It was a wonder John managed to reach the alleyway below without falling. His hands were shaking and the long-forgotten pain in his leg had returned as he descended the rickety ladder on the other side of the fire escape, but John didn't even notice the shooting pains in his shoulder through the daze he was in. All of his senses seemed to be consumed with only one thought, one word that ran through his head, leaving no room for anything else.

Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock.

He finally dropped to the ground, stumbling slightly on a long piece of metal from the collapsed fire escape that was lying off to the side, a gloomy monument.

And there, at the foot of the building, was a dark, crumpled figure.

Sherlock, John's brain said automatically, but it couldn't be. This figure was too broken, too weak, too lifeless to be his best friend.

John staggered over, dropping to his knees beside the body. He reached down and touched the thick, dark fabric that shrouded him. Yes. He knew that fabric, only too well, from the all the times of fetching his flat-mate's coat for him when he was too distracted to remember, from reaching into the pockets to fetch his phone for him, from grasping the sleeve while running in an attempt to keep up, so he would never be lost…

John shuddered at this onslaught of memories, and pushed them back down. No. Not important. Not relevant. Sherlock would be fine, there would be plenty more of these moments in the future for the doctor and his detective.

John tenderly reached for the flurry of soft, dark coils of hair that adorned the head, and ran a few strands between his fingers. Yes, this was familiar; John remembered touching these locks while checking Sherlock for a concussion on many an occasion, running his fingers along the temple with a gentle doctor's touch.

But now it was all wrong; the strands were still soft, but now sticky, and when John pulled his hand away he saw traces of red on his fingertips.

John's touch, though careful, had caused the figure to shift slightly, and its head fell backwards enough to reveal a pale complexion. The sharp features were soft, much too gentle in sleep. It was wrong, all wrong, and John had no other choice but to curl up and cry.

John lowered himself down onto the grimy bricks of the alley, not caring about the chill that stabbed its way through his thin jacket or the jagged pieces of metal that pierced the sleeve of his jacket.

The tears flowing freely down his face now, John grasped Sherlock's lifeless arm and pulled it over his shoulder, the warmth of the thick jacket rendered meaningless in contrast with the cold that seemed to radiate from the motionless form.

John huddled closer, nevertheless, not caring because it was wrong, all wrong, and Sherlock wouldn't wake up and fix everything and he was alone again, all alone in the dark.

John didn't hear Mycroft approaching, but he was suddenly standing right over the doctor, his shadow long and thin and dark in the weird grey and yellow light of the alley as it stretched over the forms of the John and the detective.

"John…What have you done?"

John clutched Sherlock's limp arm more tightly to his chest, shaking uncontrollably, trying to block out Mycroft's voice, anything to make everything else stop, to make this horror disappear...

"I was kidnapped, and – and I woke up here, and he tried to save me…it was an accident, I…I didn't mean for it to happen…"

Mycroft coaxed John out from Sherlock's lifeless embrace, pulling the doctor to his feet on the uneven and broken concrete. His voice was smooth, but his eyes were oddly distant.

"Of course you didn't. No one ever means for these things to happen. But Sherlock is dead. And if it weren't for you, he would still be alive."

Mycroft's words pressed on John's chest, constricting his lungs and making it nearly impossible to gasp in lungfuls of air.

John stared at Mycroft's umbrella, watching it twirling and dancing, reflected in the small puddles on the dirty ground, anything to avoid looking at the motionless form of the detective beside him.

John drew in a deep shuddering breath, forcing himself to speak, to sound strong, even though he was breaking inside.

"What am I going to do?"

"Run away, John."

John's head snapped up and he finally met Mycroft's cool gaze with his bleary one.

"Run."

John inadvertently stumbled back a step, nearly tripping on something that felt horribly like a cold, dead hand that he refused to think about, anything but that.

"Run away, and never return."

John staggered one more step backwards under the weight of Mycroft's glare, before turning and sprinting blindly in the opposite direction, away from Mycroft, away from Sherlock, away from everything he had messed up in his life.

Mycroft stood in the grimy alley, twiddling his umbrella with his left hand with his right hand buried deep in his trouser pocket. He appraised the scene calmly, watching as John would stumble over bumps in the pavement or bits of rubbish, before picking himself back up again and running, simply running, turning random corners, trying to lose himself in the depths of the city.

Two men appeared on the roof above Mycroft Holmes, staring down at the tall man as if waiting patiently for instructions. One was shorter with slick black hair, and dressed in an impeccable dark Westwood suit. The other was incredibly tall and muscular, with a strong jaw and cropped blonde hair. His clothing was a dark khaki, and difficult to distinguish from the dusty grey colour of the roof in the darkness. He held a massive gun positioned on his shoulder, but it didn't seem to bother him or look out of place in the slightest, as if it were a part of him.

Mycroft didn't acknowledge their presence, but the three of them simply stood and watched the struggling and broken John Watson escaping through the winding streets; the crumpled body of Sherlock Holmes lay forgotten at the elder brother's feet, the body that had so recently belonged to the brother that Mycroft had heartlessly thrown off of the building's rooftop.

The sky above them was black and starless.

Mycroft continued to twirl his black umbrella. Apart from that, he remained motionless, simply watching as John began to grow slowly smaller in the distance, staggering through dark and broken alleyways.

Then, Mycroft suddenly spoke, and although he spoke calmly, his cold voice cut harshly through the cool night air to reach the men on the rooftop.

"Kill him."