3. The Cost Of Things Unsaid: Further Thoughts on John, Sherlock, and Major Sholto 

 (Sherlock Meta by stephisanerd)

This is a further continuation of  thoughts from this post and this post, and there’s some overlap. The points I make about what I believe Sherlock is feeling when he jumps are made much more fully in those.  I’m focusing here on what John and Sherlock fail to express in The Reichenbach Fall and how their inability to do so contributed to Sherlock’s actions. (And how Sherlock’s later ability to do so contributed to Major Sholto’s)

(Note: Trigger warning-suicide/suicidal intention. I want to make explicitly clear here that I do not in any way believe that John was responsible for Sherlock’s actions. Regardless of what Sherlock believed in that moment, he still was responsible for his own decision. No one is ever responsible for someone else’s suicide. I simply want to highlight the fact that if both of them were better at saying what they meant, things might have ended differently.)

—

John: She’s dying …You machine. Sod this. Sod this. You stay here if you want, on your own.
Sherlock: Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.
John: No. Friends protect people.
…
Sherlock: An apology. It’s all true.
John: Wh-what?
Sherlock: Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.
John: Why are you saying this?
Sherlock: I’m a fake.
John: Sherlock …
Sherlock: 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 and John aren’t having the same conversation here.

Sherlock believes he is putting his friends in danger. John. Ms. Hudson. Lestrade. The only way to protect them is for Sherlock to leave.  They’re better off without him.  “Alone protects me.”  Sherlock, also, really does feel responsible for Moriarty’s actions. Moriarty saw Sherlock as a worthy adversary, and Sherlock engaged in it so that he wouldn’t be bored. He sees the cost of that now—all of the deaths and the near deaths. All the crimes that Moriarty set up,and that he had a hand in. The old woman and the people in that block of flats. John. The kidnapped children. He feels the weight of that. “I created Moriarty for my own purposes”.  Sherlock believes that John values him for his cleverness, so in trying to convince John that he is a fake, he is trying to convince John that everything that he has ever believed mattered about Sherlock is a lie. He is trying to make John see that he doesn’t matter, that John shouldn’t mourn him."I’m a fake" “Nobody could be that clever,” Sherlock tells him.

 John doesn’t understand anything that Sherlock is really saying and his responses make that perfectly clear.  “You machine.” “Okay, shut up, Sherlock.” “You could.”

The words aren’t enough.  Sherlock is wrong about it all, but he goes to his ‘death’ believing it.  He believes that the only thing of any worth he can still do is destroy the rest of Moriarty’s network. It isn’t a suicide, but it is all but.

If Sherlock had been able to express what he was really feeling, what he really thought, it might have changed things. There are so many things he could have said.“My existence puts you in danger. You’re better off without me.” “I'm responsible for what Moriarty has done.” “I’m not worth anything to you or anyone else.”

If John had seen the truth of it, if he had understood what Sherlock was really saying, if he had been better able to express his feelings, it might have ended differently.  There are so many things that he could have said too.“You are not the cause of the danger we’re in. We’ll figure it out together” “You are not responsible for Moriarty’s actions.” “You are more than your cleverness.  You still matter to me.”

John doesn’t know that Sherlock thinks that John only values him for his cleverness.  Sherlock doesn’t realize that he’s John’s best friend. Neither one of them can express their emotions; Sherlock can’t express what he’s really feeling and John can’t express what Sherlock means to him. Neither one of them recognizes the truth of it, neither one of them says the right things, and it results in tragedy.

* * *

Sherlock, upon his return two years later, does eventually discover what he means to John. John asks him to be his best man and Sherlock realizes that he is John’s best friend.  He discovers that John loves him. It changes Sherlock. His realization of his worth allows him to be more open and honest about his feelings. He tells an entire room full of people how deeply he cares about John.

“John, I am a ridiculous man. Redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship. But as I’m apparently your best friend, I can not congratulate you on your choice of companion. Actually, now I can. Mary, when I say you deserve this man, it is the highest compliment of which I am capable. John, you have endured war, and injury and tragic loss. So sorry again about that last one. So know this, today you sit between the woman you have made your wife, and the man you have saved; In short, the two people who love you most in all this world. And I know I speak for Mary as well when I say we will never let you down, and we have a lifetime ahead to prove that.”

He tells John and everyone else that John has made him a better person and that he has saved him. He admits that he loves John.

But while Sherlock may have figured out how to express his emotions, John still struggles. He hugs Sherlock during his speech, a very public display of his affection, but it isn’t until Sherlock makes very clear his concern that he might have done it wrong that he does so.

It’s driven home later when they are both faced with Major Sholto, who is about to commit suicide in much the same way Sherlock did in The Reichenbach Fall. Major Sholto, like Sherlock, feels responsible for deaths that he didn’t cause. He believes he’s protecting those around him by dying.  He doesn’t believe that he matters to anyone. While he cares about John, he doesn’t realize how deeply John cares about him, and John still isn’t able to express it any explicit way.

Major Sholto: When so many want you dead, it hardly seems good manners to argue.
John: Whatever you’re doing in there, James, stop it, right now. I will kick this door down.
Major Sholto: Mr. Holmes, you and I are similar, I think.
Sherlock: Yes, I think we are.
Sherlock: There’s a proper time to die, isn’t there?
Sherlock: Of course there is.
Major Sholto: And one should embrace it when it comes – like a soldier.
Sherlock: Of course one should, but not at John’s wedding. We wouldn’t do that, would we – you and me? We would never do that to John Watson.

John tells him to stop and threatens to break down the door, but he doesn’t say what really needs to be said. Sherlock, however, has learned. He hears what Major Sholto is actually saying, because he once said it too. He knows how to respond, because it’s what he wishes he had heard when he was in the same place, what he wishes that John had said. He says what John still cannot. “We wouldn’t do that, would we—you and me? We would never do that to John Watson.” He tells Major Sholto that he matters—that he matters to John. He makes him see that in that killing himself, he would be doing something terrible to both himself and John.

He says all the right things this time. The words are enough now.

Note:  Transcript excerpts from here.