Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, I make no money off of the creative genius of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

A/N: My first foray into the world of Sherlock; hope you all enjoy. I'll be posting the whole thing at once, so no wait on chapters-yay!

Magic Trick

Droll thing life is - that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself - that comes too late - a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Prologue

It's a trick… just a magic trick.

Sherlock!

"Lestrade."

The inspector listened for a moment; his brow furrowed, then his eyes widened. "John? Christ, where are you? Doesn't matter, look- tell Sherlock that if he-" A longer pause that time, confusion settling in. "What? You're yanking me." His face paled to an ashen hue. "No, that's not- okay, alright. Yeah. John, let me send someone to… John?"

The line was dead. Lestrade ran a hand shakily over his face, and then looked out into the outer office. He saw her standing there, and knew he was being spiteful, but he didn't care. Grabbing his coat, he slung it over his arm and was out the door moments later, barking an order without breaking stride.

"Donovan, you're with me."

The junior detective caught up with him in the hallway heading towards the garage. "Where are we going?"

"Saint Bart's."

X-X-X

"Up on the roof, sir?" Donovan paused at the final stairway leading to the rooftop access. "What could there possibly be up here?"

"A body."

"On the roof?"

"Hm."

It was lightly raining; a typical, dreary London day. Typical, but one Lestrade knew he would never be able to forget. And one that was about to become incredibly bizarre, as they approached the collection of people already present at the body. Two security guards were holding a tarp over the body to protect potential evidence from any more rain. Probably a useless effort anyway.

"What've we got?" Donovan turned to business mode as she crouched under the cover.

One of the officers already present spoke up. "White male, no identification. Suicide, single shot through the head."

Donovan stiffened in surprise. "That- sir, this is Richard Brook!" Lestrade felt a flash of irritation at the pseudonym, but he kept his face impassive, watching Donovan get down and peer at and around the body. "Where is he?"

"Who, ma'am?" one of the officers asked.

"Holmes," she exclaimed, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Sherlock Holmes, surely he did this." There was a moment of total silence, punctuated only by the patter of raindrops on the ground around them. "Oh, come on," she rolled her eyes. "Sherlock Holmes, he contrived all the rest of it, do you really think he couldn't make this look real, too?"

Lestrade cleared his throat. "You'll bring the body down?" He summoned Donovan forward. "Come on."

"Sir?"

He turned and quietly led the way back inside. There was a terse elevator trip down to the morgue as Donovan seemed to grasp that something was not quite right. When they walked into the morgue, they were met by the director, who nodded curtly.

"Where's Ms. Hooper?"

"Sent her off; figured she'd be of little use to me here."

Lestrade nodded towards the covered body sitting on the nearest slab. "May we?"

The director pulled his gloves back on and reached for the edge of the cover. "S'not pretty," he warned. "Five story fall, anterior landing. Crushed sternum and pelvis. The face… well…"

He pulled the cover back and Lestrade's voice caught in his throat, a hollow sensation settling in the pit of his stomach. Donovan frowned and stepped forward in confusion, before inhaling sharply and quickly retreating again. "Is that…? What happened to him?"

"Jumped, didn't he?"

The obvious tone of the morgue director shot another cold jolt through Lestrade. "Jumped, Donovan. Off the roof here," he glanced upwards. "You want to tell me why he'd kill someone and go through the trouble of making it look like a suicide, only to kill himself moments later?"

She didn't speak for a long minute, eyes glued to the swollen and bruised face until it was covered back up. Face blank, the young sergeant then turned back to her superior. "Did you bring me here for any other purpose than to guilt me?"

"Sure. I'm putting you on point."

"Sir?"

"Figure out what happened here. If this was really a double suicide, if anyone else was on the roof."

Her jaw worked tensely. "Alright; where's Watson?"

"No idea. Good luck finding him."

X-X-X

"He did it for you, you know."

For the last week, all of the well-intentioned but empty condolences had washed over him with no effect. His blank stare had remained unchanged, with maybe an acknowledging nod- or maybe not. But Molly's words were so strange, so different from the others, that it jolted him out of his reverie.

"He did what now?"

Her hands twisted anxiously, that nervous and defensive look creeping into her eyes. "He knew that Jim… that you'd be threatened, that it would be the most obvious way to get at him."

"So he chucked himself off a building to protect me?" Molly flinched back at his harsh tone. "Moriarty was after Sherlock, he never threatened me." This time, anyway.

Molly went beet red, but she had that determined look in her eyes, that look she got when summoning the courage to call out Sherlock for always belittling her, and she doggedly persisted. "You really think Sherlock Holmes cared so much about his reputation to go and kill himself at the thought of it being ruined?" John's eyes reverted to their dull, listless state as he turned his attention back to studiously ignoring the people around him.

Molly. Lestrade. Mrs. Hudson. Mycroft. Two bodyguards, failing spectacularly at blending in to the small gathering.

That was it. Those were the people who truly cared about the untimely passing of the most brilliant mind John Watson had ever known. Five of them, and the guards that MoD had insisted accompany Mycroft given the… confusion of recent events. A sad send off.

Then again, Sherlock wouldn't have wanted his memory tarnished by the stupidity and collective IQ drop of too many curious onlookers, so it was probably better this way. A week on, and London was already starting to forget about the brief phenomenon of the 'fraudulent' consulting detective, but enough enthused fans- and more than a few enthused enemies, likely- would probably have found their way to the funeral, given the opportunity.

Mycroft tried to say something to John at the end of the service. John wasn't ready for that though. He hadn't forgiven Mycroft, somewhat doubted that he ever would. And something about him… the difference between Mycroft and Sherlock was like night and day, but there was just enough similarity between them, a certain pretentious bearing, that made just watching or listening to him too much right now.

His bags were already packed, waiting in the cab that would take him to the rail station; he meant what he said to Mrs. Hudson. It would be some time before he could face 221B again. In the meantime, he'd go to Harry's, try to patch things up with her, at least until their next argument. Maybe try to get together for coffee with Clara before heading back to…

Back to where? He was back to square one, where he'd started eighteen months ago: lost and alone.

X-X-X