AN: Damn this chapter is dark. I had my last exam today, so I guess I'm feeling kinda dark… anyway, many thanks to Alicia, fantasybean and Boxerbee for your wonderful reviews. Keep 'em comin'! I'm still looking for prompts by the way.

This chapter is for sneakysnakes who asked for some serious stuff, so serious stuff it is. I have a friend who works on the Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance and one of his hobbies is to tell horror stories about his job. This is one of them. Anyway I know the last chapter wasn't technically an injury, so while it should be Sherlock's turn to hurt himself, sneakysnakes asked for John, so here we go.

Lily

Upon reflection, it was my own stupid fault. Bravado and arrogance, that's what caused it. What left me like this. I should have listened.

I knew what she'd done. I knew she'd stabbed her fellow students in the windpipe, not enough to kill them immediately, but so she could watch them plead as they suffocated. So why, why, why goddammit why did I follow her? All I had to do was drop behind and wait for the official police, but no. I knew better. I ignored Sherlock as he shouted at me not to follow her, and I caught up with her by the theatre. Of course, what I didn't take into account was that I had brought myself closer to her. And she was a murderer.

If you'd seen her nine months ago, you'd never have believed it. Sherlock and I had arrived on the scene on Tuesday, seen the body of James Conway, huddled in a corner of his tiny dorm room. She was there, sobbing and trying to put her arms around his body, while Lestrade tried to keep her away. No one took a blind bit of notice of her. It was in that room that I saw a photo of Miss Jo-Jo Standwell from nine months ago. She looked healthy and tanned, the couple smiling widely, James had his arm around Jo-Jo and she was looking at him in adoration. It had been put away in a drawer. That really should have been our first clue.

Upon questioning, Miss Standwell, sobbed and gulped her way through an explanation. She was James' girlfriend, they'd had a fight the night before and she'd gone down in the morning to patch things up. He'd been having a fling with the girl who lived across the hall from him and that was what the fight was about.

'He promised he'd change.' She wailed 'I had to do it!' that should have been our second clue. But no one really thought anything about the fluffy haired, baby blue eyed, blonde dance student. She'd played the airhead card and dripped her way through interviews, she wore black from the day James' body was found and all in all happily played the part of the distraught and grieving girlfriend. She was clever I had to give her that.

It was only a few days after Elizabeth Ward's body turned up that things started to get suspicious. If the college rostrum was correct, Elizabeth had the room across from James'. So if Jo-Jo's statement was to be believed, Elizabeth was the fling. This time, there was no crying blonde, but a very confused neighbour that told us Elizabeth and James had been engaged for a month. But he'd heard Elizabeth complain that James' ex was giving them both a lot of trouble. When pressed for details, he told us that Elizabeth had said that the ex still thought that she and James were together and had gotten jealous when he told her that he was taking Elizabeth and, not her, to the college winter ball. The final nail in the coffin: the name of James' ex was Jo.

By the time we managed to relay this news to Lestrade, another student had been found dead, a Tom Forster. Exactly the same method of death, a small puncture wound to the oesophagus and a clumsy stab wound elsewhere on the body, presumably to lead the police off on the wrong track. We didn't have to talk to too many students before we learned that Jo-Jo had been sleeping with Tom to make James jealous.

By that time of course, she'd realised we were on to something and had done a runner. Police, plus me and Sherlock, had caught up with her outside the train station, but she'd made a break for it. Sherlock yelled at me to stay back, but I remembered the fear and desperation frozen on the faces of all the dead students, so I followed her. I didn't know the terrain well enough; this was Guildford not London, but I'd followed her to the best of my ability, until now, when I caught up with her on Millbrook road.

I snatched at the sleeve of her jacket but she swung round and twisted my arm up behind my back, stopping just short of hearing bones crunch. She leaned forward so she could whisper in my ear

'I know what you see when you look at me, you see a blonde, too dim to have carefully planned and waited for all those months, don't you? You were wrong.' She was growling in my ear and she had a knife, I could feel it just under my ribs. 'I was clever, I did it by the book and I am not going to be taken down by the likes of you!' she put pressure on the knife and I felt it dig into the flesh, her voice dropped to a silky purr again as she said 'So you know what I'm going to do, Mr Watson? I could gut you like a fish, but I'm not going to. I'm going to do something a little bit…special. And it'll last just long enough for your friend to come round that corner.' I shut my eyes and swallowed 'Shame really.' She said, almost ponderously 'I won't get to see you die. But Mr Holmes will. And I think you'll agree, that'll hurt him more than I ever could.' I felt the flat of her hand drive the knife in under my ribs to the hilt, heard the hiss of air that indicated a punctured lung and fell to my knees. As I fell forwards, she placed her foot on the small of my back, driving the knife in further, I would have screamed if I could have drawn breath. The knife twisted, I could feel as it scythed through a few millimetres of skin, then finally, agonisingly, she withdrew her foot and I slumped onto the tarmac, staring at her. She lifted my chin with one finger, making the muscles in my neck scream and my throat contract.

She smiled 'My brave war hero.' She simpered 'Let's make you look a little more… valiant. Shall we?' she slapped me, hard once across the face before standing up and grinding the heel of her boot into my face. I felt my nose break and blood run down my chin. 'Have a nice life Mr Watson.' She said, kissing me daintily on the cheek 'It'll be short. I guarantee it.' and she kicked down on the uninjured side of my chest, and was gone.

I lay there gasping wetly, from the screeching pain on the kicked side of my chest she'd broken more than one rib and, as she'd punctured the other lung quite badly, my guess was I had less than five minutes. Blood seemed to be coming from everywhere, I couldn't see properly because of the blood from my nose and moving was entirely out of the question. Even breathing was forcing the puncture in my lung wider. Tears began to seep from under my eyelids, I remember going through everyone I knew, God bless Mum and Dad, God bless Molly, Please, please God bless Sherlock… I knew I didn't have long left.

I didn't however count on Sherlock. One minute into my five minute estimate, someone ran around the corner into the theatre car park, where I lay in secluded silence. I remember thinking that he was in an awful hurry, and also that it was funny, but he was shouting my name. I couldn't move or speak, so I coughed as loudly as I could, stupid thing to do in retrospect. The pain in my chest had become almost unbearable, and I felt the blood bubble up and over my lips. The footsteps sounded louder and faster as they came towards me and as they reached the place I had come in by, I heard a gasp and

'Oh god John!' I recognised the voice. It was Sherlock. I genuinely could have sobbed in relief. He came forward cautiously, as I reached out and groped blindly for him he took my hand and held it. I could hear him talking to someone urgently on the phone, but I didn't pay attention. I knew that Sherlock was with me and I was safe.

I was jerked back to consciousness a few seconds later when I found that I couldn't breathe anymore. To me this seemed perfectly acceptable, if I stopped breathing I might die and death would stop the burning pain in my chest. I realised that this was definitely not good when I heard Sherlock yell and start shouting down the phone,

'He's stopped breathing! I can't get a response at all, he's… no I don't… please just hurry would you!' I was confused, Sherlock sounded panicky and Sherlock never panicked. I heard him hang up the phone and he gripped my hand even tighter

'I don't know if you can hear me John, but you're going to be all right. D'you hear me? You'll be alright…' moments later I heard sirens come screaming into the car park and heard Sherlock breathe out rapidly. Three people ran up and began whispering amongst themselves, finally someone stepped forward and said

'Dr Watson, my name is Dr Rachael Horton. We're going to need some emergency surgery. And I do mean emergency. If it will save your life, will you allow us to perform some of the rudiments here?'

'Of course he will…' snapped Sherlock

'Dr Watson?' Dr Horton repeated over the top of Sherlock. I squeezed his hand and Sherlock told them I gave my permission.

Sherlock says that Dr Horton did some rudimentary stitching to stop up my wound and hopefully partially block the puncture. She also inserted a breathing tube through a small hole made in my lung and two critical care paramedics drained the fluid from my lungs, all in the car park. The air ambulance arrived a few minutes later. I was air lifted to hospital and Sherlock was allowed in the helicopter too as I apparently wouldn't let go of his hand. I was pronounced clinically dead on arrival at the hospital but a crash team revived me. I was taken into emergency surgery to stop up the puncture, set my nose and ribs and repair the lacerations to my scalp and chest. I emerged two hours later and was taken directly to the Intensive care unit where I lay for a week in a chemically induced coma.

I remember none of it.

I do remember a little incident that perhaps some would like me to forget. It was a few hours before I woke up, the pentobarbital I was taking having been reduced over the past few hours. I remember someone entering my room very quietly; he then stood there for several minutes clearing his throat before quickly making his way over to my bedside.

'John.' He muttered, I couldn't quite recognise the voice 'I know this is partially my fault. I blame myself I honestly do John! Just… just, please wake up. You have to be ok. You have to John.' Whoever it was sounded slightly desperate 'I couldn't live with myself if you didn't. You have to. Look at me, I'm begging you!' he sniffed and gingerly took my hand 'I don't believe in a God John, but if it would help you, I swear I would be down on my knees right now.' He chuckled weakly 'If there is any time that I could understand belief in a celestial being it is now John. But you don't need a God John. You can do it all by yourself, piece of cake. The doctors said there's only a thirty per cent chance you'll wake up if they take you off the meds, and if you do it'll be in the next few hours. So if you do wake up, I'll... I'll be here. So try. For me.'

I don't remember anything after that until a few hours later. I remember feeling like I'd promised my mystery guest something, so when I felt something pulling me away I panicked. I thought I was dying, so I fought to stay right up until the moment I opened my eyes. It was glorious It really was. Even the sight of Sherlock sprawled, unshaven, in a chair was wonderful to me. And I suddenly realised. My mystery guest had said 'So if you do wake up, I'll be here.' ah-ha…

As I thought these treacherous thoughts, I suddenly realised that Sherlock had opened his eyes and was gazing blearily up at me. When I looked at him I saw of a flash of something cross his eyes, but it was gone before I could identify it.

'Alright?' he said shyly after we'd stared at each other for a few minutes.

'Yeah' I said, grinning 'yeah. Piece of cake.'

AN: whoa! I did not expect this to be so LONG! Anyway, good? Bad? Review!