Sherlock Holmes stood watching as his loyal friend walked away from the grave. He wanted to reach out to him, but knew he could not. It would not be safe for John to know the truth; for any of them to know the truth, until the sniper assassins had moved on, or been caught. As the latter seemed unlikely, Sherlock had gone about distracting them. He had set a huge number of city rats through the letterbox of one assassin's flat. The inevitable onslaught of chaos and destruction had been amusing to say the least. It was the neighbours that had insisted they leave in the end. The second assassin had already left for another job, while the two remaining ones had yet to be dealt with. Sherlock needed John to remain oblivious until they were gone. He could not predict their moves, and he knew that Jim Moriarty had left precautions to ensure that his friends would still die if Sherlock appeared to be alive. He had to assume that he had also left an heir to his criminal consultant agency.
The consulting detective sighed, his eyes flickering up at the sky, before he turned and left. The wet grass squelched under the tread of his shoes, and his coat billowed about him as he strode away from the graveyard. He had been keeping an eye on John, making sure he refrained from stupidity. He had been intending to let go, but when the therapy sessions began, and no progress was being made, Sherlock realized he could not leave. It was not so much for John's sake, as for the fact that seeing John sat there, not unwilling, but unable to speak about the event of Sherlock's death, had pulled him back. His friend was suffering, and it unsettled him. He could not leave with this weight in his chest. And he was itching to get back to solving crimes and compiling evidence. There was nothing quite as satisfying for Sherlock, as that moment when all the pieces of a puzzle fit together. Problem solving was his thing. It should be everyone's thing, but for Sherlock it had been all there was in life, until he met John.
Sherlock could not put his finger on it, but something about him had definitely changed since meeting John. He cared about something being right, and he cared about useful information, but he had learned that he would abandon those things for something more important. He did not know whether he would truly have killed himself to save the people around him, as he had not needed to do so. All he knew, was that something had changed. Before, would he have bothered even to go that far, other than for the soul purpose of defeating Jim at his little game?
Molly was waiting in the driver's seat of her car. She had agreed to help Sherlock, but she had never imagined how long she would be helping him for. For months, she had been driving him around, fetching things for him, keeping him hidden away in her apartment, and now she was taking him to visit his own, empty grave. What had she gotten herself into? She had already had a close call with an assassin thanks to that man.
Sherlock had been counting on Molly for a number of reasons. Firstly because of her resources, secondly because he know that Jim had not been counting on him trusting her, and thirdly, because he knew he had her undivided attention. He had not needed to trick, or manipulate her into coming to his aid. He had simply smiled for her occasionally, and given her the odd friendly gesture, like patting her on the back, and opening doors for her. And what else could he do?
Molly had come to terms with the fact that Sherlock was not only clueless, but completely uninterested in her in a romantic way. She had learned that he needed someone who could shock him, and challenge him both emotionally, as well as intellectually. Molly was smart, knowledgeable and bright, but she was simply not compatible with this creature of logic. She needed her comfort, and her hot chocolate, but all Sherlock wanted was brain food.
John returned to his flat, to find it exactly as it had been when he had left. He had not managed to grow accustomed to this. With Sherlock, he had always returned to find something had been blown up, or that there was a new disembodied person in the fridge, or the sound of the violin playing. Returning to silence was the worst thing for John. The problem was, he did not want move on, and he could not let go. There was nothing about Sherlock's death that made sense to him, and he knew that Sherlock had been lying about being a fake, because John had seen him being brilliant in his own time. He had been consistently infuriating, insulting and degrading: These were not the actions or behaviours of a man seeking to impress another.
The armchair sagged as John slumped into it, and he tried to find some space to think. Pushing all of his thoughts aside was a challenge. John was strong, but the chaos in his head was a scrapyard of filth, and he needed some way of throwing it out. Unwilling to give up on his friend, longing for there to be a way that he could have survived, John was stuck in limbo between grief and numbness.
There had been a number of productive things that the ex army doctor had been able to occupy himself with. Work for one thing, was a little relief, as he could focus on other people. After work, he would watch the news over supper, going into an almost coma like state. The less he thought, and felt, the easier it was to remain calm. Every now and then however, John would find himself tense. He would feel a fit of anger coming on, and the only way to deal with it, was to keep telling himself that this was not real. Nothing about his life felt real any more. Sherlock had been the cause of and solution to, all of life's excitements since he had returned from Afghanistan.
This numbness he was experiencing, he detested it. It was uncomfortable, and colourless, and he wanted to overcome it. It was that day, the day that he returned from his therapist for what seemed like the millionth time, that he made a decision. If he could not find Sherlock by the end of the month, he would return to the army. He was fit for service, and he would certainly be more useful than this emotionless wreck he was becoming.
Three weeks passed, and John was showing signs of resignation. He hated every second, but he kept fighting. Sherlock could see his friend breaking, and he knew he had to hurry. There was only one of Jim's snipers remaining in the area now, but he had very little time left to get rid of him.
Sherlock had been very careful until now. He had ensured that John would be unable to see him, even when he was skulking around Baker Street to deal with snipers. Now he was running out of time, he could not fuss about that. So long as the assassin did not see him, nothing else mattered. For this one, he had obtained a more efficient method of forcing them to leave. The rat infestation plan had worked well before, but if he used the same plan twice, they would become suspicious. He crept around the side of the block of flats, careful to ring the right doorbell, before dashing back around to the front of the building. He placed the parcel he had been carrying onto the doorstep, before ringing the doorbell here, and running back around the side of the building. He hid there for a moment, until he heard the door open. Sherlock could not risk poking his head around the corner until he heard the door snap shut again, and the lock was bolted. He peered ever so slightly past the bricks, to see the parcel had indeed been taken inside. Good. The sniper would be careful opening it, as all assassins would, but he would be more likely to assume it was related to a client, than someone who wished for him to get out of there.
Suddenly there were screams and shout coming from inside, and a low buzzing noise growing in volume. Sherlock had set the parcel, so that the hornets would only awaken when the box was opened. He had carefully placed the chemical formula on the underside of the tape, so that when the seal was broken, the formula would pour into the nest, waking and angering the insects. The shouts grew louder as the buzzing hornets homed in on their target. Sherlock smiled, and was was just walking away, when the front door swung open. Damn. He had assumed the man would use the side door – he was a deadly assassin after all. Sherlock sighed, and bolted. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him. If the man caught sight of his face for just a second, he would be endangering the lives of all four people he was trying to protect.
John was examining Sherlock's violin, lazily eyeing up the craftsmanship that must have gone into creating such a fine instrument. He knew nothing about anything creative, but he was curious about what had drawn his coldly logical friend to something so emotive. He stood by the window, where Sherlock would always play, trying to catch it in the sunlight pouring into the room. As he set the instrument down again, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look out of the window, and froze. There, running past 221B Baker Street, was a man with dark, curly hair, and a flowing dark coat. John shook his head for a moment, but then as he watched, he spied another man chasing after the first. This one was tall and lithe, covered in lean muscles, and what appeared to be hundreds of tiny, red blemishes on his skin.
John was in shock. He stood there completely still for a moment, as if paralysed by what he had seen, before he managed to bend his knees, and he charged across the room, rushing down the stairs and slamming the front door open. Hurrying after the men in front of him, he tried to flag down a taxi from the main road. He had been running for several minutes when a taxi finally pulled up, and out of breath, he climbed in, and ordered the driver to follow the men. Whoever they were, they were much faster than him.
The doctor wheezed and huffed, clambering over to the other side of the taxi, to get a good look out of the window. John could just make out the two men, rounding a corner. The man behind was only just out of arms reach of his target now, and once he saw his face, it would all be over. John pulled a gun out of his pocket, ready to shoot in case this went wrong. The taxi slowed down to stay adjacent to the target, and when John could finally see that it was indeed Sherlock, he swung open the taxi door. The assassin had caught Sherlock, and had already seen his face. Now the detective was trying to wrestle a knife from him. John suddenly felt a fit of rage coming on, and though he knew it was a terrible idea to ride it, he did. He shot the man in the foot, and turned his gun around, and clapped it over the assassin's head.
The taxi driver had bolted as soon as John had left the car, hoping to avoid getting involved in any trouble, leaving John to deal with the chaos in front of him. Sherlock was backed against the wall, with an unconscious sniper collapsing on top of him. John was getting his breath back, aware that everyone around him was staring. What? It wasn't like he'd killed anyone. He sighed, helping Sherlock to heave the man off of him, before punching his friend in the jaw.
"OW!" the detective moaned, "Wha- okay I deserved that one- OUCH!" He yelled as a second fist came flying into his gut. A second later, he was being dragged away by the wrist. Nobody dared to mess with the angry soldier as he towed Sherlock down the street, flagging down a second taxi. "John, wait! Stop! We have to go back!"
"What? Why?" John saw the look of terror in his friend's eyes. What had he been doing all this time? He sighed, and they both ran back to where the assassin was still lying unconscious, but now surrounded by members of the public. "Its alright everyone! There's been a misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about." John reassured them in his most convincingly innocent voice. Sherlock meanwhile was trying to get the man to his feet. "What is going on Sherlock? We need to get out of here!"
"No!" Sherlock insisted, "We have to get him back to his flat. If we can get him there before he wakes up, he'll think hes been dreaming. He'll assume the hornet stings knocked him out."
"I blew a hole in his foot!" John interjected,
"Oh, right..." Sherlock trailed off. "Change of plan, call Lestrade. We just apprehended a man on the most wanted list." He smiled. John frowned, but pulled out his phone, understanding the urgency of the matter. If the man woke up before the police arrived, they were both done for.
As Sherlock attempted to explain the situation to Detective Inspector Lestrade, John stood with his head in his hands. He could not come to terms with what was happening, even though he wanted more than anything to believe it was real. Had he finally accepted that his friend was dead, as he held that violin, only to find out that he had been right all along? And here he was, acting as if nothing had changed, strolling around like he owned the place. As soon as that sniper was behind bars, John would demand the world's most detailed explanation Sherlock could possibly give him.
John could feel the pain and stress of the past months suddenly crashing into him, all the visons of Sherlock covered in his own blood; falling from the rooftop; his final request that John had been unable to keep. He lost his grip on the world for just a moment, and his knees buckled.
Sherlock had just finished explaining to the inspector why it was necessary to detain the unconscious man as quickly as possible, despite being interrupted every other sentence with questions such as "Where the hell have you been?" and "How are you not dead?" silly, insignificant and irrelevant questions, that could easily wait until after capturing the deadly assassin, who could kill Lestrade, John, Mrs Hudson and even Mycroft should he wake up. Upon finally understanding how dangerous the unconscious man was, however, Lestrade had finally given in, and ordered his arrest. They were loading him into a police car, when Sherlock turned, to see his friend falling to the ground. He ran over to John as his head hit the tarmac.