Sherlock walked briskly down the damp street, the wind tangling his hair and whipping his coat around his legs. One of his hands were shoved deep into his pocket and the other was clutching his mobile to his ear in one of the few phone calls he had ever deigned to answer. "Where are you John?" he said with a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice.
"Look up" John replied in a small voice that instantly made him worried, not that he would ever admit to feeling such trivial emotions.
Sherlock's eyes narrowed and his brows pulled together as he spotted John standing on the ledge of the hospital rooftop. "What are you doing Sherlock barked, making it sound not like question, but like a command for John to stop this confusing behavior at once.
"I uh, I… I guess you could call this my note" John stammered, passing his hand nervously across his forehead nervously. "Um I guess this means we won't be, um running London together anymore, I really enjoyed that, solving crimes and what not. Not that I did much of the…. of the solving….. anyways.." John swallowed and looked over the ledge to sidewalk below.
"Don't be silly John" Sherlock cut in quickly, refusing to let his panic creep into his voice "I'm sure Lestrade will have another case for us tomorrow" his misunderstanding was deliberate. If he didn't acknowledge what was about to happen, surely John would snap out of it. He would come to his senses any moment now surely…
"I'm so sorry Sh…"
"John no!"
"Let me finish, please Sherlock, can you do this one… this one last thing for me?" He said his voice finally cracking. How could Sherlock argue when there was so much pain in John's voice? "Just, just listen, stay there and listen. I'd like to say thank you, thank you for…. well, for just being you. Impossible, pig headed, stubborn, Sherlock Holmes. My best friend." John's hands clenched and unclenched as Sherlock looked numbly at his impossibly far up friend. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…Goodbye Sherlock." He whispered, reaching out one last time to his closest companion.
Then John fell.
For the first time in his entire life there was only one thought in the consulting detectives normally speeding, twisting mind. John, John, John, John, John! There was no deductions, no calculations, no predictions, none of the knowledge he had based his whole personality on.
It took him a moment to realize he was sprinting towards his friend. The laws of time and space seemed to be defied, as the faster he ran, the farther away his friend seemed farther and farther away. With each step he felt his whole soul crumple and wither until it seemed to blow away on John's last breath. Because what was he without John? John was his heart. His best friend. His only friend. The only person in the world Sherlock sought out for the sole purpose of just being in their company.
Sherlock fell to his knees on the pavement beside the crumpled body. His hands flitted over his friend, like small birds, too afraid to land. Finally out of an overwhelming need to do something, though he knew without a doubt what he would find, he fought back the bile rising in his throat, and pressed his thumb to John's wrist, desperate for a pulse.
Sherlock's last ounce of self-control broke and with tears streaming down his face he clutched his friend's body to his chest. John's head fell limply onto Sherlock's shoulder as blood dripped off his wildly trembling hands. His entire body tensed as he let out something between a wail and the howl of a wounded animal.
Sherlock sat up in bed so fast his pillow flew onto the floor. A light sheen of sweat covered his entire body and his breath came out in little gasps as he fought for control. His heart broke again when he thought of John grieving somewhere out there for him.
"It was a trick John, don't you see?" Sherlock whispered bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his lanky arms around his legs. "I didn't die… I'm so sorry"
Then, for the first time since his fateful fall the previous day, Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes wept.