Chapter Text
Molly felt her father’s eyes on her and she gave him a smile over her shoulder.
“Hey, Da,” she said, continuing to unpack her suitcase. It was really good to be able to be back in her old room again: there was a comfort to it, to feel like there was solid ground beneath her feet, to feel a place with unquestioned love.
“Happy to be home, Molls?” her father asked, coming to stand beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“So happy,” she replied honestly, tossing a notebook on her bed and smiling at him.
“Need a hand, then?” he asked, coming around and refolding her hastily folded pile of jumpers. “Is it that cold in Oxford that you’ve come home with more jumpers?”
“They’re comfortable!” Molly argued, laughing along with her father as he held one of the articles in question up to himself.
“And see, you like them.”
“Aye, that I do,” he agreed, setting down the folded jumper. A piece of paper fluttered to the floor as he reached for the next one and he bent down to retrieve a carefully cut out newspaper clipping. Intrigued, he unfolded it, the headline saying
“Mystery cracked!” and as his eyes skimmed the article, he knew what this was about.
“Molly…” he began.
Molly’s eyes fell onto what her father was reading. Quickly, she snatched the paper from him. “Oh, that’s just a bit of fluff to make sure nothing got wrinkled,” she fibbed, balling it up and tossing into the bin. “Nothing important.”
The look on her father’s face told her he didn’t believe it for a moment. “Molly, has that lad come around again? Is he bothering--”
“No! No,” Molly hastily interrupted. “I haven’t heard...I haven’t even seen…” She let out a long sigh. “It’s been over a year, and I don’t know anything about him. Don’t fret, Da.” She squeezed his hand and he returned it, giving her a small nod in understanding. The worry didn’t leave his eyes.
“My new friend Meena should be arriving any moment,” Molly said brightly, changing to a less dangerous subject and smiling at her father, closing her suitcase with a thump. “Maybe we should go make the tea?”
She tried to ignore the sad indulgent smile that her father gave her. “Sounds like a great idea, Molls.”
She waits until he’s out of the room before hesitating over the wastebasket for a moment and reaching in and to pull out the balled up paper. Smoothing it out, her fingers touch the words...touch the memories. Agonizing as they may be, they’re as much a part of her as her own skin. Sucking in a breath, she quickly places the paper under her pillow and walks out, nearly slamming the door behind her.
“Stop fidgeting, everyone is staring,” she hissed at him, placing her hand over his to get him to stop the drumming of his fingers on the white tablecloth.
“Everyone is either looking at their food still or making conversation with each other, no one is staring,” he retorted, but his words were tempered by his sliding his fingers between hers, lifting them to place a kiss on her third knuckle, just above her rings.
“Picture, please?” The photographer popped up out of nowhere and both Sherlock and Molly paused to allow their photo to be captured, one of them more willingly than the other.
Molly lifted her eyebrows at him as if to say ‘you see?’ and Sherlock rolled his eyes. Being the center of attention was surprisingly not one of Sherlock’s fortes, especially once the audience was bigger than about half a dozen. But there was nothing for it: they were at the head table and attention was going to naturally gravitate there.
Molly’s eye caught the light that reflected off her engagement ring. She remembered the day that she and Sherlock had returned from Cambridge and Sherlock presenting it to her on bent knee. She hadn’t been able to see through the tears as he’d explained that the ring had been intended for her from the beginning, and he apologized that it had taken him eight years to finally complete his errand to obtain it for her.
They’d spent many days in the process of re-opening their hearts to one another, to finding the way to address what had happened and what had kept them apart all those years.
Sherlock had stayed true to his word: he hadn’t left her side until they were married.
“At what point can we sneak out of here, Missus Holmes?” Sherlock leaned over to whisper into his wife’s ear, his voice dropping to be heavily suggestive.
Molly felt her cheeks warm up. “Not now,” she whispered back, despite her instinctive desire to be alone with him and show him exactly how she felt about seeing him in his morning suit. “It would be entirely scandalous, Mister Holmes!”
This made Sherlock grin all the more. “How scandalous?” Somehow, his hand had managed to find her knee beneath her long dress under the table.
A throat cleared just to their left and Molly jumped as if she’d been caught doing something far worse. The wedding director gave her pointed look and Molly knew it was time. Swatting away Sherlock’s hand, she tidied her hair and sat up a little straighter.
A glass was tinkled and there was a call of “pray silence for the matron of honor!” All eyes swung over to her.
Sherlock gave her fingers as quick squeeze as Molly stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from her dress and holding a set of cards. She smiled nervously.
“Hello, everyone! I’m Molly Holmes, the matron of honor. It’s just really lovely to be here this evening as we all come together for Tom and Meena’s wedding. I’m so glad that I could support them on this very special day. I feel like I’ve known them both a lifetime, and I can’t think of two people who are more deserving of a happy life together.”
She glanced down at her cards nervously before meeting the eyes of the bride and groom. They gave her warm smiles and she felt herself relaxing as she returned them. “It’s hard to believe today, but there was a time when both of them worried that perhaps they weren’t meant to be and that the timing would never be right and life would just keep getting in the way. Obviously, they were very wrong! I’m not surprised. I have to say that I never really gave up hope that they’d find their way back to each other and it would all work out in the end. And I think that sometimes, even when there’s some heartache along the way, that can be ok. In hindsight, sometimes we can see that things happened at just the right time and just the right place. And besides, how much more grateful are we when we finally get what we want after hoping for so very long? The realization of that hope can be just...priceless.” Molly glanced down to meet the eyes of her husband, feeling her smile grow as she looked back to her good friends. “And certainly worth keeping forever. I wish for you both to always remember that. So...please be upstanding and raise your glasses to the dear bride and groom! And let’s all enjoy celebrating with them!”
Glasses were raised and clinked, and applause flooded the room as Meena and Tom kissed.
Molly sat back down, lacing her fingers through Sherlock’s again as she let go a sigh of relief. She would convince Sherlock to stay until at least they’d managed to dance a bit, knowing full well that he would be more than pleased to do so, before taking off to a long-delayed honeymoon of their own courtesy of her brother-in-law.
She hadn’t met Mycroft Holmes until after she and Sherlock were married, and in the few months since then, she had managed to understand him much better. There is a naturalness of sentiment and attachment that grows from genuine love, and Molly saw that Mycroft had been less gifted in this part of understanding than his younger brother. But Molly could also see that he was a very good man, and if his second objective was to be sensible and well judging, his first was for the happiness of his brother, who Molly now better understood to have had his fair share of sufferings from a very early age. Mycroft really did love Sherlock more than he loved his own abilities, and so when the awkwardness of the first few meetings passed, he readily and easily became fond of Molly and was quickly making his way into becoming very much like her own brother, making sure that he could secure her happiness and safety by any means necessary.
Molly’s sister-in-law was still a mystery. The circumstances of her existence being what they were, Molly understood that it would likely be a long time before they met in person, but through Sherlock she was learning about her and hoped to be able to understand her better. For better or worse, Eurus Holmes was now a part of Molly’s family, and they would continue to make the most of what they had.
Yes, their lives had finally come to the crossroads, where dreams intersect with with the path they’d been so long accustomed to: they could now build on all the hopes of years ago and reach a destination of near perfect contentment. The threat of danger was the only thing that could dim her sunshine, but she gloried in being the wife of the world’s only consulting detective, much in the way that she observed that Sherlock boasted about her profession as often as was tolerable (and even when it wasn’t). There was much more to come, roads to travel, adventures to have, and now they would be able to do so in the completeness of having each other.
This was the beginning of a life well lived.
THE END