I've been dreading publishing this... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

(Third-person POV: )

On the rooftop, Sherlock breathed shallowly and rapidly, holding his sleeve up over his mouth in horror as he turned to look again at Jim's fixed grin. He thought frantically for a while, and then slowly turned towards the edge of the building. His breathing began to slow as he stepped up onto the ledge, blew out another breath and looked down towards the ground. In the street below, John and Alice's taxi pulled up. Sherlock took out his phone and selected a speed dial. The answering phone began to ring below him as John and Alice got out of the taxi and John raised his phone to his ear as he trotted towards the hospital.

"Hello?" John asked, Alice looking at him when he spoke.

"John," Sherlock answered urgently.

"Hey, Sherlock, you okay?" John questioned.

"Turn around and walk back the way you came now. Tell Alice," Sherlock commanded.

"No, we're coming in," John argued.

"Just do as I ask. Please," Sherlock asked frantically.

"Where?" John asked, turning back and looking around, bewildered and grabbing Alice's arm to stop her from continuing to move towards Barts. Sherlock paused for a moment as they walked along the road, then spoke urgently.

"Stop there. Put this on speakerphone," Sherlock told the doctor.

"Sherlock?" John asked worriedly, stopping and putting it on speakerphone. Alice stopped and stood next to John, looking at the phone expectantly.

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop," Sherlock revealed. John turned and looks up, his face filling with horror and Alice mirroring him.

"Oh g*d," John mumbled.

"Sherlock..." Alice said, in the same tone as John.

"I... I... I can't come down, so we'll... we'll just have to do it like this," Sherlock said, his voice beginning to get shaky.

"What's going on?" John asked anxiously, looking at Alice, who was just staring up at Sherlock. She knew what was going on; or most of it anyway.

"An apology. It's all true," Sherlock started.

"Wh-what?" John stammered.

"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty," Sherlock explained. He looked around briefly at his enemy's grinning body lying behind him. On the ground, John stared up at his friend in disbelief while Alice closed her eyes briefly and clenched her fists.

"Why are you saying this?" John asked. Sherlock turned back to look down at them. His voice broke:

"I'm a fake."

"Sherlock..." Alice began, her tone stern and warning.

"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," Sherlock interrupted, his voice becoming tearful.

"Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met... the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right? And you knew a dam* lot about Alice," John tested.

"Nobody could be that clever," Sherlock argued.

"You could," John insisted. Sherlock laughed and gazed down at his friends, a tear dripping from his chin.

"I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you; both of you." He sniffed quietly. "It's a trick. Just a magic trick." John had his eyes closed and was shaking his head repeatedly as Alice looked back up to Sherlock, her jaw set.

"No. Stop- stop it now. Now," Alice said, her voice breaking once. They started to walk towards the hospital entrance again.

"No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move," Sherlock instructed urgently. John stopped and backed up, holding his hand up towards Sherlock in capitulation. Alice stopped but didn't back up with John.

"All right," John confirmed. Breathing rapidly, Sherlock unconsciously reached out his own hand towards his friends.

"Keep your eyes fixed on me," He said. His voice became frantic. "Please, will you do this for me?"

"Do what?" Alice asked flatly.

"This phone call - it's, er... it's my note. It's what people do, don't they - leave a note?" Sherlock said. John shook his head, momentarily taking his phone from his ear as the stress of what he was beginning to understand hit him, then he raised it again, his voice shaky. Alice just stared up at him still, her entire body tight and rigid.

"Leave a note when?" John asked.

"Goodbye, John," He said sadly. He laughed dryly for a moment. "Alice, take care of him for me."

"No. Don't," John insisted.

"Sherlock. No. Please," Alice begged. Sherlock gazed down at them for several seconds, and then he lowered his arm and dropped the phone onto the roof, gazing ahead of himself. John lowered his own phone and screamed upwards.

"No. SHERLOCK!" He screamed. Alice couldn't say anything. Sherlock spread his arms to either side of him and fell forward, plummeting towards the ground. John and Alice stared in utter horror.

"Sher..." Alice began, barely able to choke what she had out. A couple of seconds later the body impacted the ground. John was hearing white out as his entire body focused on getting to Sherlock as soon as he could. Alice didn't have that luxury. She could painfully hear everything else living on as Sherlock died.

Sherlock had disappeared from view towards the end of his fall because a building obstructed their view of him, and John now ran to the corner of the building, then slowed down and stopped in the middle of the road as he got his first glimpse of the still figure lying on the wet pavement, the lower part of his body obscured by a parked lorry. Alice couldn't move quite yet.

Behind John, a young man on a fast pedal cycle slammed into him and sent him crashing to the ground, his head hitting the asphalt hard. Alice then got moving and rushed up to John.

Groaning, he struggled to stay conscious as, nearby, people begin to run towards the body on the pavement and Alice bent down to him. The lorry pulled away and a couple of medics from the hospital hurried out and started trying to prevent the onlookers from getting too close.

Grimacing with pain, John rolled onto his side and looked across to the pavement where Sherlock was lying on his side with a lot of blood under his head. Slowly John hauled himself to his feet, Alice trying to help him but he was pushing her away.

He stumbled towards Sherlock as more onlookers gathered, talking excitedly about what they saw. John forced himself onwards and Alice stayed with him despite needing to run up to the dead detective.

"Sherlock, Sherlock..." John said in a whisper. He and Alice reached the crowd.

"I'm a doctor, let me come through. Let me come through, please," John begged. Some of the crowd tried to hold him back but he pushed through them just barely. Alice hurriedly followed, trying to not push John out of the way.

"No, he's our friend. He's our friend. Please," Alice said, he voice breaking again as she kept people away from her and John as best she could.

John reached down to take hold of Sherlock's wrist, searching for a pulse. A woman peeled his fingers off as she and another person pulled him away despite Alice's attempts to get them off. She was distracted by Sherlock, though.

As John reached towards his friend again, more medics arrived with a wheeled stretcher.

"Please, let me just..." He asked weakly. The impact of the shock and the bang on his head began to take effect and his knees gave out. As he slumped to the floor supported by Alice (who also went on her knees next to him), two people gently rolled Sherlock onto his back revealing his blood stained face and wide staring eyes. John groaned in utter despair and Alice let out a choked whimper of surprise.

"Nggh, Je***, no," John groaned.

"Sherlock," Alice said, staring at the blood and him and sounding like she was begging.

John tried to stand but sunk back again, Alice catching him despite only looking at Sherlock.

"G*d, no," He moaned. As Alice supported him, four people lifted Sherlock's body onto the stretcher and then rapidly wheeled it away into the hospital. John stared after it, his face blank and uncomprehending while Alice blinked back tears.

He finally managed to get to his feet and shook Alice off, staring blindly in the direction that his friend's body was taken. Alice looked down at the ground, her fists clenched and a stream of blood coming from where her nails dug into the skin.