A/N This one is an old floating prompt, because I managed to muck up distribution of prompts on 4th Dec somehow and ended up not having one!

From Domina Temporis - A crossover with the book of your choice.

The morning after the capture of Colonel Sebastian Moran, I awoke in my old bedroom to the sound of Mycroft Holmes's shouting.

"Honestly Sherlock of all the idiotic things-"

Sherlock Holmes's voice cut across, quieter so I could not distinguish it. I marvelled; I had once thought never to hear that voice again, muffled or otherwise.

"Do not tell me to be quiet Sherlock, the danger you have put yourself in all for the sake-!"

I forced myself to full wakefulness and threw on my dressing gown. Evidently something of import was taking place and I had no wish to miss it.

"What on earth is going on?" The Holmes brothers both turned to where I stood in the living room doorway. Holmes's expression was strained and apologetic. Mycroft was beetroot red in the face with anger. "What are you arguing about?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Holmes replied with a sour look at Mycroft. "I was awakened by my brother pounding at the door to our lodgings with no mind to the sleeping occupants within and all at once he began to yell at me!"

Mycroft dropped into an armchair (Holmes's) and pulled a handkerchief from his front pocket to dab at his perspiring forehead. "Doctor Watson I am sorry to wake you like this, but what my brother fails to understand is that his consequences have actions..."

"Moriarty is gone and Moran was the last of his cohort to be arrested," Holmes said dismissively. "I fail to see any issue in my returning to London."

"He isn't gone."

Holmes's entire frame went rigid. "Excuse me?"

"He isn't dead, Sherlock."

"That's impossible," I interjected. "He fell at Reichenbach. There is no way he can have survived!"

But Holmes did... a voice in the back of my head reminded me. I pushed the thought violently away.

"I saw him fall." Holmes's voice was hollow. "Do you mean to say he survived the drop? It isn't possible Mycroft."

"Not for an ordinary man," Mycroft said delicately. "But you see, the man you confronted at Reichenbach wasn't ordinary. And he wasn't Professor James Moriarty."

"Well then who was it?" Holmes snapped.

"James Moriarty - the real James Moriarty - has not been seen in public for several years now," Mycroft said. "Because a man named Dorian Gray has assumed his place."

"So the man who died at Reichenbach that was Dorian Gray?"

Mycroft shook his head. "It was Dorian Gray who went over the falls, but he didn't die. He can't die - not unless a painting, which I believe to be in Moriarty's possession, is destroyed."

From the look Holmes gave me, I could see he thought his brother had gone mad. I cleared my throat,

"Now when you say he 'can't die'..."

A/N If anyone is inclined to continue this please go ahead!