''A Study in Regret''
, by Riandra, is an AU to the events of the Sherlock Holmes short story "The Final Problem". The FF.N summary is as follows: Dedicated to Aleine Skyfire. What if events had turned out for the worst after Moriarty's death at Reichenbach? Character death, drug and torture references.
When the fic opens, Colonel Sebastian Moran has already murdered Dr. Watson at the Reichenbach Falls. Sherlock Holmes is now Moran's prisoner, and is being constantly "punished" for the death of Professor Moriarty. Not all hope is lost, however, for Inspector Lestrade and Mary Watson are on the case, and they're determined not to fail.
The story expanded into a duology, with the first part completed and available in printed glory here on Amazon. The sequel was started in 2014 on FFN as The Final Solution, but was abandoned after two chapters.
Currently, every chapter but the prologue has been deleted.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Choke Holds: As part of Moran's Villainous Breakdown, he starts to throttle Holmes.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Watson and Holmes never stood a chance against Moran and his Mook.
- Death Fic: Since Watson's death plays a very big part in this story.
- Emotional Torque: There are a lot of Sherlockian Death Fics out there and even more Darker and Edgier fics, but very few take their readers on as long and realistic a journey as A Study in Regret does. The entire story is one great emotional roller-coaster, and some individual chapters are self-contained roller-coasters in their own right.
- Bilingual Bonus: Multilingual Bonus. There's a lot of untranslated French and German in the flashbacks, plus translated French and German later on.
- Revenge by Proxy: Holmes realizes that this is how Moran means to get back at him - by killing Mary and her baby.
- The Smurfette Principle: Mary Watson is the only female character. She's an Action Girl, so it's all good.
- To the Pain: Moran "introduces" his viper Naja to a terrified Holmes.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Mary delivers a downright cringe-worthy one to Holmes... ironically, berating him for even considering the exact same vanishing act he performed in the original stories.
