It's all very literary
He knows, of course. The note is false. He watches Watson’s retreating back and wonders if he’ll see it again, wonders what fate waits for him at the end of this path. It occurs to him how easily Moriarty could destroy him simply by not being there; if he were at the hotel instead, waiting with a gun rather than pneumonia. He dismisses that, though. This is a meeting of two giants. Maybe earlier Watson would’ve been a suitable target, but now it’s about two forces that must meet if there’s any hope in bringing an end to either of them.
When Holmes reaches the end of the path, his first thought is that it’s all so startlingly literary. There is Moriarty, and behind him the great rushing of the falls, the sheer face of the cliff, and the heavy scent of finality in the air. Watson would have enjoyed that about this.
There is talk; there is a letter into which Holmes doesn’t pour his heart; there is a fight, a scuffle, and he remembers a boxing match, the first after a long time, and a kiss on his split lip. Moriarty is strong; it could be either of them, but in the end, it’s Moriarty dangling over the edge. It’s Moriarty who clutches at him, eyes wild in fear. It’s Moriarty who loses his footing.
It’s Holmes who lets him go, who stands still and watches him become smaller as he descends, his screams merging with the rush of the water, until finally his body does, too.
Holmes’s body is alive in the way that Moriarty’s body isn’t anymore; he’s breathing hard, his skin prickling, his face wet with spray, and his hands hang at his sides, open and twitching, still warm from Moriarty’s body, from the blood rushing through him for the fight. He’s dizzy, his vision swimming, and he forces himself to take a step back before he falls in, too.
Victory doesn’t rush in to fill all his quiet places. He can only slowly accept that it’s over, that this is over, that Watson is warm and safe in the hotel, and they can go home to London. He shivers again, his eyes pressed shut tight, and he wills himself to believe that it could be that easy. But it wasn’t easy, was it? Can he think it so easy to have dropped a man over a cliff face, to have stood back and watched him be absorbed into the earth?
There’s a rush of air and something hard and sharp clips his shoulder.
It’s almost a relief when he whirls around and sees Sebastian Moran outlined against the sun, a rock in his hands and a threat in his frame.
“This isn’t the end, Mr. Holmes,” he calls down, and no, no, it isn’t; this is too big to have ended with that, with a slip and a fall and a cry, reaching up for a hand it won’t find.
“Do you plan to finish me off with rocks?” he returns, clutching to his characteristic haughtiness. “That seems beneath you, Colonel.”
The answering laugh is cold, and for a moment Holmes squints into the sun just to be sure-just to be sure that’s Moran and not Moriarty, creeping back from the dead.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Holmes. I’m on orders. He didn’t want me to kill you, but this way, you at least have a fighting chance.” There’s a tightness, a near hysteric quality to Moran’s voice, that reaches into the hole that formed when he pushed Moriarty to his death; it reaches in and twists, and Holmes is momentarily breathless.
There’s another rock, and he moves, dodges it, tries to find shelter but there is none.
“If you aren’t to kill me, what then?” he calls out, and Moran’s answer is flinty.
“I suppose it will kill you, in a way,” Moran says, musing, playing with his food before he eats it, and Holmes tries and fails not to blanch.
“You will not kill Watson,” he cries out, his voice nearing the hysteric quality of Moran’s. Moran laughs again, cold and hollow.
“I won’t, I promise.” The pause is pregnant, and Holmes knows what he’ll say before he says it. “So long as you never see him again.”
The news is as if one of Moran’s rocks had fallen on him; the weight is crushing, and he thinks of Moriarty, of the falls, wonders if he hasn’t already fallen and this is simply how it feels to die.
“He’s coming now, Mr. Holmes. You had better make up your mind.”
He hears the metal sounds of a gun being prepared, and his mind reaches through his shock and rattles him. Watson is coming; Holmes is apparently not to see him, but where is he to go? There is nowhere; nowhere but up, up a sheer cliff and only a limited time to get there. The climb is excruciating, and his fingers are bleeding once he slides into place. Moran doesn’t make it easy, but he could easily destroy Holmes; for once, Holmes doesn’t feel like the cat, but rather the mouse as he makes his way slowly to Moran’s waiting mouth.
By choice, he remembers very little of Watson discovering the scene.
After, with the after image of Watson’s grief flashing every time he closes his eyes, he meets Moran at the top of the cliff and looks into the eyes of the man who’s killed him and let him live to feel it.
“It’s all very literary,” he says, and his grin is all teeth. “He wanted it that way.”
And, of course, so did Holmes. Because in the end he and Moriarty really weren’t that different; they were the same, but crossed, the reflection of the other. Moriarty is dead in body; Holmes is dead in soul. Where Moriarty finds his suffering in the afterlife, Holmes will find it in his own life after Watson.
“Go on then,” Moran says, and he nods his head to the distance.
Holmes turns; he has no words, for dead men can’t speak, and he walks, with only the vaguest idea of where he ought to go. He’s halfway to the trees before he hears metal behind him again.
“I’ll give you to the count of ten,” Moran calls, and there’s glee there in his voice.
Holmes runs.