Sherlock 100: 006. Hours

Title: 006. Hours
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the BBC's characters or plots. The dialogue that you recognize is obviously not mine.
Warnings: Implied suicidal ideation; mentions of combat situations and violence.

2:32 am.

Fear was not a new experience. One learned quickly, in a war where the battlefield was everywhere, that feeling fear didn't make you any less of a person, of a soldier. It was one's response to fear that counted, the ability to push the concern to the back of your mind and keep working, keep pressure on, keep stitching, keep bandaging, that counted.

She rolled over so she couldn't see the clock, with its taunting numbers. The time didn't matter, because 3:32 and 5:32 and 7:32 were all the same. The things that changed, like the amount of daylight, never mattered. She was equally superfluous and useless at all times of the day.

There were sleeping pills in the cupboard, unopened. Her days were the same whether or not she was rested. She'd never opened them for the same reason she didn't load her gun and hold it to her head. Lead me not into temptation.

3:57 am.

Having a choice of fears was new. Which was worse? Night, with its dreaming of seeing her friends die in ways she'd never imagined, of the faces of the patients she'd lost drifting around her, of the constant threat of mortar fire, and waking with the anguished memory of a time when she'd been good for something? Or day, with no terror, no friends, no vocation, and nothing else?

4:24 am.

5:19 am.

6:38 am.

7:30 am.

She switched off her alarm. After a moment, she swung her legs out of bed to see how much weight her leg would take that day.