IN WILL GRAHAM'S HOTEL ROOM

Will missed Molly.

At the end of the day, these were silly sorts of thoughts - she was just around a few corners, down a street, through a few doors. He could technically go find her at any time. She made it clear that she was more than willing to take his calls, his texts, his everything.

But the solution to his problems didn't lie in those. No, after a whole night of staying awake, he found that he spent half of it thinking about her and the other half thinking about the stuffed humans case. Therefore his entire night was spent in pain - he wouldn't ever be able to fall asleep, no matter how hard he tried or how exhausted he felt.

It was as if he had been cursed by some sort of demon who wanted to prevent him from sleeping. His mind wandered back to a piece of mythology he had read over a while ago, something that certainly seemed to apply to him now.

The Nocnitsa, the night hag. She would sit on one's chest and draw out their life energy as long as they slept on their back - sleeping with the dead. Then, of course, she feeded off of human darkness, sadness, pain, terror.

The only way to rid oneself of the Nocnitsa would be to fight back.

And the only way Will knew how to fight back was to get Molly to help.

But in the middle of the day, Will wasn't going to go over to St. Bart's and request that Molly come home so that he could nap. No - there were other things of far more importance to be done, and he couldn't allow himself to forget that.

There was the matter that he spent half of his night pondering over the stuffed humans case - in order to put those fears to rest, he would have to head over to 221B and find out precisely what was going on with it all.

After seeing the crime scene, it became far more clear why this was all taking place. The criminal wasn't stuffing the humans out of some deep desire to have "friends" or anything of the sort. No, they were mocking their victims. Instead of leaving them to be normal bodies, they were turned into something akin to a children's toy, something meant to resemble a beast.

He could see this when he examined the scene where the body had been - aside from several traces of thread, there wasn't much else to be found. While others would put this down as being a complete lack of evidence, Will saw it to be just as telling as anything else. It didn't need anything else. It was just a toy, a useless shell stuffed up with nothing special, strewn across the floor and forgotten.

Then, of course, there was the body itself - he still hadn't seen it. He wasn't sure if he even cared to see it to begin with. Every time he would stare across the stitching he would find himself wondering precisely how it would feel to push the needle into the skin, and then pull out - push and pull, push and pull, push and pull...

These were the precise types of thoughts that ended up keeping him awake all night. He just needed to figure out this case and head back to America. Molly would come along with him, they would get married, and it could all be pushed to the past. It was just a matter of getting through another day, and another day, and another day.

One day in the not-so-very-distant future he could see himself being legitimately happy. It would be true happiness, he was sure of it. It was these sorts of thoughts that allowed him to make it to another orange streaked sunset and wake up to another foggy dawn. People often underestimated the simple power of hope, of course - Will himself underestimated it. He just didn't consider what he felt to be hope.

For now, however, all he could think of doing was taking a ride over to 221B Baker Street and attempting to get the case worked out for the day. If he could do any sort of work, then he knew he'd be able to rest just that tiniest bit easier. He could know that something was being done to find the killer and stop them from killing any more.

Will started to create his own theories, but none of them were particularly savory as they tended to trace in a direct line straight back to him. He blamed himself for these occurrences, but there didn't appear to be anything he could possibly do to put it to rest, at least not for long.

Before he could change his mind, he gathered his things and made his way out on the streets. As soon as he saw a cab, he did his best to hail it. He succeeded on the first try - at least something was going somewhat right. The tiny victories ended up being tiny motivations to keep going and carry throughout the day, piece by piece by piece.

He tried to close his eyes instead of watching the city fly past. He had already seen London enough times that he didn't find anything particularly striking about it any more. Will would much rather catch a five minute nap before facing the case and all of the violence that came along with it. But his own thoughts ended up causing him to stay strikingly awake the entire time.

The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of the door leading into 221B. As Will walked up to the door, he found himself heaving out an enormous sigh once again. He expelled the air in a rush as if he didn't need it to continue breathing. The ride to Baker Street hadn't been long enough to allow him to mentally prepare for whatever was about to come next. Of course John would end up being supportive, but he couldn't predict what Sherlock would do.

After being able to emphasise with so many different people, Will found himself to be bothered by the fact he couldn't trace out a path for what he expected Sherlock to do when it came to things concerning him. No matter what he tried to figure out, nothing ever seemed to turn out to be quite right. It got to a point where he just didn't even feel like trying - but, of course, his mind wandered.

At that particular moment, his mind was certainly wandering. He had been standing outside of the door aimlessly for an awkwardly long amount of time. If he continued just simply standing there, then people would begin to give him strange looks. The last thing he wanted was to begin attracting attention to himself. Then again, maybe not...but he wasn't willing to risk the chance.

Will applied pressure to the doorbell, wondering if inside Sherlock had some sort of chart describing how the different doorbell durations and frequencies applied to different people. He certainly wouldn't be surprised if this were to be the case.

However, he wouldn't be finding this out quite yet - he was greeted at the door by John. Somehow, this didn't surprise him - if nothing else, he could assume that they were in the middle of work and he would be far too lazy to get up and interrupt his thought just to get the door.

"Sorry that I came without any warning," Will began. "My idea to come here was something of an impulse. If you want to me to just head back to the hotel, I can just go. I don't mean to be any bother."

"No, no, Will, it's fine," John said, giving a small smile. "You came just in time - we've been working on the case, and we could use your help to figure things out."

"Really?" Will asked. "If you had needed me, wouldn't Sherlock have texted me or something?"

John's face fell into a scrunched up look of confusion. "I could've sworn he did text you - I watched as he sent out the text."

"Well, I didn't get anything..." Will replied. He had an impulsive thought to pull out his phone and check just to be sure, but he didn't want to have to admit to being wrong for such a simple thing. He'd much rather be wrong on more major things, which he was sure would pop up as soon as he began speaking to Sherlock.

He followed John through the door and into the flat. Sherlock's eyes were already wide open, and they were focused on Will. As soon as he was all the way within the room, the consulting detective stood up and took a step towards him, his hands precisely folded behind his back.

"Molly," Sherlock said. John's eyebrows immediately creased in confusion - even though his flatmate wasn't exactly known for having convential greetings, this one was excessively strange.

But however strange this might've seemed to John, Will certainly had more issues concerning the matter and was far more shocked. He didn't make a vivid expression of it on his face, but it was clear from his response.

"Molly? What do you mean, Molly?"

"Molly, Molly Hooper. You know precisely who I'm speaking about, and precisely what I'm speaking of."

"I'm not so sure I do, Sherlock."

If Sherlock hadn't been so sure of himself, he might've started to rethink everything he had initially thought concerning the relationship between Molly and Will. But he knew he was correct - he didn't have any thought that he could possibly be incorrect.

"I went over to St. Bart's the other day," Sherlock began. "Of course, I had to go ahead and see the body from our case, and that required speaking with Molly. You two are engaged."

"You're engaged?" John asked, tangling himself up into the conversation between the two.

Will ran the situation through his head quickly in an attempt to weigh his options - he'd be better off just coming out clean. Sherlock already seemed to know the entire truth, and continously denying it wouldn't help a thing.

"Yes, fine. I'm engaged to Molly."

"And you didn't tell us," John said.

"We decided that we wanted it to be a quiet thing."

"I didn't even think you had a 'thing' to begin with," John said.

Sherlock shook his head - this was not what he wanted to speak of when he brought it all up. John and Will had such pitifully ordinary conversations sometimes. Frankly, it just bored him. It didn't matter to him.

"Explain to me why you proposed to her," Sherlock began.

"Why I proposed to her? Why do you think I would propose to her?" Will asked. "Why does anyone propose to anyone else?"

"I don't know, actually," Sherlock admitted. He hardly ever admitted to not knowing anything - unless of course it was something he found silly. "It's superficial to get married - two people are already living together and are sharing their lives. A diamond ring and a fancy party changes very little in their lives. Apparently it's something that everyone looks forward to, however...I don't understand it."

"Then it doesn't matter."

"Trying to change the subject won't prevent it from existing."

"Why, exactly, do you care?" Will asked. "What happens between Molly and I is between Molly and I."

"That's almost precisely what she said to me when I tried to ask her about what was going on. I'm just attemping to get your side of it all, Will."

"There's nothing much to say," Will said, giving a shrug. Trying to avoid the topic matter, he looked over to John and asked, "How is Mary doing?"

"She's doing just fine," John said. "Sometimes she's just kind of tired, but there are worse things that could've happened to her. I'm sure she'll be fine at the end of the day."

"I did have a purpose in coming here, and it had absolutely nothing to do with getting married in the future."

"You haven't slept in several nights," Sherlock replied. "It pertains to the crime - after you headed off to the crime scene, you simply cannot get your mind off of it."

"I suppose it's more obvious than I thought," Will said, raising his hands up to his eyes to wipe the mist away. "But, then again, it doesn't take much to make me tired."

"But there is a very specific reason related to the crime scene," Sherlock prompted. After having so many of his deductions proving to be false as of late, he was pleased to be deducing all sorts of things without a care in the world.

"Yes, well - I know this may sound strange, but I can't help but notice a correlation between my time here and when the crimes were occurring - and when I think about it, I..."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows - he could figure out all sorts of things on his own, but there were certain things he needed other people to explain to them. He was a detective, not a mind reader. People tended to forget this, he noticed.

"There is a very strong correlation between these events and where and what I am doing at the time they are predicted to happen. I feel there is a possibility that I might be blacking out and committing the crimes myself."

Part of Sherlock had known this was coming all along - but he couldn't deny the fact that there was a portion of himself that made him feel shocked over this. John, on the other hand, certainly looked surprised by this.

"You think...how could you think you're doing the crimes?"

"I have nightmares, to begin with. Very, very vivid nightmares. Then they began to show up in the daytime as well - sometimes I start to hallucinate things."

"Except you think that they aren't hallucinations - you can see yourself doing the crimes so precisely that you believe that you must've been the one to commit them."

"I can feel myself slicing the victims apart and then taking out everything that I want inside, draining all of their blood, and stuffing it all back up so that I can sew them shut."

"But is there any evidence that you've actually done them?" John asked. "You seemed to be new to the crime scenes when we arrived at them, I mean-"

"There is no evidence that anyone has actually committed the crimes and created these stuffed humans - whoever's doing it is doing a fine job of covering up their tracks. And who better to cover up their tracks than someone who is working on the case themselves? Someone who's known for thinking just like killers," Will began. He found himself beginning to rant, and no one seemed to be stopping him.

"This isn't the first time this has come into my mind, either."

"Explain," Sherlock said. He didn't need more than a single word in order to express precisely what he was thinking about.

"Back in America, I've been working on the cases of the Chesapeake Ripper and the Copycat Killer...there's so little evidence to be found in both, but I can...I know what's happened, exactly what's happened. I know exactly what it would feel like...sometimes I wonder if it's more than just extreme empathy."

"You suspect you're the killer for multiple crimes, then."

"Including the murder of someone who I considered myself to be fairly close to."

"You didn't do it," Sherlock said.

"How do you know? How could you possibly know? I might be blacking out and...I don't want to kill anyone. But..."

"People often ask me how I know all sorts of things," Sherlock sighed. "I doubt that I could properly explain my methods to you in a way that would allow you to understand."

"I believe this is a situation where you might want to try, regardless of what you think of my intelligence."

"And I would like to know as well," John chipped in. "If you know he didn't do it, then you probably know who did."

Sherlock rolled his eyes - his authority over the subject was being questioned and he didn't appreciate it. At first he didn't even think he even owed the others a response. In the end, however, his desire to be right came out.

"Surprising though it may seem, I don't know who committed the crimes. However, I don't believe that Will has the capacity to commit murder without a solid motive - something of which is notably lacking in this."

"So you're telling me all of my fears are wrong, just because you don't think I have the capacity to kill?" Will asked.

"No, you most certainly have the capacity to kill - everyone in this room does. But you don't have the capacity to kill without reason, and as far as I can see you have absolutely no reason to have murdered any of the people who have been turned into stuffed humans. Unless there is something you wish to tell me now..."

Will stared in Sherlock's general direction, but his eyes never quite met the consulting detective's. Instead, he fixated on a spot on the wallpaper directly above and to the left of his shoulder. Sherlock's words certainly had a point, a solid one that he couldn't possibly deny. But at the same time, it would be silly to disregard the images and thoughts that entered his head on a regular basis.

"I know what it's like to kill someone," he began. "It's only happened once."

"I know," Sherlock said, his eyebrows furrowing. "I know precisely what you've done. You killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs. It wasn't murder, as it was done in order to help save a life and he was a guilty man."

"...you deduced all of that about me?" Will asked weakly.

"No, he looked it up," John said, shaking his head. "I left my laptop here for Sherlock to use during my honeymoon, and I came back to find the Internet history filled with searches for your name. Rather sloppy of him, really. I expect better than that."

"The means of how I came by this information is not important," Sherlock said, raising his nose into the air. "The information itself is far more important. Those were different circumstances, extremely different from how everything has turned out around here."

Will pressed his hands against his face, trying to absorb this all in. Sherlock seemed so adamant on him being innocent. Despite the fact he was consistently disagreeing with him, this was some of the kindest things he had done so far.

"We should work on the case to find out who did do it, then," Will suggested. He hadn't planned on digging so deeply into whether he was involved in the killings or not.

"I can't say that I disagree," John said. "But if you two end up going straight into your mind palaces, then I'll just be heading straight back to Mary."

"No, John. We need your help," Sherlock said.

"Well, if you put it that way," John said. He, of course, had seen this coming. "Now, what exactly about the case are we going to work on? We've been talking for an awfully long time, but it doesn't seem like we've gotten anything done from it."

"We've gotten everything else out of the way now," Sherlock said. "This means that now we may focus. We've all seen the crime scenes - think of any detail that could potentially be striking. Pay attention to the details."

John and Will began to look over pictures that had been taken, but everything they looked at led directly to a dead end. Immediately, this became very frustrating.

"I just want to get some sleep," Will groaned.

"If you're going to complain about being tired, then you might as well just leave now," Sherlock snapped. "I'm trying to focus."

"I'm trying to focus too," Will replied. "But it's the lack of sleep that is directly preventing me for doing so."

Without warning, John stood up from his chair and gestured for Will to follow him into the kitchen. Despite the brief moment of confusion, the two ended up striking up a conversation unrelated to the case.

"Will, I want to talk to you about your lack of sleep," John said.

"What is there to say?" Will asked.

"Well, it seems like you might have sort of sleeping disorder," John began. "I'm not exactly a doctor who specialises in that, but I think we need to see if we can do anything."

"I'm sorry to say there is likely nothing you can do unless you were to knock me out," Will said, forcing a smile to come upon his lips. What he did not say was the fact that he was cursed. The nocnitsa simply would never leave him alone.

A/N Yeah, you can definitely tell I'm a Willolly shipper, as if it weren't perfectly obvious already. Let me just tell you - I have planned out their entire lives together. I didn't do it on purpose, it just sort of...happened. But anyways, this is fitting into NBC Hannibal better than I ever could've imagined. I won't spoil anything, but...squee!