A/N: Sherlock's POV, an explanation as to What's Going On...and an uncomfortable encounter in the morgue.

Three Months Later

Sherlock strode into the morgue, stopping short when he saw Molly. "Oh, you're here," he said ungraciously, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets.

Molly had stiffened at the sound of his voice, turned warily to face him, and he couldn't help deducing her as she did so, couldn't turn his mind off even when he was desperate to ignore the details that jumped out at him – not enough sleep, not eating properly, the stint in St. Elsbeth's after her nervous breakdown helped but not enough, she's pushing herself too soon, it can't be good for the…

His mind stuttered to a stop as his consciousness caught up with his observational skills. Molly was pregnant, at least four months along. That last text she'd sent him, telling him they needed to talk…at least now he knew what it had been about.

Although he longed to rush to her side, to explain why he'd done what he'd done – and why he had to continue to keep her at more than arm's length – all he could do was as he'd been instructed – ordered – to do, and heap cruel insult on top of the injury he'd already caused her. "Really, Molly," he drawled, lip curled in an expression of contempt. "One accidental pregnancy could be explained away, but two? That smacks of deliberation."

She'd been standing over a slab, about to make her first cuts into the fresh body lying in front of her (elderly Caucasian male, diabetic, unmistakable signs of abuse on his frail, graying body, no doubt inflicted by some sadist masquerading as a home health aide); in four quick strides she was standing in front of him, raising her hand to land a stinging slap across his cheek.

He took it unflinchingly; he deserved it, that and so much more, but Molly could never know how desperately he wanted to apologize to her, to tell her he loved her and Edmund, how eager he was to make this new child's acquaintance.

Instead, he offered up coldly: "I suppose I deserved that. I'll have Mycroft increase the maintenance packet and find you a bigger flat."

Her face crumpled; he steeled himself against the inevitable tears. Molly had always been far too emotionally vulnerable, and here he was, deliberately inflicting damage to her fragile heart. He was a bastard, but he was a bastard who loved his son too much to allow him to die just to save Molly from falling to pieces, shattering and breaking.

Edmund was in mortal danger, and until he found a way to save his son, he would just have to keep on hurting Molly – even if it ended up destroying her beyond the point of redemption.

She would understand, if she knew what was going on. She would approve.

He could never tell her; if the price for their son's life was her destruction, she would gladly submit herself to the fires of Hell. And if the price he had to pay was watching, tortured and silent, as she collapsed, then so be it.

"It was a faulty batch of birth control pills," she said, her voice dull, as if she'd spent all her passion on that slap. She wasn't even looking at him as she spoke, her eyes on her hands as they fidgeted with the edges of her lab coat. "Dr. Singh told me the day you…I was going to tell you, explain things, b-but you were already…I found the letter you left and after that it didn't seem…"

She was killing him, destroying him with every softly spoken word, with every pause and hesitation, with every false start and unfinished sentence. Just as he was killing her with his stony silence and cold gaze, with his complete lack of reaction as he was gut-punched, so desperate to ease her pain that he thought he might be physically ill from the need to restrain himself from offering so much as a shred of comfort.

Her stutter was back. He should have expected that; after all, he'd quite literally blown her life apart, he shouldn't be surprised and it shouldn't hurt, but it did. This was his fault, all of it; he'd caused her nervous breakdown, he'd broken her heart, and even knowing that she would forgive him if she knew the truth wasn't enough to dampen the roiling, churning pool of massive guilt that lay so heavy in his heart and his gut.

He'd received a letter as well, three months ago. And it was causing him as much anguish as the one he'd left for her.

The one he'd been forced to leave for her.

The one that was the reason behind the next words to leave his lips.

"Really, Molly, you expect me to believe that? A faulty batch of birth control pills?" His voice was a savage mimicry of her own, and she flinched from them as if physically struck. "How convenient. It seems more likely that you sensed my withdrawal and found yourself desperate to find a way to hang onto me. I seemed fond of our first child; surely I would feel the same sense of fondness – or at least responsibility – for a second one, is that how it went, inside your mind?"

She was already so pale; as the remaining blood rushed from her face she rivaled the corpse behind her for whiteness. "You…bastard," she spat out. "You complete…you have no right…I hate you!" she shouted, shoving past him, stumbling toward the doors, shoulders heaving with her desperate (losing) battle to control her sobs.

He watched impassively as she disappeared from view, waited a few minutes to make sure he wouldn't catch her up in the corridor, then silently made his way out of the hospital. DI Lestrade would just have to muddle his way through this latest case without Sherlock Holmes' help.

Three Months Earlier…

The anonymous text was ignored, deleted without being read.

The anonymous letter that was slid under the door after Mrs. Hudson had gone out to have lunch with her sister was less easily ignored. Whoever left it had rung the bell insistently until Sherlock had finally given up on ignoring the sound and clattered down the stairs at an irritated clip. He fully intended to pull open the door and give the idiot ringing the bell a piece of his mind, but the sight of the heavy, expensive cream-colored envelope caught his attention just long enough for whoever it was to vanish by the time he actually did yank the door open.

He examined the missive carefully before opening it. It had the look of a wedding invitation or graduation announcement, although it bulked heavier than even a return envelope for the RSVP of either event could account for.

As he picked it up, holding it carefully by the edges, he caught the scent of lilacs, and stiffened.

It was her favorite scent. The Woman.

Irene Adler.

What the hell was she doing pushing herself back into his life again? Hadn't he already done enough for her by saving her in Karachi the year before his ignominious almost-defeat at Moriarty's hands? She must know of his current domestic arrangements; surely this wasn't another one of her tiresome "dinner" invitations?

He thought she'd given up on trying to seduce him after their shared night – well, week-end, to be accurate – together after he'd saved her from the executioner's blade. After he'd gotten her safely out of the country and onto a smuggler's boat headed for an anonymous port on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Oman, she'd asked him if he was finally ready to have dinner with her…and he'd accepted.

It was Moriarty's fault, all of it. He hadn't been particularly interested in having sex with anyone since he'd been a teenager – not that he'd indulged, even then; Moriarty's mocking nickname had been true, after all – but something about the adrenaline of the moment, of having cheated death for the sake of another, had gone straight to his head. He distinctly remembered thinking that now was as good a time to shed himself of that mocking appellation as any, before pulling Irene into his arms and kissing her.

He'd toyed with the idea, since then, on and off in idle moments before Molly turned into something more than a friend to him, that perhaps she'd drugged him, hoping for just such an outcome…but no. He couldn't blame The Woman for that little experiment in carnality. She'd asked, giving him a mocking smile, and something in him had responded quite hungrily. He'd made the first move; he'd kissed her, allowed her to demonstrate what he'd been missing, why everyone made such a bloody great fuss about sex, and shown him that something he'd been quite content to live without was well worth slotting into his life.

If it wasn't for that incredibly…athletic…week-end, he never would have begun to view Molly Hooper in a different light once he returned home. Without that week-end, he never would have been able to initiate a physical relationship with her after she helped him fake his death…and never would have been able to fall in love with her.

Not that he'd ever said the words; even though they'd been involved for two years and living together for most of that time – even though they had a son who'd been conceived the careless night he'd returned to the world of the living – he'd never been able to bring himself to say the words.

Molly knew, though. She had to know. He never would have asked her to move in with him if he didn't. She was a bright girl – woman, he corrected himself irritably. She knew he loved her, even if he'd never said the words.

None of which was getting him any closer to opening the damned envelope he now held in his hands.

He turned and headed up back upstairs. When he reached the kitchen, he laid the envelope on the table and rummaged in a drawer for a knife. He could use the penknife he had on his mantle, but it was currently affixed to a pile of the most ridiculous correspondence he'd ever received in the course of his consulting career, and he was loathe to move it.

Ah, a steak knife. One from Molly's flat, from her parent's wedding set, sharp as a scalpel and rarely used. Perfect.

He took a seat and carefully slit open the envelope, but only after donning a pair of the surgical gloves kept around the flat for just such a purpose – and for general cleaning on Molly's part. Fortunately he'd grabbed a pair of the larger ones; her hands were much smaller than his own and he'd had more than one incident where he'd attempted to put on a glove that was far too small, leaving him swearing and mumbling his annoyance as he rooted through the kitchen drawers in search of the proper size.

Never mind that Molly conscientiously kept hers in a separate drawer from his; he couldn't be bothered to remember which was which on a day-to-day basis. Far too domestic and tedious to be worth remembering. Her birthday, their anniversary, things like that, on the other he hand, he kept meticulous track of; and Edmund's birth-date was seared into his memory, never to be removed under any circumstances beyond early-onset Alzheimer's, unlikely with his family history of perfect health far into old age.

Such thoughts raced through his mind as he laid the knife aside and peered inside to ascertain the envelope's contents.

A carefully folded piece of paper was all he could see, cream colored to match its container. It was wrapped around whatever other pieces of paper were inside, deliberately covering them. How annoying.

There was nothing for it; if he wanted to examine the contents, he would have to slide them out and onto the table.

He took the precaution of laying down a sheet of aluminum foil first, then held the envelope upside down, slipped his fingers inside and carefully drew forth the contents.

The sheet of paper he'd first seen – heavy, stiff, and, as he'd already ascertained, perfectly matched to the envelope – was blank. No words, no watermark, no artwork, nothing pasted to it. Pristine.

He set it aside in order to examine the remainder of the envelope's contents.

Another, slightly smaller cream-colored envelope, also blank. And inside that…

His breath caught in his throat as he pulled out a recen photograph of Eddie. His son was asleep in one of the anonymous cots at the St. Bart's crèche, where Molly took him on days when Sherlock was unavailable to watch him. Days like today, when he was supposed to be out on a case – but had been forced to remain home and wait for a package from Lestrade that was supposed to be delivered later this afternoon, as soon as they received it from their Bristol branch.

His mobile beeped, indicating another text received. He pulled it from his pocket, tore his eyes away from the photograph (not one that he or Molly had taken, he'd have recognized it if it was, but certainly taken within the last week) and glanced at the screen.

Another anonymous message. This time, he read it.

I knew I'd get your attention one way or another. Lovely photo, isn't it? Read the note and then meet me at the Avant-Garde Bistro. One hour.

It was unsigned. However, it was also…not necessarily from Irene Adler. Oh, it could be from her, there was nothing that overtly alerted him otherwise, nothing that said it wasn't her…but still. Normally he scorned the concept of "instinct," but something deep inside was screaming a warning. Something about the message was off, was not right…and judging by the way his guts were clenching, his subconscious wasn't the only part of him that had had it's back put up.

He dropped the phone back in his pocket and returned his attention, reluctantly and with a great deal of trepidation, to the remaining contents of the envelope.

The photo of Eddie. The blank sheet of paper. The other envelope, also blank. Ah, at last. A second sheet of paper, plain white printer paper this time, not the highest gloss or quality, but not the cheapest available, either. Paper any office would have on hand for use in the photo-copier.

This sheet was not blank. As Sherlock read though it once, twice, a third time to confirm that he wasn't misunderstanding anything – much as his disbelieving mind wanted it to be so – he felt himself tensing, his heart increasing to a rapid tattoo in his chest, breath shortening as he read through the instructions he'd been given.

The instructions, and the threat to his son's life. He read that section over again, giving it his fullest attention.

It won't be obvious. Unless a doctor specifically looks for it, they won't find it in his blood or urine. And if you give even the slightest hint to his pediatrician that such a thing needs to be looked for, I can assure you, he will not recover from the next dose he's given.

I suppose your first thought will be to spirit him away someplace safe, possibly with your brother Mycroft's help, in order to have the most expert lab in the country concoct an antidote. Certainly you can try that – if, of course, you want your son to die. Because it isn't just an exotic poison we've been giving him, it's the antidote as well. I've timed the delivery of this missive just after he's received a dose of the former, and believe me when I tell you if you hide your son away from all contact, you will be killing him since he'll need a dose of the latter before a week has passed – and I am confident that no matter whose mind is put to the matter, the antidote will not be found in time. But by all means, do as your first instinct tells you. Afterwards, when you're contacting the funeral home, you can console yourself – and the boy's mother, of course, can't leave the lovely Dr. Hooper out of this – that you were Doing The Right Thing.

He hated the mocking tone of that paragraph, hated the writer without even knowing for certain who it actually was, would gladly have put his hands around said writer's throat and squeezed the life out of him – or her – without a second thought, were he to find himself in the position to do so.

But it wasn't his own life that was being threatened; once again someone was manipulating him, threatening the life of someone he loved – desperately loved, more than he'd ever thought it possible to love another human being – in order to make him do…what, exactly, he didn't know.

He unclenched his fists and continued his careful perusal of the document, deliberately taking his emotions and stowing them away in the box into which he'd put them so many years ago – a box that no longer seemed up to the job, but still. He had to do it, for Edmund's sake.

Furthermore, Mr. Holmes, you won't know how we've administered either the poison or the antidote to him. Could it be in a tainted bottle of juice; could it be in a box of that American cereal he loves so much? Do we soak his diapers in it at the crèche and allow him to absorb it through his skin? Or could it be something we've given his mother, so she all unknowingly squirts it into his mouth herself when she breastfeeds him – getting a bit old for that, isn't he? But dear Dr. Hooper read something about breastfeeding for a full year being healthiest for a child's immune system, and we both know you cede her the final word in all things kiddie related.

There was a great deal of contempt in that last sentence. If it hadn't been staggeringly obvious that the writer of the missive had no love for children, that would have brought the point home. Or perhaps it was only his child that the writer held such vitriol toward? Well worth pondering as he prepared for the meeting he'd been ordered to attend.

Further instructions would await him.

He felt sick at the instructions he'd already been given.

Leave. Go away for three months, to Egypt. Irene Adler will be there; she won't be expecting you, but I can assure you, she will welcome you with open arms – and legs. She's missed you terribly, and she's done me a good deed or two over the years, so it's time I repaid her properly by giving her the one thing she wants most in the world.

That, Mr. Holmes, would be you. Fancy that; you've actually turned a Lesbian straight, or at least temporarily bi-sexual. Impressive, but beside the point. She wants you, she misses you, and she will absolutely believe you when you tell her – and you will, if you value your son's life – that the tedium of domesticity finally got to you. Word it how you will, but you WILL convince her that you've left your wife and child behind to be with her.

Just as you will use the paper and envelope I've enclosed to convince Dr. Hooper of the same. Oh, not that you've left her for another woman, that would be too clichéd. Just that you've left her. Her and the brat both. You're stifled creatively, living with them underfoot. She's blunting the fine edge of your mind. Say something, but under no circumstances will you leave her even a crumb of hope. She must believe that she is being kicked to the curb (lovely American saying, that) and that you want nothing to do with her or her son in future.

Oh, I'll throw you a bone; you can offer to have some kind of relationship when widdle Eddie grows up a bit. Just don't allow yourself to be too…sentimental…when you make the offer.

Still don't believe I can do as I've said? Meet me, Mr. Holmes, at the Avante-Garde Bistro, and you will leave convinced.

There was no closing salutation, no signature. Just a single initial.

M.