"Hey Jules, shouldn't you be working on Shouts?"
Shhhh... I know I should, but this plot bunny Would. Not. Get out of my head, so this happened. On a different note, do any of you guys get the title?

Okay, happy reading!

~Jules

John has had really bad luck with earpieces.

He used them minimally in the army, and that was no fun. Other comrades shouting in his ear to save people fatally wounded. Each time he heard something in his ear, he knew it was another injured soldier, soon to be another casualty.

Even before Doctor Watson met the infamous Holmes brothers, he had already associated earpieces with death and injuries, as morbid as it sounds.

And then the duo met Mister Moriarty. The Consulting Criminal that under no circumstances should his hands dirty. He used the pips as an excuse to not even talk to the detective or his pet. When he found out how close John was to Sherlock, well, he obviously used that to his advantage.

Placed an earpiece in the poor soldier's ear, strapped him to a bomb, and the rest is history.

Occasionally John will still have nightmares about this. The earpiece, did not help one bit about his war memories.

Although after those events, John was earpiece-free for some good, and some bad years. He continued to solve crimes with his best friend (good), said best friend committed suicide (bad), gets wonderful girlfriend (good), best friend wasn't even dead in the first place and came back (good), wife gets pregnant (good), best friend gets almost fatally shot (bad), turns out wife is the shooter (bad), wife is actually a spy and not who he thought she was (even more bad), best friend gets exiled (bad), just kidding, it was only five minutes (good), everything is back to normal finally (good), wife gives birth (wonderful, absolutely wonderful), wife is now dead (pretty damn bad), best friend's sister is a psychopath who has trapped him in a well (bad).

Which brings John to his current predicament: trapped in a damned well.

With a sodding earpiece of all things.

Out of anything and everything he could've been trapped in, he's in a well. John has never been claustrophobic, but the tight space in the middle of the night is certainly not a nice place to be at the moment. He supposes it's not as bad as Sherlock, who he's pretty sure just got out of a fake room, if he heard correctly.

Eurus is quite clever, if he truly has to admit. Absolutely insane, but clever nonetheless.

As John stands at the bottom of the well, waiting until he can talk to his friend, he wonders what his daughter is doing at the moment. Sleeping, most likely, she's only an infant after all, but he can't help but wonder. Little Rosamund, named after her mother. His daughter, the only person in John's life who doesn't have some secret crime background. An angel, just for him. He better get out of this well, there's no way in hell that he'll die without seeing her again.

Unfortunately, it's not John's lucky day. Because there's now water at his feet.

At his ankles.

At his shins.

This water is most definitely not forgiving. It's more than just rain, John can tell, this is deliberate, he's not an idiot.

"Sherlock." John calls out, even though he knows that he won't get through to him. "Sherlock!" The doctor calls out again, panicked this time. At the rate that the water is rising, John is not going to be seeing his daughter again.

"John?" Comes the crackled voice of his flatmate, probably far, far away from the person he's talking to.

"Sherlock? It's flooding. The well is flooding." John states, and can't seem to keep the panic from seeping into his voice. Although if this is really his late few minutes, it won't matter. One can be scared in their last breaths, they've earning that right.

With a worried and stressed groan Sherlock answers "Try as long as possible not to drown." Bloody useful, he's chained to the ground!

"What?" There's barely a couple of feet of slack.

The water is already basically past his knees at this point.

Has John updated his will recently? He hopes so.

Bye Rosie.

At least Molly and Sherlock - if he survives - will take good care of his daughter. Poor child, orphaned mere months after she was born.

"I am going to find you," Sherlock reassures, but John can tell that those chances are slim. "I am finding you."

"Well, hurry up please, because I don't have long!" John says, wondering how long these electronics will work when they get covered in water. He really doesn't have a chance at surviving.

Either Sherlock doesn't answer, or the earpiece cuts off, because he doesn't hear an answer, and now the water is coming to his thighs.

Determined to at least try something to keep his life, John begins to try and climb the well, which doesn't work for multiple reasons. One: the well is slippery with moss and water, and he can't even see where he's placing his hands. Two: he's bloody chained to the ground!

When he steps up to try and pull himself up and out of the water, he loses the slack on the chain and he falls back into the water, this time falling onto his back. Now his clothes are even more wet, making it almost impossible to tread water.

"Sherlock!" John cries out his flatmate, but he knows that it's all in vain. "Sherlock!"

He keeps feeling around in the bottom of the well, while he still can, until he hits a substance that he's all too familiar with. Bones.

John feels the familiar shape of bones, which he doesn't register until later.

He's familiar with these bones.

They aren't dog bones.

"Sherlock, there's something you need to know."

No, they're human bones. Small too, only a child.

Ah Christ. "Sherlock? The bones I found,"

"Yes," Sherlock says, sounding almost as panicked as John feels, "They're dog bones, that's Redbeard."

Well, it's now or never. "Mycroft's been lying to you, to both of us." Somehow, John is able to calm his breathing down, even though the water is up to the top of his chest. "They're not dog bones."

John finally fishes around and is able to get a good grip on the well-decayed skull. And just as he does that, he connects the dots, presumably while his flatmate is. John knows, that thirty something years ago, a little boy was in the same position as he is in right now. The worst part is, John know's how the little boy's story ends. And he knows that his story is going to end the same way.

The good doctor then quickly drops the skull, and uses all of his remaining strength to keep himself afloat. In training for the army, he had to learn to tread water for ten minutes, but he never exercised that privilege in Afghanistan, and it's been ages since he's been in a pool. The smell of chlorine just reminded him of a certain Consulting Criminal.

But nevertheless, John continues to try and tread water, and uses his hands to grip the slippery rocks to stay afloat. He knows that this is all in vain though, because once the water rises past the level of his height and the slack on the chains, his fate will be the same as the boy's.

Screaming his best friend's name seems to also be in vain, since Sherlock hasn't answered, and he's probably in shock from learning about his friend.

"Rosie…" John mumbles to no one but the wall, "I love you."

He then continues to tread water, and tries to ignore the water sloshing into his gaping mouth.

"The wrong dates. She used the wrong dates from the gravestones as the key to the cipher, and the cipher was the song" John had never been more happy to hear Sherlock's voice. Unless, of course Sherlock was right above him trying to get him out of the well.

Spitting water out of his mouth John asks, "Is this strictly relevant?"

"Yes," Sherlock immediately answers, "It is. I'll be with you in a minute."

In a minute? In a minute?! John doesn't have a minute. He has seconds at most. His fingers have already cramped from grasping the stones, and his legs are burning, and he can't cough up the water as fast as it's spilling into his lungs.

John hears a muttered, "I am lost…" From his friend, but he can't be bothered to answer it. He's afraid that if he opens his mouth water will just come pouring in.

With a stroke of pure luck, John finds a place for his feet, and is able to get his head almost fully above water. Which won't do much good in the long run. All he's doing is delaying his death.

The soldier can tell that his breathing is picking up pace rapidly, but doesn't have the willpower to slow it down. It's a deadly situation, he's permitted for a pounding heart, right?

It only takes a few seconds after this thought until John has to tilt his head upright, not the ideal position for breathing, but at the moment it's the only wait air covers his nose and mouth, rather than water.

John has given up.

But then, the most beautiful thing John has ever seen falls down the well.

A rope.

A rope!

John holds onto the rope for dear life, in the most literal way. But, the rope can only be so useful. It's raining, and he's still chained to the bottom of the well, so there's still a problem. A fairly large one at that.

Someone jumps down the well, which John absolutely hates, because now there's more volume, causing the water level to rise, which pushes it over his head.

So much for breathing.

But then, rather efficiently, the man that jumped down frees his ankles with a bolt cutter, and John could almost cry with relief.

The man then makes sure that he's alright, which John doesn't register at first.

"...ir? Sir? Can you hear me?"

"Mmhm." John grumbles out, apparently satisfying the man.

Then with the help of the rope, the other man, and the people pulling on the rope from the land, John is out of the well. Finally.

He quite literally crawls out of the well, and can't be bothered to hoist himself up to a standing position. Instead he just stays there, on his hands and knees, flinching back when a few too many people crouch around him, barraging him with questions.

Eventually John sorts through each of the voices, but is too exhausted to answer, much to the doctors' worry. He does, though, sit down, legs lazily stretched out in front of him.

Then finally, John hears a voice he does recognize.

"John! John!" Sherlock's voice weaves through the ever growing amount of people in the graveyard, calming the soldier down a bit.

Sherlock skids to a stop next to his flatmate and hugs him. Too long, as it turns out, because doctors are now pulling them apart.

"Sherl?" John chokes, out, trying to see his face in the non existent light.

"Yes, yes, John, it's me. Are you alright?" Sherlock hastily asks, ignoring the doctor trying to push him back.

"Mmnm," Was John's oh so elegant response, before he falls sideways into his flatmate.

John's not really listening to what's going on around him, but it's obvious that the doctors want to take him to the hospital.

He can tell that Sherlock's yelling at them that John doesn't need a hospital- but wait, there's something over his shoulders…?

John turns his head to the side to see a dark blanket over his shoulders. No, that's Sherlock's belstaff. When did he put that there?

And then it finally hits John: He's not dead.

John is not dead.

All that time in the sodding well with that sodding earpiece, and he's not dead.

John then rather violently reaches up and tears the earpiece away from his ear and face, causing one of the doctors to make a face.

"Rosie," John croaks out, then regrets it, seeing as how it's sending him into a coughing fit. When that subsides, John mutters his daughter's name again, but not really sure what he wants the others to do about it.

"I need to so Rosie," John clarifies, this time without launching into any coughs. "No hospital. I need to see my daughter. Please?" The good doctor looks up at one of the doctors, and then rests his head on his flatmate's knees, the closest and most comfortable thing to lay on. Oh, how the people will talk.

He then closes his eyes, and finally lets his body go into a dreamless sleep.

…

John isn't really sure what happened after that, but he's ninety percent sure that he didn't go to a hospital, since he wakes up in his own bed, back at Baker Street.

Wordlessly he pads down the steps, and sees Sherlock in his chair, bouncing Rosie on his leg. Rosie, oblivious to what happened to her dad or godfather, is holding a rattle in her little fist. John supposes that Sherlock finally got her to hold onto it.

When Sherlock sees John come down, he hands off the infant to John, who stands there, and hugs her for a solid two minutes, tears running down his eyes the whole time.

"I love you, Rosie." John mutters into her soft hair.

Thank God John fought to stay above the water.

There's no way in hell that he'd let his daughter grow up without him.

"I love you. So, so much."

I do hope you liked this story, and if you did, please review, it makes me smile like an idiot heh... Even if you are reading this months or even years later (man, that's a scary thought), I assure you that I will appreciate the review!