A/N - John and Sarah are having a cozy dinner out. It doesn't stay that way. Truths are revealed, and decisions are made. Sometimes it takes a crisis to point out the obvious.

John was wearing her down, but in a very good way. Four dates this week, one even involved dancing which she knew he had only suggested to please her. He endured it, and managed to be adorably awkward in the process. She had told him that he wasn't at all bad, and he'd blushed. He didn't believe her, but then she had been exaggerating, just a bit. What she'd meant was that she truly appreciated the effort.

What she had appreciated even more was the pointed absence of Sherlock Holmes, both in person and in spirit. John had stopped mentioning him. She occasionally saw him start to, and abruptly change tack. She wasn't fooled. She recognized the light in his eyes when he was about to relate one of his adventures with his flatmate. That he was taking special care to keep their dates Sherlock-free was encouraging, if unrealistic. She suspected it couldn't last, but it was flattering that he wanted to try. His mobile had gone off a few times, but he would just glance at the screen and put it away, unanswered. She would smile her thanks, and he seemed pleased that she'd noticed.

When he had asked her to dinner tonight, and suggested their favorite cozy pub, she had been especially pleased. It was an hour's drive by taxi from Baker Street, but less than ten minutes from her flat. And her bed. It just might be time to make use of that convenience. Tomorrow was Sunday, and a long, languid morning lay ahead. The possibilities were tantalizing.

Her natural skepticism had tried to convince her that this change in John was artifice. He was just trying to 'get off with Sarah'. She had heard that, of course, the first night, and it had guaranteed a delay in any physical relationship, but she never got the sense that sex was John's only goal. If she had, then she would have listened to her cynical side and ended it immediately. Certainly the fact that she was willing to overlook nearly being murdered on their first date spoke volumes of the potential she saw in a relationship with this man. There wasn't the faintest whiff of guile in John Watson, and her instincts for sniffing that out were finely honed. That alone made him worth the extra effort.

Their favorite pub was small and intimate. Something out of the sixteenth century, all aged stucco and dark timbers with a large walk-in stone fireplace. She loved the ambience of high backed heavy wooden booths, ancient oak plank floors, and the scent of wood smoke from four hundred years' worth of welcoming fires on the hearth. He had reserved the booth in the far corner next to the fireplace. They could see the entire room from their vantage point, but they were hidden and protected.

The waiter knew them, and he brought their drinks with the menus- a dirty martini for her with extra olives, and a pint of dark ale for him. The pub offered a surprisingly wide variety of entrees, but she chose comfort food when he came back to take their orders. It promised to be that kind of evening.

She sipped her way through half of her martini while they chatted about nothing in particular, and the warmth of it tingled all the way to her toes, loosening her reserve very nicely. "This has been so lovely," she told him, and meant it. "Thank you."

He gave her a mock frown. "The evening's not exactly over yet. We haven't even been served."

She put a promise in her smile. "You know what I meant. And the evening could be even longer than you might expect, if you play your cards right."

The waiter chose that moment to arrive with their food, and their smiles held while he served them. His polite inquiry as to what else he might get for them was waved off, and they were alone again.

John cleared his throat. "You have definitely piqued my appetite." He didn't quite waggle his eyebrows, but it was close.

"I hope so." She put a purr in her voice, and then reminded herself that too much was worse than too little, and pulled it back a bit. She tasted her stroganoff and smiled appreciatively. "This is very good."

John started to say something, then paused as his phone began to trill in his pocket. He pulled it out with an apologetic smile and glanced at the screen. The smile vanished, and he snatched the phone to his ear. "Greg, what's wrong?"

She put down her fork.

John listened tensely for a few seconds, every line of his posture at full alert. "Where?" His face was unreadable, but his eyes were dark with an emotion she'd never seen in him before. He groaned at whatever the man had just said. "It'll take me an hour to get there." Pause. "Yes, fine." He gave the address of the pub, then ended the call. "I'm sorry, but I've got to go. There's a situation." His voice was tight. "Greg's sending a police care for me. I'll call a taxi for you. I'm sorry."

"John, what's wrong?"

"It's Sherlock."

Of course. "What's happened?" She reached across the table and placed her hand over his clenched fist where it rested on the table.

"It's a hostage situation. He's hurt."

She began to pull on her coat. "I'm coming with you."

He shook his head. "No, I can't let you do that. It's too dangerous. I-"

"I'm coming."

He seemed torn for a moment, then he nodded. He stood up and signaled to the waiter who quickly came over, his face creased with concern. He asked if there was something wrong, but John just shook his head and handed him a wad of notes.

Sarah gave the man a reassuring smile as John headed for the door. "It's nothing to do with the food, Tom. Something has come up." She touched his arm in apology and went after John.

Outside, John paced back and forth without a word for the next ten minutes until a police car screeched to a halt at the kerb. There was no need to ask him if Sherlock was the hostage. His barely contained panic told her everything she needed to know about who was in danger.

She had never been in a police car before, let alone one careening through the streets with lights flashing and sirens going full blast. Even at the mad rate they were moving, it took nearly twenty minutes to reach the cluster of emergency vehicles in front of a four story block of flats. It was a working class neighborhood that she recognized from her brief stint last fall in a free clinic that was two streets over from where the current crisis was taking place. It had never struck her as a dangerous area, but she'd never been here at night. Right now, the atmosphere felt filled with menace.

John was out of the car the instant it stopped. He hadn't said a word to her the whole way here, and she hadn't tried to engage him. His entire focus was on getting to his friend. That much had been clear in the way he'd sat perched on the edge of the seat, leaning forward as if that would move them faster.

She lost sight of him for a moment, weaving her way through the crowd of police and bystanders. When she spotted him finally, he was with a taller man in a dark trench coat. The man had both hands on John's shoulders and was leaning down to talk to him.

"You know how he is, John," she heard the man say as she approached them. "We're just bloody lucky he bothered to let me know he was coming here to meet him. I was on my way when a neighbor called 999 to report gunshots."

She heard John make a low sound of frustration.

The man, who she assumed must be Greg, squeezed John's shoulders. "Willis says he's alive, John. He wouldn't be much good as a hostage if he wasn't. We'll get him out."

John's focus was intense. "Have you talked to him? Make him put Sherlock on the phone. I'll be able to tell how bad it is by his voice."

Greg shook his head. "He said if we push him, he'll kill them all. There are four other people in the flat, apparently. Two of them are kids."

John bowed his head. Sarah moved to his side, and Greg frowned at her. "I'm Sarah Sawyer. I'm with John." She raised her chin.

John looked at her then, and he seemed surprised. "Sarah, you need to wait in the car."

Greg looked at her, and then at John. "She can wait in the command center with us." He gave her a pointed look. She read it clearly. He wanted her to stay with John in case he might need her. There was no need to say what might create that need.

"I'm a doctor," she told Greg, and he nodded.

"Let's hope we don't need you for that." He smiled tightly. "Come with me." He turned and headed for the adjacent building, and they followed.

'Command center' had painted a mental picture that wasn't quite lived up to by the reality of the room they entered a moment later. A ground floor flat had been pressed into service, and it was cramped to the point of claustrophobia. The attraction, apparently, was the clear view of the windows on the first floor flat in the opposite building that was clearly the focus of everyone's attention. The lights in the command center were turned off, and the only illumination came from the black and white video image on a monitor that was set up on the small kitchen table. A tactical officer in a flak vest was seated in front of it. He looked up at Greg.

"We've got eyes in the front hall, but he's staying clear of it. We think they're in the bedroom at the rear of the flat."

"No luck getting another camera placed?" Greg asked.

"He heard us on the floor above and threatened to kill a hostage if we didn't get out. We're going to try from below, but it's trickier. Don't want to spook him."

John spoke for the first time, his voice low and tight. "Has he said what he wants?"

"Yeah, he wants us to pull out and leave him alone. That's not gonna happen."

John nodded. "Has anyone talked to Sherlock?" He was looking at Greg.

Greg seemed to weigh his words. "Willis said he's unconscious."

John held his gaze steadily. "So, you don't even know if he's still alive."

"Willis said he is, John."

John turned and walked over to the window, looking up at the window across the way. "Let me go in. I want to talk to him."

"You know we can't do that."

"Is he shot?" John's voice was tense, and his arms were crossed over his chest.

Greg hesitated. "Willis didn't say."

"Damn him," John hissed. "Why the hell didn't he call me?"

Sarah had been on her way to join John at the window, but that statement made her stop. Sherlock didn't call John because he was with her.

"You know how he is, John," Greg offered.

"Yeah. I do." John said it softly, as if he were talking to himself. There was guilt in his voice, and regret.

The electronic screech from a two-way radio made her jump. The man in front of the monitor picked up a device that looked like an old style cordless phone with a stubby antenna on top. He keyed the mic. "What have you got?"

A man's voice, distorted by static, came from the speaker. "We can hear shouting inside. Kids crying. He's losing it."

The man in front of the monitor stood up and went to the window to look up at the facing building. He spoke into the radio. "We're out of time. Go with the flash bangs and gas. Full breach."

John turned without a word and rushed out of the room. A moment later, she saw him crossing the area between the buildings, but two tactical officers who were standing in the cover of a large van pulled him back into the shelter where they were protected from the hostage taker's view. Sarah's heart clenched.

Greg was headed out the door. "Stay here," he said to her, and then he was gone.

Her eyes were on John, crouched tensely behind the van. Greg came into view and joined him. A moment later, her attention was drawn to the window where the hostages were being held. Brilliant flashes of light nearly blinded her for a moment, followed by a matching number of muffled booms. There was a burst of activity on the ground, and the radio crackled to life with multiple shouting voices.

And then there were two gunshots, so close together that they might have been one.

A single voice on the radio. "Suspect is down! Suspect is down!"

John was in motion immediately, rushing into the building with Greg on his heels.

Sarah left the window and went out to wait for him. She walked through the crowd of police and spectators gathering closer to the building now that the threat was over.

As she approached the van that John and Greg had been sheltered behind, she saw two officers come out of the building, each carrying a child in pajamas. They were followed by a man and a woman in civilian clothing who she assumed to be the other hostages, going by their shell-shocked expressions. They were met by paramedics who led them to waiting ambulances.

She waited, barely breathing, for John to reappear.

A moment later, two medics with a stretcher rushed into the building, and her heart sank. So, Sherlock was not mobile. Maybe still unconscious. She held her breath and prayed, some part of her mind teasing her at this burst of piety. An old adage floated through her head, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

It was taking too long, and she had visions of John kneeling at Sherlock's side, doing CPR. What else could be keeping them inside? If Sherlock were stable, they would already be on the way to A&E. The alternative was too terrible to consider. She didn't think much of Sherlock personally, but she was beginning to understand how important he was to John. It was for him that she'd been praying.

The front door opened again, and the stretcher appeared, carried by the paramedics, bearing the motionless form of Sherlock Holmes. John was at his side as soon as the stretcher cleared the door. As they came closer, she saw the blood.

From John's demeanor, she knew Sherlock was still alive, but he was clearly unconscious. John never glanced her way, but climbed into the ambulance behind the stretcher. The doors closed, and the ambulance pulled away.

"Sarah, is it?"

She jumped at the voice so close to her right side. It was Greg.

"Yes," she said, a little breathless, her hand pressed to her sternum. "How is he?"

"Unconscious," he offered unhelpfully. "Hit over the head with something heavy, by the look of it. Do you want me to take you home, or...?"

"I'm going to the hospital to be with John."

He nodded as if he expected that response. "You can come with me."

Her second ride in a police car was less exciting, and there were no sirens this time. Greg's car was just a standard sedan with a police radio and a flashing strobe on the dash. The coded conversations that crackled out of the radio made no sense to her. All she could think of was what John must be going through.

"Do you think Sherlock is seriously hurt?"

Greg gave her a distracted sideways glance. "Don't know."

The tension in his voice told her that Greg was as worried as John, and she wondered at the ability Sherlock Holmes apparently had to make these men care about him when she had seen no sign of anything even civil in the man. Maybe he didn't fancy the company of women. Or maybe, it was just her that he didn't like. Or more precisely, what she might mean to John. If that were the case, it could explain a lot.

The ambulances reached Royal London ahead of them. When she and Greg came through the A&E doors, she spotted John talking to a man in surgical scrubs. He was holding a clipboard, and his expression was the typical bland mask of professional distance. John's entire demeanor was a study in barely concealed aggression. She stayed just inside the doors, but Greg crossed straight to John's side. The man with the clipboard looked up at him and nodded.

A moment later, the man with the clipboard turned and disappeared through the double doors to the treatment area. Greg said something to John, and he looked her way with an expression that made her hesitate. He didn't seem surprised, exactly. Or annoyed. But it definitely did not feel like a welcome. And then, his eyes softened, and he came over to her.

"Sarah, I'm sorry. It's just..." He trailed off, his gaze shifting back toward the double doors. "They won't let me in."

The front of his dress shirt was stained with blood, and his sleeves were rolled up. His jacket was nowhere in sight. "How is he, John?"

John took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks blowing it out. "Concussion, at the very least. He's got a hell of a gash on his forehead and he lost a lot of blood. He's not responding to stimulus, but he's still breathing. I don't know what he got hit with, but it did the job."

She watched him for a moment. "So, the man who hurt him is dead?"

The look in John's eyes was utterly chilling. "Yes."

She realized in that moment that the John Watson she knew had a side she had never suspected. It was suddenly clear to her that he would have killed the man with his bare hands, if he'd had the chance, for what he'd done to Sherlock. She wasn't sure how that made her feel. She cleared her throat. "Do you want some coffee? I think there's a self-service machine in the cafeteria. I could get some for us."

"You don't have to stay, Sarah. Greg will take you home. It could be hours before we know anything." He smiled, but it was tight and came nowhere near his eyes.

"John, I'd like to stay."

He hesitated, then nodded. "Thanks. Coffee would be great."

She found the cafeteria with no problem. Her mother had spent her last days in the cardiac critical care unit here four years ago, and she'd become much too familiar with the layout. When she came back to the A&E waiting area, she found John sitting stiffly in one of the plastic chairs across from the treatment room, his gaze fixed on the double doors. She walked into his line of sight and stopped, waiting for him to see her before she approached. He looked ready to spring at the first thing that moved, and she didn't want to wear two cups of hot coffee.

He gave her that pained smile, and she came over to sit next to him. He took the paper cup from her and sipped. "Thank you." His gaze returned to the doors.

"What happened to Greg?"

"He'll be back in a bit. Had to go make some calls. Sherlock's brother, for one."

She wondered why John wouldn't make that call himself, but decided not to ask. It somehow surprised her that Sherlock had a family. "Have you heard anything yet?"

He shook his head. "They won't let me in," he repeated.

Of course John knew that only relatives would be allowed back with a patient in emergency treatment. There was no need to point out the obvious. There was also no point in offering platitudes to a fellow doctor. Head injuries were potentially fatal, and the time it took to determine the severity could be agonizingly long.

"Not quite the evening we had in mind." She hadn't meant to say that out loud.

John's expression told her just how inappropriate a remark it had been, and she winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

His smile seemed frozen on his face. "You don't have to stay, Sarah. It's okay. Really."

She couldn't decide if he was concerned about her comfort, or if he really didn't want her to stay. She wondered if she might be less a comfort than a distraction from the only thing he was focused on right now.

Before she could respond, the man with the clipboard came through the double doors and walked straight for John. His expression was unreadable. John was on his feet and intercepted him before she could react.

She waited for John to give her some indication of what was being said. She didn't want to intrude.

The man turned and walked back through the door, and John's posture sagged. She pushed aside her misgivings and joined him. "John, what did he say?"

"There's no fracture, but he's still not responding. They're taking him to the neurological unit."

Not critical care. That was good news, at least. Not that John seemed to agree.

He went back to his seat and picked up his coffee. "They're going to come and get me when he's in his room."

She watched him hold the coffee container to his lips, but he wasn't sipping, as if he'd forgotten what he was doing. There was nothing in him that wasn't completely focused on what was happening to his friend. After a few minutes, he seemed to have forgotten that she was there, too, and she began to wonder again if she should stay or leave. But then, the thought that he would be alone if Sherlock's condition deteriorated made her discard any thought of going home. She might be small comfort, but he would need someone.

It was well past visiting hours when Sherlock was moved to his room. She was surprised to find that there was only one bed in it. Private rooms were exceedingly rare outside of critical care, and she wondered how they'd managed it.

Sitting with John in those first few minutes, watching him check the monitors and then verify the readouts by taking Sherlock's pulse, counting his breaths, and carefully checking the injury on his forehead, told her more about what he was feeling than anything he could have said. His chair was pulled up close to the bedside. Hers was facing his a short distance away. She could reach out and touch him, but she didn't. The lights were dim, but the strain on John's face was clear. There was something about his tense posture that seemed intended to warn her off, as if he would shatter at her touch. She folded her hands in her lap.

She made a few attempts to draw him out, but gave up and sat back to wait. They settled into a vaguely awkward silence that was broken only by the steady beep of Sherlock's heart monitor.

"I should have been there." John's voice was soft, not really directed at her. "Why didn't he call me?" He looked at her then, and she saw the answer in his eyes.

"John, did you tell him not to? Because we were together?"

It took him a moment to realize what his look must have implied. He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. "This isn't about you, Sarah. He's done this before." His gaze returned to Sherlock. "Too many times."

She nodded, but she knew he wasn't telling her the truth. If Sherlock didn't recover, she would always be somehow responsible for having kept John from saving him. She had always thought that John dropping everything to run after Sherlock was simply habit, or maybe just because it was more exciting than what she had to offer him. That was partly why she had decided to take the next step and invite him to her bed. That activity, at least, was one that Sherlock could not trump.

But it wasn't about the excitement. And it wasn't that they were solving puzzles. The work they did together was important, and dangerous. Sherlock didn't just covet John's attention. He needed him at his side as a protector as well as a partner, and John needed it just as much. She would always come second to that, and she suddenly realized how right it was.

"Excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back." She got up and walked out into the hall to give him some space. He had barely nodded when she left, so she felt safe in standing just outside the door to watch.

John's posture relaxed immediately, and she let her own shoulders drop. It was obvious now that she should go. John wanted to be alone with Sherlock. She wasn't comforting him by being here. She truly was in the way.

The truth had been in front of her from their first date, but John was just such a good man that it had made her disregard a long-standing rule. She was a romantic, but a realist above that. She had set a limit on relationships back when she was at uni. Her studies took up too much time to allow wasting any of it chasing down a dead end. She had held fast to that rule, much to her mother's disappointment on two notable occasions. Promising prospects had to start delivering on the promise within a few months, or risk being discarded without a backward glance. John Watson, unfortunately, would rate more than a few such glances. But better to look back fondly than with regret.

She watched a moment longer, then walked to the nurses' station and left a note for John, asking him to call and let her know how Sherlock was doing. When she walked past the room on her way to the elevators, John had already settled in for the wait, his hand closed protectively over his friend's.

A/N - Sarah is a smart, independent woman. We didn't get to see her make this decision, but a wise woman would know when to move on. Sarah got out with almost all of her heart intact. It just took a little push and a glimpse of what she was truly up against. ==GW