Heeeey guys! Here's chapter 4 :) So Sherlock is a little OOC, but that's okay, because I wouldn't have a story without that.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
This is the sound that plagues your eardrums as you wake up. Your chest hurts, and you know that you look awful.
The nurses say that you just woke up today. You have been in a coma for an entire month, recovering from a gunshot to the lung. You're still too weak to breathe on your own, hence why you have a breathing tube in your chest feeding you oxygen. You can move your arms and legs and eat, but only just barely.
You press the "nurse call" button. A nurse arrives seconds later.
"Yes Ms. Calder?"
"Can you hold a mirror up to me?" you ask. The nurse looks at you strangely, but takes a small hanging mirror off the wall and holds it up to your face. "Oh, I look awful."
"Ms. Calder, a man is on his way to visit you." Another nurse tells you.
"What's his name?"
"Sherlock Holmes." She says. You're shocked–he remembers you? After all this time?
You turn to the nurse holding the mirror. "You have to make me look pretty." You demand. She nods with a curt smile, probably assuming that you fancy Sherlock, and leaves. A minute later, she comes back with a large purse, and pulls out a hairbrush for you to brush your hair. As you do that, the nurse goes to your private bathroom to get a wet washcloth for you to wash your face. You look at yourself in the mirror again, and you deem yourself presentable. You've lost a lot of weight in the time that you were in a coma, and it's visible in your hollow cheeks. You run your hands down the sides of your body, and you notice that your waistline has shrunk dramatically, your ribcage and hipbones very pronounced.
"Thank you." You smile at the nurse, who smiles back and leaves you alone in the room.
A minute later, a familiar face pokes itself in the door.
"How are you feeling?" Sherlock asks you. You shrug.
"Oh, you know, just woke up from a month-long coma, almost died, the last thing I remember is all those soldiers rushing in." You smile at him. Sherlock brings a chair over to your bed and sits down.
"You saved the world that day." He says after a few seconds.
"No, I nearly died. Theres a big difference."
"You cracked the code, which Mycroft used to take down Russian communications, stopping them from building any nuclear missiles. You saved the world, Sophie. Never forget that."
"Am I still an MP?" You ask. Right now, that is the most important thing to you.
"No." Sherlock says bluntly. "They didn't know of you would ever wake up. You were in pretty bad shape." He takes your hand. "You really scared me."
"You only knew me for twenty-five minutes." You try to laugh, slightly impaired by the tube in your chest.
"No, you knew me for twenty-five minutes. I knew you for a month."
You suck in a breath, or at least tried to, since all your breathing is being done by the machine that feeds oxygen through the hole in your chest.
"So what's happened in the world after I blacked out?" you ask, wiggling your fingers in the hand that Sherlock isn't holding.
"Well, the terrorists are on maximum security prison, the UN has seized absolute control over Russia, you're going to receive a Nobel Peace Prize…"
"WHAT!" your heart monitor beeps faster.
"You saved the world, I told you that. No, before you rudely interrupted me, I was going to tell you that Tabitha has taken over your position of MP, then there's the promotion of you to cabinet member since you're awake–"
"WHAT!"
"Please do stop interrupting. On, then your sister met John when we came to visit sleeping you, and let me tell you you're really unattractive when you sleep. Your sister Mary and John are now dating. How come her surname is Morstan and yours is Calder?"
"She was previously married."
"Ah. Now anyways, you asked me in your sleep to have a drink when you get out of here–"
"I did not!" you protest, even though you want to.
"You most certainly did!" Sherlock laughs at you. You grip his hand tighter, as he continues talking. "You kissed me, before running off and risking your life to save your friend. Honestly, I would kiss you back now, but you look like hell."
"Hey, I saved the world, I'm allowed to look ugly." You slap his hand with your free hand. "I can't believe it was that easy."
"You're brilliant."
"Not really. I'm just good with puzzles." You say, and before Sherlock can reply, John enters with a bouquet of flowers, your sister Mary with him.
"Sophie!" Mary squeals, and runs over to your other side. She hugs you lightly, being careful of all the tubes that are plugged into you. Mary holds your left hand, and Sherlock your right. John gives Sherlock a look, then sits down next to Mary. Sherlock lets go of your right hand.
"How long have you been awake?" John asks.
"Just 5 hours. I was pretty drugged up and delirious during that time anyways. I was only fully conscious about an hour before Sherlock arrived." You answer. Your chest hurts from all the talking, and you press on the "pain pump" to get more drugs to ease said pain. "I'm actually very glad I was out all those days, that way I could recover a lot more. Oh, here come the drugs." You chuckle. Mary and John laugh, and Mary kisses your forehead before they leave. Sherlock stays behind, and takes your hand.
"You're pretty." You say, the drugs removing the filter between your brain and your mouth. Sherlock smiles, a smile you've never seen in the thirty-five minutes you have known him. But he's known you an entire month, and he knows more about you than you know him.
"I think the drugs are a little too much." He laughs at you.
"I saved the world, and you saved my life, so you saved the world twice." You start to slur your words. Sherlock sees that your finger has never left the pain pump, and he removes it.
"Get some rest, Sophie." Sherlock leans over and kisses your forehead, as you drift off into narcotic sleep.
-.-.-.-.-
When you wake up, Sherlock is sleeping on the couch across the room. You call the nurse in silently. When she sees Sherlock sleeping, she tiptoes over to you.
"Yes Ms. Calder?"
"Do I look presentable?" you ask. The nurse picks a hairbrush out of her pocket and brushes down some tangles in your hair. "Thanks." The nurse leaves you.
You rub your hands together, and pick up your cellular from the bedside table. The clock suggests that you have been asleep for 3 hours.
You consider calling Tabitha, but doing so would disturb Sherlock's nap. You read the newspaper that sits on your bedside table, taking in the news. A month has passed, so you have missed a lot of events. There's a small article reporting on your condition, saying that the doctors doubt that you'll wake up.
"Bollocks." You laugh a bit. Looking up, you finally notice a large corkboard covered with hundreds of articles from dozens of newspapers from around the world in many different languages, all clipped out and pinned to the board. Front page headlines, columns, small articles and big articles, all outlining what you had done that horrible day. If you weren't hooked up to ten different tubes, you would get up to look at it.
You notice that Sherlock is looking at you. Not having to suck in a breath, but attempting to anyways, you meet his eyes.
"You're awake." You say at the same time. He looks at the bulletin board, and walks over to it, taking off the biggest article on the board, a front-page headline with a picture of the terrorists being led out of the building in straightjackets. You read it intently when he hands it over to you. It talks about how you saved the world, and of you would ever wake up from a coma, how you would become an honorary cabinet member when you did, how you're going to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, and a couple of interviews–one of Sherlock Holmes, one of John Watson, and one of Tabitha Westlake.
"Should I expect a press interview now that I'm awake?" you hand Sherlock the newspaper headline.
"Not until you're well enough to leave the hospital, but yes, you should be expecting multiple interviews. Oh, and I spoke with the nurse, she says that you can leave in a week."
"Seriously?"
"You were in a coma for a month, which is plenty of time for your vitals to recover. The extra week is just getting you back on your feet, literally. They're going to start unplugging your tubes and getting you walking."
"Oh." You nod your head. "When they do that, would you mind not being in the room? I mean, there's going to be a lot of my body being exposed, and I've only known you for three hours and thirty-five minutes." You smile, and laugh successfully.
-.-.-.-
Two days later, your breathing tubes and waste tubes are removed, allowing you to walk around. You also get to shower, but you have to lean on a walker and carry your IV feed on a mobile rack everywhere. After showering, you inspect yourself–a huge scar goes down the right side of your chest where the breathing tube was. You turn around and look over your shoulder–there's another much larger scar on your back where you were shot and operated on. The skin isn't rough, but smooth and well healed. You pull on a hospital gown and the robe that covers your backside, and a pair of slip-proof slippers. You lean forward onto your walker and grab hold of your IV rack. It's hard to move around with both, moving the IV rack then the walker, IV then walker, until you make it back to the bed. Sherlock enters your room.
"Feeling better?" He asks, sitting down next to you. He hands a yellow tulip to you.
"A bit, thank you." You lean your head on his shoulder.
"Why don't we take a walk around the hospital, stretch your leg muscles?"
"Sure." You say, and lean forward on the walker. Sherlock holds your mobile IV rack as you move. The two of you tell your nurse where you're going, and you make your way down the hall.
"You're making a miraculous recovery."
"Thank you."
"Excited to get out of here in 5 days?"
"I'm excited to start working in the cabinet room." You reply. A much as you appreciate Sherlock's attention, you wish that he would just cool down on how you "saved the world" and all that. You don't care for the Nobel Peace Prize, or the million pound grant, or all the appreciation and attention; you only care about working on the cabinet with the Prime Minister.
"The nation was on edge the entire time you were asleep. Everyone was worried about you."
"No need. People only know me because of my previous MP status."
"Your family was worried about you."
"They always are."
"I was worried about you."
You stop walking. Sherlock Holmes, the great, heartless, and arrogant Sherlock Holmes, was worried about you? Sherlock Holmes who seemed so uncaring when somebody dies right in front of him, but cares so much for people who risk their lives for the sake if others?
You can't stand up on tiptoes, due to your weak body, but you can reach up and pull Sherlock down lower by his shoulder, so his face is level with yours, soft lips touching each other lightly. His free hand reaches under your arm to support you as your knees go weak. When you keep dropping, he catches you with his other arm, letting go of the IV rack. Sherlock is the first to pull away.
"You okay?" he continues to hold you up as you fumble for your walker.
"Yup, just a little tired. Can we walk back?"
"Sure." Sherlock take hold of your IV rack with one hand, and shoves the other in his pocket as you make your way back to your hospital room.
-.-.-.-
Sherlock stayed with you until after dinner, when you ate crummy hospital food and he had a turkey sandwich form the café on the ground floor.
After Sherlock leaves, you are given access to a laptop the nurses brought in, so you decide to google Sherlock's name. You know quite a bit about Sherlock, but you don't know a ton about the work he's done.
You find his website–which is really kind of boring. John's website actually has all of his cases on it. You read case after case after case, learning more and more. His ultimate enemy appears to be a man named "Jim Moriarty," who to you seems like a total git. Not an arrogant git like Sherlock, but a dangerous git. There's a case dealing with a dominatrix named Irene, which leaves you a bit jealous, but when you find out that she's dead you feel better about yourself. Then there's the case with Baskerville, which keenly interests you, but it's so top secret that there's hardly anything on it. You suppose that being a cabinet member, you do get to know more about Baskerville at some point. And then there's the Russian Terrorist case in the Parliament building, telling about the murders of 3 people who investigated the planning of a Russian nuclear attack against the world. Then there's the bit about how you cracked the code, saved the world and everyone in the building, and there's the shooting. But there's more after that, describing what happened to you after it happened. Sherlock had seen the sniper and was attempting to take him out, but you were shot before he got to him, and Sherlock killed the sniper. Army soldiers rushed you off to the nearest hospital before Sherlock got back to you, but he was with you as soon as you came out of surgery 10 hours later, and how he visited every day that you were in a coma.
You realize that you are in love with Sherlock Holmes.
To be continued