Light filtered into the warehouse, and Molly looked up. It was impossible to sleep, chained to a harness. A week and a half. Three days since her hair had been snipped off her head.
The birds began to twitter, and through Molly's swollen eyes, she saw them fly off. Upon the ground, in the mud worms wriggled free. Molly saw a variety of flora and fauna fly into the mini ecosystem, she saw the little plants growing, she saw the sparrows that had laid eggs in the window of the warehouse.
She had been watching them for a while now. Those little hatchlings worked their way into reality, and she had been rooting for them for a while now. On one of the days, when Sonja had been around, she had asked her to please leave a little of her food for the hunting parents.
Sonja hadn't looked at her with a lot of seriousness.
Molly liked watching the mornings. She hadn't slept, harnesses were hard to sleep in.
She screamed for Sherlock, these days. After her tantalizing hints in the mind palace, Molly wished for him to return, for him to fix this, for him to come for her. And then the mornings came. The nights were obviously awful.
But the mornings – the mornings made her sing.
"I'll hold your head, dear, make sure no one's gonna wake you. Tomorrow you'll still be here, no matter where your dreams take you," she sang. The words came easily.
"Put down this suitcase – this weapon of yours. The struggle is over; you don't need it no more. You can't remember lonely. You forgot about bored. And nothing's the same – since you walked through this door," she had been baking, by herself, in Sherlock's kitchen.
"Why do you sing that, Molly?" asked the deep baritone of Sherlock.
Molly promptly dropped a bag of flour. "I'm – um – I didn't know you were listening. I wasn't – erm – I wasn't trying to disturb you."
"I know you weren't," said Sherlock impatiently. "Why do you sing that?"
Molly blinked, out of confusion. "I dunno – I just do."
"You sing that on particular times. Once a week, approximately. Sometimes twice. And only when you bake, or when you think you're alone."
"I – um. I dunno. It's a nice song?"
"Molly," said Sherlock, enunciating the syllables of her name that got her incredibly turned on.
"Why do you sing that?"
Molly looked at her shoes. "I feel like it's about me," she said quietly.
"The singer or the one she addresses?" asked Sherlock.
"A bit of both, I think."
"Both?" questioned Sherlock.
"I dunno, Sherlock. It's like a home I never had – and someone's giving it to me. It reminds me of something lost, but – um. Not quite sure I ever had it in the first place."
"Did your father sing it to you?" asked Sherlock.
Molly smiled. "Dad couldn't sing. Not everything has a deep sentimental attachment. It's just a song. I found it in University."
"Molly, I don't understand."
"Neither do I much," shrugged Molly. "I like it."
Her eyes snapped open. "This roof is a blanket," she whispered. "That's keeping you warm. Inside the silence – after the storm."
"Yet to be broken. It's been quite a while," said Moran when Rook came in.
"She's one of the strangest I've seen," said Rook, looking into the next room, where Molly was watching the birds.
"They all break in the end. I just don't want to build her an immunity."
Sonja was here today. That made Molly feel better. She wasn't as despicable as Moran, and that made her feel better anyhow.
Molly's sessions with Moran were inconsistent. Sometimes, Moran insisted on nighttime traumas, other times, it continued through the day. Generally when Sonja came in, Moran began in the afternoon. Sonja had only come thrice in the last week and a half, but it was a small relief.
And she gave Molly food, so that was always good.
Molly thirstily drank the water provided by the blonde woman.
"Why do you do that?"
Her voice was low, almost as if she spoke into the vibrations of the air instead of speaking out loud. Molly was momentarily stymied at being asked, and only managed to blink through the puffed eyes.
"I'm sorry?" Molly croaked.
"That thing –" said Sonja. "That thing where you – you sing."
She looked perplexed, and more confused that she had asked than about Molly's singing.
"It helps me block him out," she said.
Sonja seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but she left it in the air.
Molly was bamboozled for a second. The woman did nothing almost everytime she came, except for giving her food and water. Molly wondered – what an odd person.
Sonja couldn't help it; she had never seen anyone like her. In whatever her hard life had been, she had never seen a victim respond like Molly. Many of them sang when they were alone, but they almost always did so out of obsession, out of madness.
She was such a strange specimen of a human. She sang and sang and sang, and she asked for food for the birds and she watched the sunrise and she cried when her hair had been cut and made Sonja feel disgusted by the way it had happened.
Sonja was watching as he circled her, cutting her brown hair in bits and pieces. They still littered her feet, and Moran insisted on leaving them there. Sonja had watched as tears slowly rolled down Molly' cheeks. She had seen the obvious disgust in them, the anger.
Sonja felt disgusted as well.
She felt like she had performed a role in the rape of Molly Hooper, when no rape had really happened.
She was beginning to feel for the victim, and Sonja was worried. This wasn't professionality. She needed to shake out Molly Hooper and her dumb song out of her head. She needed to focus on the completion of the job.
"What did you do when those boys were hurting you, Molly Hooper?" the deep baritone persisted. It was late, late in the night, and Sonja had left.
"I don't know, Sherlock!" screamed Molly. "I don't know!"
"You really are branching out with those screams, aren't you?"
Molly couldn't help it. What was he doing to her this time, her wild brain tried to ask. The torment of pain never settled, and these odd sorts of questions caused continuous chaos in her head.
"What did you do?"
Molly was crying, and crying. What was it this time? Burning knives, thumbscrews again? Or was he being neat and breaking another one of her joints? Molly's wildly agonized brain couldn't comprehend.
Who are you, Molly Hooper?
"I don't know," she sobbed. "I'm a pathologist."
"I can see we're finally losing sanity," said Moran conversationally.
"Now, Molly, I need you to concentrate," said Moran. "Tell me what you know about Sherlock surviving. And then follow it up with what Jim did on that roof. And then follow it up with what you know about this Magnussen case."
Molly thought wildly. She couldn't handle more pain.
"Or now, I am going to break your fingers."
Molly might as well have died of the fear alone.
"How did Sherlock survive?"
Molly's heart beat rapidly.
"How did he, Molly?"
Why do you sing that?
"How did he do that?"
I sing that because it makes me feel.
It was like a miniature light bulb that went popping in Molly's head.
She went deeply quiet for a second. I sing it because it makes me feel.
You're getting there, Molly. You're very close.
"How did he do it, Molly?"
"Take off your shoes now, you've come a long way. You've walked all these miles and now you're in the right place," sang Molly, with cold determination.
She could see the fury on Moran's face.
"This is your party, and everyone came. Everyone's smiling, and singing your name."
"How did he do it, Miss Hooper?"
"And the nightmares and monsters, your biggest fears, seem lightyears away. No they won't find you here."
Moran did manage to break her finger in the end, but he stopped at two fingers.
Molly wasn't home yet. Molly wasn't there.
She was everywhere in the inanimate objects, but she was nowhere in Bakerstreet.
Sherlock could feel her presence, almost as a physical identity in Bakerstreet. The little spoon she kept specifically for eating pudding when Sherlock was being particularly exasperating. The lamp on her bedside, her favourite spot on the sofa. The stack of novels Molly kept with her, which included everything from terribly trashy romances to To Kill a Mockingbird.
Sherlock could feel her tantalizing face everywhere he went. He dreamed of her, and she was always hurt in the worst of ways. She was in his dreams, encouraging him. She was in his reality, appearing to make her usual coffee, or to bake as she always did. Cinnamon tarts littered the house, with cookies and little bits of food, which sent Mrs. Hudson into transports of delight.
Why wasn't Molly home yet?
Why was she keeping out of his presence, why did she always, always do this to him?
She waltzed into his life, making sure he became clean of his drug habit. She gave him body parts for his birthday, with muffins. He had always depended on her, and when he really needed it, Molly would be the one who needed him.
He almost hated her, for entering that Christmas party, dressed like that, making him want so desperately. Making him wish he could have her locked in his bedroom, smelling of him and claiming her where the stupid cakes claimed her previously.
And he wished she was here.
Molly, where are you? Asked Sherlock, almost desperately. I need you.
It was almost as if she was invincible after that.
Moran couldn't hurt her, he couldn't touch her. He tried, but Molly built a very peculiar immunity to him.
Two weeks had passed, and Moran hadn't managed to make any headway, simply because Molly had found her secret equation. She had found her method of survival.
She could feel. That was her superpower. Molly intended to use it.
She felt it fully. She didn't block it out anymore. She allowed herself to feel the brunt of the pain Moran so happily bestowed on her, she opened her barriers, she opened herself to the pain. She could feel every flaming body part, and she found her center.
She was able to maintain order in the chaos of her pain. Where the mind flat in her head had become disarrayed, destroyed, everywhere, it was now becoming ordered. It was looking easier. She felt every single bit of what was given to her, and she allowed herself to be her.
She didn't scream anymore for Sherlock to come and save her.
She was going to save herself.
Good girl, said the Sherlock of her head appreciatively.
Molly looked at Moran fiercely whenever he came. She burned with a fire in her eyes, something no one could put down. She could see him becoming more and more frustrated with her, Moran didn't enjoy it when small, weak things were not hurt. And it had been two weeks. This was taking longer than he had ever thought.
"How is she doing that?" asked Rook, almost appreciative. She had seen Molly go through a six hour torture session, with pain on pain, and Moran had broken her fingers, as well. Molly didn't flinch for a second. Even the ones that built an immunity to torture used to flinch and scream. Molly would grin at Moran, openly, fiercely, strongly, and say something like, "Well, that certainly hurt a lot. But I think I'll live."
What was wrong with this girl?
"She'll break, don't worry," said Moran, gnashing his teeth. Rook highly doubted it.
"She hasn't broken yet. The only time she looked close was when you pulled that thing with her hair."
"Hmm," muttered Moran. "I wonder…"
"How are you doing that?" Sonja's quiet voice filtered into Molly's mind.
"What?" asked Molly politely.
"That," Sonja waved in Molly's general direction.
"I'm not sure," said Molly, coughing "I don't quite know how I am doing whatever it is that's keeping me safe. All I know is that it's my immunity. It's my superpower. It's what I'm good at. No one is going to save me but myself."
Sonja was looking at her with so much curiosity, Molly almost hugged her.
"I've never seen anyone quite like you," she said softly.
"That's the maximum amount of expression I've seen from you, you know?" croaked Molly. "You don't talk a lot when you come. All I've figure is that you prefer knives to guns and you like pink, for some reason."
Sonja swiftly scanned Molly's face. "Why were you paying attention?"
Molly shifted in the harness. "Could you fix my bra strap, please? It's interfering with the harness and making me itch. Yes, thank you. I pay attention because – well, I dunno. I just always pay attention to people."
"That's – um. That's good."
And wrap that up, give it to a child on Christmas. Well... don't actually give it to a child on Christmas - kid'll start crying.
See you next week! Hint - I love reviews!