A/N Hey guys, thanks for reading! This chapter is so much longer than the others, took me ages to write and editing was a bitch! xD
So because I'm an idiot I had no idea how to see how many people had favourited/alerted this Fic, I figured it out the other day and I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to all the people who alerted or favorited, it means a lot guys!
So I got tired towards the end of ending so if you see any errors please put them in a review so I can correct them when I got back over it at a later date. Also, later on in this fic I use the name 'Elizabeth' when Anthea is acting and 'Anthea' when she isn't; I just wanted to make that clear because I confused myself at points!
Thanks for reading, don't forget to review and DFTBA!
7 days before.
John pushed open the doors of Costa Coffee and stepped into the darkened, crowded space. He joined the overly long queue and cursed himself for thinking it was a good idea to meet Lestrade at lunch hour on a week day; why the hell didn't he just invite him round to Baker Street? After queuing for far longer than seemed necessary he walked to the only free table at the back of the room.
John took out the tea bag out of his mug and poured milk into the no doubt terrible tea he was about to drink; tea from chains was always bad, you couldn't beat a homemade cuppa in his opinion. John needed it thought, he was going to tell Lestrade about Sherlock being alive; after all, the detective might not admit it but John knew Sherlock considered the DI a friend. Even if he didn't know his first name.
John looked up and saw Lestrade walking past the window, he watched as the DI pushed open the door and joined the back of the queue. Lestrade's eyes flicked over the unfamiliar faces until they rested on John, he grinned and raised a hand in a lazy, half wave; John smiled and raised hand in return. After queuing for a bit Lestrade joined John at his table with a mug of coffee, a doughnut and a box of sandwiches.
"Hullo John!" he greeted with a smile, "You alright?"
"Fine," John smiled, "You?"
"Yeah, just wrapped up a case," Greg replied, grinning, "Bloody hard case that was, the one about that mental artist, I thought we might have had to ask you to come and look at it, thankfully we got a tip off,"
John snorted, "Why me? I barely did anything on those cases, Sherlock only had me do something when he wanted to go off on his own!"
"We both know that's not true!" he laughed, "You were far more useful to Sherlock in those cases than I ever was, he liked hearing your theories, even if he did shoot them full of holes afterwards,"
John shrugged, "I'm still pointless on my own,"
"Whatever, I reckon you could solve one of those cases on your own if you put your mind to it," Greg said, pointing a sandwich at him. "So how come you invited me here, you said there was something you wanted to tell me?"
John pursed his lips and sighed, show time. He decided to copy Martha Holmes and try and make sure Lestrade wouldn't interrupt, "Look, Greg, what I'm about to say is going to make me sound mental but I need you to just listen, alright?"
"Yeah, sure," Lestrade shrugged, only looking slightly curious.
"Sherlock... Sherlock isn't dead," John struggled, Greg's face turned soft and sympathetic and he drew breath, "No, you promised!" John warned firmly, pointing his figure at the police officer. Greg closed his mouth and gestured for him to continue, "I've been gathering information for the past five weeks and there's far too many loose ends, Sherlock can't be dead, Sherlock isn't dead," John grabbed a folded up still from his jean pocket and smoothed it out on the table in front of him, Greg made eye contact with the doctor before looking down at the picture; it was the image of 'Sherlock' being wheeled away to the hospital, except it was clearly not Sherlock. "Look, that's not him! Sherlock must have jumped off the gurney, hidden somewhere."
Greg's eyes went wide and his mouth opened and closed a few times, "No, it can't be, did you get these off the internet? They must be photo shopped or something," he said shaking his head.
"I got these off Mycroft, do you really think he would photo shop them?" John replied, Lestrade put his tongue in his cheek and shoved the photo back towards John.
The man was silent for a long time, chewing his food thoughtfully, finally after long minuets of tense silence Greg opened his mouth to speak. "How are you... feeling, knowing he's alive?"
John thought for a moment. He had hoped that knowing that Sherlock was alive would free him and let him act just a tiny bit more normally, but it hadn't; knowing Sherlock was out there, unprotected and alone, just made John want to scour the streets of London and find him. It hadn't removed the loneliness, far from it, it had just made it louder, gave it more to say, more to hurt John with: 'Sherlock may still alive but he doesn't want you! You don't mean anything to him, you never did, and he doesn't need you! Alone is what he has, alone protects him, not some half-wit, failed soldier!'
"I don't know. It's a relief, knowing that he's alive, it's got rid of some of the guilt; I felt terrible, I was his best friend, his only friend, and even I wasn't able to save him. But I'm just so confused, why hasn't he come back already, why didn't he tell me he was alive! I've been grieving for six months and then I find out that it was all for nothing, that he's still alive and worse that people I'm close to knew! Molly knew Greg; she could have told us at his birthday instead of just sitting there silent while we made all those bloody speeches! She knows where he is, but she won't tell me or give me his mobile number! I just want see him again; find out why he did it. " John said in a rush, all his feeling flowing out in a garble. Greg sat there though it all, nodding in the right places and just listening.
"Why won't she tell you?" he asked when he was sure John had finished.
John sighed in frustration, "She says I'm in danger! Molly's not the only one saying that though, I contacted the Homeless network and they gave me this," he reached into his pocket and chucked the folded up slip of paper down onto the desk.
Lestrade unfolded it and read the scrawl quickly, when he had finished he folded it back up and gave it to John, "Do you want police protection?"
John winced, "God no, I've already got protection from Mycroft and I think he wants to put the flat under surveillance,"
"If you've got protection from Mycroft you'll be fine, his is the best," Lestrade told him, John raised an eyebrow.
"How would you know?" John asked with a smirk.
"I've known Mycroft and Sherlock for almost five years now, I've had to be put under protection a few times," Greg replied, he frowned for a moment "The first time you met Mycroft did he kidnap you?"
"Yeah, he still does," John chuckled.
"I swear it's the only bit of fun he gets," Lestrade said, his laugh joining John's. "How did Sherlock do it then? You have figured it out, right?"
John nodded, "Molly told me he fell into a laundry bin, you know, the ones they have outside every hospital; he must have filled it with shock absorbers or something. Sherlock had a truck parked in front of where he landed so that the cameras couldn't see the impact, plus he had me stand in a specific place so the ambulance station blocked my view. Then he just got into position on the ground while I was knocked over by that cyclist, he had the homeless network working for him as well, they must have put fake blood around him and pretended to be Doctors,"
"Wow," Lestrade said quietly, rather impressed "And he set this all up in, what, hour?"
John frowned, "I'm not sure, he took a cold case before; it was about a man called Henry Fishguard, the police thought he had performed suicide, but he hadn't. I have no idea how long he's been planning this,"
Greg nodded, "Wait till Anderson hears this, he's been a git the past six months, Donovan too," he said with a scowl.
John's gaze snapped up to Lestrade, "Don't say anything yet," his tone was quick and firm.
"I was joking John. Mycroft will need to sort something out, the press will be all over this when we find Sherlock," Greg replied, then frowned, "We are going to find him, right?"
John sat back in his seat and folded his arms, "I want to but there's no point, he won't come back until he wants to,"
"Well then we drag him back," Lestrade shrugged, "You figured out how he survived, why don't you try finding him?"
John thought for a moment, and then something clicked. Sherlock had said himself, 'all that matters to me is the work, without that my brain rots!' The detective wouldn't be able to go six months without one case; he would have been bored by the second day! He frowned and looked up at the DI "Using Sherlock's rating system, how hard was that case?"
Lestrade pondered that for a moment, "8, without that tip off the killer would still be... oh!"
"Yeah,"
"You think that was him?" Lestrade demanded, his eyes wide with amazement.
"Could be, have there been more tip offs than normal?" John asked. It would make sense for Sherlock to do this, but it was risky, even for him, he could have been discovered far too easily; a tracked number, someone recognising hand writing or being recognised while he was on the streets.
Lestrade frowned, "Thinking about it there has, and some of them have been sent to different officers phones. The latest was sent to Donovan's phone,"
"Withheld number?"
"Untraceable number," Lestrade snorted, "How do you think he managed that one?"
John frowned for a moment, who would be able to get Sherlock an untraceable phone? John snorted bitterly as the answer crossed his mind, "Who do you think got him the phone,"
Lestrade looked confused, then it dawned on him, "Mycroft,"
"That man's watched me try and figure it out for five weeks, I bet he knew all along!" John spat.
"I'd be worried if he didn't," Lestrade snorted.
John scowled, "I'll ask Mycroft where he is, he owes it to me to tell me the dick head,"
Lestrade was silent for a moment, then he asked hesitantly, "Does that mean that Richard Brook really was Moriarty?"
John's head snapped up, glaring, he was already angry he really wished Lestrade hadn't said that "What, did you actually believe what the papers said?" he demanded, his face livid, "Because if so you've really gone down in my opinion, mate!"
"John, can you please remember he was my friend too?" Lestrade snapped, John mumbled an apology, "I didn't believe the papers my team does! Their constantly going on about how we were all fooled by him, Donovan and Anderson especially"
"Donovan's a bitch and Anderson is an idiot, and the fact that they are stupid enough to believe the fairy tales the papers thought up just proves it," John snapped.
"So what did happen to Moriarty? I thought that with him free to do his business crime rates would soar, but they haven't, unsolved yeah, but not crime in general," Lestrade frowned as he lifted his doughnut to take a bit from it.
"He shot himself in the head," John said, his tone dead pan.
"What?" Lestrade exclaimed, his mouth falling open, doughnut still in his hand "When?"
"On the roof of St. Barts before The Fall, there's CCTV footage." John told him bitterly, "Moriarty was talking to him before he jumped, that maniac probably decided that the world isn't grand enough for the both of them and, I don't know, did something, to make Sherlock jump then blew his brains out,"
"Well at least this 'danger' you're in has nothing to do with him," Greg said, "Being covered in Sem-tex is probably better being a once in a life time thing,"
John smiled slightly, "For most people it is a once in a life time thing,"
Lestrade chuckled a bit then sobered, "We shouldn't laugh at that, not after 'The Great Game',"
"No , I suppose we shouldn't," John replied weakly.
Sherlock would have laughed with him about that.
The two men finished their food and drinks, chatting inanely about anything, everything, staying away from certain topics with well practised ease. John didn't quite know why they were doing that still, after all Sherlock was alive, it's not like he was going to get depressed now was it? In the end he put it down to habit, conversations had been slightly superficial for almost six months while everyone treated him like an emotional time bomb; they had all been convinced he was going to have a nervous breakdown or something.
When they were finished they donned their coats and said their goodbyes, as normal they promised that they would meet up again next week ('at the pub or something') even though in the end something would come up and they would have to cancel. They walked back along the street in a barely comfortable silence until John reached the tube station and said goodbye, Lestrade replied then carried on down the road.
As John stood on the smelly, overcrowded and stuffy train he got a text from Harry:
Your appointment with Ella is next Thursday at 12, be there, please! – Harry xxx
John just sighed and put his phone back inside his pocket, already dreading it.
Elizabeth Harrington brushed a stray piece of brunette hair behind her ear and fiddled with the clasp on her red canvas bag nervously, the buttons that decorated it catching in the sunlight. The cold February wind cut through her worn leather jacket that had seen better days as she opened the bag and took out a scrap of paper with her left hand, her were nails painted a bright, sunshine yellow: Wednesday 6th of February, 12 o'clock, Hyde Park, pick a bench, any bench. Best wishes, your new boss xxx. Anthea bit her lip, last night Mycroft had told her how dangerous this man was and he had used her name when he did it, her real name; he was deadly serious about this.
The sound of heavy boots on gravel came from her right and Elizabeth's head snapped up. For a moment she had no idea what expression to use, she had been Anthea for much longer than any other persona; so much so that her real personality had began to leach through, in the end she bit her lip and looked curiously towards to man walking towards her.
The man approaching her wasn't anything special; his hair wasn't styled, just cut neatly, he had military boots on that were still slightly fashionable and a leather jacket over a dark, forest green top, his eyes were hidden behind cheap Ray-Ban imitations. He didn't look like a crazy sniper; but then you wouldn't want to if you were going to walk the streets of London and talk to normal people, now would you?
"Hello Mrs Harrington," the man greeted as he sat down on the bench, much too close for Elizabeth to be comfortable, removing his sun glasses as he did.
"Um, hi?" she replied hesitantly, "Are you my, erm, my new employer?"
"Sebastian Moran," he told her with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Pleasure to meet you,"
"Thanks," Elizabeth replied hesitantly as she shook his hand. Moran took out a packet of cigarettes, Embassy, and lit a cigarette; he took a long drag on it and slowly exhaled.
"So... you want to work for me," Moran began after another drag on the cigarette.
"Yes," Elizabeth replied with a hesitant smile, "My brother, he works for you, told me there was an office job going and I thought 'Well, that's an ideal job for me!' Rob's told me all about your business and how you give cancer patients a final wish and all that, ever since I was a little girl I've wanted to help people!"
Moran chuckled darkly, "I'm afraid your brother's told you a bit of a lie there, my dear,"
"Oh... isn't it cancer patients?" Elizabeth frowned. Anthea noted the cruel glint in his dark green eyes and the way his smile looked a bit too fake, a bit too sharp; Elizabeth, however, wouldn't so she kept her face stupid and curious.
"Tell me, Miss Harrington, have you ever killed someone?" Moran asked with a smirk. His dark tone made the hair on Anthea's neck stand on end and dread coil in her stomach. She frowned, and gave a nervous laugh, her fake smile faltering for a moment.
Elizabeth Harrington was the youngest child of five, average GCSE results, not overly cleaver, no longer term partner or boyfriend; she was a pretty boring, average person. Aside from the fact that her father used to take her hunting and she happened to be a damn good shot. It was no wonder Moran had hired her oldest brother (who too happened to be a damn good shot) and was now after her, few people now a day's knew how to fire a gun outside of the military; soldiers weren't the easiest people to manipulate into becoming criminals and they were a liability if they managed it. This wasn't America, guns were illegal, very few people ever touched one, let alone fire one.
"Of course I haven't!" Elizabeth exclaimed in a high nervous tone; the seriousness of her situation finally becoming clear to her, she frowned "Was that a joke?"
Moran chucked, reached under his leather jacket and took a gun out of its holster, "Nope," he replied, popping the 'p', "Here's what you have to do to get the job; see that old man over there, the one feeding the ducks," Elizabeth nodded, "Shoot him. I know you can do it, your brother did it and he told me you can shoot just as well as he can,"
"You're joking right?" Elizabeth replied with a hysterical bark of a laugh, Moran shook his head, "I'm not going to kill someone over a job! And Andrew wouldn't kill anyone!"
Moran rolled his eyes, "I'll give you a little extra incentive then shall I?" He smirked and looked down at her chest; Elizabeth followed his gaze down and saw a red dot hovering over her heart. She took a shuddering breath in and blinked rapidly; trying to encourage tears to start falling.
"Ugh, don't cry, crying is annoying," Moran spat, "Just shoot the oldie with the ducks before I get bored!"
"What if I miss? It's been a while since I shot anything," Elizabeth asked, her voice high and quivering with the not-quite-there tears.
Anthea knew she wouldn't miss, she knew how to shoot a gun, but it would look a bit suspicious if Elizabeth Harrington shot the man without any hesitation. Anthea really didn't want to kill this man, she hadn't done this to kill an old man who probably had a wife, children, grandchildren while he fed the ducks, she had done this to spy on Moran as one of his employees; this wasn't, to put it plainly, in the job description.
"You die," Moran smirked, "Now as nice as this chat is... Kill the fucking man,"
Elizabeth took the gun for Moran's hands and clicked off the safety. Anthea stopped acting and aimed the gun, her hands as still as a surgeons, after a moment hesitation she let a short breath out and pressed the trigger. Gunshot pieced the air as it the weapon bucked in her hands and the man by the ducks fell forwards into the pond, blood from a wound in his neck staining the water red. Anthea couldn't help wrinkling her nose in annoyance; she had been aiming for the head.
"Someone's going to have heard that," She said hesitantly. 'I'm so sorry!' Anthea cried in her head as she watched the blood spread across the water, turning the water a rusty, red colour.
"That's the idea!" Moran laughed, "Meet me at Waterloo Bridge when you've lost the police!" he said before walking off.
Anthea looked down at the gun in her hands, growled in frustration, and clicked the safety back on. She slipped it into the back of her skirt where the loose jacket would hide it and began running towards the exit of the park. Once she was outside of the wrought iron gates she heard someone call out, Anthea glanced to her left and saw two police officers running towards her. She swore and began to run down the street, pulling out her phone as she did so, pressing one on her speed dial.
"Mycroft I'm being chased by police, do something!" She spat as she ran, Anthea knew it would slow her down but she knew that eventually the police would catch her; she would rather not have to explain to Moran how she managed to get out of custody. She had plausibility while she was on the streets.
"What did you do?" Mycroft asked, a hint of amusement in his tone but otherwise deadly serious; if she was with him at that moment Anthea knew he would be smirking.
"Unimportant. Just get them off my tail." she snapped before hanging up. She glanced over her shoulder, just quick enough to see how far away they were; they were just at the end of the street and gaining fast. She hoped her hair had hidden her face, the last thing she needed was being recognised later.
Coming up on her left was an alley, she ran across the road and down the alley, ignoring the cries of: "Stop! Police!" form her pursuers. The alley opened out onto a busy high street, Anthea ducked into a Starbucks and took a seat by the window.
The two police that were following her split up and began searching through the crowd for her; barging people out the way without apologies and stretching their heads above the crowd like meercats. Suddenly they answered their radios at the same time, made eye contact and walked back to the alley. Anthea ducked her head as they passed the cafe window, pretending to look at an advert. Her phone buzzed in her pocket:
There, you're invisible, any incriminating footage is being destroyed. Good luck. – MH
Anthea smiled and looked up at the clock; it had been half an hour since she'd first met with Moran. She realised she would have to wait for a bit, if she arrived back too quickly it would look suspicious, Anthea left her table and went to the queue to get a drink.
When she was sat down again she took out her phone, she might be under cover but that wouldn't stop her from working on the projects she had been doing before all of this: one of them was tracking John Watson's movements. He was currently at the clinic, she brought up the patients he would be seeing today and checked them out; nothing suspicious. She sent that off and almost immediately her phone buzzed as she got a text.
Annie, please focus on one thing at a time, I knew I should have taken that phone off you. –MH
Anthea smirked and began typing.
I have time to kill; besides, you shouldn't have put all those extras on it if you didn't want me using them! – Anthea
Those 'extra's' are there for when you are working with me, not when you are undercover. Why aren't you doing something? –MH
If Elizabeth had been trying to escape the police it would have taken her a good deal longer than fifteen minutes. You've read the file, she's pathetic! How's she holding up, dissolved into a nervous wreck yet? You should get on with your work, besides we both know you hate texting –Anthea
She's not pathetic, she's normal; there is a difference, albeit a small one. She's fine, staying at a safe house at the moment, far away from Moran –MH
Anthea didn't reply, just smirked down at her phone and took a drink of her coffee. Her mind began to wander, away from the relative safety of the task at hand to her personal life; the life that shouldn't exist when she was on the job.
She wondered how well Michael had slept last night, he often moaned that when she wasn't there he couldn't sleep; she knew she hadn't slept a wink last night. Anthea had told him that she was on a business trip, told him it shouldn't last more than a week that she couldn't be sure. Though because of this Mycroft had to recall the security that had been set up around her house for her, to make it look like she had actually gone. Michael didn't know about the security of course, but Anthea would sleep easier if she knew he was defended in some way.
Anthea worried constantly about her fiancé. He didn't know what she did for a living, didn't know that if Mycroft became public knowledge she would be targeted by terrorist groups, he didn't know that the ones that already knew about them, like Moran, already did. Her job might not seem as dangerous as running round London chasing after criminals like Sherlock did, but being close to the most powerful man in Britain meant that she was constantly at risk; maybe even more than the royal family. The only thing that protected Mycroft and herself was his anonymity; no one knew what big brother looked like, that kept her safe. There was one person, however, who knew who he was, knew what he looked like, knew his weaknesses, knew Mycroft for the man he was instead of the position he held, and that person was James Moriarty, but he was dead now, right?
Wrong.
Moriarty was an idea and you can't kill ideas, especially when ideas have followers. Moran shared Moriarty's idea; he wanted to rule the crime world, and now he was. Moriarty had known all about Mycroft, no doubt he had shared all of that information with Moran the moment he decided to kill himself. Moriarty had been predictable, all he wanted was an end to his boredom; life was just a game to him. Moran was dangerous, he was ambitious and that ambition made him unpredictable, Moran knew how to make Britain fall, he could expose Mycroft!
Yet for some reason that didn't matter to Mycroft; all that mattered to him at the moment was watching John Watson piece together the flimsy clues Sherlock had left behind, drawing attention to himself as he did. That's why she was here, spying on Moran, not because Mycroft wanted to keep himself and the rest of the people who worked for him safe, but because he didn't want his little brother to go without his only friend for longer than necessary.
Anthea wanted to be angry at him for that, but she couldn't. For a start because that was why she wanted to bring Moran down, to protect Michael, and secondly because it just made him human. Mycroft was an extraordinary man, but he was just that; a man. No matter how many times he told himself that caring wasn't an advantage he would always care, at least for his family.
Anthea sighed and drained the last of her coffee, she shrugged her coat on and left the shop, she had been sat there staring into her coffee for almost fifteen minutes, which should have been enough time for Moran to get bored. She got the tube to Waterloo and quickly made her way towards the embankment.
There was a seating area under the bridge and she saw a familiar looking figure in a leather jacket. Mentally she made the shift from Anthea to Elizabeth and adjusted the way her bag was on her shoulder as she walked, her head looking round suspiciously, as if she thought she was being watched.
Moran was sat on a bench and he rose as she made her way towards him, his arms folded across his chest cockily and a sneer on his face. "Thirty minutes, I hope you ran fast," Moran smirked. Elizabeth bit her lip and nodded, "Have you got my gun? I hope you didn't throw it down; that was my Browning from when I was in the army,"
Elizabeth undid her jacked and pulled the gun out of the waist band of her skirt; Moran smirked and licked his lips as he took it back.
"Sexy," He smirked, Elizabeth just glared, silently fuming, "I bet you have questions, if you don't you're either a psychopath who has no problem with killing elderly men or an idiot."
Elizabeth shot a look over at a homeless woman who sat on a bench a ways from them, "Are you sure this is the right place to be discussing something like this," she asked hesitantly.
Moran snorted, "She's not a problem, been paying her off for a while now so she doesn't talk to the police, she may look poor but she's got enough money to be living in Chelsea by now,"
"Oh," Elizabeth said, biting her lip again. "Who was he?"
"No one,"
'Ask Mycroft later,' she noted, "Alright then, why did I have kill him,"
Moran grinned, "Here's the best bit, the punch line," he paused for dramatics, his overly white teeth glinting in the sunlight like polished bone, "You didn't have to!"
Cold dread mixed with disbelief threatened to choke Anthea, not only did she kill for this but she had actually killed without a reason? She was starting to feel as if she was no better than anyone on Moran's side of this invisible war, "What do you mean? I had a gun pointed to my head!"
"Wrong!" Moran said in a high tone, he was laughing now, dancing round the bench area like a mad man, "I love this bit, I love this bit, I LOVE this bit!" he muttered with a Cheshire cat grin. He stopped dancing suddenly, his grin falling off his face; he dug around in his pocket for a moment and pulled out what looked like a metal pen. He pressed the bottom and pointed it at her chest, "A laser; the bane of teachers all over Britain,"
Elizabeth wanted to retch, "You mean in had a choice?" she asked in a strangled voice.
The grin was back now, "That's something we've borrowed;you always have a choice, making the wrong one is just discouraged!"
Anthea's blood ran cold, that was Mycroft's saying, not his, to hear it come out of his mouth... it made her want to kill him. What's worse was that it meant that his side knew more than hers, Mycroft might have a spy working for him! A sense of purpose filled her then, their side having a spy didn't matter now, because now her side did, Mycroft could sniff it out before they even had a chance to tell Moran. She was the spy and she was going to do her best, not just so that Michael would be safe, but so Mycroft would be one step ahead of them.
"Where did you get that from?" Elizabeth asked bitterly, Anthea's anger seeping through her act "Movie or something?"
"Careful Harrington, you may have passed initiation but you aren't part of the team yet," Moran warned with a waggled figure, "We've adopted the words from a branch of the government that the population doesn't know about. This is where you decide Harrington, do you want to become part of a war, a revolution or stay boring? Do want the Red Pill or the Blue Pill?"
Anthea's blood was roaring in her ears; they were calling this a revolution! This was anything but a revolution, this was cold blooded crime! These fucking psychopaths, these maniacs, these freaks! Anthea kept these feelings off her face, kept away by the mask of unease she was wearing as Harrington, "Depends, am I going to die if I choose Blue? Surely I know too much,"
"Honey, you don't know a fraction of the stuff I'm working on," Moran sneered, "But if you feel that's a better option than letting you go free we'll be happy to take it on board; my company loves to know what their new employees think,"
"And what exactly is you're company, what does it do? Seeing as the cancer patients was a lie," Elizabeth asked, maybe a bit too forceful, Moran's eyes widened with surprise.
"I'm a consulting criminal, the only one in the world now that Moriarty's gone. People come to me with crimes they want done and I set one of my employees onto the job." He said in a matter of fact tone, a strange light entering his eyes when he mentioned Moriarty, Elizabeth's eyes went wide in shock, but he continued, "You're a lot braver than I thought," he sneered, "Was before just some sort of act?"
Elizabeth shook her head and narrowed her eyes, "Sorry if I surprised you, I just don't normally react well to being threatened with death if I don't kill someone, chased across London by the police then told it was all for nothing,"
"I like you!" Moran laughed manically, "I thought you only had the personality for some sort of secretary but now I'm not so sure..." Moran tapped his figure against his chin, "I thought you were boring and ordinary, but you're not are you? You're clever!"
"No, just a bad actor," Anthea thought bitterly, "I'm not really, I didn't do very well at school, didn't go to university..." She trailed off, acting bashful from the compliments.
"No, no, no, no, no," He repeated while grinned, grabbing her by the shoulders and lowering himself to her eye level his crazed dark green eyes eyes searching her face, looking desperate "Do you know who Sherlock Holmes is?"
Elizabeth snorted incredulously, "Is there anyone in this city who doesn't know who he is?"
"Probably not," Moran shrugged, turning thoughtful for a moment, it faded, replaced by the desperation he had shown moments before, "Anyway he's one type of clever; the genius, the scientist, the philosopher. There are other types though, you and me, we're clever, we see things for what they are; John Watson is like us. We work with the genius' because they sometimes miss things, they get over complicated, and they need us to point it out what they missed; all geniuses are nothing without an audience after all! Look at Sherlock Holmes, we took away his audience, Moriarty and I, set them against him using well crafted lies; he fell quickly enough! You're just like me!"
Anthea shivered in disgust, Moran frowned for a moment, feeling the shiver, "You're right," She said in a breathy tone. The frown fell off his face, replaced with a grin that actually reached his watery blue eyes, she grinned back, trying to look excited "We are alike,"
"So..." He began straightening out and offering her his hand a crooked smile spreading across his face, "Red Pill or Blue Pill,"
"Red. Always,"
Elizabeth took his hand, he meant for it to be a way to lead her away but she turned it into a hand shake. "I look forward to working for you," She said with a grin, "What will I be doing though?"
"You're going to be my personal assistant," Moran said with a smirk. 'Brilliant' Anthea thought bitterly, 'Looks like I'm always going to be a PA,' "I wanna be a genius, the new Moriarty, but better, you're going to be my audience,"
"I trust there will be a healthy payslip included in that," Elizabeth said with a raised eye brow.
"Of course," Moran grinned, "Accompany me to lunch?"
"Sure why not, haven't got much to lose," she replied bitterly.
"Oh Elizabeth," Moran smirked, "Everyone has something to lose,"