TITLE: This We'll Defend

CHAPTER/TITLE: Chapter Two/ Sans Peur (Without Fear)

RATING: T (somewhat graphic/violent content I guess)

A/N:Thanks for the follows guys! I'm honestly surprised anyone likes this. Phew. And thank you to the lovely marylouleach, RedsLover03 & Super Lizard for the review. Sorry it's been so painfully long!

I know the idea of John being hurt has been done oh so many times, and quite brilliantly so by some wonderful authors. This particular idea is probably something that has been done, but I personally have not come across it as of yet.

Chapter Two: Sans Peur (Without Fear)

The great detective wasn't exactly sure when or how it happened, the next thing he could clearly remember was something that, even in the current fog of his mind, he could never forget.

A single gunshot.

And a single, stifled, yet sharp scream.

"John! John? Can you hear me?"

Sherlock Holmes didn't have friends. Just one.

Doctor John Hamish Watson. His flatmate, colleague, his friend, best friend – his brother. The man who had grabbed Moriarty from behind while strapped to a bomb to give Sherlock a chance for escape. The man who put up with his mood swings, experiments, body parts in the kitchen, violin playing at all hours of the day and night and everything else that came attached to living with the eccentric detective.

The man, who was currently bleeding out in Sherlock's shaking arms.

It had happened so fast, even Sherlock's sharp mind had yet to properly comprehend it. That part was still locked away in that blasted fog he continually internally cursed. At first he reasoned that the clouded vision and memory was due to the sudden change and contrast from the dark school to the bright daylight bathed outdoors. When the haze neglected to dissolve, the detective chalked it up to some sort of blow on the head he must have received during the scuffle with the criminal.

Those were the only two logical, plausible reasons.

It could not be, and definitely wasn't sentiment.

Sherlock Holmes refused to ever let his heart cloud his mind, yet now his emotions seemed to be acting as belligerent blinders.

Not just because Dr. John Watson, his friend, was lying in his lap, shoulder vomiting crimson liquid. No, it was because Captain John Watson, a former soldier, was terrified.

Sherlock had never seen the man's face so disfigured in fright. Panic, confusion, shock, dread – all flashed in succession across those dancing hazel irises. Sherlock had witnessed a plethora of emotions flood those eyes, but never so many, drowning out any resemblance to the man the detective knew. He had watched John in agony before, had been with him after a particularly frightful nightmare, and had seen him ready to take on death.

Now, though, something was so very disturbingly different.

Desperately, Sherlock searched those familiar, yet not so unfamiliar, irises, for something – anything. He could read someone's lunch from their beard, a person's career by their feet and the happiness of a marriage from a wedding ring. An entire life history mapped out. It was the eyes though, that told him the other bits. The sentiment. Sure, the way eyebrows were raised or lowered, how sweat started to bead together, how fast hands began to tremor, all acted as a gateway to one's emotion. But it was still the eyes that held it all. The hopes, fears, pain, joy, lies, everything in two tiny pools of color.

Sherlock could always read John's eyes. When his flatmate said, "It's fine," but his irises told another story. When Sherlock overstepped some boundary at a crime scene or interrogation and caught his friend's glance. The way those blue orbs stormed over to a steely grey. How they lit up when John had first witnessed Sherlock's observational talents. Yes. Sherlock Holmes could always, always, read John Watson's eyes.

Until now.

The clouded eyes that looked up at him from the body of his best friend did not belong to John Watson.

A/N: BTW, in case you're wondering, I said in the last chapter that the title "This We'll Defend" is an army motto. I neglected to say that it is the US Army motto. I just thought it fit for this story. Each chapter title will be a different military/police motto from around the world, or a play on words using it, as was the last chapter. This chapter title is from the motto "Sans Peur" (Without Fear) – A&SH, 9rd Highlanders