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John Watson jumped out of the cab, rushing to open the front door of 221B. He had just gotten a call that Mrs. Hudson, his landlady, had been shot and he was stopping by the flat to grab some things before going to the hospital. The paramedic said it was serious.
Inside, John found the tattooed handy man on a ladder, drilling screws into the walls. Below watching his progress was…. Mrs. Hudson, who appeared completely fine.
“Oh God, John, You made me jump.” she said with a laugh when she saw him, “Is everything okay now with the police? Has Sherlock sorted it all out?” John could only stare at her in bewildment. What on earth was going on?
“Oh my God,” John whispered when the answer dawned on him. That’s why Sherlock hadn’t come with John when he had heard Mrs. Hudson was shot, why the call was made at all. James Moriarty needed John out of the way so he could get Sherlock on his own and now he was.
John spun around, heading back outside. “St. Bartholomew’s!” John yelled at the cabbie that was still waiting for him at the curb.
“But you just came from there,” protested the cabbie.
“Just do it,” John snapped as he slid into the back seat of the cab and reached for his phone, then changed his mind. If Sherlock was with Moriarty right now, he couldn’t have a ringing cell phone distracting him.
The cab ride seemed to take twice as long to get back. The whole time the same questions rolled around in John’s mind. What was Moriarty planning and why did it seem like Sherlock was playing along? The night before, Sherlock had said that there was one more thing that had to be done before Moriarty could complete his story.
Sherlock knew what it was but he wouldn’t tell John. John hadn’t pushed for the information. He trusted his friend enough to explain to him when the time came but now the confusion was eating him up alive. The cab finally arrived once again to St. Bart’s. As John was getting out of the cab, his phone rang.
“Hello?”
“John,” answered a deep familiar voice.
“Hey, Sherlock. You okay?” asked John as he started to jog towards the hospital.
“Turn around and walk back the way you came,” Sherlock told him sharply.
“No, I’m coming in.”
“Just do as I ask,” there was a slight pause, “please.”
John stopped and quickly looked around. “Where?” he asked, continuing to walk around but not in a general direction, trying to find Sherlock’s location.
“Stop there,” Sherlock instructed.
John froze, his back partially to the hospital.
“Okay, look up, I’m on the rooftop.”
When John did, his blood turned to ice. Sherlock was standing on the roof ledge of Bart’s.
“I can’t come down,” Sherlock stammered, fear in his voice, “…. so we’ll just have to do it like this.”
“What’s going on?” John asked, breathless and confused.
“An apology,” Sherlock answered simply, “It’s all true.”
“What?”
“Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.”
John was stunned. John knew James Moriarty. He had seen him only a few hours before. Despite the rough of being Richard Brook, the man did exist.
“Why are you saying this?”
There was a pause. “I’m a fake,” Sherlock continued, as if making a confession.
“Sherlock.”
“ . . . .The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson . . . and Molly, in fact tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”
John couldn’t listen any more.
“Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up. The first time we met. The first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?
The memory of John and Sherlock’s first night as flat mates floated into his mind. On their way to their first crime scene together, Sherlock had deduced almost everything about his sister based on a phone that was previously hers.
Sherlock gave a shaky laugh. It was silent for a few moments.
“I researched you.” Sherlock said finally, “Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.”
John couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe it.
“No, all right. Stop it, now.”
John took a couple of steps forward.
“No, stay exactly where you are,” Sherlock commanded, “Don’t move.”
John lifted up his free hand and stepped back a couple of paces. He could see Sherlock reach out his hand in front of him as if to grab something just out of his grasp. On the phone, his breathing grew loud and raspy.
“Keep your eyes fixed on me,” Sherlock pleaded, “Please, will you this for me?”
“Do what?” John asked.
“This phone call, it’s my note. That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note.”
“Leave a note when?” A terrible thought crept into John’s mind. He didn’t even want to think it.
“Goodbye John.”
“No, don’t . . .” John pleaded his voice creaking, unable to finish the sentence.
He was going to do it. Sherlock was really going to do it.
John tried again.
“Sher . . .” he began just as he heard Sherlock hung up. John yanked the phone from his ear.
“SHERLOCK!” John yelled to his friend in desperation. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Sherlock spread in arms like a great black raven and suddenly fell from the roof. “Sherlock,” John whispered in shocked horror as his best friend’s dark figure plummeted down the side of the hospital, disappearing behind the ambulance building.
John sprinted forward; only thought was to get to Sherlock.
As John came around the ambulance building, a bicyclist rammed into him. John fell, hitting his head on the pavement. Minorly stunned, John got up again, heading towards where a small crowd of pedestrians and nurses were already gathering.
“I’m a doctor. Let me through please,” John told them. A couple of nurses tried to hold him back.
“No, he’s my friend,” John protested, “He’s my friend, please.” Sherlock lay on his side on the wet sidewalk. A pool of blood had formed around his head, mixing with the rainwater on the ground. John reached down, a woman still trying to hold him back, and grabbed Sherlock’s wrist. There was no pulse. Someone pulled John’s hand away and Sherlock’s arm fell back onto the pavement. Despair washed over John and his legs started to buckle. Two paramedics appeared with a gurney. “Please, let me just . . ..” John begged, unable to get the words out. It was all happening too fast. This couldn’t be real. John’s legs finally gave out and the women supporting him helped him to the ground. One of the paramedics rolled Sherlock over. Blood covered his face and his green eyes were open, staring up at nothing. John could see where his head met the concrete.
“Oh Jesus, no. . . .” He moaned, “God, no.” Sherlock was then lifted onto the gurney and was rolled away. After what seemed like forever, John finally got to his feet. Several people asked if he was all right. He simply told them he was fine, but that was a bold-faced lie. John Watson would never be fine again.
Inspector Greg Lestrade sat alone at his desk, staring into a styrofoam cup of black of coffee. It was about eight in the morning and he hadn’t slept a wink. Wariness weighed down on his body. Late last night, Lestrade was ordered to arrest Sherlock Holmes, a man he had known for years and considered a friend. Almost all the officers of Scotland Yard were present as well as the senior Inspector. Yet somehow Sherlock was able to escape with his friend, John Watson. Not that Lestrade was sorry they got away. He had actually called John, before hand so the two of them could get a head start, but he was still worried out of his mind. He felt responsible for what they were going through. Maybe if Lestrade had done something different, Sherlock would have never been accused of being the mastermind behind all the cases he solved. The possibility was still there though. Lestrade has known Sherlock for about seven years now barley knew anything about him. Lestrade hardly saw Sherlock when he wasn’t consulting for Scotland Yard and Lestrade had to call him.
Lestrade drained his lukewarm cup of coffee in two gulps. Not knowing what else to do, he got up to refill his cup in the break room. On his way back, a cluster of officers had formed in front of the desks near Lestrade’s office. As Lestrade got closer, he heard Sergeant Sally Donavon say, “ . . .been saying it for years. We should have never trusted Sherlock Holmes.”
“Thought he was so clever. Always knew he would slip up,” Philip Anderson added gleefully.
“Don’t you have better things to do then gossip all day?” asked Lestrade as he passed the group.
“We are just discussing the facts, sir,” Donavon said boldly, “I always, said that freak is a psychopath.”
Lestrade stopped mid-stride, back to Donavon. “High-functioning sociopath,” he muttered under his breath.
“What’s that, sir?”
Lestrade turned to face her, anger radiating from every pore of his body.
“I said, leave it alone, Donavon.”
Donavon met Lestrade’s angry stare with a challenging one of her own. She had always been a good, obedient officer, never putting a toe out of line, but this recent accomplishment had made her a little too gutsy for Lestrade’s taste.
“Get. Back. To. Work.” He told her, in a low growl, slowly pronouncing every word. Nobody moved.
The phone on Sgt. Donavan’s desk rang, breaking the silence.
“Yes, sir,” Donavon said, mockingly, not changing her expression. She then walked back to her desk to answer the phone. Lestrade relaxed and turned to go back to his office.
“Inspector Lestrade? Yes he’s right here,” Lestrade heard Donavon say to the caller. She started to walk back to him, than stopped abruptly.
“O.K., I’ll take a message,” She told the speaker, her thin dark eyebrows knitted together in confusion. There was silence for a moment while Donavon listened to the person on the other end. In the next moment, she gasped. Her eyes widened in shock and her face added a pale green hue. “Yes, thank you. I’ll tell him. Have a good day,” Donavon croaked into the receiver before hanging up. Her hands dropped to her desk for support.
“Donavon?”
Lestrade stepped towards her, concerned. Donavan turned to him, her eyes filled with the pain of the news she was about to tell.
“Sir,” she whispered, “that was Molly Hopper. She . . . Sherlock Holmes killed himself this morning.”
The Styrofoam cup slipped from Lesrade’s hand, covering his shoes and right pants leg with warm coffee. Nobody moved. No one made a sound.
After a few minuets, Anderson broke the silence, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.
“Did we do this?”
As soon as Lestrade could, he headed over to Baker Street to see John, but he refused to see him. The only person who seemed to know anything about Sherlock’s death was Molly Hooper.
“He jumped off the roof,” she told Lestrade when he visited her in the morgue later that day. Molly’s eyes were still red from crying and was too busy cleaning that she barely looked at him.
“The fall killed him instantly,” Molly continued, wiping an autopsy table with paper towels and cleaning solution,” so he wasn’t in any pain, so that’s good.”
Lestrade nodded in agreement. Molly seemed to be just babbling, trying to give the information he came to hear but also trying not think about what she is saying by staying busy.
“So he’s pretty bashed up then?” Lustrate asked quietly. Molly instantly stopped what she was doing and looked at him surprisingly alarmed.
“Do you want to see him?” She asked, her eyes moved to across the room to the large rows of drawers where the bodies were kept, one of them holding Sherlock.
‘No I don’t want to see him,’ Lestrade wanted to snap. He didn’t want to see Sherlock pale and cold in a drawer. He didn’t want to see his bashed in head where it met the concrete. He didn’t want to see him dead.
Instead, Lestrade told her that he had to go and left the morgue. Molly let out a small sigh of relief. Maybe she didn’t want to see the body either.