Chapter Text
John opened his eyes to the white walls and bright lights of a hospital room, and knew without knowing that Something Had Happened. He closed his eyes and breathed a bit, feeling sore muscles and a throbbing head, and concluded that Something Had Happened that involved a blow to the head. When he opened his eyes again, they wandered around the hospital room to find a large, sour looking black shape leaning on an umbrella.
John blinked several times and managed a rusty, “Where’s Sherlock?”
Mycroft gave a thin grimace that did not really even pretend to be a smile. “How touching that you should ask that before anything.”
John sighed and closed his eyes. If Sherlock were in any real danger, Mycroft would not bother to be so snippy. John lay and let the room whirl about him for a moment. Then he opened his eyes again and groped about for the control button that he knew would be… ah, there it was. John levered the head of his bed up a bit so that he could reach for the cup of water that someone had kindly left on the bedside tray. He drank a bit, moistened his throat, and said, “Alright. But. Where is Sherlock?”
Mycroft contemplated the handle of his umbrella for a moment, broodingly. “In ICU.”
John’s brow furrowed. Well, that was more than a bit not good. “How bad is it…” he rasped.
Mycroft tipped his nose at John again, “The neurosurgeon is optimistic. He seems to believe it’s more a matter of patience than luck.”
“What happened?” John asked, squinting in the too-bright light.
“Apparently the two of you dropped through a rotting floor and bounced your heads off the concrete foundation of the basement below,” Mycroft said, rather absently. His eyes were roving over John’s face as if reading a novel.
John contemplated for a moment. “At Baker Street?” He was confused. The floors there were fine… weren’t they?
Mycrofts eyebrows rose and fell again quickly. “What do you remember?” He asked silkily.
John cleared his throat again. “I was going to Tesco’s for bread and milk.”
“Ah.” Mycroft responded, and then waited.
John’s eyes glanced away, toward the door. “But we weren’t really out of bread and milk so I came back.”
Mycroft’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Exactly when was this, John?”
Uncomfortably, John inspected the little button on the control pad that raised and lowered the bed. “You had just dropped us off.”
Mycroft grew very still, which was odd, because he hadn’t been moving before. But he managed to convey the impression of having gone from mere inactivity to focused alertness without any identifiable signs… perhaps he had simply stopped breathing.
“That was Friday, John,” he commented quietly.
John glanced at Mycroft and then looked around restlessly for more water.
“Today is Monday,” Mycroft added meaningfully.
Now John focused on Mycroft. “Monday, is it?” He said uneasily.
“Very much so.” Mycroft said coldly. “You and my brother have been… burrowed in at Baker Street in a veritable cocoon of privacy for two days before coming out on this case. Do you mean to say you remember none of it?”
John stared at him in horror.
Mycroft’s smile this time was small, sinister, and genuine. Then the doctor, a tall, slender man with a soothing Jamaican smile, came in to check John’s vitals, and recommend that he get some rest.
Mycroft left, but as he exited, he heard John say, “I have to go see Sherlock. I just want to see him—“
“Of course,” the doctor said calmly. “Just you rest a bit and then when we know you won’t be too dizzy, you can take a trip down the hall. He’s just down the hall.”
John relaxed back into the bed, thankful that no matter what Mycroft’s personal misgivings were about John’s relationship with Sherlock, he had apparently apprised the hospital staff that here were two co-dependent gits that couldn’t function without each other.
John allowed his bed to be lowered again, took his pain medication without protest, and drifted off to sleep.
Mycroft went to stand at Sherlock’s bedside. The monitors attached to the long, white body beeped with reassuring regularity, and he was breathing without the help of a ventilator. No major swelling, MRI did not show anything alarming… really, the prognosis was as good as it could be for a head injury.
Mycroft stared soberly down at Sherlock. “I do not know what is in more danger, brother,” he said in a low voice, “your head or your heart.”
Then he turned, settled into a plastic chair, and propped the umbrella carefully at his side. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew his phone and continued his work as a Minor Official without whom the budding resistance in Iran might wobble. It would be a long night. But les Holmes rarely sleep.
When John awoke some eight hours later, he was in a hospital room. Bright lights, white walls. His body was stiff and sore, and his neck muscles ached, but he moved and twitched, and rolled his head from side to side until he ascertained that he hadn’t broken anything, nor did he seem to be injured. Why, then, was he in hospital? Major illness? Stiff, sore… flu? Meningitis? (oh God)… he fumbled around for the control button and levered himself to sitting position.
He craved water, but there was none, and so John testingly swung his legs over the side of his bed. He looked down at his arm, noticing the IV there for the first time. Gently, he removed it and put the tape back over the puncture site. Then he stood experimentally, and when he didn’t feel too dizzy, he made carefully for the loo to get a drink of water.
(Doctors make the worst patients.)
In the loo, John drank his fill, splashed water on his face and scrubbed it dry with a bristly white towel, and then toddled rather unsteadily back out.
Just as John was rummaging around the corner cabinet where his street clothes had been obligingly stored, the door opened and Mycroft Holmes entered the room. John startled at the sight of him, and then twitched self-consciously at his hospital gown to make certain his arse was covered.
The two men stared at each other for a cool moment. Then John swallowed, “Where’s Sherlock?”
Mycroft rolled his eyes briefly and said, “Still in ICU. Breathing on his own. No change, really, but that is to be expected.”
John pulled his clothes out of the cabinet and held them to his chest rather defensively. “ICU? What happened?”
Mycroft stared at him appraisingly. “I told you. You fell through a rotting floor and hit your heads.”
John blinked about himself for a moment, trying to absorb this idea of falling through floors. “At Baker Street?” He asked, confused. Surely the floors of their flat were not in such shape.
Mycroft’s eyes almost seemed to glow red. “No,” he said slowly, and then added very deliberately, “This is Monday. I last saw you Friday when you and Sherlock left the French restaurant. You spent the weekend alone together at Baker Street and then today came out on a case. You were both injured in an abandoned house in Islington. You seem to have a concussion, and Sherlock is unconscious in ICU just down the hall.”
John stared at him. “That’s… alright… thank you.” He managed. He certainly did appreciate that very succinct summary. “I need to go see Sherlock.” he decided abruptly, and Mycroft stepped aside as if to clear the way.
“By all means,” he purred, and John eyed him uneasily as he slipped back into the loo to dress himself, and then re-emerged feeling somewhat more human, to follow Mycroft down the corridor.
They stood at Sherlock’s bedside, watching in silence as the detective breathed peacefully on his pillow. His black curls fell away from his face and he had a bit of stubble. John wanted to reach out and touch, but refrained. Mycroft’s eyes flicked to the side, seeming to assess John without turning his head.
“The neurosurgeon is optimistic,” he repeated.
John nodded dumbly. Mycroft glided out of the room, and John settled into the chair nearest the bed to stare at the long, elegantly bony white hand that lay limp on the sheets. His head hurt a bit, and when he ran his fingers through his disheveled hair, he could feel a tender spot. Sighing, he sat back in the chair and let his mind wander. He felt a bit… confused.
Some hours later, Mycroft returned, freshly attired, with a tray of cafeteria food balanced easily in his hand. He found John asleep in the chair by Sherlock’s bed, as he expected, and Sherlock still unconscious. But his brother’s head was positioned at a slightly different angle, which Mycroft noted with pleasure. That was a good sign. Movement of one’s own accord wasn’t the specialty of one in a deep coma.
John stirred when Mycroft set the tray on the table beside his chair. He watched intently as John struggled to wakefulness, looked around the room in evident confusion, and then focused on Sherlock. He sat forward in his chair, glanced down at his own rumpled clothes, and rubbed his neck gingerly. “What happened?” he asked Mycroft wonderingly.
“Sherlock fell through the rotting floorboards and hit his head on the concrete foundation of the basement,” Mycroft said carefully, and watched as John’s concerned eyes returned to his friend lying motionless in the bed.
“At Baker Street?” John asked, clearly puzzled.
Mycroft smiled thinly. “No, no… he was out on a case.”
“Oh…” John breathed, and seemed to be struggling with a number of questions that he dared not ask.
“Monday,” Mycroft said obligingly.
John looked privately panicked, but was clearly trying not to show it. “Right, Monday. Uhm… how long has he been unconscious now?”
Mycroft looked at the clock on his phone. “Nearly twelve hours. It’s almost midnight. But the neurosurgeon is optimistic. We must simply wait until Sherlock is ready to wake.”
John swallowed, and seemed to be staring at Sherlock’s hand as if he longed to reach for it.
“He is undoubtedly in need of rest,” Mycroft added. “I suggest you go back to Baker Street and get some sleep yourself, Doctor Watson. You have been here for most of the day.”
John seemed to be trying to keep from falling off the rapidly turning earth. “Yeah, maybe I should… I should… yeah.”
Such an articulate fellow, Mycroft brooded. Such a match for his genius brother.
“Would you allow me to take you home? Perhaps tomorrow you could bring Sherlock’s own pajamas and robe, so he’ll be more comfortable when he wakes.”
John breathed deeply and stood, obviously struggling to conceal the panic in his eyes. “Right. Yeah. Good idea.”
Mycroft handed the tray of food to John, who took it absently and then followed him out of the room with a long, last look at Sherlock’s still sleeping form.