A/N- Again, apologies for how long this took to write I just wanted it to be written to the best of my ability and this bit of the episode, I feel, is crucial. Plus I got writer's block a bit... oops. Anyway can't believe we're at Chapter 40 already with so much left to go, enjoy ;)
Not edited yet...
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Darcy's POV
Moriarty smirked down at me while waiting in the doorway as though he were a gentlemen who needed permission to enter. Although I would have compared him more to a vampire. He certainly drained the life out of me when he kidnapped me.
"Most people knock." Sherlock stated and then I saw him shrug slightly out of the corner of my eye. "But then you're not most people, I suppose." He gestured over his shoulder towards the tea tray. "Kettle's just boiled."
As though that were his invitation Moriarty stepped over the threshold of the flat and stopped right in front of me. I lifted my gaze to stare at his smirking face. The sight almost sickened me. Just 'almost' because in a dark place at the back of my mind there was this thought.
Like I was glad he was here.
As soon as I thought that I pushed back in my seat and brought my legs up to my chest as if I was protecting myself. Moriarty then just turned to pick up an apple from the bowl on the coffee table.
"Johann Sebastian would be appalled." Moriarty commented as he tossed the apple in the air and caught it, he was referring no doubt to Sherlock's choice of music. He turned back to me and then just looked around the room, searching for something. "May I?"
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at me and turned to Moriarty, pointing his bow at John's armchair. "Please."
As Moriarty walked away I lowered my feet to the floor and held back a slight smile as he sat in Sherlock's chair. Sherlock glanced over at me and I dropped my smile once he found there was no tea to pour as I had already done it.
My eyes widened as Moriarty took out a penknife and started to cut into the apple. "You know when he was on his death bed, Bach, he heard his son at the piano playing one of his pieces. The boy stopped before he got to the end..."
I sat forward in my seat and interrupted him, "...and the dying man jumped out of his bed, ran straight to the piano and finished it."
Both Sherlock and Moriarty turned to look at me, the latter tilted his head and smirked. "Couldn't cope with an unfinished melody."
"Neither can you apparently." I retorted and raised an eyebrow at them both.
Sherlock stared blankly at me and added, "That's why you've come." He still hadn't sat down and went to move the objects on the tray about, turning one cup around so the handle was facing Moriarty.
"But be honest: you're both just a tiny bit pleased." Moriarty commented and continued to smirk at me. Just me. Like he was talking to both of us but directing the statement at me.
It was like he knew what I was thinking earlier.
"What, with the verdict?" Sherlock questioned bluntly and offered Moriarty one of the cups of tea.
Moriarty took it and smiled up at him. There was that glint to his eyes again. Mayhem. Beneath his air of calm was chaos. Not that that was surprising. "With me..." Moriarty spoke softly and continued to gaze up at Sherlock, "... back on the streets." His eyes glazed over as he looked over at me and added, "Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain."
A grin spread across his face but it dropped as Sherlock turned to pick up his own cup while Moriarty spun his on the saucer so he could lift it. I reached for my own teacup and picked it up, raising it to my lips to drink.
"You need me, or you're nothing. Because, Sherlock, we're just alike, you and I- except you're boring." Moriarty continued to speak and then shook his head in disappointment. "You're on the side of the angels." He took a sip of his tea and gave me a knowing look then added, "Unlike some people."
I spluttered through the tea I had just taken a drink of and coughed as I returned my cup to the saucer on the coffee table. There was a tense silence and Sherlock raised his head from where he was looking at the tea tray to stare at me. My eyes were begging him to understand Moriarty was playing him, this was all part of the game and I was hoping that he already knew that.
Sherlock just nodded slightly and picked up his tea, moving on to change the subject, "Got to the jury, of course." He faced Moriarty and stirred his tea robotically.
"I got into the Tower of London; you think I can't worm my way into twelve rooms?" Moriarty answered somewhat sarcastically and smirked as he lowered his cup to speak before taking another drink.
"Cable network." I blurted out and stood up, then started pacing. "In a hotel every bedroom has a personalised TV screen... and every person has someone they want to protect."
I heard Moriarty breath out a laugh and he said in a high pitched voice, "Clever girl. Every person has their pressure point. Easy peasy." He took another sip of his tea and looked up at me out of the corner of his eyes.
Behind me Sherlock has sat down and had raised his cup to his mouth, like Moriarty. I walked over to the desk table and leant against it, feeling a little better to watch from afar. Not afar as such but a little distance away.
"So, how're you going to do it?" Sherlock asked again, no doubt to change the subject further so he could get Moriarty out of the flat as soon as possible, and then blew across his cup to cool his tea, "Burn me?"
Moriarty stared across at Sherlock and spoke softly again, "Oh, that's the problem- the final problem. Have you worked out what it is yet?" My hand shook as I waited for an answer and I couldn't bring myself to reach over to pick up my cup for fear of spilling the hot tea all over myself. "What's the final problem?" Moriarty added and smiled, "I did tell you..." His voice changed to that sing-song tone, "... but did you listen?"
I watched him as Moriarty put his cup down in the saucer and lowered his hand, he started tapping his fingers leisurely against his knee. There was something so purposeful about the action and I pushed away lightly from the desk, walking to perch back on the sofa.
"How hard do you find it, having to say 'I don't know'?"Moriarty commented and he continued to drum his fingers on his knee, there seemed to be some kind of pattern but I couldn't make out what.
Sherlock put his cup into its saucer and shrugged nonchalantly replying, "I dunno." He then turned to put his cup back on the tray and he smiled at me humourlessly, in reply I lowered my gaze to the floor briefly.
"Oh, that's clever; that's very clever; awfully clever." Moriarty said sarcastically and let out a low but obviously fake chuckle. I raised my head to see him looking right at me as he spoke, "Speaking of clever, have you told your little friends yet, Sherlock?"
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, once again wishing I had taken Sherlock's advice and gone upstairs, but then returned that feeling.
"Told them what?" Sherlock asked, not looking at me at all.
I sighed and answered instead, "Why he broke into all of those places and never took anything." All the while I kept staring at Moriarty's fingers drumming repeatedly over and over.
"See? Darcy knows." Moriarty commented but the expression on his face never faltered once. For some reason I felt disheartened at the fact.
"No." Sherlock answered my previous statement and again didn't look at me.
Moriarty smirked and put his cup on a nearby table then turned back to Sherlock. "But you understand? Both of you?"
"Obviously." Sherlock replied pointedly and I solemnly shook my head. Truthfully I hadn't even thought about Moriarty's reasons why. It never occurred to me that he did anything for a reason but I suppose he did really. Kidnapping me which he did to make a point and because of a minimal amount of sentiment he held for me.
Moriarty tutted and shook his head disappointedly, something in me broke a little like I had let him down. I fought the urge to put my head in my hands and chastise myself against whatever the hell was going on in my head.
"Off you go then, Sherlock." Moriarty chided and continued to cut into the apple he had picked up again. He carved a piece out of the fruit and used his penknife to eat it. How could one person make something so innocent look so malicious?
Sherlock frowned a little and rested his hands in front of his face in a prayer like position. "You want me to tell you what you already know?"
"No; I want you to prove that you know it and bring Darcy dear up to speed." Moriarty retorted and shot me a look to which I narrowed my eyes at him in return.
All Sherlock did was sigh under his breath and explain, "You didn't take anything because you don't need to."
"Good." Moriarty spoke softly and I tried to work out what it all meant, why he didn't need to take anything.
"You'll never need to take anything ever again." Sherlock continued and it didn't actually elaborate on his earlier point so I was none the wiser.
A ghost of a smile appeared on Moriarty's face as he revelled in how much Sherlock knew. "Very good. Because...?" He trailed off and waited for Sherlock to finish.
"Because nothing... nothing in the Bank of England, the Tower of London or Pentonville Prison could possibly match the value of the key that could get you into all three." Sherlock concluded and finally I understood, my eyes widened in realisation and a hand raised to cover my now open mouth.
That's what it had all been about. The trial, breaking into all those high security places and the theatrics of it all.
"I can open any door anywhere with a few tiny lines of computer code." Moriarty spoke in a rather smug tone, "No such thing as a private bank account now- they're all mine. No such thing as secrecy- I own secrecy. Nuclear codes- I could blow up NATO in alphabetical order. In a world with locked rooms, the man with the key is king..." He put on an American accent as he continued and tilted his head around, "...and honey, you should see me in a crown."
I glared over at him and fought to hold back the impressed smile threatening to appear on my face. "You advertising throughout the trial, weren't you?" I said, finally understanding what they were both going on about, and Moriarty smiled knowingly at me.
"Someone's finally getting it." He commented and cut another piece from his apple then ate it.
"You were showing them what you can do." Sherlock added, following on from what I had said.
Moriarty just looked up at Sherlock from where he had glanced down at his lap. "And you were helping. Big client list: rogue governments, intelligence communities... terror cells. They all want me." He lifted another piece of apple to his mouth. "Suddenly, I'm Mr Sex."
I scoffed a laugh and looked away as I spoke, "If you can break into any bank with your code, what the hell do you care about the highest bidder?" When I turned back both of them were staring at me. Something was off about the way Moriarty was just telling us everything so easily, when we had last had a stand off like this he had been very closed of and secretive.
The way everything was laid bare, so clear and obvious. Like it was too easy. Almost like it was a lie, a game.
"I don't." Moriarty stated and smirked. "I just like to watch them all competing. 'Daddy loves me the best!' Aren't ordinary people adorable? Well, you know, Sherlock: you've got John." He glanced over at me and frowned in mock thought. "I should get myself a live-in one."
Sherlock seemed to grow tired of him and wanted to get to the root of this game. "Why are you doing all of this?"
Moriarty just continued with what he was saying earlier, "It must be so funny." I could only imagine what he was thinking, him abducting some innocent person to be his John Watson.
"You don't want money or power- not really." Sherlock mused aloud as Moriarty went of on a tangent of thought, they both seemed to be having two separate conversations. "What is it all for?"
As Moriarty sat forward in his seat I did the same and he spoke softly again, "I want to solve the problem- our problem; the final problem." He hung his head and continued, "It's going to start very soon, Sherlock. The fall."
I frowned as he raised his head and started to whistle, descending in pitch as he lowered his head at the same time. Once he was looking back at the floor he made a sound, like something colliding with the ground.
"But don't be scared. falling's just like flying, except there's a more permanent destination." He concluded and slowly raised his head again, glaring across at Sherlock and not tearing his eyes away from him once.
I sat there entranced with both worry and what felt like excitement. Adrenaline. The thrill of a chase, no doubt.
Sherlock then stood from his seat and fastened up his suit jacket. "I never liked riddles." He stated pointedly and I stood also, still staring down at the rather mad looking man in Sherlock's armchair.
Moriarty stood as well and straightened his jacket, his eyes bore into Sherlock's. "Learn to. Because I owe you a fall, Sherlock. I... owe... you." He spoke menacingly and continued to stare at Sherlock, silently telling him this was deadly literal and serious.
With that Moriarty stepped to the side and walked towards the door, not before taking something from his jacket pocket and slipping it into my palm that was hanging limply at my side. Sherlock didn't move as Moriarty slunk out of the flat and I watched after him as he disappeared down the stairs, turning the small piece of paper he had given me in my hand.
As Sherlock moved over to inspect the apple Moriarty had left behind on the arm of the chair I discretely read whatever was written on the piece of paper.
You don't want to be on the Side of the Angels. I know you better than you do.
-JM
I screwed up the paper and clenched my fist around it tightly, he didn't know me. The last time he had spent any amount of time with me was before I could walk properly.
Sherlock turned to me still holding the knife with the apple on the end and frowned. Covertly I put the paper in my pocket and wandered over to him. The apple had a bite taken out of it with a carved out 'I' and 'U' either side of it.
"I. O. U." I read aloud and looked up at Sherlock. "Okay then. So, he has a computer code, apparently, which means he can break into... anywhere and owes you a fall? I didn't think today could get anymore interesting." I tried not to let the smile, that I had been holding back all throughout Moriarty's time in the flat, appear on my face. Sherlock looked over at me uneasily and his gaze flickered to my pocket. He knew. Of course he did. "It was nothing." I reassured him.
He appeared to be sceptical but I folded my arms, refusing to tell him anymore about it. "He's just trying to aggravate me, it's nothing." I insisted and turned away to tidy up the tea tray for want of something to do. When I glanced back into the living room Sherlock was placing the apple and the knife delicately onto the mantelpiece.
As he went to resume his seat in his armchair I wandered over to the bin and took the crumbled paper from my pocket. I read it through once more and shook my head, discarding it into the bin with all the other rubbish.
Soon enough John came hurrying through the door of the flat, Sherlock was deep in thought and I was sat reading a book on the sofa. John looked between Sherlock and myself in confusion, he asked what had happened but we both neglected to answer. He seemed to have an inkling though and went about organising some kind of dinner for us, namely a takeaway.
Which we ate in silence. I continued to read while I ate; although with much difficulty. However, I barely paid any attention to the words I was reading. Actually once I had made it all the way through the book I couldn't recall what it was about at all.
The next day the headlines were sickening. Moriarty on every front page and I mean every single one. Many of them expressing how shocking it was that an obvious criminal walked away from the trial.
A month went by. A whole month and, just as one newspaper suggested, he had vanished.
I had spent several days just sitting either on the sofa or John's vacant armchair, when he was at work, twirling my phone between my finger and thumb. Nothing. No texts from anyone. Not even Scott but then again he was busy.
That's why after a month I was genuinely surprised when my phone started ringing out of nowhere. I lowered the sixth book I had read in the past two weeks to see an unknown caller ID had lit up my phone screen.
Thankfully Sherlock and John had gone out on a case with Lestrade, when he had come over blabbering about some eccentric murder I just hadn't been interested having been more engrossed by the fictional murder in the book I was reading. Slowly, I put a bookmark between my pages and carefully picked up my phone.
I only briefly thought about it before shrugging and pressing answer. "Hello?"
"You finally picked up, I was beginning to worry." The Irish voice spoke down the phone and I rolled my eyes at his obvious sarcasm. Clearly Moriarty hadn't vanished off the face of the earth. "I can hear you rolling your eyes."
Instinctively I scanned the room for possible cameras, just in case, and I retorted, "Oh, and you're not dead. I was beginning to worry." Gaining a new found confidence in the fact he was probably far away from me on the other end of a phone.
I heard him move the phone away from his ear and a slight chuckle before a scuffle sounded before he spoke, sounding professional once again, "I want to talk."
"Why?" I asked in a suspicious tone and kept my eyes fixed on the door to the flat in case John and Sherlock returned.
"You don't want to be on the side of the angels, do you?" Moriarty spoke cryptically as though his words meant something and this metaphor he had used was real.
I took a breath and rubbed a hand across my forehead in thought. On the one hand I would definitely be betraying Sherlock, however, on the other hand it wouldn't be terrible to get an idea of what Moriarty had planned. Plus, I could hopefully put our past as just so.
I let out the breath I had been holding and finally answered him, "Where?"
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Thoughts? I have the general gist of where this is going... some people may not like it others may like it, I don't know... Ultimately however this story has changed from my initial idea right at the beginning. That could be because I actually had no idea where this was going at the beginning and I just kind of started writing it with no aims at all and winged it from there XD
This took me forever because I've been organising things for when I go to University in September and also I bought a new laptop that I've had to move everything onto... excuses, excuses, I know.
I've just bought Sherlock season 4 on DVD... for some reason I can't bring myself to watch it just like I wouldn't choose, personally, to watch The Blind Banker or Hounds of Baskerville because they're my least favourite episodes... take from that what you will XD
Plleeeaassee vote and comment, let me know what you think is going to happen ;)
-HBH xxxx
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the characters, except Darcy and Scott, or any lines from the show. Those rights belong to the BBC and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.