Two Years Later
At a nondescript house on the outskirts of the remote Scottish Highlands town of Applecross, a doorbell rang. A muffled teenaged voice (female, fifteen, sixteen at most, socially inclined, cheerful, helpful) called out "I'll get it!" from somewhere inside. Footsteps (hurried, eager, confirming both social inclination and eagerness to be of help to others, good, hurry up, this has taken too long as it is) sounded on a hardwood floor, and within seconds the door was open.
The welcoming smile on the teenage girl's face disappeared as she took in the visitor's appearance. "Oh," was all she said as she stared up at him wonderingly. "You - you're Sherlock Holmes."
Stunned into silence, all Sherlock could do was stare right back down at her, the hairs on the back of his arms and neck rising as he took in the details - the impossible details - that meant either he was going insane or somehow Molly Hooper had discovered the Fountain of Youth.
Chestnut hair cut shoulder-length (ends and fringe dyed cherry red and bright green).
Wide brown eyes fringed in thick black lashes making them seem larger than they actually were, almost too large for her heart-shaped face.
Classic English Rose complexion, slight sprinkling of freckles across the uptilted, Pixieish nose indicating time spent in the summer sun.
(He'd seen Molly with freckles once, that same dusting across that same nose, how was this possible, how, how- FOCUS!)
Small mouth, bright pink lipstick making it look larger, more in proportion with her eyes.
Small mole on the left side of her neck, roughly two inches below her ear. Just like the one he'd stared at so many times, longing to touch it, to kiss it - WRONG, inappropriate, focus dammit!
Exact same fucking height and weight, give or take a pound.
Even the teeth were the same, the way she worried at her bottom lip, the way she hugged her arms around herself, the shape of her earlobes, her every measurement…
Impossible, but there she was: Molly Hooper, aged fifteen (or sixteen).
Once you have eliminated the impossible...
Never had he found himself so at a loss, so frightened of losing control of his faculties, short of when he'd been drugged during the Baskerville case.
"How…" he croaked out, when their frozen tableau was interrupted by the sound of a door opening from somewhere inside the house. Footsteps coming down the stairs, a voice - the right voice, impossible, how - calling out to them.
"Who is it, Frankie?"
"It's me, Molly."
The footsteps faltered to a halt; silence settled over them all, broken only by the whispering of the wind - and from somewhere deeper in the house, the sound of childish laughter and then a baby crying.
The footsteps resumed, coming closer, closer, until there she was, Molly Hooper - the real Molly Hooper, not some childish, fantastical version of herself - in the flesh.
Molly Hooper, whom everyone - John, Lestrade, even Mycroft - had insisted was dead. Molly Hooper, who had vanished at roughly the same time he had jumped to his supposed death from the roof of St. Bart's, after she'd told him that Moriarty was dead, what his plans had been, how there was only one way to stop those plans -
"Was it because of Moriarty?" he blurted out as Molly came to a stop directly behind her younger doppelganger. (Who was the girl, unimportant, some relative or other he'd overlooked during his frantic search into Molly's past, her family, her history; a detailed comparison would no doubt prove her to not be as much of a lookalike as his initial shock had led him to believe...) "They never found a body, I never told anyone but Mycroft what you said, about him being dead. Did you think you were a fugitive, that you'd be arrested? Is that why you ran, why you hid?"
"Frankie, please go upstairs and take care of your sister, if you don't mind? Mr.- Mr. Holmes and I need to talk."
"Yeah, OK, s-sure," the younger girl stammered, keeping her gaze focused on Sherlock, looking just as gobsmacked as he was currently feeling. She stumbled back into the house, pausing only long enough for a comforting hug from her - older cousin? Sister? Surely not… "Mom, will you be OK?"
Molly kissed the girl's forehead, hugged her close before letting her go. "Yeah," she said softly, eyes still locked with Sherlock's. "I'll be all right. Just get Jamie up, change her nappie, and bring her into the parlour with Tommie and Dani."
"OK." Then Molly's...daughter. Her teenaged daughter slipped into the house, leaving them standing on the doorstep alone, reunited for the first time since that terrible day two years prior.
"So," Molly said, teeth worrying at her lower lip exactly as her daughter's had been only moments before. "Not dead, then. The plan worked even though I bolloxed it up? That's..good." She nodded. "That's good," she repeated softly, arms crossed over her chest, hands cradling elbows in a defensive gesture he recognized well. "I guess you have, um, questions." She let out a nervous laugh. "I should have known you'd be able to track me down, being a consulting detective and al-"
"Molly." He cut off her nervous rambling as firmly as he could, given his own current state of emotional disturbance. "This isn't an interrogation. I just came to make sure you were all right. To prove to myself that everyone was wrong, that you weren't dead, that you'd vanished of your own accord and not been kidnapped or threatened into leaving. Was it because of Moriarty?" he asked again.
She shook her head, paused, then shrugged. "Yes, but not the way you're thinking. Not because I thought I'd be charged for his murder. I left because - " she let out a sigh. "I left because I knew you - that you might not actually be dead," she whispered, although there was no one around to hear them. "And if you came back, then you'd have, you'd have questions and I just...I knew I couldn't explain what had happened, not in a way that you'd believe me, not without jeopardizing, well, this." She gestured to indicate the house and presumably its occupants. "I was afraid you wouldn't understand, that you'd hold me accountable, and I couldn't risk that."
He could feel his face hardening into a cold mask, his hands clenching and unclenching from where he held them behind his back. Not because he was angry at her actions, but because she had run away from him. Was her faith in him so badly shaken, was her trust in him so fragile, that she'd feared to tell him the truth?
You trusted her and she thinks she betrayed that trust. That she ruined your plans by her actions, whatever they actually were. Of course she ran away.
His rising anger began to cool; he clasped his hands together and regarded her as a client rather than a friend. "Tell me," he said simply. "I promise I'll listen to the entire story without interruption. But you have to tell me everything."
She gazed up at him through troubled eyes, teeth worrying at her lower lip before she finally responded - as he'd known she would - with a nod. "Right," she said. "Best come inside so I can show you my, my family." She took a deep breath. "My daughters."
Daughters. Plural. His breath caught, but he forced it back out in a slow, even exhale. Centering himself. Whatever her story, clearly he knew far less about Molly Hooper than he'd believed.
How..(interesting, annoying, unbelievable, unlikely)...exciting?
Yes. How absolutely, extraordinarily exciting!
Heart suddenly thundering in his chest, he followed her through the door and down the rabbit hole.
End Note: Many thanks to mouse9 for reading this chapter over. I know last time I said one chapter and an epilogue, but I think it'll end up being another short chapter and an alternate ending because I'm feeling Halloweeny! Many thanks to all who've been able to review, it means the world to me!