Third chapter!
See what happens when I receive reviews! lol! Thanks!
I'm really not picky on what they say, or who sends them. I'm shallow that way, I like the numbers to be even...
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It was the middle of the night.
No.
It was early morning.
2:36 AM according to the digital clock glowing on Molly's nightstand.
She reached past it to the lamp and it took several blinks and seconds for her eyes to adjust to the light.
Molly sat up in bed.
The knock came again, polite but pounding and she realized what had awoken her.
Molly pulled the covers off and pulled herself out of bed.
Because she was wearing only small pajamas, she grabbed the closest covering to put on and give herself her usual modesty before answering the door.
It was her labcoat.
Molly buttoned it absent-mindedly while she crossed her bedroom and hurried down the hall so her hands had something to do until they undid the locks and pulled open the door.
Molly pulled open the door.
She had just rushed out of the bathroom where she had been quickly applying her make up until she got the text.
I'm here :)
-Jim
"Hey, Jim!" she greeted and smiled, trying not to look as if she had just been getting ready but also making sure she didn't look like she had been waiting idly for hours anticipating his arrival.
"Hi, Molly. I know I'm early, I'm sorry." Jim from IT grinned, sheepishly, looking down at his shoes before meeting her eyes.
He shrugged and then smiled sheepishly again.
They both stood, on opposite sides of the door, looking at each other and not looking at each other.
It was a bit like a mirror.
Jim from IT laughed nervously and Molly matched it.
Suddenly she realized what she had done wrong this time and quickly spoke to remedy it.
"Well come in, then!" she invited, stepping aside to allow his passage into her apartment.
Jim smiled and stepped past Molly over the threshold into her home.
"May we come in?" Lestrade had said.
Molly had nodded, not speaking just yet, knowing that if the police were to visit her at this hour then whatever it was they wanted to discuss must be important.
Now Lestrade and Donavan were standing at the kitchen counter dividing her kitchen from her living room, watching her as she searched her fridge for a beverage she could serve them.
"…I've…um…well I've got some juice…" Molly's voice called from the refrigerator her head was inside.
"Really it's alright." Lestrade told her, "We don't need anything, just to talk to you."
Molly straightened herself up, closed the fridge and turned around to stand across from where the two detectives stood at the counter, their files placed carefully upon it.
"You sure…?" she asked, maybe she was stalling.
"Yes." Lestrade affirmed and then added, "…please, sit down."
"I'll stand…" Molly said, looking him in the eyes, her forehead furrowed nervously.
There was only one stool as Molly rarely had company and no one dared to be the one to occupy it.
"We have some questions we need you to answer-" Donovan began but was interrupted by Lestrade.
"No. First…first we need to tell her…in case she doesn't know." He decided.
"…know what?" Molly asked tentatively, as if she didn't want to know what she didn't know.
"Um…well…."Lestrade began, trying to find away to phrase what he was about to say, "As you know there have been a series of attempted attacks around the city this past week, as well as an actual explosion with casualties…"
"The apartment building. I know." Molly stated, "Twelve of them. Eleven corpses…I started the exams on the first two this afternoon…"
Molly was about to go on break.
In the process of shedding her labcoat as she was passing through the hospital waiting room on her way outside, the hanging television caught her eye.
She stood still, like many others around her, and watched the wreckage of the smoking building on the screen.
Molly sighed and turned around, pulling back on her labcoat and hurrying back towards the morgue.
This meant she would be having some new customers come in soon.
It also meant Sherlock Holmes had been too late.
"Look, Ms. Hooper, I'm going to be straight with you on this because it's very late, I'm tired and we need answers." Donovan cut in, "Your boyfriend-"
"James…or, well, Jim-"Lestrade clarified.
"Jim from the IT department at Bart's?" Molly asked quickly, "He's not my boyfriend."
"That's right." Donovan agreed, "He's a criminal. He's behind all the kidnappings and bombing attempts…"
"What?" Molly exclaimed.
She was glad she hadn't gotten any drinks from the fridges as she was sure she would have spilled them or spit some out.
Either way she would have embarrassed herself and stained her white labcoat.
"Jim Moriarty." Lestrade explained, "He's the one who's been strapping bombs to people, leaving clues all over London for Sherlock to solve."
"He's the one obsessed with the freak." Donovan said.
"Um, well, Molly there's something I have to admit…"
Jim from IT glanced out the window and then down at the empty styrofoam coffee cup he was tapping at restlessly.
"What is it?" Molly asked him from the other side of the small, quiet table in the corner of the coffee shop.
Independent, because Jim didn't like chains, and a few blocks away from the hospital.
"When I started reading your blog I became a bit….obsessed with you…" Jim from IT started, watching his own fingers move, "I know, stupid right. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it. Being the computer geek I am…I just, well you know, I just took a look at your internet browsing history and…"
"You can do that?" Molly asked, surprised, offended and impressed all at the same time.
It caused her to look up at him.
"Yeah, course I can, it's easy really…"Jim from IT blushed, chuckling, "…well, to me anyway. But like I said, I am a technology freak…"
He looked up at her at that point.
It caused her to take a sip from her cup, although it was already empty.
They had been sitting here for almost forty-five minutes.
"Well what did you see, Jim…?" Molly asked cautiously, wondering if Jim from IT had hacked her work computer or her laptop and just what he had found.
She tried to sound aloof, though, in her question.
"Oh, nothing much, really." Jim from IT shrugged, "It was just your computer at Bart's, it's the only one I've got access to, up in IT. Don't worry."
He attempted a wink and then laughed.
Molly tried not to look relieved.
"Oh." She smiled.
"I get bored, work gets boring, life gets boring …" Jim continued, "I need something to waste away the time…so I looked up your blog and then your browsing history and all that. I saw that you visited that blog by that doctor about Sherlock Holmes...quite a lot actually."
"Yes, well, he's a friend, Sherlock is…I guess." Molly said.
Although she didn't really believe her words she suspected Jim from IT would be gullible enough to.
It beat explaining her unrequited crush on the consulting detective.
"You're his friend?" Jim from IT inquired, "You know him?"
"He comes around the morgue once and a while," Molly explained, "to, you know, take a look at the bodies and stuff. He always catches the things I miss…he's so…well he's-"
"Brilliant." Jim stated, "A genius."
"Yes." Molly nodded.
"I know." Jim confirmed, "Truth is I'm a big fan."
"You are? So am I…" Molly replied, not so sure that she liked that her new romantic interest was interested in her old, apathetic one, "I guess you could say I'm a tad bit obsessed…"
"I know." Jim from IT repeated, and then chuckled, "Browsing history, remember?"
"Oh yeah." Molly blushed, laughing a little.
"But you're more than just a fan, you actually know him." Jim added, "…do you—do you think I could meet him? Do you think you could, you know, introduce me…?
Molly took another drink of her long cold, long gone coffee.
It gave her time to think.
"Yeah, I think I could." She said finally, smiling, "Next time he drops by, I'll text you."
"Thanks, Molly! Thank you so much!" Jim grinned, "You have no idea how much this means to me!"
Molly was in shock.
How could this be possible?
Jim from IT, the crazed criminal mastermind chasing after Sherlock?
The shy, nervous, nerdy, gay Jim from IT?
There was no way.
But then Molly remembered the break-up.
Jim had gotten so angry and it was so weird; shouting, mocking and openly threatening her on the street in front of anyone passing by.
Jim from IT being Jim Moriarty the criminal would explain his strange, drastic shift in personality.
And the reason he was interested in her in the first place, to get close to Sherlock.
Other than "What?" Molly could find no words to say and so the room sat quiet, Lestrade and Donovan letting the information sink in until Molly was fully submerged in the realization of the truth and able to speak.
Before that could occur, something broke the silence.
A long meow.
Suddenly, Toby, Molly's cat who was supposed to be sleeping soundly in her bathroom sink, was up on the counter.
He meowed again.
"Oh!" Molly exclaimed, "Toby, what are you doing up here!"
Her cat had pulled her out of her thoughts and back into the current moment where he wanted to be petted and possibly fed.
"You have a cat." Lestrade commented, smiling a little, hoping this would lighten the mood enough to make this meeting less awkward.
He furthered that attempt by extending a hand to pet the cat.
Toby hissed and recoiled.
Quickly Molly snatched her cat off the counter and placed him down on the tiled floor, shooing him away from the kitchen.
"I'm so sorry!" Molly apologized, brushing the cat hairs off her labcoat "He does that to everyone…he's shy…"
"…Everything alright in there…?" Molly asked, tapping lightly on her bathroom door.
It was a very awkward question to ask but when a male had been in the restroom for over five minutes there very likely was a problem.
"Oh, it's good, I'm fine! " Jim from IT's voice called from inside the bathroom, "Toby's fine too!"
Of course he knew she had a cat and knew what its name was, he read her blog.
He was the only one who read her blog…
But she didn't write in her blog how Toby scratched visitors, and how it wasn't his fault since visitors were so infrequent that Toby didn't know any better and got scared.
"Careful!" Molly warned, rushing into the restroom, "He might scratch you…"
Her voice trailed off as she stopped to see Jim petting Toby, who was purring and rolling around contentedly in the sink.
"He seems harmless enough to me…" Jim said, smiling at her, still stroking the cat.
Molly was surprised, but pleasantly so.
"It's alright." Lestrade dismissed but Donovan looked disgusted.
Once Toby had trotted away, Molly spoke.
"So…Jim…James Moriarty….he's really, um...really behind it all….?"
"Yes." Lestrade nodded gravely.
"Tonight he kidnapped and attached a bomb to John Watson." Donovan explained, "He then met the fre—"
"He then met Sherlock Holmes…" Lestrade corrected, "at the pool where the victim from the cold case, the fourteen year swimmer, died and tried to kill them by sniper rifle and detonating the bomb…"
"What happened?" Molly demanded.
The volume and assertiveness in her voice was uncharacteristic but the suspense was ridiculous.
She had to know now.
Did Sherlock survive?
….Did Jim?
"He got a phone call." Lestrade answered.
"What?" Molly asked for what felt like the hundredth time that night—no, early morning.
"He received a phone call and just walked out of there." Donovan said, the answer as unsatisfactory, confusing and anti-climactic to her as it was to Molly.
"…oh…" Molly responded, fiddling with the buttons on her coat, "….did you all…um, catch him?"
"No." Lestrade stated bitterly, "He got away. We don't know how, we searched everywhere and couldn't find him."
"…and what about Sherlock…and um, Doctor Watson?" Molly inquired, "Are they okay?"
"The freak and his pet dog are fine," Donovan snapped, "It was all just fun and games for them, running around the city, solving mysteries, keeping score. People died, the killer got away but it was all just—"
"Enough." Lestrade silenced Donovan.
"So if they're okay… then you haven't come to tell me that Sherlock's died…" Molly inferred, "…and you wouldn't have come all this way at this hour just to tell me what happened…and so that must mean you're here to question me…about Jim…you think-"
"Yes, Ms. Hooper, like we said, we do have a few questions…" Lestrade affirmed, "But that doesn't mean we think anything. We don't think you're a suspect or knew anything about this. We just need to know if you have any information whatsoever about James Moriarty…"
"I…well, I…um…" Molly stammered, searching her brain for anything relevant.
Perhaps the argument during the break-up…
"Anything at all, even something that might seem small or unimportant…" Lestrade added.
"This is pointless, Greg." Donovan decided, "She doesn't know anything. You saw her face when we told her. She had no idea. She knows nothing…"
Molly wanted so badly to prove Donovan wrong, to come up with the perfect miniscule piece of information, the kind that usually only Sherlock would notice, that would lead to the arrest of Jim from IT—no Jim Moriarty.
Maybe because she wanted to get back at Jim for fooling her or Donovan for assuming she was ignorant just like Sherlock always did…
…or maybe it was because if she did she wouldn't feel as stupid.
But Molly couldn't think of anything and before she could speak, Lestrade and Donovan had thanked her for her time and shown themselves out.
"Nice flat…" Jim from IT admired as he stepped into the biggest room of Molly's apartment for the first, examining the room as thoroughly as if he was memorizing it.
"It's small." Molly said humbly, "But I like it."
"It suits you." Jim decided, "I like it too."
"Thanks…" Molly smiled, knowing that Jim from IT had meant the comment as a compliment.
And now he was shy again, instead of scanning the room he was looking down at the carpet.
"…do you, um…" he began, "...always wear your labcoat…?"
Molly glanced down at herself, realizing that indeed she was wearing the white labcoat she wore while cutting open corpses in the morgue.
She had been so focused on getting her make-up right that she had forgotten to take the darn thing off.
"Oh! Sorry!" she exclaimed, embarrassed, "Lemme just-"
"No, uh, allow me…" Jim from IT offered.
Like the proper, albeit nervous, gentleman, Jim from IT helped Molly with her coat, resting it behind him on the back of the sofa.
Molly was, of course, fully dressed in simple solid colored shirt and slacks, but still felt naked, as she always did, without her labcoat.
"Thanks!" She said, staring at Jim standing in between and her armor and trying not to look as defenseless and uncomfortable as she felt.
"You look…nice…" Jim replied.
It had been so long since a man had complimented her appearance that Molly accepted it wholeheartedly despite the fact that it had come just at the moment she was even more vulnerable than she usually was.
I know I said Sherlock failed which did not happen at the point in the Great Game episode, however Molly didn't know that.
Thanks for reading so far, thanks for reviewing so far, and I hope you like it so far!
Please review and I will post the next chapter soon!
Thanks again!