So Last Season
"Where are we going?" Young Emily asked once seated in the back of the black cab beside a deep-in-thought Sherlock. He stared out of the window the entire drive, never turning when talking to the small Watson by his side,
"Molly has some important equipment I need. Shouldn't be too long." Sherlock's voice was chipper but his face was straight and bland. Emily nodded and sat forward in thought, matching Sherlock's positioning. Her school bag sat between them and occasionally, she would look to him to see if there had been any spark in his thoughts. But there was nothing.
The cab was quickly paid and Emily took his hand before they crossed the road,
"Now, Emily, I need you to think hard when we are in here. Any ideas you have-"
"I know. You tell me all the time. So does Daddy. Any ideas, I have to say them out loud, because I am a smart prodegy." She smiled to him as though she had rehearsed and regurgitated the piece continuously. Sherlock laughed with his lips barely moving. He pushed open the doors and a dazed Molly quickly turned to them.
"What do you need?" She questioned quietly. Emily moved towards her and placed her school bag up onto the work bench,
"He needs special equipment." Emily said so calmly and nonchalantly. Molly widened her eyes and nodded over at Sherlock who had already unloaded his pockets.
"Someone came by this after noon. Left behind this. Worn makeup on the inside, lipstick staining the knot. So, if you could all just be silent, that would be excellent." Sherlock presented the noose to Molly quickly before retracting his gesture and beginning to chip away at the rope, "Coffee, please if you wouldn't mind."
A short while passed and John had recieved Mrs Hudson's phonecall. He strolled the corridors of Bart's and rode quietly in the elevator with a corpse lying sheathed in white on a steel table beside him. He rocked slowly on his heels, trying not to stare at the flapping tag on the big toe of the body. When the elevator stopped, John excused himself sharply. His fists clenched and unclenched as he walked the corridors once more, bumping into Molly who had a look of boredom around her,
"Where's Sherlock? Where's Emily?" John chuckled when he caught his breath.
Molly lead him to the mortuary and stood aside for him to enter. The door was pushed open and John hung his head,
"Oh, f- What's- Emily..." John muttered and mumbled as he analysed the scene. The morgue refridgerators. One single door opened and with Sherlock lying presicely where a body would. His hands were at his face as Emily massaged his head of curls.
"Hello, John. Do not talk. I am awaiting very important information for a very peculiar case. So, if you please..." Sherlock stated calmly and turned to John, pressing his finger to his lips, "Shh."
"Emily, what- why... Sherlock..." John crossed his arms and squinted his eyes at the duo, both trance-like in their actions. Sherlock sighed and dropped his hands to his chest,
"I suggested to her that I need more blood flow to the brain in order to solve this case before dinner-time. She scratched her head and the idea was concieved. She agreed and here we are. Both content-"
"Both, now, bloody warped!" John laughed and Emily stopped massaging Sherlock's head,
"Daddy, please. Sherlock has to think." Emily widened her eyes at her dad and gestured her head towards Sherlock, "He's getting nowhere, right now."
"Oh, Jesus... Molly, how long has he been in a bloody fridge?!" John turned and Molly pressed her lips together. John furrowed his brows, waiting in a response,
"About half an hour. He said just to let him get on with it. He's waiting for Mycroft to text him back," Molly shrugged her shoulders and brushed past John gently to get to the fridge. She stood awkwardly in front of him and he opened his eyes,
"Sorry, do you need past?" He questioned. Molly looked to the square section above Sherlock and nodded. "Quite right... Emily, go to you father. Molly-" Sherlock inhaled deeply and nodded, "shut me in. I'll be alright." He stated and closed his eyes again. John chuckled and stepped forward, his foot kicking in the retracting metal tray into its assorted slot and slamming the door closed behind his best friend. Molly looked at John with wonder and he let out a deep sigh,
"Just leave him in there..." He whispered and scrunched up in nose. John smiled proudly to Molly and took his daughters hand, "C'mon. Let's go wait for mum."
"Oh, it's so strange being in here without him!" Mary chuckled, resting over a cup of coffee and doodling into her daughter's notepad, "He's always buzzing about... Maybe we should take a holiday for a little while before Easter, just get away from it for a bit-"
"Right! It isn't funny to lock someone into a corpse-fridge. I was getting quite claustrophobic and thanks to a cleaning lady, I was let out. Thank you very much, John!" Sherlock spat when he swung open the doors to the laboratory. His skin was pimpled, from his neck- right down to his fingers. His lips where a cool shade of white but his eyes burned red with fury. He walked to his seat in front of a laptop and a microscope, trying his best to ignore the icy-cold air around him. John stiffled a laugh but Mary couldn't help it,
"Oh, you're very dramatic sometimes, Sherlock. You were only in there for twenty minutes!" She chuckled and took a sip of her coffee,
"Has Mycroft responded yet?" Molly piped up from her own corner of the lab, looking over rows of beakers to make contact. Sherlock nodded and turned slightly to start tapping number into the laptop,
"Before you ask, John- I needed his computer code to run some DNA. This DNA doesn't match just anybody's. It's somebody in the government..." Sherlock elbowed the noose over to John who picked it up and looked at it through narrowed eyes, "I first thought of Madam Perfimink but then I realised she defected to Paris after her affair with Lord Housut hit the papers... She would've been immediately removed from the system..." Sherlock was slow in talking and the tapping of the keyboard quickly warmed his hands up. John studied the rope and shrugged,
"Couldn't you have just cracked Mycroft's code yourself? Or are you becoming slow, like him?" John smiled but there was no response from Sherlock. Sherlock typed and he scrolled through several pages before linking up the laptop to a machine which connected to the microscope. He was steady and furtive with the slides of makeup but he continued to express his findings,
"Now, the lipstick is Elizabeth Arden. Evidently it's the shade 'Red To Wear'. Gives us absolutely nothing. The face makeup- the foundation, if you will; is Chanel- Perfection Lumiere to be specific. Beige. Number 10. Very pale but not so pale as to the fact it has marked the inside of the noose. Now, it's not fresh. It's been there for a while given the fact that the lipstick was Autumn '12 and the foundation was the following Summer. Now, shall we see who it belongs to?" He turned to look at the bewildered faces of his companions, "You know, in all the years we have spent time, your faces never change when I provide you with information."
John finished his coffee and gently patted his daughter's back and made his way to Sherlock's side as the machine read the DNA of the slides. A few moments passed when a list apparated onto the screen. A long list of long, meaningless names. The computer scanned thoroughly before locking onto a name, a red band brandishing the screen. It bleeped loudly, even attracting Emily's attention from the notepad she shared with her mother.
The cheerful ringing of the computer fell to a mute buzz as the entire file of Victoria Rebecca Watson unfolded before John and Sherlock,
"Oh, God..."
"Impossible." Sherlock breathed quietly before gut wrenching images flooded him. Her white casket being lifted from the dormant ground only moments after he had left her. Flipping it open and rubbing her face around the noose. It turned Sherlock's stomach and more breaths rattled out of him. Or maybe it was before. Maybe when she went to change the night he came to take her out. Her house had been invaded. They were waiting. They forced her to do it. They played mind games with her. Sherlock felt his fists clench and his cheeks flush. Every disgusting theory, every small nudge of sickness filled Sherlock's mind quicker than he could take in a breath. Thought upon theory upon idea came to him and he had to push away from the machinery.
"Who's that, Mum? She looks like daddy." Emily whispered to her mother who was in full awe of the computer. John sniffed and crossed his arms, studying the snapshot of her face. Knowing exactly that the porcelain which covered her had now fully rotted away and her smile was no more than just teeth in the deep darkness of a pit. Sherlock stood by the door, facing the wall with his hands firmly behind his back. He refused to move and refused to speak. John turned to Mary and made his way around the bench to her.
"This is it. He's going to become a hermit. It's settled. Chisled into the damn stone, now!" John whispered harshly to Mary. She shook her head and Molly approached. She chuckled quietly, looking at the computer,
"Why does she still do this to him?" She joined in the whispering and took a flicker over to Sherlock who had sharply turned to look at her, "Oh, I didn't mean-"
"Of course you didn't, Molly... It has been four and a half years. How foolish of me! Why should it hurt so much?!" He snapped and grabbed his coat, fleeing the room and the building within seconds. Molly pursed her lips and looked to the tiled floor, ridden with guilt and indecency. John hung his head and screwed up his eyes with a long sigh.
"Are we still going to see the film?" Emily innocently questioned before Mary placed a hand on her daughters and guided her over to the computer.