Mind the Gap
John's lungs threatened to burst and his sore muscles screamed in protest, not used to the sudden exertion of running at full speed. His bruised ribs throbbed with each heartbeat, his throat was parched, and he felt his blood pulsate through the veins in his burning face, cold air and light drizzle barely offering relief.
Taking deep breaths despite the pain in his chest, he tried to concentrate on the sound of his feet slapping on the pavement to keep going. Silently, he cursed himself for having given up running, but his life with Mary had allowed him too much leisure time: there was no need to constantly keep fit, and they didn't do sports together.
He stopped short when he rounded the corner: London Bridge, illuminated in the dark, was one huge traffic jam. Red buses, black cabs, late commuters and early delivery vans all crowded the bridge. A motorbike was driving on the pedestrian way, being shouted at by cyclists who weren't supposed to be there either. John stopped for a moment, wheezing; he looked around and saw the flashing lights of the police cars behind him, and Lestrade, panting and close to collapsing, turning towards them. John was actually relieved – he didn't want Greg to keel over with exhaustion. But without Greg, he was on his own – the police could only move on foot, too, and they would be slow and cautious. John had other plans. He took out his gun and entered the bridge, jogging along at a soldier's pace, taking in his surroundings, watching out for a dark coat and armed men.
The men he found soon enough.
John stopped to take it all in.
My God, Sherlock must have scoffed at the banality of it all.
James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal and desperate to detonate a nuclear bomb buried deep inside the Shard, was stuck in a traffic jam. The spider's elaborate plans and intricate schemes could not have foreseen the big yellow building crane moving at a snail's pace, irritating rush hour drivers to boiling point, until one of the mad overtaking manoeuvres resulted in five cars crashing into the crane, the bridge, each other, and a bus, cutting down three lamp posts, causing a power failure, and general mayhem. Nothing and no one moved anymore, and that was why the phone signal was stuck. That's London for you.
John cautiously approached the centre of the chaos: people were standing around, gaping, some were injured, leaning against the bridge's granite wall, babbling with fright, a woman with a bleeding face was still sitting in her car, pressing tissues to the side of her head. The noise was deafening – cars honking, people crying, yelling at each other or talking into their phones. Neither police nor fire trucks had made it to the scene yet and John's doctor's instincts kicked in, urging him to help, but the soldier prevailed: he had to track down Moriarty and Sherlock. There seemed to be no life-threatening injuries – no one sitting on the floor, silent and unattended. It was always the quiet ones you had to watch, not those who wail.
He found the car soon enough – right behind those who had caused the accident, as far as he could tell. No one had noticed that the two dead men in it hat not been killed in the accident. The car was intact, apart from the shattered windscreen. One look through the open doors confirmed his suspicions: they had been executed. Bullet through the head. John cringed inwardly; Sherlock was efficient in everything he did, even in killing. The coldness of the act made him pause.
There was no sign of either Moriarty or Sherlock and he had no means to track the signal.
He had lost them. Again.
The image of the two executed men was disturbing. My God, what had happened in those three years to make Sherlock so cold and calculating? He never had been one to hesitate when confronting a criminal, and he wasted no sentiment on anyone, not even the victims of crimes, but this almost mechanical way of disposing of everyone along the way to get to Moriarty was … disconcerting.
John swallowed compulsively, remembering how he had accused Sherlock of being a machine. His last words to his friend at St. Bart's had haunted him in his nightmares more often then the fall itself. He bit back tears – stress, he told himself, his nerves were letting him down. He looked at his hand: no, it was not shaking. Not one bit.
If Sherlock had only talked to him. Then, and now.
He swallowed hard and walked over to the bridge's railing, trying to figure out where the two sworn enemies hellbent on destroying each other had gone. Clouds were racing along the night sky, bringing gusts of wind and more rain, rippling the surface of the black water under his feet and sending foaming waves against the pillars.
Sherlock had risked the Shard being blown to pieces to make a deal with Moriarty. He had risked thousands of lives for this bloody phone – or had he?
John frowned. Moriarty would have recognized any attempt to defuse the bomb. It was possible that Sherlock's proposition to make a deal had actually delayed the attack; and Sherlock was certainly aware of that. And why the hell had Mycroft been there? He only now understood what Greg had said – Sherlock had come down the side of the Shard – outside? Abseiling, it seemed, and apparently dragging his brother with him. Jesus Christ, what was he to make of that?
Had Sherlock saved his brother? He had certainly just saved him, John realized, by jumping down from the canopy and distracting Moriarty and his men. If Sherlock was so intent on killing Moriarty, then he should have waited for John to shoot him. But his friend would have died the next moment, shot by Moriarty's men.
It seemed his death was unacceptable, as Sherlock would put it. So, John was more important than Moriarty. Or would losing John mean losing Moriarty's game, since he was apparently considered a pawn in it?
He could not be sure.
He found it impossible to understand what was going on in Sherlock's mind, and after three years of separation, he was not sure whether he could still read him. Too many times Sherlock had manipulated, deceived, or outright abused him.
He no longer knew Sherlock. That was the ugly truth.
The realization hit him hard, sending a wave of nausea through him. John's stomach suddenly heaved with such violence that he doubled over. He barely managed to lean over the railing before he vomited, sweat pouring down his face. Exhaustion, he told himself and did not believe it for one second.
When he was done retching and shivering, he slowly straightened up and decided to do what was sensible: be a doctor and help the victims of the accident. The police were still not in sight, stuck at the end of the bridge.
He coughed and wiped his mouth and decided he was done with chasing criminals and madmen. It was now in the hands of Mycroft to find his brother and stop Moriarty. Ordinary John Watson was useless and could do nothing; he was only good as a doctor, so be it. And if the Shard did get blown up, he wouldn't get out of doctor mode for a long time, that was sure.
He looked at the Shard, illuminated from within, reaching into the sky like a gigantic crystal. Oh, the vanity of man. They'd be frantically trying to defuse the bomb now, knowing it might blow up in their faces. Madness, everything.
He looked at the river and the boats passing underneath the bridge. Oblivious, all of them. A freighter, a cabin cruiser, a big sightseeing boat, a party yacht – and plenty of police racing to the shore.
He turned around to set to work. And froze.
Gunshots.
He spun on his heel, facing the riverside.
And there they were.