Chapter 36: Merging.

"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget."

-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.

"Everyone, get out," John said, snapping back to the present.

"But doctor," Kathy protested, and with good reason. It was extremely unorthodox for a doctor to perform an operation by himself. But that was how he had done it the first time, just he and Sebastian and a canvas tent around them, and the screams of the soldiers getting shot in the distance. That was how he had saved his life the first time, alone, and that was how he was going to do it now.

"Everyone, get out," John repeated. And they listened to him, they went out the door one by one, casting worried looks at him over their shoulders. Then it was just the doctor and his patient, and the three previous victims lying on their beds, reminders of what John could do. Reminders of what he couldn't do had been taken away and burned. "Fuck," he breathed, and then moved to his friend's side.

Closer, he observed with extreme relief that Sebastian's chest was still rising and falling. Uneven, shallow breaths, but still breath. Life. A quick pulse, pumping blood out of his body, but still a pulse. Life. He was alive, and John intended to keep it that way.

The clothes were the first thing to be cleared, with rough snips of scissors and John's slow, controlled breaths. He was in control here. He was in his element. He could save this man, as long as neither of them gave up.

"Don't you die on me, Sebastian," he muttered. "Don't you even dare." Three bullet holes in the body, as reported. One to the leg, responsible for most of the blood. It had, as he had feared, hit the artery to the groin. One to the side, cutting a shallow groove through the muscle. That would probably cause problems with mobility, but it was the least of his concerns. The last bullet had lodged itself into Sebastian's rib cage. The bone had saved his life, but now the shards were a danger to him. If left inside the body, they would be moved when Sebastian moved, slowly driving them into his heart and lungs, killing him.

"Fuck," John repeated. Then he started moving. Gloves, mask. Morphine drip where Leo had left it, slide it in, roll over the tray for easy access, he's going to be doing this all by himself. The leg first, or the patient would die of blood loss before John could do anything. He took one deep breath, and then went for the bullet.

It didn't take much work to find, thank god. It clacked onto the metal table, and a fresh flow of blood bubbled from under the skin. John moved quickly, threading the needle that was lying beside him on the table. The wound needed to be stitched before it was cauterized, otherwise the vein itself would be burned together, cutting off circulation.

The stitches went in, needle and skin slippery from the blood, the doctor fighting against his equipment to save his patient. He tied off the end and then pulled over the cauterizing equipment. He took a single breath and held it as he touched the electrical current to the wound. Even without taking a breath, he could smell the blackening skin. That wasn't going to be pleasant to deal with, but it had at least stopped the blood flow.

He left the side wound for now, dedicating himself to the bullet lodged in Sebastian's rib cage. At least it was plainly visible, shining against the white bone. John twisted it out from where it had made its home in the bone.

That would take a long time to heal. Sebastian would be bedridden, possibly for months. John rolled his eyes, thinking about what a pain his friend would be when he was bored. He'd have to get him a Rubik's cube or something. It helped him, for a moment, to be able to assume that they were getting through this. But now, the bone shards.

He started on them one at a time. It was hard, painful, bloody work. His fingers were seizing, and the normally graceful tweezers were suddenly clumsy, slipping on the blood-coated shards. And he was inches away from Sebastian's heart. The human body was so fragile, really. So easy to damage or destroy. John knew exactly how much pressure he would need to put behind the tweezers to push through the muscle and into the heart, knew exactly how much blood per second Sebastian would lose. All it would take was one slip, and the weight of John's body pushing down.

As the minutes stretched on, and bones hit the tray beside the bullets, John thought about Sebastian. He tried not to, he tried to forget what was depending on this operation, but it wasn't working, not at all. All he could think about was Sebastian leading sing-alongs to Pearl Jam in the trenches.

When he was injured, and quarantined to John's medical tent, they had talked for long periods of time. About the people waiting for them at home, their parents, their aspirations, different countries they had visited.

After Sebastian had healed, he had asked for John to be assigned as the doctor to his battalion, saying that he owed him his life. John had laughed it off, but accepted the invitation. Many of those men had been his friends, and almost all of them had been loyal, good men. By the end of the war, around half of them had been dead, trying to keep the boundaries established, trying to keep children safe in their homes. That had been one of the worst things about the war; everywhere they fought, there were civilians. There were battlefields, yes, and trenches, but there was also fighting over city walls, and backyard fences, and through playgrounds.

Click. Bone on metal. Not half as satisfying as metal on metal. Saving Sebastian from his own body. Click. A half-splash as it fell into the blood. Saving him again. Was it the Sniper-Shooter? An argument? What was going to happen now? Jim was going to be furious about this. As coolly as he had acted earlier, John knew that he considered Sebastian to be a friend.

Oh god. Sebastian had been out there because of John and Jim. Because Jim had kissed John on the forehead, and John hadn't been thinking, not thinking about Sebastian or the Misfits or anything except for Jim, Jim, Jim. It was his fault if Sebastian died, his fault twice over, once for forcing him out into range, and then again for not being able to save him.

"Fuck," he repeated, and continued to work. Only a few more shards left now, but there could be more, others that he had missed. All it would take was one, one sharp piece sealed inside, and then if Sebastian moved and it made its way into his heart… John's fault.

Sebastian couldn't die, that wasn't possible, John wouldn't let it happen.

There seemed to be no pieces left. John lifted skin and layers of muscle, gently running his fingers over the tissue, checking for any abnormalities before he sewed his friend shut, closing any missed pieces inside his body. He couldn't feel any. He would rather check again, just to be sure, but he couldn't risk the blood loss.

He reluctantly pulled out the thread and needle, smoothed everything back into place, and started to sew. Black crisscrossing red and white. The bone shards sitting in a puddle of blood, among the bullets. John's fingers hurt, the joints and the tips, from working for so long. His back popped when he straightened to get the bandages, and he could tell that he was going to be stiff in the morning from bending over his patient.

He smoothed the first layer over Sebastian's sewn-together torso, and then he bandaged his side, the gauze winding around his body, almost all of his skin covered in the uneven fabric.

He stood there, waiting, for several minutes. When four minutes passed, and blood hadn't soaked through the gauze, John checked Sebastian's breathing. It was normal. John sighed, and relaxed slightly. He had been in parade rest, probably an old instinct. Slowly, he went around cleaning up the materials. Now it was up to time, which John had no control over.

Blood, bone, metal, plastic, it was all cleaned up and thrown away into their various places. John cleaned Sebastian of his blood, running the cool cloth gently over his arms and face. Once he had done everything he could, he carefully moved the larger man into a hospital bed, pulling the sheets up to cover the bandages.

Then he pulled out his phone.

Sebastian was shot. He should be fine, at least for the night. You can come and look tomorrow, I'm going to bed now. –JW

Several seconds later, he got a text back.

Good night, John. –JM

Good night, Jim. –JW

The doctor looked around, debating with himself. The most reasonable thing to do would be to call back his workers and tell them to keep an eye on Sebastian. But that didn't seem right, not after he had ordered them all out and saved Sebastian by himself. So instead, he set up a heart rate monitor, making sure the waking frequency or any abnormal rates were loud enough to act as an alarm clock.

Then he climbed into the bed next to Sebastian's and pulled the sheets over him, not even bothering to change out of his bloody jumper, and closed his eyes. Sleep was sweet.

Oooooo0000oooooO

The thing that woke him up was not the wild bleeping of the heart monitor. It was not a nightmare, pulled from the depths of his subconscious. It was not one of his nurses, shaking him awake, telling him there'd been another shooting. Neither was it the slow, creeping sunlight that came through the skylight in his flat sometimes.

No, it was a quiet sound, a soft clicking, and it woke John faster than any of those other things would have. A sound that was programmed deeply into his brain, flipping a switch and snapping open his eyes. A gun being loaded at close proximity. He stiffened under the covers as he woke, but fought the urge to sit up straight away, forcing himself to relax and look first.

Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head to the left. There was a silhouette of a tall man with a gun, but it wasn't pointing at him. It was aimed at Sebastian, the patient that John had just finished saving. John reached behind him and grabbed his Browning from where he had forgotten to take it out last night, falling asleep fully clothed, and blessedly armed.

"I wouldn't shoot if I were you," he said clearly, sitting up and fixing his aim on the intruder's forehead. "That's my friend you're pointing a gun at, and I won't hesitate to kill you if you make any move to hurt him."

The tall man froze, and slowly, turned to face him. John could feel eyes on him through the darkness.

"Drop the gun," he ordered. There was no sound. "I said, drop the gun. Now." The gun hit the floor. "Are you the bastard who's been shooting the snipers, then?"

"John?"

It was a sound. Just a sound. One syllable, a half-second of deep baritone voice. John didn't drop his own gun, but it was close.

"Sherlock?"

A/N: So... *shuffles feet* I guess it's been a while, hasn't it? What, two or three weeks? Yeah, I'm sorry, I've really got no excuses, it just... fell off my radar. Well, I'm back now. Aaaand... So is Sherlock!
Speaking of whom, what do YOU think is going to happen? Is there room for Sherlock in a Jim/John relationship? Is he going to be a friend, an enemy, a rival, a playmate? Are Jim and Sherlock going to go back to their old games? Where is John going to be now? Come on, take a wild guess, can it hurt?

Belated thanks for all the reviews for my last chapter. 125 reviews is a pretty big number, in my opinion! No, seriously, wow. You're all amazing. (Only 11 chapters left!)