Present—Molly
Molly pulled up to the house, watching as a minivan left. This woman was Alison Hendricks, possibly the woman on the phon.e It probably wasn't that smart to approach her directly, but Molly still didn't hesitate to follow the woman to wherever she was going. Alison was not the woman on the phone. Molly knew that the moment she saw her as she herded her children out of the van. Molly sighed, putting her hood up and walking over to the shed where her identical disappeared into. She did not fully expect a soccer Mom to turn around and almost cleave her face open with the knife she was using to make orange slices, but Molly would like to think that after Sherlock, she could handle it.
"What the hell are—Beth are you insane? You can't be here!
Molly decided to cut through the bullshit this time around. "Not Beth, Beth's dead, I'm confused—well not confused, confused is not my name, I'm Molly, nice to meet you Alison, please refrain from stabbing me—good, good, well sorry, this probably wasn't a great idea, and I know you're not the other person—but I don't have her contact information and I need to be able to get a hold of her—or better yet meet her because she needs those blood samples cos shit's going down—"
"Wait Beth's dead? How?"
"She committed suicide. Threw herself in front of a train." Molly took a deep breath where Alison decided to finally respond.
"No—no."The woman played with her knife with a small, sanity questioning smile, "That's impossible, Beth wouldn't—"
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you dressed in her clothes?"
"Unfortunately, I'm stuck playing cop until I know what the hell is going on."
Present—Sherlock
Sherlock paced. There was still nothing more from Moriarty, leaving him to the Molly mystery. How could there be a girl who looked just like Molly that ended up on a slab—a girl that was identified as Molly, a girl Moriarty thought was Molly—unless he didn't. What if it was all part of some sort of plan? What if he actually had Molly somewhere? What if—but wait. How much did Sherlock actually know about Molly Hooper?
Molly Hooper was a pathologist that worked at St Barts.
Molly Hooper was in foster care.
Molly Hooper had a child at one point.
Molly Hooper once had a fiancé (uggh, Tom, Sherlock loathed to think of that foul man, but it was a start. He could research Molly's pregnancy and he could investigate Tom, to see if he knew anything. The odd part of that relationship was how quickly and abruptly it ended. When Sherlock commented on it later, Molly didn't reveal what he thought she would. It had nothing to do with his returning. For some reason Sherlock found that rather disappointing. He didn't want to examine that until he figured out where was Molly, and why did a girl named Aryanna look just like her?
Present—Felix
Mrs. S. scowled, "She hasn't taken an interest in her daughter's life now why should she—"
"You know she wanted to do the best for Kira."
"She's just—"
"She's just not a mother. Be happy she recognized that, but listen to me right now, Kira might be in danger."
"…if we need to tear down and torch, just give me the word, you hear me? I'll not have that girl get hurt because of the stupid things her mother's gotten involved in." Mrs. S. sighed, suddenly looking a lot older than before. If it weren't for the fact that it wasn't Molly's fault, he'd be cursing her for making their foster mother worry so much.
Present—Sherlock
"…I was asked to watch Molly. I'm pretty sure she figured out I was and that's why she broke the engagement. Used you as a reason…but I knew the instant she sat down that she knew."
"Why were you asked to watch Molly? For what purpose?"
"I don't know. They just paid me and I did as they said—but I stopped reporting so closely after a while—cos I liked her. I liked her a lot and now she's dead and what am I going to do? She was actually properly nice…but I have something that can help you." Tom pulled out a file folder, "I started wondering who I was working for. Didn't find out much, but I found the man who used to watch her before me. A guy named Brook." He noticed Sherlock's face, "No! Not the same! I checked. Don't worry, unfortunate coincidence there."
Present—Molly
"You've got a—what the hell are you doing with that?"
"If you wake my children, I will shoot you."
"Huh? If you shoot me you'll wake your children—"
"Do you want to take the chance?"
Molly sighed, "Okay, so what's up?"
"She might be better at explaining than me." Alison replied, sounding quite exasperated.
Another identical, this one wearing looser clothes and—dreadlocks? Molly with dreadlocks? It…it didn't look half bad, if Molly got out of this and managed to live a normal life again, she might be brave enough to try that.
"Hi. I'm Cosima."
…Is that Asian?
Two months before—Molly
Molly sat across the table from Tom, perfectly happy playing house with him—or so she wanted him to believe. She used to think that if she reached certain goals in life, she would finally be able to relax and be normal—but Tom proved her wrong, just like all the others had. So silently, she slid the ring across the table with a small smile. His confusion was evident and Molly could sympathize to an extent. From his perspective, everything was going wonderful. They were engaged, they had a spot picked out, they were going to be married. All these little "to be"s ran through her head as his expression contorted in all sorts of ways. She bent her head.
"I'm sorry. I don't like liars."
Mainly because I'm the worst of them all.
Present—Molly
"The German's dead, what did you do with her?"
"I disposed of her. I'm assuming she was careful to keep this all a secret; therefore no one will come looking for her. If they do, they'll put hounds on her scent and even if they had something for the dogs to smell, they'll still trace it to a hard to get to body that has had all identifying factors removed, like prints and teeth. The teeth are still with me until I can get rid of them properly, and by the time they start a search for the body it will have decomposed beyond easy recognition and no viable DNA sample will be found—right off the back anyway. Honestly if she's found we're screwed, but at this moment there's little chance of it." Molly mentally ticked off her checklist as she looked at the identical faces staring at her.
Alison's face was contorted in disgust and horror, while Cosima wore a more neutral if not curious expression, "What did you do before identity snatching became your norm?" She asked casually, as if the world they knew hadn't come down around them.
"I was a forensic pathologist."
"Oh…wow…useful." She nodded, "But we really needed a cop. Beth was tracing—"
"I can still be a cop." Molly spoke without thinking, "I'll be back on duty soon and I've been getting a crash course from hell—police procedure isn't something I'm entirely unfamiliar with and I've seemed to trick her partner completely—for the most part. This is—this was not expected."
Present—Felix
Felix paced back and forth outside. He hated Molly for putting him into this situation. He really and truly wanted to throttle her. How could he be backup? Why the hell did she need backup anyway? It wasn't as if—oh dear lord, why did she ever have to befriend that git? It was all his fault they were there. It was his fault they were pretending Molly was dead, and Molly was racing around like a bloody secret agent right out of a bad B movie. This was even worse than the movie though, because when the end credits rolled around, at least he could get up, stretch, and forget all about it but no, this was real life, and with real life came real stakes.
"Who are you?"
Suddenly there was a woman with a gun in his face, a woman that looked just like Molly, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't shoot I'm—"
"Alison! Alison he's with me, he's my brother." Molly was there, suddenly forcing her to put down the gun. Alison took a few deep and shaky breaths before Molly did something completely unexpected. She slapped her, "If you ever point a gun at my brother again, I'll knock the living shite out of you."
Present—Molly
"So why are you pretending to be Beth? Are you some sort of con artist? Like a grifter or something?" Cosima asked, sounded far more interested—and much less paranoid than Alison. Felix and Alison were studiously avoiding each other, while glancing every now and then with a snobbish sniff.
"No—no it was impulse…I wanted to save my own skin. There was no time to think—then I had to—and now I'm here. I'm not sure what was worse; dealing with a psychotic criminal mastermind wanting to kill me for throwing a wrench into his scheme to destroy a friend of mine in his entirety or dealing with an unknown group or groups of people who decided to create human clones, one of which is me, who some other person who may or may not be affiliated with a group, is killing off one by one. Great. Let's hope Moriarty doesn't figure this one out anytime soon. I don't think I could deal with both knowing." Molly put her head between her knees, "Bloody hell, does Sherlock actually enjoy stuff like this?"
"Sherlock—Moriarty—that detective ohhh." Cosima grinned, "You know some pretty weird people, Molly Hooper, dead girl from London."
"Yeah, I know."
"Weird—helpful people."
Molly's head jerked up and she made eye contact, all without thinking about it, and her voice grew harsh, "No. He cannot be distracted. If he thinks I'm alive and I need help with a mystery he'll try to do this and the Moriarty problem at once and will be more likely to fail and this time he won't have the help of my element of surprise. He'll also accidentally reveal me to Moriarty, which will simply add another—"
"It's not about you, Molly, it's about us. We are being killed off. We are clones, genetic identical—" Alison's protest at the C-word emerged in the background—"And this is our problem."
"Which is why we are not going to get Sherlock Holmes involved. We're not exactly a stupid bunch, we can figure this out. I mean hell, we've all been through higher education and had—or have, demanding careers…and I do still have a couple tricks up my sleeve—uggh that sounded stupid. Anyway, we can do this without getting my schizoid borderline sociopathic friend and his arch nemesis involved."
Present—Cosima
Cosima frowned at the computer screen. Molly Hooper was a good person—an incredibly smart one too—but Cosima knew that they needed help, and what better avenue than Sherlock Holmes? With a sigh, she wrote the final word of the puzzle in the encrypted email, and hit send.
Present-Kira
Kira was painting a picture. Mrs. S. was always nice enough to bring her lots and lots of paper when she went to the store, along with paint and crayons. She was painting a picture of Mummy, despite the fact that she hadn't seen her in such a long time. Mrs. S. always said it was for Kira's protection, but Kira missed her nonetheless. She could tell that her mom had come by. That smell was on the chair. Mrs. S. wouldn't say anything though, so she kept the thought to herself. If Mummy wanted to see her, Mummy would.
"Working on another portrait of your mum?" Mrs. S. kneeled down and squeezed Kira's shoulders.
"Yes. Mummy's coming home."
"…you may be right about that, monkey."
Present-Sherlock
Dear Sherlock Holmes.
I'm aware that you have much better things to do than this, but if you're bored, can you tell me what this means? My seven year old wrote it. She's a bit of a prodigy.
Of the age of sunset hues,
The world was her great muse,
My sweet Molly touched my face,
Her hand Is soft and I feel so Alive.
The winds of Toronto are so fierce,
But I can forget when she is Here,
So sweet, so gentle, like a light,
Not even dying at night.
Sincerely,
Ted Ashburn.
Within moments, Sherlock found the true meaning behind a silly poem in a well encrypted and untraceable email.
Molly Is Alive Toronto.
Present—Molly
The constant paranoia was something that Molly could live without—that grating horrible feeling that people were watching, waiting for her to trip up at any given moment. It was tiresome, and she couldn't even stop when she returned to Beth's house to meet…Paul. It may have been the paranoia, it may have been the working alongside Sherlock, it may have been the feeling of absolute fear that coursed through her, almost separately from the paranoia somehow…but Paul didn't seem right. She wanted to figure out what was up with him, somehow.
"What is up with you? You're getting home at weird times, you're wearing—that" The 'that' he was referring to was a band T-Shirt Molly found for ten bucks while desperately looking for new clothes after disposing of a body. "And you're just not being well, you." Paul gestured towards her entirely.
"I'm just—I feel—"
"Are you taking the pills again?"
"No—no Paul. I'm not going back there."
"Well that's just it then" He came forward and rested his hands on her shoulders, making Molly shudder involuntarily beneath his strong touch, "You're finally starting to feel things again."
"It's weird…" Molly pretended to admit, running a hand through her hair, realizing she could get a little bit of her frustration out at that moment, "I'm sorry, I've been a right mess, I'm just…I'm just trying. That's all. I've been reinstated!"
"That's good, but if you need to take more time—"
"No. No. I should go back to work. That'd be best, wouldn't it?"
"…fine. But just talk to me, Beth."
"I—It's hard." Molly pushed him away and rubbed her forehead.
"You can't be all hot and cold on me like this. It's insane and confusing, Beth. You can't just do that to me."
You can't be like that, though. You can't be Paul the intelligent and confusing man, you have to be a part of the scenery, part of Beth's life and entirely separate from mine.
Molly shook her head and walked away, trying to clear her mind of everything except for the task at hand: surviving. She had a lot more to worry about now. There was a sniper offing her and her genetic identical, Moriarty hanging over her head, she still had the god damned teeth in her pocket, and she was meant to go back to work soon. There was only one small problem with that part of the plan: Molly had absolutely no idea how to use a gun.