Dancing With The Devil (part two)

Chapter 15: Surprise

One Year Later

Astrid Wingham changed a lot after the death of James Moriarty. For a girl who spent her whole life growing up with no-one loving her, she had never felt more alone. She hated to admit it, but she was nobody without Jim. All she had to live with, was guilt. Guilt and sympathy. It was nice at first, but when the list of condolences grew so large that Astrid could not keep track, it became a daily inconvenience. They were nice though; the people. As annoying as it came to be, they were just humans doing the human thing.

Kindness.

She was beginning to give into it- the kindness. It wasn't all bad. The fact that she was almost turning 'normal' again, turned out to be not as bad as she thought, in fact, Sebastian Moran was more concerned by Astrid's change in heart than even she was. Well... of course he would. Seb was the one who trained her up and helped her become Moriarty's second in command.

Astrid's relationship with Dominic Slait began to grow more and more since they're little dog-walk. She liked him, quite a lot actually, well, he was small-ish and Irish, which ticked whatever boxes Astrid had. She wasn't in love with him like she was with Jim, but as much as she hated to admit it, having a slightly romantic relationship with someone of the opposite sex is more than comforting.

That was until things got a little bit tricky...

...like properly tricky.

Astrid was finally satisfied, after three years of being miserable. She could finally be in the arms of a man who cared about her again. It was nice. They regularly saw each other to 'hang out' and spend some time with the delights of each others company. This would in fact happen extremely often. And it really was great. That was, until he came back.

Surprise.

The unlikely couple were sat in Dominic's house on his clean leather sofa with Astrid comfortably leaning her head on his shoulder as they watched TV. All of a sudden the TV screen flickered off and on to show a grey screen. Astrid and Dominic had both simultaneously sat forward in confusion. What happen next was barely believable.

It was him.

A figure was facing away from the screen and slowly turned around.

It was him.

Jim Moriarty turned around to face the camera and smirked his familiar smirk. Astrid's mouth turned into a large 'O' at the unbelievable sight before her eyes. She stood up as the figure on the TV spoke out slowly.

"Miss me?"

The image froze and writing came up with miss me written in bold. Dominic stood up in confusion as Astrid began to feel her head spin. Dominic stood protectively in front of her and rested his hands on her shoulders.

"You okay?" he asked as she looked into his eyes.

"No." she shook her head and pressed her lips together. A tear began to trickle down her chin, "it's him. It's Jim."

"What the hell." he sighed, and pushed her hair out of her ears.

"he died," she chocked through tears, "I saw him."

She slowly pushed herself away from him and slowly stumbled out of the front door. She walked out into the middle of the street and stopped before taking a breath.

Then, she screamed.

"JIM!"