There is a crowd gathered on the street, attracted by the veritable hoard of panda cars and ambulances. They sit there on the curb, lights flashing and doing nothing. No, that's not true. They, combined a handful of uniformed men loitering about with their hands shoved in their pockets, form a barricade around the entrance. A wall of flesh and steel between the gathering onlookers and whatever is going on inside.

He pushes his way through the crowd. "Move," he growls, his voice dropping to a dangerous octave as several more enthusiastic onlookers refuse to budge, insistent on maintaining their position as they held their phones up in the air. No doubt this will be all over the internet less than a minute from now. "Move!" He doesn't know if it is the shockingly feral tone of his voice or the shove of his hands that eventually makes them part, but frankly he doesn't really care.

"You." His head whips to the side and picks out the figure that spoke.

"Anderson," he demands, ignoring the look of utter shock on the other man's face. "What's going on? What's happened?" Anderson just stares at him, all color draining from his face. "Well?" he snaps, surging forward. Wordlessly, unable to take his eyes away from him or reply, Anderson steps aside and motions to the door of 221B and Sherlock sweeps past him.

He meets a similar lack of resistance at the door, the two men posted there taking one look at his face and scrambling to get out of his way. One of them even twisted the doorknob and shoved, opening the door for him. Inside the entry hall Mrs. Hudson is sitting with a red flannel blanket draped around her shoulders. A medic sits beside her, quietly taking her pulse as she talks to the officer crouched in front of her. She sees him and her eyes widen as a soft cry falls from her mouth. He ignores her and sprints up the stairs, his long legs making short work of them in response to the involuntary glance his former landlady sent flickering to the flat overhead.

He is on the floor, there between the two chairs. "No," he whispers hoarsely, his voice suddenly failing him.

From where he is standing with his back to the door Lestrade pivots and looks him full in the face. The emotions… he can't track all of the emotions that fly across the Detective Inspector's face before it finally settles into a cold, hard fury.

"I knew it," he utters, not shouting. Not quite. "I knew you could just fucking leave us all behind. I knew you could do it to me, to Mrs. Hudson, to your own damn brother! But John? God damn it, Sherlock, how could you do it to John?" Sherlock doesn't flinch. He makes no move to avoid the fist coming towards his face. He stumbles and goes down beneath the force of Lestrade's knuckles cracking into his jaw. "You're too late," Lestrade's voice cracks as he stands over the Consulting Detective. "God damn it, Sherlock, you're too bloody late."

Sherlock kneels on the floor of 221B, one hand outstretched towards the jumper clad body and the short spikes of hair rendered impossibly bright in the sunlight coming through the windows. "John," he whispers softly, but there is no answer. There will never be an answer.

It is there, on the floor of a little flat in London, with a throbbing jaw and eyes that see nothing but the shape of the Browning and the splatter of brain matter across furniture and wall, that Sherlock Holmes truly dies.

"John!" Sherlock Holmes fell off the makeshift bed – little more than an army cot with a thin pillow and worn blanket – and hit the floor in a great tangle of limbs. Chest heaving, he untangled himself carefully and pushed himself to his feet. "No," he said out loud to the empty room. "Not happening. I forbid it." He scrubbed at his face hard enough to elicit a wince and vaguely noticed that the back of his hands were bleeding. He must have been digging at them in his sleep. If the – he paused and glanced at his watch – two hours and twenty-four minutes that he had been out counted as sleep that is, which he doubted.

On his knees he pushed aside the pathetic excuse for a bed and carefully pried up the loose floorboard. It was rather cliché as far as hiding places went but when you lived in a flat the size of a postage stamp the options were rather limited. From within the cavity beneath the floorboard he pulled out a small wooden box, beaten and battered. He flipped the lid open and sat back on his heels, staring at the contents.

Inside the plain little wooden box was an eclectic mix of items: a slightly battered pink encased mobile, the identifying badge of one Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, a spare magnifying glass - pocket sized, two packs of unopened cigarettes, and a small plastic bag of fine grained white powder. It was the powder that stared back at him.

He preferred needles. Less mess. In, press, out, over. Simple.

Maybe that was why he bought the powder.

With trembling hands he picked up the packet and rubbed it between his fingers, thinking. After he had left Baker Street the night before it had been all he could do to not go back to that alley beside the Tesco and murder the bastard that had tried to kill John. Sherlock has no compunctions about murder, not anymore.

Recent prison release. Second hand clothes. Homeless, his mind rattled off at him as he sat and turned the cocaine over in his hand.

OBVIOUS! Honestly, Sherrrrlock. This is getting embarrasSING! He shoved Moriarty off to the side, ignoring the echo of the dead mastermind's disgust. Westwood! Even his hallucinations of Jim Fucking Moriarty were well dressed.

Familiar with weapons and brute force. No obvious fighting skills. Thug. Incarcerated for assault. Civilian. Previous acquaintanceship with John: unlikely. Inference: hired to kill John.

His fingers clenched into a fist around the small bag of cocaine. It had taken an entire night, or what remained of one once he had left 221B, walking around London in the slowly tapering drizzle to calm enough to take action. He had started by tapping into the Homeless Network, something he had not done in a very long time. Three hundred and twenty-nine days to be exact. Half of his contacts were dead or otherwise gone. The other half had been… not as helpful as he had hoped.

"Scary-as-fuck? Big tattoo? Nah, sir, I just stayed out of his way. Didn't want to get to know him no better, get my drift?"

Sherlock ground his teeth together. Any better, he corrected silently. Bit not good to correct the informants – criminals, yes; informants, no. Or so John had always said.

"You want to talk to Mickey the Mouse. New bloke. Big ears. Looks like he'd disappear the minute the wind blows. He likes to lurk outside of the shelter over on Whitechapel."

He had made it halfway to the shelter in mention before his body had betrayed him. Half a week without sleep and scarcely more than a bite of soup and a sip of tea consumed in that amount of time, it was a wonder he hadn't collapsed earlier. John's admonition: even transportation needs fuel, echoed in his head.

Ah, but did he want fuel or did he want fuel? He stared at the little baggie clutched in his fist and weighed the pros and cons in his mind.

Pro: My brilliance becomes more… brilliant. I am unstoppable. Con: John would disapprove. Pro: Increased brilliance means that there are increased odds of John being alive to disapprove. Con: John would disapprove. Pro: I haven't used in one month, one week, three days, twenty-one hours, thirty-six minutes, and forty-nine seconds so it is not like I'm forming a habit. It's like drinking one of those nasty energy drinks. Con: John would disapprove. He'd flush it all down the loo before I even had a chance to consider it.

His stomach lurched uncomfortably, the memory of a well oiled Browning and sun kissed hair far too fresh in his head. As if his brain needed more images of a dead John. The awful "what if" images from yesterday coupled with the Black Locus incident, the pool incident, the time the CIA agent had held a gun to his head, the sniper, and numerous other occasions where John's life had been put on the line during a case were more than enough, thank you very much.

Con: John would disapprove. Be disappointed in fact.

Sherlock growled, grinding his teeth together as he threw the baggie back into the box. "Fine," he snarled out loud. "Just. Fine." He scooped up one of the unopened cartons of cigarettes instead and slammed the lid of the little box before placing it back beneath the floorboard.

Aren't you just adorable?

Shut up, Jim, you're dead, Sherlock told him as he fished the almost empty carton of cigarettes from pocket of yesterday's jacket.

BORING!

Sherlock sighed and lit the first cigarette. Sitting on his bed he chain smoked the rest of the carton as well as most of the unopened one and tried to focus on one thing and one thing only: saving John.

He could see how Mickey the Mouse had come by his name. The kid, and he was a kid – eighteen years old at most - was seated up against the wall. He was shorter, shorter than John, and had the look of someone who had recently lost a lot of weight, and not voluntarily. He was of mixed African and English heritage, his skin still glowing like toffee beneath the grunge of street living. Underneath a jacket that, while still in good condition, had seen better days he was wearing a Disneyland tee. His? No. Two sizes too big. Picked up from the charity. Brought back from holiday. Between that and the way his slightly large ears stuck out from his head it was a fairly obvious leap to how the runaway had gotten his street name.

"Yeah, I know who you mean. Big bloke. Came through here a couple days ago. Bought a pair of boots off me – didn't like all the loafers in stock," he added, jerking his head to the shelter across the street. "Don't see boots often so I lifted them even though they were too big for me."

Sherlock bit his tongue and took a deep breath. "Did he happen to say where he was going? Who he was? If he had any work lined up?"

The kid blinked at the rapid fire of questions, his eyes glazing over a bit as his muddled brain fought to follow the detective's words. "Uh… wasn't much for talking. Just wanted the boots."

Sherlock ran his fingers through his hair as he whirled around to glance up and down the street so that Mickey the Mouse wouldn't see that he was barely stifling the urge to scream. "Thanks," he said shortly, his mind scrambling, blitzing through the options that remained available to him. He fished a tenner out of his wallet and dropped it in the kid's lap. "Get yourself something to eat," he instructed firmly, ignoring his own stomach as it growled at him. He whirled again and went stalking down the street, hands shoved as deep into his trouser pockets as he could get them.

"Wait! There was a man with him! Is that important?"

Mickey the Mouse's words brought Sherlock to a screeching halt mid step and he whirled back around. "Possibly," he tried to sound indifferent, bored. "What can you tell me about him?"

"Scary. Scarier than the other guy you were askin after. Not as big. Soldier."

"How could you tell?" Sherlock asked, arching one of his dark brows.

"He just was. Stood like one. Had that military sort of haircut. He wasn't… normal. Not even in that suit. S'why I noticed him at first – that suit. You don't get blokes dressed like that running round with people like me. Even scary ones," Mickey twisted his hands in his lap and failed to repress a shudder.

"While I'm sure your primitive emotional response to him is quite accurate," Sherlock spat, trying so very hard to temper the bite in his tone. He needed Mickey, needed what he knew. Scare tactics didn't work with the homeless. It just made them bolt. "His physical appearance is what I am after. What did he look like?" He dropped another tenner in the kid's lap, hoping the small bribe would smooth over the edge he could hear growling in his voice. He fought the urge to pinch his nose, to scream as Mickey took a moment to calm himself. People skills, John, he muttered inside his head, not my forte.

"Uhhh…short brown hair, blue… no. Gray eyes. Same color as his suit. Oh, and a tattoo! He had a tattoo!"

"Where? What did it look like?"Sherlock fought the urge reach down and shake the answer out of Mickey. Instead he began pacing, moving back and forth restlessly in the small area directly in front of the kid. He hadn't felt this pressured since… since…

Since the pink lady's phone rang and a nameless voice on the other end gave him a time limit. Not quite true, he corrected impatiently. More like standing in front of that bloody painting and listening to that kid count down. The bit between Moriarty blowing his own brains out and jumping from the roof wasn't exactly a holiday either.

"Just here, on the underside of his wrist." Mickey tapped just above the cross of veins on his forearm. "Looked like a winged sword. There was some writing too but I couldn't make it out. Saw it for just a sec, yeah? When he paid me for the boots." Sherlock froze and felt the blood leave his face at the paltry description. "Not much else about him. They were here and gone so quickly." He clutched the money that Sherlock had thrown at him in his fingers, gripping it as if he was afraid that the suddenly still man standing above him was going to swoop down and rip it from his hands. "Was that helpful?" he asked.

"Very," Sherlock said shortly as he pulled out another couple of bills. He didn't even bother to look and see what they were before he dropped them into Mickey's lap. He didn't need to look back to know that the homeless boy was staring after him, bills clutched to his chest as the detective strode away, throwing a hand in the air to summon a cab.

I tooooold you, Jim sang smugly. I told you that you couldn't stop them!

Sherlock flexed his long fingers, curling them around an imaginary neck as he slid into the summoned cab. He needed to find the man who had tried to kill John. Now.

Sherlock leaned against the shelf that housed a rather dizzying array of tea and flashed the female employee a smile that made her cheeks turn a very interesting shade of red. He tipped his head to the side, well aware that it showed off the slash of his cheekbones and the curve of his lips. "So what was all that fuss about this morning?" he asked, eyes wide as he dropped his voice to a rumbling whisper and leaned down towards her. "All those panda cars – is it normally like that around here?" Captured by his charm – and Sherlock was well aware that he could be utterly and completely charming when the situation required it – she unconsciously mirrored his movements and leaned in. Blonde. Dyed – at home, not professional. Natural red head. Puffy eyes. Putting herself on display. Overly flirtatious. Recently single. He left her. Looking for a rebound. Excellent. "I heard that someone died."

"No, no one died. He was banged up pretty bad though," she whispered into his down turned face. "My mate Kathy found him this morning while she was takin' out the rubbish. Just lying there in heap, all soaked through from being out in the wet for who knows how long. Shocked she was; told me she screamed like a little girl when she turned around and saw him there. Thought he was dead with the way his face was all busted up. She said that she could hardly tell that he had a face. It was bloody awful." Sherlock felt a flush of pleasure at her words and his hands flexed slightly against his trousers. It was a fight to keep the expression of fascinated horror on his face. The memory of his knuckles connecting with the man's jaw was, despite current circumstances, intensely satisfying. He wanted to smirk. Instead he turned his lips down and let his jaw drop open a little.

"Christ, how terrible!" he exclaimed, feigning horror. "Is he going to be alright?"

The girl… mid twenties. Cat owner. Smoker – no, recently quit. Nicotine patch, left arm… shrugged artfully as she inched closer. "No idea," she told him, pursing her lips that were painted a rather alarming shade of pink. "Called the Met down cause we thought he was dead and they were the ones to discover that he was alive. None of us wanted to get that close, yeah? They didn't tell us exactly but heard the DI tell the medics to get him to the A&E at UCH."

"Of course." Sherlock snapped upright, every ounce of charming leaking from his frame as he suddenly loomed over the blonde. She took a step back, her smile slipping and the blush fading from her cheeks as he morphed from flirtatious new bloke to tall, dark, and dangerous in a blink of her eyes. "That shade of blonde is ghastly on you," he told her sincerely. "Too much yellow."

"Can I help you?" Sherlock stopped in front of the receptionist's desk and flashed the dazzling smile that had served him so well back at the Tesco. The woman seated behind the high desk looked up from her computer and peered over her half moon spectacles at him, her lips pressed into the hard line of someone who was having an absolutely shitty day. He broadened the grin so that he flashed the brilliant white of his teeth at her and made a consummate effort to push the warmth of the grin all the way to his eyes. The tightness around her mouth loosened ever so slightly but that was it.

Ah, well, worth a shot, he shrugged internally as he fished something out of the inner jacket pocket and flashed it in the woman's face, his thumb accidentally – if completely on purpose, it wouldn't do to have her see Lestrade's face on the identification – covering the photo. "Yes, I'm here fo…"

The look on the receptionist's face lightened considerably at the sight of the badge. "Down that hall, take a right, another right, and then a left. Can't miss it. Initial response has the room taped off for you." Sherlock's eyes momentarily narrowed, his mind turning over her words and analyzing them.

"My thanks," he grinned as he slipped the DI's identification back into his jacket pocket, his long fingers nimbly buttoning the suit. "Hell of a day, yeah? Hang in there," Sherlock told her, rapping her worktop with his knuckles as he passed by and headed down the hall.

Initial response has the room taped off,he repeated in his head as he moved, his long legs eating up the distance. Inference: crime scene. Someone beat me here.

Sherlock paused before going around the second corner, his eyes landing on the two men standing outside of the wide entrance to a large, shared room. Two narrow strips of yellow tape formed an X over the doorframe behind them. He waited a moment as they stood, shifting from foot to foot as their gaze followed the buzz of the hospital around them, until he had captured a good look at their faces and run them against his internal registry of known law enforcement officers. Now that was a database he hadn't needed to pull out of his mind palace in a while.

He didn't know them or, more importantly, they didn't know him. He detached himself from the wall and moved around the corner, sauntering across the floor. He was halfway across the ward before the two officers took notice of him and their eyes narrowed speculatively at his approach. Wordlessly he pulled Lestrade's badge from his pocket once more and held it in front of them, watching carefully as they both spared half a second to glance at it.

"You're not Lestrade," one of them responded and Sherlock barely controlled the urge to double check that his grip had the photo on the ID obscured. Instead he shut it and slipped it back into his pocket, regarding the officers coolly. "I talked to Lestrade. This is his case."

Sherlock arched one eyebrow and stared down the line of his nose. "I was in the vicinity and Lestrade sent me over," he drawled coldly. "Apparently he wanted someone he knew on the scene as soon as possible. He will be here momentarily." He offered the cops a frigid and clearly faked smile that barely managed to curl his lips. "I'll just wait for him inside. We wouldn't want to cause a pileup out here, would we?" Both cops opened their mouths to protest but he already had his long fingers on the door handle. "As you were," he drawled over his shoulder as he ducked under the tape and slipped through the barely opened door.

Inside the room was empty. It hadn't started the day that way. Disheveled bedclothes. Monitor beeping. Cafateria food, still warm. Left in a hurry. The bed second down on the right had its privacy curtains drawn and after a cursory, if observant, glance to the rest of the room Sherlock slipped through the slight opening in the curtains and froze.

Fifteen stone. Scarred lip. Knife cut likely. Tattoo. Neck. Dislocated jaw. Broken Tibia. Cut throat. Dead. Very, very dead.

Sherlock grabbed the bottom rail of the hospital bed and gripped it until his knuckles burned white. "I will not be sick," he whispered softly. "I will not be sick," he repeated as he shut his eyes and forced himself to inhale, the iron tang of fresh spilled blood coating the back of his throat. He should pull out his magnifying glass and take a good look at the body before Lestrade got here. Christ, he should just leave, get out before Lestrade came marching through that door and brought Sherlock's death crashing down around him.

The world's only Consulting Detective found himself unable to move though as he stood at the foot of a dead man, his lips desperately repeating a hopeless mantra in an effort to keep his stomach from rolling and heaving its way up his throat and out of his mouth.

I told you, Moriarty smirked, but you didn't LISTEN. You NEVER listen, Sherlock. Not until it is too late.

Sherlock swallowed, unable to respond to the damned voice echoing in his head as he stared at the untidy slash and brush of blood across the wall above the head of John's attacker, the blood only dried enough to stop it from dripping down the wall.

I O U.