"You say it. Go on, you say it first."
- "What?"
- "Say it. Say it like you mean it." Molly holds the phone in her hand. If she has to lay herself open for him, it's the one thing she wants in return. There have been so many times that she thought that maybe he did love her.
You can see me. - I don't count. His reaction to her words had been the reason she had fled the lab. It had made her feel like she did matter. And that simply wasn't true, she knew that. She didn't want to feel something so strongly, not if it was only to have her hopes smashed to pieces. Sherlock and her were alike in that way.
You're wrong, you know. You do count. You've always counted and I've always trusted you. No, he didn't, she was nothing to him.
What do you need? - You. She looked at his face, trying to analyse his emotions. She couldn't permit herself to blink, not if it meant missing any hint of emotion that would indicate this all being a lie. His eyes were honest. She could do nothing else but believe him.
"I… I love you." Molly closes her eyes. After so many years, she doesn't need to look at his face anymore to detect his emotions. He's lying. He only said this for her. She takes a breath to say the words back to him.
"I love you," he repeats. Sincere. Raw. Molly stares at her phone. This time is feels real. The emotion poured into the words makes her hesitate.
The one person he thought didn't matter at all to me, was the one person who mattered the most. You made it all possible. She couldn't do this, she was engaged to Tom. She felt miserable when a surge of happiness spread across her. The happiness, the thrill that she only felt with Sherlock.
I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it. Was he letting her go? Maybe she should do the same.
"Molly?" he says, when she stays quiet. She keeps staring at her phone. Maybe she should let him go.
"Molly, please," he begs her. There's panic in his voice. She can do this. She can let him go. And this can be her parting words.
- "I love you," she whispers.
She hears a sigh of relief coming out of her phone and prepares herself to be ridiculed. Although that would be out of character, this whole phone call has been something she would never have expected from him.
"Sherlock, however hard that was…" A different voice. Oh God, he wasn't alone! Was it Mycroft? Even after him swearing it wasn't one of his games, an experiment… he had
- "Eurus, I won." It's Sherlock again. He won. He won. It was a game. A silly game, and she was used as a pawn, manipulated like she hasn't been in years. She feels sick. Who is this Eurus? "I won. Come on, play fair, the girl on the plane, I need to talk to her." Discomfort creeps up her throat. A girl on a plane? What does this have to do with her? "I won, I saved Molly Hooper!" she hears Sherlock insisting. Saved her? How did he save her?
"Sherlock? What's happening? What do you m-?" she says.
- "Saved her? From what?' another voice says, female this time. Molly doesn't recognise it. It's a voice that makes her shiver, a voice without emotion. "Oh, do be sensible, there were no explosives in her little house." Explosives? Molly looks around in panic. Was the female voice talking about her? About her flat?
- "Who is this? Talk to me! Answer me! Sherlock, what is happening?" Molly tries to keep her voice as calm as possible, but fails miserably.
"Why would I be so clumsy?" the voice continues, "you didn't win, you lost."
Sherlock… lost? Molly gasps at the implication. Does this mean that he's in danger?
"Sherlock, please, you're scaring me! What's going on?" she says. "Sherlock?" They're ignoring her. Sherlock and the female voice don't answer her pleas.
- "Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself, all those complicated little emotions, I lost count." The unknown woman was using her to get to Sherlock. Manipulating them both, pulling at the strings. She can hear an emotions now. Barely concealed delight. Delight at having used Sherlock and herself against each other.
"Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you. Every time." Molly feels a stab of fear for Sherlock. And anger. Had this woman done this to Sherlock before? Destroying him by using his emotions against him? "Now please, pull yourself together. I need you at peak efficiency. The next one isn't going to be so easy. In your own time."
- "Whoever you are, stop this immediately!" Molly commands before being cut of by a soft chuckle.
- "Hello Dr. Hooper. I don't believe we've met. Still I would like to thank you for your cooperation. You have been most… valuable." Molly refrains from gasping. The game hasn't finished yet. The voice is taunting her now.
- "Who are you?" she says.
- "Merely an interested party, Dr. Hooper. But enough about me, let's talk about you. You must be intelligent, or at least moderately so. Perhaps you've already deduced what is going on? Instead of snivelling into your phone, you can tell me what you've discovered so far." Against her will, Molly hears herself answering.
- "You have Sherlock. You're using me against him. It's all a game to you," Molly spits in the receiver.
- "An experiment, dear doctor, not a game. And I wouldn't necessarily say I'm using you against him. It goes both ways. You see, Dr. Hooper, the experiment isn't over yet." Molly hears a soft crackle from her phone before she hears Sherlock's voice again.
"No…" he says, almost softly, before roaring, "No!"
A crash. Yelling. An even louder crash that keeps repeating itself. Even more yelling. No, not yelling, screaming. Sherlock screaming. When he returned to England after two years of dismantling down Moriarty's network, he had stayed at her flat for three days and three nights. Nights that were filled with nightmares, him screaming and begging. Molly had thought that those nights had been terrible. But this, this screaming coming out of her phone, it was even worse.
"Sherlock! Listen to me!" she cries into her phone, "Sherlock, please! Please, leave him alone! Don't do this to him!" The screaming continues. Sherlock is screaming his lungs out in pain, as if he's being tortured. Tortured. Molly feels panic rising like bile in her throat, burning, uncomfortable. "Leave him alone! Please!" They are both screaming themselves hoarse. Tears a rolling down Molly's cheeks.
The screaming stops suddenly.
A final crash and a shuddering breath.
"Sherlock? Sherlock, are you alright?" Molly holds her phone as close to her ear as possible. Please be alive. Answer me. Be alive.
- "Thank you, Dr. Hooper. You have been most helpful." says the voice, before the line goes dead.
- "What? No! No!" Molly screams. With shaking hands, she dials Sherlock number. No answer. She takes a shallow breath and tries again. Still no answer. Her skin feels cold. She feels dizzy. She looks down at her shaking hands. "Shock… I'm going into shock."