Chapter Text
Sherlock Holmes was standing on the precipice of life and death.
At the top of St. Bart's Hospital, watching the people below mill about like ants, it was impossible to tell which he preferred.
One foot in the world of the living, one foot in whatever came after. It made no difference to him whether he lived or died.
That was what he told himself.
The wind whipped his coat about him, like the cape of some avenging hero, seeking to right some villainous injustice.
In some way, that was what he was doing. Except in this world, there were no heroes. No extraordinary people who did good and fought evil just for the sake of it. Good and Evil, in themselves, were nothing more than abstract concepts, designed for society's simplest minds.
And even if such things did exist, Sherlock wouldn't be among the heroes. He wasn't one of the Good ones. He'd told John as much, what seemed like lifetimes ago, now.
But, damn him, dying in the place of his friends was exactly the sort of thing that would land him on a pedestal.
Sherlock Holmes dies a martyr.
James Moriarty dies a villain.
Mrs. Hudson, Greg Lestrade, and John Watson live.
Those were the facts, as the world would have them.
Once Moriarty was exposed for all that he was, there would be no further question of Sherlock's reputation. Mrs. Hudson would be safe, Lestrade would keep his job, and John…
John was getting out of a taxi now, eyes glued to his phone screen. Waiting, like the loyal person he was, for a command. Someone to tell him what to do, so he didn't have to figure it out for himself.
Sherlock watched his posture straighten with purpose when his phone rang. Like the call was what he had been waiting for this entire time.
"What's going on?"
"Well, an apology," Sherlock shuffled forward, craning his body to get the best view of his best friend. He wanted to see the look on his face when his world shattered around him. Fragile man, easy to crack. It would make things so much easier. "It's all true."
He saw the moment John spotted him on the roof. Watched the color drain from his face as he slowed to a stop. "What?"
"Everything Kitty wrote about me," Sherlock explained. "I invented Moriarty."
There was a pause, long enough that Sherlock would have considered, for a moment, that the call had dropped. If not for the look in John's eyes. Betrayal and sorrow. A man who had never stopped living in a war.
"Why are you saying this?"
"I'm a fake," it came so easily. Conformity was the easiest lie to tell.
"Don't. Please."
A pain was spreading like a fire in his chest, all-consuming. Moriarty had promised to burn him, but he couldn't blame himself for thinking he'd be immune. This was a bonfire, flames licking at each of his ribs in turn. He needed to finish this, before it burned all the way through.
"Every case, all those deductions," he pushed on despite it all. "The newspapers were right. Tell Lestrade. And Mrs. Hudson. And Molly. In fact, tell everyone who will listen. I created Moriarty for my own purposes."
Parts of him burned, more, and more, with every word. The truth-seeking part. That buried emotional part. Ashes.
"When we met—the first time we met—you knew all about my sister," John tried to reason.
But there was no reasoning in this. Sherlock wasn't going to give him enough time to rationalize.
"No one could be that clever."
"You could."
And he was. Which was why it was so easy to lie now.
"I researched you before we met. I discovered what I could to impress you." It was so easy. Too easy. He knew how to convince someone of something they already suspected. "It's a trick, John. Just a magic trick."
If it was possible to watch someone's heart break in real time, Sherlock would be witnessing just that.
A soldier watched his friends die countless times. Over, and over, and over. But the world's only consulting detective was supposed to be untouchable. A fact of the world that would never waver.
Sherlock watched John realize that he was not. He watched John's face, as the pillar that he'd placed Sherlock upon crumbled.
Because, in the end, they were both human. As much as anyone else. With real, human emotions, as much as they liked to pretend they didn't exist.
His own emotions toward John Watson were ugly, messy things, best kept locked up at the bottom of the pit that was his heart. Far, far down, with no hope of being dredged up by anyone.
If he was going to do this, he was going to do it correctly. There was no room for error when he was teetering on the edge of this life and the next. He needed to break John's heart, properly shatter it. Because that was who John was. Loyal to a fault.
He needed to be allowed to move on.
"Stop it!" John's voice was forceful, but Sherlock knew as well as John did that it was a facade. Toughness was his only defense against what was to come.
It felt like he was reading Sherlock's thoughts. But, if there was anyone who would have the ability to, it was John.
The doctor was moving forward now, looking for a break in foot traffic to approach. That couldn't happen.
"Don't," Sherlock snapped, an order from a superior. "Don't move. Stay right where you are. Keep your eyes fixed on me. I need you to do this for me."
"Do what?" John's eyes didn't stop moving, searching for a way through without causing more of a scene.
"This phone call, it's my note, in a way. You have to write a note."
"Write a note when?"
The phone slipped from between his fingers, clattering to the roof. It was shattered, like Sherlock's hopes of getting out of this. The bridge had been burned. The last string had been tied. It was all down to him.
On his toes, he turned his back to the street, just as John began shouting. He couldn't look at him any longer. Composure was vital in this situation. John would have to understand.
He prayed, for the first and only time, to every nonexistent higher power, that John would understand.
The wind was fierce so high up, but Sherlock couldn't feel it. He was burning. His body was on fire. His cheeks were flushed with the same warm blood that would paint the sidewalks as soon as he stepped off of the ledge.
He stumbled backward, half on, half off of the ledge. It was a matter of balance now. One wrong move, and it would all be over.
For the hundredth time, he ran over his options in his head. Over a dozen possibilities. More, if Moriarty were still alive.
More, if he didn't have his friends to worry about. Better unattached. He should have stayed unattached.
He outstretched his arms and closed his eyes.
If he focused, the sound of the wind drowned out John's shouts for him to stop. Just the sound of the wind and the very last of his thoughts.
Mrs. Hudson.
Lestrade.
John.
When you were standing at the edge of a building, there was no point in physically jumping. It was the sort of dramatic thing that only happened in movies. He would never be so dull. Instead, he leaned back and let gravity do the work.
They said, in your final moments, you watched your life flash before your eyes. Sherlock had always thought the notion was childish. But in the seconds it took for him to fall five stories, he realized it was actually true.
He saw the day he visited 221B Baker Street. Where he met an elderly woman who was just looking to fill the void left by her criminal ex-husband.
He saw the first case he ever worked with Scotland Yard. Where he met a detective who stepped on his toes and needlessly questioned him at every turn.
He saw that day in St. Bart's lab, when he met his new flatmate. When he felt the sort of rightness he never knew he had been going without. For the first time, that day, he felt like he was working toward something bigger. That, maybe, his life did have some sort of purpose beyond solving cases and falling in and out of drugs.
That purpose was clearer than ever before now, laid out in front of him in the form of three people with tiny red dots aimed at the backs of their heads.
Somehow, he knew, this was always the way it was supposed to end.
The cold, heartless Sherlock Holmes, dying in the place of the people he had the honor of calling his friends.
Because what was life, if not the people you left behind?
Mrs. Hudson.
Lestrade.
John.
Their names ran rampant through his mind, like a tape, wound and rewound. Again and again.
Mrs. Hudson.
Lestrade.
"Sherlock!"
John.
The ground came up to meet him.