Sherlock looked at the clock near the bed, barely registering the numbers before turning away from it. But no matter how much he wanted to delete what he saw, he couldn't.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Time was running out.

"John?" he whispered.

"Mhm," his fiancé answered.

"No."

"What?"

"You want to take me to the station, well the answer is no."

"How did you...?"

"The screaming?"

John sighed. "Yeah." Sherlock tried to muffle the ticking he heard in his head. Why did John have to play all the parts? Why did they have to recreate the memories? Why did it go on?

Because Moriarty wanted to burn my heart out. And this is his way of doing so.

"It was Donovan," Sherlock whispered, "I bet it was Donovan. Moriarty is smart, he planted that doubt in her head, that little nagging sensation you'll have to be strong to resist." Please resist, John. Please resist the doubts. I won't be able to survive if you don't. "You can't kill an idea, can you? Not once it's made a home...there." He touched a finger lightly to the middle of John's forehead.

"Will you come to the station?"

"That's all Moriarty needs. The screaming and then a photograph of me being taken in for questioning. He wants to destroy me," Sherlock breathed. "Inch by inch. It is a game, and a game I'm not willing to play."

A few minutes passed, in which Sherlock dressed and put on his coat. The next part of the scene was about to play out. That was all it was really: a scene from a movie that reminded its viewers how short and painful life really was. Sherlock and John's lives were almost too much for any sort of moviemaker to weave into a story, because tragedies could be endured by the population in small doses, and this was an overdose. There was no comfort, no little bit of hope that would make everything better. This was permanent. This was insurmountable and unbeatable and no matter how hard Sherlock tried, he could never rewrite the past.

"They're going to come back with a warrant and arrest me."

"You think?" John spoke now from the side of the bed. He wasn't playing Lestrade anymore. Sherlock wondered why John had to play all the minor roles but Sherlock only had to play himself. "You should have gone with them quietly, saved some trouble. People aren't watching you now."

"Why would it matter if they watched me?"

"I don't want people thinking that-"

"I don't care what people think." It was still true. John's opinion was the only one that mattered now. "Even if they thought I was stupid or wrong that would just make them stupid or wrong."

"Sherlock, I don't want the world believing you're..." John paused, staring at the floor. "A fraud."

Sherlock took the appropriate time before responding, but he didn't want to. He didn't want himself to be right. "You're worried they're right. You're worried they're right about me."

"No."

"You have to entertain the possibility they're right, that you've been taken in."

"That's not true."

"Moriarty's been playing with you, can't you see what's going on?" His voice had a note of pleading to it.

"I know you. I see what's real. You can't fake being such an annoying, lovable dick all the time." John smiled. Why was he smiling? Sherlock was about to take himself away again, how could John just smile like that?

John began to dress as well, as if he knew what was coming. 'Lestrade and the Yarders' were going to come back now, and Sherlock was going to pretend to go with them.

"Sherlock Holmes, you're arrested on suspicion of abduction and kidnapping," 'Lestrade' said.

"It's alright," Sherlock replied, looking at John with as much love as he could muster.

"No, it's not alright. You're not resisting. This is ridiculous." The detective's mouth quirked up in a half-grin. John always stood up for him, even when he'd done something wrong.

"Get him downstairs. Now." As Sherlock began to descend the stairs, he heard John talking to himself. Or, talking to Donovan.

"I said it." Donovan gave him a cold look, like it was John's fault he didn't see this coming. "First time we met. 'Solving crimes won't be enough. One day he'll cross the line.' Ask yourself what sort of man would kidnap kids just so he can impress us all by finding them?"

John shook his head. He knew Sherlock, he knew how Sherlock worked. The reason why Sherlock was a consulting detective was to help people, but he didn't like saying it. He wanted to beat the villains, hang back in the shadows so only a few people would know what he did every day to keep the world turning. Sherlock had said he wasn't a hero, but John knew that he was. It was one of the things John loved about him.

A man in glasses came into the flat. "Did we get the man?"

"Yes, sir." Donovan probably took orders from him. John disliked the man already.

"He's a bit of a weirdo, isn't he?" The man looked around the flat. "Those vigilante types always are."

John could feel himself overheating. This man took Sherlock from him for a crime he didn't commit, just to insult him to his best friend (boyfriend? maybe? John couldn't remember that particular conversation). "What are you looking at?"

John felt his eyesight go red, and he pulled his fist back, punching the man directly on the nose.

Next thing he knew, he was partially handcuffed to Sherlock, having been shoved against a cop car.

"There's no one to bail us," John said, laughing a little, even though both him and Sherlock were currently under arrest.

"I was thinking of making a daring escape." And of course, Sherlock was totally serious. He pressed some button on the inside of the car, and snatched a gun from the back pocket of one of the officers. "Ladies and gentlemen, will you all get on your knees!" he shouted. When no one moved, he shot twice into the air. "Now!"

"Just so you know, the gun was his idea," John placated to the several people Sherlock was fooling.

"My hostage!" Sherlock held the gun to John's head.

"Yes, that works," he whispered to Sherlock, feeling the adrenaline begin to rush through his body. They walked backward a few steps. "So what do we do now?"

"Do what Moriarty wants." His voice sounded a bit strange to John, like he was holding back laughter, or tears, or both. "Become fugitives. Run!"

John could hear police cars chasing them, John heard Sherlock say, "Take my hand." John heard himself say, "Damn, I love you." And John saw him smile, smile with tears in his eyes.

"Now people really will talk."

Sherlock ran as fast as he could, stopping in the right places for dialogue, listening to the sounds of their breathing as they escaped. If only escaping was so easy in real life.

He and John jumped in front of a bus before quickly getting out of the way, cutting through back alleys and small side streets to get to safety. Sherlock never understood car chases. Cars were boring. But running, running was ecstasy.

"A game-changer, a key that could break into anywhere, and it was sitting in our flat," Sherlock murmured. He knew he had to say it, but he didn't mean the 'computer code'. He meant John. "Moriarty gave clues, he gave clues when he broke into those places. He meant for the people to see one thing and me to see another. Moriarty knew what would get me in the end."

Something was wrong. John could feel it. Why did Sherlock look like he was acting? Like he'd performed this scene before? He wanted to ask him, wanted to wipe that sad, sad look off of his fiancé's face, but something was holding him back, like it wasn't his choice to control.

"Sherlock!" he tried calling out, but Sherlock couldn't hear him. "Sherlock. I need you to hear me, can't you hear me?" John paused. "Please stop looking like that, it's breaking my heart. I don't know what's going on, but I know I can reach you."

"John?" Sherlock waved a hand in front of his blogger's face. "John?"

John jerked his head up, looking around for a moment before calming, finding Sherlock's face. "Sorry. I spaced out for a minute there. Where are we going now?"

Sherlock grimly stared at the streetlights. "To find Richard Brook."

...

When the lights turned on in the little flat, Sherlock's eyes quickly adjusted and took in the actress. Molly had agreed to play the part of Kitty Riley after Sherlock asked her to help him, because...well, Sherlock didn't know exactly. If the detective had a better definition of friendship, perhaps he would have considered her a very good one. Molly had dressed up for the part, too. And Sherlock really had no idea why.

"Congratulations on 'The Truth About Sherlock Holmes'. The scoop that everybody wanted and you got it," Sherlock started.

Molly put a look that resembled the motion of shoulder shrugging on her face. "I gave you your opportunity. I wanted to be on your side, remember?" Remember? Of course he did. But that began this whole mess, didn't it?

Sherlock was struck by how similar everything seemed. Not just the words and the players of parts, but the acting. The lies from the truth, the meaning behind the meaning, it was all. Just. A. Game. A game with real hearts, real minds at stake, like a poker pot that had humans trapped in it. Luck and strategy wins.

"And then someone turns up and spills all the beans. Who is Brook?" Sherlock asked.

"Can't tell you." Molly folded her arms.

"Come on, Kitty. No one trusts the voice at the end of the phone." The detective went off on a long explanation of the activities her and this Brook had done, getting the story, making it real. By the time he was almost done, John was opening and shutting the nameless flat's door, becoming Moriarty in his guise of Richard Brook.

"So that's your source? Moriarty is Richard Brook?"

"Of course he's Richard Brook, there is no Moriarty. There never has been." The reporter started to fuzz around the edges as John stared at her in disbelief. For a moment, she didn't even look like herself, she looked like Molly. But that was ridiculous...

"What are you talking about?" John could hear the note of anger in his voice, and he knew it would get bigger, but he couldn't help it. Moriarty had hurt him and Sherlock and Molly and he couldn't just stand there.

"Look him up. Rich Brook is an actor, and actor he hired to be Moriarty!" She pointed at Sherlock as if condemning him.

"You are Moriarty. HE'S MORIARTY!" John yelled behind him to Sherlock. "WE'VE MET, REMEMBER, YOU WERE GOING TO BLOW ME UP!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Moriarty placated, looking for all the world like a harmless, broke actor. "He paid me. He did all the work and he paid me."

"Sherlock," John said. "You better explain this, because I'm not getting it." Why did Sherlock look so heartbroken? He had been wrong since the Yarders showed up and John could see the signs. What was happening that John didn't know about? Hell would freeze over before he let this go.

"It's all here. Conclusive proof." Kitty handed John a stack of papers, all of which proclaimed Sherlock was a fake in big, red letters. Sherlock would never have done that, he would have rather died than have people think he was a fraud. Or he didn't cover it up as prettily as Sherlock would have. No, Sherlock isn't a fake, you're thinking exactly what they want you to think. "He invented James Moriarty, he invented the crimes actually."

"For God's sake, this man was on trial!" John gestured wildly to 'Moriarty', who hadn't moved a muscle since the exchange began.

"I have proof!" Jim said. "I have proof, show him, Kitty!"

The reporter found another stack of papers and flipped through them, handing certain pieces to the blogger. John wondered why Sherlock wasn't standing up for himself or something! If it all wasn't true, than why wasn't Sherlock throwing out deductions to prove these people wrong?! "I'm the Storyteller, I'm on TV," Jim added desperately. If he really was an actor, he was damn good. John swore under his breath.

Sherlock walked a few steps toward Jim, a little, dangerous smirk on his face. "Don't touch me!" Jim shouted. "Don't lay a finger on me!"

"Stop it, stop it now!" Sherlock shouted. Jim made a break for it, skidding up the stairs and shutting a door, later escaping through a window. Sherlock ran his hands through his already very mussed hair and paced a couple lengths, leaving the flat and running out onto the street.

"Can he do that?" John asked quietly, following right behind him. "Change his whole identity?"

"Of course he can. He must have a plan, sowing doubts into people's heads the last twenty-four hours, wrapping lies in truth to make it more palatable, and, and..." Sherlock broke off.

John felt a strange sense of wrongness, as if the sentence Sherlock said hadn't come out right, like he hadn't completed the deja vu. "There's something I need to do," Sherlock continued.

"Can I help?" John asked.

The detective shook his head. Walking one stride forward, he kissed his blogger gently on the lips, and then again on the forehead. John would have to go see Mycroft about the articles Kitty had written, and Sherlock would have to set up for falling from London Bridge. When they met again, John would be angry with him, and Sherlock wanted to remember this instead.

"Don't forget that," Sherlock whispered, swishing his coat and leaving John behind. Don't forget I love you.

A little later, John received a phone call that woke him up. Sherlock was rolling and bouncing a blue rubber bouncy ball with one hand and catching it with the other. John thought, in that split second before he answered his phone, that the moment felt ominous, like he was about to get bad news. But Sherlock knew it too.

"Hello?" John asked tiredly, picking up the mobile from where it laid on the lab counter.

"Are you Dr. John Watson?"

"Yes."

"It's about a Mrs. Martha Hudson. You were listed as one of her emergency contacts."

John immediately sat up. "What happened? Is she okay?"

"She's been shot."

"Oh my God." He put a hand to his mouth. "I'll be right there." John ended the call.

"What is it?" Sherlock asked from a meter away. He looked like he hadn't moved from the spot in hours.

"Paramedics. Mrs. Hudson's been shot."

"How?"

"Probably one of the killers you managed to attract-" John realized how awful and unbelievable that sounded. "Jesus. Sherlock, she's dying. Let's go." He was halfway toward the door when Sherlock answered him.

"You go." He paused. "I'm busy." Again, Sherlock sounded like he had to say those words, like he had to get them out somehow. Or maybe John was just too blind with infatuation to see clearly! "I need to think."

"Doesn't she mean anything to you? You once nearly killed a man because he laid a finger on her." What the bloody hell was going on tonight?! This wasn't Sherlock, it wasn't Sherlock at all.

"She's my landlady."

"She's dying. You machine-" He stopped. John was going to get too angry, and Mrs. Hudson would still be shot. "Sod this. Sod this, I'm going. You can stay here, alone."

"Alone is what I have," Sherlock murmured brokenly. "Alone protects me." John spared one (last) look at his friend. He couldn't even think straight about the man anymore, let alone the difficult signs he was portraying.

"No, Sherlock. Friends protect people." And somehow, the detective's face fell further. Friends. A worse word to say than that John couldn't think of, but it was too late now. He had to go.

One last thought.

Sherlock was breathing heavily up here. The top of London Bridge. The Thames would be so cold, he thought to himself. Hypothermic, freezing, burning. Sherlock balanced himself perfectly so that he could stay for several minutes. Mycroft had changed all the boats' sailing patterns so that he and John could do this in peace. The sky would be dark for hours yet. No one would notice he was gone but John. Wasn't that always how he wanted to die? No publicity, no ridicule, just one person (a very special person) on the ground to know what had taken place.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Time was running out.

A cab drove up to the banks of the river, and John came out of it, clutching a mobile (Harry's mobile) in his hands. Sherlock pressed speed dial #1 on his calling app and put the device to his ear. John would answer in a few rings.

"Hello?"

His voice was almost too much. Sherlock swayed on the dangerous precipice but steadied himself quickly. "John."

"Sherlock, are you okay?" John's feet dug into the strange sand of the banks, walking down and away from him.

"Turn around and walk back the way you came," Sherlock pleaded. Irene said once that she would make him beg for mercy twice. He laughed internally when she said it, knowing already that only John would have that kind of power over him.

"I'm going to the dock-"

"Would you please just do as I ask?!" He hated sounding desperate. Desperate was boring, desperate was normal. Everyone was desperate, and he used to be the cool and calm one. Moriarty had accused him of being ordinary, and this was why. Desperate and in love. Who would have thought it? "Stand right there and look up," Sherlock continued. "I'm on the bridge."

John's eyes met his from so far away, and Sherlock was almost glad of it. John wouldn't be able to see how many salty streaks painted his cheeks. "Oh God," he whispered into the phone.

"Since I obviously can't come down, we'll just have to do it like this."

"What's going on?"

"Sherlock, darling, what are you doing up there?" John asked. He knew Sherlock couldn't hear him, he knew it, but he still had to ask. he didn't know what was happening, and it scared him very much.

"Sherlock, please."

"An apology."

John cocked his head up at the bridge. "What do you mean?"

"I'm a-" Sherlock broke off. "I'm a f-" John could sort of feel Sherlock shake his head into the phone. "Damn it all, I can't say it again. I can't. I'm sorry."

"Sherlock. Love, what do you mean? What do you need to say?"

The detective laughed, but it was wrong, bitter and sad and doomed. "This will be the third time I've fatally fallen. The first time was the day after we met, that case at Lauriston Gardens, that day you said 'Oh god yes' and tumbled into my life with a cane and a gun and your insistence I was really brilliant. You don't know what you did to me, but since we have time, I'll tell you." He paused, and John couldn't speak. "You changed everything. John Watson, it was like a bomb went off in my mind palace. Lights lined the darkest places. Do you know that you are the first person important enough for me to have one whole room in my palace for you? I guess now you do. Every time I thought of you after that was one more thing added to my amazement.

"Did you ever wonder why I got so jealous all the time? Why I drove all your girlfriends away? Why I never gave up the thought that maybe, just maybe, you would see me how I saw you?" Sherlock huffed. "I wasn't very good at any of that. But I wasn't surprised when Moriarty used you against me. The pool was really my fault, and I'm so sorry. I fell fatally for you first. Fatally because you destroyed my previous perceptions. All of them."

"Sherlock," John said in an exhale.

"No, you have to let me finish. I got off track. The second time I fell was off a rooftop, the rooftop of St. Bart's. Moriarty wanted to kill you and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, and he would have unless I killed myself. I tried to get the code from him that would call off his assassins, but he swallowed a bullet before I could. I couldn't stop them, John. So I did the next best thing. I told you it was all true. I told you that I really was a fraud, a fake, and that I only knew everything I knew because I wanted to impress you with my knowledge. It had to be real, you had to believe it. I'd formulated a plan with Mycroft just in case that happened, and I was to go through with it. But I wasn't supposed to really die. When I said goodbye to you, I did."

Sherlock shook his head again, and that laugh escaped his lips. John couldn't see him very well at all in the dark, and was it ever dark. "You know what dying feels like, don't you? I felt so hopeless, so lost, John. Broken, snapped. I doubted if even you could put me back together.

"Three days after I died, and I'm going to keep saying died because that's the most appropriate word I can think of for what happened, someone injected you with a serum. For lack of a better term, it was a memory loss serum. You forgot the entire year you knew me, from the moment we met to two days after my death. I'm sorry. Moriarty wanted to hurt me, and you got in the way. He wanted to make it so that when I came back, I would stay lost and barely functional."

John let a few tears fall. "What happened then? Keep talking."

Sherlock paused a moment. "Moriarty had a web of criminals that needed dismantling. Mycroft knew I was the only one that could do it, and so I did. I didn't know what had occurred with you until a few days before I got back. If possible, it only made my condition worse. I was a mess when Mycroft summoned me back."

"I was a mess when you were gone too," John said, and he didn't know where it came from.

"Please let me finish. Please, John. I could never explain before."

"Okay."

Sherlock took a deep breath. "I found out you still lived in 221B, and I had to see you, so I moved into 221C, so that maybe I could pass by you once in a while, know you were alright. But it wasn't enough. I needed to be over you, I needed to move on, otherwise, I wasn't sure if I was going to survive at all." He laughed, this time with a bit of humor. "I cooked up this experiment to spend time with you, as your boyfriend, just to see if that little taste could get me through a lifetime of being without my John. I told you that it was just pretending. I hope you know that it was never pretending for me. That was my reality.

"Baby, you asked me to marry you. And I'm sorry that I can't unless I survive this and you'll still have me." John knew he was crying now, crying full out, and Sherlock was crying too. "I'm sorry for lying to you, I'm sorry I hurt you, and I'm sorry I have to take my last fatal fall. But I'm not sorry for loving you and I never will be."

"Sherlock, alright stop it now. Just stop."

"Goodbye, John. Don't...forget...me."

Those last words were snatched by the wind as Sherlock Holmes fell, coat billowing around him and the air bitingly cold. Don't forget me.

God, I had no idea if I could get through that. I tried so hard for it to be a good almost-ending, and I hope it's what y'all were picturing. There's one chapter left for this mess to put itself back together and I hope you guys will stay for it. Read + review!