Author's Note: My take on "the Doctor saved Sherlock from The Fall." Came out a bit darker than originally intended because Reichenbach angst is just so addicting! Anyway, hope you enjoy, and reviews are always appreciated :)
All The Long Way Down
If the invisibility mode on the TARDIS had been working, the Doctor could have helped. But it had long since stopped responding to anything the Doctor did to it. Sherlock would have to do it mostly by himself. At that moment, he dangled the thing by one strap, still examining it as he addressed the Doctor.
"Dr. Song said it works through a series of micro-temporal propulsion—"
"Wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey things. Yes."
At that the Doctor snatched the small leather band out of the detective's hands, for he looked as if he might smash it. He had that mad look in his eye that said he didn't much care what other people thought was absurd or proper or what-have-you.
What he did care about was that they were both very, very clever men. It drove Sherlock properly mad that this 'Doctor,' whose mind worked just as quickly as Sherlock's own, satisfied himself with "wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey," and denied him an explanation of the science.
"Do you want to do this thing or not, Sherlock?"
"Yes, of course. It's what makes the most sense."
"Sense. Have you thought about the consequences?" And for once, the fact that the Doctor was several centuries older showed. He was the wise, cautioning adult.
"Consequences like the fact that I will be bringing about the end of the most destructive criminal career of my time?"
The Doctor did not bother to mention that Moriarty was only the worst criminal in this galaxy. He was still working on not being mortally offended by one of the first things Sherlock had ever said to him.
Time travel I can see. Could be very useful. But 'relative space?' Other galaxies and multiverses?
Multiverse. There're lots of universes, but only one multiverse the Doctor had corrected.
Semantics. In any case, what can it matter? If it's further from Earth than and airliner it's insignificant.
All of time and space, and Sherlock Holmes limited himself according to how high a 747 could fly. But the Doctor was letting his thoughts scatter, and he was supposed to be the adult now.
"Sherlock, you're staging your death, and I can tell you that however clever you are, it's going to have consequences. You're not just going to be able to 'win the game.' Can't you think of anything you might lose if everyone you know thinks you're dead?"
The detective turned, lowering his eyes to the console so that the Doctor couldn't see them.
"I can only think of the things I might lose should I not go through with it. Things I might have to part with permanently."
And this was what drove the mad man with the box properly mad. He knew what loneliness was like. It didn't matter that he had spent a thousand days alone; it never made it any easier. Sherlock Holmes was almost as alone as the Doctor. And the Doctor knew this was the most Sherlock would ever acknowledge his feelings for someone he cared about, someone like John Watson. He was going to play dead because it 'made sense.'
The Doctor sighed.
"It's already preset," he reminded Sherlock. He handed the time vortex manipulator back to him.
"Remember, just press the lowest button once. I've synchronized it with the TARDIS so it'll bring you back here, no matter where or when I am. But you'll only have about two minutes to prepare that," he said, indicating the packet of synthetic blood resting near the typewriter.
"The vortex manipulator's not activated yet. Once it is, it can only survive so much contact with the TARDIS before it's chronoscopic drives are overridden. If you're not quick enough you can't pull it off. I won't be able to drop you off with the TARDIS, not without being noticed."
At the words "drop you off," Sherlock had become just a shade paler.
"But the vortex manipulator, I still don't understand how you've stabilized the trajectory filaments…"
Sherlock was so plainly out of his element surrounded by the fantastic machinery of the TARDIS. He knew he would not be able to wrest the information from the Doctor and his voice trailed off.
There was more discussion of plans, fine-tuning, but mostly just reiteration. An hour and a quarter later he was stepping out of the phone box in a deserted corner of London.
"You're sure you don't want help hiding your pulse? We could drop by a Sanglocian clinic. It's only four solar systems away, and it's in your time period…"
"That's all right Doctor," he answered, scrutinizing the timepiece one last time before tucking it in his coat pocket. "I've got a plan of my own. Something a little less…wibbly."
"Good luck." There was no answer.
It was only later, as the Doctor directed his phone box toward an obscure and forlorn looking planet that he realized his mistake. The unflappable sleuth had been frightened. He didn't understand how the strange, futuristic device worked. He, a man of science, was going to jump off the top of a very tall building with no logical explanation of how he would survive. And the Doctor had done nothing about it.
He stood atop the hospital, his back turned to Moriarty's body.
John's voice came through the phone speakers.
"What's going on?"
"An apology. It's a trick, it's just a magic trick." And hopefully one that would work. But he had to continue. Didn't he?
"Nobody could be that clever," he pressed on.
"You could."
He laughed bitterly without meaning too. What else would not go exactly to plan, he wondered. He looked all the long way down, spotted the place where John's line of sight would be obstructed. He had to be in control.
"Goodbye, John."
"No, don't—"
He let the phone drop, spread his arms wide, and felt the leather band of the vortex manipulator slip a little further down his wrist.
And then he was falling, seeing glass windows and the tops of cabs and a bit of sky tumbling around him, and not observing any of it.
Two seconds. Three seconds. He did not know where his own arm was in the twisting blur. He felt leather slip over his knuckles.
The Doctor watched the monitor hanging over the console. A dark cloaked figured tipped and fell, flailing through the air. It would hit the ground at any moment. Static covered the screen. The Doctor frantically adjusted knobs and buttons; something must have gone wrong.
"Donna Noble."
"What?"
"I said 'Donna Noble,'" Sherlock repeated. "You don't feel guilty. Not as guilty, because she doesn't remember you."
"Sherlock, you have to hurry."
"But you still feel guilty about Rose Tyler. And you worry about the Ponds. You worry you've stayed too long, and soon you'll have to leave them, but they'll always remember."
"Here, you only have a minute left," said the Doctor in a tight voice. He fastened the synthetic blood packet at the back of Sherlock's neck and pushed the vortex manipulator back in place, but he was still talking.
"You're wrong, to feel the way you do."
The Doctor spun him around, a little more roughly than he meant to, and spoke quickly. He was angry, but he didn't have time for anger now.
"Sherlock, I am sorry. I am sorry for what's happened to you and for what you're having to do now, but you have to go—"
"You're wrong to think they're better off not remembering. They'd rather have that time, even if it is in the past."
The Doctor stood stunned. Behind him, the John Watson on the monitor fell to his knees as Sherlock's body was wheeled to the ambulance. It would happen that way, if they continued on the course they were on. If they slipped up, they could be viewing a very different future. The countdown on the vortex manipulator read twenty seconds.
"How did you know? How did you deduce?" asked the Doctor. He had never voiced his guilt, or his shame that he was relieved over Donna's memory loss.
"It was in your voice, when you talked about them." No deduction, no explanation.
The countdown read ten seconds.
"Sherlock, you know how I said I never tell anyone how the TARDIS works, how it could be bigger on the inside? Because it would ruin the magic? I want you to take this." He slipped something into Sherlock's pocket just as the countdown ran out.
Half a second had passed since Sherlock was three feet above the pavement. He reappeared now, and fell from a height of four inches. The synthetic blood spattered and pooled underneath him, and the otherworldly material it had been packaged in disintegrated. And people were coming. Sherlock kept his eyes wide and staring; he wanted to be able to see. John reached out and felt that there was no pulse at his wrist. It was worse than Sherlock had thought. He had seen John after they had both almost been blown up, after his sister had nearly died of alcohol poisoning a few weeks ago. This was worse.
The paramedics that Mycroft had arranged for were lifting him away on a stretcher. He let his arm fall lifelessly to one side. If the vortex manipulator slipped again now, perhaps John would know something was afoot. But this time it stayed firmly in place, hidden under his coat sleeve.
And now it was nearly over. The windows of the ambulance were darkened so that no one could see in. He sat up and the paramedics flinched, even though they should have expected it. They knew about everything, except the Doctor.
"Do you have any water?" Sherlock asked.
A freckly man handed him a bottle. The circles under his eyes, the brand new, standard-issue shoes and perfectly starched uniform screamed 'new on the job!' He jumped when Sherlock upended the bottle over his own head, probably because as soon as it came into contact with the liquid, the synthetic blood seemed to vanish.
Sherlock shivered. He didn't have a single bruise. His clothes weren't even stained, and all he had to worry about now was staving off the boredom of the long drive ahead. And yet he felt unmistakably as if he had lost something.
There were some things that could never happen. There were some betrayals of trust a friendship could never recover from. It was just the way of things, like the fact that Sherlock Holmes would never be able to admit that caring could be an advantage, or the way the Doctor would always forgo logic for feeling.
No one's ever said before that hope is heavy. Standing in the cemetery, Sherlock can feel the weight of a hand resting on a black headstone that bears his name. It feels just as real as the weight in his pocket, a volume entitled Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering for Devices of Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. It's time to go again, but he waits for a moment and listens.
"…and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie."