Sherlock flinched and sucked in a breath; the wet flannel across his cheek and neck was frigid.

"I know it feels cold," John said. "It's because you're burning up. Keep it there."

He'd just been on another call, and since he'd terminated it with love you, Sherlock fuzzily supposed he'd been telling Molly he wouldn't be home that night. He went over to the wardrobe, pulling out an overnight bag from the bottom and searching through drawers.

"Did I tell you?" he remarked cheerfully over one shoulder as he did. "I was 'round at Harry's on Tuesday and who was there, do you think? Clara. I don't think I need to be... well, you... to figure out that they're probably shagging again. If Harry drops her again..."

Sherlock clutched the cool flannel in his trembling fingers, swiping it against his face. "'M'thirsty," he said.

"Too late, Sherlock." John returned to the bed and took his pulse again. "You can't have anything to drink now. You'll probably be taken straight into surgery when you get in. Oh, and I should tell you. Ambulance cases are usually a priority, but if you could also either vomit or faint in front of the triage nurse, that'd be really helpful to get you to the top of the list - hey... hey. Take it easy. You'll be fine -"

"Shut up, I'm not crying," Sherlock choked, screwing his streaming eyes shut tight again.

"Just a few more minutes, okay? Traffic's pretty good at this time of night."

Sherlock processed this for a few seconds, listening to the sound of his own breathing. "And you'll..." He swallowed. He wasn't - okay, so he was crying, but he wasn't going to sob, not in front of John or anyone else. "You'll... come to the hospital with me...?"

"Wouldn't dream of doing anything else," John said. "Mycroft's meeting us there - yeah, I know how thrilled you are about that. But they were going to tell him anyway, Sherlock, he's your next of kin. Best he heard it from me and not the hospital admin staff."

"What... what about Molly...?"

John had been fidgeting nervously, going over to the window to look out at nothing in particular. At this, he turned back to Sherlock. "Oh, she's okay. Charlie hasn't had a screaming meltdown so far. I'll get someone over to help her in the morning," he faltered. "Harry or... I dunno, someone. And Mrs. Hudson will be back in London before lunchtime. It'll be fine, don't worry."

"I wasn't worrying about Molly," Sherlock said. "I -"

A sharp knock on the door downstairs cut him off. Then the doorbell, which seemed to be in working order for a change, rang twice.

"Why do I feel like saying something about the cavalry? I've got to go down and answer that," John said. "Stay there. Keep still."

Mycroft's fingers twitched over the buttons of his waistcoat, quickly if not entirely accurately. A three-piece suit at a time like this? Well, John had never seen him in anything else. Even an idiot could deduce someone's state of mind by the way they were dressed. The second-last thing Mycroft wanted just then was for John to realise he most certainly hadn't been working when his call had come in. The last thing he wanted was for him to see his concern about Sherlock.

An unnecessary concern, he tried to convince himself. Sherlock was in the hands of a capable doctor, and en route to one of the best hospitals in London. There was really no better position for a sick man to be in... except, of course, if that sick man had a reliable diagnosis and a course of treatment that actually worked. Mycroft was not particularly interested in biology or medicine, and thus, he was not strong on medical knowledge. He did, however, know that the sudden deterioration of Sherlock's condition had blindsided John. And he'd definitely heard Sherlock's distress in the background of John's call.

"I don't know when I'll be in the office in the morning," he said stiffly, still struggling with the buttons. Bloody putting on weight again, too. "You will need to hold up the fort until I return, of course."

Stephen, who had been watching him from the doorway in his pyjamas and bare feet, uncrossed his arms and went over to him, fiddling with the buttons on his waistcoat. Mycroft held both hands up, as if to push him away.

"No, I'm not being cute. You missed a few," Stephen told him patiently as he unfastened all the buttons to start from the beginning. "Is there anything I can do to help tonight?"

"No," Mycroft said coldly. "Nothing beyond the usual. I'll text you when I know whatever there is to know."

Mycroft had a feeling that whatever was going on, it was not something he wanted to be overheard discussing with Stephen on the phone in a hospital waiting room at three in the morning. People might talk. Stephen pulled the waistcoat into place and then went over to the window.

"The car's arrived," he said, looking out. "Best not keep it waiting."

Mycroft tucked his wallet into his left breast pocket. His response was a grunt.

"I'm sure he'll be okay," Stephen tried. "You'll keep me posted?"

This time Mycroft raised one eyebrow, but he still did not bother replying. Instead, he opened the hall door and left Stephen in his pyjamas, standing next to the sofa.

"Hey, Sherlock...? Can you hear me, mate?"

A voice Sherlock didn't recognise... definitely not John. John didn't call him "mate", and this was a rough, sandpapery sort of voice. Shivering, he twitched his head toward the noise and opened his eyes. A middle-aged, bearded stranger was looking back at him, frowning slightly in the dim backlighted room.

"John -?"

"I'm still here." John's measured, almost-cheerful voice came from the opposite side of the bed. "Temp's now at 39.4," he muttered in much more worried tones.

"Sherlock, I'm Russell," the bearded entity told him. The hard chill of a stethoscope touched his wrist. "This is Jane..." Jane was, so far as Sherlock was concerned, a vague, pale-coloured outline behind Russell and a few snatches of feminine voice, nothing more. "We're paramedics... we're going to help you. Let's have a look at where the pain is, is that going to be okay?"

"No," Sherlock gasped, just as Russell pressed a cold palm down on his abdomen. With a yelp he drew back, scurrying up against the head of the bed.

"I heard him say 'no' to that," John said. "If you'd bothered to ask, I could tell you I'd already done that. Acute tenderness localised in the lower left quadrant. Some evidence it might be rebound as well as contact." Without waiting for a response he gently took Sherlock's wrist. "Okay, Sherlock," he said. "Take it easy. They're just trying to help you. No biting."

"... Biting...?" Jane repeated.

"Bit a dentist once. And I mean a few years back, not when he was a kid..."

Sherlock didn't have the energy to protest that the dentist had deserved to be bitten, and that if John or anyone else wanted to help him, they could stop poking and prodding and leave him in peace... or better yet, give him a PCP of morphine and then leave him in peace. He gasped into his pillows for what felt like ten minutes before he heard Russell's voice again.

"Sherlock, can I ask you, do you know who the Prime Minister is?"

John chuckled grimly. "Bad choice," he said, tapping his thumb on Sherlock's wrist to get his attention. "He doesn't know that at the best of times. Sherlock, what's the periodic symbol for Niobium?"

Sherlock clenched his jaw and drew in a breath. "For God's sake, do we... need to talk about this now...?"

"Yes, it's important. We're trying to - "

"I can't breathe..."

"If you can talk, you can breathe... and we've got an oxygen unit right here. Come on. Niobium. You know this one. No cheating."

Sherlock searched around in the back of his mind for a copy of the periodic table in pristine condition. "NB," he finally gasped.

"What's HG represent?"

"Mercury..."

"And the symbol for Tungsten...?"

"... W."

"Yeah, he's with it," John said. "We're going to give you oxygen, okay? Don't fight it, just breathe normally..."

Sherlock hadn't breathed normally in hours, since the pain spiked whenever he filled his lungs. He felt the itch of a nasal cannula inserted into his nostrils. For a few seconds he held his breath, then gave up. John's hand was on his hair again.

"Let me help," he was saying. "I know what I'm doing, and he doesn't do well with strangers... that's just an ECG monitor, Sherlock," he said as Sherlock flinched against the cold touch on his chest. "They're going to put in an IV line for dehydration and then we'll get you straight to the hospital. Once we get there they'll look at giving you some painkillers..."

Sherlock later had no recollection of Jane inserting his IV, though he later found out from an unimpressed John that it had taken her three attempts to tap a vein. He later had no memory of how on earth he got down the stairs of 221B and into the ambulance; his next coherent thought was they've put the sirens on. Maybe I really am dying.

There was a warm hand curled around his.

"Is there anyone else you want me to call?" John asked him. "Lestrade, or...?"

He shook his head, then shut his eyes and experimented with methods that lessened the pain a little. He seemed to be onto a good thing with shallow breaths and lying still.

"Well, you've got pretty good blood pressure." Russell sounded pleased. The restrictive sleeve he'd placed around Sherlock's arm suddenly loosened. "110 over 70. Any allergies?"

It was John who responded over the sound of the sirens. "None he's aware of, but he's a recovering addict, so watch it with the opioids... Sherlock, seriously, is the weight of the blanket hurting you...? Yeah, I know... I know. You're not crying."

"Morphine," Sherlock blurted out, furious that his eyes were streaming again and that he lacked the ability or energy to stop it. It was bad enough being in agony. He didn't have to turn into an embarrassing, crying mess as well.

"Not yet." The hand in his tightened slightly, and Sherlock had a momentary flash of confusion, both that John was doing this and that he didn't particularly want him to stop.

"John, I need -"

"Nope, don't start that. You need to take shallow breaths and stay still. I know you're desperate, but you have to just hang on, okay? They can't diagnose you properly if you can't tell them where and how much it hurts. Nearly there. Five minutes."

Mycroft, stepping inside the Accident and Emergency department, did not have to put any deductive skills to work in locating Sherlock and John. The latter's voice, pitched high with stress, could be clearly heard from the waiting room. Flashing an all-access pass briefly to the duty nurse, he stalked back through the heavy swinging security doors and into the busy ward.

Looking around for a few seconds, he located Sherlock on a trolley stationed in the middle of the long room. The state he was in was starkly public, and Mycroft frowned. The only thing Sherlock would find more humiliating than being ill was being ill in public, without even a bed curtain to shield his predicament from all and sundry.

But then, he noted in worsening concern, Sherlock wasn't in any condition to really mind where he was and how many people could see him. He was lying twitching and restless under the rough hospital blanket, and his face seemed the same colour as the pillow behind it. Worse, he was soaked through with sweat, and his eyes were soggy and red. He suddenly flailed. John thrust a green surgical pan over to him and he heaved into it.

Forcing himself to slow his step to a less anxious pace, Mycroft crossed the floor toward them. "What's going on?" he asked.

John started; he'd been giving Sherlock his full concentration and apparently hadn't seen Mycroft until he'd spoken, even though the much taller man was right beside him by this time. "Thank God." He put the pan on the bedside table. "We need to talk. Somewhere a bit more private -"

Sherlock gasped in protest, and it was then that Mycroft noted that John's hand was in his. Extricating his fingers from Sherlock's, John drew the blanket up over him slightly. "Two minutes," he promised, swiping Sherlock's hair off his damp forehead. "We won't go far, and we'll be back in two minutes. Hold up, okay?"

Sherlock, clamping his eyes shut again, gave a slight nod. John took Mycroft toward the windows and well out of Sherlock's earshot, both of them having to dodge various hospital staff on the way.

"What's wrong with him?" Mycroft did not waste words when he was worried. "Tell me everything."

John rubbed his eyes. Mycroft noted with no emotion that they were bloodshot and deeply shadowed. The man was quickly on his way to exhaustion. "Look, I don't want to play passive-aggressive ping-pong with you today," he finally said. "Sherlock's in a bad way. I need you to help me get him the treatment he needs. Afghani hospitals are run more efficiently than this."

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably, resting his weight on his heels. He was without his umbrella for the time being, and suddenly missed it. Having nothing to do with his hands, he crossed his arms. "Have they not treated him at all?" he asked.

"They've put in a hydration IV and taken more blood, and they said they're sending him up for a CT scan. The blood results aren't back yet, I can't find anyone who will tell me when they will be back, and they won't give him a decent dose of painkillers until they get them. We can't wait for that. He's in agony, and his temperature's through the roof. I've never seen him like this before."

Mycroft looked over at Sherlock again. He was lying in a fetal position with his hands tucked under his armpits. In truth, Mycroft had never seen his little brother "like this" before either.

"Apparently, they gave up on trying to gown him and convince him to give a urine sample," John continued scathingly. "The nurse said she was going to find someone else to help her and that was over half an hour ago. Then they were supposed to send someone to get him for the CT scan, but nobody's turned up yet. And even if they get him now... we don't have that kind of time. Vomiting is a bad sign. Vomiting blood is a really bad sign. I even tried calling up the pathology lab where they sent the blood sample they took yesterday... no go. I'm not his treating doctor or his next of kin, so they wouldn't even talk to me about it. Sort this out, Mycroft. Before I go spare and do something I'll regret."

Mycroft look at him in solemn silence for a few seconds. "What does he need?"

"He needs an exploratory laparotomy and he needs one now. As quickly as they can get him in there."

"Yes, there's something else I want you to explain to me," Mycroft persisted, ignoring John's impatient hiss. "These people are trained, experienced professionals, just as you are. So why are they refusing to perform a procedure that you consider vital?"

This time it was John's turn to cross his arms defensively. "There's always a risk in open surgery," he admitted. "Infection, mainly. Blood loss, shock. Frankly, you could die getting your tonsils out."

"How very reassuring."

"And the one doctor who graced us with his presence for all of sixty seconds is still going with this being diverticulitis..."

"And you disagree with the diagnosis."

"I really, really doubt the diagnosis. If it were diverticulitis, it'd be responding to a broad-spectrum oral antibiotic, not getting worse. Anyway, they're very likely to want to operate once the CT scans show what's actually wrong, but..." He trailed off. "Look. I wouldn't be demanding this if I wasn't right, Mycroft."

Mycroft pursed his lips, apparently deep in thought. It was ludicrous to suppose that John Watson would ever act in anything other than Sherlock's best interests, but that didn't preclude his being honestly wrong. All of Mycroft's investigations into John's medical career indicated that he was a talented doctor, but he wasn't God Almighty.

"I'll see what I can do," he finally said. "I went to school with the Dean of the College of Emergency Surgery, as it happens. He'd be most disappointed to hear about this."

"Good." John exhaled. "Because if begging isn't working on you, I could always threaten to go and tell everyone that Addie's father is the Marquess of Lothian..."

For three seconds, Mycroft was quite literally rendered speechless.

"Yeah, Greg was on the phone this afternoon to share the mystery around, and we figured it out. It's pretty obvious once you're looking for it - she's a dead ringer," John continued. "But I don't think he'd thank me for outing him, considering he's a distant cousin to the Queen, isn't he? And challenging for leadership of the Conservative Party next month. Family values and all that."

Mycroft's pupils indicated that danger might be ahead. "We'll discuss that later," he said. "In the meantime, I'll speak with the head doctor on duty."

"Thank you."

"I'll be five minutes."

Still with that casual kind of saunter that seemed to indicate he hadn't a care in the world, Mycroft made his way over to the nurse's station. John, looking back at Sherlock, saw that he had feverishly kicked his blanket off and was sitting up. A young nurse was just then drawing the curtains around the bed. Seeing the hospital gown in her hand, he darted back over.

"What are you doing?" he snapped at her, trying to ease Sherlock back down by his shoulders.

"I'm trying to get him gowned..."

"Him? He's got a name," John reminded her, aware that Sherlock was looking intently between them and not sure exactly how much of the conversation he could follow in the state he was in. "And you've just decided to gown him now? Where the hell have you been for the past forty-five minutes -?"

"John," Sherlock slurred.

"It's all right - "

"It's not all right! I'm bloody dying!"

"You're not dying. Take a breath -"

"I am trying, but I can't breathe when it hurts, you idiot!"

John turned to the nurse again. "This is what he's like, and until he gets either surgery or pain medication his mood isn't going to improve."

"I..." she floundered. He took the gown out of her hands.

"Look, it's all right, I'll do it," he muttered, realising for the first time how aggressive he'd sounded. The poor girl looked like she was about seventeen and on day three of the job. A bit more of that and there might not be a day four. It wasn't her fault the department was ridiculously understaffed. "He trusts me, and I'm a doctor."

The girl left, and John drew the curtain around the bed properly. "Right, well, first off, we need this out for a second." He punched one of the buttons on Sherlock's IV tower and disconnected the tubing with a snap. "This isn't the time to be difficult, Sherlock. Shirt off."

Sherlock fumbled at the hem of his pyjama shirt.

"Arms forward," John said. "Head down... no, arms forward... there." In one swift movement he'd pulled the shirt off, leaving Sherlock shivering pitifully as he reached for the surgical gown. Sherlock had barely managed to struggle into it, and he was sitting on the bed while John tried to pull his pyjama cuffs off his feet, when he suddenly flailed again.

"John - sick -!"

John grabbed the green plastic surgical pan on the stand beside, and Sherlock heaved fruitlessly into it.

"You poor bastard," John muttered, hand on Sherlock's hair as he spat gluey saliva strings, and not much else, into the pan. "No good. Nothing left to come up, I'm afraid." At least he's got a hydration unit attached to him, he thought as he clicked the tubing into place and started the IV again. Small mercies. "Lie down," he said. "Now." He bunched the pyjamas Sherlock had been wearing and put them beside the bed, then pushed the curtains open again.

"No -"

"Sorry. I know it's embarrassing, but you're in the A & E, Sherlock. People don't come here to look cool. And if the curtains are shut, nobody will know you need help..." John looked up. Mycroft was on his way back over, trailed by a very young doctor and three shame-faced nurses.