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It wasn’t until he and John were outside Kitty Riley’s flat that Moriarty’s plan crystallised in Sherlock’s mind. In an instant, he saw the entirety of it—the allegations, the shattered public opinion, and the ultimate end.
He was going to die.
And that was going to be a problem.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock blinked. “There’s something I need to do.”
He left John standing in the street as he hailed a cab and directed it to St. Bart’s.
-----
As Sherlock waited in the darkness for Molly, he had almost worked himself into a state.
Mycroft would be absolutely livid that he was about to tell another person. But Mycroft had made it abundantly clear that there was a limited amount of assistance he was willing to offer. Red tape after the fact was easy; witnesses in his employ were non-negotiable.
Sherlock considered numerous ways he could do it without Molly. Falling off a building was unproblematic, but making sure no one saw impossible things was less so.
He heard Molly’s footsteps as she shut up the lab.
“You’re wrong, you know,” he said, startling her at the door. “You do count. You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you. But you were right. I’m not okay.” Sherlock turned toward her. “I’m going to die.”
Molly’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she automatically said, “What do you need?”
Sherlock slowly stepped toward her. “Molly. If I wasn’t everything that you think I am, would you still want to help me?”
Molly looked up at him, holding her ground. “What do you need?”
“You,” Sherlock breathed.
“All right,” she said quietly, adjusting her grip on her bag. “But what can I do to help?”
Sherlock turned, folding his hands behind his back. “Tomorrow morning I expect to have a confrontation with Moriarty on the rooftop of this building, as there’s little else he could have meant by ‘fall’ at this point. I estimate a 94% chance that this encounter will lead to my death. Since he wants a public spectacle, he’s obviously been building up to my suicide this whole time.”
“And you’re actually going to do it,” Molly said nervously. “You’re going to jump.”
“Yes.”
“No. No, you—you can’t! You can’t just… do that. Now that you’ve figured it out, you have to be able to do something else. Think of something else!”
Sherlock shook his head, meeting her eyes. “He’s going to threaten John. My life for his. A most efficient motivator.”
Molly opened her mouth again, before closing it. “Then what do you need me for?”
“I need you to see to my body. I’ll obviously be dead on impact, so the emergency staff won’t have much to do with me. Make sure you’re the one who does intake, possibly even pronounces me dead.”
“I—I don’t work A&E,” Molly stammered. “I’ve never done trauma work, I’m not even supposed to be down there.”
“It’s amazing what you can get away with if you have a white coat and an air of authority.” Sherlock’s lips quirked up. “You’ve already got the coat; I need you to summon the other. If you’re worried about repercussions after the fact, don’t be. Smoothing things over and erasing misdoings is my brother’s speciality.”
“All right,” Molly said, visibly steeling herself. “If that’s what you need, that’s what I’ll do. But I don’t understand how it helps.”
Sherlock took a step forward, holding her gaze in the darkened lab. “Because, Molly,” he said, “I’m not going to stay dead.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m immortal,” Sherlock said plainly.
Molly’s expression wobbled. “Don’t tease me. I’m trying to help you—don’t treat me like some silly little girl.”
“I’m not teasing. Though I don’t blame you for being disbelieving. I would kill myself and prove it to you, but I don’t have enough hours to revive before Moriarty contacts me again.” He took a breath and slowly exhaled. “Whether you believe me or not, can you do what I asked? It’s extremely important to me. Take charge of my body and let no one other than yourself examine it too closely. Once I’m admitted to the morgue, don’t leave my side until my brother comes to collect me. Will you do that for me?”
After a long moment, Molly nodded, though the pinched look hadn’t quite disappeared from her face.
“You think I’m mad,” Sherlock observed.
“I don’t understand,” Molly said. “And I don’t believe you. But I’ll do it. Because you asked.”
“Thank you.” Sherlock looked down, putting on his gloves.
He started for the door, turning his back on her.
“If all this happens,” Molly said, making him pause, “and Moriarty makes you die for John, I’m going to miss you. I mean, I know you think I’ve just got some schoolgirl crush on you, but I’ll miss you.”
“No, you won’t.”
Sherlock didn’t elaborate, walking out the door and leaving it swinging behind him.
-----
Molly did as he asked. He wasn’t party to it, as his skull had been cracked open at the time, but he’d met Moriarty on the roof, had had the expected conversation, and had then stepped off the ledge in a rush of wind that ended in an explosion of pain.
However, now he was clearly in an exam room in the morgue. The table was cold beneath him, and there was a sheet over him, filtering the harsh fluorescent bulbs overhead.
Sherlock could hear quiet breathing next to him. He’d heard this particular breathing frequently enough in the lab to know that it was Molly.
Sherlock slowly pulled the sheet down from his head. Molly was in a chair beside the table, watching him with wide, yet unsurprised, eyes.
She took an audible breath as he sat up. “The door’s locked,” she said. “It’s been six hours since you fell. Your brother hasn’t come yet.”
“No,” Sherlock agreed. “He was never coming. But I needed to say something to make you stay with me until I woke up.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “I did everything you said. Then I processed you like any other body. After that, I sat here with you.”
She had sat and cried, Sherlock noted. Though she’d stopped some hours ago.
“I saw the hole in your head start to close up,” Molly said.
“Ah.”
“I told myself I was just being silly, imagining things. But after a while I couldn’t see your brain any longer, and… and then I knew that it was true. What you said.” She paused again. “I don’t understand.”
“If it’s any consolation, neither do I,” Sherlock said. “I’m a scientific impossibility. Nothing in my body shows any abnormality, no matter how modern or advanced the test. It drives me mad some days.”
“Because you can’t die?”
Sherlock gave her a sharp grin. “I never said that. No, it’s the fact that I can’t explain it, can’t quantify or calculate it that’s unbearable. I wasn’t always like this. A very long time ago, I found—well, I suppose you’d call it the Fountain of Youth. I didn’t realise it at first, though it became clear soon enough. And here I still am.”
Molly nodded, absently moving to bring him his clothes from where they had been placed in a bag on the counter. She averted her gaze as he got out from under the sheet, even though she was obviously the one who had undressed him while he was dead.
“Is Moriarty, um, coming back?” she asked from behind him.
“No.” Sherlock’s suit was still passable, and he began putting it on. His coat was literally a bloody mess, and had sustained most of the damage. “I thought it possible that he had guessed my secret, but even though Moriarty was insane, his insanity was based in reality. He did think I was a fake in some respects, as he’d been unable to trace my life before adulthood—though he was convinced that he got the hidden details of my upbringing from Mycroft—but he never dreamed that I had no childhood to investigate because it was over a century ago.”
Fully dressed, Sherlock turned back to Molly. “I need to borrow your phone.” His was probably still lying unnoticed on the rooftop. Or had possibly been collected with Moriarty’s body.
She handed it over, and Sherlock fired off a quick text to Mycroft before giving it back to her. “My brother will be sending a car to the back entrance, but I need some scrubs to walk out in.” He smirked. “I’m still dead, after all.”
Molly bit her lip. “Are you?”
“At least for a week or so, perhaps a month, until the immediate threats are taken care of. There will be a funeral as well. You’ll need to attend. Also, if you encounter any problems regarding your role in this, text that number. Though you shouldn’t have any difficulties, as I imagine my brother is already editing the hospital’s internal reports of my death to seem as routine as possible and striking your name from them.”
“Your brother—what does he do?”
“What doesn’t he do,” Sherlock said under his breath. “He’s in the government. He is the government.”
Her eyes widened. “Then why did you need me?”
“Because not all of those in Mycroft’s employ are idiots. Having them know I faked my death is one thing, but having them privy to my resurrection is another. If they had seen what you just did, it wouldn’t be long before they drew certain conclusions. Conclusions that Mycroft would rather not have drawn.”
Molly frowned. “And you don’t think I will?”
Sherlock regarded her steadily. “I know you will. You already have.” It wasn’t a difficult leap. If Sherlock was immortal and his brother was helping cover up his death, it was highly likely that Mycroft was immortal as well. “But I know I can trust you.”
It was a genuine compliment, and he saw faint colour rise in her cheeks before she became solemn. “I won’t tell anyone. Not ever.” Then her face shifted. “Er, your brother’s not going to have me disappeared or anything, is he?”
Sherlock smiled. “Not on your life.”
Molly gave him a playful glare. “I’m not sure that’s the best response, considering.”
Sherlock buttoned his suit jacket and then moved toward Molly, slowly stepping into her space. He looked her in the eyes before leaning in to place a kiss on her cheek. “You have my thanks, Molly Hooper.”
Molly exhaled as he pulled away. He expected to see feelings he didn’t reciprocate reflected in her eyes, but she was regarding him with a searching look. “Does John know?” she asked.
Sherlock blinked. The question was genuinely unexpected. “No.”
“He should know.”
“We’re just friends,” Sherlock said, echoing John’s usual line.
“No. I mean, yes. You’re not together, but you’re more than just friends. He should know.”
Sherlock nearly said that he’d thought of telling John a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, but what came out of his mouth was, “He can’t.”
Molly shuffled her feet. “You told me.”
“I had to.”
“How many people know?”
“You would be the third,” Sherlock said evenly, watching her eyes widen at the implication. Himself, Mycroft, and now Molly. It was the first time in a hundred years that another living person had known.
Though John was the first one he had ever wanted to tell.
“He would keep your secret,” she said. And again, she added, “He should know.”
The true secret was that John could do more than know. Sherlock had fantasised about it: telling John, showing John, then getting John to join him. He knew Mycroft had bottles of water hidden away, even though they’d never spoken of it. Mycroft had had the well destroyed after they’d discovered what it did, but he wouldn’t have done so without preserving something.
He would have to convince Mycroft to give him a bottle for John, of course, something his brother would be loath to do. Then there was John, who was another problem entirely. John still harboured dreams of a traditional life, something that was incompatible with immortality.
Sherlock could think of nothing better than he and John against the world forever, but he was unsure if John would feel the same. And John would have to feel the same, have to be sure. Little else was more horrible than the idea of John immortal and miserable, resenting him for all eternity.
“Sherlock?” Molly’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Mm? Oh, yes. The scrubs.” Sherlock started putting them on. “He should know,” he agreed absently.
“You’re going to tell him, then?”
“After the ordeal of my official resurrection.” Sherlock smiled to himself. “One thing at a time.”