Chapter Text
Blinding, hot pain shoots up your legs, and you feel gravel pressing into your face. Falling, you were falling, you had been falling—were you still falling? No, but the world was spinning, and suddenly you were nauseous. Something warm and sticky was covering a portion of your hands and face, and just before you lost consciousness you thought it might be blood.
Tonight, John Watson was not amused. His colleague and flatmate Sherlock Holmes was having another one of his "off" days while working on a case. The man did this sometimes—aggravate John to the point where he needed to just get out of the flat for a few hours, spend the night somewhere even. Right now he was between girlfriends, so it seemed he would only be taking a short walk before returning to 221B.
The night was one of his favorite kinds. The air was cool and crisp, a refreshing blend of night and stars. Not many people were out on this less-busy road of London, and it was very quiet aside from the occasional passing cab. The whole scene was a painting of deep blues, blacks, and the occasional grey. It was quite lovely, John thought, his anger dissipating. He heard the sound of a giggling group of young American tourists turning the corner behind him. The silence was broken, but the picture remained the same. John sighed and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. It was beginning to get chilly, he thought. His fingers brushed over an old cinema stub.
How long had it been since he'd been to a film?
He hadn't taken anyone there since... since he couldn't remember. Most of his dates hadn't been working out lately, and he hadn't had a second one in quite some time. It wasn't as though he was desperate for women; he was simply a social man.
A piercing, terrified shriek behind him caught his attention, and instinctively he whipped around.
By the time he'd turned, the small group of Americans were gathered in a tight circle, screeching at something that had fallen onto the ground. Other concerned passerby were beginning to cross the street and pull out their phones. John looked at the gaps between their legs, and—yes, the space was big enough for a human to be there. One of them must have tripped. A few girls stumbled backwards, and one began vomiting into the gutter. It must look bad, John thought. The instincts of a doctor began to take over, and the man rushed over. What he saw made his heart leap into his throat.
A bloody mess lay on the ground before him. The girl—or was it a woman?—lay at an awkward angle, her arm bent in an unnatural way and her face covered in blood. A gash in her arm added to the gore, and it was no wonder that the witnesses stood frozen on the spot. This certainly wasn't a simple trip and fall. This woman had fallen from much further than ground-level. John looked up for a moment to look at the buildings. None of the windows were open and he saw no balconies. Perhaps someone had already closed the window this person had fallen out of. Or had she been shoved? What had happened here?
"Alright, everybody stand back. I'm a doctor!" The usual response to this statement occurred—everyone backed up, giving him a better view of the once-in-shadows victim. "How did this happen?" he asked distractedly to one of the girls.
"Sh-she just sort of fell from somewhere. I don't even know. Oh my g—I want to get out of here." The girl's horrified, dull tone echoed shock and disbelief. John nodded and bent over to look closer at the fallen victim.
"Someone call an ambulance," he muttered, looking closer at the young woman's face. The brunt of the impact had been at the legs—judging from the angle, she'd landed feet-first and broken one or both ankles. Her wrists, too, appeared broken. She'd probably done what most falling people do—stretch her arms out to catch herself. Her head didn't seem injured other than a small cut on the forehead. Head wounds bled a lot, so it looked much worse than it was.
The faint sounds of a siren approached. John deemed that it was safe to attempt to roll the girl onto her back. He did so after a bit of difficulty, and the true nature of her face was revealed. The girls who remained shrieked again and stumbled backwards, ready to leave the scene. The few men and women who had gathered gave little gasps of horror. The scratch was a bit longer than John had anticipated. It really wasn't a bad wound, but the blood ran thick down her face and into her matted hair. It would have been a horrific sight for anyone who hadn't seen such injuries before.
The ambulance pulled up quickly, and seeing the nature of the situation, paramedics rushed out to put the girl on a stretcher. John looked down at the blood on his hands and into the back of the ambulance. The closest hospital was St. Bart's, so perhaps he could get a ride and contact Sherlock. Maybe his friend would have some ideas as to how the girl had fallen.
The paramedics did not question the man clambering into the ambulance whose hands and shirt were stained crimson. The young woman's face was so unrecognizable from blood that he could have been her father for all they knew. What surprised them was when the man began to help them stabilize her condition.
"Are you a doctor, sir?" A woman with straight blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail looked inquiringly at John as he began to apply some disinfectant to a cloth and blot the girl's face.
"Yes." He didn't feel like discussing anything at the moment. He was too focused on clearing the blood and trying to find answers about this mysterious incident.
Another paramedic sat by, fiddling with something. "Here, you can take over," John said quickly, realizing that he was doing a job for them. Embarrassed, he stepped back and let the men and women do their duty. As the vehicle pulled into the hospital, John let out a breath he realized he'd been holding.
The woman was alive. She'd made it. He let out another long, shaky breath. It had been a long time since he'd seen an accident of that magnitude, even after being with Sherlock on his cases. Generally, murderers didn't like to leave behind quite so much blood.
As soon as the sight of the woman being wheeled in was revealed, doctors and nurses began to rush about and surround the crew in a tidal wave of white. John was left alone, covered in blood and in the center of the emergency room. Hurriedly, he rushed out to find a restroom in which to wash up, and then he would call Sherlock.
"John."
"Yeah, listen—I'm at the hospital right now an-"
"What's happened? Are you alright?" John smirked at the note of concern in the man's voice.
"Yes, I'm fine. I witnessed a-an accident. I need your help trying to figure out what went on."
"I'm in the middle of a case, John—I don't have time for this." There was a pause, and John realized Sherlock was, in fact, waiting for him to continue.
"Well, this girl—she fell. Literally out of nowhere. There were no windows or balconies or anything, like she'd just sort of fallen out of the sky." Another pause.
"I'll be over in a moment."