Disclaimer: I own nothing in this marvelous universe; it all belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Moffat, and Gatiss.

Author's Note: Originally, I'd intended this to be another chapter in Intermezzo. It's still part of that series and takes place during that timeframe, but I really wanted to give this thread its own story ::grins::. This may well go on for a few chapters—although, since I have most of it planned out, it should hopefully not take quite as long to post each section, particularly with winter break coming up! I also may write a sequel to this, a sort of reverse of the situation below—I hope you enjoy it!

Rating: T (for language)

Summary: Sherlock's first arson case after the Hiatus results in an injured John and some hard truths for Sergeant Sally Donovan…(Intense Friendshipfic. Post-Reichenbach Reunion.)

"Speech"

Personal Thoughts/Memories (Italics)

.:Intermezzo: Inferno:.

By Sentimental Star

IOIOIOIOIOI

inferno: a very large and dangerous fire

IOIOIOIOIOI

"JOHN!"

Grating and rough, the cry of his name disappeared into the flaps of his jacket, swallowed by leather and the pained cry torn from his own throat.

Sherlock scrambled to extricate himself from underneath John as the sky erupted in color and flame above them, shoving frantically (and ineffectually) at the soldier's chest.

John remained rather firmly on top of him, gritting his teeth against the blaze of agony shooting through his carpal bones where a piece of burning debris had collided with his wrist only moments prior: "Sorry, not losing you today," he muttered into Sherlock's hair.

"John-!"

The detective's wild objection went heard, but unheeded.

Snarling under his breath as he fought the pain threatening to consume him, John bit down on his cheek and yanked Sherlock under a relatively intact stone arch.

As soon as they reached its momentary sanctuary, Sherlock gathered his strength and thrust himself out from underneath John.

Untrusting of their temporary shelter, but realistic enough to know when he had lost the fight, John finally let him go.

"You idiot!" Sherlock snapped, seizing the wounded limb with a tenderness that belied his tone.

"I'm fine, Sherlock, it's just a-"

"—Severe wrist fracture that you may or may not have exacerbated by pulling me under cover!"

John's eyebrow lifted, "Who's the doctor here, Sherlock?"

"Shut up and hold it perfectly still!" the detective snarled.

With a sigh, John held his arm straight, jumping slightly when Sherlock immediately tore several strips of fabric from the bottom of his shirt, even as a chaos of heat and soot erupted from their left, causing the doctor to flinch towards his best friend. "Really, Sherlock," he tried to protest, attempting to ignore a bright flare of pain as his arm jostled, "you don't have to-"

"I said, shut up!"

John blinked, watching bemusedly as the detective aligned two pieces of wooden shrapnel with his injured wrist and tied them off with the strips he'd torn from his shirt, thereby fashioning a crude splint. Sherlock's scarf went around his arm and got knotted behind his neck. A moment later, his arm settled gently against his chest.

John blinked again, glancing down at his arm, before meeting the keen gaze that traced his form and muttering, "When did you learn triage?"

Stripping off his Belstaff coat, Sherlock did not answer at first. Instead, he tossed it around John's shoulders and pulled it snugly around the doctor's lightly shivering form. "Cold," the younger man murmured urgently, tugging it closed, "are you cold?"

"Sherlock…" John shook his head, his uninjured hand coming up to cover the larger ones fluttering wildly across his chest.

The detective ignored him, jerking his hands free and allowing his fingers to fly up to John's neck, searching frantically for what, John realized a moment later, was his pulse, "And you're not-?"

"Sherlock."

Agitated violinist's hands stilled, and John squeezed them, bringing their palms down to his chest, "For God's sake, I'm fine," he muttered. "Where…when did you learn triage? I certainly never taught you-"

Pure disbelief colored Sherlock's face, "You narrowly avoided third degree burns, and that is what you are worried about?"

John shrugged his left shoulder, keeping the right one (attached to his fractured wrist) still, "It is not the first time I've been near an explosion. I am sure it won't be the last," he attempted a smile, "not with the places we'll run around."

Sherlock fell (miraculously) silent. "…You don't have to," he whispered at last, his eyes falling to rest on their hands, still pressed against John's chest where the sturdy heart beat under his fingertips.

The doctor's mouth fell open. For several endless minutes silence spiraled out between them, before John finally managed, "Sorry…what? Did you I just hear you say-"

"You did," Sherlock murmured. His gaze dropped to the ground.

Therefore, he missed John's abrupt scowl. He assuredly did not miss, however, the hand that suddenly grasped his chin and yanked it up with all the tenderness its owner could muster.

The detective's eyes flew wide, "John?"

"…You idiot!" the older man growled. "Nothing in this world—or the next, if you believe in such things—could prevent me from following after you."

Sherlock opened his mouth to object, but before John could follow a more drastic route of persuasion, blue lights and wailing sirens pierced through the flame-painted, midnight air.

IOIOIOIOIOI

Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade had long ago determined that whoever believed Sherlock Holmes's sociopath claim was a Class A idiot.

Certainly, they'd never seen him with an injured John Watson (hell, Lestrade had never really seen him with an injured John Watson). And those who rightfully should have seen it, deliberately chose to ignore it, or otherwise proved so ridiculously oblivious to it that Lestrade worried about the validity of their observation skills.

As fire streaked London's nighttime sky in front of them, Lestrade gently grabbed his second-in-command by her shoulder and firmly redirected her towards the paramedics, "Secure the area. Whatever happens, do not let them separate Sherlock and John."

Sergeant Sally Donovan fixed him with a look of pure disbelief, "You cannot be serious!"

Lestrade bit back an impatient scowl, Deliberate blindness, then. "Sergeant, your post," he retorted severely, before breaking off his glare and swirling away towards a cache of firefighters that had just arrived on the scene.

Scowling fiercely, and in no mood to hide it (at bloody 1AM, no less), Sally Donovan whirled around and stalked towards the ambulance parked at the edge of the crime scene.

IOIOIOIOIOI

The doctor saw her first, reading the unmitigated fury, and deeper, that fury overwritten with utter exhaustion, with a swiftness and an ease that would have made his detective counterpart righteously proud were it not for the fact that every shred of the younger man's considerable focus had locked on to his flat mate's (relatively minor) injury.

John made to stand, intent on intercepting her and averting any possible damage to his best friend's admittedly fragile (at the moment) psyche. Sherlock quickly put an end to that notion, immediately pressing a hand down on the older man's uninjured shoulder; ironically, the one that, four years earlier, had seen a bullet put through it.

"Stay still, John."

If Sherlock's actions had not prevented the ex-Army doctor from standing, then his voice surely would—subdued, with a trembling edge that threatened to crack at any moment.

John sat, glancing up sharply at his flat mate, "Sherlock?" he asked softly.

The detective merely shook his head, pivoting to face the livid presence at his back. John noted that Sherlock's hand, despite his intention not to attempt standing again, remained firmly where the younger man had placed it.

"Problem, Sergeant Donovan?"

Dear Lord, was John the only one who heard the near-silence of the question? The shaking that Sherlock attempted to hide with the question's nearly inaudible volume?

"You keep your pet doctor on a short leash, Freak."

Apparently so.

John felt Sherlock stiffen, his grip tightening painfully on the older man's shoulder. Valiantly, said doctor tried to still a wince.

"I do not see why that should be of any concern to you."

Again, the barely-there-whisper concealed the much stronger emotions roiling beneath the surface of his decidedly not sociopathic friend's voice. Steel lined the younger man's tone, but Sergeant Donovan seemed utterly deaf to it tonight.

"Hah! It just proves my point—you don't have friends, Freak, certainly not when you treat them like this. Tell me, did you jump because you couldn't bear our humanity any longer…or are you so pathetically unlovable that you decided to rid humanity of your existence?"

John barely bit back a snarl, "That's rich, you delusional-!"

"John, shut up!"

Stunned, mutinous, John whipped his head up to glare at his best friend (and bit back a pained groan in the process), "Sherlock-!"

"Yes, yes, it's all horribly untrue and completely unfounded—I know, John, but let me fix this my way, and for the love of God, be quiet."

John's jaw shut with a snap, holding back a string of (most likely, completely impolite) suggestions as to what Sally Donovan could do with her…deductions.

Sherlock's hand shifted to curl around John's shoulder, squeezing gently as he wordlessly thanked him for the sentiment, but his eyes never left the woman's, even as it became apparent that she'd let her mouth run away from her. Her eyes widened slightly with panic, obviously aware she had overstepped a boundary, but unwilling to take back her words, in spite of the fact that she surely knew what would come next.

Sherlock's impossibly accurate deductions had only grown more accurate in his absence, but he made no comment about the very apparent fact that the uniform she wore was not her own, nor the fact that it was ill-suited to the weather, as if she had left someplace in quite a hurry—someplace that was, quite obviously, not her own flat. Instead, he merely surveyed her coolly, for several tense, unending minutes. "You know nothing of love, Sergeant Donovan," he replied at last, voice a scarce murmur. "How could you, when you've never had someone worthy of love?"

That wasn't pity. Surely that wasn't pity John heard in the misanthropic detective's voice.

…But apparently it was, as Sergeant Donovan flushed a deep, humiliated red. "What would you know of love, Freak?" she spat out. "How are you in any way worthy of what others apparently aren't?"

John sensed the steel that entered Sherlock's spine long before the detective's actual response, "I have no idea," he retorted tightly, abruptly releasing John to march off into the blustery cold of the November night.

IOIOIOIOIOI

"Oh, well done, Sally!" the doctor growled in Sherlock's wake.

Sergeant Donovan scowled at him, "It's not my fault the Freak's in a pissy mood!"

John's expression hardened. "Really? Because last I checked, Sherlock wasn't the one who decided that the inconvenient hour and bloody uncomfortable weather were cause enough to harangue a civilian."

Sally scoffed, a bitter edge to her laughter, "Like he gives a damn."

"More than you know," John remarked softly, turning to observe the suit-clad form standing several yards away, hunched against the wind. He hugged the Belstaff coat (still around his shoulders) closer still, in the absence of its owner.

When Sally snorted derisively, the doctor grit his teeth, turning to face her, "You know, I used to wonder why Sherlock seemed so utterly convinced he was incapable of emotion. Now I see why."

"Why the hell are you defending him?" Sally demanded, shoving her fists onto her hips. "He played dead for three years, and didn't do a single bloody thing to convince you otherwise!"

John's eyes flashed, "And you headed up a bloody witch hunt three years ago! What the hell else was he supposed to do?!"

"Don't you dare try to pin this on me!"

"I will do what I damn well please, Sergeant Donovan. I don't bloody care if you despised him—you should have known better!"

"Perhaps I should have," she spat out between clenched teeth, "or perhaps I wasn't that far off the mark."

"Is that what you told Lestrade, when he had to forfeit his job? Or Mycroft when he reinstated it? Is that what you told Mrs. Hudson when you had to take her statement? Because I see that logic falling through within seconds of your initial questioning."

Donovan glanced away. John couldn't find it in himself to feel any remorse, "Hit a nerve, have I?" he retorted, unrelenting.

The woman flinched at the soft steel lining his voice. Her shoulders slumped, "Why did you take him back?" she asked finally, voice low.

John relaxed out of his battle stance, sitting back in the ambulance, and regarded her mildly, carelessly shrugging his good shoulder, "Perhaps because I love him?"

Sally Donovan's jaw dropped. "What?" she sputtered.

John arched an eyebrow, "Problem, Sergeant Donovan?"

(And no, that wasn't a deliberate echo of Sherlock's earlier questioning.)

"Him? Love him?"

John shrugged again. "Of course."

As Sergeant Donovan seemed incapable of speech, John huffed a small laugh, "Really, Sally? We're really going through this?"

Completely and utterly flummoxed, the woman spluttered, "W-Why the hell would you?"

The doctor bit back a snort. He supposed to an outsider (or to someone as completely oblivious as Donovan), little reason existed for him to love the self-proclaimed, sociopathic detective: he left body parts in the fridge and scoured London's very worst dregs in search of serial killers, shot up walls when bored, and played violin at 3:00 AM.

Were they even to come into the flat, and spend a day there, even a week there, it would only reinforce the idea that John was absolutely barking mad.

They did not see the little concessions Sherlock made on John's behalf—Bach or Beethoven instead of caterwauling at 3AM, fingers in the fridge instead of heads, and complete and utter devotion to the doctor's health, well-being, and safety.

Was it really so hard to see why John loved him?

"I doubt you'd understand," he remarked softly.

She surveyed him testily, "Try me, Doctor Watson."

John raised an eyebrow, unperturbed, "Let's clarify a few things then, shall we? Sherlock is not a fake—he is more brilliant than you or I could ever even hope to be. Nor is he anything other than human—in fact, I'd even venture to say that he is the most human man I have ever met. I have said it, in fact. To the gravestone of an entirely remarkable and extraordinary man. You can tell Greg, even though he already knows, that we were lucky."

Sergeant Donovan scowled, clearly not understanding that last little bit and disliking that fact immensely.

John's lips quirked up in a small smile. If she didn't understand, he wasn't about to clarify.

Standing with a wince, the doctor carefully worked out the kinks in his back. When Sergeant Donovan shifted in her place impatiently, John smirked at her, "The real reason why I love him, Sally? When you take a shell of a man, and give him a purpose and a reason for living again, love will naturally follow that course. He is a miracle, and no one—not even the miracle himself—will convince me otherwise."

Cracking another smile, and gingerly adjusting his sling, John turned and marched away, leaving the gaping DS in his wake.

End Chapter