Heal Me

Chapter Six

 It was difficult. I had so many people around me, so devoted to in helping me, but it was so terribly difficult. All these trained and truly caring people wanted me to get better. They wanted everyone to get better, but I still managed to feel alone. 

I wanted to move past this. I truly did. I wanted to feel free again. Happy again. I hated the nightmares that plagued me. I hated the pain that wrecked my body, but I was stuck in a paralysis. My life could not move on and I was starting to spiral out of control. Even more so, that was, than I had. 

I had been seeing John for physiotherapy for over a month now and I would have to leave this place soon. I didn't want to leave John. He was the first person I felt myself actually connecting to on the same level with which I had been bonded to my brother. Except it was more intense. I barely understood why.

I had always found myself finding boys attractive when I was growing up. I had never acted upon these feelings. I had never kissed a boy, never told a boy how I felt. I was terrified to be found out. I think Mycroft knew, though. He always knew, he was the smartest person on the planet. He knew everything. 

He would have liked John. I know it. John was kind to me, gentle to me...He made me wish with everything in me that he was like whatever I was. I needed him to also need me. But, he was just my doctor. We were close too, yes, in ways similar to friendship, but maybe that was just more of Dr. Watson doing his job. But, I hoped not.

After the last nurse bid me goodnight and closed the curtains that still surrounded my bed, I lay down and stared at the ceiling. How many days had it been since that dreadful night, anyway? How many nights had I had nightmares? I wasn't even sure if the pain in my leg was real anymore, or completely in my head. It was probably the latter, but I was too afraid to admit that weakness to myself. 

I turned my head and saw the picture my mother had brought me on one of her visits. Me and Mycroft. By a lake. I shut my eyes and tried to transport myself back there. I could hear the lapping of the water, I could feel the warm and wet grass. I could hear my father calling me back from the deeper parts of the lake. I could hear the heavy slosh of water hitting the bank.

Gunshots. Louder and louder by the second. Screaming. Sobbing. My own sobbing. More screaming. Was I screaming? No, someone was calling my name...But, maybe I was also screaming. I just needed to get to him! Mycroft was right there! Right out of reach! I needed to get him away or else- Who was calling me so terribly loudly? 

"Mycroft!"

"Sherlock, wake up!"

I woke up in a cold sweat. I couldn't breathe and I could feel the contrasting hot tears on my cheeks. Bent over double in my bed, and creating a terrible agony in my leg, I found myself shaking and mumbling my brother's name in the aftershocks of my nightmare. There was a hand on my shoulder. It was dark.

"Sherlock," Dr. Watson's voice. "Sherlock, you need to breathe. Okay? Look at me, look at me."

Against my own accord, a sob ripped through my chest as I looked up at John, my lungs finding breath again. 

"Good, very good." He said to me, his voice wonderfully soothing. I couldn't see him properly, but I could feel the weight of him beside me as he sat on my bed. His warmth and weight helped bring me back to reality. "Very good." he repeated, his hand now soothingly caressing my arm. "You're okay."

I watched him and nodded. "Sorry." I whispered. "Oh, God...Sorry, was I loud?"

"Shh, no, it's okay." he smiled and I could see his eyes twinkle in the dark. "It's okay, everyone understands."

I raised a hand to wipe at my eyes. "I can't do this any more."

"Do what?" John whispered back to me. The room was quiet around us, so I assumed that everyone else had gone back to sleep.

"Live, Dr. Watson!" I snapped. "I can't live like this. I'm a fool! I had one experience out there. Where they fight. There are men in here who fought plenty of times and I'm a coward for being so bloody affected after just one time!"

John shook his head and I felt him shift closer. "No, don't say that." for the first time, in his concern, I also heard a panic. "Sherlock, you mustn't give up now. Don't try and compare yourself to others. No one is competing with you. No one is trying to fight for 'who's gotten it worse'." I felt his warm hand travel down and wrap itself around my own cold and long fingers. "Please don't say you want to give up."

I observed him through the dark. "You care." I eventually whispered out. The air around me felt thick. For the first time I almost felt as if John could possibly care for me as deeply as I appreciated him. "You actually care about me as if...As if you don't have hundreds of other patients."

Dr. Watson didn't respond for quite a few moments, and the slowly ticking seconds made my stomach turn. But, eventually he did speak. "You're different."

Suddenly John sounded shy. He was showing me a vulnerable side to him and I couldn't quite believe my luck. "I am?" I found myself breathing out in the softest whisper. 

John's sparkling eyes met mine and he did what we both thought felt right in that moment. He leaned in and he kissed my lips. 

I still remember it. I never admitted this to John, but that was my first kiss. He probably knew. All I could hear was John's breaths and my own beating heart. Maybe the faint ticking of a clock. The room was so incredibly dark, that I couldn't remember when I had shut my eyes.  His lips were dry and mine were wet and for some odd reason that seemed to work in our chaste kiss. I don't recall our lips moving much, but they were touching and each shared breath we had calmed me down. 

"Please don't give up." he whispered, so terribly quiet that I had to strain to catch what John had said. Before I could reply, his hand had moved up and cupped my cheek. "You'll be okay, I promise." he continued in that fantastically soft voice. "I'll take care of you. I'll help you heal. Please don't give up."

Despite everything, I heard two words tumble from my clumsy and inexperienced lips. "I wont."