Chapter 14: Making a deal.

"How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

With gently smiling jaws!"

-Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"What's going on with this whole 'M' thing? Never heard you call yourself that before," John said, bringing himself back to the present as he spoke.

"Mmhrmmf," Moriarty said with his mouth full, then rolled his eyes and put up a finger as he chewed and swallowed. "Moriarty is dead, in both public and underworlds. In his place, a mysterious crime boss named M has risen up, taking over most of Moriarty's empire, and expanding it. It was easy and convenient. New name, new mystery, new game with Mycroft."

"Fair enough," John said, then took a bite of his own pizza. It was delicious. He made a humming sound that was probably indecent, but he really didn't care. Now he understood what they meant by high-class pizza. It wasn't too greasy, the cheese was soft, the toppings were fresh, and he wouldn't even be able to tell that it was the same food PizzaPizza sold if it didn't say so on the sign. He could feel Moriarty's eyes on him, but he ignored him as he made his rapid way through his meal.

"Salt, please," Jim said with a smirk, and John passed him the shaker. "Thanks," he said, and poured most of the container onto his last piece of pizza.

"Are you crazy?" John yelped, appalled at the thought of ruining such an amazing meal. He was favored with an unimpressed look from Moriarty. "I'm sorry, killing people is one thing, but ruining this pizza is an entirely new level of insanity!'

John suddenly remembered who he was talking to, and bit down on his pizza to shut himself up. Jim was grinning again, and John berated himself. To joke about that sort of thing with a friend or a colleague was one thing, but actually making jokes about it while with an honest-to-god murderer was, as he had said, an entirely new level of insanity.

"We're all mad here," Moriarty grinned. "I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" John asked, then realized that he had played straight into the quotation.

"You must be, or you wouldn't have come here," Jim answered, and John had to smile. How true was that? Then he realized he was sharing a smile with a criminal mastermind, and looked down at his plate. It was hard to keep hating someone when they were so gravitational. It was getting more difficult to remember the reasons he couldn't just let himself be carried away by Moriarty's current. Even now, he was trying to remind himself of what they were, and it wasn't working. Why couldn't he smile at Jim?

Because he kills people. I had bad days. HE kills people for no reason except boredom. And I kill people for Sherlock. He killed Sherlock. Sherlock killed himself. Because of Moriarty, somehow. How? I don't know. He got a little girl shot. He saved dozens of children from the street. So that they could help him build a crime empire! Still saved them. He's evil. He's human. He's a spider. He's not. Sherlock said so. Sherlock is wrong.

And there, the voice went away. For the first time, John had to correct Sherlock on something that wasn't social skills related. Jim Moriarty was not a spider, he was a man. And Sherlock Holmes was wrong about him, so there. Not a lie, never a lie, but a mistake. Moriarty tricked him into believing that anyone could be so two dimensional. That was the thing about Sherlock. He was so extreme, so sure of his own character, that he assumed no one else was changeable. No one hid anything from him, so when he came face to face with Moriarty, he took what he saw and assumed that was all.

And now John, ordinary John Watson, one of hundreds in the world, was seeing what Sherlock never did. It scared the hell out of him.

"That little girl needs to go to the hospital," he blurted out. They'd both finished their pizzas, and were watching each other warily over the table. "She needs to be watched by someone with medical experience, knowledge, training, not a bunch of half-trained murderers with no experience in children's injuries."

"She can't go to the hospital," Moriarty said firmly. "They would want to send her back home to her parents, and that isn't happening."

"She can't stay there, either," John stated stubbornly, and there was silence.

"I think I have a solution," Jim said. John gestured for him to continue. "She can go home with you."

"What?" John asked, taken completely off-guard.

"It makes sense. You're experienced, you saved her in the first place, you've got the space in your flat. You can keep an eye on her for a few days until she wakes up, and then she'll be fine. You can go to work, and she'll phone you if there's anything wrong. We could organize visiting hours for her friends, I'll pay for all her needs. That way, she neither goes to the hospital, or stays where she is."

"I can't just take a child home with me!" John spluttered. "I'm a doctor, not a babysitter!"

"Well, then, she'll just have to stay where she is," Moriarty said, leaning back. He knew he had John trapped. The doctor bit his lip, debating with himself. Jim was holding all the cards; John had no power here. It was completely insane, it as unfair, it was impossible… but it was the only option.

"Fine. I'll take care of her. Anything I should know about?"

"Perfect." The Cheshire grin was back. "Her name is Sammy. She likes green. The phrase that will calm her down when she wakes up is 'the sun is purple'. I'll send over a box of her possessions, clothes, things like that. Anything else? She likes stories. And she's older than her years. She'll say things that don't seem to make any sense, but you'll see what she means later."

"That's it?" John asked, his brain not really wrapping around the concept that he had just temporarily adopted a seven year old named Sammy.

"For now. I'll text you if I think of anything else. Oh, that reminds me!" He pulled out his phone and tapped out a message. John heard that quiet tone that signified that a text had been sent. "So. I'll pay for our dinner here, drive you home, and Sammy will be there. You'll ask for the next two days off work, say you've got a cold or something, then go back to work at the clinic like nothing's happened. Unless you want to take me up on my job offer?" The words were half-hearted, Moriarty already knew the answer.

"I don't know why I would want to help you or your men," John said. "All you'd do is go out and kill more people."

"I'll tell Seb that if he ends up getting shot while you're at your boring clinic job," Moriarty said, and John fought the automatic flinch. He had forgotten that Sebastian was one of Jim's men, one of the people he was condemning on principle. The two concepts couldn't meet, and John's brain gave up. He simply shook his head. Moriarty, seeing his point was made, just smiled and signaled for the bill.

"You always say you're paying for dinner," John commented, "but you're really not."

"Oh? How's that?" Jim asked, keying in his PIN.

"It's not your money you're paying with."

"And I suppose the money in your bank account in your bank account is yours?" John opened his mouth to reply, but Jim kept going without waiting for an answer. "No, it's not. It's the clinic's money, but since you work at the clinic, it becomes yours, because you worked for it. Same with mine."

"You mean that credit card is actually attached to one of your accounts?" John asked disbelievingly.

"Whose did you think it was?" Jim asked curiously, as he got up and straightened his tie.

"I don't know… Mycroft's?" John was disturbed by the sudden smile that spread across Jim's face.

"Johnny boy, I think you're onto something. I really think you're onto something." John made a silent apology to Mycroft, then made a mental shrug and decided that he couldn't care less about the British government's bank account.

A/N: Wow, well, that didn't take long. Look at what three reviews and a polite request for an update did! Words can work miracles, guys! So…review! And I'll see you next time 'round!