A/N:
1) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!
2) ... I invented Alexandra, and I really really hate her here.
3) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)
4) Note, I'm not analyzing what's going through her creepy father's head in the original scene, and Alexandra is not her father. Her driving reasons differ from his even though the result is nasty no matter what.
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From being well informed of her father's plans, Alexandra knows about the consulting detective who had been on his scent. Based on the reports of those who have had him under observation she sees him as a most singular character, yet when the false twins come to her dragging the very same man unconscious between them, she still manages to be surprised at the nerve the detective had to break in to her father's factory in the first place.
Like her father would have, of course she had prepared well for such an eventuality. Perhaps unlike him, though she'll never know, she had not expected it to actually happen.
Did the detective really think that with so much manpower, he would have any chance at all of getting in and out undetected? Or was he under some kind of illusion that he would be afforded any mercy if caught? In either case, he has made a mistake he will pay for dearly.
She watches coolly as her father's subordinates – her subordinates now, actually – awaken the detective from the protective cocoon of unconsciousness, curious to see his reaction to her presence, wondering if perchance his impunity in breaking in was the effect of him being informed that she had stepped up to take her father's place and thinking her an easier adversary to defeat? If so, that alone was a grievous mistake on his part.
Having witnessed this kind of scenario often in the past – enough times that she has become accustomed to her father's techniques for extracting information from practically anyone – Alexandra knows that she should keep her back turned, that an air of casual indifference is an important component towards cultivating her victim's shock and horror later in this game, but curiosity wins over experience this once, and wanting to know if he had been informed of her succession or not, she watches as his eyes open and settle upon her.
If the detective is surprised at all, there is not trace of it on his features, but she can see that he is thinking, drawing conclusions from minute details as he is famous for, and knows that he is aware by this moment, even though he likely had not been before, of her identity and present rank in this secret empire.
The detective's tone is entirely formal, as if they are meeting at some social function, not as prisoner and captor:
"Miss Alexandra Moriarty, I presume. Only child of Professor Moriarty, and heir to his empire. You are aware of the manner in which it has been built."
Alexandra sees no reason to reply to the last statement when clearly the detective was not asking a question anyway, though a small part of her wants to ask if he has observed her lack of mourning for her father – if he understands why. Instead she only smiles icily and replies:
"Very good thus far, so let me spare you from making a truly…. unfortunate …. mistake by informing you that my father's demise changes nothing. I am fully prepared to act in his stead."
She cannot tell if the detective is being cynical or not when he says simply, calmly:
"How regrettable that you choose this of all that you could do with your talents."
At those words Alexandra turns away from him, quickly. Once… when she was young, naïve, weak…. she had wanted to believe that she could become something else, that she was capable of something other than following in her father's footsteps. But that time is long gone, and she knows now that denying her nature had been a foolish mistake…. a childish illusion that is well to be gone…. nothing more.
What she imagines the detective must have said in hopes of garnering some protection for himself, does nothing but fill her with icy rage, as she wonders if he would have said as much had she been the son her father had always wanted, or if perhaps she looked like a Moriarty rather than having inherited almost entirely her mother's appearance.
She watches him though her peripheral vision in the mirror's reflection, and asks the obvious question, not because she is particularly concerned about the answer, but because it is what her father would have done – it provides an excuse for breaking the detective:
"A telegram was sent from here. Who was it sent to?"
Unsurprisingly he does not answer, though that he has the nerve to speak on another matter … again manages to take her aback:
"My horror at your father's crimes is matched only by my admiration at the skill it took to achieve them."
Rather than replying, she repeats in the same icy tone, even knowing that she will get no answer, but finding that fact quite convenient for her purposes:
"Who was it sent to?"
The cold fury within her does not change anything, though she imagines it will make his suffering that much more satisfying, and the condemnation in the detective's tone as he accurately lays out her father's plans – her plans now – only serves to anger her further, mostly because for some inexplicable reason, it bothers her at some level:
"He used the anarchists and their bombs to create a crisis in Europe, pit nation against nation. Under various pseudonyms he bought, schemed or murdered his way into numerous industries assuring that none of it could be traced to him: cotton, opium, steel…. now arms and chemical weaponry, all to be shipped across Europe in less than a week, everything from bullets to bandages….. Now that you own the supply, you intend to create the demand: a world war."
Alexandra ignores the barely existent feeling of uneasiness, and says casually as she gives the arranged signal to the two soldiers in the room:
"You are familiar with Schubert's work…. A Trout is perhaps my favorite….."
It is not true in the least – Die Forelle had always been too bloody cheerful for her tastes – though the truth of her statement is irrelevant. She knows her father had chosen this particular piece for the occasion, and uses the metaphor exactly as he would have, aiming to break Holmes's will along with his body:
"A fisherman grows weary of trying to catch an elusive fish, so he muddies the water… confuses the fish. It does not realize until too late that it has swam into a trap."
In the reflection of the mirror she can see perfectly as the calm confidence that had filled the detective's expression are instantly replaced by the shattered visage of a man suddenly overwhelmed by shock, agony, and horror, as the hook's point is swiftly plunged into his shoulder.
For some reason the detective's (impressively well suppressed) cries of pain and sheer horror which he chokes off into strangled gasps and eventually just agonized harsh breaths….. do not bring her the satisfaction she knew her father would have felt – the satisfaction she expected to feel, instead they seem to settle in the pit of her stomach like an icy knot, while she cannot help but see a vague accusation lurking in the dark eyes that stare at her from her own reflection.
It has to be nerves.
Apparently though she has been witness to this type of occurrence many times before and was entirely immune to any emotional effect, being the one in charge this time is a different matter entirely, even if it is easy enough to remedy.
After all, she knows what her father's next step would be – Die Forelle - and accounting for the fact that based on the repeated gunfire, Moran had missed the doctor who was likely at the moment pinned down behind some form of cover, she decides that Holmes can be both the trout and the bait.
Alexandra sets up the gramophone, and activates the loudspeaker mounted outside the building, ensuring that the doctor is going to hear this, though it is strange that the detective has become oddly quiet as he slowly swings back and forth, clearly focused only on slowing his movement while keeping the least weight possible on the hook lodged in his right shoulder. She had expected that he would be broken by now, foolishly – hysterically – screaming and begging for mercy just like the others had, though his greater endurance is no matter, as it is only a matter of time until he is too weak to hold up even the smallest fraction of his weight, and the hook rips further into his flesh.
Her father would have sung along, putting his gleeful enjoyment on display for everyone to be aware of, most importantly his trout – but she remains silent, though like her father, she knows the lyrics and speaks fluent German.
Perhaps it is the German climate which has adversely affected her health - though she had been comfortable enough when arriving here – for in this moment she feels as if she is choking on the air itself, and knows that the purpose of the gleeful song with which she should accompany the event will be lost were her voice to falter.
She knows that Holmes's grip on the hook is slipping – probably to a large extent due to his own blood slicking the metal– when she hears him utter a barely audible gasp of pain. It sounds more like a sob than anything else she has ever heard.
That wordless quiet utterance carries within it an impressive amount of raw anguish – physical as well as mental and emotional - and a strange painful tightness seems to spread in her chest ….. until it is effaced by blinding white-hot rage and sheer unfathomable hatred.
What right does this accursed detective have to make her feel so unacceptably unsure?... So pathetically weak and pitifully…. human?
How dare he – the doomed trout skewered at the end of her fishing line – by his presence alone presume to make her feel like she is the one who is being broken?
Alexandra reaches for the pistol tucked into the small of her back, wanting nothing more than to put a round through his head, before dismissing the idea. It would be too quick, too painless…. and therefore unacceptable.
No, she will first break him utterly in every way, carve into his flesh his own inescapable doom and utter helplessness, and then kill him… slowly – and she will treasure every second of it.
She pulls at the detective with all her not-inconsiderable strength, savoring his anguished screams and the feeling of his body convulsing from the excruciating agony, and laughs as she hears Moran shooting more frequently, proving that outside these walls the detective's partner is writhing as he endures a mental torment of his own.
Smiling manically, she wrenches Holmes's right arm about, forcing the ligaments and muscles in his shoulder to scrape and rip against the unforgiving sharp iron…. forcing his entire body to pivot on the point of the hook ripping through his flesh as it twists within him and all his impressive control cannot stop him from throwing his head back as his body goes rigid from the unbearable pain and another full-throated agonized scream is ripped from him ….. and knows that she has broken him when he lets his destroyed arm fall limply to his side, no longer possessing the strength or the will to try to hold on with his other hand which now rests uselessly against his mouth, doing nothing to silence the sobs of sheer desperation and horror that well up from within his trembling form.
Alexandra gives the signal for one of her guards to let go of the rope, letting the shattered detective come crashing to the unforgiving cold stone floor, and stands above him, reveling in the fact that now he lays broken and helpless at her feet.
Holding the other end of the rope as a reminder of what lays in store for him should he not answer, she says in a tone that holds within it a clear promise of further torment:
"Let's try this again, shall we? To whom did you send the telegram?"
Perhaps she pushed too far and caused too much damage, because the broken man before her seems about to slip into unconsciousness, so she crouches over him, dragging him back into a world of pain that she controls by wrenching on the hook buried deep inside his shoulder while she holds down his left wrist with her other hand – for the sole purpose of emphasizing to him his utter helplessness against her, because she knows his right arm is too badly damaged to be moved, and he is too weak at this point to move his left in any case - and this time she gets the answer to her question.
This close she can fully appreciate her triumph over him…. see in perfect detail how his usually sharp gaze is dulled with exhaustion and overwhelming pain….. see how his hair that was dry just moments earlier is, like his skin, entirely soaked in sweat….. hear his ragged shallow breathing that seems in itself to be far too much effort for what is left of this shattered man, and feel every uncontrollable tremor of sheer agony that rips through him.
She smiles coldly, reveling in his utter destruction at her hands….. and yet is seems as if the contact with Holmes, though which she can feel every quiver of his trembling body, saps her strength, because suddenly she feels more weary than triumphant.
It is yet another reaction upon her own part which is unacceptable, though it becomes fractionally less so when she inwardly assures herself that this overwhelming feeling of weariness is a natural physical aftermath of far too much excitement…. and leaves it at that.
In either case, she finds herself pulling away just as her father would have - except it is not enough, because in some hidden corner of her treacherous mind she suspects that unlike him, at some level she is in retreat – and again she lashes out in spite and hate, asking a question she knows her father would have cherished, even though for entirely different reasons:
"I've just got one more question for you: Which of us is the fisherman and which the trout?"
Alexandra smiles coldly, she wants to hear the answer from his lips before she kills him. She wants to remind him that trout get gutted after they are hooked, and laugh as she slices him open.
She wants to watch the last vestiges of light and life in his eyes flicker out as he drowns in his own blood.
She wants that satisfaction to fill the bottomless void within her ….. but she never gets it because there is a deafening crash akin to the firing of a cannon – a bloody cannon of all things – and then she has no more time to think as she sees the tower falling and dives for cover.
When she comes to, she is alone, unsurprisingly. Moran did not come for her as he would have her father, but as she digs herself out through the rubble, pulling her hand away in shock as she feels sticky warm wetness on her fingertips and looks down only to find the bloody hook lying discarded in the ruins, she reflects that Moran's lack of interest in her personal well-being is for the best, because suddenly bile rises in her throat. She does not have the energy or desire to go further – and knows that Moran is the last person who should ever see her in such a state of pitiable weakness.
Furious once again, Alexandra stands and storms out of the collapsed building, mentally cursing that detective to bloody hell for making her so weak, and Moran for missing in the first place, thereby allowing a cannonball to steal her victory.
The latter she plans to have words with soon, and as for the former, in the unlikely scenario that he survives to see her another day….. this time she will be ready for him…. this time she will not let him find any chinks in her armor for she will close them forever before their next battle….. and if perchance he somehow manages to still make her …. uneasy, she will kill him.
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