Disclaimer: I own Sherlock in the parallel universe where I became the queen and demanded the rights of Sherlock.

No, I don't own Sherlock.

5 Stages of Improbability

by: Evelynhunters

Denial

John Watson is, first and foremost, a doctor. He got his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at King's College. He knows what medicines to use for different symptoms, where to find the pulse on a body, and how to treat a gun wound under pressure with only a shirt, a pair of tweezers, and a bottle of strong vodka (that probably came more from serving in Afghanistan than studying, though.) John Watson can confidently call himself logical enough to differentiate between a life and death injure.

Therefore, he knows the odds of Sherlock Holmes surviving a jump off Barts are highly improbable.

However, no matter how much he tries to convince himself that Sherlock Holmes is dead, that he saw Sherlock's dead body, his mind won't listen. He finds himself up late calculating about the probability of surviving a jump like that. He watches endless videos of other jumpers, turning his head when they do jump. He reads articles about survivors. He researches about the injuries one would get if they survived and the causes of death for those who didn't. He works with a drive that frightened Mrs. Hudson when she first walked in on him.

"John! Are you going over those pictures again? Oh those photos are just bloody and gory, John," Mrs. Hudson said, eyes cringing at the pictures taped to the wall. The pictures were taped in a hurried fashion with lines drawn between them. Some were of people in mid air, arms flailing as if they were regretting their decision. Others were of impacts, people laying with body parts in awkward angles and blood, blood everywhere.

"Just checking for something," John mumbled reassuringly while jotting something down on a piece of paper. He squinted his eyes at the screen and bit his lower lip.

He saw Sherlock jump, but he never saw Sherlock land, though. So maybe, just maybe, that Sherlock had survived the fall. Maybe, when John was knocked onto the sidewalk, Sherlock had landed on something else. Maybe someone caught him. Maybe Mycroft arranged for some plan for this. Maybe he's going to come back, when the rumors -and they are rumors because Sherlock Holmes has never and will never be a fraud- die down. Maybe, when all this is over, they could sit back in the living room, Sherlock in his chair and John in his, and they can watch the Telly and Sherlock can throw a tantrum at the scientific impossibility of Doctor Who and John can tell him to stuff it and it would feel like nothing had happened and-

"John? John? Are you okay?" Mrs. Hudson worriedly tutted, "You've been out of it more and more often now! I'm going to the shop for a quick trip, I'll be back later. Do rest for a bit 'til then, you look a little pale." And with a sign and a motherly pat on the shoulders, she was gone.

He wasn't pale, or sick. So maybe he's pulled a few all-nighters in a row and hasn't eaten much food, it distracts from the train of thought, anyway. Sherlock has never needed food or rest during a case, and if John was going to solve this one, he would have to be as good as Sherlock Holmes.

John shook his head, he had lost track of what he was suppose to do. He closes his eyes and imagine (replaying) Sherlock falling from the roof. His limbs were away from him, a reaction against the natural instinct to protect his vital organs -lungs, heart, neck, head- from impact. Typical signs of jumpers, showing that he either accepted the fact that he will die, or he knew he would live.

John Watson wants to go with the second option.

The position the body was in on the ground was consistent with how Sherlock had fell. The body on the concrete was Sherlock's, he had identified it, and there was no pulse. Sherlock was, without a doubt, dead.

But John remembers reading somewhere about a plant that will stopped the pulse and breathing. So maybe Sherlock had found a way to cushion the fall and then pretended he was dead and maybe all the pedestrians walking by were actors and they sprayed fake blood on him and Sherlock had faked his death and-

Focus.

Sherlock's face and voice on the roof was calm, a bit overly so for someone jumping to their death. He didn't cry, or have any more emotion in his voice then when he lost in Cluedo to him. Sherlock Holmes didn't do sentiment, but he had left a note: a cruel phone call that rings repetitively in John's ears. Why would he do that? Why would he go out of his way indulging in something he had called 'found on the losing side' if he knew he was going to live?

There's a clear solution to this, the most obvious of them all, but John Watson ignores that because it would mean Sherlock Holmes is dead and John Watson hopes that isn't true.

(Knows. Not hopes. He knows that isn't true.

Right?)

Molly Hooper did the autopsy. John would've insisted a last look but Lestrade had determined he was in enough shock as it was. It's okay, though, because Sherlock often insisted Molly was the only competent pathologist there and if that's what Sherlock thought, it's good enough for him.

It was after much begging and pity that John finally acquired a copy of the autopsy. It was an offering of chips that broke Molly Hooper's resolve. He thumbs through the pages briefly, catching words like fractures and wounds and deceased.

Maybe Lestrade was right, John thinks as he almost puke at the pictures.

He takes a sip from his cup of tea. Sherlock's cup on tray getting cold. It's become habit now, he always makes a second cup of tea, and every night he washes the full cup out. It's pathetic, but a small part of him can look at the living room again if he could see Sherlock's cup in it and he can imagine that he's only out for a case like he sometimes does alone.

John looks through the evidence again, back at the board of pictures and theories with a sign, knowing he should give up a dead cause but won't because this is Sherlock Holmes, and he does everything clever, so if he survived it would be the most clever thing out there.

(Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. And knowing Sherlock Holmes, it must be the most improbably thing out there.)

AN/ Hello. It's me.

Yes, I am aware that this is not the first 'five stages of grief' fanfic out there, but I came up with this idea when I was researching for my other book. That I started in seventh grade. I only just realized how much it could fit John Watson.

This will be a multi-chapter fic, but John will not find out that Sherlock survived, so it sticks to the plot of canon somewhat.

John is currently in denial. Poor John. Give him an Internet cookie by commenting and favoriting and following! ;)