Chapter 11

Molly was shaking as the cab was getting closer to her work. How could she deal with the person who attacked her? And what did it have to do with Sherlock? Surely she wasn't going to ignore the instructions because she didn't want him to get hurt.

Her phone dinged for the second time and when she looked at it, she saw two messages from Sherlock asking where she was going. She sighed and closed the message, not responding. Doing this would protect Sherlock, and keep him out of harm's way.

There was a loud knock at Molly's door, and Sherlock opened it.

"John," he began, "I know this is confusing but-"

Before Sherlock knew it, John's fist met his face and he fell to the floor. "What the hell, Sherlock. Christ… How long were you going to wait before you decided it was a good enough time to come back?"

"Look, John, I will explain everything to you, but I need you to help me right now."

"Help you? You let me think-"

"John, Moriarty has Molly," he said, looking worried. "It has to be Moriarty," he said, muttering under his breath. John helped him to his feet, and starting to become anxious to hear that his friend who had already been attacked now too long ago was being attacked again.

"Moriarty? How? I thought he died too… or was that another lie?"

"No, it doesn't make sense. He shot himself in front of me. It has to be Moriarty; who else would do this?" He paused for a moment and handed John the laptop, "I need you to track Molly's mobile for me."

He was pacing, trying to sort this out in his head. It didn't make sense; he played it over and over in his mind and came to the same result every time. That bullet went through his head; you can't fake something like that. Coming out of his thoughts, he felt like what had only been a minute or two seemed to be dragging on forever. "Come on, John. How long does it take to track a bloody phone?"

"Bart's."

The cab ride began quiet, but John was confused, he wanted answers, and they had some time on their way to the hospital. "I knew it, I knew you weren't dead," John said, trying to keep his emotions composed. "That's why Molly told me to give up; you were there the whole time with her and she couldn't say anything. For God's sake, Sherlock, I was at her flat, why couldn't you have told me then?"

"I'm sorry."

John was silent.

"Moriarty had you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade; you were all being targeted. If I had not done this, you would all be dead. He shot himself to assure it couldn't be called off. I needed you distracted; the false call about Mrs. Hudson, the biker running into you, that was all on purpose so that you were two steps behind me and that made it so I could keep all of you safe."

"But Molly, Moriarty wasn't after her?"

"Not until now," he said, his face dropping. He looked out the window, "that's why I had her help me, and that's why I've been staying there since I 'died,'" he sighed clenching his fists. "And this is the second time since my death that I couldn't protect her; this is my fault. I'm tired of hiding, and I'm not going to do it anymore, but we need to find her fast." He was getting irritated by all of the traffic. They were only a minute or two away from the hospital, but everything was backed up. He tossed money to the cabby. "

"We don't have this kind of time to wait." He ran and John followed behind him.

They walked into Molly's work space out of breath and saw a mess all around her lab. Things were thrown everywhere, knocked down. There was an envelope sitting there. He picked it up and began analyzing it.

His eyes shot to the top left corner of the envelope. There was an ink stamp of an old water mill pressed on the envelope. He rubbed his index finger together with his thumb to reveal the ink between them; it was still wet and the corner of the stamp smudged.

Then, he opened the envelope to pull out a five pound note. He looked over every bit of that note, extracting every piece of it and mentally laying it out, looking for something that wasn't right. The corner of the note caught his eye. On the right side of the note, the numbers had clearly been changed; it read down 101996.

Sherlock began feeling a sense of an adrenaline rush. He had gone so long without a case and mystery was finally filling his mind, asking him to solve. The feeling didn't last though, as soon as he remembered who they were looking for, the excitement didn't matter at all. For the first time, Sherlock did not want a case; he did not want anything interesting to figure out.

John saw the emotion wash over him. "Are you okay, Sherlock?" he asked. He had immediately forgiven him and went back into best friend mode.

"It doesn't matter right now." He didn't have time to discuss emotions; he had to rely on thinking at the moment.

He put the note back into the envelope and placed it in his pocket; next to where the envelope had been placed was a handwritten note.

You're getting rusty, old friend. I thought you'd have her by now. I would hurry though; you never know how much time you have left.

Also, have a look at the floor; I think you'll find something of interest.

Cheers!

"NO," Sherlock yelled out angrily, pounding his fist on the table.