Aargh! This took forever. Usual disclaimers, yada yada
Chapter 44
No matter how late she went to sleep, Molly was pre-conditioned these days to be wide awake the very moment her eyes opened in the morning. It was one of the perils of being a forensic pathologist who had to be prepared to be called in to work at all hours. However hard she tried, she could never doze comfortably or drop back off again…which was most annoying when you were lying next to a deliciously warm body. She opened her eyes and received once again the momentary shock of realising that the warm body belonged to the man who had dominated her romantic fantasies for nearly a decade – and as a hopeless dream for the first few years. It was a feeling of pure happiness that had never faded.
She glanced at the clock: 06:34. Sherlock was still sleeping peacefully. He was facing her, locks of hair falling over his face – it badly needed cutting again. She noticed, for the first time, a couple of silver strands, shining among the dark curls, and wondered if he had spotted this sign of approaching middle age. Quite probably – he didn't miss anything…usually. Like most people, he looked younger in sleep, but there were faint lines of exhaustion around his eyes that made her wonder how long he'd lain awake after she'd dropped off last night.
She ran her eyes over his upper body, frowning as she noted a few new bruises from his latest skirmish. Her eyes lingered for a moment on his bandaged arm; she remembered him saying that he'd pocketed the knife and wondered whether she needed to test it for bacteria. All she needed was for Sherlock to get some nasty infection. She'd examine the cut later.
Not wishing to disturb his peaceful slumber, she slipped out of bed as quietly as possible, grabbing her bathrobe and shutting the door behind her.
Sherlock's discarded jacket and shirt were still screwed up by the bathroom door, both stiff with blood on one sleeve. She emptied his jacket pockets onto the kitchen table, using a clean tea towel to remove the knife and place it in a plastic food bag. Having established that the damage to the clothes was too great for repair, she bundled them into the bin before turning her attention back to the knife. As Sherlock had said, it was a standard kitchen knife – rather worryingly, the type of heavy knife used to cut up raw meat. With a sigh, she dug out a jiffy bag, dropped in the food bag containing the knife, sealed it, wrote a few notes and dropped the package in her work bag for testing later on. With any luck, as the cut had bled freely, there wouldn't be any infection.
As she waited for the kettle to boil, she dug her phone out of her bag and sent a quick text to John before she could think better of it.
Drinks soon? MH.
She wasn't expecting a reply for some time – John wasn't great at early rising at the best of times and with Ellie occasionally wakeful at nights, the Watsons cherished their Saturday morning lie-ins. But, to her surprise, the answer came almost immediately.
Monday 6PM Shears? JW.
This referred to the Hand and Shears, a curiously-named pub close to Bart's, where John and Molly, along with Greg, had met up frequently over the years since the early days of their acquaintance. Even now, a meeting there could be code for a request to discuss something concerning Sherlock. As far as they knew, the man himself had never been there – not to drink, at any rate.
Sounds good. You OK? MH.
Called out to patient early hours. Heart attack. Home now. JW.
She winced in sympathy. John currently worked as a GP at a large central London practice, but part of the deal with his colleagues meant that they would cover his office hours whenever he was required on a case, provided he took more than his fair share of any out-of-hours problems. Since he needed the financial security of a full time job, he couldn't refuse – and, to be fair to them, his colleagues were usually quite supportive of his sudden disappearances.
OK. Have a quiet weekend. MH.
As she sent this, Sherlock emerged from the bedroom, yawning and rubbing his dishevelled hair.
She slipped her phone in her bathrobe pocket and turned to get another mug from the cupboard. "Didn't think you'd be up for hours yet. You looked tired."
"Mmm." He subsided onto the sofa, stretched out in his usual fashion, eyes closed and hands folded under his chin.
She made the coffee strong and sweet, just as he liked it, and brought the two mugs over to the coffee table, giving him a look of amused affection as she bent to place them close by. The way he grabbed her hand the moment she put them down suggested he'd been paying more attention than she had thought, despite the closed eyes. He was clearly in a playful mood this morning.
She smiled, allowing him to pull her down onto the sofa on top of him, arranging her to his satisfaction, with her body sliding into the gap between his and the back cushions and her head resting comfortably on his shoulder. Usually Sherlock took over the sofa when he was in 'thinking mode' – he could spend hours there, and Molly didn't disturb him. But, just occasionally, he had non-vocal ways of showing that he didn't want to be alone, and this was one of them.
She smoothed her palm over the soft material of his silk dressing gown, running it lazily over his chest and up to his neck. "You haven't got anything urgent on, have you? Only, it'd be nice to have a day together. We don't need to go out… In fact…" Lying here in such close proximity, she could feel her heart beat speed up a little and she moved her hand the other way, partly to tease and partly to tell if he was as interested as she was.
Quick as a cat, he caught at her hand, holding it tight against his chest. "Actually, I had a plan…"
"Oh?" She lifted her head to see his face; his voice sounded unusually tentative for Sherlock.
He had moved his head to look down at her, and his expression was a little guarded, his eyes searching hers, as they always did when he was unsure. "You've grown quite…fond of that house. Haven't you?"
Molly had learned a long time ago that there was no point attempting to lie to Sherlock. "I have," she admitted, meeting his eyes with absolute honesty. "I know it's probably silly, but it's such a beautiful spot and I suppose… well, I guess I just like to dream about the perfect country cottage." She laughed, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "But, look, we did agree that we would run it as a long-term let, and it's probably ready now…"
Her voice trailed off as he looked at her, his eyes darkest blue today. A small crooked smile crept onto his serious face, softening his features. "Well, why don't you show it to me? Today."
Her breath caught in surprise. "Really? You want to see it? Oh -," she suddenly remembered, her heart sinking. "I can't. Got work tonight. By the time we get there, there'd hardly be any time. Although there's no reason why you can't go and have a look if you want to."
He shook his head briskly and sat up suddenly, pulling her up with him. "Tell them you can't go in. Call in a favour. You've covered for enough colleagues."
"Well, I suppose I could try…" His enthusiasm was infectious.
"No suppose about it. Ring that man – what's he called? David. That's the one. Owes you three shifts already and he's building up to ask you to cover for his son's sports day. Father of three young children, so no plans on a Saturday night and he'll feel too guilty to say no. Ring him. Or I will. We can stay there tonight."
As she stared at him in surprise, he jumped to his feet and took a gulp of the scalding black coffee, wincing as it singed his mouth. "Come on, Molly! No time to waste."
"It was weird!" Molly told John over a pint on Monday night. "I mean, OK, it was nice weird, but still weird…"
She paused, thinking over the last couple of days. Sherlock couldn't have been more attentive to her if he'd tried. He appeared to love the house, seeming to approve of every decorating decision she'd made by herself. He listened attentively as she took him through rooms that he had already seen on the one occasion he'd visited but had shown scant interest in at the time. She would have suspected him of putting on a big act just to make her happy – and possibly he was - but he also made some sensible suggestions about where to place furniture and ornaments for best effect, which suggested that he was at least paying attention. He'd even shown some interest in the one room that left her cold, commenting on its potential usefulness as a study and general storeroom for various objects currently strewn around the living room at 221B.
Once more, he'd spent quite a lot of time in the garden, investigating the old beehives with apparent fascination. He also spent more time exploring the ruined stable in the garden; Molly watched from the sitting room, her heart lifting at the sight of him gazing thoughtfully at the structure, running his sharp eyes over it and no doubt measuring the dimensions perfectly in his mind.
It had been a beautiful, sunny weekend, and they had walked down to the coast on Saturday to paddle in the freezing cold sea and search for fossils, before returning to eat fish and chips with a cold crisp Sauvignon Blanc in the garden, laughing over shared memories of weird cases late into the night. On the Sunday, after a lazy morning in bed, they had tackled the lung-busting hike from Birling Gap up onto Beachy Head; after which they had stopped for a drink at the nearby pub, where Sherlock identified four potentially suicidal drinkers to the barman, who had called the local police in a world-weary manner.
They had returned to London on Sunday night; Sherlock spending the train journey sketching out a rough plan of the stable and making notes on the work that would need to be done to convert it into a working laboratory. Molly had felt relaxed and happy, with absolutely no sense of guilt about the fact that a father-of-three had had to spend his Saturday night at the morgue in her place. The following morning, when she left early for a day as an expert witness at court, Sherlock was lounging on the sofa, apparently absorbed by an old tome on bee-keeping that he'd uncovered from somewhere.
"It was just a lovely weekend," Molly reflected, sipping her beer thoughtfully. "Sherlock at his very best. I'm not sure he could've given me a nicer weekend if he'd tried. What do you suppose he was up to?"
"What makes you think he was?" John asked, after a pause. "Up to anything, I mean. He's a human being, like the rest of us, despite appearances to the contrary. Even Sherlock likes some time out sometimes."
Even as he said it, his voice sounded more than a little doubtful.
Molly looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. "John, what did happen on Friday night? With Mycroft's case. Sherlock said something about a case of mistaken identity?"
"What happened?" John gave a humourless laugh, not quite meeting her eyes. "What happened was that we fucked up. Big time."
His eyes flitted quickly around the quiet pub. They had deliberately found a table some distance away from the other drinkers.
Molly drew a shaky breath. "Is that why you wanted to meet up?"
John gazed moodily into his drink. "It was a complete mess – a total shit-storm. Did Sherlock tell you that the man he knocked out was working undercover for Mycroft?"
"Mycroft! How on earth did that happen?"
John shrugged. "It should've been a simple case. Mycroft wanted us to retrieve some information from a blackmailer. Anonymous messages to say this bloke had got something embarrassing on a member of the Cabinet, was threatening to sell it to the tabloids. Must have been genuine I guess, or Mycroft would've ignored it."
Molly frowned. "Sounds fairly…tame. I'm surprised Mycroft even cared – unless it's a major scandal that'd bring down the entire government? Anyway, it's not something that would usually interest Sherlock."
"No, well, Mycroft only called Sherlock in when his own people failed on several occasions to retrieve the evidence." John paused, taking a gulp of his beer. "I think the guy was more irritating than anything, bragging about the fact that they couldn't catch him. When I went through the file with Mycroft, I didn't think he was seriously concerned, just impatient to get it sorted out. Bloke identified with Sherlock, kept describing himself as his apprentice, kept telling Mycroft that he should recruit him etc. Mycroft wanted Sherlock to identify who it was and pay a visit – frighten him a bit. Sherlock was intrigued enough to want to meet this one."
There was a note of surprise in John's tone and Molly nodded in agreement. In recent years, a number of crazed fans had based their lifestyles on Sherlock – the deerstalker (which she could not understand at all), the sharp suits, the hairstyle. There were even some weirdos who'd posed as clients just so they could get access to Baker Street and get photographs, presumably so they could reproduce the look of 221B in their own homes. Sherlock could usually spot this type at a glance and even Molly and Mrs. Hudson had become adept at spotting the signs and stopping the Sherlock wannabes at the front door. One or two had required a stern word from a police officer, but most seemed harmless. The petty criminals were more of a nuisance, bragging about their replication of Sherlock's methods to steal or obtain information fraudulently. Sally Donovan had a file on them and kept a weather eye on anything that looked likely to escalate, while Sherlock usually ignored them. Most of them were far less efficient than they believed, and none of them were anywhere near the league of Moriarty, Magnussen or Janine.
"Anyway," John went on. "There were a few random clues in the information Mycroft had on him – 'clues' for Sherlock, anyway. Too difficult for his own people to track the guy down. Slightly challenging for Sherlock but not impossible – some e-mail messages, a few anonymous letters, a couple of recordings with the voice clearly disguised. Textbook for Sherlock – took him a couple of hours to get a name and possible location. Bloke wasn't supposed to fight back – wasn't the type, by Sherlock's reckoning. Bit of a physical coward, and anyway he was just some geeky computer type, obsessed with meeting Sherlock. We'd just walk into this flat in Acton and get the files, then unsettle him a bit to make him shut up and be a good boy in future." His voice trailed away as he stared at his pint in apparent disbelief.
"So…?" Molly nudged him impatiently after a few minutes.
John stirred and smiled at her. "Sorry. Just thinking it over and still can't believe what happened. Sherlock was completely wrong about the man's identity and location. Everything – all his deductions – were completely off. Not only was our blackmailer not there, but he'd never been anywhere near the place. The man who should have been there was completely different – and much more dangerous. A Ukrainian double-agent who'd been selling that country's military secrets to the highest bidder and would be desperate enough to kill anyone who came anywhere near him. Sherlock accidentally disturbed one of Mycroft's men, who'd been waiting to apprehend the Ukrainian in a subway near the flat and was expecting a potentially violent man to arrive any minute. Bit unfortunate that he pounced on Sherlock instead, who then knocked him out before I could even get there."
"Where were you?"
"Sherlock was slightly ahead of me, as always. Just as I was about to follow him into the subway, I got an emergency signal from Mycroft that delayed me. Wanted to know what the hell we were doing smack bang in the middle of his own agent's job. And then I heard Sherlock shouting to me to call for back-up. In all the confusion, the Ukrainian agent – who had been on his way to his flat – was seen to slip away again. Mycroft was furious."
Molly frowned. "Sherlock never gets a deduction wrong. You must have been given the wrong information file, surely?"
John hesitated. "I'm not sure."
"Oh, come on! You know Sherlock – he'd never have made such a big mistake!"
"Yes, but…" John pushed his half-drunk beer aside and looked Molly directly in the eye. "Look, Molly, it's not the first time recently. There have been incidents…"
"What are you on about?" Molly leaned across the table, meeting John's troubled gaze. "What 'incidents'?"
His eyes flitted away from hers in apparent embarrassment. "Oh, I don't know, Molly! Just a couple of things he's missed. Minor matters, nothing really serious. He's – he's just not as sharp as he was."
She took a deep breath to calm herself down before speaking very slowly. "The file. Was it wrong?"
John met her eyes again. "Honestly? No. Not as far as I could see. We didn't have it with us – Mycroft kept it. But Sherlock had looked at all the evidence, made his deductions. When I was taking the agent to the hospital – I was worried about his head injury and didn't want to leave him – Sherlock asked me to check some things in the file again. So after I made sure the guy was OK, I went back to Mycroft's office. He was still there – on disaster control, thanks to our bungled operation. And the file was exactly the same."
"You're certain? Definitely no changes?"
"Not that I could see. The information Sherlock wanted me to find was exactly as we both remembered it. I texted it to him." John shrugged, sounding a bit grumpy as he bent his head over his pint again. "Between trying to mollify Mycroft and dealing with that heart attack case, I didn't get much sleep on Friday night. Was knackered most of the weekend. I don't know where Sherlock ended up."
Molly hesitated, wondering how much she should reveal. "Did you… did you know he'd been stabbed by Mycroft's agent?"
From the way John's head shot up, he genuinely had no idea. "What? No, I didn't. It was dark, but… why didn't he tell me?"
"He's OK," she added, quickly. "A flesh wound, upper arm. Slash with a kitchen knife."
John frowned. "A kitchen knife? What on earth would an experienced agent be doing with that? I mean, Mycroft wanted the Ukrainian apprehended alive and unhurt if possible, and there are far less messy ways to overpower someone. And why a kitchen knife? That's a weapon that people use when they're unprepared."
"And why did he jump on Sherlock anyway?" asked Molly. "I mean, anyone could have been walking through a public subway."
"Well, he'd received intelligence that the guy he wanted was just a few seconds away – and unfortunately Sherlock resembled him very strongly." John paused. "I did get the impression that Mycroft was just as angry with his agent as he was with us."
He downed his pint and stood up. "I need another of those. You joining me?"
She nodded absently, staring at the table in thought. Sherlock had quite obviously been confused that he had got things so badly wrong on Friday night…but had he?
"There's something very odd about all this," she told John when he came back with fresh drinks.
He nodded, but his eyes wouldn't meet hers.
She sighed impatiently. "Alright, out with it. You really do think that Sherlock made a mistake. Don't you," she told him grimly, and it wasn't a question.
John was silent for a moment longer, before bursting out: "But look at the evidence! I would swear that it was the same file that we looked at before. When I arrived, Mycroft had called in a team to work on it, and they had made some progress. They'd identified some possible suspects and were narrowing them down. The person that Sherlock identified wasn't on their list, but they'd also tracked him down. Currently serving a sentence for possession in Australia, and he's never been anywhere near that flat." He paused. "Sherlock seems to have got the profile right – the likely suspect is a physical coward and likely to back down quickly – but then any profiler could've worked that out. What worries me is that, from that profile and the clues, he'd identified both the wrong man and the wrong location. And that's not remotely like him."
They were silent for a moment, both staring moodily at their drinks.
"Someone's messing with him," Molly said, eventually.
"Or maybe…" John began hesitantly.
"No!" She gave him a furious look. "There's no 'maybe' about it. Someone is messing with Sherlock. Trying to dent his confidence – to stop him believing in himself." She paused, thinking. "Maybe…maybe that was why he was happy to go down to Sussex with me. Maybe he's starting to think that he should retire. But who's messing around – and why? Now, tell me everything you know about those 'minor incidents'."
"What the bloody hell are you playing at?"
"Ah." Mycroft took off his reading glasses and looked up at her enquiringly. "Nice to see you, Molly… although I take it that this isn't a social visit? It's quite alright, Alfred," he added with a smile to the elderly porter, who was standing by the door, giving Molly an appalled look.
Admittedly, she had burst through the door of the Diogenes the moment it had opened and had more-or-less frog-marched the porter along the corridor to Mycroft's private room. The sheer fury emitting from every pore of her being had probably stopped any of the security guards in their tracks.
As the man shut the door behind him, Mycroft smirked in a way that was guaranteed to increase her anger. "I take it I can't offer you tea? Coffee? A seat?"
She had been about to sit down but, at his offer, began to pace the floor instead. It was a useful way to work off her energy. "You know perfectly well what this is about."
"Assume for a moment," he said, coldly, "that I do not."
She turned on him, holding up her right hand, fingers splayed and thumb hidden. "Four! Four incidents so far! Three of them fairly minor, so he could easily pass them off as slips of memory…except that they weren't, were they? This is Sherlock we're talking about! He doesn't get slips in his memory – not by accident."
She put her hands on his desk, leaning close to his face. "How did you do it, then? Set up cases, arrange clients… give him certain information but then change facts after the event…but how? How to do it so that he won't realize what's happening? And then this latest case…" She shook her head. "There was no Ukrainian agent, was there? Or if there was, that agent wasn't there to apprehend him. It was all set up to make Sherlock look like he'd messed up."
He was still looking at her with an infuriating air of absolute calm. "Even if I was prepared to admit to that ridiculous suggestion, it would make no -."
"How did you do it?" she interrupted, angrily. "How? That file…John was convinced it was exactly the same."
Mycroft held her gaze for a moment longer before sighing and rubbing his forehead. "It was…almost exactly the same. There were minor discrepancies between the two. Extremely minor grammatical changes in the letters and dialogue that John would not have noticed, but..."
"But Sherlock would," she finished for him.
His silence was enough of a confirmation.
Suddenly exhausted, she sunk into a nearby chair, rubbing her forehead. "I knew it had to be you. See, I knew Sherlock wouldn't make such mistakes, but who could possibly fool him? No one else clever enough… But why? That's what I don't get. Why on earth would you do it? What are you trying to achieve?"
"What do you want, Molly?"
She looked up, startled. "Well, I want you to tell the truth. For once," she added, meaningfully.
He leaned back in his chair, looking as cold as she'd ever seen him. "No, what do you want out of life? You can't convince me that you want to carry on like this. Never knowing when you'll see him. Every time you say goodbye, wondering whether it'll be for the last time. Half-expecting and dreading that call from John every time Sherlock is away – that call to tell you that this time he wasn't quite fast enough, not quite clever enough?"
"My God," she whispered, staring at him. "You really don't have much confidence in Sherlock, do you?"
He sighed, suddenly looking much older. "I have plenty of confidence in my brother. But there are others… Sherlock has attracted them in the past, and he will attract them in the future. Moriarty nearly destroyed him… but there will be others. I know it."
He drummed the desk with his fingertips, emphasizing each syllable.
"So this is some kind of – of perverted way to – what? Stop him from doing what he does best? Trying to convince him that he's not…"
She paused, not sure how to put it, but he jumped in. "Not invincible? Precisely. Because he is not. No one is. One day, he'll get it wrong, and I…" he paused, giving her a slightly shaky smile. "I told you once…that he had broken my heart. Remember?"
She looked up at him. "Yes." How could she forget? That day, in the prison, when Sherlock had finally told her that he loved her, had finally kissed her…before saying goodbye, expecting it to be forever.
Mycroft clenched his fists, his features hardening. "I cannot allow that to happen again."
She stared at him. It was a long time before she could form the words. "Was I… was I always part of your plan?"
He looked at her uncomprehendingly.
"I mean -," she swallowed, "I mean, did you push him towards me? Towards someone safe? Someone to keep him on the – the 'straight-and-narrow'; someone to stop him from making the ultimate mistake? And then the house? A nice, safe life in the country, focusing on his experiments? Is that part of your plan too? Oh, God!" She stood up, feeling her heart beating fast. "We really are just pawns in your game, aren't we? Me, him, John, even Greg…"
She stopped as she saw the brief spasm of pain cross his expression before it hardened again. "I – I didn't mean Greg…"
"No -," he lifted a hand to stop her apology, although his voice was icy cold. "That's fair enough… although you are wrong. I told you before that you over-estimated my powers. Do you really suppose I'd have the power to make Sherlock fall in love with someone? Be sensible, Molly. But -," his voice grew warmer, more passionate, "- if you saw that someone you loved was on a path destined for destruction and you had the means to prevent it, wouldn't you take action?"
She was about to deny it, but paused and considered, trying to be fair to him.
"All my life, with Sherlock, I have tried." His voice was utterly weary as he stared at the desk, his eyes dull. "Rehab, more than once. Trying to give him a job, to give him purpose. Passing clients and cases his way when he insisted on going it alone. Constantly keeping an eye on him, preparing to send in support whenever things got too dangerous. Letting him deal with Moriarty on his own terms, even though I suspected it would be too much." He gave a curious little half-smile, slightly reminiscent of his brother's. "Even trying to keep Mummy off his back. And for what? All he ever does is charge off into some fresh danger at the first opportunity. I thought you might keep him steady…" he added, his voice a little accusatory.
She laughed, incredulously. "Oh, so it's my fault now, is it? Don't even try it, Mycroft, because it's bullshit and you know it. You can't manipulate people the way you do!" She shook her head. "This weekend, I thought – I really thought that Sherlock was as excited about the house as I was… but it wasn't real, was it? He was being manipulated into believing that he should settle down and stop doing what he loves. Well, I'm not having it! You – you say you love him, you say he broke your heart, but the truth is you just don't trust him. Not absolutely. He's always going to be 'little brother' in need of saving. Well, I love him – and I don't want to save him. He doesn't need to be saved."
She walked towards the door, feeling oddly light-hearted. Possibly it was simply relief at knowing what was really going on; possibly even triumph at having got one over Mycroft. "Thanks for the house, by the way. We do love it and we're going to retire there one day… but not yet." She paused by the door, turning to look him in the eye. "We still have things to do in London. Sherlock still has a lot to do. And it'll take much more than trying to convince him that he's losing the plot to make him move there before he's ready."
She smiled sweetly at him before turning back to the door.
"He already knew." Mycroft said, quietly.
She stopped, frowned at him. "What?"
Mycroft was looking down at his folded hands. "If you think that I had anything to do with the way you spent your weekend, you're quite wrong. Sherlock already knew what I'd done on Friday night. The information he asked John to send him simply confirmed it."
He looked up at her with an ironic smile. "So you see… Sherlock really did want to spend the weekend quietly with you in Sussex. You might want to consider the reasons why."
Speechless, she turned away from him and walked out of the door.
