Chapter 1: The Aftershocks
Sherlock Holmes is dead.
It had been 4 months. Four months, and no sign of him. No magical recovery, no bursting in at 1am explaining how he had achieved his feat before taking his bottle of whatever he had and heading off to his room.
I had to accept he was dead. If he wasn't, there had to be some hints. He would have turned up by now. He would have sent some message. He wasn't that much of a dick.
Sherlock Holmes is dead.
The afternoon of his death was a blur. Watching him fall. Getting hit. A bicycle I think it was. His pulse, non-existent. Them leading him out. Or in. Into the hospital. Someone helping me up.
"Doctor, please. Get inside. It's no good waiting out here. You can't help him." I never checked to see who it was, I just let them lead me into the hospital receiving area.
Lestrade had rushed in after 10 minutes, his face a pale white, his mouth gaping open. "No..." he had whispered, crumpling next to me on a hospital chair. "Jesus, no no NO!" Cupping his face in his hands, he started mumbling unintelligibly. The room swayed hard, and the floor came towards me at an alarming rate. Panic filled me. Next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed with a pounding headache and a desire to throw up.
"Dr. Watson?" Lestrade was there. He looked like shit. "You passed out. Must've been the shock. It's ridiculous isn't it? Him, killing himself. It's ridiculous. Most egotistical man in London jumps off a goddamn building. Ridiculous!" He kept saying that word. Ridiculous. He continued to talk, pacing up and down the room as if standing still might hurt him. My head still hurt, and the room still continued to blur in and out of focus. I wished I could pass out again, just so the pain would go away. So I could wake up to his violin playing, and find the living room covered in frog legs or blood or something, anything! He had to be alive! Somehow!
"Detective..." The door opened and Sgt. Donovan walked in timidly, looking like a captured soldier in a POW camp. She glanced over at me and gave a small smile before turning back to Lestrade. I felt anger rise up in my chest at the sight of her.
"Yes?" Lestrade glanced up and snapped to attention.
"We uh, we found something up on the building. I understand you want no part in this case, but I think you would want to know the details of our findings?" she ended it in a question. She knew we had no interest in seeing her, that we only wanted to close our eyes and deny all sufferings and to simply disappear so we wouldn't have to feel pain. Yet she was here. Why? Forgiveness? Atonement? Sherlock would have known in a heartbeat.
He's dead.
"Um, yes...What is it?" Lestrade asked.
"We uh...we found another body. Up on the roof." she crossed her legs and arms and looked down at her feet.
Another body. Who? My headache began to throb
"What?" Lestrade began to pace again. "Who? What? How did he die? When did he die?"
"We don't know who yet, we're running tests on the body right now. Gunshot through the roof of his mouth. At the moment it appears to be self inflicted, but Sherlock could have don-" she cut herself off and glanced worriedly at me, as if hoping I didn't hear her slip. My head's pounding grew louder in my ears and I wanted it all to stop. All of it!
"Get out." I heard myself say. My head's blurring and pounding was becoming unbearable, it was a struggle to merely sit up straight and see. "GET OUT! GET OUT NOW BEFORE I DO SOMETHING!"
Then the bile I was trying so desperately to keep down came up through my throat and the world slowly faded to black once more...
"The name is Sherlock Holmes..."
"Stay away from him!"
"That's not usually what people say..."
"Harry is short for Harriet."
"The address is two two one B Baker Street..."
"A gigantic...HOUND."
"That code...It was my measurements!"
"A cinema? Boring!"
"You machine!"
"Afternoon!"
"The Game! It is afoot!"
"SHERLOOOOOOOCK!" I struggled to get up. Where was he! I had to talk to him, had to explain...had to hug him and punch him in that goddamn smug face! The heat of the room pushed me down. The sheets! Too heavy! Had to find him...Had to get him...
"John!" The voice...It was familiar...But no! Not Sherlock! It was too light, too trusting, too high to be him.
"John!" All of a sudden everything came into focus. I blinked and looked up to see Molly holding onto my right shoulder. Her bright eyes stared worriedly at me. She had been crying.
"M-m-m-m-molly..." I whispered. "Molly he's...he's..."
"Yes, I know." Her eyes furrowed into deep sorrow. "I did the autopsy." Her voice had faded to a trembling murmur.
"Oh..." It was only later that I realized how terrible it must have been. Molly had loved Sherlock, the absolute sheer horror and responsibility it must have been to open and dismember someone you had cared for...
"And...the other man...You heard about him right? He uh, he uh was uhh..." she took a deep breath. "Jim."
"Oh my God," I breathed. "How?
"Gunshot to the head...Looks like he just took the gun and put it in his mouth..." She made a small motion with her hand pretending to be cocked. That statement made my stomach lurch. Molly had never been very good at social cues.
"Everyone still thinks it's Brooks or whatever?" Why did I still hurt? It felt like the entire world was caving on me.
"Uh, I don't know. Probably..." She looked around the room. "Are you feeling ok?"
"No." I tried to get up but my muscles spasmed at the movement and made me collapse once again. Molly touched my shoulder to keep me down. "What happened? After I passed out again?"
"Uh, well the nurses had to clean up your puke...Lestrade and Donovan left...you've been out for like two hours. But you, you've been screaming in your sleep for at least half and hour. That's why they had me come over, try to wake you up."
"Why is this happening...?"
"Shock." She answered quickly, as if wanting to change the subject. She glanced at her nails. "I'm sorry John..."
"Why did he do it...?" I don't know who I was asking. I just needed those questions out there. "Why is this all happening...?"
"Uh, I'm putting some morphine in your tap, it'll help relieve the pain. Hopefully your fever will dissipate by the time you wake up."
"Wha? No, Molly you can't do that that's illeeeeuhhhhh..." The painkillers set in fast, making it hard to see again. Molly quickly left the room, and I could have sworn I saw a tall figure in a black coat follow her...
"Richard Brook." I heard Lestrade say. I looked up from my lap.
I was still in the hospital bed, I had stayed there overnight, and, as Molly had somehow predicted, my fever and pains had for the most part gone. I was to be discharged that afternoon, left in a world without Sherlock Holmes. Dammit Sherlock!
"Um, what?" I asked.
"That's the other man they found. Or Moriarty, I mean. All his records say Richard Brook now. He committed suicide, the bullet was from his gun, and he had powder on his fingers."
Two suicides in one day, in succession...
"Well the tabloids will have fun with that." the statement flowed out of my mouth before I could stop it. Lestrade stared at me in surprise. "Sorry," I said. "Shock. I'm still having to get used to..." my voice broke.
Lestrade nodded. "it's...it's alright. We're all in shock right now. I mean, I can't believe it... if you had asked me to compile a list...a list of people I thought were going to kill themselves, he would have been the last person on that list. And what was the point of all of it? Moriarty creating a false identity and making everyone think he was a fake? Why? And why...Oh God nevermind," Lestrade sighed. I had a feeling I knew the question he was going to ask. Why did he kill himself anyway? He didn't care about the public...
"He wasn't a fake," I said.
He let out a large sigh. "I know. I know, I really do."
We were silent for a few minutes, just soaking in everything.
"It's ridiculous," Lestrade said again.
It is. It really is. I thought. Doctor John H. Watson, army doctor, you've watched countless men die, some of whom you really liked, you've watched your own mother die in a hospital bed and none of the mourning you've done for any of these people even compares to the grief that you feel for this man who in the end was a goddamn sociopath, who in multiple instances almost had you killed! He shot the goddamn wall for fun!
More silence.
"So, um, I guess we have to come up with funeral arrangements now," Lestrade said. "I hate that part."
"I can handle that. For the most part I mean. I mean, I was the closest to him." What? No! You can't do that, you're already unstable as it is!
Lestrade looked grateful. "You sure?"
"Yes." No.
"OK. Just call me whenever you need to talk, I'll try my best to answer," he said before leaving the room and leaving me in my own pity and grief.