A/N: I know, I know. I said I woulnd't post anything new (certainly not a multi-chapter fic like this!) before I finished "Abandoned." Or the last EnCounters story. Or any of the other million non-Sherlock stories I've left hanging for too long. Or before I posted the Sherlock Mirror!verse story I've been working (still doing it, promise, just stuck at how to get from Point "C" to Point "D".)

But.

This one is almost finished, and it is the very first story wickedwanton has ever beta'd, so it's time she got some props. She made this story much better than it would have been otherwise. Thanks, H!

Warnings for drug use, noncon and general mayhem being inflicted against Molly Hooper until tragedy is overcome, which it will be. (No, really, I really really do like her and Sherlock, I just like them to suffer a bit first, I guess.)

Sherlock Holmes had been "dead" for approximately eighteen months when everything went to shit and he was forced to return home ahead of schedule.

Not that he'd had an actual schedule per se, but still. The work was unfinished, his reputation only partially restored as the truth came out in bits and snippets, Moriarty's criminal empire fragmented but still in existence. The infrastructure was no longer as secure as it had been, several key players had been anonymously gifted to the proper authorities – and several others anonymously disposed of when no other option was viable. He was, in short, making inroads. Serious inroads.

To that aim, he'd left England exactly thirty days earlier and hadn't planned to return until certain matters had been dealt with in Switzerland, Germany and France.

Switzerland and Germany were behind him, the information he'd needed found, dissected, and used; the threats disarmed, the evildoers rounded up or killed. France, however, was a different matter. There were still things to attend to in France, and some intriguing leads in the Czech Republic and Poland to follow up on.

In other words, there was still work to be done before Sherlock Holmes could make his eventual return to the world of the living. The plans for which were already in place.

All such plans were thrown out the door, and he found himself on the next plane back to London from his current hiding place in Nice, France, when he received his brother's terse text on the burner phone he'd only recently purchased.

Molly Hooper has gone missing.

Until the moment he received the anonymous text (not that he needed to see Mycroft's name to know who had sent it), Sherlock hadn't been certain that his elder brother knew of his survival; nor had he been certain that Mycroft knew who, exactly, had aided him in his deception.

Molly Hooper. She'd helped him, hidden him, and sent him on his way when he judged it safe to leave her flat after his "death" with nothing more than a kiss on the cheek and a soft "Be careful" in his ear.

His pathologist. His friend. Or was she more than a friend?

He'd never asked her how she felt about him; why ask when the answer was obvious? However, he'd also deliberately kept himself from asking the far more problematic question: How did he feel about her, beyond trusting her and considering her (yes) a friend?

He'd put the troublesome question of his feelings for Molly Hooper aside the second he left her flat and began his self-appointed mission of rooting up Moriarty's criminal network; they were nothing but a distraction he simply could not afford. Well, there was that one night, the night before he left for Switzerland just last month, the night he'd considered deleting because he knew, absolutely knew, that the memory would be nothing but a distraction...but if he did, Molly would be hurt. She wouldn't understand, not entirely, even if he tried to explain it to her.

He did, however, relegate it to the attic spaces of his mind palace, refusing to use the memory of Molly's soft, warm, eager body against his, the feel of her lips and tongue and hands – refused to allow himself the comfort of using those memories to succor him during the endless, dull hours of surveillance, or when things went to shit and he was convinced he wouldn't make it out alive.

He wouldn't. Not until he was able to return home in triumph (there was never, ever room for doubting himself in his mind; he would triumph, he would return home; ergo, he would return home in triumph) and reassure himself and the others that they were no longer endangered simply for caring about him.

So much for that theory.

Molly Hooper has gone missing.

With further thought he realized that his brother's PA must have sent the message; Mycroft never texted and certainly never used such imprecise language. When had she "gone missing"? Under what circumstances? However, when he contacted Mycroft, all he got was his brother's reassurances that he would be given all the pertinent details immediately upon his return, and the information that tickets were waiting for him at the British Airway's desk of the Aéroport Nice Côte d'Azur.

Two hours later he was on a plane for home, fingers steepled before his face as he carefully opened the attic doors in his mind palace. Carefully, methodically examining the forbidden memories, searching them for some clue that his impetuous actions that night had been the catalyst that brought this about.

Desperate to find evidence that he hadn't been the cause of Molly's disappearance…and knowing, deep in his churning gut, that he had.

Two Days Earlier

It had been a perfectly normal, post-Sherlock day for Molly Hooper: autopsies in the morgue, coffee with co-workers who'd finally stopped treating her as if she were made of glass, lunch with a nurse friend of hers who'd begged her to stop eating on the roof (she often ate there in warm weather, dangling her legs over the side in defiance of those who argued that such a fixation on the site of her not-boyfriend's "suicidal" jump was dangerous at best and unhealthy at worst), paperwork, one last-minute emergency autopsy for DI Lestrade ("Call me Greg, Molly; Christ, we've known each other long enough, don't you think?"), more paperwork…

Then the walk home. She always walked home on nice days and evenings, since she lived less than a mile from St. Bart's. And this particular December night was unseasonably warm, almost spring-like – was it global warming or climate shift or just the vagaries of winter in London? Who knew, and who cared? Molly just enjoyed it, strolling along and thinking about nothing in particular as she made her way back to her flat.

She shouldn't have been daydreaming. It was eight o'clock at night. It was dark. She should have been walking further away from the entrance to the alley. She shouldn't have allowed herself to believe she was still safely invisible to Sherlock's enemies – and she should most certainly not have allowed herself to be distracted by memories of that glorious night the two of them spent together before he left for the Continent.

She didn't even have time to scream when the hands reached out of the dark alleyway and grabbed her, dragging her struggling, kicking form into deeper darkness. The gloved hand over her mouth effectively muffled her attempts to scream, but she doggedly kept on trying to make the noises heard as she clawed at the hand (useless through the thick leather glove) and kicked back at the shins (always just out of reach and her low-heeled galoshes wouldn't do much damage even if she did connect), trying her very best to get away from whoever had grabbed her.

She stopped all struggles when she felt the tip of a very sharp something prick the underside of her chin. Just enough to draw blood, to catch her full and undivided attention as she found herself fighting down a surge of panic that made her initial terror fade into inconsequence.

"That's better, luv," a low, guttural voice – a man's voice, one she absolutely did not recognize – crooned in her right ear. The hand covering her mouth was gripping her face so tightly she knew she'd have bruises, but again, it was the knife clutched in the other hand that held her attention at the moment. "No point fightin' since you're comin' with me no matter what. Better not to have to cut you up, yeah?"

As he backed her deeper into the alley, Molly realized he was still speaking to her, and once his words registered, that barely-restrained panic once again tried to flood her mind.

He was talking about Sherlock, not directly, but what he was saying was so not good.

"She'll be a complete wreck, melt down like a candle left out in the summer sun, he said, and he's never wrong about these things," the rough voice mused. "Why is that? Why didn't you melt down and get sent off for a lovely rest in the country? Why is it going on a year and a half and you just keep quietly livin' your life while John Watson gets back into therapy and that Baker Street landlady of theirs spends more and more time out of town with her nieces and nephews, and DI Lestrade drinks himself under the table every flippin' night?"

She couldn't answer even if she wanted to, could barely breathe, but he twisted her face until she was forced to peer up at him (he was much, much taller than she was, her head barely came to his chin), even though she couldn't see his features and was certain he couldn't see hers, either. Still, he lowered his head as if peering intently into her eyes before asking: "Why is that?"

He fell silent for a long moment, but when he spoke again, Molly thought her heart would stop right in her chest. "I'm guessin' it's because you know something we don't. That's what he says, and he's never wrong 'bout stuff like this."

The passing headlights of a car flashed into the alley, briefly offering enough light for her to see him clearly. Tall, blocky build, blonde hair in a brush cut that reminded her of every military man she'd ever met, dark blue eyes, nose cocked sideways from some long-ago fight or other, a narrow scar running from his left eye to the corner of his mouth…He smiled, a cold icicle of a smile that chilled her to the marrow, and released his grip on her chin, grabbing her hair and twisting it until she cried out in pain. He shoved her roughly toward the back of the alley, the knife still firmly pressed to her throat as he said, "Let's find out if we're right, eh? Come on, girly."

No panicking, Molly, keep calm, this doesn't have to end up with you in the morgue lying on the table instead of standing over it, she chattered silently to herself, although she was shaking so badly no one would have been convinced by her words even if they'd been spoken aloud.

If this had been a simple mugging, which had been her first thought, then it would already be over; her cash and mobile would already be gone, and she'd have made her way to the street, most likely flagged down that passing car and requested that the driver phone the police.

But that wasn't what was happening; it was about Sherlock, this was one of Jim Moriarty's men, and he knew, he'd guessed somehow, that Sherlock wasn't dead and Oh God, it was all her fault, if she'd known she was giving it away she'd have done something, anything, differently, why hadn't she pretended to have a breakdown, would that have worked, have kept her from being dragged to a half-open doorway at the end of this filthy alley? Would it have kept Sherlock's secret a secret…how could she have let him down so badly?

That was her last thought before she was thrust through that doorway, as black as the rest of the alley, shoved into the arms of another person, one who efficiently and quietly shoved a gag in her mouth, tied her arms behind her back, and let her know he held a gun on her by the simple expedient of allowing her to feel it pressed into the small of her back.

They made their silent way down a dark corridor, Molly doing her best not to stumble in the darkness, but knowing she kept on her feet only because her captor – the one she dubbed Knife Man – retained a firm grip on her upper arm.

The other man, the one with the gun, who still hadn't spoken, walked ahead of them. When they reached what Molly assumed was the back of the building, he opened a door, glanced around, then nodded sharply and held the door wide. Knife Man hurried her through it and thrust her into the back seat of a waiting car. Seconds later the other man joined them, jumping behind the wheel before speeding off into the night to an unknown destination.

It felt like they drove through the darkened London streets for hours; Molly had never had a particularly strong sense of time and it utterly failed her in her terror and panic. It was hard to breathe with the gag in her mouth, and Knife Man never let go of her arm. Nor did he or the other man speak another word until the car pulled into what looked like an abandoned underground parking garage.

"He said bring her to the maintenance room," the driver announced, speaking for the first time. The car slowed and pulled up to a nondescript metal door. He sounded a bit Northern to Molly's ears, had dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail low on the back of his neck, and a mole on the side of his bulky nose. His eyes were dark, but that was all she could make of him in the brief time she was able to see him clearly in the overhead light of the car.

Knife Man grunted in response, opened his door and dragged Molly out with him. He slammed the car door shut, the other man drove off, and Molly was shoved toward the unmarked metal door.

He turned the handle and the door opened on well-oiled hinges, revealing an unlit room that appeared empty in the dim lighting from the parking garage.

"Ladies first," he said with a sardonic grin. Then he shoved her through, causing her to stumble and sprawl in an ungainly heap on the floor.

It wasn't until she heard the door slam shut behind her that she realized he wasn't coming into the room with her. That he was leaving her there, in the dark, with a foul-tasting rag stuffed into her mouth and her arms so tightly tied behind her back that she was losing the feeling in her hands and wrists, to face the unknown person who was behind her abduction or to simply rot here until they came back for her...if they ever did...

An overhead light switched on, bringing tears to her eyes at the sudden brightness. She managed to get herself into a sitting position, legs beneath her as she turned, half-blinded, to see who was in the room with her.

She blinked away the pain-tears as they tried to morph into panic-tears, fright-tears that would never stop flowing once given free rein. There was nothing she could do about her racing heart and ragged breathing, but she needed to keep her head, needed to see who was in the room with her...

Her eyes widened in terrified recognition as a familiar figure sauntered into the circle of light that so neatly surrounded her, as it settled itself into the single folding metal chair that she found herself facing on the edge of that circle.

The figure leaned forward and smiled at her. "Molly, love, so good to see you again. And we've got sooo much to discuss, haven't we, you naughty girl?"

Then Jim Moriarty pulled out a knife, leaned forward until his face was next to hers, and cut off the gag.

Molly screamed.

Three Days Later

John Watson sill couldn't believe it. He'd had two full days to come to terms with the fact that Sherlock Holmes was alive, and he still had a damned hard time convincing himself it was so.

Even his bruised and bloodied knuckles weren't enough to convince him; surely he'd punched the wall rather than Sherlock's long, narrow (and bloody bony) jaw? Surely he'd finally gone and lost his mind the way he'd sometimes felt was bound to happen during the past eighteen months?

Then he looked up and saw Sherlock standing by the window, violin and bow in hand, and knew that, no, he hadn't lost his mind.

Best. Christmas gift. Ever.

He couldn't help the grin that spread over his face as he studied his back-from-the-dead friend and flat mate. Even under the current, distressing circumstances, whenever he dared to allow himself to believe that yes, Sherlock was still alive and relatively well and right here in the flat at 221B Baker Street, a similar grin etched itself across his features.

"Stop smirking like an idiot," Sherlock growled without turning around.

John's grin widened. "Sorry, mate, can't help it," he replied cheerfully. "You're just gonna have to get used to it, yeah?"

Sherlock turned around that time, and his angry glower finally dimmed John's sunny grin. "Molly Hooper has been missing for three days," he said, biting out each word with painful precision. "I fail to see how even my return from the 'dead' is enough to compensate for that fact."

Put that way, John felt ashamed of himself for feeling even a moment's happiness. Still, there it was; his best mate wasn't dead, and even the fact of Molly's disappearance couldn't completely put a damper on his joy. "No luck, still?" he asked, knowing the answer even as the words left his lips.

Sherlock returned to gazing out the window after placing the violin and bow on the sill. "No, no luck," he replied. John could hear the contempt in his pronunciation of the second word. "Even if I believed in such a thing – which you know very well I do not – there have also been no clues, no hints, no evidence…nothing." He reached up with agitated hands and raked his fingers through his thick curls. "It's as if Molly Hooper left St. Bart's and stepped off the face of the planet."

John had no answer to that; if Sherlock Holmes said there were no clues, then it was nothing more nor less than the truth. No matter how many times Greg Lestrade tried to reassure them that he and his team were doing everything possible to locate the missing pathologist, they all knew – Greg included – that he was only blowing smoke. If a clue, evidence of any kind, was to be found, Sherlock would have found it by now.

All they had was a handful of facts: Molly Hooper had left work on a Thursday evening about a half-hour after the nominal end of her shift, so around eight p.m. She'd done a last-minute autopsy for Lestrade, apparently stayed to finish up some paperwork after she'd emailed him the preliminary report, left the morgue…and vanished. Oh, she'd said good-bye to some co-workers before leaving the building, but the last anyone had seen of her, she'd walked through the main doors of the hospital, and that was that.

The first John had heard of her disappearance was when Greg Lestrade had called him two days ago, although at the time all John had heard was "missing woman." Lestrade had sounded odd, his voice strangled as if with illness or deep emotion, but John had been too buried in his own depression to bother to let the man finish explaining before he'd (rather rudely) told the detective inspector he was no longer in the case-solving business and to sod off.

The DI had promptly called back to inform him that it was Molly Hooper who'd gone missing, and would John just get his bloody arse down to New Scotland Yard, because there had been further…developments.

John snorted at the memory. "Further developments," indeed. Such as the supposedly killed-by-his-own-hands world's only Consulting Detective popping up alive and very much involved in the case of the missing pathologist.

The altercation between the two men – if it could be labeled as such, when John was the only one "altercating" while Sherlock simply stood there and took it, stoic bloody robot that he could be at times – had taken place in a private conference room two floors above Lestrade's office. Once that was out of the way, so no one was likely to hear the accompanying shouts and accusations and, dammit, yes, weeping. Once Sherlock had made his terse explanations ("Literal guns to your heads, John, and only one way out of it, then of course I had to ensure your continued safety"), he'd insisted that they focus on the issue at hand: Molly Hooper's disappearance.

As Sherlock had so rightly pointed out, the poor girl had now been missing for three days and not one hint as to her whereabouts had been found. No ransom demands had been made, no (thank God) body recovered. Her cat had been given into the care of her downstairs neighbor, an elderly woman who thought the world of Molly and had actually been the one to report her missing – however, since she'd made the report only two hours after Molly failed to return home, her concerns had initially been politely dismissed by the operator who'd taken her call. She's gone shopping, she's visiting with friends, she's gone to have drinks with a boyfriend – no boyfriend? All right, not that, then. But surely one of the other very reasonable scenarios was more likely than that she'd been kidnapped…

"Molly had her routine, and if she was going to be late, she'd have asked me to feed Toby," Mrs. Lynderson had insisted at the end of that call. Afterward, exasperated by the emergency operator's attempts at soothing her into giving up her stubborn insistence that something sinister had happened to Dr. Hooper, she'd made her determined way to New Scotland Yard to make her report in person.

She'd been loudly proclaiming her concerns to the bored – but politely patient – desk sergeant when DI Lestrade happened to walk by on his way to grab a cup of coffee. He'd heard Molly's name and immediately ushered the flustered but pleased elderly woman into the nearest interview room.

That had been the first day. The next day, Lestrade had made his phone call to John and Sherlock Holmes had turned up not-dead. As far as John Watson was concerned, the world had both tilted on its axis and at the same time settled back into its proper orbit.

Sherlock Holmes wasn't dead. It was a shame it took Molly Hooper going missing to bring him back to life, but now that he was involved, John was confident it was only a matter of time before she was found. Clues or no clues, evidence or no evidence, once Sherlock Holmes put his mind to a problem, it was as good as solved.