a/n: sorry for the hiatus! I was trying to figure out the rest of the plot, and... Sort of got stuck. But not to worry! I figured everything out, changed some things here and there, but I think I've got it this time. Sorry again :) anyway, hope you guys enjoy this chapter! It's less action based, but I hope that's okay.

Reviews are welcome!

Molly was horrified. Well, horror would be an almost inaccurate description of her innermost feelings at this time, but Molly was far too paralyzed to delve further into that analysis.

She had helped Sherlock solve murders (their primary info extracted from what was on the papers and Sherlock's deductions) before but this was...different.

Sherlock's indifference to the dead and his infatuation with the puzzle itself rubbed off on her. She knew how to mask her emotions around dead bodies. But travelling with the Doctor had given her a certain frame of mind in that she looked at life and death in new, impossible ways. Life was important. Every life was important, no matter how genocidal, or maniacal a life form was. That's what the Doctor had taught her.

So maybe... While she stood at the sides, and watched as Sherlock and the Doctor leaned over the poor woman to inspect her, maybe that was why she felt so odd.

She shook her head, and took a deep breath.

'Deep breath, Molls.' She imagined Sherlock saying to her. 'Calm down. First rule in crime solving: always have a clear head. You can think of more possibilities when you've got a clear head.'

That was the reason Sherly hated dealing with the other sort of crimes. Burglary. Robbery. Embezzlement. All those crimes were, in his opinion, to be left for the clueless police. They could deal with the cowards and low status criminals.

Molly focused on just that: this was just another crime scene she and Sherlock had snuck into. The woman on the floor needed her story to be told, and Sherlock was the one to do it. And the Doctor. Never forget the Doctor.

"What's going on with her?" Her voice sounded cool and poised. Good.

The Doctor glanced up at her, and frowned.

"Well, we do know one thing. She is dead."

"Wait. A minute ago you just said she was 'sort of' dead. Now she's definitely dead?"

The Doctor winced. "Poor choice of words, on my part. But yes, she is dead. I only said 'sort of' because...well..." He trailed off. Molly nodded.

"Okay, but... Why is she still talking? How can she still be talking?" The woman's eerie whispers echoed uncomfortably, but there was a... Falseness to it that Molly detected. Like... There were someone else's words coming from that woman's mouth. It was strange. The voice, if Molly listened more closely, sounded as if they came from someone older, maybe a mother?

Sherlock spoke up then and voiced Molly's thoughts.

"Doctor, I've just noticed something... And I think Molls has noticed it too," He eyed her knowingly before facing the Doctor once again. "Her voice...it doesn't sound like her voice at all. The tone is all wrong, and the rhythm... It's someone older who's whispering. A woman, of course, but I think a woman around her mid-forties early fifties."

The Doctor paused. Soon they were all listening to her whispers, and the strange anachronism surrounding it.

"Darling...your back! Darling, your back! Darling, your..."

The walls were made out of thin, paper-esque fabric, light as a feather and yet somehow thick enough to block all sound. The Doctor had been keen on informing Molly and Sherlock as much as possible about their rooms. A wonderful thing about the rooms in this hotel, apparently, was that while the walls were thin, all sound was sort of spread about the room in such an interesting way.

On one part of the room, all sound came to a soft, standstill, soothing as it was creepy. In one corner, you could hear a pin drop, and in another, their voices could be muffled. But at that particular spot in the room, right in the centre, near the bathroom, all sound surrounded the speaker like an invisible hug.

When the Doctor listened, he noticed the difference too.

"Oh, ah. I see what you guys mean." He rubbed his chin. "I might be able to trace the pattern left by the speaker. Voices are interesting. Sounds make up the world. Whether it's a cry, a shout, or simple chatter. I think I can do it. Hang on just a mo'." He dug around in his pocket, a slight bulge appearing at the sides as his hand felt around for something. Molly wasn't surprised when it was his sonic screwdriver he brought out.

"Okay, maybe I can try and reverse the polarity in the resonance, and trace that back to the original speaker. It's worth a shot, anyway."

Sherlock shuffled closer, as ever curious when the Doctor talked technical. Molly rolled her eyes.

"Will that work?" Sherly inquired.

"Like I said, it's worth a shot." The Doctor fiddled with the different settings before he locked onto the right one. The screwdriver emitted a low buzz, and the longer the Doctor held the button, the higher the buzz's pitch became.

Molly covered her ears when it grew to a point where it was too high, and so did Sherlock.

"Doctor? Do you mind hurrying up?" Molly gritted her teeth through the noise. "I don't think our ears can stand-"

The Doctor jumped, laughing giddily.

"Ah! I got it! Haha! That actually worked!" The buzzing ceased, and Molly let go of her ears, sighing in relief. Backtracking, he added quickly, "I mean, of course I knew it would work. I know what I'm doing. Sort of."

"Well, whose voice did that belong to?" An irritated Sherlock muttered, as he rubbed one of his ears.

That giddy, boyish smile on the Doctor's lips faded. Molly guessed it wasn't something good they were about to hear. She braced herself for the proverbial wall they were about to run into.

"Oh, um... Well, a woman, obviously..."

"Her name?" Sherlock crossed his arms, already impatient.

"Well, good news, my screwdriver does have an app for that... Her name is Olivia Retyru. "

"What's the bad news?" Molly sighed.

"Bad news? Look, just so you both know, you two were right. It was someone older," the Doctor tucked his screwdriver away, nervously rubbing his hands together. "She was about forty-eight in earth years, judging by the imprint, when the words were spoken."

Sherlock groaned.

"She's dead too, isn't she?"

Grimly, the Doctor nodded.

"'Fraid so. She died almost immediately after she said those words."

Molly frowned.

"How can you tell, just by a voice?"

"Ah. That's sort of... Maybe... Too complicated for you to..." Molly narrowed her eyes. "...understand. Okay. Maybe not. It... The 'sonic' in sonic screwdriver does exactly what it's supposed to do. It creates sound, but it can also work with sound, like... Like, imagine working with a clay pot, and shaping it with your fingers. That's what my screwdriver can also do. It can, uh, detect the shape of sound, and can sometimes follow the trace a sound leaves behind, following it like you would follow a trail. The origin is always the tricky part but... The point is, my sonic screwdriver can reshape and model the sound back into its original form, and sort of... Read the imprint it has. Do you follow me?"

Molly nodded. Her head was kind of spinning with the idea, but it made sense.

"Yeah."

"It read the imprint, and in the imprint, it read the tone in the voice, the panic, why there was panic... See, sometimes," the Doctor met both their gazes. Molly shifted under the weight of his stare, suddenly feeling odd again. Sad?

"Sometimes...when a person speaks, and especially when their speech is so important, a single thought gets left behind in the sound. A tiny thought, not quite there. But I was able to detect it, and..."

He heaved a sigh.

"Her last thought was, 'I can't die. I can't.'"

Sherlock chanced a quick look at Molly and was surprised to find tears in those brown eyes of hers. He didn't ask what was wrong. He didn't have to.