Your name is John Watson and there is very little you know for sure any more.
You have a list. It isn't at all fixed – it's different each time you write it, and that's more often than you care to talk about, writing and writing and throwing away and starting again, hoping that the seven hundredth time will be the charm. But it's the only thing that still seems real to you so you pick up another piece of paper and you start it one more time.
FACT: Sherlock Holmes was not a fraud.
You always start with that, because it's the truest and the most known thing you have left.
Everyone has tried to talk you out of it. Harry, Stamford, every last one of your friends. Even Mrs Hudson, although you could see she didn't believe a word of it any more than you did, but she's trying to look out for you still and perhaps she's right for thinking that it would make things easier.
But you both know he was for real. How many times did you see him do that, see him pull knowledge out of thin air like every guilty secret was tattooed on your forehead? He couldn't have researched half of it ahead of time, not without you noticing. Not without being precognizant, and Sherlock was anything but magical.
There was always a logic to it – and you'd get to hear it, whether you wanted to or not, each and every time. But there would be a logic, and once he'd explained you could see it all and he made it seem obvious. Didn't anyone else ever listen to him when he talked it through like that? But no, they didn't, even you tuned it out half the time...
He made mistakes. You saw him do that, hard as he tried to brush them off. He wouldn't make mistakes on purpose, not if he set it all up to show off. His ego wouldn't let him.
No. Sherlock was for real.
You. Will. Not. Forget. That.
FACT: Sherlock said he faked it all.
This generally comes second, because the list is riddled with contradictions so why not start with the biggest?
He said it. His voice. His silhouette. It was him.
It was a lie. You know that much. But Sherlock didn't lie, he just didn't bother to, and he wouldn't lie about something like that for no reason.
So what was the reason?
FACT: Moriarty is dead.
Because he had to have something to do with it, didn't he? Coincidences like that don't happen, aren't coincidences. This was his work.
But he was dead.
You weren't supposed to know that. It was being hushed up, kept away from the press, ongoing investigation. You suspect that was Lestrade's work, his insistence that there was more to what happened. It was definitely him that phoned you first, let you in on the news.
He was on that rooftop with Sherlock. But he was already dead, hours before anyone went up there. One bullet to the head. Looked like suicide. Could have been murder.
You wouldn't have believed it if just Lestrade had told you – it wouldn't be the first time they had been fooled by some poor stranger's convenient body. But Mycroft had texted you the news (not in person, not a call, you hadn't spoken to him since… you had only opened the text to delete it.)
If Mycroft believed it, it was true. Unless he was lying to you as well.
But two people was probably as much confirmation as you could get. Whatever happened on that rooftop, it had ended with Moriarty dead and Sherlock…
FACT: Molly Hooper disappeared.
After you heard about Moriarty from Lestrade and Mycroft, you wondered why she hadn't been the first to phone you. She should have done the autopsy. She should have let you know.
You phoned the hospital, and they told you she had left early that day and never come back.
Some days you don't blame her. You haven't had a reason to return, but whether you could is not something you wish to test. She cared about him too. Perhaps she just couldn't face it any more.
But sometimes you aren't so sure.
Your sporadic attempts to find her haven't had much success. She doesn't answer phone or email, hasn't logged on to Facebook or Twitter. Perhaps she decided to make a clean break, moved in with that boyfriend she mentioned.
But perhaps…
Perhaps she knows something. She dated Moriarty. She knew Sherlock longer than you did. Perhaps she's avoiding you.
Perhaps she was involved.
Perhaps she's helping him.
Perhaps he isn't really…
FACT: Mysteries have never been your strong point.
You never learned how to solve a case, how to look at a list of possibilities and pick out the one improbable truth which made everything fall into place. Even after months of watching him work, you have no insight into that skill of his.
You wish you had it now.
FACT: Sherlock had a plan for everything.
He was always three steps ahead, knowing what would happen long before the thought had even crossed your mind. He knew Moriarty, knew him better than anyone should have been able to. If Moriarty was planning to kill him, he knew about it.
In all the time you spent with Sherlock, you never once saw anyone make him do something he didn't want to do.
And –
And –
Sherlock didn't want to die?
…
So why?
FACT: Sherlock Holmes was your best friend.
You were supposed to look out for him, to keep him safe, from Moriarty and from himself. You were supposed to know when he was being cruel and when he was just being Sherlock and when he was trying to get rid of you so he could do something stupid. You were supposed to be there, with him.
You were supposed to be there to stop him.
FACT: You failed him in every possible way.
And now the only hope you have left is that somehow, beyond all probability, your mistakes didn't cost his life. That one day, he will come back to you, will explain everything, will make the world make sense again.
Because he can't be dead, he just can't be, you know what you saw but no, it's impossible.
Come on Sherlock. Just once, for me… let the improbable remain.
[Alone and in the dark, some time so late it is early again, you tear off a sheet of paper, crumple it to the floor, take a deep breath, and begin to write once more.]