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One.
There are three things about St Bart's Hospital that John learns within his first month of working there.
First, the best coffee within walking distance of St Bart's is at a cafe about five minutes away. This is common knowledge among the hospital staff and the medical students, and as medical students are capable of consuming an insane amount of coffee, it is very dangerous to visit said cafe between the hours of 8:30 and 9:30 in the morning (unless you are willing to stand in a long queue of tired-looking medical students).
Second, there are certain foods in the cafeteria that should not be consumed prior to working in the morgue. The fact that John has seen gruesome injuries while serving as an army doctor in Afghanistan does not mean he has a strong stomach.
And third, if Molly Hooper, the pathologist who works down in the morgue looks red and flustered, it means that the police – and, more correctly, one particular individual who works with the police but is not a policeman himself – are examining a body.
John learns the third fact late one Tuesday afternoon, shortly before his shift ends and he is to go home for the day. He is helping Mike Stamford, one of the teachers, pack up, and it is by sheer chance that Mike sends him to return some equipment to the morgue at the same time that the police are there.
He pushes open the door with his shoulder, arms full of equipment. The sound of the door grabs the attention of three of the four people in the room. The first is Molly Hooper, the aforementioned pathologist. The second is a silvery-haired gentleman, who is clearly a police officer (as indicated by the shiny badge on his belt). The third is another unfamiliar man, with dark hair and bright eyes. If he is also a police officer, his shiny badge must be hidden by his long coat.
(The fourth person, whose attention John does not grab, is dead.)
"Sorry," John apologises quickly, gesturing with his chin to the equipment that he is carrying. "I just wanted to return this. I didn't mean to interrupt."
The dark-haired man – the one without a visible police badge – looks John up and down briefly before turning back to the body on the table. He is in the process of examining the corpse's feet with a small, pocket-sized magnifying glass. "Bit of an unusual career progression, isn't it?" he asks as he peers through the magnifying glass. "From an army doctor to a lab technician?"
John frowns, pausing mid-step to the table where he is to return the equipment. "How did you know I was..." he starts, but he doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence.
"You're going to want to visit the gallery. Find out who forged the Lost Vermeer painting."
The silvery-haired man starts, visibly surprised by the statement, and he takes a step back. "What? What's that got to do with our John Doe?" He gestures to the man on the table.
As he speaks, the dark-haired man is pulling his phone out of his pocket, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Our John Doe," he says, "is Alex Woodbridge. The Hickman Gallery reported him missing this morning."
"What?" says the silvery-haired man. "How do you know?"
The dark-haired man rolls his eyes. "As ever, Lestrade, the intelligence of Scotland Yard's finest astounds me." He gestures to the man on the table, and then to what John assumes is the man's clothing and any other belongings he had on his person when his body was discovered. "Uniform, belt, varicose veins – it's obvious he's a security guard. Ticket stubs in his pockets tell us that he worked in a museum or a gallery, and the Hickman Gallery reported one of their attendants missing this morning. Hardly a difficult leap."
"And what's that got to do with the painting?"
For a moment, the dark-haired man stares at the one he had called Lestrade with an expression of incredulity on his face. "Dear God," he says slowly. "What is it like in your head? It must be so boring."
Lestrade lets out a sigh. "Just explain it," he says tersely.
The other man gestures again to the body. "This wasn't a crime of passion, certainly not a spur of the moment attack. Look at the bruising pattern – Woodbridge was strangled to death by someone very large and very strong. Have you ever heard of the Golem?"
"The what?"
"It's the name of an assassin. Based off a Jewish folk story – a giant man made out of clay. The assassin kills people by quite literally squeezing the life out of them. This," – he gestures to the body – "is his signature style. Now, why would someone hire an assassin to kill a security guard from an art gallery? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The Lost Vermeer painting is being unveiled tonight. Woodbridge must have known something about the painting, something that would destroy the unveiling, that would stop the owner from getting paid thirty million pounds. Obvious. The painting's a fake."
These words tumbled out of the man's mouth quickly, with barely a pause for breath in between. When the man finally stops talking, the only thing that follows is a moment of awe-struck silence. John thinks he might be gaping. John knows he is not the only one gaping.
"Bloody hell," Lestrade says after a pause.
The other man simply rolls his eyes. "Come on," he says. "Let's go pay the gallery a visit."
Then he's turning, heading out the door, with Lestrade hot on his heels. He barely glances at John or Molly as he passes. It's only when the door swings shut behind him that John notices the pile of equipment that is still in his arms and remembers why he had come down here in the first place.
He turns to Molly, a question on his lips about what had just happened, what he had just seen and who in the world that strange man had been. However, when he turns, he finds Molly is gazing at the door out of which the two men had just exited. Her cheeks are pink and there is an unmistakable expression of longing on her face. John feels like he is intruding even just to draw her attention away from her current thoughts. Instead, he pretends not to see. He puts the equipment away and disappears from the room.
Two.
The second time John encounters the strange, dark-haired madman is a couple of weeks later. This meeting is not quite as remarkable, but at least it answers quite a few questions.
It is lunch time, and John is heading up to find Mike Stamford in one of the teaching labs. They had agreed to take lunch together when they both took a break. When he pushes open the door to the lab, he almost walks straight into the dark-haired man from two weeks ago. He stumbles backwards with an apology, but the man does not seem to have noticed John at all.
"If that explodes, text me," the dark-haired man is saying – not to John, but to Mike, who is still sitting in the lab.
"If it explodes," says Mike, "and makes a mess of my lab, I'm going to be doing more than just texting you."
The man's lips twitch slightly – it might be a ghost of a smile, or maybe just a facial spasm. Without another word, he turns – seemingly only then noticing that John is standing in the doorway – and he looks John over briefly before stepping past him and into the hall. Despite their interaction consisting of absolutely no words, John feels like the man, in that split second of eye contact, saw straight through John, straight into John's mind. John isn't sure what to think about that. He shakes his head to dismiss the thought from his mind.
"Ready?" Mike asks, breaking through John's thought process, and he turns away from the now-empty hall to face his friend. He nods his head, holding open the door so Mike can fall into step beside him.
"Hey, who was that guy?" John asks as they walk down the hall. "I saw him in the morgue the other day."
"Sherlock Holmes," Mike replies, and then a knowing smile comes across his face. "Why? Did he take one look at you and tell you your whole life story?"
It's not exactly correct – he had known that John had gone from an army doctor to a lab technician, but he hadn't known any more than that. At least, he had not said any more than that. However, John saw the kinds of details he was able to get from the body at the morgue and the few belongings that had been on his person when his body had been found. John got the impression that, if this man had wanted to, he probably could have told John's entire life story just as easily. "Something like that," he says to Mike.
"He does that," Mike says. "He's very good at reading people. Scarily good, actually." A beat, and then Mike adds, "He also has an unfortunate tendency of telling people exactly what he thinks when he looks at them. He doesn't know when to stop talking."
"Who is he?" John asks. "Is he a detective?"
"Yes and no. He's not technically a detective, but he works as one. Works with Scotland Yard, but only when he wants to. Only when he finds a case that is particularly interesting."
"And the police just let him do that? Pick and choose between cases?"
"Of course. With talents like his, why would anyone say no to him?"
John hums in understanding, even though he's not sure he really understands at all. After a moment, he asks, "He uses the labs here too?"
"From time to time," Mike says. "He's convinced he's faster than Scotland Yard's forensic team, so he's always taking samples to analyse here. I'd think his ego was too big if I haven't seen how quickly he works. Sometimes he just does experiments here too. He swears that it's all in the name of science and crime solving, but I think he does it just for fun. Kind of like a child with a volcano made out of baking soda and vinegar, just a bit more dangerous."
"He said it might explode."
Mike chuckles. "Don't worry. That's only actually happened twice before."
Three.
John pushes open the door to the morgue.
The man who he now knows is named Sherlock Holmes is there, already inside. He is beating a corpse with a riding crop.
John turns around and exits the morgue.
Four.
When John gets out of the cab late Thursday morning, he realises he can see a figure on the roof of St Bart's. He cannot make out who it is, but it seems that there is someone sitting on the ledge. It is not a sight that John is willing to just ignore. He would much rather go up there and see if everything is okay.
He climbs the stairs and pushes the door to the roof open. It's one of London's rarer clear days, cool but not freezing. He realises once he is on the roof that the figure on the ledge is Sherlock Holmes; he can recognise the familiar silhouette even from behind. Tendrils of smoke curl through the air as he exhales, and John sees a cigarette in his hand.
John does not slam the door shut behind him, not wanting to take Sherlock by surprise and cause him to start while he is in such a precarious position. However, he does close the door with enough sound to make Sherlock aware of the fact that he is not alone up there. Only once the door is shut does John speak.
"You're not thinking of jumping, are you?" he asks, tone casual but with an underlying hint of concern.
Sherlock does not look over his shoulder, but he inclines his head in acknowledgement of the fact that John has spoken. He takes a long drag of his cigarette and puffs out a cloud of smoke before he replies. "Mmm, no," he says. "A fall from this height has a chance of survival – slim, but there. If I survived, I'd have irreparable brain damage. Far too much to risk. Not the way I'd choose to go."
John doesn't know if that statement is supposed to be reassuring or not. He hesitates, and then slowly walks towards where Sherlock is sitting on the edge of the roof. "So what are you doing up here?" he asks.
Sherlock holds up his cigarette. "Smoking."
"I can see that," John says, "but... why?"
"Can't do it downstairs," Sherlock explains dismissively. "One of those law things."
John goes to further clarify his question, before realising that the evasive answers are probably not because Sherlock does not understand what John is asking, but more likely because Sherlock is avoiding answering for his own reasons. John has no right to push him. This is the first proper conversation they have had, if you exclude the comment Sherlock made on their first meeting, about John's military history. Whatever is going on in Sherlock's head, or whatever his motivation for coming up to smoke on the roof is, John has no right to know.
He comes to a stop a few steps away from the ledge, keeping his distance. Sherlock glances over his shoulder.
"You're welcome to join me if you're so inclined," he says.
John shakes his head. "No, thanks. I'd rather not come too close to the edge."
"Afraid of heights?"
"Of heights? No. Of falling to my death, maybe. This is just... self-preservation."
Sherlock lets out a slight laugh, exhaling another mouthful of smoke as he does. "Interesting," he says.
"What is?"
"You are. You choose not to come too close to the edge of the roof, despite the fact that you're unlikely to actually fall off unless you behave in a particularly reckless manner, and yet you made a living, quite literally, on the battlefield."
"That's different," John says.
"Is it?"
"Yes." After a beat, John asks, "How did you know that, anyway? That I was an army doctor?"
Sherlock makes a dismissive hand gesture. "Hardly complicated, is it? Tan line says you've been abroad for work and not for vacation, stance and haircut say military, and the fact that you're now working at St Bart's says that you have a medical background."
"And you got all of that from one look?"
"Obviously."
"Wow," John says, letting out a breath. "That's amazing."
Sherlock does not turn around. For a moment, he is quiet, and then he says, "Most people just tell me to piss off."
John smiles. "Well. Guess I'm not most people, then."
Sherlock turns his head, looking at John out of the corner of his eye. "No. I suppose not."
He turns back to face the view from the rooftop – which is not a particularly nice view, John thinks, but each to his own – and he exhales another cloud of smoke. Then, he presses his cigarette to the rooftop to put it out before getting to his feet. John feels himself relax a small amount once Sherlock is no longer standing so close to the edge. He had not realised that he was tense.
"Come on, Doctor," Sherlock says, stepping past John and heading for the door. "Can't spend too long up here. People might start to wonder what we're up to."
John lets Sherlock lead the way down the stairs.
Five.
John pushes open the door to the lab, on his way to retrieve a microscope for Mike. Sherlock is in that lab, performing his version of a school science experiment (that is, performing a more complicated, more dangerous version of a school science experiment). All three of the microscopes in the lab are in use – and Sherlock is the only one in the room to be using them.
"Do you really need all three?" John asks with a slight smile, leaning against the door.
Sherlock looks up, peering at him over the eyepiece before looking at his row of microscopes in consideration. After a long pause, he says, "I suppose I could let you have one."
John snorts. "How kind of you," he says. He is fairly certain the sarcasm in that sentence goes straight over Sherlock's head.
He stands to the side, waiting as Sherlock gets to his feet and begins to take the slide out from underneath one of the microscopes so that John can take it. However, before Sherlock finishes, the door behind John is pushed open. John quickly steps out of the way to avoid getting hit by the door, and he looks over his shoulder at the newcomer. He recognises the gentleman at the door as the policeman who had been with Sherlock the first time that John had ever seen him.
John does not remember the name of the gentleman at the door, but fortunately, Sherlock unknowingly fills in the blank for him.
"Ah, Lestrade," Sherlock says. "What a surprise."
(John notes that he does not sound all that surprised.)
The man named Lestrade crosses his arms over his chest, his body language reminding John of a father scolding a child. "Just so we're clear," he says, "this does not mean that I agree with your methods, and it does not mean that you are allowed to run off on your own again like last time."
"My methods," Sherlock says, "are precisely what caught you a murderer."
"Your methods are what very nearly led to you being murdered yourself."
Sherlock scoffs. "Please. The bullet didn't even touch me."
"Only just!" Lestrade replies with a little more agitation, and then he takes a breath, visibly composing himself. "You can't keep doing things like that. You're going to get killed." At this, Sherlock rolls his eyes and looks as though he is about to argue, but Lestrade cuts him off. "No, you will," he insists. "And if I had any other option, I'd be kicking you off any cases for the foreseeable future."
"But you have no other option," Sherlock says. "You need me."
Lestrade takes a breath, and then his shoulders sag in defeat and resignation. "Yes, I do," he says. "God help me." He takes a moment, and then straightens up. "Lauriston Gardens. Will you come?"
"Serial suicides?" Sherlock says, and his face breaks into a grin, like a child in a candy store. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
"How can you have serial suicides?" John asks from the side of the room. It's the first time he has spoken, and Lestrade looks like he has only just noticed that John is there.
Sherlock turns to him, grinning. "Precisely what I want to find out," he says, and then he turns back to Lestrade. "I'm not coming in a police car. I'll be right behind."
Lestrade nods his head. "Thank you," he mutters, and then he turns to leave the room. Sherlock quickly pushes the equipment on the bench out of the way before going to follow.
"Help yourself to whichever microscope you please," he says as he passes John and pushes open the door. However, before he steps outside, he mutters to himself, "On second thoughts..." Then, quick as a flash, he grabs the umbrella that was leaning against the door, turning around and throwing it at John in the same movement. It takes John by surprise, but not enough so to stop him from catching it in mid-air.
"What—?" he starts, but Sherlock is grinning at him.
"Excellent reflexes," he says. "Come along. You'll be a great help."
"Help with what?" John asks, bewildered.
"Investigating a murder."
"Why on earth do you want me to help investigate a murder? I'm not a detective."
Sherlock sighs, but there seems to be an expression of amusement playing on the corners of his lips. "No, you're an army doctor of moderate intelligence, who has seen more than a lifetime's worth of gruesome injuries and violent deaths, and who is clearly still seeking the same sense of purpose and the same rush of adrenaline that came with saving people's lives. Now, would you like to come catch a murderer with me, or would you rather stay here and re-arrange lab equipment?"
John stares at Sherlock for a moment, but he knows long before he's spoken that he has already made up his mind. He does not even need to speak to confirm it; Sherlock seems to know the answer anyway.
"Excellent," Sherlock says, as though reading John's answer in his mind, and then he holds open the door for John to follow him out. "Come along," he says.
John does. He follows the mad man who he met at the morgue, the man who examines bodies and solves crimes (but only when they're interesting), who smokes on rooftop ledges and sometimes beats corpses with riding crops. John falls into step beside him as they walk down the hall and out the door, and he feels like he's exactly where he is supposed to be.