Title: Retreat And Regroup

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: After the events in Dewer's Hollow, John and Lestrade each needed some time alone. But when their paths unexpectedly crossed later that night, Lestrade found not only a kindred spirit, but also a friend in need.

Notes: This piece takes place between the minefield explosion outside Dewer's Hollow and the following scene of John and Sherlock at breakfast the next morning in "The Hounds of Baskerville." While re-watching that episode, I was struck by how John acted in the wake of being locked in the lab and hallucinating the hound. The way he sat in Dr. Stapleton's lab staring into space, how he clenched and unclenched his left hand after dropping it from his face, and the time it took him to fully return to the present and engage in Dr. Stapleton's conversation with him, all made me think that John was still struggling with altered perception from the drug at that very moment. I wanted to explore that idea further, as well as touch on John and Lestrade's reaction to Frankland's death and their personal friendship. This quiet character piece, which I see as spanning the rest of the night before daylight comes and John's settled enough to grab a shower and change for breakfast, was the result. Dialogue quoted from the episode is in italics. As always, I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading.

Prompt request: I have found myself in a bit of a creative slump recently – needing the positive, therapeutic process of writing, but having a hard time finding the inspiration and motivation to do so. If anyone has any episode observations or story prompts that they'd like to share, please PM me the details. I can't make any guarantees, but I'd love to hear them!

The wind had picked up again.

John lifted his face to meet it: chin out, lips pressed, eyes shut. A picture easily mistaken for defiance until the underlying truth broke though and he took a deep, measured breath; embracing the icy bite of the air even as he hunched his shoulders against it. Shifting on the cold, uneven stone of his low perch, he stretched his protesting legs straight out in front of him, tucked his hands between his thighs, and extended his neck for another forcibly calculated, faintly desperation-tinged, breath.

"You have been drugged. We have all been drugged."

Sherlock's words and placating hands, trying to close the physical distance between them even as John kept stepping backwards and widening it; crowding his much needed space with soothing gestures and the almost absurd insistence that everything was all right. An assurance that John struggled to accept as his body swayed under the pounding heart and restricted respirations of a fear response the severity of which he hadn't experienced since Afghanistan's immediate aftermath.

"A hallucinogenic or a deliriant."

John had seen the hound. Heard it. According to Sherlock, as his drugged mind was told to see it.

But the brain was as complex an organ as its owner's biochemistry was unique, and despite its intended fear-and-stimulus standardization, the fact remained that no drug was that specific. Creating the exact same, if slightly individualized, hallucination in every person exposed to it, without affecting any other aspect of functioning, was not only highly unlikely, but practically impossible.

Every drug had its side effects, adverse reactions, and unintended consequences. Maybe Henry and Sherlock had, in a way, got lucky: hallucinating the hound, and nothing else.

But not John.

If only it had stopped with the hound.

Hallucinations were all about altered perception. And while the hound may have vanished within Dr. Stapleton's well-lit lab and the background hum of Sherlock in fully agitated scientist-mode, John's altered mental processes didn't. From staring into space, to dropping and flexing the hand that had been supporting his chin, to slowly joining Dr. Stapleton's persistent conversation with him, John's mind had betrayed him at every turn. Words and sounds twisted into memories, past and present; slipping in and out like a static-ridden telly – jarring, unpredictable, no end in sight. It was only a lifetime of carefully broadcast reserve that allowed the lines of his face to settle into blank contemplation rather than betray his drugged mind's desperate fight for control of itself. To present the clenching and unclenching of his left hand as stiffness from holding up his head, rather than an attempt to will away the itch of memory-induced tremors; aftershocks of each sound-spurred assault.

Even the most innocuous things hadn't been safe.

Sherlock wasn't crushing sugar for microscopic evaluation; it was the crunch of gravel underfoot, the coarse sound of boots over sand that continuously fell from uniform creases and threatened sterility.

The microscope slide wasn't being clipped into place on the stage; the sound was every click-grind of a hemostat locking into place over his career – from his first surgical experience at Bart's to desperately clamping off a soldier's IV tubing as the young man attempted suicide by air embolism.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look very peaky."

Dr. Stapleton's concern was lost to "Peeky", the nursing staff's nickname for John's six year old patient; a little boy who was so fascinated by the abdominal incision from his tumor surgery that he constantly tried to peek under his bandages to see the suture line.

"Aequorea Victoria, if you really want to know."

The jellyfish's genus and species tunneled down to "Victoria" – the scrawny mongrel with the sad eyes who had lost all her puppies to parvovirus despite their best efforts, yet remained unflinchingly devoted to the field hospital. No one had ever figured out who named her, or whether it was for the Queen, "victory", or some personal history.

John covered a threatening hitch with another rationed intake of air, spine stiff against the wind's push and pull.

In and out his mind had slipped, losing the present to bits of his past until the increasing danger of the moment had won out and his deeply ingrained steadiness took over; focused competence in the face of coursing adrenaline and multiple threats. A terrified therapist, a suicidal Henry, another hound hallucination in the mists of the Hollow and Sherlock's revelations about its true nature, a dead dog and dismembered scientist…John held together and handled it all. Got the job done and people taken care of.

And was left with the drug-free clarity of violent death imprinted behind his eyelids, the muffled aftermath of an explosion cottoning his ears, and the smell of viscera mixed with charred flesh and scorched earth familiar in his nostrils.

Frankland's fiery end – an all-too-fresh link back to the lab, when John's drugged mind had forced a gritted "Jesus!" through his lips as Sherlock hurled a microscope slide across the room; the tinkling of broken glass fusing into mortar-shattered windows and the heavy anticipation of curses turned to screams. Or worse yet…silence.

After the Baskverille authorities had taken over at the scene and John had got Henry home and into a chemically-assisted sleep, he had needed two things: air and space.

So he found himself back here, as his moonlit watch read morning and the star-shot sky shrouded him in darkness.

But while his cramped legs and aching back would have appreciated the memorial he sat on earlier, John instead retreated to a shadowed corner and the low stone fencing marking a small family plot – so low he was practically sitting on the ground.

An unconsciously literal display of a much-needed grounding.

John hadn't just returned because he'd already come here once for contemplation. He could have got the air and space he needed by other means, including several briskly-walked circuits around and through Grimpen village. No, he found himself here because underneath everything, even with the hallucinations now mercifully absent, it was still about perception.

The drug had altered the perception of everyone exposed to it; made them all see a genetically-engineered monster that didn't exist. But for Henry and Sherlock, it had started - and ended - with the hound. For John, however, while certainly shaken by his own hound hallucination, it was the prolonged, unpredictable, non-hound effects of the drug that had really thrown him; a truth no one ever knew as John had quickly reestablished an outward mantle of control and moved on. But just because he had pulled himself together after leaving Sherlock to his mind palace and got on with the night's events, it didn't mean that control wasn't hard-won; that the altered perception outside of the hound hadn't affected him as much as the hound alone had affected Henry and Sherlock.

Because it had. Jesus Christ, it had.

So John returned here, for the simple, reassuring fact that everything was exactly as it looked and sounded in a graveyard: from the simultaneously cold assault and cleansing wash of the wind, to the scratch of leaves bouncing off headstones, to the indescribable, yet undeniable, presence of the deceased surrounding and penetrating the spaces between the markers.

It was tangible and familiar; a comforting experience that John had sought within dozens of cemeteries spanning several countries and thirty years of his life. A place where he heard and saw only what was really there. No memories usurping and twisting present moments. No tachycardic gasping induced by a genetically-engineered, viscerally terrifying hallucination. Just wind, insects, moonlight, and lives that spoke to him without demanding a thing in return.

John took in another measured lungful of air, pulled his coat sleeves over his fingers, and gave himself to the wind. Listened to the lives lived and lost.

It was air, space, and pure, unaltered perception. An unconscious prescription.

It was exactly what he needed.

Lestrade dropped his forehead into his hand, alternating between massage and light pressure in a vain attempt to ease his lingering headache.

It had been some bloody night.

The dead dog, traumatized Henry, and scientist's warzone death would have been enough on their own. Add in a drug exposure that made him see two idiots' idea of a tourist attraction as a demon hound from hell, followed by Sherlock's half-'still high on the thrill', half- 'I can't believe you idiots didn't see all this before' retelling of the case's conclusion to an already very unpleased Major Barrymore, and Lestrade had - perhaps somewhat guiltily, but nonetheless honestly - never been happier that this was not his case.

With the Baskerville lads taking over, Sherlock pacing the Hollow and carrying on yet another phone conversation where he and Mycroft attempted to out-arse each other, and John having left to settle Henry in at home, Lestrade took leave of the scene and headed toward the village, trying to figure out where he'd go once he got there. It was too late for a pint at the inn and besides, at this point in his career, he knew better than to drink alone after witnessing violent death. In that same vein, he also knew he wasn't about to sleep just yet.

So he found himself here, sitting in the candlelit dark of the village's old, stone church, watching the flickering fire of memoriam as his mind replayed the explosive fire of death.

Lestrade hadn't attended a proper church service in years, but after nights like this he always found himself drawn to the sanctuary of a church; to light a candle not only for the newly deceased, but in memory of all those victims of violent death whom he had seen both as it occurred and in the aftermath.

It was an unconsciously directed ritual that always managed to bring him some measure of peace; a bit of calm that, in his line of work, was frequently and easily lost. He didn't kneel, nor did he pray. He….acknowledged. Marked lives lost and mourned them. Allowed himself to feel and remember, ensuring that he never lost the humanity that drove him; a trait he'd seen far too many colleagues bury and destroy. Re-strengthened his ability to compartmentalize and his resolve for the fight ahead.

Amazing what a bit of fire and paraffin could do.

Lestrade glanced down at his watch and pushed himself to his feet with a groan. Stepping into the center aisle, fingers ghosting over the polished wood of the pew, he nodded at the flickering flame: for Henry's loss and recovery, for the dog that hadn't had a choice in the matter, and even for Frankland – because evil bastard that he was, land mines were a bloody awful way to go. For every case he'd ever worked marked by brutal, human-engineered death. Then, with a deep sigh, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked out into the windblown cemetery.

It was the momentary, weary pause of not knowing where to go next that allowed him to catch it: a flash of moonlight catching on a zip. Turning toward his left, he made out a dark figure sitting among the headstones, legs outstretched, upper body tight against the wind. Even from a distance, Lestrade would know that military-sharp posture anywhere.

John.

Apparently the DI wasn't the only one who had needed some contemplative space that night.

Generally, Lestrade's experience with people in graveyards after sunset fell into one of two categories: those doing something stupid and destructive that would get them arrested, or those in a dangerously dark place emotionally. But as he slowly walked across the grass, giving John time to note his presence and decide whether he wanted company or not, he found that rather than being drawn to John as someone potentially needing to be talked down from a mental ledge, he was actually feeling the pull of a kindred spirit.

That, like Lestrade, John had seen his share of brutal and untimely death and was here to remember, honor, and seek peace; to deal with the no longer shocking, but still affecting, experience of being witness to a violent end.

That the night-shrouded graveyard was John's church candle.

Lestrade approached the far edge of the stone fencing with a respectful crunch of leaves – loud enough to announce his presence, but not so loud as to interrupt.

John stiffened a fraction more, but otherwise showed no intention, or need, to move – eyes shut, windblown face to the stars, coat covered hands tucked between his outstretched legs.

Lestrade read the response as cautious acquiescence to his presence and lowered himself onto the low stone an arm's length away – close enough for support, but far enough for space. Suppressing a shiver at the chill seeping through his trousers, he tilted his own gaze up to the stars, eyes tracing the old, familiar surface patterns of the moon.

Beside him, John let out a slow breath, hunched his shoulders slightly inward while his spine remained at attention, and dropped his chin to his chest, shadowed eyes falling to the ground.

Lestrade noted the shift in his peripheral vision, but kept his eyes on the stars until John's respiratory pattern moved into the immediately recognizable, consciously controlled breathing of someone trained to manage stress, panic, or trauma. Concern twisted deep in his gut as he lowered his head to study John directly, finding a textbook picture of clinically regulated breathing – each three second inhalation followed by an equal three second exhalation. In through his nose, out through his mouth.

It was with that one look, that one respiratory shift, that Lestrade knew. Knew that while John had partly chosen the graveyard for the same reasons he had gone to the church, that it was far from why the physician had truly sought refuge amongst the moon-mottled headstones.

John was utterly still except for his respiratory muscles, every line of his body radiating tightly controlled tension as he focused on his breathing; hunched shoulders, bowed head, and dull, unfocused eyes completely unchecked. It was those last observations, those little, openly weary shifts, more than the breathing alone, that told Lestrade something much more damaging than their mutual experience at Dewer's Hollow had happened to John that night. Because while others could easily dismiss the slightly hunched shoulders and lowered head as seeking sanctuary from the wind, Lestrade knew John – the man always held himself with a controlled, military confidence; facing every situation, no matter how difficult, head-on with straight-backed, shoulders-set, clear-eyed readiness.

The John Watson sitting next to him now, with his shoulders tucked in, head bowed, eyes unaware of their surroundings…..he looked small. Defeated.

Wrong.

But as much as both the DI and concerned friend in Lestrade were desperately demanding to know what had happened to shake John so badly, he kept quiet, trusting his gut. Because every personal and professional instinct he had firmly informed him that asking John to talk was the last thing he should do right now.

So Lestrade remained still and silent; eyes roaming over the moonlit stones while John's eyes stayed on the ground; breathing working for control while his mind fought elsewhere.

There was no looking at watches or each other; no cleared throats, shuffled movements, or attempts at conversation. Just the silence of two men sharing and respecting each other's space, time unimportant, deepest needs unspoken and understood.

Lestrade felt when John finally returned behind those blank, haunted eyes; sensed a measure of peace and control regained before John rolled his stiff shoulders and moved his hands to rest on top of his thighs, fingers poking beyond the cuff of his left sleeve as he flexed his hand.

Lestrade glanced over at him. "Stay or walk?"

No psychological theorizing or analysis. No demands or platitudes. Just three simple words that said and meant everything.

John glanced back with a tight fraction of a smile under equally tight eyes, but his response was warm with the gratitude of a comrade-in-arms. "Walk," he replied. The single syllable was more than just a statement of his own answer. Accompanied by a slight tilt of the head, it also became a question: acknowledging Lestrade's own difficult night and silently asking if walking was what the DI needed as well.

"Right, then," Lestrade agreed, extending his bent legs and grimacing as his popping knees protested the sudden shift from their previously long-held position.

John's understanding chuckle was subdued, but honest, as he bent his own knees and pushed himself to his feet.

Lestrade followed and moved to John's side, watching the physician briefly scan the graveyard with his customary situational awareness; spine straightening, shoulders settling back, body realigning itself into military comfort and readiness. Only his arms seemed slow to comply; hands clenching and unclenching under slightly bent elbows, as if unsure whether to clasp his hands behind his back or cross his arms across his chest.

After a moment, John gave a little nod toward the stones – a silent gesture of gratitude for the graveyard's therapeutic presence. Then he settled his stiff arms and fisted hands several centimeters from his sides and, for the first time since Lestrade had arrived, turned and fully met his eyes. Ready?

Lestrade took one last look up at the fading moon and church roof in a silent thanks of his own, then stuffed his hands into his pockets, returned the short nod, and angled his body toward the gate. Ready.

They walked until daylight came and Sherlock texted John to join him for breakfast – sometimes talking, mostly in companionable silence, and always away from the moor.