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He had known, by the state of the portion of the DVD collection that Molly attempted to hide after one careless remark of his when he first began to use her flat as a bolthole, that she was an aficionado of the films put out by Walt Disney Studios. He himself was not a fan, finding most of them to be too cutesy for his taste, but he could see by the remark he had made that he had hurt her deeply. At the time he hadn’t cared as much, had filed it away in his mind palace of a thing of note, but after his return, when they were shuffling around what their relationship consisted of, and he began to rely on her home and the peace it gave him, sometimes he would ferret out the DVDs from their hiding place under her bed and put them into the player when he took over her room, and fall asleep to the sounds of Belle and Ariel and Aurora as opposed to his own treacherous thoughts.
Still, he was, adamantly, not a fan. It was white noise, nothing more.
When they began dating, however, it became something different. It hadn’t started in the best of ways, admittedly; the night of John and Mary’s wedding she had left the wedding after him, not early but he surmised earlier than most, and found him at Baker Street, nearly three sheets to the wind and with a bloody cut on his forehead from stumbling and cutting it on the table. He’d been rambling and concussed and he had gotten blood on the garish yellow dress she wore so she had borrowed a shirt of his, the purple one he wore, and a pair of his sleep pants that simply wouldn’t stay on her slim frame so she discarded them after some time. And the sight was too enticing and he kissed her.
Worse yet, he supposed, she kissed him back.
It didn’t take long for clothing to be shed and injuries forgotten and their first time didn’t even have any merit of being in a bed, but it was something he would never forget. When she was curled against him, her breathing slowing and her body warm and a quilt pulled haphazardly over them as they laid in front of the sofa in the sitting room, he wondered if she would regret this, if it would eat her up to know she had betrayed the trust of Meat Dagger and been with him even though that was what she had wanted for so long.
What he hadn’t really known that he had wanted either, he had realized.
But she didn’t, and she woke him up the next morning with a kiss and a promise that she would tell Tom the truth, as bad as that outcome could be, if he said he wanted her. His answer was another kiss and more, and this time he had the decency to make sure they made it to his bedroom.
It made things harder in a number of ways, having to remember his decisions affected more than just himself, but to be honest, he had never been happier. He cared for Molly in a way he had never thought he would be capable of. He wanted to make her happy, far happier than Meat Dagger had ever been able to, to put smiles on her face as often as possible. And he thought he had the best idea now, especially as he glimpsed her face as they walked through the turnstiles, her eyes wide with wonder.
“Sherlock...” she breathed. “I just...”
He gave her a small grin and pulled her closer to him so that they were in no one else's way who tried to enter the park. “A week at the Disneyland Resort, passes at both Disneyland and Disneyland California Resort, and do not ask me how it was managed but we have Fast Passes at every ride in both parks.”
If her eyes could have gotten any wider they did, and he knew even if he owed his soul to his brother for a million years this would be worth it. Molly had been dreading the twentieth anniversary of her father’s death and he wanted to do something, anything, to bring happiness to her again. The tears at night when she thought he was asleep had hurt more than he had thought anything could, even the lashing that had left scars on his back in Serbia. So when Mary suggested the dream Disneyland vacation, he did everything he could to make that dream come true. He just hoped it would be worth it.
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“Admit it, Sherlock,” Molly said, walking around Main Street with a Dole Whip as Sherlock enjoyed a frozen banana while the sun began to set. “You’ve enjoyed yourself.”
He scoffed. “I will admit no such thing,” he said, though there was a hint of a smile on his face.
“You certainly enjoyed trying to make me lose my lunch on the teacups,” she said.
“That is rather the point of that attraction, is that not?” he asked innocently.
“And you seemed to know an awful lot about Aurora and Prince Philip for someone who never saw ‘Sleeping Beauty’ before,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I thought you looked quite interested in Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.”
“It was okay, I suppose,” he said, avoiding the part of her statement about having seen the movie, and regretting that now all of a sudden “Once Upon A Dream” was playing in his head. Damn it all, now he was going to get the urge to hum it.
“And I believe you keep glancing towards the Haunted Mansion quite often,” she said, smirking now.
He stopped and then hung his head slightly. “Fine. You win, Molly. I am, indeed, having a good time. I just hope that you are as well.”
“Oh, I am,” she said, her smirk turning into a radiant smile. “I love you for doing this for me, I do.”
His mind buffered for a moment. Neither of them had said those three words towards each other yet, and he was surprised she had said it so easily. Was it easy for her? It had...it felt so easy for him, and yet he hadn’t said it. But she had. “You love me?” he asked quietly.
Her eyes widened as she realized she had actually said it, and then she laughed, tossing her Dole Whip in the nearest trash receptacle before coming back and capturing Sherlock’s face in her hands, nodding. “Yes, Sherlock. I love you so very much. I should have told you before.”
“I love you too, Molly,” he said, dropping his food without realizing it to wrap his arms around her and lean in for a kiss. With the way she kissed him back, he thought they might have a late start the next day but that was what the Fast Passes were for, after all, weren’t they?