CHAPTER 7. LIKE A STONE

John hated the uselessness the realization of his returning to the front lines being absolutely off the table. They retired him, sentenced him to civilian life. He had nothing now, and his hands kept shaking despite everything he did to calm them to will them to stay still, to be steady. A terror started to nag at him, and he kept pushing it back, away, but it felt like his shadow following him so closely everywhere. Even in the light of the sun and worse in the night.

He couldn't keep his hands steady he would never be a surgeon. Harry had given him a phone when he'd gone quiet, lost in thought for days. She'd given up, not wishing to be around him.

He had become their father, home useless with a tremor and nightmares. And those had been horrible after the first nights of non drug induced sleep. John had hoped they'd get better, easier to deal with but no they became more and more intense.

This is why he couldn't go to Harry, that and she hadn't spoken to him in the last five years. He hardly had met Clara, Harry hadn't even invited him to her wedding. She hated him, and when her cool blue eyes found his he read anger, pity, and disgust, mostly disappointment and John could understand that.

Harry visited out of a sense of obligation; he wondered why she punished herself when she clearly wished to be anywhere but around him. He had nothing, no family, just the army and now he didn't even have that. He disappointed them all, why was he allowed to live? He recalled his silent prayer when he was hauled away from the dead Private Wilson. "Please God let me live." What a selfish thing to pray for, and even then why was he allowed to live, why had his prayer been answered when so many others more worthy had died?

Once he started physical therapy the hospital set him up with a therapist.

A fat lot of help she was, she didn't understand. And he knew the limp was psychosomatic, he was a Doctor for Christ sake! The pain felt real enough, the tremors embarrassing, John just sat in his room staring at the wall, afraid to close his eyes, but so very exhausted.

Every time sleep crept up on him, all he could see were Wilson's wide frantic eyes, he was a kid damn it! And the faces of countless others John had failed to heal continued to haunt his dreams. All of them scared, and John had promised, how many times had he promised. To how many wounded and dieing men? Knowing it was empty hope but all the same he said it. "It'll be alright. You hear me! You'll be alright."

John recalled, how Wilson's green eyes instantly calmed, his hand still clutching the captain's sleeved arm. John wanted to stop the bleeding, he already fired his browning twice at the men nearing, he needed to get Wilson clear, and safe, that's when it happened.

So fast that at first John hadn't realized it, the shock from the initial hit robbed him of his thoughts, it wasn't until those trusting green eyes widened and the life drained from them that John understood. The hand on his sleeve falling limp, and a pool of blood started to spill out behind the young man, how had John missed that wound? He thought numbly, and it was then his own chest felt warm.

"I'm sorry." John thought before the pain of another hit vibrated through him forcing him onto the already dead soldier. Then someone was pulling him he couldn't leave the kid. Those wide eyes, watching him being towed away a trail of blood following. Whose? John had wondered, his or Wilson's?

Useless, John thought staring at the white wall of his room, snapping out of those dark memories. This room screamed institution, a half way house to adjust the injured soldiers to civilian living. John wondered if he would ever be adjusted. He felt so lost, and for the first time in his life he understood why his father and sister chose to drown their sorrows, he'd give anything for the numbing, he wondered if it would quiet the nightmares. He decided against it almost immediately, he wouldn't become his father, not completely. He remembered something that another addict had explained to him the advantages of drug use, to quiet the racing thoughts and make the world just that much more interesting. John wasn't going to go that route, he could at least keep a piece of his former self intact. That addict hadn't been convincing at all.

"Sherlock." A small laugh escaped him, the image of his friend popping up in his head. John wondered if he had cleaned up, even after all this time John thought of his friend. Did he become a mad scientist? He was a lay about some days, and Mycroft had always cringed at the thought of his younger brother becoming a philosopher.

Sherlock scoffed at that, he didn't have the social skills to be a philosopher or the patience. John winced again, thinking of Mycroft the stinging words in the hospital five years ago, and than again three years ago when he'd tried to reassign John. John thought the older Holmes could let it go, but instead the older man now a very high ranking Government employee tried to stall John's career. He somehow procured a transfer to an army hospital far from the front lines.

Mycroft hadn't said a word when John asked him why. The man had traveled all the way to Kandahar and had the Doctor meet with him upon arrival, all just to warn the Doctor off.

John a Lieutenant at the time asked about Sherlock and Mycroft replied coolly "He's sober." The Doctor had exhaled, he exhaled a breath he'd been holding for two years. Then came the sting of it, Sherlock hadn't replied to John's emails, or letters. After he tried to see the younger Holmes at the rehab center and was turned away. Shouldn't he have come to this conclusion?

Looking at Mycroft the younger John felt the knife twist even further, that same condemning look. John had guessed the busy man had come to scare him off, to demand he halt all communication, to stop harassing Sherlock. So John had beat him to the punch, that was the last time he spoke to Mycroft Holmes and the day he sent the last email. That hollow feeling had followed him around for months but he pushed it away. Especially after almost over night he'd been returned to his original assignment. That spoke louder than anything, another show of how far the Holmes reach was.

These were dangerous memories that he nearly allowed to resurface. Very dangerous, still he couldn't help but think about that day he met a runaway pirate while on the way to the Library.