A/N: Last chapter, folks. I'll tie things up in an epilogue (or at least, tie them up as much as I can...) and that will be that. Except, not really. : ) I've talked to a few of you, the ones that seemed most interested, and I think I'm going to keep this AU going a bit longer. I mean, come on - this is fun, right? So, I'm going to start a sort of real-time series of one-shots (starting in September, I've already got two to post, as soon as the epilogue goes up next week) following the adventures of Sherlock chasing down Moriarty's gang and John in hiding. I've got some really fun ideas...anyway. You have that to look forward to, lol.
Enjoy this chapter - note to those who may want to know, there's a bit in here that merits perhaps a PG rating, or perhaps a PG13 if you're a particularly visual reader.
.
.
.
.
'
"Go on. Call him."
John looked up at Jim Moriarty, gritting his teeth in anger and frustration. "What am I supposed to say?" he demanded. "How am I supposed to…convince him that I—gah…!" he shook the phone in Moriarty's face. "What am I supposed to say!?"
Moriarty shrugged. "You'll think of something." He turned and began to walk away. "Goodbye, Doctor Watson."
John watched him walk away, tailed by his two goons, and felt helpless and at a loss. "You're just…just leaving, then?"
Not even looking back, Moriarty called, "You can handle it from here."
"What was it all for?" Every ounce of anger and fear in John's psyche was packed into that shout. "Framing me, killing those people—why do all that if all you wanted was to…to get me out of your way?"
Moriarty turned, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face made John physically ill. "It was a game," he said, as if explaining to an idiot child. "It was all just a game. Just a way to…pass the time and play with your darling little heads. It had no purpose—only to keep off the boredom." He waved a dismissive hand. "Now. You know what you're doing – you, or half of London. Make your choice, Doctor."
And without another word, he disappeared down the stairs, and was gone.
John cursed, long and loud, shouting things at Moriarty's back that he wouldn't have even yelled at the terrorists he once fought. At least they were human. Moriarty was the devil himself—evil incarnate.
And John was his pawn.
He had no choice—there was no back door out of this one. No last minute salvation or ingenious solution this time. He stood staring at the black pit of the stairs for what seemed like years, racking his brain for something, anything to remedy the situation. Finally, with a sigh, he did the only thing he could.
He pressed speed dial two.
.
.
Sherlock grabbed the black helmet from Anthea and threw one leg over the bike.
"Your mobile phone is patched through the headset," she said, as he slipped the helmet over his dark curls. "Voice controlled."
He nodded in acknowledgment, and then revved up the motorbike's engine. It came to life with a roar that satisfied every boyish instinct of his heart. Without looking for oncoming traffic, he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal and screeched out into the road.
Weaving between lanes and paying no attention whatsoever to road signs or general safety, Sherlock sped through the streets of London, toward Gillian Mills.
"Incoming call," a soft, feminine voice announced inside his helmet. "Incoming call from: Watson, John."
"Answer!" Sherlock shouted, diving through a narrow space between a cab and a bus. "John! Are you alright?"
John stood at the window on the side of the old mill that faced the parking lot. Behind him was the river, above him the sounds of returning pigeons, and before him the long stretch of patchy concrete and the road leading back into the city.
Sherlock's voice was loud and rough with fear. "Are you alright?" he repeated. "Where is Moriarty?"
.
.
John pulled the phone away from his head for a moment, helplessly, then shook his head and lifted it to his mouth. "I'm sorry, Sherlock."
How could he do this? Sherlock was brilliant, yes, but emotionally, he was not a strong man. He built up walls layered upon walls between the outside world and his inner self, and only a few people ever got close enough to see the real Sherlock underneath the shell of anti-social genius. John was one of those people—just close enough to cause more damage than any human being had the right to inflict on another.
But to keep both Sherlock and the rest of London safe, he would do it.
.
.
"Sorry?" Sherlock demanded, whipping around a corner and narrowly missing a street sign. "Sorry for what, John?"
There was a short silence on the other end, and then John's voice came through again—harder and rougher than Sherlock had ever heard it.
"Come on," the army doctor spat, "Don't be such an idiot. Surely you've figured it out by now."
Sherlock's blood ran cold, and he heard words from the past, smelled the stench of chlorine and fear.
This is a turn up, isn't it, Sherlock? Bet you never saw this coming.
Moriarty was using John as a voice-piece—again.
No. He wasn't going to let that happen.
"John, I'm coming to get you."
.
.
John swallowed, and let his frustration come through in his voice. "Don't you get it?" He ran a hand through his short hair, loathing himself and loathing Jim Moriarty more. "Are you really that stupid? I killed those people, Sherlock. All of them. I planted my own dog tags, I picked the initials—it was all me!"
He held his breath.
"Why are you saying this?"
I'm so, so sorry…
"Because you're too idiotic to spot it yourself." Maybe, if John made him angry enough, he would believe the lies. "I used you from the beginning, Sherlock Holmes. Moriarty and I." Heaven help him, he was aligning himself with the one human being on the planet that he actually hated. "You really think he kidnapped me that night at the pool? We used you. He—I was his mole. His man on the inside."
"You're lying."
John squeezed the tiny, deadly remote in his hand, and tried to ignore the flicker of fear he heard in Sherlock's voice.
"Remember what you said to me, before we chased that cabbie through London?" he forced himself to ask. "You said you loved serial killers, loved the brilliant ones, because they were always so desperate to be caught. You said they needed an audience." He swallowed. "You were right. You just didn't know how right."
"John—"
"Shut up!" Tears—stupid, hateful tears that would choke his voice and let Sherlock hear the truth—stung his eyes, and John swallowed them with all the rage he could muster. "Just…just shut up, Sherlock. Shut up. I fooled you—fooled the great Sherlock Holmes. I lived in the same flat and managed to keep you from guessing."
"Then why tell me now?" In the background, John heard a squeal of tires and a horn honking, and Sherlock shouted a curse that was presumably meant for the other driver. John stifled the urge to yell at the idiotic detective to drive more carefully, for pete's sake.
"Because…" Why would he admit it now? More to the point—why would Sherlock believe he was admitting it now? "Because…I got impatient. I was tired of waiting. I wanted—wanted you to notice me. I got tired to being in the shadow, the sidekick." He kicked the base of the wall viciously, dislodging decades' worth of dust and dead insects. "You thought you knew everything there was to know about me, and you stopped paying attention."
"I don't believe a word—"
John groaned and nearly threw his phone against the wall. He hated himself right then—hated what he was being forced to do, and what he was doing to his best friend. Raging with an anger that was both fear for Sherlock's safety and dismayed joy that the detective refused to believe his guilt, he shouted, "Oh, stop being such an idiot! You think you're so smart because you see things no one else notices, but you're really nothing special. It's all a lie, Sherlock Holmes is just an ordinary man."
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and John held the phone away from his ear long enough to draw in a shuddering breath.
"Where are you?"
Taken off guard, John hesitated. "…St. Bart's."
"You're lying."
"No—" John could have kicked himself at the desperation that leaked through his voice.
"I can see the mill, John. I'm coming in."
John looked outside and saw a sleek, black motorcycle pull up to the main gates, and the long, lithe figure of his flatmate leap from the vehicle and come sprinting toward the building.
"No!"
.
.
Sherlock heard the unfiltered panic in John's voice and skidded to a stop.
"Stay exactly where you are," the doctor ordered. Sherlock looked up at the sagging structure and tried to work out where John was standing.
"Alright," he agreed, mentally calculating how many steps it was from where he stood to the door. "I won't move."
"I killed those people, Sherlock. I killed them all, and you never noticed. Because…because you're an idiot."
"You risk your life to prove you're clever."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you're an idiot."
It was the same inflection, the same voice—the same words that John had spoken that first night, after he had shot that cabbie to save the life of a man he barely knew.
Sherlock squinted up at the window where he thought John stood. "Ok, listen John—just listen. The first time we met – that first night, you shot a man to save my life. That's not the work of a killer, that's the work of a…" he cleared his throat, "The work of a friend. You barely knew me, and you were willing to take a life and risk your freedom to keep me alive."
There was a short pause. John sounded as if he were choking.
"No one could be that loyal."
"You could."
.
.
There was no hesitation, no doubt in Sherlock's voice, and John nearly lost it. He let the hand holding his phone to fall away and hang loose at his side as he took a deep, steadying breath.
Sounding tinny from the tiny speakers, he heard Sherlock calling his name. "John? John!"
He lifted the phone back to his ear, trying one last time. "It's a lie, Sherlock. It was all a lie."
"That's it." Down below, Sherlock started to stalk across the parking lot. "I'm coming in."
"Don't move!" John shouted, desperate to keep his friend out of the blast zone. "Stay exactly where you are!"
Sherlock froze, and held up a placating hand. "What are you doing, John?"
There was a note in the detective's voice that John didn't quite know how to read. It was frustration, and bewilderment, and fear, and a knowledge of impending loss all in one. And it broke John Watson's heart.
"This is…" John swallowed. "This is my note, Sherlock. Sort of."
"Note—what do you mean, note?"
"It's what people do—normal people. They…they leave a note."
"No…John Watson, no!"
John took a deep breath. He could put it off no longer. Any minute now, Sherlock would stop listening and come into the building. And then he would either have to blow up the mill with Sherlock inside, or wait for Moriarty to murder half the city.
His finger hovered over the small blue button.
"Goodbye, Sherlock." He hung up the phone and heard Sherlock scream from below—
"John!"
He pressed the button.
.
.
BOOM
Sherlock was thrown back by the force of the blast, knocked onto his back with the air punched from his lungs. He threw up his arms to shield his face from the explosion even as he gasped painfully for air—air that was searing hot and scorched his throat.
Scrambling to his feet, Sherlock cried out in horror at the raging inferno before him. "John!"
He stumbled toward the flaming, half-collapsed building. Hands grabbed at him from behind, and he struggled to fight them off, struggled to get to John. "Let go of me!"
Two police officers secured his arms and dragged him, fighting all the way, to the entrance of the parking lot, where three squad cars and an ambulance waited. They hadn't been there when Sherlock arrived mere moments before, but he didn't stop to wonder how they had reached the mill so fast, nor why they hadn't stopped the explosion from even happening. The only panicked thought in his normally oh-so-ordered mind was John is in that building, and he couldn't save him.
"My friend's in there," Sherlock croaked, still trying to shake off the officers and rush back to the burning structure. "Please, John Watson—he's inside—"
He cut off at the officers' expressions, and stared back at the wreck where Gillian Mills once stood. A blast like that…the explosives must have been planted on the supporting walls. Every window on the second level was blown out and gaping, like the empty eyes of a skull, and smoke as thick as oil poured from the bleak openings.
Firefighters surrounded the structure, pumping high-powered jets of water into the flame-wreathed windows. Everything seemed to be moving in fast forward as Sherlock watched, every detail of the scene penetrating his mind with glass-shard clarity. Medics swarmed around him, officers barked orders into their radios, and the firefighters moved closer and closer to the building as they ever-so-surely defeated the flames of the explosion. In less than forty minutes, they had the fire nearly under control—it was only a matter of time before it would be out completely.
Shapes emerging from the misshapen door of the burning mill caught his attention. Two firefighters toted a sagging, long, black object, waving their free hands in front of their faces to clear the smoke. Sherlock's eyes fixed on the object they carried, one he knew well from his many forays into the city's mortuaries.
A body bag.
Ripping himself free of the officers who tried to restrain him, Sherlock half-ran, half-stumbled toward the two men and their ominous burden.
"Sir, you need to stay back—" one of them tried, but Sherlock ignored him.
"Let me see," he ordered, his voice hoarse. "Get back, get back, just let me see…" he couldn't finish, but yanked at the zipper with shaking hands.
"Sir, you really don't want to—"
Too late. Sherlock, as accustomed to death as its many forms as he was, drew back from the contents of the bag as if from a viper.
The body inside had caught the full force of the blast, and was a bloodied, blackened mass without recognizable features. The nose was entirely gone, one half of the face was a mess of shredded flesh and shattered bone, and the other half was charred like old firewood. All the hair had been burned away, but tattered rags of clothing clung in clotting shreds to the chest and shoulders.
Wool, the analytical part of Sherlock's brain muttered, that's how wool looks when it burns. Tan-dyed wool, remains of a knitted cable pattern…
John's jumper. The one he had been wearing since they left the flat…was that only yesterday? Less than twenty four hours.
Sound ceased. The air stilled. The earth, for one moment, stopped rotating. Sherlock stood, ramrod straight, and stared with dying eyes at the brutally mangled body of the man who had been his best friend. His only friend.
Then he turned and walked away.
"Sir?" the firefighter called after him, "Are you alright—sir?"
Sherlock didn't hear him. Already, his cognitive mind had retreated into the innermost sanctum of his mental palace, retaining only enough consciousness to keep his feet moving and his body upright as he walked across the parking lot, out the gate, and past the emergency vehicles still flashing and beeping in a chaotic mess outside. He sank down on the curb, curling his long arms about his legs and staring unblinkingly up at the grey sky.
Rain had begun to fall—not a real, soaking rain like in the films, but a misting, soggy drizzle that collected in growing droplets on the detective's pale face. He did not cry—he would not cry, he never cried.
But the sky cried for him.
And he saw nothing.
He didn't see the medics who repeatedly wrapped an orange shock blanket around his shoulders, only to have him shake it off again. He didn't watch as the paramedics loaded the limp body bag into an ambulance and drive away without lights or sirens. He didn't move when weary shouts announced that the fire was out. And his eyes stayed far away and unfocused even when a pair of trousered legs appeared in front of him and the drizzle ceased as an umbrella was held over his rain-dampened head.
"Sherlock," the owner of the legs and the umbrella said softly.
He didn't respond, only stared into empty space with eyes like two blue marbles. His lips were slightly parted, and the rain had wilted the collar of his coat until it drooped like a creature in mourning.
Mycroft Holmes sighed and motioned his assistant over. She was carrying a soft, bulky package, which he took from her, unfolded, and draped over his little brother's unmoving shoulders.
Sherlock sat, as if carved from stone, for several more long moments, but Mycroft waited: a patient tower of calm in the center of a frenzied storm. Slowly, Sherlock's hand lifted, and brushed the edge of the material covering his shoulder. He looked down, and his eyes lost their glossy quality to focus on the jacket Mycroft had given him.
John's jacket. The one he had left with Kitty Riley.
Sherlock pinched the material between his fingers and rubbed it slowly.
"He's dead."
The words left Sherlock's lips like a breath or a sigh—no emotion, no color, and no life.
"Yes," Mycroft agreed in the same tone. He let out a long breath. "Yes, he is."
"I killed him."
Mycroft had no answer to that one, but Sherlock knew it to be true. If it weren't for his own stupidity—his arrogance in thinking he could outsmart Moriarty, his senselessness in allowing John to follow him into danger, and his flat-out idiocy in not realizing what was really going on before it was too late…He might as well have lit the fuse himself.
Still not looking up at his brother, Sherlock held the sleeve of John's coat to his face and breathed in.
Laundry detergent. Chemicals. It had been cleaned. There was no trace of any other, more comforting scent on the dark fabric. Disappointment filled him, but he kept his face blank and finally lifted his eyes to look up at Mycroft.
The elder Holmes was also expressionless—or at least, he would appear that way to anyone who didn't know how to read the subtle clues in his masklike face. But to Sherlock, there was a wealth of regret and sympathy in his older brother's gaze.
And Mycroft saw in Sherlock's icy eyes a terrifying cocktail of simmering rage, helpless grief, and utter bewilderment.
Sherlock pushed himself to his feet, wrapping John's black jacket more tightly around his thin shoulders.
"Take me home."
