Tomorrow Is Fading

Prologue

*BBC Sherlock

The latex gloves snapped loudly in the vacant room as Molly Hooper peeled them from her hands to toss them into the dustbin. With a deep sigh she rinsed off her hands before running her fingers over the curve of her head to be sure no random dark hairs had come free from her ponytail. Being on loan to another lab was not her idea of the best of times. She preferred her own where she knew where everything was and could use her own systems rather than conforming to someone else's. Her time here was over though, thankfully.

The young pathologist made her way out of the unfamiliar laboratory and found her way back to the hallway. It was quiet but she made no particular note of it until she saw the red light ignited over the main doors and saw that they had been systematically sealed; air tight. Now that she thought of it, the air had not been running for some time.

She stared in dumb silence at the closed door, brown eyes narrowed, trying to understand what she saw before her. Why had there been no alarm if it was some fort of chemical leak? The light was on, the door was locked, but there had been absolutely no alert given and there should have been. No one locked down a lab without sounding an alarm or at least announcing something. Perhaps the door was simply malfunctioning and she needed to call up the front desk. It might be reason to panic but she would not allow herself to do so if there was indeed no cause.

This might just be one more addition to why she hated to be on loan to any other location. She hated being the guest in anyone's facility because she was unfamiliar with their individual problems. Had this been St. Bart's, she would already know if they had been having system issues and it would be no problem to get it fixed. Likewise, she would know if some imbecile down the hall was actually fool enough to contaminate the entire floor with heaven knew what!

Now she needed to find a phone. Though, she also needed to let Sherlock know she might be later getting to the station than planned. He would be less than pleased at being kept waiting. If it was possible, he might hate being on loan to another department more than she did. Granted, John and Greg were with him, the lot of them all shipped off for the case, but it was still the least of fun things on any of their lists. Lestrade had been in a particular sour mood over it, she recalled. He was loathed to submit to another department, not keen on how this one handled things. Inefficient was what he called them, among some other more colorful descriptions.

"Hello, Molly... sorry to inconvenience you, but you can't go out that way. You won't be leaving at all for a while, actually." The calm, low voice spoke slowly and all too softly for what she understood he was really implying.

The breath was stolen from her lungs in that moment, heart stopping, knees wavering, tears nearly springing to her eyes because she knew without turning around who that voice belonged to. The was why there had been no alarm. He trapped her in here, making sure she would not know she was in trouble until it was too late. The phone lines to the front office would not be working either.

Well, too late or not, she would be damned if she did not try to get away! Molly bolted, legs pumping the way they had not done in quite a while, carrying her into an unfamiliar room. Any room with a door was good enough for her and she snapped the button to lock just as the handle jiggled. Her heart might never have beaten this fast in her life!

"That won't actually stop me, you know? It just buys you about one minute and seventeen seconds." The muffled voice on the other side droned, but Molly was not listening, she was searching for the heaviest object in the room like a woman possessed.

Somewhere in that process she managed to get her phone from her lab coat pocket, trembling fingers only just scrolling to Sherlock's name. She missed the dial button the first time but got it the second. Cradling it to her ear with her shoulder, she hefted the little machine she dug from its wires and jerked it free, groaning with the weight of it as she dragged it with her to her only potential hope. The irritating and surprisingly grating sound of ringing was already about to drive her mad even though it had only gone about three times. She could hear the door being rattled as he obviously began picking the lock. She was already almost out of time!

"What is it, Molly? Are you on your way? I do hope so because-"

She cut him off in a hushed but frantic voice, "He's here! Sherlock, he's here! I'm locked in a room but he'll be through the door any second!"