A/N: Oops, here comes the Reichenbach angst; oops, oops.

09. Happenstances and Inconveniences

At some point, I knew the chain of events in my life or during a particular case would become overwhelming even for me, happening too much too quickly, and I would be cornered and confused like a rat in an endless labyrinth.

I knew this because Moriarty is me, and I am Moriarty, but Moriarty is what I chose not to be, and I am what Moriarty chose not to be, but we are otherwise perfect compliments of the other, and we work in the same ways, but even he can outwit me by being not clever enough, and it's rather inconvenient.

Because the binary code to open anything was a lie and was acted out simply with paid people with the right occupations, and I was so, so stupid to fall for his bluffs and mind games and the way things fell into place against me, framing me, making me the monster and not him, when I see, now, that I am not an angel, no, but I will gladly work toward justice because I hate it when no one is clever enough to catch the wrongdoer, but I have let it slip through my fingers all the same.

I didn't know this, however, before the mess began. It was the eve of all the trouble, of the return of Moriarty and his tricks, and it was storming. Heavily. I remember because even the daylight was dim, and sometime in the afternoon, a foreboding thing occurred: the power went out.

John was watching the telly and I was organizing data on my laptop when everything blacked out. The entire block was pitch dark, and even the sunlight wasn't enough through the thick clouds.

I was content to finish my work on my remaining battery power and shut the lid to sit in the darkness, but John was having none of it. He got up almost immediately after the television blanked in front of him. He rummages around, located candles of all shapes and sizes from various places in the flat, and set them up on tables. Then he lit the fireplace, blew out a few unneeded candles to save them, and sat back into his chair.

"Looks like we'll have to do something else tonight," he said, but it was more geared toward himself than me. I was, like I said, content to sit in the dark. I liked the dark, didn't mind it in the least; it sometimes helped far better with my thinking process than any amount of light could. Light distracts; darkness isolates.

But John saw it as an inconvenience and a starter of boredom. So he turned to me, eyes sparkling in the firelight, and asked with a slight smile, "I know you'll probably beat me, but do you want to place a round of chess? Just to pass the time until the lights are on again?"

And I didn't refuse him. I shrugged and nodded, saving my work and closing the lid of my Mac. I got up, dug around for the chess board and its pieces, and set them up on a small table between John and I. He played white, going first, and of course it did him no good. I won, but he wanted to play again, so I let him.

We played chess like two old men for hours, sharing glasses of a bottle of wine John had forgotten about, and chatted here and there, between moves. I thought, at the time, that the storm had been a charming omen to bring John and I closer together; but naivety proved me false when I realized much later it had been a violent, negative omen warning me of Moriarty.

I have never thought of intense, blackout-inducing storms the same again.