"Mrs. Hudson says you're not eating."
No response. John tries again. "Sherlock, you have to eat, at least once in a while. And sleep, too. Gotta keep your strength up, mate, keep that famous brain of yours sharp."
That gets a reaction: a glare as Sherlock turns his head. He's curled up on the sofa in his beige dressing-gown over his rattiest pair of pyjamas, his dark curls matted and unwashed, the bottoms of his bare feet equally filthy. "This 'famous brain' hasn't been sharp enough to find Molly, John. It's been nearly four months and nothing. Nothing but a plot to overthrow the government so childishly simple your daughter could have solved it, and a pile of untraceable 'gifts' from that bastard. He's not even sending me on wild goose chases, no bread crumbs at all this time. He made that broadcast, kidnapped Molly and vanished into thin air. Fucking bastard," he spits out, hunching his shoulders and turning his face away again.
"That 'childishly simple' plot is the only reason you're still free to look for Molly at all," John feels constrained to point out, even though he knows his friend is essentially correct. It hadn't been Moriarty's most creative effort, and if anyone asked (which of course they never did), John would have bluntly told them he thought Moriarty had only done it to ensure that Sherlock was pardoned for the crime of murdering a man who well deserved murdering. Even if 'dear Jim' only seems interested now in tormenting his adversary from afar.
From what little John can figure, Sherlock and Molly had become closer in the days before his exile. A lot closer than even their friendship could account for. But of course Sherlock refuses to answer any questions about the nature of their relationship, reiterating only that Moriarty must have realized that she'd helped him fake his own death and had taken her in retaliation for that. "She matters, John," Sherlock had snapped the last time they'd spoken. "That's all I have to say on the subject."
Mary and John have their own, private opinions, of course, but have agreed to keep them strictly to themselves until Molly is found or returned. So as tempted as he is to try and dig for details again, John restricts himself to trying to coax Sherlock into at least showering and dressing himself. "Come on, you smell almost as bad as that opened coff..uh, as a rubbish bin," he corrects himself hastily as Sherlock turns his head and glares at him again.
Great, just great, John thinks. He's really put his foot in it this time, bringing up memories they'd both rather forget. Shortly after Molly's disappearance, he, Sherlock, Mary and Mycroft had watched as Scotland Yard, specifically Greg Lestrade, supervised the exhumation of Moriarty's supposed body, on the off chance that it wasn't actually the miraculous return from the dead that it seemed. DNA testing needed to be done, in order to confirm that the face on the CCTV camera in the morgue wasn't just a clever bit of plastic surgery impossible to pick out from the grainy footage. The possibility of an identical twin was discussed, Philip Anderson tentatively mentioned cloning, but in the end, the exhumation was approved and they'd gathered round to watch as the coffin was lifted from the ground.
Sherlock had opened it, wielding the crowbar as if he wished he were digging it into Moriarty's throat rather than mouldering bronze-trimmed mahogany. John and Mary had traded uneasy glances, while Mycroft simply stood to one side, gazing impassively at his brother as he heaved the lid open. John hadn't pressed Sherlock about whatever 'mitigating circumstances' he and his brother had been referring to in the car, but he'd resolved to discover the truth of it as soon the exhumation was completed.
The look on Sherlock's face as the lid fell back with a dull 'thud' had brought the other watchers forward. Peering into the satin-lined interior, John had recoiled in disgust at the sight of a semi-decayed dog's body that was the only occupant of the coffin. Mary had immediately identified it as an Irish Setter, which meant nothing to the rest of them but had caused the Holmes brothers to exchange grim glances.
"I never told Moriarty about him," Mycroft had said, and Sherlock had nodded. When pressed, Sherlock had said only that they had had a family pet of the same breed when he was a child. John had wanted to press him for details, but it didn't take that soft touch of Mary's hand on his shoulder to tell him now wasn't the time.
An exclamation from Sherlock had caught their attention, and John had been repulsed to see his friend carefully prising something from the dead dog's mouth. It was a folded piece of paper that Sherlock opened up, grimly reading the message aloud: 'The game isn't to find your missing mouse, Sherly, but rather what you do with her when she's returned to you'."
John knows now and had known then that there was no comfort to be taken in being told that Molly was going to be returned to them; after all, there was no indication that they'd get her back alive. He'd seen how hard it was for Sherlock not to just crumple up the offending piece of paper into a ball and possibly set it on fire; instead, he'd allowed Lestrade to place it into an evidence bag while at the same time spouting off a mechanical list of deductions: the note was written in blue ink on a simple piece of cheap, white, mass-manufactured copy paper, available in any stationery shop. The handwriting could possibly be Moriarty's, possibly a clever forgery. All of which had been confirmed after the note had been subjected to analysis by both NSY and Mycroft's team of specialists.
After they'd left the gravesite, Sherlock had gone to Molly's flat, John by his side while Mycroft escorted Mary back to Baker Street to stay with Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock and Mycroft's parents were out of the country and now under 24-hour surveillance, thank goodness; one less set of people to worry about.
Once at the building housing Molly's flat, Sherlock had left John to cool his heels in the foyer while he headed up the stairs to the third floor. He'd emerged an hour later with a bright orange cat carrier in one hand and a Tesco's bag in the other that he'd handed off to John. Peering inside, he'd seen that it contained a jumble of tinned cat food, some bowls, and a half-full bag of kibble. It had been left to Mrs. Hudson to pick up a new litterbox and other pet supplies. Toby had hidden under the sofa for a week, Sherlock's landlady had informed John when he was once again available to visit Baker Street, but was now more often than not to be seen curled next to Sherlock on either the arm of his chair or the sofa.
John had been unavailable during that first week because of course that's when Mary had gone into labor. Their daughter, Alice Miriam Watson, was born the same night Sherlock received an untraceable package containing something he refused to discuss and a photograph of a widely-grinning Moriarty with his face pressed against that of a tight-lipped (but obviously terrified) Molly. On the back of the picture were scrawled the words, 'wish you were here' – but no clues as to where 'here' might possibly be, even after both Holmes brothers subjected it to their own peculiar brand of deduction.
A week after Alice's birth, more gifts started appearing, if you could call them that. The first was a lock of hair, pulled and not cut with skin tags intact. Molly's, Sherlock declared and DNA testing confirmed. Then the jumper she'd been wearing, analyzed and reanalyzed and frustratingly empty of clues. "Maybe it means they're someplace warm, where she doesn't need a jumper?" John had hazarded, only to be immediately shot down by twin glares from Sherlock and Mycroft.
"He's just sending it to taunt us, John," Sherlock had bit out. "If he wanted it to be a clue, the microscopic analysis we subjected it to would have revealed something like minute traces of volcanic rock found only in Tahiti. All we did find was an old coffee stain and a quantity of cat hair. All Toby's," Sherlock had added with a glare at the feline in question. Who'd simply blinked and continued licking his paw as if the disappearance of his mistress meant nothing to him.
As John is well aware, four long, torturous months have passed since then. Four months and nothing to show for it but a collection of untraceable 'gifts' from Jim Moriarty left to taunt and torment them. No fantastical jewel heists, no sudden spate of unexplained suicides, no kidnappings or poisonings that can be linked in any way to the returned-from-the-dead master criminal.
In short, nothing for either Sherlock or the Met to sink their collective teeth into. No one to chase, no new crimes to solve other than Molly's kidnapping, nothing to occupy either Sherlock's time or his mind. Even with the freedom to move about as he likes, with no breadcrumbs to follow, Sherlock rarely leaves the flat.
John heaves an inward sigh; no wonder his friend is brooding. But he bloody well doesn't have to stink to high heaven while he does so, and John wastes no time in making that tart observation as he finally convinces him to shower, shave, brush his goddamn teeth and change his clothes.
While he grudgingly does so, John pops down to Mrs. Hudson's flat to see if he can talk her into making tea, and to commiserate with her over their continued lack of progress.
oOo
John is a bloody busybody, worse than Sherlock's own mother or Mrs. Hudson at times, but he has a point, Sherlock reluctantly concedes as he gets a whiff of his unwashed self. Molly would certainly disapprove, were she here to scold him for not taking care of himself. But such mundane tasks can hardly keep his brain occupied enough to stop him brooding on how very badly he's let her down – and how he continues to let her down. So far Moriarty hasn't made one single mistake, not even in the taunting 'gifts' he's been leaving. There weren't any clues in the dead dog he'd had placed into his own grave, aside from the disturbing similarity the poor thing held to Sherlock's long-dead pet, Redbeard. And all that had proven was that Moriarty had somehow managed to get his hands on even more intel about Sherlock than either he or Mycroft had known.
He's been forced to erect very firm barriers in his mind palace between the new memories of those pathetic remains and his childhood memories of a very much alive Redbeard. The remains had been far too fresh to be the original dog of course, but the fact that Moriarty knew about him at all is disturbing.
He pushes those memories aside, focusing instead on the other items Moriarty has left behind. Molly's lab coat and ID badge have been examined; the blood was identified as hers and hers alone (Type AB-, slightly iron deficient, not enough of a sample to get a sodding pregnancy test from and too soon to show anything even if they could), the entire lab has been dusted for prints...all for nothing. The CCTV cameras had gone black all over that area of London, including inside the hospital, for exactly thirty-two minutes after Molly's disappearance.
Thirty-two minutes. Molly had just celebrated her thirty second birthday three months prior to her abduction. And of course Moriarty knows that; if there was any doubt, it was erased when Sherlock returned to 221B Baker Street to find the first package waiting for him. It had apparently been delivered while Mrs. Hudson was recovering at her sisters, having gone a bit hysterical upon seeing Moriarty's image on the television screen while hoovering.
He'd wanted nothing more than to tear the enclosed 'selfie' with its mocking message on the back into shreds, but had carefully set it aside for further analysis. The sight of the only other thing in the plain brown box had caused his breath to catch and his heart to stutter and pound in his chest as he recognized it: the birthday present Sherlock had given Molly only three months earlier, meticulously re-wrapped in the same bright red paper with gold trim.
A few specks of blood on the gift itself had proven to be Molly's. Fresher specks than the blood on her lab coat, so definitely from an injury inflicted after she'd been kidnapped.
Sherlock closes his eyes and turns the water up a bit hotter, trying to drown his thoughts beneath the spray. His hair and body are clean enough to gain even his mother's approval, yet he's reluctant to leave the bath. What difference does it make? He's just as stuck now as has been since Molly had been taken.
He pounds his fist against the shower wall in sudden fury. What the hell is Moriarty playing at this time? It's obvious why he's taken her, that he's either discovered her part in helping Sherlock fake his death or else has simply realized that she's more important than he'd initially been led to believe. No, his motive for taking Molly isn't the question any more than his motive for sending these taunting reminders to Baker Street is.
The only question is what condition Molly will be in when she's eventually returned.
Trying to deduce the answer to that question is slowly driving Sherlock mad.
A sound from just outside the bathroom door catches his attention. "Bugger off, John, I'm doing what you asked!" he calls out irritably.
No answer, only the sound of soft footsteps, nearly inaudible under the sounds of the water. Sherlock leaves it running as he steps quietly over the edge of the tub, listening hard as he wraps a towel around his waist. He slips into his bedroom through the adjoining door, silently grabbing up the pistol he'd had Wiggins illegally obtain for him after Molly's kidnapping and his own subsequent pardon.
There's no way to sneak out of his bedroom without alerting the intruder that he's onto them; his only option is to slam the door open and hope the element of surprise will be enough of an advantage. However, as he speeds down the short hallway toward the sitting room, gun held in both hands, finger square on the trigger, he discovers only an empty flat; no one in the kitchen, the sitting room, the bath where the shower water is still running.
After assuring himself that Mrs. Hudson and John aren't being held hostage by the intruder – and confirming that neither of them have come up to his flat – he checks the second floor and finds it just as empty as the first two. Mrs. Hudson remains in her flat, door locked, while John helps Sherlock double-check the rest of the building.
The only evidence that anyone has been there at all, aside from Sherlock's own ears, is a small white envelope resting on the coffee table, half-covered by the usual pile of unpaid bills, unread magazines, newspaper clippings and case notes. Sherlock had noted its presence immediately but was more concerned with finding whoever had left it than reading its contents. Now that the building has been shown to be free of any unwanted visitors – and while John is busy contacting Mycroft to inform him of the latest development – Sherlock throws himself down on the sofa, heedless of his still-dripping hair and mostly unclad form, studying the small pasteboard rectangle with every faculty at his command.
No writing on the front of the envelope, a pastel yellow in color, 3 ½ inches by 5, standard size for an invitation or RSVP. He absently asks (orders) John to fetch him some latex gloves and tweezers, not removing his eyes from the envelope until both items are shoved into his hands. He ignores John's mumbled, "you might say thank you" and focuses on the task at hand.
Lifting the envelope with the tweezers, he turns it over. The back has the standard triangular flap, meant to be licked shut, but of course Moriarty would never do anything so mundane. Instead, the envelope is sealed with red wax, embossed with (of course) the image of a magpie. After spending a few intense moments studying every sparse detail of the exterior, Sherlock rummages beneath the pile of papers on the coffee table and extracts a pen knife. He uses it to slit the top of the envelope, leaving the seal intact, then teases the contents out with the tweezers, brow furrowing as he takes in the details of the card.
John, who's taken a seat next to him, leans closer and sucks in a breath at the sight of the brightly colored images printed on the small piece of paper. Baby ducks, lambs, puppies and kittens form a garish ring around a simple, two word statement printed in the white center.
"We're expecting," Sherlock reads aloud in a hollow voice.
The only question is, to whom does the 'we' refer?