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holmesticeTitle: She Always Had a Type
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scandalbaby
Author:billiethepoet
Characters/Pairings: Khan/Molly, Sherlock, John
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Mycroft turns to the only doctor he can trust to defrost Khan, but he underestimates Molly’s kindness as well as her attraction to danger.
The black estate car idling by the kerb in front of her door is a surprise. It’s been ages since Mycroft Holmes has ‘required her presence’, ages since Sherlock came back from the dead. Molly is quite happy to leave any relationship, working or personal, with Mycroft well in the past.
She tries to walk right past the car, tucking her face further against the soft wool of her scarf and hunching up her shoulders, but it’s Mycroft himself who steps out and clears his throat. Even at the height of Sherlock’s absence, Mycroft only came himself if Sherlock were in danger. Sherlock’s back in Baker Street with John and his work now but a spike of that old fear makes her pause long enough for Mycroft to lock eyes with her.
Molly knows she can’t get away from him now. Best to just get in the car and enjoy the heated ride to Bart’s. It will be more comfortable than the Tube, at least.
Mycroft is silent as she shuffles past him and slides across the back seat. He settles next to her and the car pulls away from the kerb.
“Um, Bart’s is the other direction. I was on my way to work.”
“You’re not going to Bart’s for the foreseeable future, Dr Hooper.” Mycroft seems unwilling to volunteer any other information so Molly’s brain sets to spinning its own answers.
“Did Sherlock blow it up?” He was far more likely to do permanent damage to Baker Street -- again -- but he sometimes used her lab for the experiments John deemed too risky to have at home.
Mycroft’s eyebrow quirks at that and Molly takes her first real, long look at him. He’s tired and the circles under his eyes are dark. It’s a lot of weakness for Mycroft to show, even just in his own car and only to her. “No, my brother’s role in this is yet to be seen but he definitely hasn’t blown up Bart’s hospital.”
“Then where are we going?”
Mycroft lets the silence sit between them for a few moments, so long that Molly thinks she’s not going to get answer.
He takes a deep breath, the kind that spreads strength through the chest as well as oxygen. Molly knows those kinds of deep, steadying breaths well. “I am taking you to an undisclosed government facility. I need your medical expertise.”
“Oh” is all Molly can think to say.
***************
The facility is smaller than she thought and it’s not even underground. Somehow Molly assumed truly secret facilities were probably in bunkers somewhere. It looks like a fancy office building. It’s outside central London but not far, blending in with the buildings around it.
Mycroft remains quiet as he leads her through several increasingly intimidating security checkpoints and down deserted hallways. The lab he brings her to is nice, very nice. Molly can’t help but run her fingertips along the gleaming stainless steel worktops as Mycroft takes her toward a long, grey tube laid out on top of a low sitting table. The tube comes just above Molly’s waist when she leans over to peer inside.
She forces herself not to take a step back but her spine suddenly feels stiff as iron. “Is that…?”
“No, I assure you, that is not Sherlock Holmes. The resemblance is coincidental.”
Molly hopes the look on her face accurately portrays bullshit.
Mycroft scowls, so she must have gotten that right. “Coincidental may not be entirely accurate. Unexplained is certainly correct, however.”
Molly presses her palm to the frosted glass over the man’s face. She feels only a hint of cold from inside the tube. “But where-”
“I cannot tell you that. Or anything else about this man. But I need you to wake him up.”
Molly’s eyes jump to Mycroft, then back to the tube sitting in front of her. “Wake him up? Is he even alive?”
“Our doctors assure us he is in a state of suspended animation and can be revived.”
“Then why aren’t they doing it?”
Mycroft walks around the tube until he’s facing Molly. “Dr Hooper, look at his face. I do not know who this man is, or where he comes from, but I am unwilling to expose a potential connection to my brother to anyone I cannot trust completely.” Mycroft stops for breath and looks uncomfortably down at the frozen man. “You more than proved yourself during Sherlock’s absence and you have the medical knowledge required for the task.”
Molly can feel her cheeks heating. It’s not the praise as much as it’s being the focus of Mycroft’s attention, of knowing that he understands the strain of what she did for Sherlock and that she bore it gladly. “I don’t… but John’s a doctor too.”
“Until I find out who this man is, and why he has my brother’s face, his existence needs to be kept a secret. Even from Sherlock.” Mycroft stalks around the table, the tip of his umbrella clicking against the concrete floor. He stops close enough that Molly can feel his breath on the top of her head. “Do you honestly think John would keep something like this from Sherlock?”
Molly shakes her head before the question is even finished. John would tell Sherlock immediately. Or Sherlock would hunt John down as soon as Mycroft spirited him away. There’s no one looking for her.
“Good. We need the tube opened and the man inside revived in a state good enough for questioning. You’ll be working alone.” Mycroft starts to walk away, as if that’s all the instruction she’ll need.
“Wait!” Molly looks back and forth between Mycroft and the tube. She waves her hand feebly at the frosted glass. “I’m a doctor, not an engineer. I don’t know how to open this.”
Mycroft’s smile is grim. “Take all the time you need, Dr Hooper.”
“Bugger.” But Molly’s only talking to an empty room. At least there’s a coffee pot.
***************
She starts with a slow, detailed examination of the tools at hand. She knows what most of them do at least. There are a couple that look like something out of a science fiction movie and she’s not quite sure if they’re meant to help her crack open the tube or revive the patient. Maybe neither? Or both?
That takes about thirty minutes. Molly takes the next thirty minutes to examine the tube. There’s no easily identifiable latch or handle. Maybe he’s twist top, like a cheap bottle of wine?
If it were something that easy, Mycroft would have figured out immediately.
“Maybe I should just knock?” Molly’s voice echoes around the empty steel and glass lab. At least in the morgue she has other corpses to talk to. Here it’s just her and frozen tube-man. If he would answer, that would solve a lot of her problems.
He doesn’t answer. Not for days anyway.
***************
It’s five days to be precise. Five days of Mycroft picking her up in the morning, taking her home after dark, and picking her back up the next morning. He doesn’t seem to care that she’s making no progress or that she’s threatened to take a hammer to the glass portion of the tube.
Just after Mycroft’s men have taken her lunch tray away on the fifth day, Molly finally gets lucky. And it is total luck. There is a display screen, somehow both futuristic and ancient looking, just under the window that allows Molly to watch the sleeping man’s face day in and day out. She’s tried touching it, tapping it, swiping at it, pressing it, and nothing. It stays dark.
That afternoon, she’s drumming her fingers against it while she leans over the tube. It’s not an attempt to open anything, it’s just an idle habit Molly has when she’s thinking.
But then there’s a beep.
Molly leans back, steps back to get a better view of the screen that has ignored her for the better part of a week. Now it’s lit up and flashing. There are symbols and colours but nothing she can identify.
“Huh.” She watches the screen change, more lights turn themselves on and the colours get brighter. The glass slowly begins to defrost, the man’s skin looks less pale, and there are signs of respiration.
It’s at that point that Molly realises she has no way to call Mycroft or his henchmen if this man actually wakes up. She doesn’t even see any cameras she can signal to and the door locks automatically behind her. There’s nothing else to do but make a pot of coffee. At least she can offer him that much if he actually wakes up. After such a long nap, he may need it.
Mycroft wouldn’t have locked her in a room with someone dangerous, would he?
***************
It takes hours. So long that Molly has two cups of coffee, dumps the cold pot, and waits before she make a second one.
She’s shaky from the coffee, and from the waiting, so when the tube gives a loud hiss and pops open she jumps and drops her coffee mug. It shatters against the ground and she stares at the creamy porcelain shards and dark liquid in disbelief.
When she pulls her gaze back to the tube, the lid has slid back (which she didn’t even think of, she’d been trying to pop it off or hinge it open and she’s a little miffed at that) and the man inside is sitting up. She’s still a doctor, even if she works exclusively with the dead, and that part of her is urging her to go to him, to check his vital signs and make sure he’s all right.
She doesn’t move though because everything about the man’s posture is screaming do not approach. His back is ramrod straight and stiff, his shoulders are pulled back and tense, and even his hands are curled in tight fists against the top of the tube.
He doesn’t look like Sherlock at all now. The superficial physical resemblance is still there but the expression is all wrong. Sherlock looks at you to figure you out, as if he’s trying to winnow you down to your core to see what makes you tick and after he has that information he barely looks at you at all. But this man looks at you as if he’s trying to figure out what to do to you, like you barely matter at all.
And his eyes are greener than Sherlock’s. Sherlock’s are the grey-blue of a stormy sky. This man’s eyes are the blue-green of an upset sea. She’s spent a lot of time looking at Sherlock’s eyes so the difference stands out immediately.
“How long?” His voice is deep and rusty. He has to clear his throat twice to get the short two words out.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.” She really is sorry. It would be terrible to wake up in a place like this and not know when or how you got here. Molly takes a deep breath and focuses on what she’s here to do, on the ways she can help him. “I’m Doctor Molly Hooper and now that we’ve got you awake I’d like to check your vitals, run a few tests, just to make sure everything’s working normally.”
“No.”
She blinks at that. She’d already walked a step or two forward and had her hand on the stethoscope in her lab coat pocket. “Um, pardon?”
His fingers flex out, long and pale against cold steel. He watches them as he flexes and curls, then stretches them out again. “There is no need for your medical services, Dr Hooper. I am fine.”
Molly watches him continue to test his fingers, then his wrists, then his elbows. She walks a few steps closer until her proximity causes him to raise his head slowly in her direction. It’s almost reptilian, the way he moves. They stare at each other for a tense moment before Molly puts her own observation into words.
“Then why haven’t you gotten out of the tube?” She’s learned a thing or two from Sherlock Holmes.
There’s a flicker of a grimace around his mouth but his eyes remain cool and assessing. “I will regain use of my legs momentarily.”
If Sherlock had said that, it would have been petulant. But this man looks dangerous, even sitting completely still and obviously not at peak performance.
The sliver of fear that slinks down Molly’s spine isn’t entirely uncomfortable. It’s a bit invigorating. She take another step closer. “At least let me look you over. That’s why I’m here. I promise you can tell me to stop and I will.” She’s using her best soothing voice, something she hasn’t had to worry about deploying for a live patient since her internship.
The man doesn’t look placated. He twists, a bit tenderly, at the waist, still testing the pull of muscle and bone. Molly steps forward again, a slightly smaller step this time. His head is bent at an odd angle giving him that serpentine look again as he watches her.
It’s like approaching a snake coiled to strike. Molly puts her hand out as she takes the last step to bring her next to the tube. She doesn’t touch him. “If there’s anything wrong, we need to figure that out sooner rather than later.”
Up close, he’s much bigger than Sherlock. His shoulders are broader and the corded muscles of his arms stand out under his tight black shirt. His chest pulls the shirt taut with every deep breath he takes. He’s also warm. So warm that Molly can feel heat radiating off him in waves. The air between them is hot on her outstretched fingertips. That doesn’t seem normal for a man who was recently frozen in a metal tube.
“I can start with your temperature. I’m concerned you may be running a fever. That could be a sign of something more serious.” The man continues to stare at her. “Please,” Molly adds, not bothering to hide a bit of the desperation seeping in.
“Basic vital measurements only. No blood tests.”
She smiles and flicks her eyes away from his face. It’s been more than long enough that she’s been held by that gaze. “Okay. Just let me get my kit and I’ll be right back.”
In the time it takes Molly to cross the room, pick up the bag in which she’d organised all the medical tools she actually could identify, and turn back around, the man has hoisted himself out of the tube and is leaning unsteadily against the neighbouring worktop.
Her gut wants her to rush over and make sure he’s all right but she makes herself slow down, to walk calmly back to him. If he’s strong enough to pull himself out of the tube, he can stand there for a few extra seconds without her.
He’s taller than Sherlock too. Not by a lot, but enough that Molly notices when she stands next to him.
“How are the legs?”
His knuckles are white where they grip the worktop. “They are fine.” His teeth grind together as he says it.
“Here.” Molly holds out a thermometer. “Put this under your tongue.” The man opens his mouth obediently, but sways a little on his feet. He glares and Molly refuses to look away until the thermometer beeps and she has the excuse of checking his temperature on the tiny display.
“You are running a little hot but I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about.”
“That is not abnormal for me. My temperature is often elevated.” The longer he stands there, the more Molly is afraid his knees will buckle.
“I know you just got up, but would you mind sitting so I can check your heart and lungs?” She adds a smile to that request because they probably both know she could do that with him standing.
He hesitates but doesn’t argue. Instead, he settles himself on the worktop while Molly pulls out her stethoscope. He doesn’t relax his posture or release the tension from his shoulders.
Molly walks behind him, deliberately slow and cautious. His head turns with her so she remains in his vision at all time. She does stand a bit off to the side, letting him see more of her than she might have otherwise.
She breathes gently on the end of the stethoscope. “I’m going to slide this under your shirt, okay? I’ll be able to hear better that way.” She’s quite proud that her voice only shakes a little bit.
The man gives a stiff nod and Molly raises the hem of his shirt as professionally as she can. Her fingertips barely brush against the tense muscles of his back but they tingle like she’s touched live current. Maybe he’s not tense, just really, really fit? His muscles jumps under the press of the stethoscope. Or he’s both tense and really, really fit.
His heartbeat is strong, maybe a bit slow but steady and deep thud against her ear. “Breathe in,” Molly murmurs as she slides the stethoscope along his back.
The patient follows orders exactly but little else. He’s silent and radiating discomfort through the line of his stiff shoulders and straight back.
“I already told you I’m Dr Hooper, but who are you?” Maybe that’s too direct but it’s easier for Molly to ask outright when she’s standing behind him and he can’t look through her with those sea green eyes. And if she’s listening to the beat of his heart and the pull of his lungs a little too long, it’s only because she’s being thorough. It has nothing to do with the heat of his skin against the palm she’s pressed to his spine.
He hesitates and pulls in another deep breath. “I’m called Khan.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
“Only in this part of the world.”
Molly pulls away at that. There’s nothing in the room that would tell him where they are. It’s windowless and bland. Even if he had been in Britain when he went into the tube, he could be anywhere now. “How do you know where you are?”
Khan shifts on the table to face her. “We are in a government facility in Britain. You’re obviously British and not highly skilled enough to warrant recruitment to an international agency or government.” His gaze rakes over her, measuring her inadequacy from head to toe and back again. “You obviously have no idea what you’re doing.”
His eyes move away from Molly and scour the room. It’s as tactical an assessment as she’s ever seen out of either Sherlock Holmes or John Watson. It’s also an obvious dismissal. The sort of dismissal she was used to before, but now neither Sherlock or Mycroft Holmes treat her that way. The help she gave Sherlock cemented a distinctly Holmesian respect from the two brothers.
Her fists ball at her sides and the stethoscope clatters to the worktop next to Khan. He looks back at her with the bored gaze of a man expecting to watch a woman cry. She has no plans for that, even if frustration might make her eyes shine a bit.
“No. No, you don’t get to say things like that to me.” He looks taken aback, and in earlier times that much of an assertion of her own power might have stopped the angry words building in her throat but not anymore. She’d always been strong, but now she can be assertive too. “I am here not only because I know what I’m doing but because I’m trusted to do it secretly. And to do it well.” She picks up the stethoscope and tucks it back into her lab coat. Khan watches the back of her hand as it passes next to his thigh, then all the way back to her coat pocket.
They watch each other for a few slow moments, until Khan gives a tiny nod. It’s not an apology or an acquiescence, but it feels like Molly has regained some control. It’s probably best simply to press on being as professional as possible.
“I’d like to take a blood sample, just to run some basic tests, since I have no idea how long you were in-”
“No.” Khan’s interjection is curt but not unkind. “No blood tests. You can continue to do any other physical examination you require, but no blood tests. Please.” The last word is rusty on his tongue.
Molly looks a bit sadly around the room at all the equipment she won’t get to use if he’s dead set against a blood test. “There’s not much else I can check on without running a blood panel, or a specific complaint from you.” She lets the end of that sentence trail upwards a bit, not quite asking him to reveal his vulnerability but leaving the option there all the same.
His sweeping gaze measures her again, and must not find her as wanting as before. “My hands and fingers. I don’t have full feeling in them. They are sort of… tingly.” The amount of disdain Khan forces into that last word makes Molly smile.
“It’s probably just blood flow coming back into your extremities. Are your feet the same way?”
Khan looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“Here.” Molly stretches out her hands, palms up. “Give me your arm.”
Very slowly, Khan stretches his arm out into her waiting hands. She rotates it back and forth a bit, watching his face for any signs of discomfort. Instead, he watches the movement of her hands with an expression Molly can’t quite name.
Instead, she asks. “Are you confused or… just thinking?”
It takes a moment, another rotation of his arm to palm down then palm back up again, until he answers. “It has been some time since someone has touched me. Much less with gentleness.”
That doesn’t really answer Molly’s question but it is telling, none the less. She cradles Khan’s elbow in one hand and uses her thumbs to massage firm circles along the muscles of his forearm. In silence, she works her way down his arm. She massages the palm of his hand, to the sensitive vees between his fingers, and all the way out to each fingertip. The heat of his skin radiates through the thin black shirt and the skin of his palm is even hotter.
Molly eases Khan’s arm down to rest on his thigh and reaches for his other arm. He lays it in her arms gently and without a word. Her thumbs are halfway down his forearm, pressing firmly into the thick muscle there, before he speaks.
“Are there other cryogenic units?”
Molly looks up, her fingers stopping their movement, because it never once occurred to her there might be more.
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I was only told about you.”
Khan’s eyes close, slowly and painfully, and Molly thinks he may actually cry. She cradles his palm between her hands and squeezes.
“How many others should there be?”
“72.”
Mycroft definitely hadn’t mentioned anyone else, let alone 72 more tubes. They could be sitting in a government storage shed somewhere or Mycroft may not have them at all.
“Who are they?”
“My family.” Khan’s eyes are closed and he doesn’t seem inclined to give more information than strictly necessary.
“Big family.”
His eyes do open at that, and he pierces Molly with a look of anger and offense. “They are as much my family as anyone born of the same blood.”
Molly thinks of Sherlock, and John, and Greg Lestrade, and Mrs Hudson, and how long it’s been since she’s seen her own mother, and she can understand that. Easily understand that actually.
Her thumbs trace soothing lines along his palm and he makes no move to pull away. “The person who brought me here, he won’t let you go. I don’t know if he has them as well or not.”
Khan does another quick sweep of the room before locking eyes with Molly. The pale, burning intensity of his eyes makes her breath come up short.
“I can find them. If I can leave this place, I can get them back.” His fingers curl against her palms.
She knows Mycroft won’t let Khan go. He’ll figure out how Khan may be connected to Sherlock and then he’ll lock him up, or re-freeze him, or something else equally unsavoury. But Molly’s also not fool enough to think Khan is harmless. You don’t cryogenically freeze unimportant, safe men and later find them in secret government labs.
She’s seen dangerous men before. More than she probably should have for the nice, quiet life she appears to lead to outsiders. She broke up with one of the most dangerous men in the world, and chased after another one for ages but instead became his friend and confidant. Khan is dangerous, she recognises that, but not unmanageably so. And everyone deserves the chance to find their family.
“I know someone who can help.” She’s still holding his hand.
***************
The silent suit that comes to retrieve Molly from the lab that day doesn’t bother to check Khan’s tube or anything else about the lab. He just holds the door for her and then drives her home. Even if he had given the tube a quick look, she thinks Khan’s acting and the nearly-sealed lid could have fooled him. It wouldn’t have fooled Mycroft but she’d gambled that today wouldn’t be the first day Mycroft Holmes showed up to take her home.
She doesn’t let out a relaxed breath until the door of her flat is locked behind her. She leans against it while she takes a few deep breaths, then dumps her bag and coat on the floor without thinking about them. Buried deep in a kitchen junk drawer is an old Nokia phone, steel blue and without any bells or whistles, and its charger. Molly hopes it still works.
She takes the phone to her bathroom and locks herself inside, as if that’s somehow safer. She plugs the phone in and stares at it for endless minutes, until it has enough charge to turn on.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Molly? What’s wrong?”
“I have a puzzle for you. But you’ll have to sneak into a secure government lab and go against Mycroft.”
There’s barely a pause before Sherlock’s low chuckle vibrates against her ear. “Not a challenge but could be fun. We need to plan.”
Sherlock’s rapid fire questions about the facility and what she’s been doing there ease the iron band that’s been squeezing her chest since she agreed to help Khan. And that’s how Molly Hooper plans an escape from a government lab on a burner phone to avoid government surveillance while perched on her toilet.
Thank God she never signed the official secrets act. As if that will help her when Mycroft catches on to what they’re doing.
***************
The next morning is the greatest test of Molly’s acting ability since Sherlock’s “death”. It’s just another suited minion that picks her up the next morning. So doesn’t have to say or do anything differently than any other day she’s gone to Mycroft’s lab but not giving the game away takes a good chunk of her concentration.
Khan is still, or at least back, in his tube when she arrives. She forces herself to wait a few moments, to go over and start a pot of coffee like she would on any other morning before moving toward Khan. When she does lean over the tube, his eyes are open, watching her.
It makes Molly’s breath catch to be the focus of his attention like this. She watches him, watching her, until her palms feel sweaty against the cool metal.
Between the two of them, they easily slide the lid away and Molly wraps a hand around Khan’s shoulder to help him up. He doesn’t need it, she knows that, but he doesn’t complain either. She lets her hand trail away, maybe taking a little bit longer than she should.
“I brought breakfast.” Molly pulls two paper-wrapped sandwiches from her bag. “I didn’t know if you ate pork, or meat at all, so one has bacon and one is just egg and cheese.”
She manages not to sound nervous but Khan still eyes the outstretched sandwiches suspiciously. “Just the egg and cheese. Please.”
“It’s this one… I think.” She passes over the sandwich as Khan rises from the tube. Molly watches him stretch and unwrap his breakfast before she pushes on. “We don’t have a lot of time. My friend, Sherlock, he looks an awful lot like you so he’s going to sneak in here and we’ll swap places with you. You and I, and John Watson, will go back to mine and from there, well, you’ll be free.”
Khan looks less than impressed. “You have a friend who looks like me and is going to sneak into a top secret government lab?”
That catches Molly with a bite of bacon hanging out of her mouth. She does her best to shove it back in. “Um, yes. He looks a lot like you and he’s very good at breaking into things. He’s done this before.” Molly is definitely confident that Sherlock can break into the lab. She’s less confident that they can get back out, or that Mycroft won’t put her in jail for a very long time for doing this.
But Khan has to find his family. She isn’t naive enough to think Mycroft would let that happen.
“I tested the door locks last night. I was unable to break out of this room, much less the facility itself.” Khan grimaces, obviously uncomfortable admitting his failure. “I may very well need this friend of yours.”
“Wait, you were going to sneak out in the middle of the night and not tell me?” Molly’s actually hurt by that. She’s very quickly come to think of Khan as someone she’s helping, as someone she’s having an adventure with.
He shoots her a condescending look.
Before she can muster a pride-saving reply, there’s a soft click as the lock disengages on the lab door. Khan is in front of her in an instant, shielding her from the door with his body and ready to strike. Her hands wrap about his arm, one on his forearm and one on his bicep, to keep her balance.
The door bangs open and Molly can just see Sherlock’s floof of curls over the curve of Khan’s shoulders. She also feels him tense.
“No, this is my friend. This is Sherlock Holmes. He’s going to help us.” It feels more like talking down a man with a weapon than it does just giving basic information. Molly can’t deny the flush of pleasure she feels when Khan backs down under her palms.
He doesn’t relax though. She’s not sure Khan actually knows how to relax. But Sherlock is suddenly way too close to his personal space and examining him from head to toe. Even with the coat and the hair and the straining shirt buttons, it’s obvious Khan is bigger and taller. Molly gets a little flush of pleasure from that too. She steps a bit to the side, not quite between them, but close enough to step in, just in case.
After he’s had his full look at the deathly still Khan, Sherlock jumps right to the task at hand.
“Luckily, Mycroft is out of the country so it will likely take him between six and eight minutes longer to react to this security breach than normal. We have…” Sherlock pauses to check his watch. “...ten to twelve minutes remaining. We need to switch clothing.”
Sherlock’s started on his shirt buttons and now it’s Khan who takes a moment to look him up and down. Sherlock rolls his eyes, misinterpreting Khan’s lack of motion as lack of understanding.
“We switch clothing, and I get in the tube and pretend you are still unconscious. John - that’s John over there, say hello - will escort you and Molly to a secret location, and from there you can do whatever you like.” Sherlock makes a flapping motion with his hands in the vicinity of Khan’s chest. “Nine to eleven minutes now.”
Molly manages to see a flash of pale white, of deep divots outlining his abdominal muscles as Khan pulls up the hem of his shirt. She quickly spins around, both to give Khan and Sherlock privacy and to keep her own bright red cheeks hidden from their knowing looks.
John doesn’t give them the same courtesy. He watches with a smirk on his face.
Molly not sure if she wants to smirk with him, it is a ridiculous situation after all, or smack him because it’s a ridiculous situation that could land them all in jail or worse. He may not be afraid of Mycroft but she sure as hell is.
She keeps her back to Sherlock and Khan for a few minutes, until John’s smirk breaks into full giggles. She turns slowly, just in case they aren’t dressed yet.
They’ve successfully swapped clothes but she’s not sure she’d consider either properly dressed.
The form fitting black pants and shirt Khan had been wearing hang loosely on Sherlock’s thinner frame. The shoulders hang down and the chest isn’t pulled tight. If he were anyone other than Sherlock Holmes (or if she hadn’t taken detailed note of how well the garments had fit Khan), the clothes would be passable. Instead, it’s the sloppiest, least put together she’s ever seen Sherlock. Even his dressing gown fits more respectfully.
But it’s Khan that must be making John laugh. Sherlock’s trousers are dangerously close to ripping seams stretched across Khan’s more muscular thighs. Molly’s gaze barely makes it higher than that delicious sight, and she skims right over what the trousers do to the rest of Khan’s figure below the waist.
It’s the shirt buttons, though, that have done John in. They strain across Khan’s stomach, barely holding on when they reach his sternum, and are nowhere close to buttoned across his chest. The seams of Sherlock’s Dolce and Gabbana shirt are pulled tight across Khan’s shoulders even with the top three buttons wide open.
Khan doesn’t look pleased at all, and John just keeps laughing.
“The jacket is not going to fit.” It’s the closest she’s heard Khan to being petulant and it’s the first time he really sounds like Sherlock.
“Fine. We’ll hide it in a cupboard. And you can use the coat to cover that.” Sherlock waves his hand in front of Khan’s chest again.
Khan’s eye roll looks a lot like Sherlock’s too.
Molly is still staring, discreetly she hopes, at the pale plane of Khan’s chest when John finally stops giggling.
“Ah, you’re forgetting an important finishing touch.” John pulls a handful of, well, hair from underneath his coat.
It’s a wig. The horror of it dawns on her and Khan at the same time.
“I’d rather go back in the cryo-tube,” Khan deadpans.
That makes Molly genuinely laugh.
Sherlock huffs in annoyance. “People are idiots. They generally don’t notice things, but someone will notice the obvious difference in our hair. Wear the wig.”
Khan looks skeptically at the wig, then back to Sherlock.
“Honestly, why does everyone insist on being absolutely moronic?” Sherlock looks to John for support but doesn’t get it.
Instead, John pulls a slick looking bottle from his pocket and tosses it to Sherlock. “He’s not the only one who has some hair adjustments to make.”
It’s hair gel. This just might be the best, and scariest, day of Molly’s life.
Sherlock squeezes a large glob of the stuff into his palm and rubs his hands together. “We have approximately four minutes remaining. Would you like to continue to be spectacularly boring, or would you like to make an attempt at escaping this facility?”
Khan takes the wig from John’s outstretched hand and begins arranging it on his head. Sherlock works on slicking down those ridiculous curls, using the shiny surface of one of the worktops as a makeshift mirror.
Khan’s got the wig mostly straight on his head, but he’s missed wisps of his own long, straight hair falling across his forehead.
“Here, let me…” Molly reaches up and starts tucking those pieces under the fake curls. She gives a pull here and a little tug there until the wig is straight and all of Khan’s hair is covered. It’s a passable attempt at imitating Sherlock’s hair. It may actually be enough to get them out of here.
“Thank you.” Khan’s voice is a quiet rumble against Molly’s cheek and she only now realises just how close she’s leaned toward him.
“Molly, John. Help me with the lid.”
Sherlock’s hair is slicked down, at least in the front. It seems like his curls were too much for the small bottle of gel, but if he’s lying down it should be okay. He’s climbed into Khan’s tube and is lowering himself onto his back by the time she and John reach his side.
“John will take you and Khan to one of my boltholes. Mycroft doesn't’ know about it but he will eventually track you. Khan should gather what he needs and leave as soon as possible. Speed is his best chance of escaping Mycroft permanently.”
Molly draws her brows together in confusion. “Why aren’t you telling him this?”
“Be careful, Molly. I know you have a type.”
John looks quizzically between the two of them as he slides the lid over Sherlock. They don’t quite click the lid into place but the coverage is good enough to fool a casual look or two.
Sherlock has time to close his eyes and arrange his face into the slack look of long held sleep before the tell-tale click of the door echoes through the lab again.
Molly shoots a quick look to Khan. He’s come up beside John, coat pulled tightly closed and collar flipped up. The way he stands, the closeness to John, and the subtle frown of concentration on his face scream Sherlock Holmes. It’s uncanny, and more than a bit concerning, that he picked up Sherlock’s mannerisms so quickly.
At least the suited minion that enters this time is one of the least intimidating ones Mycroft has on staff. “Mr Holmes. Dr Watson. You are out of bounds. I am to escort you from the premises.”
Molly grabs her purse. “I’m coming too. You can tell Mycroft I can’t wake him up. I’ve tried and I don’t know what else to do.” It’s confident and she’s following the billow of Sherlock’s coat around Khan’s legs through the door before she knows it.
The walk down the silent hallway is much longer on this final trip out of the building than it has been any other time. She doesn’t breathe again until they are on the pavement and Mycroft’s guard slams the door behind them.
They’ve almost made it.
***************
John hustles them several streets away to a Tube station. Khan is obviously looking around, studying and taking things in, but without gawking. It’s very calculated and Molly can’t help but watch him watch others.
The ride is short, but they switch lines instead of coming above ground. She can tell they are doubling back a bit, that there was a more efficient path of travel, but she wonders if Khan can pick up on that yet. .
John eventually leads them to a small storage room in what looks like an office building. There are workers around but no one seems to give them any notice as they duck into the room.
It’s much bigger than it looked from the outside. Almost as if a wall has been knocked out and the storage room expands into the next room over. There’s a small cot, and some packaged foodstuffs scattered about. There’s also a rack of disguises taking up an entire wall.
Molly looks around in shock. Khan seems to be much less surprised.
“It’s a safe house,” he says, unimpressed.
“I didn’t know he had something like this.” Despite Khan’s lack of shock, Molly is still processing this.
John shrugs both of them off. “He’s got them all through the city. I’m not sure I even know about all of them. But it won’t be a safe house for long. They’ll be coming after you.” John nods to the rack. “Find something that actually fits you, grab some food, and get moving.” He crosses his arms across his chest and waits for Khan to comply.
It’s not often John doesn’t like someone but it’s becoming clear he’ll be happy to see the back of Khan.
“What will happen to Sherlock?” Khan is already rifling through the clothes on the rack, but he does manage to sound at least a little concerned.
“Someone will figure out it’s him, Mycroft might hold him for a day or two, but he’ll make his way back to Baker Street. Or he’ll get bored and see if he can break out of the lab still dressed as you. It could go either way.”
Molly’s not sure which is the better outcome. Though giving Sherlock an opportunity to further annoy Mycroft would be entertaining.
Khan starts stripping off Sherlock’s too tight trousers and Molly quickly turns her back again. John arches an eyebrow at her and she can feel a beet red flush cover her face from her cheekbones to the roots of her hair.
John clears his throat a few moments later and she turns around to see Khan clad in dark jeans, still tight but not obscenely so, a black t-shirt, and short leather jacket. He’s tossed the wig to the floor and pushed his hair back from his forehead. He looks far too good for a man who was a popsicle 24 hours ago.
He grabs a small knapsack from the floor and stuffs in an extra t-shirt and some packaged crackers and bottled water.
“Where will you go?” John asks.
“I’m not going to tell you that. Safer for everyone if I don’t.” Khan is matter-of-fact and John accepts it with a nod. “Dr Hooper, will you go with me?”
The question comes so quickly that Molly’s not sure of what she’s heard.
“Excuse me?”
“Will you travel with me?
She’s still so shocked that the first question that comes to mind pops right out of her mouth. “For how long?”
Khan smiles a bit at that. “For as long as it takes.” He’s suddenly standing much closer to her than he was a minute ago. The heat she felt yesterday radiates out from his chest and curls around her.
“Molly,” John hisses from somewhere behind her. “Be careful. Men like him take what they want. He’s dangerous.”
Khan’s fingertips rest against her jaw, both a hold and a caress.
“I know, John. I have a type after all.” She tightens her hold on her bag with one hand and pulls her coat more tightly around herself with the other. The smile she turns up to Khan’s waiting face is slow and deep. She’s more relaxed and at peace now than she has been in a long time. “I’m ready to run if you are.”
Recipient:
scandalbabyAuthor:
billiethepoetCharacters/Pairings: Khan/Molly, Sherlock, John
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Mycroft turns to the only doctor he can trust to defrost Khan, but he underestimates Molly’s kindness as well as her attraction to danger.
The black estate car idling by the kerb in front of her door is a surprise. It’s been ages since Mycroft Holmes has ‘required her presence’, ages since Sherlock came back from the dead. Molly is quite happy to leave any relationship, working or personal, with Mycroft well in the past.
She tries to walk right past the car, tucking her face further against the soft wool of her scarf and hunching up her shoulders, but it’s Mycroft himself who steps out and clears his throat. Even at the height of Sherlock’s absence, Mycroft only came himself if Sherlock were in danger. Sherlock’s back in Baker Street with John and his work now but a spike of that old fear makes her pause long enough for Mycroft to lock eyes with her.
Molly knows she can’t get away from him now. Best to just get in the car and enjoy the heated ride to Bart’s. It will be more comfortable than the Tube, at least.
Mycroft is silent as she shuffles past him and slides across the back seat. He settles next to her and the car pulls away from the kerb.
“Um, Bart’s is the other direction. I was on my way to work.”
“You’re not going to Bart’s for the foreseeable future, Dr Hooper.” Mycroft seems unwilling to volunteer any other information so Molly’s brain sets to spinning its own answers.
“Did Sherlock blow it up?” He was far more likely to do permanent damage to Baker Street -- again -- but he sometimes used her lab for the experiments John deemed too risky to have at home.
Mycroft’s eyebrow quirks at that and Molly takes her first real, long look at him. He’s tired and the circles under his eyes are dark. It’s a lot of weakness for Mycroft to show, even just in his own car and only to her. “No, my brother’s role in this is yet to be seen but he definitely hasn’t blown up Bart’s hospital.”
“Then where are we going?”
Mycroft lets the silence sit between them for a few moments, so long that Molly thinks she’s not going to get answer.
He takes a deep breath, the kind that spreads strength through the chest as well as oxygen. Molly knows those kinds of deep, steadying breaths well. “I am taking you to an undisclosed government facility. I need your medical expertise.”
“Oh” is all Molly can think to say.
***************
The facility is smaller than she thought and it’s not even underground. Somehow Molly assumed truly secret facilities were probably in bunkers somewhere. It looks like a fancy office building. It’s outside central London but not far, blending in with the buildings around it.
Mycroft remains quiet as he leads her through several increasingly intimidating security checkpoints and down deserted hallways. The lab he brings her to is nice, very nice. Molly can’t help but run her fingertips along the gleaming stainless steel worktops as Mycroft takes her toward a long, grey tube laid out on top of a low sitting table. The tube comes just above Molly’s waist when she leans over to peer inside.
She forces herself not to take a step back but her spine suddenly feels stiff as iron. “Is that…?”
“No, I assure you, that is not Sherlock Holmes. The resemblance is coincidental.”
Molly hopes the look on her face accurately portrays bullshit.
Mycroft scowls, so she must have gotten that right. “Coincidental may not be entirely accurate. Unexplained is certainly correct, however.”
Molly presses her palm to the frosted glass over the man’s face. She feels only a hint of cold from inside the tube. “But where-”
“I cannot tell you that. Or anything else about this man. But I need you to wake him up.”
Molly’s eyes jump to Mycroft, then back to the tube sitting in front of her. “Wake him up? Is he even alive?”
“Our doctors assure us he is in a state of suspended animation and can be revived.”
“Then why aren’t they doing it?”
Mycroft walks around the tube until he’s facing Molly. “Dr Hooper, look at his face. I do not know who this man is, or where he comes from, but I am unwilling to expose a potential connection to my brother to anyone I cannot trust completely.” Mycroft stops for breath and looks uncomfortably down at the frozen man. “You more than proved yourself during Sherlock’s absence and you have the medical knowledge required for the task.”
Molly can feel her cheeks heating. It’s not the praise as much as it’s being the focus of Mycroft’s attention, of knowing that he understands the strain of what she did for Sherlock and that she bore it gladly. “I don’t… but John’s a doctor too.”
“Until I find out who this man is, and why he has my brother’s face, his existence needs to be kept a secret. Even from Sherlock.” Mycroft stalks around the table, the tip of his umbrella clicking against the concrete floor. He stops close enough that Molly can feel his breath on the top of her head. “Do you honestly think John would keep something like this from Sherlock?”
Molly shakes her head before the question is even finished. John would tell Sherlock immediately. Or Sherlock would hunt John down as soon as Mycroft spirited him away. There’s no one looking for her.
“Good. We need the tube opened and the man inside revived in a state good enough for questioning. You’ll be working alone.” Mycroft starts to walk away, as if that’s all the instruction she’ll need.
“Wait!” Molly looks back and forth between Mycroft and the tube. She waves her hand feebly at the frosted glass. “I’m a doctor, not an engineer. I don’t know how to open this.”
Mycroft’s smile is grim. “Take all the time you need, Dr Hooper.”
“Bugger.” But Molly’s only talking to an empty room. At least there’s a coffee pot.
***************
She starts with a slow, detailed examination of the tools at hand. She knows what most of them do at least. There are a couple that look like something out of a science fiction movie and she’s not quite sure if they’re meant to help her crack open the tube or revive the patient. Maybe neither? Or both?
That takes about thirty minutes. Molly takes the next thirty minutes to examine the tube. There’s no easily identifiable latch or handle. Maybe he’s twist top, like a cheap bottle of wine?
If it were something that easy, Mycroft would have figured out immediately.
“Maybe I should just knock?” Molly’s voice echoes around the empty steel and glass lab. At least in the morgue she has other corpses to talk to. Here it’s just her and frozen tube-man. If he would answer, that would solve a lot of her problems.
He doesn’t answer. Not for days anyway.
***************
It’s five days to be precise. Five days of Mycroft picking her up in the morning, taking her home after dark, and picking her back up the next morning. He doesn’t seem to care that she’s making no progress or that she’s threatened to take a hammer to the glass portion of the tube.
Just after Mycroft’s men have taken her lunch tray away on the fifth day, Molly finally gets lucky. And it is total luck. There is a display screen, somehow both futuristic and ancient looking, just under the window that allows Molly to watch the sleeping man’s face day in and day out. She’s tried touching it, tapping it, swiping at it, pressing it, and nothing. It stays dark.
That afternoon, she’s drumming her fingers against it while she leans over the tube. It’s not an attempt to open anything, it’s just an idle habit Molly has when she’s thinking.
But then there’s a beep.
Molly leans back, steps back to get a better view of the screen that has ignored her for the better part of a week. Now it’s lit up and flashing. There are symbols and colours but nothing she can identify.
“Huh.” She watches the screen change, more lights turn themselves on and the colours get brighter. The glass slowly begins to defrost, the man’s skin looks less pale, and there are signs of respiration.
It’s at that point that Molly realises she has no way to call Mycroft or his henchmen if this man actually wakes up. She doesn’t even see any cameras she can signal to and the door locks automatically behind her. There’s nothing else to do but make a pot of coffee. At least she can offer him that much if he actually wakes up. After such a long nap, he may need it.
Mycroft wouldn’t have locked her in a room with someone dangerous, would he?
***************
It takes hours. So long that Molly has two cups of coffee, dumps the cold pot, and waits before she make a second one.
She’s shaky from the coffee, and from the waiting, so when the tube gives a loud hiss and pops open she jumps and drops her coffee mug. It shatters against the ground and she stares at the creamy porcelain shards and dark liquid in disbelief.
When she pulls her gaze back to the tube, the lid has slid back (which she didn’t even think of, she’d been trying to pop it off or hinge it open and she’s a little miffed at that) and the man inside is sitting up. She’s still a doctor, even if she works exclusively with the dead, and that part of her is urging her to go to him, to check his vital signs and make sure he’s all right.
She doesn’t move though because everything about the man’s posture is screaming do not approach. His back is ramrod straight and stiff, his shoulders are pulled back and tense, and even his hands are curled in tight fists against the top of the tube.
He doesn’t look like Sherlock at all now. The superficial physical resemblance is still there but the expression is all wrong. Sherlock looks at you to figure you out, as if he’s trying to winnow you down to your core to see what makes you tick and after he has that information he barely looks at you at all. But this man looks at you as if he’s trying to figure out what to do to you, like you barely matter at all.
And his eyes are greener than Sherlock’s. Sherlock’s are the grey-blue of a stormy sky. This man’s eyes are the blue-green of an upset sea. She’s spent a lot of time looking at Sherlock’s eyes so the difference stands out immediately.
“How long?” His voice is deep and rusty. He has to clear his throat twice to get the short two words out.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.” She really is sorry. It would be terrible to wake up in a place like this and not know when or how you got here. Molly takes a deep breath and focuses on what she’s here to do, on the ways she can help him. “I’m Doctor Molly Hooper and now that we’ve got you awake I’d like to check your vitals, run a few tests, just to make sure everything’s working normally.”
“No.”
She blinks at that. She’d already walked a step or two forward and had her hand on the stethoscope in her lab coat pocket. “Um, pardon?”
His fingers flex out, long and pale against cold steel. He watches them as he flexes and curls, then stretches them out again. “There is no need for your medical services, Dr Hooper. I am fine.”
Molly watches him continue to test his fingers, then his wrists, then his elbows. She walks a few steps closer until her proximity causes him to raise his head slowly in her direction. It’s almost reptilian, the way he moves. They stare at each other for a tense moment before Molly puts her own observation into words.
“Then why haven’t you gotten out of the tube?” She’s learned a thing or two from Sherlock Holmes.
There’s a flicker of a grimace around his mouth but his eyes remain cool and assessing. “I will regain use of my legs momentarily.”
If Sherlock had said that, it would have been petulant. But this man looks dangerous, even sitting completely still and obviously not at peak performance.
The sliver of fear that slinks down Molly’s spine isn’t entirely uncomfortable. It’s a bit invigorating. She take another step closer. “At least let me look you over. That’s why I’m here. I promise you can tell me to stop and I will.” She’s using her best soothing voice, something she hasn’t had to worry about deploying for a live patient since her internship.
The man doesn’t look placated. He twists, a bit tenderly, at the waist, still testing the pull of muscle and bone. Molly steps forward again, a slightly smaller step this time. His head is bent at an odd angle giving him that serpentine look again as he watches her.
It’s like approaching a snake coiled to strike. Molly puts her hand out as she takes the last step to bring her next to the tube. She doesn’t touch him. “If there’s anything wrong, we need to figure that out sooner rather than later.”
Up close, he’s much bigger than Sherlock. His shoulders are broader and the corded muscles of his arms stand out under his tight black shirt. His chest pulls the shirt taut with every deep breath he takes. He’s also warm. So warm that Molly can feel heat radiating off him in waves. The air between them is hot on her outstretched fingertips. That doesn’t seem normal for a man who was recently frozen in a metal tube.
“I can start with your temperature. I’m concerned you may be running a fever. That could be a sign of something more serious.” The man continues to stare at her. “Please,” Molly adds, not bothering to hide a bit of the desperation seeping in.
“Basic vital measurements only. No blood tests.”
She smiles and flicks her eyes away from his face. It’s been more than long enough that she’s been held by that gaze. “Okay. Just let me get my kit and I’ll be right back.”
In the time it takes Molly to cross the room, pick up the bag in which she’d organised all the medical tools she actually could identify, and turn back around, the man has hoisted himself out of the tube and is leaning unsteadily against the neighbouring worktop.
Her gut wants her to rush over and make sure he’s all right but she makes herself slow down, to walk calmly back to him. If he’s strong enough to pull himself out of the tube, he can stand there for a few extra seconds without her.
He’s taller than Sherlock too. Not by a lot, but enough that Molly notices when she stands next to him.
“How are the legs?”
His knuckles are white where they grip the worktop. “They are fine.” His teeth grind together as he says it.
“Here.” Molly holds out a thermometer. “Put this under your tongue.” The man opens his mouth obediently, but sways a little on his feet. He glares and Molly refuses to look away until the thermometer beeps and she has the excuse of checking his temperature on the tiny display.
“You are running a little hot but I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about.”
“That is not abnormal for me. My temperature is often elevated.” The longer he stands there, the more Molly is afraid his knees will buckle.
“I know you just got up, but would you mind sitting so I can check your heart and lungs?” She adds a smile to that request because they probably both know she could do that with him standing.
He hesitates but doesn’t argue. Instead, he settles himself on the worktop while Molly pulls out her stethoscope. He doesn’t relax his posture or release the tension from his shoulders.
Molly walks behind him, deliberately slow and cautious. His head turns with her so she remains in his vision at all time. She does stand a bit off to the side, letting him see more of her than she might have otherwise.
She breathes gently on the end of the stethoscope. “I’m going to slide this under your shirt, okay? I’ll be able to hear better that way.” She’s quite proud that her voice only shakes a little bit.
The man gives a stiff nod and Molly raises the hem of his shirt as professionally as she can. Her fingertips barely brush against the tense muscles of his back but they tingle like she’s touched live current. Maybe he’s not tense, just really, really fit? His muscles jumps under the press of the stethoscope. Or he’s both tense and really, really fit.
His heartbeat is strong, maybe a bit slow but steady and deep thud against her ear. “Breathe in,” Molly murmurs as she slides the stethoscope along his back.
The patient follows orders exactly but little else. He’s silent and radiating discomfort through the line of his stiff shoulders and straight back.
“I already told you I’m Dr Hooper, but who are you?” Maybe that’s too direct but it’s easier for Molly to ask outright when she’s standing behind him and he can’t look through her with those sea green eyes. And if she’s listening to the beat of his heart and the pull of his lungs a little too long, it’s only because she’s being thorough. It has nothing to do with the heat of his skin against the palm she’s pressed to his spine.
He hesitates and pulls in another deep breath. “I’m called Khan.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
“Only in this part of the world.”
Molly pulls away at that. There’s nothing in the room that would tell him where they are. It’s windowless and bland. Even if he had been in Britain when he went into the tube, he could be anywhere now. “How do you know where you are?”
Khan shifts on the table to face her. “We are in a government facility in Britain. You’re obviously British and not highly skilled enough to warrant recruitment to an international agency or government.” His gaze rakes over her, measuring her inadequacy from head to toe and back again. “You obviously have no idea what you’re doing.”
His eyes move away from Molly and scour the room. It’s as tactical an assessment as she’s ever seen out of either Sherlock Holmes or John Watson. It’s also an obvious dismissal. The sort of dismissal she was used to before, but now neither Sherlock or Mycroft Holmes treat her that way. The help she gave Sherlock cemented a distinctly Holmesian respect from the two brothers.
Her fists ball at her sides and the stethoscope clatters to the worktop next to Khan. He looks back at her with the bored gaze of a man expecting to watch a woman cry. She has no plans for that, even if frustration might make her eyes shine a bit.
“No. No, you don’t get to say things like that to me.” He looks taken aback, and in earlier times that much of an assertion of her own power might have stopped the angry words building in her throat but not anymore. She’d always been strong, but now she can be assertive too. “I am here not only because I know what I’m doing but because I’m trusted to do it secretly. And to do it well.” She picks up the stethoscope and tucks it back into her lab coat. Khan watches the back of her hand as it passes next to his thigh, then all the way back to her coat pocket.
They watch each other for a few slow moments, until Khan gives a tiny nod. It’s not an apology or an acquiescence, but it feels like Molly has regained some control. It’s probably best simply to press on being as professional as possible.
“I’d like to take a blood sample, just to run some basic tests, since I have no idea how long you were in-”
“No.” Khan’s interjection is curt but not unkind. “No blood tests. You can continue to do any other physical examination you require, but no blood tests. Please.” The last word is rusty on his tongue.
Molly looks a bit sadly around the room at all the equipment she won’t get to use if he’s dead set against a blood test. “There’s not much else I can check on without running a blood panel, or a specific complaint from you.” She lets the end of that sentence trail upwards a bit, not quite asking him to reveal his vulnerability but leaving the option there all the same.
His sweeping gaze measures her again, and must not find her as wanting as before. “My hands and fingers. I don’t have full feeling in them. They are sort of… tingly.” The amount of disdain Khan forces into that last word makes Molly smile.
“It’s probably just blood flow coming back into your extremities. Are your feet the same way?”
Khan looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“Here.” Molly stretches out her hands, palms up. “Give me your arm.”
Very slowly, Khan stretches his arm out into her waiting hands. She rotates it back and forth a bit, watching his face for any signs of discomfort. Instead, he watches the movement of her hands with an expression Molly can’t quite name.
Instead, she asks. “Are you confused or… just thinking?”
It takes a moment, another rotation of his arm to palm down then palm back up again, until he answers. “It has been some time since someone has touched me. Much less with gentleness.”
That doesn’t really answer Molly’s question but it is telling, none the less. She cradles Khan’s elbow in one hand and uses her thumbs to massage firm circles along the muscles of his forearm. In silence, she works her way down his arm. She massages the palm of his hand, to the sensitive vees between his fingers, and all the way out to each fingertip. The heat of his skin radiates through the thin black shirt and the skin of his palm is even hotter.
Molly eases Khan’s arm down to rest on his thigh and reaches for his other arm. He lays it in her arms gently and without a word. Her thumbs are halfway down his forearm, pressing firmly into the thick muscle there, before he speaks.
“Are there other cryogenic units?”
Molly looks up, her fingers stopping their movement, because it never once occurred to her there might be more.
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I was only told about you.”
Khan’s eyes close, slowly and painfully, and Molly thinks he may actually cry. She cradles his palm between her hands and squeezes.
“How many others should there be?”
“72.”
Mycroft definitely hadn’t mentioned anyone else, let alone 72 more tubes. They could be sitting in a government storage shed somewhere or Mycroft may not have them at all.
“Who are they?”
“My family.” Khan’s eyes are closed and he doesn’t seem inclined to give more information than strictly necessary.
“Big family.”
His eyes do open at that, and he pierces Molly with a look of anger and offense. “They are as much my family as anyone born of the same blood.”
Molly thinks of Sherlock, and John, and Greg Lestrade, and Mrs Hudson, and how long it’s been since she’s seen her own mother, and she can understand that. Easily understand that actually.
Her thumbs trace soothing lines along his palm and he makes no move to pull away. “The person who brought me here, he won’t let you go. I don’t know if he has them as well or not.”
Khan does another quick sweep of the room before locking eyes with Molly. The pale, burning intensity of his eyes makes her breath come up short.
“I can find them. If I can leave this place, I can get them back.” His fingers curl against her palms.
She knows Mycroft won’t let Khan go. He’ll figure out how Khan may be connected to Sherlock and then he’ll lock him up, or re-freeze him, or something else equally unsavoury. But Molly’s also not fool enough to think Khan is harmless. You don’t cryogenically freeze unimportant, safe men and later find them in secret government labs.
She’s seen dangerous men before. More than she probably should have for the nice, quiet life she appears to lead to outsiders. She broke up with one of the most dangerous men in the world, and chased after another one for ages but instead became his friend and confidant. Khan is dangerous, she recognises that, but not unmanageably so. And everyone deserves the chance to find their family.
“I know someone who can help.” She’s still holding his hand.
***************
The silent suit that comes to retrieve Molly from the lab that day doesn’t bother to check Khan’s tube or anything else about the lab. He just holds the door for her and then drives her home. Even if he had given the tube a quick look, she thinks Khan’s acting and the nearly-sealed lid could have fooled him. It wouldn’t have fooled Mycroft but she’d gambled that today wouldn’t be the first day Mycroft Holmes showed up to take her home.
She doesn’t let out a relaxed breath until the door of her flat is locked behind her. She leans against it while she takes a few deep breaths, then dumps her bag and coat on the floor without thinking about them. Buried deep in a kitchen junk drawer is an old Nokia phone, steel blue and without any bells or whistles, and its charger. Molly hopes it still works.
She takes the phone to her bathroom and locks herself inside, as if that’s somehow safer. She plugs the phone in and stares at it for endless minutes, until it has enough charge to turn on.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Molly? What’s wrong?”
“I have a puzzle for you. But you’ll have to sneak into a secure government lab and go against Mycroft.”
There’s barely a pause before Sherlock’s low chuckle vibrates against her ear. “Not a challenge but could be fun. We need to plan.”
Sherlock’s rapid fire questions about the facility and what she’s been doing there ease the iron band that’s been squeezing her chest since she agreed to help Khan. And that’s how Molly Hooper plans an escape from a government lab on a burner phone to avoid government surveillance while perched on her toilet.
Thank God she never signed the official secrets act. As if that will help her when Mycroft catches on to what they’re doing.
***************
The next morning is the greatest test of Molly’s acting ability since Sherlock’s “death”. It’s just another suited minion that picks her up the next morning. So doesn’t have to say or do anything differently than any other day she’s gone to Mycroft’s lab but not giving the game away takes a good chunk of her concentration.
Khan is still, or at least back, in his tube when she arrives. She forces herself to wait a few moments, to go over and start a pot of coffee like she would on any other morning before moving toward Khan. When she does lean over the tube, his eyes are open, watching her.
It makes Molly’s breath catch to be the focus of his attention like this. She watches him, watching her, until her palms feel sweaty against the cool metal.
Between the two of them, they easily slide the lid away and Molly wraps a hand around Khan’s shoulder to help him up. He doesn’t need it, she knows that, but he doesn’t complain either. She lets her hand trail away, maybe taking a little bit longer than she should.
“I brought breakfast.” Molly pulls two paper-wrapped sandwiches from her bag. “I didn’t know if you ate pork, or meat at all, so one has bacon and one is just egg and cheese.”
She manages not to sound nervous but Khan still eyes the outstretched sandwiches suspiciously. “Just the egg and cheese. Please.”
“It’s this one… I think.” She passes over the sandwich as Khan rises from the tube. Molly watches him stretch and unwrap his breakfast before she pushes on. “We don’t have a lot of time. My friend, Sherlock, he looks an awful lot like you so he’s going to sneak in here and we’ll swap places with you. You and I, and John Watson, will go back to mine and from there, well, you’ll be free.”
Khan looks less than impressed. “You have a friend who looks like me and is going to sneak into a top secret government lab?”
That catches Molly with a bite of bacon hanging out of her mouth. She does her best to shove it back in. “Um, yes. He looks a lot like you and he’s very good at breaking into things. He’s done this before.” Molly is definitely confident that Sherlock can break into the lab. She’s less confident that they can get back out, or that Mycroft won’t put her in jail for a very long time for doing this.
But Khan has to find his family. She isn’t naive enough to think Mycroft would let that happen.
“I tested the door locks last night. I was unable to break out of this room, much less the facility itself.” Khan grimaces, obviously uncomfortable admitting his failure. “I may very well need this friend of yours.”
“Wait, you were going to sneak out in the middle of the night and not tell me?” Molly’s actually hurt by that. She’s very quickly come to think of Khan as someone she’s helping, as someone she’s having an adventure with.
He shoots her a condescending look.
Before she can muster a pride-saving reply, there’s a soft click as the lock disengages on the lab door. Khan is in front of her in an instant, shielding her from the door with his body and ready to strike. Her hands wrap about his arm, one on his forearm and one on his bicep, to keep her balance.
The door bangs open and Molly can just see Sherlock’s floof of curls over the curve of Khan’s shoulders. She also feels him tense.
“No, this is my friend. This is Sherlock Holmes. He’s going to help us.” It feels more like talking down a man with a weapon than it does just giving basic information. Molly can’t deny the flush of pleasure she feels when Khan backs down under her palms.
He doesn’t relax though. She’s not sure Khan actually knows how to relax. But Sherlock is suddenly way too close to his personal space and examining him from head to toe. Even with the coat and the hair and the straining shirt buttons, it’s obvious Khan is bigger and taller. Molly gets a little flush of pleasure from that too. She steps a bit to the side, not quite between them, but close enough to step in, just in case.
After he’s had his full look at the deathly still Khan, Sherlock jumps right to the task at hand.
“Luckily, Mycroft is out of the country so it will likely take him between six and eight minutes longer to react to this security breach than normal. We have…” Sherlock pauses to check his watch. “...ten to twelve minutes remaining. We need to switch clothing.”
Sherlock’s started on his shirt buttons and now it’s Khan who takes a moment to look him up and down. Sherlock rolls his eyes, misinterpreting Khan’s lack of motion as lack of understanding.
“We switch clothing, and I get in the tube and pretend you are still unconscious. John - that’s John over there, say hello - will escort you and Molly to a secret location, and from there you can do whatever you like.” Sherlock makes a flapping motion with his hands in the vicinity of Khan’s chest. “Nine to eleven minutes now.”
Molly manages to see a flash of pale white, of deep divots outlining his abdominal muscles as Khan pulls up the hem of his shirt. She quickly spins around, both to give Khan and Sherlock privacy and to keep her own bright red cheeks hidden from their knowing looks.
John doesn’t give them the same courtesy. He watches with a smirk on his face.
Molly not sure if she wants to smirk with him, it is a ridiculous situation after all, or smack him because it’s a ridiculous situation that could land them all in jail or worse. He may not be afraid of Mycroft but she sure as hell is.
She keeps her back to Sherlock and Khan for a few minutes, until John’s smirk breaks into full giggles. She turns slowly, just in case they aren’t dressed yet.
They’ve successfully swapped clothes but she’s not sure she’d consider either properly dressed.
The form fitting black pants and shirt Khan had been wearing hang loosely on Sherlock’s thinner frame. The shoulders hang down and the chest isn’t pulled tight. If he were anyone other than Sherlock Holmes (or if she hadn’t taken detailed note of how well the garments had fit Khan), the clothes would be passable. Instead, it’s the sloppiest, least put together she’s ever seen Sherlock. Even his dressing gown fits more respectfully.
But it’s Khan that must be making John laugh. Sherlock’s trousers are dangerously close to ripping seams stretched across Khan’s more muscular thighs. Molly’s gaze barely makes it higher than that delicious sight, and she skims right over what the trousers do to the rest of Khan’s figure below the waist.
It’s the shirt buttons, though, that have done John in. They strain across Khan’s stomach, barely holding on when they reach his sternum, and are nowhere close to buttoned across his chest. The seams of Sherlock’s Dolce and Gabbana shirt are pulled tight across Khan’s shoulders even with the top three buttons wide open.
Khan doesn’t look pleased at all, and John just keeps laughing.
“The jacket is not going to fit.” It’s the closest she’s heard Khan to being petulant and it’s the first time he really sounds like Sherlock.
“Fine. We’ll hide it in a cupboard. And you can use the coat to cover that.” Sherlock waves his hand in front of Khan’s chest again.
Khan’s eye roll looks a lot like Sherlock’s too.
Molly is still staring, discreetly she hopes, at the pale plane of Khan’s chest when John finally stops giggling.
“Ah, you’re forgetting an important finishing touch.” John pulls a handful of, well, hair from underneath his coat.
It’s a wig. The horror of it dawns on her and Khan at the same time.
“I’d rather go back in the cryo-tube,” Khan deadpans.
That makes Molly genuinely laugh.
Sherlock huffs in annoyance. “People are idiots. They generally don’t notice things, but someone will notice the obvious difference in our hair. Wear the wig.”
Khan looks skeptically at the wig, then back to Sherlock.
“Honestly, why does everyone insist on being absolutely moronic?” Sherlock looks to John for support but doesn’t get it.
Instead, John pulls a slick looking bottle from his pocket and tosses it to Sherlock. “He’s not the only one who has some hair adjustments to make.”
It’s hair gel. This just might be the best, and scariest, day of Molly’s life.
Sherlock squeezes a large glob of the stuff into his palm and rubs his hands together. “We have approximately four minutes remaining. Would you like to continue to be spectacularly boring, or would you like to make an attempt at escaping this facility?”
Khan takes the wig from John’s outstretched hand and begins arranging it on his head. Sherlock works on slicking down those ridiculous curls, using the shiny surface of one of the worktops as a makeshift mirror.
Khan’s got the wig mostly straight on his head, but he’s missed wisps of his own long, straight hair falling across his forehead.
“Here, let me…” Molly reaches up and starts tucking those pieces under the fake curls. She gives a pull here and a little tug there until the wig is straight and all of Khan’s hair is covered. It’s a passable attempt at imitating Sherlock’s hair. It may actually be enough to get them out of here.
“Thank you.” Khan’s voice is a quiet rumble against Molly’s cheek and she only now realises just how close she’s leaned toward him.
“Molly, John. Help me with the lid.”
Sherlock’s hair is slicked down, at least in the front. It seems like his curls were too much for the small bottle of gel, but if he’s lying down it should be okay. He’s climbed into Khan’s tube and is lowering himself onto his back by the time she and John reach his side.
“John will take you and Khan to one of my boltholes. Mycroft doesn't’ know about it but he will eventually track you. Khan should gather what he needs and leave as soon as possible. Speed is his best chance of escaping Mycroft permanently.”
Molly draws her brows together in confusion. “Why aren’t you telling him this?”
“Be careful, Molly. I know you have a type.”
John looks quizzically between the two of them as he slides the lid over Sherlock. They don’t quite click the lid into place but the coverage is good enough to fool a casual look or two.
Sherlock has time to close his eyes and arrange his face into the slack look of long held sleep before the tell-tale click of the door echoes through the lab again.
Molly shoots a quick look to Khan. He’s come up beside John, coat pulled tightly closed and collar flipped up. The way he stands, the closeness to John, and the subtle frown of concentration on his face scream Sherlock Holmes. It’s uncanny, and more than a bit concerning, that he picked up Sherlock’s mannerisms so quickly.
At least the suited minion that enters this time is one of the least intimidating ones Mycroft has on staff. “Mr Holmes. Dr Watson. You are out of bounds. I am to escort you from the premises.”
Molly grabs her purse. “I’m coming too. You can tell Mycroft I can’t wake him up. I’ve tried and I don’t know what else to do.” It’s confident and she’s following the billow of Sherlock’s coat around Khan’s legs through the door before she knows it.
The walk down the silent hallway is much longer on this final trip out of the building than it has been any other time. She doesn’t breathe again until they are on the pavement and Mycroft’s guard slams the door behind them.
They’ve almost made it.
***************
John hustles them several streets away to a Tube station. Khan is obviously looking around, studying and taking things in, but without gawking. It’s very calculated and Molly can’t help but watch him watch others.
The ride is short, but they switch lines instead of coming above ground. She can tell they are doubling back a bit, that there was a more efficient path of travel, but she wonders if Khan can pick up on that yet. .
John eventually leads them to a small storage room in what looks like an office building. There are workers around but no one seems to give them any notice as they duck into the room.
It’s much bigger than it looked from the outside. Almost as if a wall has been knocked out and the storage room expands into the next room over. There’s a small cot, and some packaged foodstuffs scattered about. There’s also a rack of disguises taking up an entire wall.
Molly looks around in shock. Khan seems to be much less surprised.
“It’s a safe house,” he says, unimpressed.
“I didn’t know he had something like this.” Despite Khan’s lack of shock, Molly is still processing this.
John shrugs both of them off. “He’s got them all through the city. I’m not sure I even know about all of them. But it won’t be a safe house for long. They’ll be coming after you.” John nods to the rack. “Find something that actually fits you, grab some food, and get moving.” He crosses his arms across his chest and waits for Khan to comply.
It’s not often John doesn’t like someone but it’s becoming clear he’ll be happy to see the back of Khan.
“What will happen to Sherlock?” Khan is already rifling through the clothes on the rack, but he does manage to sound at least a little concerned.
“Someone will figure out it’s him, Mycroft might hold him for a day or two, but he’ll make his way back to Baker Street. Or he’ll get bored and see if he can break out of the lab still dressed as you. It could go either way.”
Molly’s not sure which is the better outcome. Though giving Sherlock an opportunity to further annoy Mycroft would be entertaining.
Khan starts stripping off Sherlock’s too tight trousers and Molly quickly turns her back again. John arches an eyebrow at her and she can feel a beet red flush cover her face from her cheekbones to the roots of her hair.
John clears his throat a few moments later and she turns around to see Khan clad in dark jeans, still tight but not obscenely so, a black t-shirt, and short leather jacket. He’s tossed the wig to the floor and pushed his hair back from his forehead. He looks far too good for a man who was a popsicle 24 hours ago.
He grabs a small knapsack from the floor and stuffs in an extra t-shirt and some packaged crackers and bottled water.
“Where will you go?” John asks.
“I’m not going to tell you that. Safer for everyone if I don’t.” Khan is matter-of-fact and John accepts it with a nod. “Dr Hooper, will you go with me?”
The question comes so quickly that Molly’s not sure of what she’s heard.
“Excuse me?”
“Will you travel with me?
She’s still so shocked that the first question that comes to mind pops right out of her mouth. “For how long?”
Khan smiles a bit at that. “For as long as it takes.” He’s suddenly standing much closer to her than he was a minute ago. The heat she felt yesterday radiates out from his chest and curls around her.
“Molly,” John hisses from somewhere behind her. “Be careful. Men like him take what they want. He’s dangerous.”
Khan’s fingertips rest against her jaw, both a hold and a caress.
“I know, John. I have a type after all.” She tightens her hold on her bag with one hand and pulls her coat more tightly around herself with the other. The smile she turns up to Khan’s waiting face is slow and deep. She’s more relaxed and at peace now than she has been in a long time. “I’m ready to run if you are.”
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no subject
Date: 2014-12-11 03:06 am (UTC)They will have to work around the time-travel component, but if Khan was somehow transported back in time, then the reverse ought to be possible as well.
Oh, this was fun to read. Thank you!
(Any thoughts of a continuation?)
no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:02 pm (UTC)I don't have any plans for more in this verse but several people asked about it so maybe I'll have to consider it.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-11 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-11 01:45 pm (UTC)I love the differences between Sherlock and Khan - I laughed when they switched clothes! I also really enjoyed how Sherlock doesn't need any convincing at all to get himself into something seriously dangerous just because he knows it will piss Mycroft off, hah.
An entertaining read! :D
no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:05 pm (UTC)Lord, I would love to see Molly in a little blue Starfleet uniform and Khan be like "That is totally a necessary disguise. I swear. Necessary." But Molly would call him on his shit, and probably sit in his lap anyway. There goes that G rating.
I said I wasn't thinking about a sequel but that idea might have some merit.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-11 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:06 pm (UTC)I'm glad you thought she was in character. That's always the best compliment for me to hear.
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Date: 2014-12-11 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:07 pm (UTC)I was going to write to one of your other prompts but this Khan/Molly thing just kept sticking in my head. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-01-04 04:39 pm (UTC)What was the other idea you were considering writing?
no subject
Date: 2015-01-08 08:03 pm (UTC)It's up on AO3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3082742
no subject
Date: 2014-12-11 08:16 pm (UTC)The scene with Sherlock and John was delightful in every way, Sherlock pictured as a petulant little brother of Khan somehow.
And then Molly gets to travel together with Khan, which is almost like having her deepest wish granted. Now I wish, author, that you turn this into a longer story. I can't wait to read it.
In the meantime, thank you for writing this delightful fic!
no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-13 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:10 pm (UTC)*smoochies*
no subject
Date: 2014-12-14 06:35 am (UTC)(and will add my name to those wanting a second chapter :D)
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Date: 2015-01-03 11:11 pm (UTC)Molly should always have a spine. It's just not as obvious as some other people's.
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Date: 2014-12-15 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 03:04 pm (UTC)Molly certainly needs more love. And her very own sociopath. ^.~
no subject
Date: 2015-01-03 11:13 pm (UTC)