"Damn, no service," Sherlock cursed, tossing his useless mobile aside.

"Who were you phoning?" John inquired. He realize he'd left his mobile on the floor of the morgue in all the confusion.

"Lestrade."

John gave a look of surprise and then a small smile. Was Sherlock actually worried about him, or did he have some ulterior motive for trying to contact him?

"How's Molly?" Sherlock asked offhandedly, flicking aside the curtain to gaze at the dead trudging through the street. There were still quite a lot of them, but all entrances to the flat had since been barricaded. They wouldn't pose too much of a threat at the present.

"Last time I checked, she sleeping normally, but she's got a terrible fever. I don't know what's wrong, it should have gone down by now. It's got to be this—this thing, this virus, whatever it is. She's infected, Sherlock. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before she turns," John said, a bit of worry in his voice as he poured tea for himself and Sherlock. Hey, the world seems to be ending, let's have a cuppa, shall we? But John had to admit it felt good to do something this normal. He could sip this tea and pretend that he and Sherlock were doing nothing more than unraveling a particularly difficult case. In a way, that's what they were doing. But there wasn't any solution to this. This was bigger than both of them.

"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," Sherlock muttered, sipping his tea and still gazing out the window. "If only I could study them more closely."

"Jesus, no Sherlock. No. They're dangerous, too dangerous. They're not some kind of criminal; this isn't a case we can solve. You're bit, and it's all over. You're not leaving me here to put a bullet in your head."

"If I could just take one apart. I need to understand. There has to be an explanation, this doesn't make any sense." Sherlock threw the curtain back over the window in frustration and turned his back to it. John knew it was driving him mad. He thought everything could be broken down, that there was always a logical flow of events. John didn't think there was any logic in this. He didn't know what it was. Was it really the end of the world? The wrath of some vengeful god? An escaped government experiment? No, there wasn't any logic in this, and he knew Sherlock wouldn't be able to come to terms with that. He wouldn't be able to accept that this was something beyond the scope of anything man had ever seen before, and not even his brilliant mind would be able to make sense of it. "I just need to experiment on one."

"Why don't you use me?" The voice was quiet and frail, but nonetheless John jumped from hearing it, not expecting to hear anything other than himself and Sherlock. It was Molly. She shuffled around the corner, still clutching her wounded arm. She looked so tiny. "That's what's going to happen to me, isn't it? I'm going to turn into one of them? That's what happens in the movies."

John rushed over to her with a chair. "Molly, here you need to sit, you're still weak, you shouldn't be up." She still stood. Sherlock turned and looked at her with an almost confused look.

"Use me when I turn. Experiment on me. Figure out what's going on here," she said, her voice soft but resolute.

"Molly, you don't know what you're saying—"

"Yes, I do," she cut off John, her volume increasing. "I know what's going to happen to me. If I—if I'm going to die, going to become one of them, I don't want it to be in vain. Maybe—maybe Sherlock can fix this. Maybe he can save all these people."

John sighed and massaged his temples with his thumb and forefinger. Sherlock was brilliant, there was no denying that. But he wasn't a medical genius, and there wasn't enough equipment here to do any massive research. Sherlock wasn't going to have some kind of breakthrough and cure this mess. John knew that, Sherlock knew that, Molly probably knew that. This wasn't Sherlock trying to save the world, this was Sherlock wanting to satisfy his own perverse curiosity. John found the idea of him poking and prodding at Molly's deceased form intensely disquieting.

"No. Molly, no, this can't be cured! These people are dead! There isn't a cure for that!"

"I don't care! I—I just want to be of some use! Please. It's what I want." John knew she wasn't going to back down. If it was really what she wanted, fine, but he hoped it wasn't attributed to her obvious infatuation with Sherlock.

"John, make her comfortable for now. We'll have to keep an eye on her; I want to observe her when she turns." John said nothing, but gingerly took Molly by the arm and led her back to the sofa. When he had he all settled in, he trooped back in the kitchen and rounded on Sherlock.

"How could you say that in front of her like that? She's probably scared to death, and you're talking about it like it's nothing! Doesn't she mean anything to you? She's dying. You're just going to observe her and treat her like another one of your experiments? That's not just any random person, that's Molly, Sherlock!"

"What does it matter? It's what she wants, she's just said so. Would it make any difference if I used a random from off the street? Are they any less important? Just because I know Molly, I can't observe her, even after she's given her consent? That's more than any other subject would be able to give me at this point, and I can watch her turn. Maybe I can understand what's causing this."

"And then what? You can't fix this, you can't cure it. You just want to pacify your own mind," John spat back at him, although he couldn't find words to refute Sherlock's argument. He understood his logic, it just didn't feel right. And that's what Sherlock couldn't understand.

"And what's the problem with that? She's just given her consent! What does it matter? Emotions are dangerous in this situation, John. Take a second and realize that most of the people in both our lives are probably dead. It'll hurt a lot worse if you remove them."

"And you're the great Sherlock Holmes, cold as ice, unfeeling! Say what you want, I know you can't just turn your emotions off. I suppose you tried to phone Lestrade to chat about the weather, then? Jesus, Sherlock," John stated in disbelief, walking out of the room and ending the conversation. He tossed Sherlock's words around in his head. What he said was true. His family, friends, acquaintances, they were probably all dead. The thought was too huge to fit in his head. He cursed himself, but he had to take Sherlock's advice, his emotions had to be pushed aside for the moment. He wasn't ready to cope with the scope of this situation.

He walked back over to Molly, hoping she hadn't heard his altercation with Sherlock in the kitchen. He had to ask her, one last time.

"You're sure this is what you want, Molly?"

"Yes, I'm sure. There's just one thing. He can study me all he likes, but not as a walking corpse. After you watch me turn, just—just stop me. I don't know what I'll do; I don't want to hurt you. You can examine me all you want, I just want it to be safe."

"I understand."

John let the words sink in and understood what it truly meant. He was going to have to kill her. Watch her die, watch her reanimate while Sherlock sat back and took notes, and then kill her.