Piles of work waiting for her, a personal side project in the lab fridge that would spoil or be spoiled before she could return, and Mary Watson in the delivery room about to have a baby girl.
If there were a more frustrating time to be stuck at home recuperating from an emergency appendix removal, Molly didn't know when it would be. If only John Watson hadn't been so insistent that she check herself into the hospital...well, she supposed she might be dead, so she would still be missing out on work and personal projects and births.
The knock at the door was unwelcome. She almost ignored it, except that the irritated mutters that immediately followed sounded familiar.
"I'm coming," she called out, to give herself time to hoist herself up as carefully as possible.
A few moments later, Sherlock Holmes entered, pirouetting in an acrobatic twist to disentangle himself from the mass of yellow and pink and blue balloons surrounding him.
Good heavens, she was on a heavier dosage of Tramadol than she'd realized.
He threw a weight onto the floor, and several of the balloons anchored there, bobbing against the wall. A few more, attached to a separate weight, remained in his hand, stretched out towards her.
Molly stared at this obvious hallucination of Sherlock in blank astonishment.
"From Mrs. Hudson," he said gruffly. "Though I did explain to her that she couldn't expect helium encased in rubber to erase the negative physical effects of an appendectomy or childbirth."
Molly's eyebrows tilted in a question.
"The rest are for Mary," Sherlock explained. "Or John. Or the baby, I don't know. I can't see why any of them would need them."
"I think," said Molly, taking the proffered balloons, "it's just meant to show you're thinking of someone."
Sherlock's face twisted in distaste. "How is 'thinking of someone' of any help at all, even in less difficult circumstances?"
Not a hallucination. Definitely the real Sherlock. And she didn't have the energy to explain normal human emotions to him today. She shuffled back across the room, dropping the balloon weight as she went.
"I stopped by the lab on the way to get those wretched balloons," Sherlock started, but Molly cut him off with an annoyed click of her tongue.
"I can't offer you any body parts now," she said, re-thought, and shrugged off. She didn't have the energy for self-editing, either.
Molly sunk down onto her couch, dressing gown billowing up to her knees. With a sigh of effort, she propped her feet up on the coffee table and leaned her head back against the wall. "Sherlock, this is not a good time." She waved a hand vaguely in his direction. "I appreciate...and everything...but no."
Silence. Her eyes flew open. Silence was never good. Instinctively, she looked towards the cedar box on her desk, but it stood inviolate. She looked back at her visitor, who was watching her with a bemused expression.
"I've read it already," he said.
"Not for two years now." Head back against the wall. Eyes closed. "I do journal more frequently than that. Just...ask me for updates, all right? Like a normal person. It'll be good practice for some disguise or other."
"Exactly how many medications do they have you on?"
"Only Tramadol, but we don't all have your shocking level of tolerance for opiates."
She opened her eyes again when she heard him laughing quietly.
"The drugs, the casual disinterest, the clipped tone—it's like looking into a mirror," he said wryly. "And I did wonder where I'd left that dressing gown."
"Payment for services rendered," she retorted. "Considering you always leave the place an absolute wreck. It may well be a bolthole to you, but I live here every day. For years. Years and years, without you here, mucking things up...and then months and months...and weeks...and months again…." She lapsed into silence, trying to count up the number of times he'd burst in on a quiet evening with Toby, or nearly startled her to death by being there when she flicked the switch, or brushed in past her as she was on her way out. Too often? Not enough? At least one of those. "Mucking things up…."
"You never complained before."
"Oh, you know I love it," she huffed. She had a sneaking awareness that the medication was leaving her just alert enough to make a complete arse of herself. "Really, Sherlock. Please go."
"I'll send Mrs. Hudson over to check on you."
"No need," she said. "Thank her for the gift, but I can manage."
"You can't even manage balloons..."
"That would be you."
"...so I deem it inadvisable for you to be left alone for long periods of time."
"'Alone is what I have,'" she quoted darkly.
"Touché."
There was a muted squeak of jostling balloons, then the sound of a door opening. She lifted a hand in farewell. "Thanks. Say hello to the Watsons for me."
"Certainly. Now, if you don't lie down soon, you'll have only yourself to blame for tomorrow's stiffness in your neck. Mrs. Hudson should be by around 8:00 tonight." A pause, in which she could almost feel him popping his head back around the door in the dramatic fashion of which he was so fond. "Oh, and Smythe has been given explicit orders that I have assumed the maintenance of the experiment you started last month, and he is not to touch it under any circumstances."
As his footsteps retreated down the stairs, she gingerly repositioned herself to lie on her back with her head propped on the couch pillows. "Ridiculous man," she said, hugging the dressing gown around her.
Thoughts and balloons were lovely, and she did appreciate that Mrs. Hudson had sent them—but uncontaminated data was in a class by itself.