7th November, 1938
Molly woke to a series of intermittent taps at the door. Frowning, she rolled onto her side and squinted at the numbers on the clock. It read ten to two in the morning.
Another tap. Molly groaned and swung her legs out of bed. She pulled the curtains away from the window to peer down at the street below. An unfamiliar figure standing at the door.
"Who are you and what do you want?" She inquired, annoyed about being woken early.
"Some help. Please let me in." Sherlock's hat was pulled down low over his face, his hands disappearing quickly into his pockets.
"What? Who on earth are you?'
"Oh, for God's sake, let me in." Sherlock hissed to himself, lifting his head to look up at her. "I, ah, I'd rather appreciate your medical expertise," Taking his hat off and turning to face her. She gasps at the state of Sherlock's face and hands. His right eye was swollen shut, a large purple bruise surrounding it. Dried blood crusted around his nose and just above his lips, the bottom one split. A shallow cut followed the line of his cheekbone, pinkish blood surrounding it. The skin of his knuckles was split open, his hands swollen and bloody.
She pulled a robe around her and rushed downstairs to open the door and let the stranger in. He was in a loose shirt and braces, buttons undone nearly to his chest, sleeves rolled up to his elbow. His brown trousers were worn and the battered pair of boots on his feet.
'What in God's name have you done to yourself, Sir?'
"I won!" Sherlock cried defensively, wincing as his lip began to bleed again. "I hear your the best Doctor on the area, so I came to you." Molly pushed Sherlock into the kitchen none too gently, ignoring the grimace from Sherlock at the sudden pressure from her hand.
"Idiot of the year, I should imagine, and I mean that in the medical rather than the colloquial sense." Molly snapped, it was rather too early for her.
A few dark bruises were scattered across his skin, looking worse than they probably were underneath the harsh kitchen light.
"Please sit down." Molly said, opening his doctor's bag where it rested on the table. Pulling everything she might need out. She scrubbed her hands with a reddish bar of carbolic soap that she had lying around, working the lather in between her fingers and up her forearms. She then grabbed a tin bowl from under the sink and rinsed it out.
"Illegal Bare knuckle boxing?" She asked, pulling the curtains across the one window in the kitchen just to be safe before running the cold tap to fill the bowl.
'I'm a Champion,' Sherlock said. His black and blue and bleeding face and sweat-matted hair spoilt the illusion a little.
She rolled his eyes once again and poured a healthy measure of salt into the bowl of cold water, twisting the tap off.
'I am, I told you I won!'
'Shhh. You'll wake everyone up.' Molly glared at him, putting the bowl of water down on the table. 'Hands in there. I don't doubt for a second that you are, it's just many people do this." She found some aspirin and poured a glass of water. "Open your mouth."
Obediently, Sherlock parted his lips, allowing her to place a pill on his tongue and bring the glass of water to his mouth. Sherlock swallowed them and licked his lips when Molly took the glass away, tasting fresh blood on his tongue. Sherlock grimaced when Molly dabbed gently at the blood around the cut on his cheek with the wet cloth.
"Alright?" Molly asked quietly, cupping Sherlock's jaw and tilting his head back gently.
"Stings like hell." Sherlock replied looking down to his hands. Flexing his fingers slowly in the bowl of water.
"This won't sting half as much as the cream I'm going to put on you. Just be glad you don't need stitches. How long ago did your nosebleed stop?" Molly wiped the dark crust of blood away from his nose.
"When I was about halfway here."
Molly nodded and tilted Sherlock's head forwards again. "Concussed?"
"I was able enough to walk to your flat, but you're the expert."
"You're not showing any signs of concussion. Where else where you hit?"
"Mainly my face and torso." Sherlock replied, mouth pulling into a half-grin. Fresh blood spilt from his lip again, which she chased with the clean cloth, dabbing carefully at his lips.
"No missing teeth?"
"None."
"You were lucky you didn't come out with worse." She went over to the sink and rinsed another cloth through, wringing it out and folding it into a neat square, placing it over Sherlock's black eye. 'Hold that there,' She said, lifting Sherlock's hand to press against the cloth. She picked up the tube of acriflavine cream off the table and squeezed the thick, bright yellow, strong-smelling substance out onto her fingertip. "This will sting." She said, spreading a thin layer over and around the cut on Sherlock's cheek.
'It smells repulsive,' Wrinkling his nose and grimacing at the feel of the cream on his skin. 'And it hurts.'
"That means it's working Sir." Molly said with a kindly doctor's smile. "Stand up."
Sherlock stood with a groan, still holding the damp cloth to his eye. Molly untucked his shirt from his trousers and lifted it, examining the bruises on Sherlock's pale skin.
"No cuts, that's good." She said, quickly applying some of the yellow cream to Sherlock's knuckles before replacing everything neatly in the bag. "I'd run you a cool bath to soak in but the plumbing would be far too loud at this hour. Have you got a bed?"
"A couple of miles from here. I could walk."
"Where exactly?"
"Baker Street."
"That's four miles! I'm not letting you walk that on your own." She looked at him. "You can stay in mine, I'll sleep in the living room."
"I can't do that. Why would you let a stranger sleep in your house?"
"It's not mine, it's my brothers. Every bare knuckle fighter you know has probably come to me. Some of them are homeless. You need sleep after a fight like that. Either you sleep here or I'm walking you home."
Sherlock nodded. "Alright. Aren't you going to ask my name?"
"Most of them want to stay anonymous. What is your name then, Sir?"
"Sherlock Holmes."