Frightened by what would happen should Jim wake the next morning with him not by his side, John quietly stowed the letter in the inner pocket of the waistcoat he had set out for tomorrow and slid back into bed next to Jim.
In the morning, it was as if nothing had happened. Jim was back to his dangerous, mood-swinging self, but he didn't mention the night's activities, only sent John out on an assignment. John used the time to send the letter to Sherlock.
Over the next month John didn't stick a toe out of line, bending to Moriarty's every whim and will. The only thing that kept John going was his visits with Hamish and the unwavering hope that there would be another letter from Sherlock. Week after week he'd ask Jane, but she would give him the same sympathetic look and the whisper, "Sorry, Dr. Watson. No letter yet."
John began to suspect that something had happened to Sherlock. He hated that he had no way of knowing. Not for the first time he wished he had any sort of technology. He felt entirely disconnected from London, other than scraps of general news. Sherlock could be dead, for all he knew.
Every week that went by without a letter made John more and more nervous. It was possible, he thought, that Jim had done something to Sherlock and was covering it up. Wouldn't he want to gloat if that were the case, however? Either way, John had waited too long for Sherlock to help. He needed to do this himself. He began thinking seriously about the daunting task of killing Jim Moriarty.
The first thing to do, of course, was to investigate the web, but the last time he'd done that, Jim had found out. He would be more careful this time. He would, as much as it pained him, take it slow.
A month of very cautious investigation led John to the key name: Burke. Burke was the one assigned to kill John should John kill Moriarty. Of this John was fairly certain. John began watching Burke closely, assessing his style, finding his weaknesses.
The second part of the plan required a way to get Hamish out of school and somewhere safe as soon as possible. The weekend after he discovered Burke, John made his usual trip to see Hamish. He waited at their usual meeting spot, idly watching other laughing boys walk down the hallway. Hamish was later than usual, but John supposed he might have gotten caught up with a friend or a professor. After waiting an hour with no sign of Hamish, John began to worry. He headed to Hamish's dormitory and pushed the door open.
Hamish's bed, usually hastily made and covered with books, was stripped bare, and there was no sign of any of Hamish's belongings. John's stomach plummeted. His thoughts plummeted as he raced down the hallway to the registrar's office.
"Where's Hamish, my son, Hamish?" John babbled. "Hamish Watson…please—"
The registrar frowned. "He was withdrawn just the other day. All the papers were in order," he said, showing the slip to John. "Were you not informed?"
Jim. John felt dizzy. Jim couldn't have. Not Hamish. Please, God, not Hamish. "Thank you…" John said faintly, leaving in a haze. There were two main possibilities, as far as John could see. Jim could be withholding Hamish from John as punishment. Perhaps he transferred Hamish to another school, a school where John couldn't visit him. John shook his head bitterly. Of course. It was what Jim had always wanted: a protégé. What better way than to remove John's influence altogether?
There was another possibility of course, one that John dreaded to think about. "I will slit your son's throat," Jim had growled in John's ear. He shuddered. His sleep had been plagued by nightmares about Hamish. The dreams were mostly all the same. John would hear Hamish scream, and he'd run through what felt like glue to get to him. Sometimes the location varied. The ending never did. He always arrived too late, finding Hamish dead and bloody on the ground.
John's mouth went dry. In either case, Jim had made a mistake. John was desperate, willing to do anything. Jim had said that if John tried anything, Sherlock would be executed. How was Moriarty passing the word on? Via mail? If John killed Burke and then Moriarty, he could hurry to London before his execution letter did. It was a huge risk, John knew, but if Jim really did have Hamish, and if Sherlock really was in trouble, he had to try.
It wasn't so hard to kill Burke after all. He stalked him while Burke was on assignment. One bullet; tidy, no witnesses. He had, he estimated, less than a day before Moriarty found out. Less than a day to kill him, then. As John walked home, wiping off and pocketing his gun, he coldly decided that he would kill Jim as soon as Jim got home from his meeting that evening.
John had several long hours at the house before Jim returned, which he spent pacing the living room nervously. Jim always returned home armed. John would have to pretend to be relaxed until Jim disarmed for the evening before he struck.
Jim didn't arrive until 7 pm. John was sitting, drumming his fingers on his knee in the drawing room and pretending to read a book.
"John," Jim nodded a bored greeting and sank into his desk chair.
John nodded back and picked up a book, too preoccupied to process a single word.
Jim finally turned in his seat to ask boredly, "Something on your mind, Dr. Watson?"
John was about to answer when there was a loud clatter from the kitchen, making both John and Jim jump and turn their heads toward the drawing room door.
Jane gave a short "Oh!", then there was a brief silence before she called out, "S-sorry Mr. Moriarty, Dr. Watson—" She peeked around the corner. "J-just dropped a platter, is all." She disappeared and John buried his head in his book once more.
"You still haven't answered my question, John," Jim said, a dangerous tinge in his voice. "What's on your mind?"
John kept his eyes trained on his book. "Just that Charles Dickens is severely overrated." He glanced up. "How was your day?"
"Fairly uneventful…although, I was given some rather unfortunate news."
John tensed but refused to look up. "Oh?"
Jim turned back around to face John, this time looking at him down the barrel of a pistol. "It turns out that someone went and killed Burke! Does that sound at all familiar to you, John?" He stood, keeping the gun trained at John's head.
Fuck. Jim had found out far faster than John had anticipated. He swallowed.
"Why don't you be a good boy and hand over that pistol stowed in your jacket?" Jim asked sweetly.
John stared down the blackness of the barrel for a few tense moments before he finally reached behind him, pulled out the gun, and dropped it to the floor. He raised his hands up, stumbling away from Jim. If this was how John was going to go out, he wanted answers. "Jim. Tell me what you did with Hamish. Jim, I have to know."
Jim rolled his eyes. "Oh please! Don't try and distract me." He whined, annoyed, "You're ruining my build up to your death! Can't you just shut up for a moment? I'm going to have to start all over now!"
"JIM! JAMES MORIARTY! DID YOU KILL MY SON, YES OR NO?!" John's voice came out utterly desperate and commanding, his eyes flashing. All fear had left him. If he had no chance of seeing Hamish or Sherlock again, then there was nothing left to fear.
Jim's eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you on about?" He moved the gun closer, cocking it.
"Jim, I went to the school. He's missing, and I know you did something. And I know you did something to Sherlock too. JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU DID AND THEN SHOOT ME." John's voice was a hollow monotone. "I don't care anymore, Jim…just tell me what happened and I'll go peacefully. Fucking give me the gun and I'll do the job for you. Just please. Tell a dead man what you did to his family."
Jim lowered the gun slightly, genuinely confused. "Hamish is missing?"
John closed his eyes, sick of Jim's games, and nodded, giving up, almost wishing for the bullet when a shot rang out. He jumped and kept his eyes squeezed closed. He didn't feel any pain, and when he finally realized that he hadn't been shot at all, he opened his eyes.
Moriarty was facedown on the floor, a pool of blood forming around his chest and seeping into the carpet. "How—" John faltered, his eyes wide with shock.
His eyes swept upward to see Sherlock standing in the doorway, still holding the gun toward where Moriarty had been standing.
"Sh-Sherlock—" John stumbled backward, hand to his mouth, too afraid to approach the figure. He couldn't be real. He couldn't be.
Sherlock dropped his arm and threw the gun to the floor. His gray eyes stared down at Moriarty's dead body and finally met John's. He was blinking as if he, too, couldn't believe his eyes. "John...?"
The two stood, looking at each other for a brief moment, then it was as if a switch was flipped. The two men hurled themselves at each other and slammed into each other, desperately grabbing the other to make sure the other really was, in fact, there.
John grabbed at Sherlock's face as they both fell to their knees. "How did—how did you—how? Where's Hamish?"
"I've got him. He's fine—he's all right—everyone's fine, John." Sherlock wrapped his arms around John, pulling him up against him, not having any intention of ever letting go of him again. His voice cracked as he held on. "394 days…394 days since I've been able to do this."
John was sobbing, burying his face in his shoulder as he held him tight. Had it really been over a year? It felt like so much longer. He noted that Sherlock was much thinner. He also looked tired.
Sherlock held onto John tightly, closing his eyes, then pulled back to look John up and down. John felt harder, more muscular, and his face looked weary. The lines in his face were more definite, hardened. His eyes were sad, as if he'd seen too much. He smelled of gunpowder, too—the skin at his neck, his hair—and Sherlock knew John had been carrying on in Sebastian's footsteps.
Sherlock didn't pull back until the pool of blood seeping from Jim's body started wetting Sherlock's knees. He pulled John up with him, then leaned forward and gave John a wet kiss, gentle and sad and passionate.
John weakened in his arms, melting into him as they held the kiss. He'd almost forgotten a kiss could be a gentle, mutual thing instead of a painful conquest, and he started crying all over again, grasping at Sherlock's arms and leaning limply against him.
Sherlock held him to his chest, resting his chin on John's head, not knowing what to say. That kiss had told him so much more than he wanted to know about what had happened here. John's hesitation and tensing paired with the slightly raw skin around his wrists, spoke volumes, volumes that should never have been written, and he held John tighter.
John and Sherlock stayed holding each other for a long time. After several minutes, Jane ventured inside, unsure how to feel about the two embracing men, but happy all the same, wiping her eyes at the looks of complete love and anguish John and Sherlock had on their faces. She hesitantly stepped closer to examine the body. "I think he's truly dead," He said, looking up at both of them. "Do you get to go home now, Dr. Watson?"
John drew back to look at Sherlock's face, examining every feature. "Yes. We get to go home."
Sherlock and John left Jim's body where it lay, both wanting it to be seen. Someone else would clean it up. John, knowing several places where Jim stored his money, collected it, giving half to Jane. He instructed her to leave the city with her son, just in case. Then, before any of Jim's lackeys could make an unexpected early appearance for dinner, Sherlock and John left Jim's Dublin townhouse forever.
When they returned home a few days later, Mary was at the door, astonished at the hardened soldier who rushed to give her a hug. In their flat—John savored the space—221B, their flat—Hamish was waiting.
The boy, who had grown so much over the year, ran up to both of them and hugged them around the necks, crying as they both kneeled in front of him. "I didn't know if you'd both come back—I—I—I didn't know if- if you'd both be okay—I didn't want you to die for real, Dad—either of you!"
Hamish broke into sobs and Sherlock hugged them both, together for the first time in almost fourteen months, pressing his cheek against Hamish's head. "We're here, we're here now."
John squeezed them both. "We're home. We're all home."