Setting: Picks up where HLV left off.
Chapter Summary: Is Moriarty alive or is he dead? Molly Hooper knows. She should. She personally cut out his heart, after all...
"What is the problem, Mycroft?" Sherlock Holmes couldn't keep the irritability from his voice when speaking to his elder brother, nor did he particularly try.
"I've ordered the plane to return to the airstrip. There's been an incident. England needs you," Mycroft Holmes replied succinctly.
"Then 'England' should stop being so capricious and make up her mind. What's happened?"
"Do be patient a moment and allow me speak to the flight attendant again," The elder Holmes brother ordered in a tone that illustrated perfectly why a man in only his mid-forties was made director of MI6.
Sherlock handed the phone over to the bland young man hovering at his elbow. The flight attendant listened for several seconds before activating the large screen attached to the galley wall. With Jim Moriarty's voice oozing from the speakers, Sherlock needed no further explanation.
Mycroft rung off as he exited his vehicle and joined the worried looking Watson's by the second sedan. Dr. Watson straightened his spine in a fashion that blatantly broadcast his military background. Waiting for orders, as usual. "Mrs. Mary Watson" (Mycroft would always mentally add quotation marks, given what he knew) had one hand on her large belly and one hand hovering near where a gun had been secreted only an hour before. She was a study in contrasts: one part concerned wife and mother, one part hyper-vigilant former agent. With this new development, Mycroft was regretting the order to have the couple disarmed before being brought to the tarmac.
"Wait for Sherlock. The driver will take you directly to Baker Street. Inform him I will be along shortly. Make him stay there."
Dr. Watson opened his mouth (to protest, Mycroft assumed), but was ignored as the gentleman returned to his own car and pulled out his mobile. Dialing a number he had memorized long ago, Mycroft waited with increasing impatience as the line rang and rang… and then went dead.
"Duncan," Mycroft said smoothly to his driver, "St. Bartholomew's hospital, pathology building, as quickly as possible."
"Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?"
With shaking hands, Molly Hooper quickly cleaned up glass fragments from the beaker she dropped. Thankfully, it had been empty, or she would have a much bigger mess to clean up. She giggled as she threw away the shards. Oh, there was a bigger mess to clean up, all right, just not one of her making. The giggling veered uncomfortably close to hysterical. Molly grit her teeth and forced herself to calm down and think.
Her first instinct was to call Sherlock, but she hesitated. She had neither seen nor spoken to him since just before he left to celebrate the holidays with his family. It was silly, Molly knew, feeling awkward when a national incident was unfolding around her, but she couldn't help it. In the end, she decided her best course of action would be to get herself among people and away from the most isolated portion of the building. Surrounded by people, away from the empty lab preying on her active imagination, she could regroup and decide what to do. Decision made, she spun on her heel and started for the door. She barely got two feet away from her previous position when the lights went out.
Molly immediately froze, her heartbeat speeding up dramatically. She felt her nervous system kick into protective mode and began mentally reciting each physiological change. It was a trick she learned from her dad long ago. Reduce your reaction to its scientific terms and the physical effects would begin to disappear.
It didn't take long to calm herself, it never did, and Molly once again took stock of her situation. She waited, unconsciously holding her breath, for the emergency lights to kick in as would be expected for a normal power outage. The pathology department was in one of the older buildings in the complex. It wasn't unusual for the lights to flicker. The emergency system was the same used in the more modern areas of the hospital. It should activate at any moment.
It didn't activate.
That didn't mean anything, really. Just because someone managed to play a video of Jim Moriarty on the television screen in her lab, and then the lights went out (and were staying out) did not mean that Jim Moriarty had risen from the dead to start a zombie apocalypse.
Molly gave herself a mental pep talk, convincing her very active imagination that Zombie Jim was not, in fact, waiting for her around the corner. She also quietly reminded herself that she knew this room better than she knew her own flat. She could make it to the door (fifteen feet forward, seven feet to the left) and out into the corridor, beyond which lay another passageway leading to the ambulance bay and light. Loads and loads of lovely, bright zombie- destroying light. No, wait. Light destroyed vampires. One had to blow the head off of a zombie. It was a fearful time indeed when Molly Hooper couldn't keep her zombie survival skills separate from her other general undead knowledge.
Molly slowly began moving towards the door, creating a mental map of the lab that she followed in spite of the oppressive darkness. Three feet forward and she should be in front of the sample analysis equipment. She reached out and her hand found the smooth edge of the monitor. With that success to push her along, Molly continued her trek to the doors, pausing once to consider going back to the dissection station on the right side of the room. She had just turned on the recording equipment in preparation for the dissection she had been about to perform on poor Humphries' liver. The digital recorder was battery operated for portability, but the batteries were expensive. She hated leaving things running when she wasn't going to be in the lab, but she decided, just this once, it was justifiable, so she soldiered on.
Just past the samples station, she stubbed her toe on a stool and squeaked out a mild curse. She was too busy leaning on the stool and shaking her foot to notice the old public address system speaker hiss and crackle to life until she heard a tinny voice echoing in the room.
"Why Molly Hooper! I've never known you to use such language." The old intercom system that connected all of the teaching areas was two way and one of the dinosaurs that admin refused to remove.
Molly looked up towards where she knew the speaker to be, "Who's there?"
"Come on, honey. You know who this is," purred a sickeningly familiar voice. One she had not heard in two years and now had heard twice in as many minutes. "Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you."
"I don't know who you are, but I know who you aren't: Jim Moriarty," Molly said with a confidence she didn't feel. "He's dead."
"Tsk, tsk. Such certainty from someone with so much experience in faking death! You of all people should know how easy it is to exchange a body for a body. Let's list them, shall we? Sherlock, of course, then there's The Woman... you do know about her, by now, surely? Then there's me..."
"Oh? And who are you?"
"You know who I am," the voice said flirtatiously.
"I don't know who you are or why you want to frighten me. What I do know, is that Jim Moriarty is dead."
"Autopsy reports can be faked, darling, you would know that better than anyone."
"Paperwork can be faked, but holding a heart you've just cut out of a man's chest is a pretty convincing indicator of death," Molly said with little emotion. There was a pause. "Oh, didn't know that I performed the autopsy did you? I did the autopsy and my superior signed off on the paperwork."
"Well, seeing as how it wasn't me you were cutting up…."
"Of course not. It was James Moriarty on my table."
"Hmm. Stubborn aren't you? Of course, that little bit of backbone is what made you interesting. Dating you to get to Sherlock wasn't the chore I thought it would be… Well, except for that time you forced me to watch Glee…"
"Which is a fact anyone could have found by reading my silly attempt at a blog."
Molly struggled to keep her voice even and clear, treating the conversation the way she would an autopsy or dissection. It was this connection that reminded the woman of the digital recorder across the room recording the disturbing conversation. She had been engaging the disembodied voice in order to mask her slow progress to the doors, but now Molly saw an opportunity to trip up the imposter. Plus, if Molly was wrong and things ended up badly for her, there would be a record for Sherlock. She was pretty sure her death under the current circumstances would rate at least a seven.
Molly couldn't help the wry grin that twitched at her mouth. How many years had she fantasized about being the focus of Sherlock's attention? It would be just her luck that when it finally happened it would be because Molly had managed to get herself murdered. A tiny part of her hoped that the voice really was Jim. If she was going to provide a real challenge to Sherlock's deductive skills, then her death needed to be above seven. Being the victim of an undead master criminal might just push her case over the line into an eight.
"Toby got your tongue, Miss Molly?" The voice sounded annoyed and the static from the old speaker hissed louder. The more the voice spoke, the less it sounded like Jim Moriarty. "I don't really liked being ignored, sweetie. Would it be easier if we spoke face to face? Oh, that's brilliant! Hold on a sec, Molly, I'll be right there."
Molly jumped slightly and momentarily froze in place. All of the old intercom units were wired to broadcast to and from any room. Whoever it was could be anywhere in the building, even next door. Molly made a split second decision and made a blind dash for the door. She felt a thrill as her outstretched hands connected with the cool wood and she pushed through.
Once in the corridor, she knew she could flat out run, it was a narrow passage with double doors at the end-
Molly swallowed a scream when she suddenly plowed into another person, sending them both flying to the floor. She immediately began kicking out and rolled away, ready to scratch, punch and claw her way past whoever it was trying to frighten her. Hand drawn back with fingers closed, ready to gouge, Molly was stopped by the sudden return of the lights. She let out her breath with a relieved squeak.
Sprawled on the floor next to her was a very familiar person with very familiar curly hair and wearing a very familiar wool coat. Molly felt the tension drain out of her as she sighed in relief.
"Tom."