Sherlock stood in the hallway, eyes closed, as he waited for his vision to adjust to the absence of light. At first there were colors floating through his vision, the remnant rings of the white light that had burst before him, and then disappeared like a scream from a throat slit open. Reds and orange and paisley blue-all colors he remembered but rarely saw anymore. He'd never see them again. He'd open his eyes to darkness, he'd murder in the void, and then embrace his own death in that same lightless quiet. It seemed fitting. He'd bemoaned the constant white that surrounded them in the Ark; that silent, pure, sterilized ambiance of stagnation that boiled beneath his skin. Darkness was colder and less clinical. Where the light had isolation, the blind blackness had an eery quality that was always possibly concealing something just out of the range of one's sight. Hands could grab in the dark and fingers leave trails like the sightless see. John, his John, lingered in that dark with kisses and touches that pushed the madness away. Even if he was half a mile deep into the structure and already laid out on a stretcher to burn, in the darkness there existed everything. Dreams were made in darkness, and even the sleepless could conjure a few in the shadows that sometimes looked like men.

When he opened his eyes, the rings of twilight were no longer burned into his vision leaving nothing but an obsidian abyss though his ears enjoyed a feast of their own. Screams and banging, not all of them sounds coming from the closed door before him, were prominent and violently cried. Most of them had nothing to worry about. The Ark would settle back into functionality, only bulbs needing to be replaced. And when they restored it all-when the memory trapped inside the machine relinquished its control-they would only find two more bodies, both of which had every reason to lie there. He was never going to survive anyway. Not in the Ark. Not even with John. Not without the ability to quietly go back to sleep and wait for the doors to open. Sherlock wasn't made for living in a cage. He missed the open road and the danger. The unpredictability of life and the nonexistent promises that struggles always seemed to neglect. And Chapman? He lacked 'good moral character'. The world would be a better place without him and though Sherlock had never had the stomach for committing murder-though he often thought about it-in this case he was more than willing to make an exception.

Still, it was hard to open the door. He'd lost his rage in the numbness, not that he'd felt much of it for long. Chapman deserved to die and had murdered senselessly the greatest man Sherlock had ever known and yet he could not summon up rage even repeating the facts to himself. Rage required passion. He didn't have any. He just wanted to sleep again and find John once more. He didn't even want to be standing but it seemed rather counterproductive to sit down when he had told himself from the start how this was going to end. He'd asked for an hour and he did not intend to spend the majority of it waiting for that push of assurance that said it was time. He really rather hoped suicide was easier than murder or he had a rather improved chance of fucking it up. And then, of course, Mycroft would mock him for dramatics. So, well, that was out of the question.

John would murder Chapman. Without a second thought, John would be in there, gun in hand with a smoking barrel and a hole in the other man's skull if their places were reversed. And John was his moral compass among many other things so there was no reason to presume this was wrong. Even the memory had agreed without any need to explain. John had more passion than he did, a greater capacity to care. He supposed in some twisted way his surprise that John would want to be with him was limiting his surprise that someone else might take him away. There were a lot of things that didn't feel right about the way he felt. That was the shock, probably. It wasn't as though he had time to correct that before the end, though the feelings it masked he almost longed to bear if only to fuel the actions reason said he must undertake.

He could stand outside the door forever so long as he did not make a sound. But his shoulder still ached and it was time to go to bed. So he turned the handle and opened the door to let the death in like a bottled odor clinging to the stuffy air.

Chapman wasn't visible but that didn't mean Sherlock did not know where he was. The way the phone cord was pulled, the distance of his chair-all black and grey blobs in a lightless void but possible to make out without detail-said the man was hiding under his desk. He was listening, pretending not to be there, trying to figure out what was waiting for him in the darkness. Sherlock closed the door behind himself to give them privacy in their final moments. The click of the latch made the frightened man jump, an elbow, a knee, or the top of his head hitting against the desk and rattling a drawer despite his quiet intentions.

Sherlock cocked the gun, adding his own intentions into the conversation. "You can have your body found cowering under a desk or you can die in your chair. Consider those your only two options." He stepped closer, keeping his movements as quiet as possible outside the rustle of his pant legs as he listened for his prey's movements. A slight scuffle against the floor, crawling on knees, the bump of wood on rollers. Sherlock shot at the desk, hitting the chair instead as one shadow bled into another. "Don't even think about going for your button. Power's out. It's not going to work." It was a lie-the kill switch was a wireless device and the power wasn't out so much as the lights had been destroyed. But the man was as much a coward as he was an idiot. Sherlock wasn't afraid. He felt rather confident he could still kill him even if he did go ahead and try his luck.

Sounds of Chapman scrambling against the floor again filled the silence. "Killing me won't undo this!" he shouted, a definite tremor in his voice.

"It's not meant to," Sherlock told him, his toes hitting the back of the desk as his eyes watched for movement.

The chair moved, being pulled in closer as a shield to keep Sherlock out. So he wanted to be found under the desk, then. That was fine. And of course he started screaming, calling for help, his voice loud and harsh and as abrasive as steel wool against Sherlock's ears. He felt his way around the desk, slowly, not needing to worry about anyone coming to his aid as even Chapman had to know, even as he indulged himself in futility.

When the computer screen came on, it was like a blinding light. Sherlock took several steps back, hand up to guard his eyes from the intense change in ambiance, unable to look directly at it or even indirectly as he turned to face away. Had he bumped a mouse? Of course surge protectors would be standard issue with all Ark computers-stupid, stupid, stupid. Nothing quite called one's bluff like a bright beacon in the dark.

"Mr. Chapman," John's voice said, from the speakers of the computer. "Thank you for seeing us."

Sherlock's heart dropped into his stomach as he turned his face to try and see into the blinding light of the monitor. They were blobs of shapes but none of them recognizable as John. His eyes burned and watered as he stared, seeing only the weasel-faced Chapman standing behind a desk and the flanking of two armed men.

"Yes, uh... well. Yes. Sorry about the, uh... Better safe than sorry."

"I suppose. Though I'd like to point out that we're not a threat to you. We're just here to talk."

"Mm. Yes. Uh... Yes."

"What the-" Chapman seemed to forget that Sherlock stood in the same room with him, gun in hand and committed to killing him. But he was hearing his own voice and a conversation that could not have been recorded. He did not retreat nor retaliate as he hid and with shaking body listened.

"If we find who made this, we can hold them accountable and force the release of all information related to the protein. It would give our scientists the chance to reverse this. We're not pushing any initiative, we just want the opportunity to do what it is we do-follow leads and investigate crimes. I'm sure an ambitious man like yourself would enjoy the opportunity to be a hero. The man who championed thousands of survivors and helped cure the entire world. All we need is answers and information, both of which you can give us."

"No."

"Sorry?"

"I have no interest in the salvation of you and the rest of the abominations. You say that this disease was manufactured? I know exactly what you're doing. You think you can point the finger at the Americans to try and save your own skins."

"Oh, god," Chapman moaned, his shaking intensifying as he rattled the chair in his grip.

Sherlock knew exactly what he was looking at. Line of sight put the camera at around five feet, three inches given the angle of the desk from the floor. It stood left of center and from time to time swept towards the right to capture the image of Sherlock as he questioned the politician. Sometimes it shook up and down, other times side to side. Often, for just a split second, it seemed the shutter closed. It surveyed the soldiers and their guns and then, without cause or warning, it tipped from its pedestal and landed on the floor, going blurry and finally fading black.

"You all saw it. He charged at the desk. I was defending myself."

Sherlock stared open mouthed at the evidence on the screen, almost missing the way the download bar tracked its green line across the bottom as it buffered and was sent. Everyone would know. Everyone. It was enough to make him smile as he tapped the barrel of his gun against the chair, never minding the pointless man hiding underneath. A desperate man.

With a roar, Chapman pushed against the chair, the gun almost slipping from Sherlock's grip as suddenly the other man switched to hold there instead, grappling for possession of the loaded weapon in the spotlight of the computer screen.

"It won't end like this!" he shouted, his face red and eyes full of madness as he kicked and pushed and drove them both back with the ferocity of his distress.

In the darkness three shots were heard, the wheels on the overturned chair spinning wildly as the hallway remained empty, flooded in a void of all but sounds that echoed like ghostly howls.