Jim pressed his fingers into the wood of his desk until their pads turned white and his nails flushed pink. He released the edge with a push, sending himself spinning in a rush of color and anticipation. He wondered if this is how normal people see the world; all blurred shapes and flashes of color smearing into meaningless drivel. He couldn't imagine how it felt to be normal, predictable, pedestrian. Everyone else leads lives so boring they don't even notice the mind-boggling monotony of their existence. It's a tragedy, really. For this reason, Jim thought he must be the happiest man in the world. Only he had the clarity of vision to see the shades of grey tinting London's horizon; only he had the imagination to make it erupt into a dazzling spectrum of violet and mayhem. His life was never mundane.

He slapped his palm against the face of his desk to stop the spinning. Smiling at the rushing sensation still fogging his mind, Jim called for Sebastian. "Seb, is everything ready?"

The walking hunk of muscle murmured into a walkie talkie for a moment before responding. "Yes, sir. Sherlock should be on the scene in less than ten minutes."

"Punctual as usual." Jim allowed a grin to twist the corners of lips. All was falling perfectly into place. Tonight, months of planning and three weeks of running Sherlock ragged would culminate in what would become Moriarty's greatest achievement yet. As he keyed up the security footage on his computer screen, Jim couldn't help but let a shiver of excitement run up his spine. It was all so perfect.

He slipped on his headphones and mic. The sound of static crackled in his ear before the on-site microphone kicked in, and the sound of ragged breathing and a little girl crying took its place. Both were sounds to which Jim had become accustomed, but tonight they held such deeper significance. Jim only hoped that he could rely on his stunt double to play his part well. Of course, the fact that the man's family was currently being held at gunpoint would certainly be encouragement to do so.

Finding a Moriarty look-alike had been quite the daunting task for Jim's men. They had been forced to scour all across Europe to find a man with the same slight build and bone structure as Jim. Eventually, they had discovered Herr Wilhelm in Germany. Once they dyed his hair and forced him into a suit, he was almost the spitting image of Moriarty. Almost, but still lacking the gleam of genius (madness?) that lit Jim's otherwise black eyes. For this reason, the warehouse in which he was being held with an ambassador's daughter was dimly lit, and he had been instructed to stand close to the shadows. The decoy had also been outfitted with an advanced speaker system which was connected to Jim's microphone. Even if the heavy accent hadn't been a giveaway, no one could quite capture the cadences and musicality of Jim's speech.

Jim bit his lower lip to suppress gleeful laughter as a street-view camera caught sight of a black cab slowly approaching the warehouse. He felt his whole body thrumming with anticipation. Tonight was the night; tonight was the beginning of the end for Sherlock Holmes.

He had been stringing Sherlock along for weeks now, dangling one piece of meat after another in front of him; all of which paled in importance next to what was about to take place. Jim had begun with a simple but "unsolvable" murder. Then he had thrown in the theft of some multi-million quid jewel, and a streak of minor bombings for good measure. Needless to say, Sherlock was completely and utterly hooked on the case, just the way Jim wanted him. As his final crime, he had kidnapped the daughter of a prominent North Korean ambassador, causing tensions with the already volatile nation to escalate to a steady boil. If the girl was not rescued, the country faced retaliation and war. It was all so perfect. They were on the precipice of total mayhem, and only Sherlock had the power to pull them from the ledge.

Jim trusted Sherlock implicitly to do just that. He closed his eyes and envisioned for what must be the hundredth time how Sherlock would react when he came to rescue the little girl…

He steps into the warehouse, face flushed with the thrill of the chase and caution abandoned in the cab. He has no reason to be cautious; he's deduced by now that they point of the game in not to kill him. He's deduced that he has many more trials to face before his heart is a smoldering lump of ashes. So he walks straight into the warehouse, probably expecting to have to defuse a bomb that's been secured to the child. Jim's clues had hinted at this, after all. His little pet, Johnny-boy, is right behind him, looking apprehensive as usual. They both stop in their tracks when they see the young man standing over the little girl, adjusting the explosives that adorn her jacket.

And this is where the fun really begins.

While John draws his gun, Sherlock will step forward, slightly puzzled by this unexpected twist. "Moriarty," he will say Jim's name like a curse, as it should be.

"Ah, Sherlock, so glad you could come for the party. I would hate for you to miss the fireworks." Jim's voice will be delivered through the cleverly concealed speakers in perfect clarity. The dimmed lights will prevent Sherlock from noticing anything amiss.

"How could I resist?" Sherlock will now be fighting back a smile. He knows it's improper, but he is elated to have yet another confrontation with his new arch nemesis.

"Sherlock…" John will have maneuvered himself forward in a semi-circular path, his military training preventing him from turning his back to Jim. He is reminding Sherlock of the little girl, reminding him that a frail, useless life is at stake. Always the doctor, always predictable.

"I'm a little peeved with you, Sherlock. You've come before I could get all the decorations up. I'm afraid that I'm not quite ready yet."

Sherlock's face will alight in that beautiful way it does when his mind is stimulated and intrigued. He will think he's caught Jim at a disadvantage; he will think that he's finally one move ahead.

He won't realize until it's too late that Jim has been three moves ahead the whole time.

"I see you don't have your snipers with you this time."

"I'm sorry to say that you've just missed them. They're all preoccupied at the other side of the city at the moment. Something about having a dignitary needing assassination. I'll tell them you said Hi."

Sherlock will tense, wondering at how he can stop both the bombing and the assassination. He'll realize that he can't halt both, and he'll decide to cut off the head of the snake, as it were, to seize this opportunity to kill Moriarty.

Sherlock may be a brilliant genius, but he is as obvious as the rest of humanity. Jim can play him like a fool, if only he plucks the right strings.

Sherlock will draw his own gun and point it square at Jim's chest (he would never shoot Jim in the head; Sherlock would much prefer to watch his face pale and go lax as blood runs out of his chest).

"Step away from the girl," he will order Jim as if he actually cares about the child. Which he doesn't. Obviously.

Jim's stunt double will do as he's told, knowing that not to do so would make his own newborn daughter's life forfeit. Sherlock then nod to John, silently telling him to tend to the child while he tends to Moriarty.

And here is where things become complicated…

While John is kneeling next to the girl, Sherlock will be advancing towards Jim's decoy, wondering whether he should be killed or arrested. "Jim" will make the decision for him by pulling out his own gun and shooting John. (Really, the fake Jim's gun is loaded with blanks. A sniper who has been hidden in a crate nearby will do the actual shooting. Jim doesn't trust his imitator's aim.) Sherlock will rush to John's side. He'll be horrified by the blood, by the way John's hands are fluttering over the wound, unable to stop the bleeding. Then Sherlock will decide. Then he will turn and shoot Jim, shoot him right in the fragile organ which Jim had promised to burn out of Sherlock. The detective wouldn't be able to resist the irony of it.

Except he wouldn't have killed James Moriarty; he would have killed an innocent man, one whom was just trying to protect his family. And Sherlock will begin to break. The loss of life won't bother him as much as knowing with utter certainty that Jim had won the game. Knowing without a doubt that Jim could predict his every move and twist and manipulate him as he chose. He would begin to doubt himself, to question his intellect. And, oh, it was all so perfect.