I do not own Sherlock or Rudyard Kipling's The Cat Who Walked By Himself.
This chapter is set during season 2 episode 3, the Reichenbach fall.
"You Repel Me." Sherlock spoke into the dictaphone before stalking out of the bathroom.
"Now that wasn't very nice." Sophia stated from where she leaned beside the entrance to the men's bathroom waiting for Sherlock to finish his conversation with the woman who had followed him into the bathroom at the trial. She decided it was pointless to pretend she hadn't been eavesdropping.
"It wasn't meant to be." He commented narrowing his eyes at her. "What is it you think I want from you?" He expected her to make some asinine comment asking why he thought that was her reason for coming here so he could explain his logic, but she gave him a little smile that he could have sworn held traces of approval with the humour and raised an eyebrow, glancing at the door pointedly as the reporter made her way out, waiting for her to leave before continuing.
"Have you worked out Moriarty's plan yet? Why he let himself be caught?" She asked quietly, clearly intending to avoid prying ears.
"Are you working with him?" He asked, his deep voice accusatory as the words rumbled out of him, before he considered. "No... when I met you before Mycroft treated you with dislike but also respect and he warned me against dealing with you because of the prices attached, not the potential for betrayal, so to a certain degree he must trust you, at least to keep up your end of a bargain. It is not easy to get even that little amount of trust from Mycroft, I doubt you'd be able to do so if you were the kind of person to help Moriarty in plotting against me. So I find myself forced to ask for a second time, what..."
"The trial's the whole point, he wants you to irritate the judge and the press, just like you did with that reporter and he's going to get a verdict of not-guilty, unless you want me to change that result?" She asked casually.
"I have more than enough evidence to assure a guilty verdict without your fixing it." He declared confidently.
"If the jury isn't tampered with." Her casual tone was infuriating.
"Is that a threat?" Sherlock practically growled, glaring at her.
"No. Now do you want my help or not?" She asked, stepping closer as she let her eyes slip to his lips and back suggestively. "Your call."
"And what would be your price for leaving the jury alone?"
"To leave them alone... nothing, but if you want them to come back with a Guilty verdict... 221C, just your agreement and recommendation, I can make arrangements with Mrs Hudson regarding the rent. What do you think John?" She asked tilting her heard to where John had been hovering nearby he had been about to tell Sherlock that they should head in before he saw who he was speaking with and had decided to listen in. Sherlock moved as suddenly and smoothly as a cobra strike his hand pinning her throat to the wall hard enough to bruise and John was glad the hallway had been abandoned aside from the three of them.
"Sherlock!" John half-shouted, moving forward in a burst.
"If you go near Baker Street, if you so much as lay eyes on Mrs Hudson, I will hunt you down, there will not be a place on Earth where you will be safe." Sherlock said, his voice cold and firm, certain, the deep tones authoritative, though she had noticed the flare of his nostrils and slight dilation of his pupils as he pressed her against the wall.
"Don't worry John, I don't mind a little... roughness." She teased lightly, though he could feel her pulse and she was not as calm as she pretended, she continued when his eyes narrowed warningly. "I won't enter Baker Street until you agree to it, but you will agree to it, sooner or later. I just thought I'd help cut Moriarty's plan off at the start, save us both a lot of trouble." Given his grip it was awkward to shrug but she did it anyway. "But since you aren't interested... yet... I'll leave you to your trial, do try and play nice with the judge Sherlock." After a few long moments John pulled at Sherlock and he allowed himself to be dragged away, as they paused at the doorway into the courtroom and John glanced back she blew him a kiss, only to make him blush and Sherlock turn to glare, she gave him a little wave.
"I never want to lay eyes on you again, I neither want nor need your help." Sherlock said firmly, though less confidently than he had been earlier, it was bugging him that she had said she wouldn't tamper with the jury and they would come back not-guilty, it implied that someone else would, after all they wouldn't do so of their own accord. Moriarty must have something planned, but then how could she know what it was and how to stop it before he could? It was possible he had two people of near comparable intellect to his own to worry about... but it seemed unlikely, after all, aside from his brother Mycroft, there had been very little sign of even a potential match to his skills in all his years, the chances of him running into two such concerns in such a short time was astronomically small, not that he truly considered either of them to be his equal, or Mycroft for that matter, but they did seem significantly closer than precedent might warrant expecting.
It was a few days later, after the trial had proceeded as she predicted and with Sherlock spending a night in jail for contempt of court, that the two children were kidnapped. When they found the children in the candy warehouse, it was with a large basket of food and warm blankets, looking tolerably comfortable considering the place they were being kept in and in no apparent danger... Which was puzzling in itself until Sherlock noticed the candy placed out of reach of the children, and the scattering of candy wrappers near them and noticed the taint to them. But why would Moriarty poison the candy then put almost all of them out of reach of the children?
The text he received as he was pondering the situation explained, but raised as many questions as it answered. Not least of which being how someone had managed to set up a text alert noise of a purring sound.
"I am impressed, you would probably have arrived in time to save them even if I hadn't dropped by... But unlike our mutual acquaintance there are some things I won't risk unnecessarily.
Don't you think our little game would be more fun with one less player? Just say the word. "
Sherlock scowled, how had she gotten here before him, it shouldn't have been possible without working with Moriarty, she didn't have any of the evidence... did she?
"John, you haven't blogged about this between getting the case and arriving here did you?"
"Uh... no... I've been with you."
"I thought so." His frown deepened, there had to be an explanation. Nobody was better at deduction than he was. He had taken the trace evidence of a footprint an found one warehouse in the whole of London, it was the kind of thing only he could have done, and yet she had not even had that much to draw upon for her search. There was the possibility that he had deduced wrongly at the courthouse, that she was in fact working with the consulting criminal... but that didn't seem right either, she had removed the danger but left the children, so she wasn't planning on taking the credit for their rescue and she didn't care for the children more than getting her way but she had still cared enough to do something. It was an odd combination, one that was interesting even as it frustrated him.
It reminded him slightly of how John always made him feel, he could read so much about his flatmate but yet John always found ways to surprise him, particularly that despite it all John stayed, that for all his unpredictability he was also so resolutely reliable. Sophia was unpredictable too, showing up unexpectedly, with knowledge she shouldn't have and sentiment but selfishness, so very different from John in that regard, he was so very selfless.
Of course the police believed Sherlock was behind it when the children started screaming, Donovan and Anderson had always wanted to believe the worst of him. It was actually quite touching that John would stand by him enough to wind up cuffed to his side, it was almost like a bold adventure as they ran down the street, side by side, diving in front of a bus... at least until Sophia pulled up in their path in a van and suggested he hop in, she followed it up by waving a set of lock picks at him temptingly and, quite unfairly, John added a pleading look after having almost been stuck on either side of a fence. Reluctantly Sherlock got in.
"How did you get to the children before us at the warehouse?"Sherlock demanded the moment the door closed as he worked on the handcuffs.
"Good Evening Sherlock, John, it's nice to see you again." She said pleasantly.
"I refuse to believe that you were able to deduce their location before I could and without access to the evidence." Sherlock continued as he finished with the cuffs fairly quickly and began to rub circulation back into his wrist.
"Uh, thanks for the lift, honestly, but you're probably going to have to tell him, he'll only be more irritable than usual until you do." John commented wearily.
"I have a puzzle for you John, a metaphor for how I found the children less than an hour after they were taken. I rather think it might be one thing you'd find easier than Sherlock... Say there is an intelligent man working on solving a complex equation from a text book, you have a copy of the same textbook, how do you ensure you get the answer before him?"
"That's easy, use a calculator." Sherlock commented grumpily, why did she think John would solve it before him? Her response was a smile which seemed to indicate she had expected the response and planned accordingly.
"Your mind works wonderfully fast doesn't it, like a calculator, you could certainly solve the problem faster than anyone else, so, John, how would I get the ANSWER first even if he is using a calculator to SOLVE the problem."
"Look in the back of the book?" John asked, surely it couldn't be that simple, but her laugh and nod, and Sherlock's scowl, indicated it might be... "But Moriarty isn't a text book, you can't just look up the answer."
"And it's cheating." Sherlock added, John shot him a glance that said 'like you wouldn't cheat', he was just being a sore loser.
"Perhaps, but if I played fair I'd lose and I generally prefer to win. So, where do you want me to drop you two off."
Sherlock trailed off the reporter's address, he had to get to the bottom of who was behind the accusatory article in the paper. Yet again Sherlock found himself wondering which side she was on, but then she seemed more interested in helping herself than anyone else, but the things she had already done which did help Sherlock made him doubt she was particularly fond of Moriarty... the woman was a puzzle.
It was a shock seeing Moriarty at the reporters, his fake life in a folder, but it was then that Sherlock realised how it all would end. Moriarty would stop until Sherlock was dead. No until Sherlock destroyed himself... so he planned to stage his death with Molly's help. Unfortunately she had mysteriously gone missing around the same time as John and he hadn't been able to find her, which was worrying. They had set everything up but she wasn't there, she could be anywhere, she must have been taken... His plan was in tatters and all it did was make him more determined as he stood there talking to Moriarty to make him call off his plans, to make him cancel the hit on Sherlock's friends, now that Moriarty had given away that there was a way to recall the killers...
"Nah, you're ordinary, you're ordinary, you're on the side of the angels." Moriarty spoke, the disappointment clear in his tone but underlaid with traces of fear, of the possibility Sherlock could do something, something to make him cave.
"Oh I may be on the side of the angels, but don't for one second think that I am one of them..."
"Everybody wants to be a cat." The phone played, causing a somewhat awkward moment similar to the one they had at the pool, it took Sherlock a moment to realise it was his phone... "Because a cat's the only cat..."
"May I?"
"Go ahead." The pair always seemed to have manners with each other despite the way they treated others and the hatred they bore for one another.
"Who is this?" Sherlock snapped as he answered.
"Ready to accept my help? By the way Molly's with me, when I realised you were bringing Moriarty to you there I thought it best to keep her safely out of his way. All you have to say is 'Yes' Sherlock and I'll take it from there." He recognised the voice, he wasn't sure whether her removal of Molly was for Molly's safety, to remove the option of faking his death or both it was hard to be certain. It was possible he could get Moriarty to call off the hit he almost wanted to do it to prove he could... but it was John, possible wasn't good enough, he would do anything to ensure John was safe.
"Yes."
"Tell Jim 'Deductive Phoenix'. See you soon." She hung up.
"Deductive Phoenix?"
"How?" Moriarty looked furious. "How could you know that?" He moved to raise his gun but he jerked suddenly, his eyes going wide, and though he pulled the trigger Sherlock had already grabbed the hand with the gun in and directed it to fire harmlessly away from them both, there was a second sudden jerk, Sherlock expected to see blood or something from Moriarty having been shot by a sniper, but there was none, and there in his back as he slumped forward into Sherlock's arms, two feathered darts... Sophia had tranquillised him.
It was a few days later, as John and Sherlock were arguing over something Sherlock had said to upset one of the relatives involved in a case, both secretly ridiculously pleased that they could just sit there arguing, that Moriarty was in one of Mycroft's special cells, that his false identity as Richard Brook had disappeared, when Mrs Hudson came up the stairs.
"Sherlock, there's a young woman here, she says she met you on one of your cases and you agreed to be her recommendation for moving into flat 221C..."
"If it's Sophia Thompson then yes, I suppose I did Mrs Hudson."
"I don't know why you don't tell me these things Sherlock. I might have been able to tidy the place up a little..." Mrs Hudson said, shaking her head as she went back downstairs and John and Sherlock exchanged glances, it was probably best not to tell Mrs Hudson how close she'd come to being assassinated but what, if anything, should they say about the woman who prevented it moving in downstairs...
