They took his coat, and his keys. The gun he had left behind. Dropped on the pavement at Magnussen's mansion. A photograph, some fingerprints, it wasn't the first time, no, but it might very well be the last.
A cold cell, alone. Grey walls. Sherlock sits on the hard bunk, his feet parallel his spine straight. The clock chimes. Christmas is over.
Do his parent's know yet, or has Mycroft delayed telling them in order to spare them the shock? He probably did. Lucky, really, that Britain has no death penalty. Well, perhaps death would be easier to bear. He would have less time alone to think.
He added the sums in his mind before he pulled the trigger. There was no error. It was the only decision that made sense. The gun was there. The threat was there. Now the threat was gone, and no one mourned the man who had held everyone under his thumb.
Sherlock had been mourned when he had died. He saw the flowers on the grave, layers of them in various states of decay. The remains of numerous visits, constant thoughts. He had been missed. And after their rough reunion, John and he had fallen into step together as they had always done. He was always just an armslength away.
Sherlock reaches out, but John's not there now, will never be, now. Murder means life imprisonment. He won't be there for John anymore. Even though he promised. He promised that he would always be there for them, but he meant 'for him'. Maybe his oath had been a rash one, because he can't help him now. Will rarely see him, except when he closes his eyes.
The book on how to write a best man speech had said it. "This is the time to reveal your true heart. No statement of love is too much, no admission too sentimental. He picked you for a reason. Tell him what you feel." And Sherlock had. He had admitted before Mary and a crowd of people that he loved John, and he swore a vow that would be his last.
Sherlock didn't believe in Marriage, a strange collection of superstitions, customs, and legal precedents that usually did more harm than good in his opinion. And yet, he had learned the value of stating one's feelings clearly that day in the kitchen when John Watson had told him, in so many words, that he loved him. It was a form of bravery to stand up and admit it back, the feeling that he had hidden in his heart for so long. To say out loud how he would do anything for John, go anywhere for him.
Love. It was something that he thought that he would never feel. And his admission of love was something that he knew he would never do again, because although marriage as an institution was outmoded and archaic, in his own mind he was indeed married, chained, bound, committed, till death do us part.
He had fallen for John, literally, and John would forever be the only one for whom he would change his entire world. As he had when he had gone from a loner to a man with a colleague, when he had become an agent searching the darkest dens of iniquity for Moriarty's remnants. As he had when he had become the best friend helping plan the wedding. As he had, when he became a prisoner in this dark cell.
But given the chance to do it again, he would always make the same choice. He would do anything, say anything to protect John Watson, his best friend and adamant love.
