The force of the bullet impact sent Moriarty's body tumbling backwards, knocking over the deckchair as the body hit the ground in a sprawl. Sherlock watched with a certain shock and more than a bit of awe as his sister stood, stepped over the spill of Moriarty's body and stared down dispassionately at his face.
Her voice was completely devoid of any intonation when she whispered, "Check and mate, you bastard."
There was the sound of someone jogging toward them, she turned at the same time that Sherlock had and they watched Anthea approach. This was an Anthea that John Watson would not have recognized, she was almost utterly foreign to Sherlock as well - gone was the prim immaculate admin, in her place stood a capable markswoman clad in the distinctive military uniform of the Intelligence Corps with its cypress beret. The barrel of an Accuracy International rifle L115A3 peaked up over her shoulder, the specialty rifle seemingly too large for her. She joined Sherrinford beside the body, a clinical look on her face. "Too far to left, I need to spend more time on the range," she commented before shrugging. She smiled at Sherlock, eyes sparkling as she said, "Your brother is fine, sir. DI Lestrade decided to play hero."
At that pronouncement, Sherrinford turned to leave but to Sherlock's surprise, Anthea reached out and grabbed his sister by the wrist, "No, ma'am, you'll only be in the way. Molly has everything in hand and a medic has arrived as well. Someone with authority needs to be here to deal with the police and," looking down at her uniform, "I really shouldn't be seen like this. It would undermine certain relationships with the Met if I was seen like this. I'll withdraw for now, go change and meet up with you later." She paused, "With your permission, of course."
"One moment," Sherlock said, as he realized what was bothering him, "When exactly did you plan for Anthea and Molly to be here?" Sherlock asked, his voice cool.
"She didn't, exactly," Anthea admitted. "Not Lestrade either but you lot…" She sighed and set the rifle down beside Sherrin's deck chair and sat down, "You lot think you're invincible until you're forcibly reminded that you're not. So when Ms. Holmes came to see me before you left, we decided to make a few changes of our own." She looked over at the corpse on the grass and then focused her attention to the agents that ran across the green towards their location, "My orders were simple - take out Moran, the only person Moriarty trusted – good plan but that presupposed that Moran would be here and if Moriarty ran to type that meant Moran had a target." She looked back to Sherrinford and said, "I will always owe you for taking a chance on me, moving me up out of the basics but the debt I owe you is nothing compared to what I owe the boss. I made," she paused, "an executive decision."
Sherlock watched as the agents lifted Moriarty's body and slid it into the body bag. As they prepared to leave, he said, "If it's all the same, I think I'd like to accompany the body to St. Bart's," glancing over at Anthea, "If you could arrange for Molly to meet me there, I would be most grateful. I expect that you both have… other concerns."
Sherrinford nodded, stretching up to place a kiss on his cheek, "See you back at Baker Street?" He smiled, winked and returned the kiss. He gave Anthea a half bow and strode off as they carted off the body to where he was certain his pathologist already waited.
The drive to St. Bart's was almost tranquil when you took the events of the last four days into consideration. That it had only been four days amazed Sherlock, it had felt like an eternity – not surprising given the miniscule four hours of total sleep he'd had in that time. He had stayed with the body as Mycroft's agents transported it to an ambulance and he had elected to accompany the body, unwilling to lose sight of it for a single moment. Molly had elected to sit in the back with him, she had her own reasons for wanting to see the body safely to St. Bart's.
He remained silent when they unloaded the body, when the lab technicians assisted Molly in removing the body from the bag, disrobed it and she began the process of examining it.
Standing off to the side as he gazed on the face of the man who had actively sought his family's destruction, he felt a measure of relief and suddenly, a deep sadness. With Moriarty dealt with quickly and with relatively little damage (he hadn't even been the person to end his terror), he had no doubt that there was a terrible price still to be paid for Magnusson. Watching Molly as she catalogued the trauma to the head, took the pictures that recorded it all, he was left with a sour feeling in his stomach. This was the man who had essentially ordered the attack on her and she was calmly going about her work whilst he stood fighting his own inner demons.
"When were you going to tell me?" she asked as she washed the gore from the corpse's hair, watching as it went into the biohazard container below.
His body went rigid but she seemingly paid no notice, her attention firmly on the body, "It has been a long day, Molly Hooper, forgive me if I have no idea of that which you speak."
"Sherlock," she chastised, her gaze flicking up to his before returning to her work, "After the last four days, are we really going to pretend again? How stupid do you really think I am?"
He shook his head, walking away from the body, away from her, "Don't ask me again, I am unable to answer."
"Unable or unwilling?"
"Both. Neither. What does it matter?" he asked, exasperated, "They're not my secrets to tell."
She set down the hand-sprayer, watching him for the first time since the autopsy started, "Not this," she said, gesturing to the body, "If I'm meant to know, I'm sure I'll hear through channels. Some things about this make no sense. You never explained and I've had nothing but time since this started to think about it. You arrived at St. Bart's awfully fast when that image aired, faster than you should have. I'm not first on your list, I'm not even second, but you got here so fast which got me thinking, for you not to think of John, not to worry about Mycroft – that meant you were with them when this happened. Why were you with them?"
"A minor issue," Sherlock said quietly, "Of no consequence."
"Okay." At that quiet pronouncement, he watched her carefully - set on guard by the flat delivery in her tone, she had turned her attention back to the body and began to study the almost delicate mark on the forehead.
"Okay? Just okay?" He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed in her acceptance of his answer.
She measured the entrance wound with great care, marking down the detail on a form before answering him, "What would you like me to say? You don't trust me enough to tell me the truth and I see no point in pushing the point."
"Of course, I trust you," he muttered, "I have always trusted you."
She shook her head, "The only thing you give more frugally than your affection is your trust. You've needed me, you've used me but I don't believe for a second that you trust me. So if you can't trust me, stop distracting me and let me get about this."
Perturbed, he moved over to his favourite microscope, long fingers tracing around the lab equipment as he gathered his thoughts. "Would you mind if I sat in your office for a while?" At the quirk of her brow, he took that for acceptance and strode away from her to sit in the dark.
"The only thing you give more frugally than your affection is your trust." Those words echoed through the walls of his mind-palace and no matter where he walked, the sound of them returned to him.
"She's right, of course," he heard a quiet voice say to him. Looking over, he was surprised to see his mind's version of Sherrinford step into the room that was the twin to his old bedroom. Unsurprising, really, Molly had replaced her as his voice of reason – rather appropriate that Sherrinford would return given the events of the past days.
He was sprawled on his old bed and after a moment, she sat beside him. She smiled at him and said, "You have a choice, my boy. You can continue down the path you've already started on or you can become like Mycroft."
"I'm nothing like Mycroft," he hissed, annoyed. This wasn't really Sherrinford, this was his mind trying to tell him something and he refused to accept that he was anything like his controlling brother.
"Not yet," she agreed, "but the potential is there. You both made choices when I died," she held up her hand when he made a move to interrupt, "Terrible choices. He closed himself away, in that suit of ice he wears and you tried the same, oh you tried until John beat down those walls. Do you remember what I said at the Park? That we go into service lest we become the devil – we need something outside ourselves to keep us from becoming like Moriarty. You aren't like him, not like Moriarty."
"I am now," he retorted.
"No. Not yet. He never felt a thing for anyone. He didn't love anyone, no matter what you may think and no one loved him in return. He certainly didn't love me - he wanted a toy, a pretty thing to show off – he wanted to control, to possess. He was willing to destroy everything precious in my world to do that, does that sound like you?" She paused, standing on bare feet, toes splayed on the thick carpet, "That woman out there has taken everything that he dished out over the last few days and she's currently washing brain bits down the drain. Does that seem like the type of woman who would balk at something as simple as the truth?"
"She deserves better than I can give her."
"Can or will?"
Groaning, he swung his feet to stand and found himself in the garden at his parent's cottage, warm sunlight streaming down and he heard his father talking to Mummy, explaining why he was trying to build a garden in a particularly rocky area. "Nothing worth the time doing is ever easy, love." His eyes snapped open and he leaned forward in the chair to look around.
Best to just tell her, he thought as he stood and left the office. She looked up for her work, her gaze steady when she heard him say, "It's complicated, Molly. It goes all the way back to the case with the Underground carriages."
She nodded, understanding that this conversation would not be easy for him, as she covered Moriarty's body with a sheet. She slid the tray into the compartment and closed the door. She didn't mention that he'd been sitting in the dark for hours, oblivious while she completed the autopsy - she'd give him the results later.
"That long," she said as she stepped toward him, "this is going to take a while then. Coffee?"
Notes:
So ends my first fic, I hope you enjoyed it - it was tremendous fun to write. None of this would have been possible if not for the moral support and commentary of HeayPuckett. She helped me get back on course when things went off the rails and cheered when I opted to leave some threads dangling.
The idea of this fic and the others was to establish my own headcanon for how Sherlock evolves and how that evolution affects Molly - so you're going to see more of that in the future (knock on wood). Thank you for reading.