Trembling, John slowly opens his eyes. He's alive. He's really still alive. How is this possible?
He heard the gunshot. It couldn't have been Lestrade, could it? Lestrade had surrendered his weapon. He looks upwards and sees Lestrade staring at him, wide-eyed and obviously confused as well. This confirms John's suppositions.
Lestrade didn't fire the gun. Then who did?
"Wilson," he whispers to himself, suddenly aware of the danger that he is still in.
"What… what is going on? How…" his voice trails off as he sees Wilson's body sprawled face-down across the alley floor. A large pool of blood begins to form around Wilson's body. There appears to be a gunshot wound on his head. But how could he have been shot? Who fired the bullet? Forgetting completely about his own wound, John attempts to stand. He is weak and unable to do so, and immediately remembers that he is injured. As John begins to calm down a little bit, his injury becomes more of a problem. The fear he had been feeling had eclipsed the pain of his wound, but now John feels the pain. He collapses, in tremendous pain and too faint from loss of blood to sit up any longer.
Lestrade rushes to his side. "John! John, can you hear me?"
John replies feebly, "Yes… I can. It's not that bad…" he tries to pull himself up to a sitting position again.
"No, don't do that. Just stay down and try to stay still," Lestrade advises, uncertain. He's not exactly sure of what to do. John cannot contain his curiosity.
"Lestrade… how? I mean… who? I don't understand… He was about to shoot me!"
Lestrade shakes his head. "I don't know. I really don't know what happened. But it looks like someone shot him, somehow. Before he shot you. But that doesn't matter right now, John. You're hurt." Lestrade looks around for a moment trying to decide what to do about John's injury. He pulls off the scarf he had been wearing and wraps it tightly around John's bleeding wrists, tying it to keep it to keep the makeshift bandage in place. "We need to get some proper bandages. I need to call a doctor, and obviously I need to bring some more police out here to take care of… the body, and all that. But that would mean I'd have to leave you here alone…"
A voice suddenly interrupts, "No, that's fine. You can go. I'll stay here with John." John looks upward and sees Mary, standing next to Lestrade. She looks okay, but she is clearly shaken.
John's eyes widen as he notices that she is tightly clutching a gun in her hands.
"Mary…" John questions, shocked. "Was it you? Did you have that the whole time?" Mary doesn't respond. She appears to be holding back tears. Lestrade notices the gun in Mary's hands but doesn't say anything. He seems hesitant to leave, but he knows that he can't really do anything for John, and Mary did offer to stay with him.
"I shouldn't be gone for long," he says. He hurries out of the alley, leaving John and Mary alone. When Lestrade is gone, John begins to ask questions.
"Mary, was it you? You're the one the shot him, aren't you?" Mary bites her lip and nods weakly, fighting to hold back her tears. John immediately feels sorry for being so insensitive.
"Mary, thank you. You saved my life. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry…" Mary can't hold back her tears any longer, and she begins to sob. She sits down next to John, burying her head in her hands. John realizes how terrible she must feel right now. She just shot and killed someone. It was to save John's life, but she still killed Wilson. She wasn't prepared for any of this. How could she be? Nobody was expecting Wilson to turn out to be a murderer.
John stays quiet for a little while; he doesn't know what to say to Mary. He has so many questions for her, but she is clearly not ready for them. After a few minutes, Mary's sobs subside. John looks up at her, and Mary nods, silently telling him that she's okay and ready to answer his questions. John considers it, but he decides not to ask Mary any of his questions, even though there's so much he wants to know. Both of them are in shock right now, and he doesn't want to make her have to think about what just happened. She probably feels guilty enough already. John remains quiet.
Mary suddenly breaks the silence. "I had the gun with me the whole time. I brought your other gun with me when I left Baker Street, just in case something happened, because I was worried when you didn't come back from the morgue. I know you don't want to bother me with your questions, but I thought you'd want to know that." John smiles slightly, although in pain and struggling to stay conscious. All of a sudden he hears more voices.
"He's back, John. Lestrade's here, and it looks like he's brought some more police," Mary explains. Lestrade runs up to John, obviously concerned.
"He's over here! He's still bleeding a lot," he calls to a man who John supposes is a doctor. The doctor hurries over to John and kneels down next to him. He quickly opens a large leather bag. He unties the scarf that had been used as a makeshift bandage. Mary gasps, realizing how severely hurt John actually is. She moves out of the way so that the doctor can work. The doctor begins tightly wrapping John's wounds with a bandage.
John cringes. The doctor begins to talk.
"You should be fine. We just need to stop the bleeding," he reassures. John nods.
"Oh, by the way," the doctor adds, "I'm Simon Phillips. You're Doctor John Watson, right?"
"Yes," John replies weakly.
"Okay, John. We need to get you out of here and to the hospital."
John doesn't respond. He's struggling to stay conscious. His vision begins to fade and starts to black out. He still hears Simon and Lestrade's voices, although they sound soft and far away.
"Is he going to be okay?"
"I'm not sure. It's pretty bad, but I think he'll be better once he wakes up."
John feels himself being lifted into the back of some sort of carriage. He hears voices once again.
"What on earth happened to him anyways?"
"I honestly don't know how all of it happened. I haven't gotten a chance to ask him about any of that yet. His fiancée came down to the morgue because John never came back after he looked at the bodies from a murder case he was working on. I went to look for him, and I found him in this alley. There was a man holding a knife to his throat, and he started to demand all of these insane things. I couldn't do anything about it. The man slit John's wrists to try and pressure me into giving him what he wanted, but I couldn't. His demands were impossible. So the man was about to shoot John when…" he doesn't finish, uncertain.
"When what? What happened?"
"Someone shot the man in the head."
The voices fade as the door of the carriage is shut, and John loses consciousness.
Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this chapter! I'd love it if you'd leave a review, comment, or suggestion :)
(Oh, and by the way, Sherlock Holmes is going to be coming into the story very, very soon!)