A/N: This is a series of drabbles – pieces of fiction that are exactly one hundred words in length (excluding the title). For each set (or chapter), there are five drabbles. This started as a challenge, with prompts for each set being issued once a week for twenty weeks. I hopped on the drabble bandwagon a bit late, and ended up rushing to write seventeen sets of drabbles to catch up. That first drabble challenge is now over, but I had so much fun writing them, that I decided to do another one. And just keep going until I get tired of doing them! I love Sherlock and think it's a bloody brilliant series; the characters are so much fun to write and play around with!

Since these drabbles are written for the challenges, I have not come up with the prompts; they are someone else's creation entirely, except for the odd one here and there.

A friend of mine is also turning some of the drabbles into a comic series; check out my profile for links!

Enjoy!

I

Doctor

There were times when John felt guilty. Doctors were supposed to help people. When he had been in Afghanistan, he had seen many things that people wouldn't even like to think about: the battle wounds, the ground stained red, men and women – good people – blasted to bits. He had helped the injured. Helped them live to see another day… or another hour.

Then he got shot.

Back home in England, those things no longer existed. Back home, it was worse. Instead of spending time with the dying, he spent time with the dead.

And he loved every moment of it.

Companion

"What did you say?"

"Can't you listen for once? You're supposed to be helping."

"I didn't understand a word you said!"

"That's because you weren't listening, John. You hear, but you don't listen!"

"Well, I'm sorry if everything I hear happens to sound like you've a potato stuck in your mouth!"

"No, shut up, it's all right. I don't need you to listen. I just need you to stand there so I can talk at you, it helps me think."

"Because I'm a stand-in for a skull, isn't that right?"

"Skull? No. You're much better than that. You're my companion."

Time

He stared at the clock. The second hand made a pass around the wide, white circle. As it swept by the 12, the minute hand clicked into its next place.

10:00.

There were three hours left. Three bloody hours and then someone, somewhere, would go up in flames as the explosives strapped to them detonated.

At least it would be over quickly.

John pressed his hands together and stared across the room. Sherlock was lying on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling. His visible arm had three nicotine patches stuck on it.

"Sherlock?"

"What?"

"We're running out of time."

Space

"GET OUT! GET OUT!"

Sherlock's voice exploded around them, fury and annoyance burning in his eyes. John had seen this kind of thing before. Sherlock wasn't mad at them. He didn't do mad – well, he almost never did mad. He was just irritated that the common man – or, in this case, the police – was slowing him down. There were too many people, too many officers, too many echoing voices in the room blocking his concentration. He needed space: space to think, space to run through whatever possibilities his brilliant mind had conjured up. Space to do what he did best.

Dimensions

He knew his excitement was indecent – who in their right mind would be excited about a serial killer? – but he had never found it necessary to care about others' opinions of him. Serial killers were fascinating. They were tricky. They were clever. There were dimensions to the way they killed – layers of planning, layers of precision, all calculated down to the very last detail. It was an artform, one very few people could learn to appreciate. Sometimes it was as if it was meant solely for him.

Shame, really. You couldn't find this kind of dimension and scope anywhere else.