How to Play a Game Called Murder

Chapter 28: Best Laid Plans

“Ah, Molly, is that test done yet?”

Sherlock looked up from his microscope as the pathologist walked through the door and into the lab, snapping gloves off of her hands. She paused, giving him a dazed look, before slightly shaking her head, as if to bring herself back to the present.

“Yes.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. He didn’t like Molly’s tone.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What are the results?”

Molly dug in her pocket and handed Sherlock the results of the scans she had run on the blood found on the street where her mother died. Sherlock studied her as he took the paper.

Perhaps I should’ve insisted she go home. She’s been crying again.

He wanted nothing more than to wipe the tears from her cheeks but she hid them from him as well as she could, only allowing them to fall when they were in separate rooms. Sherlock had felt sick to his stomach when it hit him that she was hiding because she was afraid he would be upset with her for showing sentiment. He couldn’t blame her but he sure would like to prove her wrong.

Sherlock smiled at Molly, who returned it with little enthusiasm and he glanced down at the paper in front of him.

His smile faded as he read the results and realized exactly why his lover was so upset.

“You’re sure?”

She nodded, tear threatening to spill over again.

Sherlock stood quickly, pulling her into his arms and petting her hair.

“No, no, don’t cry, Molly. No need to cry. He’s just doing this to mess with us. It’s ok.”

“I just don’t understand. How could he get hold of that? And that much of it! You don’t give blood often, and never two pints at a time. Even though it’s been frozen, Sherlock, that’s your blood and somehow he got access to it.”

Sherlock’s fist clenched around the paper as he continued to hold Molly, swaying gently back and forth. An errant thought stuck him that he really shouldn’t be this comfortable with her proximity and obvious distress but he brushed it aside. He needed to think, really he did, but his mind was filled with his pathologist and the overwhelming urge to calm and reassure her that everything would be fine. Though, at this point, he wasn’t sure if it was the truth or not.

Reluctantly, he pressed a kiss to her hairline and pulled back.

“I need to think, Molly. And I can’t do it with you so close. I’m distracted.”

He hated the look he saw in her eyes after he finished. The combination of hurt and resignation killed him. Like she was waiting for him to say that he didn’t want her anymore. He took her hands in his.

“Don’t mistake me. I just need some time alone to think. Nothing more. Mycroft’s car is still waiting outside. Go back to Baker Street and I’ll come for you in a little while. We still have to visit,” he paused, searching for the right words, “the other place.”

She turned to go, but he pulled her back, dropping a light kiss on her lips.

“Are you alright? After earlier?”

Molly visibly swallowed. “I just, I haven’t been there since mum died. I actively avoid that part of town. It felt awful standing there. Knowing that was the last place my mother was alive. Knowing that she was taken from me in the exact spot I was standing.”

Sherlock nodded and Molly left without another word.

He sighed. He wasn’t lying when he told Molly that he needed to think. He did. Hard.

He knew there was only one way that his blood could’ve ended up in their tormentor’s hands. It was a painful, (emotionally and physically,) memory but he knew that was his solution.

While traveling the world, unraveling Moriarty’s criminal web, Sherlock had won most of this battles. But he had lost a few. The worst, in Romania, he had been held captive for six days, during which, he was drugged and beaten on several occasions. He sported various scars on his lean body from the incident. Sherlock surmised that on one particular occasion when he had awoken from a drug induced stupor feeling weaker than he should have, that they had taken a large amount of blood from him. At the time, he was too focused on survival to worry about it. He guessed now, in a roundabout way, that blood had come back to him.

He was unnerved by the discovery. Not because he was psyched out by the use of his own blood to paint a cipher, no, he knew the figure they were up against had a flair for the dramatic, if only to mimic Moriarty’s style. No, Sherlock was off kilter because the use of his blood showed just how far in advance this was planned. This particular series of events had been in the works for years, maybe even since Moriarty’s death on the roof.

Sherlock was now one hundred percent positive that Moriarty was, in fact, dead. He was even more sure, though, that whoever was after him now, would stop at nothing to get their revenge.

The last thing that Sherlock knew without a doubt was that he would protect Molly Hooper at any cost.

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Molly looked up from her reading as Sherlock entered the flat. Her eyes were still a bit swollen but she seemed calmer than she had been.

“Solve the riddle?” she asked, putting aside her e-reader and turning to face him.

“I don’t much care for riddles. Give me a good murder any day.” Sherlock called over his shoulder as he rummaged through the fridge, finding nothing appealing, if you didn’t count the decaying foot, which wasn’t very appetizing.

“Let’s get something to eat on the way to site two.”

Molly smiled with approval. “You’re eating a lot more now, Sherlock. You used to never eat on a case.”

Sherlock stopped dead. She’s right. What the hell is wrong with me? I never eat while I’m working, digestion slows me down too much. But I’ve been eating like a… normal human lately. He shook his head. Many things had changed since his brief exile and he didn’t have time to examine them all at the moment.

He watched as Molly donned her coat and scarf before following her down the stairs. Mycroft’s car pulled up after a moment, Sherlock having sent a text when he arrived at Baker Street to collect Molly. After giving directions to go to the small Chinese place he favored at the moment, Sherlock leaned back in his seat and scrutinized Molly. She fidgeted uncomfortably under his gaze but said nothing, simply waiting for him to decide to speak.

“Molly, you said that you haven’t been to that street since your mother died, correct?”

She nodded her affirmation, choosing to remain silent.

He closed his eyes, losing himself in his mind. Today’s lesson is sadness. Death. The first real pain we experienced in life. He’s forcing us to return to the site of that pain. But why?

He was annoyed that he couldn’t come up with a solid answer to that question.

Sherlock drifted off into his thoughts, not to come out until Molly shook his arm when they arrived at the restaurant.