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This chapter Molly and Jim talk again and things begin to change...
Hope you like this chapter!
It was officially Christmas day (albeit only by a few minutes).
Mycroft Holmes received the text first.
Sir,
Police discovered the body of a Caucasian female, mid thirties, brown hair. It is being transported St. Bartholomew's morgue.
- A
He had being waiting up for this, knowing well that if his younger brother predicated that Irene Adler would be found dead tonight that she most likely would.
Lestrade received the text second.
Jane Doe found. On its way to the morgue. You've been asked for. Don't know why.
-Dimmock
He groaned when the phone vibrated but reluctantly check the text. He woke up and apologized to his wife (who was acquiescent and very sleepy) as he pulled on the same clothes he had been wearing and then his coat.
In the dark hallway he met his anxious children who were expecting Santa Claus and sent them back to bed before lumbering out the door.
Sherlock received it third.
You were right.
-MH
And fourth.
There's a Jane Doe at the morgue that might be Irene Adler. Please come in and identify the body asap. Orders from the top.
-Lestrade
He had also been waiting up for this (he usually stayed up that late (early) anyway but not waiting (at least for this)).
Sherlock made sure John didn't hear him and wake up as he hurried out.
Finally, Molly received the text fifth.
Miss Hopper, sorry to bother you at this hour but you are the only one not taking your vacation days. A Jane Doe that has been given priority autopsy status just got brought into the morgue. There must be a medical report submitted by tomorrow morning.
Thank you.
-night-shift supervisor, St. Bartholomew's Hospital
Her make-up (especially the red lipstick) was already wiped off, her hair was down again and there were no tears.
She rose from bed quickly and threw on a dowdy Christmas sweater and pants instead of the tight black dress she had been wearing (no need to try and be sexy) then covered them with her standard white labcoat.
Dutifully she rushed to work.
...But it was Jim Moriarty, of all people, that received the text last.
(Even Molly got it before him, was he that unimportant? He takes one day off and he was forgotten already…)
Of course, it really was his fault.
He had been ignoring the messages from a certain person all yesterday and almost continued it into this early morning…
…until he realized he had gotten a text at the exact same time he watched Molly startle awake and grab her phone from her nightstand through her bedroom window.
Irene Adler is dead.
This could have been avoided if not for your irresponsibility.
When I contact you I do it for a reason. You should know better than to try to ignore me.
There was no 'signature' but Jim knew exactly who it was from and he'd pay that person back for this later.
First, he had to deal with this development…
"Fifty seven. Fifty seven of those texts, the one's I've heard…Do you ever reply?"
John had been counting.
Counting the number of times Irene had messaged Sherlock.
Jim hadn't realized it had been so many...
Just what would Irene need to be talking to Sherlock about that much?
(It obviously wasn't what Jim had asked her to do (get Sherlock to decode the information on her cellphone so he wouldn't have to ask somebody else) or else she would have given him something by now…)
So what?
"Who is she? How did Sherlock recognize her from…not her face…?"
Molly was jealous.
But so was Jim.
Just how did Sherlock recognize Irene's body from her, well, body?
Just what had The Woman been doing with him?
Whatever it was, if it involved being naked, it wasn't part of their plan and dying definitely wasn't either and so Jim regretted ever making a deal with Irene Adler.
(Which he didn't even want to do in the first place, but someone forced him into and so really that someone was the one at fault and yet that someone had the nerve to text him and blame him for it…)
Jim came into the morgue with a grieving family, too distracted by the loss of their son-in-law and daughter to a house fire in their house, caused by their Christmas tree.
Jim left them to sob in the waiting room, making his way over to a long hallway where he could see two figures stand in the dark.
A hospital employee stopped him.
"How did you know the victims?" he asked suspiciously.
"Man was a client of mine." Jim shrugged, "Shame, really."
The white uniformed worker nodded grimly and let Jim pass.
Jim stood at the door to the dark hall, watching through the window one man hand another a cigarette.
Sherlock was smoking again…
(But he had been doing so well, what with the patches and all.)
Irene's death must have really (actually) affected him…
Jim shook his head bitterly.
He would have laughed if he wasn't so disappointed in (jealous of) Sherlock (Irene).
How could Sherlock care about someone like Irene Adler?
Sure, she was a dominatrix, more interesting than most of the little people, but certainly she was not on the same level as Sherlock and himself.
And yet Sherlock smoked a whole cigarette just for her death.
He didn't smoke when all the excitement of the little (great) game he and Jim played had ended leaving him bored…
Jim turned away from the window and the door, refusing to look anymore at Sherlock debasing himself over some woman.
He trudged out of the waiting room just as the hospital employee came back in to escort the grieving family to their lost loved ones.
Sherlock and Mycroft both instantly turned their heads when they saw motion from the window in the door at the end of the dimly-lit hallway.
Were they being watched?
No.
It was just living people crying about dead people.
"Look at them…" Sherlock commented, "They all care so much…"
Yes they did.
He would not look away from the mourning family, back to the window where he knew he could see the snow outside and his own reflection.
There were three people.
Three people that cared about Sherlock Holmes as much as much as Jim Moriarty did.
('As much' did not mean 'in the same way'. 'As much only meant 'as much', 'in the same way' as a pound of feathers weighs 'as much' as a pound of flesh.)
They were John Watson, Irene Adler and Molly Hooper.
John got the quantity and, as it seemed, Irene got the quality of Sherlock's time and reciprocated caring.
But one of these three got nothing.
The same nothing that Jim Moriarty did.
(Because as much as Sherlock loved the game, he hated the players. And so Jim, one of the better 'players' in the 'game', got nothing.)
Molly Hooper, out of the three people who cared, was the only one who knew what it was like to be Jim.
And Jim saw her there, standing alone in her morgue, slicing open The Woman that did what she could never do (make Sherlock care) as if it was comfort of the coldest kind (but comfort all the same).
He watched Molly work for a long time.
She took the naked body apart, bringing the insides out and cataloguing them and their various characteristics one by one.
She was always this thorough. Even when it was painfully obvious what the cause of death was (as it was in this case with Irene's body being so badly beaten), she always analyzed her corpses down to their very veins, taking her time.
It was either because she had nothing better to do or because she enjoyed it.
Maybe it was both.
Jim stepped into the room and spoke when Molly had finished sewing the woman's body back up.
"Spending Christmas with your loved ones?"
Molly gasped, dropping the tweezers which clanged on the cold metal table.
She looked up to lock eyes with Jim Moriarty.
"We, all get lonely, once and a while…" she said, as calmly as she could manage.
He loved that she was making an effort (it was adorable).
"You were lonely?" Jim sneered, "How sad. You know, if you were lonely you could have called. You do have my number. I told you to call. You never did..."
"Neither did you." Molly replied.
She was referring to 'Jim from IT'.
"Yes I did." Jim insisted, "I just did it in person. And it was right here in this very room too, I was right there on that table, remember? Little mouse…"
Molly remembered, blushing.
It was funny how she disassembled naked bodies for a living without a care just as long as they were dead…
…but when it came to the living, naked man (even covered by a white cloth) was too much for her.
"You told me to call when I figured out what I wanted." Molly stated, formulaicly "And I haven't. That's why I didn't call. Cause I don't know—"
"I'm going to stop you right there." Jim interrupted, "You know how I feel about lying…You do not want to make me mad. I do terrible things when I'm mad, Molly, terrible things…"
He grinned as if the synonym for 'terrible' was 'wonderful'.
Molly had no reactions to his words (vague threats), not the shiver that coursed visibly through her skin when she was afraid nor the wide eyes and little jump backwards of surprise.
At first it offended him (how dare Molly not be scared when he was trying to be scary!) but then Jim was chuckled.
"There we go, Molly, there's the truth…" he began, "See, we both know exactly what you want. You want to die."
"No I don't!" Molly denied, "I told you last time, I don't!"
"Oh come on, darling," Jim rolled his eyes "I may not be Sherlock but I'm not stupid. You walked home four miles through the bad part of London in the dark of the night. Alone. What else could you have wanted?"
"…to be alone-"
"No. You've never wanted that."
"Well I wanted it then." Molly insisted, "I need time to think. I needed to be alone…Well obviously I wasn't since if you know about this you were probably following me…"
"Yes. I. was." Jim admitted, "But it's not like you actually thought you'd be alone. It's a goddamn anthill around here, and it's crawling with disgusting little bugs. And you know they're all out there, they're everywhere. It's not like you thought there would be any gentlemen out there at that hour on Christmas Eve..."
"But there was one, wasn't there…" Molly said, quietly, eyes for the first time leaving his, "A gentleman, I mean."
Jim laughed, approaching the table.
"So I am appreciated, after all. I was beginning to feel ignored…what with you not calling me and then wandering around the dodgy streets at nights hoping some thug would emerge from his alley to do your dirty work for you, for whatever change you had in your pocket….there were some of them too, you know, snakes hiding in grass waiting to strike…I cut off their heads."
Molly shuddered but did not look up at Jim, even though he was now only a foot away from her, with only the table and Irene Adler's dead, naked body in between them.
"Thank you." She murmured.
She could feel his shadow over her and how badly he wanted her to look up at him with scared, wide eyes.
"Oh, anytime, anytime. It's no problem at all." Jim dismissed casually, "You know I wouldn't let anyone harm my dear little mouse…except me, of course. And isn't that what you want….? Molly. Look at me."
When she didn't he brought his fingers under her chin to lift up her face so they were once again locking eyes.
It wasn't the scared, wide eyes Jim had hoped for.
It was carefully, deliberately nothing.
And Jim was tired of nothing.
He was going to make sure he got something and since it wouldn't be from Sherlock (yet), it would have to be from Molly (who he was sure was tired of nothing, as well).
"You're wearing lipstick…at least you were before, you've wiped it off now…" he commented, "Was it for Sherlock? Did he notice it? Did he like it…?"
Nothing.
"I bet he noticed. The man does see everything, even into our minds…but I doubt he liked it. There isn't much that Sherlock likes…"
Still nothing.
"Lipstick matches the gift you gave him, well tried to give him…" Jim continued, trying harder, "He didn't like it. He didn't want it. Least not from you."
There was something, now, just a little bit of something.
It was wet and clear and pooling in the bottom lids of her unmoving eyes.
"She gave him a gift wrapped in red paper too, you know, and he wanted it. She wears red lipstick too and he likes it…"
"She?" Molly asked.
Her eyes watched Jim's eyes look down at the dead woman on the gray table.
"She." He repeated, smirking and nodding.
Molly sighed sadly.
"What's her name?"
"They wouldn't tell you? He wouldn't tell you?"
"No." Molly shook her head.
"I'll tell you." Jim said, "I'll tell you her name, who she was, who she was to Sherlock…if you tell me how she died."
"You mean you didn't kill her?" Molly inquired.
Finally that surprise.
Jim laughed again, he was always laughing at her.
"Why would I kill her?" Jim responded, as if the answer was apparent, "She was my client."
"Oh." Molly accepted, "I just thought…that since she was, well, close to Sherlock you might have…."
"Oh, no, Molly, I didn't have time for that." Jim scoffed, "I was too busy being your gentleman, killing all those nasty criminals in this big bad city for you."
"How many?" Molly demanded, suddenly, "How many people did you kill tonight!...because of me…?"
The last sentence was a guilty whisper following the accusing shout.
Guilt was a funny thing because guilt was a type of caring.
And caring always made the silly people who cared say and do silly things.
"Hardly matters." Jim chuckled, shrugging, "What mattered is how she died."
"…Poison." Molly stated, "She died of poisoning…"
Jim raised an eyebrow in genuine confusion, staring down at the body and then back up at Molly.
"She wasn't beaten to death…?" he asked, "But the bruising…"
"Post-mortem." Molly explained, "The bruising is all post-mortem. She died from being poisoned and then her body was beaten after she was already dead."
"…Oh, I see…" Jim said, considering this, and then asked, "What kind of poison?"
"I don't know yet." Molly answered, "I haven't done the tests yet. But I know it's something that takes a while. From the damage to her stomach and liver the poison built up in her system over a number of days and then killed her. Painlessly, too, from the lack of adrenaline. In fact it would have just put her to sleep and…"
Molly trailed off when she realized Jim was grinning at her.
(And it wasn't his normal sinister sneer or mocking smile, it was more of a pleasantly surprised and deeply enthralled look on his face (that was almost scarier than either of the first two since she had never seen it before.)
"Brilliant…" he said finally, that look still lighting his face like the glow of hellfire, "Brilliant, simply brilliant…."
Guilt was a funny thing because guilt was a type of caring and caring always made people do silly things.
Silly things like beating an already dead body to make it look like the person had been beaten to death instead of, well, simply just beating the person to death.
Silly things like poisoning someone so that they die painlessly in their sleep instead of by being painfully beaten to death.
Guilt made a silly person care about making sure the girl they had to kill anyway at least didn't have to suffer.
(And poison was a Woman's weapon…)
"Huh?" Molly inquired, confused as she always was when it came to Jim.
"Do you know who this woman was?" Jim questioned, excited.
"No." Molly said, "I already said-"
"Have you ever heard of the dominatrix Irene Adler?" Jim cut in.
"No." Molly said again.
"Well Irene Adler was a dominatrix involved in various scandals," Jim started, "politicians, royalty, celebrities, blah, blah, blah, all very boring…but she had dirt on all of them and so then the government started chasing her, and so did the Americans, and the terrorists and so did Sherlock Holmes and that's when it got interesting."
"Okay…"
"That was all about six months ago and she's been running around and hiding ever since… But fast forward to about a week ago, the British Secret Service finally catches up to Miss Adler and are closing in…"
"So they killed her? The government?"
"Well that's what I thought. Until now…"
"What do you mean?"
"Isn't it obvious? The bruising, the poison…why would poison Irene Adler and then beat her dead body?"
"…a fetish, perhaps…?" Molly suggested.
Jim snorted at this, which Molly had actually wanted him to do since it was a joke and now she could say that at least someone appreciated her humor, even if he was an international criminal.
"I like how you think." Jim smirked, "But this is the government we're talking about. They wouldn't waste time or resources doing something like this when it's just not necessary."
"So who then…"
"Irene Adler."
"But she's dead. Are you saying she killed herself?"
"No and yes. In that order."
"What?!"
"I'm saying that Irene Adler isn't dead…. But she wants everyone to think she is. I'm saying that Irene Adler faked her own death. This isn't her."
Jim gestured to the cut and bruised corpse.
"But there's no way-Sherlock said-he's never wrong-!" Molly stammered.
"Yes he is." Jim disagreed, "Sherlock's wrong about a lot of things."
He looked at her and she took a breath.
"But how, then?"
"Miss Adler was careful. She's smart. You have to be to fool Sherlock Holmes. She found someone who looked enough like her and then made sure she looked even more like her, exactly like her, right down to the measurements…"
"I would have noticed plastic surgery in the examination."
"Not if it wasn't 'plastic'...or silicone, rather. There are surgeons who can do that, you know, good ones. It's very illegal and very expensive but it's so very useful… as Miss Adler must have realized."
"But where did she get this… body?"
"There are always bodies for sale. Alive and dead… It's a lucrative business. I know some people I can set you up with if you ever want to start making more than your abysmal excuse for a salary…"
Molly looked disgusted.
But as Jim was beginning to realize the emotions he saw from Molly were ones that she showed him on purpose.
"So this Alder person bought another woman, got surgery done to her so they looked the same, poisoned her and then beat her dead body…all to fake her own death and all those people chasing her off her trail…?" Molly clarified.
"Yes." Jim nodded, "She's very thorough. I admire that in a woman…don't you?"
"…I…well…it's all terrible," Molly said, "but I have to admit, her plan…it is brilliant-"
"Oh, that's not what I was calling brilliant." Jim interrupted, "While thorough, neither Miss Adler, nor her plan, were brilliant… I mean, they may have fooled Sherlock Holmes, of all people, who was too busy caring about his 'girlfriend' being beaten to death to notice that it wasn't her and that the bruising was post-mortem even though he had done a very animated experiment on that only last year which I'm sure you remember….but as I was saying, The Woman may have fooled Sherlock Holmes but she didn't fool us. And that's what's brilliant."
There was that surprise again, in Molly's wide eyes.
And something else too.
"Well you're the one who figured the whole thing out," Molly deflected, "You're the brilliant one. All I did was-"
"Tell me exactly what I needed to know to uncover Irene's plan." Jim stated, "Like I said, brilliant."
"….thank you…" Molly said, still shocked and uncomfortable but that something was still there on her face.
(And that something was what allowed her to stand up to an admitted mass murderer… and also genuinely accept his compliment.)
Jim leaned over across the morgue table and the fake Irene to kiss Molly on the cheek right where Sherlock's lips had been only hours earlier.
"No. Thank you, Molly Hooper."
Uh oh.
Molly just helped Jim Moriarty...
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