Disclaimer: Not mine!
Author's Note: Enjoy! Please comment, it really helps me write better and faster!
It took them 18 hours, but Sherlock had finally figured out where Leonardo's hideout was.
18 hours of nonstop work, no sleep, no food, just a drive to find Molly Hooper before it was too late.
18 hours that had even brought down Mycroft to help them look, who kept sneaking glances filled with concern at his younger brother.
John had never seen Sherlock like this. He didn't talk, only opening his mouth to relay information. He wasn't cocky or arrogant about the impossible pieces of information he was able to deduce from the airport, Leonardo's office and apartments, and Molly's own apartment. He swayed when he was standing, could barely walk straight he was so weak, and any effort by John to get him to eat something was met with stony silence. The only thing Sherlock cared about was finding Molly, and John dared not think of the state they would find her in.
His friend hadn't even been this silent that night at Musgrave, talking endlessly as he tried to figure out the puzzle that eventually led him to find John and Euros. But Sherlock was completely silent now…
Tears stung John's eyes but he refused to let them fall, refused to think of Molly no longer existing in the world…She had become like a sister to him, his confidant, his touchstone after Mary had died. He didn't want to imagine what Sherlock was feeling, because he knew all too well.
But going by the grim expression on his face, the grimness of his mouth, the set of his jaw, Sherlock had receded deep into his mind palace and found that special room that had given him the strength to shoot Magnussun.
When they arrived at the house, Sherlock didn't wait for the police or secret service that Mycroft and Lestrade had brought with them. With a single goal of finding Molly, he charged inside with John following him, guns blazing.
Five minutes searching the house and they couldn't find her or Leonardo, frustration and terror for Molly growing with each passing second. John's frustration was mounting and even Mycroft was becoming anxious, "MOLLY HOOPER!" he yelled, walking from room to room with a gaggle of armed men with him, "DOCTOR HOOPER!" Greg was cursing and kicking every door violently, knowing that every moment they didn't find her meant that Leonardo escaped further away, and their pathologist neared death.
Sherlock was standing in the middle of the kitchen, straight as an arrow with his hands buried in his hair, pulling it as if it would help him think faster, better. His lips were moving and John wasn't completely convinced that he wasn't praying. He and the other two gathered around him, waiting for him to direct them, to say something, anything that would get them to their next step.
Suddenly, his pale eyes opened wide, "the kitchen's too small."
"What?" Greg blurted out.
"The kitchen's too small," Sherlock repeated with a hiss, grabbing the axe one of Mycroft's agents had used to break down the doors that had been locked. With a terrifying flurry of fury and strength, he wheeled the axe into the wall, tearing through.
John saw it then too. The damned kitchen was too small, it should have extended at least another ten feet from the pantry. There was a hidden room between the walls…With another swing he tore open the rotting wood in the walls. The police came quickly and helped clear the debris, and no one seemed to mind being covered in dust as they hacked through. Sherlock threw himself into the room as soon as the hole was big enough.
And as long as he lived, John Watson would never forget the terrified, shaking, panic stricken voice when Sherlocked called out, "JOHN!"
As soon as John entered the room, his legs nearly gave out. He was transported back to the aid stations and make shift hospitals he'd worked at on the battlefield, the horrors of Kandahar had suddenly been transferred to this old Edwardian mansion on the outskirts of Cambridge. "Everyone stay outside, no one comes in here unless they're a medic," he shouted through the wall.
"What is happe-" Mycroft had been about to enter but John stopped him.
"Stay outside, contact the hospital, have a thoracic unit at the ready for when we bring her in. Tell the medics to come in here with their full surgical kit," he commanded and forced his legs to move, to move him towards Molly.
Sherlock had forced himself back against the wall, barely breathing or blinking, his entire body screaming the fact that he didn't want to be there, didn't want to see this but couldn't leave her by herself. "No no no no this isn't happening…this isn't happening…Molly…my Molly…this isn't….this isn't happening. She can't….she can't be de…she can't leave me here like this…".
"She's alive," John told him in a voice as steady as he could manage, his eyes scanning the monitors that she was attached, his fingers finding her faint pulse. He knew there was no use in talking sense to Sherlock, knew that whatever assurances he gave his best friend wouldn't be heard. John knew the panic too well, remembered too well the way blood thundered in your ears when you looked at your loves lifeless body, "just barely. Once the medics are in here, we're going to close her chest and take her to the hospital. I can't see what damage there is but just looking, he hasn't done any permanent damage to her."
"He split her open," Sherlock breathed, "he split my heart open."
"She'll be all right Sherlock, she will live. I promise you," he whispered.
When the medics entered the hidden room, both of them stopped to marvel at the horror before them but recovered quickly enough.
She was on surgical gurney, attached to a heart rate monitor with various IV's attached to her arm, intubated, the beeping of the monitor faint and too far between. He had cut open her chest, lifting her ribcage to expose her beating heart to them all. There were red marks around her mouth, as if it had been forced open and stretched to the point of tearing, which meant she'd been fully conscious when he'd intubated her. Her knuckles were bruised and her fingernails were red with blood from where she'd scratched her attacker. But for some reason, what broke his heart was the way her long brown hair hung limply off the table.
John had never seen anything like it, it was a scene straight of a horror movie, to see one of his closest friends lying like that…her heart exposed, beating…
But John tried not to think about who she was, and what she had endured, what her eyes must've seen. He worked fast with the help of the medics, who helped him close her chest quickly, knew that once back in the hospital she would be x-rayed and studied in detail to ensure he hadn't missed anything, or that anything was permanently damaged inside her. If the universe had any kind of compassion, Molly would walk away with nothing but broken ribs.
Sherlock remained with his back flat against the wall, his hands curled into fists pressed into the structure of the house, silent tears streaming down his face as he muttered to himself. And not once did his eyes stray from her face.
