Chapter Text
The water swallowed them whole.
For one terrible moment, Sherlock Holmes couldn't hear anything. The rushing river, the shouts from above, even the frantic beating of his own heart seemed to disappear beneath the water. There was only the cold pressing against his body and the desperate need to find William.
Then William's hand slipped from his.
Sherlock's eyes widened. "William!"
He reached for him immediately, but the current was too strong. His fingers brushed against William's sleeve for the briefest moment before the river tore them apart. Sherlock kicked desperately, trying to follow him, but the current dragged him in the opposite direction.
He was losing him.
Something suddenly struck the water beside him.
A rope.
Billy.
Sherlock barely understood what was happening before strong hands grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him upward. He broke the surface with a violent gasp, coughing as he was dragged toward the riverbank.
"Sherlock!"
Billy hauled him onto the shore, but Sherlock barely noticed. He coughed violently, choking on water as he pushed himself onto his hands and knees. His lungs burned, his clothes were soaked through, and every part of his body was screaming at him to stop.
He didn't listen.
His eyes immediately searched the river.
"William."
There.
A few metres away, a body was floating face-down in the water.
Sherlock's stomach dropped.
"No."
He tried to get up, but his legs nearly gave out beneath him. Billy was already swimming toward William. He reached him, turned him over, and pulled him back toward the shore with the help of the others.
"William!"
Sherlock crawled across the wet ground as quickly as he could. His knees scraped against the stones, but he didn't feel the pain. All he could see was William.
He wasn't moving.
His face was frighteningly pale, his dark hair plastered against his forehead, and his lips had lost almost all their colour.
Sherlock dropped beside him and pressed trembling fingers against his neck.
For one horrifying second, there was nothing.
Sherlock's breath caught in his throat.
Then he felt it.
A pulse.
Weak, faint, but there.
"He's alive."
The words came out almost like a prayer. Sherlock stared at William, barely able to breathe himself.
"He's alive."
He repeated it because he needed to hear it again. William was alive. That was all that mattered.
---
The hospital smelled like antiseptic, and Sherlock hated it.
He hated the white walls and the harsh lights. He hated the quiet footsteps of nurses moving through the corridors and the constant ticking of the clock above him. Most of all, he hated the closed door separating him from William.
Billy had told him to rest, but Sherlock hadn't listened. He hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, and hadn't even properly changed out of his wet clothes. He simply sat there and waited, staring at the door as though he could somehow force it to open through sheer will.
Every time it opened, Sherlock looked up.
Every time a doctor walked down the corridor, his heart jumped.
Hours passed before someone finally came out.
Sherlock stood immediately.
"How is he?"
The doctor hesitated.
That tiny pause was enough to make Sherlock's stomach drop.
"How is he?"
"We managed to stabilize him."
"Then he'll recover."
The doctor looked at him with an expression Sherlock didn't want to understand.
"Mr. Moriarty suffered severe internal injuries. His lungs were also badly damaged. We don't know how long he has."
Sherlock stared at him.
"No."
"Sherlock—"
"No."
He pushed past the doctor before he could say anything else.
William lay motionless beneath the sheets. Machines surrounded him, wires disappearing beneath his clothes and a tube helping him breathe. He looked nothing like himself.
Sherlock stood in the doorway for a moment, completely lost.
William was always moving. Always thinking. Always three steps ahead of everyone else. He was the man who could walk into a room and somehow make Sherlock feel like he was being challenged without saying a single word.
Now he couldn't even open his eyes.
Sherlock slowly walked to the bedside and sat down. He hesitated before taking William's hand, almost afraid of what he would feel.
It was cold.
"You'd better wake up," he whispered.
His voice cracked, and he hated himself for it.
"This isn't funny."
William didn't respond.
"You always have another plan."
Nothing.
Sherlock looked down at their hands. His thumb moved almost unconsciously across William's knuckles.
"You wouldn't leave without telling me."
His fingers tightened around William's.
"You wouldn't."
---
The next morning, William opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was Sherlock. He was asleep beside the bed, his head resting against the mattress. Even in sleep, one of his hands was still wrapped tightly around William's, as though he had been afraid that letting go for even a second might somehow make him disappear.
William watched him quietly for a while before speaking.
"Sherlock."
Sherlock woke almost instantly. His head lifted, and his eyes widened when he saw William looking back at him.
"William?"
A weak smile appeared on William's face.
"You look terrible."
Sherlock laughed, but the sound was broken and exhausted.
"You nearly died."
"Ah."
William looked toward the window, where pale morning light was beginning to creep through the curtains.
"Did Billy manage to save you?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad."
Sherlock's expression changed immediately.
"Don't say that."
William turned back to him. "Say what?"
"Anything that sounds like you're saying goodbye."
The smile disappeared from William's face.
Sherlock looked down at their hands.
"I thought I'd lost you."
William remained quiet.
"I thought I'd never get to see you again." Sherlock swallowed. "I don't know what I would've done."
"Sherlock..."
"I'm serious."
William's fingers moved weakly against his.
"I'm sorry."
Sherlock shook his head.
"No. You don't get to apologize."
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The only sound in the room was the soft, steady rhythm of the machines.
Then William's eyes slowly closed.
Sherlock's heart jumped.
"William?"
The machines continued their steady rhythm.
A few seconds later, William opened his eyes again.
"I'm tired."
Sherlock immediately stood.
"I'll get the doctor."
William reached out and caught his sleeve.
"Stay."
Sherlock froze.
He looked down at William's hand, then back at his face.
"...All right."
He sat down again.
"I'll stay."
William smiled faintly.
"Thank you."
Sherlock held his hand a little tighter.
For a while, they simply sat there. There were no arguments, no games, no clever remarks and no rivalry. There was only the quiet room and the warmth of William's hand in Sherlock's.
Sherlock wished he could make the moment last forever.
---
It happened quietly.
That was what Sherlock hated most.
There was no dramatic final moment, no warning that gave him time to prepare himself. One moment William was lying there, breathing with the help of the machines, and the next, something changed.
Sherlock looked up when the rhythm of the monitor became uneven.
"William?"
A nurse rushed into the room, followed by another and then a doctor.
"Sir, please step back."
"No."
"Sir, you need to move."
"No!"
Sherlock tried to get closer, but someone caught his arm and pulled him away from the bed.
"What happened?"
Nobody answered him.
The room filled with voices and movement. The doctors worked desperately while Sherlock stood there, helpless, watching William's body lying beneath the sheets.
"William!"
He didn't know what else to do.
"Come on. Please."
The words left him before he even realized he was speaking.
"Please."
Then the monitor gave one long, continuous tone.
Everything stopped.
Sherlock stared at the screen.
"No."
The doctor lowered his head.
"I'm sorry."
Sherlock didn't hear him.
He looked at William.
His face was peaceful, almost as though he were sleeping. For a moment, Sherlock could almost convince himself that this wasn't real, that William would open his eyes again and complain about the fuss everyone was making.
Sherlock slowly stepped toward the bed.
"William?"
Nothing.
He reached out and touched William's cheek.
Cold.
"No..."
His knees gave out, and he caught himself against the side of the bed.
"No, no, no."
He grabbed William's hand.
"Wake up."
His voice broke.
"Please."
Nothing.
"You said you'd stay."
Tears began falling onto the sheets.
"You promised."
He pressed William's hand against his forehead, his shoulders shaking.
For years, Sherlock had hidden behind deduction, wit, and rivalry. He had always been able to explain everything. There was always a reason, a pattern, an answer. If something didn't make sense, he simply had to look closer.
But there was no answer for this.
There was no deduction that could bring William back.
"I love you."
The words came out so quietly that Sherlock almost didn't hear himself say them.
"I love you."
His eyes squeezed shut.
"I should have told you."
A broken laugh escaped him.
"God, you're an idiot."
He pressed William's hand against his lips.
"You were always so clever."
His voice cracked again.
"And I was too stupid to realize that I..."
He couldn't finish.
Sherlock lowered his head.
"I love you, William."
He said it again, then again, as though saying it enough times might somehow make William hear him. As though the words could travel somewhere beyond death and reach the man he had been too afraid to confess everything to.
But William didn't answer.
He never would.
And Sherlock finally understood the cruelest deduction of his life. He had spent years solving mysteries, uncovering lies, and understanding people who thought themselves impossible to understand. Yet somehow, he had failed to understand his own heart.
By the time he finally found the answer, it was too late.
---
For three days, Sherlock Holmes wandered.
He didn't sleep, and he barely ate. He simply walked through London without any real destination, moving through crowded streets and empty alleyways alike. He passed shops he couldn't remember entering and people whose faces blurred together almost as soon as he saw them. The city continued around him as if nothing had happened. Carriages rolled through the streets, children laughed, couples argued, church bells rang, and people went about their ordinary lives.
Sherlock hated it.
How could the world simply continue turning when William was dead? How could the sun rise every morning as though nothing had changed? How could people laugh, complain about the weather, or worry about things that suddenly seemed so meaningless when William James Moriarty was lying beneath the earth?
On the first night, Sherlock returned to the hospital. He stood outside William's room for several minutes before finally opening the door. The bed had already been stripped, the flowers removed, and the machines taken away. There was nothing left to suggest that William had ever been there.
Sherlock stood in the doorway for a long time.
He could still picture him. He could almost hear the steady beeping of the machines and feel the coldness of William's hand in his own. For a moment, he had the strange feeling that if he simply waited long enough, William would open his eyes and make some irritating remark about Sherlock's appearance.
But the room remained empty.
Eventually, Sherlock left.
The next day, he found himself standing outside William's home. He didn't knock. He simply stood there, staring at the door and remembering all the times William had opened it for him. He remembered his smile, the sound of his voice, and the way he always seemed to know exactly what Sherlock was thinking before Sherlock had even spoken.
Sherlock closed his eyes.
For one horrible second, he could almost hear him.
"Sherlock."
His eyes opened.
There was no one there.
Only silence.
By the third day, Sherlock had stopped trying to decide where he was going. Somehow, he found himself standing on the roof of a building, looking down at London. From that height, the city seemed almost peaceful. Thousands of people moved through the streets below, completely unaware of him, each of them carrying on with lives that had nothing to do with his own.
Sherlock thought of William.
He tried not to think about the hospital bed or the machines or the moment William's heart had stopped. Instead, he remembered the bridge. He remembered William's smile and the way he had looked at him that night, as if the two of them had already accepted what was about to happen. He remembered standing beside him and thinking that, whatever happened next, at least they would face it together.
Sherlock closed his eyes.
"You know..." he whispered. "I never actually wanted to die that night."
A bitter laugh escaped him, though there was no amusement in it.
"I just wanted to stay with you."
His eyes filled with tears.
"And now you're gone."
The wind moved gently through his hair. Sherlock looked toward the sky, his expression empty with exhaustion.
"It has only been three days," he murmured. "Three days since you died. Three days since I heard your voice. Three days since I held your hand, and somehow it already feels like I've been without you for years."
He reached into his coat and pulled out the small object he had kept from the hospital.
William's cufflink.
Sherlock stared at it for a long moment before closing his fingers around it.
"I solved everything else," he said quietly. "Every mystery. Every impossible case. Every lie."
His voice trembled.
"Except you."
A tear slipped down his cheek.
He thought about all the things he had never said. All the moments he had mistaken for rivalry when perhaps they had been something else entirely. Every time William had looked at him with that knowing smile, every time Sherlock had felt that strange pull toward him and pushed it aside because there were always more important things to think about.
He had spent his entire life believing that if he looked closely enough, if he observed enough, he could understand everything.
But William had been the one mystery he had never solved.
And now there was no one left to ask.
Sherlock looked down at the cufflink in his hand.
"I'm sorry, William."
For a moment, he simply stood there.
Then he stepped forward.
The city below never understood what had happened. People continued walking through the streets, carriages continued passing beneath the buildings, and the bells continued to ring as they always had. London did not stop for William, just as it had not stopped for Sherlock.
The world continued turning.
But somewhere beneath the endless noise of the city, two brilliant minds had finally gone silent.