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Greg was at home, on the couch, where he had been told by his supervisors, to stay for the immediate future. Officially he had been suspended, pending an investigation. Unofficially, he would probably never work again. He couldn’t wait until his ex caught wind of that. She would think that was a riot.
He felt like shit about the arrest. If he’d thought it through, he would have told them to send some other poor flog. The way it had turned out, he’d just come out looking worse. It provided none of the professional detachment he was hoping he’d display to the higher ups. Instead, the near shoot-out and failed hostage negotiation made him look a dim twit. Still, he couldn’t have let anyone else do it. Least of all Donovan. He couldn’t have done that to Sherlock. The resignation in his eyes had been bad enough without Donovan’s gloating smirk.
His phone vibrated on the edge of his coffee table. It rumbled nearer to the edge with every ring. He was of a mind to ignore it. None of his friend called him during work hours. Shit, none of them hardly called at all anymore and anyone calling from work could get stuffed. It was only as his phone teetered on the edge; threatening to fall that he snatched it up. The number was private. He nearly didn’t answer, let them have their precious privacy if they wanted it. It was only drilled in professionalism that made him answer. Nar, it was hope; hope that Sherlock might ring him; might turn himself in and let the whole thing be sorted by the big boys. He knew Sherlock did not do it. Despite the seeds of doubt sown by Donovan and Anderson, he knew that Sherlock was innocent. He just could not treat him as such. Like all open cases he needed to run down every lead until its last gasping detail. He could not dismiss things on a hunch like Sherlock could. If Sherlock would just put himself in their hands he would look as innocent as he truly was. A few nights in the lock up and he would be free to walk. It would hardly be the first time he had spent a night or two in the care of London’s finest.
“Hello. Detect… Greg speaking,” Greg answered, faltering.
“Good afternoon.”
The voice on the phone was calm and controlled and not entirely unfamiliar, but Greg was done with games. He snapped, “who is this?”
“Mycroft Holmes.”
“Jesus,” Greg muttered, “I don’t know where he is. I’ve checked all the usual places.”
“There is a situation at Saint Barts. I think it would be best if you attended immediately.”
“I can’t help your brother anymore, they put me off the job.”
“He no longer requires your assistance.”
“Why are you asking me to go then?”
“I thought you might like to attend for personal reasons.”
“Which personal reasons?” Frustration was starting to creep into Greg’s tone, but it was only there to hide the growing worry.
“I thought you were close to my brother. Were you not?”
“I am, but that doesn’t mean I can fix this mess.”
“No one can. Please don’t mention that I called you. If anyone asks why you are there, tell them it was a hunch.”
“What is this about?”
“I’m sorry, Greg,” Mycroft said softly.
“Sorry about what?” Greg demanded, but the phone was silent. He glanced at the screen to confirm that Mycroft had hung up on him.
***
Greg’s car hadn’t been taken from him, unlike nearly every other item of police kit. He did still have a spare police badge, courtesy of Sherlock’s pick pocketing habit. He’d pinched this one back when Sherlock left it on his sitting room table right next to John’s coffee cup. He turned on the radio as he sped towards Barts. His stomach was in knots. Mycroft’s cryptic words had left him sick with worry. Was Sherlock hurt? He must be if he is at the hospital. Or was he causing a scene there?
The radio sputtered out information. He mostly ignored it. Traffic stops, drug violations, a street brawl. A jumper at Saint Barts.
No.
The instant he heard the report of a jumper he knew that it was Sherlock. The tactlessness of the statements made his breath hitch. He wouldn’t. Would he?
***
When Greg arrived at the hospital, there was police tape surrounding the ambulance bay. The dark smudge of red on the pavement told a story Greg didn’t want to read. He glanced up, unable to stop himself. It was so high.
He looked down at his shoes.
“What are you doing here?” A familiar voice accosted him. It was Anderson. The last person he wanted to see right now, or at least the second last.
“I had a bad feeling.” Greg said, then, realising that sounded stupid, he clarified. “Heard it on the radio.”
“They won’t let you up there.”
“Up where?
“On the roof.”
“That’s the last place I want to go,” Greg said with absolute assurance.
“Oh, I thought you wanted to see the other crime scene.”
“The other...? Oh, never mind. I just want to find Sherlock.”
“They took him inside; they said it didn’t look good,” Anderson said in a thick voice.
Greg nodded and turned to walk into the building. At lease Anderson had the decency to look contrite. In fact, Greg reflected, he looked like he might cry.
“John is here somewhere,” Anderson called after him, “you should find him.”
Greg just kept walking away.
The nurse at the reception desk was familiar to him. He had spoken to her before, flirted with her, numerous times, when he had asked after patients that were related to cases. She had sent him to the morgue, more often, than not. Please, dear God, not today. His smile was hollow when he asked after Sherlock Holmes, flipping his badge in her direction.
Her smile was genuine, but her eyes sympathetic when she looked up from her computer. “They took him into emergency two. I’m not sure he’ll be much help with your investigation. He was in a bad way when they brought him in. I can have someone come and talk to you as soon as there is news of his condition.”
Mycroft’s words echoed in his ears. “He no longer requires your assistance.”
“No thanks, I’ll just pop my head in, if that’s ok?”
“Sure, go ahead.” She had no idea that, today, he was a civilian. He was not inclined to tell her otherwise.
His feet seemed to know where to go without his mind telling them. The room was a mess. The floor strewn with sterile packaging and soaked with blood. The space where the stretcher should have been was empty. Surgery. Greg prayed that they had taken him up to surgery. He was a tough bastard. Maybe, just maybe, he could pull through.
A doctor pushed through the doors as Greg stood in the centre of the room, slack shouldered and wondering what to do next.
“Are you looking for Sherlock Holmes?”
Greg nodded; his voice stuck in this throat.
“Sorry, they shouldn’t have let family in here. I’ll show you to the waiting room.” The man with the dark goatee said in an overly polite voice.
Taking the badge out from his pocket and showing it to the doctor, Greg asked, “What’s his condition?”
“Sorry, I thought you were next of kin.” The doctor relaxed visibly. “He was deceased on arrival. We did what we could to bring him back, but his injuries were extensive.”
Greg rubbed his face with both palms. He thought he was ready to hear this news. He thought he could handle it. He had received news just like it so many times. He was silent for a long moment before he asked, “Has his family been informed?”
“Not yet.”
“There was someone here with him?” Greg asked. John would surely be here.
“Yeah, he is waiting in the family room.”
“John Watson?”
“I didn’t get a name.”
Greg knew that it had to be John. “Blond, not tall?”
“Yeah, I think so, I only caught a glimpse of him.”
“Can I do the notification? I know him.” Even as he said it, he wondered if it was a good idea. Would John blame him? He wouldn’t blame him if he did. He’d been the one to put the cuffs on Sherlock. It was the right thing to do, even if it did get him punched in the mouth.
“Go for it. I’m hardly going to fight you for that job. I’ll have him moved into my office. Last door on the right in the next corridor” The doctor said as he turned to leave.
Greg stayed a moment amongst the debris. Looked around at the evidence of how hard they fought for Sherlock’s life, just moments after he gave it away. What a waste. What a terrible waste of a life. What a waste of a mind.
Sherlock’s jacket lay in the corner. They had been considerate enough to not cut it off, even in their rush. His other clothing was in tatters. Greg scooped up the coat. It didn’t have any noticeable blood on it. It still had a hint of warmth and the smell of his aftershave lingered on it. Greg held it to his chest. He took a moment to breath; to ready himself for what he needed to do.
The door was shut when he got to the office. Greg took a deep breath. He had done hundreds of these. He knew that this was going to be one of the hardest.
John did not stand up when Greg entered, he just spun in his chair. Greg saw the flicker of hope in John’s eyes. Saw the flicker die when he registered who it was. Saw his eyes dip to the coat that he clutched; saw the tears brim.
John turned away then. Greg watched from the doorway as John covered his face with both hands, braced his elbows against his knees. Greg saw his shoulder hitch. It was only the matter of three steps to be at his side. Greg gripped his shoulder.
John looked up. Greg gave his shoulder a squeeze and then draped the coat across John’s lap. It was John that deserved to have it.
“I’m so sorry, John,” he muttered. The words doing nothing to communicate the depth he wanted them to mean.
John never replied, he just held the coat to his chest and sobbed into it until he was breathless and shaking. Greg stood with him, tears silently running down his own cheeks. Feeling like his grief was undeserved. He had no right to it in the presence of John Watson.
When John had cried himself dry, lifted his chin to the roof and stared stoically ahead, Greg spoke. “I’ll drive you home.”
It was all he had to offer.
They were silent until they reached the main road. It was John who spoke first. His voice was hollow, and empty and detached. “He called me, from the roof. He said it was his note. He said it was all true, the lies that Moriarty told. He…” John’s voice hitched, “he… I saw him fall. He jumped right in front of me.”
“Jesus, John, that’s awful.”
“No,” John snapped. “What is awful is that we drove him to it. Our disbelief, our doubt in him. That’s what is awful.”
The truth of John’s words cut deeply. There was no denying it. They had not been there for Sherlock when he needed them most. He had always seemed so independent, so ruthless and powerful, that it was easy to forget that he was just a young man trying to find his way in the world. Greg had seen that side of him, but he had forgotten. Those moments of vulnerability were so fleeting and rare that it was easier to believe that they did not really exist at all.
John had gone quiet, his seething rage dissipating into an ocean of grief. They drove in silence until they arrived outside of Baker Street.
“Mrs Hudson…” John muttered, as if it had just occurred to him that she did not know.
“I’ll do it,” Greg offered gently, half expecting John to tell him to sod off, but John just murmured something that might have been a thank you and got out of the car.
Greg followed John and waited a few paces back while he got the keys out. John fumbled them, nearly dropped them. Greg realised that his hands were shaking too much for him to hold the keys properly. Greg took them from him, waited for John to take a slow step back and then opened the door himself. John did not hesitate. He went straight upstairs.
Greg watched him go as far as the landing before going over to tap on Mrs. Hudson’s door. He listened as her footsteps rushed towards the door.
“Do you know where they are? My boys haven’t been home in days. What on earth is going on?”
“Can I come inside, please?” Greg said softly. Mrs. Hudson stepped back and let him in and waved him towards the kitchen.
“Where are they?” She demanded to know the minute they were inside.
“John is upstairs. I just brought him home.”
“Oh, thank goodness. And Sherlock, did you arrest him again?” Her voice was accusing.
Greg shook his head. Jesus, he was about to break this poor lady’s heart.
“I have some terrible news.” Greg said, he watched the colour drain from her face as he continued. “I’m sorry to inform you that Sherlock passed away this afternoon.”
Greg hated this. It was by far the worst part of the job, shit, it wasn’t even his bloody job right now, but shit, he hated this.
“Are you sure he is really dead? No, he is so full of life, too stubborn to die. This can’t be true.” But even as she said it her eyes were welling with tears, she swiped at one angrily.
“I am very sure, Missus Hudson. There was an incident at Barts.”
“Don’t you give me all that police speak. I don’t want to hear all that nonsense from you, none of that ‘incident’ and ‘sorry to inform you’ garbage. You’re his friend. I’m his friend, we are all practically family. Tell me what really happened.”
“There will be an ongoing investigation of the circumstances, but I have to warn you that it appears that he took his own life. It will probably be in the news.” Greg said stiffly, acutely aware that he was still talking like a copper.
Mrs. Hudson’s face fell. Any composure she had maintain until this point fled her. She crushed her face into Greg’s chest. As she spoke, she pummelled her fists against him in destress. He held her there lightly, letting her strike at him. “No, no, he wouldn’t have done that. Something else must have happened.”
“John was there, it appears that he witnessed the incident.”
She broke down then, clutching his shirt and crying into his chest.
***
Greg was home before he considered that he should have gone to see Mycroft. He was his brother, he deserved to be notified properly. Then again, he probably already knew. He seemed to know about everything Sherlock did moments after it happened. Shit, he knew about it beforehand, most of the time. Hell, when he thought back to the phone call earlier it was clear that he knew what was up.
He no longer requires your assistance.
He fucking knew. He fucking knew and he did nothing to warn Greg what he was walking into. How could he? He knew that Sherlock mattered to him and he sent him along like a lamb to the slaughter.
Still standing in his entryway, he punched at the contact he had for Mycroft. Anger prickled at the back of Greg’s neck. His breath came in short angry bursts.
Mycroft picked up on the first ring. He sounded tired and sad. “I am sorry, Greg. I really am.”
Mycroft’s words arrested Greg’s anger. He was suddenly at a complete loss as to what to say. He never really had a plan, but now he had the clarity to recognise that Mycroft had just lost his baby brother and copping an earful from Greg was not going to help either of them.
“Me too.” Greg said, when he continued there was no heat in his voice. “You knew, before you rang me earlier?”
“I had a fairly good idea of how events were unfolding.”
“What the hell happened out there?”
“I am as unclear on what caused the events as you are.”
“Bullshit.”
“You know I cannot say anything. My position, and your lack of one prevents it. Please do not ask me to elaborate.”
“Don’t hide behind that shit.”
“It is easier than admitting that I don’t want to discuss this because I have just lost my closest family member. Can we leave it at that?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I… I guess I’m just trying to make sense of all this.”
“There is very little sense to be made of this.”
When Mycroft hung up, Greg checked his phone for the time of earlier Mycroft’s call. He must have rung just minutes after Sherlock jumped. Had he seen it happen? Did he have some CCTV link to Barts? Greg hoped that he didn’t. God, what a thing to see.
That gave him pause. He wondered how John was coping. That was the kind of thing you never unsee. It would likely haunt him for the rest of his life. Greg had tried to save a jumper once. She had been on a balcony at some shitty residential flats. Her ex-husband had just been granted custody of their two kids because she was drunk most of the time and high the rest. This was back in the third or fourth year that he was working as a cop, still in a uniform, his hair still dark, his wife still faithful. She had jumped. Even after an hour of talking to him. He had said everything he’d been trained to. He stood with her in the howling wind, her eyes wide and her knuckles white on the balcony railing. He’d tried to grab for her as she stepped off, his fingertips brushing the edge of her coat as she fell away from him. He watched her fall away. Watched her crumple on the pavement below. He sat on the balcony, hands shaking, and head hung low, until one of the other cops came up and brought him down. It had stayed with him. Much like he suspected this would stay with John, except this was worse. They were so close, inseparable. He’d never seen Sherlock happier that since John had turned up out of the blue.
Greg’s apartment felt more pathetic than it ever had. He was unable to stay there for one more single second. Glad that he had never even taken his shoes off, he banged back out the door. He got in his car and drove, drove until he figured out what was itching at him. Underneath the pain in his chest, there was something else. A grating little piece that did not fit. Anderson’s words hovered at the periphery. He had to dig through the anger at the man to get to them. The other crime scene. He had not understood. He still did not but the words drew him to Barts. Drew him to the top level. Drew him into the cold night of the rooftop.
In the moonlight, the blood stain on the ground told a story he couldn’t read. Sherlock would have been able to explain it. The thought was like a punch in the gut. He walked to the edge, where Sherlock had stepped off, and looked down at the dark stain in the glow of the streetlights.
“Please don’t jump. I couldn’t live with that too.” Greg’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He spun too fast and had a moment of vertigo before he steadied himself. He had thought he was alone up here. Anderson sat with his back to the ledge a few metres away. “We messed up, didn’t we? We messed up badly.”
With his heart slowing Greg moved towards Anderson. He went and lowered himself down next to him. “Yes, yes, we really did.”
Anderson handed him a small bottle that was hidden inside a brown paper bag. Greg took a swig and nearly coughed at the burn that told of cheap liquor; punishment liquor. He handled the bottle back, then he asked, “What happened up here?”
“I don’t know, but Moriarty is dead. Self-inflicted gunshot to the head. He ate a bullet, and we don’t know why.”
“Before or after?” Greg did not have to explain what it was before or after.
“Before. The gunshot was heard before.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would Sherlock jump if Moriarty was already dead?” Greg asked, taking the bottle back again.
“We’d need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out.” Anderson said without the slightest hint on irony.
“I miss him already,” Greg admitted.
Anderson was silent for a moment, then in a near whisper he said, “I don’t know how to live with what I did.”
“We do our job. We do it well, and we try to be as good as he wanted us to be.” Greg said, knowing it was inadequate.
Anderson nodded sadly and in the cold moonlight, at the scene of his death, they drank to Sherlock’s memory.