Unexpected

Chapter II

Sherlock, who had spent nearly the whole night now meditating over Moriarty's weak but steady breath, noticed right away when it changed.

So when the little man finally opened up his eyes just right a tiny bit, the detective was already at the side of his own bed, absorbing every even so tiny motion of Moriarty's face. He clearly wasn't fully conscious yet, only after a while and what seemed like an endless number of extraordinary slow blinks, Moriarty's glance noticed the man standing over him. His eyes slowly made their way to his bandaged arms, then the injection of the blood Sherlock stole from the hospital and finally up to Sherlock's face, who wasn't quite prepared for what he saw that moment. That dangerous and insane psychopath was in tears. The rather unexpected reaction caused Sherlock to rethink his earlier prepared starts of conversation, or rather interrogation. Moriarty in the meantime used Sherlock's hesitation to regain enough strength to utter a weak whisper.

"Who thought I'd end up in your bed this way?"

Seemed like not much had changed on the narcissistic maniac's side.

"Why?"

It visibly took him a while to collect enough strength for another reply.

"You didn't text me," after an unnecessary and agonising long breath he continued, "after I gave you... my number."

Sherlock shortly asked himself why he had gone through all those troubles for that man, but his urge for solving the puzzle won, so he asked again, this time more precisely.

"Why did you come here?"

Was that an actual crocodile tear at the corner of Moriarty's eye?

"I wouldn't wanna mess up my own bathroom, right?"

Now there was no doubt anymore. Moriarty was crying. But Sherlock knew his acting skills far too well to buy it, even though Moriarty shouldn't quite be in a constitution for that kind of trick. In general, nothing of this made any sense, even less than before.

"You should sleep," Sherlock eventually said. What both of them needed now was time, time to think.

"And don't you even consider messing with your bandages, I won't let you ruin my bedroom too," the detective added. There it was, a slight hint of a smile on Moriarty's face. Too exhausted for another of his comments the criminal practically closed his eyes on command and was drifted off a second later. Sherlock however did not even think of sleeping. Adopting his deeply focused thinking position he sat down on the kitchen chair that he had moved next to his bed.

What was going on here? And what was Moriarty's plan?

But the question that really haunted the depths of Sherlock's mind was - did Moriarty have a plan?