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The minute he saw Mary standing outside the restaurant where he was supposed to be having his Valentine’s Day blind date he should have known it was a set-up. His instinct was to turn right back around and head back to Baker Street. But she caught sight of him first and went over to him, hooked her arm in his and marched him lockstep into the restaurant. “Table for Hooper,” she said.
“You didn’t,” he said, giving her an incredulous look.
“You best believe I did,” she said. “You two are behaving like children, so it’s time someone told you to grow up.” The waiter moved away from his podium and Mary followed, keeping his arm in a grip like an iron vise. They were directed to a table where he saw Molly sitting there, hair pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck, in a strapless white dress with blue and purple flowers on it. He had to stop himself from telling her she looked gorgeous because as soon as Mary let go of his arm he really should probably hightail it out of there.
Molly looked up, confusion on her face for only a moment before she saw who was on her arm, and then her face got a hard set. “This isn’t amusing, Mary,” she said, her tone of voice cold.
“Look, you won’t regret it, I promise,” Mary said. “It was either finagle the two of you into a public place where you had to be civil or lock you in a broom closet. Sherlock and John both voted for the closet. I had more sense.”
Molly scoffed, looking away. “Why would Sherlock care?”
“Believe it or not, Molly, he does care. Just not the way you wanted him to. And it is wanted, right? Past tense? Because you’re so head over heels for this man,” Mary said, gesturing to McCoy, “that you let a fictional pretense become not so fictional.”
Molly remained silent but turned to look in McCoy’s general direction, the apples of her cheeks and the tips of her ears turning red. At least that was something.
And then Mary rounded on him. “And don’t think you were any better, Mr. ‘All She Wants Is A Shag And A Warm Body.’ Stop having your head so far up your arse and realize that you, Leonard, are in love with her, too. It’s so obvious even Rosie can see it.” She looked between the woman seated at the table and the man to her side and then let go of his arm. “Be bloody adults. If Sherlock can forgive me shooting him, you two can work this out to a much more satisfactory conclusion. Your meal’s been covered to £100. Enjoy.” And with that, she walked away.
McCoy watched her and then turned back to Molly. “Should I go?”
“Stay, go, I don’t care,” she said. “As my holiday is otherwise ruined, I’m going to run up that tab.”
He thought for a moment and then sat down. “How expensive is the most expensive bottle of whatever wine they have here?”
The hard set dropped off her face. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I’ll cover dinner. Get a bottle of whatever you want and I’ll have a whiskey, neat.”
“I could go over £100 just on dinner,” she said.
“I probably deserve it.”
Her eyes widened at that, and then she shook her head. “No, you don’t,” she said quietly. “I set the rules for our...fling, I suppose. I should never have gotten jealous if someone else started showing you attention.”
“Wish you had,” he said, taking the cloth napkin off the table and putting it in his lap.
“Oh?” she asked.
“She kept trying to corner me every time she showed up at Baker Street. I spent a lot of time in John’s guest bedroom.” She gave him a confused look. “Sherlock had his brother start tailing her. Any time she got within three blocks of Baker Street or the surgery, out the back door I went.”
A small smile crossed Molly’s face. “Has she given up?”
He nodded. “Sherlock found out the man she was trying to make jealous did, in fact, care for her. They’re off to sunny Jamaica on a fast-tracked destination wedding.” He looked at the menu. “I guess that tactic works sometimes.”
“And sometimes it becomes something else entirely,” she said. There was a silence between them for a few moments. Nothing harsh or awkward like before, just silence. “I’m sorry, Leonard. I never should have asked you to be my date for that function, or to try and make Sherlock jealous for me, or any of it.”
“Why? It wasn’t like I didn’t get anything out of it,” he said, looking up. She looked at him strangely, tilting her head. “Even when I got here and you thought I hated you, I didn’t. I hated you giving Sherlock those cow-eyes all the time, because he’s an idiot and you can do better. And after a while I kind of hoped it’d be with me. So I took what I could get while I could get it. My mama didn’t exactly raise an idiot, you know.”
“No, she did not,” Molly replied. “What would you have done if Sherlock had reciprocated my feelings?”
He thought for a moment. “Fought like hell for you, in any way you can think of.”
He saw her give him a warm smile, and after a moment she reached across the table for his hand and he gave it to her. It had been a while since he’d gotten to be close to her, talk to her. They’d shut each other out completely and it had been a hard thing to deal with. This gave him hope. “Thankfully, Sherlock is an idiot and I don’t have to tend to your poor, mangled body.”
“You think I’d lose?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“I think he’d cheat.”
“Oh, trust me, he wouldn’t be the only one.” After a moment he lifted their hands up and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “It’s you, it’s always been you, and I wasn’t about to let his smartass ruin that.”
Her smile grew as wide as he had seen it before, and he had the feeling that things between them were settled. He let go of her hand and went back to the menu, knowing tonight there was a very good chance his bed would not be as empty as it had been...and he was more thankful for this set-up than he had ever expected to be.