AU: So this chapter is primarily a bunch of dialogue, but read it all because it ties up a lot of the mysteries in this story. Hope you like it!
"Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?"
"Stop this whole charade. I am perfectly aware that that man is dead. You will get no rise out of me by showing his face," Sherlock's voice was steely was cold as it echoed about the large room.
"Yes, because you killed him," came a sneer, and Sherlock looked almost surprised as he turned to the post-military man.
"I killed him?" Sherlock questioned, receiving a shallow nod in return. "No, I did not. I think it is rather common knowledge that he committed suicide."
"Rather bloody convenient that you were both up on that roof top alone, with no witnesses. He's dead, and you're alive. Suicide? I think not. You bloody murdered him, and since the police are clearly not doing anything about it, it's about time someone did."
Sherlock said nothing; he simply stared down the post military man, saying nothing. Moments later, someone unseen in the room cleared their throat, and the colonel continued.
"So, Sherlock, you believed that the man on that screen was James Moriarty. You believed that he was a wanted criminal mastermind. You believed that he was insane. I don't believe for a minute that he committed suicide. I happened to know that man very well, and he was nothing but a kid who would not have taken his own life. You murdered him."
"Sherlock," John's soft voice made Sherlock quickly turn his head. He seemed unfazed by the accusations, except for a slight look in his eyes that John recognized from somewhere, although he didn't remember where from.
"We have someone here," the colonel continued, interrupting John. "You knew him for many years. No, I am not talking about John. There's someone else. You thought you knew him very well. I wonder if you did."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes as several men rushed toward a large arm chair. They lifted the chair, turning it to reveal not who Sherlock was fearing would be there, but someone that actually made Sherlock's eyes widen.
"Professor?" Sherlock's voice actually sounded surprised.
The old man in the arm chair wore a pressed grey suit. His hair was smoothed back neatly, and although he appeared to be tied, an almost smug smile adorned his face.
"You never knew where to stop, did you? You never knew when to give up. It's always been your down fall. At least your brother realized when you get in too deep, it's best to simply play along. You, on the other hand, have always tried to find the hidden piece of the puzzle. I told you as a child that some things are best left untouched; you never did listen to good advice. Pity, I was beginning to think that maybe you had some potential to be a bit more like Mycroft."
Sherlock said nothing, his breaths shallow as his eyes roamed the room, searching for the clue he had missed. Why was the professor here? What was this whole scheme that had been orchestrated? Why was Professor Moriarty here?
"And now," the professor stood effortlessly from his bonds which fell away; obviously he had not really been tied. "Now I must make a choice. Moran, take Watson somewhere; he is no longer needed. Men, you may stand outside. Don't you worry, I will be perfectly alright."
The men filed out of the room, Sherlock watching them silently. Clearly the professor believed that Sherlock would not attack him, for there went the guns and the professor's protection. Indeed, however, Sherlock suddenly felt weak with a shock he almost never felt. He always knew the answers to the puzzle, what had he missed? He had searched everywhere for connections between the two Moriartys. Granted, he had not really expected to find anything. Professor Moriarty was an old family friend whom Sherlock had known since before he'd known anything. In Sherlock's first baby picture, the professor had stood dutifully in the background, smiling his same smug smile. When Sherlock had first gone to school, the professor had lectured him about not antagonizing the teachers. When he'd graduated primary, the professor had attended his graduation. When Sherlock had entered his last years of school, the professor had warned Sherlock about what problems bad habits could bring, and he had given him tips to study with. When Sherlock was done with school, his parents had thrown a party, which the professor had attended.
"I can see the shock in your face," the professor delicately leaned forward in the chair across from Sherlock. "Which part is confusing you most? I am ready and willing to tell all! Of course, you know what happens when I do tell all, hmmm? Of course, this secret cannot get loose into the public. The handful of people who know in England who I truly am can be counted on two hands."
"Colonel Moran, me, your six body guards, who else?"
"Well, John does know now doesn't he?"
Sherlock cursed under his breath. John could have stayed safe, if he hadn't heard Sherlock call the man professor. John had never seen the professor's face before, he would not have known who to connect the face to, but now he had a title.
"John doesn't know enough to hold it against him. I've never spoken of you to him."
"Well, now that's rather unflattering," the professor hummed. "And you haven't gotten the tenth person yet."
Sherlock froze, he felt like his heart stopped. His eyes widened, and suddenly he found that he could not breathe.
"I think you just figured it out, Sherlock."
"He… Why would he have known and…"
"You brother, Sherlock, knows when to stop. He knows when everything would be better if we all just got along. He knows when someone is so powerful, that he could quite literally destroy your whole world and then never be found guilty. Never even be questioned, in fact, because someone always needs to money enough to take the blame."
"If he had known, he wouldn't have…"
"What? Let you play your game of cat and mouse with James? James was a convenience that waltzed into the picture some time ago. He was my student at the university, you see, and he was very desperate."
Sherlock watched the professor silently, his mind racing to find the pieces of the puzzle and try to know if the old professor was lying, or if somehow he was in fact telling the truth.
"James is what you knew him as, however that was not his name. Didn't you ever wonder why his story about that old TV program checked out? Oh I know you and your brother found some half baked evidence that proved his story to be false so that the public didn't worry and so that the police didn't worry, but didn't you worry? The Storyteller, a children's program; it was minimally successful. A side job to work a student through acting college. He was a marvelous actor with a brilliant career ahead of him. He was a method actor who appeared charismatic when he was playing the music man, and societally confused when he was playing Jean Valjean. One day, however, he fell out of his role. Whist coming to me for notes, I'm afraid my subject was not his best, he began to sweat and shake. He was terribly afraid, and I asked the boy what was wrong. He said that his father had recently been not only killed, but proven to be a murderer. You remember the cab man? He had children. When he died, his children scattered, not wanting to be taken in for questioning. It's not that they did anything wrong, you see, but that they did not want to further incriminate their deceased father. However, when they scattered it arose suspicion in the police world. James's brother was taken in and suspected of being an accomplice with the father, which was total nonsense and I could see it as such. Police are such dimwits sometimes, aren't they Sherlock?
"Well, it's not surprising he was afraid his brother would be thrown into jail for something he didn't do, and none of the kids as yet had the money to help him. James was scrambling to get through college as it was, without hiring lawyers and paying bail. Why did he tell me this? He thought he should turn himself in instead, that it would be better in the end. That maybe his sentence would be minimized for admitting to wrong doing, and meanwhile his brother would be set free. It was a ridiculous idea, and I began to realize that this student could come in very handy.
"I told my student that there was another way, and thus was born James Moriarty as you knew him. Richard Brook, it looked like he never existed. I erased all proof of him, expect for the tiniest amount which I thought might also come in handy one day. Ingenious though, isn't it? Moriarty is an actor? So terribly unbelievable after all the chaos he caused. And indeed, when it came to your downfall it was easy to pretend that he had been hired to play the part of a murdering psychopath, because he had been. Only you weren't the one who hired him. Yet who would think that I would be stupid enough to make us both have the same name? No one would do that if they didn't want to be discovered, you know. Obviously I would come up with some new name for him. But I didn't, and that's the ingenious of it. Yet, I didn't quite realize his capacity for method acting. I didn't expect that he would let it so get into his head. He was the most brilliant actor this nation ever knew, put into the most dangerous role this world ever knew.
"Soon, he had himself convinced that he was James Moriarty, and that I was simply an old man who was much to squeamish about interrogations. It was like a physiology experiment watching as Rich Brook, the man who loved children, change into James Moriarty, the man who would skin people alive."
"He wanted to back out," Sherlock voiced quietly. "He actually wanted to back out."
"Indeed. Something happened that made him realize everything he had done. It suddenly clicked in his mind what a monster he had become. He had once loved children, and then he had almost killed two of them. He didn't want to be James Moriarty any longer, but I couldn't let him back out when you were almost out of the picture. So close, he was, to disgracing you enough to make you flee the country. I would have even given you safe passage to somewhere else. Your brother didn't know half the things going on at that moment, but he knew that you leaving was a distinct possibility. He had a plane ready. I told Richard to finish the job. His reaction was insanity; he had played the part for so long that even when he was terrified, he was Moriarty the wanted criminal. Up until then, I had told him everything to do, every clue to give you, and he had memorized his lines excellently. Then, Richard Brook did something completely unexpected. He decided to kill you so that he would never again have to play that part. With you gone, he would have left me to go back to being Richard Brook without any problems. With you dead, he thought he would never again have to be a monster, and then you began to talk."
"Oh. I told him that I didn't have to jump, and he could call off the snipers. I told him that I would do anything in order to not jump, and he listened to me," Sherlock spoke softly
"Keep going Sherlock, I think you might actually have something here."
Sherlock cast a glare at the professor, but he continued.
"He knew that you were a genius. Deep inside he knew that he was Frankenstein's monster, and that you were Doctor Frankenstein. When I said that I didn't have to jump as long as he was alive, he realized that I was right. I could still escape, thus destroying his whole plan. I told him I was prepared to burn, just like him, only he wasn't prepared to burn. He was ordinary, and simply playing a part. And, oh, I see. I remember I told him I was on the side of the angels, but that I wasn't one of them, and then his face changed. He thought of you, didn't he? You always seem so put together. You said he thought you were too lax with interrogations, because he must have never seen you order your men to get dirty as I'm sure they do. You must have never shown him the whole story, but in that moment he must have realized that you too are no angel. He realized that he was helping no one but you; that when you offered a way to save his brother, you were not saving his family. He realized that there may have been an escape for me, but there was no escape for him. I said to him, 'I am you.' That was a true statement. He was exactly what you needed Moriarty to be. With me gone, there was no him.
"What did you ever plan to do with him when I was out of the country? He clearly knew your secret; you could never have let him go. He couldn't escape you. Killing me wouldn't only kill the role he had to play, it would kill him. With me gone, he must have realized that there would be no need for him anymore, and that you would take care of that. At the same time, he must have realized that, should I get away, he was worse than dead. He would have failed you, isn't that right? If I got away that day, he would have failed at what you had instructed of him. He must have realized that he was better off killing himself than coming back into the world, trying to run from Professor James Moriarty."
"He was better off killing himself, you're right," the professor murmured.
"But if you say you planned out everything for him, how did he get all of the snipers?"
"You heard the Colonel a moment ago. The two of them became quite close after their time working together. Almost like you and John! Richard told the Colonel that he believed himself to be in danger from you. He told the Colonel that he thought you would kill him that day, that one of you would die. If you didn't die, then he would. The Colonel wanted to protect his friend, so he found some old colleges and a few of my own employees, then the lot of them carried out Richard's scheme."
"But Colonel Moran thinks I killed him."
"Colonel Moran is a temperamental, simple man. He wants justice. He wants what he believes is the right thing. He was stationed in an area with little to no fighting. However, there was a single event that changed that man forever. After that, he got immediately promoted to Colonel, and then sent back home never to fight in the military again. However, he was determined to fight in some war, so he began to fight in mine."
"He wants revenge because he thinks I killed his friend."
"Indeed," the professor nodded.
"But if I were to convince him otherwise?"
"John is in a very precarious situation, Sherlock. I do hope you understand that. If you do something I wouldn't like, John might become very unsafe. Moran listens to everything I say, and although he has told me that he only wants revenge on you, he will listen to me should I tell him to do something unpleasant with John. You are stuck, Sherlock. Try to make a deal, and I will unravel the lies behind that deal."
"But there's something you're missing something," Sherlock told the professor, who lifted an eyebrow. "One of your men isn't loyal to you. I brought backup."
Quite suddenly, the professor let out a genuine laugh.
"You honestly think that I wouldn't notice that? You have brought one too many friends into this situation, Sherlock."
Then, with a flick of his wrist, the professor hit a button on the side of his chair, and two man entered the room, Lestrade standing between them with an almost unreadable expression. However, Sherlock had seen that expression once before, and he knew what it was. That expression was fear.
AU: So, this chapter took a very very long time. Basically I had to rewatch the ending of the Reichenbach Fall several times to figure out what I was going to say in this chapter. It took quite a bit of planning and analyzing the character's lines and expressions throughout the Reichenbach fall to write this. Hope it was okay. Are you confused? Shocked? What is Lestrade doing there, can you figure it out? What do you think? Please review!