John stood atop St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a cold fall wind dragging through his hair, pricking is scalp with long fingers. He stood where Sherlock stood only a year ago. The same place in which Sherlock had called John from to leave his note, seconds before he fell to the ground.
John flinched. He heard the cracking of his best friend's skull again, as it echoed through the still wind. He looked down. Many stories below, flowers were still hanging from the light pole. Spots of blood still stained the sidewalk. John saw it all happen again.
He tried to run away. He pushed back but was kept in place, watching his friend fall from a whole new angle, somewhere in the back of his mind.
He knew he couldn't call for help. Not if he were to finish what he'd come here to do. So he sighed with a shaken breath and allowed his mind to replay. He was pleased. This only reassured him of what he wanted to do.
John stepped up onto the ledge, drawing another breath, looking up. He soon felt warm. Like a blanket was drawn over him. Cars passed below, honking blindly, paying no attention to the short man on top of a building. A familiar scent tickled under his nose. It smelt of Sherlock.
A tear swam down his face and dropped to the pavement below. Three large trucks passed and stopped at the red light beside the hospital, bearing letters in a recognizable chicken-scratch font. It looked as if it were plastered there from Sherlock's notebook. John stepped back and tripped as he read the letters.
"Hold on, John. I'll catch you when you fall. -SH"
John checked his back and realized that the blanket of warmth was quite real; it was Sherlock's jacket. He shrugged it on over his own coat before he ran to, and off, the ledge of the tall building.
As he fell he heard a faint whisper in a familiar voice, "I got you,". He looked to the sidewalk and saw a ghost figure of his best friend, waiting for him.
John closed his eyes and smiled, seconds before he hit the pavement. Then black.
* * *
When John opened his eyes he found himself in his bed in 221 B. He looked around, dazed and light headed. He felt a hand on his own and gasped lightly. His hand was a translucent white, covered by a larger hand of a skeletal build an the same pasty coloration. Slanted, blue-grey eyes were staring back into his when he looked up, squeezed together by a wide, cat-like smile. Sherlock helped John out of his bed and held him close, so as to whisper easily into his ear,
"You're free, John. We're a team again."
