Okay, so here it is! I'm sorry if it's a bit short but to make it up, I promise the end of this chapter and the whole next chapter is filled with Molly & Sherlock fluff! Enjoy
"John!" an alarmed masculine voice woke up the doctor from his dizziness. Slowly, the piercing blue eyes of Sherlock materialized through the clouds of his mind. "John, can you hear me?"
"She..Sherlock?" John mumbled as he started coming around. As his vision cleared he discovered other alarmed faces staring at him.
"He has no apparent brain damage, but his general state of confusion agrees with my diagnostic of a light contusion." Sherlock spoke to a recorder as he inspectioned the body of his friend. Desperate by his behavior, Molly pulled him apart.
"I am the doctor, Sherlock! For God's sake, let me do my job!" she yelled at him and Sherlock put the recorder away. He seemed rather embarrassed. Still angry, Molly inspectioned John and concluded with a defeat sight "No severe trauma. He just has a light contusion." Sherlock tried to his triumph grin, but Molly caught it and rolled her eyes.
"What happened?" John asked, still confused.
"Well someone knocked you out, took the prisoner and left." Santiago explained as he devoured a sandwich. Valentina was seating next to him on the couch, with her wavy hair now pulled up in a pony tail. Santiago approached the sandwich to her face and she jumped back with a disgusted face as he ginned amused. "Oh, yeah and he left a love letter to Mr. Detective."
"A letter?" John asked Sherlock, who instinctively avoided his look. "What does it say?"
"Well, John I was about to read it, but then I found you unconscious on the floor and decided to direct my attention to that first." Sherlock looked rather proud of himself, like if he expected some kind of compliment for caring for his friend.
"It says…"Molly had already taken the envelop and started reading it out loud as she paced around the room.
"Well played Mr. Sherlock! I didn't realize we would play in teams, though. Given the fact that you have assembled a remarkable group of team members, I decided to do so as well (Michael wouldn't be my first choice, but as the bruises on Dr. Hooper's face prove, he has done an acceptable work.)"
Molly didn't blinked and continued reading on a neutral tone. On the other side, Sherlock clenched his fist and muttered something about "the perfect places to hid Michel's body"
"Now, let's move on to the next stage of the game. See, I have decided you give your friend a period of grace of 48 hours. When that period finishes, I'll shoot one each hour."
"We have already wasted one hour waiting for him to wake up!" Valentina complained annoyed, but Molly waved her off and continued.
"Unless, you want to see your fiend's die, you will surrender yourself to me on the following address. Oh and by the way, could you…" Molly trailed off as she read the last words of the letter, suddenly blushing and looking ashamed.
Valentina snapped the letter off her hands and continued the reading. "…bring the purple shirt that Molly mentions on her diary? According to her it makes your eyes look like two bright stars shining in the night's sky and …" Valentina smirked as Molly fixed her eyes on the floor and Sherlock looked at her curiously. "…also makes your abs look dreamy."
"My abs?" Sherlock questioned, smiling lightly but also blushing.
"Oh, shut up!" Molly muttered, his face turning even a brighter shade of red.
"Well, that was cryptic, confusing and disturbing. What a great combo!" Santiago exclaimed angrily.
"On the contrary, cave man…" Sherlock started, but Santiago quickly jumped off the couch and protested.
"How longs are you going to keep referring me as cave man, smart ass?" he muttered, ready to fight.
"Until you keep behaving like one." Sherlock responded calmly and then pointed at the crumbles on the sofa. "You know, there are plates on the kitchen."
Santiago brushed the crumbles off quickly, ashamed of his actions. Sherlock continued his monologue, "On the contrary, the letter has show us that we are not dealing with an anarchist or a sociopath but with an organized criminal. " Sherlock's eyes sparkled with amusement as he explained his theory. "There must be a hidden motive of why he wants to meet, but we will have to figure that out on our way."
"On our way, where exactly?" John asked, irritated by the lack of information. "There is something else." John stated suddenly remembering last night discovery." The kid who sold me the chocolates on the store was wearing a latex mask and a disguise. That's why he smelled like plastic and the numbers on his tag were fucked up."
Interesting, why won't he show his face? Would John recognize him? It's someone we already know…
"Well, that depends. " Sherlock rolled his eyes as he had just stated something extremely obvious.
"Santiago and I will be searching in the library for any connections." Valentina nodded silently as she exited the flat. Santiago had no remedy but to follow her, still clueless about their destiny.
"Connections? Connections to what?" finally John exploded, dropping the ice bag Molly had given his to hold against his head, causing the small frozen cubes to scatter around the wooden floor.
"Connections between Michael and our mystery player. I bet Michael didn't brag much about his job, right Molly?" Sherlock looked at Molly but before waiting for her to nod, he continued. "That's because he didn't had any. Who would hire a drunk and abusive looser? But he wears clothes from famous brands and he had enough cash on his wallet to survive on a comfortable style of living. He was used to this way of living, which would imply that whoever why hired him has been working with him for a long time. Maeby a childhood friend…"
"How will we find out where he lives?" John questioned, already putting on his coat and ready to leave.
"Well, according to his wallet, we already know. Molly and I will be there shortly." Sherlock pointed out as he took his coat as well, ignoring the shocked looks of both of his friends.
"Why are you taking Molly with you?" the real question John wanted to ask was "why aren't you taking me instead, but he refrained himself from asking.
"Molly is just as capable as you John, not that you were insinuating differently, right?" then he felt into an awkward silence and uncomfortably confessed. "I also thought you would like to visit Mary at the hospital…" Sherlock was clearly not used to making favors and John was also surprised. "While you're there you might also want to inform Lestrade about our case. I been informed that he has stupidly decided to guard your fiancé 24/7 until further notice."
"Oh, yeah…thank you, I guess." John mumbled.
Both friends looked at each other and for a minute, it was clear that that weird and unexplainable link of friendship that once brought them together was still intact after all this time. It was beautiful moment, but Sherlock didn't had any experience on beautiful moments, so he disrupted the connection abruptly walking to the door. "Shall we, Molly?"
Santiago looked bored as he piled up books of registries of birth next to the computer where Valentina typed furiously. She looked cute, he thought, and then he refrained himself from touching the soft piece of hair that had fallen out if her ponytail.
"So…" he tried to start a conversation casually."How does that work?"
"Mmmm…" she muttered, trying to find the right words. "Have you ever used face book?"
"Yeah. When I was younger." Santiago avoided saying "when I still lived at home." But Valentina still guessed that and softened her expression when he turned to see him.
"Well, I created improved version of FB's tagging pictures systems. You see first we will search for all the persons that Mr. Scumbag has ever been related to. Then I'll go through all the pictures and memorize them. Is just about eliminating the right people." She added when he saw the amusement on his face. "I'll eliminate all his family from the list of suspects. Then all his close friends and do on and so on. Eventually there will be people remaining who have no reason to be related with that jerk but somehow they are. We will go though that list and search for they information. I calculate there will be enough information to reveal the Player's identity in…about five hours or so."
"And you will memorize…"
"About three million faces and their connections to each other." Valentina smirked, clearly showing off. "Go get a coffee or a doze of coke."
Santiago felt insulted by the reminder of his addiction so he bitterly corrected her. "I'm no longer using. I stop doing drugs even if your loved Sherlock is paying because you are fucking difficult to protect, you know that?" Santiago turned away after he noticed Valentina had ignored him completely
After six hour of working exhaustively, even a genius like Valentina needed a break. She ran her hand trough her hair as she tried to rest her eyes from the glow of the screen of her laptop. She also stretched her legs and a acute pain flinch confirmed that she had been seating too long.
Despite that, the search was advancing.
She had already classified over a million faces.
None of them, thought, were suspicious.
Valentina couldn't help to feel a bit frustrated, but she wasn't sure if it had to do something with the fact that Santiago hadn't stopped by since she insinuated he was a drug addict.
She regretted it as soon as she said it, but she was too embarrassed to apologize, so she pretended to be caught up on her work. Then he had left her. And now she felt like a complete jerk.
How was she supposed to know he would be so "sensitive" about the issue? Was she supposed to censor her thoughts?
"How do you do it Sherlock?" she questioned inside her head.
Sherlock had been an angel to her. Maybe there she had had a slight crush on him ( omg, she sounded like such a pathetic teenager!) but after she saw the way he looked at the pathologist, she understood that Sherlock a great weakness: he had allowed himself to fall in love.
Apparently, he hadn't notice yet.
At first Valentina thought she shouldn't do anything and just let things flow. But now she saw it clearly. It was hard for people like she or Sherlock to find someone that could put up with their extravagances and socially unaccepted behaviors. Despite that there were people like Santiago and Molly who masoquistically tried to be with them anyway. It was only fair to give them a chance right?
So Valentina had decided it was okay for Sherlock to be with Molly.
Now she had to convince herself that even thought it was right for them, it wouldn't be right for her.
She would just hurt Santiago.
Like apparently, she just did.
MATCH NOT FOUND
The glowing red letters of the computer caught her attention and snapped her out of reality. There was an unrecognized face on the database. She opened the file and her mouth formed an "o" at the surprise.
She could see the face. It was a man, almost forty with a beard and piercing green eyes.
But that's it.
She couldn't memorize, analyze or distinguish any feature on him. She had always been able to do so with every face she had met on her life (approximately over a million, she calculated) except with one.
Her own.
It was like seeing the face through a blurry glass and she couldn't do anything to stop it. On almost two decades of life, Valentina had never been able to recognize her face on the mirror or on any photography. She knew what he face looked like; it was jkust that her brain couldn't process that information. Valentina had never confessed that weakness to anyone, but the same thing happened with the photo of the strange man.
"Shit! He looks just like you!" Santiago muttered just inches away from her ear, causing her to startle and scream in terror.
It had been a long day. Molly couldn't wait to get home and get some sleep but it didn't seem that was happening any time soon. It was almost midnight and the cab kept driving around. About six hour ago, Molly had stopped asking Sherlock for explanations when she realized she wasn't getting any. Now she just stared through the window, hoping that they would arrive to their mystery location some time soon.
"We are here." Sherlock read her mind and ordered the driver to stop. The man, who had gently extended his working schedule in exchange of a outrageous tip.
They exited the car and Molly was surprised to see they had parked outside a luxurious hotel. She looked at Sherlock and for her surprise he was looking at her with an amused grin. "Is this were we are supposed to meet him?"
"What? No!" Sherlock responded offended as the car drove away and he gently conducted Molly to the entrance. "Your constant frustration sights were making me go nuts, so I decided we both need a break."
Molly took some time to process Sherlock's words because she was distracted by the fact that his hand had positioned just above her shoulders as he guided her. Despite that unusual gesture, Molly wasn't deceived by the gentleness and she still remembered the mean words he had screamed at her just 24 hours ago. Why was he acting all softy and lovely on her now?
"I couldn't agree more." She stated coldly as she walked a little faster to put some distance between them, which of course took all her power of will to do. Sherlock frowned in confusion, but he still tried to keep the appearances and kindly asked the receptionist for two rooms. He pays with a black card and Molly guessed that her night of luxury was going to be sponsored by Mycroft.
She followed Sherlock into the elevator and later, to their rooms. When it was time to separate she just nodded and closed her door straight after she went in, which gave Sherlock no time to speak.
Molly observed the room. Everything looked extremely expensive and it probably was. She didn't felt to flattered by that. In fact it kind of bothered Sherlock had taken the time to find such a place because now she felt like she own him something. Molly wished to end this and move on. She wished Sherlock disappeared again, so she could stop feeling such an idiot every time she spoke. Finally she collapsed into her bed without changing her clothes.
She wasn't the only one who felt bad. Just a few meters apart, Sherlock paced uneasy through the room. He didn't understood Molly's behavior. After their little fight, Sherlock had time to reconsider his actions. He had reached the following conclusions.
-It was his fault that Molly got hurt
-He didn't wanted to see Molly suffer again
So, he HAD to get away from her and so he would do after solving this "case"
Before he did so, however, he wanted to apologize to molly. He had been nice to her, he had got her a really nice place and even if he did all that, Molly refuse to forgive him.
It wasn't her fault, thought. A night of luxury would certainly not erase the mistreats and tortures she had to bear for a year. Why did have she put up with such suffering was an enigma that tortured Sherlock's brilliant mind. Just the mental image (and his brain was certainly capable to produce very, very vivid scenarios) of little and sweet Molly being hit make him feel nauseous.
Why did he felt that way also puzzled him.
For once, he was clueless and he didn't like it at all.
He slammed his fist against the wall, surprised by his own rage and power. With adrenaline still running though his body, his gaze settled on the mini bar on the corner.
"Why not?" he wondered.