Faced with a dilemma – answer the damned phone or pull Mary into his arms for a comforting hug – John managed to do both. He held the mobile to his ear and said, "Hello?" while placing his free arm around Mary's shoulders, holding her close and pressing a quick kiss to her temple as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. Mary's presence meant he hadn't bothered to see who it was.

"Did you miss me?"

John froze, his arm unconsciously tightening around Mary's shoulder. Something in his face, or the stillness of his body, alerted the others; Molly and Mrs. Hudson both rose to their feet and hurried to stand in front of him. With a trembling thumb, John pressed the button to put the call on speaker, then held the mobile away from his face. "Sherlock?"

The sound of Sherlock's rumbling chuckle filled the room, raising in pitch until it was a shrill giggle before ending abruptly. "Oh, John, honey, we both know it's not Sherlock. He gave things away, didn't he Miss Molly, hmm? Did something so you could put two and two together and come up with the right answer for once? And I played right into his hands by saying what I did. Didn't I. DIDN'T I!"

The last words were shouted, and both Molly and Mrs. Hudson flinched a bit at the sound. Then Molly squared her shoulders and took a step closer, speaking directly into the phone as she said, "Yes, Jim, you did. If you hadn't said anything I would have gone on believing the lie, even with what I saw."

"Yes, the trick with the eyes, he doesn't seem to have full control over it, I caught a glimpse in the mirror and put two and two together. I suppose I should give him credit for being so fucking clever." The voice was sullen now, and John could clearly picture Sherlock's trademark pout superimposed on Moriarty's face. "It explains why there was nothing on the police scanners about Sherlock Holmes being wanted for questioning. Oh well, now that the cat's out of the bag I guess I'll have to skip the rest of the preliminaries and go straight to the end game."

"Which is what, exactly?" John asked, although he had a sinking suspicion he knew exactly what said 'end game' was going to be.

The sound of a long, drawn-out sigh came dramatically from the mobile's speaker. "Oh, the usual; death, destruction, jumping from a roof…only this time without anyone helping, isn't that right, Molly? Hmm? You won't be able to stop me this time, won't be able to keep your precious Sherlock from offing himself for real. I imagine you'll just cry and cry when you find his body, all of you will. Which is fine, not what I wanted when I started this, true, but plans have to be flexible or they're no good at all."

"Jim, please, don't do this," Molly said, her brown eyes enormous against the paleness of her face. "Please, just…just let him go, you've had your fun, hurt us all in your own way, but what will it accomplish if you kill him? You'll still be dead, still a ghost; there still won't be any way for us to stop you from doing whatever you want. So why kill Sherlock, why not just let him go so you can laugh at him, laugh at us all as we try and fail to get rid of you?"

John's admiration for Molly rose several notches; it wouldn't have occurred to him to beg for Sherlock's life like this, by appealing to Jim's ego rather than his non-existent mercy. However, when Molly went on to add, "Please, let him go, let him live, take me instead if you feel like you have to kill someone…" John knew it was time to step in.

"Moriarty," he barked silencing Molly with a stern look. "What Molly says is true; it'll be much more satisfying, won't it, if Sherlock is alive to keep playing your sick games? If you have him around to try and figure out who you've possessed or what mischief you're up to, to always be two steps behind you, rather than a corpse who can't do anything more to amuse you?"

There was silence from the other end of the phone, for so long that John began to worry that Moriarty was no longer listening, that he'd simply left the mobile sitting somewhere while he took his stolen body up to a tall building and flung himself off it. The sight was one all-too-easily conjured in John's mind; the memory of watching Sherlock do just that a little over two years ago would stay with him forever, no matter that it had been as fake as anything in a movie.

Finally, he heard Sherlock's voice, sounding almost normal. Almost as if it were actually him speaking and not an impossible specter from beyond the grave. John spared a second to wonder if Mary was in shock, she'd been so quiet since arriving, but then Moriarty's words caught his attention. "You present a compelling argument, the two of you. To kill or not to kill? That is the question. And if I do kill, kill whom? Sweet Sherlock, who cheated me of my victory, or Mousy Molly, who offered herself up to me in his stead? She's so fucking noble, isn't she? Always putting Sherlock's needs ahead of her own…well, except earlier," he added, his voice turning sly and filled with malevolence. "Sherlock wanted to fuck her and she tried to tell him no, which is soooo ironic, isn't it? Since it's the only thing she's wanted from him ever since she first laid eyes on him…"

"You're stalling for time. Why?"

John gaped at Mary, who had suddenly pulled herself out of his hold and snatched the phone from his hand. She was still the same Mary, the woman he'd fallen in love with and wanted to marry, but there was something different about her; the way she held herself, the expression of tightly controlled fury on her face…what the hell was going on?

"Come on, Jim, you can't have too much time left inside that stolen body; another day at most, yeah? So why are you stalling for time? What's the matter, can't find Sherlock? Hiding from you, is he?"

Silence greeted her jeering comment, on both sides of the mobile. Molly and Mrs. Hudson were openly gaping at Mary while John could do nothing but wait to see what Moriarty would have to say – and when this phone call was over, if there was time, he and his fiancée were going to have a very pointed discussion. "Well, well, well, Mary puts in her two cents," Moriarty finally sneered. "Didn't think I'd be hearing from you so soon, after I left you speechless back at your tacky little flat. Did you tell John, yet, all the secrets I revealed, hmm?"

"Lies, you mean," Mary replied, her voice holding steady, although John could see a bit of a quiver to her lips as she spoke. Great, the bastard had visited her at some point; what had he said to Mary? If he wasn't already dead, John would gladly kill him twice over for getting in Mary's face twice in the same bloody day.

"Oh, they weren't all lies," came Sherlock's taunting voice in a chilling, familiar sing-song. "Come on, Mary, we both know that. The best lies are mixed in with the truth."

"You're still stalling," Mary said flatly. "You can't find Sherlock inside his mind, he's hidden himself away from you somehow and it's driving you spare. You want to kill him, but you can't do it unless you know for certain he's aware of what you're doing, so you can feel his despair and anger and whatever negative emotions you need to feed off of. So you're trying to drive him out again by calling John. You were hoping, what, that the sound of John's voice would cause him to forget himself, to come out of hiding or reveal where that hiding place is? Well I've got news for you, Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes is a lot smarter than you give him credit for, and if he's got half the brains I think he has, he'll stay exactly where he is and not…"

Mary fell silent as the mobile went dead. She sighed and handed the phone back to John. "Well, shit," she said glumly. "I guess he didn't want to talk to me anymore. I just hope I got through to Sherlock…" She fell silent again as she caught the expression on John's face, and realized that Molly and Mrs. Hudson were staring at her with equal curiosity and concern. "Oh, I guess you want to know how I figured out it wasn't Sherlock, that he was possessed, huh."

John nodded. "Yeah, that would be good," he agreed, leaving his arm around her as he pocketed the mobile. "After that you can tell us what that bastard said to you, I presume that has something to do with it?"

Mary shook her head. "No, actually, I believed it was Sherlock talking to me, being an utter berk just like he was at lunch. It wasn't until you put him on speaker and I heard his voice through the mobile – oh, come on, you all must have noticed it, yeah?" she broke off to ask, glancing questioningly at the others. "The sort of echoey quality of his voice, how it almost sounded like two people talking at the same time, slightly out of sync? No?"

"Even if we did," Molly said, "how was that a clue to anything other than a faulty connection?"

Mary glanced at the sofa. "I think we might want to get comfortable," she said. "Because, well, it's kind of a long story…and honestly, not one I ever thought I'd share with anyone." She caressed John's face. "Not even you, love, but only because I didn't think you'd believe me."

John captured her hand in his and planted a soft kiss on her palm. "Whatever it is, it can't be as bad as my best friend being possessed by an evil spirit," he replied with a wry twist of the lips. They all sat down, Mrs. Hudson on her chair, Mary between Molly and John on the cheerful chintz sofa. John kept a tight hold of Mary's hand as she began to speak.