Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part I: Kicking the Habit

Chapter 1: For Starters

"So I'll just add that to the list of things I never knew, shall I?" John said in his quietly sarcastic way.  He sipped at his tea and set the cup back on the china saucer with such force Molly was sure he was going to break it.

"To be fair, I've known him quite a bit longer than you have," she responded softly.  She took a self conscious sip of her own tea.  "It's not that I've been hiding it from you.  It's just never come up.  And no one's really asked me directly …"

John rolled his eyes and sat back in the little wooden chair.  He looked at the space between them, at the tabletop and the crumbs sitting on the edge. 

"So you've just been funneling him pieces of people to keep him occupied?  That's it then?”

Molly sighed and lowered her teacup to the saucer.

"You've seen how he gets when he's craving cigarettes.  And you saw how it was before the whole Magnussen debacle.  You've never seen him really on drugs, or going through withdrawal.  You don't know what he's like.  And I will do anything to keep that from happening again.  I will do anything to keep him from wasting his mind.  If that entails giving him body parts from the morgue to keep his mind occupied, then so be it.”

John watched as she twisted the gold band around her finger and she saw a flicker of pain shoot across his face.

"It would have been nice to know.  I know you and I haven't been close.  But it would have been nice to know.  He's my best friend.”

He wasn't accusatory.  There was no blame in his words.  Molly understood completely.

"He didn't want to make a fuss about it." 

"And you do everything he wants.”

"Of course I don't."  Molly frowned.  "You're angry at him, not me," she told him softly.  John sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. 

"You're right.  Of course you're right.  I'm sorry, Molls."  He looked up at her, arms crossed.  "What was he like?  Back then?  With the drugs?”

Molly sipped her tea, pensive.  Where should she start?  That particular tale was something of an epic.  It was too large for a single meeting at a coffee shop, and yet its path was such a clear, clean-cut one.  She smiled as she replaced her cup on its saucer, drew her finger around the edge of its mouth.

"I fell in love with him almost at first sight.  I guess we can call it that, anyway.  Fresh out of university, fresh at Bart's.  I'd only been working there a few months when he came into the morgue.  Greg Lestrade had fewer grey hairs back then, and I used to think Sherlock was the cause of them.”

She smiled fondly at the memory. 

"Sherlock was high as a kite.  I didn't know it then, but he'd been using for years.  It was strange, seeing someone so high function so well.”  Molly gave a sad little chuckle.  “But it was almost like he didn’t really know how to function.  He could do the things he knew absolutely how to do—examine a body, spout off theories for Greg—but he couldn’t interact with people, not well.  The first thing he ever said to me was that the color of my jumper did downright alarming things to my complexion.”

John huffed out a short laugh and shook his head.  “That’s sounds like him, yeah.”  

“I let him say what he wanted because he was Sherlock Holmes, and he was beautiful, and he looked at me, and I was me, and I have a knack for becoming attached to emotionally unavailable men.  I’d always been the quiet sort, and not a lot of self esteem either, so it didn’t really bother me that Sherlock insulted me.  I think sometimes I could trick myself into believing he was trying to distance himself from people.  He was always so lonely—“ Molly took a deep breath, looked down at her tea.  “No—I’m rambling.  I’m sorry.  You asked what he was like.  It’s something of a journey, really.”

She paused, gathering her thoughts, reaching inside her coat pocket for a pack of saltines.  She opened it, using the index finger and thumb of both hands to break open the packet.  John waited patiently, arms still crossed, as she nibbled at her crackers.

“He was awful,” she said finally.  “Mostly.  I met him on a day he’d been busted for possession of narcotics.  Mycroft worked his Mycroft magic and had Greg pick him up.  If he helped solve a seemingly unsolvable case, the drugs bust wouldn’t go on his record.”

“They brought a man influenced by drug use to look at a body to solve a murder.”  It wasn’t a question; it was a statement, one of disbelief.  John was dumbstruck.  “Not exactly a good judgment call.”

Molly gave him a knowing smile and said, “He was done in five minutes.”

The lead pathologist—clipboard in hand, mouth agape, indignant—hadn’t even finished the preliminary paperwork on the body.  Molly, pencil and notebook in hand, was watching the events with a bemused smile.  This character was an interesting one.

His hair was a mess of dark curls, unwashed and unruly.  His eyes were bright as he rolled them at Dr. Chambray, eyebrows arching in unmasked irritation.  There was a sweep of stubble stretching across his top lip, his chin, over his jawline, down his neck.  His cheekbones were sharp, his face young.  He stood erect in a gray T-shirt and dirty, frayed jeans.  The plaid button-down he wore open over his shirt was riddled with cigarette burns;  he’d tried rolling the sleeves up over his elbows but the cloth was in tatters and was sliding down his arms.  He was thin, but not starved; angular, but not gaunt.

He’d look so elegant if he didn’t look so homeless.

“How—how can you stand there and presume to know these things?” Dr. Chambray spluttered, fumbling his clipboard in his meaty hands.  “Greg, get him out of my morgue!”

Lestrade put his hands up in a placating gesture while his partner stuffed his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes.

“Sherlock’s not just an ordinary fellow, now, Phil,” Lestrade said slowly.  “Listen to what he says.  He comes highly recommended—“

“I don’t care if the bloody queen sent—“

“We don’t have time for this!” the thin man—Sherlock—boomed.  Molly looked over at him, alarmed.  His voice had a deep, resonating timbre, so low she could almost feel it in her chest.  He pulled his left hand from his pocket and looked at his watch for several seconds.  “I’m telling you, you fools, that this man’s brother will be getting on a train to the airport in ten minutes.”  He looked back toward Lestrade.  “Intercept him there and check the pills in his medicine bottles; I assure you they won’t be the one’s he’s been prescribed.”  He turned swiftly, whipping around to pin Dr. Chambray with his steely blue-green eyes.  “And you call yourself a doctor,” he sneered.

Dr. Chambray slammed his clipboard on the exam table next to the dead man’s leg and began storming from the room.  “He’s mental, Greg,” he grumbled loudly, composure lost.  Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but Lestrade threw a withering look over his shoulder.  Sherlock clamped his mouth shut as the two men exited the morgue, doors swinging shut behind them.

Molly stood with her arms around her notebook, hugging it to her chest.  She would be lying if she said she wasn’t somewhat shocked; Dr. Chambray was a noted hardass.  She’d never seen him so angry and out of his league.

Grin in place, she turned her head to look up at Sherlock, but her smile faltered when she realized he was staring at her with a hard look in his narrowed eyes.

“Wh-what?” she stammered.  Sherlock only looked at her for several long moments.  She couldn’t even keep her gaze on him as his eyes roamed obtrusively up and down her body.  Instead she held her notebook tighter and kept her eyes trained on the floor.  She could hear him rustling in his pockets and chuckling softly.  She jerked her head up to look at him when she realized he was trying to light a cigarette.

“You can’t—can’t smoke in here,” she told him.  “This is a morgue.”

Sherlock looked around the room as he drew from his cigarette.  He took in the drawers and the body on the slab and exhaled, smoke wafting around his head for a moment before dissipating. 

“Not hurting them, then, is it?” he asked her, nodding toward the wall lined with body drawers.  He slipped his lighter back into his pocket.  “I don’t suppose you have any cash for a cab.  I used my last fifty quid for recreational purposes.”

Molly opened her mouth to respond but snapped it shut instead.  Drugs.  He meant drugs, she told herself.  She’d never felt more naive than in that moment.  Sherlock took another drag on his cigarette and began making his way toward the door.

“I’d rethink you choice of color in the future,” he said over his shoulder, pushing the morgue door open with his shoulder.  “Chartreuse is an appalling color on you, and you’re not doing each other any favors.”

Molly watched as he slipped through the morgue doors, watched them swing to and fro before coming to a stop.

“Oh,” she said to the empty room, to the corpse on the table, to the corpses and body parts in their refrigerated doors.  “Oh,” she said to herself and her poor, mesmerized heart.

Chapter Text

Part I: Kicking the Habit

Chapter 2: Be Still

“He sounds like a right dickhead,” was John’s only response.  He had to admit, his first meeting with Sherlock was much more pleasant than Molly’s had been.  Apparently the years had mellowed him out.

Sort of.

“Oh, he was.  He was God-awful back then.  But of course I was completely blind to it.”

“So, what, he went through withdrawals then?”

“He told me later that Mycroft tried to have him admitted to rehab, but Sherlock convinced him that he’d found no fewer than fourteen different ways to smuggle drugs into the compound.  And that was with just a glance at the place.  He managed to convince everyone that he would sweat it out at home—you know how he is, he figured out about how long it would take him to overcome withdrawal—and he stayed bolted in his shitty apartment until it was done.”

Molly and John had left the little coffee shop and taken a walk through the park while she talked.  They stopped and got coffee to go from a vendor, and were resting on a bench.  Molly pulled the lid off her coffee cup and blew at the steam rising from within.

“But you said you watched him go through it?” John prompted, taking a tentative sip of his own coffee.

“Mm, yes, I did,” Molly confirmed, nodding.  “A few days after the incident in the lab Greg came in with a new case, but Sherlock wasn’t with him.  Like a love-struck teenager, I was very disappointed that my new crush didn’t show up at school on Monday.”  She smiled ruefully, the left side of her mouth lifting into that familiar smile.  “So I asked about him, and Greg told me about Sherlock holing up and becoming human again.”

God, she was foolish.  Idiot, idiot, idiot.  But chastising herself wouldn’t do any good.  That bell had already been rung.  Literally.

Molly could almost hear the remnants of the doorbell echoing through the flat.  She really could hear a voice from inside yelling at her to go away.

“It’s Molly Hooper!  From—from the morgue?”  Her voice tapered off as she got less confident in herself.  Always a terrible, terrible habit of hers.  “I’ve brought you some things.  The detective inspector mentioned—“

The door was wrenched open and Molly could see Sherlock’s haggard face through the crack in the door.  He was sweating profusely, his face was beet red, and he seemed to have a slight tremor.

“—you were going through withdrawal,” Molly finished lamely.  But Sherlock opened the door enough for her to slip through, and then he slammed it behind her.

She stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do or where to go, while Sherlock slinked back to the leather chair in the corner of the room.  He pulled a blanket around himself until all she could see was the mess of limp curls atop his head.

His flat was tiny.  It was an open floor plan, so his kitchen, living room, and dining area were all in one big space.  She could see down the short hallway to a closed door, which she supposed was his bedroom.  Presumably there was a tiny toilet tucked away down there too.

Molly shifted the box in her arms and searched for somewhere to set it down.  Every surface in the flat seemed to be covered in books and papers and clunky laptops.  She made her way to the kitchen area and balanced the box between her hip and the lip of the sink while she used her free hand to clear a space on the counter.  Every bit of counter was covered with dirty dishes and what could have been food at some point in time.  She scrunched her nose as she tossed what looked like a half-eaten sandwich into the bin.

She’d brought him towels and ice packs—she wasn’t sure what he had on hand at his flat when she’d packed this box—and anti-nausea medicine.  She’d packed bottled water, saltine crackers, and an electric blanket.  She’d refreshed a bit on withdrawal symptoms, but she had no clue what he’d been using, so she’d planned for the most common side effects.

She shrugged off her coat, folding it over the single dining chair in the room, and grabbed a box of anti-nausea medicine and a bottle of water.

“Why are you here?”  He sounded bored, annoyed, as his muffled voice floated through his blanket.  Molly couldn’t resist smiling; he looked ridiculous.

“Have you eaten?” she said.  “I brought crackers, water.  Stuff to help with the dizziness and nausea.”  She reached for his blanket and pulled it away from him.  He was folded up in his armchair, all angles and limbs.  His feet, clad in black socks, were dangling over the chair’s arm.  He watched her, eyes narrowed once again.  He was a mistrustful person, Molly realized.

“Isn’t there anyone here with you?” she said, holding out the bottle of water.  Sherlock ignored it.   “I didn’t think they left drug addicts alone when they were recovering.”  Of course she knew that.  But she didn’t know what else to say.  He made her feel so silly.  So intimidated.

“I’m not an addict,” he said matter-of-factly.  Once again his eyes were roaming her body; from her toes, up to her knees, past the hem of her skirt; her floral print dress, the belt cinched at her waist, her plum-colored cardigan; up the slope of her neck and, oddly, to her ears.  His eyes then traveled across her shoulders, down her arm, to the bottle still held out in the air.

He held up his hand, waiting for her to drop it into his fingers.  She hesitated, unsure, before pressing it into his palm.

Such an odd man.

Such a beautiful, delightfully odd man.

“If you’re not addicted then why do you take them?  For fun?”
Stupid, stupid, stupid thing to say.  She knew it as soon as the question tumbled from her lips.

Sherlock looked at her sharply.

“You’re not sleeping enough; you’re barely repressing your sexual frustration; you’re new at St. Bart’s, an underling, but you think you could do a better job than your boss; you live in a flat alone with a cat; you’re hyperaware of those who’ve caught your attention but at the expense of your own needs; you haven’t had a drink in ages but you like drinking, so you haven’t got any friends to go out with anymore; you’ve just moved here, or at least further into the city, and you’re trying to make friends; but your self-esteem is so low that you’ve been here for months and haven’t made even a short acquaintance, save for the anti-social junkie going through withdrawals, and only because you’ve forced yourself on me.”

There was a long pause.  Molly stared down at Sherlock, not knowing exactly what to say.  His eyes were boring into hers, his brows furrowed in pain or irritation or sickness, whatever, it didn’t matter, because Molly couldn’t keep looking.  Her eyes moved down again, like they had at the morgue, and she found herself staring at his dusty socks.

“Tell me, was that fun?”

His voice was clear, crystalline.  Divested of pain, if he’d been feeling any; lacking any sense of nausea or sickness.

“No,” Molly answered softly.

“This is what happens, Miss Hooper.  I see everything.  I could see all that just by looking at you.  And that’s the tip of the ice berg.  I.  See.  Everything.  It goes round and round in my head.  Every waking second.”

He jumped up then, jerking his legs over the arm of the chair so fast Molly tripped backward to get out of his way.  He stalked across the room, circling his furniture.  He slipped a long finger over the spines of his books, one shelf, two shelves, three shelves.  He stepped on top of his side table, long leg folding up, and stepped down on the other side of it.  He was restless.  Why was he restless?  He walked to the kitchenette and looked at the box sitting on his counter.

“Seeing, observing.  It can’t be turned off.  I notice things, everything.”  He pulled a pack of crackers from the box and examined them for a moment before continuing.  “The drugs help.”

And that was that.

At least until the next night.

Molly returned to Sherlock’s little flat, much to his annoyance.  She would never admit it, but she enjoyed a challenge.

Chapter Text

Part I: Kicking the Habit

Chapter 3: Warmer

"After all that, you still went back?"  John was clearly baffled.  "Why?  He was a complete arse!"  He was leaning forward on the park bench, long-empty coffee cup dangling in his hands.  He looked at Molly sideways as she drained the last cold dregs of her own coffee.

"I thought about not going back.  I wasn't, at first.  But I thought about it a lot.  And I decided he needed a distraction.  If it really was as bad as he said, he needed something to clear his head.  Just until he was through with the withdrawal symptoms.  Just for a little while."

"What did you do?" John asked.  They stood and made their way to the rubbish bin to dispose of their cups.  Molly gave John a conspiratorial smile.

"I brought him board games.  Cluedo was his favorite, but we never did play it again.”

John let out a barking laugh.  "No, I imagine not.”

Molly sat stock still, staring down at the overturned board.  Game pieces were still rolling around on the floor, and the small deck of cards was upended in Molly's lap.  She frowned at Sherlock.

"Lovely," she murmured, looking down at the cards in her lap.  She picked them up gingerly and set them on top of the overturned board.  "Next game then?”

"Why are you doing this?"  Sherlock rubbed a hand down his face, over his stubble.  He sounded both bored and annoyed, something Molly would come to realize was his signature mood.

"I'm trying to help you—"

"I don't need your help.”

"No, you don't need anything.  But you're getting it from me regardless.  Now grab Operation or I'll set up Cluedo again.”

Sherlock looked at her from where he was slumped in his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him.  His thin frame was clad in a dark blue dressing gown, gray shirt, and checkered pajama pants.  He was looking a little better; still a little homeless, but at least he'd showered.  They stared at each other.  Sherlock's usual look of distaste was on his face and Molly's lips were pressed into a thin, stubborn line.

After a long impasse, Sherlock rolled his eyes and reached over to his side table.  He grabbed the Operation box and held it out to her.  She took it from him and began setting it up in Cluedo's place atop the overturned box they'd been using as a table.

As it turned out, Operation wasn't such a good idea.  Sherlock was still wracked with tremors, which made him angry, and he became so violently ill halfway through that he couldn't even keep crackers and water down.  Molly sat on the edge of his tub, damp cloth and bottled water in hand, as he wretched into the toilet.  She gave him the water and rag between heaves so he could rinse and wipe his mouth.  After a series of dry heaves, Sherlock slumped back against the tub next to her legs, rag held to his mouth.

"You don't need to be here.  Or come back," he told her.

"Don't let me hurt your pride," she responded.

She didn't have to be looking at him to know he was rolling his eyes.

"You're in need of a shave.  You'll feel better if you shave."  This was a leap of faith; Sherlock didn't look like the type to keep a beard, but she had no way of knowing for sure.  Sherlock held his hand up flat in the air, and they watched his fingers shake.

"I suppose you'd have me slit my own throat," he grumbled.  Now it was Molly's turn to roll her eyes.  She pushed herself off the edge of the tub and opened his medicine cabinet.  His straight razor was on the bottom shelf.  She held it up to him, eyebrow cocked.

"Nonsense," she said.  "I've never given a man a shave, and I work with the dead more than the living, but I can give it a go.”

Sherlock was dubious, to say the least.  Within ten minutes he was sitting in his one dining chair, dragged into the bathroom from the kitchen.  Molly had draped a towel around his shoulders and lathered him up with shaving cream.  His head was tipped back, and she was all too aware of his startlingly bright eyes watching her warily.  She held his razor poised at his neck.  Her hand was steady (it always was; she didn't get through med school on hard work alone) but she was nervous.  She never did work with the living, only the dead.

"If I cut you, I am so, so sorry," she said just as she began slowly scraping the blade up his neck.  Sherlock tensed beneath the blade, and she was fairly certain he was holding his breath.  She paused to wipe the blade with the towel in her left hand.  There was a clean swath of pale skin on his neck, disappearing under his jaw.  She smiled down at him.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"  Sherlock closed his eyes, eyebrow raised, as though it pained him to listen to her speak.  Molly flushed right up through her ears and lowered the blade to his skin again.  "I'll just hurry along then, shall I?”

Molly's expert hands made clean work of his shave.  She uncovered his jawline, so square and masculine for someone so thin.  She carved out the angles of his face, the delicate bow of his lips, until the man sitting under her hands was ten years younger than the man who'd been there fifteen minutes before.  He was so devastatingly handsome; she was at war within herself, fighting the urge to stare at him.

Sherlock sat up and dabbed his face with the towel, removing the last traces of shaving cream.  Molly leaned forward and wiped at the hollow space under the right side of his jaw, catching a bit of shaving cream that he'd missed.

"Don't you feel much better?" she asked him, probably a bit too brightly.  She folded up the towel in her hands, suddenly not knowing what to do with herself.  Sherlock ignored her.

"I'll be better tomorrow.  The worst of it is done," he said, refusing to look at her directly.

They were silent for several long moments.  Molly knew what she wanted to say to him.  The questions were burning holes in her tongue, but she didn't know how to phrase them.

"Your ... your mind.  You were high at the morgue.  But you were still able to solve the murder."  She said it stiffly, haltingly, unsure of her words as they forced their way through the confines of her teeth.  She meant it as a question but couldn't find the words to really ask it.  Sherlock looked at her, questions in his eyes.  Molly looked down, unable to meet his gaze.

"I just mean—you said you take the drugs to quiet your mind.  But in the morgue—"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand.  They keep me occupied.  Or they did.”

"Why don't you find something less ... desctructive?" she queried.  "Surely there's something—"

"I have, Miss Hooper.  Found something.  Now if you don't mind, I need to be left alone.”

Molly wound her scarf around her neck as she pulled the door to his flat closed behind her.  She'd left him sitting on that chair in his bathroom and she hadn't looked back.

Sherlock Holmes was clearly a troubled person.  Molly cursed herself as she glanced up briefly toward his living room window.  She cursed herself for being a fixer, for wanting to solve people's problems.  For sticking her nose where it didn't belong.  Sherlock made it clear from the get-go that he didn't want her there, but she just didn't listen.  So why were her feelings so hurt?

"You're too old for this," she chided herself aloud.  She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, gripping the strap with both hands, as she kept on walking.

Chapter Text

Part I: Kicking the Habit

Chapter 4: Companionship

"It was a few weeks later when I found out what sort of distraction he meant.  I hadn’t been able to talk to him since he ordered me out of his flat; every time I came round, he refused to answer the door.  But after a while he came into the morgue with Greg as Dr. Chambray and I were looking over the body of a recently deceased woman."  Molly looked over at John, lips quirked up into a grin.  "He stood there, cool as you please, and Greg spoke to Chambray about letting Sherlock examine the body.”

"I'll be damned," John said softly as they made their way through the park, red and brown leaves scattered across the pathway.  The trees in the distance looked like matchsticks, tall and thin and bare but for a few leaves hanging on to autumn.  "That's how he started consulting for New Scotland Yard.  I knew he was doing it as a, you know, alternative.  But I didn't know—"

"That it was to repay a favor?"  Molly laughed.  "No one knew.  He struck a deal, just the one, to get out of a drug charge, and ended up liking it so much he stayed.  He still had his danger nights.  Mycroft would call me sometimes, you know.  I was so bewildered the first time it happened.  I didn't know who was on the other end of the phone, and he just gave me this cryptic command to keep watch on Sherlock Holmes."  Molly rolled her eyes at the memory.  "They both like to be so dramatic.”

John laughed out his agreement.

"He barely acknowledged my presence.  We tiptoed around each other.  It was so childlike.  So embarrassing to think about it now.  But after a few months he started to open up.  It was … nice.  It was a bit like you are with him, really.  Comfortable.  Almost companionable.”

“You should start a blog.”

The statement hung in the air between them, surrounded by silence.  Molly liked that about Sherlock; you could have a comfortable silence with the man without feeling the need to fill it with useless words.  The silence stretched on as Sherlock shuffled her words in his head, staring down at the single finger sitting on his kitchen table.  He was surrounded by chemicals, beakers, vials; an old microscope and several pairs of gloves.  Clear plastic goggles were pushed up into his curls.

“A blog,” he repeated.  Molly nodded.  “What would I write exactly?”

“Anything.  Your experiments.”

“My experiments.”  His said it slowly, drawing out the words, rolling it around on his tongue.  He was liking the sound of that.  But — “Why?”

Molly smiled at him sadly.

“Just thought it might do to get your mind off … things.  You know.”

Sherlock nodded his understanding.  He picked up the dismembered finger between his latex-clad ones and brought it close to his face.  He sniffed it once, inspected it.  Then turned to her, gesturing to the dead finger.

“Do you think you could get me more of these?”

Molly paled.  “I—er—“

“Possibly a whole hand.  Oh, maybe a arm?”

“Sherlock, I can’t just bring you body parts.  I could lose my job.”  She was folded up in his armchair sideways, bare feet on the arm.  A book was perched in her lap, lying open against her legs.  

Sherlock lowered his eyes to the finger, dejected.  “What am I supposed to experiment on?  Write about?”  he asked.  

“You have other interests.  You’re a graduate chemist; you can do experiments on things other than dead people—“

“But this is so much more interesting,” Sherlock pouted, placing the finger back on its specimen tray.  Molly couldn’t help thinking he looked like a little boy.  His dressing gown was open, he was still in his pajamas, and his hair was a ruffled mess from his goggles.  His shoulders were hunched, palms pressed against the tops of his knees.  He was sulking.

He was adorable.

Damn him.

Molly rolled her eyes and snapped her novel closed.  “And where exactly would you put these body parts?” she asked him.  “It’s not as though we can fit a whole arm in that little cooler.”

“I can put them in my fridge,” he told her, all business.  

Of course.  Genius.

“Meet me at the morgue tomorrow evening when my shift ends.  I’ll see what I can do.”  

Molly opened her book; Sherlock returned to his dismembered finger.

“So it’s your fault he keeps that bloody blog,” John grumbled.  Molly grinned at him.

“You could say that.  It was one was my better ideas, wasn’t it?  Occupied his mind well enough.  His relapses were much fewer after that.  He stopped drinking altogether, did keep smoking, but stopped the opiates.  Mostly.”

John looked at her, really looked at her then, and stopped on the path.  They had come to another bench, and John took the opportunity to sit down.

“It occurs to me,” he said slowly, “that when I met you in the lab that day, for the very first time, you and Sherlock were not pals.  Certainly didn’t have the relationship you’ve been describing.  What happened?”

Molly took a few moments before responding.  She looked down at the frayed hem of her striped scarf, toyed with the loose strings.  Then she sat down next to John and looked out at the brown grassy expanse of the park lawn, matchstick trees waving in the distance.

“I ruined it,” she said finally.  “I mean, at the time, I ruined it.  He was always so lonely.  I thought he and I were just alike.  I thought we got on well.  I misread all the signals completely.  We weren’t alike at all; that was just wishful thinking.  I thought helping him and being there for him had helped us forge this uneasy friendship that could … be something more.  That’s what I thought he wanted.  I was so sure that’s why he let me come around.”

“You’ve lost me, Molls,” John told her, bewildered.

Molly adopted a knowing smile, one side of her mouth tipped up, lips pressed together.  John was still looking at her, waiting.  She then opened her mouth and uttered, so softly, two words John definitely wasn’t expecting.

“The Kiss.”

End Part I

Chapter Text

Part II: The Kiss

Chapter 5: Protecting Yourself

John had long since gotten used to his best mate having a significant other.  It was odd at first, sure.  And they'd been secretly seeing each other for months before anyone became aware of it.  And now he was married, even though they hadn't told anyone until well after the fact.  But knowing Sherlock had been involved with someone—Molly of all people—before he and John had ever met was seriously throwing John for a loop.  Knowing what Sherlock was like when the two of them met, he wondered to himself how anyone could have put up with the man.

"Kiss?" he repeated.  He realized he was doing a lot of that today.

"It was so stupid," Molly sighed.  "It haunted me for years.  It completely changed everything.”

John crossed his arms and leaned back into the bench.  He crossed his ankles, the portrait of comfort.  "Well now you've got me intrigued.”

Molly was lounging in Sherlock's armchair, flipping through a forensic journal, when Sherlock himself slammed his hand down on the kitchen table.  Molly nearly jumped straight out of her skin.

"What is it?" she asked, almost in a panic.

Sherlock ignored her (at this point she was used to it) and jumped up from his seat at the kitchen table.  With his goggles still pushed up onto his head, he grabbed his violin and the half empty pages from his music stand.  He placed the sheet music on the side table at Molly's feet and scribbled some notes onto the bars.  Molly watched in rapt fascination.  She'd never seen him play the violin and didn't even know he composed.  Usually he was more private about his music.

Or maybe he'd forgotten she was there.

He turned toward the window and put his bow to his strings and began to play.  It was a lilting melody, happy and cheerful, and it brought a smile to Molly's face.  He stopped occasionally to jot down some more notes, make changes, never making eye contact with Molly or even acknowledging that she was there.  He looks almost elegant, Molly thought as she watched him.  He was wearing his black slacks and white button-down.  He was clad in his dark blue dressing gown, however, and his feet were bare.

She dozed off as he played, the forensic journal laying open in her lap.

When she awoke, Sherlock was standing at his window, plucking his violin strings with his fingers.  He'd discarded his bow and pen and was staring down at the street.  Molly set about making the tea, as she typically did in the early afternoon.

Molly enjoyed afternoons like this with Sherlock.  They worked in companionable silence.  Sherlock usually sat at his kitchen table working on an experiment (Molly had been giving him body parts and blood samples); his latest experiment had involved burning hair, but she didn't quite understand the gist of it.  Molly would read something, usually a novel or the latest scientific journal.  They'd exchange few words.  Sometimes a board game was involved (the previous week they'd tried chess, which Molly swore off completely).  On the rare occasion Sherlock would be called away on a case, but Molly had no problem with sticking around and tidying up his flat.

It was all very domestic, she would laugh at herself.

There was no more frustration, no more telling her to leave him be.  They were friends.
Molly finished the tea, placing Sherlock's cup on a saucer, and turned to take it to him.  She wasn't quite sure what happened—a slip of the hand, probably—but suddenly the scalding tea was all down her front, staining her sweater and khakis.

"Shit, shit, shit!" she swore, pulling her sweater away from her skin.  She dropped the cup onto the counter and reached for the nearest dish rag.  She hoped it wasn't too filthy as she pressed it against the stinging skin of her abdomen, wiping away the hot tea.

Sherlock whipped around, lowering his violin as he took in the scene before him.  Molly was pulling her sweater over her head, her blouse riding up to reveal the flat planes of her belly and pelvis just above her waistband.  His eyes lingered on the jut of her hipbone—angular, just like him—before he wrenched his gaze away and made his way to his room.  He rooted through his drawers, looking for a pair of pajama pants.  He hadn't done his laundry in ages; all his t-shirts were dirty.  A dress shirt would have to suffice as a top.

Molly was basically swimming in Sherlock's clothes.  She felt her skin flushing in embarrassment as she looked at herself in his bathroom mirror.  She'd had to roll the sleeves up to her elbows.  The shirt was essentially a dress.  His pajama bottoms were much too long for her, so she'd rolled the legs up on those as well.  Looking down, she could just see her sock-clad toes poking out from beneath the plaid fabric.

She looked at her pile of soiled clothing sitting on the toilet seat.  She was not usually so clumsy.  With a sigh she bundled up her shirts, sweater, and slacks in her arms and padded down the hallway.

Sherlock had cleaned up the mess she'd made and poured himself a new cup of tea.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" Molly joked.  She left her clothes on the arm of his chair and approached him in the kitchen.  He looked up at her, midway through a sip of tea.  His hand stilled, lips still on the edge of his cup, as his eyes drank her in.

His pants, drawstrings pulled taught and tied, were sitting low on her hips.  His shirt, not quite buttoned all the way up, left the stretch of her collarbone exposed.  The garment was much too big to show her curves, but there was something intensely attractive about the way it fell around her arse.

Sexual attraction was a strange thing indeed.

His eyes skirted past her to the counter, where the tea tray was still perched.  Molly poured her own cup and returned to Sherlock's armchair, where she resumed flipping through her forensic journal.

They fell quite easily back into their comfortable silence, but Molly couldn’t help but notice a restlessness in him that she’d missed before.  He’d been fidgety at the table prior to jumping up to grab his violin, and he’d been lost in thought when she awoke from her nap; although she’d never heard him play his violin, he was wont to sit around plucking idly at the strings, and she learned not to interrupt him during those sessions.  Now he was drumming his bare toes against the floor while he looked through his microscope.  

What Molly hadn’t missed, however, was his eyes moving down her body when she emerged from the bathroom.  It was something she was fairly used to—he would always give her a once-over when she entered the flat, deducing her mood, what she had for lunch, how her workday had been.  He did that to everyone.

But this.  This was different.  She’d felt naked, exposed, when he’d looked at her.  His eyes didn’t look at the state of her hair or the lines around her mouth; they’d traced the outline of her pelvis in his pajama bottoms.  His eyes didn’t deduce anything about the scalpel knick she’d given her hand in the morgue the day before; instead they’d run across her shoulders, down the valley created by her sternocleidomastoid to rest at the hollow where her clavicles met.


Molly shook her head.  Surely not.  Surely I’m imagining it, she told herself.  But she knew.  She’d been looked at like that before.  She was more than familiar with the feeling, the heat it left behind.

Swallowing thickly, she forced herself to focus on the magazine in her hands.

“Oh, listen to this,” she said after a while.  “They’ve done a fascinating study on beheading styles!”  

Sherlock leaned away from his microscope and glanced toward his fridge.  

“Geographically?”

“Of course.”

At that, Sherlock pushed his chair back, removed his goggles to drop them onto the table, and padded across the small space between them.  He settled himself behind Molly, bracing his hands on the back of the armchair.  He leaned forward to see the article.  Molly held the magazine open for him.

And then she suddenly became aware of the proximity of his face to hers.  She watched him out of the corner of her eye.  His face was so serious as he read, brow furrowed slightly, lips parted just enough … She turned her head slightly, and there was only a millimeter (but also a mile) separating the skin of his cheek from her lips.  She let out a little puff of air, a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and Sherlock turned his head as well, and their lips were almost lined up.

Molly couldn’t say who acted first, and she didn’t particularly care.  All she knew was the press of his lips on hers, suddenly, and that his skin was impossibly warm.  His mouth was hesitant, unsure, which struck her as odd—Sherlock never did anything without absolute certainty.  Molly was vaguely aware of the spread of his fingers as they slipped into her hair, cradling her skull; of her heartbeat thrumming against the pad of his thumb as he pressed it gently against her neck.

Their mouths slipped against each other like old loves returning to each other after many years apart.

His fingers touched her hair like it was delicate silk, and then he gripped it like he’d never let it go.

Her hand cupped his jaw, thumb sliding across his cheekbone as though testing its sharpness, and then her hand was slipping into his mess of curls and gripping his hair in kind.

The kisses were fervent, passionate, but when they broke apart there was no shortness of breath, no panting, just the heat between them and the drumming of their heartbeats.

And the cold, strange, confused look Sherlock was leveling at her.

Molly pressed her lips closed, swallowing down her nervousness, but Sherlock only leaned back away from her, eyes lowered.  He couldn’t even look at her.  

She didn’t utter a word as he walked down the hallway, into his bedroom, and shut the door behind him.  After several moments he still hadn’t emerged.  Molly took it as a hint.

With as much dignity as she could muster, hands shaking, she gathered up her tea-stained clothes and stuffed them unceremoniously into her bag.  She slipped her shoes onto her feet, tugged her bag onto her shoulder, and left the flat.  She pulled the door closed as softly as she possibly could.

This time, Molly didn’t spare the flat a second glance as she walked away.

Chapter Text

Part II: The Kiss

Chapter 6: Tentative Relations

John sat in stunned silence.  Beside him, Molly looked out over the park.  Clouds had started to move in, turning the sky to a dreary gray.  They would have to move soon to avoid the rain, she thought idly.

“How—why?” John struggled to find his words.  “Did he at least give some excuse for acting like a prat?” he asked her, gesticulating with his right hand, his left still folded across his chest.  He finally just slapped his hand across his mouth, at a loss for words.

Molly laughed.  “Actually, we never talked about it.  It never came up again.”

“Never?”  John was shocked.  Suddenly he felt like a gossiping schoolgirl, but he pushed the thought away and instead grumbled, “Prick.”

Together they stood and left the bench behind them, walking back toward the main road.  They had hailed a cab by the time either of them spoke again.

“Is that how you two got past it then? By pretending it never happened?” John asked her as he slipped into the seat beside her.  Molly gave the cabbie their destination—Baker Street—before replying.

“Yes and no.  Like I said, we never spoke about that kiss, and when we did finally run into each other again, Sherlock was completely different.  He was cold, distant, like none of that ever happened between us.  And not just the kiss—I mean everything.  Sitting at his flat, performing experiments together, going out for fish and chips.  It was all gone.  I didn’t know how to get it back.

“I still gave him body parts from the morgue because experimenting, writing in his blog, they really did help him.  They kept him occupied enough to keep his old habit at bay, and I cared for him so much, I still wanted to do what I could to help.  

“I even started giving him access to the lab at Bart’s, because I knew I could keep an eye on him then.  Not just because Mycroft wanted me to, but because I wanted to.  I was worried about him.  In all the time I’d been his friend, I’d never known him to associate with anyone outside of his work.  Greg and Mycroft were his only companions, if you could call them that.”

Molly looked down at her hands in her lap, flushing slightly.  “As petty as it sounds, I’d put up a fight sometimes, just because I knew he would try to bribe me with compliments.  He probably thought I was an idiot, a silly girl who would let herself be taken advantage of for the small price of hollow, ingenuine words.  But I missed him.  I missed my friend.”

Molly sighed and looked out the cab window.  All this had happened ages ago, years ago, but thinking about it brought a strange tightness to her chest; knowing Sherlock Holmes had almost slipped through her fingers always brought about a feeling of unease.

“I tried getting him to go out with me.  We used to go out for tea or coffee or chips, but we never could pick that up again.  Things got a bit better over time.  He would talk to me more, like he was more comfortable with me, but it was never the same.  And I always blamed that kiss.  I dated around a bit, tried to show him that the kiss meant nothing to me, that I’d moved past it, but it never worked.  Sometimes it made things worse.  And then you know what happened with Jim Moriarty …”

Molly looked over at John and gave him a small smile, almost conspiratorial, like an inside joke.  By then they were at Baker Street.  Molly paid the cabbie, John waited patiently while she unlocked the door, and they made their way upstairs to 221B.

In the two weeks since John had visited his old flat, not much had changed.  His old chair still sat in its usual place, and John headed straight toward it.  All the old trappings were still present—the bullet holes in the far wall, the bison skull hanging between the windows, the kitchen table with the deep gash running through the wood.  It was all so familiar but foreign at the same time.
 
There was a single picture frame sitting on the mantle now, right next to Sherlock’s skull friend.  Molly’s timid smile was aimed at the camera, but Sherlock was looking down at her.  He had the smallest, most tender smile John had ever known him to possess.  He’d never seen him look at anyone like that.

“God, he’s changed,” John murmured.  Molly sat in Sherlock’s armchair, having divested herself of her coat and scarf, and followed his gaze to the photograph.

“That was taken last week.  We’d just signed our papers.”

John looked around the flat, fingers drumming against his armrests.

“Not much of a bachelor pad anymore, then, eh?” he joked lightly.

“I don’t stay here, actually.  We still have my old flat.  I am something of a distraction, it would seem, so when he is embroiled in an investigative case, he does his work here.”

“That sounds like Sherlock,” John laughed.  “So then you’re Molly Holmes now?”

“We decided that I should keep my last name.  I’m known professionally as Molly Hooper, and we agreed that having as few public ties to him as possible was probably safest.  All things considered.”  

John thought back on their experiences together—Mortiarty and Magnussen in particular—and found himself agreeing with her.  She’d begun to twist her wedding band around her finger again, almost as though she weren’t used to it being there.  

“I was so jealous of you,” she said suddenly.  “I’d tried so hard to get him to see me again, to talk to me again, to open up.  I’d thought it was impossible.  That he was just closed off to the world again.  But he opened up to you, became friends with you, even lived with you.  By then, of course, he’d already become friends with Mrs. Hudson and moved into this flat, but his friendship with you was different from any other acquaintance that he’d formed.

“He took you out on cases—something he’d never done with me.  He let you in so much more easily than he’d let me.  I’d had to work for it—you didn’t.  It just wasn’t fair.”

Molly let out a sigh, leaned back into Sherlock’s chair.  

“And then there was The Woman.  Irene Adler.”  Molly’s gaze flitted back up to the photograph on the mantle, and she stared at it as she spoke.  “She affected him more than I ever had or could have.  I thought so at the time, anyway.  Anyone could tell that Sherlock was a little bit in love with her.  As in love as Sherlock could be with anyone at the time.”

“That was the Christmas party,” John said softly,  “when he was so horrible to you.  Wasn’t it?”

Molly grinned like she was fondly recalling a happy memory.

“I’m surprised you remember that,” she said.  “He was such an arse, and didn’t even open my gift to him.  And you know everything that happened that night—I left, we all ended up at the morgue anyway looking over what we thought was Irene Adler’s body.  You weren’t there, but he recognized her naked body.  That’s how he identified her.   I think that hurt worse than anything.  Knowing that he’d shut me out over one little kiss, but her—he’d seen her naked.  How had he seen her naked?  Had they slept together?  Again, Sherlock was opening up to someone else, but could barely hold a conversation with me.  It made me angry.  And insanely jeealous.”

“But you know he didn’t—“

“I know.  But at the time, I didn’t.  All these wild theories were going through my head.  And it all just made me very upset.  I was expecting Mycroft’s call that night, asking me to look after him.  I could tell this would be a danger night for him.  Sherlock doesn’t deal very well with his emotions, as you can imagine.  But the call never came.  I found out later that Mycroft called you.

“And then I realized Sherlock didn’t need me anymore because he had you.”

She was staring at the covered corpse of Irene Adler when Mycroft stepped back into the morgue.

“I’ve called John,” he told her.  “He’ll look after him.  Thank you for your services, Miss Hooper.”

“Services?  Is that what he thinks this has been?” she asked aloud when Mycroft exited the room.  “I’ve officially been reduced to the useful things I can provide.  Which, apparently, is nothing.”

She was still smarting from her insults at the Baker Street Christmas party, and her cheek still burned with the memory of his lips pressed against her skin.  

Then she realized she was talking to the corpse of the woman Sherlock was quite possibly in love with, and suddenly she had to get out.  She couldn’t take it.

She’d stuffed her Christmas attire in her locker when she’d come into work, and she stared at the balled up fabric for a long moment before deciding what she wanted to do.  She wrenched off her sweater, tugged the dress back on over her bra and pants, and then shimmied out of her khakis.  She tossed her shoes and socks into the locker with her clothes and slipped her heels back on in their place.  She didn’t bother putting her earrings or makeup back on, and she couldn’t even find the energy to redo her hair; instead she left it falling about her shoulders.

She couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror.

She left her clothes in her locker, grabbed her coat and purse, and stormed out of St. Bart’s.  She needed a drink in the worst possible way.  She needed a warm body pressed against hers.  She needed to not feel whatever this was that she was feeling.  

The man sitting with his mates was giving her eyes as she drank at the bar.  He approached her, they talked easily, and before long they were on the way to his flat.

Then they were in his bed.

He was a little on the short side and he was softer than she liked, but his hair was dark and curly, and when they turned the lights off it was just dark enough for her to pretend.

Chapter Text

Part II: The Kiss

Chapter 7: Need

“I avoided Sherlock as much as possible after that.  Or I tried.  It was so odd and ironic.  I wanted to withdraw from him completely, and he just wouldn’t let me.  He talked to me more often in the lab, brought me coffee on late nights.  Talk about a relationship having its ups and downs,” Molly joked, shaking her head.

“It was months later when Moriarty became active again,” she continued.  “You know all about that though.  But there was a moment … A small moment between the two of us.  And I think I finally broke through to him.”

Molly recalled the conversation she’d had with him—that she could see the sadness in him that others didn’t see.

“I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.”

“You can see me.”

“I don’t count.  If there’s anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me.”

“What could I need from you?”

Molly remembered the conversation, the words, so clearly.  She used to recite them to herself at night, in the interim between Sherlock’s apparent suicide and his return to the living.  They were a reminder that Sherlock had needed her, and she’d delivered.  She would always deliver.

“Our conversation in the morgue that day changed him, I think.  It was because of that conversation that he came to me for help staging his jump from the roof of the hospital.  Years of tiptoeing around, not knowing how to talk to him or interact with him, wanting him to look at me and converse with me again … and all it took was a simple conversation, one simple question.”

“You’ve always counted.”

“What do you need?”

“You.”

“I saw him once more after his fake suicide.  It had been a few months.  The hype surrounding his death had died down a bit, but everyone was still grieving.  I missed my friend more than ever.  And then one night he called me right out of the blue.  It had to have been past one in the morning.”  Molly smiled fondly.  “But then Sherlock always did keep odd hours.”

Molly was jerked out of a sound sleep by the shrill chime of her mobile phone.  She whipped her arm out to grab the offending device and opened her eyes blearily, blinking at the blinding light.  The number was blocked, but she answered it anyway.

“‘Lo?” she said sleepily.  The long silence on the other side of the phone made her more alert, and she sat up in bed.  She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself up.  “Hello?” she repeated, much more clearly this time.  “Greg?”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” came the quiet voice, baritone rumbling in her ears.  “I thought you might still be working nights.”

“Sherlock?” Molly gasped.  She reached over to her bedside lamp and turned it on, then wrenched her duvet aside.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and placed her feet on the cold floor.  “Are you—are you back?”

“No, not yet.  I … I won’t be back for a while.”

Sad.  He sounded sad.

“What’s wrong?  Where are you?” she demanded.  Sherlock chuckled in her ear, voice low.

“Nothing’s wrong.  I’m outside your flat.”

“My flat?”  Molly stood, padded out to her living room.  “Is this a joke?”  She flipped the lock on her door and wrenched it open.  With her phone still held to her ear, mouth gaping open, she stared up at Sherlock Holmes.  He was wrapped in a damp black trench coat—not his usual Belstaff, regrettably—and his hair was mussed up and soaking wet.  He slipped his mobile phone into his pocket and smiled sadly down at Molly.

“I have no where to go,” he told her softly.

Still staring up at him, Molly lowered her phone slowly and stepped back, allowing him into her flat.  She shut the door behind him.

“The Baker Street flat is empty,” he continued, slipping off his coat to reveal a sharp white button-down.  His signature scarf was missing, Molly noted.  “Mycroft doesn’t know I’m in the city.  I shouldn't be here.”

Molly wanted to ask him why he’d come, but she was afraid of his answer.

She was afraid of the hope he always gave her.

“I’m exhausted,” Sherlock sighed.  “I haven’t slept in a real bed in months.”  He looked wistfully toward her bedroom.  

Molly nodded in that same direction.  “Come on then.  Let’s get you to bed.”  She locked her door again and lead the way to her room.  Sherlock sat on the edge of the bed and began taking off his shoes.  Molly reached for her pillow and phone charger.

“What are you doing?” Sherlock asked.  His voice cut through the darkness like a whip, startling her.  She jumped a bit, then straightened.

“It’s just, the spare bedroom hasn’t been cleaned out yet; I haven’t put the sheets on the bed.  I was going to sleep on the—“

“Molly.  Just stay.”

He sounded so tired, Molly couldn’t bear to put up a fight.

She put her phone on the charger and replaced her pillow, then climbed back under her duvet.  She reached up to flip off her lamp, and the room was dark once more.  Her body was burning, her heart hammering in her chest, as she settled onto her side.  She felt the dip in her bed as Sherlock climbed on top of the covers.  

Then his head was on her pillow.

His hand was resting on her hip.

Molly suddenly became aware that she was wearing his pajama pants and button down shirt from all those years ago.

This was too intimate for her.

She held her breath, eyes wide, as his breath hit the back of her neck.

“I just need to be near someone,” he breathed against her skin.

Molly was afraid to turn around.  Afraid to disturb him.  Afraid of what she might do if she turned around and was faced with those lips once again.

Instead she reached down and covered his hand where it rested against her hip.  

It only took a few minutes.  Sherlock’s breathing evened out, the tension in his hand eased.  He was fast asleep.  Molly followed shortly after.

The next morning Molly was startled awake by her alarm.  She reached up to slap the snooze button, then turned her head to see if it had disturbed Sherlock.  The bed was empty.

She stretched out her arm, sliding her fingers over the surface of her duvet, feeling the wrinkles his body had left behind.  She rolled over, pressed her face into the space where his head had rested, and inhaled deeply.

His scent was faint and the duvet was cold.

Sherlock Holmes was long gone.

End Part II

Chapter Text

Part III: Pretending

Chapter 8: Tom

"That was the last time I saw him before he came back for good.  I held out hope at first, but I knew he would be gone for a long time, if not forever.  I decided it was time that I move on."

"Tom?"

"Tom," Molly affirmed, nodding her head.  "He was lovely.  We met through friends, you know.  At a pub.  He was a right gentleman, and funny.  Not as intellectual as I was used to, but sometimes I thought his simplicity was refreshing.  It was a nice change to be able to talk to someone without having my weight gain thrown in my face.  Or to talk about mundane things.  Things that weren't death and disease."  She smiled fondly at the photograph sitting on the mantle.  She loved talking about death and disease and crime, but those were topics reserved for conversations with Sherlock.  He was the only one who really got it.  Tom never got it.

"It was so silly of me, thinking back on it.  And quite frankly, a bit embarrassing.  Not a single part of me ever got over him.  I could never stop being in love with him, as much as I tried.  He was never far from my mind, and clearly he influenced my choices in other men."

John nodded, lips lifted into a smile.

"They did share a striking resemblance," he agreed.

Molly shook her head.  "On the outside, they were similar.  But they couldn't have been more different.  Without Sherlock around, I could ignore the differences.  I could pretend that I found Tom's simplicity endearing.  I could pretend that his bland humor was charming.  I could pretend.  And he really is a wonderful, nice man.  He would be perfect for someone who isn't attracted to sociopaths.  But that person, obviously, is not me.  And that fact became more apparent the day Sherlock stepped back into all our lives.”

—

Molly had been leaning over a dead body for hours, and her shoulders were sore.  She hadn't eaten since the night before, and she was dead tired.  She needed a break.

She whipped open her locker door, keen to find that bag of crisps she'd stuffed in there a few days ago, and was startled to find a face smiling back at her in the mirror.  She turned to him, smiling, taking in his appearance.

He looked older, deliciously so.  He'd gained muscle mass; he was covered head to toe in his Belstaff (she was glad to see his trademark coat back in action) but his face belied a sense of strength he hadn't had before.  It didn't really take a medical degree to know that his body probably reflected this change as well.  His bottom lip was sporting a freshly cleaned cut, and she wondered briefly where he'd acquired it.

"You're back, then?" she asked.  She felt like she could barely breathe; all her breath, emotions, rationality were getting stuck in her chest somewhere around her heart.  She could feel the pull at her heartstrings.  God, she'd missed him.

"It would seem so," he said lightly.  His hands were clasped behind his back.  She wanted to put her arms around his waist and pull him into a long hug, but making him uncomfortable was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment.  Instead she cleared her throat.

"I'm glad you're not dead."  She cringed internally.  Sherlock's lips lifted into a lopsided smile.

Suddenly the ring on her finger felt impossibly heavy, almost burdensome.  She had the urge to stuff her hand in her pocket, keep the ring out of sight away from his knowing eyes.

Sherlock grinned at her conspiratorially.  "Yes, as am I."

They stood there, looking fondly at each other.  It was several long moments before Sherlock averted his gaze and took a deep breath.

"Well, I'm off to alert Geoff of my return.  Thank you, Molly.  For all you've done."

He said it with a tender sincerity that she'd rarely heard from him.  All she could do was nod to him as he gave a small bow and turned on his heel, striding from the break room with his hands in his pockets and his back ramrod straight.

Tom, she thought suddenly, abruptly remembering the ring on her finger.  And then: Oh God.

—

She met him at their favorite pub, but she almost didn't make it through the door.  Her feet felt as though they were weighed down with cement shoes.  For the first time in nearly two years, she didn't want to face Tom.  She didn't want to look at him and feel the disconnect.  She didn't want to look at him and wish he was Sherlock.  She didn't want him to look at her face and know that something was different.

Molly tugged open the pub door and went in.

He was sitting at the corner of the bar with a mutual friend.  As she gazed at them she felt the dread settle in her stomach.  It had already begun.  She hadn't really even seen Tom yet, and already she subconsciously knew what was going to happen.  Sherlock had changed things.  He'd changed her.

But he didn't have to change their relationship.  She could make this work.

She plastered on that fake smile she was so used to wearing and approached them.  She leaned down to kiss Tom on the cheek before sliding onto the stool next to him.  With her hand resting on his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of her engagement ring and her smile slipped off her face.  It was only a fraction of a second, but Tom noticed.

"Everything alright?" he questioned, concern coloring his voice.  Molly nodded enthusiastically while shrugging off her coat.

"It was just a long day at Bart's," she explained.  "I could use a drink."

Tom smiled at her fondly, leaning forward to press his lips firmly to hers before summoning the bartender to order a round.

—

Her mind was fuzzy around the edges, and she felt like someone had stuffed her brain with cottonballs, but she was focused enough to press Tom forcefully against her bedroom door.  He gave a small cry of pain as his head cracked against the wood, but Molly didn't care.  All she cared about was the feel of his lips on hers and her hands on his skin and his curls brushing her forehead as he leaned over her in bed.

Molly pushed his jacket off his shoulders, teeth nipping at his neck as her fingernails raked down his arms.  They weren't leanly muscled like Sherlock's, but her alcohol-addled brain didn't care.  Her hands moved from his forearm to his waistband, where she fumbled with his belt and button.  His stomach was softer than Sherlock's.  It never bothered her until now.

She pushed his pants down and began unbuttoning her blouse while Tom tangled himself in his t-shirt.  She jerked off her khakis--stopping to take off her shoes when her pants got stuck--and tugged Tom toward the bed.  They tumbled together onto her ugly old quilt.  With one hand resting against her hip, Tom trailed his lips across the top of her breasts, flushed with liquor and desire.  Molly gave the softest of moans as she looked down her body at him.

In the dim light from the street light outside, she could just make out the soft outline of his shoulders and the mop of curls on his head.  It was just enough to pretend.

It was Tom's lips on her skin, but they were Sherlock's too.

It was Tom's hand gripping the flesh of her thigh, but it was Sherlock's long, dexterous fingers as well.

His curls tickled her skin as his lips skirted across her breasts and down her stomach to the waistband of her underwear.  He could feel her wetness as he nuzzled her sex, and he groaned her name.

"Molly."

Shh.  Don't break the spell.

"Molly."

Sherlock, she answered silently.

He climbed on top of her, sheathed himself within her, and buried his face in her neck.

"Molly."

Sherlock.

His voice was a rough groan in her ear, but his curls were caressing her cheek.  His body was too soft, but her hands slipped off his sweat-slicked shoulders anyway.  He wasn't Sherlock, but she was good at pretending.

Chapter Text

Part III: Pretending

Chapter 9: The Last Straw

"I didn't hear from him very often for a while. Sherlock, I mean. He asked me to help him on a case, after the two of you had a falling out. It was … nice. Working with him outside the lab again. Being with him in public." Molly smiled sadly, eyes cast down. John watched her, arms folded, as she lifted a foot into Sherlock's chair, propping her chin on her knee. She looked thoughtfully at the frayed arm of John's chair.

"He missed you; I could tell. He called me John a time or two. That pang of jealousy hit again, of course. Two years away, and the first time we are together, he's thinking of you, missing you. I was just a replacement at that point. But it was nice all the same. Until, of course, he pointed out my engagement ring, reminded me that I was promised to another.

"Our being together was fairly inappropriate. I was engaged to someone else, but my thoughts were on Sherlock. Had there been no tension, were things not strictly platonic, it would have been fine. But I think we both realized that we shouldn't meet like that, even in a work setting. Not alone. I wondered at the time if Sherlock thought Tom would find issue with the situation. Now I know better."

John chuckled. "Now that you're married, yeah, I'd say it was more for the sake of your relationship with Tom than Sherlock being worried about having to contend with an angry lover."

Molly nodded at him.

"Exactly. Sherlock told me later that he didn't see himself in a relationship. That despite his growing feelings for me, he didn't think it would be fair to Tom or me for him to be in an inappropriate situation with me. Not in those words, exactly, but … well, you know him." Molly's lips quirked up at the corner at the memory. "He told me, and I quote: "I knew it wouldn't be a competition between the two of us, but I didn't want to ruin what you'd worked so long to maintain."

"That sounds just like him," John nodded with a laugh.

They heard footsteps ascending the stairs, and they both turned to see Mrs. Hudson entering the flat with a tea tray held aloft. She smiled upon seeing John.

"I thought I heard your voice!" she said, placing the tea tray on the kitchen table. "It's so good to see you at Baker Street again."

"We were just talking about Sherlock," Molly told Mrs. Hudson.

"Oh, you've told him about your marriage!" she exclaimed, bringing them each their tea. She sat on the couch, leaned back with her hands in her lap, as per usual.

"I was actually telling him the whole story," Molly replied, sipping at her tea. "About how we met. Everything throughout the years. I was just telling John about Tom. I'm almost at the wedding, actually."

"Oh, this is where it gets good!" Mrs. Hudson said, excitement still lining her voice. She winked at John and patted at her apron. "Don't let me interrupt you. Go on!"

When Molly arrived back at her flat, her face was still ruddy but the tell-tale signs of tears were gone. The ghost of Sherlock's lips was left imprinted on her cheek; a gesture she always associated with disappointment.

She dropped her flat key onto her table and tugged off her scarf, gloves, and overcoat. In the bath, she scrubbed herself until her skin was pink and felt as raw as the inside of her chest.

His lips lingered still.

She climbed into bed before Tom got home, and she lay awake as the memory of Sherlock's kiss began to fade.

She pretended to be asleep when Tom came to bed, and when he pressed his lips over that ghostly remainder, and when he nuzzled his face into her neck while his arm snaked around her waist.

With his light snore in her ear, whispering against the hairs at the back of her neck, Molly cried out the last tears she would ever shed for Sherlock Holmes.

—

Several weeks passed before Molly saw Sherlock again. He swept into the lab with his usual gusto just as she was pulling a brain from the fridge. She stopped in her tracks, surprised to see him.

"Sherlock," she said, clearly taken aback. He'd stopped at the lab table, hands behind his back, and was inspecting all of her lab gear.

"Yes?"

"Nothing. Just—I didn't expect to see you."

"I should have called," he said, turning slightly. She could see that he was uncomfortable, unsure how to approach her. She could read him like an open book; she was realizing this more and more with every encounter.

"No, of course not. It's a pleasant surprise."

She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. She put the chilled bowl with the brain of a middle-aged woman on the table next to her set of dissecting tools and snapped off her latex gloves.

"What's this about then? Did you need some new parts? Don't tell me you didn't receive those eyes I sent—"

"No, I got them … fine. They were very helpful. I just came to … talk."

Molly nodded, and a long silence stretched between them as she waited.

"Well—"

"I—"

They spoke in unison, and apologized in tandem as their words danced around each other. Molly's face flushed and Sherlock looked away, clearly understanding that the situation was awkward.

"Yes?" Molly prompted, letting him know that she would let him speak first.

"John has asked me to be his best man," Sherlock told her, not meeting her eyes. "For his wedding to Mary," he clarified. Molly's face split into a smile.

"That's wonderful!" she told him.

"Is it? I'm not quite sure. Seems like so much trouble." Sherlock reached one hand forward to fiddle with a set of clean slides. He was projecting, she knew. He was trying to pass this off as something trivial. Molly stood across the table from him, but she leaned forward to rest her hand on his, stopping his restless ministrations. Sherlock's eyes zeroed in on their hands, but she ignored his gaze as she slipped onto the lab stool, never breaking their gentle contact.

"It is very worth the trouble. A bit of help with planning, keeping John sane through the whole ordeal. I think the hardest part is the speech—"

Sherlock's head jerked up and he leveled those blue-green eyes at her, eyebrow raised.

"Speech," he said, revelation dawning. "I have to give a speech."

"Well—yes. That's the biggest part of being the best man."

Molly watched his eyes grow distant as he gazed at her, and a sense of understanding enveloped her. Sherlock was terrified. She should have seen it before. People looking at him. Listening to him. Strangers taking in words that had nothing to do with cold hard facts of crime and solving cases and everything to do with the deep and complex feelings he had for his best friend.

Yes, Sherlock Holmes was terrified.

"It's nothing to worry about, really," she said, trying to soothe him. "Just a few lovely words and then it'll all be done."

They both knew it couldn't be that simple, but they both also knew nothing was going to ease Sherlock's apprehension.

He left in a daze, seemingly forgetting Molly was even there.

She sat on that lab stool until Lestrade found her an hour later.

-

"I spent the afternoon trying to recruit anyone to my cause," Molly told them, shaking her head. Mrs. Hudson only laughed.

"I remember that! You really didn't need to worry, dear, he seemed to be in … well, some sort of control."

The all nodded somberly as they remembered Sherlock's uncharacteristically sweet, charming words.

"It was a beautiful speech," Mrs. Hudson continued.

"I never would have expected it," John agreed.

If only they knew the words he was capable of, Molly said silently, a small smile gracing her lips.

Chapter Text

Part III: Pretending

Chapter 10: Done

"He left the reception that night," Molly admitted, sipping the rest of her tea.

"I imagine he was tired," John said with a nod.

"No, it was more than that. He was sad. I can … see it in him sometimes. When he thinks no one can see. I do."

"I knew it was bad luck to leave early," Mrs. Hudson said sadly, shaking her head. "I told him as much."

John and Molly both knew that she was referring to his relapse.

"I recognized it as a danger night. I was certain he'd been clean for years, certain he wouldn't go back to his old ways. Mycroft was certain as well, although he assured me that he would check on him—"

"Danger night?" John asked, bewildered. "Why then? It was a happy day, for us—"

"Not as much for Sherlock as you might think," Molly told him, not meeting his eyes. "For all the airs he puts about him, Sherlock is not a confident man. He forges few lasting relationships. He told you as much that very day. That day, I think, he felt somewhat apart from it. He was being replaced not by just one person, but two. I think he reasoned that you wouldn't have time for him anymore, especially once the baby came along. You two had already spent much less time together since he came back from abroad. You are his best friend, and the two of you have the most meaningful relationship that Sherlock has ever known. The thought of losing you destroyed him. Or tried to.

"Which is why it was considered a danger night for him."

Molly stood in the shadow of the building, searching the grounds and treeline for any sign of Sherlock. She'd seen him leave—the barely masked sadness, the distraught look on his face. She'd rarely seen him like this in all the years she's known him. Quite frankly, it frightened her.

She pulled her mobile phone out of her clutch and sent him a text.

Where did you go? MH

She never got a reply.

But she couldn't keep Tom waiting. They had already been on choppy waters the past few weeks, fighting constantly over her apparent disinterest in their relationship; there was no telling how angry he'd be if he caught her searching after Sherlock Holmes.

Instead she called Mycroft.

"Miss Hooper," he said by way of greeting, "I can't imagine this is a coincidence, taking a call from both you and my brother on the same day."

"We both know you don't believe in consequences."

Mycroft paused for a moment, then: "Something's happened."

Molly explained what happened—Sherlock's beautiful best man's speech, then the aftermath of being left alone—and Mycroft sighed a slow, static exhalation in her ear.

"Never you mind, Miss Hooper. I'll see to my brother. Return to the festivities. Give your Tom my best."

The finality of the line going dead hit her like the weight of a thousand bricks. She stood there, open mouthed, with the phone still pressed to her ear, the dial tone loud and obnoxious.

Give your Tom my best.

He was reminding her that this was no longer her place.

She no longer had a stake in Sherlock's personal affairs.

It was no longer appropriate for her to be the person who called Mycroft.

It was inappropriate to worry about him in such a way.

How transparent had her feelings been, exactly? she wondered, slowly lowering her mobile phone.

"Molly?"

Tom's voice cut through her miserable pity party, and she whipped around, shoving her mobile phone back into her clutch purse.

"Tom! What are you doing out here?" She'd adopted that falsely cheery voice that she'd come to loath. Tom frowned at her.

"I could ask you the same thing."

He was angry. That fake smile faded slowly from her lips as his anger settled over her. She hated seeing him angry. He'd been more angry in the last four weeks than he had in the entire two years they'd known each other.

"I was just going back in," she told him. "I just needed some fresh air. It got so hot in there-"

"Don't lie, Molly. I saw him leave too. You went after him the first chance you got."

Molly pondered denying him, pretending she didn't understand, but she knew it wouldn't work. He'd cornered her. He saw right through her. Everyone did, these days.

"He didn't look okay, Tom. You don't know him like I do. I could tell that he—"

"And how well do you know him, Molly? Hm? How well exactly? I never heard you speak a word about him until he came back from the dead. Now you're not here anymore. You're never here. Your mind is always on him."

"No, Tom, it's not—"

"Are you having an affair with him?"

Tom's question was a punch to the heart. For a moment she couldn't breathe. Her heart had stopped, skipped a beat.

"This isn't the time or place to have this discussion, Tom."

"It's exactly the right time and place, Molly. You are, aren't you? You're not denying it. I knew it." He ran a hand down his face, rubbing his eyes wearily. "I knew it. How long?"

"Tom."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Tom. Stop it. I am not having an affair with Sherlock Holmes," Molly asserted firmly.

"Then why else would you act they way you do? You've been odd ever since he came back. The past few weeks have been the most miserable days of my life. You act like you don't want to marry me anymore. You've hardly let me touch you. Do you not want to marry me anymore, Molly?"

Molly was silent. He was right. The afternoon of John's stag party, Sherlock came to see her in the lab. She'd told him that her relationship with Tom was fine, great in fact; she couldn't have been more wrong. The best way to describe it was disinterest. With Sherlock back in her life, she'd fallen out of love with Tom. He was right about her; she'd been distant. She may not have been having an affair with Sherlock, but she hadn't truly been faithful to Tom.

She let her silence speak for her.

—

After the reception, Tom went back to his flat and Molly went back to hers. She packed his few belongings into a box—a couple of shirts, his spare toothbrush, his house slippers; just enough things to prove he existed and not enough to show that he'd practically lived there for over a year—and in the morning on her way to St. Bart's, she dropped them off at his flat.

"Don't you want to talk about this, Molly?" His voice was rough, eyes rimmed in red. He'd been crying.

"There's nothing to talk about, Tom. Let's not make this harder than it already is."

Molly didn't usually subscribe to the tough love method of breaking things off. She was much too soft for that. But she'd led Tom on long enough—it was time to end it. She slipped his engagement ring off her finger and pressed it into the palm of his hand, wrapping his fingers around it so that he was gripping it tight.

After one swift and awkward hug during which Tom held her much too tightly and for much too long, Molly Hooper went to St. Bart's for work, where her day was much like any other. This time, however, a weight was lifted off her shoulders and off the fourth finger of her left hand. She felt much freer than she had since Sherlock had come back from the dead, and she felt unburdened by the obligation of having a symbol of marriage tying her to a man she didn't love.

She may not be with Sherlock Holmes, but her heart was free again.

Chapter Text

Part IV: Falling

Chapter 11: Unwanted Guests

"Poor Tom," Mrs. Hudson crooned. "Such a likable fellow."

Molly smiled at her. "He was. So likable, in fact, that he has already remarried. I had tea with them just a few weeks ago. She's a lovely girl, much more suited to him than I ever was."

John had a knowing grin on his face, and he shook his head and laughed. "Clearly you couldn't be suited for him if you were suited for Sherlock. It's like you're made for each other."

Molly joined in on his laugh, cheeks pink.

"I'm less neurotic, sure, but I have to agree with you on that."

"Did he feel that way? Sherlock, I mean," Mrs. Hudson queried. "After the wedding is when, you know ... everything happened. I remember he came to you for help."

Molly nodded, face suddenly very somber.

"He came to me a few days after the wedding. I hadn't heard from him, hadn't seen him, since he left. I never heard back from Mycroft, of course, so I was so worried about him. But he showed up at my flat one night needing a place to stay."

–

Molly wrenched her key out of her doorknob and pushed the door open, slamming it behind her. She wasn't typically an angry person, but the day had taken its toll on her. After a particularly gruesome day at the morgue, she'd had an unexpected visit from Tom to contend with, all while Sherlock was still at the back of her mind.

She had never heard back from Mycroft regarding his brother, which wasn't unusual by any means but was still frustrating nonetheless. Tom's appearance at the morgue to plead with her to come back to him had been simultaneously embarrassing and annoying, and she'd sent him packing with a few firm words and the threat of tears in his eyes.

All in all, Molly had had a very long and tiresome day.

And now she had to deal with the fact that someone was in her flat.

A flicker of annoyance shot through her head, and for a moment she was seeing red. A pair of men's dress shoes was sitting neatly side by side next to her front door, and a long, dark coat was hanging on her coat hook. She slammed her keys and bag on the table next to the door and marched toward her bedroom. Toby was sitting on her bookcase, tail swishing back and forth in annoyance, watching as Molly pushed open the bedroom door.

"Tom, we've been through this–" she started. But it wasn't Tom spread across her unmade bed; it was Sherlock Holmes. He was lying at an angle, sock-clad feet dangling over the edge of the bed. His arms were folded under her pillow, cradling his face as he slept. Her face softened and her anger subsided as her hand slipped from her doorknob. He blinked blearily into the pillow and pushed himself up into a sitting position, rubbing a hand down his tired face.

"What time's it?" he slurred.

"Ten thirty. What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong," Sherlock answered, scooting to the edge of the bed. "Just needed to get away." His voice was tired, his eyes bloodshot, like he hadn't slept in days. He ran a hand through his curls, messy from sleep. "There is a visitor at Baker Street, one whom I find most annoying. It has made sleeping in my own bed very difficult."

Molly frowned, confused, but she didn't press the issue.

"I imagine sleeping in my own bed will be very difficult as well," she said dryly, arms folded across her chest. Sherlock looked down at the quilt, taking in her bed. They'd slept on it together before, but Molly wasn't sure if that was what was on his mind as well. Instead of pressing the matter, Molly gave a mock sigh and rolled her eyes. "I suppose it's a good thing I don't find you nearly as annoying as you find your guest."

"I suppose it's a good thing Tom won't be here," Sherlock rebutted, eyes zeroing in on her hands. Her engagement ring was gone. "I can't imagine he would be too pleased to see me here in his place."

Molly dropped her arms and just looked at him. Somehow he always knew just where to sucker punch her.

Wordlessly, she gathered her nightclothes and mobile phone charger, constantly aware of Sherlock's eyes on her as she moved around her room. Standing in the doorway, she turned to look at him. "I'll take the guest room tonight. Get some sleep. You look dead on your feet."

Molly pulled the door to behind her, not waiting for a response.

–

"I didn't know at the time that his 'annoying guest' was Jeanine. I would like to think that if I had known I wouldn't have let him stay," Molly chuckled. "Of course, we know that's not true. I would do anything he asked of me."

"I think we were all shocked at that one," Mrs. Hudson added. "I can't believe I fell for it," she laughed.

"We all did," John said. "And I think it threw everyone for a loop."

"I should have known something was up," Molly continued. "He slept at my flat a couple of days a week. I wasn't sure where he went on the nights he wasn't at my flat, but I assumed he was back at Baker Street." She looked back down at her wedding band and twisted it around her slim finger. "It wasn't until you showed up at St. Bart's wanting a urine test that I became aware of his drug relapse. I was so angry at him for being an idiot, and angry at myself for not seeing it sooner."

"He hid it well," Mrs. Hudson said sympathetically. Molly shook her head.

"I blamed myself for not seeing it. I blamed him, too, for starting all that mess up again. But mostly I blamed Mycroft."

–

Molly ran her hands under the sink, cool water soothing her stinging palms. She could still feel his rough stubble against her skin as her palms whipped across his face. Her hands were shaking, body vibrating with intense anger. She had never been more disappointed and angry with Sherlock Holmes than she was at that moment. She wanted to strangle him.

She clenched her fists, focusing her mind on the fading sting. She opened her hands to see splotchy redness and half-moon indentations and the absence of a ring on her fourth finger. Even a month after she had broken things off with Tom, it was still so strange that the ring she'd grown so used to was no longer in its place.

At that, her mind drifted toward Sherlock.

His words had stung worse than her hands.

She should have seen it coming. There was an insult on his lips the first time they'd met, and he'd always lashed out with angry words when he was detoxing all those years ago. It shouldn't have surprised her or even hurt, really, that he'd done the same thing this time around.

Sorry your engagement's over, though I am very grateful for the lack of a ring, he'd said.

To anyone else, it was simply Sherlock's way of dealing with being slapped in front of everyone. For Molly, it was a deflection. He was needling her. The absence of the ring, the end of her engagement with Tom, was clearly a sore spot for Molly, and he knew right where her wounds lie. He may not know that he was the reason she'd ended things with Tom, but he knew she was still hurting.

Molly reached up and jerked on the faucet handle, turning the water off. She dried her hands and pulled her mobile out of her lab coat pocket. She was dialing Mycroft's number as she marched off down the hall toward the nearest janitor closet. She yanked the door open and slammed it behind her just as Mycroft's droll voice crackled into her ear.

"I've already been informed of this little mishap, Miss Hooper, but I thank you for your dedication," he said by way of greeting. There was an undercurrent of annoyance thrumming beneath the surface of his words, but she didn't care.

"You told me you were keeping an eye on him," she said lowly, trying not to raise her voice. "You told me you had people watching him. You told me this wasn't going to happen again."

"My brother is an adult and cannot be looked after like a child. I had no reason to suspect he would relapse and therefore saw no reason to expend valuable resources. Not that I have to explain anything to you," he snapped. Molly narrowed her eyes in anger, grip tightening around her mobile phone.

"This is your fault," she hissed. "You were supposed to be watching."

"Sherlock has ways of hiding what he doesn't want one to know."

"You always think you're so much smarter than him, you should have seen through it!"

Mycroft gave a long, drawn-out sigh, annoyance creeping into his voice. Molly knew that the older Holmes brother had no patience for her, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep it in check.

"There is nothing I can say that will convince you that I am not to blame. I have said all that I can say. Rest assured, Miss Hooper, I am at Baker Street now. I will scold the child appropriately, though I have been told that you have done half the work for me. I'll be sure to send the boy to bed without supper. As always, thank you for your concern."

The dial tone was loud in her ear when Mycroft hung up. Molly stuffed her mobile back into her pocket, sure that she would snap it in half if she held it any longer.

Her shoulders slumped, defeated. Sherlock had no need of her; he had John and Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson to coddle him and see him straight. He would be fine, at least for the time being. Molly, however, was not fine.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. She hadn't realized it, in the adrenaline rush that ensued when Sherlock's urine sample came back with its disastrous results; her heart was pounding and her throat was getting thick in that way it does when a good cry is coming on. It was difficult to swallow, and pressure was forming at the front of her brain. Before she knew it, tears were welling up and spilling over, and all Molly could do was slip down to the floor against the door. She clapped a hand over her mouth as if that could keep the wracking sobs inside her, and she squeezed her eyes closed. She lowered her forehead to her knees and sobbed, those shoulder-shaking sobs that always make you drowsy and give you a headache.

Molly had sworn off crying for Sherlock Holmes, but these tears were not for her friend. No, these tears were for her. Being in love with a man who didn't love you back was hard, but watching him destroy himself was worse ... and damn it if it didn't warrant a good cry now and again.

Chapter Text

Part IV: Falling

Chapter 12: Distractions

"I didn't speak to him for ages after that. Not until he got shot."

The three of them were silent, contemplative. None of them liked to reflect on that dark period, the uncertainty of whether or not Sherlock would survive. It only reminded Molly just how fragile life really was, just how close she'd come to losing him forever.

"I was so angry with him. Neither of us tried to contact the other–which wasn't unusual, by any means, but certainly made the period of silence that much more poignant. I wanted to strangle him, just put my hands around his neck and shake him. Then I heard that he was dying. And I felt like I was dying. And I hated myself for ever being angry."

–

Given their last verbal encounter, Molly was quite surprised to see Mycroft's number flash across the screen of her phone. It was with great apprehension that she answered it with a slow and timid, "Hello, Mycroft."

"Miss Hooper," he said. His voice was clipped and urgent; Molly immediately became more alert.

"Something's happened." It wasn't a question; she knew Mycroft would not be calling her and sounding so serious if something hadn't happened. She was suddenly reminded of the conversation she'd had with Mycroft not so long ago.

"I suggest you make your way back to the hospital. Sherlock is dying."

Molly was numb, mind racing at a million miles per hour as she scrambled around her flat, shoving her feet into the nearest shoes she could find and pulling on her coat. She almost locked her keys inside in her haste, and she barely remembered the cab ride to St. Bart's. When she arrived, Mycroft was in the waiting room with John, who sat by himself with his head in his hands. Mycroft looked up at her as she approached, slightly out of breath, and he gave her the once-over she was so familiar with.

"How is he?" she asked breathlessly. "Is he–?"

"He is still in surgery. We won't know more until they are done," Mycroft responded quietly. His voice was lower, softer than she'd ever heard. It was tinged with worry and–was it fear?

Molly collapsed in the chair beside Mycroft. He was the picture of leisure, slightly reclined and leaned over, elbow propped on the armrest while his chin rested on his fist. His eyes followed her as she sat, and she could feel the tension running under the surface of his cool exterior.

"What happened?" she asked finally, bewildered. Sherlock had done dangerous things before, crazy things. But nothing like this. Or, she reasoned, he could have been getting into these messes all the time with Molly none the wiser. She pushed the thought away.

"He was shot," John croaked. "In Magnussen's office. But it wasn't Magnussen. It was someone there to kill Magnussen."

Molly looked over at John. He looked haggard, tired, terrified. Molly had no idea what he was talking about, just that it had something to do with the case Sherlock had mentioned while staying at her flat. She vaguely remembered the name Magnussen and Sherlock's "unwanted guest."

"He was hurt on a case?" she squeaked. Great. Now she would be terrified for him every time he went on a case.

If he lived to go on another case.

If he lived.

Mycroft glanced over at John, who was rocking back and forth slowly, shaking his head. Certain that he was preoccupied within his own mind, Mycroft settled his attention back on Molly.

"This is why I stopped coming to you," he said abruptly. Molly looked over at him, taken aback. "You're very much like my brother, Miss Hooper. Your heart rules your actions, not your mind. You are emotional and impulsive, traits that are illustrated further by your mismatched shoes and your shortness of breath."

"I left in a hurry–you said he was dying–"

"He would die whether or not you got here in a hurry."

Silence hung between them, dark and heavy, like a wet blanket settling over their shoulders. Molly was confused and affronted, the numbness in her mind being replaced by the lightheaded dread that seemed prevalent every time Mycroft spoke to her.

"I stopped asking for you to look after him when he met John because John kept him more grounded. You were a distraction, but John gave him purpose. I admit that you helped him all those years ago, but he has outgrown you. You are obsolete in a world where Sherlock Holmes has John Watson."

"Distraction," Molly said lowly. "You think I'm a distraction?"

"I know you are. You bring out the worst in him–the impulsivity, emotions that cloud his judgment. You are a liability. I know my brother–you bring out everything he hates about himself."

Molly stared at Mycroft, trying to piece together what he was saying. Everything was coming through in fragments–surely they were fragments, surely she wasn't hearing him right. Surely Mycroft was projecting his fears and doubts onto her, afraid for his brother's life.

Surely he wasn't that cruel.

She stood abruptly. She'd had enough. She took a lot of harsh words off one brother–she didn't have to endure it from two.

"I'm not a distraction for Sherlock Holmes. I can assure you of that," she said firmly. "Sherlock does a good job of avoiding the people he doesn't want around, and making it known that he doesn't want their company." She glanced over at Sherlock's friend before returning her steely gaze to his brother. "Now isn't the time to discuss this." She approached John Watson instead, sitting beside him and gently placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her gratefully, patting her hand with his.

She wasn't a distraction for Sherlock, but she could at least distract John Watson from his grief.

–

Molly had fallen asleep in the waiting room chair and woke just in time to see the surgeon consulting quietly with Mycroft and an older man and woman. They were facing slightly away from her, but she could see Sherlock's cheekbones jutting out from the man's face, and Sherlock's determined look in the set of the woman's jaw. These must be his parents.

She didn't want to interrupt, so she sat as still as she could while straining to hear the doctor's soft words. She could barely make out anything–"heart stopped" and "failed to revive" and "miracle" stuck out–but what she heard was just enough to soothe her nerves. She let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding, and Sherlock's mother turned to look at her. Her eyes widened and, as the doctor walked away from their little group, she scooped Molly up into a hug.

"Oh, you poor thing," she crooned.

"Mother, this is Dr. Molly Hooper, Sherlock's–" Mycroft began, but he never got the chance to finish.

"You're the girlfriend he's been keeping from me."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Actually, she's his–"

"I thought that since he refused to introduce us, you must look like an ogre, but you're a pleasant sight! I suppose congratulations are in order."

Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

"No, I–I'm not his girlfriend," Molly stammered. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. Mrs. Holmes gave her a sly, knowing look.

"Well, not anymore. I saw the ring box in his coat pocket."

"Ring?" Molly felt suddenly lightheaded. She understood now. Mrs. Holmes was congratulating her because she thought Sherlock had proposed to her. But why? What ring?

"She's not his fiancée, mother, she's his friend. More of an acquaintance, really, if a bit long-term."

Molly's face reddened further. Now she'd been reduced to a mere acquaintance. Not really even his friend. Just someone he passed over and called upon when needed.
Mrs. Holmes frowned at her.

"Well, that's a disappointment," she said softly, patting Molly's cheek. "Although in my experience, the friends usually last longer, wouldn't you say?" With a wink, she turned back toward her husband. He held out his arm to her, and she took it. Mycroft lead them toward the nurse's station, leaving Molly with John.

John looked relieved, on the brink of crying. Molly was suddenly very uncomfortable, and she averted her eyes.

"I should go," she said.

"You're not coming to see him?" John asked, half turning toward the Holmes family.
"No. I don't think he'd want me to," she said with a small, forced smile. "He should be with his family. And you. I'll come see him when he's awake and feeling better."

Molly didn't leave the hospital. Instead she went to the lab, where she was most comfortable. If she went home, she wouldn't be able to stop worrying or stop thinking about Sherlock's near-fatal gunshot wound. She needed to throw herself into her work to get her mind off everything.

She pulled open her locker, donned her white lab coat, and searched for her spare pair of trainers she kept tucked away. She felt like an idiot walking around with mismatched shoes, Mycroft's words still prickling at the edges of her mind.

–

She waited until the next day to see him. If she were being honest with herself, she would admit that it was because she didn't want to face him after Mycroft's accusations. She told herself, however, that she was waiting for Sherlock to recover more, to regain some strength, to have time with his family.

She knocked lightly on the doorframe before poking her head inside. He was reclined in the bed, head tipped back with his eyes closed. His fingers were steepled under his chin, a pose that was all to familiar. His chest was bare, save for the bandage on his chest. Her eyes traveling down the smooth column of his neck to the sweeping expanse of his collarbone. His chest rose and fell steadily with his even breaths.

Molly picked up the stack of newspapers on the bedside chair and perched on the edge. She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, papers dangling from her fingertips. His eyes remained closed as he spoke.

"I wondered where you'd got off to," he said simply. "You missed the festivities."

"Festivities?" Molly questioned, eyebrow raised. Sherlock raised an eyebrow as well, opening his eyes to peer at her warily. That one short word, a question, recalled the memory of her face just before she slapped him not all that long ago.

"You wouldn't hit an injured person, would you?" he asked, lowering his hands to his sides.

"I imagine Jeanine gave you all the slapping you deserve," Molly answered, holding up the stack of newspapers. Sherlock grimaced as she flashed him the photograph of Jeanine in a deerstalker cap.

"Not so much physically as verbally," he clarified.

"You deserved it."

"I did."

They were silent. Molly didn't think she'd ever hear Sherlock admit that he'd deserved his punishment.

"Your mother thought I was your girlfriend," she blurted. Sherlock blinked slowly.

"Mm. Yes. So she told me. She tried to have me invite you around for tea after I am released from hospital, but I told her that wouldn't be necessary; you wouldn't come."

"And why wouldn't I come?"

"Given our last rather volatile interaction, I assumed that you would be in no hurry to partake of my company."

Molly pursed her lips to keep from smiling.

"Volatile interaction. Is that how you described that episode?" she joked. Sherlock smirked.

"What was all this for, Sherlock?" Molly asked then, suddenly serious. The smirk faded from Sherlock's lips, and he watched her impassively.

"It was for a case. All of it. A very important case, Molly." He diverted his gaze to her slim fingers, tense as they gripped the edge of the newspapers. He licked his lips, stalling. "You don't think … surely you don't think that after all you've done for me, I'd throw it all away like that," he continued, voice low. "And I'm not just talking about that mess with Jim Moriarty and my faked suicide."

Molly stared at him for a long moment, forcing him to meet her eyes. "I thought you were pretending none of that ever happened," she murmured. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut across him. "I don't know what you would do. You've tried very hard to 'throw it all away.' Why should I be convinced otherwise?"

Sherlock didn't answer.

"Who did this to you?" Molly asked instead. "If you were on a case, you must know who it was."

"I can't tell you that," he answered solemnly. Molly's eyes swept over his face, analyzing the firm set of his jaw and the slight pursing of his lips. She was no master of observation, but she'd learned a thing or two from Sherlock Holmes: he was hiding something.

"I understand," she told him truthfully, nodding her head in understanding. She stood and tossed the newspapers back into the seat behind her. "You're protecting them."

"They're worth protecting."

"I hope so." She rested her hand tentatively on his. "But their life if not worth more than yours. Be careful." She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, but as she turned to leave he caught her fingers in his. Startled, she looked back over her shoulder at him.

"None of it was real," he said.

"I'm sorry?" Molly asked, clearly confused.

"The newspapers. Everything Jeanine said. Jeanine in general, I guess. None of it was real."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Sherlock didn't answer at first, just stared up at her bewildered face. Then: "I just wanted you to know."

Molly's eyes trailed from his face to the floor, unable to hold his gaze. She wasn't quite sure what to make of his declaration, but she gave a small nod anyway and bid him farewell before promising that she would come back tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Part IV: Falling

Chapter 13: Friends

"But of course, as you know, that night Sherlock took off," Molly said archly.  She pulled her feet up into the chair and shook her head.  "It came as quite the shock at work when you and Greg stormed in asking if I knew where he might have gone."

"Shocking for you?" John said, incredulous.  "It was shocking for me!  Finding out he'd been slumming it at your flat."

Molly smiled.  "Sherlock does a good job of hiding things he doesn't want anyone to know."

–

Molly played it cool while they questioned her, drinking her tea as calmly as you please.  But as soon as they left, she set her cup heavily back on its saucer and leapt from her seat.  She was pulling her mobile from her lab coat pocket as she reached her usual janitor closet and dialing his number as she pulled the door closed behind her.

She was afraid he wouldn't answer at first, but just as she was about to hang up, he answered.

"Molly," he said, his voice smooth and calm in her ear.  

"What the hell are you doing?" She could feel the worry creeping in, hear the near-hysteria in her voice.  "They told me you'd left the hospital through the window!  Sherlock, you've just been shot!  Do you know exactly how bad that is?"

"Yes, I do.  You told me just how bad it was right after it happened."

"What does that mean?" she asked, bewildered.  Sherlock chuckled lowly.

"Nothing.  Don't worry about me.  I've got it under control."

"Sherlock, don't do that.  You need to come back to the hospital."

"I can't come back, Molly, not yet."

"Why?  What's going on?"  She'd begun pacing, her free hand stuffed into her coat pocket.  "What's so important that you're risking your life again?"

He sighed, his breath forcing static through the earpiece.  "I'll explain it to you, Molly, I promise.  Just not … not right now.  I'll be back to the hospital tonight.  I doubt I'll be in any position to speak–I probably won't be conscious–but when I can, I'll explain everything."

Molly swallowed past the lump forming in her throat.  He was always so cryptic.

"I'll be here.  I'll be waiting," she promised.

She could hear the smile in his voice as he said, "I'd like that."  He hung up, but she didn't leave the janitor closet right away.  Instead she sat down on an overturned wastebasket, dropped her head into her hands, and gave a weary sigh.

Sherlock Holmes was going to be the death of her.

–

"True to his word, he told me everything.  Not that night–he was in critical condition when they brought him back."  Molly rolled her eyes.  "But the next morning he was lucid.  You know the whole story, of course, since it belonged to you."  She smiled weakly at John.  The whole ordeal was difficult for him, but she knew he and Mary had gotten well past all that.  "He was in hospital for several days after that, and when he returned to Baker Street, he was quiet.  Too quiet.  I could tell he was thinking about everything that had happened, and given his recent track record, I knew he was formulating a plan."

–

Mrs. Hudson led her up to Sherlock's flat.  She hitched her bag up onto her shoulder and knocked on his door.  Not waiting for an answer, she pushed it open to find him sitting in his armchair.  He was dressed in his usual housewear: pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, cloaked in his dressing gown.  His legs were stretched out in front of him, feet crossed.  His violin dangled from his right hand. His left was crossed over his chest, thumb gently stroking the bandage beneath his clothes.  He was staring ahead at nothing, and they weren't sure if he even realized they were there.

Molly knew that look, however.  He was thinking.  Considering all that had happened lately, it didn't take a Sherlockian genius to figure out what was on his mind.

"I'll bring some tea," Mrs. Hudson declared, worry coloring her voice.  Molly nodded and moved further into the room.  She let her bag drop to the ground by the couch before sitting in John's old chair across from her friend.  

"Is it bothering you?" she asked him.  Sherlock's hand stopped its slow caress of his wound, and he looked up at Molly.

"No.  I was just … thinking," he explained.

"I could tell."

Sherlock's eyes traveled down her thin frame, taking in her outfit (red cardigan over plum-colored floral print dress, black tights and boots) before moving back to her face.  Her hair was twisted into a braid and pinned up, exposing the long column of her neck.  Sherlock averted his gaze.

"You've been out," he said simply.

"I just came from coffee, actually."

"Mm, yes.  You had your usual.  You spilled it again.  You've got coffee spots on your cuff."

Molly smiled.  "Not entirely my fault this time.  Sally kicked the table by accident."

"Sally?" Sherlock asked.  "Sally Donovan?"

"Yes.  And Mary."

"I didn't know you were all acquainted."  Sherlock watched her face, examined her small smile.  There's a reason she's here, he thought to himself.  He could see it in the set of her lips, the half-quirked eyebrow.  

"It's been very recent.  John was all Mary had, and now she doesn't even have him.  She's pregnant and very alone, Sherlock.  She needs a support system."  She frowned then.  "You need to talk to John.  He can't just keep ignoring her.  She's his wife, and she's carrying his child."

Sherlock sighed then and tipped his head back.

"I've tried.  He's angry with her, rightfully so.  It's going to take some time, I imagine."

Molly frowned and leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees.  "She's miserable."

"So is John."

"And you?"

"Me?" Sherlock tilted his head back down to look at her, nose scrunched in confusion.  "Why would I be miserable?"

Molly looked at him silently, letting his question sink in.  "Why?" she said finally.  "You tested positive for drugs, Sherlock.  You were on a heavy stream of morphine, and you've been off it for days."

Sherlock leaned up in his chair, groaning gently as he pushed himself into a sitting position.  He kept his hand over his chest wound as though it were paining him.

"You know I was on a case," he told her lowly.  

"That doesn't change the test results.  You tested positive.  You were under the influence.  You're a recovering addict, Sherlock, and you did drugs.  You relapsed."  She pursed her lips.  The more she talked about it, the angrier she got.  

"You're angry," he stated, eyes flitting around her face, her tense jaw, pursed lips.  

"Of course I am!" she blurted.  "I understand that you want to act like none of it happened, Sherlock, but it did.  I helped you out of your drug habit and you closed me off for it, and I can’t understand why.  I helped you then, why do you think I couldn’t help you now?  All you had to do was come to me.  I thought everything was different since … since you came back.  Since two years ago, even.”

Mrs. Hudson appeared in the doorway, a slightly worried look on her face.  She was carrying a tea tray, which she placed on the little table next to Molly.  

“I’ll just leave you to it,” she said, sweeping back out of the flat and pulling the door to behind her.  Molly stared at the teacups

“We used to be friends,” she said after a few silent moments.  The anger had deflated out of her, and all that was left behind was the familiar tired sadness.  “I just thought, after everything, that you would trust me.”

“I do trust you,” Sherlock answered immediately.  “I trust you implicitly.  I trust you with my life, clearly.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me?” she asked, looking up at him again.  He could see the confusion and hurt written plainly across her face.  

“I don’t know.”

Their eyes met for several long seconds, but Sherlock looked away.  He was lying, she could feel it.  He wasn’t telling her everything.  But pressing him harder would only push him away, she reasoned.  They were at an impasse … for now.

Molly poured their tea in silence.  

“I am sorry about Tom,” Sherlock said as he took his first sip.  He watched as she licked her lips, preparing herself for her response.

“It’s alright.  We weren’t a good fit.”

They fell once more into an uneasy silence.  Sherlock half expected her to stumble over a rambling description of why they didn’t work out.  He could normally count on her to say too much.  But then he realized he didn’t know her nearly as well as he thought he did.  

“You need a shave,” she said suddenly.  “You look awful.”  

Sherlock sputtered into his tea.  Molly smirked at him as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth

“In my defense, I’ve been shot.  Keeping up appearances hasn’t exactly been at the top of my list of priorities.

Molly put her teacup and saucer back on the tray and stood, pushing her cardigan sleeves up to her elbows.  

“Well, come on then.  I’ll do it for you.”

Sherlock ran his hand over his stubbly chin.

“You don’t think it makes me look dashing?” he teased.  Molly snorted, walking away toward the hallway.

“It makes you look homeless,” she said over her shoulder.  “Before long, you’ll look like Anderson.”  At that, Sherlock pushed himself to his feet, placing his cup and saucer beside hers.

“You’ve convinced me,” he said to her back as he followed her toward the bathroom.  

Molly grinned.  She knew things weren’t completely straight between them, but it was easy to slip back into the comfortable familiarity of being his friend.  It was all she’d wanted for years; why on earth would she risk losing that when the two of them had come so far?

Chapter Text

Part IV: Falling

Chapter 13.5: Interlude

Molly fell easily into the familiar routine of preparing Sherlock for a shave. She'd done this enough to be considered an expert geologist, specializing in carving out the strong planes of Sherlock's jaw. They dragged in a chair from the dining table and got to work.

They worked in tandem. Sherlock swung a towel around his shoulders and tipped his head back just as Molly leaned over him with the cream. She lathered his jaw with ease and precision, then reached blindly into his medicine cabinet to grab his razor from its usual spot.

Sherlock's mouth twitched into a little smile, amused by her familiarity with his belongings and where he kept them, even after all this time.

"What are you grinning about?" Molly demanded, a playful smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. The razor was steady in her hand where it was paused above his neck.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," her murmured, closing his eyes.

They fell into a contented silence; the soft snick of the blade as Molly deftly worked it around the facets of his face was the only sound in the tiny bathroom until she started humming. Sherlock recognized it instantly as a tune he used to play on his violin. He was grateful for the cream remaining on his face–it masked the flush creeping up his skin.

He was usually so impressed with his own clever mind that sometimes he forgot other people were also capable of noticing and remembering trivial things. He felt almost touched that Molly would remember and remain familiar with a melody that he'd picked out idly and forgotten as soon as he'd bored of it.

The hem of her dress brushed his hand, and reflexively his long fingers grasped the cloth. Molly stopped her humming, lifted the razor from his skin, and peered down at him.

"Something wrong? I haven't cut you, have I?"

"No," Sherlock murmured. "Just keep humming."

Molly's lips quirked up into a smile as they fell back into their routine. Molly continued her quiet humming while she finished his shave. Sherlock rubbed the fabric of her dress tenderly between two fingers. When she was was done, she turned away to rinse his razor at the sink, pulling her dress out of his grasp. He leaned up and patted his face with the towel around his shoulders, wiping away the few traces of shaving cream.

He didn't take his eyes off her.

She could see him in the mirror. His bright eyes traveled down her back, her legs; then they roamed back up her body to her arms, where they blazed a trail along her bare skin.

Feeling the heat rising in her cheeks, she returned her focus back to her hands. She dried the razor meticulously with a hand towel before replacing it carefully back on its perch in the cabinet. She rinsed the lathering brush and placed it on top of the container of cream. She dried her hands as well, and when she turned back to him she was met with the embrace of his knees.

His hands snaked up her sides to settle on her hips. Molly swallowed past the nervous lump that formed in her throat. "Sherlock?" she said uncertainly.

Without looking up at her, he let out a weary sigh and pulled her forward until he could rest his forehead against her stomach.

"Are–are you in pain?"

He shook his head slowly and mumbled something incoherent into the fabric of her dress. She lifted her hands to his hair, stroking her fingers through his dark curls.

And then his hands reached up to hers, pulling them down and intertwining their fingers. He stood and pulled her forward so that her front was flush with his. He was so much taller than her, but that was alright; she was used to this–Tom had been good for something, at least. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she lifted her hand to the back of his neck and pulled his face down so that she could crush her lips to his. Her thumb stroked the corner of his now-smooth jaw as he opened his mouth hungrily against hers. He didn't pull away from her, and they were pressed so firmly together she didn't know where her body ended and his began, but they still weren't close enough.

Sherlock growled low in his throat and his free hand bunched her dress in his grasp as he pressed her against the sink. He devoured her lips like a starving man, gripping her to him like she was anchoring him to the floor. He pulled his other hand free of hers so that he could lift her to the countertop, pressing himself between her legs. She tangled her hands once more in his hair and hooked her ankles around the backs of his thighs.

If it were possible for the two of them to be pressed any closer together, they'd be occupying the same space.

Sherlock's lips moved away from hers and down her neck, nipping lightly. He was out of breath with the ferocity of their kissing, but he couldn't bring himself to break their contact.

Molly flushed at his kisses; they were deliciously slow, in contrast with their initial kisses. She leaned her head back in contentment, allowing him further access to that ticklish spot underneath her ear–

And cracked her head solidly against the medicine cabinet behind her.

She yelped in pain, her hands flying up as though her touch would help the pain. Sherlock leaned away from her, confused, and she dropped her forehead to his shoulder. She was shaking against him, and it took him one long moment to realize she wasn't crying-she was laughing.

"Molly? Are you alright?" A smile teased the corners of his mouth as he rested his hands on her shaking shoulders and leaned her back so he could look at her.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she giggled, batting away his hands as he tried to get a look at the back of her scalp. "Such an idiot. Can't believe I–"

He silenced her with another kiss, gentle this time. She broke away with a smile and rested her forehead against his.

"Thanks for that," she teased.

"My pleasure," Sherlock responded with a smirk. "Thanks for the shave."

Molly shook her head and pulled him in for more. This had been a long time coming–she wasn't going to let anything slow her down now.

Chapter Text

Part IV: Falling

Chapter 14: The Calm Before the Storm (Part One)

Molly flipped through the latest forensic journal while Sherlock undressed in his room.  She could vaguely hear him recounting the murder he’d just helped solve with John—he sounded more enthusiastic than he had in weeks.

He emerged from the short hallway shrugging on his dressing gown, feet bare.  His gunshot wound had been healing well, and he wasn’t nearly so stiff when he moved. 

“We caught the idiot stuck in a lift.  He’d tried to climb up the cables.”  His voice floated in from the kitchen as he began riffling through the bag of fish and chips they’d picked up on the way to Baker Street.  “Turns out obesity makes climbing like that difficult.”  Now his voice was muffled around a handful of chips.  Molly smiled down at her magazine.  “He suffered a heart attack right there in the lift.”

Sherlock brought the entire bag of fish and chips into the living room and settled himself down in his chair.  His legs immediately outstretched and crossed themselves at the ankles.  The picture of leisure.

“You’re going to keep all those to yourself then, are you?” Molly teased, still scanning the journal.  Sherlock gave her a grin that could only be called mischievous and held the bag out to her. 

“Come get them,” he said simply.  Molly folded down the corner of the article she’d begun to read and tucked the journal into the seat cushion.

“I’m rather thirsty, actually,” she said casually, leaving him and his smug face behind in the living room.  It was too late for tea, she reasoned, so she reached for the refrigerator handle instead.  She stood staring for a long moment before reaching for a bottle of water in the door.

“Sherlock,” she said calmly as she sat down, “Where did you get the severed arm in your refrigerator?”

Sherlock frowned at her as he chewed.  “You haven’t been reading my blog?” he asked.

“I’ve been reading your blog.  And I know you’re studying lacerations resulting in severance.  But where did you actually get the arm?  I didn’t give it to you.”

At this, Sherlock actually smiled.  “A boating accident a few days ago.  They weren’t able to reattach it, so I bribed an orderly to let me keep it.”

Molly steadied a hand over her heart.  She’d almost panicked.  “For a minute there, I actually thought maybe you’d taken it illegally,” she joked.  They shared a conspiratorial smile and settled back into a comfortable and companionable silence.

-----

“We became friends,” Molly said simply.  “It was almost like old times.  Like before he met you.  Only now, he was more open.  He was more free with his heart.  It was because of you, of course.  Somehow in the years since you’d met, you’d managed to … I don’t know, thaw him out.  It was ruining my heart, but at least I had my friend back.

“Of course, there were still some things he couldn’t quite bring himself to divulge.  We met mostly in the evening, after my shift at Bart’s.  And we talked a lot about you and Mary.  We desperately wanted you to mend things with her.  She was absolutely heartbroken, nearly inconsolable—Sally and I did what we could to help, but she was in a bad way.

“Sherlock of course did everything in his power to convince you—I think at one point you even threatened to hit him if he brought it up again.  After that we decided that you would have to heal on your own, at least for the time being.”

---

“They’re just so stubborn!” Sherlock boomed.  The couple that had been running toward them on the park path eyed them warily and gave them a wide berth as they passed.  Molly put a comforting hand on his arm and shook her head.

“We’re just going to have to let them do it on their own,” she told him.  “John doesn’t want our help; it’s up to him now.  We can’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do.  It’ll just take time for him to come to terms with everything.”

“She shot me! Surely he can forgive her for a few lies,” he grumbled bitterly.  Molly frowned up at him.  This rut between Mary and John was clearly upsetting him—he hated seeing his friends so at war with each other.

“They’re married.  They live together, for God’s sake,” he finished, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  It had started to get colder out, and they were both clad in their heavy coats and scarves.  Molly suddenly wished they hadn’t left the warmth of the sandwich shop.

“And they have a baby on the way,” Molly said softly.  “I hope he forgives her before the baby arrives.”

They walked on in a depressed sort of silence, their breaths rising in the cold air. 

“You haven’t taken on many new cases the last many weeks,” she said suddenly.  “Maybe taking on more cases would help get your minds off everything?”

Sherlock shook his head, frowning.

“No, I—I’m working on a case right now.  It requires my full attention.”

Molly watched him for a long moment.  She knew this look.  His brow was furrowed—he didn’t like that she mentioned cases.  This current case was obviously causing him some grief.

“It’s the same case, isn’t it?” she asked finally.  “The one you were working on when—when you were shot.  The one that convinced you you needed to use a woman’s affections to get closer to your mark.  That case?”

“Yes, it’s that case,” Sherlock sighed.  “But please, don’t ask anymore about it.  The less you know about it, the better.”

“You’re going after Magnussen again?”

“Molly—“

“No.  You don’t get to just shut me out.”  She stopped in the middle of the path and gripped his coat sleeve in her gloved fingers.  “Sherlock, this case already got you shot.  By someone who was trying to kill Magnussen in the first place.  He’d be a fool not to have upped his security, expecting another attempt on his life.  And you’d be a fool to go after him again.”

“Magnussen knows it was Mary,” he explained, voice lowered,  “and he knows I was there, and he knows of our mutual relationships with John.  Magnussen is no fool, and he knows Mary wouldn’t dare make an attempt on his life again.  Not now that he has so much held over her head, and while she’s carrying a child.”

Sherlock began to walk again, pulling his sleeve from Molly’s grasp.  She caught up with him, winding her scarf around her neck to hide her worried expression. 

“Rest assured, I have a plan.”  His tone was much lighter now, and she could tell he was trying to lighten the mood.  “Or at least, I’m forming one.”  He grinned at her and knocked his shoulder against hers.  “Don’t worry, Molly; I’m not planning to die this time.”

Molly only pursed her lips.  His assurances did nothing to dispel her worry.

---

As the weeks wore on, Molly could feel Sherlock growing more distant despite his assurances.  His plan-forming seemed to involve retreating into his mind palace for extended periods of time.

With only one case on his plate, he spent a lot of time at the morgue, if only to sit on a stool beside Molly with his fingers steepled under his chin.  They would sit for hours without speaking, and Sherlock would occasionally stand up and leave without any warning or explanation.

Molly found it oddly comforting that he would seek her out, even if they mostly sat in silence.  They would often meet for lunch, and then again after her shift at the morgue.  She learned not to ask about the Magnussen case—he stuck to his guns regarding his decision, and remained tight-lipped—but she found that he would easily confide in her where John was concerned (he was still worried that John would never forgive Mary).  He was also willing to talk to her about her advancements at work, and seemed surprised still at her easy friendship with Sally Donovan (“We’ve been acquaintances for years, Sherlock, is it really that surprising?”). 

Sometimes they would even meet with Mary for lunch, although it almost felt like they were hiding their meetings from John, whom they rarely invited.  Were it not such a dire and depressing situation, Molly would almost find it funny—as if being friends with one meant they had to hide their friendship with the other.  It was almost juvenile.

But Molly had to admit—selfishly, she chided herself—that she preferred the days when she and Sherlock were alone.  With whatever plan he was forming looming over her head (the thought brought a sense of dread, which she tried very hard to quell) she felt like their days alone were somehow numbered.

Molly gave a weary sigh and wiped her hand down her face.  She pulled her gloves off with a snap, deciding that she was finished with her work for the night.  She looked over at Sherlock, who was looking through the microscope to her left.  He’d been helping her examine some blood samples, finally taking a break from his mind palace.

“Sherlock, would you like to go out for drinks?”

Her voice sounded tired, but she didn’t feel tired.  She felt like drinking.  She hadn’t really had a good night out since—well, since Tom, really. 

Sherlock pulled himself away from the microscope.  He looked almost confused.

“Drinks?”

“Alcohol.  At a pub.  Or wherever, really.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”  There was a ghost of a grin on his lips.  “The last time I went out for drinks was John’s stag night, and I ended up spending the night in a jail cell.”

Molly shook her head and slipped off her stool.  She grabbed his arm and pulled him along behind her toward the door.

“Everything in moderation, Mr. Holmes.  Moderation is key.”

---

Molly took him to her favorite pub, which was risky—but she decided she couldn’t hide from Tom forever.  Still, she felt some relief when she realized he wasn’t there.  What a nightmare that could have been.

They were both several beers into their evening when Sherlock recounted the night of John’s stag party. It was a story Molly wasn’t familiar with—though she did remember from Sherlock’s speech at the wedding reception that he and John had gotten themselves arrested—and she imagined that had he not downed four beers, Sherlock wouldn’t be retelling it now.  He didn’t like to tell stories that put him in a bad light, and this one was embarrassing to say the least.

Molly wiped tears from her warm red cheeks as he retold the bit about examining the dead man’s apartment while down on all fours, and decided she couldn’t blame him for skipping this part during his wedding speech.

“Molly?” came a voice over her shoulder.  Her laughter died out as she recognized the voice—one of Tom’s friends.  He used to be her friend, too, but she’d lost him in the divorce.

“Oh—Hi, David.”  She glanced toward Sherlock, who was squinting up at the man with his usual deductive glare.  “David, this is Sherlock.  Sherlock, David.”

“I can’t believe you’d bring another bloke into this pub,” he said incredulously, ignoring Molly’s introductions.  “You know this is Tom’s favorite pub.  You know we come here all the time—“

“Sherlock is my friend, not ‘another bloke’—“

“Yeah, I know who he is.”  He sneered at Sherlock, who remained silent but looked David up and down with no small amount of disdain.  “Tom told me all about him.  How could you use Tom like that, Molls?  He thought the world of you.  Was he just some replacement ’til this bloke came back for you?”

“Sherlock, let’s go,” Molly said by way of reply, ignoring David’s accusation. 

“Don’t ignore me—“

“It’s none of your business,” Molly shot back.  She was beyond mortified, having an argument like this in public.  How juvenile, she thought.  “Tom and I have been over for months, David.  Our breakup was between him and me, and it needs to stay that way.”

David’s hand whipped out and gripped her wrist as she turned to walk away.  “I was the one who had to pick up the pieces!” he snarled. 

Sherlock’s fist came straight past her ear and collided with David’s face.  Molly tripped backwards as she wrenched her wrist out of David’s grasp to keep from falling over with him and stared incredulously at Sherlock, who was shaking out his hand with a satisfied smirk on his face.

Within minutes they’d paid their tab and were standing outside on the curb.  Inside, David was glaring at them through the window, a bloody rag held to his nose.

“I wish I could say that’s the first time I’ve been kicked out of an establishment for being involved in a physical altercation, but I’d be lying if I did.”

It was impossible to miss the smug satisfaction in his voice.  Molly only shook her head and hailed for a taxi.

“It’s not far to your flat; let me walk you back,” Sherlock insisted.  Molly relented, and they set off together down the street.  They’d walked for several blocks before either of them spoke.

“I can’t believe you punched him like that,” she told him, buttoning her coat up and wrapping her scarf snugly around her neck.  It was early December, and the winter weather had set in with a vengeance. 

“He had it coming.  You were right.  It’s been months since you left Tom.  That man sounded like he was the jilted lover.”

“Tom was not jilted!”  Molly exclaimed indignantly.  “I broke things off with Tom cleanly.  It’s not like I was—unfaithful.”  She had to bite her lip at that.  She didn’t consider that to be completely true.  She’d never cheated on Tom, but the last few weeks of their relationship, she hadn’t been entirely faithful to him emotionally.

“Are you sure about that?” Sherlock said softly.  “There wasn’t any grain of truth to what that imbecile was spouting?”

They’d already made it back to Molly’s apartment building and were standing just outside the glow of her streetlight. 

“What do you mean?” she asked unsurely.  She wasn’t certain she liked where this was going.  She didn’t want him to ask the questions that she knew were coming.  She didn’t want to answer them.  She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to tell him the truth either. 

“Was Tom a replacement for me?”

So blunt.  Molly pursed her lips.  She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to tell the truth.  And honestly, she didn’t know which answer would be the lie and which the truth.  Was Tom a replacement for Sherlock?  No.  Of course not.  When she met Tom, it was months since Sherlock had left—and she thought she would never see him again.  She supposed Tom’s physical similarities to Sherlock had been subconscious.  Clearly there were preferences she looked for in a man.  That was okay, right?  But the last few weeks of her relationship with Tom, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t wish he were Sherlock.  That when they were together, she could almost pretend she were sitting with Sherlock rather than Tom.  The realization made her feel ashamed.

So she kept her mouth shut and didn’t answer.

Sherlock looked away from her, down at their shoes.  Their toes were nearly touching.

“Well,” he began lightly, “I can’t pretend that the events at that pub weren’t sobering, but I do still feel my buzz.  So I’m going to use that as an excuse.”

“Excuse for what?”  Molly whispered.  Her heart was lodged somewhere in her throat and she found it almost hard to breathe.  Her cheeks were warm with shame and embarrassment and alcohol, and she found it difficult to look him in the eye.

Without answering her, he slipped his hand from his coat pocket and placed it tentatively on her waist.  He pulled her forward just slightly and bent his head toward her, pressing his lips against hers.  Molly’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but she responded in kind.  The kiss was deliciously slow, and she savored every confusing second of it.

Sherlock broke the kiss and hailed a cab.  Molly beat back a smile as Sherlock bid her goodnight and left.  She remained on the sidewalk for several long moments, fumbling around in her bag for her keys with numb fingers.

“Buzzed,” she chuckled to herself.  “Right.”

Chapter Text

Part IV: Falling

Chapter 15: The Calm Before the Storm (Part Two)

Two weeks lapsed after their kiss on the corner before Molly saw Sherlock again.  Aside from texts asking if the lab was open a couple nights that week, she didn’t hear from him at all.  She supposed he was busy.  Or hiding.  But she preferred to think he was just preoccupied with his insane Magnussen case.

So she was somewhat surprised when he swept into the lab a few days before Christmas with Bill Wiggins on his heels.  Sherlock was carrying two cups of coffee, one of which he presented to her.  She took it and pushed her lab goggles up into her hair.

“What’s this?” she queried, eyeing Billy warily.

“Billy and I need to use the lab.  My kitchen was otherwise preoccupied with other experiments, we didn’t want to cross-contaminate.”

“Is he—“

“Qualified?  Yes.”  Sherlock nodded to Billy, who set about gathering beakers before examining the chemical cupboard.  Sherlock sipped his coffee.  “Take a walk with me.  Billy, I’ll be back shortly.  I’ll leave the concoction in your capable hands.”

Without waiting to see if Molly was following, he strode purposely from the lab.  Molly looked unsurely over her shoulder at Billy.

“Go on, then,” Billy said.  “I’ve got this covered.”  Molly removed her goggles and left them on the lab table.

“Try not to blow up my lab,” she said tiredly, following Sherlock’s path into the hallway.  He was waiting for her at the end of the hall by the stairwell.  The exit door was propped open, and he was smoking a cigarette.  She gave him her best disapproving look, but she couldn’t blame him—it was frigid outside and had begun to snow.  She shivered in the chill from the open door, and Sherlock immediately began removing his Belstaff coat.  Molly’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, but she accepted his coat graciously and pulled it on over her lab coat.  It hung down to her ankles, and the sleeves swallowed her hands whole.  She pulled it tighter around her front, the collar framing her ears.  It was slightly damp from the snow.

Sherlock exhaled a long stream of smoke and flicked the ashes of his cigarette into his near-empty coffee cup. 

“I’m taking Mary and John to my parents’ house for Christmas,” he told her.

“That’s a good plan.  Your parents are lovely.  Maybe they’ll put Mary and John off fighting for a while.”

“I’m hoping seeing what a happy marriage looks like will spur them on.  I don’t want to go headlong into this case with John without him first reconciling his differences with Mary.”

Molly looked up at him in alarm.

“That sounds so cryptic.  Sherlock, what are you planning?”

Sherlock only shook his head at her, taking another drag on his cigarette.  “Nothing extravagant.”

“I don’t believe you.  It sounds like you expect someone to get hurt.”

“That’s always a possibility.”

Molly pursed her lips in frustration.  She knew that nothing she said would put Sherlock off his path, but by God was the man infuriatingly stubborn. 

“I would ask you to come,” he continued, “but I don’t want to arouse suspicion.  And I don’t want you to get involved.”

“Involved?”  Sherlock was making her more worried by the second.

“Yes.  As I said before, the less you know the better.  I’m only telling you this now because I feel like I owe you some sort of explanation, if I cannot offer the entire truth.”  He finished his cigarette and dropped it into his coffee cup.

Molly felt like her heart was in a vice.  The feeling of dread she’d felt since he got shot had only gotten stronger the past few weeks, knowing he still planned to finish out this Magnussen case.  She had long since felt like their days together were numbered, and now she was almost certain of it.

“Come to my flat for dinner tonight.”  The words were out of her mouth before she realized exactly what she was saying.  “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  If you’re going to your parents’ for the holiday, then come have dinner with me tonight.”  I’m worried I’ll never see you again, is what she wanted to say.  She kept the words locked behind her teeth.

—

Molly was in a panic when she got home from work.  Sherlock would be coming in the next couple hours for a dinner that she’d never planned.  Her diet lately had consisted of microwave meals, and she had nothing suitable in the flat for a dinner.  There was no time to go to market and no time to cook whatever she bought if she did.  So when Sherlock knocked on her door at seven that evening, Molly answered him with a takeout menu in her hand.

They ate their Chinese takeout and studiously avoided serious topics like Magnussen and lawbreaking and potential death.  These topics weren’t far from Molly’s mind, but she thought she did a bang up job of keeping them from slipping into conversation, as much as she wanted to grill him about his Christmas plans.  When Sherlock put down his chopsticks and wiped his napkin cross his mouth, Molly sat up straighter, hoping he would finally come clean.

“I’m actually glad you invited me here.  There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”  Her face must have betrayed her anticipation, because he held up a hand and shook his head.  “It’s not the case, Molly.  I’ve told you—I can’t tell you anymore about it.  You’ll just have to trust me.  No, this is something I haven’t told anyone.  Not even John.”

Again with the worry.  Molly set her chopsticks down as well, giving him her apprehensive attention.

“When Mary shot me in Magnussen’s office,” he began, “something happened … inside me.  As ridiculous as that sounds.  I retreated immediately into my mind palace.  I think it’s the only thing that saved me.  Mary may have had precise shooting, but that didn’t keep my heart from stopping on the operating table.  I could have died, despite her expert aim.”  He shook his head and sighed.  “I don’t know that I can explain this quite right.  But when I retreated into my mind palace, you were there.  You walked me through the trauma.  In my head.  You kept me logical.  You saved my life.”

Molly listened as Sherlock explained exactly what had gone through his mind in the moments after he’d been shot.  He explained how she, along with Anderson and Mycroft, had kept him from bleeding out.  How she’d walked him through the shock and helped him manage the pain. 

As he recounted his experience with James Moriarty, he began to pace.  Molly made coffee while he talked.  This part was particularly difficult for him—his ordeal with Moriarty had been traumatic, and she didn’t like to dwell on the fact that he remained in Sherlock’s mind palace like a chained beast … Like some sort of reminder that he is what Sherlock could have become had he followed a different path, perhaps if he hadn’t taken Lestrade up on his offer to solve crimes as an alternative to getting high.  She poured their coffee with shaking hands.

“The thought that John could be in danger from his own wife brought me back.  The fact that she was close with all of us, with Mrs. Hudson, with you … it terrified me.  It was like Moriarty all over again, when he threatened …”  Sherlock broke off with a weary sigh.  He took his coffee from Molly and sat on the couch. 

“I didn’t remember all this at first,” he continued.  “The morphine and the shock, you know.  It was much later, when I retreated into my mind palace to think, that I recalled the finer details.”

“Is that what you meant, then?”  Molly was the one pacing now, coffee in hand.  “When you said that I’d told you ‘just how bad it was right after it happened?’”  Molly remembered thinking it was odd that he’d said that to her all those months ago, but she’d chalked it up to a morphine high—he had, after all, just broken out of hospital to go on the world’s most ill-advised midnight stroll.

“Why are you telling me this now?  Why not tell Mycroft or Anderson—they were in your mind palace too.”

“They wouldn’t understand.  And … I feel like I owe you this much.  Molly, I have treated you appallingly.”  He shook his head when she opened her mouth to protest and placed his cup and saucer on the coffee table.  “From the day we met, I’ve been a right dickhead to you.  I used your affections against you, insulted you, and worse.  And still you’ve always been there for me, to help me, and I’ve always taken it for granted.  I came to you when I needed you, and you helped me without question—something I didn’t quite deserve of you.  And I knew I didn’t deserve your help, but I took it anyway.”

“You’ve thanked me for that—“

“I know I have.  But even after that, with Tom, I was an arse.  I had no right to be.  I had no right to take my jealousy out on you in any way—“

“Jealousy?”

“—and I would like to think that I’ve somewhat made up for it since then.  And I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me in the years I’ve known you.  Along with Mary and John, you are my closest friend and confidant.  Thank you for remaining with me through … everything, really.  Through my intolerable behavior.  You’ve saved my life in more ways than you know.”

“Wh … what brought this on?” was all Molly could say.  She placed her untouched coffee on the table next to his.  To say she was shocked would have been an understatement. 

Sherlock smiled sadly at her.  “It just seemed like a good time to get things off my chest.”

He stood and took his Belstaff off the coat hook, shrugging it on and flipping the collar.  He turned to look at her, that small smile still in place.  “Goodnight, Molly Hooper,” he said softly, bending to kiss her on the cheek.

Molly was having none of that.

She gripped the lapel of his coat and turned her head so that instead of his lips meeting her cheek, they crushed against her mouth.  He sighed in contented relief and murmured, “God, I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” before bringing his hands to her face and deepening their kiss.

The path to her bedroom became littered with clothes—first his coat, then his suit jacket and tie and both their shoes.  She’d always wanted to know what it would be like to peel his suit off his body, and now she’d have a first-hand account.  Her fingers were deft as they unbuttoned his deep violet shirt and then spread themselves across the muscled expanse of his chest.  He was much more muscular than he’d been when they met—whatever he’d done during the two years he was supposedly dead had definitely been kind to his physique. 

He kissed his way down her neck to her collarbone while she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and discarded it at the foot of her bed.  “My coat smelled like you after you wore it,” he said against her shoulder, his lips moving like a tantalizing whisper against her skin.  “It drove me crazy all afternoon.”

She felt like she was on fire, burning from the inside out.  Her hands were everywhere, slipping across his chest and shoulders only to slide their way up his neck and into his hair.  Then they were down at his waist, pulling his hips forward in a vain attempt to meld them with hers.  Their lips were locked in a fiery dance, hot and fast, tongues flickering against each other like flames, leaving a burning trail against her bottom lip.

His nimble fingers were in her waistband, his thumbs sweeping across the angular jut of her pelvis.  Molly broke their kiss long enough to pull her striped sweater over her head, then brought her lips crashing back down on his.  She lamented that she hadn’t worn nicer lingerie, but her disappointment was soon forgotten as Sherlock pushed down her trousers, cupped one hand under her arse, and lifted her legs around his hips.

He tipped her over the bed and wasted no time in moving his mouth down her body.  Her breath caught in her throat as he left a trail of wet kisses between her breasts while his hands conducted other sensuous ministrations between her thighs. 

“Sherlock?” she half-moaned, fingers tangled in his unruly curls.  “Not buzzed this time, are you?” she teased breathlessly.  She felt a puff of air against her breast as he chuckled.

“Not on alcohol or anything else.  Just you,” he affirmed.  Molly grinned and pulled him up to eye level once more so she could seal her lips with his.

This time there would be no excuses.

Chapter Text

Part V: Coming Full Circle

Chapter 16: Weaknesses

“I don’t understand.  What do you mean?  What’s happened—?”

Molly stood, thunderstruck, as Sherlock’s deceptively smooth voice slipped through the receiver of her mobile phone, attempting to soothe a panic that couldn’t be tamped down.

“Everyone is safe now, Molly.  That’s all you need to know.”

“How can you say that?  How can you tell me that after you’ve just said—“

“If I could have it any other way, I would.  Where I’m going—well, suffice it to say this time I won’t be coming back.”

Molly looked down at her latex-clad fingers trembling in barely suppressed anger.

“Don’t I get to see you before you go?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Sherlock sighed; it was a deep, heavy, depressed sort of sigh.  “They’ve kept me … locked up.  They wanted to keep my departure quiet.  I’ll board the plane in a few moments’ time.”

Molly was quiet for a long moment.  Silence hung between them on the line, thick and heavy and sad.  She hadn’t heard from him in several days—not since their night together on December 23rd.  She’d been waiting for his call, some news regarding the Magnussen case.  But this … she hadn’t expected this.

Sherlock Holmes, a murderer. 

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. 

“Well,” he began, displaying an air of nonchalance that Molly was sure he couldn’t truly have been feeling, “in all honesty, I did fatally shoot a man.  They’re quite kind not to lock me up permanently—“

“No,” she snapped, “It’s not fair to me.  Sherlock … how could you do this to me?”  Her voice was hoarse with the effort of keeping back angry tears, angry words; she could barely choke out the sentence.  Sherlock was quiet for a long moment.  Molly could hear voices in the background, stern voices—Mycroft, probably.

“I have to go, Molly,” he said quietly, much more subdued.  “I—I’m sorry.  Truly I am.”

Molly didn’t respond.  She could hear him breathing for a few seconds longer before the line went silent in her ear.

—

“What a prig,” John said, mouth dropped in horror.  “I mean, he saw off Mary and me—“

Molly nodded, a small little smile on her lips.  She took a sip of her fresh cup of tea—Mrs. Hudson had poured them fresh—before sitting back in Sherlock’s chair.  She found herself glancing up once again at the little framed photo of her and Sherlock on their wedding day.  It had been a small, private affair.  That had always been their way, she supposed.

“I can’t say I took it very graciously,” she admitted, her smile turning devious.  “The first time he left, I knew he’d come back.  And we weren’t so … involved then as we were at the time of Magnussen’s death.  But after everything we’d been through, everything that had changed and gotten better; after finally becoming real friends again … to tell me he’d be leaving and couldn’t come back this time, couldn’t even see me before he left … I was angry, to say the least.”

—

Molly’s mobile phone was clutched so tightly in her hand she thought she’d break it.  She couldn’t stop the hand that slammed the device on the lab table, nor could she stop the hand that swept out and cast aside the microscope and stack of unused slides.  The glass tinkled almost cheerfully as it shattered, and it only spurred her on.

There were no tears or shouts, only her loud, fast breathing and the blood rushing in her ears as her arms swept away everything on her lab table: beakers and vials, lab instruments of all kinds; file folders and loose papers and two tubes of blood samples. 

When she’d cleared off everything her arms could reach, she gripped the edge of the table as hard as she could, willing herself not to cry, not to scream, not to slam her fists down on the table in a fit of violent rage.

It didn’t work.  The cry of rage that tore through her throat surprised her.  But God was she angry!  How could he do this to her?

How could he make her love him?  How could he make her love him and leave her without any warning?

How could he love her and still do this?  How could he sacrifice everything without a second thought to what it would mean for her?

She bit off her angry wail, heart thumping furiously inside her chest, blood rushing around her head.  She didn’t know the last time she’d been so angry, so disappointed in Sherlock Holmes.  Maybe she had it wrong.  Maybe he didn’t love her—he certainly had never said as much.  Clearly she’d fooled herself into believing he felt more than he did.

“Absolute arse,” she grumbled, snapping her latex gloves off and slamming them down on the lab table.  The remaining glassware rattled on impact.

She stomped down the hall and into the staff room.  She’d spattered her lab coat with blood samples when she’d sent them crashing.  She supposed wearing potentially hazardous clothing would be against lab safety—never mind the chaos her rampaging had left behind.

As she rounded the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks, cold dread trickling its way down her neck.  An eerily familiar voice was emanating from the television, and she barely bit back her scream as James Moriarty’s face filled the screen.

“Did you miss me?  Did you miss me?   Did you miss me?”

Molly didn’t think twice before returning to the lab, trainers squeaking against the marble floors as she ran.  She shoved the lab doors open and pounced on the first pile of scattered papers and discarded equipment that she came to.  She had to find her phone, she had to call Sherlock, she had to find out what was going on, she had to—

“Makes you angry, doesn’t he?”

Molly whipped around to find a woman standing in the doorway to the lab.  She was young, Molly supposed, but wildly unkempt.  Her long sweater was dirty and patched, and her lank black hair hung around her shoulders in uneven chunky locks.  Her skirt was frayed and dirty, layered over an even dirtier pair of tights.  Her feet were clad in scuffed old oxfords.

“I heard all that crashing and screaming,” the woman continued.

“May I help you with something?” Molly offered, glancing around at the mess she’d made.  She pursed her lips.  Where the hell was her mobile phone?

“No,” the woman said cheerfully as she moved further inside the lab.  “I’ve found what I’ve been looking for, actually.”  She smiled at Molly, showing off a set of straight white teeth.  She circle the table, hands clasped behind her back; she was the picture of ease, as if she belonged in the lab.

Molly was immediately mistrustful.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Molly told her tiredly.  “The hospital is upstairs—this is the morgue.”

“I told you, I’ve found what I was looking for.” 

Now standing across the lab table from Molly, the odd woman brought her hands from behind her back and placed an object on the table between them.  Molly raised an eyebrow.

“You know what this is?” she woman queried.  Despite the dangerous situation that was developing, the woman seemed quite cool. 

“Why would you have something like that?” Molly licked her lips nervously.  “Who are you?”

“Oh, Miss Hooper, don’t be coy.  Why else would I have a taser gun?”  She fingered the weapon idly.  “Eventually I am going to have to electrocute you.  I just wanted to make sure you fully understood what that means.”  She smiled encouragingly at Molly, who was fast growing back into a panic.  This young woman’s countenance was unsettling.  Molly suddenly wished she hadn’t swept everything off the lab table in her fury—it was now woefully absent of any sort of weapon.

“And as to who I am, well … I can’t say I blame my brother for neglecting to mention me.”  She picked up the taser and began to finish her circle around the table.  Molly stepped back in an attempt to keep distance between them, but stumbled against the overturned stool and lab debris.  “I’d been in hiding, you see, when he started his game with Sherlock Holmes.”

The panic ramped up inside Molly’s heart, sending it cascading against her ribs like a wild animal aching for escape.  She was dimly aware of two large, male figures pushing silently into the room, easing the door shut behind them.

“You’re—“

“My name is Marian.  Marian Moriarty.”

Molly’s mouth dropped open in disbelief as Marian raised the taser and fired.  Molly was unconscious before she hit the floor.

—

When Molly regained consciousness, she became sharply aware of an ache at the back of her head and in her chest.  Her chest pains she supposed were from that damn taser.  As for her head, she assumed she’d fallen on broken glass. 

Her hands were bound with a length of rope, but it took her several long moments before her mind and bleary sight cleared enough for her to recognize where she was. She’d stood on this roof so often after Sherlock had faked his death, it took her only a second to realize that she was on the roof of St. Bart’s hospital.  The rope binding her wrists was threaded through the handrail of the fire escape; if she leaned far enough forward, she could see straight down to the street below.

Molly leaned forward to reach the back of her head—the rope binding her gave her very little mobility.  She tenderly prodded her scalp, and her hand came away bloody.  She’d definitely fallen on glass. 

“It’s about time you woke up,” came a cheerful voice behind her.  Molly shifted on the rough stone, turning to see Marian shutting the roof door behind her.  The roof stretched out flat and nearly empty.  The two men that Molly had seen entering the morgue were sitting at the opposite ledge of the roof sharing a cigarette.

Marian followed her gaze to the two men and smirked.  “Mickey and Wade,” she explained conversationally.  Molly marveled briefly at her ability to sound so nonchalant.  “They carried you up here.”

“You didn’t have to tase me,” Molly snapped.  Marian frowned.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come quietly.  And in any case, I’ve always wanted to use one.”  She turned from Molly and paced back and forth.  It wasn’t a nervous sort of pacing, just simply … walking.  Molly wasn’t sure if this odd woman ever did anything with any urgency.

“And why exactly did I need to come quietly?” Molly asked.  “What do you need from me?”

“Oh, I don’t need anything from you, Molly Hooper.  Except perhaps this.”

Marian pulled a mobile phone from her skirt pocket and aimed the camera at Molly.  “Say hello, Miss Hooper,” she encouraged as she took a photograph.  She took a moment to admire the photo.  “That’s a nice one.  Bit of blood on your face, all tied up; you’ve got some chafing on those wrists.  This should get him riled up nicely.”

Marian fiddled with her mobile phone for several moments before she spoke again. 

“Bit ironic, isn’t it, messaging him with his own phone?  He gave it to me.  He gives them out to a lot of his trusted informants.”

“I won’t pretend to know what you’re talking about,” Molly told her, barely above a whisper.  She was hardly able to contain the rising panic she felt.  She was in pain, and was becoming increasingly confused and afraid. 

“I’m part of Sherlock Holmes’s homeless network, Molly Hooper,” Marian said her with an exasperated sigh.  “Clearly I am in his homeless network.  I certainly wouldn’t be dressed this way under any other circumstances.”  She paced faster, eyes trained on the phone in her hand as though she were waiting for it to ring.  “I’ve been keeping up this ruse for years.  I dare say I am ready for a proper bath and a proper bed.”

“Years?” Molly paled.  “You’ve been keeping up this—this charade since—?”

“My brother’s death?  No; well before that.  I was tasked with infiltrating Sherlock Holmes’s homeless network long before James died.”  Marian threw her head back and laughed, her voice boisterous.  “It was my brother’s plan, you see; to infiltrate Sherlock’s homeless network and get closer to him, closer to those he’s closest to … But of course James died before I had been undercover long.

“Such a pity, really …” She stopped her leisurely pacing to look slyly back at Molly.  “If only he had waited, I could have told him exactly how important you were to Sherlock Holmes.”

Molly swallowed past the lump forming in her throat.  Understanding was dawning on her—an understanding she didn’t want.

“So then is this supposed to be some sort of plot for revenge?” she asked.  “Kill me to get to Sherlock?  Get revenge for Jim losing his little game?”

“Oh, heavens no!” Marian exclaimed.  “I don’t plan on killing you, Miss Hooper.  You’re just the bait.  It’s not your fault, really, that Sherlock put you in harm’s way.  I mean, you did help him escape, in the end.  James might have died regardless, but at least Sherlock wouldn’t be around to gloat.  Although I suppose I can’t blame that entirely on you—Sherlock is a genius, after all.”

Molly couldn’t quite get a bead on this woman.  She sounded supremely unaffected, though her words suggested otherwise.  Her motives suggested devotion to her brother, but her tone gave away no hint of remorse or anger.

“No, Molly Hooper, I am not going to kill you.  I am going to kill Sherlock Holmes.  I’m just going to use you to achieve those ends.”

Molly only shook her head, a sudden sense of relief filling her chest.

“Sherlock—Sherlock’s long gone,” she choked out.  “He got on a plane to God knows where—and he won’t ever be back.  You’ve missed your chance.”  She felt some smug sense of victory, and was for a moment glad that Sherlock had left.  But then—

“I don’t think so.  As soon as I found out—and believe me, there’s little his homeless network don’t know—I acted to stop that from happening.”

Molly’s relieved smile faltered as she realized what Marian was suggesting. 

“You mean—the television broadcast—Jim—“

Marian laughed again, that loud, boisterous laugh that would have been an infectious one under much more normal conditions.

“I was never the family genius, but I have to hand it to myself; that one was quite clever.  What could possibly send MI6 into such a tizzy to retrieve their most valuable agent?  What would get dear Sherlock to come running back here as fast as possible?  It was a simple plan, though quite clever.  Quite clever indeed.”

The phone in her hand began to ring, and she glanced down at the display. 

“I finally get to kill Sherlock Holmes,” she murmured as she answered the phone.  “And this time, he will stay dead.”  Grinning broadly, she lifted the phone to her ear.

Chapter Text

Part V: Coming Full Circle

Chapter 17: Stayin' Alive

Molly, Mrs. Hudson, and John all looked up in unison as the downstairs door banged closed and a set of footsteps began to ascend the stairs. Before long, Sherlock Holmes was standing in the doorway, a bouquet of daisies under one arm and a package of fish and chips in his hands. He looked around at each of his friends, chewing slowly on his food.

"If I'd known we were having a gathering, I might have brought more food," he said simply, walking through the living room to the kitchen. They could hear him banging around for several minutes before he emerged again, daisies sitting prettily in a small vase. He set the vase on the mantle next to the photo of him and Molly before plopping down on the sofa next to Mrs. Hudson.

"How did it go?" Molly asked, pulling her fond gaze away from the flowers and toward her new husband.

"Took longer than I'd hoped—sorry I'm late, by the way—but it was simple enough. Miguel's shop boy has been stealing from him. He's in police custody now, and I managed to recover almost all of the stolen money as well."

"He paid you in fish and chips, didn't he?"

"I would have accepted nothing less," Sherlock grinned, picking through his chips. "What is everyone doing at the flat?"

"Molly—your wife, I hear—was just telling us an interesting story," John answered. Sherlock looked up at him—he had that way of clenching his fists, running his thumb across his fingers, that communicated a sense of agitation. Sherlock could tell by John's tone that he was at the same time somewhat amused.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at Molly.

"I was just filling in some of the blanks while we visited and waited for Mary," Molly told him.

"And what blank were you filling in when I came home?"

"I was just telling them about what happened on the roof—with Marian." Molly gave Sherlock a knowing nod; he gave John a peculiar look before digging back into his food. "I'd just gotten to the part where she called you, actually."

Sherlock snorted. "And I call myself a sociopath," he said derisively.

"I remember when you got that text message," John said. "You weren't so cool about her then."

"Of course not. She was holding Molly hostage and demanding I come kill myself. It was quite a shock." Sherlock sounded nearly affronted, but John knew he was being cavalier about the whole thing. He remembered that moment quite clearly—Sherlock had damn near been in a raging panic.

Sherlock stared down at his mobile phone, face stony and unmoving. He'd stopped walking beside his partner, and it was a few seconds before John realized he'd lost him. He turned back toward the detective, a light rain pattering their shoulders, and called out to him.

They were meant to be convening with Mycroft and his partners about this mysterious reappearance of Jim Moriarty. After leaving the airport in a private car—John had sent Mary home once the plane landed and Sherlock explained what was happening—they'd been driven to a grand building that John could only assume housed Mycroft's offices.

They hadn't made it that far from the car when Sherlock received a message.

John could immediately tell that something was wrong.

"Sherlock? What is it? Have they found him?"

When Sherlock didn't answer, John approached slowly, hands thrust in his coat pockets, and looked down at Sherlock's screen.

Someone had sent him a photograph of Molly Hooper slumped against a low stone wall, hands bound with rope and tied to what appeared to be a rusty stair railing. She had a small laceration at her hairline, and a trickle of blood had made its way down the back of her neck. She was staring at the camera with a look of barely-concealed fear. Fierce, but afraid.

"Get back in the car," Sherlock demanded. John looked up at him as he turned, coat swirling around his legs, and marched back toward the car. His gait was stiff, shoulders tense. His voice was thrumming with a rage John had never heard before.

"But—Mycroft—Moriarty—what—?"

"That's the least of our worries, John. Get in the car."

John watched as Sherlock opened the back door and threw himself inside. John scrambled to follow, pulling the door shut behind him.

"St. Bart's hospital," Sherlock demanded of the driver.

"How do you know that's where she is?"

"I jumped off that roof, John, I think I'd recognize it." His voice was clipped and dispassionate. John was bewildered.

"We should call the police—"

But Sherlock was texting furiously, fingers flying across his screen. John couldn't make out what he was writing or who he was writing to, but it was only a moment before Sherlock was flipping the phone up to his ear, waiting. John could hear it ringing through the earpiece.

"Knock, knock!" came Mary's singsong voice from the stairs. John jumped up from his chair to assist his wife, who had a baby girl on one hip and a hefty diaper bag slung over one shoulder.

"Hello, darling girl," John said fondly, kissing his toddler on her sparsely-covered head before taking the diaper bag from Mary. Baby Charlotte had recently celebrated her first birthday, but she wasn't quite walking yet.

"I'm just going to put her down," Mary said breathlessly, shifting Charlotte to her other side where the young girl put her head sleepily on her mother's shoulder. "She's still not feeling well, and she hasn't had her nap."

Molly nodded at her friend and watched as she set off down the hallway toward the bedroom. Mary and John brought Charlotte over so often they kept some of Charlotte's favorite sleeping blankets in a drawer in the bedroom.

When Mary returned, she pulled up the client chair and sat down with a great relieved sigh. Mrs. Hudson brought her a fresh cup of tea—ever the hostess, even in a flat that wasn't hers—and Sherlock began his story again.

"Why exactly are you holding my pathologist hostage?" Sherlock demanded.

The voice that answered was not what he was expecting: vaguely familiar, young, feminine, and grossly conversational.

"To get you to come see me, silly. I knew you wouldn't take me seriously otherwise."

"And who are you exactly?"

A chiming laugh whipped through the phone, and Sherlock closed his eyes in agitation.

"I will formally introduce myself when you arrive. I believe I am correct in assuming that you already know where I am, and you are on your way here now. I also believe you have John Watson with you—when you arrive, you'll need to leave your dog chained up outside. There's not enough room at my party for more guests, I'm afraid."

"A party? You've injured my pathologist and you're calling it a party?"

"Your pathologist? Let's call a spade a spade, Mr. Holmes—we both know she's more to you than just your pathologist."

The muscle in Sherlock's jaw clenched, and he gripped his mobile phone more forcefully.

"This is starting to sound oddly familiar," he said flatly. "Luring me to the roof of a hospital where I've previously faked my death; am I wrong in assuming you mean to repeat that episode?"

"Oh, heaven's no!" the odd woman giggled. "This won't be a rerun, I assure you. No, I'm not making the same mistakes James made. I'm not giving you time to prepare a plan. I'm not giving you a chance to get out of this alive."

Sherlock could vaguely hear her speaking to someone in the background before he could hear the unmistakable click of a hammer being pulled on a firearm.

"Sherlock Holmes," the woman said slowly. "You'll come to the top of St. Bart's hospital alone, without John Watson and without a plan of escape, or I will shoot Molly Hooper in the head."

The phone went silent, but Sherlock lowered it calmly from his ear and placed it in his pocket.

"Sherlock, what the hell is going on?" John demanded impatiently. "Who's got Molly? Who was that on the phone?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Sherlock admitted, "though I have a hunch. John, when we arrive at St. Bart's, I will proceed inside alone."

"No—"

"You will go across the street to the building just adjacent to the hospital to the seventh floor—"

"You are not doing this again. I heard what you said—you are not going to die on that rooftop—"

Sherlock merely continued as though John hadn't spoken.

"There will be someone waiting there that will need your help when everything is over."

"Dammit, Sherlock!" John's voice had grown in anger, his fist banging down on the door armrest. "You're not going to do this to me again. I won't let you. You know how this turned out the last time you did this alone—"

"Right now, I don't have a choice. Just do as I say, and everything will be fine. Call Mycroft and tell him there's been a murder." John opened his mouth to protest, but Sherlock held up a hand in silence. "Tell him there's been a murder that requires his assistance. He'll know what to do when he arrives. Find the person waiting for you on the seventh floor of the building adjacent to St. Bart's and help them. You'll also know what to do when you get there."

"Sherlock, just tell me what's going on—I can help you!"

"There's no time," Sherlock responded, looking out the window instead of at his partner.

At that moment the car pulled up just outside of St. Bart's and Sherlock slipped smoothly from the car just before it came to a stop. John watched his friend jog up the stairs and into the building, Belstaf coat whipping dramatically behind him. Shaking his head in disbelief, the doctor turned his head toward the building that Sherlock had indicated and stepped out of the car.

He wasn't sure what was going on, but he would have to put his faith in his friend.

Sherlock shoved the door perhaps more forcefully than he needed to, but his anger was getting the better of him. He'd have to tone that down before he went into this little game—he couldn't afford to let his emotions destroy his life … or Molly's.

"Ah, Mr. Holmes. Dramatic as always."

The voice that greeted him was nearly childlike in its giddiness. His eyes zeroed in on Molly first—tied to the railing of the fire escape, clearly angry and afraid—before finding their kind hostess. He couldn't help the look of shock that flickered across his face.

"No—" he began.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. Oh. Yes."

Marian laughed, gun still trained on Molly. Sherlock noted the lazy way her finger danced near the trigger as she laughed, and he tensed instantly.

Then he pulled himself together and took stock of the situation.

Two rather large men were stubbing out a cigarette on the low wall where they were lounging, but they stood as Marian continued her nearly-maniacal laughter. They sauntered over to stand just behind Marian, eying Sherlock with more menace than he was sure they possessed. It would be easy to take them out, but he couldn't risk taking his focus away from Molly's captor.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, her laughter dying out, "It's just, you should have seen your face!" She let out one last bark of laughter, wiping a mirthful tear from her eye. "I'm glad you recognize me. That makes this so much sweeter."

"Sherlock," came Molly's small voice. Sherlock glanced over at her. She was staring up at Marian, whose eyes were trained on Sherlock's face. "She's—she's Jim's sister. She's Jim Moriarty's sister," she told him quietly, keeping her eyes focused on the barrel of Marian's gun.

Sherlock was silent for several long minutes, studying Marian's face. Her mouth had spread into a wide grin, now vaguely reminiscent of Jim Moriarty's lopsided smile. Same dark hair, same eyes—yet they were so different in their countenance and behavior (aside, obviously, from their opinion that Sherlock needed to die). There was no way he ever would have known the two were related.

"I do background checks on all my homeless network," he said conversationally, slipping his hands into his coat pockets. "How did you manage to slip through the cracks?"

Marian waved her hands nonchalantly; Molly's eyes followed the gun, mouth pressed into a tense, thin line.

"My brother was a genius. He invented Richard Brook, remember? He fooled an entire nation about his own identity. How hard do you imagine it was to falsify the past of a street urchin?"

"Truly very clever," Sherlock told her, voice feigning a sense of boredom that almost fooled even Molly. Marian's grin faltered.

He looked past her to her thugs waiting behind her. Taking stock once more, he imagined at least one had his own gun, but it seemed they were prepared to rely on brute strength if they needed to.

"I had to come alone, but you brought your own men. That's hardly fair."

Marian looked over her shoulder at the two men and frowned.

"I'm not an idiot, Mr. Holmes. But I did just think of a wonderful alternative for them."

Her smile had returned, nearly angelic in its perfection; straight white teeth, perfectly symmetrical lips. Even her eyes belied no sense of mischief.

"Fight them," she said simply. With her free hand on her hip and her other hand waving her gun around carelessly once more, she continued. "I've always wanted to see Sherlock Holmes fight someone. I've heard you're quite the martial arts master. Let's see how you match up against someone much larger than you. Mickey!" She looked back at one of her men and jerked her head toward Sherlock. "Fight him."

Marian watched Mickey approach Sherlock, shedding his coat and the holster that held a gun to his side. Sherlock saw the flash of a badge in his inside pocket—he'd have a talk to Lestrade about that later.

Sherlock made no move but to remove his hands from his pockets. Mickey may be a police officer and, if his estimation was correct, approximately seventy-five pounds heavier than the detective, but Sherlock was not worried. He'd fought military-trained Serbs and worse—he'd make quick work of one of London's finest.

Molly was also not worried about Sherlock. She knew she should have been—she'd also never seen him fight a man. But she trusted his calm above all else, and right now he seemed quite at ease.

Instead, she focused her attention on Marian. The young woman's back was turned to Molly, though she was still woefully mishandling her firearm. She laughed heartily as the two men began to fight—Molly refused to look, but she could hear fists making contact with bodies, and she didn't know if she could bear knowing who was being hit worse.

While Marian's attention was on the fighting, Molly took stock of her surroundings. She felt much calmer now that Sherlock was present (although their situation seemed quite dire indeed) and she felt a sense of purpose return to her mind. She was able to focus and take in everything around her rather than noticing only her own pain and the gun pointed at her head.

It was then that she spotted the sliver of a crack in the rusted stair railing to which she was bound. It wasn't much of a crack. Running her fingers over it, there was barely an edge there … but it was worth a try. Keeping her eyes trained on the back of Marian's head, Molly slowly worked her rope bonds over the broken metal. She fibers were being cut—but slowly.

Ahead of them, Sherlock was delivering a blow to Mickey's jaw that sent the larger man reeling backward, where he stumbled and fell and didn't move again. Marian sighed as though her favorite show had just gone on commercial break. She looked over at Wade, who was already removing his own coat and empty gun holster and pulling his T-shirt over his head. His arms and chest were heavily muscled. Where Mickey had had seventy-five pounds on Sherlock and was perhaps the same height, Wade was much taller—easily four inches taller—and seemed heavier and more muscled even than Mickey.

Molly stopped her ministrations to look over at Sherlock. He had acquired a bloody lip and his knuckles were raw and bleeding. He was breathing deeply through his nose as though he'd been running, and he watched Wade with something akin to dread.

This only prompted Molly to move faster. She moved her wrists up and down against the sliver of broken metal, feeling the fibers of the ropes tearing apart slowly, so slowly. She focused on doing as much damage to the ropes as possible without drawing attention from Marian, who was standing so close Molly could almost reach out and touch her with the tip of her shoe.

This fight seemed the please Marian even more than the last. She laughed as though watching a comedic sitcom, clapping her hands together (again, heedless of the deadly weapon she possessed) and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"This is wonderful!" she shouted. Molly heard a grunt that was unmistakably Sherlock's and looked up again, watching as he was sent flying backward to the ground. Wade pounced on him, meaty fists colliding mercilessly with his sides.

Molly hissed as the metal sliver sliced into her wrist, and Marian looked back over her shoulder at her. Molly froze, eyes wide, afraid she been caught attempting to escape her bonds. Marian only smiled.

"It must be so hard watching him being hurt," she cooed. "I'm quite delighted by it myself—I'd like to see him bloody before I see him kill himself."

She turned her attention back to the fighting and Molly turned her attention back to her bonds and her injured wrist. Her wrist was bleeding freely, the gash deep, but that was the least of her worries—she was free. The ropes had been severed completely.

"No!" Marian shouted, making Molly jump in fright. "Dammit, Wade, dammit!"

It was then that Molly realized Sherlock had managed to pounce on the much larger man's back and had him in a chokehold. Wade's face was turning red, his arms reaching back to punch any part of Sherlock that he could reach.

Molly had finally found her opportunity—Marian was properly distracted. She stood slowly, letting the bloody, mangled ropes fall away from her hands. She took the smallest of steps back to get what running start she could, and launched herself at Marian Moriarty.

Molly had to admit that she expected the girl to completely drop the gun, as carelessly as she'd been wielding it since she'd pulled it from Wade's holster. As the two of them went down together, Molly's arms wrapped tightly around the girl's waist, Marian held fast to the gun. She twisted her torso around to face Molly, an ugly look of rage finally marring that pretty visage, and snarled.

"You little bitch," she sneered. "You will not take this from me."

The gun was in Molly's face once more, and she could see that the hammer was pulled back and Marian's finger was inching over the trigger.

Probably not really inching, Molly rationalized in her head at that moment. This is all happening much faster that I realize. Is this the shock? Is this the slow-motion part of your life right before you die? Is that really a thing? Does that really happen?

And then the gun went off.

But it wasn't Marian's gun.

Marian Moriarty's body was wrenched sideways out of Molly's grasp, a bullet wound rent through the center of her chest. The young woman looked down at herself, mouthing wordlessly as blood bubbled up over her lips.

Her eyes closed slowly, her head fell back against the stone floor of the roof, and she lay still.

Dead.

Molly pulled herself off Marian and looked across the street, eyes scanning the windows of each building, but there was no way for her to know where that shot came from. She then turned back to face Sherlock, who was pulling himself away from the unconscious form of Wade and looking at her incredulously.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he said angrily. He couldn't hide the faint trace of wonderment in his tone.

"I was thinking one or both of us was going to die," Molly said flatly, looking down at the deep gash in her wrist.

"You damn well almost did!" He took her wrist wordlessly and examined it. "You'll need stitches."

"Yes."

They were silent for a moment. Molly was staring down at Marian Moriarty.

"She was crazy," she murmured. Sherlock nodded. "She wanted to avenge her brother. Or she said she did. But it didn't really seem that way."

"No, it most certainly didn't."

Molly glanced back across the street and then returned her gaze to Sherlock.

"You planned this, didn't you? You were never going to let her force you to jump."

"Of course not. That didn't turn out so well for the Moriartys last time—what would make this time any different?"

"Well, I suppose I could have saved myself almost getting shot in the face then."

"You weren't supposed to get free," Sherlock told her, rolling his eyes. "You were supposed to stay a proper damsel in distress and let me take care of everything."

Molly eyed his blood lip and nose—probably broken—and his blackening eye. She glanced down at his bloody hands and his ripped coat and snorted.

"I'm not a bloody mind-reader. Besides," she said with a grin, taking his injured hands gingerly in her own. "I'd say you needed more help than I did."

She pushed herself up to the tips of her toes so she could brush her lips against his. He smiled against her mouth and returned her kiss—which is exactly what they were doing when the cavalry arrived moments later.

Chapter Text

Part V: Coming Full Circle

Chapter 18: Coming Full Circle

Sherlock made his way to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of champagne and four slender flutes held in one hand.

"Now that Molly is done retelling that rather unfortunate story–"

"I wouldn't call it unfortunate. At the end of it, you got Molly," Mary teased, taking one of the flutes as Sherlock passed them around.

"–we have an announcement to make," Sherlock continued. He popped the cork on the bottle of champagne and poured it first into Mrs. Hudson's glass, then John's, Mary's, and his own. "As you know now, Molly and I are married. We married a week ago, in a private ceremony."

"We wanted to invite you all, but it was very spur of the moment," Molly explained with a sly grin at her new husband.

Sherlock is waiting for her when she exits the hospital, the fresh stitches on her wrist covered with a bandage. She paused at the exit and eyed him thoughtfully before approaching. He already has a cab pulled up to the curb, and he opens the door for her.

"How's the wrist?" he asks as she draws near.

"Sore. They numbed it, so it shouldn't be too painful for a while."

"Good. That's .. that's good. Get in. I'll take you home."

All Molly wanted was to go home. She'd just endured possibly the longest day she'd ever had, and by far the most harrowing. Having a gun pointed at her for an extended period of time had exhausted her. She was very much looking forward to sleeping for the next twenty-four hours.

Molly slipped across the back seat of the car and was shortly joined by Sherlock. As the driver set off along the short path to Molly's flat, Sherlock reached across the space between them and took her bandaged hand. He frowned down at it, brow furrowed, but said nothing. They sat in a comfortable silence until the car pulled up outside Molly's apartment building, but she didn't make a move to leave.

"Would you like to come upstairs?" she asked. "I could do with a cup of tea myself." Sherlock's lips twitched up into a small amused smile.

"I would like that," he told her.

Upstairs, Molly set about making the tea. Sherlock shrugged off his coat and scarf and left them folded neatly across the arm of her couch. He let his gaze travel around the little flat, noting that it hadn't really changed much since he'd last been there. Same old rug, same old ugly afghan, same old Toby watching moodily from the top of the bookcase.

"I won't keep you," Molly said conversationally from the kitchen. "I'm sure John and Mary are worried about you."

Sherlock joined her in the kitchen and leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. "They know everything's fine. They were watching from the building across from St. Bart's. Mary saved our lives, actually." He said it so casually, it took a moment for Molly to really comprehend what he was saying.

"You mean Mary–"

"Mary is a former world-class assassin. Didn't I tell you?" He gave her a little grin. "She came out of retirement just for us." His smile faltered, and he lowered his arms. "That's actually something I wanted to talk to you about. I–I probably shouldn't be telling you any of this. It's more need-to-know than anything, and it would probably be safer for you to remain ignorant, but I feel like I owe you an explanation."

Molly turned fully toward him, brows knitted together in concern. "You're starting to scare me."

Sherlock averted his gaze, staring at the kitten pattern on her teakettle.

"You know why I was leaving. You know I killed Magnussen. But I didn't tell you why. I was protecting Mary. Mary's past had caught up to her, and eliminating Magnussen was the only way to keep it from becoming her present. It would have ruined John's life. You might have guessed my intentions, even with what little you know of Mary's past, but I want to say it out loud all the same." He took a deep breath and seemed to be weighing his words before he continued. "My only options thereafter were spending the rest of my life in a maximum security prison ... or spending the rest of my life on a mission that would surely kill me. You know which option I chose."

Molly looked up at him, eyes searching his face for some clue to his meaning.

"Why are you telling me this?" she questioned. Sherlock didn't answer. Instead, he reached for her injured hand and lifted it to his lips. He brushed a kiss to the inside of her arm, just below the bandage, before gently pulling her into his embrace and pressing his lips to hers. He trailed his lips across her cheek and to her ear, where he whispered,

"I love you."

Molly swallowed past the lump that had formed in her throat. She'd been waiting for those words for years. She never in a million years thought she'd hear him say them, but she'd waited all the same.

"You love me," she repeated, cocking her head to allow his lips to reach her neck, where they slipped down to her collarbone.

"Yes," he breathed against her skin.

"Say it again." She let her eyes fall closed as he brought his lips once more to hers and murmured against them his affirmation.

Molly woke to the street light blinking wanly outside her window. Sherlock sat on the opposite side of the bed, his back to her as he buttoned his shirt. She rolled over to face him fully, but he didn't turn around.

"I was going to let you sleep a while longer," he said softly. "I wouldn't have left without waking you."

"You didn't seem too bothered by that before," she mumbled sleepily. Sherlock turned his head slightly toward her.

"What does that mean?"

Molly frowned at his mussed curls and the strong cut of his jaw and those bright glasz eyes reflecting the light from outside. She pushed herself into a sitting position and, gathering the bed sheet around her, made her way to stand in front of Sherlock.

"You were prepared to leave without even seeing me. You barely gave me an explanation. What happened to that?" She admitted to herself that she probably sounded very bitter, especially after having made love to a man who confessed his feelings to her after many years of tentative friendship.

"Marian Moriarty happened," he told her. "And since I have to leave–again–I thought I might do things properly this time round." Sherlock placed his hands on her hips and pulled her forward into the circle of his knees. Even sitting down, they were nearly of even height. She reached out and touched his curls, smoothing her hand down his face to rest against his stubbly cheek.

"Molly, I–I might not come back."

"I know," she whispered sadly.

"But if by some chance I do, will you marry me?"

Molly's hand stilled, her lungs stopped working, and for a moment her heart dropped down to her toes before slingshotting back up into her throat. It took her several seconds to recover.

"Are you serious?" she choked out.

"Why wouldn't I be serious?" Sherlock queried. He looked confused and almost hurt. Molly took a step back, until his fingertips couldn't quite reach her.

"Years. That's how long I've loved you," she said slowly. "Pretty much since I met you," she laughed. "And then in a matter of months, you change your tune. It's a little fast, don't you think?"

She turned away from him and pulled open her drawer, looking around for something to wear. Her eyes immediately fell on that old button-down that she wore to sleep … but she grabbed an oversized sweater instead. As she pulled it over her head and retrieved a pair of underwear, Sherlock remained silent. It wasn't until she'd turned back to him that she was able to take in his amused look, bow-shaped lips lifted into a small smile.

"Who said it's only been months, Molly Hooper?" he said, lifting himself to his feet.

"Well it–it has, hasn't it?" Molly stuttered as Sherlock drew near. He pulled her close, large hands resting at the small of her back, and leaned in for a near-kiss.

"No," he said against her lips. "Years, Miss Hooper. Years."

 When Sherlock left, Molly was finally able to truly feel the weight of what was happening. She sat in her flat in silence and tried to remember the way his supple lips melded with hers. The memory had already begun to fade.

She fully understood the implications of this mission he'd been sent on. He explained to her before he left the government's reasoning for sending him on his way, and made no efforts so sugar-coat the probability that he wouldn't make it through alive. Their somber parting was brief, as neither of them could bare to linger. Sherlock thought he may end up stealing away forever–Molly would have abided him.

He did, however, make sure she understood that despite his impending demise–a situation he endeavored to make light of, though Molly couldn't hold back her tears–his proposal still stood, and should he manage to return, he would promptly make good on his promise.

It was some small consolation. Molly would wait forever for Sherlock if she had to. If her engagement to Tom had taught her anything, it was that no man would ever mean more to her than Sherlock Holmes.

She told no one of her engagement to Sherlock. Though he had proposed, she hadn't answered him, and it felt foolish to announce her engagement to a man she would never see again. Instead, she kept the memory to herself.

6 Months Later

Molly startled awake by a set of cold fingers slipping along her lower abdomen. A pair of lips were smiling against the shell of her ear, breath tickling her cheek. Molly turned, eyes wide, only to come face to face with Sherlock Holmes. Even in the dark with only the streetlight slipping through the slats on her window, there was no mistaking the sharp jut of cheekbones and jawline.

She reached back and turned on the lamp, nearly knocking it clear of the bedside table in her haste. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out–there were no words to define her feelings in that moment.

Sherlock spoke instead.

"I'm only here for a night. I outstripped my trackers, but it won't be long before they find me–"

Molly couldn't even let him finish. She'd been dreaming of his voice for months, wishing she could hear his smile, his anger, his amusement one last time, but now that he was there in the flesh, there were things she wanted more. She wanted to remember the press of his lips on hers, the weight of his slender hands on her hips, the pull of his fingers through her hair. She wanted his mouth on hers, and on her breasts, and between her legs. She wanted to feel his kisses and his touch everywhere at once. She wanted him fast inside her, and slow, and everything in between. The past six months were a blur of agony, worse even than his two-year disappearance. She'd had him once, had everything she wanted and more, and it had been taken away. She could almost begin to empathize with his drug addiction.

Their clothing disappeared slowly, agonizingly slowly, but the feel of his skin pressed against hers was well worth the wait. His fingers were dexterous, and they danced expertly across her body in tantalizing ways, playing her like a piano, eliciting cries and sighs and moans that only spurred him on. She had missed his touch, but it seemed his touch had missed her as well.

He took his time, employing long, slow kisses and feeling her with long, slow strokes of his fingers. He wanted to commit her to his memory. When he left in the morning, he wanted to remember the feel of her skin against his, the smell of her hair, her hoarse cries from too much stimulation. He wanted to remember the curve of her calf against his hip, the sharp and pleasurable pain of her fingers tugging his curls, the way they fit together as she straddled him. He wanted to remember the weight of her breasts in his hands, the erotic curve of her neck as she threw her head back in a silent gasp, and the way she clenched around him in the final throes of her shuddering, furious orgasm.

When Molly woke in the morning, Sherlock was gone. The sheets were cold, and the flat was silent. This time, there would be no forgetting what his kisses felt like.

5 Months Later/8 Days Ago

Molly smoothed her sweater idly across her gently swelling belly as she flipped through the channels on the telly. Her first day off from Bart's in nearly three weeks, and she had spent the entirety of it on the couch. She was surrounded by an assortment of bottled drinks and bags of crisps and popcorn, and had her afghan wrapped around her lap. When a knock sounded at her door, she was woefully unprepared to answer it.

"Coming!" she shouted over a mouthful of popcorn, carefully moving everything out of her immediate vicinity. These days, she needed a little extra room to get around–standing was fast becoming something of a chore. She braced her hand against the back of her couch and pushed herself up belly first. She lamented the fact that she didn't have time to go pee before answering her door.

"Sorry, sorry," she murmured as she pulled back the chain and deadbolt on her door.

Sherlock stood on the other side, familiar smirk in place. His grin slipped as he took in the state of her apartment, her fuzzy socks, pale legs disappearing beneath an oversized sweater–

He reached out and took her hand, placing a kiss over the scar on her wrist, and said, "Get dressed. I have a promise to keep."

Present Day

Sherlock placed the bottle of champagne on the little side table and raised his flute. "I would like to propose a toast to my darling wife," he announced, "who–you may have noticed, if any of you have any deductive sensibilities–is carrying my child."

There was a shocked silence for several long seconds before the three guests burst into congratulations. Mary and Mrs. Hudson each hugged Molly while John gave Sherlock a swift hug and pat on the back.

"Having a panic yet?" John joked. "Thinking about running off?"

"Of course not," Sherlock responded, avoiding his friend's eyes and sipping at his champagne. Over his glass he spotted Molly, who was smiling contentedly at him over Mary's shoulder. "Why would I run away from this? I have everything I want right here."

Chapter Text

Epilogue

4 Years Later: Christmas

Molly stood beside her mother-in-law and watched her curly-haired son run across the small yard. Her little family spent many holidays at the Holmes estate, but Christmas was probably her favorite. The winter was mild so far, a bite to the air but nothing unbearable.

"Put on your coat!" Mary's voice floated out of the kitchen just as a blonde head rushed past Molly's knees. Charlotte ignored her mother in favor of running through a freshly raked pile of leaves. Beside Molly, Mary huffed. "How on earth do you get Will to listen to you? If I didn't know better, I'd swear Charlotte was deaf."

Molly smiled as Charlotte bounded out of the leaves and tackled Will to the ground. His chocolate curls, so similar to his father's, were aflame with bright red and brown leaves.

"He looks just like his father at that age," Sherlock's mother piped up. "And Charlotte is the spitting image of you!" She patted Mary on the cheek. "I'm going to put the tea on." She left the two younger women standing on the stoop, bundled up in shawls against the breeze. Mary and Molly had become closer in the past several years, which wasn't altogether surprising considering how often their husbands were together. Even their children had become the best of friends.

"I heard a rumor," Molly teased, bumping shoulders with Mary. "This rumor has two legs, two eyes, ten fingers and toes, and a pair of fat cheeks. And the rumor came from my husband, so don't try to deny it."

Mary rolled her eyes and laughed. "Of course Sherlock would guess. There's no hiding it, I suppose. John and I are adopting an old fat man this Christmas." Molly snorted into her shawl. "In all seriousness, it's still very early. But Sherlock is right. John and I are expecting again. I haven't told Charlotte. She's been an only child for five years, I fear she won't take the news well."

"She'll be fine. Kids are resilient."

"Have you and Sherlock thought about having another?" Mary asked conversationally. Molly shrugged.

"I'd never really thought about having one child, let alone two. Will's made me the happiest I've ever been, though. I wouldn't mind several more." She smiled slyly up at Mary, who only laughed.

"I may have to limit myself to two. Charlotte's a handful enough already."

Mary joined Mrs. Holmes in the house for tea, and shortly after, Sherlock took her place. He put one arm around his wife's shoulders and began to nibble at the muffin he'd brought with him. Nothing had really changed in the nearly four years since Will had been born. Sherlock still took on cases as a consulting detective for New Scotland Yard, and although John remained a general physician at his small practice, he still joined in occasionally. Sherlock took fewer cases than before so that Molly could still work at St. Bart's, and she had to admit she enjoyed it. She'd thought her marriage to Sherlock would be anything but typical, but they managed to find the time to vacation together and balance their work with their home lives so that Will was never neglected his parents' attention.

Just then they heard a shriek from the yard and Charlotte came barreling toward them.

"Will has a frog!" she shouted in horror, pushing past them and into the house. Will followed shortly after, tiny hands gripping a small green frog. His blue eyes were bright with excitement, cheeks red from the cold. His hair was mussed and little leaf twigs adorned his bottle green sweater. Sherlock looked down at his son and didn't say anything as Will lifted the frog so they could see.

"Can we dissect it?" His voice was small, but thrummed with a restless excitement. Molly couldn't help but laugh. Will may have looked exactly like his father, but he was more like his mother than anything.

"After dinner," she promised. Sherlock kneeled down in front of his son and smiled.

"Chase Charlotte around with it first," he suggested. Will broke into a toothy grin and ran inside. Molly swatted at her husband's shoulder, but made no attempt to stop her son. Instead, she pulled him back into a standing position and wrapped her arms around his slim waist.

"Sherlock. Dear. How do you feel about having more children?"

THE END

A/N :: YAY.

IT'S OVER.

This is somewhat surreal, I think. I've been working on this fic for almost two years now. I knew I wanted to finish it before the next series, and I am so glad that I was finally able to do that. I know it's been a while since I last updated, but I hope finishing it out all at once makes up for that.

This series, and you guys, saw me through two of the weirdest and toughest years of my life. Even since I last updated in August, I quit my job, moved back across the country to my home state, got another job, and moved once again ... so needless to say, the last two years of my life have been hectic. Thank you so much for sticking with me until the end. Your reviews, faves, and follows mean the world to me, and really motivated me to get these chapters written.

I implore you to review, tell me what you think. Ask questions. Keep this story in your fic rec lists. Keep in touch. And thanks, once again, for everything.

Merry Christmas, y'all.