Chapter Text
Sebastian’s first reaction upon coming back to consciousness after the surgery is panic. He doesn’t feel right, his whole body is off. His limbs aren’t responding properly and his thinking is sluggish and he feels empty.
His hands make an immediate, if clumsy jerk towards his stomach, pressing against a significantly flatter surface than he’s used to.
“Calm down, Mr. Moran. Your little girl is fine, she’s very healthy, if a bit small. Two weeks early will do that, but you’ll be able to see her in a few minutes.” The creepy dick of a doctor is at his bedside, making notes on a clipboard.
Sebastian open his mouth to try and talk but his tongue feels like sandpaper. “That’ll be from the breathing tube.” He hands Sebastian a glass of water that he gulps down gratefully.
“Jim. Where’s Jim? He wasn’t answering…” his throat is scratchy and his voice comes out low and rough.
“Mr. Moriarty had something of an encounter with Sherlock Holmes today. There’s been a bit of an accident.” Sebastian feels like his heart isn’t beating. Jim hasn’t been behaving right lately, he must have made a mistake, must have missed something, and oh god, if Jim is hurt.
“Mr. Moran, I can see the panic on your face already. He’s being treated for a small burn caused by sticking a miniature explosive to the back of his head. He’ll be in shortly, likely even before the baby gets back.”
“An explosive…on his…”
The doctor lets out a sigh that says he’s treated Jim for way too many stupid injuries. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him for the details.”
Jim takes that opportunity to stick his head in the door. He and the doctor stare at each other for a long minute before Jim says slowly and deliberately, “….get out.”, as if the man is an idiot who can’t understand him.
He huffs and glances to Sebastian. “We’ll bring her in in just a few moments.” He turns and stalks out of the room, muttering under his breath about ungrateful psychopaths.
Sebastian watches Jim and feels his whole body sag with relief now that he knows where the man is. “So. Explosives on your head?”
Jim flaps his hand about vaguely and touches the bandaging around his head. “Should have gone with spring loaded, but I couldn’t get it to lay flat against my skull.”
“Should I ask?”
“Needed to launch blood and brain matter so that it looked like I shot myself in the head.”
“Oh yea, why didn’t I guess that?”
Jim starts to reply with a no doubt snarky remark but he is interrupted by the door being pushed open. One of the doctor’s nurses pushes in a small baby cot while another follows after her with a tightly wrapped little pink bundle. Jim wastes no time in relieving the nurse of the baby and gives the woman a death glare that sends her scampering from the room. The other nurse, a woman more experienced in dealing with Jim, sets up the cot quickly before making her exit. She paused for a moment in the doorway.
“I just saw the report on the news, Mr. Moriarty. Congratulations.”
He doesn’t acknowledge her and focuses on the baby in his arms instead, not even noticing when she leaves.
“Hello there, little bit. It’s so nice to meet you.” He glances up to Sebastian.” She’s so tiny, Seb. Are babies always this tiny?”
Sebastian shifts on the bed, wincing as his stitches pull. “She’s a bit bigger than a peanut now, bring her here, I want to see her.”
She starts to fuss when Jim moves but he shushes her quietly, rocking her carefully. “Now, sweetheart. Don’t be like that, be good for papa and daddy, okay?” Sebastian feels like his insides melt a little bit.
Jim reluctantly hands her over and Sebastian cradles her tight against his chest. His fingers trace gently over the lines of her face, absolutely smitten with her. “Hi Peanut…daddy’s right, you are a tiny little thing. You felt so much bigger before.”
Jim slips into the bed next to Sebastian, curling tight against his side so that he can watch her face. “She’s got your nose. And your eyes, for now. We’ll see if they stay that color.”
“That is definitely your mouth.” Sebastian chuckles. “I hope she doesn’t have a sharp tongue like you do, or her teen years are going to be hell.”
“You’re going to be a little firecracker aren’t you?”
Sebastian shifts the little girl in his arms and glances over to Jim’s face, watching him admire their daughter. “The nurse, what was she talking about? On the news?”
He doesn’t look over when he responds. “My encounter with Sherlock. It made the news. He won’t be a problem for us to deal with anymore.”
“He’s dead then?”
“Completely. Tossed himself off the roof of St. Bart’s. Left a very touching note for his little doctor, too.” Jim’s face adopts a mock sympathetic face.
“Is that what you’ve been going nuts over this entire time? Killing Sherlock Holmes?”
Jim shifts on the bed, pressing himself closer to Sebastian’s side and stroking the baby’s hair with one finger. “Part of it. I can’t set my empire to run on autopilot with Sherlock mucking about and screwing things up.”
“Autopilot? Why do you- where are you going to be?”
“Need to get away for a while. Drawing too much attention around here, be better off to lay low for a while and stay safe. Make it seem like my empire is crumbling.
Sebastian’s whole body tensed. “And where are you planning to go?”
“To Australia.”
“….Australia. Right.”
“I’ve got it all lined up and taken care of. Everything will be brand new, new house, new clothes, new guns, I’ve even got new fake names and backgrounds, all of the necessary documents of course, birth certificates, licenses, marriage certificate, an- “
“Wait, what? Hold on, why in the hell do you need a fake marriage certificate?”
Jim gently lifts the baby out of Sebastian’s arms and lifts her up so that he can kiss her forehead. “I thought it would look better for us to be married since we’ve got the little bit here with us.”
….oh. Jim wanted him to…
“Oi, hang on a tick. You can’t just arbitrarily decide that we’re married. You actually supposed to ask first, you know.”
“Oh please, like you would actually say no. Everyone with eyes knows how you feel about me.
“…and how do you feel about me?” Sebastian’s voice is low and nervous.
“Married you, didn’t I?” It’s probably the closest Jim will ever come to a declaration of love but Sebastian thinks he’s pretty okay with that.
“Penelope.”
“…sorry?”
“I think she looks like a Penelope. What do you think?” Jim angles her over to give Sebastian another look.
He reaches out with one finger to touch one of the tiny fists waving in the air. “Penelope….my little Peanut.” He smiles. “I like it. Penelope… what’s our new last name?”
“O’Connell. Penelope O’Connell.”
Sebastian twists his head slightly to press his face against Jim’s neck. “Heh. We made a baby.”
“I know. It’s kind of freaking me out a bit, really. I don’t know how to be a dad. What experience do I have there? You can’t just have a baby murdered when it does something wrong. Well. I mean you can but,- never mind. My dad didn’t know what he was doing. My dad was shit at being a parent.”
“You also murdered your own father, so let’s try to avoid that, Jim.”
“Avenge me if she murders me?”
“Depends on why she did it. I may have a hand in helping her do it.”
Jim laughs and presses a kiss to Sebastian’s hair. “Disloyal Sod.
“We’ll figure it out, Jim. We just keep her safe and keep her happy. We’ll work out the rest. Somehow.”
“…are you crying?”
“No.” Sebastian pulls away from Jim and wipes at his face with one hand. “So how are you planning to do this? Isn’t the domesticity thing a bit….boring for you?”
“Of course it is. Don’t look at me like that, you said it first. But I’ve worked around it; it’s one of the projects that I’ve been working on. I’m building an entirely new empire, Sebastian. Starting over, completely from scratch, in a new place where no one knows the name Moriarty. It’s been hellish and more than a little bit terrifying trying to get it all sorted. Of course, it’s going to be a much smaller scale than what we do now, but that’s the beauty of it. Less danger means Penny stays safer-“
“Penny?”
“Yes, shut up. And I get to keep myself occupied with recreating everything. New clients, new contacts, new web to spin across an entire continent. Once the fervor has died down and people really, I mean really think that James Moriarty never existed, then I can come back and step into my old shoes.”
“And once you’ve re-established here, you combine the two networks as the first step in becoming a global power.”
“I knew I married you for more than just your pretty face.”
“Such a sweet talker.” Sebastian takes Penelope back from Jim, not willing to let her be away from him for too long, not after getting used to carrying her around all day. “So, how long do you think we’ll be living down under?”
“Well…” Jim leans over and strokes his finger over Penny’s cheek and beams when she yawns at him. “What do you think, little bit? We’ll come back to England, better than ever and ready to set up shop again in…three years?”