Dr. Molly Hooper stood alone in the cold morgue looking over the corpse of Everett Fischer, a fellow doctor. He had been, however, a psychiatrist, something that she felt she desperately needed now. Another tear burned in her eye and she took off the third pair of latex gloves she had been wearing and turned around to wipe it away before it fell down her cheek. She leaned against the cold table, trying to pull herself together.
She was not upset over Dr. Fischer, even if that was how she had phrased it to her colleagues and fellow students. She had known Dr. Fischer briefly, she having taken classes from him on neurology when she had trained at St. Bart's, but she had seen him as nothing more than another one of her teachers. Perhaps that was rather cold, he had, after all, been a living breathing human being. But it was easy now for her to dissociate between her emotions and her work, she had seen kids lying on these tables, you don't need any more practice after that.
But she had had to come up with a reason for her distress, and Dr. Fischer's death had been the perfect excuse. She had gotten a text from John last night, and it had taken all her strength to pull herself out of bed this morning.
John Watson: Sherlock's leaving, for good. Seems that Mycroft can't pull him out of the fix he's gotten himself into this time. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you sooner.
Me: John what did he do?
John Watson: Molly even if I spilled the beans to you Mycroft would be a drama queen about it. I'm sorry.
Me: When will he be back?
John Watson: I don't know if he'll be back Molly.
Molly hadn't wanted to think about the implications of that last text. She had sat in her living room, totally in shock, still as a statue. She wished John had called to tell her the news, but something told her that he couldn't bear to do it. Sherlock had been unusually absent from the morgue for the past few weeks, but Molly had assumed that it was because Sherlock had been pissed off at her for slapping him. She hadn't regretted it at the time, a case was absolutely no excuse for him to start taking drugs again, but she wished that she had had the time to say…what? What did she even want to say?
She smiled to herself in the morgue as she wiped away another tear and looked through the window to the overcast sky. And there once again stood the reason for her failure of an engagement. Even after all these years, and not even seeing or hearing from him for two, she still could not figure out her feelings for Sherlock Holmes. She had felt like a fool, falling for Tom. It didn't take long for her friends to start whispering behind her back, or for Tom to hear the rumors. There were too many similarities between the Sherlock and Tom, at least physically. And then she had said Sherlock's name in her sleep while she was in bed with Tom. That had been it for him, he had packed the next day despite her explanations of having no feelings for Sherlock.
"I was probably having a nightmare of him ripping apart my morgue for a 'case'!" Molly had told Tom, and she hadn't doubted it either. Sherlock had always been a cause of frustration for her, sexually or otherwise.
"Molly…I can't do this anymore. I can't be with you if you want me to be somebody else." And with that, Tom had left. He hadn't sent her so much as a text since then. Then a week later Sherlock had shown up to stomp on her broken heart and have a positive drug test. It was enough to make anyone lose their shit.
But now Sherlock was gone, and she was not even allowed to be properly sad about it. Anthea, Mycroft's assistant, had called her the previous evening to tell her that she must keep quiet about Sherlock's disappearance moments after John had texted her. Molly had snapped back that she had kept quiet about it the first time so what was Mycroft so damned worried about? Anthea had hung up after that. Molly woke up from her reverie when her phone beeped in her purse on her desk chair. She walked over to it to give herself something else to think about. She looked at the text.
Sherlock: Thank you for everything Molly.
Molly's heart pounded in her chest. Tears welled up in her eyes and her hands started to shake.
Me: You know it was my pleasure.
Sherlock: And as always I thank you.
And at that very same moment, a knocking had come on the door. Molly wiped her eyes for the umpteenth time and hoped that her eyes weren't too red. Thank God she hadn't felt like putting on makeup today.
"Yes?" She asked and the person looked round the corner of the door.
"Have you been watching the telly?" Stephen asked Molly, one of the senior students. Molly's eyebrows furrowed.
"No, why? Has something happened?"
"It's the same thing for all the ones here, come look. We don't know what's wrong with them."
Molly walked out of the morgue with Stephen, leaving Dr. Fischer's body on the table. They walked down the thin fluorescent hallways until they came to the staff room. Five or six fellow doctors were standing around the telly, with one of them changing the channel every second or so. But still the same thing played. Molly went up closer to the television and her eyes widened in horror.
A picture of Moriarty was on the screen with the words "Did you miss me?" captioned on the bottom. Even as the channels flickered from one to the next, the message was the same.
Molly turned around as calm as she could and walked quickly back down the hallway towards the morgue. She picked up her purse and then bolted out of the building. She had only one idea of where to go.
Miraculously, a black cab was there immediately when she left the building. She hailed it and it pulled up to the curb.
"221 Baker Street please." Molly said to the cabbie. The cab pulled away from the curb and the doors locked. There was a moment of silence and Molly breathed a sigh of relief. They would bring Sherlock back. It would be okay.
"Dr. Molly Hooper. I have to admit, you were not what I was expecting." Molly heard a familiar light voice say. She looked up into the rear view mirror and looked into the eyes of Jim Moriarty in horror.