A/N: The views expressed by Moriarty in this chapter are his own and are NOT reflective of the views of the author, especially concering a certain former assassin-turned-wife-and-mother-and-nurse. But remember, folks, he's basically an asshole. Thanks to all my readers and reviewers, I appreciate you following me and saying such lovely things about this story!
Molly cuddled the now-sleeping Lucy Watson in her lap. The poor little thing had finally fallen asleep, worn out from crying, her thumb tucked firmly between her rosebud lips. John thought she needed to be weaned from that habit, Molly remembered, but didn't have the heart to pull the tiny digit from the little girl's mouth. Anything that gave her comfort at the moment was more than all right with her godmother.
She stole a glance at the madman sitting next to her in the backseat of the expensive black car that was currently carrying them away from Baker Street. Jim was humming happily to himself, looking out the window, but either her tiny movement or the sense of being watched brought his attention back to her. He smiled brightly and said, "Well, isn't this exciting! The police and your ex should be on our trail soon enough!"
"And that's…what you want?" Molly asked, confused and unsettled by his words. If his goal was to whisk her and Lucy out of the country, then shouldn't he be at least a bit more worried at the thought of pursuit?
Now that she was really thinking instead of just reacting, Molly began to wonder what he was really up to. If he wanted to make a clean getaway, surely he would have told the judge to wait more than a half an hour before releasing John and Mary? And wouldn't he have at least changed cars at some point, rather than using the same one with the same plates that CCTV cameras must have picked up? Yes, he said he'd redirected the ones Mycroft apparently had at Baker Street, but had he done the same for the ones on every London street corner? Of course he had the ability to do so; the man had hijacked the entirety of the British airways, for goodness sakes!
"Ooh, look at her, working things out for a change instead of having to be led along by the nose!" Moriarty's mocking voice interrupted Molly's racing thoughts, and she frowned angrily before she could stop herself.
Of course he laughed at her, even clapping his hands together in apparent delight at her reaction. "And now she's insulted, because even the almighty Sherlock Holmes never made fun of her for her intellect! Oh, no, he made sure all his insults for our Miss Molly – oops, sorry, I meant our Mrs. Holmes! – were strictly for her physical attributes." He gave a dramatic sigh. "And yet she married him anyway, in spite of those nasty comments about her gaining weight and compensating for the size of her lips and breasts…oh yes," he interrupted himself when Molly's expression became one of fearful surprise. "Thought I didn't know about any of that, did you? Well, let me tell you something, honey." He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and placed a hand on her knee, grinning nastily when she flinched away from him. "Brother Mycroft may have been the one to put the cameras in Sherlock's flat and his home away from home at the morgue, but he wasn't the only one to watch and lis-ten!" he said in a sing-song voice.
Molly felt herself flush hot and cold at the thought of Moriarty spying on her even then; inevitably her mind flashed to those long-ago humiliations, the pain of those early encounters with Sherlock's biting sarcasm and downright cruelty to her. As, no doubt, Moriarty wanted her to. She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly, looking down at Lucy to help center herself. To remind herself of what was important. The glint of gold on her left ring finger caught her attention, and helped even more. Those days were in the past; apologies had been tendered, love had been confessed, and Sherlock actually thought before he just blurted out whatever deductions happened to be on his mind. At least as far as Molly was concerned.
Besides, Molly knew the real reason for Sherlock's harsh words; he'd been trying to push her away, to stop her from loving him even as he denied that her feelings ran that deeply. And he'd been trying desperately to bury his own attraction to her at the same time. So yes, he'd hurt her, but it was equally true that he'd apologized and she'd long ago forgiven him.
"But anyway, it doesn't really matter," Moriarty said, interrupting her thoughts. "You're completely wrong; I have absolutely no desire to be caught. Mikey's men are following after another car entirely, leaving us to drive safely and unmolested through the London streets until we leave the city far behind. We'll be heading for a nice little private airfield outside Fitton where a charter plane reserved under an assumed name will be waiting to whisk us off to our new life. Leaving the Holmes brother chasing their tails while you and I begin our new life of domestic bliss!"
His tone was gloating but his expression was a sickening simper as he laid one hand over Molly's. If she hadn't been holding Lucy she would have snatched it away; as it was, all she could do was glare her hatred at him. "If you don't want them to actually catch us," she ground out, determined not to let him control the conversation, "then why only tell the judge to wait a half hour before letting John and Mary out? Wasn't that a bit of a risk?"
His grin morphed into a grimace and he sighed dramatically, pulling his hand away from hers before affecting an exaggerated pout and resting his chin on his fist. "Because, Molly my love, any longer and Sherlock would have come round, or the lovely and talented Astrid would have found a way to jimmy open the closet door."
"Astrid?" Molly repeated blankly, the words escaping her lips before she realized he must be referring to Mary. But why was he calling her…
Moriarty rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mary Watson's real name, the one she was born with, is actually Astrid Grace Rowena Anderson of Duluth, Minnesota. Former CIA agent gone freelance assassin, although sadly never for me. A pity, that. Oh, and she's the one who shot Sherlock," he added carelessly, although his eyes never left Molly's. "I'm betting that if he and John didn't share Mary's background with you, they didn't share that particular little tidbit, either."
No. No, they hadn't. Molly's head was reeling; on the one hand, she wanted to believe that Moriarty was just toying with her, saying terrible things to make her doubt her friends and husband. On the other hand…on the other hand, Sherlock's shooting had never been solved. Sherlock himself had seemed disinterested in discovering the truth. And John and Mary had been estranged for months after that event, not making things up until Christmas Day, when Molly had been unable to join them at the elder Holmes' residence due to a work emergency…
"God," she whispered as she felt the blood leaving her face. She was shaking, going into shock, but did her best to try and control it, to keep from jostling Lucy even though all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and try to convince herself that this entire, horrible day had been nothing but a terrible, pre-wedding nightmare. That she would wake up in the bed she and Sherlock shared at Baker Street – and had for six months now – and have a laugh at how her subconscious had decided to torture her.
But she couldn't do that. All she could do was take deep, shuddering breaths, cuddling Lucy closer when Moriarty, with false solicitousness, offered to hold her while Molly collected herself. Sherlock loved her, Molly knew that; and it wasn't his secret to tell, Molly knew that, too, but it didn't take away the sting of betrayal she currently felt.
If Moriarty had been trying to hurt her by bringing up the terrible way Sherlock had treated her in the past, he'd certainly done the trick by revealing Mary's secret.
Mary Watson, the woman whom Molly counted a friend, the woman whose child Molly currently held in her arms and had stood as godmother to, was a liar and an assassin who had shot and nearly killed Sherlock. But why? "She…she must have had a…a good reason," she muttered to herself.
Of course Moriarty heard, and of course he laughed. Heartily. As if Molly had just told the best joke ever. "A good reason? Saving her own arse, if you consider that a good reason, then sure!" he gasped out, ostentatiously wiping at the corner of his eyes. "Maybe one day I'll tell you the whole story as my dear, departed Charles Augustus Magnussen relayed it to me – oh, you didn't know that we knew one another?" He smirked at Molly's gasp of surprise. "Oh yes, indeed. Quite well. He even knew my secret – that I was alive, of course. He had no clue about my other secrets and no interest in them since I knew all about his mind palace and had no fear of killing him if he ever tried to blackmail me." His grin turned deadly. "So we didn't bother with games between ourselves. He knew I was busy with…things," he said vaguely, "which is why he didn't bother keeping me informed of his project with the lovely Mrs. Watson. But I did have quite the giggle when he told me she shot Sherlock right in front of him!"
"Shut up," Molly said through clenched teeth. Her head was pounding, her heart racing, skin clammy, and she longed for just five quiet minutes to herself. Five minutes Moriarty would never grant her. "It…there was a good reason, I know there was."
Moriarty shrugged, then examined his fingernails. "Certainly, if you count saving your own skin at the expense of someone else's life a good reason."
If he was going to say something else, he was interrupted by a sudden burst of music from his inside jacket pocket; his mobile started playing a Bee Gees song, and he snatched it out in annoyance. "What? I'm on my way to a life of wedded bliss, so this had better be…"
He fell silent, his expression darkening with every second that passed. Molly tried to listen in on the one-sided conversation, but heard only a few words here and there: "Airport" and "impounded" and "Mycroft". She bit her lip to hold back a smile of relief; it sounded as if Moriarty's decoy plan hadn't quite worked the way he'd expected it to.
If Mycroft had impounded the charter plane that was supposed to whisk them off to parts unknown, then that meant Moriarty would have to resort to whatever his 'Plan B' was. And that gave Sherlock and the police more time to find them. No matter what damning information Moriarty had imparted to her today, she still believed in her husband. He would stop this madness and bring her and Lucy home safely.
Then the two of them were going to sit down for a nice little chat about the importance of communication in a relationship.