His last bow

His last meal

After this, John retells how Moriarty flung himself out the window. He speaks of how he ran over to the window and searched for any trace of Moriarty, but his disappearance is absolute and no sight of him is to be seen. Distraught, he runs to catch a cab and flees home to confront his wife, Mary.

When he gets there, she's cheerfully humming and vacuuming the house but looks up, alarmed when he slams open the door.

"Mary," John gasps, his breathing ragged from running, "What are you hiding form me?"

"What?" she asks, "Nothing. Why would I have anything to hide from you? And weren't you at the library? What are you doing back so . . ."

"Mary," John interrupts, "I know there's something, I met Moriarty at the library and . . ."

 "And what?" She interrupts with cold steel in her voice, "What'd he say?"

"Nothing!" too late John realises his mistake in mentioning Moriarty and desperately tries to save himself, "It's just, he knew things and . . ."

"Oh he knows things," Mary mocks, interrupting him again, "so that makes everything he says right does it? I know how to cook your favourite meal. Does that make me all knowing?"

"Mary," John tries to interrupt.

"If any idiot claimed to know stuff, would you believe them?" She begins to rant.

"Mary,"

"I have been nothing but faithful to you and you just take the word of someone who's tried to kill you in the past? What kind of . . ."

"MARY!" John yells, his patience broken, "He knew about our child!"

"He . . . what?" She blinks, dumbfounded.

"Mary," John speaks gently now, her reaction to his questioning convincing him that she actually has no secret and Moriarty was just playing with his mind, "I know this is difficult to believe, but Moriarty knew that you were pregnant and he said there's something that you're hiding form me but it's okay. I trust you okay? So please just calm down."

"I will, I promise. Just tell me about this meeting okay?"

"Of course," he replies.

He then proceeds to tell her the events that occurred in the library. Skipping over the part where he pulled out his gun.

"Oh dear," she murmurs, "oh dear this is not good at all"

"Mary," John breaks down, "Tell me what to do. I can't choose between our child and Sherlock. I just can't."

Her heart breaking, Mary looks at him disconsolate, "John . . ."

Ring, ring

The cheerful peals of the phone ring through the house.

Ring, ring . . . ring, ring

" . . . I'll get it," Mary says, changing the end of her sentence.

She crosses the living room, stepping over the discarded vacuum cleaner and answers the phone. Throughout the phone call, John notices a change in her demeanour, slowly she regains her cheerful demeanour from before he walked in and several times she glances in his direction before answering the phone.

When she finishes, she walks back over to him and cheerfully smiling she chirps, "John, let's kill him."

"What?" Flabbergasted, John steps back, 'Mary, how could you say . . . , why would you . . . , wait what?"

Determinedly Mary marches over to him and grabs his shoulders.

"John, the phone call was from Sherlock. He went to the library and couldn't find you so I told him you're here and he's coming over now. This is it, the perfect opportunity. We can get rid of him here and no one will be any the wiser."

"We can't!" exclaims John, "Mary, what are you thinking? We can't just kill Sherlock? He's smart, he'll see it coming if we try anything, and we'll get caught, and . . ."

"John!" Shaking him by his shoulders she scolds, "Its fine, we can do it. We have to John, for our child's future. I'll take care of everything. All you have to do is follow my instructions." She lets go of him and starts pacing the room and muttering, "We'll have to use poison, that won't be too obvious, even Sherlock probably won't be able to tell until it's too late. But what to use? Hemlock, Belladonna, Oleander, Rosary peas? Got it! It'll have to be Wolfs bane, then we can blame it on food poisoning or an allergic reaction. John?" she calls looking over at him, "Does Sherlock have any allergies?"

"Uh, no I don't think so" John replies, "but . . . "

 "But it'll have to be a really strong tincture to kill him as quickly as possible, you're right. About 30 ml should do the trick. "

"Mary?" John asks suspiciously, "How do you know all that? I thought you said you weren't keeping and secrets form me."

"What?" she scoffs, "I just happen to have an interesting hobby. Now how are we going to get him to ingest this? I know! We can just put some in his drink and say that I'm experimenting with flavour. I'll just go make up a mix now."

She turns to leave but is stopped by a firm grip on her wrist. Looking down she sees John's hand, knuckles white with pressure.

"Mary," he chokes out, "How can you be so calm? We're about to kill our best friend. Don't you feel anything at all?"

Looking him calmly in the eyes she replies, "John, I know this is hard for you but we don't have a choice. It's either this him or us and I'm sorry that you can't seem to understand that. A real man would protect his family John, no matter the cost."

hey guys, been a while huh?

Sorry it's out so late. I couldn't really be bothered to write and now I've done it all in one large chunk.

Next chapter will be the last