"Nobody's going to come for you. Everyone thinks you just ran away on your own. Your father doesn't love you enough to come looking. He's too busy helping other little kids find their lost things. Nobody's coming for you, you nameless little pig," said a man that night to the little girl in an empty, windowless locked room. The man's words hurt more then anything else that could have been done to her. Nobody cared about her. Nobody knew what it felt like, to live here, like this, for seven years, somebody always telling you how low you were, how little you were worth. Not knowing your parents. What was worse though, was finding out what the world was supposed to be like, and then having it striped away. It was also realizing that what you had been told all your life was true. Her parents didn't care. She wasn't worth a penny. Nobody would go looking for her if she disappeared off the face of the earth. If she died, no one would notice. Her father never even gave her a name.
How very wrong the girl was.
When Sherlock got home after Watson bailed him out of jail, Sherlock did notice. And he did care.
"Calypso. John, where's the girl?" demanded Sherlock, turning to Watson.
"I don't know, probably at Ms. Hudson's flat?"
"She's not."
"What? How do you-"
"John, she's gone. She's been stolen. Moriarty… oh shit."
"Sherlock…"
"Just go. Go to work and don't worry about it."
"… alright," said John, and left the flat. Sherlock began to make tea, and sure enough, Moriarty comes. They take the tea and sit. Sherlock's mind is racing, and he's hardily paying attention to the conversation.
"Every fairy tale needs a good old fashioned villain. You need me, or you're nothing. Because we're just alike, you and I, except you're boring. You're on the side of the angels."
Sherlock's mind wouldn't shut up. Thoughts just keep spinning. He imagines Calypso as a pig and sees Moriarty blowing down her straw house. Calypso is so fragile. He stirs the tea. Tea sounds good. Tea sounds distracting. Conversation keeps going.
"Every person has their pressure point. Someone they want to protect from harm. Easy-peasy."
"So that's how you're gonna do it, burn me."
"Ah, that's the problem. The final problem. Have you worked out what it is yet? What's the final problem? I did tell you. But did you listen."
Sherlock looks at Moriarty's taping fingers.
"How hard do you find it? Saying I don't know."
"I don't know."
"Ah, that's clever, that's very clever. Speaking of clever, have you told your little friends yet?"
"Told them what."
"Why I broke into all those places and never took anything."
"Wrong."
"Oh, am I?"
"You took the girl. And you didn't take anything else because you don't need to. You'll never need to take anything ever again."
"Very good, go on."
"Because nothing, in the bank of England, the tower of London, or the Pentonville Prison could possibly match the value of the key that could get you into all three."
"I can open any door anywhere with a few tiny lines of computer code. No such thing as a private bank account now. No such thing as secrecy, I own secrecy. Nuclear codes? I could blow up NATO in alphabetical order. In a world of locked rooms, the man with the key is king. And honey… you should see me in a crown…"
"You were advertising at that trial, you were showing them what you could do."
"And you're helping. Big client list. Rogue government. Intelligence communities. Terror cells. They all want me. Suddenly, I'm Mr. Sex."
Sherlock's mind crosses Moriarty and Irene in bed. Sherlock's shoulders tense slightly. He distracts himself with the tea.
"You could break any bank. What do you care about the highest bidder?"
"I don't. I just like to watch them all competing. 'Daddy loves me best!' Aren't ordinary people adorable? Well you know. You've got John. I should get myself a live-in one. It'd be so funny."
Sherlock thinks of Calypso. Is she Moriarty's pet, locked away in a cage somewhere? Was Calypso waiting for him, her "father"? Or is she waiting for her father? Sherlock pushes Calypso to the gates of his mind palace. How'd she get past the palace walls, anyway?
"Why are you doing this? You don't want money or power, not really. What is it all for?"
"I want to solve the problem. Our problem. The final problem. It's going to start very soon Sherlock, the fall. But don't be scared. Falling's just like flying except there's a more permanent destination."
"Never liked riddles."
"Learn to, because I owe you a fall, Sherlock. I. O. U."
Moriarty leaves and Sherlock picks up the china teacups. On his way to the sink, he drops one, and it shatters. Sherlock inspects the teacup he's still holding. Why does something that looks very together break so easily? Why did Sherlock, whose responsibility was to keep the cup unchipped, let it shatter on the ground? Why didn't he do anything to stop it?