Climbing Reichenbach Falls

Nefertiri's Handmaiden

Disclaimer: Don't own "Sherlock," blah blah blah.

Summary: "John sat down on the mattress, back straight, and stared at the opposite wall. He scrubbed one over his jaw, feeling the two-day stubble. Well, he thought. Well, here he was again." John weathers the aftermath of the fall.


Chapter One: The Fall


The night after… well. The night after, John stayed in the hospital. They wanted him there to monitor his concussion.

Greg came to sit with him for half an hour or so in the evening. He entered looking nearly tired and haggard as John felt, and sat a few feet away from John's bed in a beige chair with a cracked vinyl cushion. Neither man spoke. They didn't even look at each other. Finally, Greg sighed, stood, reached out a hand to pat John's shoulder and then thought better of it, and walked away.

He couldn't sleep, though the head wound was making him groggy. All he could do is stare at the ceiling. In his head, it happened over and over: Sherlock stood high, high above him on the roof and said things John knew to be lies, and then Sherlock was falling, his legs trying to walk in the air, and then John was moving and he fell, too, his head cracking to the asphalt, but not like Sherlock's, no, and there was blood oozing, oozing onto the sidewalk, so much blood, too much, and John reached out for his best friend's wrist and there was no pulse.


In the morning, the doctors told him he could go home. Mrs. Hudson came to fetch him. He went to the bathroom to change into clothes now three days old while she waited for him and was silent as she fretted all the way back to Baker Street how she couldn't believe it, how she just couldn't believe it, not Sherlock, not dear, dear Sherlock.

She walked up the stairs with him. He entered the living room and came to a sudden halt, eyes running over the skull on the mantle, the books and the papers cluttering every horizontal surface, the violin and bow left carelessly on the sofa, the music stand with its yellowing sheet music behind the black leather chair, the dust motes floating in the streams of light from the windows that looked out onto busy Baker Street. No long gray coat flung over the desk chair. No navy blue cotton scarf.

Had it been only the night before last that he'd stood right here in this room, arms crossed, remarking on the injustice and lunacy of Sherlock in handcuffs? Had it been only the night before last that he'd hauled back and walloped Scotland Yard brass square in the nose?

Mrs. Hudson had gone quiet. John took off his jacket and didn't bother to hang it up, simply dropping it on the floor. He picked his way to his chair, because that was what he did in this room, sat in his chair, and slumped down. Mrs. Hudson, in a display that was odd even for them, followed, knelt in front of him and, as though he was a little boy and she his nanny, removed his shoes and socks. She stood, leaned over, patted his face, and left him alone.

He did not know how long he sat there in the tomb that had such a short time ago been his home, staring at the fine black leather of Sherlock's empty chair. It had to have been hours. If you were to have asked him later - and Ella would - what he thought during this time, he would not have been able to clearly express it. Some of it was memories: Sherlock perched on the chair like a tall, odd bird, Sherlock picking at his violin as he glared at his brother, Sherlock dressed in a blue silk robe, gazing into space with vacant eyes for hours and hours as he thought. Some of it was Sherlock falling, falling, falling, and then not falling, lying on the ground, and the black curls he was so vain about soaked with that red red blood. Some of it was numbness in his feet, in his head.

At last, John stood and slowly made his way to his room. He packed his army duffle with a few changes of clothes and grabbed his toothbrush and razor. He went back downstairs, kissed Mrs. Hudson on the forehead, and shut the door of 221b behind him as he walked away.

John found himself in a small and cheap but clean hotel room with a single twin bed shoved against the wall. He didn't really remember the walk here or asking for a room, everything since the fall a blur. Straight-backed, he sat down on the mattress and stared at the opposite wall. He scrubbed one hand over his jaw, feeling the two-day stubble.

Well, he thought. Well, here he was again.

It was then that he hunched forward until his elbows rested on his knees. His face in his hands, he began to cry.


Mycroft called to inform him when the funeral would be. John had to brave Baker Street once more to get his best black suit, donning it with military precision. He looked himself in the mirror as he finished straightening his tie and cuff links. He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin.

He escorted Mrs. Hudson to the funeral home, offering her his arm as they exited the cab. The parking lot was full, the viewing room packed, the gleaming mahogany casket closed.

Client after client approached him, shaking his hand, saying they didn't care what the damn papers said, they knew who Mr. Sherlock Holmes was and they wouldn't ever forget what he did for them: livelihoods saved, lives, families. John said thank you, yes, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from saying what he did for you pales in comparison to what he did for me.

The clients, he knew, saw him only as Sherlock's sidekick. And perhaps that was all he'd ever been, John thought - to these people and perhaps even to Sherlock himself. But Sherlock had been his best friend. None of these people could claim that.

Mycroft approached him and asked him to speak. John opened his mouth, closed it and then shook his head. There were too many words in his head that needed saying to say any of them at all.

Besides, it was long ingrained in John to suffer in silence.

John left Mrs. Hudson at Baker Street, declining her offer of tea and sadly shaking his head when she urged him to come home. He returned to his hotel, loosening his tie as he walked and shrugging off his jacket as he entered his room, throwing it haphazardly on the desk chair. Then he lay down on his bed without taking his shoes off and stared at the wall.

For three days, he did not leave the room. He shed the remainder of his suit on the floor and didn't bother to change his boxers. He did not turn the TV on, did not look at the Internet. There were knocks on his door the first and second day, a shrill call that it was housekeeping, and he shouted not now and the knocks stopped. He slept irregularly and fitfully. His phone rang and rang and rang, and he didn't answer it; didn't even look to see who the calls were from.

On the fourth day, he looked at himself in the mirror, unshaven with dark circles under his eyes, and recognized something familiar in his eyes; something scary. He called Ella's office.


Get up, John's alarm blared at him. Get in the shower, demanded a voice in his head that sounded vaguely like his drill sergeant, get shaved, get dressed. Get your umbrella. Get some breakfast, another voice in his head reminded him, this one with the matronly trill of Mrs. Hudson. His voice was harsh with disuse when he ordered eggs and bacon at the small pub across the street from the hotel. Get a cab. Sign in with the girl at the desk. Wait. Try not to think.

Ella called him in to her office. He shook her hand as he entered, made thoughtless pleasantries, sat down in the chair that he had been so accustomed to, once. She sat across from him. The folding doors in her office usually let in bright sunshine, but today it was gray and raining. John wished he found the sound of the raindrops on the glass soothing. Neither of them spoke for several minutes as John settled himself and tried to remember how to do this.

Finally, she asked him why today.