Chapter 12 – Unstoppable Force vs Unmovable Object

"Okay Sherlock, you've made your point. Let her go, and no-one has to get hurt. Well, any more than they will already." The Irishman drawled over the phone, doing his best to sound unimpressed.
"Sure, hand yourself over, and she'll be free as a bird." Sherlock returned sing-song.
"Oh Sherlock. Why would I do that? You don't honestly think I believe your little bluff, do you?" Moriarty mocked. "You may have arranged an assassin as babysitter, but you won't give the order for her to actually hurt her, no no no, you're too much of an angel. So since there really is no point to this whole charade you might as well end it now."
"As I've told you before, I may be on the side of the Angels, but I'm not one of them" Sherlock reminded him, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder and sending the pictures from his laptop to the number he had memorised. "And Mary certainly isn't."
There was a pause from the other end of the line, as Moriarty opened the message, before an animalistic cry of rage as he saw it's contents.
"You'll pay for this Sherlock, you and all your little friends!" Moriarty hissed, "The Watsons, your pathologist, the detective inspector, your little old landlady, Mummy and Daddy, I'll invent new ways to make each and every one of them suffer, I'll-"
"You won't touch a single one of them, not if you want to protect your girl." Sherlock warned icily "Mary won't hesitate to kill her if any harm comes to any of our friends."
"Kill her and I'll kill them all! One by one and you'll be last, knowing it was all your fault!" Moriarty raged.
"That won't bring her back." Sherlock replied evenly. "Come now Moriarty, you're letting your emotions get the better of you, where's the man of logic? Escalating things will only hurt yourself, you know this, so why don't you just hand yourself in, I'll send good Doctor Watson in to fix up your niece and she'll be free to get adopted by a nice normal family, far away from any of this madness. Because honestly it's amazing she hasn't got caught up in something like this before, and if not us, then someone else would have thought of it, someone far less merciful."

"Is that how you justify this to yourself hmm? Does it help you sleep better at night?" Moriarty had collected himself again, cool and calm, with a rock hard edge. "No-one gets to her Sherlock, because I won't let them. I'll find her, and I'll get her back on my terms, and when I do, there will be nowhere you can run, no trick you can pull, nothing to protect you and the people you love from a world of pain. And death in the end… if I'm feeling kind. Ciao."

The line went dead, and Sherlock slowly lowered the phone from his ear, eyes far away and glazed as he stored the conversation in his mind palace for further reviewing. Overall it had gone much as expected. He'd known better than to think that Moriarty would just hand himself in, even with that incentive. But he was shaken and desperate, and single-mindedly focused on getting his niece back, and it would make him careless. He would make a mistake, and they'd be waiting for it, ready to turn it to their advantage, and end this once and for all.

A small triumphant grin turned up the corner of Sherlock's mouth as he came back to the present. With a quick glance at the time on the mantelpiece he noted that it had only been 15 minutes since Molly got home. The bathwater would still be warm. The smile grew as he got up to go join her.

AN: Hello again my lovelys. Sorry this one is a bit short, but I couldn't really pad it out anymore and I didn't want to start on the next bit until a new chapter. I have started the next (while waiting for my editor to get round to checking this one) so hopefully it won't be long. Thanks for everyone who reviewed/favourited/followed :)