The Girl Who Didn't Count
Chapter 1
AN: This begins right after Mycroft sits down and tells Sherlock some brief details regarding Euros and Italics indicate Molly's flashbacks. Enjoy!
"Then why don't I remember her?"
"You do remember her, in a way. Every choice you've ever made, every path you've ever taken, the man you are today… is your memory of Euros."
"Euros? What? Mycroft no…" a previously unheard voice shouted from the stairs, "You promised me he'd never have to know the truth." The voice was desperate and she was panting. It was Molly. Molly Hooper. All faces turned to the pathologist who stood exhausted at the doorway. One face of shock. One face of anger. And one face of nothing. "Molly?" asked John bewildered.
As soon as she'd received the text from Mycroft saying he was going to 221B to tell Sherlock about Euros, Molly panicked. She'd promised herself since that day she saw him after 24 years apart that he would never know what she had to do to protect him from his sister and to keep herself safe.
Mycroft only glanced at the pleading look which covered her features from the chair. "An implication has occurred Miss Hooper, I am only doing what is in my brother's best interest and what must be done."
"What must be done?" She cried, running to stand in front of Sherlock as if somehow she could stop Mycroft from saying anymore, "you told me… No, promised me he'd never have to know."
Mycroft again spoke to her in his demeaning voice, "Molly, I know this is hard but it has been too long and if we don't tell him now he'll remember on his own from the information I've given him and we wouldn't want that, now would we? So, let me speak to my brother now Miss Hooper, he has to know."
She did as she was told and moved to stand next to Mycroft side, still facing Sherlock but not daring to meet his eyes in case her strength failed her and she lost control. He wasn't even looking at her and instead she looked at Mycroft as he spoke.
"She was different from the beginning. She knew things she should never have known. As if she was somehow aware of truths beyond the normal scope."
They were sitting and drawing pictures of each other amongst the gravestones of Musgrave, her, and Euros one day in June. Redbeard and Yellow beard were both playing together a few metres in front of them, lost in their playing of pirates. Molly looked up to the sky and saw that there was no cloud in sight and smiled as she felt the soft sun on her face. She looked at the two boys in front of her and smiled when she noticed how engrossed they were in their game, she was happy, until she turned to her left and saw Euros. Since they were born only a few months apart, Euros being the eldest, everyone thought the two would be inseparable but the two girls were anything but. They despised each other and although Molly at the time would have said hated she wouldn't have meant it, unlike Euros who would mean it with all her heart.
"Are you ok, Euros?" Asked Molly, "you look really sad."
"I'm always sad, Molly, you just never see it. No one does. Not even Mummy and Daddy," said the girl looking only at her drawing.
"Why?" She knew she made Euros sad sometimes but her Mummy was so kind to everyone, especially Euros as she always called her a 'princess'.
"Because I only look like it when I think no one can see me."
"But I can see you right now, silly!"
Euros didn't answer this time and continued drawing. Molly in turn was upset she couldn't understand how Euros was upset when she had such a loving family and she was so clever at everything.
She looked back at her drawing and then looked at Euros' picture and looked at her own puzzled. "Euros, why am I in a well in your picture?"
Mycroft paused and looked taken aback then.
"What's wrong?" Asked John from the chair across from her and awakened her from her thoughts. He wasn't talking to her, it was Mycroft. "Sorry", he said dryly, "the memories are disturbing."
It was Sherlock who spoke this time, the law baritone voice asking, "What do you mean? Examples...". He still wasn't looking at her.
"They found her with a knife once. She seemed to be cutting herself, mother and father were terrified as can be expected, but later when I asked Euros what she was doing she replied "I wanted to see how my muscles work"".
"Jesus".
"So, I asked her if she felt pain and she said "which one's pain"".
"What happened?" Asked Sherlock.
"Musgrave. It was our home and it was where Sherlock would play among the gravestones whose dates were all wrong and after the event… It was where Euros would always sing her special song."
"Help succour me now the East Wind blows," said Sherlock.
He was remembering.
"16 by 6," said Mycroft.
He would hate not just Euros but her as well.
"And under we go," said Molly. Euros wouldn't stop singing it after Redbeard disappeared and it drove Molly mad, the song was the key but she could never work it out.
John spoke then, "Molly how do you know? You didn't know Sherlock when he was a child?", he was confused and like Molly wondered how she'd actually gotten there. and if this was real. She hoped this was just a bad dream.
"Yes, she did," Sherlock remarked dreamily.
"Your starting to remember, aren't you?", asked Mycroft.
"Fragments."
Molly decided to tell the rest and as she gathered all her courage she told them what happened, "she took your dog, Redbeard… and locked him up somewhere no one could find him and she never told us…to my knowledge that is, where he was. We all begged her to tell us where he was but she would never say all she told us was that the song was the answer. But no one could work out what the song meant," she turned to Sherlock and said, "not even you."
He didn't look at her, only Mycroft and asked him "What happened to Redbeard?"
"We never found him. But she started calling him 'drowned Redbeard' so we made our assumptions. you were traumatised, never the same again and after a while you forgot she even existed," he replied.
"How? How could I if she lived in the same house? What happened next?"
"Miss Hooper" Mycroft said turning to face her, "perhaps you would like to tell us what happened next."