- c h a p t e r   t h i r t y -

"What are you going to do, Emma?" Molly asked.

"Lovely question. Shame I don't have an answer for it," Emma replied. The main problem with the question was that Emma didn't entirely understand it - was she talking about what she would do in the next few minutes? In the next few days? For the rest of her life?

Molly seemed to sense this uncertainty and quickly rephrased her statement.

"I mean...what are you going to do now? So much in your life has changed, but you know that people truly do care about you...what are you going to do?"

"If I knew, would I have come here to whine about my life to you?" Emma asked.

"Well..."

"Honestly, Molly. Things might be different now, but I don't know how to adjust to them."

"Time does quite a bit," Molly suggested. "I can tell you that with certainty from experience. I should know, after everything that has happened...not that all of that matters all too much. Don't worry about making it all come together right now."

Despite these words of encouragement, Emma couldn't help but feel as if she'd lost all hope

"I'm so pathetic," Emma sighed. "All I do is cry and cry about everything that happens in my life and as soon as I try to fix one of the problems I create, I end up not being able to talk."

"Emma, I-"

"Wait a minute."

"What is it?" Molly asked, taken aback after being interrupted. "Is something wrong?"

Emma couldn't carry on the conversation when her thoughts had started to churn around in such a manner. It didn't made sense for her to continue standing there constantly speaking out whenever she needed most to remain inside. She wanted to talk to Molly, yes, but she needed to think by herself first.

Molly seemed entirely concerned that Emma was no longer speaking to her. Emma noted this and then prompty ignored her for a few more moments. She could keep herself together as long as she didn't have Molly's words echoing within her ears. She could figure this out. She could most certainly figure it out.

It was just right out of her reach no matter what she did.

Thinking was not going to work, that much was certain. What Emma needed to do was speak. So many words swirled within her head and were desperate to be released, desperate to be heard.

"I've had enough of sitting around, moping about and feeling sorry for myself," Emma said. "It seems like it's all I've done for the past handful of years."

"Well, it certainly isn't all you've done," Molly replied. "I'm certain you've done something."

"I've started lots of somethings," Emma replied. "I've started trying to do something time and time again, and it always just falls apart between my fingers."

"Maybe it's a sign that you have to keep trying something else," Molly suggested. Emma had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at such a suggestion - how was that going to help her if everything kept falling apart.

"I don't know about that, Molly."

"Didn't you say you were going to do something for Sherlock before he left?"

"I did," Emma sighed. "I just don't know if I'm going to finish any of it. Do you see what my problem is, Molly? It's quite simple, isn't it? And I can't do a thing."

"It's not like we can control the fact that he's leaving, that much is for sure," Molly said. She was just beginning to realise that all of her efforts to help Emma were more or less falling apart. "We can only do what we can, and if you can't manage to finish everything for him, so be it."

"It doesn't feel like Sherlock is actually leaving all of this behind," Emma noted. "It doesn't feel like he's going to be gone fairly soon, as if he never even lived in flat 221B."

"I guess we've gotten used to him always coming back, no matter what happens to him," Molly replied, heaving her shoulders into a shrug.

"He's only done it twice," Emma said. "It's not that impressive. If you've been talking to my mother about it, then certainly are aware that I've almost died twice now as well."

"Of course. I'm just hoping that you're not going to end up dying again."

"As long as I don't keep moping around my flat. Even though that may be safest thing that I can do...but that's beside the point. There's something more out there than just that. I have something more for me."

"No matter what happens, I hope that you don't end up in any more lifethreatening situations."

"Well, if Sherlock is gone..."

But before the two women could dive any further into their conversation, they were interrupted by a clicking noise behind them, the sounds of a computer shuddering into action.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Emma asked, knitting her brows as she looked over to Molly. "Sounds like your computer is going to break."

"No, that's not supposed to happen," Molly replied. "I...I don't know what's going on. The computers shouldn't be doing anything more than standing by."

As Molly started moving towards the computer, Emma followed behind her in curiosity. She wasn't sure what she might end up seeing, but she certainly wanted to find out what was going on with the computer. Chances were that it was just some random freak accident, nothing to worry about.

Then she set her eyes upon the actual computer.

"Is that..." Emma gasped. She felt as if her voice was barely coming out, as if her breath was ceasing within her chest. She might as well stop breathing - it wouldn't change a thing.

"Oh, my god," Molly exclaimed, her voice coming out barely above a squeak.

Emma could easily be sick, that much was certain. This couldn't be happening. It had to be some sort of a hallucination, something brought on by something else. Emma didn't know what it could possibly be, but that was precisely why she was blaming everything but real life.

This was a nightmare she never would've composed even during a darkest midnight. She would never have experienced such a matter if she was given the choice not to. She wanted to run, to pick up her feet and dash away from everything that was happening.

But this wasn't something that she could escape from, not really. This image would haunt her, a ghost hanging to her shoulders as long as she walked around.

Moriarty. Moriarty's face was plastered on the screen, a squeaky version of his voice proclaimin the same four words again and again: "Did you miss me? Did you miss me?"

"Oh, my god," Molly exclaimed again. The sound of upcoming tears entered her voice, but Emma didn't pay attention to it. She was too busy fixating her gaze on the screen, wondering if she would able to figure anything about it out. There was something missing. There was something important. And she didn't know it.

"Do you think they're going to let Sherlock go away now?" Emma asked, her eyes still transfixed on the screen before them. "He's the only one that Moriarty really cares about at the end of the day..."

"If they were going to let him go, it would be for his own safety," Molly replied, just as focused on the screen as Emma. She still sounded as if she might be moments away from sobbing, but it didn't matter if she cried. Tears wouldn't create a tidal wave to sweep away all of her ill thoughts on the matter. This was real and right in front of her, and there was no denying it.

"He's supposed to be dead," Emma mumbled. "He's supposed to have died. And not the ways that Sherlock has died, I mean...he's actually supposed to be dead! Didn't he...didn't he shoot himself in the head? How is anyone supposed to survive that?"

Molly turned around to face her friend, allowing a few tears to drizzle down her cheeks. She couldn't possibly handle this no matter where she was. But she knew that she couldn't lie to Emma - lies wouldn't help anyone. What Emma needed was the truth.

"You can't survive that," Molly said, attempting to make a firm comment but having her voice waver anyways. "You cannot survive what he did."

"And yet..." Emma replied, gesturing towards the screen. "He looks pretty alive to me."

"Maybe it's not him," Molly said, rushing into such an idea far too quickly. "Maybe it's just some sort of trick."

"Everything that Moriarty does a trick!" Emma exclaimed. "I don't see how this would be any different. He only makes trick after trick after trick, and we always fall for it."

"So that must be what this is. A trick," Molly decided.

"He's tricking us into what?"

"Believing that he's alive."

"He's alive, Molly," Emma said. "He has to be. I...I know he is. And I don't want him to be, but I know he is."

"He cannot be alive," Molly continued to murmur. "There is no physical way that he could be alive."

"Well, usually people don't survive after jumping off a building on to concrete. I haven't heard of many cases in which someone survived being shot in the chest."

"But that's Sherlock. Sherlock is clever enough to do those sorts of things, to think fast enough to make it work."

"And you think that Moriarty isn't?" Emma asked.

"I think that Moriarty shouldn't be alive. He shouldn't have been able to see so far ahead into the future and know what would happen."

"It's not what should be happening, it's what is happening," Emma said. Most everything she said was also to convince herself to view everything from a better ledge. If she was bound to jump off, she might as well have a good gaze around it first.

"And you're certain that he's alive," Molly said.

"Of course. That's the trick. The fact that he is alive is the trick after everything."

Molly raised her hands to her face, placing them around her mouth as if she were about to wail.

"What is it?"

"He's not going to make the same mistakes as he did last time," Molly said, the quiver in her voice intensifying as she continued to speak. "He won't do it again. No, if he's coming back from the grave...he's going to destroy everything that Sherlock has, one way or another."

"What do you mean, the same mistakes?" Emma asked, scrunching up her nose.

"I mean that he had the opportunity to cripple Sherlock and he didn't take them. He won't do that again, because this time he will most certainly be making sure to take Sherlock out early. The last time, it led to his death-"

"Except for he's alive, Molly."

"I'm all too aware of that," Molly replied, forcing out a laugh. "I know that he's alive. I know that he's coming back and he's going to come for us. I know!"

Emma resisted the urge to scowl - wasn't she supposed to be the one who looked to Molly for support when it came to situations such as this? It wasn't supposed to be her decision on what to do, or what to say, or how to feel.

"What about Sherlock? Sherlock is leaving the country," Molly said. "He's not going to be around here to prevent Moriarty from causing damage."

"Do you really think I'm going to hang around and pray that Sherlock will protect me from Moriarty?" Emma asked, forcing out a laugh which fluttered in the same way her heart was currently beating. "I can't rely on Sherlock for that."

"I didn't say we should I rely on Sherlock, I..."

Molly didn't finish her sentence. Instead, she released a sigh which hung within the air as if it were a cloud. Emma took this silence to think, even though she knew that it was unlikely that she would come up with anything at the current moment. Her mind was far too frenzied for that to happen.

If she was going to have to be the stronger side of the friendship for the moment, it was her responsibility to say something. Anything. "Did you miss me?" could strike fear into her heart as if it were assaulted by a poisonous snake. Words could just easily allow someone to calm down.

"We're going to be...well, I don't know what exactly we're going to be like, but we're going to make it through this."

"You sound so certain, Emma."

"Well, we somehow managed to make it through more or less not hurt the first time Moriarty came around...who's to say that we can't do something like that again?"

"Even if he knows not to repeat his mistakes from last time?"

"Especially if he knows not to repeat his mistakes from last time," Emma said, hardly believing she was spouting out such positivity towards Molly. Wasn't she supposed to be the one who was negative all the time? All the tables were turning, and Emma didn't know if she should be upset by that or not.

But Emma was reaching the answer, the answer to so many things that she'd been searching for.

"I refuse to stay locked within my basement flat forever and waste away until there's none of me left. I refuse to just lose myself..."

"What does that have to do with Moriarty?" Molly said, her voice coming out as little more than a gasp. "I don't...I don't understand."

"Well, we can't just sit around praying, can we?"

"Well, we technically can..." Molly said.

"Not if we want to do something. If I'm going to be hurt by this, I want it to be because I fought. Not because I cowered and allowed myself to be hurt, not putting up any defense."

"I...I see. We're going to survive this, though," Molly said, although her statement seemed mostly to help convince herself further.

"More than just survive - things will get better, I'm sure of it."

"Sure of it," Molly echoed.

Emma stared at the face on the screen, mocking everyone who recognised it. The high pitched questioning had happened so much that she barely noticed it was still playing in the background of everything. Already the fact that Moriarty was back was beginning to sink into her skin.

That didn't mean she was pleased about it - oh, not at all! No, she could count a thousand ways how she loathed this situation, how she was certain it would make her burn.

"Well. If I'm going to burn, I may as well burn brilliantly, yeah?" Emma asked. "No point in turning into a pile of ashes if I'm nothing more than a puff of smoke in the process. And then I can do what I do best once again - I can rise from those ashes, better than before."