I have no rights to these amazing characters...
If You Love Them... Save Them
"If you love them… save them".
She looked at the numerous monitors on the wall. A garish light filling the dark and empty room. She doesn't need to look to know what she'll see, but she does anyway. A morbid curiosity to see just how close he's gotten. She wishes she hasn't the minute she does. There's one overlooking John and his family, to her horror she realises it's the nursery. She decides then and there she does not want to know how he got a camera in there. There's another with Mycroft in a dark office. Lestrade leaning over a table filled with evidence 'Scotland Yard' crosses her mind. She glimpses Mrs Hudson drinking tea and watching TV in the corner of her eye. One for the morgue, Sherlock peering into a microscope.
The bastard had planned this.
She feels the tears welling behind her eyes and wills them to be still. She will not cry in front of the madman next to her. It gives her a small glimmer of satisfaction to know that he had never been able to make her do that.
"Molly Hooper the woman who mattered most. Sickening is it?… how much he trusted you to protect them". He scoffs the words as though they are poisoned. His voice is cold, no lyrical musicality like the old days, but she can hear the disbelief lacing each syllable. In that moment acceptance flows over her that the game, at least for her anyway, is now over. She knew it the minute she walked into the room, she is just surprised at how calm she feels about it all.
She turns to him, eyebrows raised questioningly. She's not going to speak. This whole charade is not about her anyway.
He laughs, one short burst, before pointing at the images shining on the wall. "Save them Dr Hooper. Save the heart of Sherlock Holmes, before I burn it out of him!"
She didn't understand what that had meant originally. Sherlock Holmes was a man without the burden of emotion. As the years had gone by the truth had become clearer. The Great Detective may feign nonchalance for the people most dear to him, but it was there, a deep rooted love for those deemed worthy enough to have a space in his heart.
He loved every single person in these screens. Had died for them, taken a bullet and killed a man also. Sherlock Holmes was capable of great love.
Just not for her.
She had accepted that a long time ago but she would save him, save his heart. That is what he needed from her. It's not like Molly could never refuse him anything anyway.
She feels her heart slow as she picks up the gun from the table and fires it twice into Moriarty's head. Zombie film rule, always double tap your kill' she wants to laugh at the image of a zombiefied Moriarty that enters her head but the bullet ripping through her shoulder cuts the feeling short. She does take deep satisfaction at the surprise on his face though. 'Don't make a sound… bear it she thinks before Molly turns to figure in the corner and raises her chin in defiance. 'Moran… finally' whispers through her mind as a woman steps out of the shadows.
Not a woman. THE Woman.
The hair on her neck stands up as she feels the scrutiny in Irene Adler's face. Finally happy with her assessment the dark haired woman smiles. "I've been dying to meet you Dr Hooper, I must admit the wait was definitely worth it." The voice is achingly familiar and yet totally alien at the same time.
'She's like Sherlock…' a voice whispers in the corner of her mind. "The Woman I presume" Molly retorts, trying her best to sound unimpressed. The look on the other's face tells her that she has failed but Molly is far beyond caring. The pain in her shoulder is worsening and she's running out of time.
The woman laughs and it's hollow. It leaves the young doctor with an empty feeling in her her soul. It reminds her of how little she knows about the world she entered when she asked Sherlock what he needed. It's not the first time she toys with the thought that the Holmes brothers have used her as toy. "Please, call me Irene… after all that's my name and here we have no need for pretences."
'Well fuck me…' Not for the first time the overwhelming urge to shoot embraces her like a wave and she has to squeeze her nails into her palm to stop herself. "I am disappointed in all this, I must admit. I was hoping for someone different" Molly snaps at her. She can feel her nerves fraying, she expected Moran to be here. Not Moriarty, and definitely not the female version of Sherlock…
Irene smiles at her, as though an adult would a child and the Pathologist hates her more for it. Irene can play the game till the sun swallowed the Earth and as the woman looks her square in the eye, Molly is overcome with how tired she is with it all. 'The game never stops though…'
"You have a choice Molly Hooper. It's not a very good one, but it is there all the same. I am rather impressed that you took the bastard out without flinching, how blaise of you. However, this doesn't change anything. Save the heart of Sherlock Holmes or don't. You could walk away from this but your a woman who wears a heart on her sleeve. It's clear as day why he picked you, your heart is big enough to carry his as well."
Molly stares at the blood running through her fingers and the pattern it leaves on the floor. She knows the wound needs serious medical treatment and the sooner the better for her shoulder. 'You can't be a good Pathologist with a dodgy shoulder'. Adler's words ring true though. Her heart is big enough for two. She'd sealed her fate long ago.
She stares at the screen. Sherlock is preparing to leave the morgue now, leaving a mess in his wake as usual. 'How fitting'' is all that crosses his mind as he walks out the door. As she turns away she glimpses Greg and prays to all that can hear that he isn't the one who finds her, she couldn't bear that.
She takes the gun and smiles at Irene before shooting her in the chest, missing the heart but it'll leave a horrific scar. 'You missed the face…' She gasps a laugh at the woman's shout of pain before placing the gun against her head and squeezing.
Sherlock trusts her to protect his heart and she'll die to do that.
The End