympathetic eyes, seemed to think about it for a moment and then said gently, "Well, that's a load of tosh."

He sniffed. "Past history." He heard the defensive tone and almost winced. "What does that have to do with Sherlock?"

"Look up Tyrwhitt House; it's the Combat Stress residential facility in the south. It's ten miles from Reigate."

John swiped the tablet.

"Look at who's in the photo about the treatment centre."

He peered at the screen, and then his mouth quirked in a little smile. "George Hayter."

"Yep. Turns out he's been volunteering there for the past decade. That's why he's retired- to go do more support work there, as a counsellor."

John put his fork down, and shook his head. "It's still a residential centre. You don't get it; Sherlock can't deal with that kind of place, even if there was some sort of way to bend the rules to get him in. He's not eligible, even if he could stick it. Which he can't, or rather, he won't."

She stifled a snort. "I'm not suggesting that he join in. Oh my God, the thought of him set loose on some poor unsuspecting group therapy session? It would be worse than an IED." She leaned forward to pinch a piece of crispy streaky bacon from his plate.

"No, what I meant is that Hayter can give us some ideas- act as sort of a consultant to back us up. After all, he's got a head start on anyone else out there- at least he's seen Sherlock at his worst, in the middle of a flashback."

Now back in clean clothes, washed and shaved, John was sitting beside the bed, waiting. Mary went away, promising to return at four o'clock. He then took three calls asking for an update- Greg Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and Molly Hooper-almost in succession, which made him wonder if they had been texting each other. While he was reassuring Molly, another agent arrived to relieve Lewis. This one seemed cut from the same indentikit- but was ginger-haired and more heavily muscled. He introduced himself as Alex Arthur, and it made John wonder if it was like Not Anthea- a name manufactured for the occasion.

Noon came and went. Every so often, a nurse came in and checked the monitors, and asked quietly if there had been any change. She would note down John's "no" and go away again.

John watched the sun move in shadows- he'd drawn the blinds to keep the light levels low. As the thin beams that still managed to work their way through the slats crept their way across the floor, he thought about whether Sherlock would be willing to deal with a third party like Hayter. And that made him wonder about another medical professional- a certain grey haired petite psychiatrist who had known Sherlock longer than almost anyone apart from his brother- Esther Cohen. John wondered what she would make of this situation. He wondered whether she was still practicing; she might well have retired by now. Wonder if she'd be willing to do a consulting job?

In the meantime, John had time to observe Sherlock. The times they had been in each other's company since that first night in the restaurant- well, they'd all been so busy that he hadn't really had the chance to see what had happened to Sherlock in the two years he was gone. Now, as the hours ticked by, he could trace the differences.

There were two, no- three lined wrinkles across his forehead. He looked… older. That made John smirk a bit. About bloody time. The images that John had kept with him after he jumped- well, his presumed death led John to sort of airbrush out the rough edges. He had not forgotten Sherlock's lack of social skills, but even those had mellowed in his memory to more of an endearing eccentricity. Whether his memory had Sherlock stretched out comatose on the settee in Baker Street, or swirling around with his coat collar turned up at some crime scene in the middle of the night, his memories were of a man who seemed to be younger than the age that John knew him to be.

Not anymore. The sting of that tongue lashing at the Fort Street crime scene lingered still. It hadn't been like that at first, but oddly, the longer Sherlock was home, the more abrupt he had become. The man whom he'd caught up with at the gym was driven by a new set of demons. More than a week's growth of beard didn't help his appearance, either. Sherlock had always been rather fastidious about keeping himself shaved and washed. The fact that he used a straight edge razor had always freaked John out in the past. He'd not been surprised that Sherlock had taken a dislike to his moustache.

Now it seemed he no longer cared what image he projected. The stubble was reddish- auburn really, which surprised John, given the darkness of Sherlock's hair. It made him wonder how Sherlock had disguised himself when he was away on his mission to take down Moriarty's network. Looking at the sleeping man now, he tried to imagine him with short hair, maybe reddish blond? And perhaps a neatly trimmed beard? Put a pair of glasses on him and the effect would be quite different. Add one of the many foreign languages that Sherlock spoke, and the camouflage would be almost perfect. No one looks for a dead man.

A casual glance at the cannula in the top of Sherlock's left hand made him think, so he pulled very gently on the hospital ID bracelet, until the left wrist and the underside of his arm were exposed. The red scar tissue encircling the wrist whispered a history of manacles. There was an answering discolouration on the right wrist, too. Those had been carefully hidden beneath the French cuffs of the dress shirts and suit jackets worn like armour since his return; John had not seen Sherlock in anything but that, until the gym.

Why didn't you tell me? No sooner had he thought that, John knew the answer. Because I didn't ask.

But it was the sight of more recent track marks up from the elbow of the left arm that gave John the most discomfort. With his doctor's eyes, he could see the ravages of drugs over the past week taking their toll. Sherlock's skin was greyish, bringing into sharp relief the fading bruise across his cheek where Cunningham had hit him. He looks like he's been through the wars.

Sherlock's eyes were sunk into their sockets with dark smudges on the lids. That's what made John realise that Sherlock was starting another cycle, moving out of NREM. Behind his closed eye lids, John could see the rapid eye movement start, and his breathing became shallower and quicker. John leaned back in the chair, so he could keep an eye on the monitors. Sherlock's heart rate and blood pressure started to climb. If the patient was going to come awake naturally, it would be at the end of REM sleep. So, he might have another twenty minutes or so, if it was going to be a short cycle.

There was the very quietest of knocks at the door and then it opened. Mary entered, juggling two take-away teas in both hands, as Arthur closed the door just as quietly behind her. John realised it must be four o'clock.

Mary raised an eyebrow in a silent question, but John just shook his head and took the tea from her. He wrapped his hands around the heavy thermal paper cup to warm them, and took a sip through the hole in the plastic top. It was hot, and actually quite drinkable, better than the miserable excuse the hospital called coffee.

She bent over and whispered into his ear, "Why not stretch your legs? Take a break- I can watch him."

He shook his head; he wasn't about to miss the chance awakening, like he did the last time. He looked back at the still form under the sheet and soft blanket.

That's when Sherlock gave an almighty twitch- a muscle contraction that ran down the whole of his left side, arm and leg.

Mary said it first, "he shouldn't be doing that, should he? I mean, REM is atonic; his voluntary muscles should be paralyzed." She moved to the other side of the bed from John, so she could take a closer look.

John checked the monitors- the heart rate had climbed a lot in the past minute, and the respiration rate was nearly keeping up. Sherlock was almost panting, and a fine sheen of sweat had appeared out of nowhere across his forehead.

"Is this a seizure? Or a hypnic jerK?"

John shook his head, neither made sense. There was no tonic rhythm to the muscle spasm; only the one contraction, so not a seizure. Possibly a myoclonic contraction? But, no, those and hypnics happened when someone was falling asleep, not in REM. He started to put his cup of tea down when Sherlock suddenly spoke.

"NO! Not again. I can't do this again."

The distress in those words startled John so much that he mis-judged where the table was and his paper cup tipped off the edge and headed for the floor.

"Damn."

John wasn't sure whether it was his swearing or the sound of the cup hitting the floor with a pop that did it, but suddenly Sherlock was wide-awake and sitting bolt upright in bed, staring at the door. His eyes were shocked wide open and the pupils dilated in the darkened room. The movement would have pulled at the sutures in his neck, and at the laparoscopy wound over his kidney, not to mention putting sudden pressure on the damaged rib joint. There was a gasp and grunt of pain, mirrored in the grimace that washed over his pale features.

Mary recovered first, "Sherlock, it's alright. Don't move; you're safe."

Sherlock reacted to her voice, turning his head toward Mary, so John decided it wasn't a night terror, because he actually seemed to be awake and taking in the room.

"It's okay- just dropped my tea. You just surprised me; that's all." John said it quietly, with a little self-deprecating laugh.

Sherlock snapped his head around to stare at John, with a look of horror. He then exploded into action, throwing himself backwards, scrambling as fast as he could backwards on the bed, away from John. The cannula with fluids got caught on the side bars of the bed and broke free from his hand, ripping out of the vein, as Sherlock smacked his back into the headboard and he screamed in pain.

The door to the corridor burst open, and Arthur came barreling through, just as Sherlock started shouting. "NO! You're dead. I won't watch you die again. Go away!" He ducked his head, covering his face with his arms, bringing his knees up and curling up around himself in a protective reflex whilst still shouting, "Get out of my head. I've deleted you!" Blood poured down from the new wound in his left hand, tracing streaks of red down the arm.

Mycroft's agent took one look at the situation and grabbed John by the arm, pulling him right out of the chair and dragging him toward the door before he had a chance to do anything more than shout, "Let go of me, you idiot. He needs a doctor."

The ginger haired man was twice the size of John and wasn't listening. John tried to block his grip, but suddenly his own arm was being levered up the middle of his back, and he was literally picked up and carried out of the door. Mary came out right behind him.

The agent wrestled him to the floor and pinned him there. Despite his face being shoved into the floor and the man's full body weight settling onto his back, John shouted at Mary, "Go get him help- he needs to be sedated!" She bolted down the corridor.

All the frustrations of the previous hours of waiting now came together as John started cursing the agent. "You're a fucking idiot! Let me go! Sherlock needs help."

The man wrestled John's wrists together and used a plastic strip lock to handcuff John.

"Yeah- and according to what I just saw and heard, he needs protecting from you."

* Combat Stress is real; it was set up after WWI to serve the needs to returning service men and women. Go google it to find out the worthy work that is being done in this area. The centre described is real.

** Check out Ex Files, Exempt, if you haven't read it yet. Even if you have, re-read it because John's attitude towards his own experiences will become increasingly important in this and the next story I write.