I believe in the Doctor
That was what was written in bright yellow spray paint on a tattered, well-marked wall down an alleyway in central London where a large blue box, so old, but so new was parked, a man in a brown coat, suspenders and bowtie standing a few feet away examining the wall.
Normally, something as simple as this would not attract the time lord; spray paintings were common on this planet, one that he had spent so much of his one thousand years protecting. However, this one was special.
At the bottom of the message, it was signed with initials. Very familiar initials and ones the Doctor had feared he's never see again.
-SH
"Doctor."
The voice coming from under the cover of quiet shadows startled the time lord. He turned around quickly, coming face to face with a long dark trench coat, blue scarf, mop of unruly raven hair and piercing eyes.
Sherlock.
"You're supposed to be dead," the Doctor said, walking closer and pointing an accusing finger at Sherlock's all-too-calm face.
"You jumped. You jumped and left your flatmate without so much as a word of honesty. You left John. He's a wreck, Sherlock!" The time lord's voice was rising. Yes, he had been watching Doctor Watson. He was worried for him. Even with his army training, all of those years of watching people die, John was being pulled apart after seeing Sherlock jump. John was dying. At least emotionally.
And he was stopping his efforts in trying to hide it. John was giving up, and he had been over the entire nearly three years since the consulting detective had 'died.'
What really confused the Doctor though was how he'd kept the secret so well. If even he, a timelord hadn't known the truth about his demise, it was indeed very well kept. He doubted even Sherlock's own mother knew that he wasn't pushing up daisies.
Sherlock's gaze was cold on the Doctor, and he stayed stiff, motionless.
"I thought that you, out of all the other people in this universe would be the last to reprimand me about such things."
The Doctor stiffened, naturally wide eyes looking over Sherlock, unable to hide the little guilty spark in them. The sheer amount of raw truth in that statement made his two hearts skip uncomfortable and stomach drop to the very pits of his being.
"…What do you need, Sherlock?" he finally asked after managing to regain his composure. "You wouldn't have risked having your signature little '-SH' recognized after being dead so long just to contact me for a friendly pop in." The Doctor hated how quiet and gravelly his voice had become, just as it always did when he was in a particularly serious situation and needed to seem composed. It was hard enough for humans to speak with their heart in their mouth; it was even harder for the man with two.
Sherlock's expression never wavered; marble skin glowing in the yellow street lamp's light just making its way over his face in the shadows of the alley. A soft breeze passed though his hair, ruffling them softly.
"I need you to help me find someone."
Now back in the TARDIS, the Doctor felt a bit more at ease. Sherlock was leaning, posture tense against the far wall and he himself was dancing around in his usual manner, plastering on a grin in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"All of time and space at my fingertips, anywhere and everywhere to see and explore!" He was grinning at Sherlock specifically now, not just the TARDIS in general. "Where would you like to go-"
"Please refrain from using that falsely cheery voice, Doctor," Sherlock interrupted exasperatedly. "I really am not in the mood to deal with it right now, and neither are you; your bowtie is evidence enough of that. There is no need to add fake happiness. It's just as bad as false encouragement, and I do not wish to be patronized."
The Doctor shut his mouth abruptly, his forced grin falling easily into a frown. A few minutes of tense silence followed quickly afterward. The time lord took this time as something precious, using every second to study his old friend just as he knew Sherlock was doing for him.
The consulting detective was thin. Sherlock had always been Slender, slim, but this was different. Sherlock's cheekbones were dangerously prominent on his pasty white skin, dark shadows accentuated amazingly underneath them and his eyes alike. Sherlock's scarf hung loosely around his neck, and the Doctor was sure that if he could see his shirt, with would be hanging off of his body just like the former. His eyes, those wonderful eyes, looked tired. Old. He looked like a man who had been holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The Doctor could sympathize.
Sherlock's silver-blue eyes promptly ceased their own roaming over the Gallifreyan's own frame-which was now hunched over the TARDIS control panel, only turned slightly from when he had been regarding his companion- and instead locked onto the Doctor's eyes.
"You've lost another companion." It wasn't a question. Sherlock could tell. No matter how much of an act he put up, Sherlock could tell. But really, by the way he was acting now, guard down, anyone who had ever met him would be able to deduce that much. The timelord's eyes were older than they'd ever been, much older than his should have ever been even with his many many years. They were eyes that had seen loss in its most raw, potent forms more times than even he could count. His shoulders drooped, and bowtie hung less snugly around his neck. He'd been having trouble swallowing occasionally.
The Doctor could only nod and sigh. He'd come to terms with it, as he always did, but would hopefully never have to do again.
"…I always pick the martyrs," he chuckled sadly, running a hand through his hair. Sherlock smiled softly, empathetically...reminiscently.
"Don't we all?"
The two men lapsed into silence again, but this time to remember; the Doctor to mourn his fallen friend as he never allowed himself to outwardly, thinking of ways he could have prevented the most recent demise if he'd only thought a little quicker, all the while knowing somewhere in his hearts that there was nothing he could have done. Sherlock took the time to look back on his memories with his blogger. The happy, the sad, the adrenaline filled moments all centered around one name. John. He let himself be filled with the images, smells, feelings that he had starved himself of for so long for the sake of his mission.
Neither would admit to the tears that were in their eyes. It was mutually assured destruction; if one of them said something, so would the other. And neither was willing to have a 'feelings jam' with the other.
It was Sherlock who finally broke through their silent reveries.
"I need to find someone," he said. He never repeated himself, with few exceptions. This was one of those times in which the rule could be overlooked. The consulting detective needed to get his own thoughts into the correct order before projecting them onto someone else. He needed to get his focus back away from John. John was not safe to think about. He was distracting. Sherlock had a job to do, and if he failed it he would be effectively killing his ex-army doctor. So, he could fast from John a bit longer. As long as it took to ensure the safety of the one human being he cared for on this godforsaken planet.
Sherlock fished a photograph out of his coat pocket. The picture showed the image of an angular man with dark blondish-brown hair.
"Sebastian Moran," he said, flicking the photo to the Doctor and closing his eyes as he spoke.
"He's one of what was three snipers all poised by Moriarty to shoot three different targets on the day that I jumped. They were to shoot Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and John if I did not die. I have already eliminated the two aimed at Mrs. Hudson and the DI while breaking down Moriarty's web. Moran is the only one who remains. I thought that after I jumped he would have dropped John's case, left it to rot along with my bones which were supposed to be six feet under, but as Moriarty's entire web started to break down mysteriously…he became…suspicious…" Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose like the very tired, frustrated man that he was.
"If it were anyone else, this would be easy. I would just find them, meet them briefly and then…" Sherlock paused, seeming to notice just how dark and cold he had become over the past three years.
The Doctor cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to erase the image of Sherlock standing over a dead man, blood covering his coat and scarf as he held his still smoking gun over the man's head, his eyes filled with the familiar bloodlust he had seen far too many times. He shuddered to realize just how easy it was for him to see Sherlock like that, especially given the circumstances.
Sherlock looked away from the Doctor, ashen faced. He knew what the Gallifreyan was thinking; he always knew. The timelord did have a fairly expressive face, after all.
"Moran is very careful to tie up all seams in his plans…" Sherlock finally finished.
The Doctor fidgeted, shifting subtly against the TARDIS controls.
"And what do you want me to do about this?" he asked grimly.
Sherlock's eyes finally met the Doctor's again, freezing the timelord's hearts with the intensity of the stare.
"I thought that would be obvious."
The Doctor's face immediately hardened, looking from his companion's face and instead down at the TARDIS controls.
"I am not going to help you kill a man, Sherlock." I've seen enough death for a lifetime…eleven Gallifreyan lifetimes, and then some…
Sherlock sighed, closing his eyes again. He really did look tired.
"I had a feeling you would react like this, but…listen to me…please," Sherlock was almost begging. Almost. He had never begged in his life, for anyone, (Not any times that he would admit to anyway, asking John for cigarettes did not count in his book.) but this was important. Vitally important. A life hung in the balance, the one life that the consulting gave a rip about, a fly caught in the spider's web without even realizing what it had stumbled into and trapped there until someone could free it or it would be consumed.
The latter was not an option.
"Tell me, Doctor, which is better? The life of one, or the lives of many?"
The timelord's lips were pressed into a thin line.
He was processing.
Deciding.
Weighing the consequences of both courses of action.
"You will not need to be present while I…do the deed…" Sherlock continued, trying to make his proposition more favorable.
"In fact…I'd be rather thankful if you would go and check on John while I do my part of the job. I don't believe you two have met personally. I need someone I can trust who can truly go talk to him and determine his…emotional and mental state…" Sherlock had long since realized just how much of an emotional impact his fall had had on his blogger, the graveside talks that John had every year thus far were enough to convince him of the fact that he was not taking it well even after all this time. The detective had managed to keep anonymous tabs on him through the homeless network, but anyone who had seen John had only seen what John was showing to them. Sherlock needed someone who could get past his tough exterior, the rough, thick skin that was protecting the softer underbelly and perhaps finally console him a bit. Even he could watch John through his window and see a bit of what anyone he sent anonymously could see. No, he needed an inside man. This was a perfect opportunity.
All of this was written on Sherlock's face in a complex code, one that even the people closest to him had a very hard time try to decipher correctly. But the Doctor was able to read it quite clearly. One thousand years of experience does teach you things. He could see all of the pain, all of the stress, suspense, agony, worry. All of it outlines by the creases in Sherlock's skin and seemingly blank demeanor.
"Right!" The Doctor suddenly called, standing up straight for the first time in a long while and simultaneously snapping down some of the blinking switches before him, starting the all-too-familiar hum of the TARDIS engines. He already knew where to go; the man was targeting John, there was only one area that he could be in considering John hadn't dared to move from Baker Street since the fall.
He of course still didn't like the idea of…what Sherlock was going to do, but this was definitely one of those 'life of one for the life of many' scenarios. And John Hamish Watson, the only man Sherlock had ever really cared for, was one of the innocent who could be spared if they- no, if Sherlock did this.
Lights flashed, buttons beeped as the Doctor continued to run around like the madman he was in his big blue box, pushing and yanking the appropriate things at the right times to get them moving. No going back now. No losing resolve.
"Now then," The Doctor said, as the TARDIS' humming resumed to signal their landing in the desired destination.
"I suppose you have a plan for finding this, Sebastian?"