dear_mun | Elementary 1x12, "M." [spoilers in comments]

[Oh hey, look who's over here brooding. And not saying a word, although he's clearly listening in.

Sort of impossible not to, what with the commentary being so public.]

[She feels bad about once again sticking her foot in her mouth (Irene), but that's just the way she is.]

Hey, um. Listen- I know a lot of people are gonna give you that "justice is the law" crap, but for what it's worth, you did what was right. He deserved to pay for what he did. [But she knows Moran wasn't the right guy.] Moriarty too. People like him are saved by the law, not punished by it. When you find him, it'll be justified.

Edited 2013-01-11 21:38 (UTC)

Oh, I know.

[Holmes' face turns to the floor. When it comes down to it, the doing of it, the decision he made, is not the part that's giving him the most grief.]

The bigger the crime, the more bloated the bureaucracy involved in prosecution. If Moriarty is an international case, the amount of red tape would be staggering.

[It's true. And well worth skipping altogether. What's the difference between killing him slowly in jail or doing it in a few hours?]

Your gambit might not work, you know. Even if Moran is pissed at his boss, it was probably an intentional reveal. There's a reason you never even heard his name until now.

Because he was obsessed. Because he wanted to give me a puzzle.

[And he knows he's going to accept the challenge. He already has. Sherlock's expression tightens up, like at any second he might either punch something or burst into tears. But he only swallows, and the undercurrent of fury pulls out of his voice a little.]

Yeah. I've considered it.

I'm curious about one thing, though- did you tell Joan about that renovated property on purpose?

Do you think I did?

I think you don't intentionally leave clues. You either wanted her to follow you--either to try and stop you or not to be able to at all--or your emotions interfered. She'd try to talk you out of it in either case, so the question is whether you wanted her to.

Angel on your shoulder, maybe?

There was no guarantee she'd put the pieces together.

[Which doesn't actually answer the question.]

...Some part of me may have wanted to offer her the chance.

[this is a question only Jane would ask (and Holmes may or may not know why);]

And if she walked in on you covered in gore?

She would have been free to draw her own conclusions.

[Said quietly, with regret, but also resolution.]

Is this really all about my choices?

That's bullshit and you know it. You know what her conclusions would be; you've shared a home for months or more now.

Well. It's understandable that you wouldn't have thought through all this yet. Joan wasn't even a factor until recently, and there was no way to know M. would show up in your life again.

[how about she gets her issues all over this

smart, charming, and also a touch crazy]

[Oh, have such a look, Jane. Like you wouldn't be dealing out at least a little bullshit yourself, if the tables were turned.]

Had Sebastian Moran turned out to be the man I was looking for, and had Watson arrived to catch me in the act, our friendship would have been a reasonable sacrifice. But that's hardly relevant at this point, is it.

[He doesn't know her well enough yet. Her bullshit has limits, if that can be believed.]

Actually, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

[Once again, riling a person yields the truth. That methodology never fails. Jane seems to settle, brushing her hair back away from her face. All the sharp edges to her voice are gone, but it's still resolute.]

If you're going to do this--and you are, I'm pretty convinced--you have to be willing to do anything, sacrifice everything. Revenge can't be half-assed. It requires dishonesty, deviousness, being cold. You harden your heart, and don't let people see what's in it. It's the only way.

Because that's what you've done?

[No edges in his voice, either. He's even quieter than normal, like he knows he might regret asking.]

[That stings. She knows what people are supposed to think of this, what he must think of her now. But she's made her choices. Her only regret right now is that she feels like she might as well be offering him drugs. But someone was taken from him, someone he loved...and that deserves expiation.

Jane's own voice goes a degree softer;]

I've done what I had to.

[It feels forced. She's counted the cost, but Holmes was...unexpected.]

[And look at what it's got her. Loneliness. Isolation. Barely letting anyone in, even to an arm's length.

The question is an honest one, not because he is entirely without judgement, but because he wants to know how she'll respond:]

Has it been worth it?

When I catch Red John... When I take him apart, limb by limb--

It'll be worth it. [But that probably wasn't what he asked.]

[Can he form his entire life from this point on around one singular puzzle? Hasn't he already resolved to? It doesn't seem that simple. Anything to avenge her, he wants to say, anything... but where M was always a mysterious but relatively known quantity, Moriarty is a great big chasm of the unknown.]

Yeah. [Clipped, almost choked. He'll accept that as her answer because he knows how she would frame the rest of it.

He hates being uncertain.]

[She hadn't meant for this to become about her. And she's feeling uncomfortable because he knows everything now. Everything is out there to be scrutinized, judged. His impression of her will be colored.

Ideals don't last. She should know that better than most.

But: ] Something's bothering you.

[He can talk about it, he decides. With her.]

M - the man I thought of as 'M' - was a killer. Twisted, intelligent, methodical. For a long time I couldn't catch him, but I could understand him. No matter what happened, I was certain that if we should ever come face to face, I would know the type of man I was looking at.

[A pause, brief but deliberate, to let that sink in.]

Of course, M was only a cleverly constructed concept. Sebastian Moran was a - a puppet. A conduit. Moriarty is... nothing. He's ephemeral. He's unknown. He could be so much more than the killings.

[For a second, something lights up in his eyes. He's almost, entirely by accident, talking himself into it --

-- but he shoves that aside.]

[Silence, for a stretch. There's bound to be some overlap here; she sees the unknown, and trembles at it. It's a chasm, and that deep blackness is a void that could swallow anyone up.

She wants to tell him about Red John. How she had the benefit of knowing what she was dealing with going in. But Red John's become something else since it started, something mutant and infectious, like a many-tendril virus enveloping people around him. No longer a single serial killer, but some kind of Manson-esque Svengali.

It makes her look bad, and she's said enough already. Jane hides it like she's done so many other things since It Happened, doesn't have to feign quiet understanding.]

He probably is. [--if he's orchestrated all this, that is.]

Edited 2013-01-19 05:26 (UTC)

The greatest puzzle I'll ever know, he says. And I could barely see M clear enough to work out the truth.

[Is she getting it now? He hopes so, because he definitely saw her holding something back just now. He quiets down again.]

I know what obsession can do.

[To himself, at least. No reason to conceal it now, is there? She's heard the whole story.]

I was prepared to throw myself back into it when I was so certain it would be over soon.

[She does. And she knows all too well what obsession's toll is-- he sees that on her now very clearly (not exactly to her full liking).]

He's not God. He makes mistakes.

[That much she wants to say, with complete conviction. He'll need to hear it, because part of the game is godlike grandstanding. Making the other person believe in your mystique. It's psychological warfare. Jane's fought a mostly losing battle with it.]

[But maybe now he sees what she was talking about. Having to be hard. Vengeance is full-commitment. It drains a person dry, and then asks for more. Lesser people lose the fire and fade back into their lives; Jane has sacrificed everything to fuel this, and will do so until it's done.]

Until you catch him, every day is going to be like that.

[Taxing, obsession, exhausting. He'll have to find a new equilibrium because this won't be over in a day.]

[Lose the fire, give up, go back to the relatively safe and ordinary... or keep trying. Of course he's going to. Problem is, he can remember those desperate cocaine-fueled months, and although it isn't a certainty he'll wind up there again, Sherlock isn't fool enough to believe he absolutely won't. If he does, he's going to need someone to pull him back.

Perhaps that's what he needs Watson for. Not so much a constant angel on his shoulder, but a fail-safe.

He's gone pensive again, considering the possibility of rigging the game against himself. It isn't quite what Jane's proposing, but then, he isn't her.]

So what's your plan? [for dealing with it, for finding Moriarty, any and all of it. She sees the gears turning, knows what it's like to head vacation.]

Be patient.

[If Watson is his last line of defense against losing himself in the chase, that's his first.]

Patient as I can. The information's not going to leap out from the shadows anytime soon. Have to put in for the long haul.

[He's not wrong. It's a commitment.

A beat.]

You know, when I first started this... someone told me to move on, start a new family. Like they're-- household pets or something.

[she pauses to scoff. What a damnable idiot.]

Hm. Imagine they presumed to tell you it's what they would have wanted.

I've gotten that more than once.

[And her response is the same every time: her family doesn't want/feel/think/need anything, because they're dead and there is no afterlife. All she has is now and she intends to use it.]

It's just foolish presumption and guilt-tripping.

Besides, whether or not it matters, I'm fairly certain Irene would have told me to kill the bastard.

[He agrees with her, and he'd rather not talk too much about what other people might say. This is just a comment for himself; a bit of idle musing. There's a note of fond nostalgia in his voice.]

Sounds like the perfect woman.

Elementary 1x12, "M." [spoilers in comments]

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