As she slept under the drug induced sleep she saw memories of her past flash before her eyes. New York being one and Jim Moriarty standing before her, Sebastian Moran holding a gun and shooting her fiancé right in the chest. She remembered the pain and the anguish, the anger all boiled into one concoction. The operation took a few hours, thankfully with no complications.
They brought her into her room, mask over her face, machines beeping away as they did. John sat in one of the chairs the police hadnât arrived yet and when they found out who had been shot it was probably going to be Lestrade to ask the questions. âYou killed him..â Amelia whispered as she opened her eyes, noticing a few tears to fall down her face. Everything was blurry at first and once she realised where she was, she immediately pulled the mask from her mouth.
âKilled who?â John asked noticing on what she said, Amelia frowned a little giving a small shake of her head âNothing..just something that happened back in New York.. I donât want to talk about itâ her eyes found her father, she gave a small reassuring smile. It was often that she dreamt of that particular incident, the smile Moriarty and Sebastian had embedded into her brain; something sheâd never forget. âI need to go home..Hospitals I donât like them, you donât know who can turn up when youâre sleepingâ she admitted, she felt vulnerable more than anything.
âIâm here, Amelia.â The detective took her hand in his, squeezing it gently once. âIâll know whoâll turn up and Iâll keep you safe.â Another promise, another vow. His eyes danced across the wound where the bullet had been extracted. He had already failed to keep her safe once, but now that she was with him in England again, he wouldnât fail twice.
âYou canât leave yet anyway,â John murmured, pulling his chair up closer to the bed. âYou need time to heal, right, Sherlock?â He turned to his friend, a brow raised to prompt affirmation, but it seemed the detective was deep in thought.
Sherlock had withdrawn his hand from Ameliaâs and instead brought his palms together, propped his elbows on his knees and leaned his chin against his forefingers. âMoriarty?â A brief silence followed his utterance of the name. That name was powerful, it controlled a web of killers and regiments of evil. That name was what had prompted Amelia to leave England in the first place and it served as a permanent reminder to Sherlock that he couldnât protect her like he wanted to. âWhat did he do to you in New York?â
If he could, Sherlock would surely shoot Moriarty in the head for all of the trouble and angst he had caused by meddling in Ameliaâs life. When Sherlock had Amelia, this was not the life he wanted to offer her. He had failed as a father, but he still sought redemption. After Moriarty went to America, Sherlock had been trying to hunt down the consulting criminal, but the man always seemed to slip out of his grasp. Moriarty was a hunter, but his prey was no longer just Sherlock, it had become Amelia. The consulting detective was willing to do whatever he could to change that. He would put himself in the line of fire for Amelia, he just needed to know what Moriarty had done to her first.