I neither own nor profit from any of these characters; they are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC.
If you see something that you think ought to be changed or improved, please feel free to let me know, if you'd like. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
There had been a bomb, and a fire, and… a flood? Sherlock didn't know. He remembered water.
No, that had been before, the bomb and the fire. This time, only the water. The water, and the fall.
But he hadn't fallen.
Had John fallen?
A moment of sick horror, but no, that wasn't right. John hadn't been there.
Who had fallen?
Sherlock couldn't quite remember, and it didn't matter, anyway. It hadn't been John.
He woke up again, hours later – not that he could tell for certain, but the angle of the sun's slant was different – and was this time greeted by a clatter of dishes and voices somewhere in the distance.
He focused. A door, dark brown wood, and the sounds from beyond it. For a moment, he was confused – who was in the flat? – but then he remembered that he hadn't been in his flat for a very long time.
John.
But John would be at home now, a home that might not even be Baker Street anymore, and Sherlock was...
Where?
He made as if to stand, but the room swayed around him and he settled back, half-lying, half-sitting against the headboard of the bed. A moment later, a few indrawn breaths, and he tried again. This time he managed to sit up, swing his legs over the edge of the covers, and then the door was flung open.
A beaming, red-faced woman entered. "You are awake!" she said. Sherlock understood the words perfectly, but it took him a moment to place the language – German, Swiss-accented but not Schweizerdeutsch. The statement was obvious, though, so he made no response to it. Instead, "Why am I here?"
The story came out in disjointed pieces, which would have frustrated him if his head had not already been aching, spinning when he tried to force the words to come faster. He had been found at the top of the waterfall, unconscious and bloodied (he noticed, then, his bandaged hands, proof of his arduous climb; his arms did not hurt, though, so not recent – when had he climbed?). He had been brought here to the Gasthaus and seen by the doctor.
Sherlock's heart leapt in his chest for a dizzying moment before he realized that this woman, when she said "the doctor," did not mean his doctor, did not mean John. How could she? She couldn't possibly know about John.
He had lain insensate for days, occasionally shouting in the throes of a nightmare, after which he would be found so tightly entangled in his sheets that it took two of them to extract him and smooth the covers again. But he was better now, and must be hungry; would he like something to eat?
Just like John, he thought, but the wryness of the editorial comment was overshadowed by the pang that shot through him when he thought it.
No, thank you. He did not wish to eat.
But there was the one thing he still could not quite remember. There had been a fall, and he had climbed, and John had not been there.
So who had fallen?
It came to him suddenly, a puzzle half-completed, so that he could recognize the picture but not yet see all of the pieces.
Moriarty.
Had there been anyone else on the cliffs that day? Had there been an accident? He had seen a man fall…
No accident. No body.
They found a body, later that same day, but when they came to tell him, Sherlock was asleep again.
It was three more days before Sherlock was able to leave the Gasthaus, and three more years before he was free.
He went straight to the only place he had ever wanted to be during those three years.
It was only as he stood in front of the door, the familiar sight of rough green paint and dull gold numbers, that it occurred to him to feel nervous. In his rush to get home (not to Baker Street, no, but to what it held), he had not stopped to think. It had been three years. Would John have waited? What if he had left, and someone else was living in 221B? What if he hadn't left, and someone else was living with him in 221B?
There was only one way to know, and Sherlock couldn't wait any longer. Three years of separation had been all the patience he could handle for the rest of his life. If John was gone, Sherlock would find him. If there was someone else, then... well, it simply wouldn't matter, because John was Sherlock's and Sherlock was John's, and surely, surely, John understood that even though Sherlock had never voiced it.
He turned the key, touched the door handle, warm against his hand in the early morning sun, and let the door fall open.
And then it was the stairs, two, three, at a time, a wild flinging open of the door, pounding heart and anxious glance here, there, everywhere at once, until it fell on the figure staggering back from his chair at the table, an amber-coloured puddle spreading from the toppled tea mug, fork clattering as it fell to the plate below it.
John.
"John."
But one look from John kept him at bay. He might not understand emotions, might not countenance them in himself, but he could read them, and these were – what?
Shock, he had expected that, and hurt (why hurt?) and anger, of all things, anger, but why anger? Why hurt, and why anger?
"Who – "
but John knew who it was
"How – "
but it was impossible
"You can't – "
but if anyone could, Sherlock could
a pause
"What are you doing here?"
"I came home."
Another pause, another silence.
"I came home, John. As fast as I could. I came home to see you."
And now he could see the shock and hurt giving way to the anger, and he didn't understand. Where was relief? Where was pleasure? Sherlock was pleased to be home, had wanted nothing more for months on end. Why didn't John feel the same?
John's voice, when he spoke, was rough and low and dangerous. "You died."
"No. But it was necessary to be thought dead."
"No, because if it were a ruse, if you were alive somewhere in the world, you would have told me. You would have told me."
"I am alive."
"You wouldn't have disappeared in the night and left me to wake up wondering where you were. You wouldn't have let me hear about the accident from Mycroft. You wouldn't have let me believe, every day for three years, Sherlock, that you were dead."
"I had to."
"You had to." Mocking, almost.
"Moriarty's network was vast, John. He had agents all over the world. The only way I could eliminate them all, the only way I could keep you safe, was for them to believe I was no longer a threat. If you had known, they would have found out. They would have hurt you. You were always watched."
"I was always watched." Repeating Sherlock's words again. "So Mycroft could visit every week, Moriarty could have me watched every hour of every day, but you, Sherlock, you couldn't even be bothered to let me know you were alive!"
The final word was hurled with more venom than Sherlock had thought possible, and for once, his face openly revealed his startlement. He had imagined John might be gone, or might be with someone else, a thousand possibilities, but he had never once imagined that John might be so angry.
"I couldn't, John."
And then John was across the room, tear tracks already tracing down his cheekbones, colour rising in his face as he bit back on everything he could have said to Sherlock.
"No, you could have found a way. Mycroft could have said something. Lestrade. You could have found a way, but you didn't bother, Sherlock, you didn't try, because the great Sherlock Holmes doesn't care about the rest of us petty humans, can't stand to spend a moment thinking about what his actions might do to the rest of us! I loved you, Sherlock!"
Sherlock stared at him, all the air he had ever breathed collapsing out of him at once.
Loved.
Past tense.
He struggled to catch his breath again, could not quite succeed, tears threatening to blind his eyes as well, and he turned and ran. He was halfway across Baker Street, with no idea where he was going, when he heard the squeal of brakes, the driver's shout, the dull sound of impact, soft on hard, and whirled around just in time to see John crumple to the tarmac.
After that, it was all flashing lights and foil blankets and had he seen the accident and would he sign here please and did he know this man and no, he couldn't ride in the ambulance, but he climbed in anyway, because it was John, and even though everything inside him tore at him to run, keep running, get away, turn off the noise, it was John, and he couldn't.
They took John away from him at the hospital, but his hand stayed clenched as if he were still clutching the sleeve of John's shirt the way he had for the whole of the ambulance ride.