"Sherlock was real!" John screamed at Donovan. All of Scotland Yard seemed to have stopped working, concentrating on the woman's reaction to her accuser
"John, John!" she pleaded, placing her hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away. "Don't take it personally, I merely had a suspicion."
"A suspicion that killed two men."
"Two?"
"Sherlock and Jim both died. We could hear the gunshot on Sherlock's recording."
"Only one body was found at St. Barts and it was Holmes, not the act- enemy."
"The recording says it all. Even Lestrade listened to it and agreed, Jim is dead, but his body is not there."
"Richard." Donovan corrected.
"We'll call him Jim." John glared at her.
"There was a blood stain on the roof," Donovan mused, "I listened to the recording as well, and Sherlock certainly thought he was dead. If Sherlock was real, he would know if a person was dead or not."
The thought of Irene Adler's body laying in the morgue while Sherlock inspected it came to his mind.
"What's going on?" Lestrade walked out of his office, walking them to a more private section of the office building.
"John's insane." "Sherlock is alive!" both of the arguers shouted simultaneously.
"I don't even know." Lestrade slapped his palm to his face. "John, what makes you think Sherlock is out there, alive?"
"Brooks, or Jim or whoever is dead, right?"
"I listened to the gunshot on 'the note'"
"You saw the blood stain on the roof?"
"Yes."
"No body, correct?"
"Right. We are still trying to match it with either Sherlock or Moriarty but our system seems to be having a malfunction. Well, Molly is doing it for us and she says she's really busy."
"What if it was fake blood. What if Moriarty isn't dead? What if he fooled Sherlock."
"Impossible."
"Exactly. Jim's body wasn't there, we can assume that Sherlock was able to fool him even more than Jim fooled him."
"So where are they?"
John closed his eyes, entering a place in his mind he had never been before, a mind palace.
"Molly." he said. "It's obvious, Molly knows he's alive. That's why her machines are breaking, she doesn't want to get caught until both her and Sherlock can be caught together."
"Where is he though?"
"Wherever Moriarty is. They will follow each other in circles until one of them loses."
"Moriarty is in hell. Hell is where dead people go, John." Donovan interrupted
"No." John glanced out the window. "No!" Across the street were the windows to the building where Jim had shone anothe at Sherlock the night before the jump. Two men were "He's here."
Suddenly a shot fired from the hallway behind them. Lestrade fell to the ground, blood blossoming from a wound in his shoulder. Donovan ducked as John turned to face the police officer, or the assassin working for Jim. He had seen the officer many times during his visits to the Yard. He was the one who helped find the kids in the factory, and he was the first at the scene of the crime at the school.
John pulled out a gun from a nearby desk and shot at the assassin. His mark was true, as usual and wounded the gunman in the gut, but not before he felt the weight of a bullet pass through his chest too.
"John!" he vaguely heard Donovan scream at him.
His heart felt this way before, in Afghanistan when he was shot in his shoulder. He had felt it again, not two weeks before when his friend had jumped. He felt the three bullet wounds, one still seeping blood, hit him in the heart. Adrenaline rushed through him, trying to heal the wound. He picked up his gun and weakly climbed up from the floor using the radiator by the window. He aimed his gun at the shorter figure in the windows across the street. His hands shook as he aimed. He knew he was done. Theoretically, he thought to himself, he was going to be with his friend.
John had done this before, a crack shot through the window. He remember the look on Sherlock's face after he rescued him from the cabbie's poison. This was different. This was a battle between three dead men.
John felt the sticky blood on his hands, and he quickly pulled the trigger after a final aim. He heard the twin cracks of glass from his window and the one across the street and he watched as Moriarty stood, shocked over Sherlock's dead body.
Today Sherlock and him would be together again. He had pulled his friend out of Moriarty's grasp. They would be together, wherever it is that those few who are simply on the side of the angels go.