A/N: Thanks again to everyone for reviewing, and special thanks to moonmama for her wonderful betaing skills, and to Adi Who Is Also Mou for the inspiration. :) In this chapter we check in on some other players, enjoy!

Chapter 3: Interludes

Interlude One – Here

Sherlock was pacing. It was all he'd done, all day long. Pacing and smoking, smoking and pacing. Occasionally pausing to gaze out the window – at what, John had no idea.

It was 4:00 in the afternoon, and had been, hands down, the worst Christmas he'd ever endured short of the last one he'd spent in Afghanistan. And that won out only due to the fact that he'd been in the middle of a fucking war. People had died that day, he'd had to piece together more than one mate who would go home to spend the rest of their lives with scars and missing limbs and damaged eyesight, sights even his adrenalin-junkie soul found sickening. So yeah, that particular Christmas was the worst.

This, however, was a close second.

Molly Hooper had been missing since that astounding…whatever it was…at the Christmas party last night. Not that the party had been going well up to that point, certainly not for Molly. Not after Sherlock unleashed his devastating series of deductions upon her, only to realize, too late, exactly what he was deducing.

Her crush on him.

And then the noise had started, the deep whine, the thrumming hum that set the room to vibrating, dashing more than one glass to the floor in pieces as the hum magnified to the point of pain, as a whirling vortex of some sort opened in the air above Molly Hooper and sucked her up, lifting her from the floor like a fucking tornado or something, while they all froze for far too long before acting, shocked into immobility by the impossibility manifesting itself right in front of them.

All but Sherlock. He hadn't been the closest to her, but he'd moved first, grabbing for her with a desperation John recognized – too late – as being caused by Sherlock's accurate deduction that Molly was about to be stolen away from them.

Which, of course, was exactly what happened. Although his friend had managed to grab her leg as she was yanked off her feet and into the air, screams pouring from her throat the entire time, whatever force had taken hold of Molly Hooper wasn't about to let her go. Sherlock's hand had dug in; John had seen the scratches ripping through the delicate fabric of her stocking, and then Sherlock was on the floor, staring up along with the rest of them as the swirling vortex vanished as abruptly as it had appeared – taking Molly with it.

If it had been a magic act, John would have been the first to admit he'd been suitably impressed.

As it was, all he could feel, nearly twenty-four hours later, was a sort of numb shock.

He was too stunned to even complain about Sherlock's incessant smoking. Too stunned to do anything but sit in the chair he'd fallen into around noontime, after Mycroft Holmes' men had been and gone, after Lestrade's SOCO team had gone over every inch of the flat, Sherlock for once standing by and saying nothing as Anderson and his men did their jobs, disbelief clearly written on their features at the explanation they'd been given for their presence.

Hell, John couldn't blame them. He could barely believe it himself, and he'd witnessed the entire goddamned thing.

As had his date, Jeanette – who'd had to have a sedative administered and be escorted to London Royal Hospital for an overnight stay. Happy Christmas, darling, aren't you glad you came to the party?

He knew he should check on her, but couldn't bring himself to move from his chair. Her parents and sister had been informed that she'd had a shock of some kind – he had no idea what official explanation Mycroft's people had concocted but knew it would be plausible and that Jeanette would be gently pressed to back it up once she was awake and coherent again.

He couldn't spare the energy to waste on her, even if they'd had a perfectly decent relationship up to this point. No, somehow he doubted he'd ever see her again, unless it was to properly end things between them. It was clear she didn't handle shocks well; she'd been the only one to launch into hysterics after Molly vanished, the only one not to keep her head about her – even Mrs. Hudson had handled herself with a minimum of panic and fuss, and she was old enough to be Jeanette's mother, for Christ's sake! Not that this was the sort of danger he and Sherlock usually faced in the course of their criminal investigations, but clearly his date was not cut out for anything out of the ordinary.

Then again, who was? Who could possibly know how to react when something that normally would only be seen during an episode of Doctor Who suddenly appeared in your own goddamned flat?

He could barely muster the energy to deal with his own confusion, let alone Jeanette's. He simply could not stop his thoughts from circling obsessively around the sheer fucking insanity of Molly Hooper's disappearance.

Where had she gone, what had happened to her – and why her, for Christ's sake? If this…phenomenon…was the result of some enemy of Sherlock's exacting some James Bond super-villain form of revenge, why take Molly, harmless, gentle Molly? He'd wager everything he owned that she'd never hurt another human being in her life (aside from, of course, cutting up dead bodies in the course of her job but surely no one could take exception to that).

Perhaps this unknown person had taken her by mistake, had been aiming for himself or Sherlock, or even Lestrade? Or did they think that taking Molly would somehow give them leverage over his flatmate? Was there going to be a ransom demand sometime in the near future?

All those questions had been raised during the course of the night and far into the wee hours of the morning, but no conclusions had been reached. Anderson's sole contribution to the ongoing discussion had been to suggest she'd been abducted by aliens, but without further evidence – such as a space ship hovering in the air above Baker Street or the fingerprints of little green men inside the flat – no one was willing to take his suggestion seriously.

At least, John Watson wasn't willing to do so.

When they got her back – and he refused to believe in the possibility of any other outcome, not with Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes both putting their considerable intellects (not to mention the full weight of the British goddamned government) to the matter – he was going to write it up in his blog. If Molly allowed it. He would be sure to ask her permission. He even had a title: The Case of the Vanishing Pathologist. It had a nice ring to it. She was sure to appreciate taking on a starring role in a bona fide Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Because of course they would retrieve her, alive and unharmed. They had to.

"We'll get her back."

He didn't realize he'd spoken the words aloud, the first thing he'd said since he and Sherlock had been left alone in the flat, until the other man turned his head to face him.

His face set, inflexible as stone and about as revealing, Sherlock replied with a simple, "Yes."

Then he turned around and resumed his pose in front of the window, lighting another cigarette and staring moodily out onto Baker Street.

oOo

Sherlock trained his gaze on the discreet government vehicles parked across the street at his brother's behest, even as he heard John sigh and rise to his feet. He listened with half an ear as his flatmate mumbled something about trying to get some sleep – advice Lestrade and Mycroft and even Mrs. Hudson had pressed on the two of them as they each left for their various destinations – and wearily trudged up the stairs to his room.

Good. John would feel better, be sharper in mind and reflexes, after allowing his exhausted body to refresh itself. Even a sleep interrupted by nightmares, which he was bound to have given the preposterously melodramatic situation in which they currently found themselves, would be better than the nothing he'd had since the night before last.

As for himself, Sherlock knew it would be days before he would feel the need to sleep again. Possibly longer.

It wasn't simply because they were on a case, however intriguing it might be. Normally a mystery like this one – a woman disappearing into thin air right in front of a roomful of witnesses – would be like a fabulous Christmas gift for him. Unfortunately, in this case there was a personal aspect to the whole thing that was more than a little bit bothersome. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, the nails still jagged from where they'd bit into Molly's skin, tearing through the silk stockings and into her flesh hard enough to draw blood.

He'd allowed himself to be swabbed, in case there was something about Molly's blood or DNA or skin that held an answer to what had happened to her. Doubtful, but every avenue had to be explored, no matter how unlikely.

He'd almost had her, but the strange energy field had been stronger. Not strong enough to spirit him away as well, but strong enough to wrench Molly from his grasp. To take her away before he had the opportunity to make the real, sincere apology he'd been formulating in his mind after hearing her reaction to his (he saw, now that it was far too late) devastating series of deductions.

He hadn't intended to tear Molly down like that; he was just doing what he always did – making observations and deductions, and perhaps there'd been some element of swagger in his display, some part of him seeking a distraction, but cruelty to Molly had never been his aim.

It had, however, been what he accomplished.

Not that an apology would have kept her from being taken, of course, but some part of his mind, a part he generally ignored, especially when on a case, refused to be silent on the matter. Molly had been taken before he could apologize. That was important. It was...wrong.

He made another desperate attempt to focus his considerable mental abilities on her extraordinary abduction rather than his own discomfort, methodically going over the events of the evening immediately following her disappearance.

He hadn't hesitated to contact his brother once it became clear that Molly Hooper was no longer in the flat. She hadn't vanished from the sitting room and reappeared in the lavatory or John's room or his own en suite. She wasn't in the unused basement flat, or Mrs. Hudson's, or the attic, or anywhere else in the building or its immediate vicinity. They'd conducted a thorough search of the premises while DI Lestrade called for backup and a forensics team and he had himself rousted Mycroft from whatever tedious Christmas Eve event he was attending, not even bothering to needle his brother as he did so, instead opting to be brief and to the point in his message.

Woman literally vanished from my flat. Come at once. SH

And miracle of miracles, Mycroft had done exactly that, bringing a team of his own forensic experts with him.

Unfortunately all the help that had been summoned had so far proven utterly useless.

No one could come to any reasonable conclusions regarding Molly Hooper's disappearance – he, for one, flat-out refused to take Anderson's extraterrestrial abduction theory seriously – and she remained missing. She hadn't burned up in an act of spontaneous combustion (Sgt. Donovan's equally useless contribution), the attendees of the party hadn't undergone some kind of mass hypnosis or the hallucinatory effects of some kind of drug either ingested or delivered by means of aerosol, as John had (somewhat pathetically) offered up.

No, this was no Baskerville case. What had happened to Molly had been real. Outside the norm, but very, very real.

Now it was as much a matter of discovering who had taken her and why, as it was about how she'd vanished in the first place.

No one had contacted them with threats or ransom demands; her brother in Melbourne hadn't heard anything (and had been assured he would be informed as soon as anything was learned), nothing had been discovered, no answers had been reached, what few deductions that could be made, had been made.

Her flat had been investigated as well; although her cat remained where she'd left him (and temporarily handed over to the custody of the elderly neighbor who usually helped Molly out when her shifts ran long or she went on one of her rare holidays), Molly herself wasn't there. She hadn't mysteriously reappeared at St. Bart's or any of the numerous other city hospitals. Or police stations.

Or morgues, alive or dead.

And the last words he'd spoken to her could be characterized as unkind, at best. Damn him and his need to be cleverer than everyone else in the room.

He blamed Lestrade for his overreaction, actually, combined with the stress of the Adler case – which had dropped to a very low priority indeed, although if there continued to be no actions he could take in the ongoing search for Molly, he might be forced to return his attention to the matter out of sheer desperation.

He dismissed the dominatrix's plight from his mind with ease, choosing to focus on Lestrade. The man had goggled when Molly removed her coat to reveal the form-fitting black dress she'd donned for the evening, his interest – and correlating body parts – clearly aroused by her attire. Sherlock's heart had squeezed painfully in his chest at the observation of another man blatantly appreciating her physical attributes – another reaction he refused to examine – irritating him into the deliberately cutting analysis of her motivations he'd then initiated.

Miss Hooper has love on her mind.

He'd regretted every cold, unfeeling word as soon as he did what he should have done in the first place: read the tag on the carefully wrapped present.

It had been confiscated by Mycroft, along with the other gifts she'd brought and her coat and purse, brought to some secret government lab for extensive analysis. For once his brother's high-handedness raised no corresponding resistance in Sherlock; if Mycroft hadn't taken Molly's belongings, Sherlock would have demanded he do so, at least after he'd examined them himself for clues.

But he hadn't done that, recognizing that for once he was well and truly out of his depth. It was a disconcerting feeling, to know exactly how everyone around him usually felt. It raised empathy in him for one of the few times he could remember since childhood.

He hated it. Hated the reason for all this to have happened in the first place.

Hated himself for not being smart enough, for not being perceptive enough, to be able to deduce Molly's disappearance on his own and find a way to bring her back safely from wherever she'd been taken. For not having found a way to keep her from being taken in the first place.

Hated that all he could do right now was wait for his brother to contact him with whatever information he'd gathered, as he'd promised to do (not with words, only part of the communication between the Holmes brother ever needed to be with words).

The forgotten cigarette in his hand burned down to ash, and he dropped it, not caring if it scorched the hardwood floor as he ground it beneath his heel and automatically pulled another one from the pack resting on the windowsill. He lit it just as automatically, eyes still on the government vehicles parked across the street.

Restless.

Waiting.

Interlude Two – There

"Sherlock, you know I don't like it when you contact me directly. People will talk."

"People do little else, brother dear," Sherlock replied, sounding as bored as he usually did when he and Mycroft – rising star in British politics and the next Prime Minister if both their plans for the future worked out the way they expected them to – were forced into close contact with one another.

Before Mycroft could demand an explanation, he handed over the manilla envelope containing the flash drive, photographs and paper printouts of the data he'd collected on Molly Hooper over the past week.

"What's this, some new blackmail project you want to drag me into?"

Sherlock shook his head and lit a cigarette, deliberately blowing the smoke toward his brother's PA – and not-so-secret mistress. His wife Petra put up with the woman for two reasons only: she was a flawless assistant in spite of her eye-candy appearance, and she satisfied her husband's appetites in a manner his wife had stopped enjoying two years into their fifteen-year – and still childless – marriage.

None of which was relevant at the moment. Sherlock waited patiently, a faint smile on his lips as his brother scanned the documents he'd been given, paying close attention to the DNA analysis and two sets of medical records Sherlock had placed on top of the pile to indicate their importance.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow as he glanced over at his brother. "I trust this isn't some sort of...joke...brother."

Sherlock shook his head and dropped his half-smoked cigarette onto the floor, ignoring the PA's pained inhalation of breath as it smoldered a dark mark into the expensive white carpet of her flat. Mycroft had agreed to meet him here one week after Christmas, eight days after Molly Hooper's arrival, only because Sherlock had threatened to walk into his Downing Street offices in full daylight with an entourage of reporters if he kept ignoring his requests for a meeting.

Clearly he was regretting having delayed that meeting for so long. Good. "If I'm understanding these medical reports, you have somehow come across a living woman who is verified as an exact DNA match for a girl who died at the age of twelve. Furthermore," he flipped through the appended report from the physicist Sherlock had "convinced" to perform certain illicit tests upon Dr. Hooper, "this report asserts that not only is the DNA of the two subjects identical, but that the second subject appears to have originated in a universe other than our own."

Sherlock nodded as his brother once again met his gaze. "She vibrates at a completely different quantum level than we do. Proof, I think you would agree, that perhaps some of your top-secret government experiments have actually succeeded for a change."

Mycroft's eyebrow raised again. "Surely you're not implying that the British government is wasting money by investigating something as ridiculous as the possibility of the existence of alternate realities."

"No, I'm coming right out and stating it," Sherlock replied, his voice no longer bored but as intense and focused as his gaze. "Furthermore, I want access. I need to know if Dr. Hooper was sent to me deliberately, and by whom. Among other questions," he added. "I'm sure you've already ascertained the significance of the DNA samples taken from the scratches on her left leg."

Mycroft looked affronted. "Of course," he snapped. "Don't be tiresome, Sherlock. It's your DNA, but if you'd inflicted the wounds yourself it would hardly be significant. Presumably you see this as further proof of this woman's extraordinary origins."

Sherlock simply nodded at the computer disk he'd given his brother. "Watch that, read through the remainder of the documentation, then contact me. I'm confident you'll come to the same conclusions I have."

"If your claims are true – and far be it from me to call you a liar, little brother – it would be in the Empire's best interest if the young lady in question were to end up in the government's hands," Mycroft interposed smoothly as Sherlock turned and made as if to leave.

He'd stiffened at his brother's (unnecessary) reminder that he'd never exactly been the most truthful person, especially when it came to family. However, now was not the time to get into another boring debate over which brother was going to end up with more power out of the two of them. Instead, he chose to answer Mycroft's not-request. "That may occur. Eventually. But not," Sherlock added with a dark stare, "until such time as I am ready to give her over to your tender care. And rest assured, brother dear, that if she somehow vanishes from my care, I will know exactly whom to seek vengeance against."

"Fine." Mycroft's voice was dry as the Sahara. "We'll do this your way for now. But if she turns out to be any kind of danger to the Empire, or to be more involved than you apparently give her credit for, even you won't be able to keep me from taking her into custody."

A curt nod was the only response Sherlock gave him as he turned and exited Anthea's flat.

He grinned to himself as he heard her complaining to Mycroft about the damage to her carpet, followed swiftly by the sound of his brother's hand as he slapped her into silence, no doubt irritated by her interruption of him at work. The faithless bitch deserved it and so much more; perhaps he should let Mycroft know of her indiscretions with Irene Adler before he'd had the other woman killed?

Hmm, on the other hand there was very little that escaped his brother's notice. No doubt her usefulness as a PA outweighed her eclectic – not to mention societally frowned-upon – taste in lovers.

The door closed behind him, and the two remaining people in the room effectively vanished from his thoughts. He'd given Molly permission to watch the telly, and was looking forward to deducing her no doubt horrified reactions to what passed for entertainment in her new world.

Interlude Three – New Scotland Yard (There)

The sound of a desk phone ringing, then a click. "Lestrade."

"It's me."

A brief silence, then (voice low and tense): "Breaking cover a little early, aren't you?"

"I know I'm taking a risk, but it's worth it, trust me. There have been…developments."

"I'm listening."

Silence on Lestrade's end of the phone for a long time, then a disbelieving: "What the fuck?! You'd better have some kind of proof, cause believe me, if you're having me on…" Silence again on Lestrade's part, longer this time. Then: "All right. Fine. You say it's legit, then it's legit. Christ." Another pause. "Right. You make the drop, get us the information, we'll take it from our end. But for fuck's sake, don't get caught. This is, yeah, an interesting development, but I still wanna get that bastard, you hear me? I don't care if the fate of the entire fucking universe is at stake, it won't matter unless we get Holmes."

The sound of the phone slamming down on the receiver.

The sound of a heavily indrawn breath (and what might be a man's face being palmed while he gathered his thoughts).

The sound of a phone being dialed.

(Possibly the sound of a criminal empire finally – finally! – coming down.)