I don't know where this came from, but I hope you enjoy it.

It was quite conceivably the worst day of my life. I had been ordered the night before to arrest my friend and consultant, Sherlock Holmes, on suspicion of committing a series of heinous crimes, and should have realised that the arrival of Chief Superintendent and his opinionated loud mouth would only make matters worse.

Sally had stirred things up with John Watson, apparently repeating some ridiculous remark she had made when she first met him, and to cap it all the boss goes and refers to Sherlock as a weirdo – I was starting to wonder if I'm the only person with common sense in this job.

Looking back I'm amazed that no one thought to check the mortuary a second time, just because he didn't go straight there did not mean that he would avoid the place, on the contrary he deduced that we would check and not go back, because according to Molly Hooper's statement, he was there within an hour of our visit – there's a deal of truth in the adage 'never leave a boy to do a man's job' – I should have stayed with the search for him, instead of going back to my office to sift through files and evidence that could have waited until he was safely tucked behind bars I should have been out there.

So I only had myself to blame when the call came in from the front desk. John was asking to see me, would speak to no-one else, and I assumed he had come to turn himself in, and to let me know where Sherlock could be found.

I was wrong.

Shell shocked and with traces of blood smeared on his hands and his jacket, John turned dead eyes to me and...

"He's dead."

"What? Who? I mean, John? Where's Sherlock?"

God I must have sounded like an idiot. Or maybe that it was simply that I didn't want to believe what I was hearing. I asked again.

"Where is he John, where's Sherlock?"

"He jumped off the roof of Bart's. He's dead." John shook his head and looked up at me with haunted eyes. "Your brother-in-law is dead Greg, I assume Mycroft already knows, but maybe you want to get to the hospital to be with him?"

"You're sure..."

Of course he was bloody sure he was a doctor for Christ's sake!

"I saw him fall, saw him land. No pulse, no light in his eyes, and blood..."

John suddenly slumped, and only the fact that I was already moving towards him meant that I was close enough to catch him as he fell. Barely conscious, he was muttering over and over, 'so much blood, so much blood...'

The duty officer on the reception desk rushed to get a seat for him.

"Call an ambulance." I instructed him, reaching into my pocket as my mobile started ringing. It was Mycroft. My heart sank. "Myc, I was just going to..."

"Don't. Go home instead." Mycroft said softly. "There's nothing we can do here, Miss Hooper has it in hand."

"Should she..."

"Go home Gregory, I will talk to you there. I'm on my way back now."

"I'm just going to escort John to Tommy's."

"He's injured?"

Was it my imagination, or did Myc sound worried?

"In shock." I answered. "He was there."

We agreed to meet at home as soon as I could get free, and I travelled with John in the back of the ambulance to St Thomas's hospital.

It was only a short journey, but I'm glad I went with him. He was incoherent, choking on tears as he clung to me. I sat next to him on the stretcher, wondering how on earth he was going to carry on without his crazy other half.

xXx

The first I knew that all was not as it seemed was when I heard Myc shouting as I opened the front door. He must have been somewhere towards the back of the palatial home that we shared in Knightsbridge, because his words were unclear.

I caught snatches of sentences – "should have made sure he was safe away..." "badly planned and appallingly executed..." and I wondered at first what Anthea (or whatever she was calling herself these days) had done to deserve being on the receiving end of his grief-driven rage. Hurrying through to find them, I was preparing to step in and mediate when my footsteps ground to a halt.

The voice that I heard was not female, not by any stretch of the imagination, and was as familiar to me as any one of my team.

"I sent him away Mycroft. Could you not have snarled up the traffic to prevent him from returning?"

Galvanised into action I flew down the hallway and into the large study at the rear of the house.

Both men stopped and turned towards me. My heart almost stopped.

"Sherlock?" Was that me squeaking like that? I cleared my throat. "You bastard! Do you have any idea..."

"Not now Gregory, this needs to be discussed calmly."

"Oh? Like you were discussing it calmly when I walked in?"

"Greg..."

I turned on Sherlock with a snarl.

"You!" I spat. "You say nothing! I've just delivered your husband to St Thomas's Hospital, he's in shock, sedated and under guard..."

"Under guard?" Mycroft asked, his voice softer and calmer now.

"Broke the Chief Super's nose, remember that Sherlock? In defence of his best friend and partner's reputation, he lashed out. Still a wanted criminal, and no, before either of you ask, I dare not put in a good word for him as he's just been forced to watch said best friend and partner commit suicide – or so he thought, the way the boss feels about him at this very moment in time I'll be lucky not to get a suspension just for seeing him to the hospital – wait 'til he finds out we're related."

There was no two ways about it, I was seething! Not only at the injustice of what had started with a scream, escalated by two of my own team, and culminating in the fiasco that was John Watson turning up at the Yard, but it would appear that my own husband (oh, and never again will I refer to him as my better half!) was in on it all along.

A thick, heavy silence hung over the room. I'd said my piece, and all I wanted to do now was drown my sorrows in a glass or three of Mycroft's excellent single malt whisky. Both Holmes's stood silent, waiting no doubt to ensure that I had finished before they started to justify their actions.

"Gregory." Mycroft sounded hesitant, so unlike his normal arrogant, confident self, a million miles from the man I fell in love with. "You only know part of the story, there are reasons why –"

"Would you do the same to me? Would you fake your death even if I was watching?"

"If it would save your life, I would not hesitate."

Those words stunned me. Not the depth of the love my husband and I shared, but the implication that John's life would have been forfeit if Sherlock had not jumped. I looked at them both, looking for some sign that they were earnest in that belief, and it was there in spades.

From the sad determination in Mycroft's blue eyes, to Sherlock's tear-filled silver-grey, they firmly believed that John would have been lying dead in the mortuary – but there was something else, something as yet unspoken.

I looked again at Mycroft and realised what I had missed.

"I was targeted too?"

Sherlock nodded.

"Three people known to be my friends. John, Mrs Hudson and you."

"I'm trying now to track the assassin within New Scotland Yard." A frown creased Mycroft's brow. "In some ways, the fact that John came to see you will cement the fact that Sherlock is dead and he or she will stand down, so I hope that very soon we will know the who, which will leave only the why."

"Stop talking like a bloody Government drone!" Sherlock suddenly exploded angrily. "This is alright for you, you can carry on as if..." his voice broke, and he turned away.

This was a side of Sherlock Holmes I had never seen before, this was the man Sally Donovan and Philip Anderson called a psychopath and a freak, yet this was a man on the brink of heartbreak at what he had had to do to the only man he had ever truly loved.

"You can carry on as if nothing had happened." He resumed in a small voice, speaking to the window that overlooked the garden. "I have to live with knowing that John believes me dead, and until I have ensured that not a single member of Moriarty's network is in a position to take over his perfidious plans or make good his threat against his three named targets, I cannot tell him, nor beg his forgiveness, and I cannot go home."

Straightening up, my brother –in-law turned back to me.

"Don't blame Mycroft, blame me for underestimating the lengths Moriarty would go to in order to get me out of the way." He glanced at his brother. "As soon as it's dark I'll leave, meanwhile, if it's all the same to you I'll just go up to my old room and try to get some sleep."

Mycroft nodded, and we stood side by side, watching as he slipped from the room and as the sound of his footsteps faded up the stairs I felt a pair of strong arms slip around my waist.

"So," I said softly. "John was collateral damage?"

"Never." Came the equally soft reply. "Sherlock didn't expect that to happen, neither of us did, however,"

"Yes?"

"You won't be expected to deal with this – the suicide was your brother-in-law, and all due deference will be made to that fact." Mycroft led me to a leather sofa and pulled me down beside him, taking my hand in both of his and studying it as he spoke. "Dimmock will by now have been appraised not of one suicide, but of two – Moriarty blew his brains out on the roof of Bart's Hospital, his body will have been found by now. Fortunately Sherlock didn't handle the gun, and the fact that he needed Moriarty alive to prove his existence will make it difficult to pin a murder charge on him – for that at least."

"What?" I asked sadly. "No CCTV?"

A raised eyebrow was all the response I received. I nodded. Of course, if it were that simple it would have been handled differently.

For a long while we sat in silence.

xXx

I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew it was dark outside, the curtains had been drawn, and Mycroft was quietly reading through a pile of files that hadn't been on the desk earlier. Anthea must have been and gone, and I had slept through it all.

"Sherlock has gone." He said softly, not looking up. "And Dimmock has all the evidence so far regarding Moriarty. As of now you are on compassionate leave."

My eyebrows rose. Mycroft at last looked up and smiled a little sadly.

"Let us just say that the Police Commissioner was advised that you were in no way to blame for the supposed behaviour of either your brother-in-law or his husband, and that now said brother-in-law is dead, then compassionate leave rather than suspension is by far the better choice from a public relations point of view.

I laughed, but it was a hollow mirthless sound. The lack of a black mark against my name would bring no light to my darkness, the day had been far too bleak for that.

"What now?"

"Now, Gregory, I believe you need to eat, and then we can decide what to do next. If you want to sleep on it and talk tomorrow then so be it."

"What about John?"

"He remains in hospital under sedation, and I have engaged the best possible legal team to get him off the assault charge."

He held out his hand to me, and I accepted his help as I rose from the sofa, letting him pull me into his arms, his soft lips finding mine as almost in desperation we clung together, hoping that the fall-out from this day would be less than catastrophic yet knowing that it was a forlorn hope, that in sacrificing himself to save Mrs Hudson and me, Sherlock had shattered the life of one of the best men we had been privileged to know, and left his own life in ruins.