Chapter 7: Interludes, Part Two
Interlude Four – New Scotland Yard (There)
The sound of a door closing and locking. The sound of footsteps echoing through a concrete-walled, 10×10 underground room.
The sound of an electronic device sweeping the room for hidden microphones, cameras or other recording devices.
The sound of someone knocking on the door from the outside. The sound of footsteps making their way toward the door, unlocking and opening it, then reversing the process as a second set of footsteps hurry into the room.
"Donovan. Thanks for coming. What have you got?"
The sound of a chair being pulled out and someone dropping heavily into it. The sound of a match striking a box.
Coughing. "Christ, Greg, can't you fucking wait till I'm done giving my report? You know I hate those fucking things."
"Report, Donovan." The sound of smoke being deliberately blown into someone's face.
More coughing. "Fine, you bastard. Yeah, the woman's there. Didn't see her, but the housekeeper had me bring up a couple of trays for dinner last night. One was for him," the clear sound of contempt in the second speaker's voice, "and the other was what the old bat called an 'invalid's tray' for the woman. Tea, toast, porridge. With a little something extra in the tea, if you catch my meaning."
"So whoever she is, he's drugging her." The sound of fingers tapping impatiently on a metal table. "What else?"
The sound of someone shifting uncomfortably in their seat. "Nothing. Not a single fucking thing. No matter what your man says he's learned – "
The sound of an increasingly irritated DI interrupting. "What he's given me proof of learning. Evidence, you remember evidence? That thing you're supposed to be digging up for me? Drugged tea for some bint you haven't even seen isn't enough to get me a warrant to search Sherlock fucking Holmes' flat, not with his brother rumored to be up for PM in the next election."
The sound of an indrawn breath. "Jesus, Greg, Mycroft Holmes as PM? May as well roll over and play dead now! Fucking Christ!"
"Not if I can help it. But the only way to get to that bastard is if we can get the goods on his low-life freak of a brother. And right now, no matter what else we've got going on, this woman is our best lead. So find a way to see her, to confirm if she's the one in the photos our man sent us, and get me the proof I need to get a judge to sign off on a search warrant."
The sound of a contemptuous snort. "Yeah, good luck on that, mate. First you have to find one that he hasn't paid off or blackmailed or who won't soil his pants if you just mention the name 'Sherlock Holmes'."
The sound of a tired sigh. "There are a few. Hard to find, but they're out there. But they won't move without solid proof. Which brings us back to you. You feel safe enough, being there? Any signs they're onto you?"
"No, it's good, Greg. Don't worry 'bout me. If I get even the slightest hint that the wind's up I'll scream bloody murder and haul ass out of there so fast I'll be in your office before you finish sending someone to respond to the 999 call."
The sound of a snort of laughter. "Yeah, well, just don't get the wind up too easily, yeah? Or wait too late. You're a good officer, Sally. I'd hate to have to bust you down to crossing guard duty for screwing this up – or deliver your eulogy at another fucking cop funeral. Been too many this year already, and it's only fucking January."
The sound of another tired sigh, this one feminine. "I know. Losing Dimmock was tough. He was one of the few good ones left, yeah?"
"Yeah." A long, silent pause. "Right. You'd best be off, wouldn't want you to be late for your Baker Street shift. Have fun changing sheets and scrubbing floors for Mrs. Hudson."
"Oh, yeah, brilliant, just rub in, why don't you. Christ, I hate that old bitch, she's a real slavedriver. Would've loved it in the old days when she could have had me whipped and sold off to some American cotton farmer."
"Just remember; she works for Sherlock Holmes, has for years now and she's as loyal to him as a dog, so try to keep a civil tongue in your head or she may find a way to do just that. Just 'cause slavery's been officially abolished for 100 years doesn't mean it's actually gone, know what I mean?"
"Yeah, got it. Plus, I know you're really saying don't fuck up the job. But thanks for pretending to care, Greg."
The sound of a chair being abruptly shoved back, and a surprised "oomph" from Sally Donovan as she is pulled to her feet and into a hasty embrace. The sound of mouths meeting in an urgent kiss, then Lestrade's hoarse voice sounding a warning. "Watch your back, Sally. I need you alive and not just for the fucking case, you know that."
Sally's voice, sounding slightly breathless. "Yeah, I know. I do know, Greg. You watch yours as well; we both know how much he hates you for messing up that thing with the cabbie last year."
The sound of two pairs of feet moving across the room. The sound of the door being unlocked, lights being shut and the door closing.
The sound of two people leaving a room, not knowing that they will never see one other again.
Interlude Five – Here
"Sherlock? You there?"
John Watson looked around the darkened flat, then sighed as he made his way to the kitchen and flipped on the light. Sherlock had taken to sitting alone in the dark as time marched on and no sign of Molly Hooper could be found.
This time, however, it seemed Sherlock actually wasn't there. A full month had passed, Mycroft's people didn't seem to be any closer to finding Molly than Sherlock or the police. It wasn't unheard of for Sherlock to leave the flat – he'd finished up the Adler case in record time, discovering her connection to Jim Moriarty and how she'd planned to trick Sherlock into decoding something the British government would much rather she didn't get her well-manicured hands on – but John had grown resigned to the fact that every day, upon returning home from the job he'd taken at the St. Bart's A&E as a relief surgeon, he would find his flatmate standing by the window smoking cigarette after cigarette and brooding.
John understood, more than Sherlock would be willing to credit him. Molly was gone but life marched inexorably onward. Bills had to be paid, Mrs. Hudson needed the rent money they owed her, and in the absence of any kind of leads, there was damned little to be done to find Molly.
John sighed again and started putting the groceries away. It was a sign of Sherlock's continuing agitation of mind that there were no gruesome experiments in the refrigerator, no chemistry equipment cluttering up the counters and cabinets.
All in all, John would much rather be shoving aside containers of questionable material to make room for the milk and cheese. It would mean a return to something approaching normal.
It would mean giving up.
That thought brought him up short; was he ready to give up? How could he be? A month wasn't such a long period of time that the police would stop searching even under normal circumstances, which these decidedly were not. Had he already written Molly Hooper off in his mind, considered her dead and buried no matter how remarkable the circumstances of her disappearance?
"No," he said aloud, quite firmly. No. He was not about to give up on Molly just because life was proceeding without her. Nor was Sherlock, nor was Lestrade or Mycroft or the rest of the British government, for that matter.
He'd just finished putting the last of the tins of vegetables away in the cabinet next to the stove when the door to the flat burst open. He started and left the kitchen to see who it was.
It was Sherlock, of course, bursting in the way he did when...John felt his heart stutter and begin racing. "You've found something, heard something – is Molly back?" he blurted out, moving into the darkened sitting room at an eager pace.
"No, she's not back, but yes, I've discovered some very interesting research that might explain how she was taken," Sherlock shot back. "I need your laptop, John." He turned on the nearest lamp and settled himself onto the sofa, shooting his flatmate an impatient look when John remained frozen in place, halfway into the sitting room.
He pointed at the desk, and Sherlock bounded to his feet. The expression on his face was a combination of determination and anticipation, the look of Sherlock on a case with a lead to follow, and John felt his soul lighten at the sight.
"Mrs. Hudson put me on to it, of all people," Sherlock said, answering questions John had yet to formulate as he pulled the laptop off the desk and returned to his spot on the sofa. "Apparently she was watching a documentary on spacial anomalies, mostly theoretical, but one in particular caught her attention. She dragged me down to her flat to watch it, and the artist's depiction – John, it was very close to what happened to Molly." He looked up from the computer, eyes burning as they met John's.
"What was it, then?" he asked.
"Wormholes, John," Sherlock replied. "Not something I ever paid much attention to in the past, but who would've thought there would ever be a need?"
"Yeah, well, who expects things from the Science Channel or Doctor Who to show up in their own flat?" John replied, a vague attempt at comfort he knew Sherlock would either ignore or sneer at.
It would appear he'd chosen the 'ignore' option as his fingers flew rapidly over the laptop's keyboard. "They named several astronomers in the documentary, but there was one in particular, a Dr. Harrison Smythe, who seemed the most knowledgeable of the group, the one with the most precise way of expressing himself. He's British, works for the Royal Observatory, I just have to locate his contact information..."
Sherlock's voice lowered into an incomprehensible mumble as his fingers continued to tap the keys at an astonishing rate. Well, astonishing if one hadn't observed him hard at work in the past, which John Watson most certainly had.
With more energy than he'd felt in a long time, he headed for the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, intuiting that it would be some time before Sherlock reemerged from the fever into which he'd worked himself upon finally locating what might turn out to be a tangible lead.
God, he hoped this meant they'd be able to find Molly and bring her home soon.
Interlude Six – There, Unknown Location
The lab was cramped, the walls covered with shelves, the shelves jammed with equipment, as were the four tables that took up the majority of the room. Some of the devices were obviously off-the-shelf electronics, some were just as obviously purchased from specialty suppliers, but there were many that appeared to be Frankensteinish mish-mashes of devices that were never meant to work together.
Work together, however, they did. Quite successfully, in fact; far more successfully than their creator had anticipated. He'd only hoped to replicate the quantum field that would eventually be used to draw his target out of his universe and into this one via the medium of quantum entanglement, but instead he'd been astonished and gratified to see the field expand and gain enough strength to actually take the woman – Dr. Molly Hooper, he'd since learned her name to be – and complete the circuit, as it were. She'd literally been taken from one quantum reality and deposited in another. He would win the Nobel Prize for Physics if this were ever revealed to the world.
Or be dragged off in chains. Both outcomes were equally likely.
He found himself constantly teetering between overwhelming pride in what he'd accomplished and terror that he'd given his hand away too soon. Because of course Dr. Hooper hadn't been his target, and the Baker Street flat into which she'd been dropped (he'd have to find a way to calibrate the quantum signatures needed to bring and send people a bit more gently in future) hadn't been where he'd intended – or expected – her to end up.
No, he'd been aiming for Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, with the intent of bringing the consulting detective here, to this hidden laboratory. At that point he'd planned to plead his cause to the brilliant man...but that was for the future. As soon as the components that had unexpectedly burned out were replaced, the devices recalibrated, some minor tweaking done to correct the previous errors, eradicate the odd random elements that had cropped up...yes, then he would be ready.
And Sherlock Holmes would find himself in the same universe as Molly Hooper. After that, who knew? He might even be able to find a way to send them both home one day.