Author's note: Here's the last chapter. Enjoy.

John forgot everything, Vernet, time travel, his limp.

He sprang up and rushed at Sherlock's side. Mycroft was already trying to still the blood flow from Sherlock's neck while calling for an ambulance with the mobile phone in his other hand.

The doctor quickly took Sherlock's pulse; it was quick and irregular.

John had never, not for one moment, regretted studying medicine. But he came as close to it as he had ever been as he looked at Sherlock's wound.

Because he knew that he wouldn't survive the next few minutes.

All they had been through together, all the cases they would have solved, everything John had screwed up when he'd been thrown into the past, everything he had done right.

And in the end he had killed Sherlock.

If he had turned the other way when he had met the young drug addict, if he had simply concentrated on getting home, none of this would have happened.

"They will be here shortly" Mycroft announced, but the doctor could tell that he knew.

"Jo – John..." Sherlock pressed out.

"No, Sherlock, don't talk. The ambulance is on its way" John answered. "Just try to breathe".

There was so much he wanted to tell him, so many things he hadn't told his best friend even after he had returned from the dead. Somehow, once Sherlock had beaten death, it had seemed like they had all the time in the world.

How wrong he had been.

Sherlock's breathing grew even more laboured and John realized not only would he die, he wouldn't live long enough for the ambulance to get here. They weren't even allowed a little bit of hope.

Sherlock grabbed his arm and, despite John shaking his head, he hissed, "The time machine".

John's eyes widened.

Of course.

"Mycroft? Do you think you can – "

But the elder Holmes had already sprinted towards the machine and was looking over the controls.

"I think so – Georges never let anyone near it when he was in the building, but I frequently visited Sherlock when he was working here, and he explained to me how it was supposed to work once..."He took a deep breath.

"It has to work."

"Alright" John said. "Send me back an hour, that should give me time to – "

Sherlock's grip on his arm tightened.

The doctor looked back at Sherlock, alarmed, and the scientist tried to shake his head.

"Sherlock, you have to hold st –"

"That doesn't matter anymore."

Sherlock coughed up blood and John attempted to put more pressure on the wound than he already did.

"Go back and stop Georges".

"I am – "

"No, not...like...that" The grip on John's arm was painful now, and the doctor wished he would save his strength, but he couldn't shake him off, and he couldn't try to pry it off without taking at least one hand from the wound.

"Prevent – everything" Sherlock gasped, and John understood.

He looked at him, the man who could have been his best friend, and shook his head.

"You don't know what you are saying" he stated, his voice calm despite the panic he felt. How much longer would it take for Mycroft to figure out the settings? Sherlock's blood was flowing over his hands, and it was redder than anything John had ever seen, the colour screaming in the neutral white lab.

And where was the ambulance?

"I – know – exactly – what – I am – saying –" Sherlock pressed out, and John felt his pulse quicken even more because of the anger coursing through him. He quickly tried to calm the scientist down.

"Please, Sherlock – you have only read about it. I have seen what your life would have been like – will be like, if I do this. No. This is a good life".

It didn't work; the scientist was still angry, his eyes blazing.

"So – I don't get to choose?"

He was starting to slur, making his words harder to understand than they already were since he kept coughing and gasping and John knew these noises so well, had heard them hundreds of times in Afghanistan, telling him that a life was about to end, that there was nothing he could do...

"This has nothing to do with choice – " he began, desperate.

"It has ever – everything to do with choice" Sherlock coughed again and again, and John wanted to make him stop talking but knew he wouldn't succeed.

"You chose to change the... past. You – chose to... to help a homeless drug addict. You... gave me... this. Let – Let me choose you".

John wasn't going to change Sherlock's life for the worse because the scientist insisted on it due to some misplaced gratitude. He wouldn't do that to him.

"No" John simply said. "You have no idea what it was like – your life before. You may know, but you can't really imagine it. You suffered so much. And Moriarty – what he did – people got hurt."

"And here? You – you said – Henry Knight".

Sherlock really had trouble forming the words now, and John felt useless tears running down his cheeks.

He had already watched Sherlock die once. But then, it had been over quickly, and he hadn't felt his life ebbing away.

"Mycroft?" he asked, and the elder Holmes shouted back, "Almost done".

"We can fix your old cases, Sherlock".

"Not – all". Sherlock took a deep breath. "Mycroft?"

John didn't have to turn around to know that the British Government had looked up from the machine, desperate to run to his brother but aware that time was of the essence.

"You – know – which settings".

"Sherlock – "

John had never heard so many raw emotions in Mycroft's voice before. The elder Holmes knew what it meant if he sent John back to the time he'd been put in the machine. Mycroft would leave his brother alone on the streets, Mycroft would betray his brother, Mycroft would cost his brother three years of his life.

"Mycroft – " Sherlock coughed and his brother answered, his voice calm, "As you wish".

He didn't want to betray Sherlock here, John realized, he didn't want to lie to him and tell him he had put the settings according to his wishes when he hadn't. Come to think of it, Mycroft had never really lied to his brother – he hadn't told him certain things, but that wasn't the same as lying.

"John – "

The doctor looked back at Sherlock, at all the blood, and prayed for the ambulance to arrive, so that he could convince Mycroft not to change this because Sherlock was happy and Moriarty had died a long time ago –

"Not – all. As I... said before."

"All in all, this reality is better."

"Yours – the old one – it feels... real" Sherlock coughed again, and suddenly John wished that his pulse was still razing because he couldn't deny that it was slowing, slowing...

"We should be different" Sherlock breathed, and John wanted to argue, wanted to tell him that –

He didn't know what to tell him because it was true, because their friendship was the one thing that had turned out so differently that it hurt, because John didn't want to be someone to be looked after, because –

Sherlock went limp.

"Sherlock? Sherlock!"

He didn't have a pulse.

John was about to attempt to resuscitate him – even though his experience told him it would be useless – but Mycroft dragged him off his brother's body.

John looked up and almost jumped back.

He had never seen Mycroft so broken.

"It's time to go" the British Government said, his voice flat.

"Mycroft – "

"Stop him from sending you back in the first place."

"But Mycroft – "

"No". He shook his head. "I am not going to betray his confidence, not when he – " his eyes trailed over to his little brother's body, and for a moment, John thought he might faint. "I am sending you here, at about the time you left the flat. You might have to wait a few hours, but you can stop Georges".

"Just – " Mycroft suddenly laughed, a short, bitter laugh. "Look after him".

John swallowed, remembering their last goodbye twenty years ago, and nodded.

"Goodbye" he said gently, and he didn't know whether he was saying it to Sherlock or Mycroft or both.

With one last look at Sherlock's body, he entered the machine.

He didn't know what he had expected, but in the end, he saw and heard and felt – nothing.

He simply went in the machine and suddenly he was in the lab. A clock on the wall told him that it was indeed nine am.

Since there weren't any places to hide, he stood next to the door, wishing more than ever that he had his gun with him.

Although, looking at his hands, where Sherlock's blood was slowly drying, feeling it stick to his skin and knowing that he would always feel it, John decided that this was probably a good thing.

He didn't have to wait as long as he had expected. About ten am, he heard the sound of a stretcher being pushed down the corridor and prepared himself to attack.

Vernet didn't look on either side as he pushed a stretcher with a white sheet covering the prone form of someone – and how strange it was to think it was John himself – into the room.

John immediately attacked him from behind.

The stretcher rolled off and bumped into a corner, but John didn't have the time to even wonder if he was alright, because Vernet might not have been an ex-soldier, but was still putting up a desperate fight.

He recognized John, of course, and spat, "You!"

John didn't answer. There was nothing he wanted to say.

Instead, he punched him in the face and found that he couldn't stop.

Only when Vernet was lying unconscious on the floor, he heard his nose break and John was breathing heavily could he force himself to stand up.

He heard several people running toward the door and realized that he had no idea how to explain an unconscious scientist, his own past self on a stretcher and Sherlock's blood on his hands –

He looked down and saw nothing. His hands were clean. Well, there were a few drops of blood, but they came from Vernet's nose.

Furthermore, in the glass panels of the door he could see his reflection. He wasn't as thin anymore as he had been when he had entered the machine, and there were no dark circles under his eyes.

He looked like himself again.

John spun around and stared at the empty stretcher.

He had no idea what had happened, but he knew that everything was back to normal. Or as normal as it could get.

And that made him happy enough to cheerfully tell the security guards who rushed in the room to "call Mycroft Holmes". They stared at him, but apparently did what he had asked, because half an hour later, the Mycroft John knew strolled into the lab, carrying his faithful umbrella.

He raised an eyebrow. "I am informed that you attacked Doctor Vernet".

"Your cousin wanted to send me back in time to have some fun" John replied matter-of-factly, and Mycroft believed him, if only because he could see John wasn't lying.

"I will see to it that he is interrogated. And that he doesn't come near the machine again."

"You might want to destroy it, too. It's dangerous".

With these words, John walked towards the door.

"John? You are aware that you have to answer – "

He turned around.

"I know. And I will. But now – now I have to see Sherlock".

Mycroft looked at him and somehow understood.

His eyes travelled to the time machine.

"Time is a strange entity" was all he said.

"So is Fate" John answered.

To his surprise, Sherlock was standing in front of two security guards (or secret agents, with Mycroft around, it was difficult to tell), explaining to them why he had every right to get in, sounding more frustrated with every sentence, and John, who felt like his heart might explode just from seeing his Sherlock again, decided to interfere before one or both of them ended up arrested. Once again.

"Hello, Sherlock" he said, stepping around the guards.

Sherlock immediately deduced him and breathed a sigh of relief. "John – these incompetent – "

But he didn't get to continue because John threw his arms around him and hugged him.

To his delight, Sherlock hugged back.

The doctor pulled away and smiled.

"Let's go home. I need a cup of tea".

"I called Mrs. Hudson and let her know that we have no milk".

John laughed. He couldn't help it. He was so happy, even if he felt guilty of the changes he had made, although these changes wouldn't have been made if he hadn't made changes in the first place –

God, he really needed tea.

They didn't say much in the cab, but it was enough, this was enough, they were who they were supposed to be again.

Mrs. Hudson fussed over him, of course, brought them tea and biscuits, and John stifled the ridiculous urge to cry with relief.

He did the same when Greg called a few minutes after Mrs. Hudson had left because he had heard of a "disturbance in a lab". John didn't mention that he knew where the information came from. Apparently he was John's handler now too.

Once they had drunk their tea and eaten their biscuits and John had stared long enough at Sherlock to convince himself he wouldn't disappear, the consulting detective – his consulting detective – asked, "John, what did he do?"

Of course Sherlock had figured out that something must have happened; otherwise John wouldn't have known what Vernet was about to do, and if he'd had time to find out about it, he would have told Sherlock.

So John told Sherlock. He told him everything, about the past, the different present, the possible future that he made impossible by going back and returning everything to the way it was before.

After he had finished, Sherlock studied him with a look he couldn't read.

"This other – present sounds interesting."

John's heart sank as guilt started to flow through him. Sherlock could have been a scientist, happy, carefree.

"But not better".

The tone in which Sherlock said it was final, and before John had even time to process what he meant, he'd stood up and fetched his violin.

When John recognized the melody Sherlock always played to chase his nightmares away, he smiled.

Because, despite everything –

A world where he and Sherlock weren't as close as they could be would always feel like a nightmare to John.

Yes, there would always be what ifs, and there would always be the guilt that John had more or less saved Moriarty's life and condemned people to death, but he had to concentrate on what he had. What he had got back.

Sherlock had been right. The other reality hadn't been better.

Because this was as good as John Watson's life could possibly get.

Autor's note: This is the end, my friends. It's been an incredibly journey – this is my longest fanfiction to date, and my most complicated one as well.

It wasn't easy, trying to tell such a story and at the same time keeping everyone in character, but it was worth it. I certainly had a lot of fun.

A big thank you to you all of you for staying with this story until the end. Please tell me what you thought.

Until the next time, I wish you all the best of days,

Hekate.