"Don't...be...dead."
Sherlock helplessly watched as the heartbreaking events played out before his startlingly blue eyes. How he very much wished he could run out of his hiding place and embrace John. Take away all of his pain and sorrow until all that was left was love. Love- what a strange word that was. Highly illogical. But if it wasn't, if the world's law's allowed him to feel this way for anyone other than, dare he say her name, would this be what he was feeling? But, lets think reasonably here, he was Sherlock Holmes. The superhuman detective was, as so many had loved to point out, incapable of feeling, to put it simply. So he came to the conclusion of 'What is love?' As much as he would have loved to hold John, he needed to stay hidden. He needed to keep all of those wonderful people, some better than others, safe. The snipers thought he was dead. If they found out he had pulled one over on them, they would do more than just pull the trigger. They would truly make him pay. It was quite ironic, really. The one who figured out what happened to the dead man on the sterile autopsy table was the same person who had an obligation to save three average people.
His plan was simple- let those who knew what happened spread the word that he was a fake. The snipers would eventually hear the news and abort the mission set in place by (a dead) Jim Moriarty. John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson would all be alive. He smirked. He would have never-well not never-dreamed he would be a part of something like this. Saving lives. Granted, he did save others from a serial killer by helping the police find the pattern. This was different. He would not let Moriarty claim anymore victims. Because this needed to stop.
He turned to go. The bush he was hiding in rustled and he, for once, was conscious of the snipers. He knew, or at least assumed, the snipers were still in position. He hoped that he was wrong. So wrong. He was also hoping the sniper, if it was up in that clock tower like he had deduced. It was the one place with a good view of his very own tombstone. He did his best to walk around the tower, being careful to stay out of the line of sight. He got to the door of spire and briefly paused, hand resting just above the doorknob. He had decided to see if his deduction was true. He always carried a pocket knife on him, though he never used it, and would use it if he actually was correct. Up the stairs he went, sweating with the effort of climbing up the steep spiral of steps. He slowly made his way to the only room in the tall, crumbling belfry and peeked around the corner, as the protagonist of all cliché horror movies did, he reminded himself. He stood their for a few-seconds? Minutes? He didn't know how long he waited. Yes, waited. Because the sight that met his eyes as he stole a glance of beyond his hiding place was terrifying enough to make his heart give up, and if that didn't kill him, the masked sniper hiding in the shadows would have shot a single bullet straight through his chest.
But that horrible, nightmarish scene was not only the sniper, but the target. The sniper rifle was trained on one person it should never be on. John had come back to the stone that bore Sherlock's name for a final word. His final word.
Sherlock could feel his breath catch and time slowed down. He could have sworn he felt his heart contract out of pure fear. His brain told him to run, to fight, to do something!
But all the energy had left his body, and all he could do was stare as the sniper slowly, ever so slowly, lifted his finger to the trigger.
All that happened next had almost become a complete blur. His ears started to ring and all movements seem so sluggish, he half hoped this was all a dream, or horribly twisted hallucination. He experienced, with a look of utter horror, the sniper slowly, or maybe that was the rush of adrenaline, but either way, the trigger was pulled...
And the bullet went straight through the middle of John's chest.