A/N:
1: To all those wonderful people who already know me and are awaiting updates on my (admittedly numerous) other fics, please read the updated info in my profile.
2: The choice of title will make sense eventually...
3: Thanks to LadyGrimR for encouraging me to publish this.
That said, I have only given her a very very sketchy description, so if this is an abject failure, the fault is mine and mine alone.
4: While I'm an enormous fan of both the Holmes movies (obviously) AND the cannon, any attempts to emulate proper old British english on my part have been abject failures, so while I have made every effort to be culturally informed and to keep the dialogue from being too modern or American, I'm not Sir ACD (clearly).
5) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)
6) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!
...
...
...
Alexandra Moriarty does not mourn when she receives the succinct telegram informing her that her father had perished of natural causes en route to his recently-acquired factory in Heilbronn, Germany. Instead she proceeds with preparing for her own journey to what had been Meinhart's factory before her father had disposed of him, choosing to continue with his plans as the rightful heir to his empire which she is, rather than remaining in England to await his funeral service…. After all this is business as usual.
It is perhaps ironic, as much as she will permit herself to feel the emotion, that while on the train, Alexandra passes a small chapel where another funeral is taking place. She observes the obvious grief of the bereaved family members but only in a detached way, free from even the vestiges of any reciprocal or shared emotion. Her father's demise brings her no grief – no regret of feelings of desolation - and while that would have been unacceptable in any other family, this is how her father had always wanted her – without the weakness and fragility of human emotion - and amoral as he was, ever critical of her as he'd been in his life and especially for the first half of hers, even he would not have the nerve to complain in the end for her having become exactly what he had worked so hard for so long to make her.
No, were he capable of it now, James Moriarty would have likely been pleased.
His second-in command, Sebastian Moran is another matter entirely. Wryly she wonders if the army reject will attempt to shoot her on sight when she arrives, before dismissing the idea entirely, knowing that though he's always been her greatest rival and in many ways her father's favorite, he will remain willing to work with her so long as he sees in her enough of her father to respect her leadership and command.
It is perhaps amusing to see the disbelief on the faces of the German officers when they meet their new employer, likely equal parts surprise that said employer is a woman, and surprise that she prefers to wear male dress for the greater mobility it affords her (though she doubts the majority of them have pieced together the reason, judging from their poorly concealed shock).
Of course, none of them ask any questions, one way or the other. They have likely learned from being in her father's employ that doing so is a sure way to end up dead…. sooner than later.
...
...
...