One More Miracle

The Sound of the Sirens

Chapter 9: John's POV 

"As long as the slightest piece of Sherlock Holmes remains, he remains. And you, Doctor Watson, are the biggest piece left." Moriarty said. I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming next, and braced myself for the bullet that was sure to end my life. 

"Sherlock, please," I whispered, though I knew he couldn't hear me. Nobody would hear my dying wish but me, not even the two men standing in front of me, one of them with a gun trained on my heart. I held back tears. I wouldn't cry, not now. I would go down like the soldier I had once been. At the thought of me being a soldier, I was flooded with memories. 

I'm in Afghanistan, fighting for my life, trying desperately to help the wounded. My friends are dying all around me. I am unable to save them. Useless. Then I have a gun in my hand, hungry for revenge. I'm out on the battlefield, fighting in the name of those that I lost. And the bullet enters my shoulder. 

Now I'm at St. Bart's, meeting Sherlock Holmes for the first time. "Afghanstan or Iraq?" he's asking. 

Then we're getting ready to meet Irene Adler. He's asking me to punch him in the face, so I do. But I don't stop there. Suddenly, I'm on his back, my arms squeezing his neck. "I was a soldier! I killed people!" I say.  

"You were a doctor!" Sherlock responds. 

"I had bad days!" 

This all happened in a matter of seconds. You've been shot before, and this time you won't feel anything, I told myself over and over again. You won't feel a thing. That's when the gun went off. 

And I was right. I didn't feel a thing. In fact, it was weird how little I felt. Almost like the bullet hadn't entered my body at all. And I could still feel the rope binding my hands together, the chair supporting my body weight, my feet on the floor. When I had been shot in Afghanistan, it hadn't felt anything like this. It had felt like I was floating, suspended in a world of nothingness, beyond pain and so very cold. Which begged the question: Had I been shot at all? Slowly, I opened my eyes. 

I was still in the dimly-lit room with the consulting criminal and his assistant. I was still alive. I didn't realize I had been holding my breath, and I exhaled slowly. "Well, if Sherlock Holmes really had been here, he would have most definitely jumped up and tried to stop my friend Sebastian here from shooting you. I guess he isn't here. Maybe he really is dead. Or maybe he is here, but he didn't care enough to come and try and save you. After all, he already did save you from one of my bullets once before. I guess he got tired of it," Moriarty said. 

"What do you mean, he saved me from one of your bullets once?" I asked.

"Oh, you don't know. Sherlock never did tell you anything, did he?" Moriarty taunted me. "You would have thought he would have filled his best friend in on something so important. But what did he do instead?" He waited for a second for me to respond, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of hearing me do so. After a second, he spoke again, "That's right. He tried to convince you he was a fake. He told you to spread the word. But you never did. You were too loyal. You cared too much. Caring is not an advantage, John. A friend of mine told me that once. Well, I say 'friend....' But let me enlighten you as to why Sherlock jumped off of that roof, Doctor Watson." 

But he never did get to enlighten me. Right as he said that, I heard it. The  sound of the sirens. Police sirens. They were headed towards us; the wailing was growing louder with each passing second. I saw Moriarty and Moran freeze. Then, Lestrade's voice rang out from the speakers on one of the police cars, though it sounded like it was coming from a few buildings down. "STOP!" he yelled. "Sebastian Moran and James Moriarty, you are both under arrest for kidnapping!"