Molly stood with her fingers shaking at her sides. She felt a bit stuck like her feet had been sucked into wet sand. Cold waves licked at her ankles and spread upwards. Her face tingled. She was sure there was no blood left in it and her skin was as white as a bleached shell.
As cold as she felt, she couldn't even say she was all that surprised by what she had stumbled upon. She looked away from Irene's preening face as she crawled off Sherlock and reached for her clothing. Molly settled her gaze on Sherlock as he prepared to leap out of the bed and pinned him with her glower. She didn't know how to interpret the look on his face but she wouldn't say he read guilty. He had an anxious look of anticipation on his face as if he were waiting to see how she'd react.
"Molly, I can . . . explain?" his voice sounded flat
Life returned to her fingers. She had but a moment to decide what she was going to do. The old, clueless Molly would have run crying from the flat, but she wasn't that simple girl anymore. She was . . . Sherlock's girlfriend. So, how would Sherlock's girlfriend react to this?
Well, that part was easy. Another woman was trying to claim what was hers. Sherlock's girlfriend was fucking pissed.
"What's going on here?" She asked between her teeth.
Irene slipped into a pencil skirt and zipped it up. She parted her lips, then smiled and shrugged.
"Oh, sorry about that. I was attempting to seduce your beau."
Molly felt a spasm in her eyelid. "Attempting?"
Irene wrinkled her nose and sighed noisily. "Mm, that depends. Does he have a new medical issue I am unaware of?"
Molly watched Sherlock's brow arch as he looked sideways at Irene and buttoned his shirt. "What are you talking about?"
Irene made a face as she looked down the length of him. "Please, what was I supposed to do with that? Fold it in?"
Molly's eyelid fluttered as she tried to control her anger. She didn't want to hear anymore.
"I need to go break something," she muttered.
She turned and stalked down the hall towards the living room. Her eyes prickled with unshed tears. She searched his living room through a watery haze. She was finding it nearly impossible to hold it together.
Then she spied the skull.
It was the skull of a serial murderer Sherlock had nabbed who had subsequently died of a heart attack while awaiting trial. She had meticulously cleaned and preserved that stupid skull for him and then presented it as a keepsake one day at the lab. He hadn't said one word. He'd just taken it with a confused look on his face and set it down again. She picked up the morbid memento just as he jogged into the living room. She found herself irrationally angry at its insipid grin.
His eyes widened as he reached out. "Molly! Don't!"
Her hand trembled as her resolve wavered. Then Irene followed behind him with a smirk.
"Uh, oh, the little woman is mad!"
"Molly, just put it down, please."
She shook her head. "No, tell me what's going on!"
He furrowed his brow. He glanced at Irene as his mouth hung open a moment. Then his eyes restricted as he thought about something and his gaze returned with a wrinkle of concentration above it in his forehead.
"Didn't she just explain that?" He asked slowly. "She was attempting to seduce me."
"But why?"
Irene laughed. "Why? Why not? He does things to me-"
Molly waved a hand at her. "Shut up! Just, shut up already, you . . . you rotten cunt! I don't care about your reasons for doing anything. I really don't. You are a t-terrible person. There's just nothing to like about you and nothing good that ever comes out of your mouth so please, just be fucking quiet for two minutes or better yet, forever. Like, if you never said another word to me, it would be too soon. No, Sherlock, the question was for you. Why were you letting her try to seduce you?"
"Molly, now's not the time for this discussion . . ."
Her hold tightened on the skull. "Oh, now's the time."
He poked his lips out a moment then shook his head. "Ah, no, it's really not."
"Oh, come on now, Sherlock. This is fun!" Irene said with a smile. "Maybe I should get her that riding crop from your closet."
Molly fumed. "Oh, my God. To hell with both of you."
She took one last look at the skull and then hurled it down on the tile surround of the fireplace. Pieces of it flew everywhere. Silence fell over the flat for a moment.
She glared up at Sherlock who stared at the broken skull with a slack, kind of disappointed little boy's look on his face. His hair was still a bit messy and his shirt was only half-tucked back into his pants. Her chest began to feel as if a band tightened around it. Old Molly returned with a vengeance as the fight left her body and her shoulders slumped. She could only play the part of a vengeful harpy for so long. It was draining.
She was sick of the lies. There was such a cloud of them that she couldn't even pick out a recognizable form or pattern in them anymore.
Her eyes met Sherlock's one last time as tears rolled down her cheeks. "We're through. Sherlock. We're done."
His nostrils flared and his lips pressed together. A muscle ticked in his jaw. Everything about his stance spoke of a rebellion, as if he wanted to argue. He took a breath and held it for a moment.
"Fine. It's just as well," he muttered. "This wasn't really working for me anyways."
Molly took a deep, shaky breath. She had to hold it together. "You're right. It wasn't working for me either. I don't know why I ever thought I could trust you. You're a liar, Sherlock Holmes. You're a sorry liar. I don't care what you said. You never loved me."
A flicker of uncertainty danced across his features. She watched his eyes dart to one side and he tilted his head. Then they widened as if something dawned on him. He clapped his mouth shut and steeled his features as Irene's gaze flitted to him.
"Are we quite finished?" He asked, his fingers quivering at his sides.
She dashed tears from her cheeks. "I'm done."
"Dr. Hooper?"
Molly looked in the direction of Mycroft's voice as he approached the bench she sat on in Regent's park looking out over Boating Lake. His hand shielded his face from the bright sun.
She sighed and hugged her knees tighter to her chest. "How did you find me?"
He stepped under the tree that shaded her seat, stopped just shy of the bench and looked around the park. "Oh, I never really lose people under my protection. Leem and Fil, for all their idiotic façade, are quite good. They're right over there. You didn't really think you gave them the slip, did you?"
Molly looked in the direction of his gaze. Leem and Fil leaned against the trunk of a large oak about fifty yards away gesticulating animatedly to each other. She exhaled noisily. So much for a bit of solitude.
"May I sit, Dr. Hooper?"
She gestured to the bench. "Be my guest."
He sat down and laid his umbrella between them. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he stared down at it a moment. Then, he seemed to change his mind, picked it up and hooked it well out of her reach over the arm of the bench.
"What do you need?" She asked. "And be quick, I'm really not in the mood to interact with a Holmes right now."
"Actually, I'm here to pick you up at Sherlock's request," Mycroft wrinkled his nose and urged a curious pigeon away with his foot. "But I do, in fact, need some information. Well . . . more like confirmation."
Of course, all she wanted to do was be alone and wallow in her misery but she could never be that lucky.
"Mm, hmm. About?" She said in a strangled voice.
"You had a discussion with Mary Watson the other day about someone, someone from her past."
Molly huffed a laugh. "Yes. So?"
"The man's name, please? That's what you were bent on discussing with Sherlock, was it not? You may as well skip the middle man and tell me directly."
She searched his face. "If I tell you, will you promise it won't come back on Mary?"
Mycroft chuckled. "My dear, I don't give a damn about Mary Watson. I have no designs on locking her up or exposing her dirty little secrets. She's really unimportant to me as a matter of fact."
Molly made a face. "You're a heartless bastard, Mr. Holmes."
He smirked. "I try to be. It's a lot less messy than having one, don't you think? So, what can you tell me? Do try to be concise. I have things to do."
Molly rolled her eyes. "She said the man was her husband from her former life. His name is Sebastian Moran."
Mycroft sighed heavily and looked out over the park with disdain. "Mm, and is that the only name she gave you?"
"Yes. Why? Is that not helpful?"
He looked over at her with raised brows. "No, not really. Sebastian Moran doesn't exist. He's a ghost. I'm trying to catch a real person."
"Well, I don't think he's trying all that hard to hide, Mr. Holmes. I'm surprised you haven't caught him already."
Mycroft rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Dr. Hooper, even if I could find physically find Mr. Moran, which is nearly impossible given what I know about his skill set, I cannot arrest him or kill him as I am want to do. Nor can I get the Americans to do so either even though he has also become a huge problem for them. He knows too many of our secrets. He's ensured his immortality."
"Why are you looking for him at all then?"
"Well, he nearly murdered one of our agents recently," he said blandly then flicked his fingers at her, "and you as well, I suppose. The agent I could have overlooked, but my then he had to go and disturb my little brother when he was playing so nicely. Do you know how hard it is to get Sherlock to behave? He needs his playthings."
She bristled. If she wasn't feeling so emotionally exhausted, she'd smack his face.
"I don't think I care for your descriptions, you conceited arse," Molly pressed her lips together for a tick as she gazed towards the armrest. "Is that a new umbrella? It would be a shame if it ended up at the bottom of the lake."
Mycroft snatched the umbrella up and clutched it tightly. "Good luck removing it from my grasp this time!"
Molly blinked slowly at him then looked deliberately at Leem and Fil and then back to Mycroft. She tilted her chin down and twitched her brows.
"Good luck holding onto it."
He huffed and clenched his teeth. "Never mind. I am sorry that I implied you were a plaything."
Molly's breath caught. Funny, even though she resented his description, she felt like one. Before she knew it, she sniffed and then dropped her face into her hands. A sob wracked her small frame.
"Oh, dear Lord. Don't cry, Dr. Hooper."
She turned away from him but the dam had burst. Next thing she knew, he had moved along the bench and dangled a tissue in front of her face.
His voice had dropped an octave and lost its edge. "Please, Dr. Hooper, um, . . . M-Molly. There is no need to be upset. I know you just witnessed something unpleasant but from what Sherlock texted me, I thought you understood it was a ruse. He's accused me of double dealings but you figured it out on your own, didn't you?"
She looked up at him and nodded vigorously.
"Oh, I am not stupid, Mr. Holmes. That was a little too perfect of an act begging for a scene to happen," she sputtered. "I had been trying to get a hold of him for over an hour. I all but announced my pending arrival with a bullhorn. There was no way he didn't know I was going to stumble upon their little tryst. Especially since his phone was sitting right next to him on the bedside table and Sherlock is nothing if not obsessive about being in the loop."
"Yes, mm, just to satisfy my curiosity, how did you deduce what was really going on?"
She hiked a brow and curled her lip. "What? Do you think you two have cornered the market on deduction? Or are you so blinded by your own gifts you can't recognize intelligence in others? Sorry if I haven't been as flashy but that's not really my style. Although, I didn't have to deduce much. I had practical experience with Sherlock when he's aroused. It's not something he can easily hide."
Mycroft held up his hands. "Oh, God. I think this is the first time I have really understood the colloquial expression, 'tmi'. Ug . . . so, Doctor, if you know he was being insincere in playing along with Ms. Adler, why are you so upset?"
Molly felt her head waver as she stared at him. She sniffed again.
"Because I don't understand why he thinks he needs to lie to me. I could help him if he could only trust me."
Mycroft averted his eyes. "Oh, that."
He slipped an old-fashioned gold watch out of his pocket and checked the time. Then he tapped his fingers against his side for a few seconds as he contemplated something. After seemingly coming to some sort of decision, he retrieved a mobile from the other pocket and dialed a number.
"If you give me a moment, Dr. Hooper, I have a story to tell you," he said as he awaited an answer. "Anthea, could you be so kind as to postpone my next meeting? Also, I will need an additional security team at Regent's park."
Molly let out an irritated huff as he pressed end on the mobile and tucked it away again. "Please, I'll behave. I don't need any more bodyguards."
Mycroft laughed and tapped his umbrella on the ground beneath his feet. "Oh, they're not for you. They're protection for me, from Sherlock."
