A/N: Thank you all for being so wonderful and encouraging and once again sorry for the long wait.

Thank you to my dear friends here who have forgiven me for not getting back to them in months. You are the best!

Thank you to ML for beta-ing this thing.

Frenzy

"How do you leave the past behind
when it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
'til you're torn apart." – Jonathan Larson, Rent

Wednesday, 9:46 p.m. – Two weeks earlier

Sometimes Molly Hooper wished for someone to make everything alright. Was that too much to ask for? She wished for all of this to be over. She sometimes wished to live someone else's life and not the complicated mess that was hers. She wished for the cliché knight in shining armour.

But, although she wished for that in her weak moments, Molly Hooper was not so naïve as to believe in fairy tales or miracles. She might be a hopeless romantic, but she was still a very logical person and believed in empirical evidence. Anyways, life had taught her that no matter how much a knight in shining armour might be needed, he would not show up. That more often than not people did not get justice and that life was unfair.

So once again Molly Hooper found herself dealing with a situation all on her own, not knowing how she was supposed to handle it.

She stood outside of Tom's flat, clutching the ransom letter in her hand. He had done many vicious things – especially when he had been drunk – but she would not have believed that he would abduct her cat in order to get to her. Once again she had been wrong about Thomas Hopkins.

Molly took a deep breath and finally dared to knock on the door. In a matter of seconds it swung open. It happened so quickly that Molly wondered if Tom had been behind the door all along – maybe watching her through the peephole. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes red-rimmed. He was drunk and probably off his meds. Molly knew she had to be prepared for the worst when he was in this state.

Without a single word he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her inside the flat.

As soon as the door closed behind Molly she pulled her hand from Tom's grip and let her eyes roam his place, looking for her tabby.

"Tom, where is Toby?" Molly desperately tried to let her voice sound calm, but failed miserably.

There was no trace of her tomcat, and the pathologist was becoming more and more worried by the second. After all she knew what Tom had done to Fudge. That thought made her shiver involuntarily.

Tom looked her up and down with a weird mixture of disgust and longing.

"You are late," he growled, ignoring her question completely.

So Molly asked again, "Where is my cat?"

Now Tom seemed to have heard her question, but instead of answering it, there was a vicious glint in his eyes that made Molly's blood run cold. He turned away from her and walked over to the coffee table where two glasses and a bottle of wine stood.

He pointed towards the bottle and ordered, "Open it and pour us a glass, will ya?"

Molly wanted to protest and tell him that she was not interested in a glass of wine and that he had already had more wine than was good for him and that she only wanted her cat back and she knew better than to do so; it was best to follow his instructions and play his game for now. That was the fastest way to get her beloved tabby back. She had learned what the consequences for not following his orders in the past.

So, she walked over to the coffee table as well.

"You got a cork screw?"

Tom only shrugged and plopped down onto the couch, waiting to be served.

Molly sighed, opened her bag, put the ransom letter inside, retrieved her penknife and opened the bottle with its cork screw.

Tom sat on the couch and watched her with a satisfied smile on his face, which Molly had come to loathe over time. The smile meant that he was up to something which she would not like at all.

After opening the bottle she poured Tom a glass. When she was about to put the bottle down again, Tom said, "Oh no, you'll have some too. After all we have to celebrate that you have finally come to your senses and decided to see me again."

Molly clutched the bottle in her hand a bit harder in orderS to keep herself from saying things she knew he would make her regret.

Instead, she reluctantly poured herself a glass as well. As she put the bottle back down onto the coffee table Tom picked his glass up, raised it and toasted, "To a new beginning."

When Molly didn't raise her glass as well, Tom raised his eyebrows until she did so. She didn't respond to the toast but took a small sip of the red wine. She didn't really taste the wine, but felt it run down her throat, making her feel even sicker than she already did. She quickly put the glass back onto the table.

"So, now where is he?"

Tom raised his eyebrows again and feigned ignorance. "Who?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "Tom, stop it. Where is Toby?"

Slowly her ex fiancé put his glass down onto the coffee table and regarded her with a coldness she had come to know all too well.

"So is that why you came, because of that stupid fur ball? And there I thought you wanted to see me..."

Molly didn't comment, but stared to walk towards the bedroom instead.

Faster than Molly would have given him credit for, Tom shot up from the couch and grabbed her forcibly by the arm. She tried to escape his grip, but he was too strong.

"Let me go!" Her words were a mixture between a command and a plea.

Tom stared at her, his eyes cold. "So, you wanna know where your kitty-cat is?"

Molly tried to yank free from his grip, but failed once again. He pulled her even closer and whispered into her ear, "Then let me show you were your precious little cat is."

His breath smelled of alcohol; it made Molly turn her head away. He pulled her forcibly along with him into the adjoining kitchen. and walked towards a brown cardboard box sitting on the counter. A strong sense of foreboding overcame Molly, and she felt her stomach turn into knots.

When they reached the counter, Tom pulled at Molly's arm so that she was standing between him and the counter, leaving her no way to escape.

Her ex-fiancé leaned over her to open the cardboard box. When he revealed its content, Molly could not hold back a sob from escaping her mouth. There, inside the cardboard box, lay her precious tomcat, motionless.

The pathologist's eyes started to water with tears.

"What have you done to him?" Her words were barely above a whisper.

When Tom didn't answer. She turned around in his arms so quickly that she could see the surprise in his eyes, and screamed at him, "What have you done to him, you monster!?"

In an act of desperation she pushed against his chest, which proved to be a fatal decision.

Rage blazed in Tom's eyes, and the pathologist instantly knew that she had made a mistake.

He caught her first by the wrist and then by the throat. The petite woman opened her mouth to scream, but he struck a savage blow to her face and felled her to the ground.

Molly felt dizzy and blood ran from her nose. She tried to brace herself on her arms to crawl away from Tom into the living room as he approached.

"I told you, you would regret leaving me!" he hollered.

Molly managed to crawl towards the chair and pulled herself up a bit, holding onto the armrest. Blood ran down her nose and chin, but she didn't see or feel it. Her head was swimming and she heard her heartbeat in her ears.

With one more big stride Tom was upon her again. He grabbed her by the shoulder and started to shake her.

Tears were streaming down Molly's face and her head was pounding with every shake from Tom. His grip became even more forceful as he started to pull her closer and leaned in in an attempt to kiss her.

When Molly realised what he was about to do something inside her snapped and with all the strength she had in her, she pushed him away.

Tom was so surprised by her sudden resistance that he lost his grip on her and tumbled backwards.

For Molly it felt like she was watching in slow motion as Tom tried to reach for her as he lost his balance, fell backwards and hit his head on the coffee table. With a cracking sound his body hit the floor and then there was silence.

For a moment Molly Hooper was free of all feelings, and it was pure bliss.

Then reality set back in and she started to panic. She rushed over to the man lying on the floor as the blood from his head wound slowly stained the rug underneath the coffee table.

"Tom?" she breathed his name and felt for a pulse at his carotid. She closed her eyes for a moment when she didn't find one. She touched the backside of his head and neck, staining her hands with blood in the process.

When she felt the back of his neck and found what she had anticipated she whispered, "No, please, no," knowing that no one heard her and no one would help her.

Tom's neck was broken. He was dead.

As if touching him had burned her she pulled her hands back and stared at the man she had wished dead a dozen times over the past year. Now that he was she felt no satisfaction, just pain and sadness. This was not what she had wanted. This was not how things were supposed to go.

With a heavy sigh she sat down onto the floor and watched, as if in trance as the pool of blood around Tom's head became bigger and bigger.

What was she supposed to do now? Call the police? No, they would arrest her for murder. Call Sherlock? Absolutely not. He would not understand.

There was no one she could call. No one she could tell what she had done. Everyone would think she was stupid for falling for a man like Tom. They would think she was weak for staying with him.

A wave of shame and guilt washed over her. No, she could not tell anyone. She had to find a way to deal with the situation.

The pathologist drew a few calming breaths to try to straighten her thoughts. No one knew she was here. All of Tom's friends knew he was an alcoholic and that he took heavy medication. She looked at the corpse in front of her. It could have been an accident. It was an accident, after all. He had fallen and hit his head. It could have happened without her participation. All she needed to do was get rid of any signs that she had been in the flat and have an alibi.

As the wheels turned in her head, she felt her pulse quicken and adrenaline rush through her body. She had lied about a murder before, she could do it again.

The pathologist closed her eyes for a moment to prepare for what she had to do.

With shaky legs she got up and went to the bathroom. The crimson arc under her nails stood out starkly against her pale skin. She turned on the water. The image in the mirror was battered but by no means beaten. Tears, familiar and fought, blurred her vision as blood dried under her nose. Swelling started where Tom's hands had caught her by the throat and she suspected that it would turn into quite a nasty bruise over the course of the next few hours.

Molly splashed cold water onto her face and started to clean her hands with a nail brush. The blood under her fingernails didn't come off at first and panic started to rise in her. She was afraid she had been permanently and visibly stained by her sins.

After a few minutes of scratching, it finally came off and Molly's chest felt a bit lighter.

having cleaned herself up she went back into the living room and started to look around. She needed to get rid of all the evidence in the flat that proved she had been here. She was surprised by how easy she found it to distance herself and look at the rooms as any other crime scene.

First she walked over to the coffee table. She poured the remains of the wine from her glass into Tom's, so that it was filled to the brim. She put her penknife back into her bag.

With her glass in hand she walked over into the kitchen, washed and dried it and then put it into the cupboard.

With a tea towel she went back into the living room and wiped the wine bottle. She had touched it after all and didn't want to leave any fingerprints. She did the same with everything else she thought she might have touched while in the apartment.

When she was done, she stood in the living room and looked down at herself and the cloth in her hand. Her shirt was stained with blood from both her and Tom; if she were prone to melodrama she'd have burned it. But since she was not, she only put the cloth into her bag, planning to throw it into the Themes - and then pulled on her coat. She would deal with her bloody shirt later.

She walked into the kitchen to pick up what she had come for in the first place, but had to stop mid-action. Molly felt tears sting her eyes again, and her hands shake as she reached for the cardboard box in which Toby lay. She could not help but to think that he almost looked as if he was asleep.

She drew a deep breath and then closed the lid and carefully picked up the box. She didn't know yet what she would do with her beloved tabby. All she knew was that she would not leave him here with his murderer.

With the box in her shaking hands Molly made her way through the apartment, thinking it would be the last time she was here. The pathologist refused to look at Tom's body on the floor. She knew she couldn't handle it.

As she closed the door behind her and made her way towards St. Bartholomew's hospital, knowing that the perfect alibi awaited her there, the only thing she felt was fatigue.