Three seconds later, and John would swear they had been the longest three seconds in his life, a group of paramedics entered the room, followed by Lestrade with a squad of other policemen. John was barely able to take notice of what was happening around him.

He saw Sherlock getting rescued, the paramedics doing all those actions he was sure he knew the name of, but now he couldn't remember a single one. Oxygen. They were giving him oxygen. Then something else. A syringe, something with a syringe. He was certain that it had a name. He couldn't figure it out.

Then there was Lestrade running to him, but all he could see was Sherlock's blood on his hands, the feeble breath of the young man while he was pulled on a stretcher, the wounds on his chest, the white skin spotted with red. He had warm tears running down his face. His vision was blurry. Lestrade was talking to him and he didn't understand a single word. His ears echoed of the shot, echoed of Sherlock's words, echoed of his silent, meaningful cry.

"John! John!"

Lestrade's voice reached John like a call in the distance. The paramedics were still doing the first aid procedures on Sherlock. He shook his head, trying to focus on the DI, without breaking eye contact with Sherlock.

"What has happened?", the DI asked.

Probably for the fourth time, but John couldn't concentrate.

"At least are you ok?", the policeman continued.

John slightly nodded.

The paramedics moved carrying the stretcher outside, quickly but patiently putting Sherlock in the ambulance. John followed and, as soon as they finished the operation, he tried to go with them .

"I'm sorry, you can't come.", said a brunette.

"I'm a doctor, I…please…", he begged.

The woman looked at him with understanding eyes.

"I'm really sorry…"

"I give him the permission. DI Lestrade, Scotland Yard. Let him come with you.", said the DI.

The brunette nodded and John jumped on the ambulance, silently thanking Lestrade with a weary smile. When the doors closed, John heard the policeman's voice one more time.

"I'll be following with the car!"

The sound of those last words arrived muffled and mixed with the siren's cry to John's ears. The ambulance started his race. John's eyes fixed the monitor. Slow pulse. But it was pulsing. Slow breath. But he was breathing. Good. He was alive. John had arrived on time. He huffed and unconsciously passed his blood-soaked hand on his face. The smell of blood filled his nostrils. Two of the paramedics were looking at him while speaking to each other about the 'patient's' conditions. They were probably thinking he was crazy. He had never felt as helpless as in that precise moment. Even in Afghanistan when put before the worst wounds he had always been the calm one, the one his fellow soldiers could have trusted. But now he was barely able to understand what was going on. His heart was beating, even if he couldn't quite feel it in his chest; his lungs were still providing oxygen to his brain, even if he felt like he was asphyxiating; his whole body could still move, even if he couldn't sense any limbs attached to it.

There was Sherlock on a goddamn stretcher with a bullet in his shoulder. The rest had lost every possible meaning for John.

The rush to the hospital lasted an undefined time. When they finally arrived, Sherlock was brought immediately to the OR. J

ohn wanted to go there too, but he couldn't this time. White doors with glass portholes closed in front of his eyes, leaving him alone in an empty corridor. A nurse passing by gave him an askance look.

Lestrade arrived five minutes later. He approached and simply hugged John. John gave him an hopeless glance, before slightly abandoning himself into the DI's arms. On other occasions he would have felt extremely ashamed, but now that comfort was more than welcomed. He sobbed for a while, not moving from the warm embrace. After a while, he eventually drew back. Lestrade wearily smiled.

"You look awful…"

John tried to smile back, but he was sure he was only able to manage a grimace in that state. He had blood everywhere. It was completely drying off and it was itching both on his hand and on his face. It was on his jumper and on his trousers too. It was on his shoes and it was imprinted in his brain. Cold-warm spots of blood on Sherlock, vivid images still haunting his mind. He sighed.

"Guess so…", he finally managed to answer to the other man.

John eventually collapsed on a chair in the corridor, the adrenaline he had inside starting to disappear. He let out another painful sob.

"Christ…"

Lestrade stood still, looking at him.

Minutes later, when John was starting to feel a bit less wrecked, the DI asked:

"How's Sherlock?"

"I…don't know.", he managed to say, unable to find better words "I mean: I'm a doctor and I should know and I actually haven't the slightest idea…my brain is telling me that he's not risking his life, yet I have doubts…it seems I'm unable to make up my mind…"

Lestrade nodded.

"…anyway we'll have some news from the surgeon…", John concluded in a whine.

"I'm sure everything will be alright, John.", the DI reassured.

"It's what I keep telling myself…"

Lestrade sat down next to John.

"He was scared of the hospital. He didn't want to come here.", John almost screamed at the sudden realisation.

"I know he's scared of hospitals.", Lestrade replied "Since the rehab time, he's not really fond of doctors and nurses, let alone a hospital. But he needed it, John. You know that."

John nodded, swallowing another information about the young man: Sherlock was afraid of hospitals because of the rehab. They probably brought him bad memories about his past. He felt terribly sorry for having called the emergency number, although he knew that there was no other solution. He imagined Sherlock on the operating table, unknown people around him, cutting through his flesh to extract the bullet, signs of life barely detectable. He was so fragile, so vulnerable. And he wasn't with him at the moment. He wasn't there to comfort him, to tell him it was alright.

Trust me.

I trust you.

He wanted to be there in the OR, holding his hand like he had done months earlier. But he was in a lifeless corridor, waiting for another doctor to come out from those doors, scared to death that something could have gone wrong.

"Can you explain to me what happened, John? If you feel like…"

Part of John hadn't the slightest will to speak, to explain. Yet another part wanted to get rid of that heavy weight he was feeling on his heart.

"I…she…Sherlock…", words randomly escaped from his mouth.

He took a deeper breath and restarted.

"After I had understood where Sherlock could have been, I reached the house and…"

Flashes of the scene appeared in his head as soon as he began to describe it.

"…I went in. Sherlock was there in an empty room, tied to a chair. She was speaking. I saw that Sherlock had been…", he swallowed hard "…tortured."

Lestrade gulped at the last word. John had to stop for a second.

"She was threatening him with a knife and I had to do something. I approached, but she heard me and shot. Sherlock managed to move, but she turned to him and shot him in the shoulders. Then I pulled the trigger too and I…", John murmured "…killed her."

It was the first time in the whole evening he realised what he had done. But he didn't feel any remorse. He was just happy that she was dead and, had he had a second chance, he would have totally done that another time, and a third time too. He would have saved Sherlock a thousand times, no matter how many bodies he should have crossed.

"You know I should report all this to my superiors?"

John nodded, well aware of that, but still not even remotely scared about the idea.

"I think I'll come up with some stories…", said Lestrade in a complicit smile.

John smiled back.

"Thanks…"

"But…just out of curiosity: how did you deduce who was the Viper and where Sherlock was?"

John flinched on the chair at the question. He knew that he would have eventually had to explain that sooner or later, but he hadn't thought that it was going to happen that soon. He opened his mouth as to speak but no sound came out. He repeated the gesture twice, looking more like a fish out of water.

"The ring.", he managed to say.

"The ring?", asked Lestrade.

"The snake ring. I…remembered that I had already seen it."

"Oh."

"On a woman's hand. A woman I've been dating for a while some months ago."

John could see the astonished look on Lestrade's face, but went on.

"Her real name was Laura Collins. She was a colleague at the university."

"I'm…sorry, John."

John shook his head.

"It's unimportant now. All that matters to me is in that room over there with a scalpel in his shoulder, probably.", he said absent-mindedly.

He could read the DI's doubts on his face, questions gathering and accumulating. John half smirked.

"If you're going to ask me if I didn't suspect anything or how I could not know…I don't know. Really. Sherlock does certainly. But me? It's just…confusion."

And he dropped his head back, slightly hitting the wall behind him.

They stayed in silence for a while, fixing invisible points in the air, waiting for a doctor that didn't arrived. Time passed slowly. The clock on the wall ticked, but it seemed to John that each minute passed in an hour, if not more. Everything was stuck.

Then Lestrade spoke again, his voice echoing in the empty corridor.

"You should go home and have a shower. And get some clean clothes too."

"I'm not going anywhere.", replied John harshly "Not until someone comes out from that door and tells me Sherlock is alright."

John didn't notice the slightly amused expression on the DI's face.

"Do you really love him, don't you?"

It took John some seconds to elaborate Lestrade's question. Had he just asked that?

"W-what? No, I…"

But the DI interrupted him.

"I may be stupid and a lot less clever than Sherlock Holmes, John. But I'm not blind. And don't tell me pitiful lies, because I know that gaze too well. I see how you care for him. And no one cares for Sherlock like you do."

John smiled wearily at the naked truth.

"Yeah.", he answered "I do. Can't help with that."

It was the first time he had admitted that out loud. It felt…strange. And it felt somehow rewarding at the same time. Like he had finally decided that he didn't want to hide it anymore. Because deep inside, actually, he knew that he couldn't pretend it was just a normal friendship any longer. And telling Lestrade, maybe, had been the first step to something new.

"Ok, then.", the DI continued "I'll go taking some clothes for you. I guess you'd like have warm, dry ones since you're soaked in blood and in rain."

"Rain?", asked John, puzzled.

"Yes, rain. It's been pouring outside since I arrived at Essendon."

It was only in that moment that John noticed he was soaking wet from head to toes. How he didn't notice it before, he couldn't guess. If he thought enough about it, he could quite remember that it had been raining when he had jumped into the ambulance, but he hadn't paid attention at all. If he tried to focus on those little details he saw them as if they were in a very distant dream, blurry and indefinite. The rain was one of those details. The only vivid images were still those of the pale, lithe body of Sherlock with his bare chest covered in blood and the same blood covering his hands. He looked at them now. The blood had completely dried and it was cracking around the knuckles. The smell was intense and pungent, but he didn't mind. He could also marginally see the dark red stripe of blood he had on his cheek. He smelled of blood and of rain. He smelled of Sherlock's blood and London's rain. A smell that he would have never forgotten for all the years to come.

He nodded at the DI.

"Yes, some clothes would be kindly appreciated."

And he handed the detective his keys.

"If there are any news…", muttered the DI.

"…I'll call you.", concluded John.

He watched Lestrade walking away.

He was alone one more time. The ticking of the clock on the wall filled the air mixed with his heartbeat and his slow breaths. It was a gentle orchestra of sounds that marked the time that passed. Slowly. Terribly slowly. And no doctor came out of that white door behind which Sherlock had disappeared an unknown amount of time before. The young man was strong, he knew that. And he was also sure that the wound, despite the appearance, hadn't been life-threatening. Still: Sherlock had been very weak after four days of imprisonment, about which John had no idea of what happened. He knew he had been tortured to lower his defences, to make him suffer. Suffer because he had done his duty and had sent a criminal to prison. Suffer because he had taken John away from Laura. Somehow it was also his fault if Sherlock had been tortured. Oh, god. He hadn't wanted something like that to happen. It was his fault if Sherlock had suffered. What if he was so debilitated now that he couldn't fight while undergoing surgery? What if he wouldn't survive the operation because of that? It would have been John's fault. And John would have never forgiven himself for that.

For the first time in many years he found himself praying. It wasn't a prayer addressed to a specific god, it was just a prayer to himself, a mute plead for Sherlock to overcome the operation. Because he was sure he wouldn't have survived himself in the case of Sherlock's death. The loss would have killed him. And just like that, he realised that he had almost risked to lose the young man without having told him that he…loved him. He mutely promised to himself that he would have confessed his feelings to Sherlock as soon as the young man would have felt better.

For there was only a thing that would have hurt him more than Sherlock's death: the idea that he would have died without knowing how gorgeous he was, how much he was loved by John Watson. And John couldn't allow that. That was John's final decision.

Lestrade arrived some time later, bringing a plastic bag with John's dry clothes and another one which seemed to contain some food.

"Mrs. Hudson thought we might have been hungry.", the DI answered John's inquiring eyes "And here are your clothes."

John took the bag Lestrade was offering to him.

"I think I'll have to look for a toilet, then."

And he stood up, disappearing in another corridor.

He found a toilet five minutes later. When he entered in it and gave a look at the mirror, he was more than surprised than Lestrade and all the other people hadn't shouted at the sight. It looked like he had just butchered someone. He had blood all over the left side of his face, the mark of his fingers on it, then he had blood on his jumper up to his elbows and on his lap, and blood on his trousers too. Wherever he had put his hands on, there was blood. Plus his hair was soaked with rain and it gave him the air of a psychopathic murderer. He slowly rubbed his hands with soap. It was like when he had dreamt about Sherlock in a pool of blood. Except that now the blood was real and it wasn't just a bad dream. Except that it took him ten minutes to scratch it off from his hands and face completely. Having finished that, he slowly undressed. The coldness of the place hit his skin like a sharp knife and he clattered his teeth. A warm shower would have been more than welcomed, but he obviously couldn't go home. He was satisfied enough to have dry clothes to put on.

He returned back to the corridor, where Lestrade was sitting in silence, and dropped himself on the chair again.

"You look definitively better without blood.", the DI smiled.

"Guess so. Thanks for the clothes."

"You're welcome."

They stayed in silence, neither of them apparently willing to have a conversation anymore. They waited and waited and waited. Three hours had passed since they came in and there were no news. John was starting to be really worried, but tried to not show it. The DI seemed calm, but John knew that he was pretending to be.

"Shouldn't we inform Sherlock's brother, Mycroft?", John asked all of a sudden, breaking the silence.

"He'll arrive soon.", mumbled the DI.

"Have you informed him?"

"No. But I'm sure he'll appear here sooner or later."

"How?"

"I don't know. He does that. I've known him for six years. Met him when I met Sherlock. And, trust me, he pops out of nowhere when you least expect it. You don't even have to call him. He knows."

"The Holmes brothers.", smiled John.

"Yeah. Understand them and you probably have the key to understand the whole world."

John nodded. Then he heard a door opening and a surgeon finally coming out from the room.

He jumped upright, Lestrade followed.

"Are you his relatives?", the man asked.

"No, but…", replied John.

"Police.", promptly interrupted Lestrade, showing his ID "The man was injured in a police operation."

The surgeon nodded.

"He overcame the surgery. He was lucky. The bullet didn't hit any vital spot. It took us a while to get the things sorted out because he was extremely debilitated and we feared that an intrusive operation like that could have led to unknown consequences. We had to work very carefully. He's sedated now. He'll be probably awake by tomorrow morning if there aren't any complications."

"Do you suspect there might be any?", asked John, a bit worried "Because I know that there might be a reopening of the wound. I saw the hole of the bullet. The blood vessels seemed pretty damaged."

"Are you a doctor?", the man asked John.

"Yes, I am."

"Then you should know that there's nothing sure in our job. He's perfectly fine right now, but I can't tell if there will be complications overnight. I'm positive about the fact that everything will be alright, anyway. That young man has got a strong constitution."

"Yes, he does.", answered John firmly.

As the doctor returned back behind the doors, John and Lestrade sighed in relief.

"Good.", the DI let it go "Very good."

John collapsed on the chair once again. Everything was alright. Exhaustion fell over his body and he felt more tired than he had ever been in his whole life. He didn't even notice it, but seconds later he was asleep.

When he woke up every part of his body ached. It seemed like someone had battered him on every single muscle. He tried to stretch a bit, but it was more painful than maintaining the position he was in. Thanks to the light seeping through the small windows, he realised it was morning. He looked at the clock on the wall. Nine a.m. .

He was alone in the corridor, no sign of Lestrade nor of the bags. He guessed that he had probably gone out to bring the things back to his flat and to Mrs. Hudson, also to give her the news.

Another doctor, a different one from the one he had seen that night, crossed the white door and addressed to him.

"Are you here for Sherlock Holmes?", he asked.

John sprang up, oblivious of his aching limbs.

"Yes."

"He's awake.", the doctor replied softly.

John's heart jumped happily in his chest. Actually, John's heart danced a waltz in his chest.

"Can I see him?"

"Are you a relative?", enquired the man.

"No, but…"

"I'm sorry, but only relatives can visit him at the moment.", he said in an apologising tone.

John felt destroyed by those simple words. He was about to reply something. He badly wanted to see Sherlock. But before he could utter a syllable, he heard a voice behind him.

"He can enter. He has got my permission."

"Surely, Mr. Holmes.", answered the surgeon immediately, bowing his head.

John looked puzzled and turned to see that there was Sherlock's brother standing. Lestrade was right: he had the ability to appear out of nowhere.

"Doctor Watson, good morning.", Mycroft continued in his usual flat tone "I think I owe you a thank you."

"I…", John tried to answer something, without managing to.

"Don't lose time in useless conversations. Go in, doctor Watson.", the man remarked.

"Don't you want to see him first?", John asked politely and rather confused.

"I doubt he wants to see me first.", Mycroft huffed "So, your turn."

John didn't need to be asked twice, he turned away and followed the doctor in the aisle beyond the white door. He was going to see Sherlock and his heart started to race.