John Watson was used to danger. He lived with Sherlock Holmes after all. But this was a whole new level of idiocracy.
"Sherlock, get down from there!" John yelled. His flatmate was climbing a rather large tree, trying to get a piece of evidence that he deemed vital to the case. But he was heavier than he looked, and the branches were thin. Not to mention that the tree was hanging completely vertical off of the side of a cliff.
"Just a minute, John!" Sherlock called back, not taking his eyes off of the glove wedged onto one of the tiny twigs at the end of the tree. But he really should have looked down, for if he had he may have noticed that the dirt holding the tree's roots in place was loosening, and that the tree would fall if he didn't come down.
John was looking, so he noticed these things.
"Sherlock, the tree is going to fall!" he called, but Sherlock had blocked him out and continued on. Desperate, John did the only rational thing. He pulled out his phone and called Lestrade.
"Greg! Send an ambulance to the Hanging Tree, now!"
"John, what's going on?"
"Just hurry!"
John ended the call and looked back at Sherlock. He was very far along on the branches, but the whole thing was loose now. Knowing that the ambulance would be too late, he wrapped his arms around the trunk and began to climb.
Being smaller than Sherlock, and having more experience with this sort of thing, he had soon reached the detective.
"Sherlock," he called, shaking the detective's arm. Sherlock didn't turn until he had grabbed the glove, but by then their combined weight had become too much for the poor tree. The tree shook, sliding down a little. Wide-eyed, Sherlock and John began to scramble back towards the safety of the cliff.
The tree slid further down the dirt wall and John knew that there was no way they would both make it. He grabbed Sherlock by his coat and hauled him over the last few branches, onto the cliff. That last movement sent the tree hurtling down the cliff towards the foaming river below, with one terrified John Watson hanging along for the ride.
()()()
Sherlock felt the tree shift again and fear coursed through him. Many times he had put his life on the line for the sake of a case, but it was usually another human who had his or her finger on the trigger, not gravity.
He felt something grab onto his coat and suddenly he was being yanked backwards, to land safely on the ground. John Watson wasn't so lucky. He released Sherlock's coat just as the whole tree fell. Sherlock only had time for one last look at his terrified best friend before he disappeared over the cliff.
"JOHN!" Sherlock dove too late, only managing to catch empty air. John managed to push off of the tree so that it wouldn't crush him when he landed before he and it splashed down into freezing rapids. Sherlock watched desperately for any sign of life, hoping beyond hope that his friend was all right.
There! Sherlock could see a blonde head bobbing in the churning river, holding on for dear life to a branch that broke off of the tree. Looking downriver, Sherlock felt his heart lurch. John was fast approaching the most treacherous part of the river, foaming rapids riddled with sharp boulders that jutted menacingly from the water.
He began to run along the cliff, looking for a way down, when he heard them. Sirens. John must have had the sense to call Lestrade. Waving them down, Sherlock moved his eyes from his friend for one second, but couldn't find him again when he looked back. The detective felt his heart stop. Surely the river hadn't swallowed him?
"Sherlock," Lestrade said once he reached the detective. "What happened? Where's John?"
Wordlessly, Sherlock pointed to the river and felt Lestrade tense up as a stream of curses flowed from his mouth. He felt himself being pulled alongside someone and shoved into the back of a car, but he was unaware of anything other than the terrified look on John's face before he fell, a look that seemed burned into his memory.
In no time at all, in all the time in the world, Sherlock found himself being pulled out of the car and onto a riverbank. Blinking, he snapped out of whatever daze he was in. He wouldn't be able to help John like this. The search team, aided by Sherlock and Lestrade, spread out on the bank, looking for any sign of John.
"Here, over here! We found him!" The call sent staggering relief and fear through Sherlock. What if he was dead? What if he had been smashed to pieces on the rocks, his blood spreading through the water slowly… No, stop it. He couldn't think like that. There was a chance that John had survived this.
Sherlock forced himself to run after Lestrade, forced himself to look at what the search team had found. John lay on his back on the bank, shivering. His skin was white and his lips were blue, but the most prominent color was red. Blood was pooling underneath the doctor, but Sherlock couldn't see where it was coming from. The paramedics tried to push him back, to let others come through, but Sherlock was having none of it. He fought as hard as he could to get to John, yelling and pleading for his doctor to wake up. He felt wetness on his face and was barely aware of the tears streaking across his cheeks.
All he was aware of was John's body, barely breathing, being loaded onto a stretcher, of that stretcher disappearing into the back of an ambulance, of Lestrade forcing him into his police car and driving behind that ambulance.
All Sherlock was aware of was the pain, the guilt, the nagging voice in the back of his mind saying it should have been me, it should have been me.
Stop it, his brain told the voice, and he realized that it was his heart. It wasn't our fault, that idiot decided to come up there with us.
But if we had listened, if we had come down he wouldn't be like this, he would still be well, still be with us…
We needed that evidence, his brain rationalized, and the detective was aware of the glove still clutched in his fist.
His heart begged to differ, and offered one last argument. Was it worth it?