Life After Death - A Post-Reichenbach Trilogy

Part Two - Consequences

Chapter Two

Molly soon found that she might have to spill the beans a little earlier than expected, when her aversion to certain smells developed into nausea emesis gravidarum, an extreme form of 'morning sickness', round about the eighth week of her pregnancy.

Whilst riding home on the bus from a late shift, someone got on with a hamburger in a plastic carton and sat just in front of her. She was so over-come with the urge to puke, she had to ring the bell and get off the bus at the next stop, where she proceeded to hurl chunks into the gutter. People walking by gave her a wide berth and she knew they probably thought she was drunk. She so wanted to proclaim to the world that she was NOT drunk but PREGNANT but she knew what these people thought of her didn't really matter. She would never see any of them again.

She had never been squeamish about cutting up cadavers but she found herself having to rush to the 'Ladies' at the slightest whiff of bodily odours and, on a couple of occasions, she came over faint and had to sit with her head between her knees until the colour returned to her cheeks. Her colleagues could not fail to notice these uncharacteristic episodes. Rumours would soon start to circulate, no doubt.

ooOoo

One lunchtime, towards the end of her ninth week of gestation, Molly spotted Maria, the medical photographer, sitting by herself in the staff canteen, and she decided it was time to put another part of her master plan into action.

'Do you mind if I join you?' she asked. Maria was a colleague but not really a friend, so Molly waited to be invited in.

'Of course not,' Maria smiled.

Molly sat down, took a deep breath and launched into her mission statement.

'Maria, I have something to tell you. I want you to know that I'm pregnant.'

Maria's mouth fell open then she broke into a broad smile.

'I knew it!' she exclaimed. 'Wow, Molly, that explains everything. Oh, my goodness! How wonderful! But I didn't even know you were with someone. Who's the lucky guy?'

Fortunately, Molly had anticipated this enquiry.

'I'm not with anyone, actually. I…'

But before Molly could complete her prepared explanation, Maria exclaimed again,

'Oh my God, you've had A. I. Wow, Molly, how marvellous! You know, I've thought about doing that so many times. I mean, none of us are getting any younger, are we? And sitting around waiting for Mr Right doesn't seem to be working. Gosh, you are so brave!'

Molly was about to correct her over-enthusiastic confidante when it suddenly occurred to her that this was the perfect cover story. Why hadn't she thought of it herself? She changed tack, accepted Maria's compliments on her 'out there-ness' and delivered her second revelation.

'Maria, I need to ask a big favour. I would really like you to be my birth partner.'

This actually did render the loquacious lady speechless - for at least two seconds.

'Oh, Molly, me? Are you sure? I mean, of course, I'd be honoured but, are you sure there's no one else you'd rather, like your sister, maybe? Have you got a sister?'

'Yes, Maria, I do have a sister but I really would like you to do it, for a very important reason.'

Molly paused to rally her resolve, then said,

'You are a medical photographer. You have photographed heart transplants, conjoined twin separations, all manner of medical procedures. I would really like you to film the birth.'

Again, Molly had flummoxed her companion.

'I want a permanent record of the delivery, something tangible that I can keep, maybe show my child one day, when it's old enough.'

Maria sat dumb-founded for a further two heart beats then almost leapt out of her chair.

'Wow, Molly, I would be thrilled to film your baby's birth, I would be honoured and delighted! In fact,' she said, her professional mind jumping into gear, 'I would love to document the whole pregnancy. You know, take photographs of you through every stage, so you would have a complete account of the whole thing.'

This was more than Molly could have dreamed of and she was thrilled with the idea.

'Oh, Maria, thank you so much! I knew you were the right person to ask. But if we're going to record the whole thing, I have an appointment coming up that I need you to attend with me.'

Maria was all ears.

Next week, I have my twelve week scan.'

Although Molly knew the exact date she conceived, protocol dictated that the pregnancy be dated from the first day of her last period so, officially, she was eleven weeks gone.

The two women spent the rest of their lunch break discussing various ideas and options for the 'magnum opus' that would be the story of Molly's pregnancy. When they stood up, to return to work, Molly reminded Maria that no one else knew yet and that's how it must remain until she felt it was the right time to tell the others. Maria mimed pulling a zip across her lips and winked at Molly. Another step in the plan of action had been achieved.

A week later, when Molly went for her first scan, Maria came too and videoed the whole process. The radiographer assumed they were a lesbian couple and treated Maria like the expectant father, which had her and Molly in fits of giggles for days afterwards.

The scan confirmed that everything was absolutely fine and the baby was developing normally. At the appropriate moment, the radiographer asked,

'Would you like to know your baby's sex, ladies?'

'No!' Molly exclaimed causing the other two women to stare at her.

'No,' she said, more levelly. 'I want it to be a surprise.'

She already had a mental image of her baby as a boy, for no good reason she could think of, but she really did not care which sex it was.

Maria squeezed her hand, warmly.

'That's lovely,' the radiographer beamed. 'I always think it's a shame that people know in advance. It spoils the surprise. But I suppose I'm a bit old-fashioned.'

ooOoo

Armed with the print-out from her scan, the following Saturday, Molly caught the train to Northampton. She needed to tell her mother that she was about to be a grandmother, and it had to be done face to face. She was a little apprehensive about how her mother might take the news but she knew it was just a matter of time before it became obvious to everyone, and she must break it to her family first.

Molly had been a daddy's girl, growing up. She shared a love of scientific inquiry with her dad and they had gone off to science fairs and museums and the like, most weekends, when he was alive. She was not that close to her mother, who had favoured her sister, she being more of a girlie girl than Molly. Her mother's reaction was pretty much as expected.

'Molly, I should have thought you would know better than to get yourself pregnant.'

'Mum, it is a physical impossibility to get your SELF pregnant. There has to be some outside agent involved,' Molly countered.

'Don't you get smart with me, my girl!' her mother snapped. 'You're supposed to be educated. What was the point of sending you to university? You might as well have gone to work in a shop. You're no better than these young girls round here, who think the world owes them a council flat and a load of benefits.'

'God, mother, don't be such a Daily Mail reader!' Molly retorted. 'Yes, I went to university and got well qualified so I could get a good job. And I have! I am well paid, I have my own flat. I still have these things, whether I'm pregnant or not.'

'And what about the father?' her mother snapped back. 'What does he have to say about it? And where is he? Why isn't he here? Is he too ashamed to show his face?'

Molly closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

'The baby's father and I are not together,' she replied. 'He lives abroad.'

'Oh, my god! He's a foreigner!' exclaimed Mrs Hooper. 'Came over here, got you pregnant and then buggered off home! What colour is this baby going to be?'

'Mother,' Molly said, quietly and calmly, 'the baby's father is not a foreigner - not that that would matter, anyway. He's English. And he had to go abroad for his work. He didn't want to go and would much rather have stayed here, but he had no choice in the matter. And though – again - it really does not matter, he is white. So, unless there are any recessive genes on our side of the family that we don't know about, this baby will be white, too. And, anyway, Mum, I'm not a teenager, I'm thirty-one. By the time you were my age, you had two children already.'

'Yes, but I was married. That's the difference,' her mother replied, tartly.

'Well, lucky you. Some of us are not so fortunate.'

Travelling back on the train, that evening, having declined the invitation to stay over because she could not stand the recriminatory looks from her parent, Molly felt rather weepy. This was not surprising. She knew it was, partly, due to the hormonal effects of the pregnancy but crying in public was not something she wished to embrace, so she went to the toilet for a bit of a blub and felt much better afterwards.

ooOoo

As the weeks went by, Molly made further preparations for the arrival of her baby. She didn't want to get too carried away, buying baby things, since there was always the chance that something might go wrong and she would be left with a load of baby stuff to mock her, but she started looking in charity shops for second-hand cots and clothes, reasoning that they didn't cost much, so she could always re-donate them, if things didn't work out.

She made a point of reading anything and everything she could get her hands on about foetal development, child birth and child development. She spent hours in the hospital library and on the Internet, reading all the latest research papers on the subject.

At home, in the evenings, Molly spent her time getting to know her unborn child.

She noted that Junior was most active in the evenings, especially if Molly took a bath. She had read that vision was one of the first senses to develop in the foetus and that the baby would be able to detect light, diffusing through her stomach wall when she was naked, so she often lay in the bath for up to an hour, giving her baby maximum light exposure. After her bath, she would sit in her armchair, listening to music and talking to the 'little parasite'. Mozart seemed to sooth the baby whereas Beethoven made it leap about and turn somersaults, swimming around in its private pool of amniotic fluid.

Molly often talked to him - or her - about Sherlock, about what a brave and clever man he was, how he had sacrificed everything to save his friends and keep them safe, how much he would love to meet his baby, some day. She wasn't sure how true the last bit was but she reasoned that any man would want to meet his child so why should Sherlock be any different?

Molly had not thought of any names for her baby, partly because of her superstition about tempting Fate, but mainly because she intended, once the baby was born, to tell Mycroft that he was an uncle and to ask if there were any family names that it might be appropriate for the baby to be given. She felt that this was the closest she could get to giving Sherlock a hand in the naming of his child.

Thinking about Sherlock made Molly sad. She wondered where he was, what he was doing and how much danger he was in. Was he lonely? Was he hurt? Did he ever think of her? She knew he was determined to destroy every last vestige of Moriarty's organisation, in order to remove the 'fatwas' that the insane master criminal had put on the heads of his friends. She also knew that, until he achieved this – if he ever did – he would remain 'dead' to the world. This thought made her want to cry but a miserable mother usually made for a miserable baby so she pulled herself together and got on with her life.

ooOoo