The Heart of Molly Hooper.
Molly was alone, more alone than she had ever been in her entire life. St. Bart's morgue had an eerie, ghostly chill about it on that particular evening, an almost foreboding air to the slicing movements of every instrument, the creaky opening of every draw containing a body to be checked over, tested or used for scientific experimentation. For once, the silence of the dilapidated, dank, obscure room seemed to unnerve her, as oppose to provide her with the comfort that she usually embraced with open arms, for Molly Hooper does not seek protection as the 'normal' female does. Her safe-haven is not her warm, cosy bed with a giant box of chocolates. No. For her it is a place where she can undoubtedly be alone, without other people who she knows will, inevitably, shatter her fragile being into a thousand unfixable pieces; she'd been damaged enough to last her ten long, disappointing lifetimes. Alone is what she has; alone protects her.
Although, there have been times when she has wondered whether that is true or not, whether she is, indeed, completely alone. Occasionally she has felt the sudden stuttering of her rarely considered heart, the dilation of her frequently deceiving pupils and felt what may be a flicker of feelings dart across her so often emotionless face. What if the signs she had learnt to fake so well for years had, for the first time in her existence, been real?
But feelings are not an option for Molly; she cannot afford to get tied up in caring about people, because it is only a disadvantage, nothing to be desired. There would be no use in falling for someone, someone you know does not have the capacity to love you back, someone for whom emotions are even less of a possibility and would only destroy them and everything they've ever worked for.
Even the private musings of such scenarios were beginning to interfere with her work, Molly had left a body unattended to for so long that she seemed to have forgotten who it had belonged to and could find no reason to continue diagnosing it. Instead, she gave up trying to fight herself and swept from the room with the elegance of a gazelle. Nobody ever saw the side of Molly Hooper that she could only ever risk being when she was alone, the Molly who floated her way up the never ending staircases to the place she'd avoided for hours, rocking back and forth on her heels from time to time, making her choice, but she could last no longer, the waiting, the fear, the ignorance was killing her.
With one swift, brave movement of her right hand, she swung open the door to the roof of St. Bart's, desperately attempting to push away the fears of what she may find there. Only one body had been brought to her that day; the body of Sherlock Holmes, the one she had already been told to pronounce dead, no matter what.
Although she still had to pretend otherwise, the sight of his unmoving corpse arose no emotion inside Molly, all that plagued her mind was the thought of him. What had happened to him? Where was he now? Had he survived? Or had the plan he'd so intricately conceived gone awfully wrong, and was his the next body she'd have to do a post-mortem of?
No. Of course not. Impossible. He didn't die; he couldn't. He wouldn't. There must be a plausible explanation for his not meeting her in the morgue, like he had said he would. He must have been held up. Of course, there were police swarming the place after Sherlock jumped. That must have been why he hadn't come back for her.
Just as she was coming to terms with this, her mind circulating with theories from him scrambling down the fire escape to flee from them, to him hiding in one of the hospital's many unoccupied rooms, she saw the blood, spread widely across the floor, almost as though someone had been shot. And lying next to the glutinous pool of blood lay the gun.
Choking on her sobs, Molly fell to the ground, her body contorting until she didn't even look human; he was dead. But he couldn't be, it was, in fact, impossible. Slowly, she looked up to the gaping hole where it should have lay and whispered, "There's no body."
"Oh my dear Molly, I knew you'd work it out if I gave you time," came the voice of James Moriarty from behind where she sat, frozen in shock and elation.
Composing her conflicting emotions like only she could, she replied, "I knew you couldn't be dead, I knew a bullet couldn't finish you off, even if you had actually shot yourself with it," the fog began to clear in her mind and she saw how it had all panned out. Sherlock had worked out that, so long as Jim was alive, John and the others would be safe, just as we knew he would. Then, although he had not confided this part of the plan to Molly, Jim had put one of the blanks he had earlier stolen from the hit man he'd assigned to John – the one she'd previously seen him arguing with – in his own gun, discreetly stowed away, on his possession, some of Sherlock's extensive supply of fake blood, given to him by Molly herself, on the orders of James, to fake his own death. The irony of the twin suicides, faked by the two most ingenious men in all of Britain, almost made the corners of Molly's mouth twitch into a smile. Almost. "Why didn't you tell me?" although the question seemed foolish and undeniably childlike and pathetic, she couldn't prevent it stumbling, unwillingly, from her lips.
"I wanted to cherish the look of surprise on your face," he teased, but seeing her unforgiving expression, grudgingly admitted, "Because I, well I, I wasn't entirely sure if I would, indeed, live to tell the tale."
"You're lying. Don't think I don't know you, James, because I do, you know I do, I can tell more than anyone when you're lying: I've seen you do it enough."
"Ah," he sighed, and the sound was so real, so pained, yet so unfamiliar coming from this man, "I'm afraid you're right. I didn't tell you because, because I didn't want you to know."
Although this statement would have deeply cut the ordinary woman, I have already told you that she is not your average female. Therefore, this touched her, gave her heart a little reassuring squeeze; in saying this, James Moriarty was telling her, Molly Hooper, that he had withheld this vital piece of information from her for a variety of reasons. Firstly, he did not want to hurt her, cause her any further worry or fear than that which she was already bound to have been feeling, awaiting his return. But, more importantly to Molly - yet she was not quite as certain of this particular reason – she thought that he hadn't wanted to tell her because, impossibly, he had wanted to see her reaction. He, of all people, wanted the assurance of her grief for him, to show him that she actually did care for him; because he still didn't believe it himself. Deep down, she knew what she should have been feeling: disgust and revulsion at the sick ploy he'd used in order to check her devotion to him, maybe even pity at the drastic methods this man had taken to make sure that he wasn't the one being taken for a fool, probably because nobody had ever displayed any true, unconditional feelings for him before.
But she wasn't. Instead, owing to the undeniable similarities between Jim and herself, she felt content, sure, for the first time in years, of her own feelings, and even – shockingly – she felt loved. So, as oppose to shouting at him, giving him an ultimatum or even denying or ignoring his existence, she got to her feet, and slowly, with a small smile on her face, walked toward him.
Answering her with the kind of smile nobody but Molly would ever have deemed him capable, he reached out his hand toward her: an invitation.
Looking up into his face, making sure that he was absolutely definite in his offer, Molly Hooper willingly took the hand of James Moriarty.