
I think in the end, cleverness will win out over everything and it will come down to The Master, Sherlock, Mycroft, Moriarty, Hermione and Katniss. The Master and Moriarty will form an alliance and take out Hermione, Katniss and Mycroft.
Just when you think its just the Master and Moriarty versus Sherlock, Eleven will show up. Because The Doctor would never give up in a universe in which the Master and Moriarty could be winners, so he tricks the system and fakes his own death in order to trick everyone else.
The Master and Moriarty versus The Doctor and Sherlock. Sherlock and the Doctor trap the Master and Moriarty on the edge of a cliff, and demand that they give up - they’ve won. But the Doctor and Sherlock have underestimated the two; Moriarty tells Sherlock that he’d be happy to die, knowing that Sherlock and the Doctor would be forced to live on, with the deaths of all of their loved ones on their own hands (Bittersweet, isn’t it, Sherlock? A pyrrhic victory, if you will. You finally caught me, won this and now what? Back to the side of the Angels? Oh, but where’s John?) He’d then take his own life, gun-in-mouth, quick-and-dirty, knowing that the Master would use that chance to take out the Doctor and Sherlock. Of course they’d have planned for something like this.
But the Doctor knows the Master, has always known him, and he stops him - but something goes wrong. The Master gets hurt. The Doctor holds onto him, begging him to regenerate but the Master refuses him (Look at that. I win.) and dies in his arms. Pyrrhic victory indeed.
Last two, the Doctor and Sherlock. The universe needs the Doctor, Sherlock knows. He’s too important, too vital to the survival of so many people. Sherlock already has so much blood on his hands; Mycroft is gone, Lestrade is dead, John is-
(How will he ever be able to look Mrs. Hudson in the eyes?)
But it’s logic, Sherlock knows. Cut and dry. Fact. The Doctor is more important than Sherlock. Sherlock is expendable - the Doctor is not. But the Doctor is the Doctor and Sherlock knows that he would never accept his importance, would never let Sherlock die, not if there’s something that the Doctor feels like he can do to stop it. But Sherlock’s examined every possibility and he knows - there’s no escape. No nightlock, no tricking the system, no happily ever after (not for him, at least).
The Doctor rattles on, spouting hopeless ideas and useless plans. Sherlock is quiet. Mid-ramble about how they could possibly create some sort of pulley-system using thin, flexible branches to create a crack in the outer shell wall and wouldn’t everything just be so much easier if they just let him keep his bloody sonic, Sherlock knocks the Doctor out. Knowing he won’t have long, Sherlock unwraps his scarf and leaves it on the ground next to the Doctor (That’s what people do, right? They leave a note?) and he stands on the edge of the cliff. As the Doctor regains consciousness, he shakes his head, hears Sherlock’s soft “Goodbye, Doctor” and looks up to see Sherlock fall.
The Doctor wins.
But not really.
oh my god you win the universe
GOD DAMMIT NOW I’M CRYING
Omfg