A/N: Hi! Just wanted to mention that italics indicate a flashback. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: See chapter one (I own nothing)

Chapter Two: A Warm Welcome

A little girl sat on a park bench, tears sliding slowly down her plump cheeks, her glasses too big it fit her face. Her hair was blond, pulled inexpertly but caringly into pigtails that were at different elevations on her head. She wore a pair of dark jeans and a flowery purple shirt, with a large jacket over it that came down to her knees. The sleeves reached far past her fingers and she had to pull them up in order to angrily wipe the tears from her face. They playground to the left of her was empty and the green field before her was filled with flowers. She despised the flowers—they were too happy.

A little boy watched her from across the field. He was a few years older, a lot taller, and curious about the girl in the large jacket. It was obvious, of course—she had just lost someone close to her, probably her mother, maybe a sister. His hair was brown and wild, his dark brown eyes sparkling with something other than hatred. He wanted to talk to her but he didn't know how. He never knew how to talk to people. So he just watched as the girl wiped angrily at her tears and spit in the direction of the flowers.

Finally, as the sun was setting, she got up to leave, wrapping the jacket around her small figure and running in the opposite direction, into the woods. The boy expected he would never see her again, and for some odd reason, the thought put a feeling of emptiness in his throat, in his chest.

He returned to the park the next day, despite the fact that he was missing a good deal of school, probably for nothing. But the girl returned as well, stumbling out from the forest in a different outfit, but the same large jacket. Fresh tears fell as she sat on the same bench. She wiped them away, spit at the flowers, and then sat and watched, as did he. Then, right before sunset, she left.

The boy, against his better judgment, returned to the park the next day, but the girl didn't come. He waited at his same spot across the field and behind the tree, watching that same bench with the eyes of a hawk. He found himself… upset, but why?

He came again the next day and was relieved when he saw the girl again, stomping out from the foliage and sitting her self down aggressively on the bench. The boy took a deep breath. He was going to talk to her. He had to talk to her.

He waited until she was done crying, until she had wiped away the tears, until she had spit at the flowers. Then he started across the field. It seemed as if the girl didn't notice him. She just stared ahead into the sky.

He sat down next to the girl on the wooden bench, but before the he could introduce himself, the girl spoke.

"I was wondering when you were going to come out." Her voice was smooth, aristocratic, and yet dull. Almost uncaring.

"You saw me, huh?" The boy asked, hearing his Irish accent clash against her Danish lilt.

"Of course," she replied, unconcerned about the stranger who had been stalking her. She continued as if she were talking about the weather: "At first I was suspicious, but you didn't look very frightening and I wasn't going to let you get in the way of my sitting, so I ignored you."

She spoke very knowingly and matter-of-factly for only being seven or eight. "Hm, not very frightening? Some would disagree with that statement…" His countenance held a certain darkness with that statement. "What's your name?"

She gave him a calculating look, again stunning him with her coldness and obvious intelligence. She shrugged. "Margaret," she told him.

"My name is James—but you can call me Jim," he grinned.

Sherlock blinked at the girl standing in the doorway. She seemed to analyze him, gauging for his reaction. Finally, Sherlock recovered. "No…no, of course not—Jim Moriarty is dead. You've been reading too many online blogs. I saw him shoot himself in the head."

"Online blogs? People actually write online blogs? …Well, I suppose it's not a surprise. John Watson has his own blog…" She shook her head as if to clear it. "No! You said that Jim Moriarty shot himself in the head, but he didn't—well, technically he did, but let me explain. According to John's retelling on his blog, recounted by yourself, Jim Moriarty shot himself through the mouth, meaning the path of the bullet, assuming it was ever fired from the gun, would have been concealed.

"If he had shot himself in the head, Mr. Holmes, you would have seen the bullet and it's impact. But you didn't, because it went through the back of his head whilst you were looking at his face. You may have seen blood on the ground, but that's easy to fake. And obviously you didn't check to make sure he was dead. You were too focused on choosing the method of faking your death.

"So, Mr. Holmes, Jim Moriarty is not dead. And judging from the recounts of your adventures, he wouldn't have been so careless."

Sherlock blinked at her rapid explanation. But no—Jim Moriarty couldn't be alive. He had overdosed and put himself in the case of Emelia Ricoletti just to prove it. If Moriarty were alive, he would have been present at the final game he had planned with Eurus—unless he knew Sherlock would win. Unless he had something bigger up his sleeve, when Sherlock was at his least suspecting.

"Explain. Now," he demanded, intrigued by this woman's claim. But at that moment, John Watson walked back into the room, rubbing the side of his face—he had decided to shave, as well as brush his teeth.

"Sherlock, I'm going out to get new sweet potatoes—and a new blender—could you look after Rosie? I'll be back in—Oh, hello! Um, is this a client, Sherlock?" The woman was still standing in the doorway with her mouth open, ready to explain her theory. But she closed it and rerouted.

"In a way," she said. "I'm Morgan. Morgan Adrasteia."

"John, I do believe the blender can wait," Sherlock began. "And I do believe that you will be immensely interested in what Ms… Adrasteia has to say."

The good doctor looked at the clock. "Yeah, I suppose I have time. Rosie's asleep, anyway," he said, moving towards his chair. He picked up the sleeping child into his arms and cradled her before punching the union jack pillow lightly and sitting. Sherlock stood, dragged the wooden chair from the desk and positioned it between the two famous armchairs. "Have a seat, Ms. Adrasteia."

She set her brown bag beside her and sat, dragging her hands down her thighs to rest on her knees. Her hair was a little past her shoulders and a dark shade of brown, almost black—Sherlock believed it was died, judging from the small hints of color on the skin at the side of her head. Her eyes were brown, but she wore contacts. She was shortsighted, Sherlock had deduced, by the way she instinctively leaned in closer to the objects she was trying to see. There were large animal furs on her jeans—dog furs, and white; balance of probability suggested a yellow lab.

Her bag contained three novels, The Sword of Shannara, The Grapes of Wrath, and Outlander, suggesting she was a book lover—she read recreationally, not for class, considering her age. The fact that she had three books with her suggested travel, and judging by the change of clothes in her bag, it would suggest a formal meeting.

The type of clothes suggested a meeting with a man, not a woman, as the kind of dress would give off a vibe of competition to a female. Thinking that through again, if this was a formal meeting with a man, that kind of dress could suggest some type of relationship—most likely sexual, as people often don't go for meaningful relationships with bosses.

In the bag was also a notebook containing musical staffs—she was a composer. Judging by the clef, he would say she was composing for violin. The callouses on her left fingers backed up that deduction.

The type of mud on her shoes indicated east London. The heaviness of her breathing after she ran through the door of 221B signified that she was not athletic. And she was a nail picker, which indicated anxiety.

Sherlock reinforced his previous deductions as Morgan took a breath. "Jim Moriarty is alive, and I can prove it," she said. Sherlock noticed John balking from his chair, but he ignored him.

"I got all of my information from your blog, Dr. Watson, and, as I have already explained to Sherlock, he could not have seen Moriarty shoot himself in the head. From Sherlock's angle, there was no way to tell the bullet was actually fired, except for the sound. But that could have been fabricated in any number of ways. Moriarty even himself admitted that there were snipers standing by to be sure Sherlock jumped from that roof."

Margaret paused, dragging a hand through her hair. Her hands shook slightly as she did. She was probably on a caffeine high, having just arrived back in London from traveling. She drank tea, judging from the absence of the brown stain coffee often left on the lower lip.

"The blood could easily have been faked," she continued. "—A bag that would be punctured as soon as Moriarty fell to the ground. And, of course, Sherlock never looked to make sure Moriarty had actually shot himself. At that point, Sherlock needed only to concentrate on faking his own death."

"Yes, but this is all speculation." Sherlock countered, shaking his head, dark curls bouncing as he did so. "I've thought through it before. It's possible, but balance of probably suggests he did actually die on that rooftop. Eurus was the cause of the messages broadcasted across London, not Jim Moriarty."

"Well no, of course not. Eurus was his pawn, I think. It was a performance he could watch as he planned his next move. And his next move is coming." Her ominous tone sent a chill down John's spine.

"You said you could prove it," Sherlock said tersely. "Do you have actual, physical evidence that Jim Moriarty is alive?" The irritation seeping through his voice was more than evident.

"Well, I suppose I should have opened with that, but yes, I do." She was somewhat scatterbrained, then. Interesting.

Sherlock blinked, gritting his teeth as he demanded to see it.

Morgan pulled out an envelope from behind the books and sheet music. "Well… it took me a while—a few weeks—but I figured that he would definitely be planning something here, in London. So, I searched through any records I could find—traffic cams, security cameras, twitter photos. Eventually, I found him out in east London, getting into a car."

She opened the envelope, pulling out a small stack of photos. And there was Jim Moriarty in a navy blue suit, wearing sunglasses and earphones, climbing into a black car with heavily tinted windows. Morgan flipped through the photos, revealing the car's license plate number, the street name, and the building he had exited from—a residential apartment.

"I tried tracking down the car to see where it went," Morgan continued. "But it was almost as if it had disappeared off the map in-between these two streets." She pulled out another photo showing the two streets. "I suspected a blind spot, but I checked all of the alleys and found nothing. The car never resurfaced."

Now she had Sherlock's attention—he had gone from thinking her a fan with too much time on her hands to an interesting puzzle piece in a new and frightening game. A game that Sherlock couldn't lose.

John put his head in his hand, closing his eyes for a moment. "We're sure it's him? Absolutely sure? I mean he blew his own brains out!" He looked around, but Sherlock didn't seem convinced. "It could just be another one of his games from the grave…"

"I don't think so," Sherlock denied, his eyes glazed over, obviously deep in thought. "I would recognize a fabricated photo. This could have been taken a while ago and put on the traffic cam now, but he wouldn't have accounted for some random girl snooping through traffic cams. His appearance would have to be a direct reveal to me." Sherlock was mostly talking to himself as he held his hands up in the prayer pose under his chin.

John nodded, taking a deep breath. "So he's alive then." He leaned back in his chair, cradling Rosie closer to his body.

"It would appear so."

There was silence, the traffic outside the only indication of living beings in the vicinity. Sherlock's eyes were darting around wildly, obviously searching for something deep in his mind. Morgan shifted in her seat, watching him think, unconsciously picking at her fingernails. John worried about Rosie—he would have to bring her over to Molly's while he and Sherlock investigated. He was frightened. The last thing he wanted was to get his infant daughter involved in a case with such high stakes.

Finally, Sherlock took a breath. "I'll phone Lestrade—get him on the lookout for this plate number if the car is even still in use. John, you and I are going to this street corner and that house. Ms. Adrasteia, thank you for your help. You've been quite… helpful. The doors over there," Sherlock said, his eyes not fully on the present world. He gestured to the door without looking, hand flopping carelessly. John shot him a look, about to open his mouth and apologize for Sherlock before Morgan spoke up.

"What? I'm not leaving Mr. Holmes," she said, determination showing in her features. "I may not be a client, but I gave you this information. I'm not asking for anything in return accept that you allow me to come along."

Sherlock's brow furrowed. "What would you want with the world's only consulting criminal?"

She shrugged. "I suppose I'm just curious. Sometimes composing can be a little draining, and I need some… adventure. This little case has peaked my interest. I'm not just going to give it up after turning it over to the professionals." She lifted her chin, unwavering in her stance.

Obviously, her compliment worked, as Sherlock didn't protest, just gave a nod of his head and went back to staring into whatever memories he was digging up in his head.

And so, the game was on.

A/N: Okay, so that's it for this chapter! Sorry it's a little slow now, but it's going to pick up soon and get into some present day scenes with Moriarty ;)

I hope you enjoyed! Please leave a review!