A NOTE ON TIMELINE:
This story is meant to take place some years after Season 3 of BBC's Sherlock. It is probably also infinitely more enjoyable if you lean toward the Johnlock side of things. ;)

SAVING SHERLOCK

As soon as I spotted the tall, lean figure with its mop of messy black curls, I knew. I knew by the way it stooped. By the way it shuffled, slow and aimless, a gait the man he'd once been had never possessed. The certainty clutched around my heart like a sharp-fingered hand of ice and I sucked in a quick breath of cool night air to keep the slam of anguish at bay. To keep the panic from rolling up my throat, to keep myself from shouting at him to get out of there, despite the fact it was too late.

Too late.

Oh God, no. It can't be too late.

"Sherlock." His name came out a strangled rasp. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't fucking breathe. I leaned over with hands on my knees as the sidewalk seemed to tilt beneath me, and stared at the pistol still clutched in my grip. A pistol. A pistol with six bloody shots. I'd come after him with the idea I'd only have to pick off the nearest few as we sprinted off.

He could outpace me any day, even with all my military training. He'd led me around London on enough ridiculous foot chases that I'd never doubted we could outrun them.

Never doubted it.

Nausea twisted my stomach and I hit the pavement on hands and knees, biting back what little we'd had for lunch when it tried to cram its way up my throat. I forced myself to inhale deeply through my nose, exhale through my mouth. In and out, in and out.

This afternoon. It felt like a lifetime ago.

You shouldn't have left him alone, John. You knew he would do something stupid. You knew it.

I rocked back on my heels and turned my face up toward the darkness. Let the spitting drizzle pelt my face, freezing cold and prickling like needles in my skin. I heard them moaning. All of them.

Him too.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

He always thought himself so clever … he was clever, damn it all. The most brilliant, infuriating, incredible man I'd ever met. He was convinced he could find the answer in this, too, this indomitable, unexplainable plague, just as he had with every other mystery that had crossed his desk.

"Jesus Christ, Sherlock." I pressed the side of the pistol to my forehead, willing its icy, solid touch to bring me back from the teetering edge. "I was gone for five minutes. Five bloody minutes."

Why couldn't he have waited for me? Just five more minutes?

Because he's Sherlock Fucking Holmes. He's relentless. Unstoppable. He can't resist the thrill of the chase, the ecstasy of demonstrating his superior intellect, can't even wait five fucking minutes to prove it …

Focus, John. I took another deep breath and exhaled, the cloud of vapor encircling my head before it vanished. I looked at the mob milling around in front of me, unseeing and lost. Undead. There was no evaporated breath coming from their mouths or noses.

Not even his.

The cold settled in my bones. It was all I could do to push back to my feet. The pistol suddenly felt impossibly heavy, my finger numb beside the trigger guard. My palm was slick on its grip as I lifted it toward them.

Toward him.

I couldn't swallow. The tears seared hot trails down my face and I shook my head to convince myself this wasn't some kind of nightmare. My body felt strangely, disturbingly light. The only thing concrete was the weapon in my hand, pointing at my friend.

My best friend.

My best man.

He's not … he's not that, anymore. He's already gone. He's already gone, John. This is a favor. A mercy.

"I'm … I'm sorry, Sherlock," I choked out. I aimed. I wouldn't miss. My shot had saved him once before, and now it would again. My finger wrapped around the trigger.

And he turned to face me.

My breath caught. His curls were matted to his forehead, dried blood had caked on the right side of his face and trailed down his neck to stain his nightshirt. The right sleeve of his robe, the expensive-as-shite Deana Rose robe, had been shredded, and a piece of flesh had been torn out of that arm, showing a dull white gleam of bone beneath.

The lunch came up unbidden and I retched on the side of the walk, horror prickling gooseflesh up my spine and into my scalp. I swiped my sleeve across my mouth as I stumbled backward, away from him.

He lurched in my direction.

Had he … had he heard me? A lance of fierce hope shot through my heart, painful and bright.

No, impossible. There are no documented cases of the infected remembering – "Sherlock," I croaked. "Sherlock, it's John."

Bloody hell, John, what are you doing?

"Can you … can you hear me? Do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?"

His mouth lolled open, but no words came out. His eyes and their usual ferocious, pale gaze were now glazed and dull. Unfocused.

My heartbeat pulsed in my throat, my ears. I tried to keep my voice steady. "Sherlock Holmes, it's John Watson. Your friend. Think. Remember me. Remember you. You are the greatest detective the world has ever seen." If any of them could remember, it would be him. And if there was anything that would make him remember, it would be his ego.

But it doesn't matter, there is no cure.

I shook my head again, clamping down angrily on the little voice that tried so hard to snap my tenuous thread of hope. There was an answer to this mess, and it was here, somewhere. Somewhere close. Or else he wouldn't have vanished on me like that so suddenly. Or else he wouldn't have risked coming to such a heavily infected area.

But he hadn't shared his revelation with the likes of me, and if he was really … if he was really gone …

"Sherlock Holmes," I said again, firm this time. "Remember. Please. This thing that's happened to you … you know how to cure it, don't you? You found it, didn't you?"

He only lumbered forward, ever forward, right at me. The others behind him were beginning to take notice of my noise now, too, following in his wake.

The fear clutched in my belly, but I stood fast. If there was a chance, even the smallest chance …

"Please, Sherlock." My fingers twitched around the grip of the pistol, itching to bring it up and level it again. Just in case. In case he didn't remember. But I kept it lowered. "Your brother is Mycroft Holmes," I said, pushing on. "Our –your landlady is Mrs. Hudson. She makes you tea every morning, and sometimes breakfast, which you never eat. You play the violin." My voice cracked, and I blinked back the tears that blurred my vision.

He showed no reaction. Wasn't even blinking. Just shuffled forward, one foot in front of the other, closing the distance between us slowly, steadily, and all the others behind him now.

I swallowed hard. Desperation surged, fighting against the urge to turn and run.

"You were my best man," I said. "At my wedding. Stopped a murder there, too. You are the most blindingly brilliant and infuriatingly foolish man I've ever met." A harsh chuckle escaped me. "I mean, seriously, who comes down to the quarantined sector by themselves in the middle of the night in their jimjams?"

No answer save the scrape of his slippered feet against the pavement. I could hardly stand the sight of him like this, bloodied and ragged, vapid and mute.

"You do, Sherlock Holmes," I whispered. "You run voluntarily into quarantine in the middle of the night in your jimjams because you're brilliant, because you found the answer, because you couldn't wait to have it, and because you're so stupid to think you could do this by yourself. Stupid, stupid, stupid."

The anger rose hot, and suddenly I didn't care that a swarm of undead was bearing down on me. "Why didn't you wait, Sherlock?" I demanded. "Why didn't you wait for me? I could have helped you! I would have helped you! Why can't you remember … why can't you ever remember that I'm always here for you? Always. You just had to wait a few more minutes … a few more minutes and this never would have happened …"

A sob choked the words and I staggered backwards again. He was close now, too close. I scrubbed the tears out of my eyes so I could see him. Stepped backwards for every step he took forward. Studied him intently, searching for anything familiar that might remain in his broken self. I tried to see as he would; tried to do more than see, tried to observe. Tried to take in every minute detail of his appearance, his expression, his movements. I hoped, prayed, begged, willed with every fiber of my being to find something. There had to be some of him left, he had to remember, he had to come out of this and tell me the cure …

He had to.

Had to.

"Sherlock. Please. Moan or something if you know who I am. If you know who you are."

But nothing. So vacant. So mindless. Plodding toward my voice, but nothing more.

My throat tightened. He wasn't in there anymore.

He's gone. Oh God … he's gone.

The crushing weight of it took my breath away, and suddenly I stood helpless again, watching him fall from the roof to the street below. I stood in front of his grave with its freshly dug dirt and looked at my miserable reflection in the headstone's shiny surface, the golden letters forever burned into my retinas.

"Sherlock!" My shout echoed out into the still of the night and I raised the pistol again, aiming right between his eyes.

He didn't so much as flinch.

"Don't do this to me," I begged. "Not again. Don't make me do this."

His arms lifted, a half-hearted attempt to grab at me, but I danced back out of his reach. Kept the pistol steady. Ignored the slamming of my heart, the pulse beating in the backs of my eyes. But what was the point?

To end him, escape here, and try to get on with my life?

What life?

London had called on Sherlock Holmes for this case because no one else could solve it. The unidentified plague spread at an exponential rate no matter the measures taken to contain it, and no one knew why or how … or how to stop it. And now even the Great Detective himself was lost to it.

The rest of us had no chance.

Not a chance in hell.

Mary might have turned my life around, but Sherlock Holmes was the one who had really given it to me in the first place. Given it to me and then nearly destroyed it all when he'd jumped. When he'd let me think he was dead for two years.

I wasn't going to do that again. Not again.

I wasn't going to stand by helpless and watch the world turn.

I wasn't going to live in a world without Sherlock Holmes.

"Noooo …."

The word made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I just barely twisted out of the way as he made to grab at me again. Was that him? Had he just said that? My eyes raked across the crowd of lumbering bodies behind him, but they were further back yet, too far away to have heard such a murmur.

"Nooooo."

It was him. "Sherlock!" I barked, hardly able to get the words out of my mouth. "Talk to me! Tell me!"

He lurched at me, but instead of jumping out of the way this time, I grabbed his arms. He smelled of rotted flesh so powerful it was all I could do to hold control of my stomach. My left thumb slipped into the gaping wound in his right arm by accident and it was only my experience as a doctor that kept me from gagging. I steeled myself, summoned every ounce of willpower I could muster to hold onto him, to trust he wasn't going to rip out my throat like I'd seen some of them do.

"Talk to me, Sherlock. Tell me what to do!"

He fell against me, and his weight nearly knocked me to the pavement again. I struggled to keep us both upright.

"Nooooo curree," he breathed, a throaty rasp.

I stared at him as my blood turned to ice. Took hold of his shoulders and pulled him back from me to look into his expressionless face. "No. No, that's not right. That can't be right. You said you were close … you must have found the cure. You found it! That's why you came here!"

"No cure … Jooohnnn."

Another sob hitched in my chest and I gripped his arms for all I was worth, my fingers aching around the pistol still clutched in my right hand, now pressed against his left bicep. The rain washed the tears from my face as I just stood there, at a complete and utter loss. The others ambled toward us, a solid mass of decaying bodies, no more than a shifting blur in my peripheral vision. "Then … then what are we supposed to do?" I finally managed.

"Jooohhnn."

His head rolled forward on his neck, as if he were having a hard time holding it up proper. The bizarre urge to smooth his disheveled curls assaulted me, and not for the first time. How many times had I resisted it, balled my hand up into a fist and stuck it in my pocket, instead? I wished I had done it, now, at least once. Just once.

"John."

My heart skipped a beat. "I'm here, Sherlock. Tell me what to do. Anything. Something! There has to be a way to fix this."

His fingers seized my biceps, bony ends digging painfully into muscle. He pitched forward so that his haggard face was only inches from mine, and the cloudy eyes cleared for one, brief, exhilarating second. "Save. Yourself."

Gooseflesh raced across my skin. I opened my mouth, wanted to tell him that I didn't know how to do that, that's why I needed him, the great Sherlock Holmes, but then he made a sound that set my teeth on edge and all my words were lost.

He shoved me, and this time I couldn't catch myself. I fell. Hard, and he landed on top of me. The pistol spun away across the wet pavement to land amid the feet of the other undead. I swore, fighting to get out from under Sherlock. He growled, sounded like an animal. The fear stabbed deep and hot, my world narrowing to a single point: the pistol.

I half-rolled in an attempt to get to my hands and knees, and his bite sunk into my left collarbone instead of my jugular. I cried out as his teeth ripped away shirt and skin and whipped my left elbow into his temple. He fell sideways, and I scrambled to my feet. The air and rain was too cold against the exposed muscle of the bite wound, the flood of warmth soaking into my shirt too heavy.

I was already light-headed.

Shock? Loss of blood? Infection?

Probably all three.

I focused on the pistol's dark shape and moved for it, ignored the fact it rested behind an ever-growing wall of other people who would gladly eat me. Alive.

I ran at them, dove for it, scooped it up in my hand even as I felt the ones I'd knocked off their feet fall on top of me, and the hands of others grab at me. I rolled again, kicking off the tangle of limbs collapsed over me and slipping out of my jacket to escape the grasping hands. I crawled out from the mob, nearly clear when they caught my ankles.

I twisted and fired.

One, two, three, and I was free.

I got to my feet again and swayed, stumbled. I looked up to see him coming for me, mouth gaping. Covered in blood. My blood. The world tilted around me, and he caught me just as I dropped to my knees, pulling him down with me.

I wrapped the fingers of my left hand into his hair and pulled him in close, snarling and bloody, before he could bite me again, and held him, my temple to his temple. "Gonna save you, Sherlock," I slurred.

He fought my hold, trying to turn and sink his teeth into my neck. The rest of the mob had surrounded us now, hands outstretched and greedy.

"Gonna save us."

I put the pistol to my head, held Sherlock tight against me, and pulled the trigger.

THE END.

... isn't it? Is it?
It could be. Might be. Really should be, though.
What do YOU think?

A NOTE TO MY FELLOW SHERLOCKIANS:
I should start out by saying that I never intended to write Sherlock fanfiction. It intimidates me. 1) I don't feel familiar enough with British culture and slang to not butcher it and 2) I'm no Sherlock Holmes, therefore I feel I would drastically short-change the poor bastard when writing him. Secondly, I should say that zombies are completely NOT my thing. I have never had the desire to write (nor watch nor read) anything having to do with zombies. (Except Resident Evil. Okay, except most of the Resident Evil movies.) BUT. Recently there was a fan art picture posted in the Sherlockians Facebook group I am a part of (by consultin dot detective on deviantart dot com) ... a picture of a distraught Watson standing in the rain, holding a gun pointed at a zombie-fied Sherlock. The caption read "I was only gone for five minutes, Sherlock. Five bloody minutes." And as soon as I saw that picture, this entire story was THERE. It consumed me like a flesh-eating zombie itself, and so here it is, in the ... er ... flesh. I hope you enjoyed despite my previously listed shortcomings!