Title: The Ghost in the Game

Author: EmmyAngua

Rating: 15

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

Warnings: Implied torture. Bad language.

Ships: Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

Summary: Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

A/N: Wow – this is the end now. I hope you think it was worth the wait.

Epilogue

It's afternoon when Irene wakes up from her nap. She's in the Maldives. Her white yacht – Bohemia – bobs on topaz blue sea. Irene's lover, Ovid Wernstar – international footballer, is propped up on one arm next to her.

She prods one of his perfect abs. "Stop that."

"Vot?"

"Playing with that phone. We're in the middle of the ocean and all I can hear is you clicking away on that plastic piece of shit. Mobile phones are annoying."

"I still can't believe you don't haf one."

"Having a mobile phone implies you need one. I don't need anyone or anything."

"Not efun me?"

She presses an amused kiss to his lips. "Not even you."

Irene stands, wraps a saran around her hips, and heads to the controls. "I'm taking us back to shore."

Ovid sits up sharply. The sunlight on his oiled pecs wink at her. "Irene! The paparazzi!"

She shrugs. "I don't care about photographs. I need to get back to England."

This is true. In the last three months she has had extensive plastic surgery. She is now uniformly pretty – and uniform is the word. She looks like every other pretty, airbrushed blonde.

"I do," sulks Ovid. "And I thought the whole point of this trip vos to find yourself? Vy go home now?"

Irene shrugs. A lot has changed since she woke up reborn. Some are practical. She has sold that revolting estate – its prisoners were probably relieved at the simple, merciful end she ensured them – and wiped all traces of the ridiculous consulting business from existence.

James liked explosions and robberies and murders in dank basements. If she's going to become a master criminal, she's going to do it in style –swirling a cocktail in one hand and sleeping on a firm waxed chest at night.

"I didn't need to find myself. There was never any self to find."

This is true too. She has no family – Meredith Harper does, but she has no memories and no connection to those people anymore. She has no friends. She has no memories that are really hers. Even picking up a book she has already read leaves her wondering whether the memories are real or implanted. And the memories that she does have are so…impersonal.

For example, she knows she had a father. She knows what he looks like. She knows she loved him. But when she grasps for some unique remembrance in her mind – what he smelled like, what it felt like to hug him, a shared joke, a road trip together… normal memories that everyone has, there is nothing but bland facts there.

Do the other players feel the same – or has her knowledge of what she is caused her to question her memories and feelings?

They are her family now. They share a history with her, a common purpose. They were created to play a game and without it they are all nothings.

"Anyway," she adds, "I'm needed in London. I've got some old ghosts to deal with."

Her only purpose in life is to play the game. Besides, yachting is boring.

She turns the boat and heads them back to land. Ovid goes to shower (alone, despite his hopeful suggestion otherwise) and while she waits she pulls out her paper notebook (so much more stylish than technology, and much harder to infiltrate).

She has been jotting down ideas as they come to her. Ways to twist Sherlock's life into such knots that he'll never, ever find out what he is. He was her husband - it's the least she owes him.

She memorises the contents, then drops the book overboard.

Game one is over.

Game two is just beginning.

Six months later.

The woman who walked down Baker Street was truly astonishing. Men stopped to stare at her with the innocence of people who couldn't tell plastic surgery from real beauty. The people that didn't stare at her face stared at her clothes. She was wearing emerald green, and enough mystic jewellery to stock a hippy shop. She looked exactly as she'd designed herself to look – like a druidic fairie.

She knocked on the door to 221b and waited.

"Yes?" it was Mrs. Hudson. "Can I help you?"

"I hope I can help you. I'm a medium," she spoke in a breathy Welsh accent. "One of my clients referred me to Mr. Holmes after he mentioned some unusual events happening in his flat."

Mrs. Hudson's face relaxed.

"Oh! Come up! I'm at my wit's end about it all! What was the name again?"

"Irene," she said, stepping over the threshold. "My name's Irene."

The End