29 December 2014
Baker Street
8:00 pm

Exactly nine minutes later, the taxi pulled onto Baker St and Sherlock was not only pleased with his time estimation but also by the sight of John and Mary's Audi parked—illegally—curb side next to the flat. He paid the driver and stepped out into the bitter rain, checking to see if anyone was inside the vehicle and noting that it was empty; John, who still had his keys to 221B, had obviously let himself inside.

Pushing his way through the front door and into the foyer, Sherlock became aware of the sound of two voices in the upstairs rooms, muffled by the floor separating them but still distinct and recognizable: one male, one female. From the tone and speed, he could tell without much difficulty that an argument was taking place.

John and Mrs. Hudson?

No...this sounds personal. Intimate.

...John and Mary?

Sherlock took the stairs quietly, catching snippets of their conversation more clearly from the landing just outside the door to the sitting room, which was half-closed. He braced his hand on the railing, taking the weight off of his feet and the creaking floor boards beneath him as he stood and eavesdropped, unashamedly.

"I just came in to use the loo, John," Mary was saying. "I didn't come here to fight."

"Then why are we fighting?"

"I don't know. Because we've got three months of marital bickering to make up for?"

Sherlock found himself holding his breath for fear of being overheard, and slowly—quietly—exhaled before drawing another breath, filling his lungs. Mary's voice sounded clouded, emotional; if he didn't know any better, he would have assumed she was crying. John on the other hand, sounded tired, his voice filled with exasperation.

"Mary—"

"John, I'm going."

"I can go with you."

"No. You can't. You have to stay here. You have to help Sherlock."

"No, I don't. You're my wife, and—"

"And Molly is in very real danger."

"Sherlock can handle it."

"But what if he can't?" Mary said, her voice thickening with each word. "You don't know what Moriarty has been up to. You don't know what he's capable of doing now, what kind of anger he must have..."

John's voice was accusatory. "What do you know about it?" he said. "No, don't answer that." A pause. "Actually, yes, do answer that. Miss Secret Past? Where exactly have you been, really, these last few days?"

Despite his shock at John's paranoia and distrust of his wife and the amped-up level of fear and anger in his voice, Sherlock continued to hold his ground in total silence on the landing. Mary went silent, save for the sobbing. "John—"

"Mary, I'm—"

But it was too late. Sherlock heard her steps on the hardwood and carefully pretended that he was just coming up the stairs himself, knowing she would burst into the hallway any second. When she did, Mary wasn't looking; she barrelled headlong into Sherlock, who instinctively caught her against him.

"Mary," he said, trying to sound chipper and certain he was coming off too strong.

"Sherlock!" she cried, swiping at her face to dry her tears as she stepped back. "Ah, I was just—"

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "You're crying."

Looking at her, seeing the pain on her face that she was desperately attempting to hide behind a façade of happiness that crumbled under the slightest inspection, Sherlock immediately felt uneasy. His trust of Mary didn't extend as far as it once had, but that wasn't even the whole story. As she struggled not to weep, he began to worry. John was doubting her. John—his emotional and moral compass—who had reconciled with this woman less than a week earlier, was full of dread.

Why?

He wasn't sure he had the capacity to be surprised by anything that night until the moment Mary pitched her arms around his shoulders and clung to him, as if she were drowning and he was the life raft. It took a long moment of stunned stillness before Sherlock gathered his sense, wound his arms around her back, under her arms, and squeezed.

"You take care of my husband now," she sniffled against his neck. "Going off on a mission to fight the baddies and get Molly home. Just bring him back in one piece, too."

Sherlock nodded. "Of course..."

She patted his back and gave a small laugh. "You're a good man, Sherlock Holmes. A very good man."

He wanted to say thank you but his voice stuck in his throat, and instead of saying anything he simply watched her walk away down the stairs in silence, his mouth agape.

"Sherlock?" John asked from the door.

The detective turned, listening to the door slam downstairs as he took in the sight of his blogger and friend. John's brow was ridged and furrowed, betraying his mental state; his eyes were shrouded and sad. Fine lines at his mouth belied his clenched teeth, and his stance was even more stiff and angular than usual.

"Everything okay?" Sherlock asked, knowing full well what his answer would be.

John did not disappoint. "Peachy."

"You could have told me no, you know."

John folded his arms across his chest, incredulous. "Right, because that's historically been a surefire way to get you to back the hell off, has it?" he huffed. "Jesus, Sherlock, I did tell you it was a bad time, didn't I?"

"Well, yes, but—"

John sighed. "Look, I'm here. Let's just do this, okay?"

"Do what?"

John waved his hands in front of him. "Whatever it is you needed me to come over here at nine o' clock in the bloody evening to do!"

The front door downstairs closed heavy and loud, and it was Mrs. Hudson's voice, weary but strong, that followed it up the stairwell. "Quit stroppin', boys!" she cried. "I'm trying to watch the telly!"

John peered over the bannister. "Sorry Mrs. Hudson," he said.

"Apologies," Sherlock echoed.

Downstairs, the landlady grumbled as she shut her door. "What'll the neighbours think...?"

Sherlock shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the bannister before reaching into the pockets and taking out both cell phones. Cut to the chase... "I've been contacted by Moriarty again," he told John.

"You have?"

He nodded. "This afternoon. He wanted me to meet him in Kensington, so I did, and when I got there all I found was this—" he held out the iPhone. "He rang in. Video call. I've only just come from there."

John took the phone from Sherlock, who trudged into the parlour and sat down on the sofa, shutting his eyes and palming his face, one hand on either side, as he leaned back against the cushions. He sat like that for a long while before sighing and sitting up straight again. "There's an app on the phone that allows me to view footage from a kind of closed circuit camera."

John sat down in his chair, the phone still cradled in his hand. "What kind of footage?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Of Molly..." he said. "Moriarty says every clue I need to find her is in the room, in view of the camera. But every time the app is opened, Moriarty begins a systematic torture session—"

John's fingers hovered over the button on the screen, but Sherlock's words stilled them. He clicked the power button and put the phone to sleep. "Christ..."

Sherlock held out his hand and John placed the cold handset in his palm. "I watched for three minutes. In thirty second intervals," he said. "I wasn't able to find anything. And my Mind Palace is useless. Everything about her is gone. I go there and I can see everything, but I can't do anything with it. It's like there's a mental block, something I can't penetrate..."

John leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Sherlock, when was the last time you slept?"

Sherlock scoffed. "You and Gerard, do you share notes?"

"No," John said. "Greg and I are merely friends who are concerned about you. And as a doctor, it's my considered opinion that you need to rest, get some sleep and—"

"I can't," Sherlock interrupted. "Not while she's out there. While he's doing—"

John didn't say a thing but watched Sherlock intently for a long moment; Sherlock could feel his eyes on him.

"What, John?"

"This case...it's different. Isn't it? And not just because it's someone we know, either."

Sherlock cleared his throat, eager to shift the light of scrutiny away from himself. "And yet you hurried over here tonight instead of tending to your pregnant and ill wife," Sherlock said. "Shall we talk about how this case is different then?"

John leaned back in his chair. "You know I care about Molly. When you were gone playing hero across most of Europe, she was all I had left," he said, his voice low and rumbling. Dangerous. "Don't you dare make this about me. Not tonight."

In the half-light of the darkened parlour, Baker Street streetlamps slanting in across the floor, he could see that John's posture had stiffened again; his breathing sped up, and Sherlock was certain his friend was avoiding his eyes. "John, what aren't you telling me?"

John shook his head. "About what?"

"What is going on with Mary?"

John's eyes shot to Sherlock's face. "What makes you think this is about Mary?" he asked before sighing and throwing his hands heavenward. "Oh, you heard everything then?" With a heavy sigh, he relented. "I had a row with my wife. Is that not okay with you?"

"I don't mean to pry."

"Well you are," John shot back, rocking to the balls of his feet, clenching his fists at his side. "She's angry at me. I think she was doing one of those expecting-me-to-mind-read things where I'm supposed to know what she wants without her actually bloody telling me anything," he paused before muttering. "And I don't know why I'm telling you this. Going to Sherlock Holmes for relationship advice is like taking your car to the vet for an oil change."

Sherlock wasn't particularly amused at the analogy. "I think it's fairly simple, John. You should go to her. Be with her."

"It's not that simple," he said. "I only saw her tonight because she came to back home to pack a bag. A bag, Sherlock. She's staying with that nurse friend of hers, so she says, ever since everything happened yesterday...and says she's going to stay there until this sordid business with Moriarty gets sorted."

"Laying low," Sherlock said. "Seems wise."

"But I know she's lying to me, Sherlock. She said the two of them were going to acupuncture and pregnancy massage or something. I called her, and she said she was at the spa already, but she was in a Tube station. I heard the announcer," he said, distraught. "Why would she lie to me?"

Maybe it is like taking your car to the veterinarian, Sherlock wondered as he narrowed his eyes and tried to think of something useful to say. "She could...have been on her way? To...the spa?"

John didn't seem to be listening. "Maybe it's all too little, too late," he offered. "I was fully prepared to throw this all away not long ago, and I made it plain that she was to blame. Maybe I took too long to forgive her...now I'm here, working a case with you..."

The words stung, and John knew it. He shook his head. "Sherlock, I didn't—"

"No, it's fine," Sherlock forced a smile. "It's perfectly acceptable to place your wife first."

John scratched his head and rolled his eyes. He grew thoughtful for a moment before nodding, severely, as if he had just convinced himself of something important. "Mmm...nope, I need to work, and I want to find Molly, really I do. She's in danger. I love Mary. I truly do. But Molly could die, and whatever it is Mary and I are going through will still be here, will still be fixable, when all of this is over."

Sherlock counted the knots in the floorboards, not knowing what to say. "I..."

John cleared his throat. "Look, I was going to ask—er—can I crash here tonight?" he grumbled. "Mary's obviously not going to be home and I hate shuffling around that draughty old place by myself."

Sherlock managed a half-smile as he looked to John. "You don't mind sharing the sofa with Toby, do you? He's quite taken to the end cushion nearest the wall..."

John smirked and shook his head. "Fine. That's just fine. Ta." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Does Lestrade know? About the phone?"

In the still quiet of the flat, and at the mere mention of the man's name, Sherlock dove into deep thought, to the dark place he'd been trying to avoid all night. He saw her body again, not as he once saw it—lively, laughing—but as he had seen it that night. The image seemed burned to his retina.

Moriarty...

"Sherlock?"

"Hm?" Sherlock asked, eyes flicking to John with a frown. "No, haven't told him."

"Are you going to?"

Sherlock made a face. "I can't go to him with nothing more than this phone," he said. "He'll want to send it to Cyber Crimes and have them plug it in and do their worst." He gripped the handset. "This is my only lifeline to her."

John scowled. "I'm sure he's not going to break it, Sherlock."

His statement went unanswered as Sherlock clasped his hands beneath his chin.

"Right," John said, "So then...what exactly did you see in the video feed? Anything we can use?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Not much," he admitted. "The room is about twenty meters squared. Too large for a bedroom so likely a parlour or sitting room. There's a bricked up fireplace on the wall opposite the camera. Wood-burning."

John scrambled for a piece of paper and a pen and began scribbling down what Sherlock was saying.

"The walls...they're—erm—made of plaster, not drywall," Sherlock continued. "Moriarty called it a 'tinderbox' so we can likely assume wood framing. There are two windows opposite each other, judging from the light patterns on the floor. I could see streetlight coming in. Doesn't help us orient the room much. Low ceiling. Probably ground floor or half basement. Heavy wooden beams going cross-wise. Strong enough to support her weight—" he faltered.

John looked up, grasping Sherlock's meaning without the need for any more specifics. He pressed his pen back to the paper and finished his thought.

"Molly's skin was goosepimpled," Sherlock said. "I'm guessing there's no heat."

The doctor nodded. "I don't know how you can say that's not much. I'm sure Lestrade and his team can go on this." He scratched his temple with the capped end of the pen. "I mean, plaster walls stopped being used—when?—WWII?" John looked back to his paper. "Might help us rule out some areas devastated in the Blitz, newer areas in the suburbs..."

Sherlock nodded.

"And—and in the morning, maybe, we can get a look at the windows, see which direction the sun is coming from, determine the orientation?"

Again, Sherlock simply nodded.

"And with a wood-burning fireplace, wood-framing...I mean, you can rule out most apartment buildings probably, and—"

"As a doctor," Sherlock interrupted, "In your medical opinion, what kinds of injuries someone might sustain from a rather large bruise along this section of their ribcage?" He ran his hand alongside his left ribs, just below and to the side of his pectorals, aping with his spread out fingers the size and shape of the bruise he'd noticed on Molly's body earlier. The stark image in his head—saved in excruciating detail—was clear and painful to view. He detached himself from the emotion inherent in the act and cleared his throat. "The lungs are there. Spleen too, and kidneys, though those are more to the back. Molly had it, this bruise. Vaguely boot-shaped."

John narrowed his eyes. "Sherlock?"

"Or what about cracked ribs?" Sherlock continued. "What visual signs do they produce? Swelling? Redness? I imagine she'd be in considerable pain."

John set down his pen. "Sherlock, listen—"

"And what do you know about suspension by the arms? It appeared as though she had her feet on the ground a bit, but most of her weight was being borne by the shoulders sockets, I imagine. That's a position that can't be maintained for more than a few hours at most, and—"

"Sherlock!"

The detective stopped. He cast his eyes up at his friend. John heaved a sigh.

"None of this is going to help Molly right now..."

"I—I want to be prepared. For when we find her—"

"I'll be there," John said. "She'll have the finest care. And she'll be okay, Sherlock."

Sherlock took a breath, closing his eyes. "I won't believe that until I have her here. Right here beside me."

For a long moment, the only sound in the room being the tick-tick-tick of rain on the windowpanes, ambient building noise—the rumble of a pipe, the creak of wood expanding—and the wail of an ambulance speeding up Baker Street. John, sitting opposite him, didn't not remove his eyes from Sherlock's face.

"This is different, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"This case," John said. "Because of Molly. Am I right?"

Sherlock felt his face warm up. "I don't know what you're talking about."

After a long, considerate pause, John nodded. "All right," he said. "Okay. We won't talk about it." He clapped his hands together. "Let's take a look at this phone, shall we?"

Sherlock hoped his gratefulness for the change in subject didn't show on his face, and was glad for the dim light that hid his blush as it faded from his cheeks. He handed the iPhone to John.

"You can learn a lot about a phone from its serial number," said John as he turned the phone on and navigated to the settings.

Of course, Sherlock wasn't sure what, apart from that, could be gleaned from an examination of the phone as it was—with the technological tools and capabilities available to them in the flat at that hour, he wasn't even sure if changing the SIM card was possible—but it was better than going over the same clues, or revisiting his Mind Palace, and coming up empty and frustrated every time. As much as he wanted to go back to the video feed to try again and look for the things he'd missed, he knew that it would be likely be entirely fruitless; the risks to Molly were too great to make another attempt, especially because that's what Moriarty wanted him to do.

Still, he had a certain amount of faith in Moriarty's ability to keep his word. The consulting criminal was a stickler for the rules. That meant that no harm would come to Molly as long as Sherlock's eyes weren't viewing her through the camera's lens...

On top of it all, John's enthusiasm for the task was infectious, and his presence was calming. Half an hour before, the job had felt quixotic; now, he had hope.

"Perhaps there's a way to workaround the app," Sherlock said. "A way to view the room without Moriarty knowing about it."

John's face lit up. "Now you're talking."

Sherlock stood up. They had a game plan. "Right," he said. "Coffee?"

"At this hour?"

But Sherlock was already sitting at his computer, the phone at the ready, ignoring John.

The night had only just begun.

29 December 2014
Somwhere in London
8:30pm

For what seemed to be at least a geological epoch, Molly was mercifully left alone in the room. She tried—and failed—to sleep at first, but then concentrated on seeing what she could of the room, assessing the situation unhindered by fear and the presence of another at her side. Chipping paint on the walls; dark stained wood beams above her head; two small windows on the wall facing her and one behind her, that faced the street. Outside that window, the sound of cars speeding by and rain hitting the panes of glass helped to lull her into a kind of relaxation, connecting her to the world outside the room she was in.

But the pain in her arms and the exhaustion in her body began to betray her and her mind whirred toward panic. The discomfort of her bondage was one thing; the effect of having her arms raised for so long was quite another, as her lungs were constricted and breathing was becoming difficult. The harder Molly tried, the more she panicked, and the harder it actually became.

I'm not going to die like this...she commanded, squeezing her eyes shut as she steadied her breathing and willed herself to relax as much as she could.

The door to the room began to creak open, sending her almost-gone panic spiralling into her throat. Moriarty entered first, followed by another man

"Lord," the second man said. "Isn't this lovely?"

Moriarty stifled a chuckle. "I thought you'd say that."

"Can I—?"

Moriarty gestured to Molly's prone body, and the second man lumbered over from the door. Molly watched him, scouring his face, committing his features to memory. He was tall, muscular, with gingery brown hair. He was middle-aged without looking old, with a commanding air about him even as he deferred to Moriarty, who stood behind him, a laughing smile spreading across his face.

The second man ran a hand up Molly's ribs, from the waistband of her panties to the underwire of her bra and back, and Molly winced as his hand grazed the tender bruises there.

"My opinion, sir?" the man said. "We should take her down from the hook."

"You think?"

"Trust me," the other man said. "The human body can only withstand a short number of hours in such a position before permanent damage occurs. That's why it's such an effective torture method."

Moriarty whined. "She just looks so deliciously perfect like this," he said, motioning to Molly. "Wouldn't you agree?"

The second man nodded but cocked his head to the side. "I think she looks better alive than she would if she died like this."

Moriarty considered before whining, "Oh all right!"

The second man stepped over to Molly and unceremoniously unclipped her hands from the hook above her head. She tumbled down from her suspended position and fell against the man. "Oh!" the man exclaimed before kneeling to the floor with her in his arms, where he set her down and unclipped her ankles from the floor hook. She took a deep, gasping breath of air through her nose and shut her eyes against the tears of relief that sprang there. Her arms hung in front of her, utterly useless, and her legs were rubber. The man had to lift her to the bed in the corner, where he dumped her, hard, against the mattress. She winced as her beaten, sore back made contact with the stiff bedsprings.

"That's better," the second man said. "Isn't it?"

He came to the edge of the bed and sat down, and Molly did her best to move as far away from him as possible. His disposition was methodical, calculating; from the posh, aristocratic accent to his meticulous way of dressing, she was inclined to believe he had more in common with Sherlock than Moriarty. Moriarty was a loose cannon in comparison to either; but for every carefully constructed sentence or well-thought-out plan of attack Moriarty constructed, Molly would have guessed the other man had ten. The two of them were like night and day.

More like the different between 11:59pm and midnight...Molly thought. Despite his touch being the first kind one in days, she didn't trust this new figure in the slightest. Who was he? How did he fit into this plot?

"Come now," the man said, brushing hair—still damp from Moriarty's last go with the water hose—from her eyes and carefully lifting away the tape covering her mouth. It pulled away easily but painfully; Molly winced as he took the tape and tossed it to the ground before fishing out the wadded up fabric behind her teeth. Once removed, her jaw hung slack.

"Jim, is this your necktie?"

"I was angry."

The man's eyes were on her body, covered in welts and bruises. "Nicely done, boss. No grievous internal injuries. Just enough to mar the skin," he said. "Very nice indeed."

Molly was unable to stop the flow of tears that had started with the breath of air she'd inhaled and which had continued through the shock of unexpected pain moments before; ashamed, she tried to force herself to relax. "Let me go," she whispered, her voice thick in her throat. "Please."

"Ssh, pet," the man said. "All in due time. See, I've only just returned from an extended trip to visit my family at our ancestral home in Provence, on my mother's side you see, and—"

Again, Molly pressed her case. "Please...I just want to go home."

The man reached over and continued to brush hair from her face, this time on the other side; Molly shrank from his touch.

"I just want to admire you."

Moriarty chuckled as he leaned on the doorframe, adjacent to the head of the bed. "Be a good sport," he said. "You don't want to see him when he's angry."

Molly stilled her trembling body as much as she could while the second man gaze fixed on her. As she stiffened, the man tsked.

"You needn't be afraid of me."

Her voice was small and hoarse; she relied on her words to carry her anger. "I'm supposed to enjoy this?"

He chuckled. "If you want to..."

Molly grimaced. "Sherlock isn't going to give you whatever it is you want," she said. "And neither will I. You'll have to kill me."

The man tutted and licked his lips. "You're the brilliant one who helped the detective fake his death, is that right?" She didn't reply, but the man grinned anyway. "I've wondered for three long years how you managed to do it. Will you let me in on your secret?"

Molly squared herself with the man perched at the bed's edge. What is he playing at? she wondered. It didn't matter, really; the longer she kept him talking, the more time she had to think. She fired back her own response. "How did you fake his death?"

"Blood squibs and a prop gun," the man said, "And the glimmer of hope that Sherlock would be so stunned he wouldn't bother with making sure. He's really very predictable, isn't he, Jim?"

"Yes, very," Moriarty menaced.

Molly considered, lifting her chin in defiance as she rested, small but suddenly powerful, harbouring the information he wanted.

"You turn, Molly."

She licked her lips. "Body double."

The man laughed. "I bet you rather enjoyed helping him out, didn't you?" He steepled his thick fingers—so terribly unlike Sherlock's, she noted, taking back her initial comparison—and hummed as he set his fingertips beneath his chin.

"You're his partner?" she asked. "Jim's?"

"In a sense," the man replied. "I was his second-in-command, the one who took over for him when he went on the lam."

Someone in the network Sherlock was trying to dismantle, Molly thought. She forced a swallow, her dry tongue struggling to complete the task. "And now?"

Moriarty interrupted. "Enough questions," he said, and Sebastian reached into his pocket, producing a syringe and a vial.

Molly's eyes widened. "Please, you can let me go. I won't tell anyone. I promise."

"You're right about that," he said as he pierced the top of the vial with the needle point and began filling the syringe with a clear liquid. "But it's not you we're after anyway."

The man licked his lips and ran a hand over Molly's bare arm, goose-pimpled from the cold and damp. Molly grimaced, her hatred for him multiplying exponentially with every horrid second his flesh touched hers. With nary a warning, he plunged the needle into her upper arm and injected. Molly cried out in pain.

He cleared his throat, the sound obscured by an ambulance siren wail outside on the street.

"You'll sleep well tonight," he said as Moriarty shut off the lights, plunging the room into darkness, save for the erratic ambient lights of the mews behind the house, filtering in from outside, strobing across the floor.

Molly felt herself growing sleepy, but she refused to close her eyes as long as the second man was still in the room.

"Tomorrow," she heard him say as her eyes, heavily lidded, began to close shut, seemingly of their own accord. "Maybe you can tell me a little bit about my old Army pal, Doctor Watson?"

Doctor Watson? Molly wondered. How does he know John? What does he have to do with this?

"Sebastian," Moriarty called, and as she heard the sound of the second man—Sebastian's—laugh, the creak of the door, and the retreating footsteps that indicated to her that it was safe to let her guard down.

Molly finally closed her eyes, and fell asleep.