The Reichenbach Tail

Yet again, his mobile chimed, but Sherlock ignored it. Any second now, John would take care of whoever it was.

"I'll just get it, shall I?" mumbled John, standing from his seat.

Sherlock turned the fine adjustment dial on the microscope, peering through the eyepieces at the sample in front of him.

"Oh, God…"

Sherlock frowned, leaning back from his microscope. John had sounded as if he had just walked over his own grave. He looked up at his friend, but John was facing the windows, staring down at what was most likely Sherlock's phone.

"John?" asked Sherlock.

John slowly turned towards him, his face pale. He looked up at the detective with wide, spooked eyes. "Moriarty's alive."

Sherlock's stomach dropped to the floor. "What?"

"He's alive," John repeated, walking towards him and holding the phone out to him.

Sherlock numbly snatched the phone from him.

Tower Hill

Come and play

Jim Moriarty x

It was accompanied by a photograph of Jim Moriarty standing in front of a glass case containing the Crown Jewels, a grin on his partially burn-covered face.

So, he did survive the pool explosion, Sherlock thought. And he knows we did, too.

Sherlock looked up at John. "Shit."

"Can I ask you one thing?" asked Moriarty on the roof as Sherlock stood on the ledge. "Before you go?"

Sherlock turned his head slightly but made no other move to indicate his accession.

"How did you survive?"

Sherlock slowly turned his head to look down at Moriarty with a frown.

"I mean, you two not only survived; you didn't even have any…" Moriarty gestured to the scars on his own face. His gaze swept up and down Sherlock's body. "I wanna know how."

Sherlock just stared down at him, his jaw set.

Moriarty smirked as he looked back across the rooftop. "But, of course, you won't tell me. Because it concerns your little pet, and that would hurt him."

"Call off your snipers, and I'll tell you," Sherlock told him.

Moriarty froze for a long moment. "You'd really do that? Spill your precious secret in exchange for your lives."

Sherlock hopped down from the ledge. "Yes."

Moriarty frowned in thought. "It is tempting." He then shrugged and smiled up at Sherlock. "But I think I like this version better."

Sherlock smiled and started chuckling, walking off across the roof.

"What?!" Moriarty exclaimed. "What is it? What'd I miss?"

Sherlock looked back at him with a grin. "So, they can be called off. There's a recall code or a word or a number. I don't have to die…if I've got you." He began circling the man.

"Oh!" Moriarty laughed in relieved delight. "You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?"

"Yes. So do you."

"Sherlock, you know there's only one thing that'll make me want to call this off, and your big brother and all the King's horses couldn't make me do a thing I didn't want to."

Sherlock got into Moriarty's face. "Yes, but I'm not my brother, remember? I am you…prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won't do. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you."

Moriarty shook his head slowly. "Nah. You talk big. Nah. You're ordinary. You're ordinary; you're on the side of the angels."

"Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one…second…that I am one of them."

Moriarty stared at him a long while. "No, you're not." He smiled. "I see. You're not ordinary. No. You're me." He hissed out a delighted laugh. "You're me! Thank you!" He offered his hand to him. "Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock looked down at his hand and slowly reached forward to take it.

"Thank you," said Moriarty. "Bless you." He lowered his gaze. "As long as I'm alive, you can save your friends; you've got a way out. Well, good luck with that."

He raised his gaze to Sherlock's, grinned and opened his mouth, sticking a gun into it.

John stared up at his friend, unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing. This couldn't be happening. This was Sherlock Holmes. He couldn't possibly be thinking about suicide, right? "Leave a note when?"

"Goodbye, John," said Sherlock on the other end of the phone call.

"No," said John. "Don't."

He watched as, up on Bart's rooftop, Sherlock lowered his phone to his side before tossing it behind him.

"No," John muttered to himself, lowering his own phone. "SHERLOCK!"

Sherlock raised his arms and threw himself forward, falling from the roof.

"Sherlock…" muttered John in shock.

Sherlock plummeted towards the ground, disappearing behind the ambulance station in front of John. John stood in shock for a moment before he ran to the edge of the station, coming to a sudden stop when he saw Sherlock's body sprawled on the pavement.

"No…" muttered John, starting towards him as people started to gather around his friend. He made it to the edge of the small crowd, pushing through them. "Let me through. Let me through, please. He's my friend."

He made it past the last person and looked down. Sherlock lay on the pavement, blood framed around his head and trailed across his face. His eyes stared unseeingly up at the sky.

"Sherlock…" John gasped as he collapsed to his knees next to the body. He took in a deep breath as a couple tears ran down his face. He reached forward and felt for a pulse; nothing. "Why… What did you…"

His chin dropped to his chest, and he covered his eyes with his hand. As the tears subsided a moment, his gaze fell on the pavement around his friend's body. It had rained early this morning, but somehow, the ground around Sherlock was dry. In fact, it was dry exactly three inches away from his entire body.

The human body is over seventy percent water, a voice popped up in John's mind. Had Sherlock reversed the polarity of the water on the pavement so that it repelled his body like a magnet? That would certainly have slowed him down before impact. And then, to prevent himself from transforming…

John's eyes slowly looked up at Sherlocks face, at those unblinking eyes. The pupils were still constricted. If he was dead, the pupils would have dilated by now.

John took a breath to say Sherlock's name, but before he could, Sherlock's gaze snapped to his, and he gave a minute shake of his head before looking back up at the sky. John frowned, trying to put the pieces together. Why would Sherlock have had to fake his death for John, knowing John would have been able to see he was still alive?

Because it wasn't a show for you.

John instinctively started to look around but stopped himself. Someone was watching. He didn't know who, but he knew it was imperative that he played his part.

John let his breaths begin to come fast again as he looked around frantically. "A gurney. Quick! Someone get a gurney!"

But there was already one being rolled up next to them by two nurses (or most likely, two of Mycroft's men dressed as nurses).

"We might be able to save him," said John quickly, standing as the "nurses" stepped forward.

"Sir…" began a woman, who was bent over Sherlock, her fingers on the pulse point of his wrist, "he's gone."

"No!" said John vehemently. "He just needs a doctor." He quickly helped the nurses put Sherlock's body on the gurney, and they hurriedly wheeled it in the door of the hospital.

People stopped in the halls and watched as they went by. John glanced down at Sherlock and back up at the corridors Mycroft's men were steering them through. They came to the lifts and wheeled the gurney inside. One of the nurses hit the button labeled "M" for mortuary, and the doors closed.

"I take it Molly was in on this," said John.

"Of course," Sherlock told him. "She has to fill out the death certificate."

"You gonna tell me what's going on?" said John.

"Once it's safe," Sherlock told him, stopping his movements when the lift doors opened.

They moved past a few doctors and lab technicians, most of whom gasped as they recognized Sherlock. The gurney burst through the doors of the mortuary, where Molly stood waiting for them. The nurses moved to stand at the doors, keeping watch.

Sherlock sat up on the gurney, accepting the towel from Molly and wiping the drying blood from his face. "Well, that was a success. Good job, John."

"Yeah, you wanna tell me why I had to be kept in the dark?" asked John tightly.

"You're not the best actor," Sherlock told him.

"I thought you said I did good out there," John pointed out.

"Adrenaline," said Sherlock, moving onto drying his bloody hair. "You thrive on it, think best on it. You wouldn't have been able to convincingly grieve if you'd known ahead of time."

John wanted to continue being angry at him, but he was just so relieved that he wasn't dead, and he did recognize that Sherlock had a point: he did think best on his feet. "So, what happened?"

"Moriarty threatened to kill you, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade if I didn't kill myself," Sherlock explained as he removed his ruined scarf and Belstaff. "He even shot himself in the head to make sure his snipers couldn't be called off. Your sniper was still watching."

"What about the others?" asked John in worry.

"Mycroft called just before you came in," Molly told them. "They're safe."

"Good," said Sherlock. He turned to grab a change of clothes from a table along the wall. "We'll discuss our plans once I return." He started heading towards the office in the next room.

"Wait, what plans?" asked John.

Sherlock stopped in the doorway, turning back to him. "To hunt down Moriarty's network." He smirked and stepped into the office, closing the door.