"Sherlock..." just a whisper from just a rooftop from just a weary man who has been travelling for far too long to be 'okay'. Even still, as he looked down to the street below him when a young man lay, a dark red puddle stained the street around him, a man, similar in age to the one on the pavement surrounded by blood, ran towards him. Even from here the Doctor could see just how desperate he is, he recognised the run, and the torched yells "he's my friend".
"Doctor?" Of course, Clara Oswin Oswald, the Impossible Girls, stood right next to him, giving the fallen body of Sherlock's only worthy opponent uneasy glances "Why are we here?"
"Sorry." It was so softly said that Clara slipped her hand in his. "I... need to go see someone..." Suddenly Doctor spun around, pulling his hand out of Clara's and shouted over his shoulder "Go find Molly Hooper, tell her 'the Doctor sent you' She'll look after you"
Before Clara could snap out of her surprise to shout something at the doctor he was gone, she sighed, looking around at the mess of the rooftop, finally she gave up making sense of what has happened here and headed towards the door of the rooftop.
"No! No... no, no, not you! Anyone but you! Anyone-" John started only to be interrupted by a choked sob, batting his fists against the Doctor's chest, who walked closer to John.
"John.." The Doctor soothed as he wraps he arms around the ex army doctor, crushing his fighting fists against the Doctor's chest and stroking the back of John's head lightly as he cried into the Doctor's shoulder. "It's okay, we're okay. It will all be okay."
"How it is okay?!" John exploded once more out of the Doctor's arms. "How is anything okay? How will I –"Again a sob cut him short as he collapsed into his old, worn chair by the fireplace.
"I know it's hard." The Doctor answered slowly, sitting opposite, leaning his arms on the end of his knees. That gained him a "Oh well then, as long as you understand me!" from John. "Sherlock..." The Doctor starts after staring at John for a while who had now put his head in his hands. "He has a way of making you think one thing, and then – "He snapped his fingers, putting a smile he hoped was supportive and comforting on his face. " – It's actually something completely different. You know?... Just, just as long as you know, as long as you know he never meant to hurt you, you were his best friend; some may argue his only friend."
There was a long moment where the neither moved, John his head from his hands, the Doctor his arms from his knees. There was a sound as someone entered the house downstairs which got a faint sob from John. "I don't know." He said simply at long last. "And don't – don't just sit there with your sad eyes and stupid bow tie, and tell me he never meant to hurt me. Don't tell me he would do anything if that meant saving me, because if he really didn't want to hurt me he wouldn't be dead." Another paused filled with only the faint sound of John's, now quiet, sobs. "And I don't care if that means I would have been drugged and stabbed a minute later, just to see him walk away from the rooftop, just to – I don't know."
There was nothing, not really, the Doctor could have said, and he knew that, so, after a moment, he stood and walked to his TARDIS, which had sat in the corner of the room the whole time the two were talking. The Doctor cast one last look back at John, but he had not moved, nor would be for a while now, the Doctor expected.
"You need to go back to him."
"Okay."
"What?"
"Okay, I will go back to him."
The Doctor shifted where he sat as Sherlock Holmes walked around the room. "Since when did you do what I told you to do." The Doctor scowled at his friend, as the words slipped out of his mouth before he could think about them.
"I have always planned to go back to him, so really there is no reason for me not doing what you 'tell me to do' when it is a perfectly reasonable suggestion. This, Doctor, is quite a change from what you would normally suggest." Sherlock said back to him, his tone detached and bored. All the while he was pottering around the small room, make even smaller by the presence of the TARDIS in the corner, he glanced ever so slightly at the Doctor, who was sat on what could only just quality as a bed. "When..?" the Doctor said, narrowing his eyes. "Five years, well, three years now." He said scowling into one of the boxes in the room, digging around in it before discarding it to the side with an unhappy grunt.
"Five years?" the Doctor said, making his voice go high in amazement at the sheer ridiculousness of it. "He'll be married with three kids by then! And besides, wouldn't you say two years is enough? For whatever you're waiting out. In fact, I could just pop back to a week after it and drop you off two years later outside 221B Baker Street? Everything moves so slowly for you humans after all."
"If this is how you belittle your favourite race, I wouldn't like to see the way you talk about your least favourite." Sherlock says absently pulling clothes from a box roughly.
"You don't understand, how can you not understand? For how much you say you are better than all of them there is so much you don't understand. That is what I never understood about you, no matter how long I questioned you, no matter how long I thought of questions that would help me understand; why did you chose knowledge over emotion, recognising things a normal person could not over understanding very basic human nature." The Doctor said after a moment of silence.
"I cannot help who I am, Doctor." Sherlock paused in his searching to stare at the wall in front of him.
"Yes you can!" the Doctor said loudly, standing at last to look intensely at the detective. "You know just as well as I know that if you wanted to change your personality tomorrow you could. What about John?! I know you saw what it did to him! Why won't you save him?"
"I did." Sherlock said weakly.
"And you need to do it again, and not just save him from the gunmen! Save him from himself, you've done it before, you can do it again! I know you can! Please Sherlock..." The Doctor quickly lost all anger he felt as it dawned on him Sherlock was just a scared as John was.
"Okay." Sherlock said, he stood suddenly and quickly open the make shift wardrobe. He pulled out long red robes; quickly he wrapped them round his long body and pulled the hood over his face. He looked at the Doctor briefly, who had watched the whole process without uttering a word. "Okay." With that he pulled the hood down further so the Doctor could no long recognise it as him then walked with purpose out of the room, without so much as a glance back to the Doctor as he went.
A faint smile settled on the Doctor's face, not quite reaching his weary eyes. He pulled a Right Handed Ergonomic Handle Height Adjustable Walking Stick from under the bed covers, besides him. "Never took you for the sentimental kind, Mr Holmes."