geekmama

“You’ve what?” Sherlock exclaimed, staring at the wife of his bosom as though she’d taken leave of her senses -- as indeed she had, if he had heard her correctly.

Molly stood her ground. “I’ve already made the reservation. Lunch at The Goring with your mum and mine, and Alicia Smallwood -- Mycroft has already confirmed they’ll be there -- followed by champagne and Simnel Cake here at home -- I’m going to do the cake myself, I’ve always wanted to try making that one. And I’ve invited John and Rosie, too. We’ll have a special toast to Mary.”

“We’re bringing the children to The Goring? And you can’t have champagne, in case you’ve forgotten,” he almost sneered, gesturing toward the considerable swell of her abdomen, where their second son currently resided. “You’re bloody eight months gone!”

She flushed, but replied evenly, “I can have sparkling cider with Rosie and Will. And you know how well-behaved they’ve been when we take them to restaurants. They’ll be fine!”

“At The Goring? The Queen lunches there! This is ridiculous!” But he saw that, once again, he was blundering into Not Good territory. Her confidence wavered visibly, her eyes becoming suspiciously bright, and not in a good way. Backtracking, he said firmly, but in a more moderate tone, “Molly, it’s too much. You should be recruiting your strength, not spending extra hours on your feet to make a damned cake!”

“What you mean is it’s not what you would like,” she said, a tiny quiver in her voice.

He sighed with a roll of his eyes, exasperated, yet well aware that he was losing this battle. He got in one more jab: “You knew I wouldn’t like it, else you’d’ve--” But her lip trembled, and he gave it up. “For God’s sake, don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying,” she asserted, even as she swiped at a tear that had spilled over to slip down her cheek.

Swearing under his breath, he took her by the wrist and pulled her over to the sofa.

Happily, they’d just put Will down for his nap. It took considerable time to soothe her, tenderly drying her tears and offering (mostly sincere) apologies for allowing his beastly selfishness to get the better of him. And after that, what with cuddling, tender kisses, and a fortuitous third-trimester mood swing, there ensued a really stellar interlude, one that went a long way toward reconciling him to Molly’s subterfuge, and even to the nightmarish prospect that loomed before him.

*

Sherlock had barely closed the door on the last of their guests when Molly piped up with an I told you so!

“There! I thought it went off beautifully,” she said, a lurking twinkle in her eye. “Would you like another sliver of cake?”

“Make it a big sliver,” he said, genially, but when she turned to go into the kitchen he was inspired to give her a light but nevertheless stinging smack on the arse.

She yelped in surprise and whirled to face him. “What was that for?” Her tone was resentful, but the laughter and shame in her eyes, and her flushed cheeks, told their own tale.

“You know what it was for,” he said, pulling her just a little roughly into his arms (as best he could, at least, with young Jon between them). He slid one hand down to caress her exquisite, and really only mildly abused backside (though a modicum of guilt still flayed his soul), and said, “Next time I’d like to be included in the planning of the event, if you please.”

Her cheeks grew pinker. “But you would have told me No! And I wanted this. We don’t know how much longer our mothers will be with us. Mrs. Hudson, too. I’m so glad she could join us. And Greg.”

“Mmm.” Greg’s mother had passed the previous year. And Molly was right. One never knew. So he said to her, more seriously, “I won’t say No next time. Alright?”

“You won’t?” She eyed him dubiously.

“It’ll either be Maybe or Yes.”

“It had better be Yes!” she said --

And gave his own backside a firm pinch.

“Vixen!” he growled, and kissed her. She was laughing beneath it at first, then hummed with pleasure, her hands beginning to roam provocatively. He followed suit -- there was, indeed, something to be said for trust and hard-won knowledge -- and he had just begun to ruche up the back of her skirt when a distant but familiar cry came to their ears and they froze.

Will, who’d gone down for a nap on their return from the restaurant, was apparently awake.

Sherlock sighed, “I’ll get him,” and reluctantly released his delectable armful of wife.

“I’ll cut you a slice of cake,” Molly replied -- but her fingers closed on the lapel of his coat, bringing him to a halt. She looked up at him, a half smile on her lips. “Later?”.

He bent and, in a low voice, said against her ear, “No Maybe about it.”

They hadn’t spoken a word on the drive back to London. There had been nothing left to say.

In the beige and grey of their hotel room, she’d told Tom the whole -- or most of it. The basic facts, at least. Though it had turned out that these merely confirmed suspicions he’d done his best to ignore, right up to the moment when she’d stabbed him in the hand with her fork.

“So,” he’d said, his voice as dull as the room’s appointments. “You are in love with him.”

She’d sighed, weary with emotion, champagne, and the long day, but had not voiced confirmation of the statement. After all, what was the point?

They’d packed their bags in silence, checked out of the DoubleTree with a minimum of fuss, and returned to London, arriving at her flat in the small hours of a starless night.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” she’d said, bleak and dry-eyed as she’d watched him set her suitcase on the pavement beside her.

“I’m sorry, too,” he had replied, a bitter note in his voice. A brief pause, then, “Goodbye, Molly.”

And that was that.

It was the inevitable conclusion of a process that had begun months before, on the day she’d opened the door of her locker to find Sherlock reflected in the inadequate mirror, a quizzical, almost tender smile on his lips and in his eyes. She’d whirled to face him with a small gasp, and there he was, towering over her, warm and alive. The happiness, the blessed relief…

And then she’d remembered.

“You’re back,” she’d managed to say, and then frowned. “Have you been in a fight?”

“John was less pleased at my return than you appear to be.”

“Oh.”

She hadn’t seen John for a long time. It had been too awkward, and now, she’d thought, it would be more awkward still. Mycroft Holmes had told her she’d nothing to worry about, legally speaking; he would see to that. But nothing would alter the fact that she’d deceived Sherlock’s closest friends for over two years.

So many lies.

In the end they’d understood, and forgiven, even John, knowing it had all been part of the game -- a very serious game.

But she hadn’t told Tom much of it at all, until that night at the hotel, after John and Mary’s wedding and that nerve-wracking reception. And by then it was too late.

Though maybe it always had been too late.

*

A month later, Sherlock was standing in her lab looking both dissipated and coldly indifferent as she ran the drugs panel and she could not help wondering what insanity had prompted her to throw over Tom for this. Like the Watsons, she hadn’t seen Sherlock in weeks, but the shock she’d felt when they’d first dragged him in had rapidly turned to fury as she worked, a fury that was well able to vie with John’s, and, when she had the final results, surpassed it. There was no way she could have kept from stripping off her gloves, marching over to her bloody, wasted Nemesis, and giving him just a taste of what he so richly deserved.

She felt a moment’s satisfaction at having hit hard enough to penetrate that seeming detachment, and followed up her assault with a demand that he apologize. But of course, even out of his skull on opiates, Sherlock was more than capable of a cutting riposte.

“Sorry your engagement’s over -- though I’m fairly grateful for the lack of a ring.”

After which all she had been able to come up with was, “Stop it! Just stop it!”

*

How she managed to work the rest of that day she had no idea, but she was a professional and she did it.

A couple of her co-workers had somehow heard about what happened and begged her to come out for a drink when her shift ended. There was nothing she wanted less.

She made her way home, angry at Sherlock, livid with herself. Idiot was the word of the day, and when she got home even Toby sensed that she’d snapped, retreating under the bed in the guest room after she’d slammed her front door upon the world.

No matter.

She fetched the bottle of good white wine she’d been saving for a special occasion (oh, the irony!), poured herself the first of several enormous glasses, put Toby’s dish of wet food out where he would eventually dare to find it, and flopped down on her couch to watch crap telly. God knew she needed the distraction.

*

It was several hours later when she woke to a dull sense of depression, lingering inebriation, and the sound of her mobile phone noisily vibrating and blaring its current ringtone (‘Happy’ of all things. Irony upon irony). She grabbed the phone to shut it off, but saw that it was John and accepted the call.

“Hi, John,” she said, her voice rough.

“Molly? Are you okay?”

“Yes. Of course. What is it? Sherlock again?”

“Molly… yeah, it’s Sherlock. We were on a case and… Molly, he’s been shot.”

“What?” she blurted, sitting bolt upright, her head swimming.

Bad… chest… surgery… not sure…

She could barely take it in.

But John’s last words were, “... will you come? I mean, there’s not much we can do until he’s out of surgery -- if he makes it. But I thought…”

“I’ll come. I’ll be there,” Molly said, firmly.

“Good. Yes, that’s good. See you soon.”

John ended the call.

And Molly, hopeless idiot that she was, collapsed against the sofa cushions and began to sob.

Sherlock, who’d just slammed into his newly renovated flat, whirled and gaped at Molly, who was occupying her yellow chair– and at his behest, he now recalled. The experiment requiring her input was still strewn over most of the kitchen table, exactly where it had been when he’d texted her a few hours ago, just before Mycroft’s summons.

Sherlock’s brotherly wrath (which would be addressed later) was driven away by those words, evoking as they did the vision of a younger Molly, eager, innocent, naively thinking he was something wonderful…

He winced, assaulted by the vivid memory, an episode which in no way redounded to his credit (even the research utilizing the riding crop had ultimately proven inconclusive). And then he felt a flush rising, for Molly’s smile was shifting from teasing to something close to rueful.

She started to speak, rather gently. “Sherlock—“

But he cut her off, blurting, “Coffee. Would you like to have some?”

Her brows rose, and her smile reasserted itself. “Black, two sugars?” she asked, playfully.

He replied, as casually as he could manage, “I thought you always took one sugar, and cream.”

She chuckled, “Very observant!” and rose from the chair, saying, “I think I can find the coffee maker somewhere in the depths of your kitchen, though how you’ve managed to recreate the chaos so qui--”

But he’d crossed to her in two purposeful strides, effectively silencing her, and he took her hands, holding them, small and cool, in his own. The memory of those hands, their skill and comfort as she’d nursed his wretched self through that last bout of withdrawal, was now superseded by the present moment. The hands were trembling a little, and the expression on her face completed the tale. He said, “I meant we should go out for coffee. If you’re willing, of course.”

She replied, slowly, “You know I’ve always been willing.” And then, realizing what she’d said, she gave a nervous laugh and tried to pull her hands away. In typical Molly fashion, she made bad worse by adding in would-be jest, “I suppose you’re going to give me another peck on the cheek, too.”

“No. Not at all,” he said, and, abandoning failed precepts, he dared to pull her close against him. With the back of his fingers he stroked the silken hair at her temple; then he nudged her chin up, bent, and kissed her. Properly.

It was an astonishing sensation… delicious, in every possible way… though she was stiff with shock, at first. But shock soon gave way to acquiescence, and then to a sort of shivering intensity indicative of both joy and fear. For Sherlock, the experience was staggering, delightfully so, and it flashed through his mind how foolish he’d been…

But regret was useless. There was nothing to be done about the past, and perhaps it had all happened for a reason. But the future… a future replete such moments as this…

He pulled away, just a little, and could still feel her breath against his lips as he said, “Is this better?”

“Sherlock!” she whispered, and, coming to her senses, she began to squirm.

But he tightened his embrace, stilling her. “Coffee. There are things we need to discuss, Molly Hooper, and I don’t think we should do it here.” He kissed her lips once more, very tenderly, and then carefully released her. “Will you come with me?”

She stared up at him in a sort of freshly ravished wonder for a long moment, then pulled herself together. She straightened to her full height (his lips twitched against a smile), took a deep breath, and held out her hand. “Yes, I will,” she replied, her voice steady.

He took the hand, so small and cool in his own…

…and so very dear.