John's in a tiny café, eating lunch with his sister and Mary, when his mobile rings. His afternoon has been surprisingly pleasant so far. Harry's just left rehab again, so she's currently alcohol-free, and their conversation has been civil. John even thinks she approves of Mary. He ignores his mobile the first time, but when it rings for the third time in a row, he has no choice but to acknowledge it.
"Sorry," he apologizes to Harry as he reaches for his phone. "Let me just see who…" he breaks off with a frown, and hits answer. "Hello? Mrs. Hudson?"
"Oh John," Mrs. Hudson sounds panicked. "I've got your Abigail, but I've lost Sherlock. I don't know where he's gone!"
"Excuse me?" John says. He trusted Sherlock with Abigail, dammit, and if he's abandoned her for some stupid case, there will be hell to pay. "He's gone?"
"Yes, he handed me Abigail and ran out of here not five minutes ago, I've called the police and locked the door in case it isn't safe, but —"
"Hang on." That sounds weird. "Why've you got the door locked?"
"In case it isn't safe!" Mrs. Hudson says, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I heard gunfire, so I assumed — "
"What?" John's out of the chair and running for the door before the word's even left his mouth, Mary in close pursuit. "You heard—Jesus, okay, I'm coming, I'm about twenty-five minutes away, can you hang on that long?"
"Yes, I—the police are coming, we should be fine. But John, I don't know where Sherlock's got to."
John swallows against the cold fear that lodges in his stomach, and reminds himself that Sherlock has been in far worse situations.
"We'll worry about that in a minute. Just stay safe, all right?"
"Oh, there's Scotland Yard." John can hear sirens in the background. "I'll call you back in a bit, John!"
"Right, yes—bye." He hangs up before ducking into the passenger seat, and he slams the car door closed. "We've got a situation," he tells Mary, who's already started the engine. "You'd better hurry."
John and Mary arrive to find Baker Street lined with police cars. From the street, John can see bullet holes in one of 221B's upper windows, and he again swallows against the fear curling in his gut. He knows that Sherlock can't have been seriously hurt by the gunfire, because he had the sense to get Abigail to Mrs. Hudson. But then he…
Went after the shooter. By himself.
"I'm going to kill him," John mutters, threading around a police car to get to 221B's door. He sees Sally Donovan out of the corner of his eye and resolutely ignores her.
Inside, John and Mary find Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson standing in the hallway, Abigail cradled to Mrs. Hudson's chest.
"Oh my god," Mary says, making a beeline for their child. Mrs. Hudson hands Abigail over. John can't help but put an arm around Mary's shoulders and check on Abigail with his own eyes. "What happened?"
"Well," says Lestrade, "It looks like someone shot at Sherlock's window from the street. I dunno who yet, there's no gun and practically no evidence. And we haven't been able to find Sherlock yet either."
"He came into my kitchen and handed me Abigail without a word of explanation," Mrs. Hudson tells them. "Just dropped the baby into my arms and ran."
John drags a hand over his face. This is just so typical…
"Was he hurt?" he asks Mrs. Hudson.
"I don't know," she admits. "He didn't seem injured, but when would Sherlock ever let an injury keep him off a case?"
"A case?" Mary says, turning to Lestrade. "Was he on a case? Is this related?"
"He was on a case," Lestrade admits. "We've been trying to find that serial killer—the one who leaves his victims in their bedrooms, no matter where he's killed them? You must've heard about it; he's been in the news quite a lot. Sherlock hit a dead end yesterday and seemed pretty cut up about it."
"Do you think that might have something to do with this shooting?" John asks with a frown. "Maybe, I dunno, someone tipped the killer off, and he chose Sherlock as his next target?"
"It's possible, I suppose," Lestrade says. "But again, we've got no evidence to go on."
"Well we can't just sit here," John says impatiently. "Half of London must've seen Sherlock running around by now. We've got to find him."
At that moment, the door to 221B swings open. The four of them turn to see a tall figure enter the hallway.
"Hello," Mycroft says, swinging his umbrella once. "I believe you're looking for my brother?"
In the end, it's a bit anticlimactic. Mycroft's crazy secret spy network of omnipotence pinpoints Sherlock's location (and apparently Mycroft has a tracking device implanted somewhere in his brother. John is not going to be the one who breaks that news), and Lestrade, John, Mary, Mycroft, and an entourage of police officers show up just in time.
Sherlock's got the shooter cornered in a dead-end alley. He's blocking the exit with his body, using a trash can for protection.
"Stand down!" Sherlock shouts at the shooter as Lestrade and the police close in. "You can't win this one."
John is convinced that Sherlock gets high off stating the obvious.
Hours later, the shooter's in custody and they have the whole story, more or less. It turns out that yes, the shooter was the serial killer, and yes, he got scared when he realized the police had gone to Sherlock for help. So of course he chose Sherlock as his next target.
They all crash in Lestrade's office and watch blearily as Sherlock paces around the desk.
"The shopkeeper was involved after all," Sherlock mutters to himself, beginning his seventy-eighth-ish circuit around the room. "Stupid, stupid, of course he was involved, the killer obviously needed an accomplice somewhere to keep — "
He falters suddenly, and alarm bells go off in John's head.
"Sherlock? You okay?"
"Ah." Sherlock touches his shoulder and grimaces. "I may have forgotten to mention…these will likely require stitches."
Likely require — ?
Oh. Of course.
John feels another couple of hairs go grey, because of course the idiot's walking around injured.
"Injured," as it turns out, is putting it lightly. Sherlock has three separate bullet grazes across his back and slivers of glass embedded in his shoulder. John takes him to St. Bart's, where he discovers that Sherlock is also dehydrated, sleep-deprived, and hasn't eaten in god knows how long.
John sits by him in the emergency room, disappointed but not surprised.
"When did you last eat?" he asks Sherlock. As expected, he doesn't get a response. John knows from past experience that a food-deprived Sherlock tends to retreat into his mind palace. That's good for working on a case, John supposes, but it tends to blind Sherlock to his body's needs. Once Sherlock skips a meal, it's more or less a downward spiral until something drastic happens to halt it.
Bullet grazes and a solved case certainly qualify as "drastic" enough.
John waits until Sherlock gets patched up, and then he insists on paying for the cab ride back to 221B. He picks up Chinese from the restaurant around the corner and makes sure Sherlock eats at least half of the food. Sherlock says very little the entire evening, although he does make a face at the ruined window in his flat.
"Good night, John," Sherlock finally says, rather pointedly, at around ten-thirty pm. John sighs and takes the hint.
He'll come back tomorrow, he thinks, as he shuts the door on 221B. It's high time he got back to being Sherlock's friend.
Sherlock watches the cab pull away from the flat, then allows the curtain to fall over the ruined window. He's tired, and his back and shoulder ache, but he's too nervous to sleep. Today was Not Good for two reasons. One: he agreed to babysit Abigail when he knew he was distracted by a case. And two: he failed to realize that the serial killer was tracking him. If he hadn't turned away from the window when he had, Abigail might have —
He stops that train of thought, and focuses instead on another. He isn't safe. He's known this for ages, since before John, but it's become more and more apparent ever since he befriended John. His friends, as few as they are, will always be in danger because of him.
This is why Mycroft told him not to get involved, Sherlock thinks. He has enemies. And people who have enemies cannot also have friends.
Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone. It really helps!