The fire was cleansing. Sherlock stood and watched as the body of Sebastian Moran burned. Oh, yes, once he'd cleaned the acid away, he caressed the exposed brain of the man who'd killed his friend, enjoying the insanity of the moment, wondering why he'd never given into it before. It was delicious, the sensation of the lumps of grey matter against his fingertips. This feeling of madness was a most curious one. And then Sherlock had set the man alight, destroying evidence but keeping his pictures of John safe.

He watched, taking in the smell of burning hair and skin, and didn't find it repugnant. The flames engulfed the body of the dead Colonel, and as the flat began to catch fire as well, Sherlock left, laughter on his lips. It was a laugh that would have ensured the most untrained of people that Sherlock Holmes had gone absolutely, completely insane.

The news programme reported on the arson burning of a block of flats. Sherlock, sitting in the restaurant, smiled. His work was done. He breathed deeply, savoring the memory of Moran's dying whimpers. For all his reputation as a brave man, Moran had gone out groveling and sobbing. His phone rang with hint of a text.

If you're up to it, we need your help

Lestrade

Sherlock smiled, shaking, wondering if he was just possibly bold enough to answer the call. And he did.

Entering the mortuary, it was all Sherlock could do to keep from exploding into excited giggles. The skeleton that had once been inside Moran now lay on the table.

"Dental records show he was Colonel Sebastian Moran." Lestrade read off a sheet of paper. "Served in the military, given a dishonorable discharge after attacking a fellow officer." Lestrade looked at Sherlock, concerned. "If you're not ready…"

"Of course I am. I've never felt better." Sherlock's eyes twinkled. "Any enemies?"

"No," said Lestrade, "but he was receiving large amounts of money from an unknown source."

Sherlock gestured to the hole in the skull, which he himself had put there. "Acid," he said. "Probably poured onto the head of the victim. That tells us the kill was personal."

"God," whispered Molly. "Who'd do that? Who'd pour acid onto someone's head?" She'd gone a deathly pale white. "You don't suppose he was alive when it happened?"

Sherlock tried very very hard to suppress his inward smile. "No way of knowing. But if he had, it would have been painful. The acid drips through the hair, then the skin, then muscles, and finally skull before dissolving the brain." He spoke as if describing a lover.

Molly gulped. Lestrade gave her a concerned look. "How common would the acid to do this be?"

"Could be any of a number of acids. The fire may have destroyed any trace of what it was, though." Sherlock shrugged.

"Well, we'll try to get something off it. You okay, Sherlock?"

"I'm fine."

"That's what's worrying me. You just lost your best friend. You shouldn't be fine. You should be a wreck."

"I don't need psychology lessons from you, Detective Inspector," Sherlock snapped before storming out of the room. He walked a good ten miles before catching a cab back to Baker Street. His mind was working frantically, thinking of ways he could enjoy that most delicious of releases. And then it hit him.

"Stop here," he told the cab driver. He got out, paid the cabbie, took a deep breath, and then ran down an alleyway.

"The police report today that the body they found hanging from the Tower Bridge was that of Sherlock Holmes, the detective. Details of his death are not being released, but at this time, his death is being ruled a suicide."

Mrs. Hudson didn't notice she'd dropped her tea. She didn't notice she wasn't standing up any more. She didn't notice anything as she'd blacked out.

An hour away, Mycroft Holmes learned the news of his brother's death. He, too, blanked out, though he did not lose consciousness. He should have stayed with Sherlock after John's death. He shouldn't have left him alone for an instant, and now the brother he'd always protected was dead by his own hand.

Mike Stamford stared. He hadn't seen Sherlock in months. He'd never see him again.

Sebastian Wilkes lost his appetite. The pasta no longer held any attraction. Yeah, they'd hated him in university, but his throat knotted around the thought of Sherlock of all people committing suicide.

Somewhere in the darkness, a woman screamed. Not a scream of terror, but an involuntary scream of pain. The blackness of the night was oppressive, as the empty storage facility was lit only with candles.

A hand caressed her face. It was a hand not used to gentleness. It was a cold hand in more ways than one.

The acid dripped onto her head.

"Do you know who I am?" came a voice from the darkness. A soft chuckle seemed disembodied as it bounced off the walls of the room.

"N—no," the woman whimpered.

"I'm Sherlock Holmes," he said, stepping into what little light there was. His head was tilted slightly and his eyes were wide. The woman sobbed from the pain as the acid tore through her nerves. "Oh, I know it was you," he whispered. "You found out where John was going to be that night. You told Moran. You killed John," he finished.

"I—"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," he crooned. "I found the emails. I found the texts. You provided that information to Moran. And now you'll die as well."

"You're insane," she gasped.

Sherlock smiled. "Yes. And I've never been happier."

ACID ARSONIST STRIKES AGAIN, read the papers. The body of 41-year-old Marissa Hargrove was found in a storage facility once the fire had been put out. The acid wounds on her skull were nearly identical to those found on Colonel Sebastian Moran who died three weeks ago. The police, headed by Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, say they are no nearer to finding the perpetrator of these grisly crimes.

Lestrade buried his face in his hands. If only they had Sherlock around, they could have solved this. But they didn't. What would have taken Sherlock Holmes hours or days to solve was likely to take months for the able people of Scotland Yard.

Dartmoor. Or rather, a barn on the moor. The man awoke, his face bloodied. He tried to move but was bound.

"I can't believe I haven't done this sooner," came a now-raspy voice.

"Wh..?"

"Murder. It's a delightful high. Far better than any I've experienced before. Almost orgasmic."

The man in the chair squirmed. "Why?"

"Why am I killing you or why is it so terribly delightful?" Sherlock stepped into the light. "Why I'm going to kill you is simple. You enabled Moran to get to me. You told him about John. You told him that I'd crumble if John died. And now I have. And now you're going to die." He stood and turned on the steady drip-drip-drip of the acid. The man screamed.

Sherlock put his finger to the man's lips. "Shh….wouldn't want you to ruin my perfect moment." It did no good, however, as the man, who was the least resilient to pain of all the victims thus far, screamed. And in screaming, drowned out the sounds of Sherlock's insane laughter.

THIRD VICTIM OF ACID ARSONIST

Lestrade didn't even bother reading this one. He knew all too well that there was a killer on the loose, someone so mad that not even the screams of a dying man could convince him to stop. He'd been working his hardest on this case, and somehow even harder since Sherlock's suicide. He'd been pulling double-duty, but it wasn't enough. He hoped desperately for a break in the case.

A woman of obvious Russian descent sat stoically in the chair, her eyes the only thing that betrayed her fear. This time her head was bound around the forehead.

"Funny, the things a man will do for a friend," came the far-too-calm voice from the darkness. "He'll lie. He'll cheat. He'll steal. He'll even kill."

"What have I done?"

"The knife."

"What?"

"You hand-carved the knife which went into the heart of John Watson. A beautiful knife." Suddenly from the darkness rushed the insane detective. His eyes were bloodshot, his pupils dilated. He grinned. "I'd like to personally thank you for your handiwork. I'm going to try something new." He put an IV in her arm. "It's one thing to have the acid dripped through your head, but for you, I think, a treat." He turned the IV on to a gentle flow, and instantly the woman tensed up. She was in excruciating pain. He put his face within inches of hers.

"I've never kissed," Sherlock whispered. "I think it's time, don't you?" He put his lips to hers and as she seized and died, he tenderly caressed her mouth, feeling her dying gasps exhale into his own lungs. And it felt good.

The results were in on the fourth body. Anderson could scarcely believe his eyes. Not only did the killer slip up, but the fingerprint he'd left had a very definite result. Running to Lestrade's office, clutching the paper, he entered without knocking. Unfortunately, Lestrade had dozed off. Anderson woke him.

"We have a problem."

Sherlock looked up from his hiding spot. He stared at the sky over the moor, and in particular, a supernova which had only come into the sky after John's death.

"Aren't you proud, John?" he asked it. "All of this, I did for you. You'll never be forgotten. Not ever." His senses had become hyperacute since that first kill, and now everything had burst into a cacophony of beauty. And the blue lights from the road were approaching. But he didn't care.

Lestrade had followed the tip and it led him straight onto the moor. He'd brought some of the strongest and newest of the lads, knowing what he'd find. He had brought people who'd never met Sherlock before so that he couldn't trick them.

The figure on the moor did not move. He merely stared at the sky. Lestrade closed his eyes and took a deep breath, not sure of what was going to happen next.

The detective sat, staring at the sky, the universe bursting into colours he never had imagined. He laughed.

"Lestrade! Late as ever."

Lestrade stood gaping at this figure. The voice had lost all tenderness, and in body and in mind, Sherlock Holmes was too insubstantial to even be called a shadow of himself. Lestrade cleared his throat as he prepared to say the words he never wanted to need to.

"Sherlock Holmes, I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Violet Cunningham."

Sherlock just tilted his head and looked at Lestrade, who took a step back. There was no way that this could have been the brilliant detective he once knew. A spontaneous fit of laughter seized Sherlock.

"Only that?"

"Sherlock, this isn't a joke!"

"When you haven't slept in five days, everything's a joke."

Lestrade realized he was actually holding back tears. One of the greatest men who ever lived had been turned into an utterly insane wreck.

"Sherlock, this isn't funny."

Sherlock held a vial up to the sky. "Pish posh, diddle-dosh, rinky-dinky skyward." The police who had accompanied Lestrade quickly tried to get the vial away from him. But even in his frail state, Sherlock was too fast, opening the vial and throwing it in the face of one of the police. The man screamed as his eyes burned, and Sherlock made his escape across the moor.

Lestrade and the remaining policeman followed the nightmarish laughter through the fog which had begun to settle in, and soon the two were separated. Their quarry had escaped.

Boom, went the house of James Moriarty. Sherlock stood triumphant at the blatant destruction of his old foe's home. Once he'd found it, he had decided to exact revenge on the man who'd started it all. Even though he was already dead. It didn't matter.

Sirens blared as Sherlock danced before the flames, laughing like a child on Christmas morning. The police and fire trucks had arrived. Dimmock was the one who answered the call today, and he stepped out of the squad car and raised his loud-hailer.

"We have you surrounded. Come quietly, and we won't have to use force."

Sherlock turned like a petulant child. "No," he stated simply, in the tone a five-year-old uses.

Dimmock sighed. "You're going to have to come."

"And if I don't?"

The reply came in a number of guns being pointed at him. This had qualified as a special occasion warranting gun use.

Sherlock charged furiously and suddenly at the guns, which, understandably, went off, striking him in the left shoulder. Any sense of insane mirth vanished from his face as he collapsed to the ground.

"Blood…" he moaned. "So much blood…" The pain didn't matter—not the physical pain, at any rate. He pulled his photograph of John from his pocket, which now was covered in the blood from the bullet wound. "John…" His head blurred and he dissolved back into his black sobbing fit, nearly oblivious of being loaded into an ambulance.

"How long will he be under your supervision?" asked Mycroft.

The head of the psychiatric hospital shook his head. "That depends on what the courts decide. Probably for the rest of his life."