#whykhan

“No. Stay. We can take the time you’d be at the conference and spend it in bed,” he said, applying his teeth to the spot, and she slowly let her hand drift until it was settled on his hip, tracing his hipbone and occasionally tangling into the curly hair there. “We’re still newlyweds. It’s to be expected.”

“Yes, but I’ll get sacked and you’ll lose your favorite pathologist,” she said, letting her fingers drift a bit lower.

“You don’t want to go,” he replied. “Feign an illness. Feign morning sickness. I’ll help make it a reality,” he said before using his body to roll her over onto her back.

Molly looked up at him, laughing, her eyes full of brightness. “Oh, you are incorrigible, you know that?” she said. She let her hand move back up until it was settled on his bare chest over his heart. “I thought we decided to wait on children.”

“I may have been persuaded to reconsider,” he said before kissing her. This was probably a very good thing to hear, as she hadn’t had the chance to tell him she thought she might be pregnant yet. It was a bit early to tell, but the fact he was reconsidering made her feel happy even though today meant a week away from her husband.

Husband. She had never thought that she and Sherlock would ever be husband and wife. She had never thought they would be anything more than…well, whatever their complicated “friends with benefits” relationship had become after his five-minute exile. She knew he hadn’t paraded around in her flat in his boxers to scare Tom off just because it gave him the jollies to do so. He’d wanted her to see he was the superior specimen. Which, in point of fact, he was. But nothing had happened till her engagement was over, because she wasn’t that type of woman.

But it had quickly evolved into something more than just shagging. She had considered maybe that was all it was for him, but she wasn’t sure. He stayed the night and stayed rather close, sometimes, holding her when it was a particularly rough night. He showed up with food and they went places together. But it hadn’t been dates. It wasn’t a relationship. And she put up with it until the day they were in the ambulance together and she gave him the medical exam. She said they had to make a decision as to what they were, friends or something more. He said he would let her know.

And then there was the explosion and he just disappeared.

She got the call from Rosie’s sitter that John was nowhere to be found and she had to dash, could she take the girl? She got her goddaughter and took her home to the spare room she’d turned into one for Rosie. When Mary had first died she’d spent a few days with John but his grief was unbearable, and she took Rosie home with her. Between Sherlock and John, neither of them were up to handling her, and it was only right someone who loved her watched her. She never thought it was foisted on her, but that night she was rather miffed that the boys had taken off and thought fuck-all of Rosie.

But then she got the call. Oh, she wanted nothing to do with Sherlock, especially when he wanted her to say those words. He knew they were true; he knew how she felt because she had told him so in the ambulance, told him that so he was aware of what he could lose. And now he was treating those words like a game? But she could make him say it first. If she had to feel her heart break she could make him say it first. And he did.

And then he said them again.

She was so surprised she almost forgot to tell him because he meant it. As sure as she was of anything, she knew he meant those three words. He did love her.

But just because he loved her didn’t mean she’d choose a relationship with her. He might not choose her over everything else in his life, even if that wasn’t what she really wanted. And so she hung up.

It wasn’t until much later that there was a frantic banging on her door, loud enough to rouse Rosie from her sleep, and she opened it to find Sherlock there, disheveled and worried and looking all out of sorts. He started talking while still outside her door, about a secret sister and a cavalcade of horrors because said sister was psychotic and she had threatened to blow her up if she didn’t say the words and he loved her, he did, and he was done with the foolishness of not saying so and marriage, they should get married and she had to kiss him to get him to just stop.

When he was calmer, hours later after they had informed John that Rosie was with Molly and he’d come to pick her up and they’d spent time together, celebrating the fact they were both alive and their feelings were crystal clear, he brought up marriage again. And…she agreed. Marriage didn’t seem so bad, not really. Not after what they’d had essentially being a relationship. But not quite yet. She wanted something proper.

And now here they were, six months after the day he banged on her door, nearly two months after the wedding, and she was as happy as she had been in her entire life. Or she would be, if she didn’t have to fly into Scotland for a forensic pathology conference.

Eventually, she pushed at him and the kiss ended. “Really, I have to get ready,” she said, running her fingers down his chest. “I have a flight to catch and things to do, and–”

“Mycroft can arrange a chartered plane,” Sherlock said, moving his lips back to her neck. “He’d much prefer I give our parents a grandchild so they’ll stop expecting it of him. The less he deals with them these days, the better.” He let his hand glide along her side, then over her hipbones and then he tapped her abdomen. “You’ll be doing your bit for Queen and country.”