Hello!

This is the first chapter of my Sherlock fanfic called "La Tercera Ley". I published it about two years ago in spanish and now it's available in english due to the requirements of my friend Ingrid Moriarty and the amount of coincidences between the actual information we have from season 3 and this little piece of fiction.

Please, keep in mind that English is not my native language.

Anyway, read, enjoy and if you like please leave a comment.

The Third Law

After the death of my best friend, Sherlock Holmes, I felt as if I had to start everything in my life from scratch. However, in fact, I was going to start from far, far below.

During our time together he became my family, my work, my best friend and my only worry.

During that time, I didn't see myself in the need of working, not just because the money he could earn with just one of his cases exceeded any amount of money I could ever be able to gather by myself in months of hard work by far, but because I was more useful to him if I dedicated 100% of my time to assist him, to run through the city, accompany him across England, be wherever he didn't want to be and tell him what he had to say when he found himself in the dark and incomprehensive lands of human emotion.

That's why the single thought of going back to work in an ordinary medical practice terrified me.

Using my time in something not related with Sherlock Holmes was something to which I was not used anymore. It was a setback; a torture.

But I did it. I had to, just as I had to follow the advice of virtually everyone around me.

"Go on with your life, John", "Move out of that flat", "Get a nice woman, get married and live a happy life, mate, that's what he would have wanted."

But I know... I know that the last thing Sherlock would have wanted me to do is to have a boring life; not after everything we went through together.

He would have told me… I don't want to imagine, I want to see him. Good Lord, I need to see him so badly.

Of course this desire of mine is ridiculous. The closest I can be to Sherlock is during my weekly visit to the graveyard.

It's odd to know that he's going to be there every week. Something inside me thinks that one day I'll arrive and the grave is going to be open and empty.

Who knows, maybe he's going to go out and try to solve a mystery around here. That would be very like Sherlock and this place must be filled with strange deaths demanding a boring detective.

- How are you, Sherlock?

The same old question at the same old spot in the yard.

I don't have flowers for him; I never bring flowers. It's not my intention to turn his grave into a nice, colorful place.

Some weeks ago, Mycroft got the grave cleaned because some fans of Sherlock were covering it with letters and flowers and weird handmade plushies of Sherlock. I appreciate the sentiment, but it's better as it is now: black and cold and just mine.

But it's not at the cemetery, next to his grave, where I feel closer to him, but in St. Barts' rooftop.

I've been there three times: two of them with Lestrade (who barely looked at me in the eye during the whole affair) and once with Molly, tonight.

It's late and the familiar corners of the streets seem unrecognizable, but inside Barts, everything is familiar again. I go through the well-known hallways while making sure that no one sees me. I get to the roof.

The wind whirls around me and I zip up my jacket.

The first time I went here were just a couple of hours after Sherlock jumped. Someone opened the door for me and I stood there, staring at the spot where Sherlock had passed his last minutes in this world. I didn't dare to move, let alone approach the edge. I counted to 10 in order to calm myself but before 4, I was on my way out again.

The second time was 15 days after Sherlock had decided lying to me through the phone and making my life a living hell on Earth.

This time I managed to approach the edge of the roof and when I looked down, I saw him; the crushed body of my best friend, disfigured against the pavement and I saw… I saw myself, falling toward him.

I have that dream every night.

This time my self control is working just fine, so far.

I'm not crying, I'm not feeling this everlasting anguish in the mouth of the stomach, I'm not having visions and my pulse is steady as expected from a soldier. This time I'm not here to investigate, out of curiosity or because someone asked me to. I'm here because I'm going to put a stop to all of this, finally.

I moved slowly to the edge of the roof. Everything was silent and so very dark.

No one is going to notice if I do it, right? Not until morning, at least, and by then it's going to be too late. This is a good way to solve everything and I'll be dead before the arrival of the paramedics, even before someone could ask for help. I'll be ahead of them for a couple of hours… just like Sherlock is ahead of me for a couple of months.

I thought about him for a moment - well, I haven't stopped thinking about him since the first day and I never will. I looked at the dark horizon but everything I saw were buildings and clouds and although it's a beautiful sight, I can't appreciate it anymore; something inside me simply stopped functioning. The wind began to blow harder and I was bloody high up.

- Were you scared? If I have had been there… If I could've reached you… I'm sure you wouldn't have done it…

I'm now where he was that day, standing on that thin line made of bricks.

What was going through your head? You weren't okay; you were crying… you never cry… you were lying to me, was that why you were crying? Or because you knew you were going to die? Why did you do this, Sherlock? Commit suicide? That's not something you'd do. Why did you call me? Why didn't you just text me? Did you want me to see you? Did you need me to see you? Why did you torture me in that way before…before...

I opened my arms and closed my eyes.

I need to know what you felt.

There were no more tears, there was nothing else to be said except:

- Sherlock…

- John?

A voice, but not his voice.

- Molly…

I opened my eyes and turn slowly.

- John, I thought you were… what are you doing here?

- I'm having a moment.

I replied, staring at her. I went down and I pass next to her in my way out.

- Do you have a lot of moments like this?

Of course not, I have had just one moment like that- just one that had started with Sherlock saying goodbye to me to which I had pretended to put an end that night.

- You have nothing to worry about, Molly… If I would have wanted to kill myself I would have done it already.

She doesn't believe me and I can't blame her. We both know I'm lying.

- Do you need help? John, if I can…

- You can't.

I reply, dryly.

- I'm sorry… that was very rude…

- It's okay, you're having a hard time now. I understand.

- Of course you do. Look, I have to go now.

When I was at the door Molly spoke again but I didn't stop walking.

- I do believe in him…

I didn't stop because I didn't know what to say. What was I supposed to say? Thank you? I was the only one who stood by Sherlock's side at the end and I couldn't make any differences. Despite the effort and the regret, everyone else are just traitors.

I learnt lots of things while I was living with Sherlock. Mainly to develop my patience to unthinkable limits, but one of the things I learnt almost unconciously was to pay the deserved attention to small details. Everything a person says or does has a reason. Sherlock has told that me once. I heard his voice whispering to me from the past.

"I referred to her husband in the past tense..."

That's why when Molly referred to Sherlock in present tense, I felt that something wasn't completely alright. But then again, I myself still refer to him in the present tense.

Stop trying to believe in a miraculous salvation, John, stop.

But - I thought- what does it matter what happens tonight or the previous nights? In the end, everything will reach a final point and I'll be free of all doubts. There will be no more late afternoon walks feeling that someone is following me (probably a reminiscence from the times with Mycroft following my every move) no more faking good moods and smiles with my therapist, no more faking happy faces to Mrs. Hudson or avoiding the insistent calls of Lestrade and Molly, enough of constantly see his silhouette every time I walk pass Baker Street, enough of not being able to go back to the flat to get my stuff because everything he owned is going to be there... everything but him.

When a person dies, not only do they leave behind a life of belongings, they also leave behind their beliefs but If you have none, like Sherlock, whose only faith resided in whatever he could see and prove, you leave behind not things, but people, people who believed in you, people whom you leave your impression, good, bad, painful, crazy, amazing impressions.

In his case, he left me.

The violin, the chemical equipment, the sofa- those are just things. But the sensation of having a part of him living inside of me is almost too big to bear.

How would one speak about the past and get rid of the memories when you have the constant feeling that, one day, he's going to step into the flat covered in pig's blood? Or with five nicotine patches on each arm and one on his forehead?

When I said that I was going to have to start from far below, I mean it… I really do.

I have nowhere to stay and I really don't have anywhere to go.

I stayed with Harry for a couple of weeks, but I had to get out of there. I believe I mentioned this before; we love each other but we really don't get along well. Even Sarah contacted me and she offered me to stay at her place and Mycroft expressed the possibility of paying for a hotel while I find a definite place to stay but I turned down every offer. I needed to get out of this depression on my own terms, in my own time.

Nobody knows where I'm staying now.

It's a place far from everything that I knew during my time with Sherlock because it didn't matter where I was. I could always see him clear as day; sitting at a table or opening an unknown backdoor, running through the streets, following someone, under a bridge with his homeless network, gathering information and handing out money in exchange for the most lurid and gruesome details of the latest case in the London's criminal underground.

Every single place, every single face in this city reminds me of him. There's no hidden corner or dark hallway that I haven't gone through with Sherlock.

I head now, to the darkest, highest and most solitary place I could find by myself.

Not even the homeless network with all its branches and eyes and ears could find me here.

I walked into the abandoned factory and climb a rusty iron ladder until I reach a small improvised platform with a flimsy floor just about to fall apart due to the years of lack of maintenance.

The silence is almost unbearable. A thin layer of dust and filth covers everything.

- I asked you not to be dead…

My voice startled even myself. This time Molly is not going to interrupt me. No one will come to stop poor old doctor Watson. It's just me and a fall of seven floors.

- But you are… of course you are…

I lean against the railing and I put a foot over it.

- Fractured skull and neck, three broken ribs, one of them stuck in a lung… contusion on his right wrist, left knee dislocated, ruptured eardrums, broken index and ring fingers of the right hand. Pinky, index, ring and middle of the right hand, dislocated left shoulder, broken collarbone in three parts, femur fracture ...

As I was stepping on the railing, I was repeating to myself the autopsy report. I asked for it from Lestrade and he sent it to me by fax. I always knew he didn't want to see me. He didn't have the guts to face me after what he did to Sherlock.

- Internal Organs: a lung pierced by a rib, stomach full of blood, busted heart, brain ... your brain… I asked you not to be dead… Sherlock…

I repeated to the emptiness of the night, to the wind, to the slightly spicy scent in the air, to my tears.

I have this endless feeling of being out of time, as if my brain was still in denial despite of having seen him falling. It's as if Sherlock was captive somewhere, unable to escape.

I have a recurring dream in which someone covers his mouth and won't let him speak to me.

Some days I wake up and I know he's dead and that I need to get on with my life.

Some days I can even pay a visit to Mrs. Hudson and have tea and laugh and talk.

Some days I wish I hadn't thrown my gun to the Thames.

Some days I can't breathe. I look at the spot next to me in my bed even when he was never there and he never lived with me in this flat and his absence is so great that it physically hurts.

But there isn't all the things we weren't and all the things we didn't do together the reason why I want to put a stop to all of this.

It's the fact- that horrible, terrible fact- that I never told him that my life was so much better because he was in it. That my world was black and white until he came in and then there was color. That I was happy; so happy when he was with me as I can't and I don't want to be again.

And now he's gone.

And he will never know.

I opened my arms and I look straight in front of me, ready to let the gravity fix everything when all of a sudden, a shiny light blinded me for a second.

It's blinking.

Light... nothing… light, light… nothing…

I stared at the strange light for a moment with my brain running in automatic.

U.M.Q.R.A.

It means nothing to me; it means nothing to anyone.

In my last minutes on this Earth, I scolded myself for still daring to believe in a secret message, in a fake death, in miracles, in heroes.

I look down and my body leans toward the emptiness of the abyss.

And then...

- Wait a minute.

The rush of adrenaline made me slip and I almost fell. It can't be.

I almost break my neck against a metal door while running down and out of the building.

U.M.Q.R.A. Who else knows it? No one, nobody else, Sherlock, just Sherlock… please, Sherlock, this can't be a coincidence, there's no such thing as coincidences... I asked you not to be dead…

When I arrived to the building, ten minutes later, I didn't find the blinking light or any sign indicating that someone had been there, just a small pile of ashes.

A thorough search of the building was futile. No one else was there, just me.

- Sherlock!

I shouted to the darkness, to the abandoned machinery, to my own frustration. Whoever made that light shine for me that night was long gone.

I went back to my flat.

Two unsuccessful suicide attempts were more than enough to grasp that life was trying to tell me that tonight wasn't the best night to leave this planet and that bloody morse code had confused me even more.

I haven't rested in three days so as soon as I opened the door, I threw myself on the bed and I fell asleep.

This is the story of why I couldn't go with you tonight.

I know you must be really bored up there; just wait for me... I'll fix that soon.

I'm sorry.

I miss you.

John H. Watson.