A/N: Before we begin, a word of apology. I was overseas for three weeks, but still, a month is unacceptable. Thanks to everyone who has been sticking with me so far, and thanks to everyone who's followed/favourited/reviewed, you're all wonderful! I hope you continue to enjoy :) Warnings in this chapter for minor swearing, but in the situation, it was unavoidable.
Greg followed the stretcher out of the ambulance and ran alongside Sherlock. He had been forced to let go of his hand, but still made sure Sherlock was still in sight. Suddenly, his knees felt weak and he didn't trust himself to not throw up when he heard a loud, wailing, uninterrupted beep from something hooked up to Sherlock. Not a good sound. Lestrade knew that for sure. Medical language assaulted his ears, that horrible beep infernally ever present. He's coding, Greg thought as he watched, slightly detached, the medics beginning CPR and preparing defibrillators. A stray nurse noticed Lestrade's ashen and devastated face as he watched Sherlock's heart stop beating, his lungs stop breathing; the boy he thought of almost as a son. She came over and guided him to a hard, hateful chair.
"Sir, I think you should sit down. Do you need a cup of tea?" she asked kindly.
Greg nodded, not really knowing what he was agreeing to, and took the proffered cup of tea gratefully. He waited, watching in long minutes as the paramedics desperately tried to keep Sherlock alive. He didn't realise he was violently shaking until the nurse handed him a wad of tissues – apparently, his shaking hand had caused some of the burning tea to slosh all over his trousers. Burning like Sherlock's skin had been. Well, isn't heat a good thing? At least he wasn't cold. Greg mopped it up absentmindedly.
At last and with incredible relief, Lestrade heard the continuous beep stop to be replaced by a broken beep. A good sound, he knew, a sound that meant Sherlock's heart was finally working again. Breathing again, he started sipping his tea, his hand still shaking.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked desperately.
"The young man on the stretcher there?" she asked, and Greg nodded. He knew that she was noting Sherlock's age, and with Greg's grey hair and intense worry she must have assumed Greg was his father. And he didn't mind being thought of that way. He didn't mind at all. He actually quite liked the thought. She was reluctant to upset him too much though, but sat down and laid her hand over his to comfort him and soften the blow of information.
"It's too early to tell yet, but among others, vasoconstriction, pyrexia, cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, and increased blood pressure."
She saw Greg's blank face, and clarified: "Narrowing of blood vessels, increased temperature and fever, heart and breathing failure, and increased blood pressure. But," she hastily added, seeing Greg blanch, "those problems are being fixed right now as we speak."
"Will he be all right?" Greg's voice was small.
"It's very early to tell, but we'll keep you informed. But he should be fine, right as rain before you know it," her voice was reassuring but, looking at the pale and still figure half-obscured by masked doctors, Greg found it hard to believe her.
The nurse stood as Sherlock began to be wheeled out of the room and down the corridor. Greg leapt out of his chair, but thankfully his cup was empty by then so no tea was spilt. His head whipped from Sherlock to the nurse frantically.
"Where are they taking him?" he yelled.
"Sir, please, sit down, it's all right. You can't be with him at the moment, but you'll be allowed to go in when he's stable."
She sat him down, and Greg tried not to think if. Greg was alone again when she left. Alone in his thoughts. Alone, without Sherlock, who was possibly dead in the next room. Lestrade cursed Sherlock for doing this, cursed drugs for existing, cursed himself for not checking up on him earlier, cursed Sherlock's circumstance that led him to the drugs, cursed fate for making him meet Sherlock. He hated everything, wanted to smash something, but instead sat languid and despondent.
He had grown close to Sherlock. He knew that over the months the consulting detective was letting him in more, and Mycroft had told him during one of their meetings: You should be flattered by how he treats you. He must think you're special. Those words echoed in Greg's head, swimming through every thought and tensing every nerve. Greg had invested so much time in the consulting detective now. He couldn't let Sherlock throw that all away.
Greg wanted people to be happy. But especially Sherlock.
Sighing heavily, he adjusted his slumped position on the hard plastic waiting room chair. God, he hated hospitals. And he hated these chairs. If he ever became Prime Minister of this country, the first thing to go would be these damned waiting room chairs. Thinking what a pitiful and probably pathetic sight he must be - dishevelled, weary, downhearted - he listened to the noises of the hospital as it lived and breathed around him while its occupants all suffered and died: shouts of doctors, shoes squeaking on floors, clangs of equipment, beeps from monitors. He wrinkled his nose, hit by the foul smell of disinfectant.
Suddenly, in his periphery, Greg caught sight of a man with dark auburn hair, a three-piece suit and that bloody black umbrella. Watching him neatly approach, he hoped that Mr British Government was here to somehow move mountains, align stars and create universes to make sure Sherlock was all right and treated well.
Lestrade wondered briefly how Mycroft had known to come here; Greg had told no one except Donovan and as far as he knew, Donovan hadn't met Mycroft. Then again, it was Mycroft. Lestrade had to remind himself of that; of course Mycroft knew. Greg slowly rotated his head and dejectedly gazed upwards to meet Mycroft's eyes.
"Mycroft," Greg tipped his head as he muttered the name.
"Detective Inspector. Always lovely to see you, but under the circumstances…"
He trailed off and the two were left in an awkward silence.
"Have you found out how he is?" Greg asked.
"Yes; multiple complications, and he's being worked on as we speak, but they tell me at this stage, though uncertain, his chances of survival are good."
"Good…that's good. Yes…yes, good is good," Greg muttered absentmindedly, a weight beginning to lift. Astonishing analysis Greg – "good is good". How insightful. But at least he'll be all right. At least he's going to live. "When can we see him?"
"Not yet, when he's moved to the Intensive Care Unit they shall inform me, and I shall inform you."
Greg nodded, and they lapsed into silence once more. The nurse who had brought Greg tea interrupted their thoughts. At the sight of her, Greg leapt to his feet, knowing she brought news. Her face was blank, so whether good or bad, he didn't know, but he prayed to every deity he could think existed in those few seconds that it was the first.
"Sherlock Holmes' family?" she asked. "He's been moved to ICU, critical but stable. And improving by the second," her face broke into a small smile.
Greg grinned, and he and Mycroft marched down the corridors to the room where Sherlock was. It was at the end of many curtained cubicles of the ICU, so there was hardly any privacy for Sherlock – Mycroft should have that fixed, Greg decided. Though, on the dazzlingly bright side, we're not going to see him in the mortuary. The two men approached Sherlock's bedside. He usually looked rather gaunt, thin and pale, but this was ridiculous. Greg almost didn't know where Sherlock's skin ended and the crisp, bright white bed sheets started. Of course, it was much so much more preferable to how he looked when Greg had found him, but it still made him stop in his tracks.
Fetching a chair and plonking himself onto it, Greg watched in silence as Mycroft observed Sherlock, read the medical charts around the bed, satisfied himself that his brother was going to be all right, went to ensure Sherlock received the utmost attention and comfort during his hospital stay, and then came to say goodbye.
"I am regretfully extremely busy at the moment – but of course, I cannot tell you what with," his face wore that enigmatic smile that used to annoy Lestrade, but now was growing on him. "I will be stopping by every day of course, and please phone me, Detective, if there is any news, either good or – unfavourable."
As he said then last word, Mycroft scrunched his face slightly and something strange crossed his face that Greg couldn't place. Emotion? On Mycroft Holmes' face? Surely not. But it was gone as soon as it came, and Greg was nodding goodbye.
As Mycroft left, Lestrade pretended not to notice that as he passed Sherlock for the last time on the other side of the bed he squeezed his brother's hand. Greg realised that Mycroft would never in his life admit to showing or even having emotions. But Mr Government still wasn't completely above it.
"Christ Sherlock," Greg began once Mycroft had well and truly left, "you gave me the biggest fucking scare, you sod! How could you? No, forget that. I'm not angry; I'm too relieved to be angry. But we are getting you straight off those bleeding drugs. You never take too many, you're always so careful! What pushed you over the edge? Jesus Christ. Don't you ever do this again though, you understand? If you do do this again, there will be so much hell to pay, mister. I'm so glad you're alive. Jesus, you're going to be all right, aren't you?"
Lapsing into silence, Greg had only one fervent wish that he prayed for with all his heart.
He prayed that as long as he lived, he would never have to bury Sherlock.