I'd never known what a hangover felt like, but it sure felt like I had one right now.

I propped myself up, slowly blinking my eyes open. Things were blurry and slightly dark. I closed and opened my eyes a few times to readjust.

I rubbed my pulsing forehead. God, I was sure to have a bruise there. How long was I out for?

Despite the pounding in my brain, I was able to remember what happened. I'd been trailing Sherlock, seeing what he was up to. He'd caught me; I'd managed to delay him. He'd told me something huge, and the name he gave me was the last one I ever anticipated. I shook my head slowly from side to side.

It just wasn't possible. Sherlock's theory—claim, whatever it was considered—couldn't be true. He had to be saying that so he could throw me off balance, distract me from delaying him from marching up to the rooftop to confront Moriarty.

I realized that I was alone in the stairwell. Sherlock was gone. I inhaled quickly, staring at the flight of stairs in front of me. When I find you, Sherlock, you have some serious explaining to do. You are a dead man.

Tenderly, but as quickly as I could manage, I used the wall to rise to my feet. I crossed the space to reach the railing, using it as a guide as I hobbled up the stairs. Things were moving a little too fast, so I tried to take my time, but not too much time.

As the monotonous climb towards the top continued, I began to focus normally. My mind was working at top speed, no longer fogged by confusion and dizziness. I knew that Sherlock was getting himself into even more trouble by meeting Moriarty. For all I knew, he could be up there right now talking with the snake. I knew that John was probably at Baker Street right now, checking in on Mrs. Hudson, who either was or wasn't hurt.

John.

Sherlock's theory still rang crystal clear in my head. John Watson is your father. It was like one of those huge bombshells that was dropped on a dramatic TV show. I had been quicker to accept Moriarty's true nature than Sherlock's theory, only because I had legitimate proof on Moriarty. All I had with Sherlock's theory was his word, the truth according to him.

Was his word enough to make me believe? No. He had to be saying it to distract me. My temper flared. It sounded like something Sherlock would do to get away from someone trying to stop him from getting where he wanted to go.

As I continued my hike up the stairs, I had a temporary urge to punch the nearest wall in frustration.

I alternated breathing through my nose and mouth as the journey continued. The top has to be close. I have to be getting close. All things came to an end at some point, right? The flights of stairs had to have an end.

As I was guessing how close I was to the rooftop of St. Bart's, a loud, abrupt noise pierced the silence. It made me halt where I stood. My blood froze. I replayed the sound in my head, reaffirming that I'd actually heard it and not dreamt it.

I'd just heard a gun go off above me. A gun which either one of them could have had. Sherlock was definitely up there with Moriarty.

Someone had been shot, or shot at. It was hard to tell if a body dropped.

I wasn't about to start guessing what happened or who the victim was; I bounded up the stairs with new, frantic energy. I could hear the clock ticking in my head, ticking the seconds away. The ticking made me feel like my progress was slowing down.

How many damn stairwells does it take to reach the top? I wondered angrily. I'd wondered how long it had taken Sherlock to conquer all these steps. He'd certainly had more than enough time to beat them.

Just when I had begun to think I wasn't going to reach the top, a door came into view. I felt only a twinge of relief, as I was quickly reminded of what I had heard. Something bad was on the other side of that door, I was sure of it.

I grabbed the knob. It didn't turn for me, it stayed stubborn. I jiggled it, furious. Of all the times...

I tried the knob again, this time pounding on the door as well. My fists abused the door, hoping to break it down. It was times like this when I wish I had herculean strength. I had no key, no way to get it open. Who locked the door? Knowing Sherlock and Moriarty, it could have been either one of them.

I didn't call either of their names; I continued to hit the door. Someone had to hear, I was loud enough. I stopped after my fists began throbbing in tune with my forehead. I hissed, now using my shoulder to try and break open the door. That didn't work for very long; I gave up after about a few rams—not to mention I stopped after I stupidly aggravated my shot left shoulder. I panted, panic ran through my veins.

I was running out of options.

I was about ready to break down and scream at the top of my lungs, but something on the other side made me rethink the idea.

I heard a voice. Not two voices, just one. His voice.

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

I didn't know who he was talking to. Despite how confused I was, I realized something. Sherlock didn't sound like he was in pain. He hadn't been shot. Does that mean...?

I tried not to think about it.

Something in Sherlock's voice had me worried. He sounded too calm...

"An apology," I heard him go on. "It's all true."

He's got to be speaking on a phone. Who was on the other line, though? What was he going on about?

I pushed on the door again, as though I thought it wanted to cooperate with me and give way.

"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty."

How can he be saying that? For Christ's sake, he was pretty damn real to me! Who was he trying to convince? John? Someone else? Why was he even saying such a horrid lie in the first place?

"I'm a fake."

Wait, I've got a hairpin. Stupid me. In the dim darkness, I fumbled for the pin in my hair. My fingers lost it; I heard it lightly clink to the floor.

"Damn it," I cursed.

While I was down hunting for my key to the door, I continued to listen to Sherlock's call.

"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."

I had words in my mouth, but they disappeared the moment I heard his voice. I had never heard him in such...pain before.

"Shut up. Just stop talking like this!" I bellowed, hoping he could hear me. Any normal person would believe Sherlock if they heard these words, but I didn't. He might have a voice that could persuade anyone to believe anything he told them, but it couldn't charm everyone.

If he was talking to John, I hoped he didn't believe Sherlock either.

"Nobody could be that clever," I heard Sherlock say.

My fingers continued to grope cold floor. Come on, it couldn't have walked away.

A chill ran up my spine when I heard the consulting detective laugh. It wasn't a hearty, deep-belly kind of laugh. It wasn't the kind you wanted to hear.

"I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you." Temporary silence. "It's a trick. Just a magic trick."

This hairpin is pulling one hell of a Houdini on me. Come on, where are you? Hearing Sherlock through the door made my search that more urgent. I gripped the first thing my fingertips touched. Frantically, I tried jamming the pin in the keyhole. Work faster, work faster.

I felt like I was in a race against time and losing.

"No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move," Sherlock commanded.

John has to be nearby, he can't be talking to me. I concentrated harder on my task.

"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?" His voice became as frantic as I was feeling.

Do what? I wanted to ask, but I was sure John already beat me to it. It had to be John who was on the other end of the call.

"This phone call—it's, er...it's my note. It's what people do, don't they—leave a note?"

Leave a note? I felt like I was making some progress in getting the door unlocked, but not enough. Flustered, I smacked the door momentarily with my hand.

In all my panicking, somehow, my mind put the pieces together. It was as if someone pointed me in the right direction. Sherlock's speech...it was beginning to make sense.

Sherlock was in danger, from himself. His phone call wasn't just any, it was a note. A suicide note. Dear God. All the anger I thought I had at him vanished and was replaced with fear.

With the pressure suffocating me, my shaking fingers twisted the hairpin in the keyhole.

"Goodbye, John." I almost didn't catch those two words.

I finally felt the knob give way to my craftiness. I made a note to myself to have a hairpin on me at all times from now on.

With renewed strength, I twisted the knob, shoving open the door. Crisp air welcomed me, but I didn't acknowledge it. All I could focus on was Sherlock Holmes standing on a ledge. I saw his phone nearby on the rooftop, discarded.

"SHERLOCK!" I never knew I was capable of screaming so loud.

The consulting detective turned his head slowly to look at me. I was shocked to see tear lines on his face. I never knew he was capable of such an emotion. I couldn't understand what was going on in his eyes, there were too many emotions warped together.

His eyes said it all to me: Goodbye.

Then, quick as a whip, he turned back around and spread his arms out at his sides, like he was about to take flight.

I took only two steps before he fell forward, disappearing off the ledge.

My legs hurriedly brought me to where he had just been. I didn't look over the ledge, I couldn't. I was afraid of what I would see. I stared at the sky, horrorstruck.

I didn't cry, not yet. I was numbed; my mind was at a standstill. He couldn't have just done that...he couldn't have...

I turned away from the ledge; my eyes now took in all other sights on the rooftop. I screamed, falling to the concrete floor. I scrambled away as I saw a still body a few feet away from me. The smell of blood invaded my nose, making me want to vomit. Jim...

The gunshot. He took the bullet. How he took it, I would never know. Both witnesses were...dead.

I didn't know what pushed me to do it, but I found myself getting to my feet, dragging myself to get a better look at Moriarty's body. He finally met his end. The world is rid of Jim Moriarty. Good.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. It was disturbing, to see a smile on Moriarty's face. Somehow, to me, it looked like he was victorious. He hadn't won anything in my eyes, unless you counted a one way ticket to Hell. His eyes were wide open, staring. A still-leaking pool of blood laid above his head.

I also knew how he received the fatal bullet: the gun in his hand said it all.

The situation unfolding around me was so overwhelming that I couldn't even form questions in my head. How did it come to this, with Sherlock jumping off the roof and Moriarty putting a bullet through his brain? What was said to have it end like this?

I couldn't deal with the sight. I stumbled away and heaved, letting the disgusting noises of me vomiting echo in the air. I gulped in much-needed fresh air. I didn't know how coroners did it, be near bodies without having the urge to puke their guts out. I guess it was an acquired talent.

Bodies. Sherlock. Quickly getting over my brief purge, I staggered to the door, trying to not to keel over. I couldn't shake the sight from my head of Moriarty dead on the rooftop, of Sherlock locking gazes with me one last time before falling.

I was deathly afraid of what I was going to run into when I got out of St. Bart's.

I flew down the stairs, jumping them as though I was jumping stones across a running river. It was scary, how not long ago I had been following Sherlock up these very stairs. Sweat poured down my forehead, tears blurred my vision. At times, I smacked into the stair railing, bruising my sides.

Once I burst through the way I had come in, I panted, wondering where in the hell to go. Outside. He's got to be outside. And John...

I blanched, realizing that John probably saw more of Sherlock's fall than I could ever have. He had to have seen it all. I didn't want to be in his shoes, seeing Sherlock drop like a sack of flour, hitting concrete...

I had to push down the bile that threatened to leap out of my throat.

I sprinted down the halls, almost bowling over people in my haste. I'd made a few stops to have people direct me out of the hospital. When I'd left people in haste, they'd called to me and asked what the matter was. I never answered.

My pulse thundered in my ears, stray strands of hair tried to blind me. I wiped my mouth, definitely stinking up my clothes. Right now, that was the least of my worries.

I burst out of St. Bart's, frantically looking for where it had happened. I turned around only to jump back as I was nearly run over. Four people were racing back to where I had just come from, all accompanying a stretcher. A lump lodged itself in my throat.

I knew what just passed by.

I was screaming incoherent things as I chased the medical staff and the stretcher. I had to see him, it was the only way I would know that this wasn't a dream. As twisted as it sounded, I needed to see the body, to not see his chest heave, before I could even begin to accept him falling.

"Easy," said a gentle voice. I was pulled away from the doors to the hospital. I shrieked, struggling against my captor. I tried to pull them along with me into the hospital; I would have definitely done so.

"I need to get in there!" I said desperately, turning my head to see a woman was holding me back. Her grave appearance told me that this wasn't the first time she had been in this sort of situation. Her hazel eyes were pitiful.

"There's no point. You don't need to go in there."

"What do you know?" I shouted.

"It isn't your place to be."

"But—"

"Rachel."

I stopped my fighting as I saw John approach. There was no contest to see which of us was taking this harder, we were at a tie. Though he wasn't acting out like I was, the hurt was radiating off him like body heat.

"We have to—"

"I'll take her," John said to the woman, nodding his head in grave thanks to her. She looked back at us a few times as she sauntered away.

I couldn't get any words out; I knew I wouldn't be able to put a sentence together with the way I felt. I could only stare at John wordlessly, my mouth slightly agape. I pleaded with my eyes, It can't be true, don't let it be true. Too much was running through my brain: the gunshot, the confrontation, tailing Sherlock, what he had said to me, what I opened the door to...

One word summed all this up: madness.

I couldn't focus. I felt like I was in another world. Truthfully, I wanted to be in a different world, a different universe. I wanted to rewrite the past so that this never happened.

I felt like someone had hit me with a car. My legs gave up on me; I took a nosedive for the ground. John caught me halfway down, holding me close. I trembled violently in his arms, sobs shaking my body. I let the waterfalls run their course, making fresh tear lines down my cheeks.

This was too horrible to be real.

**[has ambulance full of shock blankets and chocolate and tissues] Come and get it.

While it was one of the greatest chapters to write, it was one of the most emotional. I honed in the score to help me feel the pain that Rachel and John felt. Boy was it overwhelming.**