Five Doctors and the Detective
Disclaimer: Only the story name, chapter titles and a few OCs belong to me. I do not own any part of the BBC's Sherlock. Hope you enjoy this :)

Note: anything in Italics is a character's specific, word-for-word thought

Chapter One: Change

Sherlock Holmes died, one cold and cloudy London day. And on a day no different, he came back to life, three years later, to find that, predictably, the world he left behind had changed. It came as no surprise to him. People grew and changed, an aspect of humanity as a whole that he appeared to lack, thus distancing him from mankind. However, he was surprised to find that his time in the afterlife had indeed left its impressions upon him, and somehow, he was a changed man.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"What do you need?" she said, not a stutter or stammer to be found in Molly's voice in that quiet, tense moment. Her voice was soft and kind, a reflection of the woman to whom it belonged, and Sherlock found that it stirred a little something in the left side of his chest cavity. Maybe he had a heart, maybe he didn't. But he was absolutely certain, and absolutely sincere when a few minutes previous, Sherlock Holmes told Molly Hooper that she counted. Everyone had overlooked her, the mousy little pathologist who seemed so unimportant, so weak: James Moriarty, her colleagues, the boys at Scotland Yard, and unfortunately, even himself. In the moments before he responded to her simple question, he told himself never to make that mistake again. She completely counted, and entirely mattered, even if he wasn't the person to convince her. He could still try. Thanking whatever deity or force that supposedly presided over the universe for Molly Hooper, he took a deep breath and replied, "You."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

That was the beginning of the temporary end of Sherlock Holmes. At his request, Molly Hooper killed him. So easily, so efficiently, it almost seemed real. I could honestly be dead right now, for all I could tell, he thought while lying drugged, bruised, and bloodied in Molly's backseat as she drove silently to her flat. Am I dead? That wasn't the plan but I could be. Even if I'm not I might as well be dead, since one and only one person knows I still exist. How queer a feeling that is. Tethered to the world singularly by mousy Molly Hooper. My Molly. My pathologist. At least I'm still real to her. Thoughts rambled and swam through his drug-addled haze as the streetlights blurred past the car windows, mesmerizing him. "Sherlock." A lovely, silken voice shone like a beacon through the darkness. "Sherlock." It was Molly's. "Sherlock, sweetheart, you're rambling and your voice is going to give out. Please, try to rest. We'll be home soon." He hadn't realized he was speaking aloud. Her voice was more intoxicating than the anesthetics coursing through his blood. Home soon? And he slept.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

She kept her word and brought him home. With as much care as she could, she smuggled him into her building and up the stairs to her small flat. He tried to help her drag his battered body to her couch but his feet found no purchase. He could feel her thin arms shaking as they heaved his torso onto the sofa. Molly stopped for a moment, leaning against the arm to catch her breath before lifting his legs onto the cushions as well.

"I'm so sorry, Molly, so sorry. I hadn't intended to really die, it was an accident. I hope you'll forgive me, Molly. I didn't mean to leave. I wasn't supposed to. Oh, Molly, I've upset John and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and you. Molly, please don't be cross with me. I didn't mean to upset you, I really didn't. Don't be cross. I couldn't bear it if you were cross with me. Will you miss me now that I'm dead? I'll miss you." His voice slurred and stumbled, and trailed to a rough whisper. Molly knelt beside him, and pressed her lips to his fevered brow. "Sherlock. You're not really dead, sweetheart. Of course I'm not cross with you. You're not dead, and I'm going to take care of you. You'll be alright. I promise. Now hush. Your poor voice won't take much more." Her hand absently stroked his blood-soaked curls, the other wrapped itself around his own pair, mangled and scraped. "Do you really promise, Molly? That I'm not dead and you're not cross with me and you'll take care of me?" She hushed him gently, smoothed his forehead, and promised, before going to retrieve her first aid kit.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOooOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Molly had no illusions about Sherlock. Fantasies, yes, but no illusions. But as she busied herself with dressing his wounds and scrubbing blood from his battered skin while he rambled about everything and nothing, she couldn't help the warmth that spread through her chest. He could be kind, now and then. It was part of his brutal honesty, she supposed, that Sherlock never said something he didn't mean, and that he never lied with spoken words. She found herself wondering, as he grabbed her hand to say something heartfelt about buttons, if that keen-edged candor was still holding on through his drugged stupor. She wondered if he meant anything that he'd said moments ago, about missing her. Quickly, she pushed her musings to a far corner of her mind, and returned her focus to healing the shattered man before her. She wrapped a long, sturdy cloth around his bruised ribs and secured a brace on his ankle.

What did it matter if he meant those things he said while medicated? He'd already told her, while perfectly conscious, that she counted, and that was worth more than gold to Molly. Moreover, he was here, and contrary to what he currently believed, he was alive. And for a little while, he was hers and only hers.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Once he was cleaned and bandaged, she found the bag he'd stowed there earlier and retrieved a clean pair of his pajamas. She managed to get him out of his shredded and dirtied clothes, and wrangled him into his jammies with no end of giggling on his part. Yet immediately after, he fell fast asleep, to Molly's relief. She tucked a pillow beneath his head and a blanket round his body. Pressing one last kiss to his brow, she left him to sleep off the medication. He needed the rest, she knew, because the coming months would the most difficult of Sherlock Holmes' life.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOooOoOoOoOoOoOo

He was unaware of the things he'd said to her while drugged, and she gave no hints or suggestions to inform him otherwise. She was just herself, just his Molly. She cared for him gently and kindly for two weeks, until he was well again. One night, she held his hand as he phoned Mycroft and told him what had transpired. She watched his face contort in guilt and frustration and annoyance as Mycroft said things like: he suspected as much and Sherlock really ought to consult him before doing something so dangerous and foolhardy again and that Mummy would be terribly upset when she found out what her youngest had done and what was Mycroft going to do with Sherlock. She sat silently beside him while he let his older brother lecture him before Sherlock calmly told him what needed to be done. When there was finally silence and agreement between the brothers, he squeezed Molly's hand, hung up the phone, and let her go. He sat and stared at his shoes, hands dangling loosely off his knees. "I'm to leave tomorrow night for parts unknown. But I'll return to you, Molly Hooper, if you'll have me." She placed her small hand on his shoulder and leaned to whisper in his ear, "I'll be here, Mr. Holmes. I'll always have you, and you'll always have me," before she departed to her bedroom.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

He tried in vain to rest his anxious mind as he laid on the sofa, legs trailing over the arm. She was fast asleep when he slipped into her bedroom, lowered himself beside her, and pulled her sleeping form against him. He had lied; Mycroft's people would be collecting him in just a few hours and he tried to convince himself that it was better this way. But for now, I'm with her, he thought as he breathed in the sweet perfume of Molly, and he began expanding and editing her room in his mind palace, since it seemed she was there to stay.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOooOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Thus the weeks and months passed. He'd appear in her flat after ages without contact. She'd patch him up, force some food into him and demand that he stay long enough to rest. When she eventually fell asleep, he'd crawl into her bed and lie beside her for an hour or two before disappearing into the night. She never knew about him sharing her bed, but the memory of her warmth always kept him going long enough to make it back to her.

oOoOoOoO

In the months between his visits, Molly prayed he'd be able to accomplish his impossible task unscathed. She threw herself relentlessly into her work, turning down dates and outings with her friends to pick up extra shifts. She became quite an actress in those days, faking crying jags and fits of grief. She watched over John, Mrs. Hudson, and Greg Lestrade, having many silent teas and coffees with various singles or combinations of the three. Molly always had real tears for John, however. She never needed to fake them whenever he'd drift off in the middle of their lunches, those kind blue eyes staring blankly into space. A touch of her hand would bring him back and he'd apologize through repressed sobs.

None of them deserved this. None of them. She felt like such a traitor at times, knowing he was alive while watching his only friends suffer. But for their sake, and for his, Molly Hooper assumed a brave face and soldiered on.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

'Change' was the word Sherlock pondered as he sat in his chair at Baker Street for the first time in three years. Mrs. Hudson would wander by periodically to pat his cheek, alternating between cooing her thanks that he was alive and shouting mercilessly at him for frightening her half to the grave and nearly killing poor John with grief, but bless him, dear boy. He steepled his hands beneath his chin slowly, turning 'change' over and over in his mind.

The change in John. Molly had told him that his limp had returned during Sherlock's absence, but subsided when John met Mary Morstan, an OBGYN at Bart's. She was a good friend of Molly's, and the two had been introduced by her one day in the morgue. Mary Morstan was the source of the change in John. Evidently, he dated her for a year and eight months before proposing to her, at which point his limp disappeared once more. They were to be married in a month and a half. The possessive, selfish nature of Sherlock was frustrated that perhaps his absence and Miss Morstan's influence would rob him of his best friend, but reason won out. The day Sherlock officially came back and after John had punched him soundly, twice, the army doctor hauled him off the floor and into a tight hug. "You arrogant, brilliant, stupid, selfless man. Don't think I'm just going to forgive you right away for what you did. And do that again and I'll... Whatever. I missed you." Of course Mary wouldn't take John away from him. Honestly, she probably saved Dr. Watson's life and Sherlock should be grateful to her, which he decided that he was. At the same moment, he decided that she was so well suited to John that he couldn't find anything truly irritating or amiss in Mary Morstan. So the change in John was easily accepted by Sherlock. He was about to shout at John to demand tea when he remembered that the doctor was now sharing a nice little house with his fiancee, 7 blocks away from Baker Street. That change was certainly going to take a bit more getting-used-to.

The change in Mrs. Hudson. She had met an acceptable fellow 2 years ago, of which Molly informed him immediately. He was a postman, and a rescue volunteer. He collected stamps and gardened on the side. Upon his return, Sherlock insisted on meeting the man, and was pleasantly surprised to discover nothing unseemly about him, except for an overbearing cheeriness that Sherlock disliked and Mrs. Hudson adored. He supposed there was room for this Mr. Philby in Mrs. Hudson's life, and subsequently his, so there was that change sorted.

Change, change, change.

The change in Lestrade and the boys at Scotland Yard. As Sherlock had predicted to himself ages ago, Anderson's wife found out about Sgt. Donavan and threw him out. They were divorced and Anderson all too quickly shacked up with Sally. The had a row over his ex-wife and she also tossed him. Sherlock snorted in disgust. Insipid creatures, really. This change made very little difference to him. He stored it away in his mind palace only to have another sore spot to expose in the two whenever they became particularly annoying (which was always.)

Lestrade had once again reconciled with his wife and she had delivered another child last year. Sherlock grimaced. She was still unfaithful to him, every few months or so with different man, but for reasons that escaped Sherlock in his limited knowledge of the subject, Lestrade still loved her and wanted to make it work, so he didn't confront her about it. In the short two days that he'd been back in the world, Sherlock had seen the Detective Inspector three times, each of which he noticed that Lestrade had been drinking the night before, heavily and alone. He sensed the potential for an alcohol addiction in the DI, and made a note to tell John about it. His poor friend.

Sherlock turned that word over and over in his head. Friend. He had friends. That was why he died, wasn't it? For John, for Mrs. Hudson, for Lestrade, and, he was startled to admit, for Molly, if she had been one of Moriarty's targets. Was she his friend? He decided that she was, because she counted and he... cared for her, he supposed, but in a different way from his other friends. He found that he almost dreaded the next steps his mind was going to take.

Because finally, Sherlock came to the change in his pathologist. She had certainly undergone a metamorphosis, and he suspected she had something to do with the change in himself that he poked and prodded at relentlessly. Slowly, he began dissecting the matter.

Contrary to what so many believed, Molly hadn't fallen in love with him the very first time they met. She was fascinated, and dazzled by his brilliant mind, but she did not love him that very first day. In time, Molly developed a crush on him, which she tried unsuccessfully to hide. He had found it annoying, yet useful, and it did not change his opinion of the young pathologist. He supposed that somehow her crush became an experiment to him. He was so curious as to what attracted her to him besides his intellect. "Brainy is the new sexy," Irene's words echoed through his mind at this point. Obviously his mind was one of the reasons she liked him, but why should that be enough for her to endure his ceaseless verbal abuse? He freely admitted that he'd been quite beastly to her, that his drive to understand her feelings also pushed him to find her breaking point.

He thought he did, at that dreadful Christmas party, then found that he instantly regretted it. His words that night haunted him through the entire Adler case and for several weeks afterward, and he found himself playing his violin incessantly, even composing a melody to his thoughts of Molly. But, as he was oddly relieved to discover, he had not broken her, and he resolved to consider her emotions more carefully and watch the harshness of his words.

Sherlock remembered exactly the day he discovered that she loved him. He was in the mortuary lab, examining cultures and whatnot since he had finished his last case two days ago and was already bored. Molly had brought him a coffee before going to work on the mountain of paperwork on her desk. She was very diligent, his pathologist. She was the only doctor in the morgue who bothered with the paperwork, and as he had told her before, she really was the only competent examiner at Bart's. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes tightly shut. She sighed and ran her slender hands through her hair. "Something the matter, Molly?" he asked. She blinked at him, before offering a weary smile. "Just tired, Sherlock. How'd your last case go?" He snorted. "Child's play. The fools at the Yard were absolutely oblivious. It was the gardener, for heaven's sake. All they had to do was look at the kitchen door frame!" She chuckled while straightening her desktop and gathering her things. "Of course. How foolish of them," she said with a smile. "I'm going home, Sherlock. I've been here for 12 hours and I know it's against hospital policy, but will you lock up when you're done?" She yawned while extending the keys, which he accepted with a nod. "I'll probably see you tomorrow anyway and I've got a spare set. I'm glad you caught him," she said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder before advancing to the door, "You're a good man, Sherlock Holmes." That was the moment. That was the moment he realized that she loved him. He could feel that her skin was heated, could feel her pulse thrumming steadily even through her palm, could see that her irises had darkened and her pupils dilated, could hear the tenderness in her voice. Chemistry. "Molly, actually, I'll see you to your car. I was just finished anyway."

That was the day. But it wasn't until this moment he had the time to think about why he was so sure it was that day. Obviously the chemical evidence confirmed it, but there were other things. She hadn't stuttered or stammered or blushed in his presence once. She even made a joke, confidently and clearly. She touched him with hands that did not shake, and trusted him to lock the lab. Finally, her simple statement: You're a good man, Sherlock Holmes. She believed in him. That's what it was. Molly knew well enough that he solved cases for the sake of easing his endless boredom, but she saw all the people he helped, the criminals he put away, and to her that added up to a good man, regardless of what his own intentions were. What was it that Lestrade had said, a time or two? "Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day, if we are very lucky, he might even be a good one." Molly Hooper thought he was good. And strangely enough, that made him want to be.

Her change hadn't stopped that day. In the weeks he spent in her flat after the Fall, he began to see a Molly Hooper he had never taken the time to observe before then. She became his friend, somehow without his notice. But that's how Molly did things, wasn't it? Quietly, wholeheartedly, selflessly, unreservedly, and unexpecting of anything in return. She became something else, though. Something on which Sherlock could not put his finger. Further data was necessary, and he intended to collect it. He was certain though, that he was grateful for the change in Molly. Grateful that he had gained another friend, though he claimed he didn't require human interaction, didn't have feelings. And lastly, grateful for Molly Hooper herself.

oOooOo

Author's Note: Hello, individual who just read my little piece here! I'd like you to know that I intend to extend this, that it is not just a one-shot as I hope the title implies, since I only mentioned three doctors in this chappy ;) So! Promise I'll get around to it but in the meantime, let me know what you think!

Much love and thanks,
-The Queen of Fragile Hearts