Sherlock and The Woman

The Unexpected Text

A/N: The original version of this story is uploaded to my account on fanfiction (dot) com, where I have the same alias. If you so desire you can head on over there to read the original or have a peak at my other stories. Either way, I hope you enjoy this read and the journey towards the end!

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sherlock Holmes or the tv-series this story is based upon.

Spoilers: Season 3

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Sherlock's Woman

1. The unexpected text

Sherlock had always been the brightest child, he knew that. It had been evident from a young age that no one matched his intellect, with the exception of his elder brother Mycroft. The elder man had, in fact, more than once during their infancy made his brother feel quite dim, before they were introduced to other chilren.

There had been few people who intellectually challenged him in a satisfying way, and so he had early on grown tired of his supposed friends and abandoned them. It was a common feat of Sherlock's, that whenever he grew tired of something or someone, he simply would leave it behind in search of some new challenge.

He needed his challenges and adrenaline kicks, it was a part of who he was and there was very little else that he cared about. It was the main reason he'd resorted to become a consultant detective in the first place, there was nothing that could measure up to the thrill of a good detective challenge.

The prospect of friendship was something he had initially, from experiencing how stupid people merely slowed him down, rejected. He hated dumb people above all else and for a long time in his life he had no one to truly call "friend". Then John Watson had appeared in his life; quite stupid, yet cunning in his own way and with a resourcefulness and bluntness that eventually had intrigued Sherlock's mind. John was the perfect ordinary man to Sherlock's supremeness.

He still wasn't sure exactly how they had grown to be friends and room mates back then, but Sherlock valued John's friendship and vague intelligence in a way he had never cared for anyone in the past. Still, John had never quite been clever enough to follow the man's train of thought, nor had Sherlock ever found it satisfying enough to include his best friend in all of his intellectual games. There were other qualities to John that Sherlock liked. Such as his loyalty to his friend, his brute honesty and his persistence. As far as intelligence went… well, maybe Sherlock could live with the fact that John lacked a bit in that compartment.

In truth, there had only ever been two persons who had been able to match Sherlock's intelligence and wit. The first had been the detective's self-proclaimed nemesis, Jim Moriarty. The consultant criminal who sometimes had seemed to wield powers beyond even Sherlock's comprehension. He had to admit that Moriarty had been the first criminal to constantly remain one step ahead of him, and therefore had in a roundabout way awoken both his curiosity and won his respect. Not that Sherlock ever would admit as much to the other man.

Moriarty's cunning intellect had been proven beyond any doubt when he almost had brought the consultant detective to a complete stop with his fairy tale games and bread crumbs that had ultimately led to the demise of them both. At least a temporary demise. Moriarty had ruined the trust in Sherlock's unique abilties as a detective to the public and had in a fantastic display of power brought Sherlock literally to his knees by threatening the lives of those close to Sherlock. Moriarty had demanded Sherlock's suicide and literal fall from grace to keep his dear ones alive. The Reichenbach hero's fall, as he had playfully called it.

But Sherlock had found the one weakness to his plan; Moriarty himself. What the consultant criminal had considered his finest display of power had been nothing but a false pretense, watched from the shadows by the Holmes brothers. Still, when the detective had at last faced off with his nemesis, the clever consultant criminal had played an unseen trump card. He had put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, and so Sherlock's last life line had been seemingly terminated. The detective had been forced to take extreme measures to the point of faking his own death and fall from grace in the media's eyes in order to keep his friends safe.