Chapter 13: You Choose Me Anyway?
"Hey!" John called.
The glare of the fire lit his way, as Sherlock, swift as the raven through clouds of storm, navigated his way down the seam of the Thames, long dark coat flickering like flame behind him, hasting as if fleeing a crime.
"Wait!"
John was to Sherlock in a few great sprinting leaps, taking his shoulder in one firm hand.
Was surprised by the look of horror on his face, by the dull redness in his eyes, that he could see from the glare of the now burning building.
"Where are you going?" John asked, feeling his throat grow tight.
Sherlock swallowed, "I suppose some punishment awaits me, John. I don't want you to get entangled in all of that. I think we should agree to part ways..."
John felt like he had been hit in the chest with an axe. Sherlock bowed his head...
"I posed as the "new" consulting criminal for a while, John. Do you understand? From my "lair", still trapped inside Moran's torture lab with the dead man's body...I still had a job to do.
So I pretended to have claimed Moriarty's throne. And began to orchestrate crime, but not to the end that crimes would be committed. I orchestrated it in ways that two opposing groups of criminals would catch each other in the act of the same heist. I played upon their hate, upon their greed. I played chess with human lives, John, I sat back and I watched as they killed each other by droves. I let the Network finish eliminating itself for me..."
He smiled grimly, actual tears building in his eyes, though only threatening...
"I have oceans worth of blood on my hands ,John. And never mind that it's the blood of murderers and thieves, I am still the one. I shall have to give an accounting for all the things I have done, allowed to be done...I allowed Sebastian to experiment torture on me, and had I not found the Virus program on his computer, I would have furnished the world with research for new methods of human suffering...
Everything I have done, has been to keep you safe from the evil that is in the world. But don't you see, John? No, of course you don't, you are blissfully ignorant... a beautifully simple mind, a single light in an utterly dark world... I am the darkness that is in this world ,John. Darkness follows my every step. As long as you are rid of me...you are safe..."
John swallowed, "What happened to, 'As long as I have you lot, I don't have to die'...?"
Sherlock smiled sadly, "But that's just it! Why don't you just see?! You are the only one that can save me, John. Save my life, save my soul...And I don't deserve to be saved..."
John suddenly smiled bitterly, " Yeah, maybe you don't. Maybe I'm an idiot...but... I still believe in you. I choose you ,anyway."
Sherlock looks like he's been slapped as hard as can be across his face. "What?"
John laughed, "Sherlock...if you honestly think some little thing like darkness is going to keep me away from you, you are really bloody stupid."
Sherlock shook his head, brows twisted painfully. John laid both hands on his shoulders, gave him one firm shake.
"Yea though I walk through the shadow of the Angel of Death, I will not listen to what people say. People talk, and that's the most that they can do. But even if they decide you are guilty, which they won't, because you have done nothing wrong, you are a Detective and an agent of the British government, getting justice was your job...but...Even if they did find you guilty, and they decided you should die...Well,I'm not going to leave you. I know you, and... they're wrong. In the end you are a good man, and no one will be able to convince me otherwise, not even if that means I have to stand in front of a firing squad too..."
And in the end Sherlock Holmes was human too, and at last shed tears, for all that had gone wrong, voice still somehow steady.
"You STILL choose me?"
John laughed, and for once Sherlock was the one feeling stupid,and John was the one being devilishly clever.
"Of course I do,you idiot! Of course, I do!"
He pulled him into his arms then,and let him cry into his shoulder, at first softly,and then in silent wracking sobs.
As violent waves of memory came over him, all the years of his darkness, of his terrible war, having ended at last, when John Watson had called him home.
And just then Her Majesty the Queen was marching towards them, hand in hand with Mycroft, who was helping her hobble on heels over the debris of the smoking factory,and leading her through the maze of fire trucks,and police cars to where the two men her saviours stood.