A/N: Warnings in this chapter for a lot of stuff: mentions of noncon, noncom drug use, essentially torture, and a miscarriage. Molly went through hell and now Sherlock and John learn just how bad it was.
Two Months Later
"As good as solved," John had confidently told himself. Sherlock's on the case, everything will be resolved soon.
It wasn't the outcome they'd achieved. Not remotely.
After two months of continuing non-information leading to the whereabouts and (more importantly) safe return of Molly Hooper, even the knowledge that Sherlock was alive was nowhere near enough to buoy John Watson's spirits for more than a fleeting second at a time.
It certainly did nothing to improve said not-so-dead detective's mood, which had hardly started off on a level even close to "buoyant" ever since his return to 221B Baker Street.
Sherlock was pacing around the flat, violin in one hand, bow in the other, although he hadn't bothered playing anything on it for more than a few, distracted minutes at a time. He'd done the same thing yesterday afternoon, after a morning spent tramping around Molly's flat for the fourth or fifth time, looking for something, anything they'd overlooked during their first visits.
Nothing. Mrs. Lynderson had given up trying to maintain the place in Molly's absence, her arthritic hands and knees not being up to the task in the long run. She'd taken Molly's cat downstairs to live with her ("Just until she finds her way back to us," she'd said, her voice a chirp of false reassurance that failed to reassure any of them, including, John suspected, herself) and handed over the spare key to Sherlock without a murmur.
She'd been one of the vociferous few who'd defended him in the wake of his "suicide" and the subsequent shredding of his reputation, and all based on Molly's insistence that he was exactly who he said he was, that you couldn't fake or bluff your way through brilliance of the kind he exhibited. Even with the internet at your fingertips 24/7.
Sherlock, John noticed, had been rather taken aback by the woman's vehement defense of him, her extreme happiness at his return from the dead – and her touching belief that he would find Molly and bring her home safely.
He just wished he shared her sentiments. Because after two months, even with Sherlock Holmes on the case, it just seemed too unlikely that this story would have a happy ending.
Certainly not for Molly.
The sound of Sherlock's mobile ringing interrupted John's moody reverie. It wasn't the ringtone he'd chosen for Greg Lestrade or his brother Mycroft or Mrs. Hudson. So someone else, then, which made it unlikely to be some kind of news – good or otherwise – about Molly.
As Sherlock frowned down at the text message he'd received, John found his mind drifting to Mrs. Hudson, and he smiled as he remembered how happy she'd been to find out that her favorite tenant – John couldn't begrudge her that favoritism, since he hadn't been the one to improve her life by saving her from her former husband several years ago – was still alive.
She'd wept and snuffled into Sherlock's shirt collar while he patiently allowed her to have her cry – then she'd given him a smart slap on the cheek and scolded him for putting them through so much, good reasons or not, warning him that if he ever tried anything like that again, she would personally throw his precious Strad into the Thames.
Sherlock had taken the threat very, very seriously – and promised her, quite gravely, that if he ever found it necessary to fake his own death in future, he would be sure to find a way to let her in on it. Then, with a distinct twinkle in his eye, he'd further promised that if he were unable to make good on that promise, he would be sure to take his violin with him.
It was the only time he'd shown any signs of good humor since his return, and it had been before he and John had even returned to their shared flat.
With a start, John came back to the present, noticing that Sherlock was still staring at his mobile, unmoving, his posture rigid, and his eyes flat and cold as a snake's.
"What is it? What's happened?"
John had been slumped in his chair, the newspaper half-folded over one knee; it dropped to the floor in a flutter of pages as he jumped up and hurried to Sherlock's side, peering down at the mobile.
His brow furrowed in confusion as he read the message, read it again, then looked at Sherlock, hoping for enlightenment.
None appeared to be forthcoming. Sherlock's face was absolutely expressionless; either he had no idea what the message meant…or he knew exactly what it meant and was either annoyed or angry and didn't want either emotion to show.
You missed something. You always do.
The two sentences sent a chill down his spine, raised the hackles at the back of his neck – and continued to leave absolutely no visible impression on Sherlock's face.
"Who –" he started to ask, but Sherlock cut him off.
"Whoever took her, obviously."
John nodded, knowing Sherlock required neither an answer nor an affirmation of his words, but feeling the need to do something, anything at all. It was encouraging, right, that they'd finally received a message? A taunting message, true, but if all there was to find was a body, surely the kidnapper – whoever it was – wouldn't bother?
He watched as Sherlock threw on his jacket and scarf, grabbing his own coat and hurrying after his friend as he clattered down the stairs and out the front door without bothering to see if John was behind him or not. "Where are we going?" John asked as they reached the sidewalk.
"Bart's," was Sherlock's brief reply, his attention on flagging down a cab.
"Why are we going to Bart's? Why not Molly's flat?" John asked.
"Because we were at the hospital less than twenty-four hours ago, ample time to ensure that whatever clue I supposedly missed is now more easily accessed," Sherlock replied, his voice lacking the near-glee it usually held when a case was moving forward. "Or to plant something if, in fact, there wasn't actually something I missed, the more likely scenario."
Even his unselfconscious egotism was missing, John noted. Those last words were spoken matter-of-factly, no slight grin accompanying them as it did when he wanted his listeners to know that, yes, he was as brilliant as he thought he was.
He lost his train of thought as Sherlock continued: "To answer the next, obvious question, if the clue or evidence was to be found in Molly's flat, there would be no need to text, as there is no one to disturb anything there and sooner or later I would have gone to look it over again, as I have been doing periodically. At Bart's, on the other hand, whatever it is could be discovered by the wrong person and either discarded or disrupted. Thus the text, ensuring our presence at the morgue or lab before that occurs."
"It's probably a trap," John felt compelled to point out, instantly regretting his words as Sherlock turned his irritated glare on him full-force.
"Really?" Sherlock bit out, sarcasm and disdain teaming up to weigh that single word with a load of vitriol it hardly seemed strong enough to bear. "I hadn't thought of that. How stupid of me to overlook the blindingly obvious."
There was the Sherlock John knew and frequently wanted to punch in the nose – good thing he'd already gotten that out of his system, or the cabbie who'd pulled up at Sherlock's frantic arm-waving would have gotten a real eyeful.
Both men fell silent after Sherlock's terse directions (Bart's, hurry) as they drove off, each staring out their respective side windows and lost in their own thoughts. Although John had missed his friend, missed him terribly, deeply and profoundly, what he hadn't missed was the sarcasm and eye-rolling and references to his stupidity.
Not one bloody bit.
They continued in silence for another few minutes before the cabbie swore and slowed his vehicle. John craned his head to see what the problem was; roadwork, always bloody roadwork and detours in the late spring, but at least it wasn't an accident. The cabbie, still swearing under his breath, took the indicated detour, told them it would add about ten minutes to their ride, then subsided as John acknowledged his words.
Less than five minutes later, as they drove down a poorly lit side street in the crap part of town the detour brought them to, Sherlock suddenly lurched upright, one hand going up to slam against the glass barrier between the back seat and the front as he shouted: "Driver! Stop here!"
The cab screeched to a halt, throwing John back against the seat with a jolt. He stared at Sherlock, positive his friend had finally gone mental as he opened the door and jumped out into the cold February night.
It wasn't until then that he saw her, the woman who'd apparently caught Sherlock's attention. Thin, dressed improperly for the chilly night air, slumped against the corner of the abandoned brick building as if it were the only thing keeping her on her feet…
John felt his skin crawl as he shoved money at the cabbie, distractedly ordering him to wait as he, too, dashed out to join Sherlock at the woman's side.
Not just any woman; to his horror, as he reached the other two, he recognized Molly Hooper's features beneath the tangled mass of greasy auburn hair, her eyes dull, mouth slack as she continued to slump against the corner of the building. She was clad in a filthy gray tank top and scuffed black leather skirt, her legs bare of stockings. On her feet were a pair of ridiculously high-heeled red pumps, at least half a size too large for her.
All of this flickered through John's mind in a split second, the amount of time it took his horrified eyes to take in the clear sign of track marks along the insides of both her (far too thin, covered in gooseflesh) arms.
"Christ!" he swore when he was close enough to see the damage that had been inflicted on her. Molly, whose only crime had been to believe in the man she loved, to unconditionally do whatever he needed her to do to ensure his safety.
Molly, who was about ready to pass out, her knees sagging, but before John could reach out for her, Sherlock had already pulled her into his arms, lifting her up as she collapsed into unconsciousness, her head lolling against his shoulder.
His face had gone absolutely white, John noted absently, knowing his own skin must be paler than normal in the face of this grim outcome of their search for the missing pathologist. Still, she was alive; considering how long she'd been missing (and until the text Sherlock had just received), he'd come to the reluctant conclusion that at best someone would find her body in a shallow unmarked grave by some country roadside.
No. No thinking about the worst that could have happened – could still happen if she didn't receive prompt medical attention. Just focus on the moment at hand. Molly was alive. Molly was in the cab, cradled in Sherlock's arms, and John wasted no time in joining them in the back seat.
The cabbie, however, was voicing his objections in a loud and strenuous voice. "Hey, no prozzies!"
Sherlock, face taut with fury, rounded on him before John could do so. "This woman is in need of immediate medical attention, you cretin; surely even the most depraved flesh peddler wouldn't send a woman in her condition out in order to score a 'date,'" he sneered. "Do either of us appear desperate enough to take advantage of such a woman? No, we don't, and you know our original destination was elsewhere. So kindly keep your moralizing to yourself, especially since your wife would be very interested to know where, exactly, you contracted that case of herpes you're currently trying to keep her from finding out about. Now. Drive."
While Sherlock had been – justifiably – berating the cabbie, John had focused on Molly. God, she was so thin; she looked like she'd dropped at least ten pounds during the two months she'd been missing. Possibly as much as twelve or fifteen. Incongruously, he remembered when "Heroin Chic" had been all the rage on music videos, during the days of his misspent youth, and once again found himself infuriated by the idea of such a thing gaining public acceptance.
One look at Molly, who'd obviously been forced into drug use – there was no way on Earth anyone would be able convince him she'd done this to herself – should be enough to show even the most jaded person that such an idea was worse than reprehensible.
The cab lurched into motion as he continued to examine his patient, forcing his mind into clinical doctor mode instead of concerned friend mode. Breathing shallow, pulse rapid and thready, unconscious…god, the needle marks on the insides of both arms, so many of them, it was a bloody miracle she hadn't overdosed before this – no, back to doctor mode, cool and clinical, inform Sherlock…
As he opened his mouth, his friend, who had dropped back into his seat and softly taken one of Molly's hands in his own – no doubt checking her pulse as John had just done – said: "Don't bother. I am painfully aware of her condition, the symptoms of a drug overdose, and yes, the backs of her knees have track marks as well. She's been thoroughly addicted against her will, deliberately given an overdose and shoved out into the cold just in time for us to find her before she collapsed. They'll be long gone by now, having removed all traces of themselves from wherever they've been keeping her. Somewhere nearby, if not in the actual building she was standing next to." He opened up his phone and sent off a text, probably to Lestrade informing the other man of Molly's recovery.
John waited until Sherlock had shoved his mobile back into his pocket before speaking. He looked over at his friend, meeting Sherlock's cold, furious glare with one of his own. "Who would – why would anyone do something like to Molly Hooper? She's…harmless," he said, after groping after the proper word in his shell-shocked mind. Nobody, he'd almost said. Not important.
The first was rude and cruel, the second…well, judging by Sherlock's reaction to the sight of her, the way he continued to clasp her sweaty, shaking hand in his, the second was a load of shite. Of course she was important; she was their friend, a good woman who didn't deserve to have something like this happen to her – and who didn't deserve to be dismissed by anyone, even John Watson, just because she wasn't a central figure in his life.
"To get back at me, obviously," Sherlock replied, his mouth settling into a grim line as he continued to study Molly's small, undernourished and far-too-pale form. Analyzing her, deducing her, much the same way John was, when he could keep his mind in doctor mode. "Someone found out – or deduced – that she was the one to help me fake my death. Exactly twenty months ago," he added, as if that date were important.
John blinked at him while his fingers continued their automatic monitoring of her pulse. Of course that date was important. "So someone – whoever's been holding her all this time – deliberately picked tonight to send her into your path? Deliberately sent that text so you'd go to St. Bart's, hit that detour, and end up where we found her?"
Sherlock slanted a glance toward John that the doctor felt might hold a bit of honest approval as he nodded. "Exactly. Driver!" he suddenly said, raising his voice. "Turn up the heat and hurry! This woman is dying!"
Christ, so she was. Her pulse was weakening even as Sherlock spoke, her body shaking, but not quite convulsing – were they going to have to try and administer CPR in the cramped back seat of a London cab? John hoped to hell not…and his hope was granted as they abruptly turned a corner and saw the emergency room entrance of St. Bart's facing them. They must have been driving faster than he thought.
As Sherlock's door opened and he once again took the unconscious woman in his arms, John hurriedly threw some more money at the cabbie and dashed after his tall friend. He took over as soon as they burst through the A&E doors, shouting out instructions to the startled duty nurse – thank God there were no other patients in sight – and directing Sherlock toward an empty gurney.
Everything after that was a blur of motion and action and clipped comments: how they'd found her, her presumed condition, demands for medication, for assistance…and then John was politely shoved aside as the actual hospital staff took over, shunting him to the sidelines to wait alongside Sherlock, who had backed away as soon as Molly was placed on the gurney and an oxygen mask lowered over her face.
His own face was unreadable as she was wheeled away, the flustered nurse now turned back into the firm, unyielding professional, keeping them both at bay by the simple expedient of shoving her hands into their chests and assuring them that their friend was in good hands – and that someone would let them know how she was doing as soon as she was stabilized.
They slumped into the hard plastic chairs that seemed to infest all hospital waiting areas. Even though Sherlock assured John in a muttered aside that he could easily obtain doctor's scrubs and surgical masks for them, so they could at least shadow Molly during the next few hours, John restrained him. "Let them do their jobs, Sherlock," he said softly, feeling suddenly very, very old and tired, as if he'd been born a hundred years ago instead of less than fifty. "Let's wait here for Lestrade, you know he'll let us tag along and that dragon," he nodded toward the nurse, who'd returned to her station and was studiously ignoring them, "won't say a word."
oOo
Four hours later John found himself sitting quietly in a darkened patient room – semi-private, although he and Molly were the only occupants – waiting for her to wake up.
Lestrade had arrived at the hospital a scant twenty minutes after receiving Sherlock's text, demanding the details that the message had left out. Which, as John discovered, was terse even for Sherlock. "Meet us as Bart's A&E, found Molly, not good."
They were in the middle of giving Lestrade their statements – Sherlock in a fever of impatience to get to the scene before it could be further contaminated, John with growing suspicions that Molly's collapse wasn't entirely due to the drugs she'd been fed – when the cubicle where Molly had been ensconced erupted into chaos.
Sherlock was on his feet in a shot, shoving aside the curtain that the nurse had just hurriedly closed, John and Lestrade hard on his heels.
It was still so hard to believe, to process, the tragedy that had followed. God, there had been so much blood...and yet here she was, still alive, still unconscious from a combination of the overdose of heroin and the sedatives she'd been given and the sheer physical abuses her body had undergone during her two months of captivity.
He and Lestrade had been forced to literally drag Sherlock out of the cubicle, shouting at him to let the doctors do their work. His face had been white, frozen with a combination of shock and what John now knew was not only fear but a terrible realization once the reason for Molly's haemorrhaging became clear.
She was having a miscarriage.
Lestrade appropriated a small conference room for them, with the help of a sympathetic nurse, a friend of Molly's who had been politely ejected from the cubicle along with the others when she found herself overwhelmed by the other woman's condition. It was she who made sure the doctor knew where they were and practically dragged him there herself as soon as Molly was stabilized, to give his report to the three men most anxious to hear it.
They already knew about the overdose and the miscarriage. But the rest...It was like a shopping list from hell. As the list went on and on, John knew his dismay and horror wouldn't need to be deduced by a mind as sharp as Sherlock's as it was made painfully clear exactly what sort of a nightmare their friend and pathologist had undergone during the past two months.
She was out of immediate danger, had responded well to the naloxone she'd been given once it was confirmed that she'd been given an overdose of heroin, and the prognosis was cautiously optimistic for her eventual recovery. The haemorrhaging had been brought under control and physically she seemed in line to recover fully from that trauma as well.
If only that was the end of it.
After the doctor finished his update and left them, John's mind kept replaying the litany of abuses over and over again. As if sheer repetition would change things, or sink them into his consciousness and erase the disbelief he so desperately wanted to feel.
Heroin overdose, with signs of multiple injections inside both elbows and behind both knees.
Collapsed veins in all locations from same.
Malnutrition.
Severe dehydration.
Exposure.
Bruising on wrists consistent with forcible restraint.
Facial bruising, which John hadn't noted before, too focused on her too-thin arms and respiratory trauma to notice.
Evidence of repeated sexual assault – the doctor had been in the process of taking the necessary swabs and samples when Molly's body had finally broken down, when the outrages perpetrated against her had caused her to lose the child she was carrying.
As if the fucking poison she'd had forced into her system wasn't enough of an outrage; as if kidnapping and sexual assault wasn't damaging enough to anyone's psyche, to undergo such a horrific thing...
Had she even known she was pregnant? Was the child conceived before or after her kidnapping?
Questions Lestrade asked of the doctor before he left, while Sherlock remained uncharacteristically silent. Unclear at this time, had been the unhelpful answer. The patient appeared to have been somewhere between six weeks and three months along when she miscarried. Until Molly had recovered enough to answer some questions, there was no way of knowing the answer. Especially with the amount of drugs that had been forced into her system over the two-month period of her captivity.
She might already have been pregnant when she was taken. John's mind finally tore itself away from the other doctor's grim list and latched onto the worst aspect of this entire fucking nightmare.
If she was already pregnant, then the child might not be the result of rape. He thought he was going to be sick, right there in the conference room, but managed through years of practice – a wartime surgeon had to have an iron stomach, after all – to hold onto his supper as he tried to cope with the fact that it could have been a baby she wanted.
But who could the father have been? His mind flitted back over the past year and a half – had she even gone on a date since Sherlock's "death"?
No, Molly definitely hadn't gone out with anyone since long before Sherlock jumped off the roof of this very hospital. John might have been a crap friend when he was lost in the fog of his own grief over his friend's "death", but he'd kept up with her enough to know that much.
He'd assumed it was because she was grieving Sherlock the same way the rest of them were, with the added stress of an unrequited love on her part. After all, if the man you've obviously been pining after for years suddenly offs himself, how long is it likely to be before you're ready to date again?
The man she'd been pining after...Suddenly it was as if John had been doused in a deluge of icy water. Everything went very still, the only sound the sudden pounding of his heart as he turned his head to stare at Sherlock.
Molly had helped him fake his death.
Molly hadn't gone on so much as a single lunch-date since that awful day.
Molly knew Sherlock was alive the entire time.
Sherlock had stayed in her flat, by his own admission, immediately after that horrible, horrible day, and multiple times during the course of the following eighteen months.
Including a short stay before he left for the Continent.
One month before Molly's abduction.
"Christ," he breathed. "No, Sherlock..."
"Yes, John," his friend replied, his voice even, eyes and face giving nothing away, speaking softly even though Lestrade had excused himself and left the room in order to make a phone call. "It's very possible that I was the father of that child. DNA analysis will clarify that possibility. If, of course, it is deemed necessary."
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, John Watson felt he could say to that. For once, he understood exactly what Sherlock was saying.
If the fetus was determined to be two months or less in development when Molly had miscarried, a DNA scan could be performed to determine paternity, in order to assist with the charges to be leveled against whatever scum had done this to their friend.
If, however, the child were proven to have been closer to three months along…well. Different matter entirely.
"Christ," John swore again, planting his elbows on the table and pressing the heels of his hands against his tightly-closed eyes. "Sherlock, I'm…"
"It's Molly you should be concerned with," the other man cut in, his voice gone from simply uninflected to icy as if he'd flipped a switch. "She's gone through two months of pure hell, and all because of me." He fell silent, then added in a low, almost inaudible voice: "I failed her, John."
There was something in Sherlock's voice, something John had never heard before – regret, guilt, self-loathing, all of that and a bitterness John recognized all too well from his own wartime experiences.
"She would have helped you even if she knew this was going to happen to her," he said after a moment's silence, speaking in the same hushed tones Sherlock was employing. Knowing his words would have absolutely no effect but determined to try all the same. "She would have," John repeated when Sherlock made no reply, turning to face his friend, voice trailing off into silence as he beheld the expression on the other man's face.
Every emotion that had been in his voice was reflected in his eyes, the downward twist of his lips, the tension fairly radiating off his body.
When John opened his mouth, Sherlock raised an imperative hand, silencing him before the words could leave his lips. "Don't say it, John," Sherlock snarled as he vaulted to his feet and began pacing agitated circles around the conference room table. "Don't say it isn't my fault, when clearly it is. Knowing that she would have helped me even if she'd known the consequences...that doesn't lessen my culpability. Had I known there could be repercussions of this nature, I can assure you, I would have found another way to save my selfish ass. Or not."
John pitied whoever had done this to Molly, because they were about to face the wrath of a man who blamed himself for what had happened to someone he held in the highest regard – and John had witnessed first-hand how Sherlock reacted when someone hurt a person he cared about. There was one incident in particular that came to mind, of a man being beaten and thrown out of a second-floor window for putting his hands on Mrs. Hudson.
And she hadn't been damaged nearly as badly as Molly.
The door opened and Lestrade started to reenter the room, stopping abruptly as he found himself almost nose-to-nose with Sherlock. "She was living in that building, staying there, really, can't call what she's been forced into 'living." Lestrade's lips twisted in an expression of disgust as he spoke. "Squalid doesn't begin to cover it. I've got my best men going over it now, but Sherlock, if you wouldn't mind..."
He was out the door before the detective inspector finished speaking, John hard on his heels. Before he'd gone more than a few steps, however, Sherlock turned around and locked gazes with him. "Stay with her," he ordered, then added in a softer tone, almost pleading: "Please, John. Someone should…be with her. When she wakes up."
John nodded, feeling a sudden prickling in the backs of his eyes that he ignored as best he could. Sherlock's quiet request spoke volumes. He watched as Lestrade followed him, pausing only long enough to clap a hand on John's arm in a brief gesture of sympathy. Then he was gone as well, leaving John to follow Molly's nurse friend – her name was Mary something, he recalled vaguely – to the room where he now sat and waited.
