John Watson sat kneeling on the cold pavement, his ears ringing. It took a moment for him to fully comprehend the fact that he was still breathing, that he wasn't lying facedown in a pool of blood. It didn't seem possible. It wasn't as if Moran could have missed from two feet away. John's whole body jerked and tensed when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. Then he opened his eyes, and Greg Lestrade's face loomed into view.

"Christ, John, are you alright?" Lestrade murmured. He reached around and uncuffed John's wrists. Still a bit dazed, John blinked up at Lestrade as the man helped him to his feet. Then he felt an icy jolt in his stomach. He gripped the front of Lestrade's jacket and hung onto him for support.

"Sherlock, he's…Moriarty's got him," John gasped between short breaths. "Oh God, we've gotta get him out of there…we've got to-"

"John, take it easy." Lestrade said gently, keeping a firm hand on John's shoulder. He glanced back at the hulking man lying on the pavement with a bullet in his temple. If he had gotten here a second later, that could have been John. "You're probably in shock right now. Just try to calm down."

"There's no time! Don't you understand?" John panted. "We have to stop Moriarty. Right before they dragged me out, he made Sherlock inject heroin into his arm. He's gonna hurt him. He's… oh God." John's knees buckled beneath him.

"Alright, John, just breathe," Lestrade murmured, rubbing his back. "Help is on the way. My team is on standby. We just needed confirmation that he's in there before we storm the fortress. Mycroft is flying over in a bloody helicopter."

"Well, tell them to fucking hurry," John said gruffly, his heart still racing. "I don't know what's happening to him."

The handcuffs dug into Sherlock's wrists as he lay facedown on the cot. He'd been here countless times before, but this was the one time he truly felt dead. Jim's calloused hands roamed over the plush hills and valleys of Sherlock's slender body. Still, Sherlock couldn't feel anything except the deep psychosomatic pain gripping his heart. John was gone, nothing could bring him back, and nothing could make this pain go away. Sherlock just wanted it all to be over.

"Oh Sherlock," Jim purred. "I've never seen you like this before."

He sat on the edge of the bed and reached up to stroke Sherlock's hair. Sherlock breathed shallowly against the pillows, his eyes stinging with tears. A few salty drops spilled down his cheek, and Jim brought up a hand to brush them away.

"You were always so quiet in bed," Jim said in a hushed tone. "I had to tell the clients to rough you up a bit in order to get so much as whimper out of you, but I've never seen you cry. I've never seen you this shattered until now. I must say, it's fascinating."

Jim studied the boy for a long moment. Then he looked up and motioned to one of the remaining henchmen. "Call the client back. Give him my regrets and tell him that Sherlock's services are no longer available." He turned back to Sherlock and ran a hand over him once more. "I want to remember you always, just like this."

Sherlock didn't know what that meant. He didn't care.

After standing up and straightening his Westwood suit, Jim walked to the door. On the way out, he called over his shoulder, "Uncuff him and put his clothes back on. Then bring him up to the roof."

The roof. Sherlock closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was a long journey up eight flights of stairs to the roof. Jim's men half-dragged, half-carried Sherlock the whole way, but there was no fight in him anymore. Small fluorescent lights shone over the open doorway leading out onto the dark rooftop. Jim stood casually by the ledge as his employees approached with Sherlock in tow and laid the boy down at his feet. Jim waved them away and looked down at Sherlock curiously.

"Come now, Sherlock. Don't you want to see the view?" he muttered, tapping at the boy with his foot. "Good thing I live in a tall building. This is the perfect spot for it."

Slowly, Sherlock raised his head and crawled toward the ledge. He glanced over the edge of the building. It was a long way down.

"I can see the headlines in the newspapers now. Seventeen-year-old boy falls to his death. It's a bit of a tragedy, really. So young, so brilliant," Jim shook his head in mock solemnity "What could have happened to this boy? What could have destroyed him so completely that he chose to end it all this way?"

He stepped away and took a seat on the ledge to get a good view of the show. Apparently Jim had grown bored with the old routine of drugging him, raping him, and selling him. He wanted to own Sherlock completely by driving him to suicide. Of course, Sherlock didn't need much of a push.

It wasn't a push he felt now, though, it was a pull, tugging at his heavy heart and dragging him down towards the pavement. Sherlock stepped onto the ledge and looked up at the starlit sky. He didn't believe in heaven or hell or an immortal soul or any of that, but now he wanted to believe in something. If the ramblings of quantum physicists about dark matter had any merit, if somehow the human consciousness could continue to exist in perfect, timeless, universal space, then maybe somewhere out there he'd find John. Sherlock closed his eyes and raised his arms.

Then he felt another tug at his heart, something pulling him back.

Don't ever do that, mind palace John whispered. Promise me. No matter what's going through that wonky brain of yours, you won't ever, ever do that to yourself.

Promise me.

"Take your time," Jim purred. "There's no rush."

Sherlock breathed a shaky sigh and lowered his arms. Then he stepped down from the ledge and turned to face Jim. All the strength that had been drained from him returned full force. "Sorry," he murmured. "It is rather tempting, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

Jim grimaced in annoyance. "Oh stop trying to be clever and just kill yourself already."

Sherlock stood his ground. "Honestly, I'd love to oblige, but I can't. I made a promise to John that I wouldn't ever do that to myself, and I intend to keep that promise. If you want me dead, you'll have to kill me."

Jim's glib, charming demeanor was starting crack, and the monster underneath was threatening to emerge. As he rose to his feet and approached the boy, he pulled a Browning L9A1 out his pocket and pointed it at Sherlock. "Get back up there," he snarled, "or I'll-"

"You can't make people take their own lives at gunpoint. That would completely defeat the purpose." Sherlock smirked. "You're becoming too angry to think rationally, because you see it now, don't you? It doesn't matter what you do to me. The fact remains that I don't belong to you anymore. I belong to John Watson."

"John Watson is dead!"

"And you're returning me to him. How very kind of you."

Just like that, Jim snapped. He struck Sherlock across the face with the gun and knocked him to the ground. Tossing the firearm aside, he straddled the boy and lunged for his throat. Sherlock felt the man's fingers close around his windpipe, but he didn't struggle.

Back in control, Jim chuckled darkly. "Normally I dislike getting my hands dirty, but I have to admit, this is much more intimate," he said quietly, tightening his grip. "It's almost a good as fucking you."

The boy barely heard his taunts. Deprived of oxygen, Sherlock felt himself slipping away. He closed his eyes and lay still, waiting for it all to be over.

Suddenly, Jim's hands released him. It took a moment to register the sounds that had broken the silence on the rooftop, the sound of the door crashing open, the stampede of footsteps, the whir of helicopter blades overhead. The helicopter's bright searchlight lit up the darkness, and Sherlock blinked and opened his eyes. "Dammit," he muttered under his breath.

"So you did tell Big Brother about me after all. I'm flattered," Jim purred as the British Government and half of Scotland Yard closed in. "Pity I didn't get to finish." With his hands over his head, Jim leaned forward and breathed in Sherlock's ear. "When you're ready to finish yourself off, come find me. I'd like to watch."

Sherlock cringed and turned his head away as Jim was pulled off of him. The man was still cackling like a maniac while an officer slapped on the cuffs and recited his legal right to silence. The roar of the helicopter grew louder as it prepared to land, strong gusts of cold air billowing over the surface of the roof. Sherlock ignored the other officers who were shining their torchlights over him, checking his pulse, and asking him insipid questions to see if he was conscious. He wanted them to leave him alone, he wanted to sink into oblivion, he wanted it all to stop.

When Sherlock sensed everyone backing away, he knew it meant that his brother was here, walking towards him. A thin arm slid underneath him and cradled his head and shoulders as a tremulous voice shouted, "Sherlock, Sherlock, are you alright?"

Sherlock kept his eyes closed and muttered, "You should have let him kill me."

Mycroft stared down at his little brother with a mixture of relief and bewilderment. "What are you talking about? We got here just in time."

"No you didn't, no you didn't," Sherlock whispered brokenly. "John-"

"SHERLOCK!"

The boy froze, not daring to trust his senses. Even in his mind palace, he wouldn't have been able to hear John's voice that loudly and clearly. Sherlock's heart rose into his throat while his head swam with doubt. His life couldn't have been turned upside down and then simply set right again. The universe was never that kind.

Sherlock opened his eyes and saw Mycroft wearing one of his rare, gentle, if somewhat tight-lipped smiles. Slowly, his brother relinquished him and slipped away as a shorter, stronger pair of arms encompassed him. When he blinked up at the person holding him now, he came face to face with a pair of blue eyes with rings of hazel around the middle, and then Sherlock came back up to breathe.

"John, oh my God, John," Sherlock gasped in a hoarse voice. A surge of emotion flooded him, more powerful than the drugs coursing through his veins. He reached up and cupped John's face, needing reassurance that what was he seeing was real, that it wasn't all a hallucination.

Kind eyes, strong arms, gentle hands, caring heart. "John."

"I'm here," John said softly. "It's alright. Lestrade killed Moran before he could shoot me." As if to confirm this, Lestrade sidled up next to Mycroft as they both stood by and watched the two boys reunite. Sherlock felt John's hand brush back his curls and John's lips press against his forehead. "God, you scared the hell out of me, Sherlock," he whispered. "Please tell me you're okay." John studied the gash on Sherlock's cheek and the bruises around his throat. "Jesus, what did he do to you?"

"I'm okay," Sherlock murmured, his voice still a bit raspy. "I promise I'm okay. Jim… he just… tried to kill me because I refused to kill myself."

John's whole body tensed. "Oh my God. Is that what he brought you up to the roof for?"

Sherlock raised himself to a sitting position and clung to John. "I was going to jump," he said quietly as John's arms tightened around him. "Then I heard your voice in my head telling me not to, and so I stepped down from the ledge told Jim that I wouldn't do it, that he'd have to kill me instead."

John breathed a shaky sigh and whispered, "I almost lost you."

"I almost lost you," Sherlock whispered back.

The scene on the rooftop became a blur, all the lights and the noise and the people. Sherlock and John stayed locked in their own little world, their foreheads pressed together. Every touch of John's hands, every brush of his lips was a miracle.

After a moment, Mycroft cleared his throat and said in his usual posh tone, "Well, little brother, I would insist on a brief hospital visit just to keep you under observation for a few hours, but I doubt you'd be agreeable to that." A small smile twitched in the corner of his mouth as Sherlock slowly opened his eyes and stared up at him. "I'm sure John here is perfectly capable of looking after you."

With his chin resting on John's shoulder, Sherlock looked from Lestrade to Mycroft and whispered, "Thank you."

John drew back and kissed Sherlock's forehead once more. "Come on," he said softly. "Let's go home."

All the lights were still off inside 221B when the squad car dropped them off at Baker Street. Sherlock and John stood on the front steps for a moment before unlocking the door and going inside.

"Dannie and Mrs. Hudson are probably still asleep," Sherlock muttered.

John took his hand and interlocked their fingers. "We can tell them about our close brush with death in the morning."

Sherlock nodded. "Good, because I'd rather not have that conversation while I'm still a bit high."

As quietly as possible, Sherlock and John snuck in through the door and crept upstairs to the flat. John turned on the light in the bedroom. Everything looked the same as if they had never left.

Sherlock sat on the edge of the bed while John went to the kitchen to grab the first aid kit. The way Sherlock was hunching his shoulders when John reentered the room filled him with concern. He carefully disinfected and bandaged the cut on Sherlock's cheek, though his hands shook a bit while he tended to the cigarette burn on his wrist. When he was done, Sherlock tugged his sleeve back up quickly and hugged his arms around himself.

John settled on the bed next to him and asked, "You okay?"

Sherlock was quiet for a moment, as if trying to decide if he should say out loud what he was thinking. "The things I said earlier… in Jim's flat…I didn't mean them," Sherlock murmured. "Well, I have thought those things before, but I know now that none of it's true." He paused uncertainly. "It's not true is it?"

The vulnerability in Sherlock's voice made John's heart hurt. "No, Sherlock. It isn't, of course it isn't." The words were sincere, but John still didn't feel like it was enough. He needed to show him. John tugged lightly on the hem of Sherlock's black t-shirt. "Can you take this off for me?"

Hesitantly, Sherlock obeyed John's request, turning as he did so to lie facedown on the bed. John kneeled above him and laid a gently on Sherlock's exposed back. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips against jagged lines on Sherlock's skin.

"These scars show that you went through hell and survived," John whispered, tenderly kissing each one. "You're strong, you're brilliant, you're amazing, and you most certainly are not broken." He eased down on the bed beside the boy, and Sherlock turned to face him. His mercurial eyes shone bright in the low light, and John knew that Sherlock believed him.

There were only a few hours of darkness left. Sherlock and John lay awake and held each other as they waited for the dawn.

"Please, John," Sherlock whispered, "tell me you're real."

"I'm here, Sherlock," John said softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

Thanks for reading :) If you want more from this story, there's a 4 part epilogue/sequel that I've recently posted called "It Yet Remains to See."