A/N: Finite! Late I know but hey what you gonna do about a bad internet connection - can't call Ghostbusters for that and Sherlock certainly hasn't called ghostbusters for this last chapter.
Enjoy my lovelies. See you soon!
10) Meeting a Spirit.
"That's a ghost Sherlock." Molly clutches his arm and Sherlock's forced to evaluate the thing in front of him. It's certainly translucent and everything points to it being a real ghost.
Only they don't exist.
In celebration of their second wedding anniversary Sherlock had taken Molly back to the gatekeepers place on the edge of his estate. Mycroft's estate. The same place they had gone to when they were 21 before they graduated, before Sherlock almost killed himself with drugs and when Molly had to deal with her unrequited love for her university flat mate. Now it was very much returned but he still behaved badly from time to time.
This was one of them.
He'd said a picnic in the woods watching the sunset. Only she realised how duped she'd been when Sherlock brought her here.
"Mycroft's left it since we came here last." Sherlock whispered as he stared at the person in front of him. "It's got to be a person." Sherlock steps forward but Molly holds on his arm.
"Sherlock, this person, is see-through." She stares up at him with wide eyes and Sherlock's forced to say he can see through to the wall behind the creature in front of him.
"Are you two just going to stare at me?" The ghost snapped, turning to them. "I am also a woman if you haven't noticed." She gestured to the flowing skirts that Sherlock's brain was still arguing against.
"I am calm. I am calm." Sherlock chanted as he stared wide eyed at the female form before them.
"Sherlock." Molly tapped him on the shoulder as she watched the ghost's frown deepen at her husband's antics.
"YOU! You are not possible. Ghosts do not exist!" Sherlock turned in agitation to the ghost, before turning back to the doorway and Molly and facing the girl once more. "You're not possible." He murmured and it was only as the ghost's hands were against her hips that he registered he should stop talking.
"Sherlock. Shut up." Molly's elbow made painful contact with his ribs.
"Oh you're Sherlock." The ghost hummed appraising the pair in front of her. "You know who you're named after?" She raised an eyebrow and Sherlock's brain was still not registering that this thing was sentient and real and the room was cold and god it was so clichéd. But real. Moll's shiver beside him made him wrap his arm around her protectively.
"A great uncle." He muttered through clenched teeth.
"Indeed, my brother. Bloody man was insufferable." She swept away again. "But it wasn't him that killed me. I didn't even die here." She shrugged and Sherlock felt Molly move beside him.
"Who are you?" Molly whispered from beside her husband.
"You know I've never seen a Holmes man with a woman at his side." The ghost sat at the forlorn table beside her. It didn't creak beneath her weight. "Oh Isabelle Holmes. I ran away on the eve of my wedding and well the family disowned me."
"How are you here Isabelle?" Sherlock's stunned by Molly's acceptance of a ghost and then he sees her expression. It's one of pity and when Molly sympathises for something she usually tries to adopt it. That's why they had four cats and she was forbidden from visiting any more shelters.
"Father wanted to give me to some new bit landowner who wanted a third wife." She glared out of the window. "Sherlock, my Sherlock strongly disliked the match, the last wives had died in suspicious circumstances but father was an unfeeling man. Mother's death had pretty much shredded his emotions and both my brothers and I suffered as a result." Isabelle's explanation was pulling at Molly's heartstrings and she had long left Sherlock's embrace to hear the girl's plight.
"What next?" Sherlock's voice came from the doorway to the attic.
"My Sherlock tried to stop the match, tried to help me escape to our Aunt but Father discovered I'd gone and ran me down between here and the house." Isabelle's voice had taken on the tone Sherlock used for cases, cold and analytical. The emotion had long since vanished and Molly wanted to hug her. "I realised Father buried me at the back of the gatekeepers house. He was trying to pin my death on the lovely family that worked for us. It was Edward, their son that was going to help me escape. He fled before Father got to him." She sniffed and Molly stepped even closer.
"Oh little one." Molly cooed and Sherlock had to hide a laugh. "Are you still…." Molly's face flamed red.
"Buried out there, yeah somewhere out there." Isabelle was crying now and even Sherlock watched with some shred of emotion.
"If we bury you, properly, will you find peace?" Sherlock stood closer to the ghost claiming to be his lost Great aunt Isabelle.
"Who knows?" Isabelle turned to look at them. "Wait you're willing to do that?!" She stood up smiling and went to fling herself at Sherlock but stopped as she passed through him. "I want to see my Sherlock again, and my John Holmes. I miss him. I might even see Edward again!" She grinned and Sherlock's heart gave a funny leap at the sheer joy on the ghost's face.
"How are you going to explain that to your brother?" Molly raised an eyebrow towards Sherlock. "I want to dig the back of the gatekeeper's cottage up because 'a ghost told me to' is not going to work on Mycroft." Molly hummed and Isabelle's face screwed up.
"I don't like Mycroft, he wears weird pyjamas to bed and has a stash of doughnuts in his bedside drawer." Isabelle shrugged and was surprised when Sherlock burst out into a laugh.
"With that he'll do what I want." Sherlock grinned before sobering slightly. "I promise Isabelle if we can put you to rest we will." Sherlock nodded at the waif before him.
_S.H_/_M.H_
Sure enough when the small digger began to pull at the back of the cottage a skeleton was discovered. Molly could see the crushed marks on the ribs despite being an anthropologist; Isabelle Holmes really had been mown down by her own father on horseback. It would have been the blunt force trauma to the back of the skull that would have killed her.
Sherlock and Molly went back to the cottage that night to find Isabelle pacing the grass outside.
"It's weird I don't like it." She hissed, seeming angrier than normal.
"You've disturbed her grave Sherlock." Molly whispered as the trees began to rattle at them and the pair fled the ghost's vengeance.
Very quickly Sherlock rushed through Isabelle's funeral, people reporting weird noises from the woods and strange lights that even Mycroft was forced to investigate. Soon though she was buried in the consecrated ground of the Holmes family graveyard and when Molly took Sherlock back that night everything was peaceful. It was just as they were leaving that Molly shut off her torch and stared at the house, lit by the full moon that she saw Isabelle stood at the front door.
"Thank you!" She waved joyfully before running into the darkness behind the trees, vanishing in a wisp of fog.
No-one would believe Sherlock when he said he saw a ghost. John had seen Sherlock freak out at the hell hound in Baskerville, a ghost made the army surgeon snort with suppressed laughter. Mycroft just sneered until Sherlock dropped the doughnut comment once more and chuckled when his older brother turned a delightful shade of purple. Sherlock knew he brother refused to believe anything paranormal despite his own jaunt into the forest when Isabelle was 'restless'.
A year later when Molly gave birth to her beautiful daughter the pair silently decided Isabelle Holmes deserved a happier second chance.