He takes a detour on the way to the roof. Two flights up to the right, down the hall. Molly is facing the door when he opens it, her hand pressed to her heart, wide-eyed with surprise. The body, dressed in one of his coats, is on the gurney between two of his more burly homeless network allies, poised at the open window.

"Ready?" he asks, and she nods. She smiles, and he means to smile back, but the door closes faster than he expects as he backs out, and she doesn't see.

Two more flights up to the roof access door, and he doesn't want to be late.

Molly watches the door close. It may be the last time she sees him for a long time. Maybe forever.

"He'll be fine," the man on her left (Jeff?) says. "He's indestructible."

The kind concern in his voice puts a lump in her throat.

"I hope you're right." She takes her position next to the gurney and waits for Sherlock to fall.

"Sherlock, you've turned off your phone. I'm on my way back to Bart's and I want to know what the bloody hell is going on." John clicks off but keeps the phone in his hand.

Why would Sherlock turn off his phone? He never turns it off. Never in the entire time he's known the man has that phone been turned off. He panics if the battery gets low, for Christ sake. And why the faked call about Mrs. Hudson? Clearly, Sherlock was behind it. It's the only explanation for his reaction, and John fell for it like an idiot. Worse, he believed the ruse exactly as Sherlock apparently expected him to. And it made his angry accusation (machine) sound like it came from his traitorous heart. Sherlock wanted him out of the way, and there is no reason John can think of that doesn't fill him with dread.

He's only ten minutes from Bart's, if the damned cabbie would just push it a bit. "Can you go any faster?" John hears the edge of panic in his voice, and going by the look the cabbie gives him in the mirror, so does he.

"Going as fast as the law and traffic allows, mate." He keeps glancing at John in the mirror after that, all the way to Bart's.

Mycroft sees his brother on the grainy monitor that's streaming images from the CCTV mounted on the building opposite Bart's. It's more than 100 yards from the camera to the roof, and Sherlock would be too far away to recognize, if not for the coat and hair. Moriarty is seated on the low wall that runs along the roof, his back to the camera.

Sherlock has just come through the roof access door, walking towards Moriarty, and Mycroft's heart rate jumps. He can hear what they're saying in Sherlock's mic. Sherlock is calm. Moriarty is a raving lunatic.

Where this dance is going to end, Mycroft can't predict, and there is nothing he despises so much as the unpredictable when it comes to his brother's life. All of their planning could be erased by a single gunshot. What if Moriarty's plan is too simple? What if all he has in mind is to pull out a gun and put a bullet in his adversary's head? There's nothing Mycroft or any of the dozen men he has watching over his brother could do to stop it.

Mycroft finds himself in the unfamiliar position of second guessing a decision. True, it would be vastly more complicated to take down Moriarty's network if he knew Sherlock was still alive, but that would be infinitely preferable to this plan going awry and ending with him actually dying.

He's running the scenario in his head, about to switch directions at the last moment, when suddenly, it's too late. Moriarty tells Sherlock that there are snipers on the only three people in the world who matter to him, and the plan is changed.

"Sherlock, I'll get the snipers," he says into the earpiece. "Don't do anything stupid."

He hopes this isn't the last thing his brother hears him say.

John's phone begins to trill just as the cab approaches the entrance to Bart's.

"Stop here. Stop!" He jumps out of the still moving cab, heart pounding, phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"John."

*Thank Christ* "Hey, Sherlock. You okay?"

"Turn around and walk back the way you came, John."

What? "No, I'm coming in-"

Sherlock cuts him off. "Just do as I ask!"

There's an urgency in his voice that brings John to a halt.

"Please."

He almost sounds like he's crying, and John's heart turns over. Something is very, very wrong. "Where?" He starts walking back to where he got out of the cab.

"Stop there!"

John stops. "Sherlock..."

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."

"Oh, God," is all he can think to say. What he's seeing makes no sense whatever. Sherlock looking down at him from the edge of the roof makes no sense no sense no sense-

"I-I can't come down, so we'll...just have to do it like this."

The tears are gone, but there's something worse in his voice that John can't name, and he's suddenly finding it hard to catch his breath. "What's going on?"

"An apology."

Aside from the fact that Sherlock doesn't apologize, that sounded almost normal, and John's tension eases a fraction, until Sherlock completes the thought.

"It's all true."

Molly sees John take a step back, his gaze fixed on the roof above her head. He's been talking on his phone since he got out of the cab a moment ago. There's no doubt who is on the other end of the line, and she wonders what Sherlock just said to him that shocked him so badly.

The knowledge of what is about to happen is turning her blood to ice. She is about to help Sherlock survive, but she's also helping him destroy his best friend before her eyes, and she doesn't know how to deal with it. As if anyone could.

It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, knowing the inevitable outcome, and being utterly helpless to change it. Except that she's not helpless. She could change everything by simply doing nothing. If she keeps the body on the gurney, there's not going to be anyone on the ground to make John believe Sherlock is dead. She doesn't accept Sherlock's assertion that this is a necessary part of the plan, making John believe. It makes no sense to her. John would die before he would betray Sherlock, and she can't believe he doesn't know that. Then WHY?

"Wait, something's wrong." The homeless man on her right is holding his hand to his ear, listening to the chatter.

"What?" Molly's heart is in her throat, wondering wildly if she's somehow brought her wish to life simply by focusing on it so intently.

"Snipers," he looks at his colleague. "Get downstairs and make sure we're all on track."

The man she thinks is Jeff leaves quickly, and she turns to the man on her right. "What happened? What snipers? Is Sherlock in danger?"

He looks at her as if she's just asked the dumbest question he's ever heard. He turns to the window, hand pressed to his ear, totally focused on what he hears.

The stammering, halting delivery is unlike anything John has ever heard from Sherlock, and he can't imagine what could put him in this state. "What?"

"Everything they said about me," Sherlock glances over his shoulder at something or someone. "I invented Moriarty."

No sense. Nothing about this makes sense. "Why are you saying this?" Why IS he saying it? Is Moriarty up there on the roof with him? Who was he looking at? What-

"I'm a fake." He's crying now. His voice is choked with it.

John is starting to feel disconnected from his own body. He's seen Sherlock cry on command, and he does a very convincing job of it, but this is real. What the HELL is happening up there? "Sherlock..."

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade. I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you...that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."

Whatever he's doing up there, his emotional state is terrifying John. The tears and the obviously false confession are so completely out of character that it has to be a psychotic break. Something happened to cause this, and if John can't pull him back very soon, he may drift out of reach forever.

"Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up." What can he say? Something to anchor him in reality. Something. "The first time we met, the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?"

"Nobody could be that clever."

"You could." John puts his heart in those two words, pleading with him to hear it.

Sherlock makes a sound that is half laughter, half muffled sob. "I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you."

Lies. Why is he lying? Is he talking to John, or is someone else listening? It's the only thing that makes sense. He's being forced. Coerced. That's why the tears. They're a signal to John that this isn't true! Hope flares in his chest, until Sherlock continues.

"It's a trick. Just a magic trick."

The despair in his voice is so sharp and real that it takes John's breath and his hope. "No. All right, stop it now." He has to get to him. Talking isn't working, and he has GOT to get him off of that ledge dear God before he falls. He starts for the entrance, determined to race to the roof and pull him back.

"No, stay exactly where you are." No stammering in that statement. The urgency stops John in his tracks. "Don't move!"

He sounds like a man on the edge, literally. John backs up, his right hand raised, reaching out to soothe. Signaling surrender to whatever Sherlock needs him to do to get him through this nightmare. "All right."

Sherlock stretches his left arm out to John, fingers spread. "Keep your eyes fixed on me," he says with the tearful urgency of a few moments ago. It's like a rollercoaster. Commanding, then pleading. It's terrifying.

"Please, will you do this for me?" More tearful, more urgent.

"Do what?" Anything. Just tell me how I can fix this.

"This phone call. It's...my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?"

*He can't wouldn't no no no no no SAY SOMETHING STOP THIS TELL HIM*

But all his mind can get out is, "Leave a note when?"

Sherlock's voice though the phone is soft and resigned and filled with infinite sadness. "Goodbye, John."

All John can do is shake his head, over and over. One final plea, to Sherlock, to God. "No. Don't." Softly, because he already knows it's too late.

Sherlock looks at him for another moment, then drops the phone behind him on the roof. End of communication. It's over, and John's heart breaks.

"No. SHERLOCK!" One last hopeless plea to heaven.

And then he's falling forward, and John's voice tries to form his name one more time while it still belongs to a living man, but fails halfway through. He hears Sherlock's body impact the pavement a moment later, and everything stops.

He's paralyzed. Dead where he stands. And then adrenaline kicks in and tries to move him forward. Clumsy with shock, blind with grief, he doesn't see the speeding cyclist until it's too late, and the impact throws him to the ground.

Voices, shouting. He hears it all in a muffled roar of meaningless sound. Pushing to his feet, he staggers forward, still calling to someone he knows is lost forever. Half whispered, "Sherlock. Sherlock."

He can't possibly have survived, but until John can touch him and see him, it's still not true. He pushes weakly through the bodies in his way. Hands grab his clothes, his hands. Voices, all but the one he would give anything to hear. "Please, let me through. I'm a doctor. Please. He's my friend."

He hears his own voice from a distance. He sounds like Sherlock did a moment ago. Tears choke him. Blind him. He breaks through the crowd and drops to his knees on the bloody pavement. Reaches blindly for Sherlock and makes contact with his still-warm wrist. *He's all right. He can't be dead. He can't be dead.* Fingers press desperately to the pulse point as hands continue to pull at him. "Please," he chokes, "He's my friend. Please, just let me..."

He loses the battle. They pull him away as someone turns Sherlock on his back, and John sees his eyes for the last time. Open. Staring. Empty.

His legs buckle under the weight of understanding. The unbelievable, unbearable, crushing grief drops him to the ground. For a few seconds. he feels his heart stop, and the sensation is almost reassuring. He has believed for a long time now that losing Sherlock would kill him, and it's not a surprise to find that he was right.

But then it beats again, painfully jerked to life by his body's selfish instinct for survival.

Medics appear with a wheeled stretcher, and they pick Sherlock's limp body from the ground and take him away. Voices, hands pulling at him, and finally he staggers to his feet just to make them go away. There's nothing anyone can do for him. For either of them.

He stands silently in the last space Sherlock occupied as a living soul, and tries to breathe.

End of Moments Before

Notes: Keep in mind that my obsession with TRF is new. Pretend it's two months after the episode first aired, and remember how the fandom was reacting. That's me now. What it would have been like for John has just been on my mind, and this may be the fic I needed to write to move on. I promise to stop beating this poor dead horse now. Thanks for listening! ~GW