Later that day, deep in the warren of Mycroft's offices, he spent some time on his laptop, finally finding what he was after. He could not resist the Hooper family mystery, despite his best efforts. He felt there was something there. He could not stop thinking about the photograph with the little boy. All morning he had been looking up the records for Molly's family. Her father had died of cancer, that much he knew. Her mother had died in a car accident a few years before her father, which he hadn't known. She had never mentioned it.

But the little brother, that was something else entirely. He would not have guessed, would never have suspected, not even with his extraordinary skills of deduction. Twenty years ago, the little boy had been kidnapped. A few days later his body had been found in a field, his throat slashed. He had only been eight years old. The killer had never been identified. It was a horribly shocking story. This was a deeper, darker side to Molly Hooper than he had ever expected to uncover. He pondered her upbeat and sometimes silly personality, those cheerfully colored sweaters and crazy knitted scarves. As though she hid behind a carefully curated façade to keep others from discovering her secrets. Perhaps they had more in common that he had thought.

That evening Sherlock got into the black car that had been sent for him and settled into the rich leather seat. He was back to being the businessman. Anthea was in the car, too, texting as usual. She just looked up and smiled absently, went back to texting. He looked at his watch. It was 10:30 at night. The car pulled out and merged into the traffic on the way to the airport where a chartered plane was waiting.

A few minutes later, he suddenly commanded, "Stop at Bart's." He knew she was working that night.

Anthea stopped texting and frowned disapprovingly. "I don't think Mycroft would like that."

"Fuck Mycroft."

He had thought all day about Molly, who had left the flat this morning with the slam of a door. Nearly every minute they had spent together the last two times he had seen her they had quarreled. Gone were the days when she blushed and stammered every time she saw him, eager to please. He thought about her dark family history, her dark paintings, her desire to learn to protect herself. He could not believe he had been so utterly unsuspecting of someone. None of it was particularly his business and there was reason she should have told him, but still. A huge event like that in her past and he didn't see it. He had to see her before he left. This time he would observe.

It was dark and quiet in the lab. Since it was late in the evening, only the morgue still remained open. There were no set hours for that; death did not punch a time clock. Sherlock followed the light to the morgue, where he found Molly working on her most recent case.

She was next to the stainless steel table, attending to her last patient of the evening. He was a young boy, probably less than ten years old. She moved around him quietly and slowly, adjusting the position of a hand or foot, brushing the hair back into place. She had just finished an autopsy and a large Y shape on the chest stood out brilliantly against the dead child's pale skin, ending in a mass of purple bruises at the throat. She pulled a white sheet up and over him, respectfully, almost reverently. The soft white light and silence made it seem almost as if they were in a church. If he were dead he would certainly want someone like Molly Hooper to attend to his last moments. The irony of that thought suddenly struck him, and a small smile broke across his lips.

He leaned against the door, just watching her. She was absorbed in her task and had not acknowledged him. She was wearing her white lab coat, as usual, and a flowered shirt with a red cardigan over it. Her hair was up tonight, in braids wrapped around her head. She looked tired, he thought. But her attention never wavered from the boy in front of her.

As he watched her taking care of the boy, comprehension slowly dawned. The pieces of Molly Hooper's life were coming together before his eyes. "Molly," he said, his voice low and rumbling.

Molly did not seem startled. She must have known he was there all along.

"Come to say good bye then, after all." She looked up, right at him.

Sherlock walked further into the morgue, and stood on the side of the table opposite Molly. "I know what happened to your brother," he said quietly, without preamble.

She did not seem surprised to hear him say it. She had almost seemed to expect it. She paused only a moment before she spoke again. "His name was Timmy." She smoothed out the wrinkles in the white sheet, adjusting it one last time. "He was eight years old when he was killed. His throat had been cut. Not too much younger than this boy here."

He looked down at the boy on the table. "Cause of death?"

"This one by strangulation." She reached out and smoothed the sheet, once again, even though there were no wrinkles. "Here one minute, gone the next."

"Like Timmy," he finished her thought.

"He was playing in the garden in front of the house. He loved to play outside with his toy soldiers. We lived in a small town. At that time no one ever thought there was any danger." She looked up at him again. "We didn't know then there was such evil in the world."

Sherlock met her gaze. They both knew what evil was. "And that is why you became a forensic pathologist."

She stilled for a moment. "Somebody needs to speak for the dead." She adjusted the sheet one last time, then slowly slid the table with the child back into the refrigerated hold. "Nobody ever spoke for Timmy." Her voice grew more determined, almost angry. "The case went cold. If I could go back in time I would. Now I would know what to look for. I could do something."

She walked over the sink area, stripped off her gloves and threw them in the biohazard trash with some feeling. She took a moment to thoroughly wash her hands. Sherlock just stood quietly and waited, until she finished and faced him again.

"Your father died in your first year of University, leaving you orphaned," he continued softly. He had done the research on her as well, after he read about Timmy. "You put yourself through school. You got your medical degree. You worked hard. And now here you are, director of the morgue at one of the most prestigious hospitals in London. Remarkable."

"Not really," she shrugged. "When you have a goal you want more than anything and you're willing to sacrifice everything, and anyone, to get it, it's not so hard." She walked towards him, stopped a few steps away. "It's a lot easier when you don't have anyone to sacrifice. I think you know that better than anyone."

He tilted his head, eyebrow raised. "Are you deducing me, Molly Hooper?"

"Only because you're deducing me."

Intrigued, he closed the distance between them, looked down into her face from his much greater height. He could not resist a puzzle. "So you want to play this game?"

"I was never really one for games. Not enough imagination, I suppose. I was always the sciency type. Quiet and dull," she said a little flippantly, a little sadly.

His brows furrowed. "That's not true. You paint brilliantly. The paintings show ...the depth of your feeling. The beauty of your mind," was the best way he could think to express his thoughts.

"And you play the violin passionately," she answered in turn. "So what does that say about you?"

Sherlock pulled back slightly, wary of this turn of conversation that was beginning to get very personal. He turned and took a few steps away, holding his hands behind his back. "Your father taught English literature at the high school. By all accounts he was quite clever, he published several volumes of poetry. Your mother was a doctor, but died in a car accident when you were in your early teens. Was it difficult to grow up without a mother?"

Some people might take offense to such a question, but not Molly Hooper. She generally saw no reason not to answer honestly, which sometimes made her seem blunt or awkward in social situations. When they were not quarreling, which seemed to be a lot lately, he could stand talking with her more than he could with almost anyone else. She so often overlooked his shortcomings, was generous with his faults.

"Yes," she said. "But my mother was an alcoholic at the time she died. She had too much to drink and drove her car into a ditch. She was never well, not even before...before Timmy was killed. But she never got over that, never. She quit her practice after…there were complaints. It was like she didn't want to live anymore after he died. She was just passing the time until one day it was over."

She shook her head, as if dispelling memories. "So, I did miss her, yes. But she hadn't been much of a mother to me while she was alive. It's not easy to live with a drunk. I was more of a mother to Timmy than she ever was." She did not sound bitter, just factual.

Sherlock could feel something bubbling under the surface, something hammering to get free in his chest. This was hitting closer to home than anything had done in years. Not so long ago he had been the junkie that was hard to live with. He knew the feeling of passing time, just waiting for it to be over. On many occasions he had woken up somewhere he didn't even recognize, surprised to find himself still alive. He might not talk to anyone else like this again, not for a long time. For once he did not want to hold back.

He clenched his fists, remembering. "Mycroft was more of a parent to me when we were children than my own parents ever were. They were... fine, but just...removed." He looked away. "I lost a brother, too. My family was never the same. We never speak of it. Never." He was silent for a moment. "I've never told anyone that." He felt both relieved, and mortified, at the same time. He willed himself to unclench his fists. Molly, perceptive as usual, said nothing.

A few quiet moments passed, but then she rallied. "Well it was all a long time ago. I guess...I guess that's why I do what I do. Horrible things happen all the time, and for some reason….I feel I can bear it. I can bear to do this work, because it needs to be done." She paused. "I suppose that's why I wear cheerful things. This place can be a downer. I just choose to not let it win."

She grabbed her coat from a peg on the wall, a neon shade of chartreuse green, and wrapped a long knitted scarf with kittens on it around her neck. "Ok then. Let's get out of here. I'm done for the night." She shut off the lights in the morgue and they walked in the near darkness to the door of the lab, illuminated only by the lights of the medical equipment perpetually on. Sherlock walked out next to her, silent. Feelings had come dangerously close to the surface tonight. Molly Hooper was under his skin again.

On the street in front of St. Bart's, before they went their separate ways, Sherlock suddenly turned to her and took hold of her scarf in either hand, pulling her towards him. "Molly Hooper," he said, his face quite close to hers, "You are the still water that runs deep." He looked closely at the kittens on the scarf still in his hands, and shook his head ruefully. "I don't know why you wear these crazy things." His gaze turned back to her eyes. He said aloud what he already knew. "I think this is just a disguise."

He could hear her breathing quicken, knew her cheeks were pink even though he could not see them in the dark. She stood on her toes and leaned in closer. "Well, I'll take mine off if you take yours off," she whispered.

"Naughty girl," he whispered back, close to her ear. Her verbal dance intrigued him, challenged him….attracted him on a level that few ever did. He knew then, in that moment, that he was not indifferent to Molly Hooper. It dawned on him that what he had been feeling, what had caused his churlishness, might be jealousy. Or possessiveness. Or both. She was the only one left, besides his brother, he could communicate with now. He was a ghost, and only she could see him. He felt drawn to her in ways he could not explain.

Slowly, experimentally, he lightly brushed his lips against hers once, then back again, needing to feel her respond to him, and felt the blood rush to his head. It was heady, this momentary freedom to touch and be touched, to feel pleasure and give pleasure. He felt more alive than he had in a long time. He had wanted to do that, he realized, for quite some time. He gently let go of her scarf and she settled back onto her feet, her eyes still shut and her cheeks flushed.

Sherlock saw the big black car pull to the curb down the block. He could not ignore it, much as he would have liked to. He could think of nothing to say, his thoughts uncharacteristically unordered. So he did what he knew he had to do. He did not look back when he walked away.

Once in the car, Anthea looked at him curiously, and then returned to her phone. He watched the brightly lit buildings flash by the car in the darkness, his chin in his hand, deep in thought. He felt that curious snag in his chest again, a sudden sense he couldn't breathe. He shouldn't do it again, stay with Molly Hooper. He was shocked by all that he had told her, shocked he had kissed her, and he could never let that happen again. This interest in the personal details of Molly Hooper's life, the taste and feel of her lips that he had never expected to know, were blurring his focus. He would not get involved.

The phone in his jacket's breast pocket buzzed. Startled, he pulled it out and looked at it.

Careful, brother mine.

Mycroft, he hissed under his breath. Sherlock shot a look of daggers at Anthea, who just smiled and shrugged. Mycroft's texts came in one after another, barely a pause between.

Wolves like you eat little girls like that for breakfast.

And by the way, fuck you, too.

Yes, Anthea tells me everything.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Molly Hooper was not what Mycroft thought, she was tough as nails. Or maybe he did know. You never knew with Mycroft.

At the airport, Sherlock saw the waiting plane, made a decision.

"One last smoke," he said to Anthea, and ducked around the corner of the hanger.

And just kept going. So much for his resolve. This was something he needed to figure out. He needed to know what Molly Hooper was to him.

After 10 minutes, his phone chimed.

Finish your business

Just be there in the morning

Don't cross me again