"A résumé?" he balks.

"Absolutely. Just as a casual observer-"

"-There's nothing casual about you, sweetheart."

"-it seems clear that the whole fiasco was no more than an elaborate audition piece." That's done it. That's put him on the back foot. It's the first time since the woman escaped and... Who am I to pretend? It is the first in a long time. The sting of it is all the sharper for its long absence. The places where he had healed are yet tender enough to feel it worst. It changes his mood, and though the change is for the worse I am nevertheless glad to have finally been able to change it.

Where great victories have been so sparse we must learn to cling to the petty ones.

There had been a joy in him, graciously restrained, but he could barely hold it. On a heartbeat, now, that dies. Or perhaps, less encouragingly, it has simply been momentarily tamed.

"You may answer yourself best by answering me, as the blind beggar said to the rich man, and I'm owed a bit of an answer by now, I should think. You've had a bit of a free pass so far, I should think. Besides, you think you've got it all figured out, me and him, and I want to be here and watching your face when you spot how wrong you've been."

There's no snap, no wit. His speeches have turned careful and measured. And while I know this to be a warning sign, though question is precisely what he wants me to do... "Answer what?"

"One thing I really do want to hear before I go." With a shrug, with clear gaze, with absolute honesty and hope, "Came here to ask you, really, Mycroft... How'd he take it?" It is perhaps the only question he has ever asked me in the genuine pursuit of an answer. Not to hurt or manipulate me, not for the sake of his meticulous and masochistic little plan, but because he wants to know. If ever there were a time to walk away and leave him here, to lock the door on this room and, maybe, in the interests of safety and expediency, simply have it bricked up and forgotten about. It could be that he sees me thinking this, in that same paranoid way I've come to live with. It could be he just sees me hesitate; "Aw, no. No, Mycroft, not now, don't clam up now when you've told me everything already, no, I left it to the end. I left it to the end because it would be too late for you to clam up on me and you'd be too sick at heart to lie, I've made it easy for you, now just answer."

"In the face of such wonderful desperation... why would I?"

"Because there is yet a chance for you to come out of this intact. And because they never caught that gunman fired the shot outside this building last night, did they?"

"A promise and a threat together. How delightfully confused."

"Well, it was just going to be the carrot, but I thought you'd feel more at home if I shoved the stick up its arse. I should just point out, by refusing to tell me you're telling me you don't want to tell me, which is telling me everything."

Can't fault his logic. And for once I have nothing to offer that might distract him. My only conclusion is that my silence can give him no details and is therefore preferable. The only result is that my silence continues.

There used to be a threat in silence. On either side. Either party could have called it all off at any time simply be refusing to participate. I always knew this. And yet I went on, and worked harder. I had thought my ultimate rewards might be somewhat different to this rather quiet closing scene.

"He loved it, didn't he?" Moriarty says. The corner of a smile starting to edge back in. "I knew he would. He loved it, the slag. Crime-slag, by the way. I'm not going to sit here and insult your little brother, not at this stage in the game... How often do you see him smile, Biggest Holmes? And I don't mean that little lip twitch he does when he's being snarky. Or the other one he does so people will think he's fine. I mean properly smile. Did I make him smile, Mycroft? I exist but to serve. Did I make him smile?" Oh yes. Excited him too, more than I've seen since he still held an interest in research science. "Is there a day in his secret diary where the title's written in the special purple gel pen with a big bubble round it and loads of little hearts and stars and it says 'Best Case Ever'?"

"Well, what do you think?..."

In the face of all the venom I could summon he barks sick laughter, claps his hands just once and keeps them joined as if in prayer. "I knew it. The first time you're really watching somebody it can be hard to tell, but I knew it, I knew it. I just wanted to hear it from somebody who's had him under surveillance a lot longer than me. Actually, on the subject, did he ever appear back home? Remember empty Baker Street? The clock channel? Can't stop thinking about that." I open my mouth to offer the murderous evasions he won't want to hear, the tortures, but he adds, "Safe home from Dartmoor, I mean?"

To ask is to play to his whims. Not to ask is to live forever with just a little too much proof that he has means more than I or any other should have. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Danielle. She got all the reports before she came in. That's what we had to talk about before she left."

"No. No. She didn't know we were coming for her. You could have, certainly, that time, but not her, not then."

"Why? Just because you were only winging it? 'Fake it 'til you make it', Mycroft, it only works if you're a hell of a lot better at faking it than you are. Of course we knew. From day one. I said to her and Sebastian, 'Who's coming in to save me, come the time?' Sebastian didn't believe in your big black folder any more than he does fairies... Wait, no, bad example... Werewolves, so it had to be her. And I said, when the Ross Kemp goes off, be ready for it."

"'Ross Kemp'?"

"The gangs. That big job when you decided you'd have to really push me by picking up one of my associates."

Any other subject, any other criminal, I wouldn't believe it. I would call it an incredibly clever and elaborate cover up, an excellent use of the known facts to create a sense of impenetrable bravura. Any other subject.

To Moriarty I say, "How long have you been planning this?"

"Including the research? Couple of years. Maybe three."

We were arrogant, or perhaps just naive, not to see it. Now that it's before me it's only logical; of course he meant for us to take him. The message that gave up Bond Air was traceable. This in itself is a mammoth enough inconsistency that even our lowest clerk should have seen it. The general rule is that a criminal will always, eventually, make a mistake. We wait for that mistake. When it comes, we seize upon it, and never once do we stop to consider whether in fact it might not have been a mistake at all.

In addition, the message that gave up Bond Air did exactly that.

"You gave up millions in governmental blackmail to make me come after you."

"Yeah. Honestly; between that, and the Vermeer, and the cost of observation these days, and paying the cab driver, and Corcoran, and Shikra, and fuck knows who else, do you have any idea what an expensive habit you Holmes boys are?"

"Which of us is confused, Moriarty?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Whose attention is it you crave? Mine or my brother's? Everything you say contradicts the last."

That stops him, but only while he formulates his answer. We've gone beyond the script now. These aren't the questions he planned to answer and thus the answers have not been planned. But he has no real rouble answering, nor takes any issue with the question. "While we're sharing, I might as well tell you... I got stuck into your brother to get to you. I presume you knew that. As well as that there was... No, never mind, you don't need to know about that and it makes no odds to you. But the more I got to know him- Mycroft, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry to say this, but he's just more fun than you are. You never played back. He can't wait to play. And I sympathize, I'm sorry for him, because I know what it's like when the world is too small for your brain and all that it can do. I'd never say it to his face because he'd hate me for it but... Sherlock needs me. Not in a petty, clingy, human way. None of this 'angels with one wing' shite. He just needs me to exist."

"As you need him."

Without hesitation, "Yeah, maybe. I told him before, I'll tell you now; we were meant for each other."

I had meant for my comment to throw him off balance, for there to be just one admission he did not want to make, but there it is, and it disgusts me. Of all the unbearable delusions he's brought to me since this began, surely this is the most heinous, and my reaction matches it, visceral, rising like bile upward from my stomach. I tell him, "Never."

"Stop me," he shrugs. "Stop him."

"There will be no more games," I tell him. Even should I be proven somehow incapable of putting you in your grave, a proof, I assure you, which will not come to pass, you don't have the only copy of the contents of that folder. I could put him so far beyond your reach you'd never hear his name again."

He begins to nod, looking forlornly down at his hands. For a moment I almost dare to believe something of what I've said is sinking in. He begins to nod, and then stops, and brings his eyes sharply and directly to mine. "Not before we did."

The more personal leaves from the file, I see now, were just a bonus to him. He did it for that other sheet, the one that requires only one more signature. One more easily-gotten signature.

He continues, "And we won't do it all quiet, all dead-of-night and tinted windows like you would. I'm thinking red-top tabloids, national coverage. Genius Detective Sectioned. And better yet, For Good Of Country. That's the only reason you do anything, isn't it, Mycroft? I'd have to tell them that. When it all came out about your name and who you are, what you do for a living... How I've been tearing the place apart from inside a cell these two months and you never told anybody, because you wanted to ask me if I had designs on your most prized asset." Looking almost bored with the explanation, he shrugs over at me. "Do I have to go any farther with this? We've got you. We've always had you. Do I have to go any farther?"

"You in exchange for the file."

Laughing, as though it were the most ridiculous thing in the world, "What? No. You're not getting it back... No, sorry, there was no carrot that time. That was just a stick. You release me or that's what happens!" He laughs until he doubles over, until he traps a broken rib and hisses, trails off in a giggle. It's hard to know what to say. To give in so quickly would be unforgivably, but my mind races and finds nothing but locked doors, shut in on itself, entirely closed off. He looks up from hanging over the table, looks me in the eye. "Is it three o'clock yet? Must be."

He's wearing his watch again. He doesn't need to ask.

"Mycroft, do me a favour; go and call your own house. And then call me a cab on your way ba-" He can't finish, laughs until he wheezes. The instruction is so frighteningly specific I can't but obey. Chasing me out of the room, "You're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing anymore."

I could simply step outside and use my mobile phone, but I want to be away from him. Paying no attention to those who would gather around me, who would talk, who would help, as if they could, I go to the other end of the building, borrow an office and sit a while at the desk. More than a while. But the time drifts towards ten past three and I feel the urgency of his words, of the timing. Twelve hours since I was wakened, since the woman escaped. Three o'clock. Twelve hours, almost exactly. There's significance in that.

As if she was given twelve hours.

I call home.

On the first ring, there is an answer.

"Hello, Goldilocks." Mies, sweetly purring, "Are you alone? Can you speak candidly?"

"I would to you."

"Patience, love. I'll give you my private number for the dirty talk. For now, I presume you know why I'm by your phone."

"Because it's the one place they wouldn't look for you."

"And the best place to book a courier in your name. He's on his way. Release James Moriarty in the next ten minutes, or the documents go with him." Twelve hours to collect a third signature, to get clear of the hounds, to reach my private residence. Book a courier. Damn them all.

"There are people on their way to you right now. Your courier would never make it off the front path."

"Make a bet. You make a bet and I'll nip down the hall and make a copy." A pause. Not a single word left. "Five minutes, Mr Holmes. We're watching." The pop of the line going dead.

Then silence, in a borrowed office. A silence which belongs to neither him nor I, but which is nonetheless loaded with far darker threat.

Not a question left, and not an answer either. Not a single word left. In all of this, in all those words, after all of it, not a single word left, except those which are, all at once, a release, and an admission of defeat, and the words to end it, and the words to concede.

Not a single word left. None that I like, at any rate.

[A/N – You guys have been so great. The support was insane. From the bottom of my black little heart, and both of my boys', many thanks for being here. It's been a pleasure to serve

- Hearts – Sal.]