If you can find me
Come and get me out of here

- Oingo Boingo - Private Life -

The first time he had woken up had been disorienting. He remembered his capture- he had been surrounded as soon as his feet had touched the ground in Belgium, the parachute drifting to the frost-covered grass around him. There had been twenty-five or so, all armed with semi-automatic weapons, and he'd had little choice but to drop his bag and put his hands on his head. They'd handcuffed him and then drugged him, and that was that.

Upon waking, he had kept his eyes closed for a while, uncertain about what he would open them to, listening for clues. But when he had finally risked a glance, he'd been surprised to find himself in an army barracks, lying on a regulation cot. He'd sat up slowly, looking around. The place was smaller than standard- only eight cots along each wall- and there were subtle differences. The windows, for one, were not windows but paintings of windows, with a military base from various angles crudely detailed in dollops of green and tan, motionless trucks and soldiers and UK flags.

There were other differences, too. The door out was locked, for one, and made of thick metal under the 90s faux-wood pressboard. The furniture was bolted to the floor, and when he went into the bathroom there was nothing but a prison toilet and a few squares of toilet paper. No mirror, and a simple spout emptying onto the floor for a sink. He supposed it was meant to drain into the small drain in the corner of the room.

He could see some of himself, however. He wasn't in his own clothes, but in standard issue UK marine fatigues. They were not new, but they were clean. He wore socks, but no boots.

Anything that could conceivably be used as a weapon had either been modified until useless, or removed.

It was strange, but easy enough to understand. He was a prisoner.

They left him well enough alone for a few hours. When it seemed reasonably certain that time had become a little harder to keep track of, the door unlocked and a woman came through. She was dressed in the same army fatigues as him, but she had been given the luxury of boots and weaponry. She had a semi-automatic strung across her shoulders, and a knife in a holster at her hip, strapped into place so it couldn't be slid free without serious intent. She held a tray of food in one hand, though it was clearly just MRE's in a vaguely palatable state. A flimsy bottle of water was in the other.

"Hey, Colonel," she smiled, shutting the door behind her with a click of the lock. She had a fairly weak Belgian accent, and she had the typical dark coloring of an Algerian. She was pretty, but nothing particularly striking. "Hungry?"

"I suppose that depends on who the fuck you are," he said calmly, evaluating her quickly. She wore the weapons with the comfort of someone who knew how to use them. They were also well secured. He doubted he would be able to get one, without incapacitating her. He could do that, but then what? He was still locked in this room. Her dark skin was glossy, but not sweaty. She didn't appear remotely nervous.

Next he considered the food. There was little point to poisoning him. They'd drugged him, they had had him at their mercy for hours and he was alive. There was nothing to say they wouldn't drug him again, however.

And then there was what she had called him. Colonel. She knew who he was. All in all, the situation was not an appealing one.

"I'm your friendly neighborhood guard, though if you're not careful, I will be significantly less friendly, and I doubt that you'll enjoy that too much," she said cheerfully, setting down the tray of food on the cot over from him and tossing him the water bottle. "I'm the only one of my colleagues who won't spit on you for a good time, so you should probably be a little appreciative."

"Forgive me, I wasn't aware I was speaking to my savior," he said, catching the water bottle and opening it up, taking a sniff suspiciously before offering it in her direction. "Please. Have a drink."

She chuckled, taking a step forward and taking it from him to take a healthy swallow before handing it back. "Relax. If we want to drug you again we'll just put a needle in you. Much less fuss, everyone can trust each other, it's a win-win," she said easily, shrugging a little, her hand resting comfortably on her gun. "If you want more water before we get around to feeding you again, the stuff from the pipes is clean. Just let the water run for a moment before you drink from it."

He took a few swallows of the water. It was warm, but his mouth was dry and parched, and it tasted good enough. He just grunted his acknowledgment of the water commentary, and after considering the food, decided just to eat and be done with it. As she'd said. They could drug him whenever they liked. "Why am I here?" he asked through a mouthful of something attempting to be mashed potatoes.

"Because Moriarty can't have you, but you're too valuable to just bury in the backyard," she said simply, sitting down a cot away from him, keeping some space between them. "Aside from that, I really can't say much. You're pretty, but you're not worth the skin off my back."

He nodded. That was fair. He was prisoner, then. Time to start planning an escape. He ate quietly for a bit, and the horrendous but familiar food was almost a comfort. Good ol' MREs. "Who's in charge here?"

"You really think that I'm going to tell you just like that? No, I think that's asking for a bit much," she snorted, standing up again, tapping out a beatless rhythm on her gun.

"Alright, tell me everything I'm allowed to know, then," he snorted, setting aside the rest of the food and standing. She was tall, but he was taller by a good half a head. Still, he kept his distance. "I don't feel like guessing. Just explain the game. If there wasn't one, I'd be in a cell, not a replica barracks."

"There isn't a game for you to play, here, Colonel," she shrugged, very obviously having a firmer grip on her gun now that he was standing. "This a game for someone else. All you've got to do is be yourself. As for what you're allowed to know, well, it isn't much yet. Not much has happened, but we converted the French unit sent in after you to our side. I'm shocked they bothered listening, but I guess even the French can surprise you."

He snorted slightly in annoyance, and bared his teeth. Then he sighed, and relaxed. "Fine. Then what do I call you?"

"Ines," she smirked. "I'd shake your hand, but I'd prefer you didn't come that close to my gun."

"Smart woman," he smirked back. Then he turned and lay back down on the cot, arms crossed behind his head, staring up at the ceiling and ignoring her, ending the conversation.

She laughed and turned around, heading back to the cell door. She knocked twice in rapid succession and the door unlocked, and she left, leaving an air of satisfaction behind her.

The lights never turned off or dimmed, and the space between meals was unpredictable. He lost all sense of time, any connection to the outside world.

He was not allowed a razor, so for a while he tracked time by his beard and hair, but he had never been able to grow a very full beard, and eventually it was about as long as it would get and time was still passing.

The woman- Ines- was his only contact. He spoke with her whenever she came in, tried to pry answers out of her, but she always said a whole lot of nothing, always playful and cheery and unruffled.

He explored every inch of the room for a way out, but the place was incredibly well constructed. For a few days he had stood waiting for Ines to come in, but the door had never opened until he went away and Ines came in laughing at him.

Another time he had managed to grab the door as she was leaving, but beyond he found only a step of space before another locked door, and she had laughed at him again, with her gun in her hands as she asked him politely to step back into the cell.

He spent his time exercising, thinking, and sleeping. He had gotten a little lazy over his and Lorna's vacation, but he quickly hardened his muscles back into shape.

He thought a lot about India. About Lorna and Jim...

He needed to escape.

At the month and a half mark, Ines entered into the cell again, armed with her usual weapons, along with an actually decent cooked meal and a bottle of bourbon. "Hey Colonel," she hummed, shutting the door behind her with a familiar click. "You want a drink? It's your last meal, after all."

He looked up from where he was doing one-armed push-ups, and then got to his feet, brushing his hands off slowly. "Is it? That's news to me," he said, tone light but eyes wary.

Her eyes gave him a once over as she proffered the bottle. "Your sentencing is tomorrow. Your execution will soon follow. Don't worry, you'll wake up fine, but you're going to, for all appearances, die."

He waved the alcohol away. He couldn't think of a time he wanted to be drunk less than when it was in his captor's interests. He studied the food, though, and then picked up the plate and started eating eagerly. It was good to have something real.

"Why am I dying, exactly?" he asked, once he'd had a few mouthfuls of roast.

"To crush your colleagues. James Moriarty, without his longtime bodyguard and right-hand man? Lorna Harrison, his third in command, without her lover? Instability and death. That's useful to me," Ines smiled, unscrewing the bourbon bottle and taking a celebratory swig. "I run this operation, by the way. It's been me the whole time."

His jaw tightened just slightly. He took a slow breath, another bite of the roast, though he was uninterested in it now.

"Big reveal," he hummed with a nod as he looked up. "How many times did you play that over in your head? Was it fun?"

Idiot, Moran. Still, it doesn't matter who she is. It makes no difference. I haven't told her anything.

"Sure was, Tiger," she winked, setting down the bottle. "But you're not the fun part of all this. You're just the second step. Unless you decide to be more fun, that is, but I highly doubt it." She pulled the ring they'd taken from him when they'd first nabbed him out her pocket, bringing it up to examine the hammered metal in the light. "I'm not her."

His gut clenched, but he laughed. "That thing? I picked it up at a thrift shop. You're right that I won't fuck you, but not because of a two-bit ring. It's because, as a rule, I don't put my cock in pied-noirs." He wanted to see if he could get a rise out of this woman.

"Oh, no, don't do that," she rolled her eyes, "Sebastian Moran isn't racist toward Algerians, of all things. You've done too much to be ethnocentric. Good one, though. Maybe if I was a little stupider I'd have believed it," she shrugged, still turning the ring around in the light. "So you won't mind if I hold on to this, then? I mean, it doesn't matter to me, I couldn't care less whether or not you're sentimental about it, that's not how I'll get information. No, that'll be sleep deprivation and a myriad of drugs and small, dark spaces."

Her dark gaze returned to him again, black eyes glittering in the light, her irises nearly as dark as her pupils. "I won't threaten to put a hit out on her. She'll kill herself anyways; I've heard the stories. So you can hold onto this 'two-bit' ring, or watch it live on the hand of your enemy."

He stared at her for a moment, trying to decide the game to play. But this woman was like Jim, he could tell. Holding out wasn't how he one this game. He had to let her win a bit.

He stuck out his hand grudgingly, expression sour. "Just give the damned thing over," he spat quietly.

She dropped it into his hand, a sweet smile on her face. "Cute. Well, I'll leave you be. Rest up, you have a big day tomorrow," she hummed, turning and leaving the room, the bourbon left behind.

He closed his hand around the cool metal, taking a slow breath and reigning in his pride. He slid the ring in place.

Make her think she has control.

Lorna knocked on Jim's door, her face pale, her stomach trying to heave, her legs feeling like they were going to give out any second. She barely managed to wait for him to make any sort of sound of acquiescence before she walked in, grabbed the TV remote off his desk, and turned it on to change the channel to a Belgian news program.

"-was the historic trial of the madman convicted of killing three children and drawing Nazi paraphernalia on the walls with their remains. In a few minutes, we'll cover his execution by lethal injection."

Jim felt his insides turn to ice. He stood immediately, for what purpose he was uncertain. A hand reached for his phone, but that was purposeless too. Every team the had sent in had disappeared, every single one.

He tucked his phone away while the newscaster started rambling on about something to do with a rise in Nazi extremism in the European area. They were showing footage of a man being led from the courthouse by Belgian police. He was dressed in a prison jumpsuit, unshaven and thin, but there was no mistaking his face.

"We go now," he decided, heading for his quarters, the TV still playing. He grabbed a bag, starting to pack quickly. Clothes. Toothbrush. Knives. Guns. Guns. Guns.

She stayed where she was, glued to the television, her mind faltering on a month and a half of little sleep and too much alcohol. What did she need to pack? There was nothing here she couldn't live without, and that wasn't in her emergency kit.

He came back into the room with the bag over his shoulder, talking on the phone in rapid French. He trailed off when he saw the screen however, and slowly lowered the phone, and hung up.

Sebastian was on the screen again, on the other side of a glass divider from the cameraman. Other press was in the shot, which he vaguely noticed, but his attention was on his bodyguard. Sebastian was restrained in the chair with heavy leather straps across his arms, torso, legs and head, an I.V. leading into his arm. A guard was speaking with him, but there was no sound.

"We bring you live to the execution of Sebastian Moran, whose locked-room trial has been drawing attention across the world. Moran was convicted of three counts of homicide, after he murdered three children and used their blood to draw Nazi symbols on the wall. In an unusual move, Moran's execution has been expedited to just a few hours after the trial, after the defense made no attempt to appeal the verdict."

Jim slowly put his bag onto the floor.

Lorna couldn't move, couldn't breathe, staring shell-shocked at the screen, the only movement tears rolling down her cheeks. No, no, they can't, someone will ask questions, someone will say something, someone will STOP them.

"The execution will be taking place in just a minute, but we will have to turn off the cameras as it actually happens. I apologize to our viewers, but convicted criminal or not, we cannot show a person's death live on camera. We will be cutting to the studio, to discuss the trial and the events that caused it. Thank you for joining us today, my name is Jean Paul, and this has been the news."

When the camera cut to the studio she stopped listening, sinking to the floor right where she was, her hands on her ears. No.

Jim shook his head a little. "No... No, it's just a trick," he said, then, laughing. "They aren't showing it, it isn't-"

He broke off as his phone chirped, and picked it up, unlocking the screen and frowning at the blank space in the text where the number should be.

Didn't want you to think I was cheating ;) followed by a link.

He clicked it, and after a moment he cast it to the television. A grainy feed of a familiar room and a familiar man came up, and the happiness died in his chest.

"God, no," she whispered, eyes on the television again, her heart clenching in her chest.

She could see the guards injecting something into the IV, watched a grainy interpretation of the man she loved jump under the leather straps, straining as his body seized, the heart monitor that could just barely be heard drumming fast, stuttering, stopping.

She curled in on herself, dragging her nails across her scalp, a broken sob punching out of her throat.

He's gone. He's gone. He's GONE.

Jim reached out a steady hand, and turned off the television. He stared at the dark screen for a moment, listened to the choked, sobbing noise that was coming out of Harrison. Then he turned around, walked slowly over to sit behind his desk.

He could almost imagine that Moran would walk in any moment, give him an idiotic smirk and tell him it was all to prove he cared.

This is what caring feels like, Jim, he would say. Don't make me leave Lorna anymore. Not after we were apart for twelve months.

And he would pick up his gun and shoot Moran in both legs and both arms, avoiding vital parts, and in a few months when he was healed up he would do it again, and again...

Harrison made another noise and he closed his eyes, trying to block her out.

She did all she could to muffle her sobs, because she sure as hell wasn't capable of getting up and leaving. God, how could this be happening? How was this real? She was the one supposed to die first, she was the one who was supposed to meet an early end. Moran, gone. Sebastian, Seb, her boss turned fuckbuddy turned begrudging weakness turned love. The only reason she had pulled together the shattered remains of herself, how many times now? And now he was gone, so fast. Not even a bullet to the head. Lethal injection. Not a soldier's death. Put down like a dog.

What was she supposed to do now?

Jim had his gun in hand, but didn't move. Sitting there with his eyes closed, his breaths slow as he lost himself in his mind palace. Wandered through halls full of chemistry and mathematics and avoiding anything remotely involving memories. He didn't want to be Jim, he wanted to be science and nothing more.

Eventually she gathered enough of herself to move, still half clutching her chest, and she left in a practically incoherent state, oblivious to anything around her.

When she made it back to the flat - his, their, her flat - she scanned in and shuffled through the living room, into the bedroom, where she rummaged through his clothes until she found a suitably thick sweater. Then she sank to the floor again, the sweater clutched in her hands, and breathed in his scent while it still lingered here. Gunpowder and spice, and something that was all him. The scope of his loss with mind-boggling. It hurt worse than anything had ever hurt, like her chest was splitting in two, her bones and her heart trying to leave her skin the hard way. She buried her face in the sweater and sobbed again.

He couldn't stay in his mind palace forever. His body had needs. Eventually he was dragged out by the urgent need to urinate, and headed for his bathroom.

He stared at himself in the mirror when he was done. He looked... haggard. The shell of the man he had been a year and a half ago. Those twelve months had not been kind to him, no, but this...

He had never felt anything like this, and he wanted it to stop.

He had been afraid of it. He knew that much. When Moran had flat-lined he had felt the dread creep over him. But that was merely the anticipation of the unknown. Nothing had touched on whatever... this was. It was a physical burden in his chest, crushing his organs and making breathing nearly impossible. He wanted to claw whatever it was out with his bare hands, and leave it drooling blood in the sink.

He closed his eyes, hands gripping the desktop until his knuckles turned white. He felt his eyes sting, and to his horror he realized he was crying.

He put a stop to that immediately.

She didn't know how much time passed before the utter grief morphed into blame. If Jim hadn't sent Moran alone...

She wasn't even really aware what she was doing until she had Jim's door halfway open, her heart hammering, fury in her fists.

"This is your. Fault."

Jim scrambled up from where he had been sitting, leaning against the desk. His eyes were red, and he looked pale, gaunt. "What the fuck are you doing here, Harrison?" he snarled, circling behind his desk. He wanted to be left alone.

She slammed the door shut behind her, a hand jerking out to point at him, knuckles white. "This is your, fucking FAULT, Jim," she snarled right back, advancing on him until she could slam her hands onto his desk. "You sent him alone, without backup, into a place you had no control over. YOU got him killed!'

The part of her that wasn't busy ripping into Jim was examining him. He looked to be just as much of a wreck as she was. So James Moriarty had a fucking soul after all.

He had the gun in his hands before she'd reached the desk, and now he brought it up, shoving it into her head with a snarl. "I warned you that if you came through that door again I would put you down," he spat. "Shut your fucking mouth."

She didn't back down, pressing her head further into the gun, her teeth bared in a snarl. "Fuck you. You're not going to shoot me. You're not going to kill me. You can't."

He flicked the safety off, finger compressing the trigger. "And why is that, Harrison? Please, I'm all ears. What makes you so fecking special?!"

She dug her fingers into the wood, leaned further forward, eyes boring into his. "I'm all you have left of him."

He stared her down, his chest heaving, and pulled the trigger.

Or at least that's what his brain told him to do. But the trigger remained very un-pulled, and he knew that she was right. Fuck her.

Sebastian Moran had loved this woman, had fought Jim to save her, for Christ knew what reasons, but he had. It was a flaw, but it wasn't what had gotten him killed. The grifter was again right, there. That was his own stupidity.

He stared her down a moment longer, then lowered the gun.

"Get out." His voice was calm, but his hands shook, and he had a vice grip on the gun, seething.

She pushed off the desk and turned, storming out of the room without another word.

When she made it back to her flat, she threw open the liquor cabinet and grabbed the strongest thing they had - she had, dammit - and didn't bother pouring herself a glass, just chugging right from the bottle. After five swallows she slowed down, sat down against the sofa, crying again. It was so hard to be in here, in this flat, in HQ, in this fucking country. The memories of him stung, and stung deep.

They'd nursed each other back to health so many times in this flat. Had so many fights here. Eaten so many meals here. Fucked so many times. Cleaned their guns, made their drinks, done their jobs. And now they were no longer a they. They were a she. She was bereft of him.

She didn't know when she found the handgun of his that he kept in the cabinet under the TV, or how she'd gotten it properly loaded, but it was in her hand as the light in the flat was dying, the sun failing to cast its glow in through the windows any longer.

She kept it on the coffee table in front of her, drinking through sobs.

I know that I can't have it all
But without you I am afraid I'll fall

- MARINA - I'm A Ruin (Acoustic) -

I'm coming apart at the seams
Pitching myself for leads in other people's dreams
Now buzz, buzz, buzz
Doc, there's a hole where something was
Doc, there's a hole where something was

- Fall Out Boy - Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes -