He pushed the x-ray machine around with some difficulty. Despite his protests, the doctors had insisted that he wear his coat beneath his scrubs. It was unnatural. The heavy fabric bunched up between the papery legs and the way the shirt smothered the opening to the coat made him feel fat. After chipping some crown molding off the corner and upsetting a tray of blood samples, he rolled the portable into a room in the emergency department and sighed.

"Why we still use these things is a mystery to me. They are absolutely archaic." He whacked the machine with a plastic glove.

"Hi, Mr. Tannis. How are you today?" John smiled. An old man leaned over, clutching his stomach. An old woman stood beside him, patting his shoulder.

"There, there Toddy, it's going to be alright. He's doing awful." John nodded. Choking, Toddy spit out,

"I'm not feeling quite well." Spinning around with a smile, Sherlock said,

"Of course he's not feeling well. His wife's a vegetarian and he just had meat for the first time in eighteen years."

"Toddy!" She slapped him

"Marta, I can explain, Marta."

"What appalls me, Mr. Tannis is that you don't regret wasting the funds of England. Because of your dietary irregularities, the future of your children is being drowned in x-ray films and salaries."

"We don't have children." Marta stared at Sherlock, who raised an eyebrow.

"You don't. Goodday Mrs. Tannis."

"But what about my x-ray?"

"We can wait." Sherlock pushed the cart out. Marta began beating on Toddy and screaming. John stood, dazed as security poured into the room. Coming to himself, he stormed out after Sherlock. He's natched away the order forms.

"Oh no, we are not doing this again. You better let me do the talking. I'm better at relating to patients."

"You're a doctor. There's nothing farther from being a patient." Sherlock smirked.

"You've lost us the last, God-knows-how-many jobs. Try not to be a smart-ass."

"I'll just be myself." Sherlock continued down the hall.

"Are you listening to me?" The patient, a frail old woman with varicose veins stared at Sherlock and John with a frown. Sherlock would have to be careful.

"Hello Ms..." John paused a smile slapped on his face as he stared at half the alphabet jumbled together with far too few vowels.

"Zbratskini." She leered up at them.

"Is that Russian?" She growled.

"Polish, John." Shelock clicked his tongue. Ms. Zbranskini purred.

"This is the filthiest hospital I've ever been in."

"Oh, have you been to many?" John still smiled. He was beginning to feel stupid.

"Of course she has. Just look at the scars on her legs. You don't get those from gardening. Can't even get them from cats. And I quite agree Ms. Zbranskini, the state of the toilet is appalling." John looked around in confusion.

"That's right sonny. As for the surgeries." The old woman displayed her knobbly knees. "Doctors like you have screwed me over my whole life." She pointed a finger at John.

"Hey, how did you know-"

"She's a sharp one." John met the double smirk of icy young and glittering old grey eyes and felt the knife of fear. Sherlock picked up the x-ray plate, and covering it with a pillowcase, said,

"It's going to awfully uncomfortable. And the doctor is an alcoholic having an affair with his wife, so..."

"I expected as much." She bared her teeth.

"Give me that." John took the plate from Sherlock, not trusting him. "Shut your mouth, John. Take it from a woman, stupidity is unattractive. Let the smart one take it. Yes, you darling." She bared her teeth again. John stared.

"No, I'm the doctor here."

"You're the alcoholic. I knew it." She sat up.

"Ms. Zibberzabbersky please just let me take the x-ray-"

"Never!"

"Want to give it to me, John?"

"No, no. No. This is my job, I know how to do it, for God's sake, this is what I spent those eight years doing."

"Becoming an x-ray tech?" Sherlock frowned.

"He was in prison. He's an alcoholic and a convict. And a doctor. Help!" Ms. Zbranskini continued to scream. Sherlock kept saying,

"All this time I thought you were a doctor, and you were an x-ray tech. You've lied to me, John."

"I am a doctor. Goddamn it, Sherlock, I'm just trying to shoot an x-ray for Ms. Zibberzabensky."

"A cursing, alcoholic, convict doctor! Security!"

"Let me shoot it."

"An x-ray tech?"

"Security! He's going to shoot someone."

"An x-ray tech?"

As security stormed into the room a call came over the loudspeaker.

"Code Silver. Armed threat on the premises. Code Silver!"

"I can't believe that all this time I thought you were a doctor and you were actually just an x-ray tech." Just as the hospital's manager walked in with the head of police John shouted,

"I am not an x-ray tech, I have never even been trained, I just want to shoot the damn thing."

He spent the night at the jail next to Marta. When he arrived home, tear-stains on his shoulder, Sherlock was sleeping on the couch.

"Why aren't you at work? You didn't get arrested!"

"Didn't like it much. Fancy a biscuit?"