A/N: Joining the post-Reichenbach fic party! I have been unable to do much other than think about that damn episode since it aired (Well, that and re-watch it through my tears). This is my idea for what should happen next. So long as I have the time/motivation to continue, this is the first part of a case fic based on the Adventure of the Empty House and a few others. There are likely some spelling/grammar errors (I wrote this on 3 hours of sleep and 8 hours of work), but I hope that you enjoy it and that it can fill some of the Reichenbach void we've all been afflicted with! –LBA
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were created by the amazing genius that is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. BBC Sherlock was created by the amazing geniuses that are Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. The lyrics at the beginning are by the amazing geniuses that are the Civil Wars, whom I just saw live. They are the bomb.
The Second Most Dangerous Man
Part 1: The Empty Grave
Swan dive down eleven stories high
Hold your breath until you see the light
You can sink to the bottom of the sea
Just don't go without me
"Dr. Watson, you are a miracle worker. Really, you are."
She clutched the child's hand in her own, her whole continence exposed to the doctor like a book open to its cracked spine, spread wide where it fell off the shelf; The gaping smile screamed her relief while tension in her brow whispered a nagging of worry that wasn't likely to go away until they left the hospital, until she returned to her two jobs with equally meager salaries and at least one handsy boss. Until her son was home microwaving his dinners and eating them alone in front of the telly.
Dr. John Watson shook his head, as if he could rattle the thoughts out his ears. He felt guilty, like he'd been caught snooping. But it wasn't something he could turn off. In fact, it wasn't really something he could turn on. It just happened on occasion, a flash of something behind the thick veils we shroud ourselves in. He thought about what Mycroft had told him, and had it really been five years ago? About walking with Sherlock, and seeing the battlefield. He wondered what Sherlock saw: a world of naked individuals with nothing to hide behind? A world made ugly by all the ugly truths of its inhabitants? Was that why he did it?
Mostly though, John wondered when it stopped hurting so much to think about Sherlock, and he wondered what that meant.
"Nothing," he said. "I mean, it was nothing, Ms. Pope. Just doing my job."
"When he fell of that roof, I thought," She opened her mouth but no words came out. A chill ran down John's spine.
"He'll be fine, Ms. Pope," John kept his voice level and slipped his left hand the pocket of his white coat, lest it betray him with the tremor he hadn't quite been able to vanquish. The right hand tightened involuntarily on his cane. She wasn't listening, though, just talking. Not necessarily to John, but to herself, to her prone child, to the otherwise empty room John occupied.
"I should have been watching him more closely. I don't even know how he got up there. I should have been watching." Her voice broke. "I'm a terrible mother."
"You're not," John said forcibly, and her head snapped up, eyes meeting his. "It was an accident. Kids…kids do stuff like this all the time. They don't understand…don't realize how easily and finally they can be hurt. And they don't know what it's like to be left behind…alone."
She smiled up at him, eyes watery beneath her tight brow. "You're so good with children, Dr. Watson. You must have one of your own."
"No," John said. "Just a friend who was very childish."
She laughed, the force of it propelling some tears over her round cheeks. John bowed out of the room, closing the door behind him. He let out the breath he'd been holding and leaned on the wall outside the door, waiting for one of his usual, visceral responses to the memories that clawed from the back of his brain where he kept them quashed to the inside of his eyelids, where every time he blinked he could see that damn bloody face, those dull eyes. But there was nothing this time, and John didn't know whether to be relieved or angry.
"Dr. Watson," a soft voice interrupted his thoughts, and John found that his feet had carried him unbidden to his office before being intercepted by Rebecca, his secretary. She was wearing her typical reserved attire, a turtle neck and long skirt, but John knew that it was meant to hide a large back tattoo that extended to the base of her neck. She'd claim that it was an unfortunate relic from her younger days, but she went out often enough that it affected her work and he guessed that she didn't wear those jumpers when she did. "You had a call."
"Who from?" John asked, glancing at his watch. It was past 10 and his shift had ended at 9. Mary was probably already in bed, and John longed to join her there, asleep or otherwise. He wanted to sleep and to not dream. He wanted to end this game of Russian roulette his brain was playing, armed with memories, waiting for the one that will break him.
"A girl named Molly Hooper. Said she works in the morgue at St. Bart's. Said you'd know her."
Rebecca held out a slip of paper with a phone number and extension written in her crisp and precise hand. Beneath were the words: URGENT. CALL BACK IMMEDIATELY.
John entered his office, closing the door behind him. He sat in the plush chair behind his desk, dropping his cane to the floor, and reached for the phone. Before he could stop himself, he knocked it forcibly from the desk, the receiver falling out of its cradle and scattering across the floor. "Goddamn this day," he informed the fallen telephone.
"Alright in there, Dr. Watson?" came Rebecca's voice with a soft knock at the door.
"Fine! I'm fine, just dropped the phone."
He heard the click of her heels returning to her desk and limped to where the phone had landed. He stood, phone in one fisted hand, number crumpled in the other, leaning heavily on the windowsill and pressing his forehead on the cold glass of the window. Days like this were nothing new; days where everything seemed to remind him of Sherlock. What was new was the feeling of detachment. It seemed that he was finally following the advice thrown at him constantly over the past 3 years, whether consciously or not, to forget and to move on.
That was how he knew that he would call Molly back. There was a time when he wouldn't have, when he couldn't have. He avoided Lestrade for a year after it happened, but they'd started seeing each other since then for the occasional pint and shallow conversation. Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, he'd seen frequently after it happened, but less so as of late, and that also felt like letting go. Molly, though, he hadn't seen or spoken to since the funeral. She was Sherlock's, like the skull and the dressing gowns and the lab equipment, and like those things he longed to pack her away in an unmarked box and forget that she'd ever been a part of his life, however tangentially. Or at least, he used to feel that way. Now he wondered about her, wondered about how she'd gotten along without Sherlock. He thought for the first time about how hard that must have been on her. And he was curious as to what was so urgent that she called him at night, at work, after not speaking for three years.
She answered on the second ring, voice breathless. "Dr. Watson?"
"John," he amended. "My secretary gave me your message. Is everything okay?"
"It's fine, it's—" There was a pause and rustle of movement. "I mean, it's not fine. Look, can you come to St. Bart's? Tonight, please? It's an emergency."
"Molly, I—" John couldn't suppress the shudder as he considered her request, wondering whether he should be disappointed or relieved that his anxieties about that place hadn't entirely subsided. There was another rustle on her end, and John got the distinct impression that she was not alone at the receiver. "I, um, don't think that would be a very good idea. I haven't been there…in a while. And I just don't think it's…I don't think I can."
There was a long pause on the other line and Molly returned, this time with her voice low whisper and echoing, as though she were holding her hand around the receiver.
"Please Dr.—John. You have to know that I understand. I wouldn't be asking you here if it wasn't important, and I wouldn't be asking you here if I didn't know that you could come."
"All right, Molly," John said finally. "All right. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
John felt like he was chest deep in quicksand, crushing the breath from his lungs and hindering limbs as he struggled to exit the taxi before the familiar building. He wondered if it would be too much to ask the cabbie's help in prying his fingers from the edge of the door, as they seemed unwilling to relinquish their position. Finally, he freed himself and took a small step towards the building. Behind him, the cab sped off, clearly believing him to be a nutter.
Don't look up, he told himself. Don't look down.
But of course, he looked up and he could see Sherlock, that damn coat flapping in the wind, one hand reaching towards him and the other holding a phone to his ear. 'That's what people do, don't they?' the specter spoke, voice thick with emotion. 'Leave a note.'
And he looked down, and found the niche in the pavement where his blood had pooled. The blood remained when they took the body away, even though he'd lost so much, and really he needed it. But they'd left it there and they'd left John there, sitting beside the puddle. Two spots on the side of the road, too late to be much use to anyone.
John hurried into the building, as quickly as if he were being chased by something more substantial than his past. He tried to remember the way to the morgue; it wasn't a path he'd navigated alone before. He regretting coming; he'd forgotten how ingrained the memories were here, as though the vast walls had protected them from time itself. This was the building where they'd met, and worked, and said goodbye. He found himself expecting to see the swish of fabric ahead of him, as Sherlock turned a corner John hadn't even spotted, and yelled in his clipped fashion, for John to hurry up, perhaps including a jab at his stature.
Finally, he came to the familiar door. He pushed the door in, eyes scanning the room. The drawers were all closed and the long tables empty, thank god, but Molly was nowhere in sight.
"Molly?" he said, voice echoing loudly in the vast space. "It's John."
He was starting to worry. She's said it was an emergency, but she didn't sound like she was in any trouble. He found himself looking around again for anything she might have left for him; a note or some kind of clue. He felt around the underside of the tables and searched the desks, but made a conscious decision not to look in any of the drawers. Maybe it was selfish, but if Molly was in one of those he certainly didn't want to be the person to discover it. Finally, he made it to the window on the far wall. It was partially open, and in a small metal bowl on the sill there were four cigarettes, three smoked down to the filter and a forth that had been stubbed out half-smoked. The embers were still warm.
His hand turn to lead and it fell onto the sill as he tried to return the cigarette, knocking the bowl to the ground and littering his pants and the floor with ashes. The loud clatter of the metal bowl on the floor was echoed by a door opening. The door that John had just entered. He didn't turn around. He could hear footsteps as they approached; not all the way, perhaps around halfway across the room towards him. Familiar footsteps, too familiar. The footsteps he would once have followed anywhere.
"Molly," John said flatly. "I'm sorry to see you've taken up chain-smoking."
"John."
The voice was like a dagger, straight to John's bad leg. It collapsed beneath him and he barely caught the sill in time to steady himself. His cane fell to the floor beside the bowl. The man behind him took two steps closer.
"Don't!" John cried out, louder than he'd anticipated, yet somehow not loud enough. The sound of his own words seemed drowned out by the rapid beating of his heart. "Don't come any closer."
The steps halted, and for a long moment, no one spoke. And in that room, surrounded by death, John had never been more aware of how alive he was. Every cell of his body was screaming at him, and he knew that just feet behind him, Sherlock Holmes was standing there, equally alive, every cell alive.
That asshole.
"For months," John opened his mouth and let the words pour out. Words he'd never said to Mary, or Mrs. Hudson, or even his therapist. "For months, I thought you were still alive. I was convinced, and I don't even know why. I mean, I saw it. I saw all of it and I…I took your pulse. I looked at your eyes. Your face. It was impossible, but you're Sherlock Holmes, right? Sherlock Bloody Holmes, and I really thought…I didn't touch your things, but then Mrs. Hudson started packing them in boxes while I was at work, and then one day Mycroft came and took it all away." John paused for breath, keenly aware that he was blubbering. Still, he trusted the man to pick out the relevant details, as he always had. "I moved out of Baker Street, two-and-a-half years ago."
"John, turn around. Please."
John bent slowly and gathered his cane from the floor, leaning on it heavily as he turned around. He kept his back upright and rigid, and looked into pale eyes, wide set above sharp cheekbones and below a creased brow. His hair was buzzed short and he wore a hoodie and jeans. He looked like a completely different person, but he wasn't. John let out a noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and Sherlock started, though his face remained unchanged. John watched the pale eyes scan over his body, jumping between points of interest, and imagined what his deductions would be.
The cane is back, clearly a sedentary lifestyle doesn't suit your nerves.
Ugh, Pediatrics, John? Really? Children are so boring.
Still avoiding the barber? You really need to get over your fear of people holding scissors so close to your head. I swear, you'd be braver if it were a gun.
Your hands are shaking. Is that one of those trauma things, or have you been joining Harry at the watering hole?
"John, I'm so—"
"For what?" John shouted. He began to pace, free hand clenching and unclenching spastically. "What are you sorry for right now, but not yesterday, or the day before that? What are you sorry for now that your weren't sorry about last month, or last year? What…what were you sorry for three years ago on that rooftop? Why did you do it Sherlock? Why? How?"
"Well," Sherlock paused to consider, before his face brightened considerably. John supposed that this was more his speed; the lavish reveal, then take a bow and wait for applause. No need to revel in the emotional cost. No need to take part in the cleanup efforts. Just leave your puddle on the pavement and count on everyone else to watch their step. "I suppose 'how' would be the simpler question to answer, so let's start with that shall we?"
"No," John said quickly. "Never mind. I don't care. It doesn't matter." John began heading towards the door, head down, talking quickly. "You know, I'm glad you're alive, Sherlock. Really I am. I just…I can't look at you."
A hand shot out in front of him, planting itself with fingers spread against the polished metal door, blocking his escape.
"Why, then," Sherlock said plainly. "I did it to save you. You, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade. Moriarty's men would have killed the three of you unless they saw me jump. They had to believe I was dead, which meant that you had to believe I was dead. You needed to witness it, otherwise you would never have believed. Even with all that, you still didn't believe it did you? Not at first anyway."
"Why did you say those other things?" John hesitated, almost surprised by how fresh the feeling of betrayal felt after all these years. "About being a fraud? You must have known I wouldn't believe them."
"I wanted you too, though. I wanted to make it easier for you to…hate me. I wanted you to believe it, almost as much as I didn't want you to." Sherlock pulled his hand away and took a few steps back from the door. Of course, by then it must have been obvious to him that John was no longer going to leave.
"How?" John said at last.
"There was a man whom Moriarty employed to kidnap those children. An American, hand-picked for his striking resemblance to me. Mycroft tracked him down shortly after the case was closed, and he was killed in the ensuing struggle. I had a few ideas about what Moriarty was planning. He had discussed a fall when he came for tea. A fall from grace, perhaps: the utter destruction of my life's work, of my reputation. But that wouldn't be enough. He needed to complete the game. My own fall then, in a very literal sense. Molly dressed the American's corpse in identical clothes and waited at a window on the upper floor for my signal. By then I had cogitated a fairly complete picture of what would happen. He would threaten you, of course, and I would comply with his requests. After all, friends protect people, right? The only problem was that Moriarty had to die as well. He would know at a glance that the body wasn't mine. Mycroft set up snipers in the surrounding buildings, but in the end we had no need for them." He face went dark and his mouth puckered, as if he'd bitten into something unpleasant. "I asked you to keep your eyes fixed on me. Molly dropped the body before we were even off the phone. Everyone else was looking at him, and you were looking at me. I had a brace that I'd secured to the roof and when I jumped off the building I swung into the open window where Molly waited, out of your line of sight."
"Molly knew, Mycroft knew. Who else?"
"No one else," Sherlock said, fidgeting guiltily. "I know you don't want to hear it, and perhaps you don't believe me, but I truly am sorry. It may not seem possible; however I do have some understanding of what you must have gone through. I stepped off that roof because I knew that I couldn't survive the same ordeal, but you are stronger than me, John. I hope that one day you will forgive me. For what I've done, and for what I am about to do."
"About…to do?"
"John, I was always planning on revealing myself to you and attempting to salvage our friendship, once the danger had passed. Moriarty's men were still around, still loyal to their shadowy king. Many believed that he was still alive. Mycroft and I have been tracking down and neutralizing the primary agents, while others have simply lost faith and fallen off the radar. One had remained, both loyal and active, and just out of our reach. Sebastian Moran, the second most dangerous man in London."
"Second?" John asked. "Isn't Moriarty dead? Who's the first then?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow and smirked. John could barely stifle his groan. "You know, I'm surprised you didn't just float away on that massive inflated ego of yours."
There was a moment of utter silence, and they burst into laughter simultaneously. It sounded so right to John's ears; a perfect harmony he'd missed so much, without realizing it. Sherlock stopped suddenly, a somber expression falling over his face like a shadow.
"He knows," Sherlock said. "Moran. He knows that I'm alive. He's going to come after you."
"How do you know?" John asked. The joy was gone now, replaced by an odd, hollow sensation and a nagging feeling that he was missing something. Some important detail.
"These were left at the supposedly secure location I had been staying at, under an alias of course. No stamp. They were delivered by hand."
John reached into the envelope and removed the thick stack of photographs. He flipped through them, brain struggling to process what he saw. He was dimly aware of pictures falling to the floor and Sherlock repeating his name urgently. Each photo was of the same woman, her curly red hair tied up loosely in some and down in others (John always liked it when she left her hair down). There was even one of her waiting outside the cinema. He'd been late for their date and she was mad about missing the previews, but she'd still left her hand on his knee during the whole film. And in every single photo, her beautiful face was framed by crosshairs.
"John," Sherlock had somehow gotten his hands on John's shoulder and was shaking him gently. "John!"
John pushed Sherlock away, both men stumbling backwards by the unexpected force of it.
"Mycroft has enacted a 24/7 protection detail," Sherlock said levelly. "The best security this country has to offer, being closely guided by the most dangerous man in London," he added the last with a smirk that John found himself unable to return. "I will protect you. Both of you."
"Of course," John said, nodding. "Of course you will. Oh God," John fell to his knees among the scattered photographs. "This is all so much to take in at once. It's too much. Can I please just…"
"Yes," Sherlock answered the unspoken question, helping John to his feet and leading him out to the empty corridor.
John watched his back. Even without the trademark coat and bushy hair, the figure he cut was unmistakable, and as John fell into stride beside him, despite everything else that had happened that night, he felt whole again.
Mary didn't stir as John entered their bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed for a while, watching her chest rise and fall with her soft breaths. Harry called her his angel, the one who'd rescued him when he was at his lowest point, taught him how to live again when he'd forgotten.
"Love you," he said, brushing a strand of her wild hair behind her ear and pressing his lips to her forehead.
"Mmm," she smiled lightly. "You're home late. Coming to bed?"
"In a minute," he said returning the smile and pressed another kiss to her lips.
He left the room and crossed to the study. It was the only room they hadn't finished unpacking. Boxes of books obscured an empty book shelf. A plush leather loveseat was covered by misshapen packages and bags. There were other boxes, tucked into corners where they'd meant to remain. These were the boxes he hadn't unpacked at his first room he'd taken alone or the first flat he's shared with Mary. Mycroft didn't want these, Mrs. Hudson had said. But I couldn't bear to throw them out. John opened the first box and found the skull nestled in the folds of a dark blue scarf. There was a pair of leather gloves that were too slim and took long of John's hands, the Eschenbach magnifier, the pocketknife Sherlock had constantly and without regard used to deface their mantle. There were notebooks, some lightly used and many filled with his tiny, illegible writing. John removed each item from the box and ran his fingers over it, as if he could commit each piece to memory. It was silly really, mourning now when he discovered that Sherlock had been alive all this time, but as he held each item he came to realize how different things would be. Sherlock was might be back, but he had changed, and John had changed. Things would never be the way they were, they never could be, because John could never trust Sherlock again. And all those precious, painful memories meant nothing now, and perhaps had never meant anything, because Sherlock was alive. Soon, it would all be overwritten by their chilly new friendship, by his promise of protection without any recompense. And finally, John let his tears fall.