Chapter Text
Warm blood trickled freely from his mouth, seeping over dry trembling lips and dribbling past his chin. The wail of sirens echoed in the distant night air and reverberated between the rain-glossed bricks of the alleyway.
Sherlock’s hand, now slick with blood and betraying any attempt to suppress its rampant shaking, pressed hard against the ruins of John's shirt, just below the ridge of his ribs.
“Hold on, John,” Sherlock said, face gone pale and voice pitched unnaturally high. "Hold on. The ambulance will be here soon."
The dark, sticky pool underneath John was already cooling on the pavement. John inhaled a wet, shuddering breath into his one good lung and sought out Sherlock’s fearful eyes, trying to communicate what his throat could not.
Not bloody soon enough.
The dripping woke him, but it was the thirst that kept him awake.
Consciousness swelled and constricted in the dark. It pulled by inches, resistant, until thought slowly gathered into painstaking form. Awareness rose through heavy blanketing tension, pushing upward until he emerged, anchored by the parched pain of thirst, back into the waking world.
He couldn't say when drifting turned to lucidity. He only knew what he felt, and what he felt was a blistering dryness lining the inside of his mouth. It stretched up into his nasal cavity and down into his throat, raw and tight and tortuous. He instinctively swallowed and swiftly regretted it when the sensation of sandpaper on gravel blazed a burning stripe up and down his gullet. His tongue scraped painfully against the desiccated surface of his palate, tasting nothing but bitterness.
Water dripped somewhere, hollow and metallic. His mind latched onto that singular, glorious sound.
Water.
John slowly opened his eyes.
A prominent dark splotch floated in the murkiness before him. He blinked once, then again, as his vision filtered into finer hues of grey and black. A thick haze enveloped his mind, rendering thought sluggish and confused. Focus was slow to return and for a long time he lay in a wandering daze, detachedly wishing for the pangs of thirst to be gone.
Eventually he grunted, a low and involuntary sound. It contrasted harshly against the steady dripping and his ears perked to attention, brain finally registering the existence of his senses and their ability to collect information from the immediate environment. Internal self-awareness clicked, like a switch being flipped, and for the first time John truly looked.
The shape in front of him was a massive water stain on the wall. It blossomed out in blurry lines and grew darker in the areas closest to the intersection with the ceiling. Filmy paint peeled from the plasterboard in uneven, corrugated welts. The dripping continued, but the source had to be coming from inside the wall.
Alarm sprang to life inside him and he tensed, flushing his body with adrenaline and even more confusion. John sucked a deep breath down his aching throat, but something was partially clogging his airway and it sent him into a sharp fit of coughing. Eye-watering pain shot through his esophagus with every convulsion of his lungs, intensifying his need to find water.
Where was he? Mindfully breathing around the obstruction in his throat, John forced his eyes to adjust enough to make out his surroundings. A closed door stood below the stain on the wall, and to the right another door was partially cracked open.
John angled his head and peered down the length of his body. He lay supine on a bed, his abdomen and legs covered by a single discolored sheet. His muscles felt unnaturally heavy. Attempts to flex them jostled the blanket in shuddering, uncoordinated movements. John lifted his head up further, dipping his chin, and found the pale pattern of a medical gown covering his chest.
He was lying in a hospital bed in near-darkness. Confusion spurred again, and John futilely grasped for an explanation. It was difficult to think against the thirst and muddled cloudiness in his head. He was in hospital? He couldn’t recall being injured, but something must have happened to land him here.
Besides the thing in his throat, there was something pressing on his cheek. John reached up with one clumsy hand and clawed at it. An adhesive strip attached to a thin, flexible tube came away in his fingers. He tugged at it lightly, and the obstruction in his throat shifted. John coughed and gagged again as he traced the line down to where it was pinned onto his gown. The end was capped off by a plastic valve. A nasogastric feeding tube, his internal medical dictionary supplied.
A feeding tube. Meaning he’d been unconscious and unable to eat for himself. But he wasn't on a respirator, which suggested he had been breathing on his own.
God, where were the nurses? Only the dripping could be heard, no familiar bustling of a functioning hospital as nurses and doctors worked their rounds, no clattering of gurneys or trolleys carting around soiled linens and supplies.
John rolled his head to the left to look for the nurse call button. Panic welled as he saw the electronic panel on his bedside wasn't lit. Above him, the heart monitor screen was dark. The only light came from a shuttered window on the left wall, but it looked as though it had been hastily blocked off with a dark, solid object rather than the curtains. Sunlight streamed through the cracks where they misaligned, providing sparse lighting to the room.
Nothing was on. An empty IV bag hung from a metal pole next to the bed. John followed the line with his eyes until he reached his own left hand, where a cannula was embedded in a vein in the back of his hand with more adhesive tape holding it in place. There was also a pale wristband on each of his wrists. He twisted the left one around until he could see what was printed on it. Near his identifying information was a name: London Bridge Hospital.
Get a grip, Watson. He pushed his rising fear away with brutish ferocity, inhaling a few calming breaths around the tube in his throat. Observe. Think. Think like Sherlock.
His immediate thought was that there had been some sort of natural disaster. The hospital was out of power, and perhaps they hadn't had time to get him. The spreading water stain suggested a broken pipe in the ceiling.
Data first. Data before hypothesis.
On a small table to the right of the bedside, a dried-up bouquet of flowers sat in a clear glass vase. A stack of cards lay neatly next to it.
From visitors. They know I’m here. Sherlock knows I’m here. Unless Sherlock’s been injured as well.
Why was he in hospital? John struggled again to remember being hurt, but with the fuzziness in his head and the horrible dryness in his mouth, nothing came to him. His last memories were… vague recollections of London at night. Talking with Sherlock as they strolled along the pavement. Feeling frustrated. Had they been working a case? Chances were high that Sherlock was with him when it happened.
He must be injured somewhere. John palpated the parts of his body he could reach until he encountered a dull pain pulsing in the side of his abdomen. He scrabbled at the sheet and pulled back his gown until he could see it. A large dressing was taped just below his rib cage. Peeling away the tape, he lifted up the gauze and saw a dark line of stitching over a pinkish wound. It looked like it had been healing for a few weeks, at least.
Extended hospital stay.
John brought his right hand to his face to feel at his jaw. His fingers met a stiff, short beard. He was normally clean-shaven and therefore not the best judge of the growth rates of his own facial hair, but he guessed that it constituted several weeks of growth.
I’ve been unattended.
The bottom seemed to fall out of his stomach. If no one had been seeing to him he could very well have died. Why had he been left there?
He needed to get out and find help. The thirst was unbearable.
John picked up his feeding line and pinched the end near the valve, where it would hook up to a nutrition bag when it was time to be fed. He held his breath and slowly tugged it out through his left nostril. The plastic dislodged and slid up his esophagus.
The clear tube emerged and John began to see yellowish stains of mucus and gastric fluids. It was only meant to reach down to the base of his stomach, so it wasn't long before he felt the tip of the tube rising through his throat. It reached his gag reflex and John heaved a bit as it slid past. Finally, the tube came out.
He examined it, seeing if there were any blockages or troubling discoloration. It was difficult to tell in the low light. How long had the thing been in him? Without someone checking daily, he could easily have developed an infection.
John removed the cannula from his hand and quickly pressed the corner of the sheet to his skin to stem the bleeding. Once it stopped, he looked down the neck of his gown to see if there were any monitors. Two sticky, circular patches adhered to his bare chest. He peeled them off.
The need to find water was growing unmanageable. John eyed the ajar door to the private bathroom, hoping to God the sink was still functional despite the leaking pipes. He shifted his legs underneath the sheet, but his heavy limbs still refused to obey any commands. He doubted he had been stationary long enough for his muscles to atrophy to any dangerous degree, but just to be sure he repeatedly forced them to contract and extend. Damn it all, he would get to the bathroom if he had to crawl.
John leaned his shoulders and the trunk of his body over the side of the bed, letting his weight slowly tip him downward. Gravity grabbed hold, tilting him further and further until he lost balance and dropped hard onto the cold linoleum floor. Just as he fell, there was a strange tug in his pelvis and immediately he knew something was wrong.
John carefully rolled himself to his back, pressing ungainly, shaking fingers against the freezing floor and lifting his head. A yellow catheter line extended out from beneath his gown, between his legs. It was connected to a collection bag attached to the underside of the hospital bed. The bag was about three-fourths full of cloudy, dark urine.
"Ffff," John wheezed, the rest of the profanity failing to get past his parched vocal cords. He collapsed his head back against the flooring.
This was bad. A feeding tube had a risk of infection, but an indwelling catheter was far, far worse. If he had been unattended as long as he suspected, it was likely he had a urinary tract infection. The opaque urine was not a good sign.
He had to get it out as soon as possible. John reached out to grip the bars underneath the bed, pulling himself closer so he could unhook the bag. He touched the side of it and found it was cool, indicating he probably hadn't produced much urine for a while. Possibly a few days.
The moving left him dizzy, and once the collection bag was freed he lay panting on the floor.
What the hell was going on? He tried to think like Sherlock again, to piece together everything from the few available clues. What did he know?
(1) He was in London Bridge Hospital, and it was damaged and powerless. A disaster either natural or man-made was a likely cause.
(2) He hadn't been retrieved by the staff. That suggested they were either incapacitated or overwhelmed with helping others. Possibly they had to evacuate and couldn't bring patients with them. That did not bode well. Hospitals would be a top priority for emergency evacuation in the event of a widespread disaster.
(3) Sherlock wasn't there.
His friend might be an insensitive prick at times, but John didn't actually believe Sherlock would abandon him to die if he could help it. Was he somewhere in the hospital, too? The private room suggested Mycroft’s influence, and if Sherlock were stuck here as well John doubted Mycroft would allow his brother to be left behind, full stop.
But if Sherlock had come and been forced to go, he would've left a note, right? A message. Something to give John a hint of what was happening, what he should do.
John angled his head until he could see the underside of the dried flowers on the table above him. The cards. There might be a note in the cards.
Water, first. He needed water, and then he could worry about the rest of it.
John lurched onto his side, not wanting to tip all the way over and risk dislodging the catheter as he made his way to the bathroom. Indwelling catheters were kept in place by a small, inflatable balloon inside the bladder. If it was forcefully yanked out, he could damage himself very badly and compound an already worrisome problem.
With one hand he held the collection bag, trying to coordinate the muscles in his remaining three limbs to get him to the bathroom. He was sore and achy, and the sutured wound in his side began to burn with his physical movements. Slowly, he crossed the chilly floor. His arm and legs, wobbly from disuse, synchronized as he approached the cracked door, until he finally was able to push it open and clamber inside.
Standing was more difficult. John dropped the collection bag and grabbed onto the edge of the counter, pulling himself upright. He stood on shaky legs, grappling to find a solid hold. He pawed clumsily for one of the two cups next to the sink and knocked one over, sending it flying across the room and rattling onto the floor next to the shower. John was more mindful with the other. He grasped it with careful fingers and set it under the mouth of the faucet.
He turned the faucet lever. Beautiful, clear water sprayed out into the cup. Before it was half full he brought it to his mouth and greedily drank the lukewarm fluid. He'd never tasted anything so good. The water coated his dry mouth and ran down his throat, and he could have cried from relief.
As he drank, his stomach clenched painfully around the water. The muscles knotted and spasmed as they were pried apart after so long without something to fill it, but he forced the water down anyway.
John drank five full cups before the water spouting from the faucet turned a silt-brown color. It was all right. He'd had what was in the pipes, and it had refreshed him even as he worried about the implications of the dirty water. More broken pipes? Something contaminating the water source?
Fumbling at the light switch on the wall, he flicked it up and down several times but the overhead light refused to ignite. He settled for giving himself a once-over in the mirror despite the suboptimal lighting. His beard, though short, was untidy and untrimmed, and his hair was shaggy on the ends and flattened at the back from lying pressed to the pillow. John used the questionable faucet water to douse his face, the bones around his eyes and cheeks feeling more prominent than they should.
He pulled his hospital gown up and frowned at the concave of his stomach. Emaciation wasn't the right word, but the subtle outline of his ribs definitely implied malnourishment. He needed calories, something to burn. John had treated his fair share of cases of malnutrition. His digestive tract required a slow reintroduction to solid food or he would end up sicker than he already felt.
John picked up his collection bag and shuffled out of the bathroom. Renewed, he slowly made his way over to the nurse's station and pulled open drawer after drawer until he found a sealed package with a syringe inside.
He sat down on the bed and detached the collection bag from the main catheter drainage port. Sealing off the bag, he held it up to the meager light afforded by the blocked window. The urine was definitely clouded, but he couldn't tell whether it was from bacterial infection or not.
Drawing up his hospital gown, John examined where the catheter line entered his urethra. Nothing looked inflamed or crusted over, nor did he feel any pain. He unwrapped the syringe from its packaging and stuck the needle into the valve of the balloon port. Almost instantly, the syringe began filling itself with the sterile water from the balloon in his bladder, stopping once it had drained all 10ccs.
John carefully tugged on the catheter line, sensing it dislodging. He took a deep breath and pulled on the tube until it passed all the way out of his urethra. It didn't feel particularly good, but there was no burning sensation that might indicate an infection. Still, it was best he found some antibiotics as soon as possible, just in case.
Freed of all foreign objects, John set aside the collection bag and made a brief sweep of the room for his medical chart. Not finding it, he moved to examine the cards and dried flowers left on his bedside table.
The flowers were daffodils, and they had once been bright yellow. The petals were now dried to a crackly brownish color and low murky water filled the bottom of the vase. John picked up the pile of cards lying together.
The first was a stock get-well card. A simple printed message adorned the front, and the inside was covered in signatures from many of the officers from Scotland Yard. The only real clue was a short note under Greg Lestrade's messy scrawl:
He's driving us mad! Please recover soon!
Below that was a thick piece of expensive, cream-colored stationery stamped with an address from Whitehall. It, too, bore a brief message.
Well wishes for a speedy recovery.
-M. Holmes
The next one was an old-fashioned folding card that looked suspiciously like it had been printed a few decades earlier. John opened it and instantly recognized the flowery script of Mrs. Hudson.
John dear,
Sherlock told me what happened and I just had to write you a note before he left for hospital again. You boys are always running off into dangerous situations and it pains me when one of you doesn't make it home. I will come visit as soon as possible. Until then, please be strong, dear, and come out of it! My poor nerves can't take the worrying. 221B is waiting for you. I know Sherlock will be doing the same until you come back to him.
Mrs. Hudson
(your landlady)
After that there was another mass-signed card from Sarah Sawyer and several of the other doctors from the surgery, and then a short card from Mike Stamford with what looked to be signatures collected around from a few of their mutual acquaintances at St. Bart’s. A serene countryside image decorated the front of the last card. Inside, rows of cautious handwriting formed neat lines.
John,
I don't usually know what to write in these cards. Get well, I suppose? The words seem too small, too unimportant. When a friend is in a coma, 'get well' isn't enough.
I told Sherlock someone ought to bring you flowers. My dad always loved having flowers at his bedside. He said it helped him think positively about his recovery. I don't know what kind you like best, but Sherlock seemed adamant about the daffodils. Hopefully they help you, too.
We're all waiting for you to wake up. It's hardest on Sherlock, I think, because you're here but you're also not. He talks to you often, but sometimes he forgets that you can't answer. He needs you to come back most of all.
I know you won't let him down. No matter how long it takes.
Your friend,
Molly
So that was the answer. John had been in a coma, though he still wasn't exactly sure for how long. He flipped through the cards again, checking that he had read them all. There was no note from Sherlock. Not even a card. It was unsurprising, really, but a knot of disappointment nevertheless sank in his chest.
Setting the cards back down, John scrubbed a hand over his face. His skin felt tacky and loose and he vaguely wondered how much weight he’d lost. His stomach panged at him, roiling in discomfort and pleading for food it couldn’t yet digest.
It was time he tried to find help.
On stiff legs, John plodded across the room toward the door to the hall. He turned the handle and pushed, but the wood creaked and shuddered as it collided with a heavy blockage on the other side. John scowled quizzically and shoved at it with his shoulder. The door shifted and he heard the obnoxious sound of metal scraping against the floor of the hallway. He rammed against it over and over, until the object on the other side finally dislodged.
“Jesus,” John whispered hoarsely. His voice was scratchy and rough and it hurt to talk. Why had someone blocked his door?
The door swung just far enough for John to squeeze out. He slipped through the opening, his hospital gown briefly catching on the handle...
...and the stench of death overwhelmed him.