Fic: Blinding
Title: Blinding
Author: harlequinehands
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing/Characters: Genderbent Moriarty/John platonic
Rating: R
Wordcount: 3,000+
Spoilers: Whole of the Series and Post "The Great Game"
Warnings: Un-beta’d, Character death, Self harm, and Suicide
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of these lovely characters, they are property of BBC and Moffat ect.
Summary: Julian Moriarty has finally cracked. All it took was the death of the only thing she had ever truly wanted. She hates Joan Watson, but she's also the only soul on earth who loved Sherlock as much as she did. They come to a twisted and desperate accord. Genderbent Moriarty/Watson
AN: I swear to Godtiss I don't usually write this much angst but I've been listening to a lot of depressing Florence and the Machine lately and it's been horrifically inspiring.
This was wrong. No it wasn't supposed to go like this. She had laid out her plans meticulously and Sherlock hadn't disappointed. She was starting to see that Moriarty could never kill her. Julian needed her; she was the other aspect to her face, the missing cog in the spinning copper wheels. She was her contemporary, her match, and cliché and trite as it was she completed her.
And she was dead; it was so mundane it made her cry.
She had never done that for anything or any one.
Sherlock should be honored. No she should be breathing, bloody blinking those endless blue eyes!
She flew in to a rage and smashed several priceless Grecian vases and ripped her Prada heels to ribbons on the marble of her bathtub. She broke the mirror with her fist and the noise that struggled from her lips sounded like some warped hog keen coming through a war radio. Her hands joined the heels in shredded red ribbon strips on the white stone floor.
The blood was hot and comforting, the pain a welcome relief from whatever it was she was feeling.
She had never felt. Why now? She needn't had bothered asking. Sherlock had been her obsession but she was also the only thing she had ever loved. That little oozing red tumor in her chest some called a heart was as black and shriveled as frost bite allowed. And yet when Sherlock played her games, threatened her life, stalked her to the ends of the earth it had made her smile. Melted away the smarmy Cheshire-smirk and replaced it with one of truest giddy joy. The rest of the world was a worthless gray chunk populated by lifeless brown-eyed sheep. They were less than chess pieces, just little rocks to be kicked about in the gutters. She saw the brilliance in Sherlock's face and basked in it. It was like the sky had finally opened its arms to her and let the sun breathe its light on every surface.
She wanted to rip out Sherlock's throat and play the violin with it!
How could she be so stupid? So as to let a car, of all silly things, hit her? A bloody fucking cab no less!
It was so tragic, so inelegant, so reckless, infantile, and so horribly meaningless.
They should have gone together. Walked arm and arm, tangled up in one last deadly embrace. That was how they were meant to die. When Julian killed the little bits of flotsam that came across her path she had the mercy to make them beautiful. Each little speck formed a line, a lovely little bit of weaving in her lacework of death.
Sherlock had started to get her fingers in the thread and twirl them round a bit. Start to rework the pattern in a way she could deconstruct and understand. Moriarty knew she would catch her, find her, and solve all her clues. And she had savored it. Lived for every foiled murder, kidnapping, terrorist attack, and outright war. Because it meant Sherlock was on her trail and one day they would meet again.
But that would never happen now.
She realized the blood on her palms had crusted shut so she ran them viciously down her front breaking the skin open again in a painful burst of heat and wet. It was what she deserved, she probably deserved more. Because really, she could blame Sherlock until her tongue turned black and slithered down her throat but it wouldn't bring her back.
That was one thing she had relished so about death, it was the final answer to the last question. It could never be undone. It was meant to be a gift but this was not how Sherlock was supposed to be delivered at last.
She could have blamed Sherlock's heart. Killed her tortuously, meticulously ripped every last word of endearment from her lips with heated prongs and pokers. A large part of her licked its teeth and purred at the thought.
But even that would not throw dirt in the hole. Nothing could cauterize the weeping sores inside her lungs or gut. No amount of murder, mayhem, or death could satisfy her now. The hunger was gone. This was wrong.
She sat in the ruined heap of couture things that meant nothing, just means to snaking ends. All of the people she had played with had loved money, clothes, jewels, sex, and she had given them each what they desired to complete her deadly dance. Some had even wanted her body, she had no use for it or them but she plied her trade with it effortlessly anyway. And in the end she saw it meant nothing.
The only that had set her blood humming, had aroused her, made her breath, was dead. She was ash and dust in the air. She could even have been sucking her in right now. And that made her choke out another rasping hack of misery.
She had built an empire of moth-ridden fear and crackling lies on the shores of the black sea she now longed to wade slowly in to.
There was no reason left to play, no prize nor victory left to savor. Living had lost any of the deep lustful flavors it had once possessed. That was the right of it. She knew there was nothing after death. But there was a way that she could make her own death beautiful. To tie herself to Sherlock, weave their black and red threads intricately together forever. She would show a kindness to the only thing her love had ever held dear. The object of affection she had loathed and longed to be. The only thing that seemed to mean anything to her cherished. Because she had coveted Sherlock and hated her with equally horrendous passion. She must go to Joan Watson.
She wasn't hard to find, after all Mycroft belonged to her. That grasping little woman had craved power and Moriarty had given it to her in decadence.
She didn't bother to wrap her hands, put on a new Versace suit, or straighten out her gnarled brown locks. There was no need to seem powerful, in control, and intimidating. She was nothing now. That cab had seen to her ruin. She had seen it coming. That Sherlock was warping her purpose, punching little cracks in her vow to death. But she hadn't fought the change, she had let the water wash over her and pull her under. And she had squealed in manic delight as it had inched through every corner of her and consumed her.
But all of the fun had died with Sherlock.
There was a reason Sherlock was the world's only consulting detective. It was because there was no essence in the entire world like hers. No mind to match Julian's so intimately. No one else's gloved hand would ever fit in hers like Sherlock's had. She didn't feel anything, not pain in her tattered hands as she punched the private chauffer's number in to her cell, not the leather in the black plate-less Benz.
Watson was at 221B Baker Street. She had rarely left it since Sherlock's death, or so Mycroft had said.
Julian Moriarty understood.
A part of her was still clinging to her home; her smell, the oil from her fingers on all the aged books, the skull, and her bullet holes. Yes she could understand why Joan would wallow in it, hold on to it, and crave to soak all of it in to her just to fill the chasm. But she couldn't. Nothing could ever replace Sherlock. That's why she was here after all.
She entered easily enough and made her way up the stairs that Sherlock used to bound up excited after a successful case. She could almost hear her muted enthusiasm brush past her fingers as they trailed the dull green and beige wallpaper. She gently clicked the handle and found it locked. It didn't take her long to fish the freshly cut key from her pocket and open the door. As soon as she stepped in she almost flew back out.
The surveillance pictures had been a pale facsimile; the space was so cluttered, wrecked, meticulously in disarray. It was perfectly Sherlock. She wanted to wander the apartment, touching every surface she had, looking at it with the detailed eyes she wanted to hold and cataloging it all as she had every day. Swimming in the same dust and debris that she had. Maybe somehow she could just hold a bit of her again just by thrumming that slender violin on the far table by the unused fireplace.
But the clicking of a safety interrupted her reunion. She sighed and turned heavily to face the hard face of Joan Watson. She was standing less than two meters away with her gun leveled evenly at her face. No smirk came. There was no condescending twist of her lip, no hatred; there was nothing but finality. They stood in silence like that as the beating seconds fluttered by them.
"Get out."
Her voice had no edge. It was as dead as Julian felt inside, good.
The thought of Joan suffering but not having the grace to join Sherlock herself was oddly comforting. It meant Moriarty would be the one to be with her one last time while Watson would die alone in normal agony. Some of her pleasure must have slipped on to her face because Joan's hand tightened on the trigger.
"I said, Get. The. Fuck. Out."
Moriarty did not move, this is what she wanted and she was not going anywhere,
"No."
Something wavered behind her muddied blue-green eyes but she didn't lower her gun.
"I'm not going to stand hear and listen to you gloat. I should shoot you but I don't have the will right now."
Something snapped in her and she screeched,
"WHY THE BLOODY HELL NOT? "
Joan was steady. She didn't waiver, there was no tremor in her hands but her eyes went wide in surprise.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
Nothing in the world was following the rules of her Game. Either that or she had lost the ability to play.
"And why should I? Certainly you're a mass murder and a right bastard of the worse sort but you need to be locked up and rotting in jail not in the ground."
Moriarty's face broke in to a pained panic and she lunged forward. Joan jumped but didn't fire as Julian pressed her face in to the muzzle of the gun. She nuzzled it longingly and didn't hold back the hot tears as they pushed most needily at her screwed shut eyelids.
"Don't make me beg Joan. I don't want to go out begging but I will if it will help."
She heard her make a disgusted snort and felt the cool reassuring gun move from her forehead. She wanted to drop to her knees and scream in anguish but nothing so dramatic happened.
She blinked her sticky eyelashes and felt a rough shove towards the sofa as Joan hustled her toward it and shoved her roughly down. She grunted as she stomped off to the kitchen. She heard her fumbling with the kettle and when she reappeared she had two cups of steaming black tea.
Moriarty stared down at it dumbly like it might move of its own accord at any moment. Sherlock's Watson sank down heavily in the worn green armchair across from her. She could almost see Sherlock sitting next to her, legs curled up under her chin looking at everything and nothing all the same.
The tears came again unwittingly. Watson's own hollowed out blank eyes met hers and there was sympathy there.
Julian sucked a dagger breath past her chapped lips. That was not what she had come here for. She didn't want any of this but it did intrigue her a little.
What would this sheep-woman say? Was this why Sherlock loved her so? Because even she could not puzzle out Joan Watson's head.
"What makes you think I could do it for you when I couldn't damn well do it for myself?"
Moriarty had to fight to find words but the soldiers that had never failed her before had left her completely.
They just stared at each other in silent accord. Some sort of tenuous truce had settled over them. Bitter and hated enemies until they were seated next to a mutual grave.
"I know this is bloody daft but you loved her in your own horrendous way. Without her to play your Games you have nothing. I may hate you more than any human has a right to hate but you're the only person on this God forsaken rock who knows what it's like."
All of a sudden her mouth popped open and words all of it, everything, started pouring out. Joan watched tensely but didn't interrupt. Julian told her of the sun, of the stupid colors she saw when Sherlock out maneuvered her. She told her of the pain she wished she could wrack and wreck all over that cabbie and Joan, over any one who could have saved her but didn't. She told her of how she had to join Sherlock on last time, one last chase, and one final dance in to the loveliest oblivion. And all the while Joan listened until there were no more words. Nothing could express this devastating ache, nothing could ease it. There was no replacing Sherlock and Joan knew it too.
There was a long pause before Joan stood up and gingerly approached her. When Moriarty made no move she sat down carefully next her, like she was some doe that would fly away at the slightest provocation.
"Have you ever thought of playing her Game? Bringing back little bits of her in you. I'm the first to admit I'll never be on her, or your, level. But the Yard has asked me to consult in her place. I tried to tell them I was no Sherlock Holmes but Lestrade wouldn't hear it. She said I was best they had."
Julian stared at her blankly,
"Why? Why would I help the pebble in my shoe, the ant below my looking glass? They weren't worthy of her genius and they're certainly not worthy of mine. I can give them a much lovelier gift but I have no desire to do anything anymore."
Watson ran her hands roughly through her short sandy blonde bob and over her tired face,
"Sherlock thought them just as insignificant and small-minded and dull as you do and yet he found enjoyment there. There's living to be done Moriarty. If Sherlock was here she'd be hunting you but she'd still be taking cases for the Yard because it was fun. Because she wanted to solve people. And if I'm being honest because she sought my approval."
"She might be gone and you might be right. Death might be the only way you can see her again. But in some twisted way you already are her. I can see it in your eyes you know what she was to you. Without your counter balance what do you do? Fade away? Die? Or do you find a new way to live?"
She didn't know where the voice came from, it sounded so fragile like the voice of timid small girl named Jill,
"What will you do? You are her heart made flesh. I loved her mind but she loved her heart. Take me down with you Joan Watson."
And with that she leaned her head against Joan's soft shoulder. She felt the warm jumper covered body stiffen but then slowly relax as a strong arm wrapped itself carefully around her shoulders. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours. The tears where silent and waterless. There was just sand paper and ink in her eyes and throat.
"Chase them as she would have chased them. Hunt them down and stop them. Take what you were and burn it. And if you do I'll come with you because I have nowhere else to go. My world died with her but I'm too damn average, unexceptional, to end it and follow her."
Julian sat up carefully and studied her with sharp brown eyes,
"I think I beginning to see what she saw in you."
Joan laughed, there was no humor or joy behind it, it was as cold and black as her gun. Julian looked down at her shaking hands and took one carefully between both her two mangled ones,
"I know I have no right to ask this of you but may I?"
Joan looked down at her cocooned hand and the ruined pair that gently held them and then back to the pleading look her eyes before she stroked her hand as lightly, and gently as possible and said,
"I owe you nothing but if it's for Sherlock I'll do anything you ask."
Julian nodded her head fiercely and she felt Joan relax in to her touch and then murmur,
"Then ask."
"When we die and go meet Sherlock again can we do it together?"
Joan's head snapped towards her, there was something fierce and horrifying there, something Julian couldn't even begin to fathom. But then it disappeared and was replaced by a calm look of acceptance,
"Yes. I'll even grab your bloody hand. Like hell I'm letting you get your hands on her without me."
For the first time in weeks, in the weeks since her world had disintegrated, she smiled. It was vicious, it was bright, and it was the only genuine smile she had ever shown another human being.
And so Julian Moriarty disappeared. She hunted the killers, rapers, terrorists, and scum she had loathed but played with before. She even had the grace not to kill all of them, a gift for Watson of course.
She followed her like a muted shadow, dropping her helpful hints for the cases she worked for the Yard by text like Sherlock would have. Signed JM of course. She wasn't as callous as to pretend she was anything like Sherlock to Watson. She knew all too well there was no replacing her in that capacity, and frankly she didn't want to.
They had formed a freakish partnership, two utterly different creatures thrown together in common grief over their shared sun. Moriarty didn't love Joan like she had loved Sherlock. But there was a blooming respect and a strange sort of care she had never had for any thing other than The Game. A sort of bumbling affection that she was never meant to feel.
Every year they would meet on that day. And they would lay simple flowers on the corner where it had happened but leave very quickly afterwards. That place was not where she was.
Watson would then make dinner in 221B and they would eat in respectful silence before sitting in the living room reading through case files that Moriarty brought for Joan's opinion on her next piece of prey. Some how this anniversary went from annually to bi-annually to semi-monthly.
They even developed a friendly banter between them. It was a strange sort of crippled companionship that could never grow wings but hobbled along determinedly anyway.
She didn't know how Joan could stand to be surrounded by reminders of Sherlock every minute of every day. All of London was like an intimate map of her body and 221B was her fledgling heart. But she supposed living where she had lived was no worse than running from her in Brussels, Moscow, or Dusseldorf. Seeing her shadowy trench cloaked figure turning endless corners just out reach.
Joan never went on another date, never got married, never had children, and never engaged in anything close to a healthy normal relationship again. People tried but she was firm in the statement of "I'm married to my work." But in reality she was married to a ghost. And so was Julian. They were widows together in this and only this.
Finally when they had broken their bodies to match their spirits. When their aches and old knife, bullet, and emotional wounds crippled them permanently. And they were no use to any one any more. They met at the shore.
The water was cold but soon turned to a numb balm as they waded in deeper. But Julian could feel none of it. Not the jagged ice as it crept down her lungs, not the eerie wind as it pulled her hair back and forth, nor the dry gritty tears that didn't come.
Because Joan was holding her hand.
It was warm and calloused and too big over her own small pale one. Joan squeezed reassuringly as the water swallowed them whole and dragged them gently down. Neither one fought for air or for the surface.
They simply floated closer to embrace and sink one final time together.
After all she wasn't about to let Joan have Sherlock all to herself, not in life, and never in her personal domain, eternity.
And as the world went blue then gauzy black around the edges she found herself not letting go for a different reason. She didn't want to die alone. Instead she was going home to old friends with a new one in her arms. And she had to admit in her last empty breath she'd never been happier.
Author: harlequinehands
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing/Characters: Genderbent Moriarty/John platonic
Rating: R
Wordcount: 3,000+
Spoilers: Whole of the Series and Post "The Great Game"
Warnings: Un-beta’d, Character death, Self harm, and Suicide
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of these lovely characters, they are property of BBC and Moffat ect.
Summary: Julian Moriarty has finally cracked. All it took was the death of the only thing she had ever truly wanted. She hates Joan Watson, but she's also the only soul on earth who loved Sherlock as much as she did. They come to a twisted and desperate accord. Genderbent Moriarty/Watson
AN: I swear to Godtiss I don't usually write this much angst but I've been listening to a lot of depressing Florence and the Machine lately and it's been horrifically inspiring.
This was wrong. No it wasn't supposed to go like this. She had laid out her plans meticulously and Sherlock hadn't disappointed. She was starting to see that Moriarty could never kill her. Julian needed her; she was the other aspect to her face, the missing cog in the spinning copper wheels. She was her contemporary, her match, and cliché and trite as it was she completed her.
And she was dead; it was so mundane it made her cry.
She had never done that for anything or any one.
Sherlock should be honored. No she should be breathing, bloody blinking those endless blue eyes!
She flew in to a rage and smashed several priceless Grecian vases and ripped her Prada heels to ribbons on the marble of her bathtub. She broke the mirror with her fist and the noise that struggled from her lips sounded like some warped hog keen coming through a war radio. Her hands joined the heels in shredded red ribbon strips on the white stone floor.
The blood was hot and comforting, the pain a welcome relief from whatever it was she was feeling.
She had never felt. Why now? She needn't had bothered asking. Sherlock had been her obsession but she was also the only thing she had ever loved. That little oozing red tumor in her chest some called a heart was as black and shriveled as frost bite allowed. And yet when Sherlock played her games, threatened her life, stalked her to the ends of the earth it had made her smile. Melted away the smarmy Cheshire-smirk and replaced it with one of truest giddy joy. The rest of the world was a worthless gray chunk populated by lifeless brown-eyed sheep. They were less than chess pieces, just little rocks to be kicked about in the gutters. She saw the brilliance in Sherlock's face and basked in it. It was like the sky had finally opened its arms to her and let the sun breathe its light on every surface.
She wanted to rip out Sherlock's throat and play the violin with it!
How could she be so stupid? So as to let a car, of all silly things, hit her? A bloody fucking cab no less!
It was so tragic, so inelegant, so reckless, infantile, and so horribly meaningless.
They should have gone together. Walked arm and arm, tangled up in one last deadly embrace. That was how they were meant to die. When Julian killed the little bits of flotsam that came across her path she had the mercy to make them beautiful. Each little speck formed a line, a lovely little bit of weaving in her lacework of death.
Sherlock had started to get her fingers in the thread and twirl them round a bit. Start to rework the pattern in a way she could deconstruct and understand. Moriarty knew she would catch her, find her, and solve all her clues. And she had savored it. Lived for every foiled murder, kidnapping, terrorist attack, and outright war. Because it meant Sherlock was on her trail and one day they would meet again.
But that would never happen now.
She realized the blood on her palms had crusted shut so she ran them viciously down her front breaking the skin open again in a painful burst of heat and wet. It was what she deserved, she probably deserved more. Because really, she could blame Sherlock until her tongue turned black and slithered down her throat but it wouldn't bring her back.
That was one thing she had relished so about death, it was the final answer to the last question. It could never be undone. It was meant to be a gift but this was not how Sherlock was supposed to be delivered at last.
She could have blamed Sherlock's heart. Killed her tortuously, meticulously ripped every last word of endearment from her lips with heated prongs and pokers. A large part of her licked its teeth and purred at the thought.
But even that would not throw dirt in the hole. Nothing could cauterize the weeping sores inside her lungs or gut. No amount of murder, mayhem, or death could satisfy her now. The hunger was gone. This was wrong.
She sat in the ruined heap of couture things that meant nothing, just means to snaking ends. All of the people she had played with had loved money, clothes, jewels, sex, and she had given them each what they desired to complete her deadly dance. Some had even wanted her body, she had no use for it or them but she plied her trade with it effortlessly anyway. And in the end she saw it meant nothing.
The only that had set her blood humming, had aroused her, made her breath, was dead. She was ash and dust in the air. She could even have been sucking her in right now. And that made her choke out another rasping hack of misery.
She had built an empire of moth-ridden fear and crackling lies on the shores of the black sea she now longed to wade slowly in to.
There was no reason left to play, no prize nor victory left to savor. Living had lost any of the deep lustful flavors it had once possessed. That was the right of it. She knew there was nothing after death. But there was a way that she could make her own death beautiful. To tie herself to Sherlock, weave their black and red threads intricately together forever. She would show a kindness to the only thing her love had ever held dear. The object of affection she had loathed and longed to be. The only thing that seemed to mean anything to her cherished. Because she had coveted Sherlock and hated her with equally horrendous passion. She must go to Joan Watson.
She wasn't hard to find, after all Mycroft belonged to her. That grasping little woman had craved power and Moriarty had given it to her in decadence.
She didn't bother to wrap her hands, put on a new Versace suit, or straighten out her gnarled brown locks. There was no need to seem powerful, in control, and intimidating. She was nothing now. That cab had seen to her ruin. She had seen it coming. That Sherlock was warping her purpose, punching little cracks in her vow to death. But she hadn't fought the change, she had let the water wash over her and pull her under. And she had squealed in manic delight as it had inched through every corner of her and consumed her.
But all of the fun had died with Sherlock.
There was a reason Sherlock was the world's only consulting detective. It was because there was no essence in the entire world like hers. No mind to match Julian's so intimately. No one else's gloved hand would ever fit in hers like Sherlock's had. She didn't feel anything, not pain in her tattered hands as she punched the private chauffer's number in to her cell, not the leather in the black plate-less Benz.
Watson was at 221B Baker Street. She had rarely left it since Sherlock's death, or so Mycroft had said.
Julian Moriarty understood.
A part of her was still clinging to her home; her smell, the oil from her fingers on all the aged books, the skull, and her bullet holes. Yes she could understand why Joan would wallow in it, hold on to it, and crave to soak all of it in to her just to fill the chasm. But she couldn't. Nothing could ever replace Sherlock. That's why she was here after all.
She entered easily enough and made her way up the stairs that Sherlock used to bound up excited after a successful case. She could almost hear her muted enthusiasm brush past her fingers as they trailed the dull green and beige wallpaper. She gently clicked the handle and found it locked. It didn't take her long to fish the freshly cut key from her pocket and open the door. As soon as she stepped in she almost flew back out.
The surveillance pictures had been a pale facsimile; the space was so cluttered, wrecked, meticulously in disarray. It was perfectly Sherlock. She wanted to wander the apartment, touching every surface she had, looking at it with the detailed eyes she wanted to hold and cataloging it all as she had every day. Swimming in the same dust and debris that she had. Maybe somehow she could just hold a bit of her again just by thrumming that slender violin on the far table by the unused fireplace.
But the clicking of a safety interrupted her reunion. She sighed and turned heavily to face the hard face of Joan Watson. She was standing less than two meters away with her gun leveled evenly at her face. No smirk came. There was no condescending twist of her lip, no hatred; there was nothing but finality. They stood in silence like that as the beating seconds fluttered by them.
"Get out."
Her voice had no edge. It was as dead as Julian felt inside, good.
The thought of Joan suffering but not having the grace to join Sherlock herself was oddly comforting. It meant Moriarty would be the one to be with her one last time while Watson would die alone in normal agony. Some of her pleasure must have slipped on to her face because Joan's hand tightened on the trigger.
"I said, Get. The. Fuck. Out."
Moriarty did not move, this is what she wanted and she was not going anywhere,
"No."
Something wavered behind her muddied blue-green eyes but she didn't lower her gun.
"I'm not going to stand hear and listen to you gloat. I should shoot you but I don't have the will right now."
Something snapped in her and she screeched,
"WHY THE BLOODY HELL NOT? "
Joan was steady. She didn't waiver, there was no tremor in her hands but her eyes went wide in surprise.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
Nothing in the world was following the rules of her Game. Either that or she had lost the ability to play.
"And why should I? Certainly you're a mass murder and a right bastard of the worse sort but you need to be locked up and rotting in jail not in the ground."
Moriarty's face broke in to a pained panic and she lunged forward. Joan jumped but didn't fire as Julian pressed her face in to the muzzle of the gun. She nuzzled it longingly and didn't hold back the hot tears as they pushed most needily at her screwed shut eyelids.
"Don't make me beg Joan. I don't want to go out begging but I will if it will help."
She heard her make a disgusted snort and felt the cool reassuring gun move from her forehead. She wanted to drop to her knees and scream in anguish but nothing so dramatic happened.
She blinked her sticky eyelashes and felt a rough shove towards the sofa as Joan hustled her toward it and shoved her roughly down. She grunted as she stomped off to the kitchen. She heard her fumbling with the kettle and when she reappeared she had two cups of steaming black tea.
Moriarty stared down at it dumbly like it might move of its own accord at any moment. Sherlock's Watson sank down heavily in the worn green armchair across from her. She could almost see Sherlock sitting next to her, legs curled up under her chin looking at everything and nothing all the same.
The tears came again unwittingly. Watson's own hollowed out blank eyes met hers and there was sympathy there.
Julian sucked a dagger breath past her chapped lips. That was not what she had come here for. She didn't want any of this but it did intrigue her a little.
What would this sheep-woman say? Was this why Sherlock loved her so? Because even she could not puzzle out Joan Watson's head.
"What makes you think I could do it for you when I couldn't damn well do it for myself?"
Moriarty had to fight to find words but the soldiers that had never failed her before had left her completely.
They just stared at each other in silent accord. Some sort of tenuous truce had settled over them. Bitter and hated enemies until they were seated next to a mutual grave.
"I know this is bloody daft but you loved her in your own horrendous way. Without her to play your Games you have nothing. I may hate you more than any human has a right to hate but you're the only person on this God forsaken rock who knows what it's like."
All of a sudden her mouth popped open and words all of it, everything, started pouring out. Joan watched tensely but didn't interrupt. Julian told her of the sun, of the stupid colors she saw when Sherlock out maneuvered her. She told her of the pain she wished she could wrack and wreck all over that cabbie and Joan, over any one who could have saved her but didn't. She told her of how she had to join Sherlock on last time, one last chase, and one final dance in to the loveliest oblivion. And all the while Joan listened until there were no more words. Nothing could express this devastating ache, nothing could ease it. There was no replacing Sherlock and Joan knew it too.
There was a long pause before Joan stood up and gingerly approached her. When Moriarty made no move she sat down carefully next her, like she was some doe that would fly away at the slightest provocation.
"Have you ever thought of playing her Game? Bringing back little bits of her in you. I'm the first to admit I'll never be on her, or your, level. But the Yard has asked me to consult in her place. I tried to tell them I was no Sherlock Holmes but Lestrade wouldn't hear it. She said I was best they had."
Julian stared at her blankly,
"Why? Why would I help the pebble in my shoe, the ant below my looking glass? They weren't worthy of her genius and they're certainly not worthy of mine. I can give them a much lovelier gift but I have no desire to do anything anymore."
Watson ran her hands roughly through her short sandy blonde bob and over her tired face,
"Sherlock thought them just as insignificant and small-minded and dull as you do and yet he found enjoyment there. There's living to be done Moriarty. If Sherlock was here she'd be hunting you but she'd still be taking cases for the Yard because it was fun. Because she wanted to solve people. And if I'm being honest because she sought my approval."
"She might be gone and you might be right. Death might be the only way you can see her again. But in some twisted way you already are her. I can see it in your eyes you know what she was to you. Without your counter balance what do you do? Fade away? Die? Or do you find a new way to live?"
She didn't know where the voice came from, it sounded so fragile like the voice of timid small girl named Jill,
"What will you do? You are her heart made flesh. I loved her mind but she loved her heart. Take me down with you Joan Watson."
And with that she leaned her head against Joan's soft shoulder. She felt the warm jumper covered body stiffen but then slowly relax as a strong arm wrapped itself carefully around her shoulders. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours. The tears where silent and waterless. There was just sand paper and ink in her eyes and throat.
"Chase them as she would have chased them. Hunt them down and stop them. Take what you were and burn it. And if you do I'll come with you because I have nowhere else to go. My world died with her but I'm too damn average, unexceptional, to end it and follow her."
Julian sat up carefully and studied her with sharp brown eyes,
"I think I beginning to see what she saw in you."
Joan laughed, there was no humor or joy behind it, it was as cold and black as her gun. Julian looked down at her shaking hands and took one carefully between both her two mangled ones,
"I know I have no right to ask this of you but may I?"
Joan looked down at her cocooned hand and the ruined pair that gently held them and then back to the pleading look her eyes before she stroked her hand as lightly, and gently as possible and said,
"I owe you nothing but if it's for Sherlock I'll do anything you ask."
Julian nodded her head fiercely and she felt Joan relax in to her touch and then murmur,
"Then ask."
"When we die and go meet Sherlock again can we do it together?"
Joan's head snapped towards her, there was something fierce and horrifying there, something Julian couldn't even begin to fathom. But then it disappeared and was replaced by a calm look of acceptance,
"Yes. I'll even grab your bloody hand. Like hell I'm letting you get your hands on her without me."
For the first time in weeks, in the weeks since her world had disintegrated, she smiled. It was vicious, it was bright, and it was the only genuine smile she had ever shown another human being.
And so Julian Moriarty disappeared. She hunted the killers, rapers, terrorists, and scum she had loathed but played with before. She even had the grace not to kill all of them, a gift for Watson of course.
She followed her like a muted shadow, dropping her helpful hints for the cases she worked for the Yard by text like Sherlock would have. Signed JM of course. She wasn't as callous as to pretend she was anything like Sherlock to Watson. She knew all too well there was no replacing her in that capacity, and frankly she didn't want to.
They had formed a freakish partnership, two utterly different creatures thrown together in common grief over their shared sun. Moriarty didn't love Joan like she had loved Sherlock. But there was a blooming respect and a strange sort of care she had never had for any thing other than The Game. A sort of bumbling affection that she was never meant to feel.
Every year they would meet on that day. And they would lay simple flowers on the corner where it had happened but leave very quickly afterwards. That place was not where she was.
Watson would then make dinner in 221B and they would eat in respectful silence before sitting in the living room reading through case files that Moriarty brought for Joan's opinion on her next piece of prey. Some how this anniversary went from annually to bi-annually to semi-monthly.
They even developed a friendly banter between them. It was a strange sort of crippled companionship that could never grow wings but hobbled along determinedly anyway.
She didn't know how Joan could stand to be surrounded by reminders of Sherlock every minute of every day. All of London was like an intimate map of her body and 221B was her fledgling heart. But she supposed living where she had lived was no worse than running from her in Brussels, Moscow, or Dusseldorf. Seeing her shadowy trench cloaked figure turning endless corners just out reach.
Joan never went on another date, never got married, never had children, and never engaged in anything close to a healthy normal relationship again. People tried but she was firm in the statement of "I'm married to my work." But in reality she was married to a ghost. And so was Julian. They were widows together in this and only this.
Finally when they had broken their bodies to match their spirits. When their aches and old knife, bullet, and emotional wounds crippled them permanently. And they were no use to any one any more. They met at the shore.
The water was cold but soon turned to a numb balm as they waded in deeper. But Julian could feel none of it. Not the jagged ice as it crept down her lungs, not the eerie wind as it pulled her hair back and forth, nor the dry gritty tears that didn't come.
Because Joan was holding her hand.
It was warm and calloused and too big over her own small pale one. Joan squeezed reassuringly as the water swallowed them whole and dragged them gently down. Neither one fought for air or for the surface.
They simply floated closer to embrace and sink one final time together.
After all she wasn't about to let Joan have Sherlock all to herself, not in life, and never in her personal domain, eternity.
And as the world went blue then gauzy black around the edges she found herself not letting go for a different reason. She didn't want to die alone. Instead she was going home to old friends with a new one in her arms. And she had to admit in her last empty breath she'd never been happier.