A/N:This is my first Sherlock fic. I am generally more familiar with the original Holmes stories but thought I would venture out of Victorian London. Feedback and any suggestions would be very welcome.

Many thanks to AdidasandPie for advice and encouragement :)

Sherlock Holmes and companions do not belong to me.

A 221B set at the end of "A Study in Pink"

POV:John Watson

Back

A bright and eager student;

School exams

And interviews.

A career in medicine seemed to be

The only path to choose.

A young aspiring medic;

Five years study,

Day and night.

The goal of helping others,

As a doctor, still in sight.

A weary junior houseman

On the wards

For days on end:

Prepared to deal with everything

The London fates might send.

And then…an army contract;

Signed and sealed.

An Afghan war.

A different type of challenge

To the ones he faced before.

The heat and hate of conflict;

Acts of courage

And despair.

And deep wounds to mind and body

Which no doctor could repair.

Sent back home with army pension,

On the scrap heap,

Battle-scarred;

Where the simple act of limping through

Each day was bleak and hard.

But then…a chance encounter

With a colleague

From the past.

And a different view on battle scars

Was clear to him at last.

It was not the threat of danger;

But its absence

Which he feared.

A friend to share the risk;

And cane and limp just disappeared.

So thanks to fate and circumstance

He understands

The game;

And marks the would-be killer

With a sure and steady aim.

And as he pulls the trigger

And he hears

The window crack;

His clarity of purpose,

Lost on battlefields,

Is back.

End