3

The cab stopped in 221 Baker Street, interrupting Sherlock's train of thought. He paid the fare and recovered the small travel luggage, staying a few minutes on the pavement looking at the dark windows of his flat. When he entered, the foyer was dark and no light was coming from Mrs Hudson's flat, so he slowly walked up the stairs. His flat's door was open and the front room lit only by the light from the street lamps.

Sherlock placed his luggage on the settee and took off his coat. His gaze was drawn to a couple of folders resting on Molly's chair. The yellow armchair which they had found in a junk shop during what could be called their first date. She had fallen in love with it at first sight, "It's my colour!" she had chirped sitting down, "And it's very comfortable. Absolutely lovely!" she had added smiling happily like a child who had just unwrapped a Christmas present. So Sherlock had bought it on the spot.

221b Baker Street was undergoing renovations following the damage caused by the explosion of the grenade Eurus had introduced into the flat via drone, and needed new furniture. Sherlock had simply thought that just as he and John had a chair, it was fair enough that Molly got one of her own too.

He took the folders in his hand intrigued. The label on the first bore the words POSTMORTEM VANESSA COX – 3rd DECEMBER 2008 in block capitals. The girl's name did not sound completely unknown to him but he didn't remember details of that case having not followed him personally. To be precise he had not yet moved to London at that time. The second label read VANESSA COX MURDER POLICE REPORT. Now his curiosity was definitely aroused. Why Molly was going through those files?

Sherlock hung his coat behind the door next to Molly's bag and green jacket, unable to resist bringing his face close to it and breathing in her scent. He had missed her. It was clear from the sudden tightness in his stomach.

As he moved with papers in hand, intending to take a look at them, he admitted to himself that the thought of going home and finding Molly there, perhaps not upstairs but in his bed, warmed his heart. "Undoubtedly a significant improvement for someone who, until a few years ago, proudly flaunted the belief 'Alone protects me'", said John's voice in his head.

"This time John, you're absolutely right" he whispered softly ready to get into his nightwear, crawl into his empty bed and study the papers seemed to interest Molly so much.

The next morning, Sherlock walked confidently down the Bart's corridor leading to Molly's office. One of his hands slipped into the pocket of his renowned Belstaff, a heavy dark holdall in the other. When he was close enough to notice that the door was open, he also realized that Molly was in company of Detective Inspector Lestrade and Sergeant Sally Donovan.

"I can confirm that she died between 10pm and 11.30pm. She was hit by punches and kicks with armed boots, such as those used in construction sites" Molly's voice echoed loud and clear in the obviously empty corridor since it was just after 6am, "She could not defend herself. Maybe she was landed by a kick in the back. She only managed to shield herself with her arms" she continued to explain as Sherlock came to the door.

Molly was leaning with folded arms and her backside at her desk, her eyes turned to her left where the two Scotland Yard's officers stood, "Anderson reported he found traces of blood in her flat, in the bathroom sink and on a towel" Donovan interjected, and Molly nodded "He analysed it. It is male DNA. The same is on a glass and cutlery. I spoke to Philip a little while ago. He's taking fingerprints so you can check if this man is a registered person. But what I want to point out to you is this" she said standing up and turning on the X-ray viewer from which two x-rays hung.

"See, these are all signs of repeated abuse, which took place several years ago" Molly stated pointing her forefinger to a precise spot on the x-ray of a wrist. The three of them had their backs to him so they didn't notice he had remained stationary in the doorway. "How do you say it's mistreatment?" Lestrade asked, focusing his gaze on where Molly had her finger.

"And how do you understand they are not recent?" Donovan added, looking up from her notebook. Sherlock saw Molly smile good-naturedly at her "From the state of calcification of her bones, from the scar on her wrist". The expert pathologist took a few steps to her right pointing to the second x-ray "Because they are uncommon fractures" she explained, "They are considered indicators of abuse" she added putting both her hands in the pockets of her white coat and looking towards the two of them.

"Philip said that from the position of her body, the woman tried to crawl to her mobile phone to call for help" Lestrade stated and Molly nodded, "Yeah, she's been in agony for a long time. If the bastard had called 999, she'd probably still be alive".

"Are you talking about the social worker found dead in the garage of her building tonight?" he couldn't help but intrude. The three of them turned surprised towards the door, "Sherlock!" Molly exclaimed as her eyes fell on the duffel bag which he casually placed on a chair. "Oh! Forgive me. Good morning everyone" he said with a short smile pausing at Molly's right side, glancing quickly at the x-rays.

"Any idea?" asked Lestrade raising an eyebrow as Donovan picked up her notebook ready to take note of what the 'not so freak' consulting detective was about to say, "From what I read it wasn't a robbery. There was still money in her wallet, just as neither the gold chain around her neck nor the various rings on her fingers were removed". Molly handed him the preliminary police report and her own autopsy one, both of which he quickly read.

"No agenda was found, apparently" he whispered, "What kind of agenda?" Donovan inquired, staring him straight in the eye "Work agenda, Sergeant. She was a social worker…I bet for abused women, having been abused herself in the past. She may have protected with her life a woman she helped hide from an abusive father, boyfriend or perhaps husband", Sherlock sighed and placed the two reports on the desk "Look for her agenda, find out who she had an appointment with and you will have her killer".

Lestrade looked at Donovan and told her "We have to go to the refuge where she worked. She may have forgotten her agenda there". Sherlock raised an eyebrow showing scepticism at the D.I.'s hypothesis, "It's highly unlikely. Her main task was to protect the women who came to her. I doubt she was so careless as to leave her agenda with names and addresses of safe houses lying around".

Molly raised her head towards him, nodding her eyes to the two cops and Sherlock cleared his throat putting both his hands behind his back "Mm, anyway it's a good idea…check her office, I mean". Lestrade smiled at him and gestured to Donovan that she could walked to the car then, asked Sherlock "Are you going to see your sister in Sherrinford?".

He nodded walking around the desk and leaning on the short side of it, "I had to postpone until today. The Sheridan case kept me and John busy until yesterday" he explained. The D.I. smiled again and gave him a friendly pat on his left arm, "I'll text you the developments of this murder" he said and nodded a greeting with his head to Molly as he left the room.

Sherlock followed with his eyes the cop for a few seconds, then stood up and approached Molly. He lowered his head until his mouth was level with her ear, "I went up to call you to have breakfast together, but you weren't there anymore…what time did you go out?" he whispered with one eye to the door to check Lestrade didn't come back.

She looked up, getting lost for a moment in his blue-green eyes, then grabbing his collar's coat with one hand, she whispered "They called me at 1am…I was available", she bit her lower lip lightly "I didn't have time to leave you a note". Sherlock smiled at her tenderly and gave her a kiss on the cheek, "Before I go, we can get something to eat together at the cafeteria. I have to talk to you about something. What do you think?".

"It seems perfect" Molly replied sorry to lose contact with his body and curious to hear what it was he had to talk to her about. Trying to conceal her regret of not being able to spend more time with him, she walked towards the door while Sherlock paused to take the dark bag. He reached her in no time and timidly intertwined the fingers of his right hand with those of her left.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye noticing a faint redness spreading over his cheeks, the same one she felt warming her face. She couldn't help but smile to herself, pleased to see how their romantic friendship, as he called it had evolved after what happened with his sister about four months earlier.

In the immediacy of that phone call Molly had thought that between them there could no longer be even a bond of friendship so much she felt humiliated and so angry she was at him for having forced her to open her heart. Little consolation had been the fact that she had managed to turn the tables and forced him to say the words 'I love you' first.

Molly had spent the next two hours curled up on her sofa thinking over and over about that absurd conversation and crying. Then came the call from Mrs Hudson asking her to go and pick her up at the emergency room where they had taken her for a check-up after the explosion in Baker Street that morning.

At the mere hearing of the word 'explosion' Molly's heart had risen in her throat and she had rushed to the hospital. Luckily the poor woman was not injured but she was given quite a scare. What had happened after her arrival in the ER had been a whirlwind of events that left her emotionally and physically exhausted.

Donovan and Anderson arrived almost simultaneously at Anthea, Mycroft's P.A., and himself. Molly had never seen him so tried and upset, although he had not lost the ability to give orders at all as within ten minutes, they were all gathered in the room of one of the doctors on duty.

He briefly recounted the existence of a sister who from an early age had shown signs of extraordinary intelligence, far superior to his own and to Sherlock's. But it was unfortunately accompanied by psychotic and violent episodes, so much so as to require her internment in a structure of maximus safety both for herself but above all for others.

Sighing and looking down several times, Mycroft admitted he had picked up the baton from his uncle Rudy, at his death, in the management of Eurus, whose existence at one point had been hidden from the entire family. His parents had been told she had died in the fire, caused by herself, which had destroyed the structure in which she had been relegate. When that had happened, Sherlock had no memory of her already.

No wonder he had erased her from his mind after what Eurus had done to Sherlock as a child. Something that wasn't up to him to tell but that had, over the years, made Sherlock the current man everyone knew.

Mycroft added that Eurus had later been transferred to a government high-safety prison on an island, with the certainty that from there she would no longer be a danger to anyone. Instead, thanks to her ability to reprogram people she came into contact with, she had not only managed to get out of Sherrinford and present herself in disguise to Sherlock as Faith Smith, and John as his therapist, but also to install CCTV in Molly's kitchen.

"What?" she said stunned, "I am deeply sorry" Mycroft told her, "In that regard I need to speak to you privately Miss Hooper" but before she could say more Mrs Hudson asked with surreal calm "Where are Sherlock and John? What happened after the explosion?".

He appeared to be a man on hot coals as he replied to the old lady that the exploded grenade had also been a ploy of his sister to get all three of them to go to Sherrinford. And once there she'd put them through some sort of test which sadly had caused several deaths, as well as having pushed them against each other several times with the intent to see if one of them would go so far as to kill one of the other two.

Mycroft sighed deeply once more before telling them that after the last trial, Eurus had locked him up in her old cell and had taken Sherlock and John to the old Holmes mansion, Musgrave. Then he stated they were both fine and Lestrade was with them and that once Eurus was rendered harmless, he would take them back to London.

Mycroft looked briefly at Anthea and concluded by saying that what Eurus had perpetrated, however ill one might want to consider her, was still a crime so both Baker Street and Molly's flat had to be considered off limits for a few days, ordering Donovan and Anderson to deal with it until Lestrade returned.

He then turned to her and Mrs Hudson announcing that he had booked a hotel room for each of them and that Anthea would arrange to accompany them, "Mr Holmes, I'm not going anywhere unless you first explain to me why my flat is…" she paused to look for the right words, "…a sort of crime scene. What do I have to do with your sister?".