A/N: This fanfiction will eventually form half of my Honours thesis. I am keen to see what the fandom thinks of it. Please do note that comments may be referred to (correctly referenced) in my thesis - if you don't want this, please tell me in your comment :)

Part One

The Hospital

Shadows – light… Shadows – light… Wind…water on my goggles…clouds…fire…

"Sir? Doctor, he's coming round. Wake up, sir."

Floating…no… flying – FALLING!

The man in the bed lurched into consciousness as though his soul had been poured back into his body; gasping, straining, disorientated.

AIR, AIR, AIR… Throat, blood, heartbeat. Pain. Fuzzy pain…morphine. Thudding head – concussion, bullets through the trapezius and deltoid, spine – pain, pain, PAIN!

"Ah, good man; see to him, nurse."

Public school English accent but Irish born, well educated, doctor, nurse, out of danger. Perhaps. …why perhaps?

"Yes, sir." The nurse turned back to the blinking patient, gently trying to push him back into his pillows. "That's it, just breathe."

"What?" the patient was looking this way and that, straining to fight the dulling drug in his system, eyes darting over the beds, the men in them, the bloodstained bandages, nostrils flaring at the metallic stink not quite obscured by rubbing alcohol and antiseptic. White beds, wounded men, alcohol – one hundred percent proof, antiseptic. Hospital. England. Burns victims, amputees, bullet wounds, paraplegics. War. Nurse. Grey. New, young, inefficient; leave. He swayed forwards, dragging his body upright in the bed.

"No, now; please, sir – you've got to stay in bed." The nurse turned back to the doctor, "He's panicking, sir."

Panicking?! "I can hear you, you know," the patient snarled, pitching forwards into the nurse's face and sending her back with a tiny scream.

The doctor lowered his clipboard and peered over his half-moon glasses with an interested expression. "Do you remember who you are?"

The patient's head snapped towards him, piercing cold eyes like chips of pale green glass raking the man up and down a moment. Smoker, smartly turned out – clinical, precise. But hairs on his trouser legs; dogs of some sort? Doesn't add up. Married, but what kind of marriage? Detached, excellent at his job; surgical…but not a surgeon, why is that? Familiar…why? "Of course I do."

"Might I trouble you for a name and address?" the doctor waved at his clipboard. "Paperwork, you know. Must be done, old chap."

The patient rolled his eyes. "I am Sherlock Holmes of two hundred and twenty one B, Baker Street, London."

The doctor's eyebrows danced, his pen pausing mid-scrawl. "Odd, we seem to have you down as Flying Officer William Scott of 29 Squadron."

Sherlock frowned.

"Not to matter, must be a mix up with the paperwork. There's so much red tape nonsense to deal with. Do you remember what happened to you, Mr Holmes?"

Brows knitted over the pale eyes once more. Important important, something important! Falling, but important – something before, before the fall.

The doctor smiled widely. "No matter, old boy. Do tell me when you remember – I'll be very interested to hear what you have to say." He moved away, initialling the bottom of the sheet J.M. The nurse followed, all too keen to escape her strange patient.

Sherlock lay back in the bed, his energy expended for the moment, eyes closed and hands clasped beneath his chin. Why was he here? What had happened? The morphine was pleasant when he was so drained, but it fogged his mind like the mists of London. He needed clarity. With supplies as they were, however, he was unlikely to receive much more of it. Sherlock sighed. Good and bad.

A curl of nicotine-laden smoke wafted past his nose, derailing and clarifying his thoughts as he inhaled deeply. One – no, two…two point three milligrams of nicotine…Chesterfields… His eyes snapped open, scanning his surrounds for the source.

An officer, his hair silvered beyond his years, stood across the ward by the end of his bed, drawing lazily on the cigarette in between light banter with a couple of blushing young nurses. Tedious. Sherlock's eyes honed in on the distinctive lozenge shaped bulge in the man's dressing gown pocket: a cigarette case. But how to get it? He let his observation shift to the man himself who seemed to be in perfect health. The man turned in his direction and their eyes met, a strange expression crossing the officer's face. Lestrade!

Lestrade snuck the flicker of a wink into his blink, his head tilting towards Sherlock's left. Sherlock followed his indication to the next bed along. It was directly opposite his own, and occupied by a man about his own age with faded blond hair. John!

He lay atop his blankets, a book in his lap, but his eyes were on Sherlock. There didn't seem to be much wrong with him either, but a pair of canes leant against the bedside cabinet. Their eyes locked for a moment. Warning.

"Mr Lester, might I have a cigarette?"

Ah. Disguise. Perhaps there is danger here after all.

Lestrade turned, the nurses drifting away as he murmured adieus, and glanced questioningly at the recumbent John.

"Didn't know you smoked, mate." He took out the silver case and popped it open, offering the row of white rolls. Their air of detached, neighbourly friendship was certainly convincing.

"I don't, actually." John took one, however, sliding his legs laboriously out of the bed, and taking up the canes, the cigarette tucked into the top pocket of his pyjamas.

Lestrade watched with a bystander's curiosity, lighting up a cigarette for himself as John slowly hobbled across the ward to Sherlock, stopping by the end of his bed and hanging onto the white steel frame, panting a little.

"I'm Jack Walterson," he said firmly, and stuck out a hand.

Sherlock shot his friend a shuttered glance of disbelief at the obviousness of his alias, but refrained from commenting. "Bullet, was it? Can I have that cigarette?"

John stifled a grin, and handed over the cigarette. "Yes. Pretty poor luck for a doctor to get shot in the leg though." He laughed, but the merriment did not reach eyes, which remained watchful.

Sherlock was looking hard at the cigarette.

John's eyes went to it too. "Ah. Geoff–" a packet of matches came sailing across the ward before he could finish, landing neatly in Sherlock's lap. The two men glanced over to see Lestrade grinning from his bedside cabinet. "Ta."

Sherlock struck a match and lit up, taking a long draw before slowly exhaling, eyes half-closed with hazy pleasure. A slight smile of satisfaction spread his lips. "Where are we?"

"Richbrook Hospital in Kent."

"Anyone for a tipple?" Lestrade came over accompanied by a clinking of glassware, a mostly empty bottle of whisky in one pocket. He and John exchanged a glance and a nod. The rest of the patients were at the opposite end of the ward, separated from them by at least three empty beds.

Sherlock eyed the whiskey, and frowned. Morphine, alcohol, nicotine…interesting mix. "Very well."

"Sherlock shouldn't be mixing alcohol with the morphine," John hissed.

"Go on, Jack!" Lestrade encouraged boisterously. "Don't dawdle; if Matron catches us with this she'll have our hides for not sharing it with her." He clinked glasses with Sherlock.

They each took a deep draft.

John relented. "Just a little."

Lestrade emptied the bottle into John's glass, and stowed it back in his dressing gown. He glanced over his shoulder at the other patients, then leant in. "So, what's the plan?"

Sherlock gazed bemusedly up at the other two. "Plan?"

John and Lestrade exchanged concerned glances. "To deal with Moriarty?" Lestrade prompted.

Sherlock frowned. Mycroft, the Diogenes – a case. Moriarty. The Napoleon of Crime. Contacts in the Third Reich. Secret drops being made over Germany. Find out how. Innocuous items at the moment, brandy smuggling, stockings, and elastic. But if he turned to trading information about the war...

"Please tell me you remember," John added.

"Wait, you mean he wasn't lying to the doctor before? He actually doesn't know how he got here?"

"Shut up, both of you!" Sherlock snarled. He was pressing his hands to his temples, trying to force his brain to remember more. Following the trail to the RAF. Sneaking in. Faces, names, going through lockers, watching the others at meal times. None of them are him, none of them work for him, so…? His thoughts dropped away, the prowess he was so used to summoning inaccessible. "I remember…pieces. Taking the case from Mycroft, infiltrating the RAF," he strained his mind again, but to no avail. "But my mind's not working as it should. I can't make deductions!" He stared wild-eyed at his friends, horrified.

"Don't worry – we can fill in the blanks," Lestrade hurried to calm him.

"Just don't push yourself too hard yet – you've been concussed for five days, things are bound to be a bit muddled." Despite the words, John couldn't help but shoot Lestrade an anxious glance. If Sherlock couldn't remember – if he couldn't regain his immense abilities, the fate of Britain didn't bear thinking about.

Sherlock was having none of it, however. "What happened to me, John? I need to know!"

John sighed. "You disappeared without a trace three weeks ago. We tried to find you, but Mycroft wouldn't let on anything until last week when he came to us with the news that you'd been shot down."

The choppy roar of the engine…a second plane behind – an Albatross D. III? Can't be. Cloud cover…a glance back, surprise – why surprise – a face, but whose? A heart stopping rat-tat-tat, bullets hailing like rain, wood splinters flying, my body rupturing, bullets tearing their way through blood, flesh, and bone, and spinning, spinning, spinning, down and down, smoke in my nose, wind in my ears…flames…panic. The buckles not releasing. Must escape. Must tell. Must eject. Cold, water, soaking wet…water…water?

Sherlock shook the water from his face, panting.

"Are you all right?" John's voice was in his ears, a hand on his shoulder.

Sherlock blinked. Lestrade was staring at him, wide-eyed, an empty water jug in his hands, and John was beside him. "What happened?"

John and Lestrade exchanged a glance.

"You sort of…went into yourself," John replied awkwardly. "Your eyes were open but it didn't look like you were seeing us, and then you dropped the cigarette and the bed started to burn."

Lestrade waved the water jug with a grin.

Sherlock shook his head, splattering them with water. "I…I remember. I remember being shot down – I remember the crash."

"Do you remember anything else?" Lestrade asked eagerly.

Sherlock shook his head. "But the plane – it had been tampered with: I couldn't eject. And it wasn't Germans who shot me down. It was someone in one of our planes."

The other two exchanged knowing glances, sitting in the chairs to either side of the bed. John handed Lestrade the day's paper. "Read something out, just to be on the safe side."

Lestrade nodded. "Right you are."

"Mycroft helped us get in here to keep an eye on you," John spoke softly under Lestrade's proclamations of the results of the local cricket team's match. "We suspected that Moriarty knew you were onto him, and he arranged to have you shot down." John cleared his throat. "What you remember seems to corroborate such an explanation. Clearly his scheme didn't go to plan."

"Just as well for us," Lestrade added sotto voce.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Or it did, and he wants me here for some reason."

John frowned, and Lestrade even paused. "What could that be?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't know."

John changed topic at the look on Sherlock's face. "That doctor, he arrived the same day as you did."

Interesting. Definitely not a coincidence…or is it? "What's his name?"

"Doctor Murtagh."

Hm. Irish.

"What's all this then?" a disapproving female voice interrupted Sherlock's thoughts, and all three men jumped.

Matron stood by the end of Sherlock's bed, staring disapprovingly down at the sopping bedclothes. Her hands went to her hips.

"I'm waiting for an explanation." She eyed John and Lestrade severely.

"Ah…it was a little prank, Matron," Lestrade explained feebly, earning a withering glance from Sherlock.

Matron tutted, but seemed satisfied with the reason. "Let's get you out of there, Mr Holmes."

"I can't move my legs."

John and Lestrade exchanged astonished glances. Sherlock had been aware of the fact since he woke up. Everything from the waist down was beyond his control, and it was infuriating.

"You sustained a deep bruise to your spine," Matron replied briskly. "You'll be able to walk again, just not at the moment. We'll deal with that for now." She turned and brandished an imperious hand at one of the nurses. "Nurse! Bring fresh bedding over. You two," she rounded on John and Lestrade, "back to bed."

In the evening, when the bed was crisp once more, and the ward was quiet, John and Lestrade came back over, bringing their supper trays and candles to make a picnic on Sherlock's bed and the empty ones to either side. The rest of the ward was empty and darkened – one man had lost the struggle to live, and the other two had been transferred.

Sherlock's tray of food remained untouched, and he lay flat on his back staring up at the ceiling as he had done the rest of the day, brooding. He couldn't walk, he couldn't remember what he'd learnt, if anything, and he couldn't think. He was next to useless.

"Go away."

John and Lestrade ignored the directive.

"Temporary memory loss isn't uncommon in such cases, Sherlock," John reminded him with irritating patience. He and Lestrade had decided on hopeful attitudes; it was too soon to despair yet. "Don't forget, you were in a plane crash. Mycroft said you'd practically ploughed up an entire field. That's not a knock you're going to just recover from in an instant."

"I know, John."

"You were lucky you didn't end up with severe burns," Lestrade added helpfully between mouthfuls of calf's foot jelly.

"I cut the straps of my harness and dragged myself out of the wreckage only to be blown across a field by the explosion of my shot down aircraft – that's not luck, Graham."

"Greg," Lestrade corrected automatically, unperturbed. "And we can try and jog your memory in the meantime."

Sherlock cast his eyes skywards.

Lestrade flourished his spoon, struck by inspiration. "Did you see who was piloting the aircraft that shot you down? It could give us a lead."

Sherlock exploded upright, "Do you honestly think I haven't already thought of that?! Do you think I've been lying here all day thinking about cricket results and dinner?" he brandished a disparaging hand at the meal. "I do not need these reminders! I do not need cosseting. I need my mind back, I need my legs back, I need my memories back; I need to work!"

Lestrade ignored the outburst, taking Sherlock's glass of port instead, and downing it in one. "Getting cross about it isn't going to help solve the case." They all knew he had a point. "So you might not be able to walk; it's only temporary. With our help we can get you around the hospital instead of staying stuck in this bed all day. It might help you remember. And if Moriarty knows you survived, who's to say he hasn't sent someone along to finish the job?"

"What a revelation." Sherlock sighed. "If Moriarty sent someone after me, why haven't they already killed me? What was to stop them from giving me a lethal injection or smothering me when I was unconscious? It would certainly be easier than waiting until I woke up – they would have had no certainty that I'd forget what I found out. It doesn't add up. There's something else happening here, some other game being played, and I can't even see the pieces, let alone the board." He pressed his lips together, eyes fixed on a boiled swede without really seeing it.

"But you do think it was Moriarty who made sure you were shot down?" John asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "As certain as I can be in the circumstances. We can't leap to conclusions about any of this; I don't have all the facts."

"What led you to the RAF?" John prompted.

"The items were being dropped inland. Mycroft's spies in Germany reported the sudden appearance of items in places where people shouldn't have had access to such things. There was no pattern to them: they weren't near any estuaries or along the coast – so that ruled out the Navy. But they always appeared after RAF raids. They're too big to smuggle, or use a carrier pigeon for, but the air is the only way they can get that far into enemy territory." Sherlock slowly walked his way through the winding paths of his old deductions, the trail slowly illuminating as he went. "So the RAF were the only way that the drops could be made. Lone aircraft would be spotted and shot down by German gunners, but in groups doing raids with professional pilots, they're likely to get through. It's the same principle of fish spawning – do it simultaneously in large enough quantities, and some are bound to get through."

"What, so do you think we have Nazi sympathisers in the RAF? Or German spies?" Lestrade was appalled.

Sherlock waved an impatient hand to silence him, still deep in his thoughts, trying to uncover his memories. "The RAF were doing the drops, but how… How?! You can't have that many pilots who are quislings – too many drops were being made. So what? The pilots didn't know. Then how are the drops made?" Sherlock rocked back and forth, his fingers pressed to his temples, willing his brain to make the connection.

Lestrade proffered the cigarette case. Sherlock took three, and lit them up simultaneously. In the guttering light of the candles he appeared quite ghostly, his angled features wreathed in smoke and strangely lit.

John and Lestrade watched as he puffed, inhaling the smoke deeply, mind straining, eyes screwed shut.

Then, "Yes!" Sherlock's eyes flew open, success glinting madly in them. "Yes, of course!" He brandished the cigarettes at his friends. "None of the pilots knew about the drops. But what are they doing when the drops happen? Bombing the enemy. So how do you disguise a package you want dropped over Germany?"

John and Lestrade stared at each other wide-eyed with the genius of the realisation. Sherlock smiled widely at them, sucking on the cigarettes again.

"Dummy bombs," John muttered.

"The devilish cunning of it!" Lestrade hissed.

"Ah, but it's more than that," Sherlock drew their attention once more. "With the pilots unaware, someone else has to know. The men loading the planes – perhaps. A commander – more likely…"

A heavy silence fell over the trio.

"Do you think they know what they're transporting?" Lestrade was frowning; the thought of high ranking traitors was not pleasant.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Moriarty has connections, and influence – many do not know him for who he truly is. He is a spider, sitting in his web, controlling the strings; but none can reach him. He is always three steps ahead, and four people removed. He has people in Lloyd George's office, and people in the King's court – he is not a person to be trifled with. He's profiting from the War like no other, and not merely from our side. It is not improbable that he should have commanders in his pocket, especially if he rewards them handsomely with brandy and cigars and whatever other luxuries they can't get through ordinary means in wartime. But which one?

"I infiltrated 29 Squadron as Flying Officer William Scott, they have a lot of flying aces, all of whom are too patriotic to turn traitor on their own country, but they are perfect for getting cargo exactly where Moriarty wants it. So the dummy bombs would need to be loaded into their aircrafts. But they can't simply be dropped anywhere over Germany, otherwise Moriarty's clients wouldn't receive the goods. So specific locations need to be given to the commanders, who would select the airmen and ensure the correct bombs were loaded." Sherlock wracked his brains for who the commander might be. The cigarettes were all but ash, but he took another pull on them anyway.

"Don't push yourself too hard, Sherlock," John warned, seeing what the consulting detective was trying to do. "You've remembered a lot – more than we could have hoped for this early on. I can call Mycroft with a coded message in the morning."

Sherlock opened his mouth to make a retort, but prevented from doing so as the doors banged open.

Sherlock stuffed the cigarette butts into his still full cup of beef tea as Lestrade dashed across the ward with the trays while John hobbled his fastest, and both leapt into bed as the lights came on.

They watched as a man was brought in on a stretcher, his head swathed in bandages. He had already been changed into pyjamas, and once the men had settled him on the bed, he remained silent as though asleep or drugged.

"Poor blighter," Lestrade muttered.

The lights went out once more, and there were just the three candles glowing against the blackout.

John and Lestrade showed signs of wanting to come back over, but Sherlock shook his head, his eyes fixed on the newcomer, frowning hard.

So. This fic is for my thesis. YAY. HOW COOL IS IT THAT I GET TO WRITE FANFICTION FOR MY THESIS?! 8D
That said, it is even more important that people do not plaigiarise this. The characters aren't mine, of course, and elements of the ideas aren't where I've interwoven things from the books and TV show, but the plot and words are mine, and a version of it will be graded, so please respect that.

And now on to interesting things :)
My aim with this fic is essentially to tie together elements of ACD's Holmes with the BBC's Sherlock. Obviously it's much more Sherlock heavy than Holmes, as most of what I've done with Holmes is in the final sort of epilogue where it flashes forwards to the future for the ending. The two are quite different in style and tone, and I'm curious to see whether this jars for anyone. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage this, as I'd ideally like the piece to be a kind of ACD x BBC crossover, but without it seeming off-putting.
I've tried to incorporate elements from the Reichenbach fall and Scandal, because yay for fandom references, even though (unless I'm EXTREMELY lucky and have an examiner who is in the fandom) most of them, if not all, will probably go over their head. Which is kind of a shame, given that that's one of the exciting parts of fanfic.

All thoughts, suggestions, questions, etc. are extremely welcome - I'd really love to hear them! :)
Also, if you don't want your comments mentioned in my thesis, please do tell me :)

[SORT OF SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL]
On a personal note, I find it extremely interesting how, in some ways, it kind of parallels the Christmas Special. I wrote this several months before it was released, so the similarities are amusing.

[SPOILERS OVER]

So, thanks heaps for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! :D

Please do review and/or favourite :)

If you want to get access to sneak previews to chapters before they're posted, you can like me on Facebook (JZJ Tomkins) or follow me on Twitter ( jtomkinsauthor) or Tumblr (jzj-tomkins):)