I was watching S1 with a friend yesterday and it occurred to me: what spurs Moriarty into finally making contact with Sherlock? Actual, intellectual contact? And when Sherlock doesn't measure up, why does Jim continue? And because I'm a rabid Sherlolly shipper who also fully understands that Sherlock of any 'verse would never fall for Molly because of reasons spelled "canon" I jumped quickly to just how that might happen. Sherlock not falling for Molly but ending up with her just the same.
And my fanon version of Moriarty is very much a Rumpelstiltskinesque character who makes deals for rewards other than money. He is also incredibly, horribly bored and for a mind like his that manifests as the worst kind of depression. In the midst of this comes a small woman more comfortable with the dead than the living, and she brings with her a request which he's never heard and knows will never hear again. The perfect solution for his final problem.
Enjoy!
Molly would do anything to have Sherlock Holmes. Anything, anything, anything.
Including shyly following up on the whispers of a name that no one spoke, and finding a man alternately called Moran, Brook, Pascal, Cavannaugh, and most often Moriarty. She tried not to be terrified at the coffee shop where she was told to meet him, and in the end she was rewarded. They chatted briefly about nothings, and then he had shifted in a bit more of a business mode. Jim was sweet and nice and heard her out, not saying a word until she had finished.
She asked him to find a way to give her the most brilliant man she'd ever met, and without the man himself ever finding out. She would do anything she could to just have him do that. All of her money, falsify documents from her work, steal, lie, or give him her family, whatever he wanted. She wouldn't hesitate, so long as she had Sherlock Holmes in a way where Sherlock was none the wiser.
Jim hadn't wanted a thing, the grin which split his face was excited. Boyish and pious, as though she'd done something particularly admirable.
"Molly, Molly, Molly—how could I refuse such a request? I don't need a single thing, other you letting me do this, as payment. This is the most imaginative, creative request I've ever had you sweet, sweet girl. Now, it will take a while. More than a year, at the very least. And it will be scary, but trust my methods, alright?"
She nodded, and he kissed her cheek softly as he stood to go.
"I'll be in touch, Molly Hooper."
And months and months later, Sherlock was in her lab. Her faith in Jim's promise hadn't wavered in all this time and she found that she'd been rewarded for being so steadfast.
Sherlock was here, and he needed her.
"You'll have to hide me, while I fix this mess he's made. Molly, I have it all worked out except for where to hide—somewhere he wouldn't think would matter to me. I need you."
The next day the nice man from months and months ago was dead, brought into her morgue for his post-mortem (though cause of death was fairly obvious). His pious happy smile was glued to his face with rigor mortis, and Molly returned it softly. He'd taken on her 'case' pro-bono, and it hadn't even sunk in yet that she would soon have Sherlock Holmes all to herself.
Sherlock, who had been hidden away during the day in her office, caught her softly trying to close Jim's eyes, and laid a hand on her shoulder in a mistaken assumption of sentiment. He thought she missed Jim, but he was so very wrong.
She was grateful, nothing more.
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