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“You don’t have to stay.” She was on the verge of sleep, not quite teetering, but almost there. Sherlock had come looking to use her home as a bolthole for the evening and found her sniffing into tissues, eating a pint of ice cream and watching Titanic and even his oblivious self knew something was wrong. He had gone into her kitchen, gotten a spoon of his own, sat next to her on the sofa and watched the film without complaint. It had been nice to lean against him while they were watching the film but now? Well, now she was going to sleep against him if he wasn’t careful.
“No place else I need to be,” he said quietly, moving away just slightly to take the empty pints and set them on the table in front of them and then pull her close. “What happened?”
“Child post mortem,” she said softly. “Not even a year old. And then...then I asked Tom to come over and just...and he said no, he was busy.” She did a half sniff, half yawn and then burrowed into him more. “He’s not right for me, is he?”
“You have a hard job,” Sherlock said. “I tend to make it harder, I know, but there are things we all have no control over that makes it even harder for you. If he doesn’t understand there are times you will need to just sit and watch a sad film and cry against his shoulder...no, then I do not think he’s right for you.”
“But you are,” she said, and then hated herself for saying it when he stiffened. But after a moment he relaxed and then pressed a kiss in her hair. Soft, like the one on her cheek after the day of solving crimes, and she knew he was saying “Perhaps, but now is not the time to dwell on that.” But the sleepiness that had let the words slip out soon pulled her under and she was asleep against him as quickly as that.
She woke up and found she was in bed now, tucked in but wearing the same clothes she’d worn to her post that day. She felt oddly amused that he hadn’t changed her into pyjamas. But as she started to sit up and stretch, she noticed a note next to her bed on her nightstand. She picked it up and saw Sherlock’s precise handwriting covering the small piece of paper.
Molly,
I do not regret what I said last night about Tom. You deserve someone who will comfort you when you need comforting and not simply blow you off. And I would love to be that man but now is not the time. It could be, perhaps, but there are things happening now that preclude it.
Until then I will gladly be a shoulder when you need it, and sit next to you during sad films and crap telly as a friend, and if there is the chance that it could develop into more, I’ll take advantage of that with both hands. But you do honestly deserve better than Tom, and whether you wait for me or move on to someone else, you deserve only the best.
But I do care, much more than I should. And I will always, always make sure that you are treated with respect and love by me because I do, I think, you deserve it. Time is against us, as are our circumstances, but know you do have my heart.
SH
She folded the letter and felt a fresh wave of tears threaten her. She knew about Janine, about what he was doing on behalf of a very powerful woman and these words meant so much to her. Right now, whether it was real or not in his case, they were both attached to others. Whether there would ever be a time their fates would align in that way in any time in the future, she didn’t know, but there was hope. And this time, she knew that, perhaps, holding onto that hope would be better than settling, and staying with Tom would only be settling.
That meant...it was over. She would not marry Tom, and she would wait for the man she truly wanted: Sherlock Holmes.