The Fall - Sherlock Fanfic 2

Chapter 19

'Why?' I said simply. 'Why did you hurt her so much? Why did you have to go and kill her?' I spoke calmly.

'Because she was fine! She was perfectly stable, in her head. Unlike our parents. Unlike me. And that shouldn't have happened!'

'Mentally stable?'

'Look at me. Look at me properly, and tell me what you see. Tell me exactly what you see when you look at me.'

'A complete idiot,' I said simply. 'Insomniac... Mainly parasomnia. Anxiety. Schizophrenia... But you take so much medication, and you've learnt to ignore what the voices say, haven't you? And it affected your parents, and their parents, didn't it? But it wasn't a major case of schizophrenia - with the right meds, you can ignore the voices. And Allie didn't get any of these things, did she?'

'No, she didn't. Go on.'

'Ok, so you thought that you could slip her into depression, but it didn't work... Because she knew what you were doing, didn't she? Obviously... Wow, why didn't I get this before? The voices tell you to do things, like smoke and gamble and lie about your age to get into clubs... And now, they have told you to find out how Sherlock did it - how he survived the fall. Am I right?'

'Yes.'

'Great.' In a split second, I had plucked the gun from his hand, and had it trained on him. His grip had loosened as I spoke - his first big mistake.

'Only, that's not right.' I said simply, keeping the gun trained on him, held tightly in my hand. 'Theres a reason you don't exist on computers. No medical records, no birth certificate. Your parents didn't ask for any of those things, because they didn't want to risk anyone finding out what was really happening.

'You're not schizophrenic - you would have been affected so much more. Sure, the violence with your family members is a sign of schizophrenia, and all of the delusions. But you haven't been taking your medication lately, have you? Because you don't need it. You don't have a mental disorder, either, your parents just told you that you did from a young age, and you grew up believing it. They put a hallucinogenic into the tablets, that just so happen to be made to make you feel anxious, and stop you from sleeping well. But the hallucinations were only things that you had thought of, deep in the back of your mind. Like a mind palace - it's like you have taken your deepest, most hidden thoughts, and placed them somewhere in the real world - for you, the whole world is a mind palace. You see your thoughts as people and animals, telling you to do things. And you freaked out. But you realised once, that you were thinking all of these things in your head, anyway. So, then, you decided to experiment, and skipped your medication, but only for that one time. But your hallucinations weren't as bad that day, so you skipped the second time. And the third. And eventually, after all of the hallucinogenic was out of your system, the hallucinations were gone.

'Am. I. Right?'

'Yes,' he said, looking at me in awe. A thirteen year old girl was pointing a gun at him, after noticing in minutes something that had taken him the full 15 years of his life to realise. 'You are absolutely right. But, enough with the chit chat. Tell me how he did it.' A sudden menace came into his voice.

I tucked the gun into my jeans.

'I still don't know.'

'Yes, you do.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

'This is a different day, and a different time. Sherlock would have picked his moment carefully.'

'Then improvise. Lets play a game - lets play murder. And then not make it a game. And you'll show me how you would have done it.'

'Well, your hallucinations did tell you to gamble - you like the rush of it, don't you? Win everything, or lose or all.'

'You're in that situation right now.'

'Ok, then.' I said. 'Let me see what I would do. Right now. To avoid death.' I looked around, pretending I didn't already have a idea.

Or ten.

I honestly didn't know how Sherlock had done it two years ago, but I knew how I would do it right now. I didn't have to pretend to be dead - I just had to jump off the roof of a building onto the solid pavement below me.

Easy.

I walked up to the edge of the roof, then turned around so that I was facing Mason again. 'This is the part where I fall, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

'Actually, it's not.'

'What?'

This had been more boring than I had hoped. if he wanted a reenactment of the day Sherlock jumped, then he would have to play his part, too.

'First,' I said mischievously. 'Moriarty shot himself. I wouldn't go as far to say they you're Moriarty - you're a killer, you killed Allie, which is true, but you wouldn't risk your head for anything serious. You're not a genius, and you have no well-thought-out plan, no leverage on me. But seeing as I'm being Sherlock in this inaccurate representation, then you're Moriarty. You have to shoot yourself first.'

'Well, what if I press the 'fast-forward' button?' He said. 'I'll just watch the suicide part, please.' He smiled sarcastically.

'Okay, then.' I said, and I fell backwards.