Dr. John Watson

The first thing John is aware of is pain. Or, well, really, a lack thereof - or maybe it's a pain so constant and omnipresent that it all blurs together into something that seems like a lack of pain. He knows he ought to be hurting, but he's not really sure why he knows that or how he knows that, but it's a certainty just like how he has ten fingers and ten toes.

He blinks open his eyes to take in a blurred, white room. Hospital. Hospital? Hospital! He jerks upright, adrenaline pumping in his veins, but his upward progress is impeded by something stiff around his stomach. He flails for a moment, though his arm doesn't seem to have its full range of motion, and he can't catch his breath. It takes a moment for his rational mind to reassert itself over the sheer animal panic that's taken over, and memories begin to flood back: the darkened London street. The sudden sharp pain of the bullet in his stomach. And Sher ...

...no, that part had to be a hallucination. A dying man's last wishes for a miracle. It's happened so often in his nightmares that he can't believe it might have actually happened, that Sherlock might actually be alive.

He takes in a breath, and there's the ache, sharper now, and lies back.

Part of him wishes he'd died.