This story is not a crossover, however, I was inspired by Six Feet Under and I love the idea that Molly might have been raised in a family run funeral home. There will be one incident in this story that is very obviously inspired by that show. I hope some of you may enjoy this story in spite of it's very grim tone. It's very, very Sherlolly - so much of that to come! Disclaimer - I don't own the Sherlock characters and this is not for profit
So I come back to say this good-by,
A sort of ceremony of my own,
This stepping backward for another glance.
(Stepping Backward for Another Glance- Adrienne Rich)
"An agreement has been reached. You have nothing to fear. Soon you will be home and you can put all of this behind you, nothing more than an unpleasant memory."
"Not entirely unpleasant." She smiled at him.
"No. Not entirely." He agreed, his voice barely more than a whisper.
The armed men pulled her away, more insistently now, shoving her towards the exit.
"I'm not scared, Sherlock." Molly said as she was pushed out the door. "Remember that, okay? I'm not scared at all."
The image was grainy, unfocused at times, with a yellow hue cast on everything from a combination of poor lighting and a cheap camera. At first, it was just a pair of eyes. They were brown, that much could be observed, despite the poor quality of the picture. The angle widened until a face filled the monitor. One more adjustment and finally the camera stopped zooming out. The picture became a little sharper, as the image settled on the head and upper body of the owner of the brown eyes, finally making clear the identity of the person; Molly Hooper.
She was crying, not just crying but sobbing openly, without shame. She was speaking, but there was no audio to accompany the video. Tears streamed down her face as if she was nothing more than a conduit for the ocean to flow through at a steady trickle. Her nose was running too, and when she spoke her face expressed such terrible sorrow.
Minutes passed before the screen went dark and a new image appeared.
This one depicted a woman flanked by two men dressed in black militaristic style clothing and army boots. They led the woman, her hands cuffed in front of her – they were shaking violently, apparent even at this greater distance - to a stone wall and there they seemed to be talking to her at length, instructing her on where and how to stand judging by the gestures they made as they spoke.
But the gestures went unseen by the woman. Her face was obscured by a dark fabric sack pulled over her head, but the dress was the same one Molly had worn in the video where she had cried and begged. Now she clasped her cuffed hands together as if in prayer and stood by that wall on shaking legs.
The men walked away, beyond the view of the camera, which zoomed in on the figure of the lone woman, before widening again and then it panned left to reveal a squad of ten men, also clad in black uniforms. They held light semi-automatic military rifles at their sides. Without audio, no orders could be heard, but when they moved, it was as if they were one. They hoisted their rifles, balancing the butt of the guns on shoulders, and in unison they opened fire.
When the camera panned back to the right, it revealed the small woman collapsed to the ground in a lifeless heap and the screen went black.
Sherlock awoke with a start, his heart hammering and his breath coming in short gasps.
It was the same dream that haunted him every time he closed his eyes, ever since he had found himself returned to 221B, three days ago with no sign as to how he had arrived there. And Molly was gone, not a trace of her remained in London. The last time he had set eyes on her was to see her led away from the cell they had shared for several days.
There was only the video file. He had only that and the memory of what she had done for him. How could he have been so wrong about Molly Hooper? How had he so seriously underestimated this woman?
And yet, it was something Sherlock Holmes had always done with the important people in his life. He only took in the parts of their lives that intersected with his own. The value of a person lay only in their actions in the moment. This was sometimes a positive. He could easily disregard a persons past as long as they had proven to be loyal in the present. But he also had a tendency to dismiss large chunks of his friends lives that he deemed unimportant. Because of this, he missed so much of who these people truly were.
There was so much he missed when he reduced friends to a handful of traits that he observed in his quick assessment, as he had in the case of Molly Hooper.
Yes, he had underestimated her.
He had always, always done so. Even after all the times she had helped him, he still had not really understood that Molly Hooper was more than frumpy clothes, and cat blogs and school girl crushes.
Even though he understood and respected her skill at her job and secretly liked her gallows humour, he somehow had missed the essence of just who was Molly Hooper. And she was more than these hand full of quirks and traits that Sherlock had become accustomed to over the years. She was so much more!
And so, Sherlock Holmes was determined to answer this question; who was Molly Hooper?
He sat on a train heading for Northampton and watched the houses as they slipped past, through the window.
Eight days ago Sherlock had thought he had come to terms with his own fate as he sat aboard a small plane taking him to his certain (if Mycroft was right, and he always was) demise. He thought he had pulled off a convincing performance in making his farewell to his best friend. He had made it vague as to whether he would ever return, obfuscating the fact of his imminent death.
Of course John Watson wasn't a complete idiot. He knew that the situation was grim, but he understood that he was powerless to change what was happening other than to undo the only good things that had come of Magnussen's death and that was Mary Watson's life.
And so he had boarded the plane, flashing the Watsons one of his rare genuine smiles and took his seat as the plan taxied down the runway. It was to his great surprise to find the plane banking immediately after take off, to return to the air strip they had just left below.
It was Moriarty.
Or so it seemed. The video footage was obviously a poor attempt at showing a miraculously returned-from-the-dead Moriarty, with the use of old video footage. Anyone could have done that, it was amateurish at best. The thing that was not as simple, however was the fact that it was broadcast on every television in the country. Hardly something an amateur would be capable of, as it would take a clever mind and some serious funding to accomplish this.
Mycroft's first course of action was to send units to potential targets. Molly Hooper was high on that list. It was no longer a secret that it had been she who had helped Sherlock fake his death. That, and the fact that Jim from IT had turned out to be Moriarty, that he had used Molly to get to Sherlock only increased the likelihood that she would be a target for retaliation.
It was the beginning of the end for Molly Hooper, for when they arrived at Barts, she was already gone. Sherlock had shocked everyone in his frenzy to find the pathologist. He sent his white flag, so to speak, up on his blog and as he hoped, the reply came instantly.
And so he had found himself tossed unceremoniously into the back of a van and rendered unconscious by a noxious fume delivered via cloth over his nose and mouth, only to awaken some time later on a narrow cot in a damp stone cell, where he now shared accommodations with his abducted pathologist.
A brief series of events had led them to the most dire circumstances imaginable.
Sherlock had been kept under heavy sedation as he was forced to watch Molly's apparent execution on a lap top monitor, kept conscious only to observe his terrible failings. The next thing he had known, he had come out of a drug haze at Baker street, a USB drive was in his pocket with a video file of Molly's sad fate.
Moriarty - and it was indeed Moriarty - had assured him that there were enough clues contained in these files that it should lead directly to his capture. He called it his little gift for playing the game. A consolation prize, for certainly he was no victor.
Sherlock had stared at the monitor until his eyes blurred. He wanted to believe it was exhaustion that impaired his vision. If his eyes were damp it was only due to the burning brought on by hours of trying desperately to decipher clues contained within the pictures, the pictures that made something in his chest burn.
I will burn the heart out of you.
Molly's tear stained face making her pleas that went unheard. The small trembling figure led to the wall. Her collapsed form, nothing but a heap of lifeless rags on the ground. Where was the key?
Emotional attachment was not a help and most certainly it was a weakness. Molly would be alive now if Sherlock cared nothing for her. If she meant nothing to him she never would have been chosen as a tool to manipulate the consulting detective. He could admit that Molly had found a place of importance in his life and he had yet to truly discover the full meaning of the loss.
The only thing that spurred him on now was the thought of wrapping his hands around Moriarty's neck and squeezing the life out of him. But to do that he needed to clear his thoughts. Emotions clouded thinking and he needed clarity of the mind.
He squeezed his eyes shut blinking away the useless moisture gathered there. Willing his mind to clear of the clutter of unhelpful thoughts, ones where he imagined a different outcome where Molly walked away and Sherlock stood in front of the firing squad instead, the way it was meant to play out. But he couldn't undo the past and so such thoughts were entirely counterproductive. He swept them away for the moment and concentrated, focusing all of his superior brain power on the task at hand.
He opened his eyes and watched once more. There was Molly crying and pleading. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her nose was running. Her hair was falling out of the plait she was wearing. The monitor was a close up of her head and shoulders and he could make out the red dress and tan cardigan she was wearing. The dress had tiny buttons up the front, the two topmost buttons were open. She wore no earrings, but she did wear a tiny silver crucifix around her neck on a fine chain.
The next image was not as close a view. The screen showed her whole body. She wore the same clothes. A black bag obscured her head and her hair fell about her shoulders. The plait must have fallen out because her hair was now loose.
The men that flanked her, set her by the wall and spoke their instructions to her. She turned and the camera closed in for a second before zooming out and panning left.
And then Sherlock saw it. It might mean nothing but then again . . .
Her necklace was gone. He was certain of that.
A crucifix, Why did she wear it? He had noticed it in the past and thought it a bit odd because he knew that Molly wasn't a religious person. So it had to be a gift from someone she had been close to, close enough for her to attach a larger importance than some ambivalent spirituality.
A lover? No, a crucifix wouldn't be the first choice of a romantic interest for someone like Molly. A relative? Such as her father?
She had spoken of him once and it was clear that their relationship was a close one, before he had died.
It hadn't taken long for Sherlock to dig around Molly's past.
It was both revealing and yet unsurprising.
Molly Hooper's father had owned a family run funeral home in Northampton. Interesting! It was clearly where Molly had found her comfort amongst the dead. He could imagine her lurking the corridors of a home that echoed the constant call of death.
And so he had begun his journey to discover who Molly Hooper was and in doing so perhaps he might find his way to finally capture Moriarty.
And when he did it would be to his delight to wrap his hands around the man's neck and squeeze the life out of him.