The Used: A Sherlock Fanfiction
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC 'Sherlock' series, nor anything pertaining to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation. If I did, well…
"Molly? You with me?" Molly blinked, trying her best to remember what the Detective Inspector had been saying but was coming up blank. The man looked at her with concern. "Molly, you didn't hear a word that I was saying, did you?"
"I'm sorry, Greg." She offered half-heartedly. He placed a hand on her shoulder, properly gaining her attention, and began to speak again.
"Look, we're worried about you Molly. You haven't been yourself lately, not since that top secret incident you were involved in. Whatever happened to you, I need to know right now, are you okay?"
"There's nothing wrong with me; I'm perfectly fine." She shook her head, trying her best to clamp down on the anger she could feel bubbling up. "Now, I've got a million and one cases I need to attend to down here, at the morgue, and if I don't get a move on-" Greg Lestrade held a hand up.
"I know. I get it." He walked to the door, pausing halfway out. "Just, please, look after yourself Molly." She rubbed at her forehead the moment the door had closed.
"Fucking idiot." She muttered.
"You know," one of the many doors of the fridge opened up as the gurney was pushed out, "for a moment there, I was worried I'd have to end the inspector." James made his way to the pathologist, spinning her around to face him and leaning in to capture her lips. This had become a strange sort of routine lately: James would show up at random intervals as Molly went about her day. It had been nearly three weeks since Christmas had passed and the Consulting Criminal decided that she was made for him, much to her initial displeasure.
"You, Sir, are a liar." On the other hand, these meetings with Moriarty were a highlight. As much as she was pained to admit: she had started to care for the insane Irishman.
"Oh, darling, you know I love it when you speak to me like that." His cheeky grin served only to further the headache she was currently sporting. "Go on: tell me more. Am I so horrible?" he placed a kiss to her lips again. "Am I incorrigible?" He asked, his lips moving down her neck. He paused, kneeling in front of her. "Am I, oh, I don't know: wicked?" It was a husky whisper that, coupled with the hands caressing her legs and making their way upwards, sent a shiver down her spine. Before he could actually go ahead with showing her exactly how wicked he could be, she bent over, her hair shielding the Irish madman and herself from view, placing a gentle kiss to his own lips.
"If I don't get those reports done within the next fifteen minutes, they'll send that arsehole down here to deduce what's wrong with me."
"And?" He was much too used to getting his own way, she found.
"And I might just decide to indulge in a work-related fantasy to spite you." He laughed aloud.
"To spite me? You wouldn't want the Consultant's hands on you even if you did want to spite me. Besides, love, we both know the star of your office fantasies." He winked at her, standing up and whistling as he walked to the door. "Sebastian will be here, as always. Make sure to punch old Sherlock for me on your way out, love. Promises that there'll be a delightful reward for you if you do." He sang as he made himself scarce. She shook her head, opened her desk drawer and took a Panadol for the throbbing in her head. This day was only going to get worse and she knew it. Any day beginning with Detective Inspector Lestrade meant a day that she'd have to put up with the Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes.
''
"Molly's already filed the completed report, Sherlock. Why can't you just read it instead of bothering the poor woman?! She doesn't want to see you, she doesn't want to hear you and she certainly doesn't want you here, in her work space." The man let out an exasperated sigh, once again, as his flatmate blatantly ignored him and barged on through the doors of the morgue. John raced to catch up with him, already spewing out apologies for the younger man's behaviour.
"I'm so sorry Molly! I tried to stop him, I did, but you know how… he-" John trailed off, immediately pushing the Detective out of the way as he, too, kneeled down beside the unconscious body of one Miss Molly Hooper. "What the hell?" John elevated her head, gently patting her cheeks, trying to garner a response of any kind. "Molly? Molly Hooper, I need you to open your eyes, okay?" He didn't get so much as a groan from the woman. He supported her back, using her desk, and opened an eye, doing the routine checks he had been performing for most of his life.
"They're sending a medical team down here. What's her current heart rate?" Sherlock asked, staring intently at the woman who had begun to breath just a little slower. Without waiting for an answer, the younger Holmes was up. He went straight to the top drawer of her desk, pulling out the Panadol he was certain Molly had taken and opened the bottle top. His eyes widened in alarm. "John: induce vomiting." The Doctor turned his head to ask why but the Detective snapped at him. "Now, John!" Evidently the Doctor wasn't doing a good enough job and wasn't fast enough for the Holmes' standards.
"Molly?" Sherlock kept up a façade of remaining calm as the pathologist convulsed, eyes opening and rolling into the back of her head as her back arched and her body seized. "Molly! Molly, this isn't funny." The woman stopped convulsing, much to both men's amazement. However, her body went completely limp.
''
"Who'd want to kill Molly Hooper?" John questioned. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to and, for life of him, couldn't understand how anyone could actually go ahead and try to take the life of the sweet, innocent and all around beautiful Doctor Molly Hooper. Sherlock was unimpressed as well. He had initially thought the whole thing had been a set up of sorts to try and get him to apologise, but once the pathologist started to convulse, well, he was certain that it was attempted murder and not some macabre prank.
"She wasn't the primary target." John looked to the Consulting Detective.
"Come again? They nearly succeeded in killing her: of course she's the main bloody target, Sherlock."
"It's a message. They intended to do harm to someone else through her. It's as you said: who'd want to kill Molly Hooper? Who'd have any reason to want to harm her? Nobody, John. I'm certain Molly hasn't made an enemy during her entire life." Before John could question him, Sherlock continued on. "Molly, in this situation, would have been the one to do the poisoning; she's the one with the reasons to hate, but she doesn't, well, she didn't." There was actual regret in his voice for once. He had been unaware of Miss Hooper's past, having deduced that there was nothing remotely interesting about the mousy pathologist who worked at Saint Bart's. His words, although harsh, should not have prompted Molly to react the way she did, so he researched. He didn't like what he'd found. Apparently, he knew just the right words to absolutely tear the heart out of the woman. He paused a moment. "Tear the heart out." He said aloud.
"'Tear the heart out'? What are you going on about, Sherlock?"
"Moriarty." John paled.
"You can't be serious. Why? Why would he even bother with Molly? She's noth-" Sherlock cut him off.
"He poisoned her John; he wants her dead. She must have seen something, heard something; noticed something when he was playing gay for three weeks." His eyes narrowed as he briefly replayed walking into her office and finding her. He remembered the slight lingering of a cologne. It had to have been him.
"No, no way. Even you bought his 'gay' act."
"Molly didn't." Sherlock replied instantly. "Think, John. Think! She tried to warn me, remember?" John's eyes widened.
"I thought she was just angry about it all. Do you really think she saw him for what he was?" Sherlock just looked to the comatose body on the bed.
"She saw through many things, John." John looked at the woman before nodding to Sherlock and leaving the room. "You saw through me." He whispered, letting go of the pathologists' hand. This was his fault, he knew it. "I may have hurt you, Molly Hooper, but I will make it up to you." He leant down, placing a chaste kiss upon her forehead. "Let's go."
''
"How come it's never come up before?" Greg Lestrade asked. "The lab did a background check, they always do, on their new employees. When Molly started, she'd have been screened. Simple as that. She wouldn't have gotten the job otherwise."
"Yes, well, it seems as if Miss Hooper's been keeping things rather close to the chest, I'd imagine. With her upbringing, though, its hardly surprising." Mycroft answered. "Now, why on earth am I here, Sherlock? What made you think it would be a wonderful idea to invite me over to your little party?" Sherlock sneered at his older brother.
"You would have known about this, Mycroft. Don't pretend."
"Don't be daft, Sherly."
"What? You're telling me you didn't find out every little thing imaginable the moment I stepped foot into her office?"
"Why would I? I still don't understand why you're bothering with this 'investigation'. She was never important, not in the slightest. Just leave it to rest." He ignored the glares that were sent his way and continued on. "It was, simply, unfortunate." He stood, umbrella in hand. "Now leave it be, Sherlock. She was nothing to you but a supply of cadavers. She doesn't matter; she never will." Mycroft simply strode out the door, his umbrella in hand, and left the three men to their own devices. He was not impressed at the moment. He was the British Government and he had let that mousy woman slip past him so easily. He was angry at himself for not having seen the abuse in her eyes, nor noticing the sheen left behind from a decade-old burn on the palm of her right hand. He would monitor his brother, as always. Nothing good could come from this, though. He was certain of that.
''
"I honestly don't know which one of you is worse." John said, shaking his head in a mixture of anger and disbelief. "The two of you are horrible"
"Yes, John, we're already aware of that. Our social skills are lacking and we don't rightly care for sentiment. Now, can we concentrate on the case?" Greg sent John a look to which the army doctor shrugged. "What do we know?"
"Molly was poisoned." John began. "They spiked her Panadol tablets."
"How could anyone have known that she'd need to take them?" Greg asked. He was still confused as to why Molly Hooper had become a target after five years without incident, in regards to Sherlock Holmes' enemies. John looked to Sherlock, also curious.
"She's been through quite the ordeal lately." The men both gave the Consulting Detective a look. He sneered at them, almost daring them to bring up Christmas Eve. "Adding to that, her brother has been calling her every three days or so, meaning Molly would be emotionally exhausted from dealing with family. There is also the fact that the Christmas and New Year season has added a considerable amount of new bodies for her to process. Work load's always bigger during this time of year for her."
"So, she's been stressed since you called her those awful words then?" Greg summarised. Sherlock nodded. "But still, knowing that she'd eventually take a Panadol is a bit of an extreme jump, isn't it?"
"Putting a bomb on a child is extreme, so this truly shouldn't phase you."
"What? Bomb on a kid? Wait, are you talking about the man who killed the boy at the pools?"
"Yes, Lestrade, we are."
"You think he's the one who tried to kill Molly?"
"I don't think, Graham, I know."
"It's Greg."
"It's ridiculous." Sherlock waved him off as he continued to look around Molly's work station. He spun around, startling the two men. "What is it John?" Sherlock demanded. The older man just sighed.
"Look, we've been here for hours. You haven't found anything new. There's no sign of anyone coming down here, no odd visitors on the visitors log, the CCTV footage has given us diddly squat and I don't think there's much we can do here." Sherlock stopped for a moment then nodded.
"You're right." John and Greg didn't even hide their surprise. "To Molly's it is."
"Wait, what? We're breaking into her flat, Sherlock! Give her some sort of privacy!" He then turned to Greg. "We're not going to break in, okay?"
"Lestrade, you're letting us in." Sherlock told him.
"Wait a minute, Sherlock. We haven't even got the test results back confirming that it was poison. For all we know: she could have had an allergic reaction to something in the pill. I can't let you in. I'd need a warrant or something more substantial to classify as probable cause." The Detective rolled his eyes.
"You've had less and done more, Lestrade." His piercing gaze was now on the Detective Inspector. "Why are you hesitant about solving this?" Greg looked at him like he was crazy. "Don't you want to help Molly and catch the disgusting arachnid that's responsible for almost murdering her?" Greg looked at him but soon gave in.
"When she wakes, don't let her know of my involvement, alright? We're all already on thin ice with her and, quite frankly, I'd rather not be." Sherlock ignored the man and was already out the door.
"He wasn't implying that you don't care about what happens to Molly, yeah? He's feeling guilty about, well, everything he's ever said and done to her over the years." Greg nodded.
"So he should." Though the man felt guilty himself. He never once spoke up for Molly while she was humiliated by the younger Holmes' brother. "Best get to it. Try not to make a mess, yeah?" John nodded.
''
Molly was feeling nauseous and in pain. It felt like she was breathing in fire and her head was hurting something shocking. The past five hours had been excruciatingly slow and she was over this whole ordeal. She almost kissed the man who walked through her door.
"Don't worry: you're free to come along with us now." She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Sebastian?" She looked up at the tall man.
"Yes, Miss Molly?"
"I love you. Thank you." He chuckled.
"Best not say things like that, Miss Molly. Jim will get right jealous over words like that. 'Specially if it ain't him they're aimed at."
"How is he?" She asked, talking quietly as they walked through the fire exit.
"In a right mood, he is. Not to worry, though. He'll see you and forget about his troubles." Molly yawned at that moment. Sebastian watched as her eyes fluttered closed. "Rest up, Miss Molly."
"Mh-hmm." She sounded out in agreement. Sebastian Moran shook his head and smiled at the woman fondly. She was a kind soul, there was no denying, but she had a streak as wicked as the infamous Moriarty. Speaking of, he hoped the Consulting Criminal had finished up with their latest group of suspects. It wouldn't do well to have Molly wake up because of someone's careless screams of agony.
''
Authors Note: Hey, hey, hey! So, here's the second Chapter. Mostly edited, but I'm going to assume that I've missed some things. Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed reading this because I certainly enjoyed writing it. I'll update relatively soon. Thank you!