When Molly awoke hours later, she gently fussed, orienting herself. As she became more conscious, her chest grew tight. Staring at the blacken screen of the tv set, she clutched the quilt that was laying over her. Glancing at the clock, she realized she had slept about twelve hours and it was now ten in the evening. Toby wouldn't have seemed wary to anyone but his owner, so she decided she didn't have much of a choice. She quickly changed her clothes, picking out her big purse, she threw a change of clothing into it and some toiletries. Toby didn't fuss too much when she put him in his cat carrier. Thank goodness she had friends on Baker Street.
—
"Gavin has a case for us!" Sherlock projected himself out of his chair, excitedly.
"You mean, Greg." John corrected him.
"Right, Greg." He hesitated before grabbing his coat. 'Are you coming with?"
"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" The response was an excited hum as he turned up his collar and followed his grey eyes down the stairs.
"What has he told you?"
"Not much, but we'll figure every out once we get to the crime scene." John knew very well that 'we' meant 'I' in that particular sentence, but was glad to be included in the statement. Like nearly every time they had gone to a crime scene, Sherlock had his own little ways of fidgeting. The way he would glance out the window, twiddle his thumbs as well as John had thought he'd seen on occasion through the mans shoes, his toes. The dark, overwhelming figure next to John in the cab was so obviously child like in both annoying and endearing ways to anyone that legitimately attempted to get to know the man.
In fact, many times, the excitement overwhelmed him so, he would fly out of the cab without paying. John often wondered if this happened when he wasn't around and if any cabbies had had to chase Sherlock onto a crime scene to demand their fare. As they pulled up, unsurprising to John, he only saw the flutter of the Belstaff coat as he took off before the cab had completely stopped.
John paid and followed, noticeably less excited about seeing a dead body than his companion.
"Well, what do we have?" He took long strides up to the D.I., rubbing his hands together.
"This is the third Jane Doe we've found like this in the past five days. All women with either dark blond or light brown hair. Different body types, though." He sighed. "And, umm… they always have something carved into them."
"Thats interesting, but theres obviously something especially intriguing about it."
"Its always a small carving at the bottom of the left buttock." All three men seemed to hesitate as a group.
"Well, shall we go in." Sherlock gestured to the door beyond Lestrade, unable to bare the silence a moment more.
As Greg had promised, there the young woman was. No older than mid-thirties, but probably younger. Stripped of all her clothing, cleaned and dumped in an abandoned building with three small 'x's carved on her buttocks just above her thigh. Clearly done after death. John began talking about the body. She had clearly been drugged and assaulted sexually. There were marks on her wrist and ankles from being restrained. Sherlock stopped him.
"We'll find nothing here. He has some sort of 'safe house' where he takes his victims. Probably used a different car every time."
"Then we should be able to find records of that, somewhere."
"Yes and no. This is a big city, if you don't use your car daily, are you always going to notice its absence if its only gone an hour or two?" John and Greg exchanged looks. That definitely wouldn't have been their first thought, but thats why Sherlock had been called in. "Where are the other bodies?"
"Saint Barts, of course, we wanted you to look at them." Sherlock reached out his hand, the D.I. rolled his eyes and pulled two files out of his jacket.
"Great! Come along, John."
—
The cabby was very frustrated with her. She kept giving him odd directions, in fact, this was the third cabby she'd employed to drive her the 10 minute commute. He'd just have to suffer though, he was getting paid, that should be sufficient. Molly got out about three blocks from the safe haven and hoofed it. Mrs. Hudson was perfectly fine with taking in Toby. She had said that one of her neighbors were setting off some bug bombs and, though it wasn't adjacent to her, she didn't want Toby to get sick. Then, she took an overly complicated route to St. Barts. Because this was how it had to be…. again….
Relieved to be at work, she quickly showered and, lost in thought, realized she was scrubbing her inner thigh very hard and for far too long. So what if he was back, if things got bad she actually had friends now. Close ones. Proper ones. Clever ones.
She would be perfectly fine. As soon as she donned her lab coat, she was Doctor Hooper again, not little skittish Molly. Prepared to cut open any corpse the found its way onto her table. The feeling this brought her was a safe and powerful one. He couldn't and wouldn't control her. No way in hell she would let him do that… not again.
She perked up even more when she saw Sherlock and John waiting for her.
"Hello!" She chirped. "What can I do for you gentlemen this evening?"
"I need to see two Jane Does, Molly."
"Specific Jane Does or….." You never really knew with Sherlock.
"Yes, specific Jane Does."
"Alright, which ones?"
"These ones!" The mans dark curls seemed to dance as he spoke and tossed his head to the side, excitedly passing Molly the files.
Considering she was pulling out dead bodies, her high spirits were easily seen as well. She had a bounce in her step and a smile on her face. No one ever really realize how scared and exposed they feel until they feel safe again.
"I didn't do the autopsies for either of these women."
"Well, you're going to be doing the third. I'll have Jeff see to it."
"Jeff?" Molly racked her brain, trying to find a Jeff that would have that authority.
"He means Greg." John sighed.
"Right. Greg." He waved his friends correction off and turned down to the corpses. "Could you roll them over for me." Molly was motioning to do as he said, but her face was definitely asking a question. "I need to see their buttocks." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "He carves small symbols into their left cheek and I need to see them, please."
The first victim had a heart carved into the muscle and the second had a triangle. Did Molly just fidget? He didn't want her to know he noticed, after all, their relationship had been complicated in the year or so since his return, so it may be in response to him paying so much attention to, and even touching, another girls behind. Dead or not, that could be uncomfortable for her, he acknowledged.
"Thank you, Molly."He snapped off his gloves and smiled at her. "John, if you want you can head home. I don't think I'll be doing much more tonight." John didn't buy that for a second, but knew Sherlock had his reasons for doing things whatever way he saw fit. So, John reluctantly left and Molly began preparing the bodies to be put away. "So, why is Toby at Mrs. Hudsons?"
"Hmmm? Oh, one of the people in my building is setting off a few bug bombs. Just didn't want him to get sick." She smiled, sweetly.
"You're a good liar, Molly Hooper." And he actually did look impressed. Molly met his eyes with a bit of dirty look.
"What makes you think I'm lying?"
"Well, because that lie doesn't also cover why you have taken two showers at work since 'Liam Said Hello'."
"Most people wouldn't notice I showered at work."
"Yes, but I'm not most people, Molly." He stepped toe to toe searching the face that she kept so unreadable. "Why won't you tell me who Liam is?"
"Because thats none of your business."
"You slept on your couch all day."
"Were you in my flat?" If he hadn't been him, he would have missed the flash of hope that quickly flashed through her piercing eyes.
"Someone was in your flat?" Sherlock found he didn't even have to make a conscious effort to make sure his expression looked concerned. It had naturally appeared on his face.
"I have work to do, Sherlock, and so do you."
"I can't help you, Molly, if you don't tell me whats going on."
"I told you nothing was going on."
"But, there obviously is something going on."
"Just stop. Stop right now!" Caught off guard by how loud she had screamed just inches from his face, he stumbled backwards and, though she tried to hide it, she had glassy, tearful eyes. The door swung open and one of Molly's coworkers walked in. When he turned back to the Pathologist, she was surprisingly composed and showed no signs that she had been in such emotional distress.
"Oh, my gosh! Molly!" The blond woman squealed as she ran up to Molly, ignoring Sherlock. "I just had the cutest guy come up to me and ask about you."
"Oh, really, Juliette." They shared a girly giggle, though Molly's was forced.
"Yes. At first I thought he was interested in me but he started asking questions about you."
"Oh, yeah?"
"What was his name, Juliette?" Sherlock interrupted, fairly politely, especially for him.
"Liam." Molly looked happy, still, but she'd swallowed hard.
"Oh, really? What did-uh- you tell him?"
"That if he wanted to ask you out so bad, he'd have to come down here and do it himself." Her golden braid drifted off her shoulder.
"You told him I was down here?"
"Well, he wanted me to come down here with the lame message that he says 'hello' and I told him he should just be a man and come say hi himself."
"Oh, I don't think he will, though." Molly said, more to Sherlock than Juliette.
"Don't say that!" The blond gasped.
"No, its really ok, Juliette. I'm not looking to date right now."
"Oh, right. Tom." Molly nodded.
"You'll bounce back." She finally fully acknowledged Sherlocks presence. "Oh, should I leave?"
"Oh, gosh! Its not like that Juliette! He came to look at dead bodies!" Juliette glanced back at the corpses.
"Oh, my gosh, Molly, how creepy."
"What?"
"Well, they all have different builds, but their faces look a bit like you." The three of them all walked back over to the corpses. "Don't you think?"
"Don't be silly, Juliette." She waved her co-worker away. "Do you mind, though, just have to put them away." Juliette rolled her eyes and left the way she came.
"You did see it, didn't you, Molly." Sherlock sighed. "That they looked like you. This is Liam, isn't it?"
"Now, why would I draw out a murder investigation by withholding such a suspicion?" Molly scoffed. "Especially a serial killer who, likely, isn't done yet."
"I don't know, Molly, because I don't even know who Liam is."
"Thats right, you don't."