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December 24th. It had been two months since Moran had watched Moriarty kill himself. The image of his frozen smile and bloody face haunted Sebastian's dreams for weeks after. But now the nightmares were gone, and all that remained was a hole in his heart. Jim had left a note, telling the sniper to move on and keep the business running, and so he did.
Sebastian stood in an abandoned building, dripping from the heavy rain. The building he had chosen to shoot from was nearly a block away from where the victim would fall. The blond man walked across the room and cracked open the window, and briefly observed the area. He saw only the wet, decorated for Christmas, streets of London. The target was expected to be seen around 11:00 PM, and it was 10:47. He spotted a small chair in the corner of the room, and brought it over beside the window. Since he hadn't slept much the night before he fell asleep, quite literally, after two minutes. He had thought that being so uncomfortably cold and wet would keep him from drifting to sleep, but was pathetically mistaken when he fell off the chair and crashed to the hard wooden floor.
He picked himself up slowly and stood for a moment to let the room around him stop spinning. When he could see clearly his gaze drifted to his duffel bag. He dug through it to find the small radio that he had always had in that bag.
“Maybe annoying Christmas music will keep me awake” he thought to himself while tuning the radio to the first thing that would come in without an obnoxious amount of static. The result was a station that was playing American music.
~Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town...~
Sebastian rolled his eyes and sighed, then rested his head on his hands, elbows on the window sill. He stared mindlessly out of the window, waiting for the target. The radio played two more songs while Sebastian was deep in thought about the following week’s jobs. When the radio began to play an Elvis song Sebastian’s thoughts shifted. He began to think about the man that he had been pushing from his memory. He snapped out of his thoughts about Jim, and turned his emotions to annoyance at the radio. “Why’d I even turn the bloody thing on?” he thought, and turned back to watch out the window. At some point while mindlessly watching he began to sing, or mumble rather, softly along with every word.
“I'll have a blue Christmas without you,”
Sebastian spotted the target making his way towards the building, and knew exactly when he had to take the shot. Twelve seconds probably.
“I'll be so blue just thinking about you,”
The man advanced, and the sniper took his aim.
“Decorations of red on a… gray sidewalk,”
He sang the last line with a crooked smile. The man began to close him umbrella. The sniper fired his shot, and the man fell to the ground, with his half-closed rain shield. The sniper smiled at his job-well-done, and continued to sing.
“Won't be the same, dear, if you're not here with me…”
He quickly packed his things and got into the car. He was out of danger in no time, and headed back to his empty flat for Christmas. The song continued in his head as clearly as if it was still coming from the radio. In fact he thought it still was, but he had turned it off in the building. He no longer sang along, just heard the words in his head.
~And when those blue snowflakes start falling,~
Sebastian’s hair began to drip rain on his face.
~That's when those blue memories start calling,~
He wasn't crying, it was raining in the car. “Stupid rain.. Jim loved the rain…” He thought aloud, unknowingly, and then began to let it rain harder.
~You'll be doin' all right with your Christmas of white,
But I'll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas,~
Sebastian locked the door to his flat, kicked off his shoes and tossed his coat on the ground. He grabbed a bottle of alcohol from the counter, then dropped on the couch. He laid there in silence staring at the ceiling and drinking. When the bottle was half empty he rose to set it on the nightstand, but then caught sight of the wall.
Jim had painted the wall with magpies and taped all sorts of notes to it a week before he died. Sebastian hadn't taken it down yet, seemed too official, like he had given up hope. He was still waiting for Jim to walk through the door and explain what had actually happened.
He threw the bottle at the wall with all his might, which wasn't much since he was very drunk at this point. He began to speak to the wall, the biggest magpie mostly. “You stupid, WHY DID-YU DO THIS TO ME!!? You know wot, just go di ekay? Oh, haha, wait, YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD!” He fell back onto the couch and let the rain come down harder than ever until he fell asleep.
~But I'll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas.~