AN: Chapter two as promised! Feed back is always most welcome!
Molly felt it.
She didn't have to be told the instant her heart hit the pavement. She was already running up the stairs away from the lab when she barreled head first into a tall man in a three piece suit. He grabbed her by the arms and forced her to calm down and focus.
"Doctor Hooper. We haven't much time. My team is taking him to the morgue as per his instructions. I don't know what your role in all of this is, but he was quite adamant on your presence."
Numbly she lets herself be led to the morgue where a set of large men in black suits are outside guarding the doors. The man at her side nods, and they are ushered inside. There is sheer chaos.
Five people in scrubs are crowded around a gurney shouting instructions and ordering transfusion bags and chest tubes. The man at her side surges ahead, but Molly's feet are glued to the ground. The air has left the room, and all sound falls away. Suddenly she is standing on the edge of the cluster of frantic doctors without even remembering how she got there. Her eyes are drawn to a patch of dark curly hair between the men in scrubs, and it is sodden with blood.
"What happened?" she hears herself ask. The voice doesn't sound like her at all.
"He fell…from the roof," the man beside her says. His voice is maddeningly calm, and she suddenly wants to scream at him.
"No h-he didn't, did he? He jumped."
"Yes."
"Who are you?"
The man looks down at her, and a flash of pain crowds his eyes. It vanishes quicker than it appears, and he swallows hard. "I'm his brother."
Distantly she remembers hearing about Sherlock's mysterious older brother. Rumors surround the enigmatic Mycroft Holmes and have built him up to be some larger than life Government caricature. But, standing here now, he looks a lot smaller, and as ordinary as ever.
"We're losing him!" someone cries out.
"Insert the chest tube for chrissakes!" Someone else.
Before anyone can stop her, Molly pushes her way through, medical instincts taking over as she holds his head steady.
"What is his status?" she asks. It had been a while since she administered to a living person, but she still remembers her basic training when it came to trauma.
"From what we can tell punctured lung, broken collarbone, head trauma. Possible broken vertebrae. We aren't sure how bad, but by the looks of it, it seems he tried to absorb most of the shock with his legs and side, alternately trying to protect his head."
"I have a helicopter ready on the roof to air lift him to more private facilities; we really don't have much time. Is he stabalised?" Mycroft says.
"The chest tube is in, but we can't get him to respond," says another doctor, pressing her knuckles into his sternum and getting no response. The catheter in his chest is where it should be, but Sherlock isn't breathing like he should.
Molly gingerly cradles his head and her lips brush against his before she can stop herself.
"Please," she says, and then whispers, "Altamont."
His eyes, almost lilly-white under the fluorescent lights, fly open and for the first time he takes a proper staggering breath. Molly can't tell if it's a sob or a laugh that escapes her.
"Hello you," she says in awe. He blinks rapidly, and all she can think about is wanting to hold him and ease the fear and confusion from his beautiful, open eyes.
Before she can, she is roughly moved aside and Sherlock is swept away in an instant. She's left standing there, a coldness seeping through her from the ground up and curling itself around her chest.
"What did you do?" Mycroft says from behind her making her jump. She didn't realise he was still here.
She shakes her head utterly lost for words. Her knees feel weak and watery. Suddenly, Mycroft steers her to a stool, and she sits gratefully. She can't get the image of Sherlock, eyes closed and deathly still, out of her mind. His eyes should never be closed, they were conduits of light, and the thought of them never opening again twisted something painful in her chest.
She startles again when Mycroft appears in front of her with a wet cloth. It takes her a moment to realise he is wiping down her hands that are covered in blood. Sherlock's blood. She closes her eyes, not wanting to see that mocking scarlet. She opens them again when she feels a blanket being draped over her shoulders. Vaguely she wonders where it came from, and when she turns to look she realises she is clutching the fabric of Sherlock's coat. A painful gasp tears itself from her lips.
"I am sorry," Mycroft says. He looks unsure, his hands behind his back, and Molly can see the family resemblance in the nervous way he shifts on his feet. "It was the only thing available. And you're in shock. I hear this sort of thing helps."
She nods and pulls it closer around her. She can smell the blood on the right lapel, and she shudders again. Oddly, she doesn't want to take it off, however. It's still warm from when he wore it last (my God was it only a few moments ago?) and she is glad they didn't cut it off of him as trauma surgeons are wont to do.
"Where is he going?" she finally manages.
"He is going to a secure medical facility where he can be treated and recover discreetly."
"You knew about it too? About his plan?" She knows it a stupid question, but right now she feels like she needs to keep talking.
"Yes. He came to me shortly before visiting you. Although he didn't tell me much more other than he was going to need help after…" He clears his throat. After a moment he pulls up a stool for himself and sits so he can talk to her at eye-level. "What I need to know, Doctor Hooper, is what your role in all of this is."
"I don't know how much I can tell you. Sherlock warned me it was dangerous. If the wrong people found out about – about what he can do…they would destroy him. He said he was worried there was potential for him to be used for the wrong reasons. I didn't know what he meant, but he was concerned. Almost like he didn't know the full extent of what he was about to do either."
Mycroft concedes this with a nod of his head. "Tell me what you can. It is imperative that I know."
She takes a deep breath, inhaling in the scent of cardamom and rain water and wool coat. It smells like his midnight hair, and when she had twined her fingers into it for the first time the night before, it lingered in her skin until she got home.
"He told me his mind was like a hard drive. Like a computer he could store and delete bits of information at will."
"Solar system," Mycroft says under his breath, a small smile playing on his lips. It's a curious, fond smile, and she doesn't know what to make of it. Smiling seems contrary to his inherently austere nature, and the fact that it was Sherlock who could bring about such a reaction was astonishing. "Continue," he urges.
"Well, he claimed he developed a method – a backup. Like an external hard drive…but not. He was rather vague. He called it 'partitioning his mind' in case anything happened to his body. He said it was a long shot, but he was confident in his theory. He knew where things were heading with Moriarty all along." She suppresses a shudder remembering how close she came to the psychopath at one point. "The thing is, he could only do so much. He needed someone he trusted to be there, to keep him focussed as he 'tore down the walls' as he put it."
"And so he came to you. How interesting and rather…unexpected that he chose you of all people," Mycroft says, a bemused look on his face. Molly decides not to take offence. To be honest she isn't sure why Sherlock asked for her help either. After all, she isn't John. "There's something more though, isn't there? Some other reason why you were required." His eyes flash over her face in a way that is achingly familiar.
Leave it to a Holmes to know when she wasn't telling the whole story. She decides there's no use in denying it, but that didn't mean she needed to say more than she had to. "Yes. He entrusted me with something. I keep the hidden part of his mind intact, and I am able to restore it."
"That thing you did…you whispered something. A word. You unlocked him, didn't you?"
She remains silent, but the answer is clear.
"How intriguing. Extraordinary to say the least. Sherlock always did have to be unique, and it would be fitting that he made himself the most interesting puzzle of them all. Oh, if only he could hear me I would never hear the end of it," he chuckles. "I suppose it would violate my brother's confidence in you to share what this particular word is?" She eyes him guardedly. "I thought so."
"He'll be okay, right?" she says in a small voice.
"Oh I imagine so," he says with an air of boredom. It hinges on being forced in order to mask the concern. "He's too bull-headed to let something like gravity stop him."
Molly lets out a harsh laugh that breaks into a sob of relief. Sherlock was infuriatingly stubborn, and she had never been more grateful of the fact.
"There is one more request I am to make of you, Miss Hooper," Mycroft says rising from the stool.
"Yes. Anything." She takes his offered hand and stands, feeling a bit stronger.
"Doctor Watson is in the A&E. It would be best if he had somebody. He – Sherlock would want that."
...
Molly wavers in the doorway of the exam room as the doctor finishes disinfecting the scrape on John's temple. He doesn't even register the pain, and stares blankly into space. She waits until the doctor is finished with the plasters, worrying Sherlock's coat between her fingers the whole time. She wasn't aware that she brought it with her at first, and when she went to take it back to the morgue it just felt so wrong to leave it there. She wants to put the coat around John's shoulders like Mycroft did for her, but then she remembers that she can't tell him it's alright and that Sherlock is okay, and the coat isn't just a coat to him anymore, but a shroud. Her heart aches for him, aches in a way that she feels grateful not to be him. The doctor finally leaves with a nod. John still doesn't tear his eyes from a spot on the wall.
"John?"
He looks at her with glazed eyes, and for a moment it seems as if he has no idea who she is. Finally, recognition crashes over him, and he swallows hard.
"Molly," he acknowledges before finally registering what she's holding. He presses his lips together so tightly that they turn white, and he drops his head into his hands. "Jesus, God." His voice is wretched and he begins to tremble.
Molly abandons the coat on the small counter, and comforts him with her embrace instead. He leans against her, his exhaustion and grief a palpable thing that causes her breath to hitch. He is breaking apart in her arms, and even though his eyes are dry, she knows that his chest is filled with shards of glass. She wants to tell him, oh how she wants to tell him! She wants to share her fear and joy and put him back together, but she knows she can't. So she cries into his hair instead.
Ever the kind, caring doctor, his arms come up and hold her equally close. This makes her cry even more because she's the one that should be there for him not the other way around, because she knows Sherlock's alive, and she won't have to go through this soul ripping loss like he will, and it suddenly feels like a gift she doesn't deserve. John misreads her guilty sobbing and gets off the table so he can hold and comfort more adequately.
"Oh, Molly," he sooths rubbing small circles into her back as she buries her face into his shoulder. "I am so sorry that you had to see him like that. So, so sorry."
It breaks her heart that he doesn't understand the tears she cries are for him. And here he is, the soldier. Still trying to protect, even though she knows his heart is turning to stone and ice.
"I-I wanted you to have this," Molly pushes away and swipes at the tears on her face. She goes over and retrieves Sherlock's coat. She presses it into his hands when he doesn't reach for it on his own. She can't tell him it will be all right, but hopefully this will be a promise. A promise he will return to them. She keeps her eyes on the floor because she knows if she sees the brokenness in his patient blue eyes once more her resolve most definitely will crumble.
She doesn't wait for a response. She just kisses him on the cheek and hurries out of the room.
Come back to him, Sherlock. Come back to all of us...