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The Dragon
PenPatronus
Chapter 7 of 10
The Frying Pan
Sherlock crumpled to his knees. Molly had felt so feather-light but now her weight threatened to topple him completely. "Get up!" John yelled behind him. "Sherlock, get up – get up!" Something solid – maybe the tip of John's shoe – poked his back. The door to the outside was melting. Only a sliver of afternoon sunlight remained visible. Sherlock grit his teeth and charged at the sunlight like a bull at a matador. He stumbled over the sidewalk and into the street where he barely missed being hit by an ambulance.
John led the way to the other side of the road where he and Mycroft set the unconscious Lestrade down on the sidewalk. He was in doctor mode – checking the Detective Inspector's pulse and breathing, ripping up his own jacket to bandage the wounds while ordering Mycroft to do the same. Molly's arms suddenly wrapped around Sherlock's neck. He almost dropped her, he was so startled. "Sherlock," she squeaked. "Your head – you're hurt—" She erupted into coughs then, and buried her face in his shoulder.
Sherlock stumbled forward until his knees banged into something solid. A car. The hood of a stationary police car, he realized. He adjusted Molly and laid her, as gently as he could, onto the sloping hood. He started to speak but only vowels came out. The world swayed and he nearly passed out. Anderson's voice reminded him to breathe, and he obeyed. Molly's face came into focus, inches from his and he realized so very suddenly and with so much clarity that she was pretty. And he knew he was injured and in shock and in trouble when he told her so.
"You're beautiful," he whispered.
If she heard him she didn't acknowledge the compliment. Her fingers were twisting around his shirt collar, pulling him close. "The dirt," she choked out. "What did you smell – what did it smell like?"
More ambulances drove up. Uniformed figures emerged and started shouting incomprehensible words. Sherlock saw two medics put oxygen masks on Lestrade and Mycroft. A third handed one to John but he batted it away. He was yelling and pointing and coughing and Sherlock couldn't figure out if the red on his body was blood or burned skin.
"Sherlock!" Molly cried. "Look at me – focus! What did it smell like?"
It seemed like a million years had passed since then but it had to be ten minutes, maybe. Sherlock's reflex was to answer the question: "Sulfur, clay, diesel," he said. "Iron, pine, coal… Train tracks. He was walking on train tracks. Unused ones, most likely."
"Tracks," Molly repeated. She clutched her chest, then grabbed for his other hand. "One of the ghost stations? One – one of the forgotten tracks like the one with the bomb carriage? Is he underground?"
"Y-Yes. M-Maybe. Likely." An exceptionally sharp pain zipped between Sherlock's throat and lungs. He fought through it, fought to keep thinking. "No, wait… Disused tracks, yes, but not underground. The pine – near the woods. An abandoned train station in the woods, Molly."
She managed to get out a sentence while coughing every other word. "Narrow… it… down… What else, Sherlock?"
A flash of light distracted him. The building they'd just escaped was on fire, and it was growing brighter, hotter. Sherlock looked around for his friends – paramedics were loading Lestrade and Mycroft into an ambulance but he couldn't see John. Sherlock's attention returned to Molly and he squeezed her hand. "Are you all right?" he asked her. She nodded. "I have to go find John. I'll be right back." Tears sprung to her eyes and she suddenly looked twice as frightened. Before she could say anything, Sherlock kissed her cheek and turned, leaving her on the car just as a medic ran up.
A legion of masked firemen dragged hoses down the street. Sherlock leapt over them and ran back towards the building. He just knew that his friend was stupid enough to return and look for other survivors. "John!" he yelled, or tried to over the screaming crowd and his own throat.
He spotted a familiar silhouette a block away. Two paramedics had a hold of John's arms and they were shepherding him towards an ambulance. It took Sherlock's bruised and burned mind an extra second to realize that they were actually dragging him. He was unconscious, his feet scraping against the sidewalk. Sherlock broke into a run and got to the ambulance just as the medics put John on one of the gurneys and strapped an oxygen mask around his mouth.
"Is he hurt?" Sherlock demanded. "He was on his feet a minute ago!" Sherlock tried to climb into the ambulance after him but his legs wouldn't cooperate. Dizzy, he tried to lean against the door and would have missed them completely if a paramedic hadn't caught his elbow.
"Easy, pal," the medic said. "Come on, leg up, you need to go to the hospital, too."
Sherlock didn't argue. He let himself be guided into the ambulance and set on the gurney beside John. He didn't put up a fight when the medic gave him a mask or when he forced him to lie down. Sherlock turned his head, saw John on his left apparently still unconscious, limp and still and frowning.
"I'll take care of you two," the medic said. He knelt between the two men as the ambulance sire started and the van began to pull away from the scene. "It's all right, Mr. Holmes," the man said. Sherlock squinted. The face was smiling, grinning, shining. He wore a uniform, yes, but the face was familiar.
"I'll take care of you, Sherlock," said James Moriarty. He adjusted the mask on Sherlock's face and the detective realized that it wasn't oxygen he was inhaling. "Get some rest… You're going to need it."
Sherlock tried to yell for help, tried to at least attempt to put up a fight, but the ambulance's siren was screaming and the road moved beneath them and a moment later, he passed out.
To Be Continued