Author: Howlynn
Realm: Sherlock
Story Title: A Statue in the Temple of Mendacity. Part two
Summary: John is safe and sound with Sherlock. What happens if he isn't? What if things don't go as planned, and of course, they never do.

Character/Relationships: John and Molly would never have noticed each other if he were not dead. The thing is, Molly knows he isn't and she never expected things to get this complicated. Welcome back to Part two, If you thought the first part was complicated, well you are in for a bit more. Please keep your hands inside the compartment at all times.

I Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

"It is impossible to love and to be wise." - Francis Bacon

"No obligation to do the impossible is binding." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Molly pulled the duffle out from under the other debris of John Watson's life with a wail of sorrow. Her hand flies to her mouth until she thinks she can hold the sound in without a physical restraint. She reaches toward the bag on the floor before her kneeling form. She shook and whimpered as she unzipped it. Molly riffled through it frantic and blurry- eyed. The note was gone and his gun was still at her flat, of course, but as far as she could tell, the rest was there. Her hands fell on plasters, hemostats, various glues both medical and industrial, a roll of wire, and a leather bank bag full of several types of paper money. He would have taken the money. He would have needed money to disappear.

The note is gone but the money isn't. He decided not to take his bag, after obsessively packing and repacking it for all this time. Molly looked down at this glaring proof that he'd only removed the note as far as she could tell, though she had no actual inventory of what drugs and other supplies that he had tucked away. There could be things missing but she wouldn't know. The problem right now was that he seemed to have left too many useful items behind to have made an escape rather than an exit.

If John was really dead, he hadn't even said goodbye. He'd told her that he'd see her soon. No matter what happened between Sherlock and John, he should have cared enough to say something to her. Her mind felt cloudy with all the questions and possible answers. She needed to do something but she had nothing to do. Her eyes searched the room for something to do that would alleviate this turmoil of alive or dead thoughts sparring in her head.

It took her almost twenty minutes to collect herself enough to make her way back to Mrs. Hudson after she stopped digging mindlessly. She had managed a bit of a search of her own , collecting trinkets that made sense to her at that moment. She'd found his watch on a shelf in the bathroom and slipped it in her pocket, because John would need it and she would give it to him soon. A framed picture of the two of them riding the London Eye and grinning didn't belong packed away by strangers. She took a packet of photographs of them picnicking and riding the little boats in Regent's Park. She took three of his jumpers, his green windowpane check Chesterfield overcoat that he only wore on special occasions. She left as many sentimental tokens as she nicked.

She knew she was being completely irrational, but she moved about under an outward guise of confidence. She needed to do these things. The truth is that there is nothing for her to do that will help so her brain is misfiring tasks and they seem important at the moment. She hoped that she was having a bad dream and when she woke up, all these things she took would be missing, which would be proof that this had not happened anywhere other than her mind.

That purposeful harried search faded as she began to calm down from her manic state. She locked the door and walked down the stairs. The window at the bend of the stairs let a bit of vaguely colored light stream to the floor of the landing. She happened to look down and spotted something shiny in the corner. She bent down, shifting the burdensome blue bag onto her shoulder and picked up the little cufflink.

He had worn these the night they went to the opera. They had belonged to his grandfather and he'd been upset to discover he'd lost one of them. She wondered if it could have been here all along waiting to be discovered and reunited with its mate. They had walked up and down these stairs countless times since then and she was sure Mrs. Hudson had probably Hoovered many times subsequently, yet this brilliantly polished thing could not be located. It has waited to be discovered. Now that it probably didn't matter, here it is. It was too sad for her to even think about.

She examined it, trying to understand what the universe was trying to say, by putting this in her grasp. Was it a token to remember or was it a sign that things happen for a reason. Maybe it was even a message for her to keep looking and its owner would turn up.

She opened Mrs. Hudson's door and walked in, dazed and disheveled. She didn't knock or speak, and she reaches the middle of the parlor and her brain fizzles without any idea what to do next. She has had too much trauma and too little sleep and the systems overload, blanking her face and making her thoughts fire as if through static. The sun has set and she has lost hours up in John's flat.

Mrs. Hudson took one look and went into action. "Poor thing. What have you got there? Oh, a cufflink, where on earth did you? I think you better sit down, dear, you look like you've seen a ghost." Mrs. Hudson relieves her of her treasures and guides her to the sofa. "You didn't, did you? See one? I heard you up stairs. I'll never rent the place if it has a haunting." Mrs. Hudson shakes her head in pity as her face screws up and she excuses herself, mumbling about the tea needing to be made.

Molly doesn't answer. Her head is throbbing. She reclines on the sofa and closes her eyes. The static in her mind grows louder and she hears distant bits of past conversation, sees flashes of John's face and can almost feel the wind on her face as John had gotten on his knees before her. She was trying to connect that moment to this one and understand the gauntlet of ill-fated choices that had allowed her to be in this place. She doesn't want to move until this makes sense to her.

The tea is awful. Mrs. Hudson notices Molly trying not to make a face at the unexpected flavor and explains, "I put one of my herbal soothers in it. Thought you might be needing it. I know I do. You'll stay with me, have a bit of a rest and we'll get it all sorted in the morning."

As soon as she has drained her cup she leans back again. Mrs. Hudson is thankfully quiet. The herbal soothers have about the same kick as ten shots of John's whiskey and she can feel the world growing distant and muddled. She smiled softly, remembering how she and John had used his little glasses to play Wit's End and she'd felt almost exactly like this by the time he'd kissed her. Molly shifts onto her side as Mrs. Hudson drapes a crocheted throw over her. Molly closes her eyes and holds the cufflink so tightly it hurts the palm of her hand.

It's four in the morning when she pops awake. She didn't dream, probably thanks to the herbal soothers. Her mouth tastes bitter and she needs to use the lavatory. She stands and her phone is flashing that she has a text.

[I need to see you. Please come.]

She texts back, fingers shaking.

[Yes. Where?]

[The first place we met. Please come quickly.]

[On my way.]

Molly and Sherlock had not met at St. Bart's. They had met near Bart's off King Edward and Angel Street in Postman's park. She was taking a late lunch there in the covered gallery reading the rows of commemorative Doulton tablets. Sherlock was sleeping or she thought he was though she noticed he was shivering and seemed to be talking in his sleep. He spoke to her as she neared him and it startled her.

"They were all fools you know?" he said without opening his eyes

"Oh. I'm sorry. Were you speaking to me?" she asked nervously stepping back slightly.

He wore fine clothes, though he looked a bit rumpled and there was a tatter at his elbow. His hair was a mass of unkempt loose curls that stuck to his high forehead and obviously needed washed. His eyes open and he smiles at her. "Nobody else around, Dr. Hooper. So you will have to do."

"I'm sorry, do I know you? You know my name?" She twirls her hair nervously and tries to grasp any memory of where they could have met. She doesn't want to be rude, but she wasn't accustomed to being spoken to by strange, slightly homeless looking men who sleep on public benches.

He resumes his meditative state, eyes closed again as he speaks at the same pace as a Gatling gun. "It's on your lab coat. You work at Bart's. I came in with Detective Inspector Lestrade last week. He's not speaking to me now. I fell off the wagon. Being punished for rewarding myself for solving his stupid case for him. His wife is a tattle-tale. I know her secrets and she's afraid I will tell on her and the shop-keep she is bedding. She bullied him into kicking me out. So now it is either turn to my brother's mercy or crawl back to the Detective Inspector and pretend his wife doesn't make my skin creep. This is her third affair to date. Poor man is blind. Neither of those two options is suitable, not when I can work circles around them all. With a bit of help, that is. " He says all of this as almost a run on sentence, so fast she has to take a step forward to hear. He holds his hands under his chin as if praying and his face is placid as if he is chanting a meditation rather than gossip.

Molly doesn't follow most of what he just said, but she tries to remember which Detective Inspector is named Lestrade. She narrows it down to two possible people, but doesn't remember any young officer in either's company last week. She wonders if this wife got the man before her fired.

"Oh. I don't remember meeting you," she says carefully knowing she would have remembered that incredibly deep purr of a voice.

His eyes pop open and his head rolls toward her, his eyes change from grey to a sudden green and she is mesmerized by the way he sees her so intently, almost with a hint of insanity. Most eyes never lock to hers. Most eyes pass over her without noticing her. His eyes see her and she sucks in her breath as he begins to tell her things he had no way of knowing.

"We haven't met. You were working and I saw you. You work in the morgue and your boss is a git, and you let him push you around even though you are far smarter than he is. You're timid and like dead people because you don't have to socialize with them. You had the talent to be a surgeon, but not the confidence. Also, from your shoes I see you have migraines and must wear something that keeps your posture from having undue stress on your neck. They are special order, but you should change them more because you wear your left heel down faster than the rest of the shoe, could try tacking a nail head or two into the next new pair, will make them last longer and you'll suffer less for it if you can't afford a cobbler to attach a cleat. Doesn't cost that much, but you are frugal to a fault. Your skirt was your mother's and you wear it for sentimental reasons rather than fashion, which means you don't argue with her, could be she's amazing, but a daughter rebels against her mother's fashion choices unless…Oh, sorry for your loss. You have tiny burns on your hands, which means you worked in a chippy at some point, maybe to put yourself through University but more likely because you were too young to be doing it. They are old and there is growth on most of them, and you have only been out of Uni for three years tops, so this was a childhood job. Family business. Accent not from London, though you learned Received Pronunciation at some point, which means public school. Scholarship probably and you hated it, because you had never had time to interact with children your own age, probably stunted socially by the death of your mother, and the fact you took care of your father. It was just you and he against the wolves. Money was tight and you have never liked to spend it on yourself. Your father is quiet, so you are too, mix that with the teasing you received during your what, two years at some horrid posh girls boarding school? Must have been brilliant for them to offer you a tuition free education. Your father was so proud, wasn't he, and then he became ill and you cut your dreams short in order to take care of him, thus you stand before me a Pathologist rather than a surgeon. How is he doing?"

Molly stood with her mouth open then burst into tears. "He passed away, four weeks ago." She managed to say with some small amount of dignity. She sat down next to him and he watched her cry. He sat up and pulled his feet in toward his body, perching like a gargoyle watching a wedding, and rested his head on his knees and stared at her. He made no comment, nor any move to comfort her. She appreciated the fact he didn't give her any sympathy. People feeling sorry for her just made it harder to stop crying and she hated to cry in public. She got herself under control and looked down at the sandwich in her hand. "Sorry. Want half?" she offered.

He accepted and shoved a third of it in his mouth as if he were starving, then spoke before he was finished chewing. "I'm sorry. I'm socially awkward as well. Everyone hates me in fact. Had my own fun at Public school, though in my case it was Harrow and my brother had been athletic and liked. I was a disappointment."

"I was a bit of a disappointment too. Dad had told everyone I wanted to be a surgeon. He said working in the morgue was a creepy profession." She said taking a bite and chewing slowly.

"Well, I have lots of impressive scraps of paper and I'm a homeless junkie. At least this week. I win." He says with a smirk and popping the last of the sandwich in his mouth and helping himself to her fizzy water without asking.

Molly laughed. Sherlock could tell at once it was with him, not at him and he laughed too. Molly leaned her head back on the cool stone. He was right about the migraines. "Thank you for saying that. And for not being afraid of the creepy morgue girl. I like what I do. Probably weird, but, I think it's important. The dead talk to me in some ways. No, don't take that wrong. I don't hear them. I can see their lives on their faces. That's all. Some of them are beautiful, no matter how bad they look at that moment. Like these." She points up to the names on the wall behind her.

Her eyes opened and she adjusted the angle of her throbbing head, letting a new spot enjoy the cool stone to ease her pain. "They weren't fools. They were heroes. All of them would have been beautiful in death. They gave up their lives and their dreams for others. It's not foolish. It's the most lovely thing I could imagine. I'll never be loved like that again I suppose. My father gave up his great love for me. He left the sea and mourned her every day but didn't regret it. He could have shipped me off to school or some relative and hired my mother a nurse, but he sold his boat and came home for good. Mum said he was a hero and she was right. I may never find that kind of person to love me again, but I understand it. Lots of people think they love someone, but only a few ever really find out. That's who I lost, a bit over a month ago. My hero. I'm not afraid of the dead. I like meeting them, even if they can't tell their life stories with words. "

Sherlock studied her intently the whole time she spoke and she blushed under his scrutiny. "I like dead bodies too, " he blurted.

Molly cast a sideways glance at the man she was sharing her lunch with. He'd finished his and was eyeing her half. "There's crisps if you want them. But you like dead bodies… in what way? Not making them, I hope."

Sherlock reached into the bag and opened the crisps before speaking. "You would share your lunch with a serial killer? I look like a serial killer to you?"

Molly shrugged. "What do they look like? Maybe, they look like people who wear a bespoke suit with a tear in the sleeve and sleep on benches. I know their work, but I don't know what they look like."

"I know their work too. They are all different, puzzles, fascinating, brilliant and stupid. They all think they will get away with it. They all think they are smarter than everyone. But they aren't smarter than me. They murder people and I stop them. I solve their puzzles and follow all the details and it always leads me right to the solution. I love the clever ones as much as I want to make them stop the cleverness. There's the rub. I play the game and by winning, I lose. I have to wait for another clever opponent to randomly show up before I can play again. Oh, but there is nothing like the hunt. I live for it. Well sometimes, when the idiot system will let me. Right now I'm on the rough a bit, because my friend at Scotland Yard is being a selfish tosser. Won't let me in the crime lab."

"So, you're with Scotland Yard then?" She asks, knowing he's probably telling her a lie if he claims he is. Sleeping on a bench in his condition was too much even for an undercover detective. She wants to like him and has the urge to help him, but there isn't much to be done for someone who doesn't want help and he seemed to have burned his bridge with someone who had been trying.

"Consulting Detective. I just invented it. They don't call me that. Not yet anyway."

"What do they call you?" Molly asks with a shy smile, deciding she likes this man with the fiery eyes and need to stop evil men. He'd passed one test, he hadn't lied.

"Junkie, on a good day, but mostly, Freak."

Her breath sucks in at the unexpected answer, and she looks genuinely angry. "That's horrible. People can be dreadful bores. You aren't a freak at all. But what I meant was, you know my name, but I don't know yours."

"Oh," He clears his throat and scratches his head nervously, "Holmes. Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock Holmes. That's nice. Nope, not the name of a serial killer, at all. They always have common names like John, Peter, William or Robert. Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. It sounds very official, even if you did make it up. You'll need to get your jacket mended if you intend to look the part." She nods in approval.

Sherlock laughs and says, "From my name, you decided you're safe? Talking to a bloke half the police force in the city calls a sociopathic freak doesn't scare you? Because my name alleviates any fear of my being a member of the dismembering body-maker club? I see why you like this lot then," his head nods toward the wall. "You're like them. Brilliant, I see. But also spectacularly foolish." He had puffed up and glares at her in an intimidating way.

Molly wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. "Are you sure you are safe? There have been a few females who did that sort of thing too. I could be wrong but I don't think you are. No, I didn't really decide just by your name. Your eyes. You have kind eyes."

Sherlock wilts as if crestfallen. He looks down and picks at his trousers. His voice is deep but quiet, "No one has ever said that to me before. Never."

Molly cocks her head and tucks a stray bit of hair behind her ear. "Well, they are all fools then. Who cares what they think. Unless they happen to be smarter than you, they don't get to have an opinion that counts. I can tell you're smart. What did you read?"

"Chemistry and music," he says self-consciously.

"Wow. I tried to play the piano once. My teacher told my dad I was all thumbs and he shouldn't waste his money. I was heart-broken at the time." Molly holds out her hands and sighs.

"I could teach you. I mean I am much more adept with the violin, but I am adequate at the piano," Sherlock volunteers.

"That would be lovely, but I warn you, the teacher was probably right. I couldn't afford to pay you much," she says with hesitation.

"I don't need money. We could trade?" he asks with too much enthusiasm.

"Oh. Umm." Molly feels her throat closing and looks away, slightly offended.

He sighs, and shakes his head, "No. No, not what just crossed your mind. I mean, I need a lab. A real one. If you could sneak me into Bart's late at night, I could use one of the labs and then we could go up to the chapel and I could teach you to play the piano in exchange."

She is still shaking her head, not sure she wants to get involved and quite certain he has somehow planned this. He seems earnest, but Molly doesn't quite buy that he showed up here casually. "I could get in a lot of trouble."

He grins like a cat, "Yes, you could. Problem?"

She laughs and gathers up the rubbish from her lunch. He watches her intently and she has to concentrate to keep from giggling or acting stupid. She stands up and brushes the crumbs from her skirt. "I work the graveyard Thursday and Saturday. Come after two and it should be okay. We will see how it goes. If you get caught, I have never met you before and I have no problem stopping you from coming back if you cause me distress."

That had been nearly eight years ago. She wasn't very good at the piano, but she could play a few Christmas songs and happy birthday very adequately and if given some time to practice, she could plunk out an amateur version of a few classics. He wasn't the best or the most dependable teacher and she was a below average student, but somewhere along the line, he'd become her friend. She'd grown to love the awkward shy junkie and as his success had become more established, she'd seen less and less of the man she'd met in the park and more and more of the aloof coldly-obsessed Consulting Detective.

She was the first to call him a consulting detective, introducing him that way as if it were fact. Now he had this snobby way of bragging, 'the only one in the world' as if it were a credential that had been bestowed upon him by the queen, rather than something he'd made up once upon a time.

She had long ago figured out that as much as she felt his recreational drug use would lead him to ruin at some point, that it brought out a more open side of him she wished she could find when he was completely sober. Sometimes, she caught glimpses of him, but until he'd had to depend on her, or again wanted something, Sherlock was usually too distant and oblique to acknowledge more than a perfunctory acquaintance between them.

Molly had spent years dropping subtle hints that she would happily accept his advances if he would simply make one. But, having listened to him make fun of any girl who acted forward towards him, she didn't want to make the same error. Over time she'd let him get away with all sorts of atrocious behavior, and had developed a thick skin when he said things like her mouth was too small or her dandruff was caused by her cheap shampoo. He always told her the truth. In a way, that was a form of intimacy. He didn't mean to make her feel insulted. She'd seen him turn that sort of lethally vengeful scrutiny upon almost everyone who annoyed him.

With her, he never said things with the intention of cruelty, which didn't take the sting away from his comments, but she had learned to accept his scrutiny as flattery. Other people making fun of him only reinforced her protectiveness. She understood that what they said did hurt his feelings, though there was never a twitch of evidence it was true, unless he was buzzed.

He noticed everything, from her brand change of feminine products to her migraines she never complained about. Her hints didn't go unnoticed, simply unsung.

Over the years he'd done things for her unexpectedly. Sherlock would breeze into the morgue and drop off a box of herbal tea meant to prevent migraines. She sometimes found a box of chocolate, opened and two or three bitten or missing, with a note that he hated them and could she throw them away. One winter she'd sprained her ankle and every morning and afternoon for three weeks, a taxi waited at her door to take her to work. There would be another waiting when her shift was over. They were all paid for and the driver would not even accept a tip. Sherlock never admitted he'd arranged this, but he hadn't denied it either. He would text Molly that she needed to stay away from the tube for the next two weeks, hinting without saying that he knew of some reason it could put her in danger. Once she'd met Mycroft, she had a better idea of the source of his information.

Others never saw this side of him, so they judged her for what they viewed as a hopeless crush on the freak. Molly weathered their laughter and she had weathered their initial pity when he'd 'died' but she didn't feel caring about him was a waste of time. She didn't feel used most of the time, because it wasn't one-sided. He gave in a different way, but she had always felt he enriched her life rather than encumbered it.

She had had to face facts when John came into the picture. She saw, finally, a plausible reason he'd never considered her date material. This theory had never been discussed and it didn't quite hold water after he'd had to identify a woman from parts that could have only been encountered in a much more intimate setting then friendship. She'd tried to ask once if a phone he was x-raying belonged to a girlfriend, but hadn't really gotten much of a definitive answer, other than something about games.

Eventually he had not needed her to sneak him in the lab. His reputation with Scotland Yard had gained him access. He had permission to come any time. He spent hours there now and everyone knew who he was as he swept in wearing his greatcoat and tight expensive suits. Molly found this unspoken divide between her class upbringing and his intimidating, but not Sherlock. Her colleagues cringed and headed for high ground when he appeared near the morgue.

People feared him, disliked him and had no clue why she seemed to be so infatuated with him. She got away with far more than she should have, simply because if they fired her for it, they would then have to deal with Sherlock Holmes. They backed her up on any lie she told, because there were rumors about his connections.

She had told a mortician that a body had to have the head disposed of by nuclear technicians, beings it was exuding radiation. That week, she met John alone for the first time. John threatened to report her if he found any more heads in his apartment. She had smiled at him and leaned in close and ask Dr. Watson if he'd thought that idea out all the way. "If you get me fired, what do you suppose he would do to obtain his playthings? I mean experiments."

John had turned red, then a little green and finally his face had gone white. Molly sipped the coffee John had bought her and suddenly she'd giggled. John tried really hard not to laugh too, but they both got the joke and the image of the multitude of awful ways that Sherlock might resupply if she were not there to help him in his times of boredom.

If Sherlock were just using her, he could have stopped speaking to her at this point. Oh there was no doubt he did use her, but that wasn't the whole story. It had never been the whole story.

This night, he needed her and all he ever had to do was ask. She, like John, would kill to protect him. No matter what, she would always, be on his side.

She pays the taxi and waits. The gates are closed to the park. She stands in the shadows and looks around. A figure lofting over the fence at her, didn't startle her at all. She was used to Sherlock's dramatic entrances. She moved in his direction and they both paused to study each other for a split second. Molly and Sherlock both seemed to lose motor function and they ended up lurching the last four steps toward the other and embracing. They clung desperately to the other, like two shipwrecked lovers finding themselves the only survivors to wash up on an atoll. Molly hid her face and pressed her forehead to his chest as he buried his nose in her hair.

"I thought he was with you?" she whispers, because her throat feels like it has razor shards of glass grinding into her vocal cords. It is a question, an accusation and she's also pleading for him to tell her that John is safe.

She had never heard him weep like this, not even after he jumped off the roof. That had been a lousy day as he had realized that even if he had survived, he'd lost his entire life. His past was dead, and the life he'd built and took for granted was now all in the past. This is far worse. This, it is a terrible sound. It is a dry sizzle, like he is coming apart as if sorrow were scorching and blistering him from the inside. It's the sound made by a lorry tyre spewing its air or Sherlock Holmes ejecting gasps of his sanity, "Why? He loved you. Why tell him? Why didn't he come back to you? Why did he do …that?"

"I don't know," she murmurs back. She is holding everything she feels inside but she is shaking with the force of the battle. She wants to be strong for him and she knows Sherlock must need her comfort right now, but nothing can stop the kind of artillery she and he have just endured. They hold each other and take comfort that neither is alone in this empty world in which John Watson doesn't breath.

She has no idea how much time passes but he suddenly looks around fully alert and he grabs her hand and begins leading her down mews and through pass-ways. She is lost and exhausted by this sudden burst of exercise. Jolted, afraid and unable to run any further, she is wheezing by the time he shoves her through a doorway into total darkness.

Molly holds her arms out, blindly waiting in the choking darkness. She can smell something tainted with some fluid that belongs to motorcars and something that may be petrol, but she can't see anything and the only noise comes from him. She assumes he is fumbling for light and patiently waits in place trying to force her eyes to adjust by blinking rapidly which is as useful as hitting the button to the lift when it is already lit up. She can't see anything and has no idea how he's negotiating around in this total lack of luminance. It reminded her of a cave.

Out of the darkness, Sherlock's mouth closed over hers and she pulled back startled. More needy than cautious, he clamped her body against him as if he were preparing to take her right there on the filthy floor, in the dark. A harsh, low growl escaped him and Molly's skin prickled with gooseflesh.