AN: Set one month after A Creative Man. First off, I warn and apologize for the lack of John Watson in this chapter. I'd also like to warn that this is going to be a more romancy fic than Creative Man (Sherlock is wanting Molly after all). I'm sorry in advance for disappointing anyone.
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The sunlit sky was dimming quickly when Molly stepped out of Barts Hospital and into the air that was hazy with drizzling, sporadically disbursed rain. Low hanging clouds drifted with the wind that whipped her hair around her face.
Gray was beginning to overtake the rosy orange glow and the buildings it lay over. Molly adjusted her bag and struggled opening her umbrella as she prepared for the early autumn storm that lurked closer.
She'd gotten as far as crossing the street and rounding a corner before crashing into six feet of consulting detective.
Apparently, neither of them had seen it coming. Molly's umbrella had received a sudden gust of wind at the wrong angle and blew itself uselessly backwards while Sherlock dropped a plastic bag, contents spilling across the sidewalk.
He eyed the mess. "Hello, Molly," he greeted neutrally as he crouched to gather up the dozens of small evidence baggies that had tumbled out. Molly tucked the broken umbrella under an arm and stooped to help.
"I'm so sorry," she said hurriedly. "Are these for a case? I hope I didn't damage anything." She pulled one out of a puddle.
"They're quite well sealed. And no, a person's life isn't depending on the study of tree bark, I'm afraid."
Molly picked up one of the baggies. "'Tea Leaved Willow - Salix phylicifolia'?"
"A native tree in Scotland," said Sherlock, taking the piece of bark and stashing it with the others. They finished as the rain started pouring harder, bouncing off the asphalt. "I need to get these to the lab."
Nodding, Molly pulled the hood of her coat protectively over her head. She smiled at him before continuing toward the tube station and Sherlock continued to Barts. He stopped when she didn't follow. She stopped when she realized he wanted her to follow.
"Oh." Sherlock looked at her. "Your shift ended. You must have traded with-"
"-Jonathan. Yeah." Molly fiddled with her umbrella as if it wasn't a lost cause. "He'll let you in the lab, you know."
For a reason Molly couldn't comprehend, Sherlock looked a little pained saying, "I don't suppose you'd want to-"
"-Nope. No lives on the line, you said."
"...No, of course not."
"Besides, I'm still cross about last week."
Sherlock tilted his face skyward, letting the rain pelt his skin as he settled into a quick think.
Molly waited for a false compliment, more out of habit than anything else. He'd not stooped to such a level with her in a very long time, but she'd been conditioned when Sherlock Holmes was concerned. Another gust of wind blasted through her and she shivered bodily.
Sherlock looked in the direction of Barts and back at Molly, water dripping from the ends of his ever dampening hair. He seemed to come up with a conclusion to his internal struggle as he tried protecting his bag in the inside folds of his coat. "I'm assuming you're going home?" he asked, coming to her side and beginning a steady walk along the stretch of road. Molly thought it was terribly strange for him, offering to see her to the station.
Except there was the time he'd walked her home a month prior. That night had been all sorts of bizarre.
"Home," Molly confirmed, trying not to feel a little bit boring at having nowhere else to go. "You don't have to walk with me to the station. It's starting to pour." As she said this, a hard sheet of rain swept over them.
Sherlock wiped the dripping hair from his eyes with futility. "Who said I was seeing you to the tube?" And he pulled her to the sidewalk just as he spied a cab, tires rolling through the flooded street like waterwheels. It pulled over before his hand was even halfway in the air.
Later, as they were clambering wetly out of the taxi, Molly was even more surprised to see Sherlock follow her to the building, still protecting his bag. Assuming he was coming up to wait out the rain, she gave a small mental sigh of relief that she'd had the foresight to clean and tidy.
"How've you not gone broke from cab fare?" she half shouted, half laughed, over the pounding of rain while struggling with her key.
"I've had money ever since John made me charge for cases."
He didn't seem to pick up the slight tease in his seriousness, and Molly didn't follow up with asking why he'd never thought to request payment before. But she knew he didn't accept payment from the police. Perhaps they had an understanding; seeing as Sherlock was a little more than slippery with the law.
After getting inside, safe from the storm, she noticed that a pair of knickers lay in the hallway, the bright white and floral pattern contrasting sharply against the dark wood of the floor. Molly stopped abruptly and Sherlock thudded gently against her back. He looked over her head.
"Are those yours?" he asked with no hint of inflection.
She was a little frozen. "I - yes."
"Dropped while doing the laundry, maybe?"
"...No."
Sherlock was still for a moment before bursting into movement, swinging sharply around the creaking banister and launching up the stairs. Molly, alarmed, ran to catch up.
She found him stopped before her door, gaze intent, holding a warning hand up as she approached. "Stop. Wait there," he whispered.
"How'd you know this was my-"
"Shh."
She followed his line of sight to see the door to her flat partially ajar, causing a sick feeling of dread to simmer in her belly. Sherlock pushed the door open with his foot. He straightened. His brow lowered in a way that said 'I've examined the situation; conclusion: Not Good.' Then he let out a long sigh and fished for his mobile, calling a number long on speed dial.
Molly waited anxiously, glancing between Sherlock and her front door, inching closer with anxiety. The action didn't escape the detective who held his hand up again to stop her, fingers closing over her shoulder when she persisted.
The line on the other end finally picked up. "Lestrade," Sherlock bit out before the Detective Inspector could announce himself. "I need you at Molly's. There's been a-" He glanced at her almost balefully when she snapped her head to face him, "-a burglary," he finished lamely.
"What!?"
Molly wasn't sure who shouted that louder; Lestrade or herself, but she was making a valiant effort to push Sherlock bodily aside. "Just get here, fast, if you please!" he snapped into his phone before dropping it to the floor and locking an arm around her.
"Let me go!" she hissed. "A burglary, are you bloody serious?"
Sherlock was unmovable. "Stop, stop, stop, Molly, there could still be someone in there. Most likely not, seeing the number of foot prints leaving out are the same as the ones going in, including the obvious dolly tracks, but-"
"Sherlock!"
"Just let me check first, alright?" He shook her, pushing her back a step. She acquiesced, no small amount of reluctance given as he released her and bent to retrieve his phone before marching in, all confident strides and keen attention. Molly could hear him checking the bathroom before her patience caved and she finally peered inside.
It was empty.
The entire flat.
As if she'd never lived there to begin with.
The horrendously blue sofa was gone. There used to be an old wooden rocking chair with a quilt draped over the back. Books, lamps, and photographs. The boxes she'd not gotten around to sorting. Gone. Nothing but muddy boot prints covered the hard wood floors.
Another sick twisting of her gut caused her to cry out, "Toby?"
No cooing meow was there to greet her.
She didn't feel like crying, she noticed, being too busy stuck in a state of stupefaction, where the sounds of Sherlock's footsteps faded in and out of her ears and she was bound to wake up from what was obviously a nightmare. Her bag dropped from her arm with a wet plunk next to Sherlock's stupid load of bark. Dazed, she made her way into her bedroom. What was supposed to be her bedroom. Where her bed should have been, with all of her most personal items and mementos tucked neatly beneath it.
She was met with nothing but Sherlock, standing in a cold and empty room.
He turned and met her eyes. She couldn't read them and she didn't try, didn't think to. He held out a small square card of paper to her. On one side was white with the sharp, contrasting, hateful print of shoe tread.
The other side was a picture of her ten year old self and her father.
She swallowed and tried to form words. Nothing seemed to come out of her. Sherlock stood before her, wide-eyed and twitchy-fingered before his arms came gingerly up around her as she continued to stare at the photograph. Then her face was pressed into a damp shirt and he was saying, "I'll find who did this, Molly. I'll get it back, I'll get it all back."
They only sounded like words. She heard them, but she couldn't listen. They didn't make sense. They didn't register.
There was a crescendo of loud feet storming into the flat. Sherlock's grip on her tightened a little before recognizing Lestrade calling out for them.
"In here," Sherlock answered, the deepness of his voice reverberating against Molly's ear. She managed to collect herself enough to pull away with a sense of dizzy. Did she look dizzy? Was that why Sherlock was hovering so close? Couldn't be.
"Oh, Molly," Lestrade sighed apologetically when he found them in what was once her bedroom.
"I'm fine," she claimed weakly.
Lestrade drew her into his arms anyway for a brief hug. Sherlock backed away to examine what were bare walls and bare floors and bare damnable everything. "Do you have any idea who might've done this?" Lestrade asked.
"No."
"Clearly someone had been watching her," Sherlock said. He was leaning down and snapping a picture of a footprint with his phone. "She's been living here slightly less than two months."
Molly could only nod in confirmation.
"Could Tom have done this?" Lestrade asked, despite the year gone by since the breakup. "Can you tell by the foot print, maybe?"
Sherlock shook his head. "Wrong shoe size, which wouldn't matter. An operation like this would have been done by professional movers. They used proper equipment. No damage to the flat, so obviously they took care."
"They took my stuff."
Sherlock slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Yes, well, they won't be keeping it. Lestrade, I'll need a sample from the boot prints. I'll need to come back here, so don't let anyone in. I don't need anyone messing anything up."
Molly was still feeling sick and growing tired. She suddenly wanted to be alone, but staying within the confines of this place was no longer an option.
Lestrade asked her more questions in order to get a police report started. Sherlock walked around the flat, impatiently observing the walls and door jambs and checking windows.
Finally, when they were finished, Lestrade asked, "Is there anyone I can call for you?"
"I need a hotel," Molly said, wondering at her ability to keep hold of herself for this long.
Sherlock spun around. "A hotel? What do you need a hotel for?"
Harshly, Molly ran her hand over her face and rubbed her forehead, saying tersely, "Well, I'm obviously not sleeping here tonight, now am I? They took my bed and my toothbrush. Who does that?"
Sherlock had the grace to look contrite, "I thought - I mean to say, Baker Street does have an extra room, you know. Fair warning, the bed might need dusting."
Molly didn't know what to say. Even Lestrade was speechless, but the look he was casting at Sherlock seemed mutely suspicious.
"There's a toothbrush," Sherlock added hastily. "Unopened, new, obviously. It would be rather unhygienic to share a toothbrush. I wouldn't call it five star, but Mrs. Hudson does make good tea in the mornings."
Molly took a breath and turned her gaze towards her feet. The offer was tempting, if not surreal. The man she had finally gotten over was showing a regard she never knew he possessed. And it was directed at her for nearly the past month. He was being kind again and something about it was unsettling, pushing the boundaries that time had allowed her to mentally set for him in terms of just how much he could control her life - her heart, really.
If he ever had control of that again, she was sure he would break it.
Molly rocked on her heels, feeling the squish of wet sneakers beneath the balls of her feet before she looked back up. "No. Thank you, Sherlock, but I can get a hotel. I think I'd rather prefer to be alone, actually."
Sherlock obviously disagreed, Molly judged from the tightness in his jaw. He cleared his throat and looked at Lestrade, meaningfully. Privacy, if you don't mind.
Lestrade rolled his eyes and took the hint. "I'll just wait outside, then," he informed, backing out with a last minute hard stare before closing the door with a soft click.
"You can't mean that," was the first thing Sherlock said. "Contrary to what you might think, I can see you, and this is far from okay for an emotional person."
"I'm not emotional," said Molly. "Do I look emotional?"
"You're in a mild state of shock and you've gone unusually pale. And yes, you are emotional. You're an emotional person, Molly."
She hadn't noticed that he had stepped into her personal space until his hands came around hers and held them gently. She realized they'd been shaking, still clutching the photograph.
"I don't think you should be alone, is all," he urged quietly, carefully.
There was a familiar burning sensation in her eyes, throat tightening up, so she bit her lip to keep it from betraying her to the very true notion that yes, Molly Hooper is an emotional person. She swallowed. Gave in to Sherlock's plead, because dammit, he never pleads.
Molly nodded imperceptibly.
"Alright?" Sherlock asked.
She nodded, stronger. "Yeah. I'm still angry with you for last week, though."
"As you should be. Come on, Lestrade will give us a ride. I'd ask if you need to pack anything, but, well..."
Her eyes screwed up a little more.
Sherlock backpedaled. "Sorry. Not good. Got it."
And they left the room that Molly used to call her own.
It was only late evening when they arrived at Baker Street.
The first thing Sherlock did was start a fire in the hearth. He didn't say anything afterwards, simply departing and leaving Molly to stand a little aimlessly in the sitting room. She shed her coat, hanging it on the rack by the door and her shoes went to dry next to the fire. She sat next to them, staring into the flames and feeling as if she should be thinking about what she'd do next, but her focus was shot. Dealing with insurance was going to be horrible, she just knew it.
Thoughts continuously lingered on material possessions that meant something. Her laptop, while nice, could be replaced no problem, but jewelry that used to be her mother's would be impossible to regain or substitute. Corded braids made with friends in school would never be seen again. Photographs, but one, were all gone. Every moment, when she thought about what was lost, she remembered two more monetarily worthless items and couldn't help but feel sick at the waste of it. Most of her things quite literally held no value to anyone but herself.
She tried not to think of Toby; if he was taken, or killed, or hurt, or even traipsing around London lost and scared and scavenging for food.
The whole situation was absolutely violating.
The only consolation really was her current state of detachment. It allowed her the ability to stand up, walk to the kitchen, and set the kettle.
She was still in the kitchen, bare footed, ends of her trousers soaked cold, when Sherlock appeared again in pajamas and a house coat. He looked back and forth between her and the mugs she'd set on the counter, a bundle of clothes in his arms. He held them out to her. "Feel free to use the shower, if you'd like. The sheets in John's – the spare room – are fresh. Mrs. Hudson must've changed them, no doubt during one of her cleaning frenzies."
Molly accepted the clothes gratefully. She didn't want to shower, really, not having energy for it. And it felt strangely imposing staying the night, never mined the intimidation of using Sherlock Holmes's shower. Leaving the tea out, she excused herself to wash her face.
In the bathroom, she cracked a smile at the unopened, propitiously placed toothbrush beside the sink. Her face turned a shade of red when she unraveled the bundle of clothes and her underwear, the pair that had been lying in the hallway of her building, rolled out.
Molly chose not to dwell on where Sherlock had been keeping them.
She changed into the rather plain draw string sweats and tee shirt, all ridiculously over-sized, and she suddenly felt a new flood of embarrassment. Because there she was, Molly Hooper, in Sherlock's bathroom, wearing his clothes, at the mercy of his hospitality. Everything she now owned in the same flat, because what did she own except the few possessions in a gargantuan purse?
If she had been daydreaming about this years ago, she might've thought that some enjoyment could be taken from such a situation, burglary be damned. Now she felt suffocated, wanting to escape, to skip tea, to avoid Sherlock, to just throw herself beneath a blanket and be alone and forget this whole entire thing ever happened.
She chose to brush her teeth for fifteen minutes instead.
When she felt brave enough to venture back out, Sherlock was sitting by the fire next to a full tray of tea and biscuits. He looked up at her. Up and down at her, assessing her, until she grew visibly uncomfortable and he averted his gaze to the fire.
When she sat down in the chair across him, he indicated to the tray. "Make yourself at home, Molly."
"I – Thank you," she said, sounding awkward in the quiet of the flat. Accepting the tea served to keep her from nervous hand wringing; otherwise, she sat ramrod straight, tense, and completely unable to relax.
Sherlock noticed. "You're uncomfortable," he observed, his face alight in the orange glow of the flames that pooled in the disconcerted lines of his face.
Molly stared into her cup. "Can't help it. Everything I had is lost. There's going to be so much to do now."
"Material possessions. Useless. You'll get over it soon enough, as most of it can all be replaced, I'm sure."
There was the Sherlock charm, rearing its handsome, unsympathetic head. "You may not care much for sentiment, Sherlock, but I do. I can't replace the most important things I had. They were just ...things, but they were my things, with my memories tied to them."
"Memories are stored here," he tapped his temple. "You haven't lost those."
"I know that," Molly replied, willing for Sherlock to understand and giving up the hope the second she thought it. "I know. It's the violation that hurts the most; that someone went into my home and just... It only meant something to me. Who is going to get any financial gain from an old yearbook? Or a stupid old band shirt? I don't even know if they took my cat, or if he's run off to who knows where, or, or where I'm supposed to begin to..."
She felt the tears building. She was doing so well, not letting any of this get to her, especially in front of Sherlock. She didn't want to break down now. It only worsened when the indifference of his countenance faded into something more apprehensive, because why, she thought, would Sherlock care? He wouldn't. He refuses cases like hers. Their being friends didn't exclude her from his idea of boring. It wouldn't. Would it?
Staying here, Molly thought, what a terrible idea.
Not knowing what else to do, but knowing she didn't want to stay, Molly placed her untouched tea on the tray and stood. Sherlock, watching, seemingly unsettled by her behavior or his own inability to say the right thing, stood as well. "Molly-"
"It's getting late," she croaked, trying to get the words out before her throat choked up. "Thank you for the-the tea and you know, letting me stay the night. I'm just -" she gestured to the door, inching away, steps becoming stronger the more her eyes stung, "I'm going to just get some sleep and I'll be out of here by morning."
"You don't have to-"
"-Goodnight," She interrupted again, with a forced smile in an attempt to add amiable finality.
She was nearly at the door when Sherlock took a few steps forward and maintained his need for the last word, coming to what seemed a sudden realization tinged with disbelief. "You don't think I'll help you."
Molly stilled, hand on the door.
He continued. "I told you I would get it all back. I meant it. You've done more for me than anyone. No questions asked. In a world of variables, you've been a constant. And in a time when you need help, you think I won't give it."
Her mouth tightened to keep from shaking. This was ridiculous.
"Have I really lost the trust you once had in me?"
Molly had to screw her eyes shut when he said that. Because what other answer could she give him besides 'yes, I don't trust you'?
"I trust you well enough," she said, half lying, voice reduced to something breathless and resigned. "But I'm tired, Sherlock. Goodnight."
The door closed softly behind her and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her feet dragged her to the bed that wasn't hers to cry herself to sleep. It was remarkably uncomfortable, but that was okay.
She was still a little angry, anyway.
Sherlock had not slept in three days and had not eaten in five. During that time, he had observed a body, questioned a grieving widow, questioned a hotel manager, questioned a suspect who was too stupid to be a suspect, ran countless tests, ran ten blocks, found the real murder weapon (an old shirt), found the perpetrator's name embroidered on the murder weapon, and then explained to New Scotland Yard exactly why the victim had not hung himself from his hotel ceiling fan.
Oh, and he also called Molly Hooper stupid, scatter-brained, and weak.
It started out innocently enough. Molly offered to help with some tests, which he accepted gladly. She stayed for hours beyond her shift and her wakefulness was actually rather admirable for a normal human.
"I need you to decant those blood samples, in these tubes. Add the saline solution to the remaining plasma." Sherlock requested, quickly replacing slide after slide in the microscope and jotting findings down on the notebook beside him.
"How much?"
"Ah," Sherlock glanced at the notebook. "Thirty milliliters."
Molly had done exactly as he'd asked. She even brought up five incredibly large, heavy books on blood work supposedly containing specific research over the last fifty years. It was vital, he had said. She struggled a little getting the books on the table and one had fallen with a loud bang, effectively causing Sherlock's concentration to snap.
"If you could endeavor to lift a little more weight than your average six year old, Molly, perhaps lifting a simple book wouldn't pose such a problem for you. May I suggest less time on internet dating sites?"
Molly handled it with as much grace as she could. "Get your own books next time, then," she replied calmly.
They continued on with work until, at three-o-clock in the morning, Molly presented the plasma tests to Sherlock so that he could do whatever he planned in that complex, ruthless brain of his.
Sherlock stared at the tubes. He stared so long and so burningly, Molly wondered if he had run inside his mind, digging up useful information. Or maybe he learned how to sleep with his eyes open. Either way, she was becoming uncomfortable.
"Twenty milliliters, Molly," he finally growled, tired blue eyes attempting to melt glass.
"No," she objected. "You said thirty. I remember exactly, you said thirty. That's thirty." She really didn't want to deal with a tired, impatient Sherlock. Not at this hour. It didn't help that she'd never seen him so simmeringly pissed off before.
He ran a hand over his face. "Twenty, Molly. I'd like to think that you weren't so stupid that I would have to repeat myself like most of the incompetents I've had to deal with on this case, but I am, occasionally, wrong."
Molly gaped at him. He wasn't right.
Was he right?
She began to second guess herself in the face of his cruelty. She opened her mouth to defend herself again.
"Oh, don't bother," Sherlock interrupted. "If you plan on being scatter-brained for the remainder of these tests, then you might as well go home and stop wasting my time."
Molly drew herself up and said with a shaking chin, "Thirty."
There was a moment of silence before Sherlock, in a fantastic display of maturity, snatched one of the tubes and flung it across the lab. It shattered against the wall and broke nearly every bio-hazard rule that Molly could think of. She jumped, making a rather frightened noise. She met Sherlock's cold eyes boring into hers and he was suddenly the man in the morgue again. The violent, merciless one with shredded knuckles and rage.
She bolted from the lab.
In the silence that followed, Sherlock closed his eyes in sudden, overwhelming remorse, taking a very deep breath and sitting himself down. He clenched his jaw and checked his notes, chastising himself severely for not doing so earlier when he'd read it.
Not that there was any excuse for what he'd done.
"Thirty milliliters."
Well, he was, occasionally, wrong.
Molly didn't see Sherlock for two days after that incident. She was aware that the case was solved, so she assumed that he must have consumed massive amounts of food and then slept for twelve hours. She was relieved. She didn't want to see him for a very long time.
It wasn't often she felt that way.
But really, she thought of him far less these days. Some days she didn't think about him at all and she found the feeling liberating. Her chest didn't ache anymore and her heart didn't speed up at the thought of him, at least not in any romantic sense, because that night she was terrified and her heart had pounded and she wondered if he'd been on drugs again.
There was a bowl of stomach contents in front of her. Gloves were stretched up to her elbows and the safety glasses continued to slide down her nose as she prepared samples of the brownish, undigested mass before her. There were pieces of grass protruding from bits of it.
When Molly heard the door open she naturally tensed, as it was nine-o-clock at night. It was either another lab tech or, god she hoped she was wrong, it was-
"Molly," Sherlock addressed.
She didn't bother turning around. Too busy. "Are you here for a case?"
There was a deep breath. "No."
"Then go away."
She didn't hear him leave. His behavior had been so erratic that night that Molly found herself feeling uneasy and unprepared, unable to run at a moment's notice. She never thought she would want to run so badly from Sherlock Holmes. Shimmying two feet to the sink, she snapped the gloves off and washed her hands meticulously. She placed her glasses on the counter next to a set of cleaned, fragile 50 milliliter cylinders and turned around.
Sherlock stood three yards behind her, appearing to wait patiently until she finished. "Why are you still here?" she demanded angrily.
Surprisingly, he looked chastened. "I believe I owe you an apology."
She let him continue with her level stare as reply.
"You were right. I did say thirty. I'm sorry."
It didn't cut it, not this time. It went beyond miscommunications and Molly genuinely wanted him gone from her lab, at least for a few more days or weeks. Maybe months. "I need you to leave," she said, slowly.
Sherlock was apparently unwilling to do so, obviously ready to say something either in his defense, or something to placate her with, but in that moment, Molly only registered his tall, imposing form stalking towards her in two long strides. It was like being on autopilot, that her body panicked, backed up sharply into the counter behind her and banged her foot into the cabinet below. She reached out jarringly to catch herself and her hand landed hard into the cylinders. One splintered jaggedly beneath her palm.
Blood rolled down to her elbow as she blinked in surprise.
The next thing she knew, Sherlock had thrown the sink faucet on and held her bleeding hand underneath the soothing rush of water. His body was tense beside her, and his face, when she dared to glance at him, was unreadable. His long fingers ran over the wounds, gently sloughing away the small shards of clinging glass. It should have been touching, but it felt humiliating.
"I'm a grown woman, Sherlock, I can take care of myself," she snapped, reaching over and shutting off the tap. "Even if I am clumsy. And stupid." Wrenching her hand away, she reached for a clean, sterile towel above the sink and staunched the blood seeping through the cracks again. The cuts stung terribly and she considered that she might need stitches, but she had a feeling that Sherlock would follow her if she ran again like a dog with her tail between her legs. Always running away, always running from her own lab.
"I'm sorry," he said stiltedly, drying his hands on his coat before bringing them up as though to reach for her again. "It was never my intention to frighten you."
Molly, frustrated, walked around him to gracelessly lumber out the first aid kit. Sherlock, for such a usually impatient man, was persistent in his desire to help and pulled it away from her to lay it on the table. By then Molly was too sapped to fight him, or fight her own anger for that matter, and she slumped exhaustively onto a stool that Sherlock had surreptitiously maneuvered beneath her.
Pulling her hand away from where it was cradled to her chest, letting the towel drop, he began pressing small white cotton squares against her cuts and wrapping them up in long, gauzy strips.
"I never thought you were stupid," Sherlock told her, voice as gentle and firm as the way he was dressing her wounds. "Not once. I was just... I was frustrated."
"Just being you, I suppose," Molly glumly added, flinching at a particular area around her thumb.
"No," he said sharply, though his tone had no bite. His features and voice softened. "No. That wasn't me, never, not if I keep scaring you. I can't allow that. I told myself that I would be kind to you and I continue to screw it up marvelously."
Sherlock snipped off the end of the gauze and secured it carefully with medical tape. Molly examined his work, surprised at how well it was done. "I'm not actually on any dating sites, you know. Told you, I'm done with men."
"I know."
Molly granted him a tiny smile and stood up, feeling that an enormous weight had been hoisted from her chest, such was the stress of being constantly angry. "I'm still a bit upset with you."
She stretched a little and tried to wiggle her two fingers under the mass of stiff bandages. Sherlock reached up and gently took her hand, stilling her movements. He had that rare, warm glow in his eyes again and he stepped closer, his palm pressing against her jaw, and what was he doing, because Molly had really been trying to avoid these kinds of situations with anyone and Sherlock of all people couldn't just-
-he kissed her cheek. It was soft and warm, but he was lingering there too long, too close, cheek brushing against hers, smelling faintly like tea and tobacco.
She stepped back, attempting a jittery smile as she pushed away, leaving his arms to fall to his sides. He searched her face. There must be something she could say to distract from this atmosphere and she looked around frantically.
"Pica!" She squeaked.
Sherlock started, thoroughly confused. "Excuse me?"
"It's an eating disorder," she explained quickly, "A body was brought in earlier with it, stomach just filled with dirt and, you know, a couple small rocks and some grass. If you help me clean up this mess, would you like to help me take samples?"
He blinked, swallowed, breaching the surface of whatever thoughts he'd been swimming in.
"Alright."
.
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AN: Yaaay, cliche 'Molly living with Sherlock' time! You guys disappointed with me, yet? I think the writing isn't very good here. I also found that I like writing from Sherlock's perspective way more than Molly's.