Author's Note: This is the third (and final) part of my fic giveaway, which was another 500 word fic, but this time for the second runner-up in the giveaway, Tumblr user jess-loves-stuff-and-things. Her prompt was "50 First Dates AU – Sherlock suffers memory loss where he loses all memory of the previous day once he wakes up. He wakes up to watch a video of the life he and Molly built together. He then goes out to find Molly and their child waiting for him."
Title comes from Elvis Costello's version of Charles Aznavour's "She". The first part of my fic giveaway should be up tomorrow. Sorry for posting out of order, but life got in the way and shifted things around - as it so often does.
"Good morning." The greeting is stiff, tentative, and it makes her heart lift. She whirls around, spoon in her mouth and mug of tea in hand. Grimacing apologetically, she pulls the spoon from her mouth.
"Morning." A returning smile hesitantly touches the sides of her mouth. She's done this a million times before, and where once she might've been awkward and stumbled over her words, accidentally pushing him back, back into his shell, she's an old pro at this now. Never be too eager, always go with the flow. Let him dictate the pace of the morning.
"The video," he speaks quietly, stepping forward, brow furrowed, memories and words no doubt forming inside his head. Sometimes it takes him longer than usual. He raises his head to look at her. "I've seen it."
It was his idea, originally, the video. At first, it was only him, speaking slowly and carefully to a camera, explaining exactly what had happened. With the years passing him by, the video blossomed into something more; montages of memories, his voice laid over images and flashes of photographs, a folder becoming its accompaniment when their life couldn't be told in just 5 minutes worth of film. Though he trusts the video, trusts himself, his brain needs proper evidence of his life that he can refer back to whenever he gets lost in the haze. Medical reports, newspaper clippings, letters, photographs. Every morning, he pours over them, looking at his life, their life, the life they've built together.
"Where's—" Briefly, he glances around. "Where's Eloise?"
He asks that question and she knows he's fine, for today, which is really all they have. (She's learned to live in the moment.) Abandoning her drink, she smiles wider.
"Sleeping," she answers. "We can wake her, if you like."
He nods thoughtfully. Taking a breath, she reaches out her hand. His fingers slip into hers, and his eyes brighten. He steps forward and, impulsively, kisses her. He'd once told her, when they were wrapped in each other, breathing slow and mingled, that it would be very hard for him to forget quite the way she made him feel. She smiled, and told him to sleep, but she hadn't been quite able to believe such words. Now, she does.
"Eloise," she says giggling, breaking off their kiss. He glances down to see her hands on his chest and his hands on her thighs. With a schoolboy grin, he steps back, and together, they leave the kitchen.
People often ask her what helps her to cope, to 'deal with' a husband who can only remember a day at a time. "Little things," is often her answer, but if she were to be honest with them, she'd say that this is what helps. Seeing her husband see their baby daughter, watching as he softly, nervously, breathes her name and smiles when she stirs.
Building a life with a man like Sherlock Holmes has been hard but, in the end, it's as easy as breathing.