When Sherlock had stepped off the plane and talked to John again, he'd acted unaffected.
On the cab ride home, he'd acted unaffected.
When he let Mrs. Hudson hug him and reassured her that yes, everything was fine, no, he was going to take care of it, he'd acted unaffected.
Once he made it behind the closed door of 221b, he was no longer unaffected.
Moriarty was alive. Sherlock didn't see how this could be possible. It couldn't be. It was unacceptable. Moriarty could not be alive. Because that just wasn't fair. And Sherlock's sense of fairness, everyone would assure you, was not in any way truly fair.
But this was ridiculous.
Sherlock slid down the door of 221b, legs giving out from under him, his scarf still wrapped around his neck and coat still on his shoulders as he curled into fetal position. His breath started coming in shorter bursts as memories of his two years of running, hiding, being tortured, and ohgodI'mreallygoingtodie started crashing their way up the steps of his mind palace, out of the rooms he'd nailed shut and padlocked closed, running up his grand staircase and straight towards him.
His hands were shaking. He knew what this was, he was having a panic attack. That information did nothing to help him.
All that work. Those two miserable, miserable fucking years. All for naught. All that time he thought he'd been bringing down Moriarty's network. No. Apparently the spider at the center of the web was still well and alive. Had probably been leading him on the entire time. All that work was laughably insignificant now, it hadn't done a thing.
Sherlock felt bile rise in the back of his throat. He fought it down with what little strength he had left. He tipped his head back and wished John was there. John would be able to talk him out of this. John would be pacing and cursing like a madman, running his fingers through his hair and asking the same question. "How? How?"
Sherlock didn't know how. He didn't want to know how. He wanted Moriarty to still be dead. Because this was a game for which he no longer had anything to wager with.
He'd already lost his reputation once. It was gone again, too, with his new title as 'murderer.'
He'd nearly lost his life. Did, in fact, for a little bit. But that hadn't been for this game, oh no.
He'd lost John as well. John, who had a wife who shot Sherlock and a baby girl on the way.
No. It was quite clear that he'd lost John, as completely as he ever would.
Which left him where he was. A man with shaking hands, collapsed just inside his flat, struggling to breathe as his body ached where he'd been beaten and cut and shot and oh god make it stop make everything stop I don't want to play anymore.
He'd said to John, "the game is never over." For once in his life, Sherlock wished he had been wrong.