Shaking violently, John nodded dumbly and felt his way into the chair behind him, unable to take his eyes from the scene in front of him.

Molly sighed, her anger melting away. Resignedly, she turned back to Sherlock. 'Now that you are… aware of what I am, I suppose there remains nothing left for me to hide. And I see Mycroft has briefed you on my file. Ask away.'

Sherlock clapped his hands, smiling, 'Excellent!'

John stared at him incredulously, his mouth still gaping wide. 'Hold the bloody fuck up. What is going on? She… her leg… was shattered!'

'Operative word being 'was', John,' Sherlock rolled his eyes. He waved a hand between him and Molly, 'If you would elaborate for the sake of Doctor Watson, please.'

Molly flinched at the derision he inflected as he spoke. She sighed and sat across from John in Sherlock's chair. Catching his wide eyes, she spoke softly but firmly, 'Short version: I'm not human. At least, I don't think I am.'

John stared at her dumbly. He pointed a shaky hand at her thigh, 'And… the-uh…'

'The healing thing?' He nodded. Molly smiled ruefully, 'I feel pain, but any wound heals. Even from death.'

If possible, his eyes widened even further in disbelief. 'Right. Okay.' His brow furrowed and he breathed steadily through his nose. Molly waited as he absorbed the information, knowing there was very little chance he would reconcile what she was with his reality. 'Was I given something? Drugged? Some hallucinogenic from Baskerville?' He looked hopefully up at Sherlock, who smirked and shook his head.

'Okay then,' he sat back in his chair in a slump.

Molly swallowed as she realized that she may have just lost a friend. 'John? I know it's a lot to-'

'So you're a bit like a god?'

She blinked at the question, surprised to see a slight smile on his face.

'Um, I guess. If immortality is the only qualification,' she shrugged.

Behind her, Sherlock murmured in thought, 'A god…'

Ignoring him, John suddenly leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. 'So how old are you?'

Molly visibly flinched, surprised by both the question and his apparent sudden acceptance of the situation. 'Um, I'm not sure exactly…' she stammered.

'So, pretty old then?' John adopted a flirtatious smile, 'You're looking damn fine for an old woman.'

Completely caught off guard by his attitude, Molly laughed. Truly laughed for the first time in years, relief lifting some of the weight off her shoulders. John accepted her. Whatever she was, it didn't set him off.

And for the first time in her life, she had a friend who knew her secret. And it didn't scare them away.

For his part, John was still coming to terms with what he had seen and learned. Molly Hooper, sweet Molly Hooper with the enormous crush on his oblivious and caustic best friend, wasn't human and was older than any person had a right to be.

He still wasn't completely sure his mind wasn't impaired by some experiment of Sherlock's, but he was beginning to understand that it was real.

'So, am I ever going to have a friend who doesn't have a huge secret?' He joked ruefully, eliciting another laugh from his friend. Seeing the utter relief in Molly's eyes, he stood and pulled her to her feet and enveloped her in a hug. 'If I can forgive Sherlock for making me believe him to be dead, and Mary for hiding a life as an assassin, I think I can forgive you for hiding your own secret.'

Against his shoulder, he felt Molly hiccup a half-sob, half-laugh, as she whispered a muffled 'Thank you.'

Sherlock sneered at the sentimental display of friendship between Molly and John. Unlike himself, John had easily come to terms with this new reality. And it aggravated him. He was supposed to be the smart one, and yet, John's vacant mind was able to grasp Molly's situation easier than Sherlock was.

Molly and John separated, each surreptitiously wiping tears from their eyes. Sherlock turned from them and began examining Molly's timeline once more.

'Always Molly. Why?' He murmured in question, hands on his hips. In his peripherals, he saw John and Molly flank his sides.

She shrugged. 'I chose it and it sort of stuck.'

'Not a very Victorian name,' he sneered. Molly swallowed thickly.

'I'm not a very Victorian woman.'

John leaned around Sherlock to ask, 'Around what era were you born?'

Molly waved him off dismissively. 'Oh, I forgot that ages ago. It only reminds me that I'm getting older.'

Something must have given her away, for Sherlock turned to stare down at her. His eyes raked over her crudely, as though trying to see the rings of age in her very bones. 'No, you do remember, though you have tried very hard to forget and have failed in that regard.'

Flashes of her life, a lonely, bitter existence, crossed her mind.

'Wouldn't you?' Molly spat, clenching her fists in anger. She turned her face away as tears burned her eyes. 'If you had to live a thousand lifetimes, living and dying, watching everyone you've ever loved turn to dust, wouldn't you do everything you could to simply forget?'

Sherlock absorbed the information, his eyes blinking slowly as he stared at her. 'I am… sorry. I did not intend to cause you distress.'

Molly held her expression firmly, refusing to let her face show any more weakness, and nodded sharply. A warmth on her shoulder caught her attention and she was surprised to see John standing behind her, offering her some form of comfort. She pulled her lips back in a small smile of gratitude.

She knew Sherlock would not let any of this go, nothing would escape his scrutiny. But the thought of baring her entire existence to him, of being completely open and vulnerable, scared her to the core. Without his help, though, she might never find Moriarty's puppetmaster.

She straightened her shoulders in resolution. That would be unacceptable. Sherlock would get his answers, they would defeat this threat, and then she would disappear, taking her secrets with her.

With a decisive nod, Molly picked up the Sherlock's pen and a blank paper square.

'Better start at the beginning, boys.' She scribbled a date on the paper and tacked it far down the wall from where Sherlock's timeline began.

They stared at the date as she stepped back, their eyes wide in surprise and not a small hint of disbelief.

'You were born in 43… BC?' asked John.

Molly shook her head, laughing mirthlessly. 'No. I don't know when I was born, if I even was. That,' she pointed at the piece of paper with the hated date, 'is simply the first day I remember existing.'

'Right,' John nodded dumbly. 'Tea may be a bit mild for this. I need something stronger.'

For the next few hours, Molly guided them through her long, but mediocre existence in general detail. Every couple decades, she would change her surname and move on, leaving behind nothing that could be traced to her. Around the mid-19th century, with the growth of economies and advances in technology, her paper trail began. However, she maintained a clean record that raised no red flags. For a time, she was a governess, then a maid, before she moved to the Americas and worked in a small shop; each job less impacting than its predecessor. Finally, in the early 2000s, she returned to London and pursued a more honorable job in pathology.

'Why pathology?' Sherlock inquired. 'It's quite different from your previous career choices.'

A casual lie, the one she always gave, lay on her tongue. But honesty was key when dealing with the Human Consulting Lie Detector. 'My friend. Peter. He was dying and his body was… taken.'

'How do you mean, 'taken'?'

'Possessed.' Molly bit out, remembering the horror of soulless eyes staring up at her from the face of her beloved friend. She explained that Peter had been a father figure to her, guiding and supporting her. The only one to know that she was not what she seemed, though she never divulged her secret.

'Whatever possessed him had torn his soul in half, creating the equivalent of human schizophrenia, a duo-mortal soul: two mortal entities embodying the same transport. It was through his urging when he was in control, that I decided to pursue pathology and became adept at identifying demi- and semi-mortal souls from the bodies filtering through my morgue. A body fresh in death was susceptible to possession and, through a particularly trying experience, I discovered my sword was able to destroy the possessor, but at the cost of its possession.'

'Sword?'

'Demi- and semi-mortal souls?'

Both Sherlock and John spoke at the same time. Molly glanced between the two of them.

'A semi-mortal soul,' she answered Sherlock, who leaned forward in his chair, 'is what a demon calls itself when it inhabits a deceased body. It contains all the power of the possessor, but retains the mortality of its possession. A demi-mortal soul is a demon that inhabits any body, living or dead, but is higher ranking and more powerful than its inferiors.'

'And how are you aware of the ranking of these demons?' Sherlock asked with a raised eyebrow.

Molly stared firmly back at him to spite his disbelief. 'They are not humble or subtle in their arrogance. They told me everything I needed to know. Ensuring their own downfall, but alas, their pride would not be contained.'

'If I may,' John interrupted. 'How many of these… broken souls have you done away with?'

'A fair few,' Molly answered with a shrug. 'My interference probably has no great effect. The bodies still rot, so the demons generally incinerate the transport within a day or two. Their intentions aren't honorable, but for the most part, they only cause a little mischief. It is demi-mortal souls like Moran that are dangerous. He is, I mean, he was, the highest-ranking demon I'd encountered.'

'Moran is dead?' John gaped. 'Since when?'

'Three days ago, John. Do keep up.' Sherlock rolled his eyes and gestured for Molly to continue.

'Actually, I'd like to know why you didn't inform me about Moran's death? We've been hunting him for months!' John glared at the Consulting Detective. Then he flinched as the conversation caught up with him and he turned to Molly in disbelief. 'Moran was a demon?'

'Moriarty's second-in-command and a demi-mortal soul,' Molly explained. 'Either he consistently body-hopped or some… thing gave the body he chose some sort of decay-prevention. I ensured his end either way.'

John narrowed his eyes. 'Ensured it how?'

For a second, Molly hesitated. But John had already accepted (or appeared to accept) everything she'd thrown his way up to this point. She stood slowly, but determinedly.

'You'll enjoy this, John,' Sherlock muttered crossly as he sunk into his chair with a petulant pout.

The past few hours had taken their toll on all three of them. But John thought he was handling the onslaught of information quite well. Until Molly stood and in an instant was transformed into a silver-haired warrior goddess.

Well aware that he had been gaping at her armor-clad body for several minutes, John finally shook himself from his surprised stupor. Molly sat back down on the sofa, holding a thrumming white blade across her lap. Her posture was tense and her eyes were wide and somewhat fearful of his rejection.

With a glance at the half-full glass of scotch Sherlock had wordlessly placed in his hand, John threw it back and cleared his throat. He held the glass out in Sherlock's general direction, unable to tear his eyes away from Molly.

'I may need more of this.'