Fic for Elenothar: Who Shot Sherlock Holmes?

[holmesticemods]

Title: Who Shot Sherlock Holmes?
Recipient: elenothar
Author: sherlockholmes
Characters/Pairings: The entire cast of Sherlock, with a hint of a Lestrade/Sherlock pairing
Rating: PG-13 for Language
Warnings: None, really
Summary: After Lestrade gets a call that Sherlock was shot in his Baker Street flat, he and John race to try and put the pieces together and solve the crime.



I'm not much for writing. I mean really, besides reports and documenting evidence there isn't much reason for me to be. It's John that's the blogger. He's good at it as well, just real creative, him. You know, the pair of them, really: Holmes and Watson . There is just a lot of talent up there on Baker Street. But given the circumstances of this particular case, John asked me if I wouldn't to give it a go. He said I might have something to say so I thought I ought to try. Bit sorry you have to read this, in any event, but have at it if you like.

One of those things that people always seem to think about is where they happened to be when they heard of some stunning world event. The death of Princess Diana, is maybe the best example I can think of, or those bombings in the London underground, maybe. No matter what happens, where I was in those moments will be with me for the rest of my life. Unforgettable minutes in a lifetime of otherwise hazy half-memories and bucket-loads of things I've just plain forgot. If I'm being honest, I don't even think I remember my wedding in quite as much detail.

So those moments, those tragedies, they aren't all that personal though are they? And I can remember my wife shaking me awake over Princess Diana but I've never met her in my life. When it is something more close to home I guess -- no, I don't guess, this is something I actually know -- it has to be something that'll stick. I know I'm never ever going to forget where I was, the smell of the police car, the taste of the coffee, when I got the call that Sherlock Holmes had been shot.

***

Fog off the River Thames was commonplace just about any morning, but there was something about a dreary Monday that made getting out of bed even more difficult. Add to that the fact Lestrade had had a long and busy weekend filled with running errands for or spending time with his family and leaving the house a little bit behind schedule could almost be expected. Greg worked a lot of long heavy hours during the week; it made those two weekend days feel like an extended apology to his wife and teen-aged son. It was all about them and as much as he loved being a husband and a father there were still some Sunday nights that he looked forward to getting back to the office -- at least at Scotland Yard, unlike at home, he felt he was capable of doing at least a few things right. A feeling that was hard to gather from a household that was used to not having him around most of the time.

"Can't it wait until I'm in the damn office, Donovan?" Lestrade tucked his phone under his ear. He'd never been pulled over for talking on his cell while driving but he really didn't want today to be that day. After all, he was already on his way to getting in to the office rather late, -- already he'd made himself added minutes to his tardiness by stopping to grab a coffee. He wasn't going to but knowing what he was like without a morning jolt of hot caffeine convinced him to pick one up in the end. Anyway his colleagues knew what he was like without it as well and they would have wanted him to take the detour. Really, he was doing them a favour just as much as he was himself. "Eh? What is it then?"

There was a very long pause on Sally's end of the call before her voice finally came through. It was choppy, the connection bad and it took Greg a moment to realise that there were sirens going off behind her.

"Sir, I--" She said, caught somewhere between making sure that she was louder than the noise in the background while still maintaining a certain level of sensitivity and gentleness. "There has been a shooting."

"God, first thing Monday morning. Right, okay. Where are you?"

"It's--Sir, it's Baker Street."

For a moment, Greg didn't say anything. He couldn't glean much from Donovan's tone; really, she'd be this grave no matter what the circumstances. Hell, if Holmes had actually shot someone he supposed Sally might actually jump at the bit for the chance to bring him down. Greg knew that she disliked Holmes and he couldn't blame her for that. Half the bloody time, he didn't care much for Sherlock either.

No matter how he looked at it though, suddenly a week where he had nothing on would be bogged down with paperwork and, quite likely, skirting issues to try and keep Sherlock out of prison. That kind of rule breaking had become so second nature to him that he hardly batted an eye about it anymore. It was simply how it was when working with Sherlock Holmes.

Sally was saying something else now, though, but Greg missed white getting lost in his own thoughts and a tricky left-hand turn. The police sirens on Donovan's end of the call let up a moment and Sally repeated herself: and the police sirens on Donovan's end. "Sherlock. It's Sherlock."

The words didn't hit him at first. He initially assumed that she meant it had been Holmes who'd pulled the trigger, but when no smart remark or 'I told you so'-style quip followed her comment, the realisation seeped in. His chest tightened, hit with a sharp pain like he'd just taken in two lungs worth of smoke.

"Is--" Greg cleared the choked feeling from his throat with a cough. Knowing he'd been silent on his just a little too long but it didn't make much difference because he still couldn't get the words out. Lestrade just couldn't bring himself to ask if Sherlock was dead, it was too foreign a concept for him to even consider. Sherlock was so strange and unique in so many ways. Men like him couldn't just die. "Is--where is he?"

"Hospital, Sir, The Princess Grace. We're not looking at a homicide yet, but we need you here and--Hello?"

Lestrade had the phone already hung up and tossed to the seat beside. He pulled his car around for the kind of U-turn that could have caused an accident in Monday traffic. He didn't care. He was trying to convince himself that he was making the best move for the case -- that Sherlock Holmes was an invaluable witness because of his powers of perception and observation and that he could tell them more about the crime scene than Lestrade could ever hope to decide on his own.

The sinking feeling in his stomach, the threatening nausea and how heavy his foot was on the accelerator, all spoke volumes as to how close he was to all of this. Sherlock Holmes, as valuable as he'd always and ever been to Greg's career, had become so much more than an ally or colleague. Sherlock was a friend, and a good one, despite of all his short-comings.

Even with the morning rush, the turnaround time from the call from Sally to pulling into the hospital parking lot was less than fifteen minutes. Sitting in the car, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands and took a breath. He had no idea if he was ready to face the information he could gain in that hospital. He had to be a professional and an investigating officer first but if Sherlock wasn't walking away from this, Greg didn't know if he could hold it together. Lestrade eventually managed to take his seat belt off, the coffee he'd took the time to get in the morning now sitting in the cup holder forgotten. The trip into the hospital felt like it took just as long as the drive to get there; he paid attention to absolutely nothing on his way in. His focus was completely on the reception desk but that didn't help him feel anything but lost when he approached it.

"Sorry," he said, grasping for the words like he was speaking another language. "I'm looking for -- ah, Holmes. Sherlock Holmes, he was admitted here? With..."

The girl behind the counter was young and Greg recognised nervousness in her expression and he knew what that meant. She must have already been instructed to be wary of anyone asking for Sherlock. He'd been shot which meant there were liable to be those who didn't want him still alive -- not to mention the fact that he'd become a damned celebrity in the last few months. Lestrade wasn't family and he knew that saying he was a friend wouldn't get him very far at all. What would was the badge in his front pocket, and he reached for it almost immediately, flipped it open and rested his hand on the counter so she could look at the information provided for as long as she liked.

"Oh." She said quietly, her head jerking back towards the screen quickly. "He's still in surgery; actually, if you want to see him you'll have to wait. I think there is someone --"

Lestrade arched his eyebrows and looked off in the direction she'd pointed. It was a little place off to the side, a kind of private waiting room, and almost immediately Lestrade could feel himself rebelling against the idea of going in there. That was where people sat in silence until a doctor came in and gave them news, either good or bad. It was a helpless place to be, and for a moment he regretted not going to Baker Street. At least there he could make himself useful processing evidence and playing a role catching the son of a bitch who'd done this.

Nevertheless he found himself nodding, and heading to the room just as directed. He was there at the bloody hospital as it was, and utterly resolved to the fact that Sherlock would probably give him a better lead than any he'd pull for himself. That was something he was going to stick to; it really was the best explanation -- the most professional explanation -- as to why he'd come. Greg often took refuge in explaining his actions with anything that wasn't emotion these days; it was a habit that a failing marriage had really gotten him into and it was what was keeping him level now.

Besides, the nurse had implied that there was someone in the room already. And even though it surprised him to think that Dr. Watson had been released from the scene so quickly, it never occurred to him that he could be anyone else until he stepped in past the doorway.

"Detective Inspector." Mycroft Holmes sat looking rigid and as out of place as Greg felt. Mycroft's coat off and draped over an arm, both hands firm on the handle of an umbrella, ferrule planted between his polished leather shoes with such force it looked like it ought to crack the hospital's concrete floor.

Lestrade wavered in the door, now wanting even less to walk into the room. He didn't like being around Sherlock's older brother at all; the man was too invasive, too smart. With Sherlock, Greg could always tell when he was being insulted. Mycroft wasn't nearly so straightforward, not that it really mattered. Greg simply assumed everything the elder Holmes said was some kind of dig. It was probably just safer that way.

Resigned to his fate, he thinned his lips and gave Mycroft a terse nod and then moved to take a seat across from him. He didn't want to take off his coat; he didn't feel at all like getting comfortable. He ran a hand quickly through his hair and pushed up a sleeve to check his watch. He knew that Mycroft was watching him, he could feel the weight, and as rude as it might have been to remain silent, he didn't know what he was meant to say.

"I trust," Mycroft started after a sharp breath inward, "you have some information about what's happened here?"

Of course Holmes would ask that, why wouldn't he? Lestrade ought to know what had happened. But (and probably predictable to any Holmes) he didn't. It made him feel like he'd made the wrong choice in coming here. Mycroft was giving him, now, the same look he could all but imagine Sherlock giving him when he woke up: one filled as much with disappointment as it was with questions, and perhaps even pity.

"I don't know." He had to admit, and he sat a bit straighter under Mycroft's glare as he did so. "I was on my way in when I got the call about Sherlock -- I came right here."

"Mm, you do come running to my brother for every other problem; I suppose I shouldn't have expected this to be any different."

Lestrade was lucky he'd already tucked his hands away into his pockets: Mycroft couldn't see how quickly they'd both just become fists.

“I just thought,” Lestrade said, straining some to keep his voice level, “I'd come to see how he was. I'm here for the same reason you are.”

“Yes indeed.” Mycroft's umbrella screeched across the floor half an inch, “the difference being that I'm his brother whereas the taxpayers have given you the responsibility to actually do something about all of this.”

“Listen.” Lestrade's eyes went to the umbrella, as a few things ran through his mind, the most prominent of which a very vulgar description of exactly what Mycroft could do with that damned thing. He'd spent far too much time in the last few years passing on information about Sherlock to his brother to think that Mycroft was here out of any degree of brotherly affection. That if anyone was here because of how valuable Sherlock's mind it was Mycroft who only seemed to make his presence known when he needed Sherlock for something of monumental importance and didn't want to handle it himself. Lestrade would never deny that he owed a good part of his career and clearance record to Sherlock but he really didn't like the implication that losing his consulting detective was what had driven him here.

But before Greg could finish, he was surprised by the sudden appearance of another person -- John Watson who entered the room with his attention stuck on a clipboard. Lestrade quickly deduced that it must contain a copy of Sherlock's medical information. He got to his feet almost immediately, which broke Watson's concentration and he looked up from what he was reading, giving both of the room's occupants a wary glance. He dropped the top paper back down and smoothed his hand over the clipboard.

“Ah, Dr. Watson. What can you tell us?” Mycroft said eagerly and in such a way that Lestrade could ascertain a hint of comparison; that he expected Watson to have some information in the face of Greg's ineptitude. Lestrade could do nothing but his best to ignore it. This wasn't the time or place to express just how much he disliked Sherlock's brother, after all.

“John,” Lestrade interjected before Watson could turn to address Mycroft at all. It was hard not to notice near immediately how tired the doctor looked. Greg couldn't even imagine what was running through John's head, and it almost made him feel almost too guilty to want to ask him anything. But the truth was that he really hadn't expected to see him; thinking instead that he'd still be at Baker Street being subjected to whatever questions Donovan could think to ask. “I thought--”

“I wasn't there.” John's answer was sharp, but Lestrade didn't have to look very hard to see the guilt behind it. Watson pulled the clipboard in against his chest and nodded, taking a moment to collect himself before he continued his explanation. “Sherlock--” another pause, as if even saying his flatmate's name was difficult, “he woke me at, God, six this morning. Told me I had to get down to Bart's as soon as possible. Dimmock came by yesterday, actually, wanting us to look into a murder that'd come across his desk. Anyway, Sherlock told me he wanted my opinions on the victim's body. Didn't exactly tell me why, but then he never does. Still I should have--Well, I was there with Molly when--when Mycroft called me.”

“Jesus.” Lestrade shifted his weight by looking off to the corner of the room and wishing for a moment that there was a window or something else he could focus on. He knew exactly what Watson must be thinking: that Sherlock had known there was some kind of threat coming and had thought that getting Watson out of Baker Street was safer than the alternative. A quick glance in Mycroft's direction confirmed his suspicions and he watched as the elder Holmes moved his jacket from one arm to the other.

“John.” Mycroft's tone was a little bit softer. Almost as if the weight of the room was having an effect on him. It left Lestrade a bit glad he hadn't managed to say all those things he'd been thinking a moment ago. Mycroft tipped his chin in the direction of Watson's clipboard to subtly set the conversation back upon target. “How bad is it?”

“Well, it's not good.” Watson let the records slack away from his chest a little and glanced down. It was quite clear that he didn't have to read off them, however. He absolutely had Sherlock's condition submitted to memory. “He was shot in the left shoulder, above his heart. The bullet lodged, entirely shattered his collarbone. The concern now is that what's left of his bone might cause further damage but--but the bullet itself seems to have missed everything major. They've taken it out, I told them to bring it 'round as evidence but the--it looks--he should be just fine.” Both men knew John well enough to understand that his optimism wouldn't be the product of false hope and so this news came as a relief. But what the doctor was saying also meant that Sherlock would probably be confined to surgery for a few more precious hours and there was no way Greg could justify waiting around.

“That's good to hear,” Lestrade said, shifting his weight and taking a step towards the door. “I should see about that bullet. Get it logged, take it to the lab. I still have a crime scene to visit...”

It was strange, referring to Baker Street as a crime scene. In had, in the years Sherlock had been there, been the scene of loads of illegal activity, Lestrade knew that, but most of the time he waved it away like he did everything else remotely resembling protocol when dealing with Holmes.

“Right, ” Watson said, without as much as a glance in Mycroft's direction. “I'm going with you.”

Lestrade nearly asked John if he was sure he wanted to come. If he was sure he wouldn't rather stay here and wait for Holmes to get out of surgery. But he imagined how responsible Watson must feel for being away when all of this had happened and how helpless remaining here with Mycroft might seem. Besides that, Baker street was his home too and if he wanted to come along, Lestrade wasn't about to suggest otherwise, so with a firm final nod to Mycroft, They headed out of the room together.

The car back was quiet. After John showed him where to go, filling out the paperwork and collecting the bullet only took Greg a few minutes. He tucked it into his coat for safe keeping before they made it to the car. During the silence of the drive, Lestrade found it hard not to start considering who it was that might have been responsible. In the back of his mind he could almost hear Sherlock ridiculing him for developing theories before he'd even been to the crime scene, but he dismissed it. He had some idea who it was that Holmes might count among his enemies, after all, and that seemed as good a place to start as any.

And there was one in particular that sprung immediately to mind. There was that man, that lunatic that had gone around strapping bombs to people for no damn reason beyond trying to get Sherlock's attention. Just to engage the detective in some sick battle of wits of whatever it was. Officially, that case was still on the books as unsolved and Lestrade had never really liked how guarded Sherlock had been about the details surrounding it. He wouldn't have come out and said that if felt like Holmes was protecting the man responsible, but none of it had ever sat right with him. He had the man's name --a James Moriarty -- but that hadn't turned up anything but too many dead ends to even officially attach him to the file as a suspect which was, Holmes had all but stated blatantly, for the best. Greg hadn't been one to agree but in the end he'd left it alone, assured by the fact that Sherlock certainly knew things that he didn't and there wasn't a time he didn't trust him to do what would be, in the end, the right thing.

He slowed the car down when they turned onto Baker Street. There was already police tape up around the entrance to Sherlock and Watson's shared flat.. Lestrade noticed Sally, sitting outside Speedy's with an arm around Mrs. Hudson. He couldn't remember the last time that he'd ever seen Donovan comforting a witness, but he was glad for it. He'd been worried about her and was glad to see that she hadn't been left on her own. He pulled the car in and hadn't even brought it to a full stop before John had his door open, leaping up to go and see his landlady.

"John!" Greg overheard Mrs. Hudson explaining as he approached. She looked like she'd been crying, completely shaken by what she'd seen. He wondered if she shouldn't see a medic herself, just to make sure she was all right. "I heard a shot, and shouted up the stairs, you see, I thought it was just him and his -- oh, you know what he's like. What he does. But then the gun went off again. Thought he was ignoring me, I did, so I went upstairs, found him-- oh, God, John it was horrible."

The woman tilted her head towards Watson, who'd swiftly stepped in to take Donovan's place. He was already thinking, putting together a timeline. If Mrs. Hudson had rushed up the stairs right away -- how did the culprit get out? Sherlock's front windows were impossible to climb from, and the only other place to head was up to Watson's bedroom and there was no way there either.

He turned his attention to Sally and gestured to the door to 221b. "Take me up."

With one more glance at John and Mrs. Hudson, Donovan nodded and pushed past the few officers standing just outside the flat to take Lestrade to the scene. Greg tried to push how well he knew this place from his mind. He'd been up to see Sherlock dozens of times over the years. Coming in to ask for help as directly as was possible without begging. There had even been the occasionally social visit; that was something that had become more and more frequent since John'd come to Baker Street. Watson needed someone besides Holmes to spend his time with, Greg understood that, but seeing Sherlock outside the context of a case had also given Lestrade a bit more insight into the man's ways and he'd learned a lot about it.

When Holmes was still quite fresh out of Cambridge, living on Montague street and forcing his insights on Scotland Yard-- Greg hadn't paid much attention to what sort of bloke Sherlock really was. He knew him, fine, but it took two years before Lestrade actually found himself willingly going to Holmes for assistance and another six months before he realised that Sherlock's mood swings were illegally assisted. But no matter what habit Greg helped Holmes kick, or what case Sherlock helped him solve, there was always a wall of professionalism between them. When Lestrade thought about it, he had to admit that he'd put it there not because he felt there needed to be a barrier but because he also imagined that Sherlock just wouldn't have any interest in the other aspects of his life. Hell, his marriage wasn't even spectacular enough to keep his wife interested let alone anyone else. So he'd kept his approach to Sherlock strictly to the confines of his job and that seemed to suit everyone just fine.
He couldn't imagine there was any correlation between his marriage getting worse and his spending more time around Watson and Sherlock. His wife always had a few choice things to say about Holmes, of course, but she complained about the amount of time Lestrade spent on his work and Sherlock had always been just another part of that. Lestrade never had the faintest idea why it was she had always seemed fixated on Holmes like she was sure the pair of them were keeping something from her. She'd only met Sherlock once, though Lestrade doubted Holmes had any recollection of the event. She'd been in his office and Holmes had flown in with some hunch or odd bit of evidence which he'd delivered swiftly and popped away back to the labs or his cave or wherever it was he did his thinking. Greg only remembered the exchange because the moment Holmes had swept off; he'd gotten in trouble for not introducing her -- whatever that meant.

"All right." Donovan held out a file folder in the direction of a pool of thick smeared blood on the floor beside a chair that had been knocked on its side. "That's where he was when Mrs. Hudson came in. He had string tied 'round his wrists. The paramedic took it off him, left it there. Initial trajectory estimates suggest the shooter was standing somewhere around here and he must have taken the gun with him or threw in somewhere because we haven't found it at all. We're still sweeping the scene, but there is so much--ah, clutter about, it's hard to tell what's what."

Lestrade couldn't help but think that Sally was a bit too excited about this. He knew that she'd never really liked Holmes, but she did certainly seem to like nosing about his flat and Greg wasn't sure he cared much for that. Sherlock was alive and John was downstairs. The scene needed to be swept, sure, but there wasn't any reason to be too invasive -- he couldn't help feeling a little protective, of course, but he also knew the stress having things in different sort of mess when he came home would cause Sherlock.

"Lestrade?"

Greg looked up to see that Watson had peeled himself away from Mrs. Hudson and made his way up the stairs. He frowned a little as he noticed John's sight lines and how focused he was on the tipped over chair and the blood. Lestrade nearly reminded him that Sherlock was going to be fine, but John's concentration diverted quickly to an officer in his kitchen and he winced as the man opened a container he'd found in the refrigerator and quickly closed it again. He turned back to Greg, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

And Greg had no idea what he was supposed to say. If Sherlock was here, he'd probably be delivering the shooter's height, motive and mother's favourite character on Coronation Street by now but Greg's mind was a complete blank. He was too worried on people mucking about in Sherlock's things to really start reconstructing a crime. So he defaulted, walking over to Watson and lowering his voice to a volume he didn't mean for anyone else to overhear.

"You know better than anyone the kinds of enemies Sherlock made doing what he did, and now in the public eye like he is." Lestrade said, trying hard not to sound like he felt responsible for Sherlock and Watson's popularity but not doing a very convincing job of it. "And I think that's the best place to start. I just have a thought that there isn't going to be a lot of evidence turning up here."

There was still a bullet to run, of course, and other things to consider, but Greg was looking right at the fact that a man had shot Sherlock Holmes and disappeared, taking the gun with him. It wasn't something he could overlook and it really leaned him in the direction of Sherlock's mystery friend, the man whose name he wasn't even supposed to know.

Watson might have been thinking the same thing; it was hard to tell what was going through his head behind that weary expression . He seemed to take a minute to process what it was that Greg was suggesting and then pulled a face and shook his head. John had spent an evening with a menagerie of explosives strapped around his midsection and that kind of bold, ridiculous move didn't seem to line up with this quick, unsuccessful shooting. He refused to believe that Sherlock would be alive if Moriarty had truly wanted him dead. Besides that, if Jim had only wanted to hurt him somehow, John imagined it would be showy and public to prove how untouchable he was. It wouldn't be like this at all; no matter how impressive it might be that whomever it was that shot him had disappeared so quickly.

Ruling out Moriarty did mean the water got a little bit murkier. Sherlock had plenty of people who didn't like him: the family members or associates of people he'd put away probably all had reason enough to shoot him, but it was hard to pinpoint any one of them that possessed the skill to pull off something this baffling. Watson didn't know Sherlock's cases as intimately as Holmes did and he didn't know where to begin looking to find his answers.

Watson shrugged and slowly stepped closer to the blood puddle on the ground beside the chair that Holmes had been seated in before he'd been shot. He set his jaw tight looked down at the evidence -- the hardest evidence they had in the room -- and wondered what he could possibly tell him. He'd seen these things before and he'd watched Holmes pick up all kinds of details that seemed impossible. He wished he'd paid as much attention to the 'how's' of Holmes as he had the other aspects of his impressive ability.

"If he was shot and the chair fell that way." Greg said, stepping up and wedging himself onto the scene between Watson and Sally, "the shooter had to be standing here but--but back a bit, yeah? Shooting downward which would make him quite tall? Can we -- can we set the chair up to see?"

Sally offered John a pair of gloves and stood back to let him set the chair up. She wanted to bring up the fact he shouldn't really be there or messing with her crime scene but she knew better then to protest. John been at so many crime scenes since his career with Holmes had picked up that it was clear she'd resolved herself to the fact that Dr. Watson might as well be considered a 'consulting physician'. She had less of a problem with that anyway (well, when they weren't in his home as it were) because at least he has an official-sort of role even if he wasn't a doctor that they generally worked with.

"Wait a minute." Watson said, calling Donovan and Greg's attention back to himself. His face seemed to light up as if the impossible had just occurred to him and then he relaxed a little, realising that the moment of brilliance he had could easily be explained by any number of explanations. He didn't want some coincidence to be overblown because Lestrade thought he might have some kind of insight from working with Holmes. "Well, it could be nothing."

Even if it was nothing, the expression on Lestrade's (and Sally's for that matter) face said that he wanted to hear it. They were all feeling a little bit lost as the scene and any kind of direction from anyone was certainly a welcomed one. Lestrade tilted his chin forward just a little as if he was literally opening himself up for any suggestions that Watson might have to offer.

"It's just-- the case, the last case that we were working on." John said, tapping his ribcage with two fingers. "I was looking at the body this morning when it happened and the man -- that man -- was shot right through the heart. One bullet, just like this and--"

Lestrade took a breath in. Maybe it was a bit of a jump for them to make. After all, Sherlock had taken his hit an inch or two above the heart and so the location wasn't quite the same, but if that had been what the killer was aiming for it was just a little bit too close to be entirely a coincidence. "And you're starting to think that maybe the person who shot Sherlock was responsible for killing that man in Dimmock's case."

That made a lot of sense. Sherlock was becoming more and more popular. He wasn't quite the mysterious private detective that he'd once been and that meant people would be able to find him and probably try to hurt him if he held some kind of evidence that would put them away. Greg knew that people made some bad decisions when they were desperate enough and shooting the man known for his successes did seem like an obvious enough solution to draw. It just made him want to try even harder to catch the person responsible because it was true that he'd just done this to avoid capture he really wanted to drive home the fact it hadn't worked. He didn't want anyone else thinking they needed Sherlock eliminated. He nodded his head and directed his attention back to the chair that John had set upright.

Sally watched as Greg took a few steps back, trying his best to level his arm where it must be to find the location of the shooter in the first rudimentary steps at re-creating the crime scene. Of course this case would be personal to Lestrade and Donovan wouldn't have wasted a thought to any other conclusion. She watched him take another step back towards the mantel and her eyes narrowed. "Sir?"

"And if he--what, Donovan, what is it?" Lestrade turned to look at Sally and he noticed her line of sight wasn't on but through him towards the bookcase directly behind. He spun around but it still took him a minute or two before he saw what had caught Sally's attention. There, wedged between the edge of the bookcase and a large copy of Joyce's Ulysses was the very obvious barrel of a gun. "Jesus."

Lestrade turned and walked towards the bookcase, stepping over the spool of string with a careful glance down at it and leaned in to examine the gun carefully. He reached up with a glove to take it gingerly and pull it from where it sat but quickly found that it wouldn't move at all. "What is-- get the camera over here, take some fucking pictures of this."

Once the new discovery was properly documented and then a few more to finally manage to free the gun from its position: it hadn't merely been stuck on the shelf, but a sort of metal peg had been driven through the book, between the trigger guard and the trigger and into the wood of the shelf itself, successfully keeping the gun from moving at all. Once it was out of the rig, a quick examination of the gun revealed both that it had only been fired once -- and that its owner was one John Watson who recognised the Browning L9A1 almost at once.

"We'll have to take it." Greg said, a bit apologetic but it was quite clear that Watson understood the circumstances and didn't mind. Lestrade was thinking about the fact that two shots had been fired and he wondered if the strange contraption on the wall could account for one. He certainly hoped so, because the last thing he really wanted was for a bullet from John's gun to be the one that was in now in his coat pocket -- having been pulled from Sherlock Holmes.

"That's fine." Watson said, still a little baffled by the location of his gun. "I--well, I'm going to go back to Bart's and take another look at the body. See if it tells us anything else about who the person who shot Sherlock might have been if there is a connection even."

"I think there is." He said, watching over Watson's shoulder as the Doctor's gun was bagged and prepared for transport. He'd get the ballistics done on it as soon as possible to get it back to John. He was doing it, he knew, as a bit of a favour but he felt like he owed John as much as he owed Sherlock and it was just in his nature to do a nice thing if there was an opportunity for him to. It got him into trouble more often than not because those 'nice things' weren't always police protocol but he wasn't about to change. "I'll be back at the Yard trying to make sense of things there, call me if you find out anything will you?

"Of course."

***

Back in his office, Greg was faced with what was easily one of the hardest parts of any investigation: the waiting. With the possible connection to Dimmock's murder victim, pushing the ballistics testing on the gun and bullet from Sherlock's chest to the front of the line was easy enough. Ultimately though, he was a man filled with nervous energy and rapid-fire theories with nowhere to direct them. He'd stopped himself already from texting John to see if the other man had discovered anything on the body and just tried to settle into the irritating limbo that always accompanied waiting for results from the lab or a text from Watson -- even a phone call from Mycroft with an update on Sherlock's condition would have been a welcome way to break up the minutes but no matter how many times he flipped his phone around in his hand, it didn't light up with any new notifications.

The thought of Sherlock in the hospital was one that wasn't sitting right with Greg at all, not only because he didn't like the idea of Sherlock suffering any kind of injury, but because he had some experience with how much the consulting detective actually hated it in there. In fact, there were a few instances when Sherlock was still far from clean that Lestrade had kept him from the emergency room against his better judgement.

Once, it had to be in 2005 or so -- rather early in their actual career together and not long after Greg had discovered how Holmes spent his down time, he'd let himself into Sherlock's Montague apartment to find the man sank so low in his chair he looked like he was about to fall from it; a hypodermic needle on the wooden floor beside him looking like it had fallen right out of the vein in his arm. Lestrade had nearly been afraid to go near him. The idea of finding him dead just too overwhelming because an overdose would just mean he hadn't tried hard enough to get Holmes cleaned up. But he'd gone over because he had to and a loud floorboard had roused Sherlock from his stupor enough to make a noise and put Lestrade's fears at ease.

When he reached and leaned over him it had only taken a quick look at Sherlock's eyes to establish that he needed a hospital badly. He couldn't remember now if he'd said anything or just reached for his phone but somehow Sherlock had known what he was doing. And of course he did, Sherlock always damn well knew everything didn't he?

This near overdose hadn't been the only time that Holmes had gone a bit stupid with his drug of choice, but it was the scene that always came to mind when Greg recalled those days and he imagined that had a lot to do with how Sherlock had stopped him calling the hospital. It wasn't any complicated move or exaggerated speech about how much of a genius he was or that he knew what he was doing-- the type of thing that, over the years, he'd come to expect from Sherlock. It was something else entirely.

Sherlock's eyes remained lidded and he'd rolled his shoulders back towards the wings of the chair, his head half-falling back as he tried to tip his chin enough to see Lestrade's face. He'd lifted a weary hand and stroked his fingers down the front of Lestrade's shirt, catching on the buttons and finished with a delicate brush of his belt buckle. The touch was nothing; it had meant nothing but Greg always found himself going back to that moment. He remembered it with the detail of a photograph, from the look of Holmes to the newspapers and books spread about his chair to the way Sherlock smelled of his brand of cigarettes and how much pressure was in the hand on him. It was all over in the span of a second and followed only with a small plea from Holmes not to call anyone and not to take him anywhere.

He'd stayed with him. Whether Sherlock had asked or whether Lestrade had just decided seemed irrelevant all these years later. He'd kicked the needled out of the way and lowered himself to the floor, back against the side of his chair. Sherlock's pale, scarred arm had dropped around his shoulder and that had been all. He didn't think about that moment with the same frequency as he used to. There had been a time when he'd wondered about Holmes, hell, there had been a time when he'd wondered about himself. He was married though, for better or worse and that was the end of that.

"Sir?"

Lestrade glanced up to see Anderson's sickly, reptilian face poked in his office and immediately he pushed his heels into the ground to sit himself up a bit straighter and try to look a bit less like he'd just been caught doing something that he ought to feel guilty about. He didn't know what on earth Anderson wanted but it was always a waste trying to figure out how his brain worked unless the motivation 'how can I make Sherlock look like an idiot' was hanging conveniently in the air above his head.

"What?"

"The ballistics results." He held the file up and then pushed the door open the rest of the way with a very triumphant little kick. Greg knew that Anderson didn't work in ballistics. He knew that he didn't really have anything to do with it at all, but it didn't surprise him in the slightest that he'd sniffed around and waited for the results just so he could bring them up here for a grateful pat on the head. Anderson smiled, head turned like he was about to give Lestrade the best news he'd heard in his life and said: "They're a match. The bullet you brought in matched the gun."

"What!"

Anderson looked almost as though he'd just been punched in the face. Obviously he'd expected the news he was delivering to be considered good. Like this was somehow helpful to the case and not the opposite. Lestrade really didn't need Watson implicated in this at all. He had an alibi, Greg knew that, but suddenly he found himself hoping that John showed up on some St. Bart's security footage because his gun and his bullet shooting his bloody flatmate would be enough to bring him in for questions no matter what and if he could avoid that, he would. John was his friend, after all, and until Sherlock woke up and they heard what he had to say, there really was no reason to strain that relationship. He gripped his coat off the back of the chair and crossed the office to Anderson, snatching the file from his hand and tapping it against his chest. "Right, I want you to have the gun run against the bullet pulled out of Dimmock's murder victim and text me if it's a match or not -- and don't tell anyone else about this. I've someone I've got to see."

He didn't even wait for Anderson to reply before he pushed past him to get into the hall and start off, putting his coat on as he went. He really didn't know that he trusted the other man to keep any of this to himself and if that occurred he wanted to make sure he was with Watson to keep the worst from happening. He knew John would probably react poorly to being dragged in for questions as long as Sherlock remained in such rough shape so the least he could do was put a stop to that.

Lestrade had no intention letting John in on what Anderson had reported (or what he'd read, flipping through the pages at the red lights) regarding his gun but when he ran into him in the morgue, he decided immediately that John could tell that something had happened to bring the detective to him. He smiled a little at him, choosing silence as the only defense to Watson's questioning look, before adverting his eyes to the dead body and then to the woman with the over-sized lab-coat and the uncertain smile standing over it.

She looked a little soggy, her eyes just a little bit red, and Greg imagined she'd been as upset as the rest of them to hear that Sherlock had been hurt at all. Lestrade sighed and shoved his hands into the pocket of his coat.

"I've got nothing, really, I thought I'd come around and see how you lot were doing. Tests take ages anyway and I was tired of feeling useless." He wasn't a very good liar. He wouldn't have been able to pull off a fib like that had Sherlock been there and he knew it. Though, if Holmes had been there it wouldn't have been a lie he'd had to tell. He looked at John, unwittingly mimicking the same questioning look the doctor had just given him a moment ago. "What about you, anything here?"

"Well." Molly said, answering for them both as she started to wiggle her hands out of the gloves. "Nothing that we hadn't already expected. Just a shot through the heart, there wasn't a trace of anything in his system besides some alcohol. Nothing under his nails, it didn't look at all like there was a struggle, just that he was shot."

John's flat expression, as he stood looking at the body, told Lestrade that either the doctor had nothing to add, or nothing he wanted to add in front of Molly. Either way, Lestrade felt like he was left with a pile of puzzle pieces and no idea at all how they were all meant to fit together. He bit his bottom lip a little and let his shoulders sag forward. It was true that in any case like this the witness's testimony was the most important but he'd hoped to be able to bring something more to Sherlock's bedside than the question of 'what the hell happened'. He'd wanted to be a little bit better a detective than one who needed Holmes to solve his own damn shooting.

His phone buzzed to life in his pocket and he nearly jumped, muttering a quick curse and pulling it out. Anderson --the gun didn't match Dimmock's bullet, which was half a relief and half just another unanswered question. He breathed a quick sigh and looked up at John. "Could I maybe talk to you in the hallway for a minute?"

"Oh!" Molly squeaked, "Oh, sorry, no you two stay here I've a thing. Um, a break that I could take and that so I'll just..."

Her voice trailed off as she pushed through the doors out of the room. Greg waited for her footsteps to echo a bit softer before he started talking, all the same.

"Look, the bullet they pulled from Sherlock," Greg said, gesturing with an open hand towards John. He didn't want Watson to think he was accusing him of anything because of course he wasn't. He just had to state what he found and leave it at that. "It matched the gun we found mounted on the bookcase -- your gun."

John blinked, looking at Lestrade and trying to gauge how exactly he ought to take this news but he didn't interject at all an just let Lestrade keep talking.

"But it didn't match the bullet we pulled out of." He just tossed his head in the direction of the body of the table. "And that's really all I've got. I'm guessing that if these two cases are at all connected that who it was that shot Sherlock just used your gun and tried to hide in on the shelf like that or--or something, I'm not sure. But none of that makes sense. Who'd stick a gun up like that and not just take it with them?"

"Not--no, I'm not sure." Watson replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't want to say anything about it before though, but Sherlock did talk to me about one of his theories -- I mean, for Dimmock's case. He had a few minutes just to talk to the victim's wife and he was -- I don't know -- convinced she was hiding something. I don't know that she's guilty of it, he never said she was, but if he suspected her..."

The truth of the matter was that if Sherlock suspected anyone of anything he wasn't nice to them and that meant John had to stand by and watch Sherlock bring a woman whose husband had just been shot closer and closer to tears. Or at least, he imagined she should have been upset -- but even he'd noticed how sturdy her constitution was and he'd had to question it and admit that Maybe Sherlock wasn't quite so far off with his suspicions.

"That's a leap," Lestrade said, not quite sure what else he could say about it than that. Maybe she did shoot her husband and maybe she'd shot Sherlock as well but there was still the fact that no one had seen her go in or out of Baker street, and a million other details that made that and any other scenario that they could come up with seem just a little bit impossible.

"Maybe not," Watson said, "she was a tall woman and in heels the trajectory might actually line up, and she didn't disappear, of course not, but maybe she hid somewhere and snuck out when Mrs. Hudson went back down to call for help. She was --well, she was a client, of course, and so if she'd written to Sherlock he'd have known that he wanted me out of the apartment before. Maybe he suspected, even -- it wouldn't exactly be the first time he'd underestimated a woman."

Lestrade still looked a little sceptical about the theory, but he had to admit that what Watson was saying was hitting on enough of the points they'd uncovered to make it seem at least a little bit believable and that made it a better place to jump off from than John Watson's gun and a bullet in Sherlock Holmes. There were still a lot of questions, particularly concerning the fact that Mrs. Hudson heard two shots fired and not just one, but he really had to look in the direction most of the evidence was pointing, didn't he? Sherlock wouldn't have, Greg knew that. Holmes would just sit and stew over the details until something struck him: the only possible explanation that included all the facts. But Lestrade didn't have a brain like Sherlock's and as much as it would have been helpful during times like these -- the fact he didn't was something he was ultimately grateful for.

Anyway, If he hurried, he could probably give DI Dimmock a call and get the name and address of the wife so he could swing by and see how she'd spent her morning. Even if it was a dead end it was a better way to spend his time then twiddling his thumbs.

“Yeah, yeah that does seem like a something.” He didn't know if he was really trusting what Watson said, or if he was just hung up on the fact that Sherlock thinking her suspect was just enough to point him in that direction. He supposed either way it didn't matter much. He was about to ask John how Molly was holding up with all this because she had looked upset, when Watson's phone went off.

“It's Mycroft,” John said, after pulling out his phone and checking the screen. Lestrade just nodded as he answered, bracing for the worst news and hoping for the best.

“How is he?” Watson said, bypassing all the pleasantries of a greeting and skipping right to the information that was important. He was silent, pinching the bridge of his nose and listening to what Sherlock's brother had to say, nodding his head as if Mycroft could see it. Lestrade didn't even notice that he was holding his breath through the entire conversation. The call lasted only about thirty seconds and ended with John informing the elder Holmes that he was on his way back to the hospital.

“I'll drive you,” Lestrade said when he hung up, but waited for Watson to fill him in before making any kind of move to the door.

“He's out of surgery and in recovery. Mycroft said he should probably be awake within the hour so I think we ought to head over.”

They passed Molly on the way out of St. Bart's and John offered her a few reassuring words. She promised them both that she'd meet them at the hospital after her shift (she did have a body to pack away, after all).

Neither one of them had that much to say in the car over to the other hospital. They spoke briefly about the dead man's wife, but trying to figure out how she's managed to drive a spike into the bookshelf to hide the gun still seemed like a strange piece of the puzzle that wouldn't fit no matter how they turned it. She wouldn't have had time to do it before Mrs. Hudson came up to check on Sherlock and if she'd hidden somewhere, it seemed like a risky move to hide the gun that way and not just take it with her. They both agreed that getting caught with John's gun might not have been the best play, of course, but that the clutter of Baker Street would have allowed for much better hiding places than sticking it to the inside of the bookshelf like she had.

When they arrived at the hospital and John hurried off to find a doctor to speak too while Greg lingered in the lobby debating on whether or not he wanted to find Mycroft and then opting not to bother. Instead, he found himself in the hospital gift shop, picking up a bouquet of flowers because as much as he imagined Sherlock would probably prefer a pack of cigarettes, it wasn't a vice he was going to be the one to indulge.

He reached the front desk and was happy to find the same nurse who'd been there earlier. She wasted no time explaining to him what room Sherlock Holmes was in and he nodded his thanks before heading to the elevator. After a quick tap on the door with the back of his knuckles he let himself in and was immediately met with the smell of roses. Immediately to the left of the door, a table had been set up with a large crystal vase filled with at least three or four dozen of the aromatic blossoms. There was a card, Greg noticed, propped up by the side with no words at all -- just a lipstick print in the same deep red as the flowers. It made him nearly bin the flowers in his hand and he would have if the man he'd come to see wasn't already awake and turned slightly to see him.

“Lestrade...”

Sherlock looked a mess. He was pale --paler than usual -- and hooked up to both an IV and a few machines that the Inspector assumed were mostly there to monitor him. Greg shifted his weight a little, wrestling with how much he hated seeing Holmes like this and then stepped towards the bed, holding up his present a bit sheepishly before just dropping the flowers on the table nearer the bed.

“I stole them off some man in a wheelchair -- I don't think he'll catch up.” He said with a bit of a smile, attempting to make light of the situation before it was far easier a thing to so then to admit how worried he'd been. “John's here, I imagine he's still talking to your doctors, but he'll be in in a minute and Mycroft--”

“Has been and gone,” Sherlock said, shrugging even though the move looked obviously quite painful. “I told him to go and that I was fine and for once he didn't even argue. I imagine he did have other things planned for the day and I didn't want to tell him what happened.”

Lestrade nodded and dragged one of the visitor chairs over from the wall, taking a seat and looking at Holmes with a frown. He reached over, almost instinctively and smoothed a few of Sherlock's curls away from his face. “I'm sure he was worried about you -- Christ we were all fucking worried. Not every day you end up in the hospital.”

“And it's not any day that I want to be here,” Holmes replied, giving the machine beeping out his heart rate a rather forlorn look. “I just want to go home.”

“Well, you say that now,” Greg said. “But your home is probably still crawling with a lot of Scotland Yard that you don't like.”

“Ugh--why?”

“Why?” Lestrade arched his eyebrows. “Because we're trying to figure out what happened to you. In fact, John and I spent all day trying to get it sorted.”

“Oh have you?” Sherlock's eyes looked a little glossy. This struck all too familiar a chord with Lestrade. Of course, he knew that the drugs Sherlock was on now certainly had a purpose but he didn't like it all the same. He was positive that that was something Watson would pay close attention to during the whole recovery process, but having Sherlock on anything just didn't sit right with the Inspector.

“Yeah,” Lestrade said, a little softer, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, of course we have.”

Greg realised that he probably shouldn't pump Sherlock for too much information at the moment. What with the drugs in his system and the trauma of getting shot, he should be treated as delicately as any other victim of a violent crime. Lestrade certainly wasn't prepared to take any official statement from the man, but at the same time if there was an arrest to be made, he wanted to get on that before whomever it was that shot him found out their attempt on Sherlock's life hadn't been a success. He'd make sure a man was posted outside the door (or Mycroft would, he imagined) but there was no sense waiting if they didn't have too. “Look, Sherlock -- if you can't, it's fine but I'm not Mycroft, so maybe you could tell me?”

Sherlock smiled and turned towards the window, nestling his head into the pillow a little more and turning his wrist so his palm faced upward. He felt Greg's hand slide into his own and his smile deepened just a little more. He closed his eyes. “Tell me what you think happened.”

“Well,” Greg said, giving Sherlock's hand a quick squeeze before letting him go and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “John told me you were working Dimmock's case and we started to find a whole bunch of, ah, similarities between what happened to you and the murder victim. You were -- I mean, you were shot in nearly the same place and he said that you suspected the wife was somehow responsible. That she was probably the right height for it as well.”

“So you think she shot me.”

“That's--well, that was the theory we were working with, yeah.” There was something in Sherlock's tone that Greg wasn't sure he liked. It was almost as though Holmes was humouring him which he hardly understood at all. He couldn't imagine anyone who'd been shot wanting to waste time not identifying their attacker but then again, Sherlock Holmes wasn't like everyone else so a little abnormalities should probably have been expected.

“With John's gun.”

“Yes--right, I knew that. We ran it against the bullet we took from you. It didn't match the one pulled out of Dimmock's but that doesn't mean it wasn't connected at all.”

“No, you're right. It doesn't,” Sherlock said. “In fact, you're very right to think the two shootings are connected, I'm a little impressed. Tell me, how you explain how John's gun was mounted into the bookcase?”

“How--” He shook his head. Asking how Sherlock knew anything was just a waste of time. Greg had enough experience with him to understand that sometimes Holmes just knew things and asking him to explain how he knew them would probably just lead to a series of things he wouldn't be able to make sense of. “Right, well -- I can't, actually. I also can't explain how she got out of your flat -- or into it either, without Mrs. Hudson noticing.”

“That does present a bit of a question, doesn't it?” Sherlock turned back to face Lestrade, the weariness of his expression replaced with something else: he looked almost thrilled with the Detective Inspector's guesswork. “And I shouldn't have to tell you that were your answer the right one, those types of questions wouldn't go unanswered.”

Greg didn't say anything. He straightened up and hit his back against the chair, in no mood for one of Sherlock's little lectures. He supposed he should feel a little guilty for being suddenly thrown on the defensive. After all, Sherlock had just been shot and that ought to mean he deserved to be spared a little patience, but it was clear he knew what happened and that being the case, Lestrade wanted the answer. “So what happened then.” It wasn't so much a statement as it was a demand.

“No one shot Dimmock's victim--well, that's not true. Someone did: he shot himself.” Sherlock said with a smile. “He mounted the gun on the wall opposite, attached a string around the trigger and pulled it. His wife found him and got rid of the evidence to make it look like a murder. Insurance never pays out the same for a suicide, you know that. How else would you explain all the string around the floor of Baker Street?”

Greg stared at him. “Wait a minute, so what you're telling me is--”

“Is that I attempted to recreate the scene and rather misjudged the angle of the gun.”

***

Sherlock went on to explain the rest of the details. How he'd managed to believably twist the thread around his wrists, how the second gunshot hadn't been that at all but just the side of his chair striking the wooden floor when he'd toppled over. I'm not sure of all the details -- it didn't take me long at all to just stop paying attention. I won't pretend that I wasn't glad he was all right, sure I was, but mostly because I was damn near ready to strangle him myself after hearing him smack his conclusion on all my concern and worry. I suppose I should learn something from all of this, though, and the next time something happens to Holmes I should assume he orchestrated the whole number until I can rule him out as a suspect.