prompting part XXIII

[sherlockbbc_fic]

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FILL: "Birdsong" 4/4

[tacotheshark]

About a year after Megan’s death, John gets a call from the surgery on a day on which he isn’t working. “John, hello, this may be a bit uncalled for and I understand if you don’t want to come on,” says his coworker, Alice, “but a man got stabbed and when he was brought it, he saw your name on the schedule and he asked if you were available. Are you?”

“Do I know him?” John asks, wondering why anyone would possibly ask for him. “What’s his name?”

“Joseph Milligan,” replies Alice, as if she’s reading off a chart, which she probably is.

John’s already halfway out the door when he says, “Yes, yes, I’ll be right in,” hanging up his phone and tossing it haphazardly into his bag.

When John finds the right room and rushes inside, Alice tells him, “He was stabbed in the liver and he’s only got about a day.”

No, NO, John thinks and it reverberates in his head, the one thing keeping him from screaming it aloud being his reluctance to seem like a maniac at his work. Because he can’t do that, he walks over to the bed in which Joseph lies, bandaged and attached to IVs, and he pulls up a chair.

“Dr. Watson,” says Joseph, with nothing in his olive eyes but admiration. “Just wanted to see you.”

John is crying again, squeezing out miniscule tears that are by no means unnoticeable. Joseph is crying as well, and every second John looks at the boy, the crack is his heart splits further as if it’s being hammered at by a pick and chisel.

Joseph’s voice is weak and wavering. “Dr. Watson, you were with my father when he… when he died… weren’t you?”

“Yes,” John chokes, crossing one leg over the other and smiling because it’s so absurd, everything that’s happened with the Milligans. “Yes, I was.”

Joseph sinks his head into his pillow, relaxing his muscles but staring at John still. “Thank you. I’m glad he was with friends.”

“Friends,” John repeats, stunned, and he can’t help but smile again, a sad chuckle. “Your entire family died in my care.”

“And I will too,” Joseph says, and it’s another hard drilling at John’s heart, even though the boy sounds only content and he smiles as he speaks. “And I couldn’t be happier about that, Dr. Watson.”

John sits with Joseph for the rest of the day, after calling Sherlock to let him know. They exchange stories of their lives- John tells Joseph about his genius and maniac of a flatmate, Joseph tells John about absolutely everything, telling with laughs about the lunatic who mugged and stabbed him earlier in the day- and John rides a rollercoaster of hurt, love, and connection. John had never felt so connected to anyone in his life as he does to his patient, to this boy who is truly so much more than just his patient. When Alice comes in again to ask if there’s any family Joseph would like to phone, both he and John laugh, not because it is funny or a joke but because it is so ridiculously absurd.

When Joseph’s heart begins to fail, he refuses the defibrillator or resuscitation, wanting nothing more than to be with his doctor, his family’s doctor. John weeps tears of neither sadness nor love but a mixture of the two as he watches Joseph float away with his last words whispered softly, “Thank you, Dr. Watson.”

Re: FILL: "Birdsong" 4/4

[kendra42]

OK, now I'm just horribly depressed! This was a really good story but I hope someone, maybe Sherlock if can not be an idiot for awhile, is there to comfort John.