It has been wayyyyyy too long. I am so sorry.

First, I was legitimately busy with school and life. Then, I was lazy. Then the tragedy of the bombing in Boston occurred and I decided the chapter wasn't appropriate to post (or write) just yet, for reasons you might notice when reading.

I'll also say my usual apology of this is filler because this is most likely filler, in the form of flashback.

I think its important to the story, though, of course, because it provides background that explains much of the stuff that has happened in earlier chapters and in The Mouse and the Spider.

That being said, I really hope you enjoy it and stick with me until the last chapter!

Thank you so much for making this far!


There were four James Moriartys. Were.

Now there are two.

Number Four goes by 'Jim' (or, on rare occasions, 'Napoleon' (short for 'The Napoleon of Crime')).Some say he never even existed at all.

Number Two is a nobody by choice (which is fine because nobody much cares about him, anyway).

Number Three and Number One are dead.


(Northern Ireland, 1966.)

James Moriarty Number One—or, more traditionally called The First—went by his initial 'J'—or, more phonetically spelled, 'Jay'.

His 'coworkers' had given him the nickname 'The Fox' (or just 'Fox' for short) because of his reddish-orange colored hair…

…and because of his slick and sly ability to commit any crime he was assigned (usually some kind of robbery or burglary but sometimes knifing or beating someone up) and get away, quick, without leaving any evidence behind, as well always get away with it. He was also pretty tricky, too.

And sure, he was smart, in the cerebral sense as well as the criminal, but he didn't act it all the time.

One such time was the spring of 1966...

Everyone else was worrying about the elections, and the Soviet Union launching a probe into space, and Rhodesia, and The Beatles.

Not Jay. Jay was 27, and after growing up a petty criminal (due to having an imprisoned father and an overwhelmed mother with four other children (some of whom were suspiciously conceived after her husband had been incarcerated) he graduated to committing felonies and joined the scattered remains of a guerilla army (of which his father was also a member) that had (temporarily) put aside their cause in order to focus on survival.

On his way to meet with his boss and some friends, Jay cut through a park of trees, grass, flowers and people. It was relatively warm day, sort of sunny and calm (but not in the way that was unsettling).

Suddenly he felt someone come up behind him, catching their shadow in his peripheral vision. Whirling around to confront his attacker (and reaching for the gun in his jacket).

Instead of a threat, he saw a woman (not that women were incapable of being a threat, they'd proven they weren't because of all that feminism nonsense going on).

She was young, a university student perhaps, with dark hair and even darker eyes that immediately drew poor, helpless Jay in.

He looked away and over his shoulder. An old woman was sitting on a bench while her grandsons chased a small flock of birds. He looked back at the girl.

She didn't smile, but she did extend a pale hand. It held a long green stem and a flower in full bloom; it's blossom a bright purple.

"For you." she said.

Jay tensed at her accent. English-sounding and so automatically suspicious. Still, she didn't look like much of a threat (but, of course, looks could be deceiving).

"You damn hippies…" he grumbled, rolling his eyes and attempting to push past her and continue on his way.

She didn't let him. In a swift and graceful motion (much like his sleek and fast burglary style) the young woman moved to block his path and stand in front of him on the grass beneath their feet.

"Take it." she insisted, shoving the flower into his chest because one of his hands was trying to push her away and the other hand was still on his gun, "It has five petals."

"So?" Jay shrugged. He finally took the plant, twirling it around between its fingers and confirming that it did indeed have five purple petals.

He wondered if this was some sort of distraction and so glanced around at the park cautiously (nobody looked out of the ordinary (but, of course, looks could be deceiving)) and kept his and on the gun in his pocket.

"It's a spider flower." The young woman identified, "It's supposed to have six."

"So?" Jay repeated.

The young woman's patterned dress and bare feet basically confirmed that she was a hippy (well, at least she wasn't a Mod or a hipster) and the importance she placed on this flower and the number of petals it had basically confirmed that she was most likely high on drugs, as well.

Great.

"So it's missing something." The woman explained, "…and so are you."

Jay looked at her and then looked at the flower, slightly crumpled now, in his hand. He looked back at the girl. His other hand he took off the gun.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was missing something…

(Or maybe it was just all the pollen in the spring air.)

"What's your name?" Jay asked the young woman with the brown riverflow hair and black whirlpool eyes.

"Avis." She answered. The name meant 'bird' but it also meant 'desired'. Jay decided she was both.

"I'm Jay." Jay returned.

"Not it's not." Avis dismissed, shaking her head, "Try again."

"James." Jay tried again, admitting his full first name which he had always been embarrassed by (too Anglo-sounding).

And, at this, Avis finally smiled.


Jay had vowed that he would never marry an English girl. Of all the sins he had committed and would commit (stealing, lying, extramarital sex, living in sin, having children out, and murder) none were so heinous in the 'bible' of his life as marrying an English girl.

And so he didn't do it.

He got her pregnant, moved into a new house in Ireland with her and their first child, loved her…

…but he didn't marry her. He didn't do it.


(Ireland, 1967.)

They still went to their local Catholic church every Sunday, though, despite the stares (what was an unwed couple (one half whom was even Protestant) doing coming with their unbaptized child?).

Nobody ever said anything.

Jay and Avis just pretended not to notice because they actually didn't care.


(Ireland, 1976.)

But James Moriarty Number Two—or, more traditionally called, The Second—did notice and he did care.

While his little brother (and the newer littler brother) were oblivious, and his parents pretended to be oblivious to the accusatory glares, he kept his eyes to down planning the future in which people would not look down on his family.

It hadn't taken him very long to figure out what the problem the fellow churchgoers had with them, and once he did he asked his parents why they didn't just stop going to church (after before asking "why aren't you two married?").

As usual, he didn't receive an actual answer.

"Because it's just something that we do." His father had said, "Like an unspoken rule."

(James knew better than to mention the fact that his father had broken many other spoken and unspoken rules.)

"Why should we?" His mother had said, "Let them stare." And she had smiled. She liked the attention. Liked the rebellion.


Avis also liked the number five.

She was twenty-one when she had her first child. Five years later, she had her second and five years after that she had her third.

Three children, two parents. A perfect family of five.

Five was her favorite number. She liked it because it was asymmetrical and strange. Imperfect and so it was perfect to her.

The name 'James' had five letters. And so she had fallen in love with James Moriarty Number One (and she was the only one to ever call him 'James').

She also each of named their children, all boys, after him. Sure, there were other names with five letters, but Avis loved James Moriarty and so she wanted as much of him as she could get.

(Besides, Jay didn't seem to mind the tribute.)

Avis also loved flowers.

She always had a garden whenever it was warm enough outside and greenhouse when it was not.

There was a lot of order to gardening; not just the control of nature—the becoming a god—but in the nature itself. Plants seemed organic and random, but when observed long enough and in enough detail, all the patterns are visible. It just takes the right mind to notice them. Even tree branches grow in a pattern, but it's too complicated for most people to see and most people don't care.

(She had been planting and tending to flowers ever since she was a little girl raised to be polite, proper and rich. She had also always been smart. But young ladies of society weren't 'smart'—they were educated, yes, of course—but smart, contemplative, opinionated and outspoken they were not (allowed to be). Flowers were the one thing she didn't leave behind when she ran away from home.)

Avis wished she had been named after flowers (there were so many pretty flower names; Rose, Lily, Daisy) instead of after birds.

Avis had never liked birds. They picked at the seeds of her flowers and landed on them, defacing them.


(Ireland, 1982.)

One of her sons, however, did.

The middle son, James Moriarty Number Three—or, 'Jamie' for short—a quiet ten year old who was small for his age, was fascinated by birds.

His whole life, instead of playing with the other boys from school or bothering his older brother, he would just stare up at the sky or at the tops of trees (or, at his mother's defaced garden) and watch the birds fly.

Just the fact that birds could fly even though they weren't machines like airplanes or helicopters astounded Jamie. He wanted to know how it was possible and why, if humans were smart enough to invent planes and helicopters, than why couldn't humans learn to fly?

"Birds have hollow bones." Avis had tried to explain, once, as if birds' hollow bones were proof of their evil.

"But so do I." Jamie had replied, excitedly. He knew about the condition was born with that made his bones weak. Maybe it could finally be useful, instead of limiting, to him.

To that, his mother had just shaken her head and said "that's not the same."

Still, Jamie didn't give up. When his parents were at work (and James wasn't watching his little brothers like he had been ordered to do) he attempted to build parachutes and hang-gliders—wings—out of blankets and sticks, sometimes with the help of his wide-eyed but unemotional young brother Jimmy.

When he found dead birds on the ground he picked them up to play with (dissect) and took them to where he hid under the big tree in the little woods behind the neighborhood.

When he found live birds on the ground he would nurse them back to health until they could fly again…and then sob when they flew away from him once they had the chance and the ability. (He never tried to keep them in cages, though.)

Five year old, Jimmy didn't much care for birds but tagged along on Jamie's excursions into the nearby woods to find birds' nests because it was less boring than staying inside and bugging his oldest brother, James, while he sat in his room studying.

During one such excursion, an autumn afternoon afterschool, Jamie and Jimmy brought their newest set of wings out into the woods to test.

So far, the blankets stolen from the linen closet had only slowed their inevitable falls to the ground (the way a balloon losing its helium gently sinks to the ground), giving them comfortable landings onto the layers of dead leaves below.

But this time their wings were not made out of blankets. They were made out of cardboard. They had hollow insides, like tough paper straws(—or, like bird bones).

They were huge, too, dwarfing both the boys, made wide to create the maximum wind-resistance, hopefully supporting their weights (one at a time) and allowing them to 'fly' (fall very slowly) or at least glide for as long as possible.

Jamie and Jimmy had climbed the big tree one handed, carrying their wings between them in their free hands so that it looked as if a large bird was soaring at a ninety degree angle up towards the top of the tree. They stopped when they reached the last few branches thick enough to support them and lay the wings flat across two branches above them.

"I'll go first." Jamie declared, then carefully rotating his feet on the branch he stood on while holding on with both hands to a branch above him so that his back faced his little brother, "Help me put them on."

Jimmy stared at Jamie (Jamie's back, Jamie's feet planted as squarely as possible on the long brown branch, Jamie's hands braced against another identical branch higher up) from the branch he balanced on, bravely holding onto nothing.

He was shorter than Jamie but Jamie was skinny. He could see him trembling as he held on tight, arms and legs locked in place. He wondered how much of a push would make him fall…

Jimmy had always obeyed whatever his older brothers and parents ordered him to do. He did it automatically and had never considered doing anything else. That was just the way things were. Those were 'rules' for living life.

But how could they really be rules if not everybody followed them? It didn't make sense.

Jimmy had always done as he was to—but Jamie didn't, not anymore, and James never had (as far as Jimmy had seen).

They didn't follow the rules and it didn't make sense. It wasn't fair.

Mum told Jamie not to play with birds, but Jamie played with them anyway. He brought baby birds into the house even though mum hated birds and when mum had killed the one that wouldn't stop squawking Jamie had hit her.

He had actually hit their mother, an adult, who was in charge.

And she hadn't even hit Jamie back. She had yelled at him, yes, but neither she or their father had hit Jamie back even though they would have hit Jimmy or James if they had done the same thing because Jamie was 'sick'.

It wasn't fair.

And James, he was told to babysit his little brothers every day after school while their parents were still at work. He was supposed to feed them a snack and have them within his sight at all times.

But he didn't.

He told Jamie and Jimmy to go play outside so he could have the house quiet and all to himself and he locked the door until thirty minutes before their mother was set to return so they couldn't get inside and disturb him.

(Now, Jimmy and Jamie didn't really have a problem with this but it was still disobeying orders.)

It wasn't fair.

It didn't make sense…

Why did Jimmy have to follow the rules, but his brothers didn't?

Maybe the world wasn't a logical, orderly place in which everyone did what they were 'supposed to do' and things just were the way they were because they were the way they were.

Maybe the rules didn't matter and the world was changeable.

Maybe Jimmy could do whatever he wanted to do…

And so it was then, standing on the branch and staring at the back of his older brother, that Jimmy decided he didn't want to do as he was told and so he wasn't going to do it.

"No." he refused, "I want to go first. Help me put them on."

Jamie carefully rotated himself back around to glare at his younger brother.

"I'm going first." He asserted.

"But you always get to go first!" Jimmy complained.

"I'm older than you so I get to go first." Jamie reasoned, "Those're the rules."

"That's not fair." Jimmy dismissed, "I wanna go first so I'm going first."

"No you're not." Jamie denied, "They're my wings, and now I'm not gonna let you use them at all."

"I helped you build them." Jimmy reminded.

"Well, I designed them, it was my idea to use the cardboard." Jamie returned, "My design, my wings."

"Not if I steal them!" Jimmy decided.

He reached up for the wings, spread like a canopy above them, but Jamie was taller and quicker. Jamie grabbed the wings and pulled them down towards him, rocking backwards with the jolt.

Jimmy watched Jamie stumble but catch himself on the branch behind with one arm, twisting sideways and feet sliding slightly on the bark.

Now Jamie was only holding the wings with one hand and so Jimmy saw his opening, reaching across the drop between the two separate branches they stood on and snatching the other side of the wings.

Jamie was taller and older…but Jimmy was stronger. He wasn't 'sick'. He tugged the wings towards him and they came towards him.

So did Jamie.

Refusing to let go of his creation, he let go of the branch he had caught himself on and so was pulled forwards with the wings in his hand in the direction of Jimmy. His feet slipped of the branch.

Jamie was small for his age—but not that small. He weighed roughly the same amount as Jimmy did and Jimmy was not strong enough to hold onto the wings he held in both hands and Jamie. And Jimmy wouldn't let go of the wings, either. He was too was pulled, down, by Jamie's weight.

The two boys fell.


When Jimmy awoke the forest around him spun as he opened his eyes.

Looking up he could see the trees stretching skywards for what seemed like forever. There were birds above, chirping and flitting about from tree to tree.

Jimmy realized he was laying on something soft. Cardboard. The wings were underneath him.

Underneath the wings was Jamie. He was still asleep.

Jimmy stood up and looked down at his big brother, the carefully-cut cardboard covering him like a blanket.

Jamie was too big for Jimmy to carry back to the house and so he had to go back home to get his oldest brother James to do it. (James wouldn't be happy about this, of course, but he'd be happier about this than having their parents find out what had happened on his watch instead.)

Leaving Jamie safe under the wings and watched over by the birds and the big tree, Jimmy ran out of the little forest and all the way home.


James left his room and the books his father said he spent too much time with when he heard a light but persistent knock on the front door. He recognized his youngest brother's knock and almost ignored it, but for the fact that he knew Jimmy would keep knocking until he answered.

"What is it?" James snapped, upon opening the door and glaring down at Jimmy. His clothes looked dirty and his skin looked scraped, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Jamie fell asleep in the woods." Jimmy explained, "You have to carry him back or I'll tell mum we were outside all afternoon playing with the birds because you locked us out."

James groaned.

"Fine," he acquiesced, "Take me to him."


The walk through the backyard into the little forest was quick and silent.

Jimmy led James to the big tree and then stood by Jamie under the wings, gesturing to indicate what James could plainly see for himself.

And what James saw were the cardboard wings, slightly crumpled but lying flat across Jamie's body. Not moving. There was no up and down movement of deep breathing during sleep. The wings were motionless and so was Jamie.

James bent, checking the pulse on Jamie's neck first and then brushing the wings out of the way to check his chest. No breathing.

Nothing.

The only sound in the forest were the birds still singing to each other and the occasional rush of a car driving past in the distance.

Jimmy watched James, quietly, shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to another, waiting for James to pick up Jamie so they could all go back the house.

Instead, James stood back up, turning to Jimmy and looking at him with a scary, angry look Jimmy had only ever seen their father have before when he'd learned that Jamie had hit their mother for killing the squawking baby bird.

It hadn't fallen when trying to fly, it was too young. It had been pushed out of its nest one spring by its sibling. James had explained that its sibling had wanted all the food for itself. Their father said that it was weak and so Jamie should have left it to die. Those were the rules of nature. Their mother had taken it out of the house and stepped on it in the yard. She was only following the rules. And then Jamie had run outside after her, screaming and crying louder than the baby bird had ever been squawking, and hit her. He'd broken the rules.

"What happened?" James asked, eyeing Jimmy with their (shared) mother's eyes and their father's look.

"We made wings and we were going to fly." Jimmy explained, truthfully because he hadn't yet learned to lie, "But we fought and then we fell."

James said nothing for a moment, considering and then, because he had no other choice, accepting Jimmy's words.

"Go take a nap." He ordered, "And don't get up until I tell you to."

And Jimmy obeyed.


Jimmy eyes were closed but he was awake in the bedroom he shared with his older brother Jamie. The lights were off but the window let in the brightness of the afternoon sun.

A long time (or what felt a long time to a five year old child) later, Jimmy recognized the sound of his oldest brother's footsteps climbing the stairs.

Jimmy quickly pulled the covers of his bed over his head to hide his open eyes. He never slept at naptimes but he always pretended to.

The bedroom door was already open, and Jimmy listened to James enter the room and set something—presumably Jamie—down in the bed across from his.

Some nights, he and Jamie would lie awake whispering to each other all night. James had his own room because he was the oldest (which didn't make sense because their parents, even older, had to share).

Once Jimmy had heard James leave the room and go back down the stairs, Jimmy removed the covers from his face, and turned to lie on his side so he could face Jamie. Jamie was lying on his back, though, and no matter how many times Jimmy whispered to him he didn't wake up and answer. Finally, Jimmy just gave up and turned to lie on his back too, staring up at the ceiling as if it was the sky.

It was sunset, and the room was dark, by the time Jimmy finally fell asleep.


James waited in the front doorway for his parents to return.

He knew calling the paramedics or the Garda would not only be useless at this point, but bring unneeded and unsolvable problems to his family (particularly his father) and so he didn't bother.

Instead he just waited.

Avis arrived home from her job as a receptionist first, walking back from the nearby bus-stop and untying her long brown hair.

James met her in the front yard.

"Jamie fell out of a tree." He informed her, then adding before she could even react, "I put him in his bed but he is not going to wake up."

"I…don't believe you." Avis replied.

"You may check for yourself." James allowed, as if he had the authority to deny, "But Jimmy is in bed too, taking a nap. And if you scream, if you cry, he will wake up. So be quiet."

Avis looked at him, then over at the house and the window of her younger sons' room, and then back at James.

She said nothing, pushing past him and striding into the house.

James followed, again waiting in the front door way as she walked up the stairs, into the room, back out, back down the stairs, back out the door past him, and then back down the street she had come from, tying up her hair again as she went.

As instructed, she was silent the entire time.

He genuinely didn't know if he would see her again.


When it was dark, their father finally returned.

He parked his car, got out and started towards the house. Seeing James standing in the doorway he questioned "And what are you doing out in the fresh air?" more caustically than jokingly.

"Jamie is dead." James stated.

"What?" Jay checked, stopping.

"Jamie is dead." James repeated, "He fell out of a tree. Must have hit his head."

"Where were you when this happened?" Jay demanded, now marching towards the house and his oldest son.

"I was with Jimmy." James lied, "We were looking for Jamie. He got lost in the woods. By the time we got there it was too late."

"You were supposed to be watching them." Jay reminded, accusing but controlled, pointing a finger at James, "Both of them."

"I'm sorry." James said honestly.

Jay shook his head in disgust, turning from James and heading a way from the house.

"Where are you going?" James called after him.

"To find your mother." Jay responded, not looking back at him, "She's run off, hasn't she?"

"Yes." James affirmed.

"I'll find her." Jay stated, "You take of Jamie's body. You can handle that, can't you, 'son'?"

"Yes, sir." James nodded.

He waited outside in the yard until he'd seen his father walk off in the direction he knew his mother had gone in. Then he went and did as he was told.


James was back outside in the yard again when Jay and Avis returned.

Avis, ghost-like, said nothing as Jay led her inside and lay her down in their bed.

Jay came back downstairs and outside once he had, then addressing James.

"Did you burry him?" he asked.

"Yes." James confirmed.

"Where?" Jay followed-up.

"In the woods." James said, "You won't find him. No one will."

"Take me to him." Jay replied.


James had found a rotting log in the little forest and rolled it out of the way. He'd used his mother's gardening shovel to dig the grave of already loose earth, put Jamie inside, then covering him up with the dirt and the rotting log.

When the leaves from the surrounding trees fell and rotted, they would add further cover. It would happen soon, perhaps in the next week.

"There." James said, pointing at the dead tree trunk.

Jay passed James, then bent to roll back the log and check for himself. Before he did, he pulled the cross he always carried with him, hidden in his pocket, out of his jacket along with one of his wife's flowers from her garden.

"I don't think leaving a marker is a smart idea." James warned.

The flower wasn't the problem, but the metal was. It wouldn't decompose.

"I've done a lot of things that weren't smart ideas." Jay dismissed and rolled back the log with his other hand.

There in the grave, under all the loose dirt, Jamie was not visible.

The cardboard wings that James had found and placed over Jamie as a blanket, however, were.


It was night, and the sky and the house were completely dark when James told Jimmy to wake up. He did as he was told and followed his brother outside.

Everything the family was going to take was already packed into the car—except for Jamie.

"Where is he? Where is he?" Avis kept asking, frantically scanning the darkness and refusing to get into the car when everyone else was already inside.

She'd done a headcount. She'd counted again and again but the number of James Moriartys never added up to that perfect five she needed. Never again.

Eventually, she gave up and got in the car and the family drove away from their nice house in the nice neighborhood that would just assume they'd skipped out on their rent.


(Northern Ireland, 1982.)

Jay had old friends back in Belfast, he knew he could get work there, and so that's where they moved.

The house they had there was smaller, though, and in a neighborhood that was much less nice. The family had moved in as a family of four and so they never mentioned that there had used to be a fifth member.

Still, things attempted to return to some pretense of normal.

It was easy for Jay, who had never much loved his weakest son (or any of his sons, for that matter. not really.) and it was easy for Jimmy who was young and so didn't understand and soon forgot.

It was a bit harder for James, who blamed himself (although he never once expressed any actuality or polite farce of grief), but it was hardest for Avis who everyday tried to count to five and never got there and so everyday gave up.

It was only when Jay was around (and he wasn't around very often because of his job) that she even bothered to try to act normal (or, at least, her old self). And on some nice days, she'd garden outside. Mostly, she'd just clean since it was solitary, repetitive and it was much safer indoors.

James and Jimmy went to school, Jay went to work and for days he was gone, and Avis stayed home and cleaned. And at the dinner table, unless Jay was there, nobody would talk.


(Northern Ireland, 1984.)

One rare day that Jay was home, he told his sixteen year old son James that it was time he start 'contributing' to their family.

(The implication, of course, was that that 'contribution' would really be to the 'cause' and that that 'contribution' would involve a gun (or some other kind of weapon.))

The very next day, James had already packed his things and moved out.


(England, 1984.)

To England.

James's scores were good enough to get him in early to a good university (which, coincidentally, he attended at the same time as another young man his age, whose scores were also good enough to get him in a year early, named Mycroft Holmes who he had no classes in common with and so had no reason to become 'friends' with) but he was careful to transfer schools every year just on the off chance that his father bothered to send some sort of retribution after him for leaving.


(England, 1986.)

And James was sure that off chance had caught up with him at his new university one fall term when two men in black suits got out of a black car to stop him on the sidewalk.

"James Moriarty." The first addressed, "We know who you are and we know who your father is."

A posh English accent, like the one James had been practicing but never able to get quite right. So the men weren't sent by his father, after all…

…which meant they were probably some kind of police or other British authority (which could be just as bad—or worse).

"I don't have any information." James declared, "I don't talk to my father anymore and he'd let you kill me if you capture me to try to use me as leverage against him. I don't care about him and he doesn't care about me."

"We know." The second accepted, "…so would you be willing to set him up?"


(Northern Ireland, 1986.)

Phones could be tapped and so James had to cross the sea back over to the island he had never wanted to return to.

He met with his father in a pub that Jay had chosen specifically to make James feel uncomfortable, out of place, and possibly in danger just for being there. He looked over-dressed in a standard button-down and far too much like his English mother.

Jay had smiled (sneered) when he saw him.

Inside, they sat glaring across from each other at a wooden table on wooden chairs. Jay drank, James nursed.

"You have quite the nerve to come to me for help after two years of silence." Jay began, "What do you want?"

"I don't want your help." James corrected, "I have a deal to make with you."

"A deal?" Jay scoffed, "What kind of bullshit is—"

"I can get you and your people a lot of weapons." James interrupted, matter-of-factly.

"And how're you going to manage that?" Jay inquired.

"I met this foreign student at university." James explained, "He's from Libya and his father is rich there, he knows people in the government with access to Soviet weaponry. They'll smuggle it here and sell it cheaply if they're given assurance that it will be used against the British Government."

"Why would you want to be involved with this at all?" Jay questioned, "You've always played by the rules, 'son', what made you change your way of life now?"

"The money." James stated plainly. It was something that his father would understand, "The student approached me. A spy from his consulate knew who I am and knew who you are so he knew who to come to. If I hadn't been offered the amount he paid me, just to come here and talk to you, I wouldn't have done it."

"I don't believe you." Jay dismissed, shaking his head and chuckling; bitter and knowingly, "You forget that I know you. Just because you've been gone the past two years doesn't mean I didn't raise you. I know you're not greedy, you don't want luxury. Money is just means to an end to you and you only want as much as you need to do whatever you want. So what is it that you want?"

James sighed. A pause to think. He needed a more believable lie.

…or, perhaps, a truth.

"I want Jim to come and live with me in England." James said.

Jay smiled (sneered) again.

"There we are, I knew there was something." He responded, taking a swig from his mug in celebration, "…but how can I trust you with the only son I have left?"

"Because he's the only brother I have left." James reasoned.

"And whose fault is that again?" Jay reminded.

"Mine." James accepted the responsibility, "And that's why you can trust me to take care of Jim. You know it would be a better life for him in England."

Jay took another sip, this time contemplative. A pause to think.

He knew James was right. Jimmy, now called 'Jim', would be safer in England.

And besides, Jay really needed those weapons.

If trading his youngest son to his oldest is what got him them, then he would do it.

Jay set down the mug and extended his hand.

"Son, looks like you've got yourself a deal."


Two weeks later, on a dark and moonless night James stood on the beach with a briefcase full of money.

Next to him on one side stood a foreign fellow student from his university (who really did exist and really was Libyan, but whose family was pro-West and had sent him to school in England because they had been on the British side for generations since colonialism) and on the other side stood his father.

Behind them stood several of Jay's men, there to help with the unloading of the tiny speedboats set to arrive very soon. James could hear Jay (and his people) muttering about it "taking too long" but soon enough, they heard the roar of motors drown out the rush of the ocean.

The boats were not lit, but when they got close enough those on the shore were able to watch their approach. They got as close as possible without getting caught in the sand, and signaled with the flash of a flashlight for their buyers to wade out into the water, over to the boats, and begin unloading.

James, Jay, and the foreign student remained on the beach as this occurred.

It was dark and they were unable to see what was happening in the water, other than the shapes of people moving around and the boats bobbing up and down in the waves.

By the time the figures returned to shore, it was too late for Jay to act when he realized that instead of carrying crates of Russian guns, his people's hands were up and other people had guns pressed to their backs.

Suddenly the lights of the boats in the water turned on. They were so bright, blinding those facing them at first.

"What the hell?!" Jay exclaimed, holding a hand in front of his squinting eyes.

In his other hand he already held his gun.

"Her Majesty's Coastguard!" one of the silhouettes, black against the background of blinding lights, shouted, "Put your hands up!"

"Put the gun down, father." James ordered, as if he had the authority to.

Jay turned to glare at him, growling "You set me up!" then he raised his gun. Disobeyed.

James looked at his father, then at the gun, and then back at his father. James knew the look in Jay's eyes meant he was going to shoot.

A deafening gunshot rang out, but it was Jay that fell down to the sand, his once free hand clutching his once full one, now empty and bleeding.

His gun had fallen, too, somewhere onto the beach. Even with the floodlights from the speedboats, it was too dark to find it. Maybe it had rolled into the water and been washed away.

James blinked once, at the loud noise, and then watched as a uniformed man picked his father up off the ground and handcuffed him.

Jay and his coworkers were led away by the Coast Guard and handed off to more men in black suits waiting by black vans. They were silent. Not cursing, not complaining and not talking. They wouldn't break, wherever and to whoever it was they were being taken.

Once they had gone, James was alone on the beach with the foreign student he couldn't really consider his 'friend', either. The student nodded at him politely and headed away.

The briefcase of money remained in James's hands.

That was part the deal, after all.


Also part of the deal was that James Moriarty Number One would not go to prison like the rest of his 'ragtag band of rebels' (as the pompous head of whatever ministry of the British government (they hadn't specified) that James had worked out the details with called them).

Jay would simply return to his home in Belfast and live there under house-arrest with his not-wife, Avis.

…under the constant guard of a certain private-military company James had contracted to supervise his parents for their own protection from anyone who might have heard how their son had betrayed them—as well as to keep Jay from escaping.

The money James had earned setting up his father was more than enough to afford the fee. The rest he used to invest (money making more money) and for himself to life off of.


(England, 1986.)

And to support his little brother Jim.

The final part of the deal was that, as promised, little Jimmy (who was not so little anymore at ten years old) would come to England to live with James.

…it would be a better life for him, safer…

A new life in a new country. A new home and a school.


(England, 1989.)

A new enemy.

Carl Powers.


(England, 1990.)

Sherlock Holmes.


(Northern Ireland, 1991.)

After living peacefully with the occupation by private-military employees in their home for five years (Avis had gone back to gardening; she stopped counting as long as Jay was around and now he was always around), Jay got tired of the death threats the gunmen found almost daily when rooting through the mail and decided to rat out all of his former friends who now hated him for what his son had done.

He couldn't leave his house, due to the conditions of the deal James had worked out with the British government, and so he invited the British government agents and the officers of the Northern Ireland Police Service over for 'tea'.

They sat around on couches and chairs, Avis serving the tea (which she had made herself out of dried leaves from her garden) and other light refreshments while her not-husband drank whiskey and prepared to address the authorities awaiting what "very important information" he had to tell them.

Finally, Jay stood up from his chair, setting down the bottle and clearing his throat.

All eyes in the room, including those of the guards that had been 'babysitting' them for the past five years, looked at him expectantly.

Jay smiled (sneered).

The house had blown up and to bits before he had even opened his mouth.


(England, 1991.)

James stood in the top floor office of the private-military company's skyscraper headquarters in London, arms folded and face blank, as the current CEO attempted to explain the situation to him.

From what the local authorities could tell, it had been a homemade fertilizer bomb. Everyone inside the house had been killed instantly by the explosion.

"I warned you my parents would try something—"

"But they were so cooperative for the last five years. How could we have known?"

"I told you they were smart. I told you they'd bide their time. Your people were supposed to be watching them."

"I'm sorry! It won't happen again."

"It won't happen again?"

"We'll give you a full refund—"

"I don't want a 'refund'. It was your employees who died for their own negligence. What I want is assure that my brother and I will be protected. There were already so many people who wanted my father and me dead. After what's happened there will be more. And now that he's dead, my brother and I are the only targets—and with names like ours we cannot hide."

"We can protect you and your brother…as long as you don't set foot anywhere in Ireland. There, we can't guarantee your safety."

"Don't worry, my brother and I aren't going back there ever again."


The CEO promised his private military company would protect James Moriarty Number Two and James Moriarty Number Four as long as they wanted them to, and for free, too, in order to make up for the… "regrettable incident" (as the pompous CEO James had worked out the details with had called it).

But that was not enough. Somebody in the company had to take the fall, the responsibility, for what had occurred and so the company's Board of Directors fired the CEO in charge at the time, replacing him with Mr. Porlock who was much more cautious and whom they would oversee more carefully.

The Board still honored the now previous CEO's agreement with James, and even allowed and paid him to oversee their financial information whenever he felt like it, as a further apology and a 'show of good faith'.

And whenever James felt like he needed gunmen, the company sent them, no fees and 'no questions asked'.


Meanwhile, there was an administration change in the British government and so an unspecified ministry that James had worked with lost all of its records in an 'accidental' office fire (or was it a flood?), including the records pertaining their operation using student James Moriarty to set up his father criminal James Moriarty in exchange for custody of ten-year-old child James Moriarty (they'd referred to them by numbers, as well, for convenience).

In the midst of this complicated chaos, James paid a low-ranking record keeper to replace any of the entire British government's files on him and his brother with fake ones that indicated that they had been born and had lived in England their whole lives. The change was made during the change from paper to computer.


(England, 1992.)

James watched, but did not wave, as sixteen year old Jim boarded the airplane that would take him far away from England (hopefully never to return again).

He had tried so hard to help his little brother, but it was too late. Instead of being able to fix him, he just had to send him off to where he could ravage and ravish the third world like the wild animal he was.

Thinking back, James wondered if 'Jimmy' hadn't died along with Jamie when they'd fallen out of that tree together all those years ago.

James did not recognize the monster that Jim was now.


There were four James Moriartys. Two of them were left.

But there was only ever one Jimmy and he was dead.


Well, there you have it and I hoped you liked it. The phrase 'Number Two' made me giggle a bit. I've grown 'old' but not up.

Except the next and final (sort of) chapter much sooner.

(Of course, how much sooner depends on the reviews.)