Every step towards the room where Sherlock was seemed to leave him without breath the more he approached to it. What was he going to say? Would Sherlock have been aware of what was going on? Would he have been able to face the man in those conditions?

Again, flashes of what had happened the previous night packed his head. He prayed for them to go away, but it didn't happen. They just stayed in his head, ready to pop up when his defence were lowered, like now. The doctor didn't say a word for the whole path and John didn't know if he was feeling relieved for that or not.

Finally, they reached the room at the bottom of a dim corridor. An aseptic bluish-green door welcomed him. Number 541. Sherlock was behind that small metallic piece of furniture and John felt helpless one more time. The surgeon looked at him from behind his glasses. He had reassuringly amber eyes.

"He's here.", the man said "He's very weak, so I can allow you only few minutes with him at the moment."

John nodded and the doctor opened the door, letting John enter, before closing it behind him.

Sherlock's room was small, barely lit and cold. John knew it was a necessity for patients in those conditions, but it felt so lifeless and lonely that made him shiver slightly. The young man was lying on the only bed there was at the centre of it. He was pale, so pale that he seemed white in the aseptic light of the room. His black curls were almost non-existent and his whole body was skeleton-thin under the sheet. His cheeks were emaciated and bruised where the woman had hit him repeatedly. The good news was that there was no red blood anymore on his chest. He had a huge white bandage around his left shoulders. Yet John could still spot all the other cuts he had on the front. They were all cicatrised now and had abandoned the red colour for a brownish one, which deeply contrasted with the whiteness of the skin below.

Sherlock's aquamarine eyes were slightly open. He seemed as helpless and vulnerable as John had imagined him to be. He looked at John directly in the eyes and spoke.

"John…", he said in a feeble wheeze of voice.

"Sherlock…", answered John, approaching.

He could feel tears gathering at the corner of his eyes and, despite having tried to hold them back, he found himself slightly sobbing at the sight in front of him. Without even thinking about the possible consequences, he took Sherlock's hand. The young man smiled and weakly squeezed it, as to check he was alive and not dreaming. John smiled back. Sherlock eventually closed his eyes and silence enveloped the room. The only audible sounds were those of their breaths, Sherlock's controlled one and John's irregular one, and the continuous beeping of the monitors around the bed. John read the pulse. Fifty-eight. Rather low, but perfect for those conditions. He sighed in relief. Despite everything, all seemed well at the moment.

"…morphine…", stuttered Sherlock, reopening his eyes and looking at John.

"What?", John asked, still holding Sherlock's hand.

"They're giving me morphine to keep the pain soothed.", he said in a single breath "They shouldn't do that with a former rehab patient like me. It does no good."

John was quite amazed that Sherlock could still articulate sentences that long even in that condition. And even think about the damage a drug like morphine could do to him. Still, he was Sherlock. One couldn't expect him to be normal at all.

"I know.", replied John with care, softly caressing Sherlock's fingers "But it's necessary. "

Sherlock nodded.

"I know."

They stayed in silence for some more time staring into each other's eyes, unable, perhaps, to say any other things, but without letting their joined hands go.

When the door opened and the doctor asked John to go out, because the young man needed to rest and not to force himself awake, he didn't want to leave at all and Sherlock's eyes said the same. He indulged a bit in the last contact with Sherlock's soft skin and smiled.

"I promise I'll be back soon.", John muttered "Now sleep."

"…trust you…", answered Sherlock in a whisper.

John smiled and exited the room.

Three days later, in which John had barely left the hospital twice to go home and sleep for a bit, Sherlock was finally brought in another room on the third floor. He wasn't in perfect conditions yet, but he was starting to feel better and John rejoiced at the thought of a slowly, but steadily healing Sherlock Holmes.

The previous days he had been with Sherlock some more time, but the young man had still been a lot exhausted and they had spent the majority of their time together just holding their hands or with John telling him what was happening in the hospital's corridors. They never touched the subject of those days in which Sherlock had been held in that house and had been tortured. John didn't want to reopen Sherlock's hidden wounds and Sherlock didn't seem to want that either. Until that day.

It was ten a.m. when John entered for the first time in Sherlock's new room. It was a bigger and brighter one, with a rather good view over a park. A warm vernal sun shone through the curtains and lit Sherlock's pale skin up. John noticed that, in this light, he looked less sick and more alive. It was a great and very welcomed change for him, meaning that the man was starting to recover.

"They still don't let me get up from this bed.", was the first thing Sherlock uttered as John entered.

He smiled, remembering Sherlock having said exactly the same sentence the previous day, when the doctors had announced that he was about to be moved.

"Good morning to you too, Sherlock.", replied John.

And he moved the only chair in the room near Sherlock's bed

"I see they have decreased the morphine dose,", he continued "by seeing how lively you are."

"They aren't giving me morphine anymore. I commanded them to stop.", the young man said proudly.

"You…what?", asked John in shock.

God, he knew that Sherlock was impossible (and, nevertheless, he still loved him), but commanding the doctors to stop giving him morphine…he sighed. He was sure that Sherlock would have been the death of him soon or later.

"Doesn't it hurt?", John continued.

"Yes, but drugs hurt more.", concluded the young man, turning his head away from John.

They stayed in silence for a while, John unable to answer to what Sherlock had just said and Sherlock, probably, highly embarrassed for what had just escaped his mouth.

Minutes later, that, actually, could have been hours, Sherlock turned his head and spoke again.

"I'm sorry."

John looked at him rather perplexed.

"You loved her."

For a nanosecond John wondered who was the 'her' Sherlock was referring to, not being able to understand it. But eventually he got that. Sherlock was talking about Laura. A topic that John would have really loved to never touch again, even if he knew it was an impossible request to comply. Plus he didn't 'love' her. He just happened to like her. He loved, well, Sherlock obviously. Just the thought of it made his cheeks turn pink. He hadn't still had the courage to tell the young man, despite it had been the first thing he had wanted to say when he had entered Sherlock's room three days earlier. He couldn't manage to.

"No, Sherlock…", he stammered "I…didn't love her."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"I liked her, yes. A long time ago I liked the woman called Laura Collins. Nevertheless I liked her fake identity, not the real one."

"You liked her anyway.", Sherlock replied.

John didn't quite know why Sherlock was insisting on that topic. He should be the one to be sorry, not Sherlock.

"No need to be sorry, really. I'm the one who should apologise to you."

"Why?"

"Because she…", John swallowed at the thought "…hurt you because of me."

Sherlock stayed pensive for some seconds.

"Oh. You've heard a part of her speech.", the young man realised.

John nodded wearily.

"It's not your fault. She had many other reasons to hate me, even without your presence in there."

Lestrade entered in the room in that exact moment, interrupting the conversation.

"Good morning, Sherlock. I see you're finally feeling better. We were all very worried."

"John told me that at least fifteen times in the last three days.", he smirked, John blushed.

Lestrade smiled back.

"I'm sorry to disturb you but I'd have some questions to ask, if you don't mind…", continued the DI.

"Not disturbing at all.", replied Sherlock quickly.

"Well…who was that woman?"

John gave Lestrade a puzzled look.

"Laura Collins.", answered John automatically.

"Albert Beaver's girlfriend.", said Sherlock simultaneously.

"What?", the DI's mouth fell open "Really?"

Sherlock nodded and John couldn't understand what they were talking about. Lestrade was about to ask another question, when a nurse and a doctor entered in the room.

"Good morning, Mr. Holmes.", said the surgeon who had operated the young man "I see you're in good company this morning!"

"Seems so.", Sherlock huffed in annoyance.

"I have to take a look at the wound, Mr. Holmes.", the man went on, then addressed to John and Lestrade "Would you kindly…?"

They both left the room.

As they were in the corridor, Lestrade let a huffed groan escape his mouth.

"God, Albert Beaver's girlfriend…oh, god…now I can understand what she has done…oh, god…"

John looked at the DI more and more perplexed.

"Who's Albert Beaver?", he inquired.

"He was the king of the drug traffic in London three years ago. It was one of the first cases on which Sherlock had worked for Scotland Yard. He worked undercover and managed to destroy the drug web in less than three months. But to take Beaver alone it took him one more month, in which, sincerely, I don't know how he was able to survive. Albert Beaver was a monster when it came to assure that everything was under control. We suspected, back then, that he had some back-up that could keep on dealing drugs in the case of his imprisonment, but we have never suspected that he had a girlfriend. It seems like he had kept it secret. A very well hidden secret. And she took his place. Oh my god."

Lestrade looked white as a sheet and swallowed.

"He's lucky to be alive…", he murmured "I need to go back to Scotland Yard. It's a very big deal. Oh my…god."

John didn't know what to say anymore. He just watched the DI walking away and felt confused one more time. How many more things in the life of Sherlock Holmes he didn't know at all?

The doctor and the nurse came out from the room and John entered again. Sherlock had a completely new bandage on the shoulder and was grunting heavily.

"Doctors…", he huffed.

John shrugged his shoulders and sat on the chair next to Sherlock.

"I am a doctor, if your brilliant mind has forgotten that."

Sherlock grinned in his usual wry smile.

"You're John, not a doctor. There's a big difference."

"If you say so…", smiled John.

If the young man was talking like that, he was definitely feeling better. John's heart warmed a bit more, since he was really happy to finally see a glimpse of the old Sherlock back.

"Anyway: what did the doctor say?", enquired John.

"That I'm progressing well. The bullet stroke rather strongly, but it seems that luckily it didn't do much damage. I might be able to return home by the end of next week, although I'd prefer earlier. I…don't like hospitals."

"And doctors.", replied John, amused.

"Don't forget the nurses.", grinned Sherlock in response.

The climate between John and Sherlock seemed to have returned friendly, a bit different from the previous days when it had been rather intimate. Yet there was a big difference between the two situations, John realised. In the cold small room downstairs everything looked final, like there was no possible redemption or returning to life, so they both had needed some human warmth. Here, in that bigger and sunny room, there was more need of smile than of affection. Nevertheless John missed the touch with Sherlock's finger, but he was quite scared of holding the young man's hand in such prominent daylight. Plus there were still things that bugged him. Sherlock's voice recalled John on earth from his thoughts.

"How did you get it?"

"Did I get what?", asked John confused.

"That she was Laura."

"I think as you got it too: by her ring. I…listened to your advice and I concentrated. It came to my mind after a while and suddenly I was aware of who was the Viper."

Sherlock nodded and smiled a bright smile.

"Good guess. I said that you were less idiotic than the average."

"Sherlock!"

God, still the impossible, arrogant git. But he lost himself in that sincere smile of appreciation. For he knew that, despite what had just come out from the young man's mouth, that had been a smile of pride in regards to John's results.

"But you are wrong.", the young man went on.

"Wrong about what?"

"I didn't get it by her ring. I only recognised it later. I got it by her necklace."

"Necklace?"

"Remember the necklace she was wearing? The one I told you it was a gift from her boyfriend?"

John memories went back to the day when Sherlock had appeared at the restaurant saying in front of him that Laura hadn't been over her boyfriend yet.

"I didn't connected the two details at first, because I hadn't thought that the Viper could have been a woman. It's hard to believe that a woman could be that cruel, but love is always such a vicious motivator. Then, last Friday, it literally popped up in my mind that I had already seen the same necklace, but around another neck. A neck that I was trying to bury deep inside my mind…"

"Albert Beaver's.", completed John in a sigh "Lestrade told me what you have done."

Sherlock half-smiled, but John was serious this time.

"Undercover in a drug traffic? Sherlock…", he said, almost pleading.

"I was the best man for the job.", the young man answered "And it was a long time ago."

"You could…have died.", kept on saying John "Actually, you've almost died because of that. Even three years later."

John felt helpless one more time. What else there was in the young man's life that could have been as dangerous, or more, as that? How many other times Sherlock would have been kidnapped, shot, hurt? How many more times John would have suffered for that? He sighed.

"But you came to save me.", Sherlock said in a low, apologising tone.

"Yes. But I was lucky. Hadn't she been my date, I would have never guessed anything. So, at least, try to promise me you won't do something that dangerous again.", John found himself pleading.

But Sherlock didn't answer. He just looked at John with eyes to which John couldn't quite associate any precise feeling. They seemed thoughtful and somehow frightened, like the young man was waiting for something he was afraid of. Neither of them spoke for a good while.

Then they started talking again about futile topics: John told him he had taken a few days off from university, told him some stories about his years at the university, told him some silly things he had done when he was a kid. Sherlock never interrupted, but didn't quite join the conversation either. He just listened and listened. Sometimes he asked new questions, some other times he waited for John to continue.

When the lunch arrived, John had to threaten Sherlock to eat it.

"It looks awful and it stinks.", Sherlock said.

"And you're going to eat it.", answered John commandingly.

"Make me.", teased the young man.

"Don't tempt me, Sherlock. Only because you're in an hospital bed, that doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want. Eat it now!"

"Can I borrow your phone?", asked Sherlock innocently.

"What the hell do you need my phone for?"

"Can I borrow it or not? I don't know where mine is."

John took his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Sherlock. The young man tapped something on it. Then, despite John's perpetual menaces, Sherlock stubbornly refused to touch any of the things he had to eat. John explained that he needed to eat for a better recovery, he explained that he was debilitated, he explained (trying to not force-feed him) that it was for his best. Fifteen minutes of fight later, in which John was remembered about how dealing with Sherlock was just like dealing with a child, there was a knock on the door.

Mycroft stepped in with a bag, giving a half bewildered, half angry look at his younger brother. John looked at them extremely confused.

"Seriously, Sherlock?", the man with the umbrella grunted "Spaghetti from Angelo's?"

"Well, you came.", Sherlock grinned, while his brother removed a box from the bag.

John noticed that there were genuine spaghetti in it. And he also took out two dishes and two forks.

"Next time try to not get yourself shot.", Mycroft remarked "Or at least learn to appreciate the hospital food. You have fifteen minutes."

Sherlock just grinned wider and Mycroft left. John looked at Sherlock in amazement.

"Have you really just texted your brother for a spaghetti's course?", he snorted.

"Can't do with this thing."

And the young man indicated the white chicken floating in an unrecognisable sauce, which, John had to admit, looked awful. Especially compared to those spaghetti.

"But you wanted me to eat, so I came up with a solution.", the young man smirked slyly "There's enough for you too, if you want…"

Just the smell of the tomato sauce, as Sherlock opened the box with his right hand, made John's mouth water.

"Ok.", he said "Hit and drowned completely. Let me divide."

And he divided two portions of spaghetti on the two plates.

"But remember that I don't approve this behaviour."

"Yes, professor."

John couldn't help but smile at the sound of the word. They were far beyond that limit and John noticed that it had just become a mere meaningless term between the two of them. John obviously didn't consider Sherlock only a student anymore and Sherlock, well, he had always considered formalities boring and useless. And the spaghetti were extremely good.

Sherlock, even one handed, managed to eat his portion gracefully, without making a mess around him, while John, who had every part of his body that worked properly, managed to get his jumper stained with tomato and basil.

Fifteen minutes later Mycroft came back in, took the dishes, emptied the hospital tray into the plastic bag, heavily grunting in annoyance, and went away. When the nurse returned to take the tray away and noticed that Sherlock had eaten everything, she complimented the young man.

"Good boy…continue like this and you'll feel better soon."

She didn't seem to notice the strong smell of pasta that filled the air and, as she left, John started to giggle, followed by Sherlock.

The afternoon passed slowly. Sherlock asked John to entertain him a bit and John tried to make Sherlock play some stupid games, but the young man managed to turn each of them in something unplayable.

"Ok, let's try with this one. I say a word and you have to say another word that starts with the last two letters of the one I say. Then I'll have to do the same with yours. And so on."

Sherlock hummed in approval, while slightly scratching his bandage.

"Don't do that.", remarked John "Don't touch the bandage nor scratch the wound."

"It itches!"

"I know it does. And I'm quite surprised it doesn't hurt you…", he remarked, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind.

John had guessed that the wound was seriously aching. He could see it now and then through Sherlock's eyes, yet Sherlock didn't say anything about that.

"So? The word?", questioned the young man impatiently.

"Apple."

"Boring word."

"It's just a word!"

"Choose another one. I don't like apples."

"It's a game! It's not a parade of stylistically beautiful words!"

"Choose another.", insisted Sherlock in annoyance.

"Ok. Ok.", snorted John "Then…carpenter."

"Er…eruditus!", Sherlock exclaimed.

"That's not an English word…", huffed John.

"You didn't say they should have been English words…"

"Yeah. My fault…"

"Plus, it's funnier this way."

"Whatever.", concluded John.

But they went on playing, Sherlock completely according to his own rules, sometimes inventing new words, sometimes making John change the word he had chosen, some other times laughing because John couldn't find a suitable word.

"Sphinx! How am I supposed to find a word that begins with 'nx'?", he snorted, half laughing.

"You stated the rules.", the young man smirked.

"You change them every two seconds and now you're obliging me to follow the rules?", he shook his head.

But they went on, laughing and carefree. And that, at the moment, was all that John wanted: to see Sherlock laughing, oblivious of everything else. He wanted him to have good memories with which he could erase the bad ones. And that was all that counted.

At dinner time Mycroft reappeared with a box full of chicken curry and carrots. Both John and Sherlock ate it as they had done at lunch. Mycroft threw away the hospital food and left once more. At eight the doctor arrived and visited Sherlock.

"You seem to recover pretty well just in one day.", the man said.

"Can I get up?", asked Sherlock.

"As to walk, no. Not yet. You're still too weak to walk. But we can provide you with a wheelchair if you want to do a little tour of the hospital."

Sherlock grunted, but in the end nodded.

The doctor left and five minutes later a nurse arrived with the wheelchair.

"Should I help you to sit on it?", she asked.

John looked at Sherlock in the eyes and answered for him.

"I'll do that. Don't worry."

And she left.

John almost didn't have the time to turn to Sherlock that he was already trying to stand up alone.

"No, no, no. Let me help! You can't do it alone!"

And he approached, slowly helping the young man to stay upright. John had to take Sherlock's right arm and pass it over his shoulders to prevent Sherlock from falling down. As a matter of fact the young man's legs were really weak and they shook slightly as he was fully upright. Yet John managed to put him on the wheelchair without many problems.

"Should we go?"

"Yes.", answered Sherlock.

After three turns in different aisles, Sherlock asked to be brought outside the hospital. John refused firmly.

"We can't go out!", he said "You're a patient and can't leave the hospital!"

"I'm not leaving, John. I'm just asking to be brought in the park that there's outside. Thirty minutes. Please, John."

"No. It's my last word on it."

"I've been four days locked in a room and other three days locked in another room. Please…", Sherlock begged "Nobody will notice!"

"Ok, ok.", eventually said John, always too willing to make Sherlock happy.

And they took the lift to the ground floor and exited from an emergency exit Sherlock had indicated to him.