Warning: Suicidal Thoughts/Actions

Did you miss me? - JM

She didn't hear her phone vibrate on the island counter beside her, she was too fascinated by the grayish mush that had once been cereal in her bowl. The spoon felt heavy as lead in her hand, her breakfast as unappealing as it had been since her husband had decided to put a bullet through his head. It was clear that she had no intention of eating, but was merely performing the steps to a morning routine she hadn't yet broken.

She'd never felt more alone than in those hours following Sherlock Holmes' death. News of Holmes' demise was broadcast on every major network within hours of his fateful fall, and she'd let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when she realized that that meant Jim had won. But the hours had continued to tick by and he never returned to glory in his triumph, and by that night, she knew.

She'd been Mrs. James Moriarty for almost ten years, had known what that entailed from the first time that they laid eyes on one another. Some, like her sister Alice, preferred to fight on the side of the angels as a wolf in sheep's clothing. But when Jim had taken her hand and slipped that ring on her finger, Arielle had promised to dance with him in hell. She just hadn't expected him to get such a radical head start.

"Give that here - that's a love." Alice took away her bowl and emptied the cereal into the trashcan, before rinsing it with soap and water. "You have to eat something, my sweet. You're withering away to nothing."

Arielle looked at her, suddenly angry. "Does your husband know that you're here? The last thing I need is the British Government knocking on my door and trying to take me away from my kids."

Alice was scandalized, "You're my sister, Arielle. That trumps any obligation that I might have to Mycroft. And let me be very clear," she flipped her chocolate curls over her shoulder, "I am not obligated to do anything for him. I have my secrets, and he has his."

"Yes, well, I'm sure he didn't realize he was marrying into a family of criminals when you took your vows." Arielle replied bitterly.

"Our relationship is complicated." Alice conceded. "And it is also not the reason I'm here today." She ran her fingers through Arielle's mussed red curls. "Jim loved you, my sweet. And he wouldn't want to see you destroying yourself like this."

"He killed himself," she whispered solemnly.

"That's not a reflection on how he felt about you, Ari." Alice said gently, but firmly.

"I want to be with him." The dark inflection of her voice left no doubt as to what she was implying. "But at the same time, I want to hurt. I want to hurt the man responsible for driving Jim over the edge and I don't think I'll ever forgive Jim for beating me to it."

Alice sighed. She had been just as disapproving of Arielle's marriage to Jim as Arielle had been of her own marriage to Mycroft. Truthfully, Alice hadn't actually met Jim until the British Government had actually managed to bring him in for questioning. Getting information out of him was like looking for hay in a needle stack, and Mycroft had asked her to try her hand with him. As soon as she stepped into the room, Moriarty broke into the biggest shit-eating grin she'd ever seen.

"It's funny. For identical twins, you and Ari are nothing alike." He laughed, offering her a quick once-over. "Arielle knows what she is, but you..." he cocked his head to the side, "Does your husband know that you used to work for me, Mrs. Holmes? Or, should I say, Ms. Morstan?"

Ari, this isn't funny. Answer the damn phone. - JM

Alice made to speak, but was interrupted by Arielle's phone vibrating noisily on the island counter. Seconds later, Stayin' Alive began blaring at full volume - the ringtone that she'd set aside to denote a call from her husband. Arielle's face practically crumbled and without bothering to answer, she grabbed her phone and threw it against the wall as hard as she possibly could. The call went to voicemail, before it started ringing again.

"Ari -," Alice started to walk over and retrieve the phone, but was stopped by Arielle's cold, hard glare.

"Don't." She said sharply, before turning and walking into the sitting room, collapsing on one of the expensive, black leather sofas. A hand fell over her eyes and Alice pretended she couldn't see the way her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs.

Where Alice was conventionally beautiful, Arielle was deadly grace and elegance. Her entire body was a weapon, never relaxed, always ready to strike. Alice's wide brown eyes settled on Arielle's hands - they were the delicately manicured, silky smooth hands of a school girl, but Alice knew from experience that she could squeeze nearly three-hundred pounds of pressure out of them. Deceptively powerful. Dangerously beautiful.

"Where are the children, Arielle?" The lack of pitter-patter of little feet was almost alarming at this point. Arielle blinked slowly, almost as if she just realized her children weren't in the flat.

She sighed, "Mary-Alice and James Jr. are with Sebastian." She said flatly. "He's agreed to take care of them until things settle down and I figure out what I'm going to do." In other words: Sebastian had taken the kids until Arielle decided whether or not she wanted to live.

"The empire is yours, now." But she knew that Arielle had never been interested in taking over Moriarty's criminal empire. "Every King needs a Queen, wasn't that what he always said?" That earned her a stiff nod, "And every empire needs a ruler."

"I want to be with him." She said again, softer this time.

"I know, my sweet." She gently ran her fingers through her sister's messy red curls, "I know."

Alice stormed into her husband's office, startling the foreign dignitary that he was entertaining. Anthea shuffled in behind her, looking appropriately frazzled. Alice Holmes was a force to be reckoned with, even for the likes of the British Government's secretary. Mycroft excused himself, before taking his wife by the shoulder and leading her out into the hallway. As soon as they were out of sight, she yanked away from him.

"I should hope that this is important enough to interrupt -," she didn't even let him finish.

"I hope that you're happy." Alice hissed lowly. "Your little scheme to save Sherlock's life is creating emotional scars that might never heal. And I was willing to stand by you, to lie to John, to Mrs. Hudson, to the world - because it was for the greater good. But now..."

Mycroft was visibly taken aback. His dainty wife, ever the prim and proper lady, had never yelled at him before. She was cold and calculating, calm and collected. To see her so out of sorts was rather alarming. "Alice -,"

She held up a hand, silencing him. "If my sister finds out that Sherlock is alive, she will kill him. And I'm not going to be the one to stand in her way."

Maybe she'd have been more inclined to talk her sister down if she hadn't seen the way she'd stared at her food until it was practically inedible, hadn't felt her heart break when her sister threw her phone across the room, that one song sending all of her defenses crashing to the ground because Jim had shot himself in the head and why hadn't she seen it coming? Her sister was helplessly in love with a madman, much the same as Alice found herself in love with Mycroft.

"If you were to shoot yourself in the head, I would... I w-would..." and with that she started sobbing. She didn't need to finish her thought for Mycroft to know she'd be just as despondent as her sister, just as murderous. "Mikey, p-please..." she sounded so weak, vulnerable.

"Alice..." he didn't get a chance to say anything else, as Alice buried her face in his chest, gripping his suit jacket so tightly that it began to wrinkle. "Alice, I do not plan on going anywhere. I'm not going to leave you all alone."

"That's what h-he promised Ari! H-He told her t-that they'd b-brave the dark to-together..." Alice was working herself into a stupor and Mycroft hadn't the slightest as to how to calm her down.

"Darling, you need to calm down. You're going to make yourself sick." But Alice wasn't listening, and by then the warning was too late.

On the brink of hyperventilation, Alice suddenly grew very pale and tore out of Mycroft's arms. She barely had a chance to make it to the bathroom before she fell over the toilet and violently lost the contents of her stomach. Mycroft followed her inside, before gently pulling her chocolate brown curls away from her face and rubbing soothing circles into the small of her back till she quieted.

Once she'd calmed, Mycroft led her upstairs to the master suite, before easing her down onto the bed and pulling off her shoes. She watched him through dazed, half-lidded eyes, far too out of it to offer a witty remark about him undressing her. She fussed momentarily when he disappeared into the bathroom to retrieve a cool cloth for her forehead, but calmed almost immediately when she could see him again.

He dutifully began to smooth the cool cloth over her flushed face, sitting on the bed beside her and allowing her head to rest in his lap. "Darling, I know the woman I married four years ago. She was bright and charismatic and unbelievably beautiful... and she was a criminal."

The Morstan twins had been a part of Moriarty's network, who'd been caught by the British Government when Sherlock was in University. Alice had seen the writing on the wall and had become a double agent, feeding the government intel on the inner workings of the network while completing jobs for Moriarty. She'd reported directly to Mycroft, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"I knew from the start that you would do anything to protect your sister, and I accepted that. And I hope that you understand that I will do anything to protect my baby brother. And if that means we have to take sides, know that the only way you'll ever lose me is if you send me away." Mycroft said.

"Sherlock thought he was fixing things..." Alice said weakly, blankly staring off into space. "But he really just started a war..."