Hi! Sorry it took me a bit more to update then usual, I'm studying for a very important test. This is an important chapter, so I hope you'll like it :)
The guards didn't bother to cover up Sherlock's eyes during the twenty minute ride; they figured he wasn't going to return anyway. Irene sat beside him on the back seat, looking straight forward. She didn't make eye or any other contact, ignoring his presence completely. He was satisfied with the development of his plan up to that point, which he successfully covered by giving the impression of a broken man, staring at his shoes.
They parked in front of an old house with a big yard, probably Moriarty's childhood home as Mycroft had informed Sherlock before. Two big men pulled him to the house as he heard the sound of high heels clapping quickly right behind him. One of the men opened the door, while the other let Sherlock drop on the floor like a luggage they just brought in.
"Careful now, we don't want our belooooved guest injured." said the well known voice on the top of the stairs.
Sherlock looked up from his non enviable position on the floor up at the man descending the stairs in a dark grey suit, smiling at him in a deranged way. His pupils were dilated as if he were on drugs, but Sherlock knew that it wasn't the result of any outside chemistry; it was 100% pure, organic madman.
"I'm so glad you could make it! And by coming, you've decided to give me another chance to permanently spare you of all the burdens life brings us. Ah, Mrs. Adler, I'm so glad you are here too, when only boys are playing with each other, the game tends to become rather dull, wouldn't you say? And now..." he said in a dramatic way, as if he was introducing a trick, and then his voice calmed and got a vicious note, "Throw them both in the basement. I'll deal with them later; I need to think of something very special for the occasion, it only happens once. Or in our case, only twice." He smiled like an evil scientist; he was no scientist, but he compensated that with the double amount of evil.
"What do you mean, throw us both? We had a deal." Irene rebelled, pretending as if he was joking, but still giving away some of the doubt in her voice.
"Oh, yes, sorry about that." Moriarty replied with a puppy dog face. "Upon recalling your touching sadness when you had to perform the heartbreaking play so many months ago, I realized you would always rather choose Sherlock over me. Which is fine by the way, I completely understand, he is soooo adorable with his cheekbones."
He signaled the guards with his hand as they got hold of both Sherlock and Irene.
Moriarty turned, as if he remembered something:
"And take their wrist watches off, people tend to misuse them." He smiled devilishly, continuing his way into the dark hall.
Minutes later, Sherlock and Irene were tightly secured together with two pairs of cuffs, back to back, leaning on a thin pole between them. Their maneuverability was very limited, which caused great frustration in both of them. When the guard's left, Irene said ironically:
"Well, this we haven't tried before."
They sat there in silence, their brains operating at high speed, putting all their resources into finding a solution, but their hands were tied. Sherlock remained quiet too long for her taste, so Irene decided to try to establish communication with him, although it was probably a useless attempt:
"Talk to me, it might as well be our last time. I know it sound dramatically and endlessly pathetic, but it's the truth."
He was silent for another moment, and then he seriously said:
"You weren't lying. You really lied to me to protect me."
She sighed, unable to be really happy about him realizing it given the current circumstances.
"You couldn't have known. In fact, the fact that you bought it only means that I did a hell of a job acting it, which was rather the point."
A long silence filled the room again, making Irene feel even more depressed.
"So in fact, you care about me?" he said carefully, reexamining himself more than her. Every word expressed his surprise that he was saying it out loud in the first place and the acknowledgement of what was said, coming straight out of his deepest thoughts.
"You don't ask a lady such questions." She said mischievously.
"You're not a lady." He said, his voice sounding as usual as he mentally returned to the present situation.
"True. That's why you like me." She couldn't resist adding.
He rolled his eyes to her statement, but allowed himself to smile a bit, aware that she couldn't see it from her position.
"I know you smiled, I don't have to see it."
"Let's just focus on getting ourselves out of here, if you don't mind?"
"Certainly. What's the plan?"
"I made an arrangement with John that he should come to my rescue if you are proven unreliable. But, if he is detained, it would be best if we thought of another solution, given the stakes in question."
"You always have a plan B, so you always land on your feet. Very nice. And as for now, the only things I can think of are my hairpins, but I'm not able to reach them. Might giving me a hand with that...or teeth?"
Irene leaned on her side toward Sherlock, blinking nervously as she tried to keep balance while he clumsily tried to take a pin out of her hair with his teeth.
"Are you done yet? Ouch! You're pulling my hair."
"Forry." He said with his mouth full of her hair. "Got it." He said, spiting the pin on the floor.
Irene got hold of the pin and started tampering with the lock.
"Give it to me." Sherlock said in an annoyed tone when she didn't succeed immediately, his fingers wrestling with hers.
"Hush now, I've dealt with more of these then you'll get a chance to in your lifetime."
"Fair point."
Less than a minute later, they heard a small click, notifying them that Irene indeed succeeded. They stood up, still tied on one side.
She smirked at him: "I told you I know my way around cuffs."
They heard footsteps approaching them on the stairs leading to the basement, and after a second of analyzing the situation, Sherlock quickly pulled Irene behind some carts on their side. She looked at him, trying to read his future actions in his eyes, but he only nodded, which she interpreted as 'trust me'.
Moments later, two armed guards rushed into the room, finding it seemingly empty. The man who was apparently in charge nodded at the other one, which Sherlock, looking through a small opening from his hideout, interpreted as a silent order to search for them, since the man correctly assumed that they were still nearby. One of the men sneaked close to their hideout, too close. Sherlock took advantage of a small moment of his disregard and knocked him unconscious. From the perspective of the consulting detective, the scene taking place reminded him a lot on a scene in a certain house in Belgravia, since The Woman didn't waste any time. The split second the other guard needed to turn around she already pointed the gun of the fainted man in his direction with deadly determination in her eyes.
"Drop it. Slowly." She said, her arms forming a straight angle with her body, her finger on the trigger while her opponent's weapon was still in a raising position. He figured she meant it, so he slowly put the rifle on the floor.
"Good boy." She complimented him. "Get the keys from him." She ordered Sherlock, who decided not to object to her way, now that she was in her natural dominatrix mood.
The situation became a déjà vu even more when Irene hit the last standing guard with her gun, without Sherlock even asking for it. A strange wave of pride floated him but he quickly shook it off in order to keep his head clear. They heard the sound of another pair of feet closing in on them, so they both raised their newly acquired weapons in the direction of the stairs. To their surprise, it was John.
"John." Sherlock greeted him. "Glad you could join us."
Irene turned towards Sherlock with an amused expression: "How cautious of you, not trusting me. I like cautious." She said, leaning in towards him.
"Not in front of the kid." Sherlock said amusement; showing at John's shocked face.
She turned around. "Hello John, long time no see. Are you joining us alone or do you too have a trick up your sleeve?"
John suppressed all his burning questions and remarks.
"The police and the government people are right in front of the house, no one can go anywhere. I came in to check up on you, since I wasn't sure whether you...um..."
"Whether he was once again misled by me?" Irene smiled at the reaction she always seemed to cause in John; surprise with just a small bit of fear.
"Well yes, to be honest."
Sherlock's face got serious: "And Moriarty?"
"He is somewhere inside; I haven't seen...Sherlock where are you going?" John anxiously asked when Sherlock crossed the room in a few long steps, heading for the stairs.
"I have to finish this, once and for all. Stay with her." He said to John, and before any words had the chance to come out of his or Irene's mouth, Sherlock added "I mean it. Don't follow me."
They both stayed, holding on to their guns, looking at each other in the deepest of worries.
Sherlock was searching the house for any sign of Moriarty when he stepped on a crunching board. This set off another memory, on the day the same thing happened to Moriarty when he visited him after the trial. Sherlock Holmes normally trusted only facts, but the feeling in his stomach and never ending parallels between the past and the present (and not the future this time, he hoped) made him try the door of the next room. And there he was, Jim Moriarty himself, staring at the door that Sherlock just opened, waiting for him.
"I thought you might drop by." Said the consulting criminal.
"I was in the neighborhood." Sherlock calmly replied, tightening the grasp on the handle of his gun.
"So Sherlock, you've decided to become a big boy. Have you ever killed anyone? And I don't mean those silly self defense things, real murder! Or will I be your first? I understand you had some other first's lately." He smiled because he knew it made Sherlock uncomfortable on some level beyond visible.
"There's a first for everything. Do you feel honored?"
"As aaaalways. But, what makes you believe that you will win? You can't win Sherlock. Even if I'm gone, hundreds of baby spiders will chase you on the threads I made until they eat you, you little naughty fly. You are me. But there isn't enough of you to fight all of us; you can't count on the people, they are so stupid. Give up. Admit it, walk out the door and don't look back; the world will survive without you. Go on."
Sherlock just smiled.
"I knew you would do this the hard way." Moriarty sighed.
The next couple of seconds were full of events; Moriarty grabbed a revolver hidden in the chair and fired at Sherlock who tried to dodge it but got hit in the shoulder; Sherlock shot at Moriarty, missing his ear by an inch; A third bullet hit Moriarty between the eyes, and the last thing Sherlock saw before falling onto the floor was the look on surprise on his face, which he will happily cherish for the rest of his life.
Irene quickly approached Sherlock, dropping her gun on the floor:
"You're wounded." She simply stated, tearing his shirt sleeve to make an improvised bandage.
"What are you doing here?" he quietly asked, tormented by the pain.
"Never send a man to do The Woman's job." She smiled down at him, moving away so John could approach since he just arrived.
While he attended their beloved patient, Irene slowly approached Moriarty's finally dead body. Even dead, he looked up at her with a mad gaze from his motionless eyes. She shut his eyelids, ending the Saga of The Napoleon of Crime once and for all.
Mycroft's people accompanied by the local police quickly flooded the premises in order to control the situation, which they did. The papers would later describe the incident as a show down of a local gang, never mentioning the second death of the crime genius.
Sherlock was driven to the hospital, accompanied by John and Irene. He needed to be attend to, although he was lucky and the bullet went through missing the major blood vessels. John was allowed to join the local doctors inside the room and Irene was left to wait in the hallway as a non medical personnel. She just sat there, expressionless, choosing not to think of anything since there were far to many thing to be thought of.
"Coffee?" Mycroft's voice addressed her with a surprising lack of hatred.
She looked up at him: "Thank you.", also trying to keep the friendliness in her voice.
They sat beside each other for quite some time, silently. None of them knew what would be appropriate to say, and if they started with the inappropriate, they wouldn't know how to stop. Mycroft broke the silence in a way that surprised Irene deeply:
"Thank you for saving my brother."
"It was a pleasure."
"So, what now?" he sighed. "You're dead, he's dead and the whole underground will be after both of you. Any ideas?"
"To be honest" she said, giving a chance to this new, strange, friendly way of communication with the older Holmes brother, "I'm hoping he'll come out of that room with a few of those."
"Dangerous times are ahead."
Irene said nothing, holding her plastic coffee mug with both hands, as if the warmth from it was comforting her.
Sherlock's stubborn refusal of staying in the hospital was given in to, so he was discharged in a few hours with very many pills for all sorts of unimportant things, as he thought and John's oath to the doctor's that he will take care of him 24/7.
"Bed rest, Sherlock, bed rest. I'll have Mycroft lock you up in here if you defy me."
Sherlock rolled his eyes at this childlike treatment he was receiving. They finally came into the hall where they found Mycroft and Irene waiting.
Sherlock caught Irene's look and at that moment he realized how many things should yet be discussed about. So many aspects he was not clear about and so many things that scared the hell out of him. He felt as if time had stopped while he looked at her, temporarily loosing his ability to speak.
"...and we'll put you in a cab to the hotel." He heard John finishing his sentence somewhere far, far away as it seemed.
"Come on." The doctor said, taking him under his healthy arm, unaware of the situation.
Mycroft showed more tact as he took a step back, admiring the hospital ceiling diligently.
"John, wait." Sherlock finally said, trying to resume control over his thoughts once again.
John finally got it, as his face turned lightly pinkish.
Sherlock approached Irene, reading the panic, confusion and cluelessness on her face, the same feelings he knew she could deduce on his.
Trying to sound as spontaneous as possible, although it sounded nervous in a becoming way, he very quietly asked her:
"Would you have dinner with me?"
Thank you for reading and please review :)