Did you miss me?
The words were ringing in Sherlock's ears as the plane landed. He made his way over to the car in a daze. Mycroft was standing ramrod straight with a grim expression. John and Mary stood nearby, neither looking particularly happy.
"Is it definitely him?" Sherlock ventured, "It could easily be an imposter using him to get attention."
"We're not entirely sure as of yet," Mycroft replied, "But considering past events, whenever James Moriarty's name is so much as hinted at, we are on high alert. Additionally, the efficiency with which the hacking was done has never been seen on an attack that he wasn't behind."
Sherlock nodded, his mind already going back to that day on the roof. He frantically went over the details of Moriarty's suicide, replaying the scene as best he could when John broke through his reverie.
"I'm glad you're not leaving."
Sherlock looked up, taken aback. John looked a little surprised that he had spoken. He coughed and continued.
"Obviously, I would have preferred for better circumstances but…"
John trailed off and he looked away.
"One goodbye was enough," Sherlock agreed, remembering the two conversations that he'd had to have with John, thinking they would be his last.
John looked back at him, and they shared a small smile, their joint relief almost palpable. In his peripheral vision, Sherlock noticed Mary tighten her grip on John's hand almost imperceptibly.
Sherlock's phone disrupted the moment with a buzz. Sherlock read the text message once and handed the phone to Mycroft, who drily intoned:
"Well, little brother. It seems that the game is back on."
Honey, I'm home.
Jim x
…
Sherlock got back to Baker Street as fast as he could; paying the cabbie more than the man had probably ever been paid in his life to break any and all speed limits. He burst through the door of 221b and let out a sigh of relief on seeing that Mrs Hudson had gone out. He had entrusted John to inform her of what was going on; particularly after John had been refused by Mycroft on coming to the flat with Sherlock to confront Moriarty.
Sherlock made his way upstairs as carefully as he could, with one hand firmly on the gun he had hidden in his coat pocket. He pushed open the door to find Moriarty sitting in his chair in the living room calmly drinking tea. There was a teacup waiting for Sherlock in front of John's chair. It was a strange mirror of the first time Moriarty had broken into 221b to confront Sherlock; one that brought many unpleasant memories to the fore of Sherlock's mind. He shook them away and began to observe his old enemy from a safe distance. He was virtually unchanged, but a few differences glared at Sherlock. The lines on his face were more pronounced, his jaw was covered in stubble and his clothes weren't as pristine as Sherlock remembered them to be.
"You can come and sit down, you know," said Moriarty in his all too familiar voice. Sherlock had been subject to many nightmares plagued by that voice. Hearing it once more, in the flesh, made his skin crawl. He edged forward and sat down cautiously opposite Moriarty.
Moriarty rolled his eyes dramatically. "I'm not going to hurt you, you know. Where's the fun in that? I come back from the dead only to kill you as soon as I announce myself to the world?"
Sherlock smiled tightly. "You'll have to forgive my paranoia. Having been shot by someone I trusted fairly recently has left me a little on edge."
Sherlock leaned forwards and reached for his cup of tea, taking a sip as Moriarty smiled.
"Oh yes. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. John is certainly a man with interesting tastes, wouldn't you say?"
Sherlock took another sip of his tea while he calculated a reply. Moriarty was goading him and they both knew it.
"What would you know about Mary?"
Moriarty grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"You're not going to tell me now?"
"You're a clever boy, Sherlock, you'll work it out. In the meantime, I'll be entertaining myself by watching you panic and worry and fret about dear Doctor Watson's safety. You're ever so entertaining. I hacked into Magnussen's CCTV and the look on your face during the eye flicking…priceless."
"Why are you back?" Sherlock pressed on, feeling Moriarty's taunts about John raise his hackles.
Moriarty paused for a moment, considering whether or not to allow Sherlock to change the subject so easily. "I got bored," he replied, shrugging, "Being dead is terribly boring, but you already know that, don't you?"
"I doubt we had the same experience of being dead," Sherlock deadpanned.
"Of course not," Moriarty scoffed, "You were busy dismantling my network, while I was busy building a new one."
"An entire criminal network in three years? I'd be impressed if I wasn't appalled."
Moriarty smiled lazily, his eyes hooded. "Thank you."
"But of course, this means that these past few years have been…"
"Utterly meaningless," Moriarty finished, "Yep."
"But now you're back," Sherlock continued, "Which means that we're back to square one."
Moriarty laughed. It was a horrible sound. "Oh, I never left. The king was away, certainly, but I had my pawns very much in play. No, I was always here in one way or another. Keeping an eye on you. I learnt some rather interesting things, to be honest. Very interesting indeed."
"What do you mean?" Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Moriarty, who had a sort of deranged glee written across his features.
"Did you really not notice?" Moriarty paused and frowned. "Oh, Sherlock, you're getting so slow! I'm talking about Janine. You must have noticed something off about her, I mean, it's incredibly obvious. Dark hair, Irish accent. Duh."
"She's…"
"My sister, yes. No shit, Sherlock," Moriarty made a face at him. "Still blatantly disregarding the obvious, I see? Wanting everything to be complicated and clever when the simple answer is staring you right in the face. It's quite funny, you know. That you and my sister were in a relationship, even if it was an utterly fake one."
"Janine worked for Magnussen. She was only ever a means to an end," Sherlock replied icily.
Moriarty tutted at him. "You can drop the sociopath act in front of me, Sherlock. I can see right through it. Janine had a lot of information to report back to me. I'd say that I know more about you that you even know yourself."
"Why are you back?" Sherlock asked again.
"Deflecting, are we? I must have touched a nerve. But don't you worry your pretty little head, I'll leave you alone for now, I'm sure the Ice Man is positively clamouring for a progress report. Welcome to round two, Sherlock. You'll be hearing from me soon."
With no further words, Moriarty upped and left the flat. Sherlock let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding and reached for his phone. He hurriedly sent a text to John.
He's gone. You can come over now.
Don't bring Mary.
SH
…
About twenty minutes later, John burst through the door of 221b. Sherlock was still sitting in his chair.
"John," he said, his voice strained under a barely held façade of calm.
"Jesus," John muttered as he closed the door and walked over to him. "Sherlock, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
"I'm fine," Sherlock snapped, "But you need to help me look for any cameras. Moriarty was already here for at least an half an hour before I arrived, he'd have had plenty of time to bug the flat."
"Right," John replied, springing to action.
A little while later, once Sherlock was sure that the flat was devoid of any cameras or mics, he turned to John, his face serious.
"We need to talk."
"About?" John replied somewhat nervously.
"Mary," Sherlock replied grimly.
"What about her? I know she's a psychopathic murderer, at this point I doubt anything would surprise me," John joked half-heartedly.
Sherlock didn't smile.
"Mary works for Moriarty. Or at least she used to."
There was a moment of silence as John let it sink in. Then his face fell, and he suddenly looked completely wrecked.
"John?" Sherlock asked worriedly.
"Why is she pregnant?" John whispered, shaking his head.
"Surely I don't need to explain that to you John, you are a doctor," said Sherlock, trying to diffuse the tension.
John smiled humourlessly and continued. "If there was no baby, things would be so easy. I would have left her for good the second after I realised she shot you. God knows how much I wanted to."
"But you forgave her. I overheard you talking at Christmas."
John laughed wryly. "Eavesdropping, more likely. And no, I didn't forgive her. How could I? She lied to me. She nearly killed my best friend. Of course I couldn't forgive her. The only reason that I didn't immediately file for divorce, is the baby. What sort of a person would I be if I let an innocent child be raised by that monster? And Mary would never just let me leave her and take the baby with me. So I thought that if I was around for my daughter's upbringing I could protect her. Then maybe when she was old enough to understand, I could leave Mary and take my daughter with me. So I let Mary think that I forgave her, that's what she wanted to think after all. If that amount of lying makes me a hypocrite then so be it, but I'm trying to protect my child."
When John finished, he looked up. Sherlock was looking at him curiously.
"What?"
"If more people were like you, John, the world would be an infinitely better place."
John smiled at the praise. Then suddenly, his face fell.
"Oh god," he said, his mind suddenly wandering, "Mary was an assassin, right? Good with a gun?"
Sherlock quickly cottoned on to his line of thought. "John, we don't know anything for certain. Moriarty's network was vast; he had many snipers under his employ."
John shook his head fiercely. "She was there. That night at the pool. I remember."
John faltered a little. Sherlock carefully took a hold of his shoulders. He kept his tone encouraging.
"John. If you remember anything important about that night, you need to tell me."
John nodded, and Sherlock released his grip. "Well, I'd left the flat to go to Sarah's. I was nearly there, if I remember rightly, then suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me. They used chloroform to knock me out and then I remember being thrown into the back of a van. When I woke up, I was covered in Semtex and Moriarty was there. He told me to play along or his snipers would kill everyone in the building if I so much as stumbled on a word when I spoke to you. I could hear him laughing in my ear when you thought that I was him for a second. It was horrible."
"What about Mary?" Sherlock prompted gently.
"I had an earpiece in. Moriarty could speak to me and hear what I was saying. All of the snipers had earpieces as well, and they must have all been connected to the same feed as I could hear them as well. They spoke to each other, joked around even. There were lots of them, all with different accents. I remember that there was a woman's voice and it stuck out because it was the only one. The others called her Moran."
"Moran?"
John nodded. "She was American."
Sherlock deliberated for a moment.
"It was Mary, Sherlock. I know it was. You said yourself that you suspected she wasn't naturally English. Magnussen said she had worked for the CIA. It fits, you know it does."
"I don't disagree, but I have learnt that it is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all the data. It leads to you twisting facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
John looked at him almost pleadingly. "Sherlock. It was Mary. I can remember it clear as anything. It was Mary with an American accent."
Sherlock relented. "I'll look into it. The name Moran does sound somewhat familiar now that I think about it."
John smiled gratefully. He checked his watch.
"You should go," said Sherlock. "Mary will be worried."
John laughed drily and said; "I really couldn't care less."
Sherlock gave him a sympathetic look. "I'll keep you updated if anything interesting comes up."
"Please do," said John, "I've resorted to working over-time at the clinic in order to avoid Mary now that she's on maternity leave. People are starting to worry."
Sherlock laughed. "Goodnight, John."
"'Night, Sherlock," John replied, before leaving.
…
The journey home took far less time than he would have liked. Mary was still awake, watching television in her pyjamas when John got back. He steeled himself, and joined her on the sofa.
"Anything to report?" she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Yes, thought John bitterly, it turns out that you worked for the man who ruined my life. And how was your day, dear?
"No," John said, "Just a debriefing about what Moriarty did."
"Alright," Mary shrugged. "There's some leftovers in the fridge if you wanted some."
"I think I'm just going to go to bed, actually. Difficult day."
Mary eyed him curiously for a second. John kept his expression neutral. She shrugged again. "Alright. I'll be up in a minute. Might as well make the most of being able to sleep before the baby comes, right?"
John laughed as he was supposed to. Don't remind me.
He made his way upstairs and got ready for bed, almost cursing himself that in the days after Magnussen's death, he had moved back in with Mary so quickly. He wished he was still living at Baker Street; he missed the cosy flat so much it ached. He got into bed and shortly felt Mary slip in beside him. His thoughts went back to Baker Street; he couldn't remember a time being there that he didn't feel safe. But now, he had to try to sleep knowing that danger was lying right next to him, softly breathing down the back of his neck.
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