It was fairly chilly on the roof, but Sherlock paid it no mind. No chillier than the sight he had just witnessed. He didn't have much need for emotions, but watching a man shoot himself in the head is startling to say the least, if not distressing. However much Sherlock hated James Moriarty he had respected his genius and his brain wasn't of much use to Sherlock with a bullet in it. But Moriarty had done his job well and despite the fact that the spider was dead, his web still stretched across all of Europe, if not the entire world. At this moment in time however, the only bits of the web that interested Sherlock were the ones that formed three nooses around the only three people he could be said to care about.
What a pain caring, (no... loving) had turned out to be. Here he stood, ready to leap off a building, his life for their lives. Of course, he'd made his own preparations, but they weren't completely set in stone, there hadn't been enough time. Not that time was a problem for the savior he had chosen to contact.
Making this official was his primary concern at the moment. If he was going to save John it needed to be convincing. Not just for the vultures watching and waiting, but for Watson himself. Knowledge is dangerous, no one knew that more than Sherlock himself and so it must be that John thought to the depth of his soul that Sherlock was dead. The thought caused an unfamiliar twinge in Sherlock's stomach: regret. He knew this would hurt him. That's not what he wanted. But that's the way it had to be.
He saw him now, John Watson. His cell was warm in his frozen hand as he scrolled quickly through his contacts and clicked the familiar number.
John answered it and got right to the point, "Sherlock, are you okay?"
"Turn around and walk back the way you came." If this was going to work, John had to be far away, no closer than he was.
Stubborn as always, "No. I'm coming in."
This had to be shut down right away, "Just. Do as I ask. Please." The word tasted foreign in his mouth as he said it. Leave it to Watson to drag that word out of him.
"Where?" Good, he was starting to listen.
"Stop there."
"Sherlock." The man on the roof bit his lip in pain, already regretting his decision to leave. His voice was so achingly familiar.
"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop." He had to do this but he didn't have to do it alone. There was no other way to make sure John believed him dead.
"Oh, God."
"I... I..." His voice faltered but he steeled himself, "I can't come down so we'll just have to do it like this."
There was no other way he reminded himself.
"What's going on?" He could hear John's confusion and veiled panic.
"An apology. It's all true."
"What?" Denial. He knew that had been coming.
"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty." John needed to understand he didn't mean it.
He couldn't understand he didn't mean it.
"Why are you saying this?" The faith of a desperate man.
"I'm a fake." The words were poison.
"Sherlock-"
He cut across him, "The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade. I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly..."
Tell them I did this to protect them...
"In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you. That I created Moriarty for my own purposes."
"Okay, shut up. Sherlock. Shut up. The first time we met - the first time we met - you knew all about my sister, right?"
"Nobody could be that clever."
I could. I could be that clever. I am that clever. John stop this!
"You could."
"I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It's a trick. It's just a magic trick."
"No. Alright, stop it now." John started to walk towards him. This had to stop now. He couldn't keep it up much longer.
"No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move."
"Alright."
His faith was a knife in Sherlock's heart.
"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?"
John couldn't see anything that would happen next. His gaze made him strong.
"Do what?"
"This phone call. It's..." Again his voice faltered. Curse his human body, "It's my note. That what people do, don't they? Leave a note."
John's voice rose with hysteria, "Leave a note when?"
"Goodbye, John."
John's last words were muffled, yelled through a phone that was already at Sherlock's side, getting ready to be tossed aside, "No. Don't-"
John would run, he was already getting tense to do so. Sherlock had to do it now.
The wind stung his sharp cheekbones as he fell from the roof. Just over the roaring of the wind, he heard the engines: the wheezing and the groaning and below him he saw the TARDIS materialize. As Sherlock fell in one side of the doorway, The Doctor hoisted himself up and dropped a fake body out the other side. Sherlock crashed into the sideways console.
"Oi!" The Doctor cried in outrage from above Sherlock. With a sliding noise, The Doctor slid down a rope and pulled a few levers. The TARDIS righted itself immediately, dropping Sherlock unceremoniously to the floor.
"I suppose we could have planned that a little better..." The Doctor mumbled offering his hand to the fallen detective.
"Doctor, glad to see you got my message. Impeccable timing as always."
Sherlock fought to straighten his knotted scarf and then perched himself on one of the many chairs located in the room.
"It's been a long time. What was it, two years ago? Aliens in London. Preposterous."
The Doctor bowed with a small smile that slid off his face immediately, "I'm changing the deal, Sherlock."
Sherlock felt a flare of anger, but as always, his face remained completely emotionless, "No. We had a deal."
The Timelord nodded his head in agreement, "The TARDIS and time to destroy Moriarty's web, yes."
Sherlock felt the but coming.
"But, we're picking up John tonight."
At this, Sherlock could not contain his panic and anger.
"The whole point of this was to keep him safe!" That was the one thing Sherlock was absolutely certain of in this whole plan.
The Doctor looked at his lap with eyes that had seen the death of a million planets. When he turned them up to look at the conflicted detective he was absolutely sure of what he was doing. He repeated the words that had been said to him many years earlier,
"Yes. But you shouldn't be alone."
And then he added, "Either of you."
Sherlock was quiet at this. He knew of John's impulsive nature. From the beginning of the whole plan leaving John alone had been a risk. He didn't think he would do anything as rash as taking his own life, but of that he couldn't be sure. If that happened what had been the point of this whole endeavor in the first place?
And what of himself? He'd come to care for John these past few months. No. He had come to rely on him. To need him around. When he was gone he worried endlessly about his safety. It was strangely freeing and confining at the same time.
Finally, Sherlock did something he had only done a handful of times in his entire life.
He relented.
"Fine."
Moments later the TARDIS was parked in the upper flat of 221B Baker Street.
Sherlock opened the door cautiously and found a completely flabbergasted John Watson perched in one of the cushy armchairs. He stared with fear and wonder at the ghost that had materialized before him. For Sherlock however, the most curious thing about the entire picture was the gray mustache atop Watson's upper lip.
"Come along, John. We have a lot to do."
Slowly, with shaking legs, John rose to his feet and walked to Sherlock, looking at him as if he were an apparition.
Suddenly, without warning, John punched him.
"You were dead! For three years! What the hell are you doing here?!"
Sherlock's shock at being punched in the face quickly escalated to rage and he whipped around.
"Doctor! Three years?! What did you do?!"
John however was not to be ignored, He gripped the back of Sherlock's long black trench coat and flipped him back around.
"You will listen to me Sherlock Holmes!" He grappled Sherlock's lanky form into a headlock, "Do you know what this did to me?! What it did to everyone!? Mrs. Hudson? Lestrade? Mycroft? Molly? ANDERSON? HE HAS A BEARD BECAUSE OF YOU! HE STARTED HIS OWN FAN CLUB!"
Sherlock bore his lot in silence, but now his moment has come.
"JOHN! Calm down! I understand the repercussions of my actions. I accepted them when my plan was put in action."
From behind them The Doctor called out, "Sorry John! I meant to get him here three years ago if that helps!"
John stood upright in tight military posture and released Sherlock, but his chest rose and fell with great emotion.
Sherlock dropped his voice, "Really. John. I am sorry."
John Watson stared at the face of the man he had mourned for three years. His face didn't change in the slightest as he stalked past Sherlock into the TARDIS.
Sherlock allowed a small half smile to twitch onto his face before he turned and shut the door of the TARDIS behind him.
The engines began to wheeze again and the Police Box began to fade in and out. Finally, with one last groan, the TARDIS disappeared, leaving behind only a flurry of flying papers that quickly settled on the floor of the abandoned apartment of 221B Baker Street.