A/N: I'm in the middle of a frightfully difficult transcription and instead of focusing on it like a responsible adult, I am sitting here reminiscing the staircase scene in The Empty Hearse. I will never get over the fact that he had invited her for a meal. Never. Ever. Sigh. x
Destination
That felt surprisingly – not okay.
The detective shook his head at the thought, shrugging it away as he pulled his coat tighter around him. The wind was starting to bite, causing him to turn his collar up.
He had stridden out of the door without once turning back, focusing on the pavement that would lead him on his way.
Right. Chip shop, Baker Street.
He listed out the order of his next destinations, as though he were an old man trying to remember where he had put his glasses. The preoccupation he had for where he was headed next was largely due to the fact that he was very much trying to forget where he had just been.
You can't do this again anymore, can you?
He had not meant to say it, and yet, there was more he wished he had said. This was probably the last time he was going to see Molly Hooper. Well, in this capacity at least, the capacity he enjoyed best. Just the two of them, quiet, focused, working on cases, exchanging facts andinformation. It did not always have to be in the lab, or in the belly of the hospital among cadavers. They could be in the middle of a busy street, or caught in a packed train, and they could still be the way they were. He smiled when he remembered her smiling. The ones he enjoyed most were her 'post-reproach' smiles. They were a cross between a smirk and a sort of soft, half smile. Her eyes would light up, and one eyebrow would usually be partially raised. It occurred almost every time he had made some sort of rude joke or inappropriate comment. He would say something he found amusing and she would jab him in the arm, or ribs, whispering a fierce and hurried, "Not now, Sherlock," so as to tell him that his interlocutor might not feel the same amusement.
No.
Sherlock was hoping to hear her disagree. That when he mentioned the inevitable, that they were not to do this anymore, she would reproach him as she always did. He was hoping that what he had said about the cessation of her company would join the ranks of all the 'ridiculous things' she always reprimanded him for saying. However, she had not. She had whole-heartedly agreed that no, she could not do this again anymore.
Pity about the chips. They're not as nice if you can't have them there.
The chip shop menu surfaced in his mind. It was not a difficult menu to recall. After all, it had only, what, five items on it? The prices were a little fuzzy, but if he concentrated hard enough he would probably remember all of them. Sherlock continued his walk down the pavement from Shilcott's residence, making sure his feet moved forward, one step at a time. There would be little cracks in his stream of thought where, for a split second, he would wonder where she was. Maybe she was still at the bottom of the staircase, possibly giving her fiancé a call. Perhaps she might have simply walked out of the building to make her way home.
The latter turned out to be true, for his sharp detective senses could tell, even metres away behind him, that a colourful figure had just stepped out of the row of buildings on his right. He nodded to himself, what for, he did not know. Perhaps it was to confirm to himself that yes, there she was, not joining him for chips, and having just exited the house of their last client. He resisted the urge to turn around to see if he was right. Why did he have to anyway? He asked himself. He was Sherlock Holmes, detective extraordinaire and he was most likely going to be right.
This time, however, he had not been entirely right.
His train of thought had been interrupted by the very person he was trying to block out. She had interrupted it, first from her faint, but quickening footsteps behind him, and then the gentle pat on his arm which made him stop in his tracks, turning swiftly to look at her. There was that smile again, a little less reproachful, with more of the twinkle and less of the smirk. Sherlock was not focusing much on her smile anyway. He was far more preoccupied with those warm, brown eyes that gazed kindly back at him.
"You asked if I wanted some chips?" she said, a little breathlessly. Molly had quite literally sprinted down the street.
Sherlock smiled, offering his arm and feeling his heart burst when she took it without hesitation.
"You won't regret this," he said, as they began their slow walk down the pavement.
"Are the chips that good?" she remarked, smirking as she stole a quick glance at him.
"Depends on the day," he answered coolly, "The weather, the hour you're there, the people you're with…"
"What it'll be like today then?" she asked.
Sherlock paused, stopping them both in their tracks. He turned to look at her, taking in the sight of her arm looped through his and how closely she stood beside him. There was a lovely warmth that emanated from her that he would never get from the best coat or the wooliest scarf. There was nothing that could compare. Absolutely nothing.
"Today?" he asked, staring at her with bright eyes of his own.
She nodded, gazing boldly back at him.
"Today, it will be excellent," he answered, unable to resist leaning over to kiss her again on her cheek, where he had last done so, "Most excellent, indeed."
END