Author's Notes: Companion/Bonus ficlet to Five Times it Ended and One Time it Didn't. Slots into place directly after section v.


It's grey out when Sherlock comes to, eyes blurry and head buzzing. His mouth is dry and there is an annoyingly persistent sound coming from next to him, but he's not paying attention to that now. Instead, he's focusing on the fuzzy feeling in his head, something he's never really experienced before. It's not how it normally feels when he comes down from the high. Normally, he would be able to catalogue the sensations, would be able to deduce where that sound is coming from, but the cotton wool wrapped round his brain seems to be impairing his normally sharp mind.

"Sherlock."

He glances round and takes in the hazy shape of his brother. He frowns. What the hell is Mycroft doing here? And where's John, anyway?

A shadowy memory comes to him, suddenly. He vaguely remembers John's voice, John's body behind him, holding him like he hasn't in so long, encouraging him to do…something. He can't remember and that scares him almost more than anything else.

"Sherlock."

More firmly this time. Sherlock blinks and attempts to glare at Mycroft. Can't Mycroft see he's thinking right now?

"What happened last night, Sherlock?"

Sherlock frowns at his brother. "I…I don't remember." He's confused now, very confused. And scared. Mycroft wouldn't be here asking him questions about last night if there was nothing to be concerned about.

"Where's John, Sherlock?"

Such a look of sadness crosses his brother's face—just for a moment, though Mycroft has to know that Sherlock's seen it—and it pierces through the fog the drugs have left in his brain. He sits up and ignores the dizziness as he glares at his brother. "Where is he, Mycroft? What have you done?"

But Mycroft is shaking his head in such a way that Sherlock is well and truly alarmed now. That's when it hits Sherlock, like a physical blow. His brother wouldn't be acting like this, wouldn't be here asking him these questions, wouldn't have the look and feel of a man about to impart terrible news if it were anything less than…

"Moriarty's dead."

To any other person, it may seem like a change of subject, like good news to soften the blow of the bad news to follow. Not to Sherlock, who knows Mycroft well enough to know what he's truly saying. So is John.

He feels an impotent rage light his nerves on fire, a blinding sense of this can't be happening. He jumps up and paces over to the window, feeling the need to simply move.

If only he hadn't been…

He shoves that thought and the associated feeling aside before he can think or feel it. "How?"

There is a very long pause. "Gunshot wound to the chest."

For the briefest moment, he wonders what that would have been like, two of the most important people in his life—and yes, Moriarty is, was, an enemy, but he was an arch enemy, an all-consuming foe—facing off against each other. Gunshot wound to the chest and he knows what those look like, how the bodies will look in the morgue. Still, cold, pale, with gaping holes where their hearts should be, gunpowder burns and residue along the edge of the wound—and he tries to reconcile the image of what those unimportant others he's seen before looked like with what Moriarty would look like…with John….

He can't do it, and he makes his mind turn away from those thoughts, attempts to block out all sentimentality and rage and grief. Tries to turn away from emotion altogether, but then…

He remembers, that moment from what seems like a lifetime ago. "I will burn the heart out of you.

Sherlock can only think of powder burns, of a mutilated heart in a damaged, lifeless body.

Moriarty did. Even Sherlock is forced to admit that. He did.