The Next Great Adventure

The lab is lit by a strange grayish light, like someone's pulled a filter over his eyes and Sherlock can't remember coming in or what he's doing here. But he sees Molly hesitating over a body that's shrouded by a white sheet and suspects something must be wrong. A moment passes and for some reason he can't tell how long it's been but Molly doesn't move to do the autopsy nor does she turn to acknowledge that he's in the room.

The idea of her ignoring him is actually laughable.

Usually it's like he's all that she sees when he comes in the room, but there's something very different at play here.

He's keen to watch it play out. Sherlock's forgotten about how to observe and how much value there can be in just watching the events unfold and studying them. Time passes and nothing changes except for the level of coffee in her cup. What's wrong with her?

"You having fun?" the voice seems to come from nowhere and she's there; pale to the point that she's almost albino, red-eyed contacts, curly dark hair and an American accent that's tinted with a Southern drawl. She's not nearly as tall as him and there's nothing imposing or threatening about her, by the size of her eyes and the way she's dressed and carrying herself he can guess she's somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen or seventeen years old.

"Didn't know they were letting children into a mortuary," he said, his eyes flicking up and down over her body, looking for clues. Her hair was dry, no sign of umbrella, though it was clearly raining outside. Shoes, clean and dry, so no one shared an umbrella with her and walked her up. She'd been here a while or she'd come in some way that didn't require one to worry over rain…the garages? She's too young to drive and a taxi wouldn't be permitted…

She silenced his mind with a touch, her pale hand wrapping her the chiseled edge of his chin. "Awe, you sexy-thing, I go where I please," she made a pouty lipped face and shook her hand lightly against his cheek. He was reminded of Irene Alder for a brief moment.

No reaction from Molly, Sherlock thought he would change that. "Doctor Hooper, are you keen to letting children wander about a lab filled with dead bodies and chemicals?" he said. Still nothing.

"Are you going to miss it? The way you're watching her seems like you might even miss her, or is that something else that I'm picking up on there?" the girl was suddenly across the room sitting on the edge of a workstation, her pretty legs crossed and a finger winding teasingly through her curls.

Sherlock's eyes widened for a split second but he controlled his surprise and ignored her question and posed one of his own. "Emotional Boy Rock Will Save the World," he read her shirt-it was more to distract himself than her. "What does that mean, exactly Miss…"

"My name's Dee and it's a shirt for a band I like, Bloc Party. They're from here, though not your speed I'd take it Mister Holmes. Far too little violin for your tastes," she said.

"One never knows what they like till they try something," Sherlock said, he was looking at Molly and he turned to see someone pass in the hallway outside. He turned back, she was still standing over that damned body, now her hands were pressed down on the metal workstation supporting her. She didn't have her supplies out, was she crying? She sounded distant somehow…

Dee smiled and hopped down from bench, it was a far drop for her. Her heels clicked on the hard tile floor as she crossed the room toward him. However she had moved so fast before she didn't bother with it this time. "You didn't answer my question, are you going to miss it?" she asked.

"Miss what?" none of this made sense, Dee didn't make any sense.

"Living," Dee said. "Being alive? There was a lot you didn't get to try-even though you lived a pretty extraordinary life." Sherlock had to try not to look shocked, he had to try and sort out what she was saying. She wasn't going to kill him, she wasn't the type. He could surmise that much from looking at her.

"I'm dead?" the question came out before he meant it to.

A small giggle escaped Dee. "Analytical as always, most dead people freak out and try and attack me when I tell them that. And let me tell you that's not a good idea, I'm small but I could lay your ass out," she said still laughing.

"I don't remember being…how did I…"

"You got dragged under in the Thames, which is pretty fucking funny considering you went over a waterfall and lived only to drown in the Thames," she chuckled before clearing her throat. "Everyone's lost hope though, there wasn't a body the last time and now they have concrete evidence that Sherlock Holmes is indeed very, very dead," Dee said. She led him over to the body and he could see Molly was indeed crying now.

Suddenly everything stopped, Molly's tears were frozen in place on her face and the rain outside hung in mid-air never reaching the ground. The whole of London was dead silent and Dee threw back the sheet over the body to reveal Sherlock Holme's pale form lying on the autopsy bay. Sherlock studied himself and he looked bluish, though he wasn't sure how much of that was the light or how long it had been since he drowned. He didn't want to study it too hard-his last deductions in this world wouldn't be of himself.

He touched the side of Molly's face. And he could touch her, she was solidly there and he didn't pass through. He brushed a tear away and looked at it. Part of them wanted to ask who Dee really was, what she was. But that much was obvious now.

Sherlock turned his back to Molly and faced Dee, there was something endearing in her eyes and when she smiled at him even he felt comfortable, dumbfounded, like his mind couldn't process anything anymore and it didn't matter. "I guess…this game had to end sometime," Sherlock said.

Dee's smile widened. "A great man once said: Death is just life's next big adventure," Dee said.

Sherlock didn't know the quote's progenitor, but Dee looked rather proud of herself in saying it for some reason. "Shall we go then?" he asked.

"Oh you're not going," Dee said. "See the way I figure it your story's far from finished and the world could stand to see Sherlock Holmes become a better man, become a legend."

"Then…"

"Sex, kids, learning to drive, weed…you might have done the amazing, the brilliantly extraordinary, but you've got no idea the fun that can come from just living life like so many others do, you should try it, Sherlock," Dee circled around him as he followed her with his eyes and then stepped in and kissed him on the lips. Her mouth was cold and hot at the same time and she bit him lightly before pulling away. "And you're a shitty kisser too, you've got a lot of work to do," she said.

And with that she pushed him, hard.

Molly had been in the room with the body since it had been brought in. Watson hadn't bothered to come in, he didn't want to look and waited out in the hall somewhere. She knew Mycroft had seen him when they pulled him out of the Thames. It was just too soon, she couldn't just cut on Sherlock like this. She didn't keep a watch on at work and the clock in the lab was behind her. Something was back there in her mind, she could feel someone watching her and she didn't bother to look back.

Besides she couldn't take her eyes off the sheet in front of here which she knew covered up Sherlock Holmes. Part of her wished she had told him that she loved him. She should have told him a million times before, that stupid card a few years ago didn't count. And why didn't she tell him after Reichenbach? Why was she so scared. It was only him that made her behave like this and she didn't get it.

Well she got it, he was Sherlock Holmes, or he had been.

Now she was crying, her hands resting on either side of the bench. This just sealed it then, this really meant that he wasn't the one she was meant to be with. And her gay friend Saul had said to her from the first time he saw her reaction to Sherlock 'any man that makes Molly stop talking for a minute is a keeper-she goes like the clappers…'

God, she couldn't stop crying.

Then something odd happened, someone touched her face but they didn't and a tear was gone as if it had just been whipped off. The next second the sheet covering Sherlock was pulled back and she didn't remember removing it. But there was something else odd, he looked like he had regained color.

None sense it was the light.

But then he was coughing and retching up water on her floor and Molly was squealing and she dashed out of the room forgetting that he might need help and he was nude. "John! Oh John come quick! There's been a miracle!"

Molly was raised Catholic, still went to mass now and then and she couldn't help, but admit she had prayed more than once over him. When she returned to his side he was blinking moisture back into his eyes, John burst through the doors of the examination room.

"You were dead," Molly said. Sherlock tossed the sheet away and Watson shielded his eyes from the nudeness, though Sherlock didn't really care who'd see him naked. Molly took the opportunity to peek and her smile widened.

"Just another clever disguise," he said. "Now then, I think coffee is in order-my treat!"

"I think I'll get it, since you're naked and so, so naked and all," Molly stammered.

John grabbed a spare lab coat off a rack. "This should remedy that," he didn't seem to know what to say, he looked as if he wanted to hug Sherlock but didn't want the oddness of his giblets rubbing against his suit.

Fuck it. Molly still hugged him.