In all the days, weeks and years Sherlock Holmes has spent living on this planet he had never felt the way he had felt the day his base had been discovered and grenades ran down around him and he couldn't give a breaths worth of care. Walking-more like sauntering-out of his base he had taken the discarded guns of his diseased men and women and pulled the triggers. Sherlock had never felt more terrified of himself than the moment when he had given up on all hope and had accepted his brother's words.
He was going to die today.
Except the way that the helicopter was unattended and not in any way damaged while its previous passengers were lying dead on the ground somehow gave him a breath of life.
He was going to go against it because what were the chances that the people waiting for the passengers he'd just gruesomely shot down knew exactly what he looked like and was to kill him on sight?
His hair had grown longer and he'd thought back to the days when he was dismantling a criminal organization and how the things he'd done and the things that had happened to him couldn't have prepared him for surviving through this… but… suddenly he was attached to a group of people that were-like him-sentenced to death and he recounted their characteristics as he walked over their dead bodies.
One of them, his name was Gunther had hair as pale as his skin and he vaguely remembered the time he had slapped Sherlock and they had gotten into a brawl, a brawl within the group of people he was supposed to live through this whole mess but alas they had been broken apart by the other two men whose names were Frederick and Jafar.
Frederick was originally born in the US but in a second Sherlock had deduced him and found that he had been raised in Botswana, the man was a pain while Jafar had been born and raised in Germany and he was-to Sherlock-a relief. There were five of them Sherlock, Frederick, Jafar, Gunther and then there was Ishka.
Ishka who had painted her nails black, Ishka who had worn nothing but black from the moment she was shoved out of a helicopter and fell ten feet right above the fabric covered trench Sherlock and Jafar had currently been hiding in to the moment she'd been shot dead and dropped right in front of Sherlock's feet, Ishka the woman with the wine-red hair with the pointed nose and the thin lips with the sharp and not-so-fragile voice.
Ishka the dead woman lying before his feet, bloodied face and hands still clutching her pocket knife.
Ishka, the woman Sherlock was thankful wasn't Molly Hooper.
A glance at the helicopter behind him and another at the dead mousy-looking woman lying in front of him made him take a deep breath.
"I'm coming home, Molly."
Mycroft Holmes has been in mourning for the last six months until today. His lovely secretary had uncharacteristically slammed his door open disrupting his useless staring at the papers that were to determine the future of the country and had put her hand on her hip as she counted to calm her breaths and let the little piece of paper fall flat on his desk.
At the same moment that he had finished reading and was staring up at the woman the phone on his desk rang and it rang three more times before she picked it up for him, answered it and put it in speaker and proceeded to walk out of his office, closing the doors.
"Mycroft." The voice was ragged and tired.
"Mycroft? Oh for goodness' sakes-"
"Sherlock? Is that you?" there was static before the voice confirmed "Yes." And Mycroft Holmes closed both his eyes.
"Welcome back, brother. Shall I arrange a chauffeur to pick you up? Wherever you are."
The doors to his office opened most dramatically and there he saw his brother, ragged, miserable and tired.
Sherlock stood there staring at him then said "Take me to Molly Hooper." And Mycroft's heart fell.
She stood staring down at the body lying on the cold metal table.
"Unfortunate. Incredibly unfortunate, your death." She made to look at the rest of the body but sighed instead as she made to wash the cut torso, the body had been severed from the pelvis into half and not at all-she could imagine-in a gentle way.
It was only an hour away until her shift ended and by then she would have completely finished washing the body for examination the next day but she wouldn't be the one examining the body the next day, had the curly haired detective been the one to take on the case maybe she would have been 'tricked' into examining it but not today, not tomorrow and as Molly made her way towards the exit of the hospital she breathed heavily and she once again reminded herself, not for a while.
"Unless he survives that too."
"Which would be highly unlikely." Molly's body jerked forward and the hands that were clenched into fists buried into the pockets of her jacket whipped out a knife and a pepper spray bottle.
"Mycroft." Her gasp seemed to signal the wind that had blown her tied hair into her face to stop to accommodate the presence of Mycroft Holmes.
"I received your… message." Mycroft Holmes stood holding his trusty umbrella and an opened letter he'd dug up from his coat pocket. Molly breathed as she nodded once and put her knife and spray back into her pockets, she made no movement towards him.
"Any reason why you hadn't told your…assistant to pick me up instead?" the back of the hospital was quiet and there was no sign of people or cars.
It felt like an old Wild West film and two cowboys about to pull guns out and shoot one another.
"I prefer to…personally engage with people like you."
Molly's brow rose "By saying 'people like you' did you mean past acquaintances of your brother or-"
"No, Molly. You and Sherlock were… friends. We are acquaintances. I know I can trust you, correct?" Molly drew in a deep breath, she could feel the tears pooling.
"And I can trust you." She confirmed.
"Yes, yes you can." He assured.
Molly Hooper thought back throughout all of the things that had happened, why she really wanted this thing that she was about to ask from the brother of the man that left her in pieces.
"You know what I want and-" a sob had interrupted her and Mycroft had tilted his head as his heart ached, why had he not noticed exactly how much this woman felt for his brother when he was still present he did not know.
Mycroft breathed in deep and tried to see.
He'd known of course about the Christmas scene, about the intimacy they had shared through Sherlock's refusal about getting a different pathologist and insisting in asking Molly Hooper a favor instead, he had thought it was absurd until he had realized-even through Sherlock's denial-that it was all about sentiment.
Giving him that would-Mycroft thought at the time-be fair as he wouldn't be seeing her for a fair amount of time.
Molly however apparently had a different set of mind, he'd expected her to be overly sentimental and roll his eyes over the tears that she would shed as he entered her flat, Mycroft had even had her plane arranged to accommodate the large amount things she was sure to bring with her, but he found himself speechless and looking around her untouched accommodation.
"Are you not-"
"Bringing anything? No, it'll just slow me down." Molly walked out of her bedroom, clothes comfortable and tote bag on her arm, she struggled to put her airplane tickets into the bag and when she finally succeeded she looked at Mycroft; standing in the middle of her living room.
"What?"
"You're leaving your books?"
"I can buy books where I'm going."
"You won't tell me."
"I'll send you an e-mail and you can track me down." Molly looked exasperated, itchy to get out of her home and that was when he saw it, glittering in her eyes he saw the tears, the longer he made her stay the more she hurt, and so Mycroft nodded, three taps on the floor, left food, right foot, umbrella and they were out of the flat.
He watched her lock it, pocketed the key.
"I wouldn't normally be this… curious, miss-" her laugh cut him off and he'd almost stopped stepping down the stairs, he'd paused.
"You can call me Molly." She sent him a small smile, tears gone and as he gazed upon her face, he thought maybe this was why she was worth Sherlock's trouble. Unlike any other indeed.
"You're leaving everything behind, left no letters to your family, why? You asked me to take you off the grid."
"I asked you to take me way off the grid."
"That you did." The question hung.
"You're asking this because you've never felt something like this before, Mr. Holmes."
"Ah, but if I'm going to call you-" but Molly stopped him completely from finishing the last flight of stairs as she turned and looked up at him, emotionless.
"I've never told anyone about this, no." she fiddled with her fingers "Not even my best friend." She's about to tell him something she only shared with Sherlock, something Sherlock never shared to him and so he listened. Leaned on one leg as he prepared to listen to her tale.
"I… was going to say that I didn't know why I was telling you this but now I do… I do. This is going to be my closure." She looked up to see if he understood. He did, by the way he nodded and he looked hard and gazed at her hard, not without feeling. He looked at her with feeling.
So she told him, she told him all of it. She told his brother about how he'd completely ignored her emotional state the night her engagement had been broken off and proposed, with a little too much enthusiasm to start their relationship. It would have been inappropriate, she'd schooled him into getting used into saying he shouldn't be happy, rejoicing even that someone's engagement had been broken, he had been frustrated, irritated and very slightly maybe heart broken.
"That explains the he way acted towards you during… "
"The drug use, yes."
"The both of you are… complicated." Molly laughed and shrugged "Do you suppose I should have left it all with 'it's complicated?'"
Mycroft laughed, and then he led her to the end of Molly Hooper and the beginning of Melody Cooper.
"Why, brother. What about John Watson? You're best friend," uncharacteristically Mycroft stood up a grin on his face, a fake one, Sherlock wrote it off with his exhaustion before he followed his brother who had wrapped his arm around his shoulders as they walked towards the door "He's missed you dearly, brother."
One thing that John Watson has noticed ever since his best friend came back was he was gentler, he spent more time being… sentimental he cared and showed it. He was kinder to people and showed and expressed that he'd actually missed them, he helped assist with Mary, he asked them questions and there were no insults. It was bizarre and John believed he appreciated it.
That was the word; Sherlock appreciated things around him, a lot more, he was more grateful, thankful, he might not still say it as much but he did, and to Greg.
It did not take time for the suspicion to set in after one day of resting and now, Sherlock sat on his chair, the people around him all had smiles on their faces, and yet, he hasn't heard one word from Molly Hooper.
He'd asked his brother, and he'd asked Mrs. Hudson, they had been evasive and he didn't like it, not one bit.
Now he would ask his friend, his best friend; John Watson, he had a smile a genuine one as he took the doctor away from his wife and to a corner of his flat in privacy.
"What is it, Sherlock?" John asked, a smile on his face, but when he saw Sherlock's false grin his teeth were hidden by a worried frown.
"First of all, I'd like to thank you for arranging this… gathering in my behalf."
"No problem, mate!" John wrapped his hand around the back of Sherlock's neck and pulled him close to his face as he snickered "I love my wife but a pregnant Mary" he hissed and then laughed "What's going on then, Sherlock."
"I was wondering if you-Where's Molly?" Sherlock had hesitated but he couldn't help but ask frankly, outright, where was she?
"Oh,Molly. Molly Hooper. Molly, yeah." He shuffled "You know, I thought Mycroft would have told you-"
Hearts began to beat fast.
"Where is she?"
"Well," John couldn't look at him straight in the eye and shrugged, he didn't know why he was acting the way he was "she… I haven't heard from her, for months. The last word was from Greg, he said he talked to Mike and she… well she quit."
Sherlock's shoulders began to droop "I don't know where she went, I-"
"She's gone?" it was an airy tone, the way he asked John, and it spooked John.
"Are you alright, Sherlock?" he was leaning back, away. At John's question the room turned to them and at the way Sherlock's body moved the room silenced. Suddenly he was panting, Mrs. Hudson was assisting him towards the couch where Mary sat, John made sure to be there with them and Mycroft appeared in the doorway, stole the spotlight.
He looked worried, noted DI Lestrade, he tilted his head, put down his drink and walked towards the elder brother "Got any idea what's going on." He was frowning, looking worried at Sherlock and then Sherlock was looking at him and then at the man he stood next to and then there was thunder.
It took shorter than expected, a day until he figured it out, a week for him to start getting obvious in moving around the files, a week since the welcome back party, Sherlock knew what he had been up to and he doesn't look like he's looking for any reason at all, so Mycroft visited, finding it odd that Sherlock would be going around and checking out files without asking him exactly why.
Why did you take her away?
"Sherlock-" he was sitting on his desk, on his computer, busy.
"Brother dear, I've beat you before, I'll beat you again." A cold glance and he stood up, Mycroft knew that he was going on a trip and his actions confirmed Mycroft's suspicions.
"What are you doing, Sherlock?"
"Tell me where Molly is." Sherlock shrugged.
"I honestly don't know."
"Then I'll see you in a few months-maybe weeks-I'd love it if I'd be home here with her in a few days, but I won't be too confident, brother." Sherlock grabbed the small suitcase by the door "Don't want to jinx it." and didn't look back as he trotted down the stairs, said goodbye to Mrs. Hudson before he was on his way to the airport.