Thank you so much for the reviews and reads!
**booda77 thank you for your kind words, hope you'll continue to like it
John stood at the top of the stairs inside 221B Baker Street, his eyes red-rimmed. It had taken him the rest of the afternoon before he could bring himself to come back to the flat, instead he found himself walking on and on, pushing himself to exhaustion seemed to be the only way to numb his emotions.
It seemed incredibly insane that he should be on the verge of going over the events of the past 12 hours with Mrs. Hudson or anyone else for that matter. Impossible to believe that he would not be walking in to see Sherlock focussed on a case, shutting out everything and everyone until it was solved, or sitting bored in his chair with no case to solve.
He sighed, and entered the flat, sitting despondent in his chair until Mrs. Hudson entered the room.
"John, what happened to Sherlock...? Lestrade called... are you all right?"
Everything poured out of John, as Mrs. Hudson sank onto the couch, the cheerful smiley face that had annoyed Sherlock behind her. John broke down, his face wrenched, his body slumped over in his chair...
"..I can't understand it, I refuse to understand it, and I will never believe the words Sherlock said. He wanted me to hear what he had to say, but I can tell you one thing, Mrs. Hudson, this has Moriarty written all over it. There."
"The funny old thing... the funny old thing... you all right, John? Shall I call someone?"
"No one, Mrs. Hudson, thanks, maybe later I'll go find Lestrade- I guess I'm not a fugitive with Sherlock dead..."
He grimaced as he sought for composure.
"I'll leave you alone, for awhile, shall I, John? Will we have to do anything?" She came and stood near John. Rising, he gave her a long embrace.
"Mycroft will probably call soon. I suppose he's in charge of all the arrangements."
"Off I go, dear, and you call me if you need me, right?"
John stood silently before the window, looking on the busy traffic below. It was always cruel how life continued on when you were dealing with grief and loss. You searched unrewardingly for those clues that the person's death meant something to the world. He tried to imagine what had happened on the roof that would cause Sherlock to end his life. Sherlock had been emotional on the phone, completely uncharacteristic for him, but then again, he had been on the verge of jumping to his death.
He had headed straight back to the hospital after finding Mrs. Hudson safe, realizing the phone call had been a ruse to get him out of the way. Obviously, Sherlock had anticipated the call, yet had done nothing to stop him from leaving. Undeniably, the two adversaries had chosen to face each other alone. Well, he hadn't been about to leave Sherlock at Moriarty's mercy. Sherlock's call, coming as he had exited the taxi, had been kind in its own way, yet he would hear the words spoken in his dreams even.
"Hello?"
"John"
"Hello, Sherlock. You okay?"
"Turn around and walk back the way you came,"
"I'm coming in," he had protested.
"Just do as I ask...PLEASE "
"Where?" Where the heck was Sherlock that he seemed to know every step he took? The pain in Sherlock's voice stopped him in his tracks almost before Sherlock's voice..
"Stop there"
"Sherlock?"
"Okay, look up, I'm on the rooftop." The heart stopping words had taken his breath away, in that instant he had dreaded what seemed about to transpire, what he would be forced to witness, but he had hoped he would be able to reason with Sherlock before it was too late.
Tears began to roll down his cheeks, how many people had witnessed what he had witnessed, feeling as helpless as he had felt at that moment?
"Oh, God"
"I...I can't come down, so we'll just have to do it like this."
"What's going on?" Surely Sherlock could hear the appeal in his voice.
"An apology-it's all true,"
"What?"
"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty." Sherlock had been quietly desperate.
"Why are you saying this?" Please... Sherlock... Find some other way to handle this...
"I'm a fake" "Sherlock" "The newspapers were right all along" Sherlock weeping as he spoke, his heart broke for his friend
"I want you to tell Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, and Molly" Sherlock's voice had broken again "in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you, that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."
He had rocked on his feet, feeling the world lose its sanity at that moment
"Shut up, Sherlock, shut up, the first time, we met, the FIRST time, you knew all about my sister?"
"Nobody could be that clever,"
"You could!" Sherlock had scoffed the way you do when someone is trying to cheer you up when you're heartbroken and John could tell his loyalty had meant something to Sherlock
"I researched you. When we met, I discovered everything I could to impress you. It's a trick, just a magic trick." did those words mean more than the obvious, Sherlock had always told him to see beyond it..
"NO, okay stop it now!" He had moved forward intending to gain the roof and have it out face to face with Sherlock; he couldn't let Sherlock do it
"No, stay exactly where you are" he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt then it was going to go down the way Sherlock intended it to, "don't move"
"Okay" lifting his hand to show his unwilling compliance
"Keep your eyes fixed on me, please, could you do this for me?"
"Do what?"
"This phone call.. its my note. It's what people do, don't they.. leave a note" the finality in his voice alarmed John to the core, Sherlock appeared to be past the point of no return.
"Leave a note when?"
"Goodbye John"
"No don't"
He could see Sherlock's resignation as he threw the phone away behind him onto the roof. How would he ever erase the horror of watching Sherlock Holmes plunge to his death, deal with the anger of hearing him branded by the world as a fraud and a coward who couldn't face the humiliation of being exposed?
"SHERLOCK!"
Lestrade's voice broke into his reverie. Pivoting around, he noticed Lestrade standing inside the door, the pain of regret, disbelief showing on his face.
"I'm so sorry, John... I should've locked him up last night, not let him run off that way,"
"It can't be real; Sherlock wouldn't do this, not because Moriarty made him look bad in the PRESS?"
"John, as your friend and as law enforcement, I need to hear from you everything that happened after Sherlock escaped last night."
"Have you seen him, Greg?
Lestrade shook his head negatively,
"No, Mycroft's people are in charge of this, makes sense, seeing the international scope of this, and of course, the family thing. I tried, but Mycroft's being pretty high handed about it."
"You need to help me get to the bottom of this, Lestrade; help clear Sherlock of the accusations against him, help me find out what he's up to."
"John, he's dead, he's not up to anything," Greg sounded sympathetic but also concerned.
John shook his head, dismissively, and then crumpled onto the couch dejectedly.
Into the evening the two men commiserated, queried and reminisced about the man they both called a friend.
Well, I hope you like it, it isn't much that you don't already know, but I guess it's my tribute to a great character and the wonderful writers Moffat and Gatiss. I'm not done but I figure I've inflicted enough pain on all of us for now. Thanks for reading, all reviews welcome I mean that!
