was tardismelody
JOHN: Hello?
SHERLOCK: John.
JOHN: Hey, Sherlock, you okay?
SHERLOCK: Turn around and walk back the way you came now.
JOHN: No, I’m coming in.
SHERLOCK (frantically): Just do as I ask. Please.
JOHN (turning back and looking around bewildered): Where?
(Sherlock pauses for a moment as John walks along the road, then speaks urgently.)
SHERLOCK: Stop there.
JOHN (stopping): Sherlock?
SHERLOCK: Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.
(John turns and looks up, his face filling with horror.)
JOHN: Oh God.
SHERLOCK: I … I … I can’t come down, so we’ll … we’ll just have to do it like this.
JOHN (anxiously): What’s going on?
SHERLOCK: An apology. It’s all true.
JOHN: Wh-what?
SHERLOCK: Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.
(He looks around briefly at his enemy’s grinning body lying behind him. On the ground, John stares up at his friend in disbelief.)
JOHN: Why are you saying this?
(Sherlock turns back to look down at him. His voice breaks.)
SHERLOCK: I’m a fake.
JOHN: Sherlock …
SHERLOCK (his voice becoming tearful): 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.
JOHN: Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met … the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?
SHERLOCK: Nobody could be that clever.
JOHN: You could.
(Sherlock laughs and gazes down at his friend, a tear dripping from his chin.)
SHERLOCK: I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. (He sniffs quietly.) It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.
(John has his eyes closed and is shaking his head repeatedly.)
JOHN: No. All right, stop it now.
(He starts to walk towards the hospital entrance.)
SHERLOCK (urgently): No, stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.
(John stops and backs up, holding his hand up towards Sherlock in capitulation.)
JOHN: All right.
(Breathing rapidly, Sherlock unconsciously reaches out his own hand towards his friend.)
SHERLOCK: Keep your eyes fixed on me. (His voice becomes frantic.) Please, will you do this for me?
JOHN: Do what?
SHERLOCK: This phone call – it’s, er … it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they – leave a note?
(John shakes his head, momentarily taking his phone from his ear as the stress of what he’s beginning to understand hits him, then he raises it again, his voice shaky.)
JOHN: Leave a note when?
SHERLOCK: Goodbye, John.
JOHN (shaking his head): No. Don’t.
(Sherlock gazes down at his friend for several seconds, then he lowers his arm and drops the phone onto the roof, gazing ahead of himself. John lowers his own phone and screams upwards.)
JOHN: No. SHERLOCK!
(Sherlock spreads his arms to either side and falls forward, plummeting towards the ground. John stares in utter horror.)
JOHN: Sher…
(A couple of seconds later the body impacts the ground. John’s hearing whites out as his entire body focuses on getting to Sherlock as soon as he can. Sherlock had disappeared from view towards the end of his fall because a building obstructed John’s view of him, and John now runs to the corner of the building, then slows down and stops in the middle of the road as he gets his first glimpse of the still figure lying on the wet pavement, the lower part of his body obscured by a parked lorry. Behind John, a young man on a fast pedal cycle slams into him and sends him crashing to the ground, his head hitting the asphalt hard. Groaning, he struggles to stay conscious as, nearby, people begin to run towards the body on the pavement. The lorry pulls away and a couple of medics from the hospital hurry out and start trying to prevent the onlookers from getting too close. Grimacing with pain, John rolls onto his side and looks across to the pavement where Sherlock is lying on his side with a lot of blood under his head. Slowly John hauls himself to his feet and stumbles towards him as more onlookers gather, talking excitedly about what they saw. John forces himself onwards.)
JOHN (in a whisper): Sherlock, Sherlock …
(He reaches the crowd.)
JOHN: I’m a doctor, let me come through. Let me come through, please.
(Some of the crowd try to hold him back but he pushes through them.)
JOHN: No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend. Please.
(He reaches down to take hold of Sherlock’s wrist, searching for a pulse. A woman peels his fingers off as she and another person pull him away. As he reaches towards his friend again, more medics arrive with a wheeled stretcher.)
JOHN (frantically): Please, let me just …
(The impact of the shock and the bang on his head begin to take effect and his knees give out. As he slumps to the floor supported by a couple of onlookers, two people gently roll Sherlock onto his back revealing his blood stained face and wide staring eyes. John groans in utter despair.)
JOHN: Nggh, Jesus, no.
(He tries to stand but sinks back again.)
JOHN: God, no.
(As the onlookers support him, four people lift Sherlock’s body onto the stretcher and then rapidly wheel it away into the hospital. John stares after it, his face blank and uncomprehending. He finally manages to get to his feet and shakes off his helpers, staring blindly in the direction that his friend’s body was taken.)
(In a nearby building, a rifle sight is aimed directly at John’s head. As John continues to stand in profile to the sniper, a perfect target, the assassin lifts his gun back inside the window and begins to disassemble the weapon. Packing it into his bag, he stands up and walks away.)