It was not in any way unusual for Sherlock to be called to the St. Bart's morgue to examine a corpse, nor was it particularly unprecedented for that corpse to be yet unidentified. However, Molly couldn't help but remember another time she and Sherlock had stood in front of an unidentifiable corpse. However, this time the Jane Doe was one of Greg's cases, and he and Donovan had already been waiting in the morgue for the reunited duo of Holmes and Watson to arrive.

The morgue doors swung open as Sherlock paraded through, coat billowing as usual, with John close behind.

"What do you have for us this time, Garrick?"

"Unidentified female."

"Unknown cause of death?" SHerlock assumed.

"Actually, no. She was shot, even I could work that one out, " Greg continued. "Molly said it looked like the body had been preserved, we're not sure how long, so we were hoping you could help us narrow down our missing persons search field."

"There can't be that many missing persons in London that fit the profile?" John wondered.

"That's part of the problem, actually," Molly pitched in as she pulled back the sheet over the corpse's face. "Early forensic findings indicate she wasn't from London, or at least, she wasn't killed here."

"Which means we're trying to search the whole national database, "Greg continued, "and-" He paused as he looked at Sherlock with a puzzled expression, "Sherlock, you alright, mate?"

The others looked to see Sherlock pale as a sheet himself, reaching out with his ungloved hand to touch the body's face. "Actually, no," Molly thought, "that's not so much a touch as a caress!"

"Sherlock?" John asked.

"Call Mycroft," Sherlock's voice wavered.

"What?" John couldn't believe he had heard correctly. What on earth was going on that Sherlock of all people wanted to call Mycroft!

"Call Mycroft!" He commanded more firmly, as he stumbled back to perch against one of the morgue's stools.

After several minutes of awkwardness, while Sherlock remained silent, a sick feeling began to creep through the room as the rest of them witnessed Sherlock's odd behavior.

"Sherlock?" Molly gently asked, "Do you know who this is?"

He nodded once. "You do, too, if your bookcase is anything to go off of."

"My bookcase?"

"The Kate Beckport novels."

Molly's eyes bugged out of her head as she stared at the corpse. "That's Kate Beckport?"

At Sherlock's confirming nod, Greg said, "Well, that'll get us to her case file pretty fast if there is one. We have no idea if she had been listed as a missing person or-"

"Case number 19271891," Sherlock interrupted. "Missing from her home after what appeared to be a violent altercation. Husband reported it over nine years ago."

"You worked the case?" John asked.

Sherlock nodded again. "Couldn't find her, though I tried. I tried so hard," his voice started to break, "but I couldn't find her."

At this point, even Donovan seemed a bit sorry for Sherlock because of how shaken he was over the unsolved case. Obviously uncomfortable with how the afternoon was playing out, Greg cleared his throat. "Right then, we'll look up the case for Kate Beckport and-"

"Holmes."

All attention snapped immediately back to Sherlock's down-turned face. "Her legal name was Katherine Holmes. She had already published under her maiden name, so she kept it professionally after she married, but the case file will be under the name Katherine Holmes."

It was a long moment before anyone had recovered enough to follow up on that particular piece of information.

Donvowan was the first. "Wait, did you know her?! Not for the case, but actually know her, like a cousin or something?"

"Know who?" Mycroft's voice cut through the air. No one had noticed him step in quietly, having quickly heeded Sherlock's rather unusual summons.

"The body," John indicated the partially-covered body on the autopsy slab. "Sherlock said her name was Katherine Holmes."

It was rare to see surprise on the face of Mycroft Holmes, but it was clearly there at that moment as he quickly stepped up to the table, taking a perfunctory look at the face and, oddly, going to Sherlock and gathering his little brother into his arms in a tight embrace. His hold, though stiff, was so firm that Molly could just barely see the shaking of Sherlock's shoulders in what appeared to be silent sobs.

Despite the situation and his obvious discomfort at the display of emotion by the Holmes brothers, Greg pressed on. "Sherlock, if you know her personally, you should let us know so we can make the formal ID and make progress processing the case. Otherwise, we'll have to wait for next-of-kin to be notified and come in, and who knows how long that'll take."

Mycroft let Sherlock go enough to pull away and face Lestrade, though he kept his brother sheltered under his right arm, as Sherlock's face stayed hidden in the folds of his brother's coat. "I can confirm that that is Katherine Beckport Holmes, Detective Inspector." Mycroft intervened. "Please, do continue with your investigation. If there is anything I can do to help."

Greg's eyebrows raised in surprise that the elder Holmes had offered to help. "Well, with the ID, that'll help us move forward, but if you know the best way to contact her next-of-kin, it'll save us time if they've moved or something. She had a husband, Sherlock said, right?" At Mycroft's nod of agreement, Greg continued, "Do you know who he is and where he is now?"

"William Holmes, "Sherlock's voice wavered, as he rattled off information, expressionless now that the initial torrent of tears were past. With his face now no longer hidden in Mycroft's shoulder, Molly could see that he had, indeed been crying, his bloodshot eyes testifying to the tears that had by now created a damp spot on Mycroft's coat. "221B Baker St, NW1, London."

One by one, the others slowly came to the horrifying conclusion of who exactly this woman was to the consulting detective.

"Sherlock, I'm so sorry," Molly offered.

"Yeah, mate, that's horrible. And I'm sorry you found out like this, I never would have brought you down like this if we had known," Greg continued.

"Don't be, "Sherlock muttered.

"What?" Greg questioned.

"Don't be sorry for me, "Sherlock said, loud enough to be clearly heard this time, disdain apparent in his voice.

"What? Why?" John asked. "I know you don't like pity, but this isn't pity, it's-"

"Undeserved, because I'm a sorry excuse for a husband and don't deserve anyone's sympathy!" Sherlock shouted.

Understanding broke across Greg's face. "Oh, because you didn't…. Sherlock, you can't blame yourself for not finding her. I'm sure you did your best and she wouldn't want you carrying that weight."

"No," Sherlock moaned, "Or not just that. What kind of sorry excuse for a husband feels relief when they find their wife dead on a slab! And what kind of unfeeling wretch, even thinks about another woman when his wife is goodness-knows-where, possibly experiencing the worst kind of misery!" He was obviously worked up, hands shaking, tears welling in his eyes, voice cracking, as he berated himself, as he shocked most of the others into silence at his confessions.

Again, it was Mycroft who stepped in to comfort his grieving brother. Taking both his brother's flailing hands in his own steady ones, he said, "Sherlock, look at me." Only when Mycroft had Sherlock's full attention did he continue. "Are you happy Katherine's dead?"

Sherlock's eyes widened. "No! Of course not. I'd do anything- anything-" His voice cracked, as he looked back over to the body, then he broke into sobs again, this time audibly, wet and gasping as Mycroft gathered him close again. "You are no monster, brother mine. You're not relieved she's dead, you're relieved she's no longer suffering, apparently hasn't been suffering for some time. As much as you grieve her loss, you hate the thought of her in pain that much more." Sherlock nodded into his brother's chest. Mycroft began rubbing slowly up and down Sherlock's back. "No one wishes to see those they love in pain. And as for thoughts of another woman, did you act on them?" Sherlock paused a moment, then shook his head. "We can't truly control our first thoughts, and only control our feelings to some extent. It's more telling that you took no action on those thoughts and feelings, even fought against them in an effort to be true to your wife, especially since you didn't know if she would ever be coming back."

Sherlock pulled his dampened face away again. "I think part of me knew." Mycroft's eyebrows raised in surprise with the beginning of a question shaping his mouth. "I didn't want to believe it; I couldn't stand to accept it. I had pulled off miracles for so many others. Why couldn't one happen to me? And the thought of letting her go, never seeing her smile again- I couldn't bear it. It's why I started the drugs. They dulled the pain but made my mind palace so real. I could almost believe she was actually here with me, instead of-" His hands fluttered away from him. "But I think I knew, some part of me, deep in my soul, it knew, knew she was gone. I just didn't want to believe it." A sad smile broke over his face. "Did you know I had never had her declared dead before? I could have. She's been gone for nearly ten years, but I couldn't do it. What if she came back and I had moved on, found someone new? I could never look her in the eye, and could never have lived with myself."

"Maybe now you'll have the chance to move on, maybe even meet someone new someday when you're ready, "John said.

Sherlock shook his head sadly. "I've been a brute to the only one I could see myself loving as I loved Kate. I just felt so guilty and-" He restarted. "I was cruel, have been cruel. She has every reason to loathe the sight of me; I don't know why she would ever want to be with me."

No one had anything to say in response to that. Molly, in particular wallowed in her own brand of guilt. She had thrown herself at him, flirted and not taken no for an answer, even demanded once that he say he loved her,- all while he was trying to be faithful to a wife that was painfully distant. She felt sick to her stomach, though it had little comparison to the ache in her heart when she considered that, if Sherlock ever sought a second love, the lucky woman was already selected; Molly herself didn't have a chance. Perhaps she never had.

Breaking the awkward silence, Molly asked an even more awkward question. "Um, Sherlock, I hate to ask this, especially right now, but was she pregnant when she went missing?"

Eyes bugged out in the heads of the room.

"May I ask why that is relevant at the moment?" Mycroft asked, a touch of disapproving protectiveness in his voice.

"Well, with how far along she was in her pregnancy when she was taken, I could give a decent estimate of how long ago she- was… killed," Molly tapered off.

"You can do that," Greg asked.

Molly nodded as she answered. "I was going to try to give you an estimate based on decomposition, but given the amount of time we're now talking about and that someone tried to preserve the body, it wouldn't be as accurate. But, if she was known to be pregnant, pregnancies have a smaller window to look at, so I could narrow it down to a matter of months probably."

"But we'd have to assume that she was pregnant when she was taken, "Donovan questioned, trying to be delicate, "What if she… got pregnant later?"

"Yes, the starting point would be best already known, but the trauma to the reproductive system is consistent with a women who had just given birth to her first child, within a few weeks prior to death, and there's no evidence of attempts at other forms of delivery or abortion, so-"

"If she was pregnant, you could count forward to her delivery, instead of backwards from the current state of her, " Mycroft concluded.

"She was five months pregnant when she was taken. We were having a little boy," Sherlock blinked slowly, tilting his head puzzledly as the rest of the information filtered through. "You said she delivered?" He peered around Mycroft to look at Lestrade. "Did they find him, too?

Lestrade's eyes were getting a workout that day, as they stared at Sherlock, as he realized, "No, we didn't find any sign of a child there. We can go back and look for evidence of him now that we know-"

Mycroft held up his hand, stopping Lestrade mid-sentence. "There's no need for your team to go back out. I'll send my people."

A wild look came over Sherlock as he stared between Lestrade and the late Mrs. Holmes. "He's still out there," he muttered to himself." He's still out there, Mycroft!" He stared into his brother's eyes, holding his brother's shoulders like a life vest keeping him from drowning. "Find him," he collapsed into his brother's arms. "Help me find my son."