DISCLAIMER: Sherlock and characters and such do not belong to me but to the lovely BBC.

Warning: Major character death and angst. Well, I had to find some way of dealing with my Reichenbach feels. Previously a multi-chapter fic but honestly, I have chapters of Homophobia that are longer than this story.

You don't have to be dead to leave a ghost.

Sherlock knows this better than anyone, because he sees them all the time. In the six long months since what he is coming to name the Fall, he has seen John Watson in exactly eighteen locations around the world as he hunts down the remnants of Moriarty's web.

He knows, of course, that it's not really John Watson he's seeing. His contacts inform him that John is still in London, barely leaving his new flat as he mourns Sherlock's death. But that doesn't stop him from seeing the military stride and broad smile in the heaving Pakistani market crowd, or hopping in an NYC taxi, or waving merrily from a third story window in Reykjavik.

John Watson is haunting Sherlock without even being dead. Sherlock knows he should be concerned but he's too far gone to care. He's comforted by the visions – comforted,the rational part of his mind snarls, as if it means anything other than you're being destroyed by him – even to the point where he's come to regard seeing John as a sort of good luck charm.

Which is why, facing down the nineteenth on his list in a London backstreet (Texan sniper, moniker of Taipan, unmarried, girlfriend left two days ago, vegetarian – no, vegan) Sherlock has a sinking feeling in his stomach that he just can't ignore. It's been six days since he last saw John Watson – this time haggling at a farmer's auction before offering a cheery smile and striding out of sight – and in that time he has taken out the eighteenth. He's never been one for omens, but then again he's never been one for sentiment, or friendship, or emotions that aren't directly connected to London's crime rates. Regardless of logic, John's absence continues to niggle at the back of his mind.

It's distracting when he should be concentrating. The sniper is missing his gun – currently in Sherlock's possession - and has two costal fractures, a punctured lung and cranial damage where Sherlock momentarily lost his temper and brained him with his own firearm. But he is desperate, and therefore dangerous.

All it takes is for Sherlock's eyes to wander for half a second (maybe John is waiting on a rooftop somewhere? Or did I miss him at a window?) and the sniper lunges, knife in hand.

Sherlock has just enough time to berate himself – why didn't you notice the bulge in his boot? Idiot, stupid, fool – before he feels it jar against his ribs.

The shock comes first and he almost laughs. One-upped by a fool without a gun. He should be ashamed. Then the sniper twists the knife away and the pain hits like a wrecking ball; grabbing him dragging him down, washing him out. He stumbles, almost blind, his mind palace almost obliterated, superseded with the primitive need to get out and away from the pain.

In the corner of his mind that is still Sherlock, he registers with a kind of numb surprise that the wound will be fatal. Hit the superior mesenteric artery. Nicked a lung. He's already on his knees. He will bleed out in a dirty back alley. Nobody will know. Just another mugging on a dark London night.

He will never see John again. Or Mrs Hudson. Or Lestrade. He will have died – twice – for little more than breathing space for the people he cares about.

This thought, more than anything, gives him the strength to raise his arm, fingers clenched white around the gun handle. He holds his breath and aims the trigger at the sniper stumbling away down the alley.

Breathing space. More breathing space.

The darkness cracks. The sniper collapses. Silence falls and Sherlock is tumbling towards the ground that opens to swallow him whole.

He never reaches the floor.

'Bloody hell!'

There is a shout, and a clatter of something hitting the pavements, and one step heavier than the other running towards the darkness. Sherlock is caught; suspended above the ground and the pain and the silence. When he hears the voice like late night chases, taxi cabs, shared adventures, he almost stops breathing.

'Oh God no. Oh Jesus Christ. Oh Jesus. Just hold on. I'll call an ambulance. Can you talk? What's your name? No, wait, you're bleeding, oh God. Don't try to talk, don't move. You'll be fine, don't worry.'

He doesn't. John is with him again. His good luck charm. It's all fine.

'Hello, ambulance, please! A man's been attacked – mugged, I think, he's bleeding heavily from the chest. I heard gunshots, I think he's been hit.'

It's still dark and he's still cold and the pain is still radiating out in waves from somewhere very deep inside of him, but he has found John again. Or John has found him. He doesn't really mind which. He's glad, he's so glad he can see John again, even if John's not real and he's dying.

'He's bleeding out! Oh God, there's two of them, and the other one's not moving… I don't know, I heard shots – a shot. Look, I'm a doctor, I… I'll see what I can do. I don't want to touch him or move him, I think he's hit his head. Hello?'

John is speaking to him now, and Sherlock tries his best to answer. He's failed John, failed at keeping him safe. This is the least he can do, or at least try to.

'Who are you? Where does it hurt? Where are you hurt?'

He tries, he honestly does. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out except the taste of blood and silent apologies that he can't give voice to.

'I can't see! It's too dark. I don't want to move him. It looks like a wound in the abdomen, no other obvious injuries, but you need to hurry. The other man isn't moving at all.'

It's the panic in John's voice that pushes the words out of Sherlock. He can feel them, like a physical presence, burning their way out of them, but the thought of John, defenceless and alone, still mourning a fake death in 221B Baker Street gives him strength. He doesn't know why it's important to talk to a hallucination. Maybe it's sentiment. Maybe it's friendship. Maybe he wants, while he still has the chance, to say what he really feels.

'Missed you, John. Wish you were with me.'

Then, for a heartbeat, there is silence. Only the wind speaks, and the buzz on the end of the phone.

Then John explodes.

'If there is no ambulance here in one minute I will hunt you down. I will bring Scotland Yard down on you. I will bring the government down on you. Get me an ambulance, and get it to me now.'

As John speaks, his fingers find Sherlock's and clench tight, nails digging into his palm. Sherlock can't see John's face in the darkness, but he can feel John's tears dripping onto his face.

It's wrong. It's all wrong. John doesn't cry. And John can't touch him, because he's a hallucination, a product of lack of sense and loneliness; just a good luck charm. The real John cannot be here. He is streets away, sitting in a dark room opposite an empty chair, never leaving the flat.

Real. Not real. Hallucination. Not hallucination. Ghost. Not ghost. John is still crying, so Sherlock reaches out a hand to catch his tears.

Sherlock is not infatuated with John. He is not sexually attracted to John, nor John, he suspects, to him. But he has come to realise, that John, above all, is his most favourite case.

He loves to analyse more John's actions, speech and movement. He never tires of watching the way that John acts around him. But more than that, he loves how each time he tries to define John and their connection, there is always a different answer.

Flatmate. Colleague. Business partner. Friend.

And beyond that, to relationships he doesn't even know the name for. The man who will make Sherlock tea just how he likes it, but more importantly, exactly when he needs it most. The man who will save Sherlock's life over and over and over without asking for anything in return. The man who will follow Sherlock, griping and complaining, but follow nonetheless, with a quiet loyalty and without looking back.

Sherlock wants to say all these things are more but time is running short and the pain is threatening to overwhelming. He fears that if he tries to say everything he wants to say, it will rise up and drag him down, robbing him of the opportunity to say what really matters. So while he thinks about what John needs to hear, he stays silent, trusting as he usually does that his actions will say everything that he can't manage to himself.

I will put up with your ridiculous girlfriends.

I will eat the food you buy.

I will spend my time with you.

I will cast myself from buildings, travel the world, burn criminal networks.

I will catch your tears.

John pulls himself together as Sherlock's hand shakes and falls. With a panic, he realises he's having trouble keeping his thoughts together. The end is coming – six minutes, he reckons numbly - and he can't focus on a particular thing for any length of time before it flits out of reach.

He needs to say goodbye to John, before it's too late, so he beckons for John to lean close. 'John… I don't know how long I have.'

John goes further, scooping Sherlock up into his arms and holding him fiercely close. Solid, dependable John. Still here.With a pang, Sherlock realises John is so forward because jostling him doesn't matter anymore. He's too far gone.

'You do. And so do I. I'm not an idiot, Sherlock, I'm a doctor.' His voice cracks for a second. 'Five to six minutes, if the ambulance doesn't get here. But it will. You jumped off a building to get away from me last time but it's not going to work that way this time. You're not going anywhere.'

Sherlock chuckles, and feels it running all the way down his chest to the wound. Five and a half minutes.

'John. Listen to me. Don't have long.'

John's shaking his head before Sherlock even finishes. 'Shut up, Sherlock. Stop talking like that. You're not going there. You're not allowed to go anywhere.'

There is a heartbeat of silence before Sherlock speaks. 'You know. You're not an idiot, John, you're a doctor. You know. So this time, let me say a proper goodbye.'

With shaking hands, John gathers Sherlock closer. Sherlock hisses as John's fingers scrape his ribs and John whimpers in sympathy and that breaks them both entirely. There's a flurry of movement in the darkness and John's fingers are tangled in Sherlock's hair and Sherlock is clutching John's jumper closer and they're both crying, and Sherlock's wound is burning beneath his coat but it hurts worse to have to say goodbye all over again and know that it's for real this time.

'Sherlock, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Oh God. Don't do this again. Don't leave me again, Sherlock. Come back to Baker Street. Oh Jesus. You just found me again.'

'John, I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I was meant to die and you were never meant to know. I was never meant to see you again. Please believe me, John, I never meant for this to happen. I wanted to protect you.'

Two minutes. They slump, exhausted and unspeaking in the darkness. Sherlock has ended up leant across John's chest, listening to John's comfortable heartbeat and he is tired, so tired. He realises belatedly there's something he needs to tell John, but it's getting harder and harder to think straight.

'John. I don't even know if you're real or not. But I know somewhere out there you've locked yourself away in that flat and you need to get out. Live. For me.'

He reaches up blindly to touch John's face. John's cheeks are still wet.

'I'm not coming back. But you can. Live, John.'

There's a haze and a fuzz in Sherlock's brain that's keeping him from John and he doesn't like it because he's usually so good at figuring things out but he doesn't understand why John's cheeks are wet because he just can't think straight anymore although he knows it's important that he struggles to stay on although it's more important that John is with him.

One minute.

There's no ambulance and there isn't going to be an ambulance but it's okay because they've had a good run. They've had a good run. And John is here now and John's got him and John will keep him safe because that's what John does and John will always do because John is his protector, his most favourite case and his good luck charm and he's here.

Still here.

Thirty seconds.

Still protecting. Real or not real.

Twenty.

He doesn't care. Still a good luck charm.

Ten.

Sherlock exhales, and smiles.

John.