I sat in Sherlock's chair, legs criss crossed and my laptop lying on top of them. Sherlock stood on the couch staring at his wall, writing down information and crossing things off as they came in through his Holmesless network, as I liked to call it.
"Sherlock?" I asked, looking up from my research.
"Hmm?" He replied.
"Have you talked to John?" I asked.
"I've tried talking to him. He made his position quite clear." He answered vaguely.
"Well what did he say?" I asked.
"Fuck off." Sherlock looked back to me.
"Dear me. I thought he'd be more excited that you were back. After he got over all that pent up aggression. I mean, he probably hit you, what? Three times?" I asked.
"Yes. Though you hit harder. That was two years ago and I can still feel it." He rubbed his cheek with a smirk.
"Well that's your fault. Your cheekbones are practically glass. It probably hurt my hand more." I argued. Typing away, answering emails, being the boss.
"Ugh, I need a case." Sherlock whinned.
"You have a case! A very important, possibly imminent terrorist attack one!" I argued.
"Yes, well in the time being I need another case. And another case while I'm waiting for that one." He argued, making his way to sit in front of me.
"Ok, I know what this is," I placed my laptop on the ground and unfolded my legs, "You want a chance to show off. In front of people, real clients. You've missed this, you've been gone for two years. If a terror attack is just too boring for you, be my guest! Go out and find the embezzling botox husbands, the pen pal catfishing stepfathers, whatever you've really been craving for the last two years."
"Those were oddly specific." He squinted suspiciously, "And if doing those things were to make me happy, you'd let me?"
"As long as you don't let this case fall between the cracks. It's not that I love you less, but I love London more." I smirked.
"Hmm. I thought Shakespeare was supposed to be romantic." Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"Don't worry. Lestrade will text you within the next minute with a case that has Scotland Yard baffled, I'm sure." I stood, collecting my things, and patting his shoulder.
As I bent down and grabbed my laptop, Sherlock's phone buzzed and I smirked.
"How the hell did you know that?" Sherlock raised his phone to me, showing a text from Lestrade.
"Oh please, they lost me, of course they're going to need help. I'm sure you've been in contact with Lestrade since your return, he's returned to smoking I believe, and I think he and the wife split again. He's lonely and missed you bossing him around a crime scene, a case was bound to show up sooner or later." I explained.
"Yeah but how?" He asked, still in disbelief.
"He texted me a minute ago asking about you," I kissed his cheek, grabbing my bags with a smirk on my face.
"I've missed this." He said, as I was in the doorway.
"Tell Molly I said hello." I called as I descended the stairs.
I had pieced it together for the most part. I knew Sherlock would have needed help from within Barts, especially for falsifying autopsy records and post-mortems, thus Molly. With a new case, Sherlock always needs an assistant, and John is currently out of the picture. To say thank you for her work two years ago, Sherlock would take Molly for a spin as his assistant for a case. Though my intelligence and contacts tells me that she is engaged, meaning if she still has that crush on Sherlock, she won't be making this more than a one time thing.
----
"This one's got us all baffled." Lestrade said, causing Sherlock to smirk remembering my words from shortly before. He ripped the police tape off the door.
"Hmm, I don't doubt it." Sherlock replied.
Molly followed Sherlock, who followed Lestrade down the narrow stairs to the basement crime scene where a skeleton sat behind a table, dressed in Victorian garb and covered in dust.
Sherlock began examining the corpse. Deductions popping into his head. Pine? Spruce? Cedar. New mothballs. Carbon particulate. Fire Damage.
"What is it?" Molly asked, attempting to take notes, as John did once. "You're onto something, aren't you?"
"Maybe." Sherlock answered, continuing to look around.
"Show off." Sherlock could hear John's voice in his head.
"Shut up, John." He whispered back, pushing the thought to the side.
"What?" Molly asked quiety, confused.
"Hmm?" Sherlock asked, not realizing he had spoken out loud. "Nothing."
Sherlock bent down to examine the clothing on the skeleton, as Lestrade approached him from the side.
"This going to be your new arrangement, is it?" Lestrade whispered.
"Just giving it a go." Sherlock replied.
"Right. So, John?" Lestrade asked.
"Not really in the picture anymore." He answered.
"And Adelaide?" Lestrade asked.
"Quite busy now, as I'm sure you've heard." Sherlock said rudely.
"Right, well of course. I mean it came as a bit of a shock. Just a few months before I'd ran into her and she said she was working at the Natural History Museum or something." Lestrade told him.
"Where was that?" Sherlock asked curiously.
"At a pub, she was with a friend. Bass. Something Bass, Charles maybe." Lestrade said, trying to remember. Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows and made a mental note to ask me about him later.
In the meantime, he returned to Molly's side as the walls started to shake lightly.
"Trains?" Molly asked.
"Trains." Sherlock nodded in confirmation. Molly moved to examine the corpse as well.
"Male, 40 to 50... It doesn't make sense." She muttered.
"What doesn't?" Lestrade asked.
"This skeleton, it can't be any more than–" She began before Sherlock cut her off.
"Six months old." They spoke in unison.
Sherlock popped open a secret door on the side of the desk, revealing a dust covered book. He plopped it onto the table, spreading dust into the air.
"How I Did It by Jack the Ripper." Lestrade read the cover, dumbfounded.
"I won't insult your intelligence by explaining it to you." Sherlock said as he began to put away his tools.
"No, please, insult away." Lestrade answered, and Sherlock thought that maybe I could have been right. Maybe Lestrade did miss him bossing him around a crime scene.
"The corpse is six months old, it's dressed in a shoddy Victorian outfit from a museum. It's been displayed on a dummy for many years, in a case facing southeast, judging from the fading of the fabric. Sold off in a fire damage sale a week ago." He raised his phone with proof.
"So the whole thing was a fake?" Lestrade asked, baffled.
"Yes." Sherlock answered plainly.
"Looked so promising." Lestrade said, disappointed.
"Facile." Sherlock returned, heading towards the door. Molly was trailing behind him.
"Who would do something like that?" Molly asked once they were alone, walking together towards the exit.
"Who indeed. Fancy some chips?" He asked her, putting on his scarf, preparing to brace the cold waiting outside.
"What?" Molly asked confused.
"I know a fantastic fish shop just off the Marylebone Road the owner always gives me extra portions." Sherlock said, ascending the final staircase.
"Did you get him off a murder charge?" Molly asked, rolling her eyes. She wasn't stupid, she knew why she was here. John was still mad at him for faking his death and Adelaide is too busy to follow him around a crime scene all day. She was always second best, well in this case third.
"No, I helped him put up some shelves." Sherlock said with a smirk.
"Sherlock." Molly spoke and he turned to face her. "What was today about?"
"Saying thank you." He told her.
"For what?" She asked.
"For everything you did for me." He answered, and it was genuine. None of the work he did over the past two years would have been possible if not for her help in making him disappear. Faking a death is easy, faking an autopsy and medical records is much harder.
"It was my pleasure." She said, and he saw the sad almost angry look on her face.
"But you can't do this again, can you? Congratulations, by the way." He nodded his head towards the engagement ring resting on her finger.
"He's not from work. We met through friends, old-fashioned way. He's nice, he's got a dog. We go to the pub on weekends and I've met his mum and dad and his friends and all his family and I have no idea why I'm telling you any of this." She rambled and let out a nervous laugh.
"I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it. After all, not all the men you fall for can turn out to be sociopaths." He smiled and left a chaste kiss on her cheek.
"Sherlock?" Molly called out to him in the doorframe of the building.
"Hmm?" He turned around to face her once again.
"Take care of Adelaide, alright? I know she seems fine now but... you didn't see her over those past two years. She changed, and I'm not sure it was for the better." Molly told him honestly.
"What do you mean?" He re-entered the building and closed the door.
"I visited her in the hospital, after her miscarriage. I had seen her just before that and she was the best I'd seen her since you left. But that day in the hospital, she just... It was like all the hope and light within her was just put out. After that... she wasn't Adelaide anymore." Molly's voice wavered.
"What do you mean she wasn't Adelaide anymore?" Sherlock asked, confused. His knowledge only extended to what he read in her letters, and even then he noticed the dark spiraling, he just hoped for the best.
"Tom and I were out at a pub one night and we saw her. She was smashed, getting into a fight, broke some bloke's nose just because he said your name. I doubt she even remembers, but we pulled her off of him, she didn't even recognize me, but that was when we saw it. The needle marks on her arm. I called your brother, and I suppose he took care of it. After that I didn't see her again until her name was in the paper last month. I didn't even know she was alive." Molly said sadly.
"Why are you telling me this?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because I know she'll never bring herself to. She doesn't want you to know how much pain you truly caused her, just because she's so relieved to finally have you back. I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty, but you need to know. You need to be gentle with her, because she's not the same woman you left two years ago." Molly begged him.
"I'm surprised, Molly. I thought you hated Adelaide?" Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows.
"I'll admit that in the past she and I never really got on. I might have been slightly jealous of her, but I'm serious Sherlock. If you break her again, I'm not sure she can put herself back together next time." Molly nodded seriously.
"Well I'm not planning on going anywhere. Don't worry, Molly, I couldn't live with myself if I let her get hurt again." He nodded goodbye and stepped out into the cold. His head spinning, guilt and anger flooding his system. If only Mycroft had told me, none of this would have happened.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and gave me a call.
"Everything alright?" I spoke into the phone, he could sense the worry in my voice.
"Yes.. why wouldn't it be?" He asked confused.
"Really? Mr. I-Prefer-To-Text." I rolled my eyes, I wasn't even sure Sherlock's ever called me. Maybe once or twice. He always texted or just showed up unannounced at my office or flat.
"Well maybe I just wanted to hear your voice. Where are you?" He asked.
"Home. Why? Have you got a lead?" I asked, excitedly.
"Home as in Baker Street or Home as in your flat? And maybe." He answered.
"Baker Street." I answered, realizing I'd begun to call it home again.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes, be ready to leave." He instructed.
"Yes sir, will do." I replied.
I placed my laptop on the ground and began searching for where I left my coat. I spotted it at Sherlock's desk and turned to grab it. I heard the door open behind me and raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you said twenty minutes?" I turned around expecting to see Sherlock, but instead was greeted by Anderson.
"Pardon?" Phillip asked confused.
"Thought you were someone else," I shook my head, "What brings you here, Phillip?"
"You said I already knew the answer." Phillip said, referencing our prior conversation about what exactly my last occupation was.
"And do you?" I asked.
"In the pub your friend said you killed people for money. Everyone brushed it off as a joke, being followed by a lie that you were employed at the Natural History Museum. But it wasn't a joke. You were an assassin?" He asked, not thinking I was capable of something like that.
"We prefer spy, but a license to kill is a license to kill." I shrugged.
"So you worked for MI6?" He asked and I nodded.
"I suppose this means you want the job?" I asked.
"Actually, I've come to decline it. I don't think it's right for me... I'm not sure what is yet but I'm tired of secrets and lies and I'm afraid that's all it would be." Phillip said, his words surprising you.
"I understand, thank you for telling me. Oh, and Phillip, you realize what I've confirmed for you is beyond confidential and if you were to tell anyone it would result in your untimely demise." I smiled.
"Your secret's safe with me. Sorry he drove you to do that." Phillip said.
"Who?" I asked.
"Sherlock. I'm sorry he hurt you bad enough to drive you to risk your life everyday like that, and to take lives as easily as making a cup of tea." Philip answered, and seemed genuine.
"It was my decision. And now it's in the past." I nodded.
"Of course, well I'm sure you're busy, I'll leave you be. Goodbye Adelaide." Phillip nodded.
"Bye." I smiled, but it faded as he left. I sat back in Sherlock's chair and waited for his arrival.