Countermeasures

Countermeasures A measure or action taken to counter or offset another one

The flat was ridiculously easy to find in the end.

As promised, Molly was there.

Sherlock's heart leapt into his throat as he took in the scene before him: Molly, lying on the white carpet, eyes closed, skin nearly as pale as the surface beneath her body, a thick tide of blood pouring pouring pouring from between her legs. Her breathing, shallow, her pulse (when had he moved, when had he dropped to his knees and grasped her delicate wrist in his shaking fingers?) thready, uneven. With one hand he automatically dialed the emergency number, giving the operator the pertinent information in cold, clipped tones that belied the frantic racing of his mind, the thundering of his heart in his chest.

Molly was haemorrhaging. Molly was haemorrhaging because she'd given birth, although the baby was nowhere to be seen.

Molly was going to die if the ambulance didn't arrive here very very soon, and it was all his fault.

Twenty-Four Hours Earlier

"Jesus. Fucking. Christ."

John Watson made each word of the profanity a separate sentence as he stared at the man who had just risen to his feet and turned to face him.

They were in Greg Lestrade's Scotland Yard office, with the Detective Inspector still seated behind his desk, looking as dazed – as flat out stunned – as John currently felt.

"Yeah. I said the same thing," Lestrade muttered, running a hand over his close-cropped graying hair and shaking his head at the same time. "Sherlock bloody Holmes, alive and well and in my office, telling me I shouldn't bother arresting him or even punching him cause he's not important enough to waste time on right now."

"I'm not." That was the man himself. Sherlock bloody Holmes, as Greg had just put it. Staring right back at John Watson as he groped behind himself for a chair and half-fell into it. "I'm sorry for the abruptness of my return to the world of the living, John, I'm sure this must be something of a shock..."

"That's – that's one way to put it, yeah," John muttered in agreement as he took in his not-dead friend's form, drank in the sight of him and started to grin. He wasn't dead. His best friend wasn't dead, hadn't killed himself...wait, how? How had he...

"I'll explain later, John, but as I was just telling the Detective Inspector," he turned his head to glare at the other man, "Molly's been kidnapped by Moriarty."

He showed the two men the photo of Molly he'd been sent as well as the taunting message, and John felt his guts clench at the thought of sweet Molly and little unborn "Hamish" in the hands of the madman who'd convinced Sherlock the only way he could save his friends was to jump off the roof of St. Bart's.

That same institution, as it turned out, was where Molly had been kidnapped during the middle of one of her shifts.

Things went by in a bit of a blur after Sherlock showed them the photo and text; phone calls were made, Mycroft Holmes put in an appearance along with his madly-texting assistant – although at least "Anthea" appeared to show some genuine distress at being told of Molly's kidnapping.

During the eight months that Sherlock had been "dead" a great deal of his reputation had been restored as bits and pieces of Moriarty's criminal empire had "mysteriously" crumbled. He'd been cleared of the kidnapping and fraud charges (not that John had believed for even one moment that they'd been true, he'd certainly never believed what Sherlock told him as he fell from the roof that horrible day) but still had an outstanding warrant out for resisting arrest and taking a hostage. John had long since refused to press charges, and somehow Mycroft managed, in one afternoon, to make any other legal problems his brother faced vanish.

Not that John was ready to forgive the elder Holmes for playing right into Moriarty's hands and landing Sherlock in this mess in the first place; only the fact that Molly and the baby were in danger kept him from punching Mycroft square in the nose as soon as he caught sight of him.

"Finding Molly and the baby is more important than taking our anger out on my brother." Sherlock's voice – Christ, when did he become the voice of reason? – was low and intense as he stood by John's side.

John did a double take as he realized what Sherlock had just said – "our" anger rather than "your" anger. Had he learned that Mycroft was at least partially responsible for Moriarty's elaborate set-up, how well he'd been able to play them all? Or had the other man owned up to what he'd done? Either way, it was good to know John wasn't hiding anything from his friend. He'd never been one for tit for tat, and just because Sherlock had hidden so much from him didn't mean he had any desire to retaliate.

And of course he was right. Finding Molly was the priority. Molly and little "Hamish," so close to being born now that the trauma of being kidnapped could very well precipitate early labor. He hesitated to bring that subject out into the open; Sherlock already had enough to deal with, even though the threat of arrest and incarceration was no longer hanging over his head.

Although he knew his concern and distress must be as easy for Sherlock to deduce as the color of his hair, he was grateful that the other man for once didn't try to figure out why John felt that way, beyond the obvious. But then, he was busy barking orders at Sergeant Donovan and the uniformed officers that had been assigned to assist them in their desperate search for Molly.

It was the first time he'd ever spent more than five minutes in Sally Donovan's presence where she didn't refer to Sherlock as "freak" or give him the stinkeye. Come to think of it, Sherlock hadn't so much as commented on the fact that she was now wearing a wedding ring. Either the world had ended or detente had been called in face of the current crisis. Or a new leaf had been turned over?

Again, something not worth bothering with, although John could hardly stop his mind from wandering since there was quite literally nothing he could do to help track Molly down. Sherlock was sitting at a laptop now, that fiercely intent look of concentration on his face that John had missed for the past eight months, the look that meant Sherlock was focused, on the case, and not going to allow anything to stand in the way of him finding the truth.

Of finding Molly and the baby.

John held fast to the thought that the madman actually seemed to want them to be found, if the text he'd sent Sherlock was anything to go by.

As the hours passed, he held tight to that hope.

He was dozing in a chair with his feet up on a low table littered with the remains of Chinese take-away when the sound of a door slamming jarred him awake. He looked around blearily, fumbling for his mobile; what time was it? Two in the morning, or just after, and had someone entered or left the room?

Entered, apparently. Sherlock was by his side, tugging impatiently at him. "Get up, John," he said tersely. "I've found her."