Hi, my cheerios! Here's my first ever crossover piece, based on a gif floating around tumblr that everyone's been talking about but I can't seem to find.
This is what I see happening if Sherlock and John had replaced Amy and Rory in The Angels Take Manhattan. Imagine this takes place right after the gang wakes up in the graveyard (this time in London) after the couple jumps.
In order to write this piece, I had to decide which man would make the choice to follow the other and let the angel kill them. I couldn't pick who it should be, I really couldn't. I mean, on the one hand, it gives John a chance to make the bravest choice and show his loyalty while also realizing his feelings for Sherlock are things he has to fight for. On the other, it gives Sherlock to chance to choose between traveling with someone even cleverer than him or facing the unknown, for the sake of his best friend.
So I decided, "Why not both?" *piñata party with nachos!*
I have written two versions of this story. This chapter leaves John behind and takes Sherlock back in time. The next will be an entirely different version where Sherlock is left behind. The final chapter is the afterword for the Doctor. This is implied Johnlock, to be taken however you will-an established relationship, unrealized feelings that are only realized after the angel intervenes, or even just friends if you like.
Tell me which one you enjoy more. I'd love to hear. Toodle pip!
"John," Sherlock called across the graveyard, trying to keep the hint of fear out of his voice. "John, wait."
John, who'd been trudging toward the TARDIS, hands jammed in his pockets, turned around. He blinked in confusion. "What's wrong?"
"The gravestone." Sherlock's eyes flitted over the polished black stone, reading but not quite comprehending. "The gravestone, John. I thought we'd—this doesn't make sense. Think, I need to think." He pressed his fingers to his temples, feeling lost. "John, please. Come over here. NOW."
He didn't wish to argue; he joined the consulting detective while only faintly muttering, "Come on, Sherlock. Let's just get back to the TARDIS. The Doctor promised to take us home…"
Then he stopped.
"Sherlock…" he began, looking for an explanation. "Sherlock, what is this?"
The detective swallowed, trying to figure it, and he turned to John. He could depend on John. John would help him find the answer.
And then he disappeared into the mist, sucked out of the air with only the imprint of his last pleading expression ringing through John's memory.
Behind the space where he'd stood only seconds before—a weathered angel, hand outstretched. All it had taken was grazing the collar of Sherlock's dark coat, and the greatest man John had ever known was gone. In the blink of an eye. One blink.
After all they'd done to save him, to escape, to tear apart the universe to keep them together, it had only taken a blink. A second of inattention. A ridiculous oversight that cost John everything.
"N-no," John breathed, feeling the wind knocked out of him. "No. No. Nonononono."
The Doctor peeked his head out of the TARDIS door, looking for the two men. Only finding one, he shouted, "John! Everything all right?"
"D-Doctor. Doctor, get over here. Now. Please."
The Doctor furrowed his brows, getting the feeling that something horrible, something truly terrible right to the marrow of his bones, had just happened. Trembling slightly, he reached for River's hand and led her out of the TARDIS.
River caught on first. "John," she said firmly, "where is Sherlock?"
John had starting shaking, unable to stop. "He—the angel—there was another angel, Doctor. What do we do? Can we, erm, trace him?"
The Doctor stopped cold, fixing his eyes on the old angel. Keeping his eyes fixed on the statue, he squelched the hate and boiling anger in his hearts and told him, "I'm so sorry, John. There isn't anything we can do."
"That's rubbish!" John laughed nervously. He couldn't, not for one moment, believe him. "We can, uh, use a temporal map. Match the coordinates, take us back to where he is. Use heat signatures, or whatever the angel gives off. Energy tracking. He can't have gone far, this angel is weak, right? He can't be more than a decade off, yeah?"
"No, John." The Doctor tried to step forward but found himself rooted to the spot. "If we took the TARDIS back to Sherlock, it would blow a whole in the middle of London. Tear apart the universe." He paused, swallowing hard. "I'm sorry. Sherlock is…gone."
"No. No," John insisted. "That is unacceptable. You're a Time Lord. You can break the rules once in a while—change the future. Bring him back. Bring him back to me."
"There are already too many paradoxes because of what happened at St. Bart's. The TARDIS will bounce right off of it. There isn't anything I can do."
"NO! There is something, there has to be something. There has to be something!" John tried to hold on to his reason, trying for all his might to use the brain Sherlock had always said he had, but never used. "River, please. I can't—leave him. He can't be gone. I already lost him once, I can't ever—please, River, tell me there's something."
River tried to hold back tears. She knew there was nothing in time or space that could reverse what had been done. And yet, she could empathize with the man in front of her, so complicatedly entwined with the man who'd disappeared. She knew what it was like to be connected to someone so brilliant, so extraordinary. She made her voice gentle. "John. It's not your fault. It was just an accident. He's not dead, he's just far away. He can still live out his life—"
"Without me. He will be alone, River. He can't be alone. He should never have to be, not while I'm alive. And I just can't—River, I can't leave him. He's…you know. You all know."
River smiled. "Yes, I know. And he knew, too."
"But I never told him!" shouted John, falling into exquisitely broken pieces. "I never told him, and now he won't ever know, that arrogant sod. And he has to live out the rest of his life alone. I can't let that happen."
The Doctor sighed deeply, trying to gain control of the situation. "John, I'm sorry. Let's get you home. Back in the TARDIS, come on."
"I'm not coming."
"Don't be stupid, John—come back. We can take you to 221B, River will make you some tea. Or maybe we can fit in a quick adventure. That will cheer you up—let's go. Ulula 5, great planet, everyone is a masseuse—"
"Doctor, I'm not coming back."
"John," River coaxed him, "you can't do anything by just waiting here. He's…gone. But he would have wanted you to move on, sweetie. You know it would kill him to see you wait for him. Besides, the gravestone says he was born in 1854, died in 1926. You would never meet him in this life."
She moved forward, keeping her eyes on the angel, and pressed a comforting hand to John's arm. "John, love, we have to go. It's too dangerous to stay here. Please just get back to the TARDIS."
"River." John stood his ground. "River, if it were the Doctor…if it were the Doctor, what would you do? You'd do anything, wouldn't you?"
"That's not the point."
"It's exactly the point. I can't leave him on his own, if not for my own good, than for his!" John paced in front of the angel, keeping its eyes fixed on the frozen demon.
When Sherlock had come back to him—a miracle, a blast of light in the dark of the months that followed Sherlock's fall—he'd revealed to John that Moriarty had accused him in the moments before their deaths of him being an angel. Yet Sherlock had insisted that he was only in league with the good side, and at his core, he was just as demonic as Moriarty. A brilliant, deceptive monster.
"He always thought—he wasn't good. Not good enough. And if this were just about me, about the empty life I'm going to have to live without that bloody man, then I'd let it go. But it's not about me, it's about him. It's about him having to live the rest of his life alone, with no one to reassure him that he is NOT a monster. He is my responsibility. He's mine."
He continued to pace, telling himself to think like Sherlock. Think, think—what would he deduce? What conclusion would he find? What's the solution?
He's gone. Sucked back in time.
I'm here. He can't come back.
But.
"Doctor," he said tentatively. "Doctor, the gravestone…it has room for one more name, yeah?"
"What?"
"That bloody gravestone. There's room for one more name, at the bottom. Just one more."
"John, you're talking nonsense. Please, just come aboard the TARDIS. My invitation for you still stands. You can travel with me. I promise, everything is going to be okay—NO!" the Doctor cried, raw and tearful, as John took a step toward the statue.
John swallowed, more fearful than he'd ever been in his life. "That angel—it could—send me back. To his time. It just wants the energy, yeah? The energy of the life I could have lived? It doesn't have anything against me, it just wants the energy. So it wouldn't begrudge me from being in the same time as him."
"John, you can't know that for sure! He could send you to the beginning of the world, for all we know—you can't do this—"
"What choice do I have?"
"JUST COME BACK," the Doctor roared. "John, I can't lose you, too. Please. Come back to the TARDIS. Please, please, please, step away from the angel. Let's leave."
"I can't, Doctor." John took another tentative step. "He needs me. And I love him too much to ever make him live alone. River, will this work?"
She nodded vigorously. "It's the best chance you have, John. But there's no guarantee."
"All I need is a chance." He held his hand out for River to squeeze one last time, knowing he was going to miss that flirty, mad lady. "Please, tell Mrs. Hudson we're sorry, and that we've gone on indefinite holiday. Tell her we'll miss her, and thank you. Tell her she was bloody brilliant."
"John, no!" the Doctor yelled, scrabbling forward to hold John back.
"Tell Lestrade we're sorry, and that he'll have to manage. Tell him he—he can do it. Tell Mycroft we're going to be okay. Tell them all we're sorry. Tell them we're happy."
"You don't know—"
"I do know." John smiled. "I'll be with him. Together. We're going to be happy. Me and Sherlock, like we're supposed to be. Tea and scones and shooting the wall. Running for our lives, wherever we are. Together or not at all."
"John. JOHN. Please." The Doctor begged John, his voice thick with uncontrollable tears. "Just—just come back, into the TARDIS."
"Doctor—" John cut himself off to stifle a cry with the palm of his hand. He held his other hand behind him. "Doctor, please. Take my hand. Hold onto me until I go."
The Doctor debated any form of tackling in his brain, but he knew it was useless, so he grasped his dear friend's hand. He couldn't believe this was happening. This was his fault. This was horrible. This was the end of things.
John cleared his throat to get out what he had to say. "Thank you, Doctor. Thank you for bringing me some of the most exciting adventures of my entire life. I won't forget a single moment, not ever. You brought…wonder back into both our lives. And I can never tell you how much it means to me. But I'm sorry—no amount of adventure could equal him. I have to go."
"John…John, please, don't."
"Goodbye, Doctor."
John released his hand and stepped toward the angel.
The Doctor let the tears spill from his eyes and run down his face. "Goodbye, Doctor Watson."
John closed his eyes, giving himself up, and without a sound—he was gone.
:'(. Fear not, lovelies! Sherlock chapter on its way.