"When I was young I was a fool. So wrap
me up in dreams and death."

Neil Gaiman, "The Fairy Reel"

He would rather have been numb. His "high-functioning sociopathy" was wishful thinking, and he knew it. He remembered the exact though process that had gone into creating his sociopathic persona and this was the exact type of situation that had caused him to callous himself in the first place. He had cultivated his lack of emotion and cold, aloof demeanor for a reason. He had reminded himself over and over again of why it was better not to get attached. He had seen it coming. He could have spared himself so much pain. He had lost control.

The rational part of his brain had said over and over again that his feelings were ridiculous, but there was something irrational about emotion. For the first time in his life, logic couldn't save him. Reason was meaningless. For the first time ever, Sherlock Holmes had to accept that there were some things logic just didn't apply to.

John.

John had been different. Ever since the very first moment Sherlock saw him, he could tell he was different. He instantly saw the soldier in John, the fighting spirit that made him cling on until the bitter end. This time, the bitter end had come too soon. Far too soon. It was his fault.

Sherlock had known. He had planned the whole thing, but one little detail went wrong and the whole thing went to hell. One tiny detail and it would have worked. He had gotten the timing wrong by an imperceptible amount, and now they were gone.

All your fault. All your fault.

No. No, this simply couldn't be happening. Sherlock checked his pulse, found it to be slightly elevated, but still within the normal range, and decided that the amount of detail was too extreme for this to be a dream. It was real. Sherlock had been several seconds too slow and it had cost him everyone he loved, his only distraction from the monotony of life, and his lack of emotion. He had truly lost everything.

Mrs. Hudson.

Sherlock had known Mrs. Hudson since he was three years old, and he still didn't know her first name. She had been a friend of his mother's and had come over often for tea. However, his father hadn't liked her all that much and Mycroft always complained that she was boring, so eventually she just stopped coming. That didn't stop Sherlock from keeping track of what happened to her and saving Mrs. Hudson from her abusive husband by taking the judge handling Mr. Hudson's case out for a drink and persuading him to sentence Mr. Hudson as severely as possible for his crimes.

Lestrade.

At first, Sherlock hadn't liked Lestrade. He had gotten in the way of Sherlock's investigations and insisted that he follow every single pointless and obstructive rule or law that a Scotland Yard detective was subjected to. However, Lestrade eventually learned that Sherlock was not a Scotland Yard detective and as a result, Lestrade began to grow on Sherlock. Soon Sherlock found him mildly tolerable. Eventually he began to think of Lestrade as more than a useful resource. Almost... a friend. But now he was gone. Sherlock had failed, and they were all gone.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Sherlock stood over Moriarty's body, trying desperately to regain his composure and the control over his emotions that he had fought so hard to develop. He gasped for breath and attempted to distract himself by insisting over and over again that the events of several seconds ago could not possibly have taken place. He looked into the pool of blood surrounding Moriarty's head and almost stumbled backwards in surprise when, instead of his reflection, he saw John's head exploding into a thousand fragments of skull and brain. The vision repeated itself over and over again, slowing down each time until Sherlock could see the look of disbelief on John's face just before the bullet came into contact with his skull. Disbelief at Sherlock's 'suicide note.' Sherlock blinked rapidly, trying desperately to banish the image from his mind, but every time his eyes closed he saw the same sequence of events play out.

He had been about to jump when it had happened. John had screamed his name in a last attempt to convince him not to kill himself and Sherlock had stepped onto the ledge. He had glanced down at the air bag he would land on, sent a text to Mycroft, and gotten the 'thumbs up' from the man on the bicycle who would knock John over. He had taken a deep breath, prepared to jump, and heard a gunshot. Sherlock's eyes had darted over to John just in time to see his head explode into a million pieces. He had known less than a second later that three guns had fired at the same time and that John had not been the only casualty. He had not jumped in time. The sniper had seen the airbag. His plan had taken too long, and it had cost him all of them.

Sherlock continued to be plagued by visions of John's last moments. They were everywhere. Projected onto buildings, taxis, specific sidewalk tiles, even the rooftop he stood on. It was almost as if some sicko was projecting the death scene of the protagonist of a movie onto every surface he could find. Sherlock could hear screaming. It took him several seconds to realize that it was him. He staggered backwards, away from the ledge, away from Moriarty's body and the horror clip projected onto everything around him.

Sherlock sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands, hiding his face so that he could no longer see John's death. As it turned out, hiding from John's death only brought up images of the deaths of Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade.

Sherlock imagined Mrs. Hudson serving her soon-to-be attacker a cup of tea, chatting with him about something or other, offering to get him something to eat. She had always been far too sweet for this world. Her attacker seems to agree with Sherlock's mental assessment of his landlady. He smiles at her, sets down his cup of tea, and shoots her in the chest. She is dead before she hits the floor.

Lestrade never knows what hits him. Sherlock imagined him working, possibly in the middle of an important phone call. He is trying to write and talk on the phone about two completely different subjects at the same time and getting nowhere. Just as he is about to escape from the phone call, a bullet whizzes in through his open door and hits him right between the eyes. He topples over backwards, still clutching the pen and the phone.

Sherlock heard himself screaming again. He had killed them. He had killed all of them. Once, he had thought that he was invincible. He thought that his intellect and fighting skills could save him from anything. He had thought that he was the most important person in the world. He had valued his own intellect and style of thinking more than any other. "Only I can be right," he had thought, "because everyone else is stupid and boring." It sounded so simplistic now, but it had truly been the motto he lived by. The realization that he had been a fool struck him abruptly. He had been a fool, caught up in his youth. Now his dreams of invincibility had abandoned him and he was shrouded in death. "After all," he thought, "death is all that remains in the end."

For the first time in twenty years, Sherlock sobbed into his hands. He had never understood what guilt felt like. He had read about it and understood the denotation of the word, but he had never experienced actual guilt. He understood now, though. Guilt is death. Guilt is stupidity. Guilt is killing your loved ones by mistake.

They are gone and it is all your fault.

His courage was gone. He could no longer jump. After all, what was the point? Everyone he loved was dead. There was nobody left to protect. Sherlock's sobbing intensified as he realized that he would have to spend the rest of his life knowing that he could have saved everyone he loved if he had been only a few seconds faster.