'The Long Game' Notes
When The Great Game aired, I was absolutely beside myself. There were a bunch of posts on various LJ communities, all of them speculating how Sherlock and John would get out of the swimming pool alive - and they caught my imagination. I started writing. And then I stopped for about nine months, because life took over and other fandoms became a bit more shiney and, to be honest, I was stuck.
Then, in October-ish, I sent it over to ice_elf, asking if I should bother continuing and outlining my vague ideas. She said, "Yes, you should." So I did. I started plotting again. I got help from a bunch of amazing people at sherlockbbc. I got way too involved in researching and making things as convincing and convoluted as I possible could so that I could have Moriarty play a long and cruel game with John - and The Long Game was born.
A lot of research and planning went into making this fic what it is, and because I am a massive dork and I'm feeling self-indulgent, I want to put it all somewhere so anyone who's interested can look.
I'll try to update chapter-by-chapter as I post the fic. I wouldn't want to hand out any spoilers, now, would I? ;) There will be spoilers for the chapters once they are up, however!
So, without further ado:
Chapter One Notes
I think I started writing this chapter literally within a couple of days of seeing the episode.
Just after The Great Game aired, there were a lot of posts discussing theories on how they could survive if Sherlock shot the bomb. The one theory that kept copping up was this one: if they jump in the pool, they'd probably be OK because the water would dampen the force of the explosion.
I can't remember exact details, because it was over a year ago when I read all these theories. There is a MythBusters episode out there that explains it! Apparently. I haven't seen it for myself, but the internet assures me that it exists.
Chapter Two Notes
As ice_Elf pointed out while betaing, Moriarty is such a creeper!
I have to say, I so enjoyed writing these scenes with Moriarty, precisely because he is such a creeper! :P I enjoy writing creepers. They are fun.
Also, I wrote up to the point where Moriarty appears ... and hit a wall, about a week, or something, after the episode aired. It sat on my hard drive, written up to that point, for about nine months, as I said. I was originally thinking of having the two of them play chess, but - again, as ice_elf said - that would've been really boring. So I went down the treasure hunt route ...
It was at this point that I asked for help from the lovely people at sherlockbbc. I asked if anyone could think of locations around London that Jonh could be sent to by Moriarty. The responses were fantastic. Most of the locations that feature in the treasure hunt were suggested in that post.
The mutilated Boris Bike was, I have to say, not even remotely my idea. Thanks to parachute_silks for the location and the clue! :)
Chapter Three Notes
I have more to thank parachute_silks for in this chapter! The idea of getting John to the Freud Museum via the K.T. Tunstall song was his/her idea - and one I just had to use! I loved the concept from the moment I read it in my post requesting help at sherlockbbc.
Of course, it does screw up the timeline a bit. See, if we take John and Sherlock's websites as canon, then the swimming pool incident took place in late April (2010). The relevant exhibition at the Freud Museum didn't go up until 2011.
But it was too good an opportunity to pass up! (And I really have tried to be pedantically accurate with quite literally everything else, so I think it's OK ...)
The idea of getting John to hack someone's password or passcode came from nyxelestia (who was kind of invaluable with thoughts on how to think like Moriarty!). I decided to give him Lestrade's mostly because it would be reasonable that John could guess it (as he knows Lestrade), but damn hard (because they are only acquaintances).
The fact that it equates to 221B - well. Make of that what you will. Maybe those numbers also mean something else to Lestrade and it's pure luck and coincidence. Or maybe he uses Sherlock's house number as his passcode. That's up to you.
Also, I loved writing that cliffhanger. This was the Chapter That Wouldn't End - and just as I was getting frustrated it dropped the perfect cliffhanger into my lap. :)
Chapter Four Notes
First of all: I had far too much fun writing that telephone conversation. :P
The Freud Museum. Oh, the Freud Museum. Again, I can thank parachute_silks for the location - but what a headache I had trying to figure out a puzzle for in the Freud Museum!
You can actually see the genuine photos on the Freud Museum website, if you have a sudden desire to do so. (Yes, they exist. I was that pernickety. You have no idea how long I spent paging through the many, many photos for Freud for ones with specific locations ... it's kind of sad, really.)
There really is a magnifying glass on Freud's desk. I know from trawling through all those photographs! (You also have no idea how many variations of 'common objects that can be used as magnifying glasses' I went through Google with before I decided to blag it and put one on the desk - only to find that I must have subconsciously remembered it all along, because there was one already there when I checked the photos to describe the desk itself.
I suddenly realised at this point that I really ought to give John something to eat - since he's been up for two hours and still has had nothing. Looking through the paper seemed to give him a reasonable excuse to stop. It came together quite nicely, I though.
Which brings me on to the crossword. I think the crossword possibly gave me the most trouble. Do you know how hard it is working out how to write cryptic clues?! Again, I did a ridiculous amount of research into this.
I have to admit: I only wrote the ones that actually spell out the next location - and that was difficult enough by itself! The others mostly come from the Guardian's cryptic crossword archive. I tried to choose ones that were somewhat relevant (or at least worryingly dark) ... I have to thank ice_Elf again here: she actually does cryptic crosswords (unlike me; I just discard them as too hard within the first thirty seconds!) and she helped out immensely with the clues and whatnot.
Crossword Solution
Clue Workings
11 Across - Scottish Monarch breaks French clown's arm.
Scottish Monarch = Mary
French = le
breaks ... clown's arm = humerus -> bone
Marylebone
Towering in mariachi ghetto
Towering = synonym/definition clue
in = the word (defined by/synonymous with 'towering') is hidden within 'mariachi ghetto'
Mariachi ghetto
High
3 Down - Wild Irish gun-dog
Irish gun-dog = setter
Wild = scramble letters
Street
Chapter Five Notes
This was fun. Actually, Daunt Books was one of the first locations that I found for John to go to. I actually wanted it to be the first location he visited, but that didn't quite work out - not without making him back-track rather a lot.
You see, when I got a bunch of locations from the wonderful people at sherlockbbc, the first thing I did was go to Google Maps, find them, and create myself a map with markers for all of the places I could potentially send John to. Rather creepily, every one of the suggestions I got formed into this band across the centre of London, running roughly west to east. It was really strange! But it worked really well for the fic, so I changed my plans for Daunt Books and put it here, instead of at the start.
Anyway, it gave me an excuse to give John the temptation of being so close to Baker Street. (He would be about a five to ten minute walk from the flat at the Baker Street underground station, if the fictional 221B is in roughly the same location as the real number 221 ...) I really enjoyed tormenting him with that!
Back to the clues and specifically Daunt Books. They have a website. It was kind of invaluable, mostly due to the fact that it contains a virtual tour of the Marylebone High Street branch! (Have a look. It's a really gorgeous bookshop, my descriptions don't do it justice at all!)
Also, Google Street View and I started our love-affair at this point. :P I used Street View rather a lot throughout this fic, because I am really not from London or anywhere near London. I've been to London four or five times, but I don't know it - and I didn't want to be writing about places without knowing what was there. (I may have gone into too much detail in some places, but really, this fic is as much about London as it is about John and the treasure hunt - or at least, it is to me.)
For the puzzle inside Daunt Books, I decide to use one that my good friend siraplowe once told me about. He and one of his friends used to put notes that read '3 up, 2 across. You're doing really well!' and such in the books that were shelved in his form room at school, for people to find. For some reason, that image stuck with me - and I thought it would work well here.
Originally, this was going to be an Ottendorf Cipher because oh wow how much do I love Ottendorf Ciphers?! Answer: a ridiculous amount. But I couldn't find a book that would be on the Afghanistan shelf in Google Books, and I didn't want to just make one up when literally every other thing has been researched. So I had to change my plans. (I think the puzzle John gets now works better, anyway. Especially because people might have come in and moved the books around - a fact that I didn't even think of until ice_elf pointed it out ...)
A Journey Through Afghanistan is a real book, and it really was published by the University of Chicago press.
I told you I went into a stupid amount of detail in the research on this fic ...
Chapter Six Notes
My love affair with Google Street View continues! I actually had a lot of fun writing these scenes of John just walking, and flipping between Word and Firefox, trying to find something interesting to say about each stage of the journey to make it interesting. (I learned so much about little fascinating bits of London architecture in the process. Like the red tile façade of the Covent Garden underground station, which is absolutely beautiful and a truly unbelievable shade of red! It was just so striking, it had to be in the fic ...)
Chicago is no longer playing at the Cambridge Theatre - but it was there in April 2010, when this fic (technically speaking) takes place. I ummed and aahed over whether to have the Cambridge Theatre as my location or whether to move it to where Chicago has now moved to (but has not yet opened at): the Garrick Theatre. In the end, I went for the Cambridge, because I really did want to get my timeline as right as possible (with that one exception with the Freud Museum exhibit ...).
Also, the location of the Cambridge Theatre is more interesting, what with it being next to the Seven Dials roundabout/crossroads. Which, by the way, is really hard to find the name for, if you don't know! Google Maps certainly doesn't know that's the name of the place.
Incidentally, Sweeney Todd isn't/wasn't showing in London at all. So even if he did check the theatre guide be picked up, John wouldn't have seen it in there.
The posters with their throats slashed with red paint was an image I had early on in the writing of the fic, and it didn't go away. I'm not quite sure what led me to Chicago; I think it was possibly from working backwards and forwards between the two clues that bookend it and trying to find a musical that fit.
Also, I had an inordinate amount of fun making Harry the kind of person who goes to see things for shallow reasons. (I totally do that, too, though!)
I have to say, one of the hardest things was making John pretty oblivious to musical theatre. See, I love musicals and I know enough about them that I would personally find this clue really easy. But John is a bloke, and an ex-soldier, and I doubt he really knows a lot about the theatre scene - so this one had to be hard for him! Which was hard for me, because I'd just get it ... I hope he doesn't come across as too slow on the uptake.
It was around about this point (or possibly when writing the end of the previous chapter) that I realised that Moriarty was using a lot of clues that Sherlock would probably find really hard - even harder than John - because they're about things he doesn't think are important. (Case in point: musical theatre. I imagine that anything he did know about it got deleted from his hard drive pretty quick ... :P) This was completely inadvertent - and also possibly because I'm definitely an Arts person, not a Sciences person! I think it works for the fic, though.
Again, it was thanks to parachute_silks (sort of) that I found my next clue, via my sherlockbbc plea for help. He/she suggested having a clue that was simply an area of London (like Hammersmith, Kilburn, Frognal, etc.), so that John would be forced to go to the top of a tall building to look around for a huge clue. I wanted the nice variation on the small-scale clues - so I ran with the vague idea and I think it worked pretty well.
Also, I clearly enjoy torturing John through making him work that poor, injured leg. :/
It was a comment in my sherlockbbc help post that inspired the clue leading to the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great. (Which, as far as I can tell from the very few photos online, is absolutely gorgeous.) mustbehavingfun suggested using locations/things that John might know from his Med School days - which I thought was a really good idea, because aside from anything else it's a bit creepy that Moriarty knows he knows these things. :P
mustbehavingfun pointed me toward Cloth Fair (Street), which I quickly looked up on Google Maps. I was, however, having a pig of a time trying to work out a clue to get John there - so I turned my attention to places on Cloth Fair, and found the Church.
Some Googling and a little reading of their website let me to the oriel window, and the rebus (fancy name for visual pun) of the bolt passing through the tun. That alone amused me - possibly far more than it should have, but there you go. I had to use it. Also, it made for a really easy visual clue that Moriarty could lay down somewhere for John to find from his vantage point.
I hope you don't think it's far-fetched that John spent some time in the church, or that he remembered that one weird fact about it.
Personally, I'm not a very religious person, but I used to go and sit in the Cathedral when I was at university and needed a quiet moment (and was near to it). I also remember a couple of odd little facts about the place that amused me when I was told them (similar to the rebus on the oriel at St Bartholomew the Great's). So that's my reasoning.
Chapter Seven Notes
This chapter was really difficult in quite a number of ways - not least because there are pretty much two photos of the interior of the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great available on the internet. That's it. So I've had to wing it a bit. For example, I have no idea if that church even has hymn boards ...
Originally - due to me cocking up the timeline when plotting the fic, and thinking that it was going to take John far longer than it does - the Church was going to be technically closed for a wedding, which John would have had to blag his way into. (I was going to have him work out the clue at just the moment when the vicar asked if anyone had any reason why the bride and groom should not wed, so that he could shout, "Yes!" and get thrown out ...) I'm still a little bit sad that that didn't work out! I do like the thought of John virtually alone in the Church, however.
If anyone can enlighten me about whether the wooden barrier that separates the seats in the choir from the aisle has a technical name, I would be much obliged! I tried Googling it, but it was a bit fruitless.
I have to say, it was Ice_Elf's brilliant idea to have the copy of the play hidden within a hymn book. I had no idea how to get the play into John's hands, until she suggested that.
OK, I'll admit it: I definitely strayed into English Student territory with the London Stone clue. In its original incarnation, I was going to have John (rather miraculously) remember/know that the quoted section of Henry VI Part Two referred to the London Stone. But Henry VI Part Two is hardly a well-known Shakespeare play, and it didn't ring true even to me.
I still envisage that Moriarty would have wanted John to actually know it or work it out, rather than go about it the way he does. Because Moriarty is evil like that.
I really have no idea if reading through the black marker pen would work with an actual book. I tested it on a bit of text I had printed (a section of my plot for this very fic that I wasn't using any more, in fact!), with my (very bright, LED) desk lamp and my Dad's indelible marker, and I could read it with a bit of difficulty. But there's no way I was going to desecrate a real book! On a similar note, it pained me to have John rip the page out, but it was hard enough twisting around a single A4 sheet to make the words legible through the marker pen, so it would be nigh-on impossible (I imagine) if you had a book attached!
Google Street View once again helped with the walk down Cannon Street - hindered a little bit by the fact that they were giving one of the tube stations a face-lift almost directly opposite the London Stone.
OK, the clue inside the London Stone building. (That's not its actual name, but I don't know what else to call it.) This one went through some permutations.
The original clue was another literary one. John was going to find a copy of The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse, with this section highlighted:
‘Don’t you ever read the papers? Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organisation better known as the Black Shorts. His general idea, if he doesn’t get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator.’
‘Well, I’m blowed!’
I was astounded at my keenness of perception. The moment I had set eyes on Spode, if you remember, I had said to myself ‘What ho! A Dictator!’ and a Dictator he had proved to be. I couldn’t have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living in Clapham.
‘Well, I’m dashed! I thought he was something of that sort. That chin … Those eyes … And, for the matter of that, that moustache. By the way, when you say “shorts”, you mean “shirts”, of course.”
‘No. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. He and his adherents wear black shorts.’
‘Footer bags, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘How perfectly foul.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bare knees?’
‘Bare knees.’
‘Golly!’
‘Yes.’
You see, the mural John eventually ends up sitting beside is the Cable Street Mural (which is never specified in the fic, sadly, because I don't know if it actually says anywhere on/near the mural what it is ...) The Cable Street Mural is a pretty impressive piece of work - Google Image Search it, and that'll give you an idea of what I mean.
The mural was made to commemorate the Battle of Cable Street. It might just be simpler to quote the Battle of Cable Street website at this point: "On 4th October 1936, people in the East End of London stopped Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists marching through Cable Street, in Stepney, then a mainly Jewish area. A slogan from the Spanish Civil War, a popular anti-fascist cause of the time, was widely used: They Shall Not Pass - No Pasaran!"
As for the link between Wodehouse and the mural? Well, it's a bit vague, to be honest. Roderick Spode, the man referred to in the Code of the Woosters passage above, was modeled on Oswald Mosley - which is why his followers wear Black Shorts (a parody of the Black Shirts, a nickname for the British Union of Fascists).
I was going to have John remember seeing an episode of Jeeves and Wooster on the telly at some point, see the connection between Spode and Mosely from the highlighted passage (and his apparently miraculous knowledge of history), and then remember the Cable St. Mural.
But that all seemed hugely far-fetched by the time I actually came around to writing it - so I had to come up with some other way.
Funnily enough I got the idea of writing on the ceiling from Derren Brown! In his show Trick or Treat, as part of the finale and an experiment about superstition, he 'locked' a bunch of people in a room and told them that they'd win some money if they managed to get a digital counter up to 100 in a certain time. (The numbers went up arbitrarily. But that's beside the point.) Not one of them noticed the words written in large letters on the ceiling, which said that they would win a vast amount more if they just walked out immediately - the doors weren't locked at all. Which just goes to show: people do not notice what is above them.
Also, yes, do I love Derren Brown, Harry Potter and Jeeves and Wooster (the books and the TV show).
Incidentally, if you do walk in a roughly straight line - just as John does - from the London Stone eastwards, you will eventually reach the Cable Street Mural.
Funnily enough, eleanorb suggested both the London Stone and the Cable Street Mural when I was looking for locations! :D
Chapter Eight Notes
I've added some workings for how John worked out (or should have worked out) the three clues he really needed for the next location, up in the Crossword Solution section, because I would certainly wonder how to get those answers from those clues - if I hadn't, you know, made them up. ;)
Now, on to the proper Chapter Eight notes!
Well, first of all, I hope that the opening of this chapter makes sense to other people, because I don't think I did a stellar job of explaining what happened with Moriarty's delayed phone call to John. (Though, to be fair, why would he explain it to John more than he does?)
I my head, this is what happened: Moriarty has been watching John and Sherlock play through his 'games' (the treasure hunt and the murder cases, respectively) via CCTV and informants, from John's upstairs room, all day. Or at least, since he got back there from dropping John off at the bike stand. He was delayed from calling John as soon as he arrived at the mural because, coincidentally, at the same time John was supposed to get the call, Sherlock arrived back at 221B. (He had run out of murder cases to follow and morgue reports to get, because Moriarty only planned so many; he wanted Sherlock back in the flat, in his thinking space, before John - theoretically - got back to 221B.) Moriarty had to wait for Sherlock to settle down and become lost in thought before he called John, in case he heard/recognised his voice.
Of course, none of this came through in the fic. Sorry about that - but there wasn't really any way of getting it across without slowing the pace or having Moriarty reveal more than was realistic. So I thought I'd jam it in here. Imagine it as a, sort of, deleted scene or something. ;)
I figured that John would recognise a set of geographical coordinates, having been in the army.
You have no idea how long I spent on Google Maps trying to work out the cabbie's route, on either side of the river, and how long it would take. Not to mention how much it would cost! I should probably thank the Transport for London site at this point. Really, I should have done earlier, around the bit where John was cycling, because they have a great journey planner on there! They also have an approximate taxi fares section, which I used to workout John's fare (even though I never mention specifics ...).
The Greenwich Foot Tunnel was suggested by genagirl, and I thought it made a suitably creepy place for John to find that final clue - the clue telling him to go back home. (It was also, coincidentally, the furthest east place that was suggested with the exception of the Greenwich Observatory - which, I'm sad to say, I couldn't work in no matter how hard I tried.)
And this is the point where I - technically speaking - ran out of plot. I knew what had to happen, but after the "Go home, John," message, I didn't have it regimentally plotted out in the same way. I just had pointers for myself and a very vivid mental picture of the events. It was kind of scary venturing into the 'unknown' after following such a tight plot for seven and a half chapters! Still, I think it turned out OK.
I'm not going to lie. I had a ridiculous amount of fun writing the end sequence of this chapter. I know the cliffhanger is evil. But this whole section - from the point where John barges into the living room, up to the end of the chapter (and a bit further, but obviously I can't talk about that yet!) - has been living in my head since October. It's evolved since then, but it's what's been driving me on to write this beast, even on the days when it's been really hard! This scene, and the little bit that comes at the start of Chapter Nine, have been my favourite bits of the fic even before they were written. I just hope that I could do justice to what was in my head.
I hope you enjoy(ed) reading it.
It might seem weird that it takes John a minute to notice he's been shot, but apparently that happens in real life, too. (I did get my information from TV Tropes, but from a bit of extra research and some Cracked.com articles, it seems fairly accurate.) Really, he's a bit more incapacitated than I really wanted him to be, considering the fact that I wanted the shooting to feel real, but it didn't work for him to be dashing around not really noticing that he's been shot for a long period.
Also, at this point, I am going to thank ice_Elf again, and send her huge hugs, because her patience knows no bounds. Not only did she put up with my really terrible explanation of the end of the chapter (on a cold train station platform, on the way to a carol service), and give me pointers on where to end it, but she never complained. Even when I sent her three different versions of this chapter (because I still couldn't decide where to end it and kept adding bits on). (She did tell me, "Don't fiddle with the ending any more!" though. So I didn't. I think it was good advice.)
Chapter Nine Notes
This chapter, more or less, is another one of the scenes that has been living in my brain since I thought it up - somewhere around writing Chapter Four. I was still trying to work out how to end the fic then, and hadn't quite decided how it should go.
It wasn't initially conceived as a chapter by itself, but I think it works. This is the only scene from Sherlock's point of view in the whole fic, but it was necessary to show what happened. (Sherlock telling John about it wouldn't be as dramatic, or satisfying after the cliffhanger at the end of Chapter Eight.) But it was a jump, suddenly going to Sherlock's point of view after so long following John, and that's why I felt it should be by itself.
Also, cutting back to John felt weird, whichever way I went about it - especially because of the time-jump between this scene and the next. (Anyway, it increases the number of chapters to a nice round number!)
I actually did try to write a bit more of Sherlock's point of view. A short conversation between him and Moriarty as Moriarty left the flat; Mrs Hudson getting back in when Moriarty leaves and coming up to tell John off for locking her out only to find him passed out in a pool of his own blood; Sherlock snapping at the 999 operator(s); Lestrade arriving on the scene shortly after the paramedics ... but it felt out of place and unnecessary, so I got rid of it.
The final line of the chapter - where Sherlock knocks over his king and thereby forfeits the game - is one that I've been waiting to write for some time.
I'm assuming that people generally know enough about chess to know what deliberately knocking over your own king means. (It gets explained in Chapter Ten anyway, so I figured it would be all right.)
Chapter Ten Notes
The final chapter. To be honest, the only scenes I had in mind were the first one and the last two. I'll talk about them a bit later on.
I'm afraid that I didn't really do a lot of research into the treatment of gunshot wounds. (I do know which hospital John would most likely be sent to for treatment ...) I read a few articles, but they were rather full of medical jargon and, since I am by no means a doctor, I found it quite hard to understand what they actually meant. In the end, I decided that John's actual treatment was hardly the most pressing issue, and decided to skim over it.
I also realise that John's limp/injured leg mysteriously disappear in this chapter, because I didn't bother to mention either (or put in his walking stick). Sorry. Failure on my part, there.
I feel like this chapter is a bit disjointed, because it's a series of very short scenes - but they all felt necessary, and I didn't want the chapter to go on forever. (It's 5,000 words as it is!) Some of the scenes dropped into place as I was writing, like the bit where Lestrade comes to the flat to ask Sherlock for help and he refuses to go until John talks him around. Others had slightly more planning to them.
The scene with Mycroft, for example. I only realised after I'd started posting that, actually, John's abduction wouldn't go unnoticed because Mycroft has people watching the flat. I must admit, that realisaton came only thanks to a comment by steff3! I needed to somehow explain away the absence of surveillance on 221B, and thankfully Mycroft can get away with being mysteriously vague ...
It's entirely up to you whether Moriarty arranged the incident or not. (Personally? I think he totally did.)
Now: those scenes I had planned.
The first scene in Chapter Ten was actually incredibly hard to get right. I really wanted to get a sense that there's more going on than what's actually being said - and somehow getting that, plus the right dialogue ... was nearly impossible. I'm happy with it now, though.
Sherlock has dried blood in his hair and on his face because, in the scene I deleted from Chapter Nine, he tried to stauch the flow of blood from John's wound with his bare hands. In my head, when the ambulance people arrived, he stepped back and automatically ran his fingers through his hair. (Lestrade arrived and got him to wash his hands in the kitchen while explaining what had happened, but his hair/face had to wait.) Of course, none of this made it into the fic - think of it as another 'deleted scene' bonus, very shoddily described.
I threw in the laptop that Moriarty left, because I wanted Sherlock to somehow see everything that John had done rather than just hear about it. John doesn't blow his own trumpet very often, and he doesn't complain about things, so I doubt he would come clean about just how difficult things were or how amazing it was that he managed to get through the day (especially while injured).
Also, if Sherlock had made a different decision - one that meant John died - he would still find the laptop. He would still see everything John had done to save his life. I quite liked that 'what if' element of it. (It gives Moriarty a real reason to leave his stuff behind, as well.)
The final two scenes are pure indulgence, for me. I know that this whole final chapter is possibly a bit slushy compared to the rest of the fic. But I am a sucker for a happy ending, and I did write most of it right after watching It's A Wonderful Life.
I really liked writing the parallel between Moriarty stroking John's face at the start of the fic and Sherlock doing it again at the end - and John thinking it's the wrong person both times. That's another thing that's been in my head for a long time.
Then there's the final scene. Well, it only took me 41,000 words to get to the kissing! Haha.
However, I didn't want the ending to be too fluffy and happy. John and Sherlock are (more or less) all right - but Moriarty is still out there, and I didn't want anyone to forget that. Especially not them. I hope it works.
Final Notes
I hope you've enjoyed reading these notes, whether you've read one chapter's worth or the whole thing. It's been a pleasure to look back at the writing process and give credit where credit is due.
Thank you once again to everyone who answered my call for help with planning a (Sinister) Treasure Hunt Around London. Now that the fic is posted in its entirety, I can post the link! If you're interested in odd locations in the capital, check out the comments - there are some really cool responses that I sadly couldn't fit in.
All that remains is for me to say a huge thank you, once again, to ice_Elf, who has been a truly legendary beta (and cheerleader, and friend) throughout. I could not have done it without you.
And thank you to everyone who had read the fic (and notes), whether you have commented or not. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it.
It's been a pleasure.
.
Then, in October-ish, I sent it over to ice_elf, asking if I should bother continuing and outlining my vague ideas. She said, "Yes, you should." So I did. I started plotting again. I got help from a bunch of amazing people at sherlockbbc. I got way too involved in researching and making things as convincing and convoluted as I possible could so that I could have Moriarty play a long and cruel game with John - and The Long Game was born.
A lot of research and planning went into making this fic what it is, and because I am a massive dork and I'm feeling self-indulgent, I want to put it all somewhere so anyone who's interested can look.
I'll try to update chapter-by-chapter as I post the fic. I wouldn't want to hand out any spoilers, now, would I? ;) There will be spoilers for the chapters once they are up, however!
So, without further ado:
Chapter One Notes
I think I started writing this chapter literally within a couple of days of seeing the episode.
Just after The Great Game aired, there were a lot of posts discussing theories on how they could survive if Sherlock shot the bomb. The one theory that kept copping up was this one: if they jump in the pool, they'd probably be OK because the water would dampen the force of the explosion.
I can't remember exact details, because it was over a year ago when I read all these theories. There is a MythBusters episode out there that explains it! Apparently. I haven't seen it for myself, but the internet assures me that it exists.
Chapter Two Notes
As ice_Elf pointed out while betaing, Moriarty is such a creeper!
I have to say, I so enjoyed writing these scenes with Moriarty, precisely because he is such a creeper! :P I enjoy writing creepers. They are fun.
Also, I wrote up to the point where Moriarty appears ... and hit a wall, about a week, or something, after the episode aired. It sat on my hard drive, written up to that point, for about nine months, as I said. I was originally thinking of having the two of them play chess, but - again, as ice_elf said - that would've been really boring. So I went down the treasure hunt route ...
It was at this point that I asked for help from the lovely people at sherlockbbc. I asked if anyone could think of locations around London that Jonh could be sent to by Moriarty. The responses were fantastic. Most of the locations that feature in the treasure hunt were suggested in that post.
The mutilated Boris Bike was, I have to say, not even remotely my idea. Thanks to parachute_silks for the location and the clue! :)
Chapter Three Notes
I have more to thank parachute_silks for in this chapter! The idea of getting John to the Freud Museum via the K.T. Tunstall song was his/her idea - and one I just had to use! I loved the concept from the moment I read it in my post requesting help at sherlockbbc.
Of course, it does screw up the timeline a bit. See, if we take John and Sherlock's websites as canon, then the swimming pool incident took place in late April (2010). The relevant exhibition at the Freud Museum didn't go up until 2011.
But it was too good an opportunity to pass up! (And I really have tried to be pedantically accurate with quite literally everything else, so I think it's OK ...)
The idea of getting John to hack someone's password or passcode came from nyxelestia (who was kind of invaluable with thoughts on how to think like Moriarty!). I decided to give him Lestrade's mostly because it would be reasonable that John could guess it (as he knows Lestrade), but damn hard (because they are only acquaintances).
The fact that it equates to 221B - well. Make of that what you will. Maybe those numbers also mean something else to Lestrade and it's pure luck and coincidence. Or maybe he uses Sherlock's house number as his passcode. That's up to you.
Also, I loved writing that cliffhanger. This was the Chapter That Wouldn't End - and just as I was getting frustrated it dropped the perfect cliffhanger into my lap. :)
Chapter Four Notes
First of all: I had far too much fun writing that telephone conversation. :P
The Freud Museum. Oh, the Freud Museum. Again, I can thank parachute_silks for the location - but what a headache I had trying to figure out a puzzle for in the Freud Museum!
You can actually see the genuine photos on the Freud Museum website, if you have a sudden desire to do so. (Yes, they exist. I was that pernickety. You have no idea how long I spent paging through the many, many photos for Freud for ones with specific locations ... it's kind of sad, really.)
There really is a magnifying glass on Freud's desk. I know from trawling through all those photographs! (You also have no idea how many variations of 'common objects that can be used as magnifying glasses' I went through Google with before I decided to blag it and put one on the desk - only to find that I must have subconsciously remembered it all along, because there was one already there when I checked the photos to describe the desk itself.
I suddenly realised at this point that I really ought to give John something to eat - since he's been up for two hours and still has had nothing. Looking through the paper seemed to give him a reasonable excuse to stop. It came together quite nicely, I though.
Which brings me on to the crossword. I think the crossword possibly gave me the most trouble. Do you know how hard it is working out how to write cryptic clues?! Again, I did a ridiculous amount of research into this.
I have to admit: I only wrote the ones that actually spell out the next location - and that was difficult enough by itself! The others mostly come from the Guardian's cryptic crossword archive. I tried to choose ones that were somewhat relevant (or at least worryingly dark) ... I have to thank ice_Elf again here: she actually does cryptic crosswords (unlike me; I just discard them as too hard within the first thirty seconds!) and she helped out immensely with the clues and whatnot.
Crossword Solution
Clue Workings
11 Across - Scottish Monarch breaks French clown's arm.
Scottish Monarch = Mary
French = le
breaks ... clown's arm = humerus -> bone
Marylebone
Towering in mariachi ghetto
Towering = synonym/definition clue
in = the word (defined by/synonymous with 'towering') is hidden within 'mariachi ghetto'
Mariachi ghetto
High
3 Down - Wild Irish gun-dog
Irish gun-dog = setter
Wild = scramble letters
Street
Chapter Five Notes
This was fun. Actually, Daunt Books was one of the first locations that I found for John to go to. I actually wanted it to be the first location he visited, but that didn't quite work out - not without making him back-track rather a lot.
You see, when I got a bunch of locations from the wonderful people at sherlockbbc, the first thing I did was go to Google Maps, find them, and create myself a map with markers for all of the places I could potentially send John to. Rather creepily, every one of the suggestions I got formed into this band across the centre of London, running roughly west to east. It was really strange! But it worked really well for the fic, so I changed my plans for Daunt Books and put it here, instead of at the start.
Anyway, it gave me an excuse to give John the temptation of being so close to Baker Street. (He would be about a five to ten minute walk from the flat at the Baker Street underground station, if the fictional 221B is in roughly the same location as the real number 221 ...) I really enjoyed tormenting him with that!
Back to the clues and specifically Daunt Books. They have a website. It was kind of invaluable, mostly due to the fact that it contains a virtual tour of the Marylebone High Street branch! (Have a look. It's a really gorgeous bookshop, my descriptions don't do it justice at all!)
Also, Google Street View and I started our love-affair at this point. :P I used Street View rather a lot throughout this fic, because I am really not from London or anywhere near London. I've been to London four or five times, but I don't know it - and I didn't want to be writing about places without knowing what was there. (I may have gone into too much detail in some places, but really, this fic is as much about London as it is about John and the treasure hunt - or at least, it is to me.)
For the puzzle inside Daunt Books, I decide to use one that my good friend siraplowe once told me about. He and one of his friends used to put notes that read '3 up, 2 across. You're doing really well!' and such in the books that were shelved in his form room at school, for people to find. For some reason, that image stuck with me - and I thought it would work well here.
Originally, this was going to be an Ottendorf Cipher because oh wow how much do I love Ottendorf Ciphers?! Answer: a ridiculous amount. But I couldn't find a book that would be on the Afghanistan shelf in Google Books, and I didn't want to just make one up when literally every other thing has been researched. So I had to change my plans. (I think the puzzle John gets now works better, anyway. Especially because people might have come in and moved the books around - a fact that I didn't even think of until ice_elf pointed it out ...)
A Journey Through Afghanistan is a real book, and it really was published by the University of Chicago press.
I told you I went into a stupid amount of detail in the research on this fic ...
Chapter Six Notes
My love affair with Google Street View continues! I actually had a lot of fun writing these scenes of John just walking, and flipping between Word and Firefox, trying to find something interesting to say about each stage of the journey to make it interesting. (I learned so much about little fascinating bits of London architecture in the process. Like the red tile façade of the Covent Garden underground station, which is absolutely beautiful and a truly unbelievable shade of red! It was just so striking, it had to be in the fic ...)
Chicago is no longer playing at the Cambridge Theatre - but it was there in April 2010, when this fic (technically speaking) takes place. I ummed and aahed over whether to have the Cambridge Theatre as my location or whether to move it to where Chicago has now moved to (but has not yet opened at): the Garrick Theatre. In the end, I went for the Cambridge, because I really did want to get my timeline as right as possible (with that one exception with the Freud Museum exhibit ...).
Also, the location of the Cambridge Theatre is more interesting, what with it being next to the Seven Dials roundabout/crossroads. Which, by the way, is really hard to find the name for, if you don't know! Google Maps certainly doesn't know that's the name of the place.
Incidentally, Sweeney Todd isn't/wasn't showing in London at all. So even if he did check the theatre guide be picked up, John wouldn't have seen it in there.
The posters with their throats slashed with red paint was an image I had early on in the writing of the fic, and it didn't go away. I'm not quite sure what led me to Chicago; I think it was possibly from working backwards and forwards between the two clues that bookend it and trying to find a musical that fit.
Also, I had an inordinate amount of fun making Harry the kind of person who goes to see things for shallow reasons. (I totally do that, too, though!)
I have to say, one of the hardest things was making John pretty oblivious to musical theatre. See, I love musicals and I know enough about them that I would personally find this clue really easy. But John is a bloke, and an ex-soldier, and I doubt he really knows a lot about the theatre scene - so this one had to be hard for him! Which was hard for me, because I'd just get it ... I hope he doesn't come across as too slow on the uptake.
It was around about this point (or possibly when writing the end of the previous chapter) that I realised that Moriarty was using a lot of clues that Sherlock would probably find really hard - even harder than John - because they're about things he doesn't think are important. (Case in point: musical theatre. I imagine that anything he did know about it got deleted from his hard drive pretty quick ... :P) This was completely inadvertent - and also possibly because I'm definitely an Arts person, not a Sciences person! I think it works for the fic, though.
Again, it was thanks to parachute_silks (sort of) that I found my next clue, via my sherlockbbc plea for help. He/she suggested having a clue that was simply an area of London (like Hammersmith, Kilburn, Frognal, etc.), so that John would be forced to go to the top of a tall building to look around for a huge clue. I wanted the nice variation on the small-scale clues - so I ran with the vague idea and I think it worked pretty well.
Also, I clearly enjoy torturing John through making him work that poor, injured leg. :/
It was a comment in my sherlockbbc help post that inspired the clue leading to the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great. (Which, as far as I can tell from the very few photos online, is absolutely gorgeous.) mustbehavingfun suggested using locations/things that John might know from his Med School days - which I thought was a really good idea, because aside from anything else it's a bit creepy that Moriarty knows he knows these things. :P
mustbehavingfun pointed me toward Cloth Fair (Street), which I quickly looked up on Google Maps. I was, however, having a pig of a time trying to work out a clue to get John there - so I turned my attention to places on Cloth Fair, and found the Church.
Some Googling and a little reading of their website let me to the oriel window, and the rebus (fancy name for visual pun) of the bolt passing through the tun. That alone amused me - possibly far more than it should have, but there you go. I had to use it. Also, it made for a really easy visual clue that Moriarty could lay down somewhere for John to find from his vantage point.
I hope you don't think it's far-fetched that John spent some time in the church, or that he remembered that one weird fact about it.
Personally, I'm not a very religious person, but I used to go and sit in the Cathedral when I was at university and needed a quiet moment (and was near to it). I also remember a couple of odd little facts about the place that amused me when I was told them (similar to the rebus on the oriel at St Bartholomew the Great's). So that's my reasoning.
Chapter Seven Notes
This chapter was really difficult in quite a number of ways - not least because there are pretty much two photos of the interior of the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great available on the internet. That's it. So I've had to wing it a bit. For example, I have no idea if that church even has hymn boards ...
Originally - due to me cocking up the timeline when plotting the fic, and thinking that it was going to take John far longer than it does - the Church was going to be technically closed for a wedding, which John would have had to blag his way into. (I was going to have him work out the clue at just the moment when the vicar asked if anyone had any reason why the bride and groom should not wed, so that he could shout, "Yes!" and get thrown out ...) I'm still a little bit sad that that didn't work out! I do like the thought of John virtually alone in the Church, however.
If anyone can enlighten me about whether the wooden barrier that separates the seats in the choir from the aisle has a technical name, I would be much obliged! I tried Googling it, but it was a bit fruitless.
I have to say, it was Ice_Elf's brilliant idea to have the copy of the play hidden within a hymn book. I had no idea how to get the play into John's hands, until she suggested that.
OK, I'll admit it: I definitely strayed into English Student territory with the London Stone clue. In its original incarnation, I was going to have John (rather miraculously) remember/know that the quoted section of Henry VI Part Two referred to the London Stone. But Henry VI Part Two is hardly a well-known Shakespeare play, and it didn't ring true even to me.
I still envisage that Moriarty would have wanted John to actually know it or work it out, rather than go about it the way he does. Because Moriarty is evil like that.
I really have no idea if reading through the black marker pen would work with an actual book. I tested it on a bit of text I had printed (a section of my plot for this very fic that I wasn't using any more, in fact!), with my (very bright, LED) desk lamp and my Dad's indelible marker, and I could read it with a bit of difficulty. But there's no way I was going to desecrate a real book! On a similar note, it pained me to have John rip the page out, but it was hard enough twisting around a single A4 sheet to make the words legible through the marker pen, so it would be nigh-on impossible (I imagine) if you had a book attached!
Google Street View once again helped with the walk down Cannon Street - hindered a little bit by the fact that they were giving one of the tube stations a face-lift almost directly opposite the London Stone.
OK, the clue inside the London Stone building. (That's not its actual name, but I don't know what else to call it.) This one went through some permutations.
The original clue was another literary one. John was going to find a copy of The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse, with this section highlighted:
‘Don’t you ever read the papers? Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organisation better known as the Black Shorts. His general idea, if he doesn’t get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator.’
‘Well, I’m blowed!’
I was astounded at my keenness of perception. The moment I had set eyes on Spode, if you remember, I had said to myself ‘What ho! A Dictator!’ and a Dictator he had proved to be. I couldn’t have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living in Clapham.
‘Well, I’m dashed! I thought he was something of that sort. That chin … Those eyes … And, for the matter of that, that moustache. By the way, when you say “shorts”, you mean “shirts”, of course.”
‘No. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. He and his adherents wear black shorts.’
‘Footer bags, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘How perfectly foul.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bare knees?’
‘Bare knees.’
‘Golly!’
‘Yes.’
You see, the mural John eventually ends up sitting beside is the Cable Street Mural (which is never specified in the fic, sadly, because I don't know if it actually says anywhere on/near the mural what it is ...) The Cable Street Mural is a pretty impressive piece of work - Google Image Search it, and that'll give you an idea of what I mean.
The mural was made to commemorate the Battle of Cable Street. It might just be simpler to quote the Battle of Cable Street website at this point: "On 4th October 1936, people in the East End of London stopped Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists marching through Cable Street, in Stepney, then a mainly Jewish area. A slogan from the Spanish Civil War, a popular anti-fascist cause of the time, was widely used: They Shall Not Pass - No Pasaran!"
As for the link between Wodehouse and the mural? Well, it's a bit vague, to be honest. Roderick Spode, the man referred to in the Code of the Woosters passage above, was modeled on Oswald Mosley - which is why his followers wear Black Shorts (a parody of the Black Shirts, a nickname for the British Union of Fascists).
I was going to have John remember seeing an episode of Jeeves and Wooster on the telly at some point, see the connection between Spode and Mosely from the highlighted passage (and his apparently miraculous knowledge of history), and then remember the Cable St. Mural.
But that all seemed hugely far-fetched by the time I actually came around to writing it - so I had to come up with some other way.
Funnily enough I got the idea of writing on the ceiling from Derren Brown! In his show Trick or Treat, as part of the finale and an experiment about superstition, he 'locked' a bunch of people in a room and told them that they'd win some money if they managed to get a digital counter up to 100 in a certain time. (The numbers went up arbitrarily. But that's beside the point.) Not one of them noticed the words written in large letters on the ceiling, which said that they would win a vast amount more if they just walked out immediately - the doors weren't locked at all. Which just goes to show: people do not notice what is above them.
Also, yes, do I love Derren Brown, Harry Potter and Jeeves and Wooster (the books and the TV show).
Incidentally, if you do walk in a roughly straight line - just as John does - from the London Stone eastwards, you will eventually reach the Cable Street Mural.
Funnily enough, eleanorb suggested both the London Stone and the Cable Street Mural when I was looking for locations! :D
Chapter Eight Notes
I've added some workings for how John worked out (or should have worked out) the three clues he really needed for the next location, up in the Crossword Solution section, because I would certainly wonder how to get those answers from those clues - if I hadn't, you know, made them up. ;)
Now, on to the proper Chapter Eight notes!
Well, first of all, I hope that the opening of this chapter makes sense to other people, because I don't think I did a stellar job of explaining what happened with Moriarty's delayed phone call to John. (Though, to be fair, why would he explain it to John more than he does?)
I my head, this is what happened: Moriarty has been watching John and Sherlock play through his 'games' (the treasure hunt and the murder cases, respectively) via CCTV and informants, from John's upstairs room, all day. Or at least, since he got back there from dropping John off at the bike stand. He was delayed from calling John as soon as he arrived at the mural because, coincidentally, at the same time John was supposed to get the call, Sherlock arrived back at 221B. (He had run out of murder cases to follow and morgue reports to get, because Moriarty only planned so many; he wanted Sherlock back in the flat, in his thinking space, before John - theoretically - got back to 221B.) Moriarty had to wait for Sherlock to settle down and become lost in thought before he called John, in case he heard/recognised his voice.
Of course, none of this came through in the fic. Sorry about that - but there wasn't really any way of getting it across without slowing the pace or having Moriarty reveal more than was realistic. So I thought I'd jam it in here. Imagine it as a, sort of, deleted scene or something. ;)
I figured that John would recognise a set of geographical coordinates, having been in the army.
You have no idea how long I spent on Google Maps trying to work out the cabbie's route, on either side of the river, and how long it would take. Not to mention how much it would cost! I should probably thank the Transport for London site at this point. Really, I should have done earlier, around the bit where John was cycling, because they have a great journey planner on there! They also have an approximate taxi fares section, which I used to workout John's fare (even though I never mention specifics ...).
The Greenwich Foot Tunnel was suggested by genagirl, and I thought it made a suitably creepy place for John to find that final clue - the clue telling him to go back home. (It was also, coincidentally, the furthest east place that was suggested with the exception of the Greenwich Observatory - which, I'm sad to say, I couldn't work in no matter how hard I tried.)
And this is the point where I - technically speaking - ran out of plot. I knew what had to happen, but after the "Go home, John," message, I didn't have it regimentally plotted out in the same way. I just had pointers for myself and a very vivid mental picture of the events. It was kind of scary venturing into the 'unknown' after following such a tight plot for seven and a half chapters! Still, I think it turned out OK.
I'm not going to lie. I had a ridiculous amount of fun writing the end sequence of this chapter. I know the cliffhanger is evil. But this whole section - from the point where John barges into the living room, up to the end of the chapter (and a bit further, but obviously I can't talk about that yet!) - has been living in my head since October. It's evolved since then, but it's what's been driving me on to write this beast, even on the days when it's been really hard! This scene, and the little bit that comes at the start of Chapter Nine, have been my favourite bits of the fic even before they were written. I just hope that I could do justice to what was in my head.
I hope you enjoy(ed) reading it.
It might seem weird that it takes John a minute to notice he's been shot, but apparently that happens in real life, too. (I did get my information from TV Tropes, but from a bit of extra research and some Cracked.com articles, it seems fairly accurate.) Really, he's a bit more incapacitated than I really wanted him to be, considering the fact that I wanted the shooting to feel real, but it didn't work for him to be dashing around not really noticing that he's been shot for a long period.
Also, at this point, I am going to thank ice_Elf again, and send her huge hugs, because her patience knows no bounds. Not only did she put up with my really terrible explanation of the end of the chapter (on a cold train station platform, on the way to a carol service), and give me pointers on where to end it, but she never complained. Even when I sent her three different versions of this chapter (because I still couldn't decide where to end it and kept adding bits on). (She did tell me, "Don't fiddle with the ending any more!" though. So I didn't. I think it was good advice.)
Chapter Nine Notes
This chapter, more or less, is another one of the scenes that has been living in my brain since I thought it up - somewhere around writing Chapter Four. I was still trying to work out how to end the fic then, and hadn't quite decided how it should go.
It wasn't initially conceived as a chapter by itself, but I think it works. This is the only scene from Sherlock's point of view in the whole fic, but it was necessary to show what happened. (Sherlock telling John about it wouldn't be as dramatic, or satisfying after the cliffhanger at the end of Chapter Eight.) But it was a jump, suddenly going to Sherlock's point of view after so long following John, and that's why I felt it should be by itself.
Also, cutting back to John felt weird, whichever way I went about it - especially because of the time-jump between this scene and the next. (Anyway, it increases the number of chapters to a nice round number!)
I actually did try to write a bit more of Sherlock's point of view. A short conversation between him and Moriarty as Moriarty left the flat; Mrs Hudson getting back in when Moriarty leaves and coming up to tell John off for locking her out only to find him passed out in a pool of his own blood; Sherlock snapping at the 999 operator(s); Lestrade arriving on the scene shortly after the paramedics ... but it felt out of place and unnecessary, so I got rid of it.
The final line of the chapter - where Sherlock knocks over his king and thereby forfeits the game - is one that I've been waiting to write for some time.
I'm assuming that people generally know enough about chess to know what deliberately knocking over your own king means. (It gets explained in Chapter Ten anyway, so I figured it would be all right.)
Chapter Ten Notes
The final chapter. To be honest, the only scenes I had in mind were the first one and the last two. I'll talk about them a bit later on.
I'm afraid that I didn't really do a lot of research into the treatment of gunshot wounds. (I do know which hospital John would most likely be sent to for treatment ...) I read a few articles, but they were rather full of medical jargon and, since I am by no means a doctor, I found it quite hard to understand what they actually meant. In the end, I decided that John's actual treatment was hardly the most pressing issue, and decided to skim over it.
I also realise that John's limp/injured leg mysteriously disappear in this chapter, because I didn't bother to mention either (or put in his walking stick). Sorry. Failure on my part, there.
I feel like this chapter is a bit disjointed, because it's a series of very short scenes - but they all felt necessary, and I didn't want the chapter to go on forever. (It's 5,000 words as it is!) Some of the scenes dropped into place as I was writing, like the bit where Lestrade comes to the flat to ask Sherlock for help and he refuses to go until John talks him around. Others had slightly more planning to them.
The scene with Mycroft, for example. I only realised after I'd started posting that, actually, John's abduction wouldn't go unnoticed because Mycroft has people watching the flat. I must admit, that realisaton came only thanks to a comment by steff3! I needed to somehow explain away the absence of surveillance on 221B, and thankfully Mycroft can get away with being mysteriously vague ...
It's entirely up to you whether Moriarty arranged the incident or not. (Personally? I think he totally did.)
Now: those scenes I had planned.
The first scene in Chapter Ten was actually incredibly hard to get right. I really wanted to get a sense that there's more going on than what's actually being said - and somehow getting that, plus the right dialogue ... was nearly impossible. I'm happy with it now, though.
Sherlock has dried blood in his hair and on his face because, in the scene I deleted from Chapter Nine, he tried to stauch the flow of blood from John's wound with his bare hands. In my head, when the ambulance people arrived, he stepped back and automatically ran his fingers through his hair. (Lestrade arrived and got him to wash his hands in the kitchen while explaining what had happened, but his hair/face had to wait.) Of course, none of this made it into the fic - think of it as another 'deleted scene' bonus, very shoddily described.
I threw in the laptop that Moriarty left, because I wanted Sherlock to somehow see everything that John had done rather than just hear about it. John doesn't blow his own trumpet very often, and he doesn't complain about things, so I doubt he would come clean about just how difficult things were or how amazing it was that he managed to get through the day (especially while injured).
Also, if Sherlock had made a different decision - one that meant John died - he would still find the laptop. He would still see everything John had done to save his life. I quite liked that 'what if' element of it. (It gives Moriarty a real reason to leave his stuff behind, as well.)
The final two scenes are pure indulgence, for me. I know that this whole final chapter is possibly a bit slushy compared to the rest of the fic. But I am a sucker for a happy ending, and I did write most of it right after watching It's A Wonderful Life.
I really liked writing the parallel between Moriarty stroking John's face at the start of the fic and Sherlock doing it again at the end - and John thinking it's the wrong person both times. That's another thing that's been in my head for a long time.
Then there's the final scene. Well, it only took me 41,000 words to get to the kissing! Haha.
However, I didn't want the ending to be too fluffy and happy. John and Sherlock are (more or less) all right - but Moriarty is still out there, and I didn't want anyone to forget that. Especially not them. I hope it works.
Final Notes
I hope you've enjoyed reading these notes, whether you've read one chapter's worth or the whole thing. It's been a pleasure to look back at the writing process and give credit where credit is due.
Thank you once again to everyone who answered my call for help with planning a (Sinister) Treasure Hunt Around London. Now that the fic is posted in its entirety, I can post the link! If you're interested in odd locations in the capital, check out the comments - there are some really cool responses that I sadly couldn't fit in.
All that remains is for me to say a huge thank you, once again, to ice_Elf, who has been a truly legendary beta (and cheerleader, and friend) throughout. I could not have done it without you.
And thank you to everyone who had read the fic (and notes), whether you have commented or not. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it.
It's been a pleasure.
.