Author's Note: This is a missing scene from "The Reichenbach Fall." James Moriarty is without a doubt the hardest character I have ever tried to get inside the head of. He seems, at times, full of contradictions: critical thinker yet oddly emotional, detached yet fully invested in his game against Sherlock Holmes. His portrayal in BBC's series is brilliant, and I give a tip of the proverbial hat to Andrew Scott's chilling performance.

Enjoy, and I would really love feedback on this piece especially - it was incredibly hard to write! Please leave your comments.

[Beginning lyrics from "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin]

Blue Skies

Blue skies smilin' at me, nothin' but blue skies do I see…

Sunlight, harsh and piercing, shatters the city sky. Dotted clouds the texture of pulled cotton trundle unhurriedly across the expanse, like strange sheep in their field of pale cornflower blue. With the sound of a giant fan, vast echoes soar upward from a thousand warm and gleaming buildings – the hum of cabs and cars and underground generators all melded together into one ambiguous tone. The sound of London. The sound of life.

A door on a rooftop opens. It is a heavy door, industrial, and he must push harder than he likes to force it outward. A flick of the hand or wrist comes more naturally to him, but all the same he manages to treat this door with the contempt it deserves, shoving it absently with his foot as he rises upward from the last metal step of the stairwell below. The door almost slams back against its hinges but doesn't quite make it, falling ponderously short and wavering there for a moment, a tedious moment that he uses to step easily out onto the roof.

For a moment, cement flares blindingly in his eyes, and he is forced to raise a hand in order to shade his vision from the sudden screen of white. A twinge of annoyance flits through his mind, but he dismisses it as useless. He squints, and as his pupils adjust, he takes in his surroundings with a single, deceptively casual glance.

Good – he is alone.

He takes a few slow steps forward, sliding his hands into the deep, smooth-lined pockets of his coat as he does so. The wind whips past him, clinging to the skin of his face and neck with an odd, muffled sort of caress, and he turns toward it slightly, embracing the chill. It is a stark contrast to the warmth of the sunlight with which it competes, but each seems to bring out the extremes in the other, and for a few seconds he entertains himself by seeing if he can force his senses to equalise the play of each upon his features.

Another breeze buffets him, and almost with a shrug he crosses the space toward the edge of the roof, feeling the unyielding cement press up hard against his shoes. He stops, just before the low wall that rims the top of the building, and contemplates it silently for a moment. A pointless feature, for the most part – except maybe to warn some stumbling soul that there is in fact a three-story drop to the street below, but if you didn't know that, you really had no business being up here in the first place.

An interesting choice, this roof. There is probably some subtle meaning behind it, but he is past caring what that rationalisation might be, for in the end, what difference will it make? He finds himself thinking about it anyway, though, for the irony does not escape him. Falling is just like flying except there's a more permanent destination. A deliberate allusion? If not, it soon will be.

The thought almost makes James Moriarty smile.

Thoughtlessly, he leans out over the edge of the building, scanning the street below. Nothing special there, nothing out of place – just an ordinary street full of ordinary people going about their dull, ordinary lives, who will soon be witnesses to something else entirely. They won't understand it, of course, nor will they deserve it, but oh, how quaint. Privileged to witness the fall from grace and greatness and without even enough sense to realise that the curtain has gone down for the last time. Moriarty makes a contemptuous noise in his throat.

They have reached it at last: the final round, the end of the game, the conclusion of the long and deadly dance – and now he is sorry to see it.

It must be done, of course. The tension has been building for too long, teetering on the breaking point for over twenty-four hours. Even for him, it is too dangerous to keep such a high-strung balance in check, and he refuses to allow it all to fall apart at the last second.

He straightens again, savouring the suspense. The moment is almost upon them – the moment when everything he has set in motion clicks silently into place, when it all comes together and converges on one man. Contact has been made, orders have been sent out, and he knows that all is in readiness and holding its breath for the masterstroke he is about to deliver on this bright and burning rooftop.

All the same, he feels a vague, half-hearted twinge of regret as his mind fast-forwards in anticipation. He knows the game must end, but in his hole of hearts he doesn't want it to, for that will mean a return to the shadows and to the mundane. He has, he reasons, enjoyed himself a little too much over the past few months; he has taken chances, has made himself vulnerable in order to draw out the reflection of himself that he sees in Sherlock Holmes. There will never be another round like this one. Sherlock had been the only one to ever fully appreciate the webs that he spun, the intricacies of the music he wove like a spell around the tedium of the world.

And even now, the great consulting detective has disappointed him in some respects. Moriarty has never been averse to playing cat-and-mouse, but even a mouse puts up a fight, and toward the end, Sherlock had been too busy hunting down all the spider-silk threads of clues to turn on his heel and retaliate. He has been slower, too, in his revelations, but that, Moriarty muses, is more due to a slight oversight on his part rather than Sherlock's. He had underestimated emotion.

It is something he can feign but will never understand, and therein lies the difference, for however hard Sherlock tries to distance himself, Moriarty has watched and seen how sentiment has crept into this man's brilliant mind since their first meeting. Anger, frustration, triumph – these are no strangers to either of them, but Moriarty is always so terribly careful that none of them go to his head. Outwardly, he is perhaps even more emotional than the average person, but this is merely an act, the result of a refined and deliberate channeling he knows will unnerve those around him. He is the puppet master, the wielder of strings and thoughts and voices, the blank white mask gleaming from the shadows.

He finds himself wondering, not for the first time, if this has all been too easy, if there is something that he has overlooked – or perhaps he has simply overestimated Sherlock. Only one thing comes to mind, and he had been aware of that potential complication quite a while ago. He has made provisions, should it become necessary, though he hasn't yet decided if he will drop the hint that will open that particular door. Curiosity runs a little circle around his head; he wonders what Sherlock would do, should it come to that.

It's over, then. All those little doubts and decisions have run their course, and all that's left is to talk – and they will talk, before the end, because Sherlock does hate to leave loose ends lying around where he might trip on them later. Moriarty turns slowly away from the edge, slipping his phone out from underneath his coat.

I'm waiting…

JM

With an absent tilt of his head, he sits, right there on the low wall, enjoying the sense of dangerous nothingness at his back. He closes his eyes and feels the pulse of the city rising like fumes around him. He breathes, slowly and deeply, and he waits.

The stage is set.

It will all end here.

Many thanks for reading, and again - reviews are greatly appreciated! Cheers!