Blood on the stairs

In which there is stitching, Mrs. Hudson worries, and John must improvise.

John stepped back in horror. Beneath the rain coat was the body of a young woman. She was breathing, but barely, and her whole body was a mess of red beating marks and open wounds. As John looked closer, his stomach gave a nasty lurch. He realized that none of the blood on Sherlock was his own. It was hers, and she had lost a lot of it; it was matted in her hair and tracing rivets down her face. Huge cuts had soaked the blood through the coat, leaving dark ominous spots on the black fabric.

John slowly turned the girl over, grimacing as she flopped limply across the kitchen table. Not all the wounds appeared to be deep, but they were numerous and all over her. He could also see multiple bruises blooming over her arms and neck. He turned to Sherlock, who had shed the bloody jacket and had his shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows, rinsing the blood off his hands and neck in the kitchen sink.

"Sherlock, what… who the hell is that? What happened?"

"I told you, I got sidetracked."

"What did you do?"

"You think I did this?" Sherlock looked offended. "I wouldn't have brought her here if I had. And I wouldn't have brought her if I thought she was dead, which I knew she wasn't."

"Then what-"
"She was attacked." Sherlock ran some water through his hair and dried it off with a towel. "Two men had her cornered in an alley I was passing."

"God, Sherlock, look at her! She needs medical attention!"
"Then thank God I know a good doctor."

"Oh, shut up! That doesn't explain why she's here," John pointed out, as he checked the girl's pulse. "I don't see why you even bothered to try and stop them if it didn't benefit you. What's really going on?"

Sherlock took a deep breath, and then put on his most somber face. "John, I'm disappointed. You really think this is for my own gain?" He saw the answer in John's face, then let out another long sigh. "Fine, her situation intrigued me, and if I wanted to take her case, I knew I had to help her. Besides, the wounds aren't life-threatening; I saw the attack, so I should know, and if I took her to a hospital, they'd stitch her up and then I'd be in an interrogation room for potentially attacking a girl that I happened to find. Seems like a perfectly logical explanation if they only took in the fact that she's been beaten and I'm covered in her blood. Also the fact that I've got her wallet on me."

"You took her wallet?"

Sherlock took a small fabric wallet out of his pocket and opened it. "Her name's Lana Heart. She's 22 years old, not married, not seeing anyone either. She's from the US, been here…two weeks, and is staying at the St. James hotel near the Thames. She travels a lot, but doesn't visit family very much; they don't have a good relationship with her, the exception being her mother. She's the oldest of four and is currently a reporter for the Denver Sun. Now, can you fix her up? Some of those cuts look nasty."

John snapped to reality with these words; whenever Sherlock deduced something about anyone, he always marveled at his accuracy. With a curt nod, he went back to his room and grabbed his medical bag; a little 'souvenir' from Afghanistan. At one point, when he had first returned home, he had considered burning it, but when Sherlock came home with a knife wound down his right arm, he was glad he had kept it around.

When he came back to the kitchen, Sherlock was bending over the girl, staring intently into her pale features. Without looking up, he reported, "Two bad cuts on her face, one above the right cheek bone and one over the bridge of her nose. I'm surprised it hasn't been broken actually, with throw hard they were hitting her. Let's see, one cut on her neck, three on the back of the head- looks like that's where most of the blood's coming from- and two on her chest. One deep one above the hip, one on the right arm and minor scratches all along her back and back legs. Did I miss any? You're the doctor, so you should be the one to take a look."

As John stepped forward, Sherlock moved away from the makeshift operating table and headed for the stove. "I'm going to make some tea, you want some?"

John stared, appalled. "We've got a beaten girl lying on our kitchen table, covered in blood and bruises that you just asked me to stitch up, and you want to know if I want tea?"

Sherlock was filling the pot with water in the sink. "Is that a no, then?"

There was a slight pause, and John gave in. "Strong, two sugars."

With a grin, Sherlock turned back to the teapot. John inwardly groaned; he could tell that Sherlock KNEW he'd say yes; his friend was maddeningly right about everything. An insult grew, and then died a bitter death on his tongue as he turned back to the body lying in front of him. Quickly, he pulled out disinfectant, needle, thread and anesthesia, and set to work. Sherlock watched with a mild interest as John numbed the woman's face, neck, hip and right arm before starting with the needle, disinfecting the cuts and stitching up the deeper ones. By the time he was done, Sherlock had the tea ready and sitting in a mug beside his elbow. John picked it up and looked at the clock. It was eight twenty, but it felt like he'd been up all night. He took a sip of tea, and let the heat and sugar shoot through his body.

Sherlock, holding his tea but not drinking any of it, stepped back over to the table and examined John's work. "Impressive," he commented. "It didn't take even an hour."

John ignored him and began washing off his tools in the sink, trying to shake off any nagging doubts. Meanwhile, Sherlock pulled out his phone and started to text, paying no attention to John or his patient.

It struck John as odd; how normal it had become. They had a woman lying badly beaten on their kitchen table, and the kitchen was covered in a layer of blood, and here they were, drinking tea (at least John was) and acting as though nothing of interest had happened that night.

Sherlock looked up from his phone. "John, can you get my bag?"
"Where is it?"
"Across town in the 6th street alley between the Golden Dragon Chinese Take away and the Griffin Book Store."

John simply stared. "I take it that's where you found her?"
"Yes," said Sherlock, refocusing on the phone. "Problem? I need it rather badly; there are ten different blood samples I can't afford to lose and my favorite shirt in there. You know, the purple one with the black buttons?"

"Are you going to tell me what's really going on first?"

Sherlock looked up at his friend. "When you get back."

John hesitated for a moment, sighed, pushed off the counter and headed toward the door. His hand was on the doorknob when Sherlock called out to him.

"oh, and one more thing. Take Miss Heart's room key and stop at the St. James Hotel. She's going to want some fresh clothes when she wakes up. She's in room 431 and the case is probably black."

Sherlock tossed John the plastic key card, and the latter shoved it in his pocket before heading back toward the door. But once again, he was stopped; and this time not by his friend.

"Dr. Watson? Sherlock? Are you two in there? I found blood on the stairs. What are you doing?"

The two fully grown men threw each other looks of horror as the landlady on the other side of the door began searching for her key to let herself into the flat. Neither of them wanted to think about Missus Hudson's reaction if she came in and found what appeared to be the corpse of a young woman lying on her good kitchen table. Frantically, Sherlock carried the girl over to the couch and covered her with the nearest blanket while John shouted through the door, "its fine, Missus Hudson. Nothing's wrong."

"Well, what's the blood on my stairs, then?"

John threw Sherlock a panicked look. His friend was trying to pile half the pillows in the flat on top of the woman without smothering her. Sherlock glanced up long enough to give him a look that said improvise!

John's mind raced wildly, trying to think of a way to stop Missus Hudson from coming in while Sherlock continued to cover the woman, gave up and merely shoved her unconscious form under the sofa. Then, just as Missus Hudson seemed to have located her key into the flat, John had an inspiration.

"Sherlock cut himself with the kitchen knife, Missus Hudson, and he went downstairs to get a towel to clean the blood off. It's no problem, really. So sorry about the blood on your stairs; we can clean it if you want us to."

"Oh it's no trouble, dear, but good Heavens, Sherlock, are you alright? I was thinking you had brought something dead up here to study, but if you need anything, I can bring it up here for you…"

"Not to worry, Missus Hudson. Nothing to see up here, just some blood on the floor we'll mop up," Sherlock shouted, catching John with a wilting look.

"Why is it always ME with the injury?" he hissed.

"It's always you with the injury." John replied, glancing back into the kitchen. He wished he hadn't; there was blood on the floor, in the sink and on the table. Sherlock's Jacket and the woman's rain coat were both stained dark and were lying on the floor alongside the laundry that had been left there. This was going to take a while to clean up, and it was at that moment John realized that they didn't have anything to clean up this mess with. With a sigh, he began to open the door for a third time.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock hissed, as he shoved one of the woman's hands back under the couch.

"I'm going downstairs to get a mop. We're going to have to clean the kitchen at some point unless you want it smelling like a slaughterhouse in there." John opened the door a crack and slid out, moving around the landlady still standing on the landing outside. "Can you show me where the mops are, Missus Hudson? We're going to need it to clean up the kitchen."
"Of course, dear, right this way." Missus Hudson led John back down the stairs and into the basement, saying as she went, "I don't mean to nag, John, but after two years of this, I still haven't gotten used to the explosions and such coming from the kitchen. Heaven knows, he'll blow us all up if he's not careful. And I do worry about him dear; thirty-four and not so much as a girl friend. You know, I had originally thought you two might be together-" John went beet red (why did everyone always think that?) "but I can see you two are just friends. Do take care of him, won't you?"

"Well, here it is, dear. Leave it back here when you're done." Missus Hudson reached into the dusty broom cupboard and pulled out a rather ratty-looking mop. John took it from her and ran back up the stairs two at a time. He didn't bother to call for Sherlock- he was leaving again in a moment anyway- so he left the mop leaning against the couch, noticing as he did so that Sherlock had had the tact to pull the poor girl out from under the couch and rest her on the cushions still scattered on the sofa's surface. With a sigh John turned around and left the flat, closing the door and starting down the stairs. Something kept nagging at him, something he couldn't quite place.

Well, actually, he could place it. He had a strange girl in his flat, which happened to now be covered in that girl's blood, and Sherlock had brought this girl from out of nowhere, and John was supposed to act like this was normal? It wasn't as though he was asking for much; but a bit of notice would have been nice, because John wasn't exactly crazy about the idea of keeping what looked like a corpse in the flat. He could do with the eyeballs, the head, and once a collection of human hands in the freezer (True, he had put a stop to that particular form of experiment throwing the hands out, and Sherlock had been furious. He had delivered John the ultimate punishment that time; a three hour long concert on a deliberately out of tune violin played as loud as Sherlock could manage. Still, John had allowed the hands to stay for about three days before he got sick of looking at them every time he needed to get some ice.), but this was ridiculous. Some quiet, nagging doubts told him that this might be illegal, and John was in no mood to deal with potential jail time (again), but he decided to push it from his mind for now. Sherlock clearly had something in mind; he was clueless in some regards, but he was still the most brilliant man John had ever met, so even though there were about a million things that could go wrong, John Watson decided to trust his friend and let him take charge for a bit. Things can only go so wrong, can't they? He thought as he locked the door behind him. But preferring not to think about what might and probably would go wrong in this whole fiasco, John pushed the thought from his head and hailed a taxi.

Up next- what went wrong

In which John misses most of the action, Lana Heart becomes infuriated with Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock begins to question himself.