Author's note: The Uncanny Valley is the third episode of a fan fiction version of Sherlock's Series 3. The first episode is "The Silver Blaze Revival," the second is "The Indigo Stain." The sequel to the Uncanny Valley is the fourth episode, "Four Elizabeths."
Spoilers: This story may contain spoilers for all episodes of Sherlock (BBC) through s02e03 "The Reichenbach Fall."
Molly Hooper was at the end of the worst day of her life.
It all started with that decapitation.
The thought occurred to her as blood slid down her chin and onto her neck. She wanted to wipe it away, but right now even the sound of her breathing was too loud. She couldn't risk any noise from movement.
The decapitated body, though, that's where this all started. Molly was certain of it now.
About a week ago, Molly Hooper ducked into her autopsy room slightly behind schedule. She had been held up at security because the magnetic stripe on her card failed. It took nearly thirty minutes for the guards to sort it.
Samuel, her lab technician, jolted to his feet when she entered.
"Dr. Hooper," he said. "I almost left, thought – "
"Sorry Samuel," she said briskly. "Bit of a late start. I was told they already brought the body in."
"Yeah, about an hour ago," Samuel said, indicating the body bag. "Told me not to open it till you got here. Evidence and all."
"Right then," Molly said, getting her bearings. "Will you prep the body?"
Samuel nodded and started unzipping the bag. Molly glanced over the paperwork quickly. Thirty-three year old male found dead in the men's room at a local bar.
"So initial reports said cause of death was cardiac – "
"Decapitation," Samuel said quietly.
"Sorry?"
"I dunno what that paper says, but this man? He's decapitated. And is this right? Is this supposed to be like this?"
Samuel had shrunk back, holding up his hands, which were covered in blood. She assessed the body bag. It contained a man and his separated head, along with several pints of blood.
"This is all wrong," Molly said. "Samuel, don't move, just say there." She turned and yelled, "Security!"
"Security?" Samuel repeated. "I didn't – this wasn't – I didn't do anything!"
"This body was suppose to contain a man who died of heart failure," Molly said. "Looks to me like this man was decapitated while in the body bag."
"You mean, he was dead?" Samuel asked. "When his head came off?"
Molly shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I have to run tests to be certain, but given – "
"Someone stuffed a man into a body bag and chopped his head off?" Samuel asked loudly as two security guards came into the room.
"He said it," Molly said simply to the guards. "I was supposed to do an autopsy on someone named Gregory Wendell. Would you please phone the police? Maybe get Samuel a chair. Oh, and I'll need some help finding the body I'm supposed to autopsy."
Both guards looked daggers at her.
By the end of the day, the police had cordoned off parts of the lab and pulled all the staff into interviews. One of the detectives came into Molly's office.
"It's Molly Hooper, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes, and you're Detective..."
"Donovan," Sally said. "You've a moment?"
"Not really, but go on."
"What was the name of the man you were supposed to autopsy today?"
"A bloke named Gregory Wendell, died from heart-related complications."
"You sure of that?" Sally asked.
"Never got to do his autopsy. Suppose I'll get to it tomorrow."
"Doctor Hooper, the decapitated man was Gregory Wendell."
"The paperwork said he was found – "
"I know what the paperwork said," Sally interrupted. "And we've got about half a dozen witness that all say the same thing. Gregory Wendell was found dead this morning. Paramedics couldn't get his heart to start. Doctors called time of death officially as soon as he arrived at St. Bart's."
"The body in that bag," Molly said, "he was alive when his head was cut off."
"Your assistant told me you said that," Sally said. "Care to explain how you knew that?"
"The blood, the injuries," Molly replied. "If the head was cut off post-mortem, then – "
"You could tell all that from a glance?"
"I'm a pathologist," Molly replied. "And it was more than a glance." She waited a moment. "Why are you asking me – "
"Standard procedure," Sally interrupted. "We've got two security guards saying you were with them around time of decapitation."
"Someone else has done the autopsy then?" Molly asked.
"Your boss, Garnett, approved it," Sally replied. "Again, just standard procedure. You'll probably have to answer a few more questions, maybe even testify."
"Detective Donovan, I'm used to that."
"As a witness, not a pathologist," Sally said simply. "Here, if you think of anything else." She handed off her business card.
As Sally left the room, Molly took a deep breath. Garnett wouldn't be pleased, and Molly hadn't been fond of the Yard since Sherlock had been forced to fake his own death. She was in for a rough month.
Earlier today, Molly was at the end of her rope. For all her patience and persistence, even she had her limits, and this day had eaten away at every iota of her strength.
Certainly, she had suffered considerably after helping Sherlock fake his own death. For all his shortcomings and maddening antics, his presence brightened her day, and not simply because she had feelings for him. His research, his wacky experiments, changed the way she saw her work.
So while the day Sherlock left had dragged Molly Hooper to a new low, it was nothing compared to the day she just had. As soon as she arrived at work, she knew something was wrong. Several "review members," whoever they were, were hovering around the labs all day, making notes on ugly clipboards and attempting to intimidate employees on breaks or in the bathroom. Several of them had glared nails at her for her fifteen-minute tea break.
It had all been rather unnerving, but Molly assumed it was for some grant committee or human resources research. So she went about business as usual.
Around lunch everything turned upside down. Molly skipped lunch because she was called back in on emergency, only to find that the morgue only had three new bodies, and only one of them was scheduled to be autopsied. Hardly an emergent situation.
No, she missed her lunch only to be lectured unnecessarily for an hour about security and paperwork. Her boss, Doctor Amelia Garnett, insisted that she learn the face and name of all the new security guards, and they hers. Molly found this all good practice. As a matter of fact, she had already taken the time to do this, but not out of security concerns. She just thought it polite.
When she attempted to excuse herself around four in the afternoon, she received a rather harsh tone from Doctor Garnett, who insisted that Molly was never a team player, always 'about with that sketchy Sherlock fellow.' Garnett also pointed out that Molly's performance had recently declined, and her behavior today had been subpar from morning to end of day.
To top it all off, the ridiculous proceedings continued until dinnertime, and Garnett demanded that she remain to complete the autopsy scheduled for earlier that afternoon.
Molly had received plenty of reprimands in her life, and she had made enough mistakes to weather them. But never had anyone ever suggested that her work, and her ability to do that work, was anything less than exceptional. Even Sherlock Holmes described her as adequate, which was higher praise than she'd seen anyone else receive from that man. Instead of having a frustrating day and no social life, Garnett ensured that Molly had an infuriating day and no social life.
And it was all out of the blue; she and Garnett hadn't had a single run in since she took up the position at Bart's over a year ago.
Except for that decapitation case. Molly's thought poured into her recollection. The fallout from the surprise decapitation, and how Molly handled it, hadn't pulled to a head until today.
Earlier today, in the evening, Molly left Garnett's office along with several other pathologist, all eager to return home.
"It's gotta be what happened at the other morgues," Brentin said to Molly, snapping her out of her own head.
"Sorry?" she asked.
Doctor Brentin Greenberg had joined St. Bart's as a pathologist only a few months ago, and he already had the reputation for gossip.
"You know, all them bodies gone missing," Brentin continued. "That's why we've had every cog and cud down here, telling us how to do our jobs."
"Bodies gone missing?" Molly repeated. "From here?"
"Ah, no," he said as he grabbed his keys. "But a few of the other hospitals, yeah. You coming for a drink?"
"Sorry, no, I've got another autopsy," she said.
"You must've pissed Garnett off, eh?" he asked with a wink. Then he swaggered away, as if his question had been 'goodnight.'
Even the autopsy went awry. Whoever had set up the autopsy room – and it was likely Brentin from earlier in the day – had done it poorly, so Molly set about to make it right.
Her paperwork was for one Cielo Adam Wallen. Unfortunately, having been locked up with her boss all day, she hadn't had a chance to check the name and serial numbers against the tags and body bag, which contained an older woman named Sophia Evans.
"You have got to be kidding me," Molly said to herself as she went through the morgue, looking for the body of Cielo Adam Wallen. He wasn't there.
It was nearly ten at night. She wouldn't get anyone on the phone for some kind of paperwork mix up this late, regardless of how displeased Garnett would be tomorrow.
And that was that. Molly couldn't do an autopsy with no body, so she might as well go home.
As she passed the halls, she noticed that Doris Lecroix and Aaron Kraemer, the two security guards that worked the nightshift at Bart's, were both gone. Molly wondered at it, but she figured they must've both gone to the loo. But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't true. Something was wrong.
So she hurried into her office to gather her things. As she swept out, something hard connected with her forehead and nose.
As Molly fell, she realized that it was somebody's arm, stuck out across the threshold to catch her on her exit. Fear and fury converged as she landed hard on her back. Whoever her assailant was, his face was obscured by some kind of plastic translucent mask.
After everything, all Molly was really certain of was that she was incredibly pissed off. As he moved to grab hold of her, she jerked her leg up and smashed her heel into the back of his kneecap, eliciting a grunt as he stumbled into the wall. She rolled awkwardly onto one side and pulled herself to her feet, her nose aching and possibly bleeding.
Her attacker didn't give up; he lunged for her and grabbed her arm at the shoulder, pinning her against a wall.
With one swift movement, Molly slipped the scalpel from inside her lab jacket and jabbed it hard up into his arm, right behind the elbow. John Watson had shown her a nerve strike in that general area, and apparently she found her mark, because the man reeled back and screamed, clutching the blade sticking out of his flesh.
Molly ran as fast as she could, blocking the path behind her with whatever she could tip over. She ducked into the first office she could and stopped the door with an awkward metal chair. For all her efforts, her attacker hadn't been thrown, and she didn't have much time before he got through that door.
With blood now freely dripping down her face, Molly considered her options.
She opened a window before hoisting herself above the false ceiling. Certainly, she could make a run for it, but how far could she hope to get? What if there was more than one person? What if they had guns?
No, hiding would be better. Once she settled on the ledge above the false ceiling, she dialed for help, muting the phone to prevent any noise from alerting her attacker, who finally succeeded in breaking into the office.
Every few seconds, she pressed another button to assure the police she was still on the line. Otherwise, she tried to keep still, but the whole of the place smelled as if something had gone off somewhere leaving its stench like a fog. And she was shaking. The adrenaline from her flight was wearing off, and the cursing of her assailant below her did nothing to steady her nerves.
Thus, Molly Hooper ended the worst day of her life perched above an office in St. Bart's, with her eyes smarting from the injury to her forehead and her nose freely bleeding.
And she waited, her breath hitching at every noise.