Twelve Minutes

The man used to be a soldier. He now worked in civilian medicine but most of his colleagues at the NHS clinic knew. They knew recent months had been rather difficult for him, traumatic events and all. The adjustment had been a challenge but he was doing his best to make a new life for himself. He had fallen in love with a wonderful and amazing woman and she had said 'yes'. They were expecting their first child. They had settled in a new flat. He stayed in touch with a few of his mates from the army. He felt it was important, as his therapist said, to maintain contact with the people who had shared his defining experiences. He tried to put extra effort into maintaining a relationship with his former commanding officer despite the other man's often stoic reticence.

He was doing well. Everyone said so. But despite his dogged efforts to move on, the nightmares still visited him. He had quite a selection but the worst of the worst was That Day. And that was the dream that gripped him tonight as he lay next to his lovely, pregnant wife. It started innocuously. It always did. Ted Berringer was doing his spot-on impression of Sholto from the rear seat of their Snatch 2. John had tried hard not to laugh. He knew it was probably inappropriate but, by God, Berringer was funny. Peterson, the driver, shifted gears causing the Rover buck and backfired. They were all over him. Then the vehicle backfired again and then it rattled and conked out altogether. They rolled to a stop. John, who was riding shot gun, looked at the diver with raised eyebrows. Sutphin pulled out the radio and contacted the other vehicles behind them, two other Snatch 2's and an old ANA* troop truck. Six soldier hopped out and along with Berringer, Sutphin, and Chalmers they set up a perimeter around the broken down vehicle.

Peterson tried for ten minutes but could not get the engine to turn over. Finally, the decision was made to leave the vehicle (they pulled the alternator for good measure) and to get back to the Forward Operating Base in the other Rovers and the troop lorry. A repair team from the auto pool would be sent back for the Snatch 2. There was only one seat available in the other Rovers. John, as the doctor and the ranking officer could have had taken it, but instead they had drawn straws to see who would get the seat. Chalmers had won. Benny tossed them a wave and a cheeky grin as if to say "see ya" and headed over to climb aboard. He and the others shouldered their packs and began walking back to the lorry. The first Snatch 2 rolled forward driving on the wrong side of the road to pass the disabled vehicle.

The IED exploded under the wheels of the Snatch 2 just as he had tossed his pack into the rear of the lorry. He turned into the sun and saw smoke and flame coming from the vehicle. Murray grabbed his pack and crouched next to John ready to move in to tend the injured. Berringer and the others had re-established the perimeter and were searching the horizon for hostiles.

"Watson," Berringer yelled. He then gave John a series of hand signals indicating how he and Murray should approach the vehicle. The air was thick with black smoke and the noxious smells of burning rubber and diesel. John touched Bill Murray's arm in a signal to move out then the two of them sprinted to the Snatch 2 along with Peterson who had had medic training. The others maintained watch over the perimeter. The IED must have exploded under the driver's side wheel as that side of the Rover was heavily damaged. The driver, a young private named Crispin Dunn, was dead as was Benny Chalmers who had just taken the seat immediately behind the driver. He suppressed the sick feeling in his stomach as the sight of Chalmers burnt and ruined face. The other four occupants were alive and had managed to pull each other out, but two, Stewart and Varick were seriously hurt. John stood to a half crouch and pointed at Sutphin, the communications specialist, and circled his finger in the air, the sign for an emergency medical evac helicopter. Murray set about treating Stewart's severe facial burns and multiple fractured while John tended Varick's burns and badly mangled leg and Peterson handled the two walking wounded. Out of the blue, three shots rang out. John pitched forward and Murray and Peterson ducked as their perimeter guard returned fire.

His first memory after the shots was Peterson yelling "Oh, fuck!". John was sprawled face down in the dirt. A growing hand-sized circle of blood marked the entry wound on his shoulder just outside his body armour. Murray cursed under his breath and scrambled over to John ordering Peterson to finish up with Stewart. He could hear Varick's screams but couldn't help him. John groaned and cried out in pain when Murray rolled him over, his face twisted in agony. The was more blood coming from under his chest plate. Murray undid the tapes and removed John's body armour. Blood was freely gushing from the ragged exit wound. Murray blanched and swore again under his breath. Shards of white bone that used to be John's clavicle were visible in the exit wound. Murray looked into to John's face and John knew he was in trouble. Behind them Varick was still screaming.

"Morphine," John croaked out with what was meant as a nod of his head toward the severely burned and injured man. Murray missed it. Instead, he cringed inside to hear his friend call for morphine but he had to control this bleeding first.

"Just let me get this, sir," Murray said, trying to sound casual, as be began packing the exit wound with haemostatic gauze. John let out a choked gasp of pain and nearly blacked out as Murray forced the gauze as deep into the wound as he could. Then he propped John up to apply a pressure bandage to the entrance wound. Both the gauze and bandage were soon soaked with blood.

"Sutphin, where the fuck is the bloody helicopter?" Murray yelled over his shoulder. Bill rarely swore, almost never. John was starting to get very scared. Please, God, let me live. Varick howled again.

"Mo..ph'n," John's insistent voice was barely a whisper now but Murray caught on this time. Gently laying John back down he turned his attention to the other man. Varick's right leg was thoroughly mangled and badly burned. He also had second and third degree burns up his arm and neck. John had got a the bleeders in the leg clamped but Murray was no surgeon and be could do no more than dose the man with morphine, as John had said.

"Two minutes," Sutphin said breathlessly as he sprinted over. He and the other squad members had brought the perimeter in close around the stricken Snatch 2 and their wounded comrades. Berringer looked over his shoulder anxiously,

"How's it looking, Murray?" Bill didn't even look up. He had Sutphin sit with Varick and he returned wordlessly to John. John's breathing was starting to have a wheezing gurgle to it. Murray propped John up against lap trying to ease his breathing. John's face contorted in pain when he was moved but he made no sound. As the two minutes dragged on the only sounds were Varick's quiet whimpers and John's labored, ragged breathing. The stench of diesel fuel, smoke, burnt rubber and charred flesh hung in the air.

The evac helo landed on the road behind the convoy. John, Stewart, Varick and the two others were quickly loaded. The helo was staffed by a medic and another nurse but no doctor. Murray wasn't surprised. John was one of the few docs who were cleared to go into hot areas. Look where it's got him? The helo didn't linger on the ground. As soon as the last casualty was loaded the helo took off quickly gaining altitude and reversing its course at top speed.

They weren't far, as the crow flies, from Camp Bastion, probably no more than 12 minutes based on how long it took the helo to arrive. He could do this. John could make it. Varick and Stewart would make it. They could all get there. It would be OK. Murray wasted no time in getting an oxygen mask on John as the helo staff tended to the other injured. The oxygen did help improve John's colour but his breathing was sounding increasingly liquid. He coughed and the inside of the mask was flecked with blood. John could taste the blood in his mouth. He closed his eyes and prayed a second time. Please, God, let me live.

Murray tried his best to school his face but this was not good. John was aspirating blood and his respiration were growing increasingly ineffectual. Murray had already started two units of plasma but John's blood pressure was still dangerously low and his heart rate was elevated, and they were still eight minutes out. Murray looked at his friend seriously and John met his gaze. His face was dirty, streaked with sweat and tears. It was also etched with pain and desperation.

"Do it," he tried to say. No intelligible sound came out but Murray had read his lips.

"Peterson, I need you here," Murray said keeping the panic out of his voice. Three seconds later Peterson's face swam into John's view. He tried to smile reassuringly at the young, slightly goofy medic. He didn't fool anyone. The helo's engines pitched their din higher as the flight crew pushed them to the max.

"Peterson, put on fresh gloves and clean this area," Murray's voice was calm as he cut away John's blood soaked shirt and t-shirt. He dug into John's pack for the supplies and donned his own set of fresh gloves.

"Peterson, lidocaine there." Murray pointed to a spot between John's 5th and 6th ribs. Peterson looked up at him wide-eyed.

"Now, Peterson," Murray insisted and the medic complied. The local was next to useless for the purpose but they were out of options. The nurse snapped open a scalpel and swabbed the area with more Benadine. John met his eyes again. Please, God, let me live.

"Hold him," Bill said to Peterson with far more confidence than he felt. He then made an incision and inserted a chest tube for the first time in his life while 20-year-old Paul Peterson cried as he held the choking, screaming John down. Blood began to fill the discharge bag immediately. They were still five and a half minutes from Bastion.

After the tube went in John grew still and quiet. His consciousness was fading. He could hear Murray calling his name and Peterson apologizing over and over. Murray was right over his face begging his friend to hang on, to stay with them, dammit. Three minutes, he was crying. Just three minutes.

The dream ended the same way it always did, with John Watson dying in the back of the helo two minutes from Bastion. Bill Murray bolted upright in bed with an incoherent "No!" disturbing his sweet Ellen. He told her it was nothing and to go back to sleep while he tried to shake the images from in front of his eyes. That's not what happened, he told himself, not what happened, he repeated again and again. Bill quietly got out of bed and got a glass of water from the tap.

Despite Bill's pleas, John had lost consciousness anyway. He had stopped breathing just over two minutes out and Bill Murray performed his first intubation forcing air into John's lungs manually with an ambu bag. The helo had hit the landing pad in record time and a trauma team took John away. Murray had stumbled stupidly after them until a nurse had grabbed his arm and pulled him aside asking him where he was hurt. Only then did Bill realized that he was literally covered in blood, John's mostly but also Stewart's, Varick's and even Benny's. Bill suddenly flashed to Chalmers's charred face, Varick's leg and the shards of John's collarbone sticking out of his shoulder like quills. He felt like being sick right there in his kitchen in Aberdeen.

They had put six units of blood in John during surgery and another two afterwards. Bill remembered Sholto, fresh from his own patrol, barging into the hospital several hours later dust-covered and still in body armour demanding a report. He remembered how the major had visited Stewart and Varick and asked after the others before he could bring himself to visit John. Sholto had then stopped short and cursed under his breath at the sight of his friend. Bill had never seen the man betray the slightest emotion before. He, even more so than John, was the consummate British soldier. Like most of the other men in the unit, Bill had been more than a bit afraid of the man. In that moment, however, Sholto looked positively stricken. There was no miraculous recovery or even any good-byes. John had never really regained consciousness before they put him on the critical care flight to Birmingham 35 hours later with a low-grade fever and an elevated white blood cell count. Murray's own tour had ended three and a half weeks later, and he had mustered out after four years service in mid-October.

Bill Murray shook his head to clear the memories and finished his glass of water. He stared out the window at the neighbor's garden which had been meticulously put to bed for the winter. He then crossed over to the computer table in the corner and opened his e-mail. His latest attempt to e-mail John had bounced back. Their last exchange of e-mail had been while John was still at Queen's Hospital. John's responses had all been very terse and almost formal. Bill felt a pang of guilt that he had never gone to visit his mate after he mustered out, but it had just been too hard. He knew that John had been discharged at the end of November but didn't have a phone number or, apparently, his proper e-mail address. Bill opened a browser window and after while typed Dr. John H. Watson into the search bar. There were a smattering of news stories reporting the IED and ambush, and several Facebook pages for various John Watsons. He was astonished to see that the fourth hit was for a person blog. He snorted. The John Watson he knew was not exactly the internet blogging type. He clicked on the link and his heart sank as he read the few, lame, brief entries. He stared at the screen for along time then he clicked the Comment button,

"Hi John. I tried emailing you but it bounced back. How are things? I'm in London at the end of the month. Do you fancy meeting up?"†

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A/N - I guess this is kind of a companion piece to my story, Adjusting. I know this isn't a unique idea, using Bill Murray's POV to tell John's story but I couldn't resist. One of my very favorite series of fan fics is by Savithny on Ao3 and it is about this very idea - "Sometimes you here the bullets" and "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt". I highly recommend them.

*ANA = Afghan National Army

† This last line is quoted from the BBC's johnwatsonblog_uk. Bill is the first commenter to the blog before John met Stamford or Sherlock in AsiP.

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