Author's note: A reviewer pointed out that I had never allowed Greg to kill Moriarty, and I couldn't resist. Enjoy!
He knew he wasn't the selfless protector he wished to be even as he pressed the trigger.
He knew that he was motivated by revenge just as much as by his desire to save the city from the monster who had taken the best man within his walls away from it.
From the first, from the moment Richard Brook's body had been discovered, Greg had been certain that Moriarty wasn't dead.
Sherlock was.
It wasn't fair.
Sherlock was dead because of Jim Moriarty. And Moriarty was alive. He knew it, felt it, the instincts that had served him so well for over twenty years telling him that the consulting criminal had faked his death like he desperately wished Sherlock had.
But Sherlock was gone. And the threat to the city he had served for so long was alive and well.
He knew Mycroft was looking for him. The older Holmes had become even less accessible after Sherlock's death, but he had told him that much.
Yet Greg had the feeling that Mycroft's well-oiled machinery wouldn't produce any results. Sherlock had lost against Moriarty; a great mind had already failed; maybe it didn't need another to end this, end him.
Perhaps it needed an ordinary mind, one that knew this city, knew its pulse pumping through its streets, knew here someone who had successfully fakes his death would hide.
Moriarty could have left London. He doubted it. He was as much part of the town as Sherlock had been, as Greg was. They couldn't exist anywhere else for long.
And what had he to fear since Sherlock was dead? True, Mycroft was looking for him, but he had until now failed to find him.
Greg had to, had to see him, had to rid the world off him.
He didn't tell anyone.
John had locked himself into his new apartment, caught in his grief, unwilling to return to a life without Sherlock. Greg let him mourn. He would soldier one eventually, like he had before; he would need his friends then. Not while he was still suffering, not while grief was the only thing he could feel.
Waiting until they were both ready for Sherlock's name to pass their lips, Greg could search. And search he did.
It wasn't easy. Moriarty, he soon realized, had left a cast web behind – no, not behind. He simply appeared to have done so, trying to make everyone believe he was dead.
His instincts told him he wasn't. He was still controlling his web, only from the underground – like he'd done in the beginning before Sherlock had tempted him to emerge and play games.
Simple. Keep it simple. Moriarty was used to adversaries like Sherlock, like Mycroft; he would never think someone like Greg could be a danger.
He needed a string to tuck, watch the web unravel. He needed a clue.
There had to be weak spots in the web. There had to be. Not in Moriarty's immediate vicinity; somewhere farther down. But there were always weak spots.
Every organization had its problems. He had never specialized in work involving gangs, but then this wasn't a gang – this was a genius individual deciding to use his powers to bring chaos into the world.
He could deal with this. He would deal with this. It was his responsibility. If he had never listened to Donovan, if he had gone to Sherlock immediately, if he had warned him –
He couldn't allow himself to dwell on what ifs. No police man should. He had learned that early in his career.
But this was Sherlock. He hadn't paid attention, he hadn't trusted his instinct, and now his friend was gone.
The word shocked him. Friend.
Had they been friends, like Sherlock and John?
It didn't matter anymore. He was dead.
What did matter was to get Moriarty off the streets. It was what Sherlock would have wanted, he was sure; behind the delight in the games they had played, behind the carelessness he had so often shown when it came to other people, there had been a heart that wanted to keep the city safe.
And to make sure of that, he had to get rid of Moriarty.
He knew what it entailed. #
Moriarty had managed to create an alternate identity that had been convincing enough to fool the media, the public and the police. To fool him, who had prided himself on his experience, on his consulting detective. If Greg found him, Moriarty would have another identity ready, another lie, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it, not even Mycroft would, because if he could have, Sherlock wouldn't be dead.
To get rid of Moriarty, he couldn't arrest him.
He had to kill him.
It went against every oath he'd sworn, every belief he held, every victim whose case he had solved.
But it had to be done.
He was scared. He was scared because the thought of killing Moriarty caused no regret, no shame.
He was looking forward to it. He was looking forward to destroying someone else's life like it was nothing.
Moriarty had already taken countless lives, it was true. Yet Greg had always been firmly opposed to the death penalty.
And this wasn't even an execution. It was murder, just that.
He would commit murder.
For Sherlock. The city. John. Mrs. Hudson. Himself.
He didn't really know anymore for who or what he'd do it, and yet he would.
He would protect London. He hadn't been able to protect Sherlock, but he could do as much for the town he'd loved, the only place he'd ever felt home at.
So he looked and collected evidence.
It was easy for him to see the pattern, simple to uncover the many small incidences that proved Moriarty was still out there.
Art theft. Bank robbery. Fraud.
Simple crimes in themselves, but the suspects had got away, and everything had been planned so perfectly that only one person could have arranged everything.
James Moriarty, consulting criminal.
There had to be a weak spot. There had to be. Someone who had been coerced into doing something; someone who had realized working for Moriarty was more than he had wished for; someone who wanted out. There always was.
It took Greg months to find Shinwell Johnson.
He had carefully constructed a picture of the lowest ranks of Moriarty's organization, deciding that the farer from the top, the more unlikely that Moriarty knew of the weak link.
Then consulting criminal was careful. Those who worked for him, recruited for him, might not be, at least not to the same extent.
Greg was worried.
Greg was right, and he found Shinwell Johnson.
It would have been a lie to say he had never seen him before. The man had been a part of Sherlock's homeless network out of the same reason that he constantly balanced on the edge between legal and illegal jobs – he took what he could get, as long as money was involved.
He found out that he'd been on the look-out for danger during a break in, according to a witness – there could only be so many read-haired, six foot tall men in London, and the scar on his right temple proved that it had been him.
Moriarty might have been tempted to use him as a spy, Greg reflected the evening he made his way through Johnson's usual hideouts. Maybe he expected to have an eye on Sherlock through him. If that had been the case, he must have been disappointed; Johnson didn't have the backbone for that sort of thing.
But he'd undoubtedly proved a good enough helper as long as he'd received enough money.
Time to put the fear of God in him.
Johnson recognized him immediately, like half the other patrons in the bar he found him in. Some Greg had been arresting since he'd been a PC.
None of them bothered to greet him, and neither did they try to help Johnson as Greg dragged him out of the bar.
"What do you want, copper?" he hissed.
"DI Lestrade. You know my name, Mr. Johnson. I have reason to believe that you're part of Moriarty's network".
"I believe the man you're looking for is called Richard Brooke, sir".
He was grinning at Greg, but the DI nonetheless felt hopeful. Present tense. He had used present tense when talking about Richard Brooke.
"Is he?" he asked innocently, annunciating his words so Johnson would realize his mistake.
His eyes widened.
Whoever had thought getting Johnson was a good idea had been unable to see past his facade (so probably it hadn't been Moriarty after all who had given him the green light) – he was actually rather clever, and he had known Sherlock. Of course he knew that everything had been faked, and of course he'd been able to determine that the leader of the group, that the spider hadn't changed.
What he needed now was a lead.
Johnson's face grew white.
He knew that Greg knew.
So far so good.
"Who's your boss? Your immediate superior?"
"If you think I'm going to tell you – "
"You have two options. Either you tell me and this is kept between us, or I arrest you and make an official statement that you have provided evidence that Moriarty does in fact exist and is still alive".
He was certain Johnson would take the deal, but if an opportunity to clear Sherlock's name had arisen, he would have welcomed it.
"You – you can't. He'll have you killed – "
"You first, Mr. Johnson. We both know that".
Of course the man gave in. He had no other choice.
Greg ended up with the name of a bouncer who had spent some time in prison for assault, and he worked his way up.
It wasn't easy. He had to make sure no one would talk, and he couldn't allow his colleagues to get suspicious, so he spent many nights on the streets and the following days drinking too much coffee.
But he made it. Once he had climbed high enough, he was able to pinpoint where Moriarty liked to hide. Of course he had to have at least one of his top men near him in case a mobile phone or e-mail suddenly stopped working.
After carefully sifting through those he was sure were part of the inner group, he concluded that the man who was closest to Moriarty was Sebastian Moran.
He read through his service records, swallowed and ignored the similarities. He had to.
Sebastian Moran lived in a small flat in the Northern part of town.
Near the building, there were several offices that were at the moment listed as vacant.
And office could easily be turned into a hiding place.
As it turned out, he was right. He'd watched Moran's flat for weeks and soon found that he went to one office almost every night; they kept the shutters down, but he was sure Moriarty was there. He could feel it.
Then, one evening, he followed Moran to the airport and watched him board a plane.
It was now or never.
There were no cameras or security system as far as he could see; maybe Moriarty trusted his intellect to keep him safe.
He would never be able to say if Moriarty had awaited him as a distraction, or if he was genuinely surprised to see him.
All he knew was that he gave him a bright smile and jumped up from his chair.
"Inspector! It seems I do have underestimated you, and since Sherlock is incapacitated, I look forward to – "
A shot rang out.
He let the body lay where it fell after having made sure that nothing had been recorded. His own would find him, but none of them was as good as him. More likely than not, the web would dissolve.
The next few days, he was surprisingly calm, even as he wondered if anyone would ever find out. If he would be arrested.
He didn't care. It should have scared him but it didn't.
Either way, his fear would have been useless.
There was a bottle of brandy in his living room.
It was answer enough.