The Abominable Bride (alternate ending)
This is my first fanfiction in quite a number of years, but this episode was so good that it has awakened that long dormant flame of inspiration that caused me to write fanfiction in the first place. As I hope you will enjoy the following, I must state that I own nothing, I just love this show as I know all of you do as well. After that ending, I just felt there needed to be a bit more of the dramatic, after all this is Sherlock we are talking about-so here is my account of what could have happened pre and post TAB
Without further adieu, please enjoy and please be kind. Thanks for reading
Earlier on the tarmac
Sherlock could think of nothing to say as he prepared to say goodbye to John for what he believed to be the last time. Mycroft had given him an undercover assignment in Eastern Europe as a means to escape a prison sentence but he knew that he was really sending him to his death. Six months is all Sherlock believed he had left, he knew there was no way out, no way of coming back this time. He made his arrangements, shortly after being released into Mycroft's custody, he managed to evade his security long enough to make a short stop in a local dosshouse. Sherlock knew John had Mary now, they were safe from Magnussen and Mary's past, and he knew John was in good hands. With everything they had been through, and a baby on the way, there hardly seemed to be any reason for Sherlock to contemplate another return. As much as it pained him, he was happy to see his friend moving on with his life, it would make what he was about to do much easier if he could just slip away, and John will never have to know the truth.
Sherlock made his way through this den of degradation in search of a cocktail of drugs so potent that it will undoubtedly be his last high. After speaking with a few of his fellow addicts, he found what he was searching for. A few moments later, he retrieved a bag from one of his homeless network and set his plan into motion. He knew he was to be put on a plane later that afternoon, Mycroft would be escorting him to the tarmac and there he would say his final farewells and once on the plane, in the security of his solitude, that's where he would "go into his mind palace" as he so often says. Only Mycroft knew the truth, he had seen the warning signs, his brother was overdue for a relapse, after the shooting he had a few close calls-the morphine didn't help, but being faced with never seeing John again, and being locked in solitary confinement for over a week, Sherlock was bound to do something serious.
He had already taken the cocktail a few moments before the plane took off, hidden in the lining of his bellstaff was a syringe, as he sat there staring at the window, holding the last moment between he and his best friend, his eyes began to tear and burn, not one for the emotional outbursts he suppressed his feelings and pulled out the syringe. "Seems as good a place as any" he said as he injected what was to be his last goodbye high
Just as it began to hit his bloodstream and euphoria started to set in, his phone rang-it was Mycroft telling him the impossible "Moriarty is back"
With those three words his brain went into overdrive, he started to picture Moriarty's death, he played it over and over again in his mind until he could think of nothing else, just then an old case started floating around in his head, something to do with a bride who came back from the dead in a similar manner. His thoughts began to drift to Victorian England, how did she do it? If I can solve this one, then I can figure out how he did it. I have to finish this one, just this one…How did he manage it? I don't understand, he can't be alive, he can't be, I saw him die, gun in the mouth, bullet through the brain, back of the head blown clean off, how could he survive?! How?!"
As his drug addled brain began to dissolve reality, he found himself deep in his mind palace, he was back in time, and what a hallucination this was, everything was so real that he began to doubt which reality was real. Sherlock knew that he wasn't really in the past as modern life began to bleed through in his conversations, and his memories but he couldn't quite make his way out of the rabbit hole until the plane landed. Through the rough landing, Sherlock was shaken back to reality and it was 2015 again. Mycroft, John and Mary stepped on board, unaware of the events that have been going on in Sherlock's mind or the dangerous cocktail that Sherlock had self-administered.