Keeping the Strength to Fight

Chapter 6- John

His feet thudded on the dirty pavement as he sprinted down the street, taking a sharp left into an abandoned alley. How on earth did his day end up like this? A simple afternoon spent shopping, turned into a high speed pursuit of a criminal.

He had been peacefully stood in the queue at his local greengrocers when the shop next door had been burgled. He could hear the cries and the shouts, and every fibre of his being told him to help. He fought with himself over it for a good few seconds, before dropping his basket and striding next door.

Unarmed, he shouted at the robber, quickly realising he was a small time criminal, not a murderer, and definitely someone he could take on easily, and win.

The robber seemed to realise this as well, but being the one with the gun still gave him the upper hand.

John ran at the burglar and tackled him to the floor, forcing him to drop both the bag of money he had recieved from the cashier, and the gun. As he struggled to keep the man down, he had yelled, "EVERYONE GO! AND SOMEONE PLEASE CALL THE POLICE!"

He'd been doing a lot of yelling recently.

Everyone in the room complied, not wanting to spend any more time in there than they had to. As they ran out, he heard a chorus of shaky voices speaking to the emergency services.

The robber had spun and kneed him in the face, sending him back, and creating just enough room for him to roll out from under John and grab the gun, smiling as he stood. Staring down the barrel of a gun for what seemed the hundredth time, he froze. But the robber obviously wasn't a killer as he took the opportunity to escape out the door, with John hot on his heels.

And that's how John now came to be chasing after a criminal on his Saturday afternoon off.

He reached a dark alleyway and slowed down when he could no longer hear the sound of footsteps running away. The man was hiding.

John slowly made his way into the gloom, checking behind every rubbish tip and every stack of boxes, silently wishing he had a weapon. A metal pole caught his eye, and he reached for it to pick it up. Suddenly, a flash and a bang attacked his senses as the gun was fired. The man ran past john back the way they had come and John cursed for dropping his guard, picked up the pole and charged after him.

They headed into a less remote part of town and people started appearing in the steets, "GET OUTTA THE WAY!" John called ahead of the robber to the group of teenagers chatting the the street. On seeing the crazed men charging their way, one with a gun and the other with a large metal pole, they screamed and jumped onto the road to free the path for them.

"Sorry!" John yelled as he charged past them, their shocked expressions causing a grin to grow on his face as he continued to run.

Anybody else would view this as a very bizarre day, John concluded as he ran. But to him, it felt like coming home.

His legs ached, the extreme under-use of them recently making it difficult for him to keep the pace; and his lungs felt like a pair of balloons on fire, if that were possible, burning and about to pop. But despite his less than healthy physical condition, John pressed on. Determined to catch the burglar.

Dashing and dodging their way through street after street, the burglar finally made a mistake. He rounded the corner onto the highstreet too suddenly -not looking to where he would be running- and charged into a burger stand. He knock his shoulder off the metal corner, and sent the stand wheeling away, its owner with it, shouting abuse as he tumbled backwards, burgers sliding off the grill onto him, and consequently, the floor.

John took this opportunity, before the man could regain his balance, to throw the pipe at the stumbling robber just as accurately as he would fire a gun; if he had one.

The pipe flew towards its target like a propeller, the end hitting him square on the back of his head. He jerked forwards, face-planting the wet London tarmac with a resounding thump.

John slowed his pace to a jog and stopped infront of the unconsious man, hands on his knees and gasping for breath. He started silently laughing, both at what the people surrounding him must have been thinking regarding the display they just witnessed, and at the rush of adrenaline that made him feel alive. Alive for the first time in a long while. He straightened up, and out of habit, looked to the side and smiled. A smile that turned sad when he remembered one simple thing.

Sherlock wasn't.

He looked back down, still panting, but did a double take when he realized where he was, and what he had just been looking at.

His vision being focused on the foreground, where he expected Sherlock to be stood, he hadn't noticed what was behind it. Over the road, directly in his line of sight, was the cemetery. John's eyebrows rose. Now that was a coincidence.

He pulled out his phone and rang Lestrade, telling him where he was and to redirect his men to his location, not to the shop. He hung up, and walked over the road to lean on the iron fence which surrounded the cemetery, and waited for the police to arrive.

Later, when the man had been arrested, and the onlookers were being dispersed, Lestrade walked over to John, who was still leaning on the fence, looking through all the graves with a feeling of melancholy.

"Fancy seeing you here!"

"You didn't sound surprised."

Lestrade laughed. "Couple of people at the shop recognized your face, you caused quite a commotion!"

"I wasn't the one with a gun."

"Point taken." He replied smiling. John smiled back, but not convincingly.

Lestrade sighed. "Listen, as much as I think your crazy-"

John snorted.

"-I have to admit, we need you on the team."

John looked up at him, slightly surprised.

"Policing is in your veins, you're a natural copper. It may not be as... glamorous or as... exiting as you're used to..."

No matter how fake it was.

"But you're better than most people on the team, you get the job done."

John though for a moment, then said

"Three conditions."

"Name them."

John tilted his head. "One: I'm not on full time. I'm still chief consultant at the hospital, and I'm not gonna give that job up for anything. It's what I'm actually trained to do."

"Sure, I get that."

"Two: I'm not wearing the stupid hat or the jacket."

Lestrade laughed. "Fine, fine! To be honest, only some officers wear the hat anyway, but you will have to wear something luminescent."

John nodded. "And three..."

John's expression shifted to something more sincere. Lestrade frowned slighty, and gave him his full attention, noticing that this was probably the one exception that he wanted Lestrade to grant.

John took a breath and lifted his head. "You entertain the possibility that Sherlock was framed."

Lestrade sighed and pursed his lips together. "Listen, I know what you're hoping, but I'm not just gonna change my opinions, no matter how much you pester me about it. Entertaining is the furthest I go, you understand?" He said, looking at John with a emotion that resembled pity.

John half shrugged, turning his head slightly with a nonchalant expression.

"That's all i ask."

Lestrade nodded slightly, eyeing John warily. "Then ok, deal."

The two men shook hands, and john felt like his life was on the up. As lestrade walked off, he turned towards the cemetery again and looked through the rows to one particular stone.

John nodded slowly to the stone, feeling like he was watching, then turned away, tapping the fence as he did so, and headed home for a cuppa at the end of a tiring day.