Title: The Ghost in the Game

Author: EmmyAngua

Rating: 15

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

Warnings: Implied minor character incest. Implied torture. Bad language.

Ships: Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

Summary: The game is about to start and Moriarty has all but one piece in place, Molly's only chance of survival is keeping Moriarty amused, and Sherlock and John are being haunted… by their Victorian selves.

A/N: The only way I can describe this is as an AU that sticks like glue to canon. In fact, every canon event happens as the show describes. This fic is more like a glimpse at what could be going on behind the scenes…

The fic is complete (seven chapters and an epilogue) and has been beta-ed by the lovely lemonflav_lopfe . All errors are mine and mine alone.


Chapter 1

It's morning. Molly sits up in her single bed, which is jammed against the ice-cold window. The springs squeal underneath her.

The shower is low-pressured and lukewarm. She follows a quick, mechanical routine because others are waiting to use it and she doesn't want to have another confrontation with an aggressive Polish builder about using up the hot water.

She rushes down the stairs and out of the front door, eager to be out of the musty bedsit and in the cold, sharp air of London. As she slams the front door the tarnished number 27 on it wobbles slightly.

An elderly woman, Miss. Keening, peers out of a grimy window from the floor above. She turns back to her mother's bed and says; "It's only Molly going to work, Mother."

The house was once a Victorian terraced house, but an over-enthusiastic estate agent might call it 'new semi-detached' due to the house next to it being levelled, leaving just a gated-off mound of rubble to mark its existence. The other side of the house is attached to a pub, closed sometime around the World Cup in 1998. Molly walks past the boarded up windows towards her bus stop.

In every direction there are cranes and the crashing of building work. London is papering over its dingiest areas in preparation for the glorious Olympics. 27 will meet its neighbour's fate as soon as Boris Johnson and his council cronies can figure out how to remove ninety-seven year old Mrs. Keening, who was born in the house and fully intends (with no small amount of satisfaction) to die there. The place has been a bedsit since the sixties, and Miss. Keening rents out rooms for cash in hand.

Molly Hooper has lived there four months. Anything she doesn't want to permanently lose is taken with her on the bus to work – her laptop, the jewellery she hasn't sold, and her Elizabeth Arden lipstick.

The work is easy and completely pointless on the days that Sherlock Holmes doesn't arrive at the laboratory. When the day is over a bus drops her off outside her nearest library.

She stays there, eyes straining as she stares endlessly at her laptop screen, until the librarian begins switching off lights in the hope Molly will take the hint. Once the library closes she can't do any more research; Miss. Keening thinks Wi-Fi is a kind of stereo.

She buys some soup on the way home, or a frozen meal. The high-point of the evening is microwaving it before bed.

The bed squeaks. She wakes up. She goes back to sleep. A train screams past. She gets up.

The day begins again.


From: Molly Hooper

To: Jim Moriarty

Hi Jim,

The color on my computer screen keeps going all wibbly and then it just crashes. Clare said you were the person to talk to about it since you saved her ancient PC. No rush, it's just making my work a bit slow is all lol. Any chance you can fix it for me?

Dr. Molly Hooper

Morgue Technician

Ext: 5581


The time of day Molly hated most was ten o' clock. She had vacated the library, stopped at the Co-op, and was on her way home to her empty bedsit. This was not a good place to walk alone after dark, and she guarded her laptop bag jealously.

It seemed beyond belief that a year ago her only concern in the evening had been which Jimmy Choos to wear with her little black dress. Now she was dressed like her great aunt and tramping home to microwave soup in a pair of £4.99 ballerina pumps from DiscountShoeZone.

She slammed the front door behind her, dog-tired and grateful not to have been mugged. She staggered up tackily carpeted stairs. Her keys clinked as she accidentally dropped them. She stooped to get them, jammed the right one in the door, and irritably twisted it.

It remained locked.

She stared at it for a moment and tried to stretch her mind back to this morning. Had she left it unlocked? She couldn't imagine leaving it unlocked. She didn't leave it unlocked when she was inside, let alone outside.

She turned the key again. The door swung inwards and she peered inside. The place was empty.

Molly sighed and, berating herself for her own stupidity, walked over to her beside lamp. She couldn't reach the overhead light to change the bulb so it was the only source of light. She fumbled for the switch, and with a moment of relief that she had escaped electrocution for another day, she turned around to survey her lodgings for signs of theft.

She screamed.

"I wouldn't bother if I were you," said the man at her table. "The old crone is asleep thanks to her sleepy pills. The daughter is at bingo. The goth couple are too high to care. And the Polish guy is out drinking his wages. It's just you and me." He said it as though they were two naughty teenagers sneaking away for an illicit grope.

It wasn't possible! Even in the dark, she'd have noticed someone sitting at the small table…

"I wasn't even hiding," he smirked. "People just don't look properly."

He was a young man with a pointy face and black beetle eyes. His mouth had quirk of a boy who has spent his day setting fire to ants. His suit… it made her think longingly of the old days. It was expensive. Well made. It made her think of Sherlock.

She swallowed. Best not go there.

"Don't you recognise me?" he asked. His voice was high and mock-offended. "You sent me a looovely email last week. And it's a pity you did, because if it wasn't for that I would never have noticed you. I certainly wouldn't have guessed your little secret."

He flipped through a file on his desk and thrust a piece of paper at her. It was the email she'd sent to Jim Moriarty in IT.

"You've broken into my home because you didn't like an IT request I sent you?" Now she thought about it, she had seen him before - dressed casually in low hanging jeans and a tight tee. He had climbed under her desk and mucked around with her computer for a bit before declaring it fixed. "The computer's fine now."

"First mistake," the man – Moriarty – snapped. "Americanisms. 'Is all'… do people really say that outside of Glee? Color without a 'u'. And no English person of your age would be able to type the words 'Dear Jim, can you fix it for me?' without making a very trite joke or at least a smilie face. I hacked into your computer, sorted out the virus, and had a good look around while I was there."

He waved a few more files at her. Molly felt her trembling knees give out and she dropped onto the bed heavily.

"Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes. Monographs, articles, history, media articles…and all this on your work computer alone. I wormed my way into your private email accounts and lo and behold, there he is again. It's like you're trying to pick his life apart. Emails to people he was at uni with asking for information, emails to various reporters who have dealt with him. Very thorough. Such a pity you've found no evidence to back your theory up at all."

"He's my evidence," snarled Molly.

Moriarty slammed the file onto the desk. "Oh c'mon MOLLY. Drop the act. Once I'd seen your computer I only needed to come down to the lab and fanny around with your computer as an excuse to see your face. You may have dyed your hair brown and given yourself a serious make-under but you can't fool me."

"If you're so clever," Molly trembled. "You tell me who I am."

Moriarty laughed, it was genuine and yet slightly hysterical. "Oh yes. I'm good at that. Well then. Where shall I start? Dr. Meredith Sholes born Meredith Harper in New 'Yoik' 1979. Senator father. Obstetrician mother. Studied medicine and then journalism. Met your future husband, controversial physicist Dr. Hedley Sholes at College and made a name for yourself by exposing medical malpractice, forcing the US to reconsider medical policy. The Lancet soon came knocking on your door and you worked in London for three years – no doubt perfecting that credible English accent. Dr. Sholes soon realised that his career would be improved by a marriage – unfortunate for him as he's as gay as a Christmas tree. You were married three years before it all went to hell. He applied for divorce. And then – gasp – Dr. Sholes disappeared without a trace. His lovely wife Meredith disappeared three months later under a cloud of suspicion."

Molly – Meredith – shrugged. She tried to look like she didn't care. "I've not done anything illegal."

Jim gave that creepy laugh again and then spoke in an accusatory staccato. "Doctor goes missing after applying for a divorce from his ambitious wife who wouldn't like the way a gay husband would reflect on her career. She goes missing soon after the investigation starts and is found to be hiding in a bedsit using fake documents to work in a morgue. Sounds illegal to me."

"My husband is still alive!" Meredith leapt to her feet. "I've been trying to figure out what the hell is happening."

Jim pulled an 'awww' face. "And you think that by rescuing him from the 'ebul' James Moriarty you'll earn his undying love and he'll learn to like vagina?"

"I don't care whether he loves me or not. I just want him back one piece," a tear rolled down her face and she cursed herself. She'd told herself over and over that this was about clearing her name, not about saving Hedley… but it was hard to believe that when she did love him.

He stood delicately and closed the file. He dropped it into the bin as though it no longer mattered and pulled out a mobile phone.

"Sorry love, your husband is dead. I ensured it." He held up a hand to stop her talking. "If you've convinced yourself otherwise then you really don't understand the operation I'm running here – though you've got a damn sight closer than anyone else ever has."

Meredith set her face grimly. She was all too aware that she had no weapons, nothing to defend herself with, and that this man may look feeble but he still towered over her. "So what are you going to do to me then? Kill me?"

Moriarty smiled. "Oh yeah. But first I'm going to squeeze that last bits of usefulness out of your brain. And then when there's nothing useful left in that, I'll use your body up too."

He saw the flinch.

"Oh I'm not going to rape you . I can think of much more interesting things to do with bodies than waste semen on them."


A/N: Please let me know what you think. I'm still a bit nervous about posting it.