Author's note- HOW GOOD WAS SHERLOCK LAST NIGHT? I LOVED IT! OMG OMG OMG. IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN IT THEN YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE IT!

Anyway, thank you for reviewing and on with the show.

Disclaimer- I shouldn't need to do these anymore, but in case you haven't realised, I own nothing.

Chapter 24

Lucy was now regretting everything. She knew she shouldn't have gone willingly with Seb, but she had no choice in the matter really. How stupid could she get? As she hesitated outside the warehouse, she realised just how serious the situation was. One false move and she could be badly injured, or even killed. Worst of all was how she was putting John and Sherlock in possible danger and making them worry again. Will she ever stop screwing up? Her confidence had wavered greatly. If she had refused to go with Seb, then she would have been hurt and brought here; but wasn't that better than saying she went willingly into the danger? Now wasn't the time for second thoughts. Squaring her shoulders, and throwing a swift glance at Moran behind her, Lucy threw open the door of the warehouse and entered.

The first noticeable difference this time around was that there were lights. Last time she hadn't noticed the light switch in the opposite end, but it wasn't very visible or top of their priorities last time. The bright lights illuminated the large building perfectly, and she took in her surroundings with a single look.

"Nice of you to drop by." A slightly Irish sounding voice said from the other side of the room.

"Well you know, thought it would be polite to come and say hi." Lucy shot back, as both she and Moriarty walked into the vast space in the middle of the warehouse until they came to a stop several metres away from each other.

"You expected this." Jim Moriarty said knowingly.

"Of course," she muttered, but she sighed heavily and looked around her- throwing her arms open, "But I had hoped you'd be more imaginative in your choice of venue."

"Ah," he smirked, "Couldn't resist meeting here. Call it sentimentality."

"Hilarious." Lucy glared at him. "What is it you want?"

"Oh just a nice cup of tea and a chat," he pouted mockingly.

"Enough with the games," She hissed, "It's over. You aren't going to win this time, so stop trying and save your energy." He just looked at her with annoyance.

"You know Lucy, what happened on that rooftop wasn't how I planned. I had to make that getaway because I knew things weren't going to work." Moriarty narrowed his eyes, "It's your fault. You're the one making Sherlock and John worry and run about like a loyal dog after you. How charming."

"Shut it," Lucy snapped, "What do you want with me?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping we could finish what we started earlier," he grinned.

"How original."

"Original is my middle name." James said with a smile. "So what you're going to do now is phone Sherlock and put it on loudspeaker. And you're going to say everything I tell you to."

"And if I don't?" She questioned, suddenly realising how bad the situation actually was. Moriarty cleared his throat, and from behind her, there was a sound of a gun being loaded. To check- she turned to look and was met with Sebastian Moran's cold eyes staring back as he pointed the gun at her. "Brilliant." She murmured. Turning back to face Moriarty, she inclined her head. "Fine."

"Thought you might play along with my game," he said with a slight smirk. "Phone him."

With shaking hands, Lucy reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone; pressing a few buttons, she dialled Sherlock's number and put it onto loudspeaker for Moriarty to listen to.

"I'd like you to act the part as well," he said as an afterthought as the dial tone sounded. Lucy just nodded her head. After just a few rings, Sherlock Holmes answered the phone.

"Lucy, are you alright?" He asked. Lucy looked at Moriarty who had come closer to her; with each sentence she waited for her instruction and then repeated what Moriarty had said.

"I'm fine of course, don't worry," she repeated Jim's words.

"We're on our way to the warehouses," Sherlock said to her.

"I'm not there, I'm sorry." Lucy tried to act the part as she was very aware of the gun pointed at the back of her head, "Look, I lied to you okay? There is no danger, there never was any danger." She took a breath as Moriarty told her what else to say. "I just needed to make sure you and John and the others were out of the way so that I could go to Baker Street without being caught."

"Why did you go to Baker Street?" Sherlock sounded confused, and the sound of their car stopping rang through as they now all listened to Lucy.

"To get my gun of course," she said sadly, repeating Moriarty's words.

"Lucy, what is this about? Tell me!" Sherlock said.

"I'm sorry. Everything I've done was my fault and mine alone." Lucy glared at Moriarty as she copied his words with a heavy heart, "This was always coming to me. My death. My suicide. I'm finishing what needs to be finished. Don't try to stop it. I've lost this battle alright? I always lose and I'm sorry it had to end like this." She made her voice sound fitting for the words, but she mouthed to Moriarty 'how emotional.' He didn't seem to appreciate my mocking, but she knew he had to make it sound as though she was the one speaking the words, which meant that emotion would have to be placed.

"No Lucy!" Sherlock yelled, "If this is Moriarty then stop him. Just stop him! It doesn't have to end like this. Where are you?"

"All lives end Sherlock. Goodbye." But before Lucy had a chance to hang up, Moriarty grabbed the phone and whispered in her ear:

"Let him hear." He threw the phone on the floor, neither end had hung up so Sherlock and the others could hear every word.

James Moriarty took a step back and Sebastian handed Lucy the gun he had been holding. With steady hands she took it. Moriarty smirked. And it was then that Lucy knew that there truly was no way out of this. Chances are that Sherlock had told whoever was driving to continue towards the warehouses; he would know that none of that conversation was true.

"Get on with it," Moriarty said gleefully, just low enough so that the phone wouldn't be able to pick up his words.

She knew she had to shoot herself. She knew this was how it ended. She knew that no-one could save her.

But Lucy had come prepared.

And the plan was pretty damn good if she did say so herself.

Almost as good as what Sherlock would be able to come up with.

Lucy had a bag with her. And since yesterday she had carried around a couple of things. Maybe it was good to be slightly paranoid at times.

She knew that Moriarty would want his revenge and she guessed that he would want to finish what he had started, so she packed her bag with a few key supplies that she would need in this exact situation. Yes, of course she hated herself for getting into the situation and for getting Sherlock and John involved, but she had to do this.

"Can I have a moment please?" Lucy begged Moriarty; the teenager's acting skills coming into further use, "Just one moment of privacy." She gestured to the door and he narrowed his eyes so the young girl said: "You know I won't run. I know that somehow you will get me anyways, so why prolong the inevitable? Please. I won't be a minute."

"Of course," he drawled, "Any more than a minute and I will kill you myself."

Lucy nodded her thanks as she walked to the door and stepped outside. Fumbling in her bag she brought out my items. She had the gun Seb gave her in her hand and she shoved it into her bag after taking the bullets out. From there, the teenager took out a small bag that was almost ready to burst. The bag was filled with red liquid, and it looked identical to blood. She had looked online as to how to concoct such a solution, and it was incredibly easy considering the amount of liquids and chemicals and resources Sherlock kept around the flat. With a bit of careful, but swift precision, Lucy had sticky-taped the bag to the back of her neck and her jacket. She let her hair fall and it easily covered it, making sure that it was impossible to notice. Lucy also grabbed a small rubber ball, which she carefully positioned under her arm, ready for the moment she died. The girl then picked up her last item. A gun. Yes... a gun. Luckily it wasn't too different to the one Seb had given her, and either way, they most likely wouldn't notice the difference as they would be too intent on watching her die.

Feeling as though she should get a move on and go inside, Lucy attempted to make it look as though she had been crying. She rubbed my eyes and managed to squeeze out a few tears, all for a dramatic effect. With the gun in her hand she strolled back inside to face Moriarty.

He stood, grinning at her, the phone still on in the middle. The troubled teenager walked up to him, twiddling the gun in her hand.

"I hope you don't mind," he started in his sing song voice, "But I have to rush off, so do be quick. Can't risk being caught now, can I?"

"Whatever you want," She said, making her voice shake slightly, "You know, Sherlock was right, you are pathetic. You are everything I expected you to be. How ordinary. Oh, but don't worry, I will kill myself to finish the game. But in the end... I. Always. Win." She sneered and took a few steps back. Lucy could see Moriarty edging towards the door. Deducing that he had gotten a call from a possible client, she knew that he needed her to hurry up so he could get on with his business- although he would see this through.

Lucy raised the gun to her head. And angled it to look like she was about to shoot herself.

"It's been fun playing your game." She hissed. And she briefly wondered how Sherlock and John would take to hearing the next part, but it wouldn't matter. Moriarty didn't say anything as he smirked at her.

Well, it was now or never. Lucy pulled the trigger just milliseconds after she had altered the angle by a fraction. The noise was loud enough to make her ears ring, and for a few seconds she lost her hearing. Simultaneously she fell to the floor, landing on her back, hitting her head roughly. Almost straight away she felt the bag burst and liquid instantly started to flow and pool around her head. The 'blood' trickled along the concrete floor, and from the way she hit her head falling, Lucy was sure that a tiny bit of her own blood was trickling out as well. Her body dropped and the gun clattered on the ground, even though she kept it in her grip.

Laying on the floor, she kept her eyes closed, and made her body go rigid. Lucy didn't even twitch- thank god. She squeezed her arm and felt the ball go into her skin. The teenager had landed awkwardly- meaning that her other wrist was trapped slightly. From beside her, she heard footsteps carefully walk towards her, clearly avoiding the blood on the floor. Lucy felt rough fingers- the ones of Moran's- check her pulse on her wrist.

"Dead." He announced triumphantly.

"Good," She heard the smile in James Moriarty's sadistic voice. "Shame, I enjoyed toying with her." There was a pause, "Just check for me though would you?" She felt her heart jump at his words.

"With pleasure," Sebastian said. Lucy heard his clothes rustle and she felt his hand on her arm.

Lucy felt the edge of a blade touch on arm; and she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from screaming or from moving. The blade dug in, just below her elbow, and it was drawn down almost to her wrist in one vertical, long line of crimson. She didn't even breathe as this happened, for fear of being found out.

"Yeah, she's dead." Lucy heard Seb say before a well aimed kick came barging into her left ribs. Footsteps sounded off and a door opened and closed, and all became deadly silent.

She wondered if they had both gone. But Lucy knew better than to move. She wondered how much Sherlock and John had heard. But she knew they would eventually find her.

Lucy felt blood seep out of the cut on her arm. It was deep, but she knew that he had missed the vein. Lucky me, she thought, there's a nice stroke of luck. He had missed it by about a centimetre she guessed, but it was enough to make a lot of blood flow. Long after they left she stayed on the floor, unmoving. Too scared to move in case they hadn't actually left.

What felt like an eternity later- but was in actual fact ten minutes- the door opened from the other side.

"Lucy!" The teenager heard Sherlock yell and several sets of footsteps sounded.

"Lucy!" John shouted, his voice shaking.

"She's in here," Lestrade called out from outside the door, probably talking to some police officers.

"Is she hurt?" Mycroft's voice rang out from outside the warehouse.

"Shit, no!" Sherlock's footsteps sped up. "She's been shot." He paused.

"Did she shoot herself?" John whispered, tears were in his voice, "And the cut on her arm..."

By this point Lucy really didn't know how to make it known that she was actually alive and okay. Was she to wait until they checked her pulse, which John was already doing to the arm where the ball was squeezed. Sherlock was applying pressure to the wound on her arm as more people entered. Lestrade and Mycroft had walked forwards and Lucy assumed they were looking on in shock. She really should tell them she was okay. But Lucy did feel a tad awkward.

"No pulse," John said brokenly.

"What? No! No!" Sherlock shook his head, "This was Moriarty, he made her do this. He dictated the words she said to us on the phone."

Lucy knew she was being a dick, not telling them by now, but in her defence, she was rather dizzy from banging her head and from the blood loss on her arm. Nonetheless, she slowly opened her eyes.

"Not dead." Lucy said. Silence. Sherlock, John, Mycroft and Lestrade all turned to just stare at her in disbelief. "Sorry about the worry." She grinned as she attempted to sit up. Without saying anything, Sherlock- from his kneeling position next to her- wrapped his arms tight around her body in a bone crushing hug. Lucy hugged him back with her non bleeding arm with equal strength.

"Sorry." She murmured, feeling awful, if not slightly proud at her accomplishment to fool the criminal mastermind.

"No need to apologise," Sherlock said softly as he pulled back. John then hugged her, and she could see he had shed a couple of tears.

"I truly am sorry," Lucy whispered to him.

"I'm just glad you're okay." He sighed, his voice ragged with relief. Even Lestrade bent down to hug her.

"Glad you're alive," He laughed.

"Thanks," she laughed back. Mycroft, not being the hugging type, smiled genuinely at her and said:

"You gave us quite a fright."

"Sorry about that."

Lucy felt John take over, applying pressure to her arm. A police officer came in and handed John a medical kit, which he gratefully took. As he tended to the cut- it wasn't deep enough to need stitches- Sherlock began pacing.

"So you didn't shoot yourself." He said, more as an observation than a question.

"No, I didn't, and I didn't do that cut either, that was Sebastian Moran's fault as they wanted to make sure I was dead." Lucy sighed, "Luckily I didn't make a noise or cry out."

"But what about the blood?" Lestrade asked, gesturing to the pool around her.

"Go on Lucy," Sherlock smirked, "Tell us how you did it."

"Well it was actually kind of easy." The teenager started, "I knew that Moriarty wouldn't just leave it there and that he would be back to finish what he had started. He didn't want to get his hands dirty so he would make me shoot myself. I knew that much. Yesterday, I took the liberty of preparing a few supplies to put in my bag as I was sure that it wouldn't be too long until he made another appearance. Anyways, when we got here after a few words he made me call you. You were right Sherlock, he dictated what I had to say, and I didn't have much choice in the matter as Moran was pointing a gun at my head. Once I stopped speaking, he put the phone on the floor and Moran gave me the gun he had been holding. By this point I knew there was no escape, I had to 'die.' At this time, I begged Moriarty for privacy, saying that I knew this was inevitable so there would be no point in running away. He accepted and let me go outside for just under a minute. In that time I put my plan into action. In my bag I kept a few supplies. First of all was a small bag bursting with red liquid. Back at the flat yesterday, I had researched how to make convincing looking blood- and luckily we had all the supplies I needed in the kitchen thanks to Sherlock's experiments. So I created my fake blood and put it into this bag as the bag itself would need to be very close to bursting, so that when I fell, it would break and the liquid will instantly be released. So with some sticky tape I taped the bag to my neck and jacket as you can see, which was in the perfect place as my hair easily concealed it. Next was this rubber ball," she withdrew it from under her arm and showed them it, by this point John had almost finished bandaging her arm, "When placed under the armpit and squeezed, this ball can easily stop the pulse for a short time. I needed this for when they checked that I was dead. I knew they would pick this arm as I landed rather awkwardly on the other, which did make it go numb after a while but never mind. The last thing I needed was a gun. And it had to be a gun which I could use without dying. And what better gun to use than a blank pistol? It took me a while to find one, but I eventually came across it when I looked around Sherlock's room- sorry by the way- but I found one under his bed. It luckily looked a little like the gun Moran gave me so they wouldn't notice the difference. This blank pistol meant that I could fire it, creating a loud bang that they needed, and it would do everything a normal gun does other than fire a real, dangerous bullet. Once back inside the warehouse, I raised the gun to the side of my head. Then, just milliseconds before I fired it, I shifted the angle of the gun upwards so that it fired and went nowhere near my head- as otherwise that could have been fatal due to the shockwaves. At the same time I fell to the floor, the bag burst, I landed still and squeezed that ball and when they checked on me I had no pulse and looked rather dead. Moriarty however, decided that he wanted to check my absence of life, which is why my arm is bleeding. Moran had a knife with him outside the park where he was waiting for me, which is why I went with him- otherwise I would have been threatened even further with the knife. Anyway... using that he cut my arm. It took all of my willpower not to cry out or move or do anything. But I managed it. I don't know how but I managed it." Lucy finished with a flourish.

"Genius," John said in disbelief.

"I must admit, that is a little impressive," Sherlock said, although Lucy could tell that he was actually really quite impressed by her plan.

"So what happened to Moriarty?" Mycroft queried.

"He went off somewhere, I'm guessing he had to go and be a criminal mastermind elsewhere," Lucy replied with a small shrug.

"There's not a lot we can do about Moran and Moriarty," Lestrade grumbled.

"Don't worry," Lucy said, "I don't think he'll be back for quite a while."

"You won't find him anywhere anyway," Sherlock said, "He's too clever for that. But he's no longer our immediate concern." Sherlock helped Lucy up onto her unsteady feet, "Let's go back to Baker Street and have a nice cup of tea. I think we all need one."

"Definitely," John agreed with a smile.

As we walked back to the car, Sherlock patted me on the back.

"Good work," he said, smiling at her. "I am rather impressed. It takes a lot to fool Moriarty."

"I quickly learnt from the best," She said, nudging him.

"I'm just glad you aren't hurt," He sighed, "Having you alive is much better than having you dead."

"Oh, thank you," Lucy said sarcastically, but she heard the consulting detective chuckle. With a sigh she asked: "What now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is that it? Is Moriarty not coming back?"

"I doubt that," Sherlock shook his head, "I'm sure this isn't the end." He glanced down at her and stopped walking, he hugged her again. He could see the conflict in her young eyes, and he wondered if she was truly out of danger. He wondered if she was still in danger of her own mind...

Author's note- So, uh, this just happened, I don't know how. Review please? Do you want more? I would like to do more, focusing perhaps on Lucy's self harm etc. Any ideas you would like to see in here? Just let me know!