OK so this is a story I've had half written for a while, wasn't sure about, but finally decided to post. Omegaverse AU that I started writing way before Series 3, which is why there's no Mary in this version. The usual warnings apply - M/M/F, polyamory, Jollock, don't like, don't read. Oh and Mycroft's not as much of an ass in this one as he is in "In the Dark" but he's not exactly an angel either lol. Reviews eagerly appreciated, hope you like!
Part 1 – Cover Blown
Molly's mind was in turmoil. She'd been riding the Tube home from her shift at St. Bart's when the news had broken, coming over the state-sponsored televisions provided in each car for 24-hour news access; a huge crack-down on chemists providing Omegas with illegal suppressants had ended with a series of raids and arrests and the handing over of confidential client lists to the British government.
Her own name – coded, of course – was on that list. Molly Anne Hooper, supposedly a Beta, was about to be revealed to the world as an undeclared Omega.
She was shaking by the time the train lurched to a stop at her station ten minutes later, sweat pouring down her body as she dashed up the stairs heedless of the crowds of people she jostled in her single-minded need to reach her flat. She needed to think, to decide what to do before the government code breakers figured out her identity and she was hauled off to face a very different life than the one she'd carved out for herself with her father's help so many years ago.
It had started when she was in her early teens, when her father, a gynecologist, had suspected his daughter might be an Omega. He'd found a chemist willing to provide the banned suppressants in order to help his daughter pass as the Beta everyone assumed she would be, since both parents were.
It was all because of the so-called "Omega Plague" that had swept across Asia, and from there into the UK and Europe in the late 1950s, the repercussions of which were still being felt in the year 2010. By the time it had been contained and the pathogen identified and more or less neutralized in the late 1970s, less than a third of the world's population of Omegas had survived, and a dramatic shift in their treatment and rights in every country was the result. Heat suppressants were declared illegal, their production banned in most countries, including the UK, and Bonding was actively discouraged in the few places where it wasn't outlawed entirely. So few Omegas remained that most governments, frantic to keep their unpaired Alpha males from literally running amok (the hormones secreted by in-heat Omegas were the only guaranteed way to keep the Alphas emotionally balanced), decreed polyamory legal between any fertile Omega females and a minimum of two Alpha males. The even rarer male Omegas were in the same boat, no matter their sexual proclivities. If fertile, they were forced to choose between marriage to multiple female Alphas to ensure breeding or living a life of virtual enslavement, sexually servicing unBonded Alphas of both genders in order to keep the population from exploding into civil war.
Of course such measures were protested by many, including the remaining Omega population, but the panicked clamoring for a solution to the genetic imbalance the plague had caused had drowned the voices of reason. Indeed, anyone who protested as classified as an undesirable, lumped in with radicals who felt it might be best if Alpha and Omega genetics were bred out of the general population, leaving Betas in the majority until eventually there would only be one type of Homo sapiens sapiens.
Matthew Hooper hadn't wanted such a proscribed life for his only daughter, and even though Molly's mother had been terrified that they'd be found out and their daughter forcibly taken from them per the harsh laws in place that relegated Omegas to resources to be allocated rather than human beings with rights, she'd gone along with her husband's plans. The stress of keeping such a secret, however, proved to be too much for Amanda Hooper; she'd ended up leaving her husband to go live with her brother in Australia, effectively abandoning her daughter at the age of sixteen, when she'd been on illegal suppressants and posing as a Beta for almost two years.
That was the last time either Molly or her father had ever seen her mother, or anyone from that side of the family, for that matter. And when Molly's father had succumbed to cancer when she was 25 and still pursuing her degree in Pathology, she'd found herself truly alone in the world.
Alone, but determined to make the most of the life her father had made possible for her to live. She was almost thirty now and had become one of the youngest pathologists on the staff of St. Bart's. Not only that, she was someone who counted to Sherlock Holmes, world's only Consulting Detective – and, now, she thought glumly, as soon as she reached her flat, she would be a fugitive.
She knew she had only days before her identity was revealed; the British government code-breakers were among the best in the world and the penalties for hiding one's identity when one was an Omega were severe. If her father were still alive, he could spend up to ten years in jail, not only for hiding her identity but also for dealing in illicit drugs. Thankfully he'd divulged his sources to Molly before his passing, so she'd still been able to obtain her suppressants under the guise of "birth control" until this entire thing blew up.
She entered her building, then hurried up the stairs to her second floor flat, taking them two at a time. Fortunately none of her neighbors – all Betas – were out and about at this time of day, all either inside having dinner or watching telly, living their lives.
She spared a moment to feel jealous of them, so safe and secure, none of them living a lie. Still, she'd made it this far, had obtained her degrees and certifications and become a doctor, a dream no Omega had been able to live since the plague had turned the world upside down for them. Even if she was herded into one of the so-called "rehabilitation" facilities set up for Omega females like herself who had attempted to hide their status, she would always have that accomplishment behind her.
It would be small comfort if she was found out and forced into a life of virtual slavery, at the mercy of any Alpha who chose to knot her during her heat cycles, forced to give birth to as many children as her body could stand and then watch them be taken away from her to be raised by others. She wouldn't even be given the option of finding two or more Alphas who would be willing to marry her at that point; she'd be branded a criminal at worst, an undesirable at best, and no one would touch her outside of her heat cycle.
No. God. She shuddered at the thought as she turned the key in her lock and pushed open the door. She'd be damned if some ridiculous government mandate would force her into a life she knew she'd hate. There were places she could go, outside of the UK and Europe, somewhere her skills would be appreciated more than her ability to produce more Omega babies. She'd rather leave England forever than be turned into a mindless baby-making machine.
She'd do it, too, with very few regrets, one of the biggest being that she would no longer be able to work with the most brilliant, amazing man she'd ever met: Sherlock Holmes. When he'd entered her life she'd thought for sure she was found out, waited through many sleepless nights for him to denounce her true genetic heritage and have her thrown out of Bart's. He was an Alpha, and a strong one at that, possibly the strongest one she'd ever met. But if he'd ever sussed out her secret – if, she thought bitterly as she shut the door and turned the deadbolt, he'd ever cared enough to dig deeper than the surface image she presented – he'd kept it to himself.
Even helping him fake his death had led to no deepening of their relationship. Well, nothing past the friendship that he'd admitted to feeling toward her, if such a label could be given to his declaration that she was someone who counted and whom he'd always trusted. Yes, he'd been less cutting in his remarks to her since his return from the dead a month earlier, but that was it. Any dreams she'd had that he might one day declare his love for her – and his recognition that she was actually an Omega – had long since turned to ash. She'd forced herself to be contented with being Sherlock's friend, just as John Watson was.
And now even that was going to be taken away from her. She hoped he – and John and her boss Mike Stamford and DI Lestrade and Meena and the few others she counted as friends – would understand why she'd hidden her true nature, and why she'd run when exposed.
She was in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do about her cat, Toby – would Mrs. Wren take him in, her lovely elderly neighbor downstairs? – when a sound from further inside her flat froze her in place. Toby was by her feet, so it wasn't him...great, just what she needed, to interrupt a burglar, today of all days! She'd laugh if she didn't know she'd immediately fall into hysterics if she loosened her tight grip on her emotions by even the smallest bit.
She had a cricket bat under her bed, but the noise had come from the direction of the two bedrooms and bath at the far end of her flat, so the best she could do was grab a knife from the drawer and hope the intruder didn't have a gun.
Of course, the most sensible thing for her to do was leave the flat, go downstairs and knock on Mrs. Wren's door and call the police.
The sensible thing, and the one most likely to land her exactly where she was trying to avoid being: in the hands of the authorities. So she gritted her teeth, grasping the knife firmly in her right hand – she knew more than enough about anatomy to know where to stick the knife to do the maximum damage if necessary – and moved as silently as possible down the hall.
Thirty seconds later the knife was on the floor and Molly was backing down the hall, hands in the air as the intruder held her at gunpoint.
It wasn't a burglar, a rapist or a murderer, although she would have rather faced any combination of the three at this moment.
It was Sherlock's brother, Mycroft Holmes. And he looked extremely vexed.
Molly stared at Mycroft as he continued to hold her at gunpoint, unable to speak, waiting for him to do...something. What, she had no idea. Yes, she'd known he worked for the British government in some capacity or other, but not in a job that necessitated the use of a gun. And why was he holding it on her, for God's sake? Yes, she'd grabbed a knife, but surely he didn't think she'd be so desperate as to use it on him now that she'd recognized him...
"Please have a seat, Miss Hooper," he said with no change of expression – and without lowering his weapon. "We have a great deal to discuss before I make my decision as to how to handle this distasteful situation in which we find ourselves."
She sat down without removing her eyes from his. Mycroft took a seat on the sofa opposite her, finally lowering his gun and resting it on one knee. He regarded her steadily for a long moment before speaking. "I see you have been prepared to flee for some time now – your entire adult life, I wager?"
When he seemed to want an answer, she nodded, unwillingly but knowing that Mycroft had clearly already discovered her secret. He must have been part of the team decoding the list of clients her chemist had been providing illicit suppressants to – or heading it up. Which meant he was here to – to what? Her mind stopped short of finding a reasonable answer to that question. The usual procedure, from what she'd read and seen on the news, was to simply sweep up the women whose secrets had been exposed, immediately take them off their meds and send them away for government-sponsored brainwashing after they'd gone through at least one heat.
"The only reason you have not been quietly taken off to a rehabilitation facility, Miss Hooper, along with the other false Betas your chemist was providing with illegal suppressants, is due entirely to your association with my brother."
She bit back a snort; Mycroft was so much like Sherlock, answering her questions before she could even open her mouth to ask them. "So, then, what, what happens now?" she asked, hating the return of her stutter, wishing to hell she could control it better.
Mycroft gave a thin smile and clasped his hands over his knee. "That, Miss Hooper, is entirely up to you."
Molly shivered, knowing that whatever came next, she wasn't going to like it.