~xXx~


3am and Sherlock had an odd sort of relationship. If he thought about it, the detective supposed they could best be described as fair-weather friends. On normal cases, 3am was Sherlock's favorite time to work. Everything was quiet and still, and there was so much potential in the air that it was suffocating. The streets would be empty, the shops all long closed down, and John would be off asleep somewhere in the flat. It was a silence so complete that the world seemed dead…but Sherlock had never minded death much. Death was what made everything he loved possible. On normal cases, 3am was when everything became clear.

This, however, was not a normal case.

Sherlock's mind was a whirlwind of broken thoughts and desperate logic. He couldn't control it. Every thought ended with a cross airs over John's heart. Every deduction ended with him standing over a tombstone placed right next to his own, John's name permanently carved into cold marble. The horrors his imagination created were endless. It was like he was drowning in them—frantically trying to swim upwards even as the current towed him down to the depths below.

Find out what it means.

But the times when he did break the surface were almost worse. Everything seemed to turn in on itself, twisting into a deformed backwards reflection. John holding a gun, his sights lined up with Sherlock's chest. His brow pulled tight and his eyes dark as he mouthed the words:

Find out what it means.

John, his teeth bared as his finger squeezed the trigger and—NO!

Sherlock flung himself up out of his chair and began pacing back and forth across the small living room. This was pointless! This wasn't the problem he needed to solve! He needed…he needed to figure out who the puppet was—how he thought and how he acted and how he obeyed. John didn't matter anymore. No…that wasn't quite right. John shouldn't matter anymore. Not here. Not now.

How he obeyed. Yes, that was the key.

He pulled the Dari letter from his pocket, examining his rough translation once more. The letter was written in a series of short—almost juvenile—sentences. Assumedly the Afghan man had been much better with a gun than he was with reading.

Be at 32.3, 62 between the dates of March 4th and March 26th. Target: male, 5'7, sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, sturdy build. Rank: Captain. Division: Fifth Northumberland Fusilliers. Name: Watson, John.

Shot must injure but not mortally wound or cripple. Do this and your payment will triple. Fail, and you're dead.

-M

Moriarty had arranged for John to be shot. He'd arranged it. All of it. Everything.

Find out what it means.

No! Stop. He needed to stop thinking about John. Thinking about John wouldn't help him now. The puppet—he needed to figure out who the puppet was. So what did he know?

Male—obvious from his strength and the size of the boot-print Sherlock had seen in Sylvia's yard. Sniper. Well experienced and specifically trained to detach emotion from thought. Meticulous and able to follow directions without question. Probably military then. Highly ranked too, as men with such specialties often were. But what else? In two days, what had he learned?

Aren't ordinary people adorable? Well, you know: you've got John. I should get myself a live-in one. It'd be so funny.

Nothing. He'd learned nothing. This man was a man of shadows. He didn't live where everyone else did—he lived in Moriarty's world: a world spiders and flies. And this time…this time Sherlock was the fly.


~xXx~


Sherlock didn't know how many hours had passed by the time the third parcel finally fell through the mail slot, but it didn't matter, because this time he'd been ready for it. There, sitting crouched in the entryway, he watched as the tip of the envelope peeked through the small flap. His entire body seemed to come alive, springing into action and flinging open the door before the parcel even hit the ground.

He was rather unsurprised to find a homeless boy standing on his stoop—Moriarty's star pupil would never be stupid enough to drop Moriarty's journals off himself. The boy stared up at him for a long moment, his hazel eyes wide. One sweep of the state of his coat and trousers told Sherlock that he'd only been living on the streets for a couple of months. He was either very small for his age, or quite young, and he had the sort of small, unsuspecting hands that back pockets loved to ignore. His face was plump, his cheeks red, and there was a bit of powdered sugar smeared across his left cheek. All these things pointed to the rather obvious fact that this boy had yet to feel the bitter sting of life on the streets of London.

Well, that was about to change.

Sherlock's hand shot forward, his fingers winding around the boy's arm and yanking him into the flat before he could even think to scream. The detective kicked the door shut with his heel before lowering himself down onto one knee, pulling the boy in close.

"Who sent you?" Sherlock asked, his voice low and stern.

Tears welled up in the boy's eyes almost instantly. Definitely not accustomed to the streets. "Let me go!"

"Who. Sent. You." Sherlock repeated, practically growling out the words.

"I—I don't know."

"You don't know or you don't want to say?"

The boy's lower lip quivered.

"Did he hurt you?" Sherlock scanned him once more, just to make sure. He seemed sturdy enough.

"No," the boy replied timidly. "He—he gave me Turkish delight."

Of course. Treats often worked much better than money with adolescent minds. And to a young boy who probably hadn't tasted sweets in months, Turkish delight was better than gold. Sherlock scowled. "Tell me what he looks like. Tell me his name."

"I don't know—"

"Tell me!" Sherlock snapped, shaking the boy hard. "You must've seen someone—talked to someone!"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Tears spilled over his cheeks as he struggled to pull away. "I've never seen him! He just leaves notes on my route with directions! All they have is an address and a time, and where to find the package! And then when I come back there's always candy waiting for me! That's all I know! I swear—that's all!"

Sherlock blew out a hot breath through is nose. No shifting of eyes. No nervous ticks. The boy was telling the truth. Damn. Sherlock released the boy, and watched as he stumbled back into the wall. "You need to stop accepting sweets from this man, do you understand?"

The boy stared back at him with wide, red-rimmed eyes.

"Do you understand, boy?" Sherlock barked.

The boy nodded fervently.

"Get out of my flat."

He didn't waste a second. Within a blink the boy was scrambling out the door and down the porch steps. Once he rounded the corner, Sherlock fell fully to the floor, his body collapsing in on itself. Growling, he lowered his head between his knees, weaving his fingers through his hair and fisting the dark strands.

What was he supposed to do? The last body—Sherlock raised his head to look at the parcel.

He eyed it warily, his hand drifting over the paper along its path to shut the door. Hinges squealed and the tumbler latched, and there was an eerie sort of silence left in its wake. And the parcel just sat there, glaring up at him with that same slanted writing as a familiar feeling crept up into Sherlock's throat.

Doubt.

How could this feeling keep haunting him like this? Before John he'd never had these sorts of problems. Before John…before John he'd never had anything.

With an apprehensive sigh, Sherlock picked up the package and rose to his feet. He slid his thumb under the envelope's flap and peeled it back, his pulse racing. This was it. This was the beginning of the end. The journal fell into his open palm with the dead weight of a brick. This was the last piece of the puzzle, but for once, the detective didn't want to see it solved.

Sherlock flipped open the journal, his eyes listing as they fell over Moriarty's now familiar handwriting.

My dearest Sherlock,

I'm afraid I don't know whether to be excited or heartbroken. Our little drama as almost played itself out, and I won't even get the joy of seeing your face in those last precious seconds. But, I suppose, it doesn't really matter in the end. Your time is mine. Everything of yours is mine—always has been, and always will be. So, I'll be expecting a grand thank you once all of this is said and done. You will thank me won't you, Sherlock?

You'll find the last body in the southwestern corner of the woods near Corbank Cemetary. You should know it well—it's where John will have had you buried. You best hurry along now, Sherlock. You don't want to be late for our grand finale.

Eternally yours,

Jim

Without a moment's hesitation, Sherlock let the journal fall to the ground, and rushed outside to hail a cab.


~xXx~


Judging from the sun, it was somewhere around 4:30 in the afternoon. The forest floor was dark from an earlier summer shower, and the droplets of dew clung to his coat like lint as he made his way through the foliage. The grounds hung in a perpetual quiet, broken only by the occasional crow of a raven and the snapping of twigs under Sherlock's shoes.

He'd been ambling about for some time, scouring his way through the forest and attempting to keep his mind from straying back to John. It had been a disappointingly unsuccessful venture. And then he saw it—the trail. A clear line where the leaves and dirt had been purposefully disturbed by something being dragged through them. Knowing he was meant to follow, Sherlock's pace quickened as he wove his way through the trees, and all the while he could hear John's voice in the back of his head.

No, I know you for real.

I know you for real.

For some reason those words were a constant mantra in his brain, each consonant falling in time with his stride. Of course John knew him—the real him. John knew him 100%. But now the question was…did he know John? The real John.

He followed the line as it twisted and wove. It had no sense of purpose or care, as if the puppet had made it just to mess with him—like a scientist examining a rat as it makes its way through a maze to get the cheese. The body revealed itself not a moment later. It hadn't been well hidden—just positioned under some brush, lying on a black tarp, his limbs stretched out in the same fashion as the three before.

Mike Stamford.

Time seemed to freeze around him. Of course. Of course…it had to be Stamford. He could see it all so clearly—laid out before him like a picture of dots he just had to connect. The meticulous planning. The genius progression. Moriarty had orchestrated it all so perfectly. He'd known all along. He'd known.

A soft breeze stirred the forest air, and Sherlock's attention was pulled by the sound of two sheets of paper tacked to Stamford's shirt, fluttering in the wind. Sherlock glided forward, hovering over the corpse just long enough to retrieve the papers before retreating back. He stared down at the top sheet, his eyes immediately drawn to the emboldened M in the bottom left corner. He stood like that for a long time, simply gazing down at the letter that Moriarty had written to Stamford in some not so distant past. There were words there…words he should be reading—words he needed to read. But he couldn't. His hands were shaking too badly.

Find out what it means.

John. John was—

Sherlock's entire body went taught at the sound of a pistol being cocked just behind his left ear. The detective rose his hands in surrender, his mouth pulling into a deep frown. "How did you sneak—of course, you were already here waiting for me."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Holmes," a deep gravelly voice hissed. The puppet. "So good to finally see you on the other side of my scope. Now, I'd like you to put those letters in your pocket, if you will."

Reluctantly, Sherlock lowered his left hand and stuffed the papers into his pocket. Think. Think. If he turned fast enough, maybe he could snatch the gun from—

"Alright, now turn. Slowly now."

Sherlock began to turn, but to his surprise, the man turned with him, the bulk of his figure remaining at the detective's back, just beyond the line of his peripheral vision. That was odd, wasn't it? The man didn't want Sherlock to see him. Why didn't he want Sherlock to see him?

"Stop."

Sherlock did.

"Now start walking."

"What?"

"I said, start walking. Forgive me, I didn't realize you'd be hard of hearing."

"Why don't you just shoot me here?" Sherlock asked, meeting petulance with petulance. "What's one more dead body in the woods after all?"

"Now, now, Mr. Holmes," the man chuckled. "You're not as dull as all that, are you? Mr. Moriarty built you up to be such a fascinating specimen, and he devised such a special plan for you—I'd really hate to think it was all for naught."

Sherlock sneered. "So what's the point of doing what you say then, if you're not going to—"

"Just because I'm not shooting you now, Mr. Holmes, doesn't mean that I'm not going to shoot you at all. But first thing's first—I've got to take you to see Mr. Watson." There was a pregnant pause as he waited for his words to steep in the detective's brain. "Hurry along now, we don' want to be late."