A/N:
1) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!
2) She's arguably even worse here...
3) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)
...
...
...
When her father's invitation to the peace-summit at Reichenbach had been passed on to her, Alexandra had been prepared to deliver the same platitudes about the necessity of peace that her father would have – the ultimate irony considering his actual involvement with these affairs, and an excellent cover – but within the first words exchanged with the Prime Minister who leads her into the ballroom, she realizes that neither he nor anyone else present is interested in what she has to say.
She's simply arm-candy, like all the other women here… or at least eye-candy, since she rejects all the offers made to her by several of those present to dance.
Ignominious as it is that she had to dress as an ornament to attend in this highly useless and elaborate full ball-gown appropriate to her class, and enough jewels to sink a small freighter – though at least her gowns are custom tailored to allow her for an unimpaired range of movement while serving well to hide two machine pistols and a pair of knives, two measly positives that do little to quell her dissatisfaction – even worse is the number of people that blithely approach her as if she is indeed a harmless…. powerless… decoration, just because of her gender.
It is something she should be accustomed to by now, but despite that, the idea grates, and for that reason, when one of the attendants approaches her to give her a note – which turns out to be from none other than Holmes, who apparently somehow managed to survive, and awaits her on the balcony – she finds the fact oddly relieving.
He might be the largest thorn in her side ever, but at least, he recognizes her intellect.
Stepping outside into the bitterly cold night air, she sees the detective making use of his time out of the public eye to tend to his wound – which by all rights should have killed him, or at least incapacitated him – and somewhat annoyed by how functional he appears despite that, she asks a question only he will understand the true import of:
"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?"
If she has managed to unnerve the detective at all, he does not let it show, and instead replies calmly:
"Never better…. Would you bring that clock."
She almost laughs at his response – at the honesty in it, despite how much subtext is being exchanged. She doubts there is a good time to meet with her, especially now…. and still the detective presses on, challenging her to finish the game her father had once challenged him to.
Picking up the nearby chess clock, she sets it down by the side of the board he'd already set up:
"Hm. We get to play that game after all."
Then she looks at the detective, filled with a cruel satisfaction at the realization that under-dressed as he is for any prolonged stay outdoors, and weakened from blood loss, he's probably freezing.
Ah, of course, you're too weak to lift a fur, much less put it over your shoulders.
She could ignore that fact…. or she could toy with him further… torment him psychologically with the reminder of how weak he is and the fact that she knows it, just as she'd relished tormenting him physically.
The latter sounds like the far better option, and as the detective sits, she picks up a black fur from the back of a nearby chair, draping it over his shoulders, as she adds an entirely hypocritical – and entirely proper, considering that she's a lady - tone:
"Here we are. Don't want you to catch a cold."
She pats his shoulders as she drapes the fur over him – a contact that to anyone else would seem friendly, but she knows that to him, her contact can only be another psychological assault, and lets her hands rest firmly on him, her left on his left shoulder, her right on his upper arm… where just an inch higher and she could have him writhing in agony, though for now the threat … the reminder… the fact that instinctually he'd tensed in response to the threat…. is in some ways far more gratifying.
Just for spite, she flings a fur over her own shoulders with a flourish, far more forcefully than is in reality needed before sitting, though again, she is denied the pleasure of seeing any reaction at all from the detective, who unflappably asks:
"A five-minute game?"
Another reminder of the fact that he's on the verge of physical collapse, for all that he hides it well, this time doled out with a vindictive smile:
"If you think you can manage it"
Holmes only smiles – equally falsely – in reply, though his expression isn't vindictive, and she feels more annoyed than ever, opting to make her first move – with white ironically – rather than try to verbally antagonize him further, though she does make sure to advance her pawn with her left hand (despite being right-handed) and start his clock with her right, just to drive home his own comparative disability.
As the chess game progresses, Holmes tells her about his own moves in the Great Game that her family and he have been playing all along. He tells her about his own Bishop – who he apparently trusts, more than she's ever trusted anyone she works with – and expounds on his reasoning as to how he'd find the cleverly-concealed assassin.
Brilliant…. but of course I already knew that.
She doesn't bother verbally answering his question about the ambassador, he knows Moriartys well enough that it's not really much of a question in any case, and if he had any doubts, the action of slamming down the clock as she starts his timer and offering to recommend his next move will crush them.
She also does not bother telling him about her bishop – Moran – and his function there. Better keep that as a surprise.
Mere seconds later, she hears the gypsy-turned-assassin hollering in rage at being stopped from carrying out his assignment, and the detective's wry comment:
"That doesn't bode well, does it."
She's angry, of course, infuriated in fact that the doctor succeeded in what he'd been left to do, especially when she had not believed it possible. Apparently the detective taught him well. But she'd be damned before letting the detective enjoy even this small victory, and she suppresses the anger, replying coldly:
"Seems your Bishop was of some benefit, after all."
This game is far from over, Holmes says as much, but she cannot resist the satisfaction of dropping a useless hint regarding the next phase she has coming into play, because Rene's usefulness to her is over, and he's not going to live long enough to be of use to anyone else:
"Actually it's in its adolescence."
What has she to fear? Moran will tie up the loose end, one way or another, and at worst, Holmes has only slowed her plans down.
Alexandra hears the gypsy woman wailing for her brother – who was also the only real evidence the detective had against her, and now is forever silenced – and intones with no small amount of icy satisfaction:
"I think you've just lost your most valuable piece."
The detective's gaze doesn't falter, does not show any uncertainty or disappointment, even if it is slightly accusing, and instead of dwelling on that loss, he replies, just as calmly:
"A winning strategy sometimes necessitates sacrifice. War has been averted."
Oh, yes…. she thinks. I'll enjoy this.
She gives him an icy predatory grin, reveling in the opportunity she has to make him watch his so costly victory turn to ash:
"Hmm. Well, I disagree."
"How so?"
This time his tone and expression is challenging. He wants her to explain, and she rises to the occasion, knowing that the detective will not like the answer:
"Didn't you find it strange…. that the telegram you sent didn't inspire any action to stop me?"
The detective doesn't reply, but some of the certainty and fire in his eyes flickers out, and enjoying watching him react far too much to stop, she continues:
"You see, hidden within the unconscious is an insatiable desire for conflict."
How does it feel knowing that all you have done…. all you have suffered is for nothing?
For the first time this evening, she sees the pain and weariness that the detective has to be feeling show on his features. She knew he was still bleeding – had seen the blood on the handkerchief he'd used to absorb what had soaked through shirt, sash, and waistcoat…. but now is the first time the battering he's taken truly shows, because now he's bleeding emotionally too.
"So you're not fighting me, so much as you are the human condition. All I want to do is own the bullets and the bandages….War on an industrial scale is inevitable, they'll do it themselves within a few years. All I have to do…. is wait."
How does it feel knowing that you'll have to watch everything you fought so hard to accomplish burn? How does it feel knowing that you cannot win this battle?
The last expression she sees in the detective's eyes is a hopeless desolation, before he drops his gaze and sighs, silently but deeply enough that she can see it.
At some level she had hoped that he'd disagree with her, that he'd insist that humanity was not truly so hopeless a case. She'd hoped to call him a fool. But for all his subtle and yet deeply-felt reactions, disbelief was never among them, and some tiny part of her wonders…. if he knew, why did he even bother?
In any case, he'd paid dearly for his pointless meddling, and looking at him now, she can see that the cold reality she's driven into him hurts in ways that few other things can…. because now he looks tired and defeated and utterly broken….. and though this time she doesn't feel sick or even uneasy, the sight is by far not as satisfying as it should be – as it would have been to her father.
Determined to drive the knife deeper, to torment him with the futility of his position, she continues:
"I like Switzerland, they respect a person's privacy here…. particularly if she has a fortune."
How does it feel knowing that you can't stop me? That investigating me will be nearly impossible, and that no-one will ever believe you?
With a final predatory grin and a wink, she rises and turns to leave, dismissing the detective's next move haphazardly as she tells him in a tone that allows for no challenge that the game is over …. because he has lost, and she wants him to know how insignificant he's become, finishing with another final barb with which to remind him of the futile price he's paid along the way:
"You should get that shoulder looked at."
If she is to be entirely honest with herself, the detective still makes her subtly…. uneasy, in ways that no-one else ever has. But this time, she has it firmly under control, and there's no reason to kill him – not now…. not yet.
Far better to let him live to see the world burn, and far more interesting for her to know that he's there for another game, should he make the mistake of investigating her again.
Having an actual intellectual rival certainly does make her life far less dull, and seeing him defeated that much sweeter.
Shock is what stops her in her tracks as the detective speaks once more, no longer sounding tired and defeated:
"About that fortune of yours…. I believe it's just been substantially reduced."
Apparently, the detective's arsenal isn't empty yet, and the emphasis he placed on 'substantially' makes her more than a little uneasy. But she's going to have to play this game to find out what he's implying, and suppresses the annoyance, replying:
"King to Rook 2"
"I attended several of your father's lectures. It was in Oslo that I first caught a glimpse of his little note-book. Red leather-bound from Smythson of Bond street. Rook to King's Rook 3. Check."
The uneasiness grows, in part because her father hadn't ever recognized Holmes among his students, and more importantly, the idea of him knowing anything about that book is not something she's comfortable with.
She runs her hand down the concealed pocket in the bodice of her dress, and feels the notebook still there…. so what is he getting at? She turns to face him, hiding the uneasiness behind confidence:
"Bishop to Rook 3."
"Its importance was not fully apparent to me until I observed his penchant for feeding pigeons. Then it occurred that with an empire so enormous, even he must have kept a record of it somewhere. Bishop takes Bishop."
It's true, her father had loved to see the masses groveling at his feet, and she can see how the detective might have reached the conclusion he did, but still, she's missing something vital here. Walking back towards the detective, she announces her own next move:
"Rook to Bishop 4."
"I then only required the notebook itself. He didn't make it easy….. I would need to endure a considerable amount of pain."
Subconsciously perhaps, he moves his wounded arm, clutching at the lapel of his jacket, and from that action alone, as well of the subtle but unmistakable flash of physical pain on his features, she knows that he's referring to Heilbronn…. remembering it.
It was the only time he'd been anywhere near her, or the notebook, but he'd never had a chance to even look at it….. or do anything else but suffer.
Leaving that issue behind momentarily, he forges on, walking around the table as he approaches her, eyes alight once more:
"But the notebook would undoubtedly be encoded, so how then to break the code? Rook takes Rook."
Feeling anger slowly overcome the confusion, as the impossible starts to seem far less so, she fires back:
"Pawn takes Rook."
The detective replies with the next move in only one of the games they have been playing – the less deadly- and the fact that he seems to be enjoying this, infuriates her even more: "Bishop to Bishop seven."
"Queen takes Knight-pawn."
This time the detective's reply concerns the other game:
"Does the 'Art of Domestic Horticulture' mean anything to you?"
Oh, bloody hell. Schiesse!
Clearly on a roll, the detective continues: "How could a man as meticulous as your father own such a book and yet completely neglect the flowers in his own window box? Irony abounds."
With him having known about the decryption key in the book, and judging from the satisfaction in his expression as he finishes, the possibility that the notebook she is carrying is not what she thinks it is…. has become far too great for comfort, and she fishes it out of where she has it concealed, pausing as she opens the back cover when she hears the detective interject:
"Never mind. It's safe, in London, where my colleagues are making good use of it…..
The most formidable criminal minds in Europe have just had all their money stolen by perhaps the most inept inspector in the history of Scotland Yard."
Growing further infuriated with the passing of each second – it's not like she can do anything about that theft since none of it was ever in her father's name anyway – she looks back at the notebook in her hands, flipping backwards through pages that are definitely not what she had expected…. not what they were when she'd received the notebook, and it is the sketch of a smiling trout, complete with a pipe, on that first page that is the last straw as her rage boils over.
BE CAREFUL
WHAT YOU
FISH FOR.
That's it. She's going to kill him…. slowly, painfully, and she's going to treasure every second of it.
Like a predator, internally baying for his blood, she circles the detective who now is looking out over the falls and readying his pipe, even as he continues archly:
"He'll be making an anonymous donation to the Widows and Orphans of War Fund. Bishop to Bishop 8. Discovered check."
Turning on his heel to face her, the detective finishes with calm triumph, taking his pipe in his mouth:
"… and incidentally, mate."
Holmes's expression shifts subtly, from triumphant to tense…. aware of his own physical vulnerability as visibly pain rips though him once more from the slight movement of retrieving with his right hand his lighter, which he then holds up to her, asking:
"I seem to have injured my shoulder. Would you mind?"
To anyone else, it would seem that he is indeed asking her assistance, but she is aware of the subtext in his words, in his stance which is well within range for her to attack, and in his gaze which is entirely alert… and yet also holds an element of uncertainty in it, because he knows he's likely not in a state where he can survive.
He knows that she will retaliate for this, whether because her father would have or because he can see it in her barely hidden consuming rage….. and he's practically inviting her to do so.
For a fraction of a second she wonders if he will underestimate her – being a woman after all, and one of no great stature – before dismissing the idea entirely. Surely he must have heard about the incident of a few years back where her three would-be rapists wound up dead and she'd gotten away with just a torn dress and no weapons as she hadn't been carrying any to start…. and even if he hadn't, the wariness in his gaze tells her only too clearly that he knows she's dangerous. Good.
She replies with an icy smile that promises he will endure hell: "Be my pleasure."
…. and still, it's not enough. He's already wounded, and weak from bleeding. She'll kill him in the most painful way possible….. but it still is not enough for her – because she's never hated anyone as she hates this detective….. because she wants to destroy him, in every way….. because she wants him to know true anguish, in ways that physically torturing him alone fails to achieve.
"Once we've concluded out business here, it's important you know. I shall endeavor to find the most creative of endings for the doctor…. and his wife."
This…. this is a promise she'll keep. Her only regret is that it isn't feasible to make him watch, but that inadequacy is assuaged by the consuming loss and desperation she sees flicker in his gaze, for all that he forces it back, fighting not to let it show… not to let it consume him as he takes a pull though his pipe, helping the tobacco to burn…. and he clears his mind, forcing the pain and fear to the background as he anticipates their fight.
Like a chess grandmaster, the detective is planning his moves dozens of steps ahead… seeing the endgame in his mind before it happens. That is what he has to be doing. It shows in the calculating nature of the way he's looking at her…. it makes sense given what she knows of him. Too bad for him though that she can do the same…. and that this once that skill will give him no advantage at all.
The simulation she runs, mentally, ends with her holding him by a now completely destroyed right arm, pinned on the ledge over the deadly drop, which she only needs to wrench upwards to make his desperate blows fall short, or attack mercilessly yet again to torment him, before finally, when she's had enough - and before he can bleed out, robbing her of the chance to make him taste true helplessness - she throws him to a horrifying certain death at the bottom of the raging waterfall.
Let's not waste any more of one another's time. We both know how this ends.
She chuckles venomously in anticipation of her victory… of making him bleed anew, and utterly breaking him physically before she kills him. There is one outcome to this fight, only one, with him wounded and weakened, with almost no use of his dominant arm, and a painful vulnerability she'll relish exploiting.
Holmes knows it too. She sees it in the smile he returns to her which does not reach his eyes, and hears it as he chuckles at the futility of his own position. After all, they say Death smiles at those whose life he's about to reap. What can the detective do but smile back?... And even then, it does not hide the repressed pain and desperation in his gaze, not for his own demise, she suspects, but for what he knows he will be powerless to prevent.
Alexandra barely registers the sudden change in the detective's expression, the fiercely burning creativity that drives back the repressed pain, before she's momentarily blinded by the embers which are blown into her eyes, and paralyzed by shock just long enough for Holmes to throw his arms around her, interlocking his fingers behind her back with far more strength than she'd deemed possible given his injury.
She presses her right upper arm against the side of his neck, even as she twists to look at him, to try and understand what he's doing, and in the course of struggling to break his hold, into which he is clearly putting every last bit of strength he has, she dimly registers him pivoting and raising his left leg, bracing it against something high off the ground - likely the table – throwing both of them out of balance.
This should be easy to figure out… easy to plan her way out of, but the confusion is overpowering, and something…. refuses to connect within her mind.
Rekindled satisfaction replaces confusion when she hears the door open – because the new arrival can only be the doctor, and she is certain - now that Holmes has some chance of surviving this confrontation - whatever he'd been attempting has become entirely irrelevant.
"Right on time, doctor." she thinks, grinning in a predatory fashion as she anticipates a new outcome to this fight, one where Watson is her primary target.
The good army doctor is fit, but no match for her, and driven by his need to protect his wounded friend – a need she can play on by purposefully attacking the detective at his greatest physical weakness – he will not know when to cut his losses and retreat.
Now….. now she will not kill Holmes, not until she has made him watch Watson die, and though this plan carries a slightly higher risk to her, the satisfaction is well worth it, for even if the detective can somehow manage to defeat her once he has already lost in the most significant way, even if he manages to injure or even kill her – which is doubtful considering his already existent injury – the pain she can inflict upon him is worth the risks.
She wonders – will he attack with renewed fury and in so doing make himself only easier to defeat? Will he manage to hold tight the reins and keep his peerless mind unfettered by the consuming loss? Or will he be so devastated that he'll loose all will to fight because alone as he is, his friend is all he ever had in this hapless world.
It will be tremendously satisfying to watch him shatter, to study his reactions to this kind of agony, perhaps even more so than it had been to feel him screaming beneath her hands at Heilbronn…and she knows she will relish toying with his broken spirit as she destroys him physically, all the while reminding him that Watson died because of him.
There is something beautiful in the detective's fierce grief, something exotic by virtue of how inexplicable and foreign it is to her, and she craves the idea of seeing him devoured by the intensity of that agony, both emotional and physical.
Alexandra feels the detective go deathly still for a fraction of a second – weighing his choices perhaps, though there is only one logical choice anyway. She sees the physical pain and overpowering determination in his gaze give way to something that is entirely raw…. and oddly peaceful – and then everything she had been planning shatters into chaos, because this… this is not what she'd expected.
Instead of launching the attack she expects, Holmes tightens his hold on her and thrusts with his foot, toppling them both over the edge of the balcony.
...
...
...