Hidden in plain sight, by chibiness87
Rating: T
Spoilers: 4.03 The Final Problem
Disclaimer: I own it all! Well, on DVD… That counts, right?
"Oh isn't it awful?"
And looking around her, Molly has to agree.
She has seen the resulting destruction from Sherlock's experiments in the past, of course. Heck, she has even been left to clean up after him in the lab at Bart's after something hasn't (or, in one memorable case never to be forgotten or repeated had) gone the way he had hoped.
She has become a dap hand at scraping bits of tissues off floors and ceilings, and has spent more hours than she would like to think about wiping up charred ash and soot. But nothing, nothing can compare to the current state of his flat.
It looks, to her slightly trained (thanks to the resident of this particular flat) eye, like a bomb has gone off.
When she says this to the poor old lady who has seen far too much (in Molly's opinion at least), she is shocked when, instead of Mrs Hudson sighing or crying or other forms of distress she has seen over the years, she is instead met with shocked eyes and a cry of, "Well that's because it did, dear."
Suddenly, she feels faint. "What?"
"Oh, it was terrible. One minute I'm doing the hoovering like I always do on a Sunday morning, and the next thing I know Mycroft is pulling me out the door as the place explodes. Quite shocked, I was. And did those boys even apologise to me before running off after their sister? Of course not. I don't expect much, but a simple sorry would have done, don't you agree?"
Moly would agree. Honestly, she would. But there is one word in that is flashing out at her that doesn't fit with the rest of the story. Turning to see Mrs Hudson poke at a pile of what she suspects was once a pile of newspapers, she manages to croak out, "Sister? You mean, Harry did this?"
She has never met John's sister, but as far as she knew she was sober for the first time in years, and actually making a decent stab at a relationship. She knows John blamed Sherlock for the death of Mary, but had no idea John would turn his family against his best friend like this, even if he had turned his back on him for over a month.
But Mrs Hudson is giving her another look. "Goodness, no dear, I was talking about Sherlock."
Mrs Hudson turns back to the mess that was once a glorious room, sighing and sobbing each time she spots another thing that will need to be replaced, if indeed the flat can be saved. But Molly is immune to all of this. Blind to the mess and destruction, the only thing going around her head is WHAT sister?
She heads home, determining not looking at the room where Sherlock all but ripped her heart out of her chest the previous day, the room she still cannot bear to be near, never mind enter. She has not had a cup of homemade tea since yesterday, and while she knows she should hate him, hate what he has done to her, now, with the benefit of hindsight, she knows there must be something else. Something she doesn't know. She's still waiting to hear what it could be, and has vowed to not jump to never speaking to the bastard again until she finds out. After all, there might yet be a logical reason why, after years of association and friendship, he would choose now to bring the fact she is in love with him up again.
She thought, after that disastrous Christmas all those years ago, they were past all of that.
Curling up on her settee, she pulls her tablet to her. Idly, she pulls up her web browser, clicking through a few of her favourite sites, trying to distract herself. But it's all in vain. The reason she had left Mrs Hudson, had left Baker Street, still echoing around her head.
She has known Sherlock, and by association Mycroft, for years. And never, in all the time that she has known either of them, have they ever referred to a third sibling. Not even in a passing comment. Not wanting to bring up painful memories of the past is one thing (after all, how long had she known Sherlock before telling him her father had passed away), but Mrs Hudson had said they had run off to see their sister. The implication being she was still amongst the living.
It takes her a minute to take the next step. What she is about to do is such a breach of privacy and trust, but there is something, something that just doesn't add up in her mind, and she wants to know.
So she pulls up the website she knows she needs, and she searches.
In the end, it is surprisingly simple.
The evidence is there, blinking on her tablet.
Certificate of Birth of one Eurus Holmes, born just over a year after Sherlock.
Well, she thinks, well I never.
Armed with a name, and intrigued now (Mycroft hasn't stopped her getting this far, after all,) she searches the death register. And then searches again. Then a third time. But no matter how hard she looks, there is no data entry for a Certificate of Death for Eurus.
Even when Sherlock faked his death, they needed a death certificate. It's one of the reasons she was brought in on that scheme in the first place after all.
She sits back against the back of her settee, hand at her mouth, finger bouncing against her lip in a habit she has had since uni. Her eyes skip from her tablet to the kitchen to her phone and back again. Determined once more, she picks up her tablet, and opens Google. Enters the name she now has going around her head. Hits search.
And freezes.
The picture is grainy on her screen, but even the poor quality shows the damage to the building. The picture must have been taken a few days after the fire, because while the damage is clear, there is no smoke that she can ascertain in the image. The text attached to the picture explains how a fire engulfed the private hospital, the only recorded death to present was that of a small girl, aged 8, named locally as Eurus.
Molly blinks.
"That's not right…"
Suddenly, a hand comes down, pulls the tablet from her. "No," Sherlock says, "It's not."
"Sherlock."
"Why are you looking up the story of my sister's death?" He pauses for a moment, eyes unfocused.
"So she is dead? I mean, I couldn't find a death certificate online so I thought…"
Sherlock scoffs. "Dead? No, Eurus is not dead. Comatose now, no thanks to me, but she's not dead." His eyes seem to focus on her again. "But that doesn't answer my question, Molly. Why were you looking up my sister?" And then his eyes darken. "What did you know?"
"Nothing!" She sees him open his mouth, sure he's going to argue with her, and she reaches out. Pulls on his arm so he looks at her. "I didn't know anything." She shakes her head. "I swear, Sherlock, the first I knew about you having a sister was when I went round to your flat and Mrs Hudson said you had hightailed it out of there talking about her as you left."
At once, it seems as if the air has gone out of the man before her, and he deflates. "Oh." Molly gapes slightly at him. All that is left is a shell, and it is this that shocks her, this that spurs her into action. "Sherlock!" she grabs him this time, steadying him even as he begins to sway on his feet. "Sit down."
"I don't…"
"Sit." And she tugs on his sleeve for emphasis.
He lands with a thump next to her. "Sherlock," she sighs, taking in the sight of his trembling form, the scratches on his face, on his hands. With a gentle sigh, she tucks a strand of hair away from his eyes. "What happened?"
Sherlock drops his head, a small, brittle sound that, on another day might have been a laugh but sounds more like a groan escaping him. "A lot."
They sit in silence for a moment, before he turns his head to look at her. "Why aren't you throwing me out on my arse?"
"Should I be?"
Sherlock shrugs, truing away. "It's what I expected."
Molly smiles slightly. "Well, I was never one to follow the rules."
He snorts slightly at that. "No," he sighs, "no you weren't."
"'Sides," Molly shrugs, "someone has to patch up your sorry self, and I have more practice with a suture kit than John does, even if my patients can't complain if I mess it up."
"That's not funny," Sherlock tells her, but there is a hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth. At the sight of it, something, some tight band that had secured itself around her heart during that phone call loosens around her chest.
They will be ok.
Maybe not right now; it's obvious to her there is a still a story to tell to explain everything that has happened, but soon.
She has, after all, just come to terms with the fact she loves this helpless man before her; what good would it do to turn away at this latest hurdle?
"Come on," she says, pulling on his hand slightly, "let's get you cleaned up, yeah?"
Later, they'll talk. He'll explain about a sister he forgot, and a life she stole. They will cry and they will heal. But for now, she pulls him in the direction of her bathroom, pausing to dart into the kitchen and flicking the kettle on as she goes.
End.
Thoughts?