Disclaimer: I don't own anything here.

A/N: This take on a Sherlolly Labyrinth story is one I've been thinking on for a while. It seems I've finally mustered up the courage to go for it. Thank you to my wonderfully talented big sis/beta Alethnya for editing this for me and being my sounding board. I give fair warning that this is going to be incredibly emotional and angst-filled. Thank you everyone for reading and I hope it's up to snuff.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, not a single cloud in sight. Molly stood with her arms crossed, fingertips digging into the soft skin of her upper arms. A gentle breeze rustled the deep green foliage before her, causing the water of her little garden fountain to dance in the sunlight. Though she stood staring out the window, Molly barely saw the beauty before her. The day had a luminous, ethereal quality to it. Days like this had once filled her mind with ideas of fantasy and of love. Oh, how she would twirl in the light, basking in the warmth of the sun where usually there was nothing but a steady cover of grey-kissed clouds. She had once been so innocent and so full of dreams.

Her mind pulled her from her thoughts, fully taking in the soft world before her. The beauty was so at odds with how she felt; this glorious day mocked her, made her ache so much she could barely breathe. How could the day be so beautiful when her entire life had fallen to pieces?

Just as that little girl who had twirled in the sunlight had hoped and dreamed, she had fallen in love. She had fallen in love with a mad whirlwind of a man; a beautiful man with even more beautiful gifts of dedication, of perseverance and of observation. She'd fallen in love with a man who had nearly sacrificed his life for the family of his best friend. Somewhere along the way, he claimed to have fallen in love with her too; not that he'd ever said those exact words, but it had certainly been implied. So, she had set up house with him and they'd had a child together. A man who hurt her more than she deserved and far more than he ever realized. The very man who had disappeared three days prior, and had finally sent word this very morning.

One word, that is.

Her eyes dropped from their unseeing perusal of the dream world before her to the screen of her phone. Sorry. He'd sent nothing else. That single word had settled like a stone in her stomach. He wasn't coming back. She squeezed her eyes shut as she set her phone down, willing the barrage of images of their life together from flooding her mind. Happy times, sad times.

Sherlock hesitantly kissing their daughter for the very first time. He had been terrified in that moment as she had never seen him before, but she knew it for what it was; he was afraid of just how much emotion that small human invoked in him. The first time he had left on a case and had forgotten to tell her—oh, the fight that had followed that one. Her mind had conjured up horrible scenario after horrible scenario until she finally got word from Mary that Sherlock and John were away on a case didn't he tell you? They had fought and raged at one another before the heat of anger turned into another kind entirely; they had almost made it to the bedroom.

What had started as a happy, peaceful family, unraveled slowly into chaos and turmoil. She went from content partner, to feeling like an endless nag in less than the course of a year. As the caseload increased, his family time decreased. She had started to wonder if he went looking for cases in an attempt to escape domesticity. When cases that, long ago, would have been deemed barely a 4 started to become an 8, Molly! You can hardly expect me to be stuck here when there's an 8 to be solved; she couldn't help but worry.

Stuck here. As times like that grew in frequency, she stopped asking, stopped complaining. His reasoning for why being somewhere else was more important than being a family together…it burned her; it burned her right to the quick.

She turned around to the sleeping form of their daughter, asleep in her play pen. With a sigh she felt in her bones, she moved closer. Taking in her chubby, yet impossibly soft cheeks, her dark lashes against her pale skin and the already unruly mop of black curls that were beginning to peek over the smooth skin of her forehead and curl over the tops of her ears. Nearly 17 months old, Sabrina Holmes was a beautiful baby with a gentle disposition. She slept so soundly. Tears pricked Molly's eyes; Sabrina had no idea that her world had been turned upside down. She wouldn't know why her daddy wouldn't be coming home.

Tears blurred Molly's vision at that thought, her throat closing in an attempt to quell the tears that so desperately wanted to fall. She cleared her throat and blew out a breath, balling her fists up at her sides. She had to keep it together. She had to be strong. Her daughter deserved for one of her parents to stay strong.

On the verge of breaking down, she moved to the wall of bookcases that lined the side of their cottage living room. Without knowing what she was looking for, she found herself standing before the collection of books that had gotten her through the difficult times of childhood. One book in particular.

Her finger tipped the book toward her before her hand settled on the spine, wiggling it free. She rubbed her hand lovingly on the spine of the book, Labyrinth. This book, this doorway into a world of fantasy, had gotten her through the mysterious illness and death of her father; through the subsequent mental and emotional withdrawal and…death…of her mother. Within it's pages, the story of a quest to retrieve the child that had been stolen; of a young girl coming into her own as she befriends companions, defeats the villainous Goblin King and finally rescues the child she sought.

Good defeating Evil at the hands of an ordinary girl. It had always been her favorite; it had always encouraged her where few other books could. Her world had been so black and white back then; so full of possibilities for what she would become. Reality had been a far more bitter thing, with more shadows than she had ever dreamed. Maybe, just maybe, she could find a little bit of comfort in its over-worn pages. Settling into the chair closest to her with one last glance at the sleeping form of her daughter, she opened the book.

Sabrina was crying. Had been crying for nearly an hour. She had woken up from her nap groggy but pleasant, but determinedly not looking at Molly. When Molly spoke her name, Sabrina's eyes would dart to hers for only a second before she began her search of the room once more.

Molly's heart sunk. Looking around for a toy, anything to distract Sabrina from what she sought, dread bubbled up in Molly's stomach as tears threatened to blur her vision. She saw where her daughter had thrown her favorite toy out of the playpen and dove to retrieve it.

"Dada?"

That simple, innocently spoken word that had been answered a thousand times before by gentle soothing and the promise of 'soon' wrapped around her heart, stopping her cold. Frozen on hands and knees, fingers clutching desperately into the soft, grey wolf Sherlock had bought her after a particularly trying case, Molly could not stop the tears any longer. Head bowed, she found herself focusing on the way her hair draped around her, the way the brown tendrils brushed against the floor as she desperately fought to maintain control.

"Dada?"

Sabrina's voice was more persistent that time, which only made the tears flow faster. Molly, body shaking with the force of trying to keep her pain silent, dropped her head to the floor as the nails of her free hand dug into the carpet. Get it together. Don't let her see you cry. It will only scare her. Stop crying.

STOP.

Her inner voice growled those thoughts at her and she was able to calm, able to take a deep breath. Blowing it out slowly, she wiped her tears from her cheeks and raised her head to meet the inquisitive brown eyes of her daughter.

She steadied herself; breathing in a few more slow breaths before she blew out one final shaky exhale. She brushed her fingers down Sabrina's soft, plump cheek. "Soon."

The lie tasted sour in her mouth, but what choice did she have?

Sabrina wouldn't understand. Molly could barely understand. She thought they had been okay. Things had been rocky at times between balancing his torrent of cases and family life, but she would have never dreamt it would come to this.

Two hours and about 30 more 'dada's' later, was when Sabrina had started to cry. Molly had tried everything to distract her, to soothe her, but she would not let go. Sherlock had been Sabrina's knight, her highlight of every day that she saw him.

Each 'dada' wailed in that tiny voice dug a little deeper, made the betrayal sting a bit hotter. It felt as if any moment he would walk through that door as if the past three days never happened. That he really had just run to investigate a crime scene and come right back like he said he was going to; that he had simply found a case and run with it, forgetting to inform her of it as he had done a handful of times in the past. But this time was different. She had called John. He wasn't coming back. The Watson's had offered to come and see her, to help her. She could barely keep it together alone…how was she to manage with someone else in the house? No, this was better. At least, it felt like it might be.

Humming softly to Sabrina and bouncing her gently in her arms as she screamed and wailed for the man that was not coming for, Molly tried to get lost in the familiarity of the song. She paced the length of the living room, keeping her pace in time with the lullaby. If she focused on the lullaby, maybe she wouldn't cry again.

After ten minutes of that attempt with no change in Sabrina whatsoever, Molly set Sabrina back down in her playpen. Frustration began to bubble up in Molly—frustration and anger at the man who left her here, the man who had abandoned his responsibilities. In his selfishness, he had left her to do everything. He had run away from the life they built together. Anger so violent it burned coursed through her, burning away the lingering sorrow. The feeling of betrayal overwhelmed her, making her hands shake as she tore to the other side of the room.

Her daughter had begun to shriek in ear-piercing screams. She couldn't do this. Oh God, she couldn't do this. How was she going to do everything? Her mind brought forth images of her future, images that had always been of her and Sherlock raising their daughter, callously erased as if they'd never existed. Sabrina's first school play, her first date, graduating school, heading to uni. Every single dream crumbled to ash in her minds eye, overwhelming her. Tears began to flow again in a torrent as wracking sobs shook her body.

Every heartache. Every sickness. Every. Single. Thing. She was forced to do it alone now, because he left.

How dare he.

Lifting her head, Molly caught site of the Labyrinth book from the table beside her chair. Overcoming obstacles, coming into your own…lies. There was no encouragement for this, no pretty story that would make this all go away. There was no room for fantasy here; this was her reality. She snatched up the book before hurling it across the room, knocking over a picture frame. The sound caused Sabrina to scream even louder. Unable to move, unable to think, Molly slapped her hands over her ears in an effort to drown out the sound as she sunk to the floor.

She couldn't do this. Every whimper, every sob, shriek and murmur from her daughter pierced her, making her realize just how inadequate, just how incapable she felt. She couldn't even keep her family together…how was she expected to raise a baby on her own?

A hiccupping sob tore out of her as her daughters screaming subsided into crying.

You can't do this. Mousy Molly Hooper, you think you're good enough for this? That's why he left, isn't it? You were never enough.

That damning thought cycled on repeat in her head, her hands steadfastly clapped over her ears. In a moment of sheer desperation, Molly's mind wandered to the book, to the words that would take anyone away…

"I wish they would take you away." The moment those whispered words left her lips, she knew she didn't mean them. Remorse and guilt snaked through her so strong they made her stomach sick even as her daughter's cries faded into silence. With a sigh of pure relief, Molly calmed her breathing and focused on making her tears stop.

Enough was enough.

She opened her eyes and found…nothing. Pure nothing. A suffocating darkness surrounded her, silent and completely still. She shot to her feet and looked to where her daughter was, her memory leading her where her eyes could not see, but there was nothing there; the chairs that should have been in her way, the gate of the playpen—all gone.

Panicked and beyond coherent thought, Molly spun around in an effort to see something. "Sabrina? Sabrina!" She ran around the space, hands flailed out in an attempt to grasp something—anything—hoping against hope that the room wasn't the empty space it very much appeared to be. Sabrina wasn't here. It was impossible, but she was gone. "Sabrina?!"

"You're wasting your breath," a bored voice drawled from behind her.

She spun round to face the voice. The room remained dark, but a man stood not ten feet away, dark hair and lifeless eyes so dark they appeared black bored into hers. "Where's my daughter? What'd you do with her?"

"Little Miss Molly, who slices up bodies. Oh, but you did ask."

Her blood ran cold. He couldn't possibly mean…

"I asked what?"

He walked toward her, the soft, almost angelic look of his face sharpened to something inexplicably menacing as he smiled at her. "Aw, now I'm a little disappointed. I mean, here I am doing you a favor and you're not even thankful or anything."

"What're you talking about? "

His lips quirked in a twisted smile. "We've taken her away."

Her eyes darted from the man in front of her to where her daughter should have been. "No!" The word tore from her throat. "Where is she? How do you know my name? Who are you?"

"You already know who I am." He looked pointedly to a spot behind her.

Her eyes followed his, to the book that lay on the floor, impossibly illuminated by nothing.

Labyrinth…The Goblin King…but it couldn't be…

"That's just a children's book. That's not even real!"

His eyes flared in challenge as he took a step toward her. "What is real, little miss Molly? How do you know you're even real? That's she's even real?"

"Stop it! Give her back to me!"

He ignored her outburst. "I've done you a favor. Think of all the drama I'm saving you from. Teenage girls," here his brow furrowed as he blew a breathe out in exasperation, "better that we take her from you now."

"No, I don't want that!" Anger and fear lent an edge to her voice. "I didn't mean it! I want my daughter back. Please, please give her back to me!"

Here he sighed. "Boooooring. Someone changing their mind…because that doesn't happen—Every. Single. TIME!" The scream of that final word echoed in the empty space around them.

Shaking, she steeled her will and pressed on. "Please."

He laughed, "Oh, that's so adorable! Please, sir, can I have my baby back because I'm a terrible mother who wished her away?"

"NO! I didn't," the words ripped out of her. "I didn't mean her!"

"Oh!" And here his eyes widened in excitement. "Oh, you meant you? You wanted us to take you away?" He clutched his hand over his heart, "Well, oh my stars, that is a new one!"

Hope began to simmer in her chest. "So you'll give her back to me?"

"Mmm…weeeelll…you see, there's this little detail that I can't—well, I can, but I won't—get around. You wished someone away, so it's someone we need."

"This is ridiculous! That's just some silly children's book. Just give her back. Please, let her come back and take me instead. I didn't even say it right!" She didn't believe anything he was saying, not for one minute, but she was willing to give this madman anything he wanted if he would give her daughter back to her.

"You didn't say it right out loud, but it's what your sad little heart meant when you said it, wasn't' it? That's good enough for me." His expression was hard as stone as he took a step toward her. "Taking you instead? Hmm…noooo," here his eyes danced, "A new game, a new rule. We will take you away, little Miss Molly, but who will watch your poor little girl while you are so far away?" He couldn't possibly mean…"So, I think we'll hold on to her while you try to make it through my Labyrinth."

"You're mad!"

With a twist of his lips, he tilted his head to the side, studying her. Sighing dramatically, he threw something from his hand—a hand that had been empty only moments before.

Instinctively catching the object, she lowered her gaze to observe the solid crystal ball. Before her eyes, the empty glass shifted. Images appeared; an endless maze shrouded in thick fog, jagged cliffs, and frozen lakes all flipped like the pages of a book before settling on a final image. Her daughter. Crying and alone in a dark room with walls of such polished black that they shone. Tears burned and blurred Molly's vision as a sickening certainty began to take hold. Horrified, she tore her eyes from the image of her daughter to the impossible man before her.

He was grinning. "My Labyrinth isn't like the sweet little place in that book, dearie."

Sweet is hardly the word Molly would have used to describe the book from her childhood, but what choice did she have? This was real. This was real and it was really happening; she didn't have a choice, and they both knew it. She turned her attention back to the object in her hand, just before it gently popped, disappearing into thin air like a soap bubble.

Swallowing down her fear, Molly lifted her chin and met his eyes head on. "I will get her back."

He slowly walked toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. He stopped not three feet away from her, lifeless eyes boring into hers. "You'll try. No one's ever made it through my Labyrinth before. Before you can make it to the end, I'll have broken you. By the end, I'll have burned away everything that you are. You won't remember who she is; you won't even remember who you are." The cold of his eyes twisted into something that very much looked like madness. "Have fuuuun."

The singsong tone of that final word sent chills down her spine as the floor gave out from beneath her, sending her tumbling into the dark.