There were only two things that Stephanie Moran knew she was good at: killing and fucking.
Her dad, General Moran, had been disappointed at her birth. When the doctor had told him that her mother would never be able to give birth again he was downright devastated.
Then he decided that she would be the son he would never have.
If he had been a more disloyal husband he would have cheated or divorced his wife.
"Loyalty." he would tell her with his words echoing in her ears when she is five, fifteen, twenty five. "Is everything. Someone who is disloyal." he spat onto the floor. "They are nothing."
She would blink her innocent eyes back then at him and nod as if she had understood what he meant.
To the severe disapproval of her mother her father would constantly take her hunting with him in the woods. On vacations where they would run through forests and jungles and hunting things together. He taught her how to build things from bits and pieces until her hands bleed.
The first time that had happened she had run crying to her mother who tutted and lectured her about being a proper lady.
That was the last time she went to her mother.
Her father taught her how to fight back. She learned to pick locks and spy properly at the age of five. She learned the proper way to break a full grown man's arm at the age of six. She was able to assemble and dissemble a gun at the age of seven. Her eighth birthday present from him was her very first gun that she still had tucked away somewhere because of sentimental values.
He would always nod at her when she accomplished a task he had set for her. There were very few occasions however at times he would also pat her head.
However she heard him bragging to all his friends when they came over to drink and smoke in their smoking room about his daughter that became his son and how she could tie circles around all of their sons and maybe even them.
She was twelve when he died from lung cancer. And then she was thirteen when she found his last pack of cigarettes that her mother hadn't managed to throw out and lit one in an attempt to feel closer to him.
She was fourteen when she finally decided to pick the lock on the door for the cabinet that contained his alcohol and stole the first bottle she had seen before locking it again.
She was fifteen when she lost her virginity.
She doesn't remember his name or even anything about him. She hadn't been prepared properly and in all truths she couldn't relax and all she did remember was pain and the sight of blood running down her inner thighs.
She also remembered how he bragged about it at school the next day that he had ruined her and now she was his.
Similarly she remembered the feel of his nose breaking under her fist and three ribs cracking under her boots.
She couldn't care less about the tears and disappointed look in her mother's face when she had been called into the principal's office. That was her first suspension and from there she found reasons to cut classes either way.
She fucked her way through the boys at the school one by one. One momentous occasion was in the boy's bathroom in one of the cubicles. He had been sitting on the toilet and she had ridden him until she came before leaving him high and dry and complaining. At one point she considered trying girls to fuck before she decided their whining wasn't worth it.
She slept with the entire football team at one point. Not all of them in the same night but one after the other each night. She spat in their faces when they called her a whore and broke their legs when they tried to force her to her knees.
She remembered her teenage years were spent coming home nearly at the crack of dawn reeking of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and sex with blood under her nails and bruised to hell knuckles.
Her mother begged her to go to a therapist for help.
She threw her mother the middle finger and told her to fuck off.
She doesn't know how she managed to graduate from high school. She had the lowest marks and the most cuts, everyone knew the truth however. The school didn't want her to continue going and barely passed her just to get her out.
She didn't even bother going to the graduation ceremony.
In the end the only real place for her was the military. Her mother seemed to be a cross of petrification of her only daughter, and only child, going into the male dominated military and just delighted and relieved that Stephanie would no longer be her problem.
The day she left she burned her mother's house to the ground. Just because she wanted to.
The military was rough, demanding, and sexist.
She loved every second of it.
The men were hesitant to bring a woman into their precious world and seemed to not to know what to make of her.
When she managed to outscore all of them on the artillery, hand to hand, training, and whatever the higher ups decided to place on them they welcomed her with open arms.
They laughed with her and at her dirty jokes, they didn't bat an eye when she cursed more than they did, she would spit on the floor and they would do the same. The only thing she couldn't win at with them was to see who could piss the farthest.
It was the closest she ever felt to a home.
And of course fucking them was on her list. They were tough and strong men, none of them were looking for a relationship or any shit like that. They needed something to fuck and she was more than willing. That was all any of them needed.
Except the one time she wasn't in the mood to do any fucking at all that night and one of the guys wouldn't take no for an answer. She broke his nose and wrists.
When she had been called in to explain her attack she told the truth, she never hid the truth and would always say it regardless of how much she was digging herself.
She was placed on a warning list and told if something like that happened again she would be discharged. The man was told to be more cautious.
The only good thing to come from that incident was her group of troops ostracized him and he was found to be alone constantly.
Then they were deployed into Afghanistan.
She was part of the Fourth Northumberland Fusiliers. Occasionally her group was paired up with the Fifth and Sixth.
In Afghanistan she came alive. The air was filled with gun shots and the screams of the dying. She relished the feel of her legs running with the weight of the gun in her hands. She loved watching the men she shot fall to the ground dead.
Maybe her mother had been right, maybe there was something wrong with her.
She got shot once. Not even a shot, a graze on her arm. All she needed was to be patched up and careful for a few days and she would be fine.
She preferred the doctor from the Fifth Northumberland instead of theirs. The doctor from the fourth was out of place in the warzone. No doubt some poor student that had hoped to get the medical license from college with everything paid for and not be sent out to fight. His hands shook so much he could barely wrap bandages.
But the doctor from the Fifth knew what he was doing. His hands and voice were perfectly steady and he treated each wound as if it was a work of art. His eyes were shining and it almost seemed that he couldn't help prevent the smile on his face.
The brief thought of fucking him entered her mind as his hands securely wrapped the bandages, he had never even blinked an eye at seeing her, a woman, there unlike others who would voice their displeasure one way or the other. On the battlefield there weren't that many opportunities to fuck someone and she missed it.
A few days later she decided to go to him once more only to find out he had been shot and discharged.
She never even knew his name.
She rose to the rank of lieutenant a few days before she had her own discharge.
The day of her rising to lieutenant she decided to treat herself to a treat that she had been looking forward to for months.
She shot the man who had her placed on the warning list. She shot him in both knees and laughed as he screamed. They were on the battlefield and in all honesty as she walked away she didn't think anyone would get to him to save his life let alone have it known that someone on his own team had shot him.
But it was her luck that he was found and brought into the medical tent. When she entered the tent to bring the newest shipment of supplies and saw him on the bed swearing up a storm she gritted her teeth and debating simply getting rid of him for good.
Three days after that, an hour after he had been sent back to England, she had been called into the tent containing the generals that run the entire operation this side of Afghanistan.
She was being honorably discharged, the fattened generals said to her without looking at her. They couldn't let it out that a soldier had shot another soldier with no provocation, and since she had already been placed on the warning list she was being let go. These generals whose fat hanged over their belts, their double chins hiding their necks and half of their faces, their buttons too shiny from being polished too many times when they did finally glance at her she saw nothing but disapproval and disgust. Their eyes said everything that they wished to say.
How dare she, a woman, overstep her boundaries and attempt to make something of herself in this world of male dominance.
She would be promoted to colonel, out of the goodness of their hearts she was sure seeing the way their eyes narrowed, however she was a liability that they couldn't afford.
She didn't say anything as she left without saluting and her mind turning in on itself.
She also never noticed the man that had been standing in the background quietly dressed in a black suit.
That night, twenty minutes before she was to leave for the helicopter that would take her away she stole the pieces she needed from the equipment and put together a small but powerful bomb.
She never noticed the same black suited man watching her carefully as she placed the bomb and pressed in forty minutes to get her plenty of time to get away.
She was sure her father would be proud of her.
She was in the air on the helicopter for ten minutes before she heard the explosion and looking back saw the building the generals were in go up in smoke and fire.
She turned back and wondered what she would find in London.
London was worse than she remembered.
Her mother was nowhere to be found, she wasn't one hundred percent sure but she was still very sure that she hadn't been in the house when Stephanie burned it down.
The pension that the military gave her was barely enough to let her find a flat in London. She was very much trying to decide whether cutting her losses and moving to the country to live in the forests would be worth it.
She was in a pub one night trying to gather the care and in all honesty all the fucks she gave about her life to try and decide what just to do with it.
That night she decided to say fuck it and go off somewhere, disappear, and make it seem like she never existed a man in a black suit, the same one that she hadn't noticed in Afghanistan watching her, came up to her and introduced himself as James Moriarty.
If Afghanistan had been heaven working for James Moriarty was fucking paradise.
Moriarty was everything she never even knew she wanted. The exact man she wanted to work for.
He laughed with glee as he watched her kill and destroy men and women. Her trigger never hesitated. When she needed to torture to get information she relished the feeling of blood flowing down her hands and fingers with Moriartys joyful voice in her ear.
He called her his guard dog. His attack animal dressed as a lamb. When she had to dress up in pretty dresses that showed plenty of skin and cleavage he would personally dress her as if she was his doll.
She needed lessons at first to be a 'proper lady'. She quickly took to it. She hid weapon after weapon, some of which shouldn't even be invisible in the lack of cloth on her dresses that he picked for her. A favorite game of theirs was for him to guess and try to find all of her hidden weapons. To his own delight he never managed to find every last one.
He showered her with gifts; guns, knives, torture weapons, leather jackets and military boots. To her own amusement he bought her a giant blood red ruby necklace once. Only to show that her new gun was able to destroy the entire thing with one shot.
She was his right hand. His guard and best shooter. There was suspicion when she first joined, however to her own surprise it wasn't because she was a woman; each one there knew just what a woman could do under the right circumstances and one that was almost radiating her own violent tendencies was understood. The suspicion came from her being a stranger however the first time she was sent on a mission to assess her skills everyone soon silently accepted her.
During one of the times she had to get dressed up for a party to seduce and get information about a certain location that she couldn't really care about to her surprise she saw her mother there.
Her mother hadn't recognized her daughter, she had never seen Stephanie in makeup or dresses or heels. When she did finally realize who she was she ignored her daughter as if she was never even there.
She poisoned her mother's drink. The cow would die before even reaching her hotel room or home or whatever was closest for her. Moriarty giggled in her ear the entire time.
She called him boss, because that was what he was. He was the boss and the king of everything and anything he wanted. He had everything he needed and if he didn't he would send her to get it for him.
He called her his Tiger. His attack animal that looked magnificent while killing their prey. For a joke he bought her a matching bra and underwear set of tiger print which she wore and made sure he saw to get him riled up.
The night he fucked her for the first time he gripped her wrists in an almost breaking grasp. His teeth marks on her shoulder and his finger shaped bruises on her thighs didn't fade for about a month. He drew blood from her and grinned wickedly as he licked up each and every last drop.
But he never fucked her like he owned her. She was thankful for that at least.
She always knew that she was going to die in some sort of a fight. The peaceful way of passing in her sleep never appealed to her and she could never imagine herself getting old. On the battlefield one way or another and covered in hers and someone else's blood was the only way she could, and in all honesty wanted, to go.
By the hands of her boss, Mr. "I don't like to get my hands dirty" and the man she had been fucking for the past few months however was a bit of a surprise.
She coughed and felt herself spit up a bit more blood. She didn't even need to glance down to see the wound still bleeding or her clothes that were stained, she could feel it quite clearly. A part of her brain was happy that she wasn't wearing her leather jacket at the moment. She loved that jacket and she would be devastated if blood had ever gotten on it.
She groaned, with irritation mostly, and leaned her head back against the wall as she looked up. Jim was standing there watching the blood stain on her clothes grow with a tilt of his head and almost look of innocence of a child watching his first chemistry experiment start to work.
"I didn't think when I said 'Honey, I'm home' was that much of a trigger." she said. "Gonna fill me in?"
"I've murdered you." Jim said. "Thought it might be obvious."
She stared at him for a moment before lifting her hand, regardless of how much strength it took and how little she now had, to the wound and brought it away to show that it was covered in blood.
"That's more than a bit obvious really." she said letting her hand fall back to the ground. "I was thinking more of the question why."
"I felt myself growing attached." Jim answered after a moment's pause. "I felt myself getting too used to you and I knew how much of a liability you would become and how…ordinary it would make me."
Stephanie stared at him incredulously before giving a brisk and short laugh. She grinned with her blood stained teeth at him. "Oh boss. That is such a roundabout way for you to say that you love me."
Jim almost flinched as he stared at her unblinkingly.
"Don't worry boss, I'll save you a seat in hell." she said settling back against the wall. "Although I fully expect you to take over practically the moment you arrive. I'll be there as your right side as always."
She closed her eyes with a smile as the blood loss finally caught to her and dulled her senses.
The next thing she was aware of was the softness of a bed, the beeping of machines reading her heart rate, and when she opened her eyes the sight of a new longshot rifle complete with a red ribbon on top of it.
She positioned herself properly and aimed the muzzle of the gun slightly out of the window. Through her scope she could see the rooftop where Jim and Holmes were having their final stand.
They were walking around one another, a dance that she was familiar with. A lion circling its prey. She couldn't help the smile that slid onto her face.
It would all be over soon. A few more minutes and Sherlock Holmes would be no more.
She kept a careful watch through her scope. Her eyes followed Jims every move, she didn't want to miss a single moment of this beautiful dance.
She isn't sure how but she managed to not scream when Jim placed his own gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
When she returned to their room, her room now, there was a suitcase she didn't remember ever seeing on top of her bed.
Logic and instinct told her she should have checked it thoroughly before opening it.
Numbness and simple pure indifference brought her to open it before doing anything else.
The contents brought her down to her knees and quickly bringing the sheets of the bed into her mouth to cover a scream that threatened to escape.
Pure, crisp, hundred dollar bills in stacks. Just a glance showed to be well over a million, if not a billion, dollars. That wasn't taking into account all the money lying underneath.
That bastard. He had known. He had known that this would be his end one way or the other. He had counted on this.
And then ensured that she would be taken care of. He knew that she would never be able to work for anyone else for the rest of her days and they both knew she didn't have the mind to control and guide his empire.
If there was ever a time that she knew that Jim Moriarty was telling her that he loved her it was this. He was ensuring that she would be okay. That she never had to worry again.
That fucking bastard.
Pulling the now wet fabric out of her mouth she lifted herself on shaking arms and sat down on the bed before closing the suitcase. She buried her face in her hands and rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. She tried to think things through.
Her face and identity had never been seen and Jim had taken so many protocols to ensure that she would never be traced.
The empire that Jim had so painstakingly created, his greatest creation and work, would no doubt crumble. The people, the one that had been hired for their strength and familiarity with guns that she herself had trained, knew well enough that they got their own versions of severance pay and would quietly and quickly leave the country to settle somewhere. The stupid ones that had been hired as diversions or a scapegoat would no doubt attempt to get control and would quickly be thrown to the wolves.
The empire was falling without its emperor and king to guide it. A piece of her was crumbling along with it, she almost felt like she was losing a child.
She had accomplished her orders. The orders had been to watch if Sherlock Holmes would in fact take his own life. If he hadn't she would shoot John Watson. If he did then Watson was free to go.
That was one of the hardest moments of her life. She had watched in horror through her scope as Jim had taken the gun she had insisted he always take out and shot himself through the head from his mouth.
It had taken everything she had and what she didn't even know she had to keep herself from screaming. And she had been tempted, oh she had been tempted, to just shoot John Watson right where he stood in front of Holmes that had been standing on the edge of the roof.
But she was a soldier first and foremost. She had her orders and nothing would get in the way of her finishing them to the letter.
No matter how much it hurt.
She couldn't deny the satisfaction she felt however when she saw Holmes jump and then how Watson fell. She had been tempted momentarily to shot Watson anyway however that hadn't been part of the orders.
And let him suffer the way she was at the moment. The both of them mourned a lover now.
Her hand fumbled for the remote on the nightstand. She wanted to watch the news. Wanted to hear Sherlock Holmes reputation ripped to shreds. She wanted to hear his death and perhaps see his body once last time.
The final job of the Moriarty Empire and its effects. Done to perfection once more.
Later when she had a bottle of beer in hand and was watching the newscaster tell the story, how Detective Inspector Lestrade or John Watson refused to give any statements, how the other ones Donavon and Anderson, she dimly remembered their names, almost gleefully gave their own statements she raised her beer in a toast to the television and toasted the empire of Moriarty.
It took a few months for her to get word from anyone from the once great underworld organization. One of her best students, his name was David however she had nicknamed him Cupcake, had sent her a single three worded letter and a photograph.
"We are targeted." was the letter.
She narrowed her eyes at the letter. Someone was targeting and attempting to take out her once comrades.
With an annoyed sigh she pulled the photograph out of the envelope.
To which she quickly brought her hand to her mouth to block the scream of rage.
The photo was blurry and taken from what it seemed to be a cellphone however she would have recognized the person anywhere.
Sherlock Holmes was alive.
And he was targeting her comrades.
Her mind raced with possibilities. Attempting to finish what he started? Bringing down the organization completely? For money or power?
Or was he simply trying to completely wipe out the rest of the fallen empire?
The photograph slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.
Sherlock Holmes was alive.
Sherlock Holmes was fucking alive.
Jim Moriarty was dead. Buried under a fake name even, Richard Brook.
James Moriarty was dead and Sherlock Holmes was alive.
She had failed. Since Sherlock Holmes was alive then John Watson must be killed. It was the only logical thing to do.
A memory flashed through her mind at that moment. The time when Jim had started to truly play with Sherlock. When they watched as Holmes' connection with Watson was created and growing.
"I'm going to burn the heart out of him!" Jim had gleefully said.
Her face and identity had never been seen. Jim had ensured that.
Her face and identity had never been seen.
A smile started to curl at her lips. Jim had sent her under disguises before. Parties and fancy occasions where she needed to get information from the right people who would start talking to a pretty face after copious amounts of alcohol.
She had never had to perform for more than a single night at the most. Information was either gotten through loosened lips or torture that same night.
But for this, for this pure satisfaction, she was willing to go the few extra miles.
She stood and walked to the closet that upon moving into the apartment had simply thrown everything into and refused to as much as look at the closet itself.
Her former comrades were that, former, they could either take care of themselves enough to the point of escaping or they would be killed. It didn't matter to her.
She had a job to do.
It took more time than she was comfortable with and had to spare. Not a single second was wasted. She poured over medical books frantically absorbing their knowledge. She walked back down the underground to the man she knew created the best fake papers.
She pulled the dresses that Jim had gotten for her as a joke along with the skirts, heels, and makeup. She dyed her hair blonde, merely a precaution to ensure her identity to remain a secret.
Within the hour she used everything Jim had taught her to change herself completely. She had grown out her hair, dying it so that it would get used to the color. She grew her nails out and painted them. Contacts were placed to change her eyes from green to blue.
She changed her posture, her walk, her handwriting, and even her voice. She downplayed herself and made herself look almost vulnerable and submissive. She adopted a caring and loving look on her face and eyes.
She could almost hear Jim laughing at her.
Finally when the papers were done she gathered them and took them to the hospital.
"An impressive resume." the director said looking over her papers. "Top of the class. Plenty of previous experience."
He smiled and held a hand out to her which she timidly grasped. "Welcome aboard."
As she walked to her new shared office wearing the white medical coat and her heels clacking through the hall she mused her thoughts to herself.
She would burn the heart out of Sherlock Holmes by killing the one that John Watson had. She would destroy the man and later do him the favor of stopping his very heart.
Let Sherlock now suffer as she had.
She pushed back a lock of her dyed blonde hair with a perfectly manicured nail, inwardly cursing everything about it, and opened the door.
Watson looked up at her in question with a small smile.
"Dr. Watson, hello." she said in a soft tone of voice before holding her hand out to him. "I am Dr. Mary Morstan, your new partner."
She will burn Sherlock Holmes' heart to ash.
I do not own Sherlock.