keep_counting | That's What People Do

I was trying to write an author's note for That's What People Do, and all of the sudden I'd written waaaay too much for it to properly fit in a header. So, taking a leaf out of kilodalton's book, I decided to write all of my thoughts down and post it in a seperate entry, that people could read if they wanted. And here it is :) WARNING: there are spoilers for the first two episodes season 2 of 'Sherlock', so don't read if you want to stay unspoiled!

“If she left him he would’ve kept it, people do, sentiment.”

Sherlock, A Study in Pink

“People have died.”

“That’s what people do!”

Sherlock & Moriarty, The Great Game

So I had this idea after re-reading The Final Problem and thinking way too much about how our dear writers would spin the Reichenbach tale this Sunday. I thought that, again, I could easily imagine Sherlock still doing the: faked death to lure out Moriarty’s network-thing (though I do believe that this John’s reaction would be different to the canon-ones, but nevermind that), and that got me thinking of how John would react to losing Sherlock, especially when he read the letter Sherlock would have left for him.

What if the plan had been laid out oh-so carefully, if Sherlock was prepared to fake his own death and go underground, if he’d already written a letter for John saying his goodbye (in this context being that he was sure Moriarty wouldn’t go down without making sure Sherlock died too, and that Sherlock had given it to Mycroft beforehand so John could get it should this happen). I even wrote a draft to said letter, but I didn’t like how it turned out, so I scrapped it.

And that’s when I started thinking. What if, plan laid out, Sherlock prepared to go through with this and knowing he would cause his (only) friend pain, but completely convinced to do this anyway…

And then John dies instead.

It came sort of naturally that the fic should be written in flashback-notions and that we would never get the whole story. I thought: wouldn’t Sherlock be absolutely shocked and heartbroken by this? Not only is his friend dead – which would hurt him no matter what – but it goes completely against this plan that he laid it, everything he’d been trying to construct. It all crashes and burns, and Moriarty still dies, but he’s lost John.

I’ve tried to give the impression that Sherlock really hadn’t considered this happening. Of course it had crossed his mind – he’s a genius after all – but he’d ignored it, because his plan was solid and brilliant and he wasn’t going to fail in this. Sherlock is arrogant, and this is a result of that.

That is also why I never focused on how it happened. Sherlock is all about the how and the why. In this case, the why is obvious (Moriarty was after Sherlock and actually makes a mistake), but the how isn’t. And Sherlock doesn’t dwell on it. John was shot by Moriarty, so Sherlock kills Moriarty and everything just sort of stops from there. Like, every time his mind turns to John, it just goes John is dead and gone, not John died such and such because of this and this. The closest to this is: John died because of me and/or Moriarty.

I was also very keen on using the parallel of ‘people do’, especially because Sherlock uses the word ‘sentiment’ to describe almost every form of attachment that other humans display: John’s phone, the dog in HOUND and so on and so forth. It’s his way of reasoning this thing he doesn’t understand: he comes very close to it with Irene’s phone in SCANDAL, but he outright asks John for that one – and at the time he actually knows she isn’t dead, so there might be several more reasons than merely ‘sentiment’ to why he asks for the phone (I do believe there was also that involved, but having her phone might also be handy if she ever decided to cause trouble again. Unlikely, but this is Sherlock and he would do such a thing). In this case, no-one but that stranger knows he has the watch. He doesn’t give it back to Harry, even though he probably should, he doesn’t tell Mycroft about it. The idea was that he only takes it out when he’s alone – or in merely strangers company. And when asked, the answer comes naturally to him, and for the first time it hurts because he’s actually feeling it. He understands the need to have something like this close, because it’s that last piece of John.

Yeah, okay, just some thoughts. This turned out far too long, but I’m just so anxious/nervous about the finale and it’s all I can think about :/ I sort of want a twist were we will be shocked, but NOTHING must happen to John! This was merely a new take on it: I died a little typing it too.