Title: When the Dead Talk

Rating: T

Summary: Jim had turned out to be a psychopathic serial killer. Sherlock oscillated between ignoring her existence and dissecting its very meaning. Now she'd begun to see ghosts. For Molly it was just going to be one of those years. Again.

After the public humiliation that was the 221B Baker Street Christmas Gathering, Molly goes home with a throat burning from choking back tears. Stinging palms where her fingernails have cut bloody crescents into her skin in an effort not to slap Sherlock.

As she cleans her hands with cheap antiseptic from the bathroom cabinet she wonders why she even bothered holding herself back.

A grim, wobbly little smile crosses her face as she fantasises, however briefly, of her palms meeting those cut-glass cheekbones, of marring the smooth cream of his skin with her fingerprints, the angry red mark left behind- her mark lingering on his skin long enough to clearly show her displeasure.

His shock.

The silent amazement of her friends.

The thrill of having finally stood up to the detective who cuts up the living as well as he dissects the dead.

She snorts softly at the thought- little meek Miss Molly Hooper doing something as daring as slapping the great Sherlock Holmes? She shakes her head, closes the cabinet cupboard and with it the fantasy dies and she is just a devastated, lonely young woman and outside it is beginning to snow and she is alone.

Padding through to the kitchen she fixes herself a large glass of white wine and then flops onto the sofa, curling her legs underneath her as Toby pads over, meowing pitifully. She picks up the large ginger cat and once he's settled in her lap she scratches behind his ears absently.

Wonders why it is she's attracted to all the wrong kind of men.

Wonders why she doesn't stand up for herself.

Wonders why she looks forward to seeing Sherlock when all he brings with him is a large dose of humiliation and heartbreak.

A knock at the door derails her train of thought. Squashing the brief hope that it is Sherlock (He's come to apologise properly! To tell me he loves me, I love you too, would you like to come in for a coffee?) she answers the door hesitantly, and blinks as she is engulfed by two people enthusiastically hugging her.

"Molls! How are you?"

She is released as Zoe grins down at her, her blonde pixie hair glinting in the light that spills from the living room.

Beside her Ben chuckles and gives her the once over, then looks down at his skinny jeans and crew necked jumper."Nice dress, love. You look fantastic. Bit dressed up for us, mind."

She looks down absently and realises she hasn't changed. She is still wearing the beautiful black dress with its thin border of silver white flakes that took her hours and hours of trawling the high-street to find, that cost her more money than she would have liked, that made her feel so special.

That in a matter of moments Sherlock dismissed.

She traces the tiny beading along the top with trembling hands as Zoe just looks at her with affectionate exasperation.

"You forgot we were coming, didn't you? I told you, Ben, you leave medical school and snap, old friends are just forgotten. Never mind the fact we spent seven years of our lives practically living in each other's back pockets."

I didn't forget she wants to say. I didn't forget.

But that would be a lie and she's so tired of all of the lies and excuses and stories she's been spun this year by Jim, or Moriarty or whatever he's calling himself these days, by Sherlock, by John, by the police, by her well-meaning colleagues that don't understand at all about what happened to her, who have no idea how she feels and her throat closes up around her. Chokes off her words.

"Molls? What is it? Are you all right?"

"Molly?"

Her threadbare control finally snaps.

In the doorway to her apartment, as the snow falls, she gives in and bursts into tears.

"You matched your lipstick colour to the ribbon?"

"He likes details," she hiccups miserably.

It is several hours later and the whole sordid messy chain of events has come pouring out, all of Molly's fears and worries and sad, sad little tale of love and serial killers has rushed out in a tumble of words and tears until she feels completely and utterly drained. Now in her comfiest, warmest pyjamas and with her face scrubbed free of makeup she sits in front of her gas fire and eats cherry liqueurs one after the other.

Zoe crosses her arms. "He sounds like a right plonker."

"But he looks like a god," says Ben dreamily. "Have you seen those cheekbones of his in the papers? And his eyes, I could drown in his eyes-"

"Shut up, you're not helping," Zoe hisses, handing Molly a handful of tissues as she scrubs at her eyes again for the nth time that hour.

"I am helping!" he protests. "I'm explaining why I completely understand why our Molly has fallen for a man who is physically above us mere mortals but at the same time is emotionally crippled."

"He's not completely emotionally crippled- he's friends with John isn't he?" she sniffs. "And there's Mrs Hudson and Lestrade-"

"So he can get along with his landlady, his flatmate and the policeman who is basically his handler? He's hardly winning the sociability award this year is he?" Zoe shakes her head and looks her friend in the eye seriously. "Molls, you need to face up to the fact that you're in love with a man who treats you like shit. You can do so much better."

"She doesn't want to do better. She wants to do him," quips Ben and that raises a small smile from Molly even as Zoe rolls her eyes.

"Don't listen to him, he's just being childish."

"Hello. I'm a paediatrician. Comes with the territory," Ben retorts easily even as he sticks his tongue out and Molly's phone chirrups from somewhere in her bedroom. Leaving her friends to argue she goes to find it, eventually discovering it discarded under her well-worn Gap jeans.

The answerphone message from the hospital is short and to the point, with only a smidge of guilt for making Dr Hooper abandon her evening to attend to the body in the morgue that has arrived and must be dealt with immediately. Everyone else - of course - being too occupied with Christmas to come in.

She must look slightly bitter when she wanders back into the living room because both Zoe and Ben are frowning worriedly at her.

"Is it him?" asks Zoe with an edge creeping into the tone.

"No," she sighs, "a body's just come into the morgue and they need someone to deal with it."

"And you're going?"

Molly shrugs in resignation. "Everyone else is busy."

"So are you."

"I don't count," she mutters and then holds out her hands apologetically. "Sorry guys. Raincheck?"

"What are you doing Christmas Day?" asks Ben as Zoe shrugs on her leather jacket.

"I'm having a quiet one in," she replies and tries to make it sound like she's ok to be alone on December 25th. "Mum's off visiting Uncle Jeff in New Zealand so I thought I'd go and see Dad. Watch some telly. Eat rubbish. The usual stuff."

"Molls," says Ben seriously, "you're not spending your Christmas at the cemetery. We've both managed to get the day off from the hospital so we're going to my parents. You're coming too."

Molly opens her mouth to weakly protest that she can't crash their Christmas plans but Ben shuts her up by hugging her tightly and then Zoe kisses her cheek and they're out of the door before she can properly object.

They're grinning back at her as she waves them off from the doorstep and she realises that she was never really going to say no anyway. That she would have readily agreed to anything other than spending the day alone in her tiny apartment. That her friends are good and kind and make her feel worth something.

Her phone chirrups again, and her rising good mood instantly deflates.

Resigned, she goes to her room, slipping her pyjamas off and pulling on the crumpled jeans from the floor. She picks the most festive jumper she owns out of her drawers in an effort to think positively, plasters on a bleak little smile and goes out of the door.

The snow is coming down thicker now and she is instantly dusted with a layer of powder white crystals.

It coats her eyelashes and melts, making it look as though she's crying.

Maybe she is.

She's just finished measuring one of the most badly beaten corpses she's ever seen, when the Holmes brothers walk into the morgue.

Even in her head it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke and suddenly she realises why everyone else was so busy with Christmas. Why she was the only one they could ask to come in.

She can almost imagine the conversation that must have happened in the staff room.

Holmes will be in if the body is interesting. You know what he's like.

Arrogant git. You know last week he told me to get out of my own room?

That's nothing. Last Monday he took over my lab, stole the organs out of one of the bodies to take home to experiment on and made me fetch him his lunch.

Bastard.

He made Sue cry on Tuesday, Richard on Wednesday and Simon's put in for early retirement. Jerry's already on medical leave. Stress. Caused by you know who.

Well someone has to be here. Can't just let him loose on the body.

Get Molly. She's in love with the guy. She'll put up with his crap all right.

Thought she had more sense than that.

Are you joking? Molly? She's a terrible judge of character. You know she dated that guy who turned out to be a serial killer, right?

She feels her cheeks burn, and her palms beneath the white latex gloves sting.

Sherlock's rich, low voice ripples up her spine as it always does. "You didn't have to come in, Molly."

She can't work out whether he's being kind and making up for the party or whether he simply doesn't want her here.

You didn't have to come in, Molly.

Yes, she thinks. Yes I did.

So because she is Molly and because she is in love she doesn't tell him the truth that she was the only option. That no-one else wants to be around him. Instead she swallows her shredded pride and feeds him the line her colleagues gave her.

"That's ok. Everyone else is busy with…Christmas."

She feels like the smallest person in the world. Smaller than she already does whenever she is in the presence of Sherlock Holmes.

As she peels the sheet back she wonders if he buys her excuse. If he even cares.

She focuses back on the body. "The face is a bit sort of bashed up, so it might be a bit difficult," she explains but nobody's even listening and Sherlock's paying more attention to the corpse than he's ever paid to her.

That's the trouble with Sherlock Holmes she realises too late. You have to be dead to be of any interest to him.

And as she pulls the sheet further down for him to gaze over the rest of the body she catches Mycroft looking at her from the corner of her eye. His expression is full of what she can only describe as something akin to pity. Nothing as kind as sympathy. Edging closer to contempt.

"That's her," Sherlock concludes, tone indecipherable, and stalks out of the room leaving Molly and Mycroft and the mystery woman who is apparently not so mysterious to Sherlock.

She can feel the question bubbling up inside her and before she can stop herself it bursts out.

"Who is she? How did Sherlock recognise her from... not her face?"

Mycroft doesn't reply but then he doesn't have to because the answer is obvious. The lingering flavour of cherry liqueurs in her mouth suddenly tastes sour. She swallows to try and rid herself of the flavour as Mycroft thanks her and turns on his heel out of the morgue.

And Molly corrects her previous assumption.

You don't have to be dead to be of interest to Sherlock Holmes. You just have to be anybody other than Molly Hooper.

She doesn't count.

And then it is Christmas Day and she is at The Cottage, the ironic title given to the sprawling eleven bedroomed house that Ben's parents own in Hertfordshire. They all sit round the dining table that's groaning with the weight of food and as Molly pulls crackers and wears a silly paper hat and later plays stupid games and watches the Queen's speech as Ben's grandmother cries at how lovely the old monarch looks, she realises she's having fun.

Fun that doesn't involve thinking about St Barts or a certain dark haired detective or corpses.

No corpses on Christmas Day for Molly! She wonders if it's sad that that's one of the best presents she's ever going to get.

But then she forgets all about the dead as she's pulled into a game of Charades with Ben's super competitive aunts and before long it's time for more food and more alcohol and it's gone midnight before all of Ben's relatives begin slowly winding their way upstairs to the guest bedrooms to sleep off the wine (and port, sherry, champagne, vodka and rum) and suddenly she finds herself left with just Ben and Zoe and the television, which is showing Edward Scissorhands.

"Crap," says Zoe as she slumps into a free chair. "I thought your rellies would never go to bed. My family are normally all asleep infront of the TV by five."

"Smythe stamina," Ben retorts proudly. "We're simply too rich to sleep. We're afraid poor people may break into our houses and nick all the silverware."

Molly throws a wad of wrapping paper at his head. "Toff."

"That reminds me," says Ben, catching the paper before it hits him, "I think it's time to break out the traditional joke presents."

Zoe groans. "I thought we said we weren't doing that anymore."

"Too late, sweetheart," he grins, handing her a crumpled pink envelope from the back pocket of his jeans. "And for you, Molls," he says, offering her a brown paper package he pulls from under his chair.

The two women look at each other before opening their presents in resignation.

"Hahaha," Zoe comments dryly, pulling out two pieces of paper. "Hilarious. Let's get the obstetrician tickets for the Vagina Monologues."

"You got off lightly," says Molly, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. "A Ouija board? Really?"

"Well, what with you being queen of the corpses and all, now you can chat away with them all you like. It's just a joke, Molls," he continues hastily, seeing the look on her face. "No offence meant."

"I know that," says Molly, wondering why she's suddenly feeling tearful. So she can't get away from the dead after all, why should she care?

Because that's all anyone sees you as. Molly, the girl who deals with the dead.

Want a corpse? Ask Molly.

Is that a dismembered limb? Go and see Molly.

Who's that up to her elbows in someone else's intestines? Oh, it's just Molly.

Why can't anyone see I'm so much more than just dead people?

She realises Zoe's talking now. "It's just a silly game," her friend is saying and Molly realises to her horror that tears are leaking down her cheeks. "Ben didn't mean anything by it. Please don't cry, Molly."

Molly wipes her face hastily with her hands. "I don't know why I'm crying," she apologises, "really, I'm n-not offended. I think I'm just overtired and I've had too m-much alcohol. I should go to bed."

And with that she hastily excuses herself and escapes upstairs into a spare room. She doesn't bother to take her clothes off, bone weary, and instead slips between the sheets and leaves her pillow damp with self-pity.

Sherlock is staring at her over the rim of his coffee cup. "A Ouiga board? Really, Molly. Even if in an unlikely series of events the spirits of the deceased linger on this plane after they have ceased living, why on earth would they play…board games?" His mouth twists into a shape she knows is disappointment mixed with disbelief at the stupidity of his pathologist.

Blushing under his scrutiny she fixes her gaze back on the body in front of her and combs back the dark hair from the pale forehead, tangling her fingers in the black curls.

Sherlock curls his lip and stares down at his own corpse on the table and then back to her.

"And even if they did play board games," he continues, oblivious to Molly squirming beside him, "why on earth would they contact you?"

The corpse of Sherlock on the dissection table sits up and nods in agreement with the Sherlock standing next to Molly.

There's a knock at the door to the mortuary and in strolls another Sherlock, greatcoat flapping in a non-existent breeze as he strides over to Molly and grabs her forcefully. Swinging her round, he dips her low, strong fingers splaying across the arch of her spine.

Then he kisses her senseless.

Molly can only gasp and turn into a puddle of hormonal goo.

The kiss ends as suddenly as it begins and the Sherlock that has just kissed her reaches into his pocket and pulls out a curved yellow object and hands it to her.

Molly stares at the banana in her hand in bemusement.

Sherlock chucks her under the chin condescendingly and clucks sympathetically. "I'd give up this Ouija nonsense if I were you, Molly," he replies patronisingly, "and the kiss wasn't all that great either. Best stick with the fruit. The flavonoid poly-phenolic antioxidants in bananas will keep you looking young."

Corpse Sherlock nods. "And you're going to need to look youthful, Molly. Let's face it, you haven't got a lot else going for you."

First Sherlock hums in agreement. "It's true; you're just too alive to be of interest to a mind like mine."

He frowns down at her and she realises she is shrinking, the lab walls rising up around her and Sherlock's face is looming over her, like some mildly curious and ultimately amoral god.

"Why aren't you eating your banana?"

Molly wakes up with the bed sheets in her mouth, a frown crossing her features and anger thrumming up and down inside her veins.

She doesn't even like bananas.

Her phone beeps at her and she checks the time as she runs a hand through her hair. It's late morning. Her friends will have already left for their hospital shifts and Molly feels guilt well in the pit of her stomach as she checks her phone and reads the dozens of apologetic text messages Ben has left her.

Next year, will just buy you bubble bath, I swear.

Sorry. B.

New Year's resolution. Will not buy M.H presents that make her cry.

Very Sorry. B.

Will take the game back when I get home and exchange.

Could Not Be More Sorry, B.

Help yourself to the silverware. It's the least I can do. Mother won't even notice.

I am running out of ways to express my regret, B.

But as Molly drinks her coffee and lets Ben's relatives cajole her out for a Boxing Day walk, (none of them sporting hangovers, which is some kind of holiday miracle) something in her brain sparks and makes her spine stiffen. She sends off a text before she can change her mind, mouth set in a firm little line.

We're playing the game tonight. Finish your shift and get back here.

M.

Yes ma'am.

B.

Molly pulls the lid off and tugs the board out. A faint smile makes her lips creep upwards. "You know, in every horror film I've ever seen, we start playing this and then everyone dies. Horribly."

"Well, don't we get a discount on a funeral if you're in the body business?"

Molly shoots Ben a look. "Yes, if I was a vicar or a funeral director. As I'm an NHS pathologist your dissection is already free. Considering you're loaded, you're also a complete tight arse."

She sets the board up as Zoe cocks an eyebrow. "That was surprisingly sassy coming from you. What's going on?"

Molly shrugs. "New Years resolution- New Molly. I'm tired of getting upset about stupid things and what with the past year and all and Sherlock and Jim and everything…I'm sick of feeling like some messed up chick-flick cliché. You know, hopelessly in love with the wrong guy. Dating all the wrong men. Desperately waiting for Mr Anyone to walk into my life." She runs her fingers through her hair. "My new year's resolution is to be someone else."

"But I like you being Molly Hooper."

"Then a new me. New and improved."

"You don't need improving, you're a sweet-heart."

"Who gets treated like a doormat and has a love life that varies between non-existent and life threatening. I'm…I'm just tired of it. I'm sick of not counting."

She misses the look her friends share as they place their hands on the planchette. Immediately the small wooden board begins to move, spelling out words quickly and surely.

S-O-R-R-Y - M-O-L-L-Y

"Ben."

"What?" he says, looking scandalised. "I had nothing to do with it. It's the spirits, they're sensitive to your delicate emotional state."

New Molly elbows him in the stomach.

In the days leading up to the New Year, New Molly spring cleans her life. She deletes her blog (because frankly that's a public billboard to her crash and burn love life), erases all of her voice mails from Jim. The single text from Sherlock. She takes the Mills and Boon novels stored under her bed (Detective Daddy, Double-Edged Detective, The Detective's Undoing) to the Oxfam on the high-street, and finishes off the large tub of sympathy Ben & Jerry's Phish Food sitting in the freezer. (Not that there's much left after Christmas).

She tidies every square inch of the house, shredding half doodled pages from notebooks that declare her undying love for a certain someone and recycling the newspapers she has kept with him on the front page.

She doesn't know what to do about the dress. Doesn't know whether she bought it for him or for herself and spends forty minutes staring at it hanging in the wardrobe, debating whether to sell it on eBay.

In the end she closes the door and leaves it where it is.

The rest of the week is busy on the body count front. The time of the year being what it is and all that, Molly is swamped with suicides and old people being killed off by the cold and domestic violence cases. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year sounds out ironically over the speakers in the canteen hall.

Sherlock remains mostly absent from the lab so she has no chance to test out her new resolution, but she likes to think if he came by he could tell by the straightening of her spine, the thinning of her mouth, the stance of her feet, that she is no longer quite so much in his thrall.

The only unusual thing that happens all day is that when she returns home the Ouija board is out on the dining room table. Which is odd, because Molly could have sworn she put it away in a drawer full of dvds and dog eared packs of cards, tattered from their hard use during her student days.

She puts it back in the drawer and thinks no more of it.

The next day is much the same. There is no Sherlock or Mycroft or John. Just bodies and paperwork and she goes about her tasks with a determined kind of energy, feeling the adrenaline of completing so many cases without being interrupted or belittled or pushed around. Today is a good day.

Sadly, it is not so good for the elderly lady who Molly concludes has suffered a heart attack. Or the four year old girl with complications from a bout of measles. Or the young man missing most of his limbs who met a high speed train with a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit. All she can do is give their families some kind of closure.

That evening, the skies open and a torrent of icy water soaks her on her way home. Stumbling through her front door, she immediately dumps her bags and peels off her soaked clothes, running a shower before changing into her pyjamas. It is only on her way to the kitchen for a glass of wine that she notices the Ouija board is out again.

She frowns, ignoring the prickle up her spine and puts it back in the cupboard. Shuts the drawer firmly and goes to boil pasta on the stove.

She hums a little as she waits for the water to heat, sipping her wine slowly. Toby winds his way around her ankles and she leans down to scratch his ears fondly.

There is a crash from the living room.

Molly drops her wine glass as she jumps and the glass shatters on the tiles. Red liquid spills across the floor but she ignores it as she steps into the living room and freezes.

The cupboard door is open, the Ouija board out on the floor. A cold, cramped feeling begins in her stomach and spreads to her hands and feet. Frozen, she watches the planchette move without hands, slowly spelling out words.

H-E-L-L-O - M-O-L-L-Y - H-O-O-P-E-R

Her hands grip the door frame.

D-O - N-O-T - B-E - A-F-R-A-I-D

She heads back into the kitchen and calmly reaches for the dustpan and brush, mechanically sweeping up the fragments of smashed glass. Then she wipes the floor clean and pours herself another glass of wine.

"This is a hallucination. It isn't real, Molly," she mutters to herself. "There's no such thing as ghosts." Unbidden a tiny thought crosses her mind.

What would Sherlock do?

The wine tastes sour at the back of her throat. "He'd tell you to be rational. He'd sell you some complicated explanation wrapped up in an insult and then pat your head and send you to bed like a frightened child."

Her mouth twists and she puts the wine glass down. Firmly, she strides into the living-room, tidies away the board back into it's box and puts it back into the cupboard. She fixes her pasta, eats her meal and goes to bed. She ignores Toby who refuses to budge from beneath the dining room table, staring at something over her left shoulder that only he can see.

She sleeps dreamlessly.

The next morning, she wakes and feels something heavy on her legs. Toby has crept into her room in the night and settled on her feet. Drowsily she reaches down to scratch his ears. Her hands instead make contact with a hard wooden board.

She bolts upright and watches as the planchette moves.

G-O-O-D - M-O-R-N-I-N-G

She flings the board away and shaking, drags the duvet over her head. She counts for an hour and then pulls the duvet down to the bridge of her nose so that she can peer out.

The Ouija board lying innocuously on the floor.

Trembling she gets out of bed, throws on the clothes she wore last night and wraps the Ouija board in four black bin bags. She leaves the house and heads for the Thames. When no-one is looking she dumps the board in the river and watches it vanish into the murky grey water.

Back at Barts, in the safety and quiet sterility of the hospital she feels herself begin to relax. Still, when one of her colleagues pops their head around her door she almost jumps out of her skin. She does not think of what happened this morning. Instead she concentrates on a backlog of histology samples she has to get through, takes a long lunch break in Pret, which is loud and lively and full of people and then attends a staff meeting, which is long and dull.

She sorts out her files, cleans her lab, finishes all of her paperwork. Eventually, though, she has to go home.

When she gets into the flat, the Ouija board is back on the carpet floor. There is no evidence of the bin bags, no sign the game has been at the bottom of London's famous river. It lies, dry and clean and ready to be played.

As though it is waiting for her.

New Molly feels something clench in her gut and she takes a deep breath. 'This is ridiculous,' she thinks. 'I'm being stalked by a board game.' Outwardly she dumps her coat and her bag and goes to the kitchen. She makes herself a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits and when the soothing ritual is complete she sits back down in the living room and screws up her courage.

"All right," she says. "I've had enough. What do you want?"

H-E-L-P

"Help?"

Y-E-S

"Help with what? I'm just a pathologist, I'm afraid, I'm not…" she hesitates and her new year's resolution rears its head and makes her spine stiffen. She juts her chin out and gathers her determination. "Ok. What do you need?"

I-T - W-O-U-L-D - B-E - E-A-S-I-E-R - T-O - T-A-L-K - W-I-T-H-O-U-T - T-H-E- B-O-A-R-D

Molly frowns and rubs away the sudden cramp in her fingers. "O-ok," she says.

Suddenly the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach intensifies until it feels as though she has swallowed snow and she shoves her hands under her armpits as the cold creeps into her bones. The temperature continues to drop. Her breath makes puffs of white in front of her. Toby buries himself into her jumper for warmth as the cold snaps off all of the leaves from her house plants.

When the windows begin to frost on the inside, the ghosts come.

Please Read and Review!

Ok, so I know I have a bunch of stories that need updating, but this just wouldn't leave me alone until I posted it so I'm not going to apologise. When you've got to write something, you've got to write!

In exciting news I am posting this from China, which is where I am now living and working for the next 6 months. Hopefully my internet will not die or be disconnected and I will be able to update all of my fics. Fingers crossed!