86Author's Notes:
"Just how many second chances do you think we're going to get? What if this had really been the last?"
The strain is beginning to show on all of them. Mycroft is showing his heart. John is sitting at another bedside watching Sherlock hover on the brink, but this time it's more than his life at stake. Mary is sharing a secret with the most unlikely of confidantes. Changes are coming, and nothing will ever be the same.
This story begins with Sherlock leaving at the end of HLV and returning at the end of TAB, and it's my take on where series four is headed. It's the third part of a triology, but it stands on its own. Threads from Something Broken and Something Borrowed are included, but there is no requirement to read either of those before this one. If you haven't read those, I hope you enjoy this one enough to give them a look.
Seven days ago, Sherlock had killed Magnussen in front of John's horrified eyes, in full view of a dozen armed witnesses. The last time John had seen him, Sherlock was being pushed into a police van in handcuffs. There had been a flurry of news reports the next day about an unidentified attacker who had killed the billionaire media magnate in his home, but no mention of Sherlock. A few days later, it all faded from the headlines as if nothing had ever happened. Even the CAM News outlets stopped talking about the way their founder had died, and focused instead on memorializing his achievements. How that feat had been accomplished, John could only guess, because Mycroft wasn't telling him a goddamn thing.
John had no idea what had happened to Sherlock. He had called Mycroft's personal mobile phone almost hourly for the first couple of days, but there had been no response, and John's worry was consuming him. He had tried working at the surgery, but couldn't focus on anything but his silent phone. He had quickly fallen into a pattern of going to bed with Mary, then getting up again as soon as she was asleep to slip downstairs and sit in his armchair, staring blindly at whatever was on telly until exhaustion closed his eyes. Last night, even that had failed him. Sometime after four a.m., he had given up and moved to the sofa to force himself to rest.
What felt like seconds later, he woke in daylight to the sound of Mary's voice and the gentle touch of her hand on his shoulder.
"John? Mycroft Holmes wants to talk to you."
He sat bolt upright, instantly awake, and nearly knocked Mary off balance as he swung his legs to the floor. He held one hand out for the phone, rubbing at his crusty eyes with the other.
"No, John. He's here." She glanced over her shoulder. Mycroft was standing stiffly on the other side of the room.
He could think of only one reason for Mycroft to be here in person, and his chest went cold with dread. "What's happened?"
Mycroft looked pained at his question. John felt Mary's hand return to his shoulder and squeeze. It had the opposite effect from the comfort she'd meant to offer because it told him she knew what was coming. He took a shaky breath. "Mycroft, where is Sherlock?"
Mycroft and Mary exchanged a look. Something passed between them, and confirmed his impression. She knows, and it's bad. "I'll be out here, if you need me." She went into the kitchen and closed the door.
Mycroft walked to the armchair next to the sofa and sat down. "Nothing has happened to Sherlock. He wanted me to tell you that he's fine."
All of the tension of the past week, the helpless, unrelenting anguish, coalesced into a dark fury that threatened to overwhelm him. "Seven fucking days without a word, and you show up here to tell me he's fine? What kind of an idiot do you think I am?" He held up a hand. "No, don't bother. You've always made that crystal clear, and right now, I couldn't care less about your bloody opinion of me. I need to see Sherlock. Today."
"That is precisely why I'm here. I will be sending a car for you later this afternoon. He wants to tell you goodbye."
John's mouth went dry. "What do you mean, 'goodbye'?"
"There won't be a court case. I've called in a favor, and he's to be exiled instead. Permanently. You won't see him after this. None of us will. It was his choice, John. You must abide by it."
Mycroft's calm certainty flipped the switch, and John's control was gone. "Like hell, I will! Don't tell me there's nothing you can do! Call in a better favor, for Christ's sake! Say he was temporarily insane, which has to be the truth anyway. He killed a man in front of armed witnesses. If that's not insanity, I don't know what would be. You can't let him do this." He ducked his head and closed his eyes, breathing hard to dissipate the rush of adrenaline that was making his hands clench into fists. When he looked up, Mycroft was watching him calmly, one eyebrow lifted at his emotional outburst. It reminded him so much of Sherlock that he wanted to scream.
"John, you know as well as I do that prison would kill him as surely as an executioner's noose, but much more painfully. This way, he will be able to work. It's the best we can do."
John shook his head, jabbing a finger a foot from Mycroft's face. "It's not even close to the best you can do, and you know it. You're the British Government, for fuck's sake. You can't let this happen. This is my fault. Tell them it was my fault. I'll tell them it was my fault. I put him up to it. I-" He broke off and took a breath. "It was my gun. I should have known. I should have..." The list of his failures was endless.
"Making yourself culpable would serve only to render my brother's sacrifice pointless. The car will be here at three o'clock to take you to the airstrip. Pull yourself together, John. Do it for Sherlock. He doesn't have a choice, and neither do you. Don't make it harder for him than it already is."
John felt the anger drain away. "You can't let this happen." He barely recognized his own voice.
Mycroft stood up. "There's nothing I can do. The car will be here at three." He turned and walked out of the house.
A moment later, Mary came out of the kitchen. "John, are you alright?"
He didn't look at her. She didn't need to see what he knew had to be in his eyes. "I'm fine." It might be the biggest lie he had ever told.
Mary waited until she heard the shower running before she took out the untraceable phone that had been hidden away for more than five years. The one she had nearly thrown away a year ago because the life she had found with John had lulled her into believing that the past would never touch her again. She was about to destroy her last cover identity, but the alternative was unthinkable.
Mycroft had called her before he'd arrived this morning, and told her what Sherlock's exile would mean. It was a suicide mission, and Sherlock knew it. She had felt her heart break for John. For all of them. "You can't tell John."
"I don't intend to. I'm telling you because you need to know what is coming. John will require all the support you can provide when the inevitable happens. Telling him the truth now would be... counterproductive." Mycroft had exhaled audibly. "And I want you to know that our arrangement is nullified, for obvious reasons."
Their arrangement had been forged in Mycroft's sedan parked in front of the hospital the morning after she had nearly killed Sherlock in Magnussen's office. She had agreed to use her skills to protect Sherlock, and to keep Mycroft informed of his brother's activities. Her position in Sherlock's inner circle would give her access that he had admitted his surveillance had consistently failed to achieve.
Mycroft's part of the bargain had been a guarantee of safety for as long as she complied, and to promise that the consequences of failure would be swift and inescapable.
His voice over the phone had softened. "Sherlock has secured your freedom at a cost you can never repay. I do hope you will make the most of the life he's given back to you."
She had been unable to speak. A moment later, Mycroft had ended the call. Five minutes later, he had arrived at her door to talk to John.
She could not allow this to happen. The person she was about to contact would be bound to reveal that he had heard from her. It would only be a matter of time before they found her. She would deal with the consequences later. Right now, she had one goal in mind. Keep Sherlock from being sent away. Whatever it would cost her came a distant second to keeping John from that kind of pain. Mycroft was right. If John lost Sherlock again, not even she would be able to save him.
John had given her the idea. He told her that Sherlock had shot Magnussen in the head in front of twenty armed witnesses, all of them law enforcement officers of one type or another.
"Mary, there's no way out of it. Not even Mycroft can help him now. He might just as well have invited a news crew to broadcast it live. Let the whole bloody country watch."
She dialed the number and waited for the international call to connect. She needed to create a threat that was dangerous to the entire country. One that was immediately visible to everyone at the same time, and one that Sherlock was uniquely suited to address. There was very little time to set it up, but she knew someone who could do it. And it needed to happen before that plane took off.
Mycroft was doing his best to follow the advice he'd given John Watson a few hours ago, but it was proving to be more difficult than he had ever imagined. He was driving his own brother to his execution. At some point in the next six months, Sherlock would die. The mission he would be undertaking made that outcome a virtual certainty. And he would die alone.
Sherlock was quiet, sitting against the door as far from Mycroft as he could manage. Looking out at the passing countryside, and surely seeing none of it.
They had spent the past twelve hours tying up loose ends. Sherlock had updated his will, leaving everything to John and his child. There would be the matter of proving Sherlock's death, which could be difficult. Sherlock had insisted that Mycroft make every effort to have his body found and returned to England. He wanted John to have proof this time. John would be shocked by the value of Sherlock's estate. It had all been placed into trusts to keep him from using it for drugs, long past the point where that had been necessary. Sherlock simply didn't care about the money. It amounted to more than three million pounds at this point. John's family would be well cared for. Mycroft had casually suggested that the will be amended to include the child, and Sherlock had agreed without asking why. Mycroft would not have been able to tell him the reason, if he had. Sherlock did not need to know that he doubted John would survive him by more than a few months, if that.
Mycroft had told his brother that he'd gone to see John, but he'd omitted how upset John had been. Sherlock certainly knew that John would be affected by this, but he had never understood how much John actually cared about him. That was a blessing now.
He had tried for most of Sherlock's life to protect him from the consequences of emotional involvement and the dangerous vulnerability that came with it. He had succeeded quite well until John Watson entered the equation. In retrospect, Mycroft could clearly trace the path of destruction to its origin, and see his own hand in letting it happen. There had been warnings, and he had ignored them all. He had allowed himself to feel gratitude for Watson having saved Sherlock's life, when what he should have done was recognize the reason Sherlock had taken such a risk. Mycroft believed Sherlock's attempt to take down Jeff Hope alone had, for the first time, been about wanting another human being's approval. John Watson was the only person who had ever honestly admired Sherlock's abilities. He had become, over those first few days, the only person in the world whose opinion seemed to matter to Sherlock. Every decision Sherlock would make from that moment on would be influenced by how it might affect John, or John's opinion of him. Murdering Charles Magnussen had been Sherlock's ultimate sacrifice for John's safety, which included the safety of his wife and child. He had traded the rest of his life for John's, and there was nothing Mycroft could do now to change it. The knowledge that he had failed his brother so completely would torture him for the rest of his days.
"There is a point where guilt becomes self-indulgence. You're not omnipotent, Mycroft. Get over it."
Mycroft looked over at Sherlock, slightly startled to hear his voice. He was still looking at the window. "This from the man who threw his life away for a friend."
Sherlock turned to look at him then. He smiled. "He's a really good friend."
The deep emotion in his brother's eyes stunned him. That Sherlock was allowing him to see it said just how close to the brink he truly was. "Letting down your guard now is the worst possible thing you could do to John."
Sherlock turned back to the window. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do."
Sherlock rested his head against the window and closed his eyes.
Mycroft watched his brother silently. Time was running out, and there was so much he wanted to say. He cleared his throat softly, testing his voice. "Sherlock." He waited until Sherlock met his gaze. "I need you to tell me clearly that this is truly what you want. We could still go back and take our chances with the legal process. You might even find a jury who would understand. Prison for a time-"
"No." Sherlock turned and locked his gaze with Mycroft's. "This is the way it was always going to end. It's what I want now."
Realization hit Mycroft like a physical blow. "You expected to be killed when you pulled that trigger."
Sherlock's smile was chilling. "Your men have alarmingly slow reflexes. You might want to consider a refresher course in tactical response."
John was wrong. It had not been an act of insanity. It was surrender. Whatever hope he'd had that Sherlock would somehow manage to prove him wrong and come out of this mission alive had just evaporated. He didn't want to come out of it alive. He never had.
"Sherlock, I-"
"Don't. Just leave it, Mycroft. It's over."
They reached the plane ten minutes before John's car arrived. Mycroft watched Sherlock's entire demeanor change when John stepped out of the car. It was the last time he would see his brother smile, and it shattered his heart.
When John came out of the shower, he found that Mary had laid out his clothes for him. She had meant it as a kindness, but it felt like a slap. It made him realize how pathetic he must seem to her now, and it gave back him the clarity he had lost the instant Sherlock's bullet had shattered Magnussen's skull. He took hold of the guilt that was paralyzing him and redirected it. Anger was harder to control, but it got his brain moving again. Nothing that had happened made sense to him, and he now had very little time to figure it out.
Sherlock had killed Magnussen because he'd run out of options. Mycroft had let him be arrested because he needed time to devise a proper response, one that he could hardly have been expected to come up with in the immediate aftermath. Witnessing his brother commit murder had to have affected even Mycroft's unflappable thought processes. He had told John this morning that there was only one option open to them, and there was nothing he could do to change that. John hadn't believed him, but he was beginning to wonder if Sherlock had fooled them both.
This would hardly be the first time Sherlock had withheld a plan from him. It wouldn't even be the first time he'd disappeared 'forever'. So there was every reason to believe that the same thing was happening now.
Even if Sherlock had wanted to tell him what was going on, when would he have been able to do it? He had been in custody, or under Mycroft's watchful eye, since it happened. This afternoon's meeting would be his first chance to let John in on it. Sherlock would pull him aside and tell him what to do, and this nightmare would end.
By the time Mycroft's car delivered them to the airstrip, John was so convinced that this was a ruse that he was rehearsing in his head how best to tell Sherlock what a bastard he was for putting him through this again.
The car pulled up on the tarmac a few paces from where Sherlock was standing next to Mycroft. John got out and walked around the car to join his wife. Suddenly he was in no hurry to move any closer, and he stopped at Mary's side. Something in Sherlock's posture seemed too controlled. Too formal. He hesitated.
Mary didn't wait for him. She headed straight for Sherlock and wrapped him in a hug. That almost made John smile. Sherlock hugged her back, and that did make him smile. The two people he loved most in the world, sharing a good bye hug.
No. Not good bye. John squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. He walked over to join them.
Mary kissed Sherlock's cheek, and he kissed her back. They exchanged a few words that made them both smile, but their expressions sobered as soon as they broke contact. Mary came back to John's side and took his hand.
Sherlock turned to his brother. "Since this is likely to be the last conversation I'll have with John Watson, would you mind if we took a moment?"
Mary and Mycroft walked away, and Sherlock looked directly at him for the first time. There was something in Sherlock's gaze that made John want to look elsewhere. Both of them seemed suddenly awkward, and it made John's certainty waver a bit.
The silence was unbearable. John took a breath. "So, here we are." Come on, give me a clue.
"William Sherlock Scott Holmes."
For some reason, John's brain supplied an unhelpful memory. U.M.Q.R.A. As clues went, what Sherlock had just said was equally cryptic. "Sorry?"
"That's the whole of it. If you were looking for baby names."
John suppressed an impulse to give his head a clearing shake. It was so far from what he was expecting that he chuckled. "We've had a scan. We're pretty sure it's a girl."
Sherlock smiled. "Oh. Okay."
John glanced at Mycroft and Mary, wondering if they were still too close for Sherlock to be able to speak freely. They could start walking, but Mycroft would probably tackle them. The silence stretched, increasing the tension. John cleared his throat. "Actually, I can't think of a single thing to say." Because it's your bloody turn. Tell me what to do.
Sherlock dropped his gaze. "No, neither can I."
They were running out of time. John stepped closer and lowered his voice. "The game is over." There's your opening. Get on with it, for God's sake.
Sherlock's gaze came up and fixed on his. "The game is never over, John."
Thank Christ. Now tell me what to do. Even in his head, it was starting to take on an edge of desperation that was making his heart pound.
"But there may be some new players now. That's okay. The East Wind takes us all in the end," Sherlock continued the thought.
John asked him what he was talking about, but he barely listened to the answer. He was busy regrouping. Obviously, there was not going to be a daring escape here. Not with Mycroft hovering nearby. John gave himself a mental slap for not thinking this through. It must be something that would take place after the plane took off. Maybe an unscheduled landing. Sherlock would contact him then, and-
"He was a rubbish big brother." Sherlock glanced at Mycroft.
He really, really needed to get confirmation of some kind. "So what about you, then. Where are you actually going now?"
"Oh, some undercover work in Eastern Europe."
John recognized the exaggeratedly bored tone, and his heart rate kicked up. "For how long?"
"Six months, my brother estimates. He's never wrong." Flat. No eye contact.
"And then what?" Lying. Why is he still holding to this story?
There was real pain in Sherlock's eyes in the seconds before he looked up to break contact. "Who knows?" His lips were pressed tight.
No. Don't.
"John, there's something I should say. I-I've meant to say always and never have. Since it's unlikely we'll ever meet again, I might as well say it now."
Sherlock held his gaze for a moment, then looked down. John blew out a shaky breath, and Sherlock pulled one in. Maybe the same one.
"Sherlock is actually a girl's name." He smiled at his own joke.
John chuckled softly at his own stupidity. Said the most neutral thing he could come up with. "We're not naming our daughter after you."
In the end, it didn't matter what words they used. John had seen it all in his eyes, and there was no longer any question that it was the truth. Sherlock knew he wasn't coming back, and now John knew it, too.
This is the way the world ends.
He couldn't imagine five minutes from now, let alone the weeks that remained before his daughter would enter a world that would no longer include the man standing in front of him. She would never know him, or what he'd meant to her father. No matter what he told her, she could never understand.
And then Sherlock was holding out his hand. The only other time they had done this was in front of Baker Street, the first time.
"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't even know your name."
"Mr. Holmes."
"Sherlock, please."
And suddenly, all of the memories were there, flooding his mind and blocking out what was happening in front of him.
"To the very best of times."
Sherlock was still offering his hand. John took it, and held on.
When I let go of his hand, it's over.
Sherlock gave his hand one final squeeze, and let go. He turned and walked to the plane, mounted the steps, and disappeared. He never looked back.
John stood there with the world crashing down around him. Mary came to his side and took his hand, then pulled him to the edge of the tarmac. Mycroft got into his car, and the plane lifted off.
"John, it's time to go home."
Home just left on a jet to nowhere.
It had been right in front of him all along. Sherlock was right. He truly was an idiot. A blind idiot. And he had just wasted his last chance.
As always, John, you see but you don't observe.
He wondered how long it would take before Mary realized that she was left with an empty husk. Welcome to the world, little daughter. Your parents are a semi-reformed assassin and a hollow shell. Happy birthday.
"I want to talk to Mycroft." He wanted the violin. And the skull. And his heart back. He wondered if Mycroft still had any part of his own.
But before they reached the car, Mycroft was getting out, and the expression on his face stopped John dead in his tracks. "What's happened?"
He heard only the first few words. Moriarty was alive. Apparently. Mary asked him how that could be, and he said something back that he would never be able to remember. His entire focus was the plane in the distance, coming closer. Coming back. The rush of emotion made him dizzy. Exhilaration. Relief like nothing he'd felt since the last near miss, but this was nearer than anything that had gone before. The impossibility of Moriarty actually coming back to wreak havoc was barely a footnote. John would never again let Sherlock face him alone. Not Moriarty. Not anyone.
The plane was on the tarmac. Gliding past them to the other end of the strip. Turning around and coming back to where it had been ten minutes before. As if nothing had ever happened.
The flight attendant opened the door and lowered the stairs, then stepped back out of sight. Less than a minute later, he reappeared, caught Mycroft's eye, and beckoned with some urgency.
They found Sherlock still buckled into his seat looking agitated. And a little glassy-eyed, the more John looked at him.
And obviously far less pleased to be back than John was to have him back. If anything, he seemed royally pissed. What he was saying made no sense, as Mary quickly pointed out. Something about solving a cold case from a hundred years ago that would somehow explain Moriarty's return. He had been immersed in his Mind Palace and nearly had the answer before he was so rudely interrupted.
Mary sat down in the seat facing Sherlock and picked up a mobile phone from the ledge. She read the screen for a few seconds. "You've been reading John's blog. The story of how you met." She smiled at both of them.
It sidetracked Sherlock for a moment. "Helps me if I see myself through his eyes sometimes. I'm so much cleverer."
Of course Sherlock would mask the only positive thing he'd ever said about the much-maligned blog with a purely practical explanation. But John heard the sentiment behind it and ducked his head to hide his reaction.
Mycroft sat down across the aisle from Mary, watching his brother with an increasingly grim expression. Suddenly, he was as angry as John had ever seen him. He demanded a list of everything Sherlock had taken, and John jumped instantly to Sherlock's defense. He had seen Sherlock do this hundreds of times, go into his Mind Palace and come up with the solution to a problem that no one else could ever have imagined. Mycroft was wrong. It couldn't be drugs because of course if Sherlock was on drugs now and John had missed it, what else had slipped his notice while they were living under the same bloody roof for the past four months?
Sherlock produced a folded sheet of paper and tossed it in Mycroft's general direction. John bent down and picked it up. In Sherlock's familiar handwriting, neatly laid out in practical bullet points, were drugs, dosages, and times. Heroin. Ketamine. LSD. Cocaine. Shock dropped John into the nearest seat. He looked at Mycroft. "He couldn't have taken all this in the past five minutes."
Mycroft looked at Sherlock. "He was high before he got on the plane."
"He didn't look high," Mary said without looking up from her phone. She had started typing furiously into it midway through Sherlock's rant.
"No one deceives like an addict." Mycroft directed this to Sherlock who rolled his eyes.
"I'm not an addict, I'm a user. I alleviate boredom, and occasionally heighten my thought processes."
Sherlock dismissing what he'd done as both inconsequential and routine sent John over the edge. "This could kill you! You could die!"
"Controlled usage is not usually fatal, and abstinence is not immortality."
John stared at him in stunned disbelief. Could Sherlock really think so little of his own life that he would risk it on a virtual coin toss? 'Not usually fatal'. As if the outcome didn't matter.
He could hear Mycroft and Mary talking about what she was finding on her phone, but John was suddenly focused on trying to assess Sherlock's status without getting right in his face and doing a full evaluation. It would probably come to that shortly, but John's brain was struggling to right itself in the face of the incomprehensible. He looked down at the list he was still holding. If Sherlock had really taken all of this, even over the past hour, let alone the past ten minutes, he was in serious danger. They should be calling an ambulance before it all caught up with him. They-
"John, he's out." Mary position in the seat facing Sherlock gave her the best view of Sherlock's face. She was on her feet, shaking him by the shoulder and calling his name.
John was leaning over him, two fingers on his carotid pulse. It was strong, if a bit fast. "Count his breaths," but Mary was ahead of him, her palm against his chest.
"Twelve," she said a moment later. "His color is good. I think he-"
Sherlock abruptly pulled in a sharp breath and startled both of them into pulling back. He opened his eyes, and they were even more glassy than before. His wobbly gaze focused vaguely on Mary, then up at Mycroft. When his head turned lazily to the left, he saw John and smiled. "Miss me?"
"Sherlock, are you alright?" Alarm tightened John's grip on the seatback because the answer was obvious.
The smile turned to an irritated smirk. "Yes, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"
Mary spoke for them all. "Because you've probably just OD'd. You should be in hospital."
"No time." Sherlock got woozily to his feet and side-stepped into the aisle. "I have to go to Baker Street now. Moriarty's back." He gave an imperious sniff, and started to push past Mycroft.
Mycroft showed no inclination to let him through. "I almost hope he is, if it will save you from this." He held up the note.
Sherlock scowled and snatched the note from Mycroft's hand, then ripped it in half twice and let the pieces fall to the floor. "No need for that now. Got the real thing. I have work to do." He tried again to get around his brother.
The short bursts of words were not like Sherlock at all, and John's alarm kicked up another notch.
Mycroft held his ground. "Promise me, Sherlock."
Sherlock pulled back and blinked at him. "What are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be off somewhere getting me a pardon or something? Like a proper big brother?" He pushed past and headed for the door with Mary on his heels.
John glanced at Mycroft, but the pain in the man's eyes made it a very brief glance. He had never imagined he could feel pity for the imperious British Government but at this moment, Mycroft Holmes was simply a human being who was hurting badly and making no attempt to hide it. A burst of empathy, and shame for the way Sherlock was treating his brother, put a painful tightness in his throat.
Mycroft stepped aside to let him pass, then called his name as he reached the door. John turned.
"Look after him. Please?"
All he could manage was a nod.
He caught up to Sherlock at the car.
"Hang on. Explain. Moriarty's alive?"
Sherlock turned around, pulling on his gloves. "I didn't say he was alive. I said he was back."
"So, he's dead?" Mary asked.
"Of course, he's dead. He blew his own brains out. No one survives that. I just went to the trouble of an overdose to prove it." He had the decency to shoot a guilty look in John's direction, then followed it with a small smile. "Moriarty is dead. No question. But more importantly, I know exactly what he's going to do next." He walked briskly around the car, heading for the passenger door which was standing open.
John slid into the back with Sherlock, and Mary got in front with the driver. She turned in her seat to look at John, clearly transmitting concern. Sherlock's burst of lucidity was too abrupt a change in too short a time. It was not likely to be the end of it.
The car barely made it to the end of the tarmac before it happened. Sherlock turned toward John with a look of growing confusion. "John?" His eyes unfocused, rolled back, and closed. An instant later, he went completely limp and fell sideways into John's shoulder.
"Stop the car!" Mary and John shouted it almost at the same instant, and the tires screeched on the tarmac throwing all of them forward. Sherlock would have fallen to the floor if John hadn't grabbed him.
John opened the door and got out, grabbing Sherlock under his arms and pulling him flat on the seat while Mary opened the door on the opposite side and leaned in to help.
"Call Mycroft," John barked, feeling Sherlock's carotid racing under his fingers. He bent down and put his ear against Sherlock's chest to listen to his breathing and his pounding heart.
Mycroft's car pulled up next to them a moment later. He came quickly to Mary's side and bent down to talk to John. "I have a kit in my car. Naloxone. Do you need it?"
John checked Sherlock's eyes. The pupils were constricted to pinpoints now, unmistakable evidence of an opiate overdose. "Christ yes." When Mycroft came back with the kit, John snatched it from his hand. "Call an ambulance. He's in serious trouble."
Finding a usable vein wasn't easy. John took a syringe from the kit, pulled the cap from the needle with his teeth, and spat it on the floor. Sherlock's pulse was rapid and thready now, and his respiration was falling. "You're an idiot," he hissed as he injected the Naloxone then dropped the used syringe on the floor. "A bloody idiot. If you die on me, I will kill you." He glanced up at Mary and found her looking at her watch, timing the injection response.
"Two minutes," she said, just as Sherlock began to move his head from side to side.
John leaned down until his lips were almost touching Sherlock's ear. "Sherlock, look at me. Open your eyes."
Mycroft made a short, staccato call, then informed John, "Air ambulance. Ten minutes."
"Sherlock, it's John. Look at me." He put two fingers on the carotid pulse and found it stronger, but still too fast. "Sherlock, goddammit look at me."
Sherlock's eyelids fluttered. Opened. Gazed dreamily up at the car's headliner. "John." He smile faintly, and his eyes started to close.
The naloxone should have sent him into instant withdrawal. There was clearly more than heroin at work here. John took hold of his shoulders and squeezed hard. "No, stay awake. The ambulance will be here any minute. You have to stay awake."
A wisp of a smile, and a voice that was alarmingly frail, "Can't."
He was out again. John grabbed the kit from the back window ledge and extracted a second syringe, cursing softly under his breath as he searched for a place to stick it.
An eternity later, Sherlock looked up at him again.
"Keep your eyes open." It was less an order than a prayer.
By the time the red HEMS helicopter landed, he'd already had to give a third injection, and Sherlock was awake enough to argue the need for assistance.
"Fine." He made a totally uncoordinated attempt to sit up.
John pressed him back down with one hand. "You're nowhere close to fine." So far from it, in fact, that it was scaring the hell out of him.
The medics rolled the trolley up to the car and wasted no time getting Sherlock strapped onto it as John gave them a quick report of their patient's condition. "I'm coming with you." He glanced back at Mary and Mycroft.
"We'll follow in my car."
The pilot called back to John as they lifted off. "Fifteen minutes."
It took several attempts in both arms before they could find a vein to get a cannula into him. John winced at the tell-tale track marks and wondered how on earth he could have been so fucking blind. The medics had to give Sherlock another two doses of naloxone before they landed on the helipad at Royal London. Sherlock was awake enough to make it clear that he didn't want to go wherever they were taking him, but he was already fading out again.
He tried to sit up on the stretcher as they were wheeling him into the building.
"You're not going anywhere. Lie still," was all John could get out through clenched teeth as he pushed him back onto the trolley. The idiocy of what the man had done to himself was incomprehensible.
When they reached the resuscitation room, John waited as the helicopter medics handed over their patient, and Sherlock was being slid from the ambulance trolley to the resus room trolley before he gave the doctor his own report.
The doctor frowned at his patient. "He has a history of substance abuse?" He raised an eyebrow at John. Of course, Sherlock looked nothing like a typical junkie, if there even was such a thing anymore.
"Yes." The healed, and fresh, track marks would soon make that obvious.
John stood back, out of the way while the orchestrated chaos played out before him. Reaction was starting to set in, and his knees felt distinctly untrustworthy. He could hear what was being said, but he refused to believe it.
You're quite practiced at that, John. Refusing to accept the obvious.
Familiar terms were being shouted out by the medical team which John's brain was struggling to process. 'Type 2 respiratory failure, RSI, rocuronium, hypotension, VT, and then the familiar beep beep beep of a charging defib and the 'stand clear' that came before the shock that John's body reacted to with a jolt of adrenaline he did not need.
"Sir, you'll have to step out of the room."
John kept his eyes on Sherlock for as long as he could, then pushed through the doors and walked numbly out into the hall.
When Mycroft and Mary rushed in thirty minutes later, they found him leaning against the wall in the A&E lobby, facing the door.
Mary put her hands on his shoulders. "John, how is he?"
Mycroft was standing behind her, and John addressed his response to him. "He went into VTach a few minutes after we got here. They had to shock him twice to break him out of it."
"But he's alive," Mycroft said quietly.
John looked at him. "Yeah, he's alive. What shape he'll be in if he manages to stay that way is anybody's guess."
End of chapter one
A/N - I have the best beta team in existence: sevenpercent, Jolie Black, kate221b, ThessalyMc, and Amanda. This story has inspired quite a bit of debate amongst them so far, and I expect that to continue. I do love to keep things lively. Any mistakes are mine. The gold belongs to them. - GhyllWyne
