Thank you for the reviews! The Reverend who appears briefly in this tale will appear in a later one I'm drafting, he's actually modelled after my brother who has a two church charge and does a lot of charitable work. Apologies to anyone who's a train nut if I get some details wrong in this or future chapters.

Chapter 2

I became aware of someone tapping the toe of my boot under the table.

Gradually, I focused, seeing no longer the multi-hued play of the saints' windows on the deep red blood of my friend, but now the shafts of green-gold flashing off the trees and though the train window. We were almost out of London and the early afternoon sunlight reminded me we hadn't eaten since morning.

"No dwelling on the past, old son," Holmes advised kindly, grey eyes sharp on me, and I realized my thoughts must not have been hard to follow.

"Or if you must, remember that it is because of you that I am still walking the earth and Dabney is not. For which," he concluded, stretching a bit – but carefully, still favouring his healing side " I am most uncommonly grateful. And I find I am quite hungry. Let us investigate these sandwiches. Do you suppose there's an opportunity to obtaining a decent cup of tea?"

"Consider our circumstances, Holmes," I returned. "There's not a chance, not from the railway. The water would be tepid, the leaves would be sweepings. I should have thought to pack a vacuum flask. It will be Adam's Ale for us."

"Water? Perish the thought," he said, "Ginger beer it is then." He nodded at my doctor's bag, which, when opened, disgorged two brown bottles. I raised my eyebrow at that, as I did not recollect purchasing them, never mind packing them, but it was another example that Holmes was coming back to himself.

The ensuing picnic reminded me of one such pleasant time with my brother as we had, in my boyhood; on a train to the seaside, eating sandwiches and drinking ginger beer and discussing our plans. It was an easy meal. Refuse collected and disposed of, certain other functions attended to, we each of us settled in with our reading of choice and prepared to see the trip away.

oOoOo

Afterward, I remembered spots, patches of the next few hours. I was once again the army doctor treating a badly wounded man, my motions were almost automatic and my decisions came sharp and fast.

The amount of blood indicated a serious wound, possibly involving a nicked artery – there was no fountaining so it was not bisected, I had a few moments for preparation, though there was no question of moving him to hospital - there was no time for it. I had my small kit with me, but I would require more.

I have some confused memory of issuing orders, of Lestrade's astonished face when I summarily dragooned him to assist me. I recalled the young parish priest clearing his large desk, papers flying everywhere, and lighting every lamp in the place, then the surgery, in "better facilities than many I've operated in, Lestrade," I'd said with assurance, the man was no use to me panicked. As a hardened police officer he was not, at least, faint – he served admirably, retrieving the boiled instruments as I demanded them.

My patient had long since swooned from blood loss and pain – he was my patient, now, just another lad got in the way of a bullet's path…for so it had to be, and I blessed my battle-trained responses for I could not have operated so on Holmes, my friend.

The bullet had indeed nicked the artery and I stitched it, made such other repairs as I deemed essential and withdrew, filling the wound with sulfa, stitching it and laying a thick pad of clean gauze over it, wrapping it firmly. It wasn't till I finished and sat, suddenly and with a bump, that I saw again my friend, face sallow and cold, and I pulled myself up.

"Lestrade, we need transportation," I felt for Holmes' pulse, finding it thready.

"Will do. To the hospital?"

"No, back to Baker Street. I can't chance a secondary infection, he's lost too much blood, he'll be too weak to fight it off." I looked up, into Lestrade's honest policeman's face, the concern writ large. "He'll have a better chance at home, Inspector. I'll need more supplies, but…"

"Whatever you need, Doctor," he interrupted. "I've sent for a Maria - it's smoother than many cabs."

In less time than I thought it would require, assisted ably and even eagerly by several burly policemen, Holmes was back in his own bed.

As I knew it would be, sleep was in short supply for us during the first few days of his recovery. Though he did not acquire an infection, the blood loss made him terribly weak and he was seldom fully conscious. His dreams were full of terrors, and the laudanum did not help – would that I could have used morphine but his recreational use of his own drug of choice and subsequent tolerance of the opioids meant that a dose sufficient to kill the pain would depress his breathing beyond hope.

I spent many hours by his side, spelled for small duration by Mrs. Hudson or the younger doctor who had covered my practise for me upon occasion, Dr. Wilmer. When I slept, I slept lightly, with my hand on his, trusting my doctors' instinct to sense a change in pulse or temperature that could mean a crisis. More than once I woke with my hand in a crushing grip as a spasm of pain would grip my friend and leave him shaking and drained.

I dreamed as well. I had nightmares, rather – I wasn't fast enough, I was shot as well, I missed Dabney and he shot Holmes dead as he lay…those dreams I woke from in a sweat. I did not regret shooting the man. He would have killed us. But the taking of another's life was always a matter of gravity.

Slowly, though; as I knew would happen and as I had told Holmes often, speaking in his ear to quiet his fears; he grew stronger. The pain was still present but diminished, and the day he woke, regarded me lucidly and asked the time of me I almost cheered.