Rest assured I'm not dead!

So sorry, life got in the way and all of that jazz. I'm actually starting to do crap for my future like actually fill out applications for scholarships and stuff. My greatest fear about college will be that I will not have time to write.

Molly found it strange pretending to be Beth. It was like slipping into a different skin, one she wasn't entirely familiar with, but everyone else seemed to go on with their day. She knew it would be odd if Beth Child's credit and debit card activities ceased to be, but she didn't know her pin and only had two of her passwords. She didn't have anything on a newly opened account with a large sum of money in it and had to rectify that. Slowly and deliberately she dressed to impress, taking a look at herself in the mirror before speaking.

"Hello, Steven, how are you?"

Suddenly she was in the man's office, requesting a change in pin. Somehow, it had been demagnetized. Molly wasn't the sort to make a hypothesis on how this could have happened, but Steven was pleased enough to do so. She fished a key out of her bag and he was delightful enough to give her access to her safety deposit box. He even gave her a new account set up with completely different passwords and payment system, despite the fact that it was against the rules to do so without a load of paperwork, but she flashed a smile and offered to sponsor his next charity run. After that, she even managed to get half of it in cash—just in case. It felt strange, manipulating the innocent people around her.

"Hey Beth! Beth!" Who was this man? Darker complexion, older, cop car—shit, shit, shit, cop car? A cruiser? Molly squeaked as he manhandled her, tossing her into the car. She was grasping for an explanation, looking around when she finally found a piece of paper.

Arthur Bell.

Art.

He had been calling her constantly.

Oh.

"You left the country?!" He practically shouted, "They thought you were going to make a run for it!"

"No! No Art, of course not!"

"Then why'd you go?"

"Paul had a meeting and—"

"Didn't want to leave your tweaker ass?"

"I had permission!" Molly replied, remembering the strange notes attached to Beth's passport. It had frightened her at first, being stopped unexpectedly in each airport, but she realized in between that she was technically under investigation—apparently Beth Childs had shot a civilian…oh and Beth Childs was a cop. Molly only had a couple hours before Art was grabbing her on the street and she found herself in the car with him. There was no time to research, no time to prepare, Molly was grasping for straws just to answer his questions as they drove to a police station. She quickly requested to go to the washroom, and paced the length of the room for a moment. What the hell was she going to do? This was deep shit if there was such a thing. Wildly, Molly considered the fact that she could add "Impersonating a cop" to the steadily growing list of felonies and misdemeanors she was committing to save her own skin.

She stared at the soap dispenser, listing the ingredients of common public washroom soap in her mind as she reached for it, unscrewed the cap, and tipped it back to drink.

Sherlock paced back and forth. Felix Dawkins had left the country, just as predicted. Mycroft traced his movement to Panama, where he stayed for a week before he moved on to Toronto. Toronto made sense. It had a good art scene, was fairly well priced, and he did have a foster mother there—Molly and Felix's foster mother. His throat closed up at the thought, however he waved it to the wayside. There was no time to do that. He was waiting for Moriarty to emerge to do something. There was nothing he could do for the man to initiate the game. When that happened, he wouldn't play; he would kill him. He couldn't afford to lose anyone else.

(Of course, that was completely unrealistic as Moriarty probably devised a contingency for that, nonetheless, everyone would be safe. Sherlock would make sure of that.)

Already feeling queasy, Molly walked into the room full of rather frightening looking people, all in power suits, all ready to ask her what she did—and oh God, she didn't know. Slowly, Molly sank to her seat.

"State your name for the records."

Molly leaned forward, about to say 'Beth Childs' when instead she threw up, her sick getting everywhere. She found that Art was herding her away somewhere and soon she was tossed in a room with a psychiatrist. Molly knew her type almost immediately. She also immediately knew where all the prescriptions Beth Childs had in her cabinet were from. Felix always referred to psychiatrists like her as "Dr. Feelgoods" because they practically handed out the meds like candy. Molly herself was actually guilty of this. As a doctor, she could write prescriptions—even though she was just a pathologist, she had to take the same General Medicine courses as everyone else—to anyone she deemed necessary.

Molly paid for her medical school debts and specialization doing this as well as the down payment on Felix's chop shop. She had forgotten about putting this on the list. It was yet another criminal offense to add to the ever growing tally she had going in her head. To think, Mrs. S thought she had been the good kid.

James Moriarty sat in Sherlock's flat, on Sherlock's sofa, holding a picture of Sherlock's late pathologist. It was a small wonder that Sherlock didn't go ahead and rip off the man's head for all he'd done. It would have made everything quick, short, and slightly less painful than it already was. Yet, Sherlock was sure that this time around, James Moriarty would have something to prevent him from drastic action.

"They will be able to act on my orders even if I die." Moriarty grinned, able to deduce Sherlock the way he did others. It annoyed him to no end—which was a reason why he tried a bit harder to keep his observations to himself. His mind immediately leapt to the day Molly slapped him—how he announced the ending of her engagement while he was still high with every part of his mind feeling like it had been tossed in a background. Sherlock winced. "Thinking about her are we?" Moriarty held up the photograph, "She was a pretty one, eh?"

"Name your game and your stakes."

"You're playing then?"

"I do not think I have a choice in the matter."

"Good. Well, I suppose now that this distraction is gone you'll be more motivated to play it like a good sport this time around."

Sherlock didn't tell him that Molly was still a distraction. He didn't wish to tell him that there was something off about her body. After Moriarty left, he regressed into his mind palace and began sorting through the day that he saw Molly Hooper on the slab. Finally Anderson and Donavan's whispers had returned to him, but he still couldn't look at Molly objectively despite all the information being there. He thought it was too quick to jump to the conclusion that it was all an elaborate trick, but that tiny bit of sentimental hope crept in on him nonetheless. It wasn't good to try and linger on such thoughts, especially when he had Moriarty's first clue, and especially when Sally Donavan pitied him.

"He actually looks sad."

It was very tempting, but way too soon.

Molly remembered sitting on the playground growing up. To be exact, she sat on the swings, swaying back and forth gently as she watched everyone else play. She never really felt like she was a part of everything. Her family moved a lot, giving her plenty of chances to start over, but each time there was something about her that put people off her behavior. When her dad died, she was tossed into care and tossed around like a hot potato—eventually landing with Felix again. This time, it was different. She could tell from the start as she walked into a flat with faded blue walls and plenty of rock and roll albums. Mrs. S immediately laid down the law, proposing strict curfews and little room for protest. The first night, Felix and Molly thought they would be completely miserable, however Molly figured out how lucky they were first. Mrs. S spent her own money on them as well as the care money; she knew three languages and could help them with their maths, and she was actually kind enough to help Molly figure out bra sizes. For once, Molly felt loved for who she was and not for what she was supposed to be.

This did not, however, mean that Molly could barge into Mrs. S's Toronto house after six years of only communicating through letters. It was then that she realized that Moriarty had managed to fuck up again. If he had known about Mrs. S and Kira—no. No he doesn't therefore they will be safe and sound, especially now that Molly is dead. Molly somewhat regretted not taking the letters with her. She loved getting them from Kira especially. Her block letters and simply phrases had recently developed a better look and less spelling errors. Kira was a secret. Not even Sherlock knew about her. Molly hid the letters from Mrs. S and Kira among her receipts so that no one could state boredom as a reason for knowing about them. They had decided to remain separate, and separate they remained. Molly lasted another week, only distracted from going by new arrivals.

Paul was still out of town. The meeting got another extension, but he sent his friend to check on her from time to time; Cody, his name was. This coincided well with Felix finally arriving in all of his gusto, flinging his arms around her neck like he really thought she had been dead. He must not have really believed it, not really.

"You're going to have to talk to Mrs. S. It would make sense for you to want to reconnect and all of that crap and—"

"Molly, just tell me this. How the hell did you do this? Does he know? Is this some sort of sick game?"

"You know I've never been fond of games." Molly stared down into her glass before taking a sip. Beth and Paul kept good scotch. "I—well there was a girl who threw herself in front of the train. One who looked just like me. I didn't really think about it, I just ran with it. The lie got bigger and bigger and now I'm here." Molly didn't mention the strange phone calls or anything. She assumed that there was no big reason to dive too much deeper in Beth's life if they were just going to tear down, torch, and leave anyway.

"Fifteen million." Felix shook his head, "It took a while, but I managed to make the sum almost untraceable."

"Good. Nothing too big ticket, just some new papers, new identities, new everything. We could go to Montreal or New York. Or somewhere rural. As long as we don't draw attention to ourselves we can wait out Moriarty's downfall."

"You think Sherlock can do it? He did a shit job of it last time, you know."

"Of course he can do it." Molly replied automatically, forgetting herself, her accent returning to normal, "Oh…here I thought I wasn't forgetting it."

"More practice, darling." Felix leaned over and tapped her cheek.

Two days later, Molly stood on the doorstep, waiting anxiously for Mrs. S to open the door.

"Holy mother of God—you're not dead."

"And you said I had a habit of stating the obvious." Molly flashed a small smile, "May I come in?"

Moments later, the pair sat across from each other at a table, and Molly suddenly felt as if she was fourteen again and being interrogated for having a fag (not hers, but it didn't matter much to the woman) in her jumper pocket. Slowly, Molly leaned back, crossing her arms, "How's Kira?"

"She's doing well—I hadn't told her."

"Good. I hate for her to think her own mother's dead."

"She thinks you're her sister, remember?"

"Oh and you're her dear mummy and everything's fine and peachy, yeah?" Molly snorted, "I—I'm glad I kept my distance now. This was for the best."

"They told me you threw yourself in front of a train, Molly. I knew you couldn't have; you're too tough for that. Tell me what's going on, smart girl. Who are you running from?"

"An enemy of a friend got it in mind that I should die. I decided that was unfavorable. So everyone else I know thinks I'm dead, they don't know Kira exists—thanks for that, by the way, my entire life has been ruined and built up again, and oh! I'm pretending to be a cop."

"Molly—"

"Yeah, I know, I fucked up—"

"I'm glad you're all right."

If it were up to Sherlock, he would announce that Mary picked an incredibly inconvenient time to go into labor; however, John made him very aware that his opinion was not welcome and would most likely be met with a greeting similar to his return. This left him sitting in the hall, watching as nurses and aids traveled by, carrying bits and pieces of their lives. Before the fall, Sherlock wouldn't have hesitated to leave. He would have probably would have drifted down to visit Molly and see if she had anything interesting for him. Or, in this case, he would have gathered more information from his homeless network and dare he say it—Mycroft. Sherlock scowled. Apparently with this new abundance of sentiment, he was incapable of removing Molly from his memory with any surgical precision. She couldn't be deleted and always emerged at the most inopportune times.

The doctor that just rushed by had a cat that was the same color as Molly's.

A woman visiting her sister had the exact same shade of hair.

Another woman had that same way of looking at her feet when she walked, as if afraid the floor would suddenly disappear—irrelevant.

Sherlock thought back to every detail he had figured out about Molly over the years. Usually, his mind palace made connections for him, but sometimes he had to sink deep within it and actively create passageways for more vague connections to be made. Three weeks before Molly threw herself on the tracks at Moriarty's command (no doubt friends and family were threatened. Sherlock cursed her bleeding heart—sentiment killed her) he noticed something new in their companionable silence. He never asked her about it, but the fact kept getting thrown in his face the more and more he learned about pregnancy and motherhood.

Molly's hips showed signs of having a child years ago, but nothing else about her seemed like she was a mother. She would have mentioned having a kid and would have often gone home and—oh. It was yet another quiet surprise about Molly, almost enough to distract him from the fact that his eyes had been drawn to parts of her other than her face and he couldn't use deduction as an excuse for it.

8 years before

Molly hadn't wanted to get pregnant. She was twenty-five, still in medical school, working long and hard towards her degree and specialization when the little plus sign told her that she was pregnant. At the time, it didn't seem like that great of a problem. While proud that she overcame being the care girl who got knocked up in high school, she still retained a great deal of apprehension towards her ability to raise a child. The months went by swimmingly and almost exactly at the nine month mark, Kira Marshall (after the idiot father) was born via cesarean section and promptly put in the care of Mrs. S. who later adopted her. While Molly was fiercely protective of the child, she really didn't think she had the maternal instincts that came along with it, nor the time.

When Mrs. S. decided to go live with her sister in Canada, Molly had no choice but to let them go, despite rather liking the title of 'aunt Molly'

Molly climbed out of the shower, pressing water from her hair with the towel when she heard the notable click of the front door being opened.

"Beth?"

Paul.

Shit.

Molly looked down at her phone and found that she received three texts and four missed calls while she was in the shower. She turned around and entered the closet trying not to cringe. This was a man who was the boyfriend of the woman she was impersonating. He would know Beth Childs more than anyone else. If anyone could tear down her illusion—aside from Sherlock or Mycroft—it was definitely this man. She turned around, smiling.

"Hey, I wasn't expecting you til tomorrow."

"Yeah, well, you know how unpredictable those meetings can be. Did you make your hearing? I told you you'd be able to get through on time—"

"Yeah—yeah I choked. Like bad."

"Bad?"

"I threw up on them."

"Oh." Molly moved past him, but on the way, Paul took a lock of her hair, "Your hair it's different."

"Yeah, I got it caught."

"It's longer."

Molly pushed down the bubbling panic and pretty much flung herself at him, knocking him back against the bed, kissing him as she straddled his lap. His response was at first confused and awkward—Molly panicked at the thought that he wasn't adequately distracted from his thought processes—but he soon embraced her, pulling on her hair. Her clothes soon followed—too rough, the part of her that was screaming that this was wrong and immoral yelled at her—well it's working isn't it? A darker, more sinister train that sounded suspiciously similar to a mixture of Sherlock and her teenage self snapped right back.

So I feel like the way I worked Kira in was a bit thin, but I still wanted her (she's adorable) and she'll be making an appearance soon.

Coming up: The German.