NOTE: Have updated the previous chapters with their titles!

Five Minutes Prior

Lestrade walked into the murder suspect's bedroom, the evidence team right behind him. "My god," he whispered. The wall was littered with a hundred or so photographs of none other than Rose Holmes. "Sherlock! Get in here!" he shouted.

Sighing, and with a sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue, Sherlock left the living room and followed the sound of Lestrade's voice. The comment died on his lips as he walked into the room and caught sight of the wall.

John wished he could have been surprised that Sherlock wasn't home when he and Rose got back to Baker Street; sadly, it was likely there had been yet another murder. Heading up to his room, he began to change out of his dress uniform when his mobile rang.

"JOHN! Is Rose with you?" Sherlock shouted.

"No, she's in her flat. What's going on?"

"Do NOT let her leave! Lestrade and I are coming to Baker Street."

"Wh-" There was no point in finishing his question as Sherlock promptly hung up. John retrieved his gun and was heading back to the sitting room when he heard a scream. "More spiders," he grumbled, picking up his pace.

Then he heard another scream, one he was certain didn't belong to Rose.

"SHERLOCK! JOHN!" Mrs. Hudson screamed. "There's a man with a knife!"

Rose let out a scream and managed to kick Mrs. Hudson's door twice before the man took her outside. The second they were clear of the door, she completely let her body go slack and fell right at his feet. The man was caught off guard, not expecting her to crumple, and took a moment to process and respond. That moment was just what she needed and Rose tried to get back into the building.

The man grabbed her coat, yanking her backwards. Rose immediately tried to slip her arms out of it and nearly succeeded, but the man was faster at anticipating what she'd do this time. The door slammed shut behind him as Mrs. Hudson screamed.

Struggling for all she was worth, Rose fought to get away. The man's grip was like a vice and he had the knife to her throat. She could feel it pressing into her neck and a sudden burst of warmth. Reaching back with both hands, she grabbed onto his head, pulling the mask off the man before hitting him with her head as hard as she could.

The man let go for a moment and she tried to run. In her panic, she ran away from 221B rather than towards it, but she didn't get very far. The man tackled her to the ground and rolled her onto her back. That was when she saw his face. It was Mark, from the coffee shop. "Mark! What are you doing?!" Rose screamed as he sat on her legs and raised the knife.

Instinctively Rose's hands went up to shield herself from the blade. It sliced at her skin as he swung it at a furious pace while she screamed and fought, alternately blocking the knife and hitting at him with her fists.

John rushed out of the building and onto the street, just in time to see Rose tackled a block away and the moonlight shine on a blade. He pulled his gun and ran towards them. "STOP! STOP OR I WILL KILL YOU!" John warned, hurrying towards them. A scream pierced the air and the knife plunged into Rose's chest.

A shot was fired and Mark fell over on top of her, the knife clattering onto the sidewalk beside him. John hauled the man off Rose and made certain the man was dead before turning his attention back to Rose.

"John, John, John," she repeated his name, screaming in terror, while reaching for his hand.

"No, no, lie still," John told her sternly. "Lie still, don't try to talk. I'm going to help you." His eyes quickly assessed her wounds as best he could while blood was seeping out of several of them. It was the one directly to her chest that worried him most. He began putting pressure on her wounds, the ones that appeared to be the most severe, taking off his own jumper to press to her neck and chest.

"I don't want to die, I don't want to die," Rose sobbed, struggling to breathe.

"You're not going to die. Stay with me, keep looking at me. I'm a doctor, remember? I'll make sure you're alright," John told her. He could hear the sound of feet running and hoped to God it was the police responding to Mrs. Hudson's call.

Instead, it was Mycroft, who dropped to his knees beside his little sister. "Get an ambulance Mycroft!" John growled. His growling made Rose cry even harder, making her breathing more labored.

"Love, I mean it, you'll be alright," John promised. "Eyes open, look at me. I promise, I'll make sure you're alright. You're such a good girl, that's it, keep looking at me. It's all over, that man won't touch you ever again. Come on my love, try to calm down. You can do it; that's my good girl. The ambulance is on its way and I'll get you all patched up. Promise love, I promise."

As if his very words had summoned the help she so desperately needed, Lestrade's car squealed to a halt beside an ambulance. The paramedics tried to move John, who refused to be parted from her as he imparted medical information, while Mycroft and Sherlock hovered at Rose's sides.

"Sir, let us take over, step away. Detective Inspector, he needs to step away! They all do!" The paramedic shouted.

His doctoring instinct taking over, John moved away and encouraged the Holmes brothers to do the same. They watched in horror as Rose was put on a stretcher and taken into the ambulance to be whisked away.

For a long moment, everyone, including Lestrade, just stood there, watching the ambulance drive away. Finally, Mycroft ushered his brother and John into his car to follow Rose to the hospital. Just before he slid into the driver's seat Mycroft turned to Lestrade and said, "I killed him. That's my gun. Deal with it." The two men shared a look and then Mycroft got into his car.

Mrs. Hudson arrived at hospital a half hour later and joined John, Sherlock and Mycroft in the waiting room. "Anything?" she asked. "I brought some sandwiches, in case we're here a while. And Rose's purse, she might need it."

Sherlock took the purse from her and held it in his hands, staring at it. He couldn't get the image of Rose, covered in blood, lifted away on that stretcher. Someone had hurt her and he hadn't been there. He hadn't been there.

"There was a bunch of letters in it that fell out in the entry," Mrs. Hudson went on. "I tucked them back up in there. That nice inspector said he'll be in when he can."

"How were you there?" Sherlock asked. It had been the first time he'd spoken since they'd arrived. "Why were you there Mycroft?"

His elder brother looked lost in his thoughts and didn't register the question until Sherlock took hold of his shirt and pulled, putting his face right in front of Mycroft's. "Why were you there?" he growled.

"She called me. Said she was in trouble. My god Sherlock, she sounded terrified," Mycroft said quietly. "I came as quickly as I could."

"Did she say what was wrong?" Sherlock questioned. His mind was racing a thousand miles a minute as he tried to put the pieces together of why the murder suspect he and Lestrade had been after tried to kill his baby sister.

"No, just that she was in trouble and she needed me."

Sherlock finally let go of Mycroft and leaned back in his own chair, trying to detach himself emotionally from the events. Still holding her purse, he steepled his hands to think.

"John, I brought you something to wear," Mrs. Hudson whispered, trying not to disturb Sherlock's process. "Didn't think you'd be wanting to wear what you've got on."

He managed a weak smile for her, before looking once more at his clothing. He had no idea where his jumper had gone, but the legs of his pants were soaked in blood and it was spattered on his shirt; even his hands were stained with it.

"Letters. Did you say letters?" Sherlock suddenly spoke up. He practically pulled the zipper off Rose's large purse and proceeded to dump its contents on the floor. Getting up suddenly, Sherlock procured gloves from a nurse and began examining each item. The unimportant ones were tossed aside.

"Pepper spray, unused, recently purchased," he murmured, putting that on the chair across from him. "Flashlight, also new." He shook it. "Heavy; could crack a skull, heavy." That joined the pepper spray. "She purchased these within the last week. She was scared, why didn't she say anything?" Sherlock went through the rest of the items, leaving the letters for last.

There were sixteen in total and Sherlock opened each one, reading it aloud to the others.

"She's been so jumpy lately," John pointed out. "No wonder."

"No wonder indeed. The question is why she didn't come to me. Clearly, she knew she was being stalked. Rose is smart, there's no other conclusion that she could have assumed," Sherlock said firmly.

"I cannot believe she'd be so stupid," Mycroft sputtered. It was completely inconceivable that Rose wouldn't have come to one of them, any of them, with these letters.

"This is why she called," Sherlock told him, holding up the one-word letter. 'Tonight.'

Mycroft's face turned dark. "When she's better, I'm going to lock her up somewhere."

John frowned. "Where?"

"An ivory tower, a jail cell, an underground bunker, somewhere. After I spank the living daylights out of her!" Mycroft decided. "Of all the stupid things for her to do!"

"Well, we all go through that stage. Think we know it all and those who raised us are the least intelligent people in Britain," Mrs. Hudson commented thoughtfully.

"That stage, done. She will have no more stages. Ever," Mycroft decided.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "She won't get away with this, I agree. She lied to all of us and not just in keeping this from us. She lied to our faces, assuring us everything was alright. Very clearly, it was not."

John nodded. "I completely agree. Let's just keep concentrating on the fact that she'll be alright for us to all have a go smacking that behind of hers. After an appropriate period of rest! Nobody is smacking anybody until she's well. Not until I clear it."

Mrs. Hudson chuckled. "Poor dear, she has no idea what she's in for."

"She is grounded for… the rest of her life," Sherlock decided. Discussing what they would do with her made him feel better; some sort of strange sense of assurance that she'd be alright. "And I'm going to do something very drastic, though I'm not entirely certain what that will be. Seriously drastic, something I've never done before and she will not like it."

"Who said you get to do anything?" Mycroft demanded. "I raised her!"

"And we agreed I was taking over on that score Mycroft!"

"Boys," Mrs. Hudson said sternly. "This is a hospital, keep your voices down. You can sort out who is doing what and when later. Now is not the time."

The Holmes brothers nodded, though they looked less than pleased about the fact that she had a point.

"She will be well, won't she?" Mrs. Hudson whispered to John.

"God I hope so. I've never been so scared in my entire life and I've been bloody shot in combat," John whispered back.

"It's always that way with our loved ones," she said knowingly.

A while later, Lestrade wandered into the waiting room with a tray of coffee. "How is she? Have you heard anything?"

"She's in surgery, that's all we know," John told him.

"He'd been stalking her for weeks Lestrade. Weeks. And she never told anyone," Sherlock explained. "Not a single one of us."

Lestrade let out a sigh and sat down in one of the chairs. "Kids today. Think themselves invincible. It's bloody annoying," he commented before taking a drink of his coffee. "She'll be alright though, yeah?"

All eyes turned to John once more for his opinion as a doctor. "She lost a lot of blood," John admitted. "And got stabbed in the chest; it went into her lung. That's about all I can tell you. I was just trying to stop the bleeding from her neck and chest and keep her calm." The terror in her eyes, the sounds of her struggling to get in enough oxygen, he'd never forget it.

"Things are uh… sorted out," Lestrade told Mycroft quietly. "You can pick up your gun in a few days." Lestrade knew damn well that the gun did not belong to Mycroft at all. He didn't even know if Mycroft knew how to shoot! He had his suspicions, but Mycroft at least had the government clearance to avoid problems over the incident, particularly in consideration of the circumstances. He was certain the gun belonged to either John or Sherlock, but wasn't going to ask either of them about it.

A set of doors opened and a doctor emerged, looked around, and came towards them. "Are you here for the stabbing victim?"

Sherlock nodded. "Our sister."

"How is she?" Mycroft asked.

"First, let me say that she'll be alright," the doctor said.

There was a huge sigh of relief the group let out, almost in tandem with one another.

"But she did have quite a bit of blood loss," the doctor continued. "An artery in her neck was nicked and the chest injury collapsed her lung. We went in and repaired the hole, and suctioned the air and fluid out to re-inflate the lung. She also required blood transfusions. There were also injuries to her arms and hands but are minor injuries, which have been sutured as needed. Everything else looks normal, her heart never stopped beating, she's stable, and will recover quite well, with minimal scaring."

"Can we see her?" Mycroft asked.

The doctor nodded. "She's out of recovery and we're moving her to a room. She isn't awake just yet and depending on how well she tolerates pain medication, she might sleep for a good while."

Sherlock nodded. "But she'll wake up?"

"Yes, she'll wake up. I have no doubt of that," the doctor assured him. "If you'll wait here just a few more minutes, I'll have a nurse bring you to her room. Family members only please. How many of you are family members?"

"Three, there's three of us," Sherlock stated firmly, indicating himself, Mycroft and John.

For a moment, the doctor looked a little doubtful; after all John looked nothing like them. Then he nodded. "Alright. Someone will be back out to get you in a few minutes."

The three men stayed huddled around Rose's bed inside her hospital room for hours, fighting the urge to sleep. Their bodies were tired, especially Sherlock's since it had been two days since he'd last slept. They couldn't rest, wouldn't rest, until Rose woke up. She'd woken up in the recovery room, the nurses had told them, but the medication they'd given her had put her right back out again, and so they waited.

Just before dawn Rose began to stir, her eyes fluttering open and closed a few times before the room came into focus. Her whole body tensed as she recalled the attack, trying to reconcile how she had gotten from that to this room, clearly in hospital. She tried to sit up and get her bearings about her, but a hand gently pushed her back down. She turned her head in the direction the hand had come from.

"Shhh," Mycroft soothed. "It's alright now, Rose. You're in hospital and we're all here with you. Lie down like a good girl. You've been hurt, but you're going to be just fine." He took her hand and squeezed it gently.

"I'm not dead?" Rose asked.

"No, you're not," Sherlock added, moving his chair closer to the bed.

John followed suit. "How are you, love? In any pain? You look so much better." When they'd first been taken to her room, Rose had been so pale it was alarming. Now she had some color in her cheeks again.

"You're ok!" Rose exclaimed upon seeing John. "You didn't get hurt? You're really alright?"

"Lie back down," Mycroft said firmly, pressing on her shoulder once more.

"Course I am," John replied. He reached out to gently rub Rose's cheek with his hand, smiling adoringly at her. He could hardly believe that she was here and alive and would be just fine. "You have no idea how glad we are that you're alright. You silly girl," he murmured, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

"Do you not see that I'm here John?" Sherlock asked impatiently as his friend leaned across him.

"Sorry," John responded, sitting back down.

Rose smiled softly in Sherlock's direction.

Sherlock scooted his chair over a bit to make it easier for John to sit by the bed, rather than lean over him in that obnoxious manner. Once that was completed he turned his full attention to Rose, looking her up and down, as if unable to be sure that she was okay. "Are you hurting? Feel any pain?"

"My head," she admitted, reaching up with her free hand to rub her forehead. That was when she caught sight of stitches and sutures on her arms and could feel something stitched on her forehead as well. "Oh my god," Rose whispered, looking absolutely horrified. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," she kept repeating.

Sherlock's heart broke for her as he watched her eyes widen and fill with terror as she saw some of her injuries for the first time. He reached out and began to stroke her hair. "Rose, you're alright. All that will heal. You're alright. No one is going to hurt you ever again," he said quietly.

"But he's out there! It's Mark, Sherlock, its Mark from the coffee shop by Scotland Yard! Don't let him come get me!" Rose pleaded, working herself into a panic.

"He's dead Rose. Mark is dead and won't hurt you or anyone else ever again," Sherlock said. His tone was sharp, trying to get her attention through her rising panic. He saw John get up and leave the room, but kept his focus on his sister. "Rose. Rosenwyn. You have to stop. You're alright, I promise you, you're alright."

As Rose started to cry, a nurse bustled in and put a sedative in her IV.

A few hours later, Rose woke up once again. She didn't feel disoriented or frightened this time. In fact, she felt warm and safe, almost as if she were being cuddled.

"Awake again?" John asked softly. "Your brothers fell asleep."

Rose looked up at him and discovered that she was in fact being cuddled. The empty bed in the room had been pushed up next to hers and John was sitting on it, leaning over slightly onto her bed and had an arm around her, cuddling her to his side.

"This is a nice way to wake up," she decided.

John smiled. "Good, that's what I was hoping for. I didn't want you waking up frightened again. Came up with the idea after your brothers left me to my thoughts."

"Will the nurses get on you about it?"

"Doubt it, so long as I move away when they need me to. Do you want me to wake Sherlock?" John asked. "I know he'd happily take my spot."

Rose looked over at both Sherlock and Mycroft. They were exhausted, and when Sherlock actually looked exhausted, that was saying something. "No, they should sleep. You're sure you're alright John? You didn't get hurt?"

"No, love, I didn't get hurt. Not even a scratch," he assured her.

She rested her head against his chest and fell silent for a moment. "Am I going to be okay? Truly ok? Am I going to be all scarred? Can I dance again?"

"Shh," John said firmly. "Slow down love, don't get upset. Yes, you will be fine and yes, you can dance again. You'll need to rest up a bit first so your body can recover, but you'll be alright. I don't think you'll end up with that many scars either. Nearly everything should heal nicely."

"Is he really dead?"

"He is, thank god," he told her emphatically before kissing the top of her head. "Try not to think about him, if you can. Don't force yourself to think about any of it. It'll all come back to you when it's ready and don't be frightened when it does. Sherlock, Mycroft and I are all here for you. We always are love, and it's easier for us to help you when you tell us there's a problem, yeah?" John kept his tone gentle and quiet, knowing there would be ample opportunity for scolding at a more appropriate time.

"So you found out," she murmured.

"We did, yeah," John confirmed. There was little sense in hiding it from her and if she needed to talk just then, it was better that she feel free to say whatever she wished, rather than worry about giving something away.

"I didn't know who it was," Rose admitted. "And I never would have thought it was Mark. He seemed so nice and I really thought he might be interested in me, you know? Louise did too. It never crossed my mind that he was the one texting me and writing me letters."

John's eyebrows went up. Determined to not upset Rose, he took a minute to calm himself before responding. "Someone was texting you as well?"

She nodded. "I blocked the number, and then the letters came."

He closed his eyes and felt a tremor of fear wash over him. She knew she'd been followed, she received texts in addition to letters, and she'd never told a soul. At any time, that lunatic could have taken her and done God knew what with her, and she would have been completely alone. John thanked his lucky stars that hadn't happened and he'd been there last night, when she'd needed someone the very most.

Rose looked up at him, watching with anxious eyes as a wealth of emotions played across his face. "John? Are you alright?"

"I'm realizing how lucky we are to still have you here with us," John responded truthfully. "So very, very lucky." He wanted to wrap both arms around her, hold her as tight as he could, and never let go.