21. Not Dead

I knew I definitely wasn’t dead; there couldn’t be any annoying beeping noises in heaven. There was a chance there could be in hell, but I knew I wasn’t there. If I was dead, I wouldn’t feel pain. Though I remembered the worst of it, I felt a dull stinging now.

It all came back to me: the night at the mansion; the gunfire; the knife; the blood; Elena screaming; John Watson over me, ready to shoot me. Most of the events were out of order, but they were all on the same night. My head was in a dangerous whirl. I guess I survived the stabbing after all. And Sherlock thought I was a goner.

My eyelids felt like bricks, they were very reluctant to open. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know where I was. I was in a hospital, in a room—probably by myself—hooked up with needles and an oxygen tube. Was I that bad? I knew that was going to go once I fully woke up.

I was very tempted to move, but I decided to not when I heard slow footsteps on the tile floor. I kept still, trying to figure out who was visiting me. Sadly, I was no Sherlock Holmes, so I couldn’t figure it out just by hearing the footsteps. All I could do was hope that they spoke—that would definitely help me.

“You think you’re safe?” said an unfamiliar voice. Somehow, I felt like I knew it though. “You think this is the end for you, because he’s gone? Oh, no, it doesn’t work like that. Once you cross into our territory, there’s no going back, no matter how much you want to pull out of it. Don’t worry, love, I’ll come for you. I won’t forget about you and what you did to him.”

            I forced my eyes open. They shot wide open when I caught sight of a familiar suit. Though it was only the back of it, my heart flew in fear. No, he’s gone. He’s dead. I murdered him. He can’t be here in this room right now. He can’t be here on this earth. What am I seeing right now? I wanted to say that I was still dreaming, but I knew that wasn’t true either.

I did the most logical thing that this situation called for: I screamed, cringing inside the bed I lay in.

            I screamed louder, forcing the monitors and shrill beeps around me to grow louder. The figure disappeared, unfazed by my outburst. Had they wanted to get that out of me, a panicked reaction? If that had been their goal, I considered their mission accomplished.

I barely moved, reminded that I had a needle in my arm and an oxygen tube stuck under my nose. I couldn’t move very far anyway even if I wanted to: one of my wrists was handcuffed to the bed. What the hell?

            “Whoa, easy, easy.” A nurse came bustling in, with another right behind her. Both grabbed a side of me, trying to settle me down. I was glad they came and not him. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re okay. Deep breaths, honey. Come on.”

            “W-who was that?” I stammered.

            “What are you talking about?” the first nurse, a middle-aged woman with burgundy hair, asked. “Nobody was in here.”

            “Yes, they were! Just now. I-I heard them talking, a-and I saw them leave.” I shook violently in the bed.

            “We didn’t see anyone.”

            “They were probably gone by the time you got here,” I said rather sharply.

            “Maybe the doctor came in—”

            “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a doctor.”

            “Okay, okay, Ms. Whitmore. You need to just relax. If you can’t, I’ll put you on some more medication, and I don’t want to have to do that.”

            “Your medication is making me hallucinate!”

            “I can assure you, Ms. Whitmore, you’re barely on anything right now. You’re still a little loopy probably.”

            “But I—I saw—”

            “It’s okay, dear. It’s good that you’re awake, it’s time you ate something. Oh, and you’ve got a few visitors. Caroline will check on you while I go get your food.”

            While the first nurse left, Caroline, a younger nurse—probably around my age—checked my current status. The heart monitor was slowly going back to its normal beeping sequence. I tried to cooperate with Caroline the best I could as she checked me. She changed the bandage around my abdomen. I nearly broke down crying when she did, reminding myself that I wasn’t pregnant any longer. My child was murdered; I’d had an abortion I’d never called for.

            Once Caroline left and the other nurse came back with my food, I took a few bites. Once I was alone, I stared at my food and wept. Everything hit me like a tidal wave, it drowned me. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten to this point in my life, all because I’d made the dumbest mistake ever. I was taught better than that. Jim Moriarty was a man that I’d barely known, and he’d seduced me to bring me over to the dark side.

            I was too far gone to be brought back into the light. It was too late for me to want change, because it couldn’t help my life now. If the handcuff on my wrist was any indication, I’d be locked up for life. Hell, I’d maybe even get the death penalty for all the homicides I’d committed. It’d be a fitting punishment.

            “But I want to see her, Daddy!” a familiar high voice sounded off. My heart leapt. Elena Watson. If she was here, John had to be too, and possibly even Sherlock.

            “She could be resting,” John told her firmly. “If she’s asleep, you’ll be bored out of your mind.”

            “I just want to see her. I don’t care if she’s awake or not, I’ll still talk to her.”

            “Nothing’s going to stop you.”

            “Nope.”

            Elena was the first one I saw. Her eyes lit up as she bolted for me. She tried to jump and climb over the hospital bed railing before John picked her up.

            “You’re okay!” she crowed.

            “I’m okay,” I agreed in a murmur. “How’ve you been, kiddo?”

            I’d asked the wrong question. Despite being happy a second ago, Elena’s face turned grave. She was on the border of tears.

            “Oh no, I’m sorry, sweetie,” I whimpered.

            “It’s okay,” John assured me. Tears gathered in my eyes. Elena on the verge of tears wasn’t a pretty sight. “You didn’t know.” He set his daughter down and whispered something in her ear. “You think you can make it there alright?”

            “Uh-huh,” Elena whispered.

            “Don’t talk to strangers.” John kissed her forehead before she slunk off.

            “You told her,” I said thickly.

            “She’d asked. I couldn’t avoid it with her.”

            “I guess she understands?”

            “She has some grasp on it, but she doesn’t understand it entirely.”

            “She won’t until she’s older. Did you tell her that I…I did it?”

            “No, I didn’t want to ruin her image of you.”

            “Do you plan to tell her?”

            “I don’t know.” He sat in the chair beside me. I jiggled the handcuffs, raising an inquiring eyebrow at him. “It’s a precaution. We know you won’t try anything, but, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

            “Was I out long?”

            “A few days, nothing major. With the way you are though, it looks like you won’t be out of here for a few weeks.”

            I put my head in the pillow. “I don’t have any place to go, so I’m fine with staying here for a while. I may go insane though if I’m stuck in here alone.”

“Eh, you’ll have nurses and doctors checking on you. You won’t be lonely.”

“It’s all over. He’s really gone.”

            “Yeah. It’s still weird to think it, much less say it.” John laughed dryly. “I had a feeling it would end like this somehow.”

            “What?”

            “Those games he and Sherlock were constantly playing. They had so many that they all meshed together to become one long, continuous game. I wondered if it would ever end. The only way it would have ended was if one of them died—neither would have quit if the other still lived. If anything, I expected Sherlock or Moriarty himself to do it.”

            “Well, I stole the chance from them.” I didn’t realize just how big Moriarty’s death had been until just now. I just called him Moriarty. That was another first for me. “Why did you save me, John?”

            “Huh?”

            “Why did you save me?” I repeated. “You were so hell-bent on killing me, but you helped me instead. Why?”

            “You saved Elena’s life and destroyed Moriarty. I think that’s enough of a reason to give you a second chance.” He attempted to smile.

            “You should have just killed me. It would have been better on everyone if you had.”

            “Eh, not all of us would have been pleased. Truthfully, I think your sister would have murdered me if I’d let you die or helped you.”

             “John, stop talking about her. I’m in enough pain as it is; you don’t have to make me worse. Do you like hearing me say that I killed her? She’s buried back in New Jersey.”

            “Oh, you think so?” said a new voice.

            I went rigid in the bed. There stood Spencer Whitmore, my police officer sister. She wasn’t in uniform; she looked like a regular woman. She’d been crying—I could see the tear streaks on her face. Her arm was bandaged up, a fresh wound no doubt.

            “Y-you see her too, right?” I asked John. “It’s not just me?”

            “I’m real, sis,” Spencer told me. Her footfalls sounded real. She came to the other side of my bed. “I’m here.” She reached for my hand; I gingerly let her take it.

            The warmth from her said it all. I wasn’t hallucinating. My sister, Spencer Whitmore, was here, in the flesh, in London, in England, by my bed side. This called for screaming in joy, but I didn’t have the energy for it.

            “I’ll give you two some privacy,” John excused himself.

            “Hey,” I said quietly. John stopped to look down at me. “Thank you, for saving my life. I might as well tell you now, because I’m sure I might never get to in the future.”

            “We’re even now.”

            “He’s something, John Watson,” Spencer murmured once the ex-army doctor had left. “He’s so strong and a dedicated father.”

            “You like him?” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.

            “Hardly. As much as I love being in excitement and danger, what he gets himself into is much more than I could ever handle.” She smiled weakly. “I’m glad you’re alive, Raine.”

            “I am too.” I touched my stomach. I blinked back tears.

            “Sherlock told me everything: about Moriarty and the baby.”

            “He’d used me; I was just a toy to him.” My hands balled into fists. “I’m glad I murdered the bastard.” I let out a long breath, focusing on my sister. “What happened to your arm?”

            “Got shot.”

            “Recently?”

            “Yeah, I was at the mansion with Scotland Yard. We ambushed the place.”

            “You were there?”

            Spence nodded. “I was the one who took down one of your allies. She cursed me out in Spanish when I got her.”

            “Heidi’s in custody?”

            “Yeah, and I don’t think she’s going to get out anytime soon.”

            “What about Logan?”

            “I think he got away, Ray. Detective Inspector Lestrade tried to go after him, but he lost him. They don’t know where he’s run off to.”

            “Are they going to keep looking for him?”

            “Probably. Who knows?”

            “If I tell them what I know about him they definitely won’t give up their search.” I paused, prepping myself to ask Spence a critical question. “Is it true, Spencer? Is Dean really…?”

            She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Ray.” She looked down at the floor. “After you left, Dean called an ambulance. They got to me first. If they’d gotten to him sooner than they did, he would have made it.”

            “It’s my fault,” I groaned. “All this happened because I was tricked into thinking that Jim Moriarty could give me everything. He gave me everything and then took it all away from me. Why did you come looking for me, anyway, after what I did?” I sniffled.

            “I wasn’t about to give up on you.” She shrugged. “I wanted my sister back. I guess this is as close to that as I’ll ever get.” She sighed. “I’m just glad you’re still sane, I thought your mind would have been gone. I was sure it was since you gave up America for an Irish psychopath.”

“People make mistakes.”

“Don’t to try say yours was little.”

“I can’t because then I’d be lying.”

Spencer looked at me solemnly. “I may never see you again after this; if I do it won’t be many more times.”

            “Right.” I shook my handcuffed arm. “Jail time. As long as I don’t get the death penalty, I’ll take my sentence. I deserve it. I’ll confess to every murder I’ve ever committed, there’s no point in lying; it’ll only get me into more trouble if what I hide gets uncovered.”

My sister shook her head in disbelief. “You still sound like you. You still look like yourself, but I know you’re not who you used to be.”

 “Did Moriarty send someone out to kill Dad? Sherlock told me that he’s the reason Dad is dead.”

            “From what I found, it looked like he did. It makes sense, Raine, all of it. How he found you and came to you instead of me. How he’d persuaded you to join him. I didn’t understand why he’d wanted you, but once I found out what I did, I knew. You were the one who was more likely to be manipulated by him. He knew you would be easier to handle than me.”

To Moriarty, I had been an easy target. He’d been right. Spencer was the better person out of the two of us, the one most likely to resist the darkness’s call. She had chosen the path and stayed on it, I had gotten tangled up in the business our father once worked in.

“I wasn’t easy to control in the end, I turned on him.” I smiled wryly. “It’s a shame that murder is murder and that I won’t escape jail because I took out a huge criminal.”

“I feel the same way, Raine, but the law is the law.” Spencer shrugged. “I think if Moriarty had lived, he eventually would have come after me too, and you would have been right there alongside him, trying to convince me to join you.”

            I swallowed, seeing that eerily plausible picture in my head. I could agree with Spence on most of it, up until the part where we would try to convince her to join us. We would have ended up killing her; Spencer was good at resisting bad temptations.

            “I can’t help you in getting your sentence reduced any, but there could be someone who can.”

            “Sherlock Holmes?”

            “Maybe. It’d take a lot to convince him, considering all you’ve done in London recently.”

            My cheeks reddened. “Yeah, I’m not putting a lot of hope into that. It’d take less convincing for John to take my side.”

            “Just because you saved his daughter’s life doesn’t mean you’re in his good books, Ray. You still murdered Mary.”

            “Can we not talk about whom I killed and what I’ve done? I’m in a hospital, I think I should relax.”

            “If you want to that badly, I’ll leave.”

            “I never said you had to leave. I want you here with me, I want to be able to wake up and see that you’re still here.”

            She laughed. “Ray, I’m not a vision. I’m real, I’m here. I’ll try and stand by you as much as I can.”

*So....the story is almost at an end. And the song I chose, well, I hope you chose to listen to it as you read. On the plus side, Spencer actually survived! Sadly, can't say the same for Dean. Such a shame, because he was pretty cute.

Well, there's only one thing left, my dear readers. Yes, the very thing you always dread when reading a good, entertaining story: the epilogue.**