A/N: I was going to put this in the anthology, but I liked it being a longer piece. Molly Hooper would have a big heart, especially when it concerns a member of the Holmes' family.
Enjoy!
"Hello." Molly sat down in front of the glass and the dark haired woman stared at her in silence. "My name is Molly Hooper but I expect you already know that." The pathologist fiddled with the hem of her skirt as she sat opposite the glass cell. "You tried to kill me so I expect you know an awful lot about me. I expect James Moriarty laughed at my mundane life." Her voice was light but false. The other woman said nothing but cocked her head while Molly spoke.
"I won't focus heavily on James Moriarty, I am here to talk to you. Not at you. But with you, if you'll let me." Molly shifted in her seat again. "You know that I mean something to Sherlock. I am not entirely sure where I fit into his scheming brain but I am there somewhere, maybe you understand it more than I ever will. You are a Holmes child, you are undoubtedly gifted but emotions are not something the Holmes brothers have ever learnt how to govern. I thought it was just a man thing, and that Sherlock was undoubtedly a little nuts but I see now it's clearly a genetic trait." Molly shrugged and carried on fiddling with skirt hem.
"I am actually here to thank you." She looked up at the dark haired woman. "I am saying thank you because in your utterly mad and entirely selfish way you changed Sherlock. He spent so many years trying to squash his emotions that it made him quite an ugly person. You changed that; you preyed on his weaknesses and turned them into strengths. I'm quite sure that wasn't your intention but it was the outcome. It's why Sherlock trusted me enough to tell me about you. He doesn't quite know I am here but you are his family." She faltered in her speech, especially as Eurus now stood before her. Molly had also stood, stepping towards the glass.
"There's not much I can offer you Eurus. I can't match you in brains, or musical abilities, wit or anything vaguely intellectual. I imagine you could tell me more about my profession than I could ever hope to learn. But I am going to offer you friendship Eurus." Molly smiled hesitantly. The other woman's face hadn't changed at all and maybe Molly imagined the look in her eyes changing but as she gathered her coat and nodded to Eurus who didn't move from her spot by the glass.
~M.H~
"Hi!" Molly chirped at the dark haired woman who still stared silently back at her but there was a trace of a smile. It had taken Molly a year to get that little smile and it was a treasured moment of progress.
"Sorry I'm late, Sherlock waylaid me giving more sheet music to give to you." Molly pushed the packet through a slot to the side and she rifled through her bag. "Okay. So I brought you the best music of the nineties, my personal choices, I'm collating others but honestly mine are the best, many of these got me through some horrendous university nights. I also brought you another stack of newspapers from … we're on 1991 right now I think? I also bought you Marvel and DC comics and a stack of National Geographic magazines. I have also brought you more crappy young adult books." Molly gabbled as she pushed parcel after parcel through the small window to Eurus. She was mildly surprised when Eurus pushed books back through to her. She smiled at the books that came back through.
"You didn't like Fifty Shades?" She chuckled at Eurus' droll look. "Oh my god you marked it!? I told you it was an absolutely awful book when I gave it to you. It was a gag gift!" Molly snorted as she flicked through laughing at the annotations the other woman had made. "Nobody really likes Fifty Shades. Oh did you read Harry Potter?" She turned inquisitively and Eurus nodded. "Fabulous! I will get My Immortal printed because that is utter trash and you really need to read it." Molly grinned.
Molly and Eurus had fallen into a pattern; Molly would gabble about life that had happened between their monthly meetings, she would ask questions that may or may not get an answer while Eurus would idly flick through whatever goodies Molly had brought her. At first she had turned her nose up at the mundane, idiotic offerings the doctor had brought her, but slowly her curiosity had won out and she would pick her way through different things. Books were a favourite and Molly provided every genre she could possibly bring. She would learn that Eurus had a habit of annotating the books. Mycroft had baulked at giving her crime books but within about two chapters Eurus clearly got bored and would denounce the killer well before the plot had kicked in. Though strangely she did like Agatha Christie and other 18th and 19th century writers.
"If you get so bored why don't you work through old police cases?" Molly said suddenly and Eurus looked up at her with a puzzled frown. "Figure out the Jack the Ripper case… that'd be sensational. Set that big old brain of yours onto the worlds greatest mysteries!" She suggested, undeterred by Eurus' blank stare. "You do know Jack the Ripper right?" A shake of the head had Molly face-palming. "That'll be next month's thing… though should I be worried about you researching uncaught serial killers?" Molly raised an eyebrow and there was that trace of a smile on the other woman's face again. "Don't get me in trouble." Molly chuckled and the pair went back to mundane conversation.
~M.H~
"What do they talk about?"
"Everything and nothing brother." Sherlock said patiently as they watched Molly visit their sister.
"What do you mean?"
"Molly takes her things, collects back things Eurus doesn't want littering her room and Molly regales her with incredibly dull stories about every day life."
"How ghastly."
"You say that but that's what Molly Hooper does best." Sherlock said with a smile.
"What do you mean?" Mycroft repeated, unsettled that he wasn't grasping the situation.
"Molly can set people at ease. She seems so utterly ordinary that she's extraordinary. People trust her and when she decides that you are worthy, she will give you her all." He said softly.
"Why brother, you've gone and fallen in love." Mycroft teased.
"Oh Mycroft I am head over heels for her."
The pair missed the next exchange between the two women. Two and half years since Molly came to say thank you to Eurus, Eurus would occasionally write notes to Molly. This time she pressed a piece of paper against the glass that made Molly sigh and look downcast.
Sherlock loves you.
"Sure thing." Molly said woodenly. "Now have we discussed the travesty that is reality TV." Molly tried to change the subject. Eurus was having none of it. She tapped the glass again and pointed at the paper again.
He really does love you. Send him in.
"Sherlock." Molly raised her voice, knowing the audio was on loop to the control room. "Eurus wants youuuu." She called out and raised an eyebrow to the dark haired woman who was staring stubbornly at her.
Shoo. I need to speak to him alone.
"Don't say anything, Euri please." Molly said suddenly as Sherlock came in with a puzzled frown.
Out!
"Fine I am going!" Molly huffed and left with a warning glare.
"What's wrong?"
Tell her you love her. Tell Molly you love her. Hold her and never let her go. Eurus' scribbling made him stare open mouthed at her, so much so that she sighed, and wrote furiously on another piece of paper. You blithering idiot. Also tell her I'm sorry for interfering.
Eurus had apologised for almost killing Molly about two months ago. It had made Molly cry, which puzzled Eurus, because she thought she was doing a good thing but seeing Molly's tears had freaked her out a little. She had retreated back to the bed and worried about it until Molly forced the guard to open the door and tentatively hugged the unsettled woman. The hug had changed a lot of things; it made Molly a 3D person in Eurus' brain. Even though the other woman had visited her regularly, she hadn't really penetrated her shell, until the pathologist swept her into an embrace and soothed Eurus' anxieties.
Molly had soothed and tended to the uncertain, anxious child that hid at Eurus' core, just like Sherlock had when his sister had locked them in a death maze. Eurus Holmes had always been in need of a friend. She found that in Molly Hooper, though she couldn't exactly offer back the same sentiment, she tried in her own eccentric way; playing different pieces on the violin with Sherlock, annotating books that made Molly laugh, listening to the different music that the doctor passed her through and listening as Molly chattered about something or other.
Now though, she knew she could offer her friend something else. A slice of happiness. She knew from Moriarty just how hopelessly in love Molly was with Sherlock, she had also witnessed it with her own two eyes, but Eurus realised that James had underestimated Doctor Hooper and the power she held in a situation concerning Sherlock.
Marry her Sherlock. Never let her go. Eurus' final note brought him back from gormlessly gaping at her and she raised her eyebrow, waiting for his lesser functioning brain to kick in. When he bolted from the room she sat back with a satisfied smile. The strange bubbly feeling inside her made her pause. It had happened increasingly so over the last year or so, but it was …. Pleasurable. It made her happy and smile, both of which felt a little alien to her without some form of scheme in place to prove just how amazing she was, but as she sat back on the bed with the latest book from Molly (something about a magic policeman in London), Eurus marvelled at the warm fuzzy feeling usually reserved for manipulating people… until she realised with a slight grin she had been slightly manipulative in getting the two of them together. That would do for her.