Hello there! Thank you so much for the reviews!

The more reviews I get, the quicker I update!

So keep on reviewing, thanks!

And this chapter has a little bit from Molly's blog which can be found a : / / w w w . . c o . u k / (remove spaces)

btw, Molly and Jim meet again in this one, dun dun dun!

Hope you like it!

Things were back to normal.

The rest of spring was normal.

(A prince had married a commoner without scandal-so maybe not...)

Summer was normal.

(Rioters ransacked the streets-so maybe not...)

Life was normal.

And Molly went to work and then went home and then went to work and then went home and so on and so on.

It had been six months since Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty's 'Great Game'…

(as Sherlock called it, much to the disgust of Sally Donovan and Anderson, and much to the sigh and eye-roll of Lestrade and John Watson)

…and since the two of them were the only things 'not normal' in Molly's life and they were both currently not interacting with her, Molly's life was back to normal.

(and also incredibly boring (not that that bothered her))

It was sad, of course, that the highlight of Molly's life were the rare times Sherlock would show up at the morgue for a few minutes asking for a 'spare' (well, they were all spare, weren't they, since none of them were being used) body part.

And it was sad, of course, that Molly would always oblige and Sherlock would wait, impatiently fidgeting, as she carefully severed whatever limb it was he wanted from some unclaimed corpse, put it into a cooler and then gave it to him.

And it was sad, of course, oh so sad, that Sherlock would then leave her there in the cold morgue alone, again, without even a 'thank-you'.

But this was normal.

(And wasn't normal what Molly had been trying so hard to be since the kids at primary school had called her 'weird'?)

It's too bad it was boring (not that she was complaining (yes she was, she definitely was.))

'Normal', however, was such a subjective word, Molly decided, knowing that for Sherlock 'normal' probably meant solving impossible mysteries and chasing down criminals. That wasn't boring.

But Molly's 'normal' was.

And what was she going to do about it?

Absolutely nothing.

She was just going to go to work, do her job and then go home and so on and so on.

That was until it started.

It had all started when Molly was on her way home from work one cool September day.

It was a quick train ride, just one stop since she lived conveniently close to the hospital but all that short trip Molly felt as if someone was following her.

Used to being ignored and going unnoticed Molly always 'woke up' a bit whenever she got that feeling of being watched.

Sitting in her normal train car, in her normal seat, at the normal time as she normally did, Molly looked up from the magazine she pretended to read on her way home even though reading while in motion always made her sick to her stomach.

She scanned the car for unfamiliar faces, (and there were always a few), but it was mostly the same people, most actually from the hospital, who worked the same shift as Molly and who talked amongst themselves or checked their phones or tried to sleep or stared into space right past her.

Molly couldn't pick anyone out of the crowd of the crowded train car but she could still feel someone's eyes on her.

Her invisible stalker followed her all the way home, off the tube, down the street and even into her apartment building where she heard footsteps behind her on the stairs but turned around to see nobody.

Maybe she was going crazy...

Molly closed her dark brown eyes and let the hot water pour over her dirty blonde hair and body.

She normally showered after work since examining dead bodies wasn't the cleanest of careers.

But today, instead of scrubbing herself efficiently, she just stood there.

It was the fourth day she had been 'followed home' and she was trying to calm herself down.

Molly's eyes flew open.

There had been a crash.

Maybe it was Toby?

No.

When her cat knocked something over, he did jump in surprise but then he trotted away nonchalantly as nothing happened and he was as innocent as could be.

This crash wasn't Toby.

This crash had sent Toby scurrying across the carpet and bounding into the bathroom, mewing to Molly from his safe place in the sink.

Someone was inside her apartment!

Molly kept the shower running and silently stepped out from behind the curtain.

Toby stared up at her and meowed again.

Molly dried her hand with the towel hanging on the door, pet Toby and then wrapped the towel around herself.

The bathroom door had already been thrown open by her cat and so Molly crept through it out into her hallway.

She listened for any noises.

All she heard was the city outside her window.

Louder than normal…

Molly then felt the draft; it wasn't just the water on her skin chilling her.

The window was open!

Dashing across her apartment, Molly found the open window in her living room and slammed it shut, drawing the curtains tightly closed.

What the hell…?

Whenever a child died an autopsy was automatically ordered.

This particular child, a teenage girl of fifteen, whose sixteenth birthday was only three months away as indicated by her files, lay on Molly's table.

It was always sad, yes but she wasn't the first and she wasn't the youngest and so Molly treated her no differently than any other murder victim.

Except, of course, that this girl wasn't murdered.

It was always sad when a child committed suicide.

Normally police, medical examiners and doctors wouldn't reveal suicide as the cause of death to the child's parents if the results of the exam were even slightly ambiguous.

They wanted to spare the family the grief of knowing not only was their loved one dead, but that their loved one wanted to be dead and it was all their fault.

But there was no question with this girl.

Molly had found the note in the girl's pocket during the external examination.

(In the other pocket was a second bottle of her mother's prescription, most likely there just in case downing the first bottle hadn't worked.)

I want you to know that you made me do this! You did this to me, all of you! See what you've done! I just couldn't take it anymore!

Goodbye…

There was no way to conceal this from the parents; they would feel the grief of knowing their daughter had ended her own life…

…and they would blame themselves.

(and wasn't that what this girl had wanted, given the note she had written before swallowing an overdose of her mother's medication?)

Before she could put the note into evidence the phone rang.

Quickly setting the folded paper down on the metal table Molly went to answer the landline on the wall.

She wondered who it was since it was rare for the morgue to receive phone calls, guessing that it was probably someone in the hospital or from the police calling to ask a question.

"Hello?" Molly said as she picked up the phone and put it to her ear.

No answer.

"…hello…?" Molly repeated, "Is anyone there?"

Still no answer.

Molly hung up the phone and started back towards the table to continue her work.

The phone rang again.

"Hello?!" Molly answered.

Breathing.

Just heavy breathing.

"Who is this?" Molly demanded.

When she, once again, received no answer Molly slammed the phone back on to the wall.

Someone was prank calling her.

The phone rang again.

"You know it's illegal to make prank calls like this!" Molly snapped into the phone as soon as she picked it up.

"Excuse me…?" the confused and offended voice of Donovan asked, "This is Sargent Sally Donovan, I was just calling to ask a question. Is this Molly Hooper?"

"Um…yes…" Molly stated, embarrassed, "I'm sorry…I thought-what was your question?"

Molly was glad to be home as soon as she got there.

Those prank calls had put her into a bad mood. They had become a somewhat of a normal occurrence now these past three weeks and Molly tried her best to disregard them but she could never just not answer the phone—just in case it actually was someone calling for a legitimate reason.

And, as usual, Molly had felt someone watching and following her on her way back to her apartment (which was now also 'normal').

Molly sank down into her couch and switched on the television, determined to lose herself in whatever drama that was on and forget all about her not so good day.

About ten minutes into a show, as she was already drifting off into a nap, Molly heard a knock on the door.

She considered ignoring it but when it became more insistent Molly reluctantly rose from the couch and hurried to her front door to answer it.

But once she opened the door no one was there.

Molly poked her head out the door, looking both way up and down the hallway but seeing no one.

She yelled "hello" out into the hall, just in case, but knew that it was pointless.

On her way back to the sofa, after closing the door, Molly had a feeling that this was going to become a thing.

She was right.

Two more times Molly was roused from the couch by a knock at the door.

Practically running on the third time towards the door, she threw it open to find out just who was playing knocking version of 'ding-dong-ditch' with her.

And after that third time Molly found nobody there, Molly waited for the knock to come again.

For almost half an hour Molly stared into the peep hole, hidden behind her closed door like a predator lying in wait for its prey.

Alas, Molly was no hunter and the knocker never knocked on her door again that day.

(although he did the next day, and the day after that and again the day after that.)

At this point Molly realized that there was probably only one person who would want to do this to her, who would actually do this to her and who would get away with doing this to her (or anyone).

And that person's name was Jim Moriarty.

He had to be the one pranking her like this, he was obviously trying to scare her and carry out the threat he had made to her before she had even known who he really was.

Molly wondered if she should call the police but decided against it as she had no proof that it was Moriarty doing this to her, let alone that these things were even happening to her at all.

People might think that she was just going crazy.

So what was Molly going to do about this, then?

Nothing.

It was all she could do. Do nothing and wait for something else (worse?) to happen.

And it did.

It was the beginning of November and Molly had only left the morgue for a few minutes, just gone down the hall to the vending machine to get a snack, but when she came back the corpse that was on her table had been moved.

Well dead bodies didn't just get up and move so Molly knew that someone (Jim Moriarty) must have moved it.

The body, a gunshot victim of a robbery gone wrong, was now seated upright on the table, elbow resting on his knee and chin resting on his palm as if he was in deep thought despite being dead.

After gaping in shock for a few seconds Molly approached the corpse to return it to its proper position but then stopped.

This was proof!

Molly turned and hurried back out of the room to get security.

When she returned, uniformed security guard in tow, Molly said "look" and pointed to the strangely situated body.

Except when the guard looked the table was empty.

"I don't see anything." He told her.

"What?" Molly exclaimed and looked away from the guard, over to the empty table and then back at the guard, "What—huh—but—how?!"

"Look lady, I said I had to see this to believe it" he guard began, "and I don't see anything. This is a big hospital and I don't have time to waste down here when there are living people that could be in danger upstairs."

"It was there!" Molly cried, "I saw it! I swear!"

"Get your eyes checked, then." The guard said, folding his arms, "There's a good ophthalmologist on the sixth floor."

He was about to leave the room.

Flushed by the missing body and the man's insult, Molly struggled to speak.

"The body's still gone, isn't it!" she reminded, "Even if it's not sitting up like I said it was, it's still gone. Somebody must have taken it!"

"Now a missing body is a big deal, ma'am." The security guard stated, "If a body goes missing we have to call in the cops and write up the reports and—"

"I know." Molly interrupted flatly, "I work here."

"Exactly," the guard agreed, "So before you go saying a body's gone missing why don't you look for it first and save us all the trouble if it's just been 'misplaced'."

"Look," Molly countered, "I had it there on the table. Bodies don't just get up and walk away…"

"Maybe you put it back before you left the room." The guard suggested, "Isn't that procedure? Check in the drawer."

It was technically procedure but she was just going down to the vending machine…

"I know I didn't-" Molly started.

"Just check." The guard insisted.

"Fine…"Molly sighed.

The security guard followed her as she passed the empty table and went all the way over to where the rows of refrigerated metal drawers held the bodies.

She opened the one that belonged to her missing patient, knowing it would be empty.

"See." She said.

"Yes I do." The guard replied, "It's right there."

"What?" Molly exclaimed, looking away from the guard and down at the pulled out drawer where the body lay normally.

"I'm leaving now." The security guard declared.

Molly let him go, not even turning to watch him leave, as her face was now burning red.

She was still in disbelief, still embarrassed but now Molly was angry.

Moriarty was definitely the one doing this.

He was trying to mess with her and it was working.

When Molly got home from work that night to find her door unlocked, hanging slightly open, and her apartment 'redecorated' (not trashed, but completely disorganized) she had had enough.

Molly called Lestrade.

It was kind of silly thing to do without any proof but she knew that it would either get Moriarty to stop…

…or draw him out.

Molly hadn't mentioned his name but Lestrade (who was not stupid, despite Sherlock's assertions that he was and who was quite over qualified to be investigating a simple breaking and entering) immediately suspected it once had had heard her story.

"Do you think that this could be…Moriarty…doing this to you?" he asked cautiously.

He was standing facing Molly in her living room as rank and file officers catalogued all the 'misplaced' items.

Pillows were stacked in the fridge, the television and microwave had switched places, the two stools were tucked into bed, a plugged in lamp was taking a shower (that proved difficult to remove), and the cat was sleeping in the sink (he always did that but the police didn't know).

"…I don't…know…" Molly answered. It was technically true.

"And nothing was taken?" Lestrade clarified.

"No." Molly shook her head.

"I see." He stated seriously, "I'll be putting a detail parked outside this building. If you want I can have a female officer, Sally, maybe, stay with you tonight just in—"

"No." Molly said too suddenly and too sharply, "I mean no thank you. I don't…I don't I need that. I think I'm safe. I think if it's him and if he wanted to kill me…he would have done it already."

"Are you sure?" Lestrade checked, looking more worried than Molly did.

"Yes, I'm sure." Molly confirmed, "I'm fine."

"And you're sure you don't want me to contact…" Lestrade paused, "…Sherlock Holmes?"

"I'm sure." Molly insisted, making sure that she made no visible reaction to the name she had just heard.

She hadn't called the police to get their help, directly at least.

And she definitely hadn't called them for them to get Sherlock involved.

"Alright, then." Lestrade conceded.

He reassembled all his men and they filed out of Molly's apartment, leaving her to put it back together again.

From the window, though, Molly could see a police car parked across the street even long after all the others had left.

It wasn't marked, like the rest, but Molly recognized it.

It was Lestrade's.

For a while, again, things returned to normal.

('Normal' now including a police car, (sometimes marked, sometimes not) hanging outside of Molly's apartment building at night and in the hospital parking lot during the daytime.)

And so whenever Molly felt like she was being followed she just pretended that it was police trying to protect her.

Yes, everything was back to normal and Molly wondered if it would ever happen again.

('It' being Jim Moriarty.)

It did.

Molly walked into the morgue to begin her shift, the first body of the day already lying in wait on her table.

Reading her clipboard for the information about the body (John Doe, found that morning), Molly in her labcoat prepared to the post-mortem exam.

She looked down at the body on the table, gasped, dropped her clipboard and backed away.

Jim Moriarty's eyes opened and he rose slowly to a seated position, smiling.

"Hello, Molly." He greeted.

Molly gaped at him in shock.

She had been expecting something like this just not this.

And this was the first time she had seen him since he was 'Jim from IT'.

( He was much more intimidating than she had remembered, the very opposite of the timid 'Jim from IT'.)

"…What are you doing here…?" Molly asked finally, speaking with deliberate evenness which caused her words to come out slowly.

She tried not to stare at him (we was wearing only the standard white blanket which hung loosely, covering almost nothing and threatening to fall off) and instead looked over to her collection of medical tools, deciding which one she would use as a weapon if came down to it.

"Why I came to see you of course, Molly dearest…" Moriarty explained, "You stopped writing your blog and I just had to find out what you were up to…You know, I really loved that blog but I can see why you discontinued it, John Watson's is just so much better, you just couldn't compete…"

"…okay…." Molly said, unsure of how to respond or if she should run.

"You wanna know what my favorite entry of your blog was?" Moriarty baited.

"Okay…" Molly repeated.

"The second one." Moriarty stated and then grinned.

Molly gulped.

"Do you believe in love at first sight? There's this man and I love him. At least, I think I do. I can't stop thinking about him…" Moriarty quoted in a high-pitched, overly-girly voice, "Ooh…I wonder who that could be about?"

"It's not—" She began but was cut-off.

"He's so intelligent it's like he's burning." Moriarty continued, still mocking Molly, "You're right, you know, it really is like he's burning… oh, I can't stop thinking about him. I can't either, Molly, we're the same—"

"Stop!" Molly exclaimed.

" I'm a sensible girl, I always have been." Moriarty spoke in that false voice, undeterred, "Until he walks into the room and then suddenly I'm this little mouse."

"Just stop!" Molly pleaded.

"He turns me into a mouse." Moriarty finished with a snicker, "Turns you into a mouse, you say? That's interesting. Sherlock Holmes turns 'Little Miss Perfect' Molly Hooper into a mouse."

"I just…." Molly whispered, wondering why she had even posted all that online in the first place.

"It's adorable, really." Moriarty commented, "But it also says a little something about your personality, 'Little Miss Perfect'... It's a certain kind of person who says some guy they're oh so madly in love with turns them into a 'mouse'… and then goes out and buys a cat. A certain kind of person indeed, don't you think?

"…I suppose so…" Molly agreed, sighing and gazing down at her feet.

She decided there was no point in arguing with Moriarty and so she might as well just agree with every thing he said instead of giving him the satisfaction of laughing at her crying and denying it.

"But let me tell you something, Little Miss Mouse…" He began again, "Sherlock Holmes isn't cat. Cats enjoy the hunt, enjoy chasing down their prey. Sometimes they play with it a bit before they eat it. Sometimes they don't even bother eating it; the game was all they wanted. Now that may sound like Sherlock to you, mousie dearest, but it's not him. Sherlock Holmes is not a cat."

Molly listened, confused as to where Moriarty was going with this.

"Sherlock Holmes is a dog." He explained, " A bloodhound. He's restless and he smells everything! …He loves to play fetch, and he loves the hunt, especially the foxes… but most of all he loves to chase cats. He doesn't concern himself with mice because mice are tiny and timid and they don't know how to play the game. Sherlock loves to play the game and he loves to chase cats because they play back. But Sherlock will never love a little mouse like you."

Molly was silent.

But it was not like Moriarty had told her something she hadn't known for a long time now. He had told her what she already knew.

He had just used different words.

"You know…" Molly started, carefully but determinedly, looking up and directly into Moriarty's eyes, "Lying naked on a morgue table says 'a little something' about your personality. Perhaps a death wish…"

Moriarty snorted.

"The same could be said for you, mouse." He reminded, "Trying so desperately to get my attention…"

"You're the one trying to get my attention!" Molly almost shouted, almost laughed, "Prank calling me, knocking on my door, showing up here…"

"I read your little 'farewell message' to me on the blog." Moriarty countered, "I'm just returning the favor. So I wonder why someone like you would want the attention of someone like me? It's kind of like a little mouse darting out from the hole in the wall, knowing the cat is waiting right outside…A 'death wish', 'perhaps'? Do you just want me to end it all for you? Do you not have the guts to do it yourself?"

Molly's breath caught.

(wasn't this what she had wanted? To get Moriarty's attention, to have him come after her and keep his promise? For something not 'normal' to happen?)

She couldn't speak, she tried to, but she couldn't.

"Oh, Molly, my little mouse…" Moriarty sighed contentedly, "I could just eat you up. I really could. But I'd play with you first. I'd chase you around, catch your tail and then let you go a couple of times, toss you back and forth in my paws, scratch you up a bit with my claws…cut open your guts like you do to those bodies you examine…"

He demonstrated 'cut open your guts' with his fingernail against the bare skin of his own stomach.

He left a white line along the fine trail of brown hair, scratching downwards starting from his chest.

Molly watched him until she realized he had just played the 'follow my finger' trick on her and she was staring at the thin fabric of the white cloth her wore.

Blushing, Molly quickly looked back up at Moriarty's face which was already smirking at her.

"…is that what you want?" he asked and it took Molly a few seconds to figure out that he was referring to him killing her (although she was sure that his question did have a double meaning because with him there was always a double, maybe even triple meaning to everything he said).

"No." Molly answered, with forced firmness, to all of the possible meanings. She had to stop herself from stomping her foot since that would be far too cliché she was sure it couldn't be taken seriously.

Moriarty laughed at this, even going so far as to throw his head back for effect.

Molly regretted not stomping her foot, if he was going to over-act with everything he did, why shouldn't she every once and while?

"Are you sure?" Moriarty inquired.

And instantly Molly knew he had been watching her the day Lestrade had come over to investigate the break in.

"I'm sure." Molly replied, making sure that she made no visible indication that this revelation bothered her.

"Then what is it…?" Moriarty started, "…that you do want?"

For this Molly had no answer.

She stood silently rather than say she didn't know or make up some lie that Moriarty would throw back into her face.

Seeing that this was what Molly wanted to do, Moriarty laughed again instead of waiting quietly for her to speak.

"Alright, then." He conceded with a chuckle, "Call me when you figure it out. You've got my number."

He stood up at this and Molly knew to quickly look down at her shoes

She saw the white sheet lying there on the floor and Moriarty's bare feet step towards her.

Still staring persistently at the ground, Molly felt Moriarty brush past her on his way out.

Just as his lips her were at her one of her ears she heard him whisper, "Till next time, little mouse…"

And then he was gone, continued passed her and out of the room.

Molly did not turn around to watch him ago, but she could feel when he was gone.

She could feel that the feeling of being watched was gone.

And with that Molly began her shift's work, trying to put this entire incident out of her mind.

(Although for the rest of the day she did wonder how a naked man managed to just walk out of a busy hospital without getting into trouble.)

Still hope that you still like it!

Please review!