"Probably my answer's crossed yours."

The feeling of relief that had claimed his body merely moments ago was dimming rapidly as he pointed the gun directly at Moriarty and Sherlock wanted nothing more than to feel it again, to know that both he and John were safe for another day at least. His mind that usually had so much space for further information, felt cluttered and messy and he could not focus. His body seemed to be very much against him thinking, as everything seemed to intensify. The blood in his veins felt scalding hot against his skin, his muscles ached from how tightly they were bunched together, an icy drop in his gut actually hurt like a stab in the stomach, his breathing was too loud and too distracting. Everything was screaming at him that he'd let his guard down, that he'd made a mistake, that he was going to die...that John was going to die...the latter hurt the most.

He chanced a small glimpse over at the doctor now. The fear was scarily plain on his companion's face. Sherlock noted the beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead; he had gulped three times in the space of approximately fourteen seconds; his knees were knocking badly against one another and his arms that were holding him in his crouch were trembling.

Moriarty was wearing an antagonizing smirk, hands tucked in his trouser pockets, back straight, keen, and interested. He didn't seem fazed at all to have a gun pointed in his direction. It was as if he was impervious to bullets and was in fact looking forward to the instant the trigger was pulled just so he could devour the look of shock on Sherlock's face. That was not the case though; a bullet could in fact be the end of him but this seemed to make him even more excited.

The red dots swayed over both Sherlock and Watson, as if dancing over their bodies in anticipation. Despite them being undetectable by feeling alone, it felt as if they were scorching John's skin and burning through his clothes. He felt like he was wearing a second layer of skin made entirely of freezing cold sweat, and his lips refused to close as he inhaled deep breath after deep breath.

The gun lowered.

John's chest constricted.

Sherlock's breath hitched and died on his tongue, starving him for a few seconds of oxygen.

Jim Moriarty twisted his head as if a kink was knotted in the back of it and he was trying to loosen it.

John swallowed hard for the fourth time.

Sherlock tilted his pale eyes upwards to greet Moriarty's, the contact painful as a fist.

Moriarty's face was blank for an instant and then a faint smile spread across his mouth.

To Sherlock Holmes, it was as if the smile was daring him to do it. Pushing and prodding at him, shouting repeatedly that he would not dare do it; he didn't have the guts to go through with it.

And Sherlock, well needless to say he thrived off surprising people.

[SH]

Lestrade could not prevent his jaw from dropping at the sight of the old pool, the smoke spiralling upwards like the black soul of the building rising upwards into the skies. He swept his tongue over extremely dry lips and ran a hand over his mouth, turning his back temporarily on the chilling sight. The worst thing was that he knew, somewhere buried God knows how deep under that rubble laid the bodies of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson. Whether they were both dead, or one dead and the other alive, or, even less likely, both alive, he couldn't be certain but he couldn't stand waiting. No matter the outcome, he just wanted the waiting to be over.

It seemed like hours before Lestrade heard anything. A hand touched his upper arm lightly and gave it a feeble squeeze, mutely requesting him to turn around. He obliged, only partially recognising that the hand holding him belonged to Sally Donovan. The breath in his lungs was kidnapped and held hostage in his throat, choking him. The paramedics were carrying a stretcher out of the building. Lestrade, unable to pick up any details from the distance he was standing, rushed forwards with Sergeant Donovan hot at his heels.

As he drew nearer, the detective inspector identified the still form being carried away to be the one of Doctor Watson, and the doctor was awake, putting one half of Lestrade's knotted mind to rest. John had a few scratches on his face, one that bled pretty badly on his right cheek, and his face and clothing were patchy with soot. He seemed to have gotten away quite lucky, though Lestrade noticed a deep red puddle on the stretcher by the doctor's right leg, and it was something that the paramedics seemed to be paying particular attention to. Although he was blatantly in a great amount of pain, John was attempting to sit up only to be coaxed back down by hasty hands.

"Try not to move, doctor," Lestrade called over the sounds of the sirens and the commotion bursting vibrantly around them.

"Sh—Sherlo—" John Watson rasped, eyes fluttering. It didn't take the mind of the only consulting detective to piece together what the injured man was trying to say. Lestrade pressed his lips together in a grim line and allowed himself to fall behind, watching as they loaded the doctor into the ambulance.

Even though Doctor Watson was now pretty much out of the woods, Lestrade could not allow any element of comfort to flood through his system. Not only would it be a heavy loss to him in a professional manner, the loss of Sherlock Holmes, a dear friend, would be a great one to Lestrade and he did not feel in the mood to be shedding tears. He had too much going on right now to be held back by grief. It was a bleak way to look at it, but it was true.

Lestrade turned back around, watching with a heavy heart as the firefighters put out the last remnants of the fire. The blackness of the night was melting into a dull blue as the night turned old and morning burned young and fresh just behind the clouds. He probably would have admired the sight of the silhouettes of the dozens of men trying their best to kill the flames with the smoke twisting smoothly upwards...however, Lestrade had an attachment to this scene so he could not find it beautiful, at least not until Sherlock was carried safely away from it.

"No word on Sherlock?" he asked softly, not entirely sure, to whom he was inquiring.

"Not one, sir," Donovan answered, her tone carrying a heavy undertone of dismay.

Lestrade could only nod.

It was at least half an hour after the doctor had been driven away to the nearest hospital before any word was uttered on the condition of the only consulting detective in the world. Another stretcher was brought forth, and for a split second, Lestrade expected it to be the body of Moriarty, who they had also received no word on. Then he saw the curly dark locks, and that was enough to let him groan a sigh of relief, sprinting forwards. It was no cruel trick of the eye, as the identity was confirmed.

Sherlock Holmes lay still, stiller than Lestrade had ever seen him, with his right arm hanging off of the side of the stretcher, his head turned to the left to reveal a gleaming, startling amount of blood on his face. Unlike his companion, Sherlock was not conscious and did not express a single word. The paramedics were moving at a much faster pace, and Lestrade struggled to keep up. It was near impossible for him to see the extent of Holmes' wounds and this left him feeling panicked.

"Will he be alright?" he demanded once they had started to load him into the vehicle.

"He's in a critical state right now, Sir," a woman returned brusquely, putting a hand to his chest to prevent him from literally clambering into the ambulance himself. "I'm afraid you cannot travel with him, but you can follow on behind?" her cool eyes met his, though a hint of worry was hidden there.

Lestrade wanted to, he honestly did, but he had to wait behind until he heard something of Moriarty. Until that happened, he couldn't leave the site, and he wouldn't know anything of either of the men if anything should go wrong. He felt useless as he watched the doors slam shut, hardly aware the woman had left to hop into the front passenger seat. Not even the piercing shriek of the sirens stirred him; he could only watch as his friend was driven swiftly away, either to be fixed or to die...

Moriarty wasn't found...no trace of him was in fact. Lestrade refused to leave until it was a fact that Jim Moriarty was nowhere to be found, and he only left at quarter to six in the morning, by which time he was both emotionally and physically drained.

"You should go home," Anderson offered, with none of that arrogance that was usually moulded into whatever words he stated.

Lestrade glanced up at him and bade him a wry smile. "If I didn't know any better, Anderson, I'd say that you were kind of worried about our favourite psychopath." He delivered Anderson's own words with a helping of bitterness, enough to cause the man to blush. "No, no... that isn't fair. He isn't a psychopath..." Lestrade grinned. "He's our favourite sociopath."

[SH]

John's ears were ringing. That was the first thing he noticed. His ears were ringing severely and every other sound was a muffled drone that made his eardrums feel numb and swollen. His leg was pulsing painfully and he tried to wind his fingers around his thigh where it hurt the greatest only to have his hand pried tenderly away by another that did not belong to him and was clad in a white rubber glove.

Smoke. The smoke was hanging thickly up above him like a misty black ceiling and every now and then, a corner of a head would penetrate his line of vision. John registered that he was being carried away, and that he had in fact survived the explosion. That was when it hit him really hard. The explosion had actually happened; Sherlock had squeezed the trigger and the solid walls had been blown down as if they were merely paper cards all along. What had become of Moriarty? What had become of Sherlock? What had become of him?

Without grasping what he was doing, John was struggling to sit upwards. He only noticed what he had been doing when he had been lowered back down, causing his head to swim. He faintly heard a voice telling him to relax or at least something along those lines.

"Sh—Sherlo—" that was all he could say even though he was not telling his brain to say that. He wanted to ask what had become of his friend, he wanted to know what had happened to him, what was the extent of his injuries, if he was going to be okay, if Sherlock was even alive. Moriarty was not any of his concern currently, and he seriously couldn't care less if the man had suffered to his final breath. In fact, that would probably make him feel ten times better. None of those things surfaced to his mouth however; he could only ask himself those questions, and he had no idea whatsoever.

The next thing he knew, his eyes were sealed shut despite not recalling closing them. When they fluttered open, the sight of the smoke had dispersed and was replaced by a startling amount of pure white. It made his eyes ache so he shut them again, welcoming the darkness as the other was too bright for him to handle at that time.

"Doctor Watson?"

That gruff voice could only belong to one person and John felt obligated to peel his eyes open and look the detective inspector in the face. When he did, he could hardly believe the man sitting at his bedside was the same Lestrade that had consistently appeared in control and calm. The Lestrade John saw then, was dishevelled and weary, as if he had been viciously beaten mentally. He did not even muster a kinder expression when their eyes touched, instead he looked even graver. John did not like that look one bit, and he sat straight up, blocking the wave of nausea that rippled through him as he did so.

"Wh-what happened?" John said hoarsely, his throat so tight that he was forced into a short yet painful coughing fit. Lestrade handed him a glass of water from the bedside automatically, as if he had been prepared for such a thing. Once his coughs had subsided, the detective inspector spoke.

"You're a lucky man, Doctor Watson," he said slowly, running a hand through his short iron-grey hair. "A real damn lucky bloke. I would not say you got away unscathed but close considering the aftermath. A bullet just about missed your leg but it did leave a nasty scratch...you may need to pick up that old cane of yours for a couple of days. Other than that, you're just badly bruised and your face may be a bit scary to look at in the dark for a while but—" he let out a short dry laugh, his eyes glimmering as he cast them up towards the ceiling, the light twinkling off of the excess moisture it found there. John knew something was wrong then; something very, very wrong.

"What about Sherlock?" he pressed, a chill tickling his spine as he thought back on the man who he was confronting the inspector about. The man who had offered him a place to stay; the man who had brought out such intense levels of emotions out of him both positive and negative; the man who had transformed his life from being one that lacked anything to one that was now getting too big and was expanding just to make room. Sherlock Holmes. What had happened to that man?

Lestrade exhaled shakily. "Sherlock is...alive," he said, seeming reluctant to develop that sentence but did once Doctor Watson nodded in beckoning. "But it's critical, John. Nothing is for certain right now. I don't even know—" for an instant it seemed likely Lestrade was going to cry. "I don't even know what's wrong with him. All I know is that it isn't looking good."

Sherlock Holmes had been akin to a godlike figure in John's eyes for quite some time now. A highly flawed and unstable god he would agilely add though nevertheless, an impervious and unbreakable figure. The concept of that man being on death's door was intangible. It was like the sun falling. Just randomly deciding it could not be bothered to stick to the sky anymore. John had not known Sherlock for years like Lestrade had, in fact it hadn't even been one year yet since they moved in together. Nonetheless, John could not extract a memory from his past without Sherlock in it or at least somehow tied to him. Trying to imagine a world where he isn't the companion of the only consulting detective, was near enough impossible. It was incomprehensible and he refused to even contemplate on it. Why? Because Sherlock was going to somehow get through this.

Lestrade seemed to see right through John as if he was glass, as he said; "This isn't the first time he's faced death, John, but it is the closest. You—you can't just trick yourself into thinking he is going to be sitting up in his bed in no time demanding cases and playing the violin and bringing all your deepest and darkest secrets out into the daylight. He—as inhuman as he appears sometimes—he really is just a man."

John flushed and turned away, staring hard out of the window to his right, his mind churning all of his thoughts round and round his skull. His thoughts swerved painfully to the moment when he was heading out of the door, stuck in the threshold in shock when Sherlock had offered to get the milk. He should have known something was amiss, should have demanded to know what was going on, should have just text Sarah and put their plans on hold. John was vaguely aware he couldn't have possibly glued his eyes to Holmes all night, but at least he could have been at his side when they faced Moriarty, rather than being used as a weapon against his companion. If John had stayed, maybe none of this would have happened. If he had checked with Mycroft that the memory stick had in fact been handed over, maybe he would be making breakfast in their flat complaining about some limb being discovered in the cupboard. A sneaky smile would spread across Sherlock's face when he thought John couldn't see, secretly enjoying their banter, their relationship that was at times on the edge of being not that dissimilar to that of an old married couple.

"He better be okay," John murmured fractionally to himself.

[SH]

I've been reliably informed that I don't have one...

We both know that's not quite true...

[TBC]

This is only the prologue so it will be considerably shorter than the rest of the chapters. I am an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes; the original novels, the films and the BBC television series so I have been looking forward to writing a fanfiction for it for quite some time. Please review and favourite, for there is much more to come.

~ Maisy-Shane