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Peerme

YOU ENLIGTHEN ME

APRIL

"Not guilty."

There were several outcries in the courtroom as the jury announced their verdict. My heart pounded heavily in my chest as those words reached my ear. Moriarty walked free!

Dr Watson tensed up next to me and I felt him tremble with fury about the outcome of this trial. He had not deigned to look at me before as I took a seat beside him and I was sure he abominated me for my deeds and my statement, that clearly have contributed to Moriarty's release.

But as the noise rose in the courtroom he turned around to me, his lower lip trembling and his voice shaking: "Why did you help him advance his course?"

"You've heard it before, Dr Watson, I've fallen for him. I'm sure that there will be a day that you'll realise you've fallen for him too."

"But you acted against your family with your statement, against us all who want Moriarty being arrested for the rest of his life!"

I smiled sadly at him. If he just knew what was at stake for me if I let Moriarty down. He would destroy my life even more than he'd already done. He would let me be arrested for committing a murder, he would make me go to prison for life. Moriarty, even after supposedly having dealt with me for once and for all, still had enough in his hands to destroy me utterly. Even death would be a better option to what he could do to me.

"You just don't know him yet, Dr Watson. There's even more about the James Moriarty you've seen today."

"You could have told us earlier that you knew about him, you could have warned us about him, his plans!", Watson grunted contritely. "Your family should come first!"

"Even you should know by this time that the Holmes clan is no family. I don't know what it means to have a family, Dr Watson. I just have myself and that's what I care about.", I hissed, but I knew I was not totally honest. But I had to keep John at bay in regards of familial bonds or anything similar. Because there was indeed a slight feeling of guilt and treachery inside me, that made me realise how much I had dedicated myself to Moriarty, consciously and unconsciously, voluntarily and involuntarily at the same time.

"Then it will be apt to congratulate you having achieved one of the main parts in the most shocking detective story that there's ever been."

Kitty Riley approached us with a taunting smirk on her face. I quickly turned around to Dr Watson, fearing that Kitty Riley would let him in about any detail regarding Moriarty and Richard Brook.

"You may better go tell Sherlock about Moriarty's release. He has to prepare himself for what may come.", I murmured slowly, but Watson just looked at me with disdain and incomprehension, as if he didn't recognise me anymore. He didn't even say goodbye as he turned away and left the courtroom with long strides.

"What is it, Miss Riley? Are you still eager to get the story of the century out of me?", I asked her, but she just shook her head.

"I've already been fed with enough information that could fill a whole novel, Miss Holmes. I just came around to watch your misery and agony being displayed in your pretty face. Maybe you'll let me capture it on a photograph?", she asked wickedly and I just shoved her aside as to make my way out of the room. But she was not the only journalist who wanted my entire attention and the best picture of me. I elbowed my way out of the building, trying to escape those unnerving people, chasing me for just a comment on what had just happened.

I was relieved as I saw my father's car outside court. So Anthea had come to pick me up after all. Maybe she could tell me what would be the next thing for me to do.

But as I approached the car, a bunch of journalists on my heels, it was not Anthea who was waiting for me take me home. It was my father.

I did not say a word as I sat down at the backseat next to him.

I could not even look him in the eye.

Nor could he in return.

He must have grown aware of what I had been telling at court.

It's been so much time since the confrontation we last had. Since he had asserted his utter love for me no matter what I did. It had made me sick to just think of such compassion, to think that he still harboured such deep feelings for me while turning his back on me since my mother's death. Since he'd not every even tried to make me aware that he loved me.

I could not breathe. I could not think. I could not bear his presence.

"Where's Anthea?"

There was a long pause, until my father slowly pronounced every syllable of a sentence which I hoped I would never hear in the near future.

"I thought it no longer necessary to have her around."

"Mycroft..."

I could not believe what he was telling me. He could not have taken away from me the only woman I considered as a friend. Anthea was one of the only people in the world I could openly speak with.

"So I decided to asked her to leave.", my father continued drily, ignoring my rising protest.

"Why did you fire her?", I yelled and grabbed his arm fiercely, but he did not even flinch. "You now perfectly why!", he hissed back and I buried my fingers into his arm, grabbing him so hard that my knuckles got white. "Do you think I've not aware about Anthea's identity? That I haven't known that two faced woman?"

I looked him in his suddenly very cold and unfamiliar eyes.

Not a syllable escaped my lips, my father's fury just emptied my head with its fierce mercilessness, with its unfamiliar strength and vigour. I guess I've never in my whole life seen my father so angry, his lips trembling and small pearls of sweat on his forehead.

"I've known all along that you had never set a food on German soil, that Anthea was just pretending to give me messages from you, that you both have been lying to me! Lying about your stay in Germany and lying about both your relations to James Moriarty!"

"How did she give herself away?"

"You gave yourself away Sharon. You never wanted to go to Germany before and it was illogical that you would chose that place to escape from your situation in London, to escape from me!"

"I never really wanted to escape from you."

Mycroft closed his eyes and smiled sadly, brought his hands to his lips and breathed in heavily.

"Lies."

"What?"

"I should have known that sooner or later you would try to break free from me, from my protection, from the future I ensured for you."

"It was a life in a gilded cage!"

"So you did want to run from me.", Mycroft said calmly, but I could see disappointment flickering in his eyes, "But I should have known that your will to live and act on your own lies in your nature."

"Being alone is never what I wanted. I wanted to be loved."

Mycroft snickered shortly. I couldn't understand why my father was so hostile towards me, so unfamiliar and strange. But I could feel his disappointment. All I had done had only been in Moriarty's favour and I knew that it must have been hard for him to understand that indeed there had been a deep connection between the mastervillain and I.

"What else did you lie to me about? What else is there that I might have to find out about you? What else is there that you have done?", Mycroft asked eagerly.

A bolt of coldness stung in my heart as he grabbed my shoulder in return and shook me violently. So he didn't know at least about what I had done to Sharon. What I had done to another human being. I remained silent for a while. There was no urge inside me to console him, to tell him that everything was fine and alright, that he should not worry about me. But I couldn't, I simply didn't care what he thought about my actions. I just wanted to finally be understood. Only confessing his love to me was not enough to make me eager to please him again. I just wanted him to understand. I wanted him so see. My father simply had to see who I was and accept it.

"You're really trying hard to make my vomit."

"At least it would be a reaction to what I'm telling you. At least it won't be running away from me this time.", he said slowly and I could no longer bear his gaze, as I felt my cheeks heat up.

"I won't be running any longer. There's nothing to run after. I'd better be staying."

"I suppose you'd like to move into your old room again."

"I already have; but if you like me to ask I hereby humbly beg for shelter at Pall Mall, father."

"So even ceased calling it your home.", he murmured and I could feel even deeper disappointment this time.

"I don't know if it will ever be home to me again or even if it ever was since mum died."

"You're right. Maybe it wasn't your home after all.", he murmured slowly and let my shoulder go, turning away from me.

"I'm sorry." I said, knowing that my answer was nevertheless a little too much of an insult about his fatherly behaviour towards me. After all, he had never ceased to take care after me, he had never completely let me go. I took a deep breath. Maybe that was what made a home after all, a place where you could always go to without being drawn away from it or excluded.

"I'm sorry too.", my father slowly answered. But those were his last words he would speak to me for a while. Because no matter how hard we both tried, something between us had vanished, had been destroyed by both of us. Mycroft and I had broken apart.

MAY

Weeks passed uneventfully since Moriarty's trial. There's not been a single word from him, not even a message and it made me fear the worst. James didn't answer my text messages nor my calls. I've even visited his apartment again, but found it empty, Richard Brook had been terminating his rental contract and had moved out within a few hours.

So Moriarty has finally dealt with me and my life. He wasn't interested in me anymore. And he even did not set Anthea or anyone else on my track to keep watch on my actions.

Maybe I should still consider myself lucky. I could have been dead by the time.

But things were worse than ever before. My father and I did not speak to each other, it even seemed that he had taken Diogenes as a permanent residence. But he never left me completely alone, he'd set about two guards on me who watched my every step. They mostly ordered me to stay at home, but sometimes I could go out when it was necessary to stretch my legs and breathe fresh air.

There had been several days when I felt that I was going stir-crazy inside my room. I even found myself calling after Anthea several times; it was just that Pall Mall was evidently linked to her presence. She had always been present before, for several years since I was a teenager. With her and Moriarty being gone, gone for good and nowhere to be found, I felt desperate.

I felt horrible.

I felt like I was alone in this world.

Not even my father seemed to be interested in me any longer, he just tolerated and accepted me living at Pall Mall again. But as far as I could see, he made no effort in caring for me very much, he just let me be.

I had lost everything and it was my own fault.

Sometimes, I found myself on the way to 221B Baker Street, but I could not even dare to come near the place where my uncle lived. In some way Dr Watson was right. I've betrayed them all along. I could not simply turn up and tell them I was bored and needed distraction. Or tell them I would help them standing their ground against Moriarty and in fact having no intention so far of turning against James, but just trying to have something I could do.

I should have considered it earlier that I would be alone as soon as Moriarty had lost his interest in me. I should have known that my time with him was finite. But I had managed on my own to lose all my friends and family, occupation and social status.

What was there that remained from me except my body?

My soul was already sold to the devil. My heart was lost to his staunchest ally.

"What shall I do?"

I put a spray of white lilies onto Sally's grave and stepped back, examining the white marble stone onto which her name had been engraved. What pitiful and abominable creature I was, daring even to approach her resting place! Even now, faced with what I had done to my best friend, just standing at her mortal remains, I did not feel anything proper. No remorse, no shame, no grief and sorrow.

All I felt was fear.

I feared what there was still to come, I feared what was going on around me, with me having no insight, not knowing whom to trust and what to do. I was lost. Floating in the dark, being left there without any prospect and hopes.

I didn't even know anymore what I wanted.

For weeks I had been wandering around in the streets of London, thousands of pairs of eyes on me, recognising me as the girl who had fallen for the renown villain of the century.

I've had not a single minute's rest, not a single dreamless night.

"Well done, Sharon. At least you've managed to pay poor Sally your respects."

I swung around, my heart beat stopping for a short moment, as I heard that voice. That smooth and beguiling voice, that treacherous Irish accent and cheerful but taunting timbre.

"What do you want from me?"

My voice trembled and my whole body shuddered as Moriarty approached me, his hands buried in the pockets of his blue Westwood suit.

"The question is no longer what I want from you, dear Sharon. If I were you I'd rather ask what you could want from me.", he said and a smile ran over his face, as I backed away from him. During my stay at his flat I had never shown any fear, even if I sometimes felt his dangerous side winning over, but I had managed to keep calm. This time, after I knew that he had no longer any use for me, he could just let his need to kill me win over. He could murder me any second, just because he always wanted it clandestinely, just because he finally had no reason to refrain from it.

"You've used me entirely! You've left me behind and threw me away like a filthy rag! There is nothing I could want from you, nothing I would need.", I spat and almost tripped over the bunch of lilies that I had laid down onto Sally's grave.

"I thought you might want to make good for a funeral meal to honour poor Sally, after you didn't attend her funeral. But I fear that will be just an excuse to cover up my invitation to dinner."

"Dinner?", I yelled, "Dinner? Are you serious, James? You disappeared for weeks, left me alone with the mess you still call my life and suddenly you turn up to invite me for dinner?"

"Keep calm, my dear, we're in a cemetery.", James snickered.

"Don't you dare to pretend that you care where we are right now, last year you didn't even mind suggesting this place for us being intimate!", I cried and stepped a few steps forward, my rage boiling inside me. How much did I want to finally make him suffer! How much did I want to inflict the pain that I had inflicted on Sally just on him! I wanted him under my mercy just as I've had Sally, I wanted to make him feel what it meant to be used. I wanted to make him feel what deep hatred for him I already harboured in my heart. I wanted to make him feel exactly how I felt. I wanted to make him feel that there was nothing worth to live for anymore, knowing that one person was responsible for his miserable fate.

Moriarty shook with laughter at my fury, but I tried to not let it influence me. His laughter rumbled in his chest and he turned around in circles, bowing down and holding his hand onto his stomach, blinking away some tears. As he looked at me again, I could see that indeed he only made fun of me, that he indeed no longer was interested in me. I considered swooping down on him and ripping his heart out of his chest.

"Forgive me, Sharon. I just thought a nice environment like this would be better for a conversation between us. And after all, I've never invited you for dinner, that, I owe you."

I looked to the ground, not believing that I felt so horribly uncomfortable in his presence. For God's sakes, I had helped him, voluntarily helped him! I've enjoyed being on his side, I've wanted to have him beside me, ruling my life, have given it to him entirely! But even my life was no use for him anymore, it was as good as wasted.

"You owe me?"

"Indeed I owe you, something completely different too. I have to show you my gratitude for your valuable services."

This time it was my turn to give him a bitter laugh.

"Your gratitude? Don't waste any energy on trying to convince me of such a nonsense! I know that you feel nothing towards me, nothing at all.", I hissed angrily, but Moriarty just closed his mouth and straightened himself up. Just in this single fluid motion is saw something shimmering through, something that debased his formal and business-like attire. For a second I saw a shade of mockery and annoyance on his pale face. Maybe there was still something inside him that had made him come up to me after all.

"I could break you so easily." he whispered, stepping closer.

"Haven't you already destroyed me utterly? Or do you want to take me entirely away from the world?", I asked him, well aware that it was I who dedicated her life to him, "Why don't you do it then, break me? Why don't you finally finish me and not let me suffer any longer?"

I looked away as he came closer within an arm's length. At this rate I could at least slap or punch him. But I was still unable to move towards him. Maybe a small part of me still hoped that he would welcome me with open arms, telling me that he still needed me by his side.

"In fact, you've asked me to do it.", he whispered lowly," Anyway, you asked me to find something out about your mother, so I had someone search for information. Delivering it to you would destroy you, Sharon. But it is the only way I could show my gratitude."

"By destroying me?"

"You've laid your life in my hands. After all, keeping the information from you may even destroy you more.", he murmured and dug his hand into the inside pocket of his suit and pulled out an envelope. He held it out to me, but as I tried to take it from his hand, he did not immediately let go of it. "Don't forget, it was you who asked for it. So don't blame me for the outcome."

"I will always blame you, James.", I said, faking a smirk as I finally retrieved the envelope from him. Shortly I wondered what it contained, if it really was something I could have asked for, even if it destroyed me.

"I know you will. But do understand that by delivering that information, I render you a similar service than you did to me. That information will make you do things you may have not expected yourself doing. And it will give you reason to blame me for everything that had happened and will happen. It will make you turn against me."

"You accept me to act against you?"

"I've once told you what the consequences are if you act on your own."

"I won't care if the information you gave to me will destroy my remaining life, because I'm no longer entirely on your side, James. So I guess I'll have to be in fear for my life anyway."

James shook his head eagerly, as if he wanted to negate my statement.

"Just diverge from me, but remind yourself that I have always been honest with you. It may ease your pain and assure you will be able to live the miserable rest of your remaining life.", Moriarty said and quickly let his forefinger run down my left cheek, lifting my chin and giving me quick peck on my cheek. As he backed away, he bowed slightly before me.

"You almost sound as if you cared for me."

His expression brightened up shortly and he bowed down even deeper. I just clenched my fist around the envelop, looking down at him, knowing that even in this position he was still superior to me. Knowing that even with only a single word at me, he could make me all his again.

"I have to excuse myself for now, I have to buy some coffee for a dear friend and supporter of mine.", James said cheerfully and turned around, "My best compliments to your father!"

With that he burst out into laughter again and quickly strode away from me, his laughter only fading slowly, echoing eerily on the graveyard.

I took several moments to compose myself again before I dared to open the envelope in my hands. I found several documents inside, my mother's marriage certificate, a copy of my mum's testament and even several pictures. But then, I found other unfamiliar documents too. Documents of which it was even enough to read their headline to make me almost vomit. I sank to my knees, right onto the soil of Sally's grave, all the documents scattered around me, but the most valuable one in my clenching fist.

It could not be possible.

I knew Moriarty would never lie to me, because there was no reason to any longer.

He would really not gain anything from it, but the destruction of my remaining life.

I glanced again at the paper through the blur of tears that already clouded my vision, trying to calm down the uncontrolled sobs that escaped my lips, trying to ease the pain that suddenly seemed to rip my heart apart.

It could not be the truth.

But it was confirmed per 99,99%.

Mycroft Holmes was not my father.

Nevertheless, I was a Holmes very much.

I was Sherlock Holmes' daughter.

So what do you think? Can you follow the plotline so far? Did you see the hints that foreboded this coming?