Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or BBC or anything really... If I did I would have more money. Also, the quote of my title - "To Err is Human" - I didn't come up with that. Not my quote!

AN: Ack! So sorry it took me so long. :( I've been really busy lately and this chapter has been a killer to write. Finally got it finished though! I won't be able to update frequently for the next several weeks either. Between exams and final projects, I won't have much time for anything. :p sorry!

Chapter 3

At 6:00 the next morning, Sherlock was awake and pulling the bow over the strings of his violin. The music was soft and melodic, and didn't wake up the flat's other occupant. It wasn't until 7:30 that John wheeled himself out of his room.

"I'll have to call and tell the secretary I won't be in for a couple weeks," the doctor stated with a yawn.

Sherlock continued playing and didn't respond.

"Could you make a cup of tea?" John continued. "I can't reach the kettle from here."

The consulting detective ceased playing for no more than ten seconds to put on the kettle. "We're out of milk."

"As if you can expect me to believe you this time."

Not putting down his violin, Sherlock used his knee to open the fridge door. "See?"

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" John questioned with a raised eyebrow. His flatmate shrugged, then set the violin down.

"I'm bored. I'll go get some." The detective yanked his coat off the hook and headed for the door. "Oh, and don't drink the fruit punch. It's actually human blood." The door slammed shut behind him.

A half hour later, John was finally finishing his tea. He'd nearly killed himself trying to get out a cup and then having to reach the kettle. No thanks to Sherlock, who had left before helping him.

Footsteps thumped up the stairs, and Sherlock breezed into the room and discarded his coat on the floor. In his hand was a package of something that was definitely not milk.

"They call this 'Silly Putty', John. It seems to be a chemically advanced child's toy." Sherlock ripped open the cardboard and plastic packaging.

The doctor heaved an exasperated sigh. "What about the milk?"

"What? Oh - milk. Trivial."

"How is milk more trivial than silly putty?" John exclaimed. Sherlock, too absorbed in the silly putty, didn't say anything. John wheeled the chair over to his laptop, and the whole flat fell into a sullen silence.

"I brought you some supper, dears!" Mrs. Hudson's voice drifted up the stairs. Sherlock looked up from his analysis of the silly putty to see his landlady carrying a container of pasta. The smell of alfredo sauce wafted through the flat.

"I'm not hungry," the consulting detective replied.

John glared at him. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. It smells delicious." He set his laptop down on the side table.

Sherlock returned to the silly putty, ignoring Mrs. Hudson as she set the past down on the counter.

"How are you holding up, John?"

"Alright. The pain medication works well, so my leg doesn't hurt at all," John responded.

"Oh, that's excellent. Sherlock, dear, could you clear off a spot on the table?" the landlady reached for plates and cutlery.

Without looking up from his silly putty, the detective swept aside some of the clutter.

All through the meal, Mrs. Hudson and John tried to integrate Sherlock into the conversation, but the man barely acknowledged them. He seemed too absorbed with his new toy.

In reality, Sherlock was trying to avoid his guilt. He'd attempted to join the chatting, but every time he looked up and saw John, he remembered that John's injury was his fault.

If it had happened to anyone else - if it was Anderson or the mailman or the man who owned the sandwich shop - Sherlock wouldn't have cared. That was just the way he was. But John was different. John was one of the few people who had ever cared for Sherlock. And the detective was starting to realize that everyone needed people to care, even high-functioning sociopaths.

There was gunfire and flashes of light everywhere. The screams of the dying rang out in the streets. Bullets glanced off the walls and sent chips of stone flying.

"Bomb!" someone screamed in the distance and there was an explosion and everything blurred into flashes of black and white and red-

John awoke with the gasping start of a scream. The sheets were tangled and damp from sweat. The doctor extricated himself from the mess and swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was a familiar ache in his right leg.

Dammit. Why couldn't the war just leave him alone?

Sherlock's violin was certainly getting it's exercise. As occupied as he was between the silly putty and his instrument, the detective barely said a word over the next three days. John occasionally tried to make conversation, but success was rare. Mrs. Hudson continued to bring meals, but that didn't elicit any sort of response from Sherlock either.

Five days after John had gotten shot, Mrs. Hudson announced a sentence that gave the consulting detective an immediate headache.

"Sherlock, your brother's here!"

The detective swore and threw the violin bow across the room. John caught it out of the air before it could fall to the ground.

"Calm down," the doctor reprimanded. "It's just Mycroft."

Sherlock blew out a frustrated sigh. "It's never just Mycroft! I can't bel-"

"You do know he actually cares for you?"

"No, he doesn't," Sherlock scoffed. He set down the violin. "I'll be back later today."

Mycroft was halfway up the stairs when Sherlock pushed past him. "Retreating already?" the older brother called out dryly. The other didn't respond.

Sherlock took a taxi directly to police HQ. He burst through the doors to Lestrade's office and asked, "Do you have any cases?"

Lestrade heaved a sigh. "No, Sherlock. You know I'd call if we did."

"Not even a robbery?"

"Not our division," the DI replied.

Sherlock threw his hands into the air. "Why are criminals always so incompetent?"

Donovan, standing just outside her superior's office, made eye contact with Lestrade and started to mouth her favourite phrase. One of these days...

Lestrade ignored her. "Sherlock, just go home. I'll call you if we have anything."

"Mycroft's at the flat."

"He's your brother!"

Sherlock headed out of the office without bothering to say another word.

Sherlock's next stop was the morgue. He was certain there was some experiment he could come up with, and some corpses to experiment on. The detective strode through the chilly lower levels of the building, but he didn't feel the cold. He'd come down here far too many times to notice.

Molly looked up as he pushed open the doors. "Sh-Sherlock," the mortician stuttered for a moment before regaining her composure. "I didn't expect you to show up here."

"Well, here I am." Sherlock pulled off his scarf and tossed it on the counter. "Any new bodies?"

This type of question didn't faze Molly, not anymore. "Those bodies were real people, you know. So no, none you can use for your experiments."

"Damn."

"How is John doing?"

Midway through reaching for his scarf, Sherlock froze. "He's alright."

"That's good." Molly glanced down at her shoes. "And- and how are you doing?"

"I wasn't the one who got shot," Sherlock replied sharply, trying to act like the mortician hadn't hit the nail on the head, so to speak.

"I know you did something wrong, and you know you did something wrong, but don't beat yourself up about it any more. Everyone makes mistakes," Molly said softly.

"Just not mistakes this big." The words slipped out before the consulting detective could stop them. He spun on his heel and headed for the doors.

"Sherlock-"

"Go back to work, Molly."

The consulting detective wandered around the city for another two hours. Finally he was driven home in a police cruiser after causing a disruption at a library. By this time, it was well past dinner and into the evening. John was sitting in front of the television, watching a game show.

"The answer is an ostrich. Struthio camelus," Sherlock commented as he walked into the room.

"I was trying to figure this one out on my own, thank you very much," John exclaimed exasperatedly.

"You're welcome."

The army doctor grabbed the remote and flicked on the television. "Mrs. Hudson brought supper again."

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten at all today. You've barely eaten anything for the past week. Sherlock, are you okay?" John questioned.

Sherlock shrugged off the question. "Yes, of course I'm fine. And I have eaten today. Now where's that plant material I was looking at?"

"On the table, where you left it."

The detective sat down in front of his microscope. The silence that had been so prevalent over the past several days returned. Sherlock had always been comfortable with silence, but this quietness felt... off. The detective pushed that thought aside. He had no time for emotional hunches or what people called a 'gut feeling'.

However, John's misery was more than a subtle idea. It was obvious. His mobility restricted, he spent long hours in front of the television. The lack of physical activity was starting to get to him.

John retired earlier than usual that night. Sherlock stayed up for another couple of hours, but when he did decide to get some sleep, he took two more of Mycroft's sleeping pills to ensure dreamlessness that night. That turned out to be a major mistake.

John pulled himself out of another nightmare with a sharp inhale. An expletive slipped out from between clenched teeth.

The man's stomach was roiling uncomfortably. To settle his nerves - and his digestive system - John made a split-second decision to head to the kitchen to get something to eat. An apple, probably. He slid himself over to where his wheelchair sat next to his bed.

However, in the near-pitch-blackness, the doctor's depth perception was greatly lacking. Coupled with the fact that his mattress had shifted from his tossing and turning, this was a recipe for disaster.

Instead of making it all the way off to the seat of the wheelchair, John slammed the side of his leg - his right leg - into the armrest of the chair. The army doctor let out a cry of pain as he fell to the ground and landed almost directly on his injury. Stars danced before his eyes as pain blossomed in his leg. A dark splotch of blood spread across the fabric of his pajamas.

The shout and accompanying 'thud' woke Sherlock from sleep. Groggy from the medication, it took Sherlock a moment to register the pained moans coming from John's room. The detective stumbled out of bed, his vision slightly blurred.

"Get to John. Get to John," he muttered to himself, trying to focus his thoughts. He clumsily grabbed his cellphone off the bedside table, ready to call for an ambulance if necessary.

Sherlock staggered into John's room to find his flatmate curled on the floor in pain. The instant the detective flipped on the light, the stains of blood on the carpet became all too obvious. Sherlock knelt down next to the injured man - all too reminiscent of the night he'd been shot - and dialed for an ambulance.

Agh I'm sorry that really wasn't all that good and I didn't really proofread and I don't really know anything about sleeping pills but thank you all for reading and reviewing ;). The next chapter will be a while probably. It's probably safe to say that most of you know the horror of end-of-semester crap.