Stay With Me - Sam Smith

I own nothing except my ocs!


A jet black Mercedes rolls along the runway towards where an executive jet is stationary on the tarmac.

Standing near the nose of the plane, Ramona, Mycroft and a security man watch the car pull up.

Mary gets out of the rear door nearest the plane and John from the other. Sherlock gets out of the passenger seat in the front, looking completely blank.

Ramona's heart sinks to her feet. She predicted that now, Sherlock definitely did not like her, as anything, never mind in a romantic light, not after seeing her like that.

That is, unless he has a thing for insane murderers with serious unresolved daddy issues.

She sighed heavily, and put a hand to the bridge of her nose, pinching hard, screwing her eyes shut.

Everything seemed so surreal. How could anything like that actually have happened?

But it had. Oh, god, it definitely had. Then again, isn't all of my life the biggest surreal shit-show ever to exist ever in the history of everything?

She could still feel the recoil from the gun shocking through her, ricocheting into the very bones of her left arm.

However, this was by no means regret. If she hadn't of killed him, then it would be Sherlock standing here, it'd be Sherlock being sent to die, and she'd be left alone again. That, well that was worse than anything she could imagine, and as illogical as it was, she'd rather die than live without him.

If only I was someone different. If only we'd met in another way.

Sherlock didn't care that much about her- he would forget all about her in a couple of years, she was sure, not having the slightest of recognition when he saw a blonde woman, a pair of twins, or perhaps a leather jacket. These facts reassured her, but god, they certainly didn't bring her comfort in any way shape or form.

She snaps out of it and brings herself out of her useless train of thought, looking up to see Mary, smiling, walking towards her, with John stood besides her.

"Take care of him." She looks down at the tarmac, and then looks her in the eye. "John, I mean."

"Oh..." They hug. Admittedly, getting shot by someone may not be the most conventional method of bonding, but it had definitely worked. "Don't worry. I'll keep him in trouble." Ramona smiles, a hint of sadness she couldn't hide, in the realisation that she would never lay eyes on the Watson baby.

"Good girl." She turns and walks back slightly, as John steps forwards, and she smiles.

"You think I could have a while without the supervision, Mycroft?" He looks startled, but slowly does as she asks.

John sighs as if in physical pain. Ramona clears her throat.

"So... Your baby." She propositions.

"We've had a scan. We're pretty sure it's a girl." She grins softly.

"She's gonna have quite possibly the most exciting parents ever." He smiles in gratitude, but it quickly turns to a painful grimace. She sighs, as if getting down to business, looking away briefly.

"John, something big is coming." He frowns momentarily, and their gazes lock intensely.

"Sorry?"

"I don't know exactly what, but I can feel it." She looks up at the sky, the low swollen asphalt clouds threatening to rain. Pathetic fallacy at its finest. "You need to take more precaution. Your thrill seeking habits... When the storm hits, you're gonna want to give them up, before it's too late." He pauses for a second, and then opens his mouth again.

"So what about you, then? Where are you actually going now?"

"Me?" Her tone is nonchalant and easy, in this moment Ramona regrets never pursuing a career in acting. "Just some undercover work, somewhere in the outback of Europe."

"For how long?" She doesn't meet his eyes.

"Six months, Mycroft says."

"And then what?" She shrugs abruptly.

"The world's my oyster, I suppose." Ramona lies casually. John nods, feeling extremely sorry for her.

"So, have you thought about baby names?"

"Actually..." Her hopes rise. "No." She giggles silently, her shoulders shaking.

"I think Coralie and Mona are quite catchy, personally." She winks at him, her enigmatic ways still shining through after all that had happened.

"They're not." Ramona grins.

"Come on, John."

"We're not naming our daughter after you." He says jokingly.

"No need to be harsh."

They chuckle together, and she sighs quietly as it fades into the light breeze, dissipating and slipping through their fingers, as if the brief moment of cheer was never there.

She outstretches a delicate looking hand for him to shake, and his eyes gaze down at it.

"John..." He takes her hand, and uses it to pull her towards him, in a friendly hug that was reguarly called a 'man-hug', patting her back.

Ramona laughs as she's released.

"Look after him. Sherlock, I mean." Her eyes drift to said man, stood with his hands behind his back, surveying the airfield. "Please." He nods dutifully at her suddenly desperate voice, and turns slowly, walking away from her.

Then, Hannah begins to approach her. She swallows, preparing herself, straightening herself out slightly.

"Hi." She says.

"Hello." Ramona replies. There's a twenty second moment of silence, in which Ramona looks around the airfield vaguely, and slightly awkwardly. Her eyes briefly switch to her best friend's face, and sees that her eyes are filled with tears. Shock runs through her, eyes widening.

"Hey! Hey, hey, um, don't do that!" She tried to comfort her in the most English way possible. Hannah smiled and let out a tearful giggle.

"I'm so sorry."

"What for?"

"I knew that it'd turn out like this..." Ramona's brow furrows in sadness. "But I never-" She sniffs deeply and looks away. "I should have told you. I should have told you to run away." Her mouth parts in shock.

"Hannah..." She swallowed. "I wouldn't want it any other way." She looked deeply into her eyes, trying to get her point across. "Understand that this was my choice. I had a chance to leave- and I didn't take it." Hannah blinks in slight shock, wiping her nose with her jumper sleeve. "I forgive you."

Her friend takes one look at her, and starts bawling, diving into her shoulder, and making Ramona stumble back a few steps with surprise, as her grip tightens on Ramona's leather jacket.

"You're leaving." The girl looked around, thoroughly shocked, hand clawed into Hannah's back, and another stroking the back of her wild hair.

"It's okay." She tried to sooth her.

"I don't know what I'm going to do." Ramona's eyes widened slightly, and then softened, as she pulled out of the hug, composed.

"You're going to have a good life." She grinned.

"I just wish you could, too." Her false expression falls for a second, before turning it back on.

"Anyway, about Sherlock." She looks back at the detective, who was looking around solemnly. "He takes his coffee black with two sugars, his tea ridiculously sugary to keep him going, and to annoy Mycroft who's watching his weight and can't have too much sugar. Oh, and if you mess up his sock index, he will throw a hissy fit." She laughs. "I feel like I'm leaving you with my cat."

"Same thing." Hannah giggles tearfully, shrugging.

Ramona leans in, and kisses her forehead, wishing she could stay with her forever.


And finally, it was Sherlock's turn to say goodbye.

He stood in front of her, his face completely void of emotion. The detective's hair was that orderly chaos, falling onto his forehead like always.

His eyes were bloodshot to a ridiculous amount, and it was clear he'd either gotten no sleep, or had been crying. A pang of shock ran down her, realising she couldn't imagine Sherlock in tears over emotions.

"This feels like a really bad version of speed dating." His eyes show a small amount of humour at the remark, before the barely there flame is extinguished as quickly as it appeared.

"How long have you got?" His voice was flat.

"I'm doing six months in Eastern Europe, then I'm-"

"Then you're going somewhere you can't reach on a plane." She bites her lip in shock, and nods slowly. Ramona could feel her eyes start to sting, realising he knew she was going to die.

"Look..." She wanted to tell him. It was selfish, but she needed to see his response.

"I'll meet you at your destination." Her eyes widen. "Either that, or I can just come with you."

"Are you serious?"

"Deadly." She smiles gently, eyes stinging even more as she looked down. "We'll run away together. New identities, new surroundings- it won't exactly be difficult for us." He looked as if he'd thought it through.

For a moment, she thinks about it, perhaps even fantasized. And then, she shakes her head slowly.

"You know I can't do that." He looks away in frustration.

"It was worth a try." She twists her tongue in her mouth. Everything she wanted to say but couldn't weighed down on her chest like an anchor, pulling her under non-existent water, and laterally, drowning her.

"Sherlock Holmes can't be anywhere but London." She states.

He looks around, blowing out air, puffing his cheeks as he did so.

"Well." He begins.

"Well." She replies, in a softer tone.

"Here we are." She smiles, trying to remember everything about his voice.

"Here we are." Ramona doesn't know what to say, so just repeated quietly. His eyes look to hers, trapping her in his grey gaze, however bloodshot. Sherlock takes a sharp intake of the cold air.

"I got you something." Her eyes widen slightly.

"You did?"

"A going-away present." She nods slowly.

"Okay."

Sherlock looks over at everyone else, scanning their faces, as they avert their gazes from them, giving the pair at least a fraction of privacy.

"Will I like it?" He smiled genuinely down at her, hands in his coat pockets.

"Oh, I think you'll love it." She raised her eyebrows at his arrogance, trying to guess what it was.

"Go on then." She grinned, trying to forget the circumstances in which they were talking, trying desperately just to focus on him.

At this, Sherlock's smile fell, and he licked his lips, an emotion she didn't recognise in the detective starting to appear on his features.

"Harder than I expected." She frowned. "Out of the twelve different possible scenarios, I'm not sure which one to choose." Ramona narrowed her eyes.

"I'll pick for you, then." He looked at her with a hesitation she'd never seen. "Er..." She racked her brains for a number. "Number six." She grinned. "Number six." Ramona repeated, happy with herself. "For your birthday."

His eyes widen and he blinks in slight shock, as if he didn't think she knew his birthday.

"Alright... Okay," He nods, almost to himself. "Number six it is, then." He exhales heavily, still nodding slightly, as if readying himself. "Right." He reaches into his pocket.

And then, Sherlock gets down on one knee.

Ramona's mouth falls open, as he produces a crimson ring box, and holds it up in front of him, in a traditional manner, and opens it.

The metaphor of butterflies in her stomach doesn't cover what she feels when she sees this, losing the sensation in her knees momentarily, forgetting just about everything but the moment she was in.

When she sees the ring that she had coveted at the jewelry shop, her vision begins to mist over, her nose burning with the intense urge to cry.

She realises she hasn't been breathing, and draws in a slow lungful of air.

"Sherlock..." Her voice fades off, and she looks up from the ring to his face, seeing that his eyes too, have filled with tears.

"Well?" She lets out a disbelieving tearful laugh.

"W-well what?" He grins perfectly, even though his eyes are filled to the brim with despair.

"You're not going to turn me down in front of everyone, are you?" Her eyes widen to the size of small blue moons.

"Turn you down?"

"I'll never hear the end of it from Mycroft if you do." He tells her, and she feels as if she's been put on a pedestal, half wanting to drag Sherlock to his feet, half wanting to get on her knees with him.

"Sherlock..." She sniffs. "Are- are you-" He almost rolls his eyes.

"Clearly I'm proposing, Ramona. Make a deduction, would you?" She strangles a scream, her legs going so weak that she fears she might actually faint.

It'd probably be a bit rude, though.

"I- I-" Her words were jumbled.

"Actually, this is getting a bit embarrassing. My brother's going to start laughing, once he recovers from the shock."

"Sherlock, y-you do realise that, uh, we can't actually get married, right?" He shrugs.

"We'll just have to improvise." Sherlock's face becomes slightly more serious. "I'm not actually proposing, Ramona." Her heart drops, and she tries not to look disappointed. "You wanted scenario six, that was scenario six."

"Obviously." Ramona agrees.

She watched his face closely, and realises something was wrong. Is he... Lying?

"Is it going as expected?" She asks.

"You were a bit more compliant in my head, but the again..."

He pulls the ring from the box in one hand, and gently takes hold her hand from her side with another, looking up at her to gauge for a reaction.

"You never are compliant, are you?" She smiles and shakes her head.

"I suppose not." He breaths in, and rolls his shoulders slightly, still holding her hand and the ring, about to place the ring on her finger.

"So," Sherlock gazes up at her, most humour lost from his eyes. "Mona Doherty," The detective swallowed. "Will you marry me?" Her eyes beginning to lose focus slightly.

"I suppose I don't have much choice, do I?" Sherlock sighed in exasperation, giving her a look.

"Just say yes." She grinned through the emotion.

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes," Her expression became more meaningful "Yes."

At this, Sherlock slides the ring onto her index finger, and then looks back up at her.

"You can get back up now." He stands up again, as she looks at the ring on her finger. She supposed she could pretend that they were married, if she wanted.

Because that's definitely not the most pathetic thing you've ever thought of.

"That was a first." She looks up in shock at the sound of his voice, laden, heavy and shaking with suppressed emotion. "Well, I say first..." They chuckle together.

"Thank you, Sherlock." Her voice is the same, wavering and about to break. "A-and not just for this." His eyes widen. "For everything." She wasn't sure where these words were coming from. "You made my life exciting, but that's just a footnote."

Sherlock isn't sure what to say, a rare occurrence. He had always made the assumption that that was the only reason people were associated with him, the only reason people liked him, because he was dangerous, he was exciting, an escape from their otherwise mind-numbing boring lives.

"You gave me one of the best friendships I've ever had." He wondered if she knew just how good she was with words. "No matter what anyone ever says about you," Sherlock's gaze is piercing, as she spills her heart out to him, for no reason at all. "You're a good man. The best, actually." At this, she blinks, and a tear skips down her cheek, and onto the tarmac at their feet. Sherlock's eyes widen, and he wants to rush to stop her crying.

"That's a bit of an exaggeration-"

"No." His mouth parts. "No, it's not. Certainly not."

She runs a hand through her hair, her fingers raking it back from her face, and she sniffs to compose herself.

"Sherlock, who protected me when I wouldn't protect myself? Who showed concern with no ulterior motive when I did something reckless? Who scolded me for doing dangerous things, who cried when I was in danger? Who made me eat when I wouldn't, who carried me to bed? Who stayed with me in hospital without ever leaving?"

Sherlock lets out a small, choked sob, and looks to his left and down, as if trying to hide his face. A pang runs through her, and she stops talking. Is he crying? Because of me?

"Sh-Sherlock...?" When he didn't respond, she took a step closer, trying to catch his eyes. "Are you-"

The detective pulls her into a tight hug, her face pressing against his chest, his head hung over her shoulder, his hair hiding his face from the rest of the world. He closes his eyes.

He's doing it again. Hiding himself from me so I never see him cry.

"You're leaving me." His voice is gentle in her ear and she can feel his pleasant breath on the side of her neck, sending electric shocks down her spine, and she struggles not to freeze up. "You're going to die." She's not sure what to say.

"I'll try not to, if you'd like." She tries to make him laugh, but his grip tightens, and she feels his hands dig into her, almost painfully.

"Don't joke about this. Don't you dare." At this, her body shakes out a tortured sob. "It's a bad coping mechanism." She inhales deeply, inhaling the smell of expensive aftershave and old books for the last time, shuddering as she lets the breath out.

"I'm going to miss you." She tells him, letting out a disbelieving laugh. "I'm going to miss you more than anything." Ramona wondered if they could just stay like that forever, and time would freeze, and she wouldn't have to leave.

Sherlock subtly draws in her scent, the smell of green apples from her shampoo and from her breath, the faint essence of cigarette smoke lingering around her, and although it was only a small hint of it, Sherlock's sense of smell was better than most peoples, and he could tell she had been chain smoking, due to the anxiety. To the recovering smoker, it wasn't exactly an unpleasant aroma.

He sighs deeply, having brought himself back to a relatively calm state, and lets her go, both of them wasting no time in making eye contact.

"I'm going to miss you too." She takes a deep breath, and then shakes herself out slightly.

"I don't regret it, y'know."

"Hardly shocking." She laughs, and looks around.

"I mean meeting you. I don't regret any of it. If I had my time again-"

"Shut up." Her eyes dart up to his. "Stop speaking about yourself in past tense." She purses her lips at his expression.

"I am past tense now, Sherlock." He grits his teeth. "I'm just somebody you used to share the flat with."

"You're not dead yet."

"May as well be."

"Are you trying to make me angry?" She laughs, and pauses, shrugging.

"Comes naturally, after all these years."

The detective smiles sadly.

"Ramona, I don't think I can do this without you." He says, his voice the smallest she had ever heard.

Her face falls.

"What do you..." She realises that she might be leaving him in danger, a danger to himself. Ramona looks down at her shoes.

"What I'm trying to say..." She had to do something to protect him. Even in it meant changing his opinion of her, it was for his own sake. "What I've always been trying to say..."

His voice trails into nothing, cut off by her shoulders shaking.

"Ramona?"

"Oh, Sherlock."

He realises that she's laughing, not crying.

"In the end, are you really so gullible?" She looks up at him, and his face is puzzled. "Did you really think that we were actually friends?" She laughed.

This is good. This is what I should do.

"I-I don't understand." She smiles gently.

"Two words, Sherlock:"

If you want him to be alright, you have to do this.

"Fooled. You." Her voice comes out in a musical tone, reminding him yet again of that insane deceased Irishman.

Sherlock's expression drops, and his brow furrows in chosen ignorance.

"What?"

"For god's sake, are you really so slow?"

"Stop." His voice is choked, and she hides her true emotions with an expert flair.

"It was all just an act, Sherlock."

"Just stop."

"Make a deduction." His desperate eyes search her. "The way we met. It was coincidental, almost unbelievable, wouldn't you say?"

"No." He shakes his head in disbelief.

"Come on, we had the same seats on the same train, and it just so happens I'm moving in in the same building?" Ramona shakes her head. "What do you say about coincidence, again?"

"The universe is rarely so lazy." He looks as if he's piecing something together.

"Exactly." She bites her lip briefly. "Has it really never crossed your mind?"

"Ramona-"

"I've been working for Mycroft all this time, and you haven't even noticed."

"Please, Ramona." She ignores him.

"Getting closer to you, infiltrating your home- your heart." His eyes widen. "And you fell for it." She laughs. "It was so easy!"

"Are you..."

"It was all for the money, I'll admit to that, too." She admires the ring on her finger nonchalantly. "The truth is, Sherlock Holmes, I despise you."

I love you.

She can't bring herself to look up at him.

"I'll keep this though. As a souvenir." Ramona studies the glint of the diamond. "The supposedly infallible man, that I singlehandedly brought to his knees."

Ramona thinks about all they could have had. Everything that she could of done, everything that she could of seen, all the people she could of met, all the lives she could have lived and all the conversation she could have had, if only she had more time, if only she was someone else.

In that moment, she regrets never telling him how she feels, but knows that if she tells him now, it would definitely ruin everything.

"Catch you later, then." With this, she turns and walks away towards the stairs to the plane, leaving him alone on the cement.

Passing Mycroft, her eyes begin to fill with heavy tears. The Ice Man's eyes were wide, realising what she had done.

"For the record, Mycroft..." Her voice trails off, as she stands in front of him, meeting his gaze. "For the record, I'm in love with your little brother."

Her heart sinks even further, as she walks up the stairs, holding her triumphant expression, before dissolving into uncontrollable tears once aboard the plane, hiding her face in her hands.

As the door of the jet closes, The British Government approaches the car his brother would be leaving in, tapping his iconic umbrella upon the ground, waiting for him.

Sherlock walks towards the car, his face a mix of contradicting emotions.

"Sherlock, just what did she sa-"

The Consulting Detective passes him, shooting the most intense glare he had ever given, silencing The Ice Man, before getting into the car, and slamming it shut.


*Laughs evilly and then slowly transitions into crying*

Wondering why our little villain didn't intervene, and the plane didn't turn around? Mwahaha

Thanks for reading! I'd love a few reviews, to see if you're liking where it's going, pretty please :)