“If you’re speaking of James Moriarty, I know he’s here and I intend on revealing myself to him soon. He has already revealed himself to me, unknowingly and my main interest in Preya was I found it a natural conclusion that had he lived through the ordeal that took me from London and threw me into the heart of Eastern Europe for two years, demanding that I fake my own death and forfeit my business and home, he would have come here. Just a day after receiving a new recorded message from him, I was contacted by the powers that be and knew that no accident could be so happy in this universe.”
His voice was somewhat terse to disguise the extent of his venom regarding the situation, in hopes that she wouldn’t have him tailed to the location or warn Moriarty of his intent. It was best not to alarm this woman, he decided. He could tell she wasn’t the sort to bend or break in the face of insurmountable odds. No. She meant to win or she would die trying. It wasn’t so much the hidden weapons, the unplaceable accent, her adaptability to all sorts of personalities and her natural leadership skills. It was a look in her eyes that he recognized. She didn’t come off hard or unyielding but he caught glimpses of her steely resolve when she looked at him, regarding him with conditional respect.
She was a force to be reckoned with. Luckily, so was he.
That’s when he sat down in his chair and opened up his laptop, saying without looking up, “Feel free to have a seat on the chair or sofa. Or at the table, though it’s a bit crowded there. That was an understatement to say the least, there wasn’t a square inch of it that wasn’t covered in documents, unopened syringe needles, pictures upon pictures of horrific crime scenes.
He plugged the thumb drive in and opened it up on his computer, double-clicking it and sitting back, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth for a moment to clear his mind before all the files loaded. There were hundreds of them and he scrolled through quickly looking for a familiar name. Moriarty wouldn’t be on this drive, it was for disappearances only. Then he saw a name and his mind ground to a screeching halt, his hands hovering over the keyboard as if he’d been burned, but he didn’t show any change in his expression. He had trained himself well in that regard and also didn’t want Natasha to understand the depths of what this truly meant to him.
Something in his chest twisted that he didn’t quite understand and then his brain went spinning like a top again, with no destination in particular. “John Watson was here?” he asked, the question sounding more like a statement.
But John had never…he’d never left or… had he, unbeknownst to Sherlock? That would’ve been quite the feat, John Watson evading his gaze, his ever-present but unspoken monitoring of his movements. Sure, the doctor slipped into the city every so often without Sherlock’s knowledge, but had never left the country. Especially not to this strange place that offered no flights out of the country and had been plagued by disappearances.
He scrolled numbly through a few more names. “Did you know him?” he asked casually, eyes locked on the screen, fingers curled under his chin.