As It Should Be

Chapter 7: Suspicious Minds

Months into the case and the police had no leads onto who the killer could be. Sherlock, however, seemed to be very sure.
"Listen Sherlock I believe you, but you haven't given us much to go on." Lestrade insisted.
"What do you mean, he basically confessed."
"A vague tweet from an unknown user isn't enough."
"That vague tweet led you to the murder scene."
"No, Sherlock, you led us to the murder scene."
"What are you implying?"
"Nothing, just, let us do our job, if you get anything more substantial, then we might be able to arrest this 'Moriarty' guy, but until then we have nothing. Besides we don't even know who this guy is"
"I know who he is." Sherlock said.
"Have you ever even met him?" John asked, but was spoken over by Lestrade who continued telling Sherlock how his word isn't enough.
"What did you say?" Sherlock turned to John, but as he spoke John's phone rang out loudly, and before Sherlock knew it John was rushing out the door, saying something about their babysitter cancelling.
But Sherlock had made a lot of enemies, just from being himself, and a lot of the officers resented the fact Lestrade overlooked all the illegal activities that seemed to occur in 221B baker street, and the fact he let Sherlock into crime scenes when he was clearly high.
"He's not on our payroll, what do you want me to do? Tell HR? We don't have any jurisdiction over him."
"Oh besides the fact that we are the police and he's given enough reason for a warrant a thousand times over?" Anderson piped up.
"How did he know?" Donovan added.
"He knows a lot" Lestrade added.
"Yeah, suspicious isn't it? That he seems to know details only the killer would know."
"What are you implying?" Lestrade asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"We should at least humour the idea he is somehow involved"
***

Sherlock lay on the carpeted floor, watching a spider crawl slowly up the wall toward its web, where a fly was struggling to escape the webs capture, only, the struggle just trapped it further. John was reading out from a newspaper.
"Great detective Sherlock Holmes was brought into Scotland Yard for questions on Wednesday night, in connection to a series of murders he has been working on. A source tells us the Police are investigating the potential that Sherlock Holmes has 'hero syndrome' and created the crime scenes just so he could act the hero by solving it. All other investigations Sherlock aided on are currently also under scrutiny, but so far no anomalies have arised."
"This is bad Sherlock." John added, when Sherlock made no effort to reply. "They're turning the public against you now, even if they don't prosecute you'll have this tied to your name forever."
"It's fine." Sherlock added, in a monotone voice.
"How? How is any of this fine?"
"Because, I just have to prove it was Moriarty."
John sighed and put his face in his hands.
"What?" Sherlock jolted up. "You don't believe me." He smiled. "You actually think I did it." He chortled.
"Of course I don't fucking think you did it. I - " John got very serious, Sherlock stopped smiling.
"What?" He asked cautiously.
"You mean a lot to me Sherlock. I care a lot about what people think about you, this is serious, and I wish you cared."
"Why would you care about what people think about me?"
"Because, you idiot, I care about you." Sherlock didn't know what to say. He felt his mouth go dry.
"Well I... care about you."
"Then stop fucking about and clear your fucking name." John said, before leaving. Sherlock felt as if the room around him was falling apart.
It could have been hours, it could have been minutes, it could have been days. Sherlock spiralled into a mess. His mind was racing a million miles an hour trying to figure out where and how he could catch Moriarty. He traced back all the interactions he'd had with him and attached it all by string in chronological order around the flat, but every time he came close to the truth, it seemed to fall apart in front of him. It was like trying to cage smoke. His mind whirred over and over the same things until it began to repeat a memory that had been irking him, that he had tried to push aside. The moment when John had asked a simple question, a question that could unravel everything he thought he knew, could make him question his own memories. It was when John asked "Have you ever even met Moriarty?".
It just didn't make sense. John knew Moriarty, John had met Moriarty, John knew it was Moriarty who forced Sherlock to jump off St Barts, how could he not remember? Unless... Well the drugs had been messing with his memories a bit, maybe he truly had made it all up, or forgotten it all...or...
Then in walked James.