Ajax, thanks for the preliminary reading.
Note: Wikipedia helped me remake the surname Watson in the Gaelic way. I must have made the wrong word, so my apologies to the Gaels people and please write the correct version.
John liked living in Northern Scotland. Its austere, crepuscular beauty, cool air, many miles without people... It healed not only the pain caused by Sherlock. Scottish mists, melting in the morning, carried away with them the nightmares left by hot Afghanistan.
And John found people who really needed him. The idea of creating a military sports camp for cancer patients only at a glance looked strange. However, in fact, the obstacle course, drill, life on schedule and sudden training alarms, paintball shootouts perfectly helped people to distract from their fears and believe not only in modern medicine but in their own strength. 'If I could handle it, beating cancer will be trifling to me,' said all the men, women and non-binary who completed two weeks of camp training.
The camp had an oncologist, a psychotherapist and a nurse. But the Department of Health and Social Care demanded that a traumatologist be hired as well. John came to Edwin Tronk just in time: the owner of the camp, also a retired officer, and a friend of Tronk, bore him with requests to find at least a paramedic who would not fall into hysterics at the sight of military life. But the search didn't go well. Doctors are not just divided into military and civilian.
John came to Dundee, re-examined for a driver's license, which he asked to write out in the name of Hamish John and write down the surname in the Gaelic way, Waitsoin instead of Watson.
This delayed the issuance of the license for a day, the local office of the Department for Transport was checking to see if John was wanted. Everything turned out to be in order, and Hamish J. Waitsoin went to retake for a medical license. He didn't have any documents, but Hamish was taught to know the numbers of all identifiers by heart on the first day in the military training camp. And in the era of the Internet, it was a matter of a few moments to break through the Veteran ID card, NIN, UTR and medical register.
Hamish confirmed his qualifications and landed a job at the shtetl with an oddly named Marry-Morstan-Gleann, a pretty place that housed a cancer camp. And in the camp itself, lessons on providing first aid to an injured mannequin were added to the training on the obstacle course.
All the cadets in the camp were wonderful people who courageously learned to be strong in the face of the greatest horror of their lives. And Hamish didn't think it was funny. The limits of disaster are different for everyone, and these people were looking for courage rather than jumping off a bridge, and it was a feat in their world.
And Hamish did his best to support them. It seems to be successful if the owner of the camp was even a little envious, but he did not fire him. And he said that from next month he would increase Hamish's salary.
Hamish hardly left the camps. There was no desire to have fun, and for all the purchases, from medicines to electric bulbs, the supply manager went.
Another thing is walking around the area, communicating with nature. Hamish became a photography amateur. And he read Scottish legends in the evenings. The supply manager, a very pleasant lady in her early thirties, was kind enough to suggest the specialized sites and help him with the translation of Gaelic texts, correcting the errors of the on-line translator.
Soon Hamish started writing his essays based on legends. These were only sketches, but over time they turned into a mystical horror story with a happy ending, which made sense to readers. The supply manager was enthusiastic about the idea, and Hamish started a blog. And he added his photos to the story.
The cadets were delighted too. Hamish reacted to this with gratitude and skepticism: despite the extreme, by the standards of these people, workloads, life in the camp was rather monotonous and boring, here even his writings could pass for a cultural event. But their praise still turned out to be a good incentive, and Hamish went to the nearest town. And even had a nice time with a cute lady who loved nature tourism.
But the bad dreams still remained. Everyone had a separate room with their own bathroom in the staff dormitory, but Hamish not infrequently woke up the neighbors by screaming.
Colleagues treated this with understanding. And the cadets, who daily lived in their own nightmare, began to trust Captain Waitsoin even more.
Hamish had treatment by a psychotherapist. And she was smarter than the one who worked in free medicine. And she herself served for some time in the army. Therefore, it was possible to talk with her about what Hamish should have digested and thrown out of life and memory long ago.
It's not the biggest problem, not Sherlock, but at least something. It's the beginning. Hamish can handle the rest on his own. After all, the time bomb does not sit in his body, as his cadets — the bomb is frozen, all patients are in remission, but at any moment the freeze can disappear, and cancer will begin to rapidly consume seconds of life — compared to this, all Hamish's problems are quite solvable easily.
He survived and started a new life. And this is the main thing.
And it all came crashing down the second an SUV with tinted windows pulled up on the country road next to Hamish.
It was not surprising how easily Mycroft Holmes found the loss — that it took him no more than ten minutes, John Hamish had no doubt — it was strange that Mycroft even began to look for him. John didn't worry about Sherlock: it's clear that he played detective and continues to play, enjoys the company of a skull in his free moments, and Mycroft solves all his problems, from buying toothpaste to criminal liability for illegal entry into a government facility. And it's just as obvious that Sherlock had long ago deleted information about such an insignificant element as John Watson from the hard drive. He never wanted to remember the name of Lestrade, who was extremely valuable to him, what to say about some flatmate.
So it's about John. The smug pimple, imagining himself the arbiter of destinies, decided to use him in his games.
And John sent Mycroft to the Queen as soon as his long nose was out of the car.
Mycroft was taken aback for a moment: he could not imagine that the royal title could sound more foul-mouthed than the fiercest abuse.
John swept his eyes around the area, wondering where the snipers might be. Mycroft said:
"I am alone. Only Andrea is driving. If you decide to kill me, she will gladly help you hide the corpse."
John looked at him with accentuated skepticism but affably waved to the driver hidden behind the darkness of the windows.
Andrea didn't like John when they first met, she even called herself by a different name — Anthea. But since there was a Sherlock, John had to see Mycroft often, and therefore Andrea. The meetings once turned into a short, vivid romance with easy parting and lovely memories.
However, all this did not mean that Andrea would prefer John to the job even for a second. Or that Mycroft told the truth for the first time in his life.
"Doctor Watson," Mycroft grinned in a grimace that should have meant a friendly smile, "a DDx doctor position awaits you in London at the treatment and research center. Refresher courses at the expense of the employer."
"I have a job that suits me completely," John replied.
"Adrenaline junkie and Marry-Morstan-Gleann?" Mycroft said mockingly. "This poor imitation of war instead of a real risk?"
"Adrenaline and risk abound here. Thirty suppliers around the clock."
"Lie. Andrea found you, Dr. Watson. She did it with the help of a banal site for checking the independence of student work, which is used by teachers in all high schools and universities. It was enough to ask the program to find essays on the Internet similar to your blog entry, and then run them through the site several times until there was only one work left. You have written a very noteworthy story, Dr. Watson. You miss the tension that Sherlock Holmes gave."
"You can't understand this, but I don't like it when people die. And I try to keep the resuscitation room empty as often as possible. And it's a very stressful job."
"You must return to 221-B Baker Street, John. It's out of the discussion."
"I'm not your thing. I'm not his thing!"
"Yes. We are your things. Both of us."