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1.
"Moriarty."
Sherlock says the name under her breath, like a secret she's not ready to share yet. She tastes it on her lips, she focuses on the way her tongue moves to say the word. She repeats it several times – always softly, with a hint of admiration in her voice and with lips curled into a little smile – and lets it fill the bedroom the same way it has done with her mind.
Moriarty isn't like the criminals and the murderers with whom Sherlock has to deal almost every day. It isn't predictable, isn't boring, doesn't make stupid mistakes that leave behind a trace of evidences that are more obvious than a giant neon billboard.
Moriarty is different. It's the sparkle that shines behind her blue eyes every time she's facing a difficult challenge, it's sleepless nights, it's the genuine enthusiasm that makes her throw her head back with a crystalline laugh to accompany the countdown even if the hostage is a kid covered in semtex – that case was so brilliant though, why would she have had to hold back?
A puff of smoke leaves her mouth. Even nicotine is boring and insignificant when compared to Moriarty. She could use "Moriarty helps me quit smoking" as an excuse to justify her behaviour in Joan's eyes, Sherlock thinks absently, setting the laptop on her naked legs and opening the only website marked as a favourite. She moves the mouse, then stubs out the (almost untouched) cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. She doesn't need it.
Fingers type fast on the keyboard.
"Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The Pool. Midnight."
Sherlock realizes her lips are raised in a smile only when she catches her reflection in the computer screen.
***
Her walk shows off a firm confidence that doesn't really exist: if the sound of the shoes on the tiles is rhythmic and precise to the point of being surgical, the same can't be said of her heartbeat, fast and strong enough to resonate in her head.
Thoughts slip through her fingers like smoke. Sherlock can't grasp them, they disappear before taking shape and becoming complete ideas; they leave her with snippets of information that are more useless than ever, because observing the state of the building or roughly estimating the concentration of chlorine in the water (based on the smell stronger than usual) won't help her in the confrontation with Moriarty.
She needs to focus on things that are really important. Like the completely dark upper gallery. Like the fact that Moriarty is there, watching her. The thought sends a shiver down her back that is more excitement than fear.
"Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present." She says loudly, lips curling into a smile at the end of the sentence. She raises the USB stick in the air.
After all, this is basically their first date, their first meeting after days of flirting and courtship: the only difference is that instead of flowers – or any other stupid thing lovers buy to each other, Sherlock has neither experience in the field nor intention of filling that gap – there are murders and crimes, spiced up with phrases that, said by someone else, could even sound romantic.
"Oh, that’s what it’s all been for, hasn’t it? All your little puzzles, making me dance, all to distract me from this."
The answer doesn't come from where Sherlock expected. She lowers her head and stares in front of her, looking at the door of the men's locker room.
The seconds between the creak and the opening of the door seem infinite. They dilate to form a bubble where time becomes viscous and doesn't pass, an universe in which, like in a dream, a single blink of eye lasts whole minutes. Eyelids fall on icy eyes, now bright and warm from that fire that only Moriarty can ignite. She opens them again, finds her breath is slightly accelerated, that there is a lump she can't swallow in her throat and that the gun in the right pocket of the jacket is heavy and hot against her side. She also finds she's appreciating the tension – Moriarty isn't in the room yet and it already floats in the air, sharp like a winter morning – more than is appropriate.
Sherlock licks her lower lip, dry and cracked – a bit like her.
Moriarty is still in darkness when the voice reaches Sherlock's ears.
"I gave you my number ... I thought you might call."
Oh. She is a woman.
The British accent has dropped from her voice, replaced by a typically Irish one watered down by years spent in London. It's not the only thing that changed. Gone are her awkward manners, gone is her low cut t-shirt; it disappeared with the banality that Hooper's girlfriend wore like a perfume, which led Sherlock to crumple and throw away her phone number. She can't help but wonder what might have happened if she had called her. The thought doesn't last more than a second; the click of Moriarty's heels brings her back to reality.
"Jane Moriarty" she smiles, tongue darting out to lick her lower lip.
Sherlock points the gun at her.
"Hi!"
Moriarty approaches slowly, steps light and soft despite shoes that add at least twelve centimetres to her height. Her gaze doesn't slide on the weapon, not even for a second. She walks calmly and relaxed, as if there weren't any dangers, as if watching Sherlock were the most important thing in the world – and maybe it's true, because God, her pupils are so dilated, they seem to swallow Sherlock whole – as if the smile painted on red lips had the answer to every question in the universe.
That's when Sherlock truly realizes she's in front of Moriarty.
She's a criminal and a murderer – no, those words don't do her justice; Jane is something else, she belongs to a higher category which belongs to her only and Sherlock must find another way to define her, words that fit like the suit she's wearing – even if she looks like a doll, pale porcelain skin and long black eyelashes. She has small hands with slender fingers; Sherlock notices before Jane slips them into the pockets of her jacket, delicate hands that carry the blood of hundreds of innocent people.
She's an oxymoron: sharp mind and soft features and Sherlock finds her beautiful in the same way crime scenes and fresh corpses are.
For some reason, Moriarty reminds her of the angel of death.
"I’ve given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I’ve got going on out there in the big bad world." A pause, she pursues her lips. "I’m a specialist, you see..." She lowers her head a little, moves the strand of hair that ends up right in front of her face. She looks like she's following a script, saying words she repeated for days in front of her mirror and yet, when she lifts her gaze again, Sherlock sees a sparkle in her eyes that can't be faked. She can't understand whether it's desire of euphoria. Perhaps both.
"Like you!"
Oh. She has finally found a way to define her.
"Moriarty, consulting criminal."
The gun trembles in her fingers, lowers slightly, loses aim. If one of Moriarty's snipers is about to shoot her right now, she wouldn't be able to kill Jane in return.
"Brilliant."
2.
Sherlock hasn't slept in almost seventy-two hours; Jane has occupied her mind more than she likes to admit – the two things are correlated, sleeping is a waste of time when Moriarty is out there, orchestrating puzzles and crimes waiting to be solved – and the silhouette she has noticed out of the corner of her eye could be anything.
It could, but it's not. When Sherlock turns, in a move that isn't subtle at all, every doubt disappears: Jane winks, sitting at one of the tables of the café on the other side of the road. Sherlock swallows. She has to use a considerable amount of self-control to not cross the street immediately.
"I have something to do. You can go home."
Joan's eyes are big and blue; they linger on her with a care and an affection Sherlock isn't used to, they make her want to move away for a reason even she can't really understand, the same that leads her to ignore Mycroft's help every time. She still stares back, ignoring the ill-concealed concern in the light irises. She knows what Joan is thinking and she thinks focusing on that one thing is stupid; it only happened once, the list was short and the last thing Sherlock wants is to be looked at as if she were a drug addict needing help. Even if it could be true.
"Sherlock..."
"It won't take long."
Joan isn't convinced, but Sherlock knows she can change her mind.
She knows it because since Moriarty has entered her (their?) life, things have gotten better.
There are no longer days in which Sherlock is lying on the couch doing absolutely nothing while Joan watches silently, knowing she can't give her what she wants, hearing her best friend talking about death and suicide with a disturbing ease. There are no frustrations and words repressed for too long that come out in screams and angry hisses, no arguments that end with the door slamming loud enough to make the windows rattle and Joan coming home few hours later, excuses muttered with lips that carry the smell of alcohol.
"Please?"
A sigh.
Sherlock knows she has won the exact moment Joan looks down. "Okay."
As soon as Joan's back becomes an indistinguishable dot among many others, Sherlock walks towards the café. She sits at Moriarty's table without saying anything, a haste and an impatience in her limbs made apparent by the loud noise she makes when she moves her chair. A couple of customers from the near tables turn to look at Sherlock.
Jane smiles.
"Are you worried I'm going to find out all your plans?"
Sherlock tries to hide the excitement in her voice, but she obviously fails, because Jane laughs, a soft and genuine laughter that illuminates her more than the sun of late April. She looks soft and warm.
"Good morning to you too, Sherlock." She takes a sip of the coffee in front of her. "And no, because I'm only giving you crumbs. I just like watching you dance."
It's not the first time she says it, but it's different now, because the voice is truly hers and the words sound a little more true, they go a little deeper inside her.
Jane looks at her like she's a work of art. There is no affection in her dark eyes, only interest and an admiration so big and intense that it's almost devotion and Sherlock, holding her stare, realizes she finds it enjoyable. She hides the thought in a drawer in her mind palace, tries not think about the implications, not to give any satisfaction to Jane, who speaks again.
"Why are you sitting here at my table, though?"
"Boredom." She says, shrugging. It's only partly true, but Jane doesn't have to know. "Or maybe I'm here to arrest you."
"If you want to handcuff me you can just say so, honey."
Sherlock's eyes runs over Jane's hands like water. They stop on her thin wrists a second longer than necessary, as she imagines the metal around them. She grabs Jane's cup to wet her suddenly dry lips. As soon as the now lukewarm liquid touches her tongue, Sherlock twists her mouth into a grimace of disgust.
"I thought you liked real coffee, not this..." Another face, more exaggerated and theatrical than the previous "... mountain of sugar."
Jane's lips curls into a half smile that Sherlock takes a second too long to understand. "I didn't know you spent your time imagining what I like."
"It was just a hypothesis."
A condescending hum is the only answer she gets.
For a full minute they remain silent, just staring into each other eyes, blinking as little as possible, like in a staring contest between two little boys. At some point – around thirty-two seconds if we want to be precise; Sherlock is counting them, even if she can't really figure out why – something changes in Jane's eyes.
She doesn't look at her like she's a work of art anymore, but like she's a puzzle to solve. She looks at her the same way Sherlock observes the people around her, like she wants to cut them in half to see what's inside, put her fingers in the wounds she created and move all the organs to get to the information she needs and Sherlock feels uncomfortable, because she's not used to being on the other side of that, because she can't do the same, because Jane is one of the few people she can't read.
Then Jane looks away. She moves her gaze to her own cup and Sherlock exhales deeply, like someone just removed a weight from her chest.
"I have an idea." Jane waits a second, then lifts her head. "Want to play?"
When Jane leans forward and shortens the distance between them, Sherlock's heart skips a beat.
"I'll take your silence as a yes."
***
In Jane's game there aren't murders to prevent or complex cases to solve in order to stop the explosion of a bomb in the centre of London or the death of one of the people sitting few tables away from them. There are no puzzles or challenges, and when Jane smiles and whispers "tell me what you've assumed about me and I'll tell you if you're right," Sherlock can't help but rolling her eyes, lips curving into a small pout that tastes like bitter disappointment. She thinks it's boring, yet she doesn't get up.
The game turns out to be more interesting than expected.
Sherlock finds out that Jane loves maths, that she has written two books she never published because they would have been criticized only because they were written by a woman – and at this point Jane's mouth curls into a grimace of pure disgust that Sherlock knows way too well.
She finds out Jane's not heterosexual – she laughs at the mere idea, gets closer and whispers "I would kill you if you seriously thought that," on her skin; Sherlock can't figure out if she's joking or not – that she has other interests outside her work, that at the pool she was wearing a men's suit not because she secretly wants to be a man but because, to use her exact words, she looks super hot in it and she wanted to be at her best for their first date.
She finds out that whatever happened with Carl Powers is still a sore subject. It touches a nerve that makes Jane's posture more rigid and her eyes darker. Jane stares at her in complete silence for a bunch of seconds, doesn't reply and, for the first time since they met, Sherlock has a shiver of what can be called fear. Even if there aren't any hissed threats filling the air.
She finds out Jane changes quickly, that a smile soon appears on her face like nothing happened and Sherlock releases a breath she didn't know she had being holding.
She also finds out that the feeling of a pen on her forearm tickles, and that even if she's trying to tighten her lips in a straight line, the corners of her mouth raise a little.
"This time don't throw it away."
"Moriarty ..."
"Jane. Call me Jane."
She walks away without saying another word, leaving Sherlock with a cell number written on her skin and the image of Jane's black bob just a little ruffled by the wind.
3.
Sherlock doesn't call. However, she sends a message, a single line of text that tells Jane of the date Joan has with Mary, her girlfriend. It's an implicit invite that is immediately accepted with a winking face – Sherlock wrinkles her nose at the emoji – and ten minutes later Jane shows up at her door, a smile on her lips and an expensive bottle of wine in her hands.
Jane arrives with something different every time. A bouquet of flowers, poisonous and at the centre of one of the last cases she has left, a box of Belgian chocolate, a scarf similar to the one she already owns but more expensive, a handful of slides the very day Sherlock accidentally broke some.
After a while, texts become superflous. When Sherlock returns home expecting an empty flat, Jane is there, lying on the couch or sitting in her armchair – never Joan's, always hers, she realizes – with a book on her lap and eyes darker than ever. She has probably installed cameras at 221b to control her routine, or maybe one of her men follows Joan to know when no one is home; either way Sherlock doesn't find it as disturbing as she should.
She hides this thought in a corner of her mind, ignoring it the same way she ignores her accelerated pulse and the way the corners of her lips curl up every time she climbs the stairs.
(Sometimes she opens the door only to find out a completely empty flat that seems a bit sadder than the one she left and there is a bitter taste in her mouth that doesn't go away, not even when she's brushing her teeth, toothbrush rubbing with more force than necessary. This is also something she doesn't like to think about.)
Jane has her head in Sherlock's lap and her eyes closed. She's quiet, relaxed, harmless and Sherlock wants to stroke her hair for no reason, in a gesture filled with that sweetness that doesn't really belong to her personality or their relationship. The idea doesn't become act: Jane opens her eyes and breaks that moment, catching Sherlock's hand mid-air with her gaze. She curls her lips into an amused smile.
"Sherlock ..."
She pauses for a long time after saying her name. Sherlock hates that silence; it forewarns an important question; it's a silence that she wishes was longer, because when words come into play everything becomes way too complex and frustrating.
"Why do I always have to do everything myself?"
Sherlock sighs. She doesn't like where the conversation is going. "I don't understand what you're talking about."
Jane clicks her tongue. "You never call me, you never buy me gifts. I'm always the one who visit you and even if you love it – and no, don't try to contradict me, I know you are happy when I make your boring life more interesting – you never take a step in my direction."
There is some truth in her words. It stiffens Sherlock's posture, it makes her want to push Jane away. She doesn't do it, she doesn't want to seem childish, so she just stares back, brows frowned and face a little harder. "Are you really focusing on something that stupid?"
Jane doesn't even blink. Her impassive face gets on her nerves; somehow it reminds her of Mycroft.
The difference – one of the many actually, considering that they have two completely different personalities – between him and Jane is that Sherlock knows her older brother.
She couldn't forget her childhood even if she tried. Afternoons spent playing pirates with Redbeard and Mycroft, the sound of their laughter, bruised knees, the copper shade in her brother's hair more evident because of the sunlight. She hadn't turned double digits yet and the world still had that beauty and uniqueness that she can no longer see.
She can't tell exactly when everything changed, but it was during her puberty. Most, without knowing, would attribute the change to adolescence. Of course they would have a point, hormones have certainly did their part, but her "transformation" (if you can call it that) into the cynical and disinterested person she is now is something that can't be attributed to just age. Her brother's affection has transformed from a warm comforting embrace – in a metaphorical sense of course, the Holmes never liked physical contact that much – into a suffocating chokehold. Now, the very idea of following Mycroft's orders bothers her.
The difference between Mycroft and Jane is that the former is easy to read. It's easy to see the resignation and love hidden in his blue irises, it's easy to notice the way his shoulders lower a little every time Sherlock doesn't pay attention to him.
In contrast, Jane is a book written in a language that she doesn't fully know. Sherlock may be able to understand a couple of words similar to something with which she's familiar, but she can't read the full text. This is what she's found fascinating since the beginning, what pushed her to know Jane better, but sometimes Sherlock finds it irritating. She doesn't like being in a disadvantaged position after years in control.
"What are you afraid of, Sherlock?"
She's brought back to reality.
Jane's voice is soft, but at the end it becomes lower and oh, when her tongue rolls up around Sherlock's name, she feels a tinge of sadness that resonates in a familiar way, right in the middle of her chest. She decides to ignore it, like she ignores all the awkward deductions, like she ignored the crush Joan had had on her which died – thankfully – when she met Mary.
"You're being ridiculous. Stupidity doesn't suit you."
Jane moves and sits on the couch.
Sherlock's lap remains warm for a while.
"You know what doesn't suit your pretty face?" Her tone isn't angry or aggressive.
This is probably what Sherlock finds more worrying.
"Your 'oh Moriarty broke into my flat and now I'm forced to spend time with her' attitude, like you can't accept the fact that yes, we are enemies, but there is something more."
"What do you want me to do? Should I send you a message full of hearts every time you are in my mind?"
"No, God, no." She shakes her head. "You would have the phone in your hands all the time." A little laugh escapes her lips. It doesn't last enough to loosen the tension. "I just wished you would let go of your guilt. Or whatever keeps you attached to those stupid labels you seem to love so much." She keeps staring at her and gets closer, shortening the distance until their legs touch, in a gentle brush that sends shivers down Sherlock's spine. "We can be enemies and want to kill each other even while spending time together, you know."
"I still don't understand your problem. We spend time together. A lot, since things between Joan and Mary got serious."
A sigh. Jane moves away. "Mhn. Just because I decide to visit you."
"I sent you texts."
"The first few times, but that's not really the point." She lowers her head, bangs covering her eyes.
For almost a full minute, nothing happens. They both stay still, Jane looking down and Sherlock staring at her without daring to touch her or accept the meaning behind her words. She waits, counts the beats of her heart, memorizes the position of the freckles on Jane's nose – she's not wearing foundation today, so they are visible. Sherlock thinks she should look natural more often.
Jane raises her head and speaks.
Sherlock loses count.
"I thought you understood me, I really did."
Sherlock's first instinct is to contradict her. To tell her, with voice a little too hasty and loud, that she's the only one who understands, the only one capable of solving her crimes, the only one who knows what it really means to be bored, to live in a world that moves too slowly and doesn't keep up with your mind. What it means to need a distraction.
She doesn't say anything. She doesn't want to look desperate.
"I thought you felt the same things I do. Instead I find myself giving my attention to someone who can't even call me by my name."
"All of this because I don't call you Jane?" Sherlock realizes she has said the wrong thing when the words are already spilling from her lips.
"God, you're so stupid!" Jane shouts, suddenly loud. "Sometimes you disgust me."
Sherlock freezes. Jane has crossed an invisible line – a line that, to be honest, she wasn't fully aware existed until this very moment – because Sherlock has never thought such a thing, not even when Jane killed innocent people without making a distinction between children and adults, not even when she threatened to kill Sherlock. The feelings she has for Moriarty are multiple and contradictory, but they don't include hatred or disgust. She assumed it was mutual.
Sherlock's face changes. Lips a line, eyebrows only just furrowed, a tightened jaw that makes her face even sharper, more like a marble statue than a real person. "Then what are you doing here?"
If Sherlock is pure ice and hard, cold look, Jane is fire fed by gasoline. "Then what am I doing here? Good question." She gets up, picks up the heels she had taken off to be more comfortable and walks barefoot to the door. "See you. Or maybe don't. It's up to you."
"As if you could stay away from me." It's a childish reply, and she knows it. So, when Jane laughs, Sherlock is not surprised. What she didn't expect is what follows.
"Honey, I did it for more than twenty years."
Her heart skips a beat.
4.
Sometimes her gaze stops on the phone.
It happens at night, when Joan is sleeping and Sherlock isn't interested in the experiment she's conducting or when the paper doesn't report any interesting crime and Lestrade hasn't called in days. It happens when she opens her lips to let out a sigh that carries the weight of a too brilliant mind.
There are days when she feels more lonely than usual and opens the message screen, fingertips typing words that are always deleted before they are sent, snippets of conversations that are the opening words of dozens of "what ifs" that come to life only in her imagination.
Sherlock twists her lips in a grimace and throws the phone on the couch. She feels like a teenager dealing with her first crush and she hates it, because she should be grateful for not having anything to do with Moriarty anymore, because her life (and the lives of the people she loves) is safer now. She shouldn't miss the weight of Jane's head on her lap, the soft sound of her laugh or the way her warm breath gives her goose bumps every time she gets too close.
If she's honest, she didn't think Jane would be capable of resisting her for so long. Or better, Sherlock thought that Jane would at least give her a distraction. As demonstrated by the pathetic case she just accepted – a banal murder that looks like a suicide, so simple and unimaginative that even Scotland Yard could solve it – all the criminals worthy of the name seem to have gone on vacation, leaving the British capital to people for whom Sherlock can't feel anything but disgust.
Sherlock stands up. She grabs her coat and the pack of cigarettes, walks fast and closes the door of 221b behind her before giving another look at the phone.
She can't stop thinking about the phone abandoned on the couch. Not even when smoke fills her lungs.
***
It takes a month of pure boredom and a couple of glasses of the bottle Joan and Mary have uncorked to announce their engagement for her to send a text.
"London is boring."
Her thumb stops in mid air.
She isn't drunk – she drank just enough to make the new couple happy and avoid complaints about how she should "smile more" and "learn how to let herself go" – but the thoughts keep slipping through her fingers like soap and... why has she resisted the temptation to text Jane for thirty-five days? Suddenly she can't remember.
"Without you, I mean."
She concludes in a second message. She stares at the cold display for two minutes – Jane has always replied after a few moments – but after one hundred twenty-seven seconds of absolute nothing, she decides to try to focus on something else. With poor results, since the bow keeps stumbling on the same notes, making her even more frustrated than she already is.
With a curse between her teeth she drops into her chair.
Even Joan and Mary realize something is off.
***
She must have fallen asleep, because when she opens her eyes, there is a blanket over her. It was probably Mary, she thinks, yawning without worrying about covering her mouth with the palm of her hand and looking for her phone.
The blanket falls to the ground the exact moment Sherlock notices the display flashing.
"Sherl, you know I don't work for you, right?"
Any trace of sleep disappears, turning into impatience that deposits in the corner of her smile.
She didn't expect an answer, especially not after such ridiculous texts – Sherlock can't stop the warm wave of embarrassment that makes her ears red when she re-reads them – and the way Jane acted the last time they saw each other.
"Oh, I know. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm the only one who can really appreciate what you do."
This time she doesn't have to wait hours for a reply.
"Maybe."
Her fingers stay still for a couple of seconds, trembling in the air which is suddenly full of expectations.
She only has one chance to impress Jane. Sherlock knows that if she says the wrong thing, Jane won't think twice before ending the conversation – and their relationship. Even if it's the last thing she wants, she can't stop smiling. The challenge she's facing is way more interesting and difficult than all the cases she solved in the last days. Her thumbs move on the display almost at the same speed of her thoughts.
"I know you miss having someone who can see what others can't. Someone who can find connection that doesn't exist in the eyes of the most, details that only seem insignificant, like Powers' shoes."
The phone vibrates in her hands few seconds later. Her heartbeat accelerates.
"Your ego is even bigger than your brain. Darling, I've known many people almost as brilliant as me."
Sherlock swallows the shade.
"They are different from us, aren't they? That's why you don't like to play with my brother."
"Another thing we have in common, by the way."
"So even the great Sherlock Holmes makes jokes. I'm surprised."
In her mind, Jane's face is so clear that it seems real. She can almost see her large dark eyes, black and bright at the same time, shining with that spark of pure interest. Sherlock likes to think she's the only one who can trigger it. She can see Jane's mouth curled into a smile, her tongue quickly licking the lower lip and catches Sherlock's gaze by doing so. She can hear her laugh, just a little tainted by malice, attached to the words of the text. It's a good sign.
"I know you miss it. I could be on the side of the angels; I could use my mind for something you find boring and pathetic, but I understand you. We are the same. And so are our desires and needs."
Sherlock realizes the truth in her words – at first deliberately exaggerated to reach her goal – only when she types them. Sherlock bites her lower lips, sends another text to accompany the previous.
"Also, I can't understand what you can find in Australia that isn't here."
"Someone is a good girl who has done her homework."
"Koalas are cute, though."
Sherlock sighs in relief.
"I thought you were more of a spider kind of girl."
"I like them both. The two things don't exclude each other."
"Maybe you are right."
Similarly, they can be two different things: enemies and something more, something that falls into a space not defined by the lines of human language, something that even two brilliant minds like theirs can't name.
"I'll be back in London in a month and half, if everything goes well. Try to not become a pathetic junkie in the meanwhile."
Sherlock reads the message two, three, four times. Blue eyes runs over the text slowly as the hands of a lover, careful they stop on every single word, to make sure she's fully understanding what Jane is saying.
She did it.
A little laugh escapes her mouth, shyly fills the air of the room, frees her chest from a weight Sherlock isn't able to name.
The smile on her face has the sweet taste of satisfaction. (And perhaps, even of happiness.)
"Dear Moriarty, can you fix the lack of interesting crimes and prevent me from shooting a bullet right between my eyes?"
"I'll see what I can do. x."
The fingers move once again, typing the words "Thank you, Jane."
The message isn't sent; however, and after few seconds the pixels turn white. The text is added to all the others that she didn't want to – or couldn't – send.
5.
Thanks to a sleepless night spent with a cup of coffee constantly pressed on her lips, she managed to find out on what date and to which airport, Jane will, in all likelihood, fly. However, for the airliner's number – something that initially surprised her, before she remembered that Moriarty loves to assume fictitious and ordinary identities – she has to thank Mary.
The things Sherlock can do are countless; however, getting into a (more or less) protected database to look for specific information is not among them. Thankfully, Mary didn't mock her for that. She just smiled and sat down in front of the computer, the clicking of her fingers on the keyboard the accompaniment questions that have always got "please don't tell Joan" as the answer.
She hasn't told her everything, of course.
All Mary knows is that Sherlock is meeting someone for not-work-related motives, a woman that for some reason is using a false identity. Even if Moriarty's name hasn't left her lips, not even once, it's not too difficult to draw the conclusion and there is a good chance Mary figured it out.
Apart from a "are you sure" said with a voice a little too serious and with worry in her eyes, Mary didn't raise any objections. She merely stared at the computer screen, occasionally making jokes about how even someone like Sherlock could a crush. It went without saying that Sherlock didn't reply to her provocations.
Sherlock ignores Mary's text – a "good luck!!!" followed by one of those smiley emoji that she, like Jane, seems to love – and sits on one of the uncomfortable chairs in the airport lounge.
The wait is different from the one of months before at the pool. There aren't any top secret plans or snipers involved, no dangers hidden in every inch not illuminated by cold lights or bombs that could blow up an entire building. Yet, she can't relax. Her heart beats faster than usual, beats in a time that Sherlock taps on the floor with the heel of her shoe.
To loosen up – this nervousness is stupid, she knows she's early; she knows she hasn't made a mistake – she observes the people around her.
It's a game she's loved since she was a child.
She analyzes men and women as mere objects, strips them of their humanity and focuses on details and behaviours capable of opening windows in their lives.
There is a guy that nervously looks at his phone every few seconds, opens the internal camera to check his fringe and smiles, bright brown eyes and a soft blush on his tanned skin. Anyone could deduce he's waiting for his girlfriend – no, boyfriend, she corrects once she notices the phone background.
There is a woman with a ticket in her hand and on her lips a smile bigger than the huge trolley she's carrying around. She's ready to leave the country and start a new life, away from the person who left the bruises she's constantly trying to hide with the sleeve of her shirt. Her ticket is one-way.
There are dozens of people. Some leave, others wait, others come back and run, despite the heavy baggage, into the arms of their beloved they haven't seen in a long time. Their lives are predictable and equally boring soon becomes the game. To push the thought of Jane from her mind – or at least, to make it less intense – she has to change her mental exercise.
Sherlock now imagines how she could kill them.
The first time she planned a murder, she had been fifteen and her eyes had been puffy from crying after a violent argument with Mycroft.
The second time she had been at school and was throwing dirty looks at the classmates that called her "abnormal" and "freak" because of her intelligence.
The third, she had simply been bored and decided to turn her darkest impulses and corners of her personality into a game, convinced that expressing them in a safe and controlled environment like her mind was better than repressing them.
A thirty-something year old woman sitting in front of her keeps repeating parts of a memorized speech under her breath. Her fingers hold the paper too tightly and the bitten nails are painted with a chipped pink shade; Sherlock thinks how easy it would be to poison the nail polish and wait for the woman to kill herself because of her nervous tic. She lifts the corners of her lips into an almost imperceptible smile. She could easily get away with it by using a substance that takes a while to get into the bloodstream.
She moves her eyes to a man in his fifties sitting nearby. Sherlock is thinking how she could kill him – no, she can't use a poison again, it's too predictable – when a familiar voice raises above the others and makes everything else insignificant.
Sherlock stands up to her feet. Someone glances curiously at her. She doesn't even notice.
Her feet move, but the sound of the soles of the shoes doesn't reach her ears; before she even realizes it, she finds herself in front of Jane Moriarty. A Jane Moriarty different from the one she knows, with skin just a little tanned and dark bags under even darker eyes. A Jane Moriarty that has lost few pounds, wearing a white t-shirt that doesn't fit properly and is a size too big. There, where her makeup melted during the long flight, there are purple spots, traces of bruises that are taking too long to heal and disappear altogether, shadows that tell their own story.
Whatever happened, Jane had to get her hands dirty.
Sherlock stares at her, eyes wide-open and heart beating fast, unable to move her gaze. Lets the dark halos to be imprinted in her mind – it's not part of her disguise, it's not an accessory to her tourist look – to fill her chest and make breathing more difficult.
Sure, it's not the first time Jane has been forced to leave her role behind the scenes, but Sherlock can't swallow the bitter taste that is in her mouth. It's there, on the tip of the tongue; it makes everything even more weird and confusing.
It turns into something different and more sharp when she realizes she's jealous because she's not the cause of Jane's discomfort.
She should feel guilty. In her self-centeredness, she doesn't.
"Sherlock." Jane's voice is a whisper gentle as a caress, faint and light almost gets lost in the noise of the airport and yet it hits her louder than any scream. It's only one word, but is so full of meaning and unspoken conversations that Sherlock doesn't know how to reply or what to say.
So she doesn't say anything.
She steps forward and kisses her.
It's an experimental touch, a first step into an unexplored land; it's like walking in the dark with a blind fold over her eyes. Their lips meet clumsily and their noses collide before Sherlock realizes she has to tilt her head just a little, yet Jane still holds her breath and closes her eyes, a sigh dying where their mouth touch and their breaths blend.
It's a kiss like many others. It isn't anything special – quite the opposite; it's a bit awkward. Maybe this is why Sherlock feels the need to gain more information.
When their mouths meet again, it's more natural.
Jane's lips are parted and it's easy then for Sherlock to slip her tongue between them, to deepen the contact while her hands move to rest on Jane's cheeks, fingertips slowly caressing her face. Jane's skin is soft, but it isn't the only thing. Soft is her body when she pulls Sherlock to herself, soft is the touch of her fingers and soft is the small sound that gets stuck in her throat as the kiss becomes more passionate.
They part with panting breaths and flushed cheeks, with big eyes and dilated pupils. They part with the need to kiss again, to kiss each other in the way that leaves their lungs on fire and makes observers uncomfortable. Jane decides to indulge in it before Sherlock has the time to call her by her name.
They separate from each other only when they hear a male voice coming from the right.
"Fucking finally."
Sherlock will find out that the man with blond hair and a huge scar on his face is called Sebastian Moran and that he has the annoying superpower of interrupting them when it's most inopportune.
(+1.)
She called her Jane amid breathless kisses, with red lips and racing heartbeat. She called her Jane with voice heavy with sleep and messy curls in her face, with one arm around her waist to keep her from getting up and force her to spend another five minutes in the silk sheets that carry their scent. She called her Jane in front of Joan, which earned her a puzzled and confused look she dismissed with a shrug, even if her ears were red with childish embarrassment.
She called her Jane several times, and now the name slips naturally off her tongue, leaving behind a sweet and domestic aftertaste that isn't nauseating, because Jane is still Moriarty, is still the dangerous and unpredictable woman that has surprised her since the beginning.
"Sherlock..."
Jane whispers the name directly on her skin, soft lips ruined by bites. She lingers on the portion between neck and shoulder for a while; she tastes it on her tongue and then closes her teeth fiercely around it. The delicate and gentle touch is replaced by its opposite.
The pain is like a sharp needle, and when it runs thought her body and she lets go of a moan that makes Jane's lips curl in a satisfied grin (something for which she curses herself) Sherlock can't help but think of how that sudden change almost seems a metaphor for their relationship. The thought makes her smile.
"Say it."
Sherlock laughs. A light and amused sound that dies in her throat and turns into a strangled groan when Jane bites her again. She's still smiling.
"Make me."
Jane moves and leans between her legs without saying another word.
They both know it's only a matter of minutes before Sherlock will be screaming her name.