I couldn't help continuing this, so here's chapter 2, written from John's POV. Still a few chapters to come, I think.

Warnings: Un-beta'd, un-britpicked. I'll make changes as I get reviews, so lemme know if there's anything that blatantly needs fixing. Thanks! :)

Also, slash is going to get more pronounced later. (I typed that as "pornounced" by accident and was tempted to keep it. Take this as a warning that the rating might change too, lol.)

As usual, I own nothing.


John stumbles from the room and just runs. He's not sure where he's going, but he needs to get away. To stay would mean Sherlock would continue speaking, continue saying those…things. And John just can't listen anymore. He can't even think about it- his mind has become an incoherent mess of confusion and denial. And pain. Because what if it's true? It can't be. Why would he say those things otherwise? No. I don't believe it. What if everything has been a lie? Sherlock…

He needs space, needs air, needs to find someplace he can stop and just bloody think! He's left the hospital and is roaming through the city. He doesn't realize where his feet are carrying him until he ducks into an alley, one which wraps around a corner, which will hide him from the view of passersby. He and Sherlock have spent so much time winding their way through these back alleys he knows just how to find them, now.

He collapses against the alley wall, head in his hands. He's visited by memories of him and Sherlock, of their cases together. He can't stop himself from examining them like crime scene photos, searching for clues, for any inconsistency that might prove Sherlock isn't really the criminal he claims to be. He remembers being kidnapped and suited up with explosives, being forced by Moriarty to speak, to initially fool Sherlock into thinking that he, John, was the one responsible for everything. He remembers the look of betrayal in his friend's eyes. But he knows Sherlock can be a good actor when the need arises. He realizes desperately that this information doesn't help him, because either way he's been deceived.

Remembering their first case together doesn't do him any good either; everything about Sherlock was new to him then. It all runs together in his mind, a blur of brilliance and car chases and exhilaration at finally finding something exciting to replace, even to surpass, his time serving in Afghanistan. At finding a companion who appears not only to understand that thrill, but who seems to need it as much as he does.

More cases run through his mind. He tries to think of each from the perspective of a different Sherlock, one who has orchestrated everything, to determine whether it's really possible that it all could have been planned in advance. But the harder he tries to examine them, the more the details elude him. He realizes he's never going to figure anything out this way; the world of the crime scene has always been Sherlock's element. John, on the other hand, is just a soldier. He's never possessed Sherlock's ability to intimately understand the inner workings of any given crime, and he's not going to be able to deduce, from memory, whether the detective has been playing him all this time. He needs to approach this from an angle he understands.

So he stops thinking of cases and begins remembering the thousand and one ordinary moments he and Sherlock have spent together. Ordinary, of course, being a relative term where his flatmate is concerned, but at least it's something John can grasp. Sherlock shouting insults at the people on television. Sherlock, bored out of his wits, tearing the flat apart in his search for cigarettes. The two of them having dinner together at Angelo's. Sherlock never bothering to correct the man when he assumes that John's his date. John, after a while, following his lead because sometimes, just sometimes, he catches his friend looking at him in a way that suggests perhaps things are heading in that direction after all…

Tell me, John, did you think you were falling in love with me?

"Yes!" John says aloud to Sherlock's voice in his head. "Dammit, Sherlock, yes! I did. I do..." He screws up his eyes, all the questions in his head giving over to one word: Why? It repeats, over and over. Why? Why? Why?

Because, fraud or not, Sherlock is observant. John's seen him perform a hundred deductions unrelated to any of their cases. Of course he'd notice John developing feelings for him beyond just the normal friendship. But why would he turn those feelings against him? John has heard him say some pretty tactless, even nasty things related to his deductions, but this is different. Sherlock meant to wound, his language and word choice designed specifically to tear into John like a knife. He has to have known it would leave scars, less visible than the one on his shoulder, but far slower to heal. If John truly means something to him, why would he do that? He wouldn't…it just wouldn't happen. Which can only mean…

John tilts his head against the brick wall and breathes deeply, cutting that thought off right there because he's not ready to deal with it. He's not sure how long he sits, numb, focusing on the sound of his breathing because it's less painful than thinking. After a few minutes he stands- he can't sit here forever- and checks his pockets automatically for his dead phone…only it's not there. He realizes immediately where he's left it, curses, then hesitates, because what if Sherlock's still there? What if he decides John hasn't had enough already and just continues right where he left off, abusing John until there isn't any doubt, any hope left?

On the other hand, perhaps John can take this opportunity to demand an explanation. He was caught off guard the first time- if Sherlock's having him on, maybe he's just made this too easy. John is many things, but a coward isn't one of them. Slowly, one step at a time, he begins making his way back to Bart's hospital.

Nothing in the world could have prepared him for when he arrives.

The first thing he notices as he glances upward is the dark silhouette which breaks building's normally even outline. He looks more closely…and suddenly he feels as though his entire body has frozen. Because Sherlock is standing on the rooftop, hovering on the very edge, staring at the street below. And John wants to yell, to move, to wave his arms and get Sherlock to just look at him, for God's sake. But, in the end, he doesn't have time to do anything other than stare and try to process- because it just doesn't make any bloody sense for Sherlock to be there, standing on a ledge, looking for all the world like he's ready to jump- before Sherlock spreads his arms wide. And then he's falling. John's shout comes out strangled, incomplete, and far too late. "Sher…"

He stands rooted to the spot for exactly as long as it takes for Sherlock to disappear behind a wall which blocks John's view of the street. And then he's moving, running, because this can't be real. His life cannot have gone to hell so thoroughly in less than one bloody hour. Sherlock cannot, cannot be dead.

He doesn't see the biker. What he sees is the world tilting and the pavement suddenly rushing up to meet him with dizzying speed and force. He hears his breath echoing loudly in his ears as the rest of the world falls strangely quiet. Now if only that ringing would stop…

He lifts his head. The light hurts as he opens his eyes but he can still see the dark figure lying motionless on the pavement. He can still see the blood.

John stumbles to his feet, the throbbing in his temple becoming more pronounced as the world rights itself, but it's nothing to the panic rising in his chest. He takes several careful steps forward, Sherlock's name on his lips. There's a crowd gathering now, and as he reaches them he hears the words as though someone else is speaking them.

"I'm a doctor…let me come through. Let me come through, please…" He's pushing and fighting but, inexplicably, the crowd does not part, does not make way. Don't they understand what's at stake? "He's my friend," John tries to explain, no longer concerned about whether the term still applies. Because whatever Sherlock said before, it's insignificant in comparison to the crisis facing them now. The need to get to Sherlock, to save him, outweighs everything. "He's my friend!" he repeats desperately, voice breaking. "Please…" If only everyone else would just disappear and let him through. He reaches for Sherlock's arm where it lies motionless on the pavement, but the moment his fingers brush the pale skin, it's pulled from his grasp. Paramedics arrive. Sherlock is turned over and lifted onto a stretcher. It's all becoming a blur of noise and color and pain, but he does see the eyes…they're wide and staring, pale like his skin but somehow still dark, empty. Dead.

John collapses and everything is gone.