Disclaimer: No money being made off of this or any other of my stories which use characters that I have no claim too. Wish I did. Then I'd be rich and I'd buy an island in the middle of the ocean and kidnap Alan Rickman, Richard Dean Anderson, Rupert Graves and Vin Diesel…maybe some others. Then I'd take my best friend and we'd…er, yeah, you get the picture. For now though they're all safe as I'm poor.

A/N: So…hunh, I have nothing to say. Weird. I always have something to say. Well, guess I'd better let you read hadn't I?

Week Two: Sunday

It was the beeping that woke him. At least he thought it was the beeping. He couldn't quite bring his thoughts together yet. He felt like he'd been asleep for a very long time. Maybe he had. It would be nice. He hadn't been able to sleep much for the past…however long it had been before this nap.

He thought about opening his eyes to check the time but his eyelids were too heavy. He was far too relaxed to worry about time anyway. It didn't matter. There wasn't anything he needed to do right now, was there?

A trickle of thought about a woman and a coffee stain swept through him but he couldn't quite catch it. He wasn't attracted to women and he didn't drink coffee. Well, he did but he preferred tea usually. Coffee made him jittery.

Another image disrupted the first. A man. A man in an alley wearing a uniform shirt from a coffee shop. He was holding a gun. It was illegal for civilians to carry firearms. Was he undercover? That didn't quite feel right.

A flash of light. A loud bang. Pain. His head feeling like it would explode. Blackness. Oh. He'd been shot. Shot in the head. So why wasn't he dead? Was he dead? He didn't think so.

For a moment he felt like laughing. How many men were shot in the head and survived? It was good to be alive. He must be one lucky son of a bitch. Then he remembered the rest. Maybe not so lucky after all. After all, he'd survived being shot in the head but he hadn't seen his husband since…well the Sunday before he'd been shot. However long ago that was.

Part of him wondered if Mycroft had even come by the hospital while he'd been out. Based on the past few months he really doubted it. He could always open his eyes and find out, he supposed. He really didn't want his suspicions confirmed though. Yet, a large part of him longed for the stupid man. He wanted Mycroft to be there. He had to know.

Everything was a bit blurry and dark at first and then his eyes adjusted. Carefully he turned his head a bit and winced at the spike of pain. There was A. Curled up in one of the God awful hospital chairs, sound asleep. Her ever present BlackBerry balancing precariously on the arm. So Mycroft was back in the country then.

Even more carefully he lifted his head a bit and peered around the room, searching the shadows. No Mycroft. Really, he asked himself, why had he hoped? He let his head fall back onto the thin pillow and huffed out a quiet groan at the sudden pain.

He closed his eyes, letting a single tear escape. He may as well just go back to sleep and hopefully he'd stay in the welcoming, comforting darkness forever this time.

MH/GL MH/GL MH/GL

Moments after Greg's eyes closed a shaft of light briefly lit the dim room. Mycroft quickly shut off the light from the loo and headed back to his place across the bed from Artiebiba. He stared at the monitors for a moment before taking Greg's hand in his own, leaning back and closing his own eyes.

Still no change. "Come back Gregory," he whispered softly into the dark silence of the room. "Please come back to me."

MH/GL MH/GL MH/GL

It was the voices this time that woke him. He knew it was the voices because he woke up irritated. He knew those voices. He wanted to growl at them all to shut up and leave but he knew it would be useless. The Holmes boys never listened to anyone when they were arguing, least of all their husbands.

"You're really going to go now?" Sherlock was saying in a rather harsh voice. "In case it has escaped your attention, Mycroft, your husband is in a coma! And you're planning on leaving him here while you gallivant off to see to some minor problem in Sudan? I wasn't joking the other night." He hissed ominously.

"It cannot be helped." Mycroft answered. "What good am I doing here? Gregory is in a coma, Sherlock! He can neither hear nor see me! He doesn't even know whether I'm here or not. It will take less than a day to straighten out the mess in Sudan."

"And what are we supposed to tell him if he wakes while you're gone?" Sherlock asked archly. "That his husband didn't care enough to stick around? That he decided to bugger off to Africa because staying here with him was too much work?"

"Why can you not understand?" Mycroft's voice rose in an uncharacteristic shout. "I can't stay here and do nothing! I can't stand seeing him like this! He's not supposed to be so still. Gregory's always moving. He's always so full of energy and now…now he's lying there so still. I can't…it hurts."

"So you're just going to run away?" Sherlock sneered. "Falling back into old habits, brother? Run away when something gets too difficult? I had thought Lestrade had cured you of that." Sherlock stopped for a moment and when he began speaking again the controlled fury in his voice nearly had Greg shivering. "Go on then. But don't expect us to be here when you get back. I warned you what would happen if you continued to be neglectful."

"I would think that would be up to the individuals in question, don't you?" Mycroft's cold tone nearly matched his brother's in the scope of its fury. "Now then, Artiebiba, do tell Gregory I will be back soon should he waken."

The hand that Greg only just became aware of holding his hand clamped in a viselike grip. "No," said a soft feminine voice. "I'll tell him the truth."

"Pardon me?" Mycroft asked in an icy tone.

Greg could hear A stand up though her grip on his hand never faltered. "I will not lie to your husband again. He deserves better than empty platitudes and excuses. Fire me if you wish but I will not tell him that you will be back soon when I know that as soon as you're finished in Sudan another crisis will pop up out of nowhere and you'll be off again. Avoiding us. Avoiding him because you don't want to feel anything."

Brittle silence filled the small room. Greg wondered why John wasn't putting in his two pence but decided that it didn't matter much. He also decided this had gone on long enough. Tempers were high because they were all worried about him. It hurt like mad that Mycroft was leaving but he really should have expected that. There was no way this conversation was going to end well unless he did something.

An idea sparked in his brain and even though part of him said it was a crappy thing to do he went with it. Greg let out a soft groan and blinked his eyes open.

"Greg!" A screamed. "You're awake! Sherlock, call in the doctors. Greg's awake! Greg, can you hear me?" She dropped his hand and leaned over his bed placing both hands on his cheeks. He heard the rush of movement signaling Sherlock's obedience and the clatter of A's BlackBerry meeting the floor.

"Would be hard not to the way you're screaming," Greg said hoarsely. "Can I get some water?"

A disappeared from his field of vision and Sherlock's face was suddenly peering down at him. "Welcome back, Lestrade," he said in his most disinterested tone. The one that meant he was deeply affected by something and was hiding it for all he was worth.

"Hey," Greg croaked. "What happened?" A straw touched his lips and he took a drink of the cool water.

"You were shot, idiot," Sherlock told him and then stepped back and Mycroft leaned over the bed rail.

"Gregory? You are awake," his voice was full of wonder. "I'm so glad you're back with us."

Greg frowned up at him. "Hello," he said. "Are you one of my doctors? How badly was I shot? Why does my head hurt so much?"