A/N: You know the drill: Review, follow, fave; the support keeps me willing to post! :) Seriously, don't be shy. I promise I don't bite. (Well, not much.)
Your eyes like a shot of whiskey,
warms me up like a summer night.
Can you tell that I need ya with me?
Let me drink you down tonight.
For three years, Sherlock struggled to remember.
He never did realise he was doing it, though.
Taking down Moriarty's network had been challenging. Not impossible, but definitely time-consuming. He wasn't bored, which was wonderful. He'd never been so wonderfully, blissfully occupied like this. There was always a case, someone to take out, some lead to follow up on. He wasn't happy exactly, not really, but he was busy and all he had time to care about was the work.
He'd never been so complete and so … hollow all at once. And this confused him - emotions were ridiculous and disconcerting. The work was all that mattered, and everything else was just transport; thus, he ignored that odd hollow in chest. He was not bored, and he'd never felt so alive. There was finally an intricate puzzle worthy of his intellect. His mind was constantly humming with the pleasure of the task he'd set himself - taking down the spider's web.
But that hollow… Something hurt.
Leaping from country to country, street to street, the occasional hotel to hotel to refuel his body with a couple hours' sleep and perhaps a sandwich, maybe some tea… but why did drinking tea hurt-
Delete that.
… and eliminating the opposition one individual at a time was how Sherlock spent those three years. Sherlock knew that there was no way he'd ever catch out everyone by himself - it would be much more efficient to have a team of those idiotic police officers at hand since they had the resources and the numbers. They could do the bulk of the job whilst Sherlock was figuring out who, where, and when the next member of the extensive web was and would be in a certain location. But he couldn't do that - couldn't risk being recognized by anyone, friend or foe. If word got out that it was he, Sherlock Holmes, who was taking down Moriarty's network, chaos would ensue and all hope of finding anyone at a desirable rate would be lost as they all went underground. Instead of getting the police directly involved, he worked alone. Word evidently hadn't gotten around that Moriarty was dead, but there had been no reports going through the database Sherlock had hacked in to that suggested they suspected something was wrong. It seemed they had dismissed Sherlock as dead. Case closed.
Great advantage for Sherlock.
No one seemed to notice the higher ranking members were being taken out, for it seemed that each employee was contacted in confidentiality if and only if their services were required, or there was an update on a current objective. Never at any other time. Thus, to Sherlock's glee, everyone on the spider's side had been lulled into a false sense of security. Again, this was one advantage he wouldn't dare let go to waste.
Although he loved the little challenge of the puzzle, he couldn't help but feel a buzz during the chase. Once he found one, he would tie them up, gag them, place a note next to them and call up the local police leaving anonymous tips from public phones of the bastard's whereabouts. Any serious injuries that particular individual sustained during the scuffle and questioning for information were nothing but coincidental in Sherlock's eyes, and way less than they deserved.
Either way, they dropped off the radar as soon as the police had them in custody. There were never any trials, headlining court cases or anything of the sort. Of course, Sherlock knew this was the work of the British Government. Sherlock took great satisfaction in knowing the criminals would probably never see the light of day again. No doubt Mycroft would have used certain methods in order to glean information from each offender before they met their fate, but there was no success as far as Sherlock could see since he was the one doing most of the tracking. Mycroft did tend to be one step behind his younger brother on most occasions, although the smug bastard liked to pretend otherwise.
No one aside from Molly knew he was alive. Well it was certainly a possibility that Mycroft knew, but he'd been extra careful to cover his tracks, so chances were he did not. Having a coat and scarf like his certainly did have it's benefits back when he was alive - they were a great way to hide from CCTV cameras. When you were Sherlock Holmes, hiding from the British Government wasn't as tricky as you would think, as long as you kept on your toes. But in order for him to completely conceal himself from big brother, indeed anyone linked to the police, he had been forced to relinquish his signature clothes to Molly and don entirely different outfits - jeans, boots, baggy jumpers. He'd cut his hair, worn contacts and made other slight facial adjustments as well.
He'd been clever, probably cleverer than he'd ever been, when he had jumped off St Bart's rooftop that day. Molly had been perfect in helping him, but he was taking a huge risk in letting her in on his secret. This was Molly, after all - never quite able to control what comes out of her mouth. Then again, he had figured she would be the least likely person to be singled out in the first place. They had not exactly seemed like friends before he had 'died', so chances were no one suspected that she knew something about Sherlock. Even if she acted a bit off, they would probably put it down to regular Molly-like behaviour. This was assuming that someone smelt something fishy and was digging, of course. He had put on quite a show, even if he did say so himself, so that in itself was unlikely.
All in all, everything was quite wonderful in this new life of his. Except for that one small thing - that nagging, insistent hollow in his chest that made no sense. Once early in the second year, in a lull in the influx of leads and data, the pain had inflated to the point where he had found it downright irritating. So he had pulled out his *ahem* borrowed laptop and looked it up on the internet, but to his utter disgust it had only turned up results related to depression. Sherlock knew he did not have depression. The very idea was preposterous. Worse still, the usually enlightening resource had spat at him to eat ice-cream, chocolate and other such confectionery to ease his suffering. It was that or see a psychologist, which of course he would never do even if he could, because he knew quite well that the sites were wrong. Even if he didn't know what he had, he knew full well what he did not.
Feeling a bit put out that dismal night, he had realised that he had more than one puzzle to solve.
