Slapping. Beating. Kicking.

His palm, his fist, his feet, bash against the man in front of him, over and over. He never feels the counterforce, nor even the flesh and bone of a living human being. All he feels was the grief, the guilt and the rage burning up, surging through him, and gushing out onto…whoever—whatever it is.

His wife is dead because of his best friend.

Mary is dead because of Sherlock.

He forgets where he is or what he is. He is nothing but rage. He keeps on kicking, trampling upon the thing beneath his feet, until he hears the sound of bones breaking.

No, he doesn't hear it. He doesn't hear anything except the boiling blood pumping through his veins.

Somebody tries to drag him backwards.

"Stop it! You're hurting him!" a female voice screams.

The scream pierces through him like an ice blade, quenching the burning rage inside of him, his reason slowly surfacing, his senses gradually kicking in.

He sees it. He sees Sherlock crouching on the floor, not moving, a trickle of blood woozing from the corner of his mouth into the pool of it underneath his head.

"Oh my god," Faith gasps.

John stands there, his muscles tightened and his limbs quivering due to the outburst. His fists and feet throbbing to remind him of how brutal the impact was, but it's nothing compared to the twinge in his heart that his worst fear may have come true.

He KILLS Sherlock?

"I'll get help," panic is obvious in Faith's voice as she pushes past her indifferent father and dashed out of the mortuary.

John's numbed feet pull him towards Sherlock, knees dropping to the floor beside him, shaky hands reaching for Sherlock's pulse. It's weak, but there, but he's not breathing. John can't tell whether it's fear or guilt that's pushing his heart into his stomach. "I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry…" he hears himself mumbling.

Sherlock's eyes snap right open just as the doctors crack into the room. He wheezes horribly for oxygen but choking on blood, as groans form rapidly in his throat. Startled and relieved, John reaches out a hand, "Sherlock, I—"

He freezes at Sherlock's reactions, hand suspending in mid-air. Sherlock winces at John's motion. His head reflexively tilts backwards to open his airway as his collapsed lungs struggle to suck in air. Though in agony, his entire body trembles in an attempt to pull away from John. His eyes are wide with tears, the usual glitter replaced by pain and fear.

Sherlock is afraid of him.

John fixes his stare on the injured human being, which he was long familiar with in Afghanistan. He saw them every day. He saw wounds to heal, lives to save, and pain to ease. And no matter what, he did the best he could to heal and to save lives, as the oath asked him to. As a soldier he did take lives, but only to save many more. And there was one thing that never changed—the untrimmed, absolute trust in their eyes, trust with their lives in the doctors, and it kept him going, living with the lives he'd taken. It was a sense of fulfillment that he was what he'd swore to be in medical school.

He doesn't see it in Sherlock's eyes. What he sees is simply an injured life, trying to escape from the hands that hurt him.

"Move!" John springs to his feet at the command, to leave space for the doctor and nurses. They are stripping away clothing, fastening an oxygen mask, starting an IV and attaching monitors, and then lift Sherlock onto the awaiting gurney. At the painful movement, Sherlock gasps and lets out a low whine behind the oxygen mask. Though he's rapidly losing consciousness, his eyes catch John's once again.

And this time, John sees something else in those eyes—guilt, deeper than his own, as tears stream down Sherlock's cheeks, before his eyes fall shut and he is whisked away.