Her head hurt. Her head hurt and her chest hurt and her shoulder hurt and she couldn't make her eyes focus. She blinked, tried opening them a few times, then gave it up and listened instead. There was the sound of an engine, and movement; she was in a car, or maybe on a train? Car, she decided after a long, blurry moment during which she edged back toward unconsciousness more than once. Definitely car. No legroom, but not a plane; she had on a shoulder-strap seat belt, and the window was large and square and the engine sounded wrong, so it was a car.

Someone would be proud of her deductions, who?

Another noise distracted her bleary, unfocused mind from the question: the unhappy whimpering of a baby, very close to her. She started to move her left arm, then gasped at the sudden flare of pain the movement caused. Her moan was covered as the baby's fretting turned into a squall that was immediately stopped by…by someone making a shushing noise.

A dummy had been given to the infant by whoever that someone was. She heard the slight sucking noises, recognized them - how? Because she'd heard them before, they were familiar noises, as had been the infant's cries and fretting.

Slowly, carefully she managed to ease her right arm up and across her body, groping for the edge of what touch-memory told her was a carseat. Another brush of her fingers and she found the soft, warm baby-flesh, a hand clenching and unclenching only to grasp her index finger in a tight grip.

Again that wash of familiarity - she'd felt that grip, if only she could open her eyes she would know who the baby was, wouldn't she? Concentrating as best she could despite the desperate darkness cajoling her back into sleep, she forced her head to turn, gritting her teeth at the renewed flare of pain the movement caused, and with a great deal of effort managed to briefly open her eyes.

They remained open only long enough for her to take in the sight of a fretful girl-child - why was she certain the little blonde was a she? - before drooping closed again.

"Shh," she mumbled as the dummy dropped from the baby's lips and another soft whimper escaped the sweet little rosebud lips.

Rosebud…no, not rosebud, rose-something else, what?

"Shh," another voice - male? - echoed from what sounded like a long, long way away. The front seat of the car, she thought. "Shh, Rosie, it'll be all right."

Rosie, right, it was Rosie, and the voice was familiar. John, she thought, triumphant over her mental confusion, the fog lifting for just a wee moment. John and Rosie and she was…she was…

Another wave of pain rolled over her, and she gasped inwardly. "Hurts," she moaned. "John, my chest, my arm, what happened…"

"It's all right," he said, reaching back to squeeze her hand comfortingly. "It's all right, Mary, I'm taking you somewhere safe. Try to go back to sleep, let the medicine do its job, yeah? You and Rosie and me, we'll all be safe. No more enemies coming after us, not yours or mine or especially Sherlock's," he practically spat the last name out, the force of it more than enough to penetrate her mental fog and raise alarm bells. "No one will find us, Mary, I promise," John added, his voice dropping back to a soft, cajoling murmur. "Just go back to sleep, it'll all be fine."

She nodded, or thought she did, Rosie still clutching her finger. John had called her Mary, so she must be Mary Watson. Rosie was her baby, and John was her husband. Whatever had happened to her (the distant memory of a gun being pointed at her and fired flashed through her consciousness, then vanished), he would keep them all safe. He'd promised.

Closing her eyes, Molly Hooper swiftly tumbled back into the comforting, pain-free embrace of darkness.


End note: Many thanks to asteraceaeblue for coming out of (Sherlolly) retirement to beta this for me!