Disclaimer: same as Chapter 1

Author's notes:

- "The oak and the ivy" is a story written in 1886 by American writer Eugene Field (1850 – 1895).

- Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher and polymath.

- "The purloined letter" is a short story by American poet and author Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849).

Chapter 4: The Straw Knight

Sherlock and John remained embraced for a long, long time but no one dared to end it. They have been separated for too many months to let anything, like male pride, to stand on their way. These two men were better than friends, more than lovers; their relationship echoed with the ones found in myths and legends, where two persons protected one another with an unmatched feriousness. Damon and Pythias, Hamlet and Horatio, Legolas and Gimli... all these famous friendships that too many people thought existed only in books, making them dream for a while before storing them too quickly on the shelf, abandoning all hope to ever live one.

"The world is truly filled with fools," thought the acerbic detective. "And I have almost joined the crowd by thinking I would never find a true friend, making me the unofficial king of fools."

Then again, Sherlock considered having excuses: he had been gifted with a superior intellect, a pair of sharp eyes, an undeniable talent for deduction and an insatiable thirst for murder cases – things that usually spooked people off. He had long ago refused any kind of social bounding, finding them boring to tears and, in the process, he had renounced to any kind of friendships simply by stocking them in a file labelled "impossible" and then erasing it from his similar-to-a-hard-drive brains.

But John was different; with no other weapons than his good heart, his kind soul and his world-weary eyes, the doctor had found the chink in the hard-as-steel fortress surrounding Sherlock's heart and had comfortably nested inside without batting an eyelid. And it hadn't taken long for the detective to understand that his life would be forever entwined with John Watson's, like in the oak and the ivy story. In fact, it had happened on that fateful night where John had shot Jeff Hope, the cabbie turned serial-killer, to save Sherlock from the tantalizing voice of that monster coaxing him into swallowing a potentially lethal pill. That night, Sherlock had realized John was to stay for the long haul – at the flat, by his side, and in his heart. The world's most unsociable detective had found a soul mate and, if he had been a religious man, Sherlock would have called this event a miracle.

A quote by Aristotle jumped into his mind: "What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies" and that simple sentence perfectly resumed the alchemy between Sherlock and John. No need to do some thorough soul-searching until the end of times to find another reason for their brotherhood which was inexplicable, envied and invincible.

The doctor's voice asked softly: "Sherlock?"

"Yes, John?"

The smaller man slowly disengaged himself from the embrace and the detective suddenly feared their reunion would be destroyed by an explosion of anger; but John merely took his friend by the arm and led them both to the green leather couch. Once they were seated, John locked his ocean eyes on Sherlock's steel-like ones and asked firmly:

"Sherlock, please tell me why you disappeared. Tell me why you committed suicide. And for God's sake, tell me why I had to wallow in grief for three years!"

The detective hung his head in shame. He had no regrets about taking that decision at the time but watching the disappointment on John's face was more than he could bear. He reached out and laid his hand on the blond-haired man's wrist, like he wanted an anchor but didn't dare to grab it, and began his story while keeping his gaze down:

"John, I swear on my life that I never wanted you to witness this… extreme exit. But at St. Bart's, I found myself cornered by Moriarty; truly, deeply and absolutely cornered, and jumping from that roof had been the only solution left to save you."

"What do you mean?" asked an astonished doctor.

"The case started way before we have retrieved the Reichenbach Falls painting; unknowingly to me at the time, Mycroft and his men had submitted Moriarty to questioning for weeks. My brother wanted to know if he had some other blackmailing material in stock for Britain's most important family, like with the case of Adler's photos of the female young person who had so foolishly compromised herself with that woman's sex games."

"But Adler is dead! And you have given all her potential leverage to your brother."

"Adler is not dead, John. I know Brother Dear asked you to tell me that she was in a Witness Protection Program in the USA to hide the fact she had been beheaded by terrorists, but I knew both sides of the story were false simply because I saved her from being executed!"

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed John, his eyes widening in realization. "That impromptu trip to Greece you had taken…"

"Actually, I went further south. I saved Adler just in the nick of time, got rid of the terrorists and let her go. She is no longer a threat to anyone – apart to the pathetic willing to pay for corporal punishments, and even here her future is rather bleak: age and prostitution doesn't mix. And I have no remorse about thwarting my brother's plans, since he had asked my only friend to lie to my face."

It was John's turn to feel embarrassed: "I am sorry I lied to you, Sherlock. I just wanted to spare your feelings…"

"John, I never had any romantic attachments towards Adler. She intrigued me, for certain, and she had beaten me two times before I could finally unlock her Smartphone but in the end I left her in the dust, ruined by her greed and overconfidence in her looks. A worthy adversary but she forgot one thing: girlfriends are not my area, and neither are boyfriends. Asexuality is a good armor in the battlefield of crime! Her Smartphone is locked up in one of my desk's drawers; I vowed to never open it again and I will remain true to my word."

Sherlock had a half-smile at the feel of John's fingers curling around his wrist.

"Adler was out of the picture, but Moriarty got quite crossed his little scheme against the most important family of Britain capsized. He had sworn my entire destruction but needed personal information about my life for his plan to come to fruition. He couldn't kidnap you again because he knew I would never let you out of my sight; he couldn't attack Mycroft without unleashing the full wrath of the British government on him; and Mummy has Alzheimer's disease, hardly a trustworthy source of information. So the only option left for him was to be captured on purpose by Mycroft's men of the Secret Services."

"WHAT?" exclaimed John, jumping on his feet. "But Mycroft told me that they had abducted him… He deliberately let himself being caught?"

"Oh yes, he did. It happened while we were in Dartmoor, solving the mystery of the hellish hound."

The blond-haired man started to walk around the living room back and forth, unable to stand still after hearing that piece of news. He had always known Moriarty was a psychopath, but this was definitively making him the emperor of all maniacs!

"That's the most incredible, stupid thing I've ever heard! Why on Earth would he willingly throw himself into the snakes' pit? The guy was probably a masochist, no wonder he and Adler got along so well!"

"And Brother Dear fell right into the trap; Moriarty endured weeks of tough interrogation until Mycroft finally relented to talk to him. Moriarty then offered him a deal no spy could refuse: a computer key able to open any kind of encrypted code for personal information about me. John, will you sit down? You really shouldn't be pacing like this after the fall you have sustained."

John sat down heavily on the leather cushions, looking so furious he could have lighted a fire in the living room's fireplace with the angry sparks shooting up from his eyes. The detective inwardly thought about the fools who considered mild-mannered, gentle and calm John Watson as an easy prey – conveniently forgetting the man was a doctor, trained to heal, and a soldier, trained to kill.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry but I'm going to massacre your brother!"

"Please, I don't want to visit you in jail. Besides, Mycroft already hates himself for what he has done; dying would be deliverance for him and we're not going to make things easy for him, hmm? Anyway, Moriarty's plan worked; he had all the needed information about me so all he needed was an escape, a would-be journalist and a high-profile case, hence the kidnapping of the Bruht children."

"But how in the world had he managed to escape from your brother's clutches?"

"With the help of one of his two favorite accomplices, namely bribery: he paid off the men guarding him, earning a get-out-of-jail card – Mycroft is right about not trusting his own agents. Then Moriarty did his little stunt at the Tower of London while cyber-breaking into the Bank of England and Pentonville Prison at the same time, creating a major uproar among the government that even Brother Dear found it difficult to contain: the computer key really existed! It was in the hands of a criminal mastermind! Panic in the streets! Moriarty let himself being caught – once again – but this time Mycroft couldn't kidnap him: the crime he had committed against the Queen made him won spontaneous media fame and everybody was looking forward to his court appearance. The sudden disappearance of Britain's most notorious thief would have raised too many embarrassing questions."

Sherlock suddenly tensed, and John's anger vanished at the sight of the frowning detective, obviously upset by a memory of the events that had happened in the courtroom.

"What is it?"

"I made two unforgivable mistakes the day of Moriarty's trial, John. Firstly, I got fooled by Kitty Riley's act; secondly, I underestimated Moriarty's ability to threaten people by using his second favorite tool: blackmail."

"Kitty Riley," said John, his lips pressing against one another in disgust at the recollection of that odious penny-a-liner who had slept with Moriarty (under his Richard Brook guise) to write an article that would have been the breakthrough of her career – never mind if Sherlock Holmes would have been utterly annihilated by her printed lies.

"Yes. She ambushed me in the men's room minutes before the beginning of the trial, posing as a love-struck fan but I deduced from her clothes and a few false clues that she was a power-hungry journalist, humiliated by her filler status and trying to compensate her lack of writing talent by obtaining information via sexual favors. She offered her help in "settling the record right" about our friendship, an unsubtle way to say that I'd better give her an interview or else we would be called a gay couple. I told her to pack up her pitiful blackmail attempt and hit the road – but a vexed journalist is a dangerous one, and Moriarty provided her with the perfect help for her revenge."

John rubbed his hands on his face in a tired gesture; the depths of meanness of that woman could match Sergeant Sally Donovan's…

"My second mistake was to think jury members would be protected from the rest of the world during Moriarty's trial. I acted like a trainee, John! How could I have forgotten the jury members could be threatened by messages shown on the TV screen of their hotel rooms? They all had families, children for God's sakes! Blackmailing them into acquitting Moriarty had been a piece of cake."

"But how do you know all this?"

"Moriarty told me when he invited himself for tea in our flat, right after he was acquitted. The Napoleon of crime also made it clear we were in a duel to the death and I owned him for hampering his plan towards the royal family, an insult he wasn't going to forget anytime soon."

John put his hand on his friend's shoulder, a silent way to make him understand he was quite aware of the terrible turn of events that had followed the trial and didn't have to be reminded of it. Moriarty had indeed weaved a terrible web around Sherlock with the kidnapping of the Bruht kids, a case brilliantly solved by the detective but had snowballed into suspicions, an attempted arrest and Kitty Riley's upcoming article about the "fake genius". The younger Holmes had quickly found himself wrapped into a paralyzing cocoon of lies, making him lost everything he held dear – his reputation, his freedom, his home –, breaking him under the pressure and then Moriarty the spider would have obligingly crawled over for the coup de grâce. Only John had remained steadfastly loyal to Sherlock, unwilling to let his mind clouded by the rubbish lashed out by the press or the police, showing more backbone than the entire population of London.

"Did you know you thwarted Moriarty's plan as well, John?" asked the detective and he couldn't help but chuckle lightly at the look of absolute stupefaction on his friend's face.

"I thwarted his plan? And how, pray tell?"

"Moriarty had planned my arrest for the Bruht kidnapping and doubtless he had planned to destroy me while I would be rotting in a prison cell, alone and defenseless. He thought you couldn't do anything but waste time trying to bail me out. But he hadn't planned you would break the Chief Superintendant's nose, resulting in our mutual arrest and you gave me a chance, John! I improvised an escape and we earned a few hours of freedom, allowing us to confront Moriarty in his Richard Brook personae at Kitty Riley's flat. He certainly didn't plan to find us here; believe me, his first seconds of confusion were genuine before he could recover enough to flee. Then I knew Moriarty would try to kill you too, not only because you are my friend but you are also my witness, the only one who could have testified in court about my honesty. John Watson, war hero, recipient of the Victoria Cross, impeccable army record and respected medical doctor: you would have been a tough witness to crack for the Crown prosecutor!"

John couldn't stop the rush of blood on his cheeks: "Sherlock…"

"Don't blush, John, I am saying things as they are. But the game was tight and I knew I had to fool Moriarty in order to save you. My mind was made up when I arrived at St. Bartholomew's to ask Molly for some items, and then I asked you to come over at the hospital. You fell asleep at the lab, which gave me the silence I needed to refine my plan after you gave me the clue about Moriarty's computer key code."

"WHAT? But I've never…"

"Yes, you did; simply by drumming your fingers on a table. Moriarty did the same at 221 B, in a rhythmic cadence: 1-0-0-1-0-1-1… That what I thought was the key code but it hadn't been hidden in our flat: Moriarty had simply given it away during our tea."

"Oh, good Lord…"

"Yes, just like Adler when she "revealed" her safe's code with her nudist parade; her measurements were the right numbers to open the safe."

"It reminds me of "The purloined letter", where a document is hidden in plain view."

"Exactly. Adler took a leaf from her master's book, didn't she? But I digress… I realized that night at St. Bart's that the end was close. We had a little reprieve thanks to you, but it wouldn't last long; even Lestrade isn't obtuse enough to forget the lab is our second office. While you slept, I called Mycroft: he confessed to everything. I told him the only way I'd ever forgive him would be his full participation to my plan."

John suddenly grabbed Sherlock by the shoulders, looking so angry the detective actually felt a shiver crawling up his spine.

"And your great plan consisted in making me witness your suicide? This is intolerable!" roared the outraged doctor.

"No, John! My initial plan had been to neutralize Moriarty by telling him I knew about the computer key code!" replied Sherlock firmly. "I would have ruined him, revealing Richard Brook was a fake just like his accusations. But he laughed at me, saying this code never existed; the drumming fingers had been a lure. He cracked through the Tower of London, Pentonville Prison and the Bank of England simply by using bribery! He fooled secret services, terrorists, governments, me – everyone! Remember the international killers who had settled in Baker Street?"

"Holy God!" said the blond-haired man, releasing the grip he had on Sherlock out of surprise. "Do you mean they have killed each other for a lie?"

"Yes."

The doctor sat back on the couch, looking utterly confused. The computer key code had been their only hope to restore Sherlock's reputation but in the end it had been only a fake, a mechanical rabbit rushing ahead a pack of greyhounds. After Sherlock's death, John had fruitlessly searched their flat for days to find the key, in a desperate effort to prove his friend's innocence posthumously. Poor, naive Doctor Watson, he would have been more successful trying to catch the moon with a butterfly net…

"I-I'm sorry I yelled at you, Sherlock," said John, ashamed of his outburst; but the younger Holmes wrapped his arm around his friend's shoulders, drew him close and gave him a hug.

"Hush, my dear fellow. You're entitled to feel angry after all I've made you go through. I am grateful you're willing to lend me your ear; it is more than I have ever hoped, frankly."

"Did you honestly think I would punch your nose and kick you out of my life?" asked John, his face buried in the detective's shoulder. "I've prayed three years for this miracle!"

Sherlock tightened his hold, moved beyond words by this unconditional love; he remembered the presence of a book stuffed in one of his coat's pockets – a well-worn, creased and dog-eared paperback, bought for a few coins at a newsstand in Heathrow Airport and yet it was priceless, as it was a testimony of his friend's faithful souvenir. It wasn't the time to mention this particular book but its souvenir made the younger Holmes press a soft kiss on John's temple.

"I have a debt towards you, John, and I don't know how I will ever thank you but please, believe me when I tell you my initial plan wasn't to commit suicide. I sent you on a wild goose chase to make sure you were safe, and then I invited Moriarty to join me on the roof. But Plan A got blown to Hell after he revealed the key code was a sham. And then he coaxed me into jumping to my death, his head oscillating slowly from side to side in a reptilian fashion, like a snake hypnotizing its prey before striking. Jump, Sherlock, do everybody a favour; your reputation is in shambles; you're a wanted man; a little girl has "clearly identified" you as her kidnapper; her brother is dying in the hospital from poison; jump, Sherlock, you are burn to the crisp like the gingerbread man, you have nothing left to live..."

"Oh, God! But it sounds just like..."

John's voice broke as the dreadful souvenir of a case jumped back into his mind. He was too horrified to say the words out loud but the detective spared him the trouble.

"Just like Jeff Hope, yes: this cabbie must have inspired his sponsor Moriarty with his idea of persuading people to off themselves. A diabolical thought, to which the maniac could only subscribe to but he knew it would take more than a fake gun and a couple of pills to persuade me to do it. So he thought a cascade of terrible events, coordinated by "Richard Brook", would eventually despair me enough to take the fall! Moriarty called me boring, he said I was on the side of the angels and I would never escape from his tangled web of lies, so why not take the coward's way out? But I turned the tables on him: I said I wasn't my brother, I wouldn't fold for empty promises and being on the side of the angels didn't mean I was one."

"Yes, you are!" said John forcefully, wrapping both his arms around Sherlock's neck so his friend wouldn't see him weeping.

"John..."

"Please don't argue with me on this point, Sherlock."

The younger Holmes would have protested, but it was kind of hard with his friend hugging the life out of him. Besides, Sherlock knew his John wouldn't relent, not even under the vilest tortures so it was pointless and a waste of time to pursue the argument.

"Fine, I concede defeat. But, after my statement, Moriarty realized I wouldn't hesitate to throw him out of the roof to rid the world of such an evil, despicable man who had destroyed so many lives. It was then he showed up his trump card: either I jumped or I would witness your death, as well as Mrs. Hudson's and Lestrade's."

John froze in Sherlock's embrace, but the detective held on tightly.

"Yes, my dear John. Hit men had been hired to kill you, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade if I didn't comply with Moriarty's bloodthirsty whim and I couldn't let this happen. Lestrade may be an impressionable imbecile but his kids need him. Mrs. Hudson didn't deserve such a terrible end after having survived years of abuse from her ex-husband. And you... No, not you. Never you. This very idea was unbearable. Moriarty snickered about a signal giving the order to the hit men to start firing, and it was his own suicide. He blew his brains out, right in front of me."

"Oh, Lord... That day, after I arrived at Baker Street to check on Mrs. Hudson, there was a guy with her, a repairman fixing the lights in the entrance hall. Tall guy, bald and muscular, tattoos all over his arms. Sherlock, do you think... he was the hit man hired for her?"

John felt Sherlock nodding his head, and the doctor's heart turned into lead inside his chest. It had been a close call, very close indeed!

"I had no other option left than Plan B. I had to jump to stop the killers. But before going on the roof, I had taken a little life insurance: braces to protect my neck and back, knee and elbow protections, and plastic pouches containing samples of my blood, supplied by Molly."

"She knew about your plan?"

"No, John. The only confidant I had was my brother and I owe you many apologies about keeping you in the cold, but your safety was paramount to me. I simply asked her to take about a pint of my blood because I feared having being poisoned by enemies. She agreed at once, of course, and then she left the hospital without asking any questions, thinking I would spend the day at the lab analyzing samples. Before jumping, I hid the plastic pouches under my coat and scarf. Alas, you came back earlier than expected... and it forced me to make you a witness of my suicide."

The doctor released the younger Holmes; his face was covered with tear tracks but he didn't make any effort to erase them. Sherlock swallowed hard at the sight of his friend's distress but carried on with his story:

"I am so sorry. I truly hoped you would arrive after the jump, but it didn't happen this way. Time was running out, the hit men were going to press the triggers within seconds. But I wanted to leave you one last message with so many contradictions you would figure out the hidden meaning. And then... I jumped."

"How could I have missed you weren't dead?" murmured John. "Some doctor I am..."

"Don't be too harsh on yourself! You were in shock and one of Mycroft's men knocked you down with his bike to prevent you from arriving too early at the scene of my death. You were dizzy, barely able to stand up and you tried to take my pulse while the hospital staff members – all of them secretly employed by my brother – were doing the impossible to pry you away from me. You saw me jumping from five stairs, couldn't feel my pulse and I was covered with blood: what other conclusion could you have drawn? I was whiskered away by Mycroft's people who tended to my wounds: a dislocated shoulder, a couple of broken ribs and a concussion, but thankfully I had managed to cushion my fall. Alas, I had to stay at the morgue, my injuries hidden under a sheet until Lestrade arrived to identify my body... A slab makes a very uncomfortable hospital bed! Lestrade was devastated, of course; he kept on ranting and raving about how it had been his entire fault and it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't let Donovan and Anderson influence his judgement... God, I thought he'd never leave!"

"And he was right to be devastated!" said an outraged John. "He should have known better than listening to this pair of jealous bastards."

"Ah, John... Not many people are gifted with your high level of integrity. After the death certificate was signed by another of Mycroft's creatures, my brother made me leave discreetly the hospital while another body, an unknown man, was registered under the name of Sherlock Holmes. Three days later, he was cremated and the urn buried under a dark marble headstone you have become acquainted with. I was sorrier beyond words to watch you and Mrs. Hudson grieving, John, please believe me! But I never regretted my actions since it put you both out of danger. Besides, Moriarty's death prompted three of his most faithful lieutenants to pretend to his succession and I had to track down those dangerous men."

"His lieutenants?" asked John, dabbing his eyes with the handkerchief he had been offered earlier.

"Yes. Moriarty was similar to Alexander the Great, you see? He had no heir apparent and after his sudden death, his generals fought one another for forty years for the remains of Alexander's empire. The same thing happened after Moriarty's suicide: his lieutenants wasted no time in trying to take over his well-organized web of crimes – forgery cases, robberies, murders, leaving a wake of destruction behind them. Mycroft gave me the needed money and I left England to become the Straw Knight."

A minute of silence followed Sherlock's words, and then John managed to stutter:

"The w-what?"

"In the Middle Ages, when a knight died far away from home, it was customary to bury him at the local churchyard and to send his heart to his family. The knight's chest would be filled with straw so he wouldn't look too damaged during his funeral and it prevented the stench from disturbing mourners. Many knights, even kings, have been buried without their heart or intestines, as those organs would be sent to places dear to the deceased. The same thing happened to me, John: I left my heart – you – in London and I travelled round the world with a chest filled with emptiness so nothing would stop me from neutralizing Moriarty's lieutenants, one after another."

TBC...