Chapter 1

The beginning of the end

Molly stood on the rooftop of one specific government building, gazing out over the city of lights. She loved London at night time. It was buzzing and had a promise of freedom. A freedom that she thought she had a hold of, only to watch it slip away from her grasp. Somehow this felt very unreal. Like a dream. A nighmare that she once had woken up from. But the reality of it had hit her like a cannonball in the stomach when the one person she thought she had beaten had turned up to torture her once more. She had settled in in London. She had a life. She had colleagues and she had friends. And most importantly: she had Sherlock. Well, not in the sense that she wished she had him. But he was there, a part of her life. And that was something she wasn't ready to let go of. Her train of thought was interrupted when she felt her phone vibrate in the pocket of her black slim pants. She picked it up and read the message:

Get file no 411 and bring it to me. You've got 1 hour.

She gazed out over London one last time before she picked the lock of the maintenance door. Through there she would trick the alarm system that would give her enough time to climb down the elevator vent. She felt a thrill down her spine when the door unlocked and suddenly she had a big smug smile on her lips. She had missed this. She had actually missed this.

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

It had been a long day at S:t Bart's for Molly. One car accident had brought her 3 dead bodies and one of them was a 10 year old girl. After that, there had been one drowning and three suspected suicides. She had lot of paper work to catch up on but before she could sit down and start digging in to it, she had to check the tissue samples of the suspected suicides.

When she walked in to the lab, he was already there.

"I didn't expect you here today, Sherlock." She said as she put her lab coat on.

"Been here since 3 am. Now shut up, I'm busy. And please do not wear those shoes ever again. They are very distracting. I'd prefer you'd take them off now."

He didn't even look up from the microscope.

"You've been here since 3 in the morning?"

"That's what I said. Now please shut up!"

"At least he asked nicely this time." She murmured to herself, referring to Sherlock saying please.

"What?" Sherlock was now looking at her with his ice blue eyes, watching every move she made. Deducing.

"Nothing." She answered with amusement in her voice.

"I told you to take off those shoes, they're annoying me."

She ignored his remark on her shoes and took her place by the other microscope, preparing the tissue samples for inspection. She felt him watching her as she calmly prepared her samples, trying not to look back at him. It took all her willpower in fact. Suddenly she felt like hitting him on the nose. Well hitting him on the nose, metaphoricly. Finally she said, without looking up from her work:

"You're staring, Sherlock."

She could actually imagine him narrowing his eyes, giving her a suspicious look. But before he had a chance to say anything, he was interrupted by John Watson walking in to the lab with two cups of coffee. Sherlock had now someone else to focus himself on and Molly let out a relieved sigh.

"Hello, Molly!" John said and gave a smile in her direction.

He seemed to be in a good mood. And he always managed to make her feel a bit more comfortable around Sherlock.

"Hi John."

She had looked up from her work, still ignoring Sherlock (who, by now, would be a bit irritated because he didn't like being ignored) and gave John a smile back.

"If I'd known I'd run in to you, I would've brought you coffee." He said while putting one of the cups down on the table in front of Sherlock.

"It's okey, I've already had too much coffe today." She answered smiling.

"Rough day, then?"

"You have no idea..."

"BORED!"

John and Molly looked at Sherlock who just had interrupted their conversation, apparantly wanting the attention on himself. He was like a five year old boy, sometimes. John gave Sherlock a dejected look. He wished Sherlock could be less rude. But then again, Sherlock wouldn't be Sherlock if he changed. That, however, didn't stop John from giving him a piece of his mind.

"We were having a conversation, Sherlock."

"A dull one." Sherlock answered. "I have more interesting things to share."

"Sherlock, now you're being rude."

"I'm always rude."

Molly watched the two men spat like an old married couple and she couldn't help but giggle a little. This interrupted their conversation and Sherlock was about to say something, but the grey doors to the lab sprung open and D.I. Lestrade made his entrance.

"We have a live one!" He exclaimed, seemingly excited. "I mean, a dead one. I need you, Molly, in the morgue, now."

Molly had never seen the Detective Inspector this excited by a dead body before. She followed him out of the lab. And of course, Sherlock and John did the same.

They entered the morgue and Molly walked up to the body lying on the examination table, while putting on a pair of latex gloves she had picked up on the table standing to the left a couple of feet from the doors to the cold examination room.

"The man on your table is identified as a Tucker McCreary, and he is the head of the..."

"...McCreary clan, a drug empire from Scotland."

Molly didn't realize she had filled in the words coming out of Lestrades mouth. Not until she looked up from the body on the three men staring at her.

"Y-yes. How did you know that?" Lestrade asked, sounding a bit confused.

Molly swallowed nervously. How was she going to explain this?