Author's note: So here we are, it's another one of my little "what if" dream stories. A pretty short one this time, just three chapters in all.
Sherlock stared in disbelief at Mary, then at himself as he felt the agony of a bullet ripping into his body from close range.
"Mary," he uttered, as blood seeped out of the small round opening. Sirens went off in his brain and his mind palace took over.
His first mental image was that of descending stairs, then the next one was of Molly Hooper. Mind palace Molly gave him the information about his wound. Philip Anderson joined her, as did Mycroft, and between the three of them, Sherlock found the answers his brain already knew. Alarms continued to sound in his brain as Molly told him to fall backwards.
As he fell backwards he was told by Molly he was going into shock and warned by Mycroft to not do so. He struggled to maintain consciousness, dealing with the agony he was feeling, even as he ended up inside his mind palace in a padded room with a taunting Moriarty.
As John came to his aid in the real world, Sherlock could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness and possible death.
Moriarty continued to taunt him. Dying would be so easy, much easier than living. He could just let go of everything and there would be no more pain.
And then his heart stopped beating.
Even as his brain was being deprived of oxygen, it continued to function and finally, he found the will to live. People cared about him, needed him.
He forced himself bit by bit up the staircase created by his mind, and his heart began to beat once again.
Sherlock Holmes had escaped the Grim Reaper or, if one preferred, the Angel of Death, once again.
His next memory was that of being in a hospital room. He could feel the cannula in his nose, supplying him with oxygen, the IV in his arm and electrodes on his chest keeping track of his heartbeat.
Remembering his last conscious word, he mouthed it again, in a voice that was barely audible due to the intubation tube that had been put down his throat during surgery to keep him breathing while under anesthesia. "Mary."
He heard the voice before he saw the face of his friend. "Oh, thank God you're alive. We almost lost you."
He smiled weakly and lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
The next thing he felt was a tingling sensation in his hand and on his lips. How odd, he thought, unable to process what was causing it.
His eyes opened a crack and he suddenly realised what was happening. A pair of soft, sweet lips was placed against his own, and as he looked through the shadow caused by his eyelashes in surprise, they were removed and he saw the face to which those lips belonged. It was Molly. Molly Hooper, the first person his brain had turned to as a visual reference for his mind palace. The woman who mattered the most.
"Molly," he breathed in a soft, probably inaudible whisper, even as he drifted back into the welcome embrace of unconsciousness, barely registering just beforehand that the tingle in his hand was the feel of hers clasping his own.
On the next occasion Sherlock woke, he knew that the cannula had been removed and he was no longer in intensive care, but a regular hospital room. Apparently he was out of danger. Sadly though, the first images he saw as he woke were headlines thrust in his face.
It was almost amusing, seeing those headlines portraying him as being some kind of sex machine, particularly seeing as that was one state with which he had never been afflicted. Despite his protestations to the contrary in a talk with Mycroft, the idea of sex did indeed alarm him. The idea of sharing his body in an act of intimacy with another human being was simply incomprehensible. Love was a chemical defect found in the losing side. Hadn't he proved that quite well when he had outwitted Irene Adler?
When he saw the person holding the newspapers in front of his face, he understood why his name had been brought into the tabloids in such a sordid manner. Janine.The woman he had manipulated in order to get to Magnussen. He couldn't really blame her for wanting to get back at him.
A short conversation later and things were sorted between them. She didn't seem overly upset, and now she had a lot of money to console her.
It was only a minute after she had gone when Sherlock had another visitor – Molly.
She entered the room hesitantly, opening her mouth as if to ask a question, then stopping short when she spied the newspapers on the bed. Her face drained of color and she spun on her heel, ready to flee. Undoubtedly she had seen Janine coming out of his room.
"Wait, Molly. Don't go, please don't go." He couldn't help the almost pleading note in his voice as he lifted his arm towards her in supplication.
She turned and took a small step towards him, and he could see the bright sheen of tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, it's just a bit of a shock to see what you've been up to lately. Now I know why you've been steering clear of the hospital since John and Mary's wedding, aside from the drugs you've been taking." She gave him a pained smile.
Sherlock shook his head vehemently and patted a spot on the bed, indicating for her to sit. He snatched at the newspapers and threw them haphazardly on the floor.
She perched nervously on the edge of the bed, as he asked, "Do you always believe what you read in the tabloids?"
She looked at him, her fingers picking at the sheet on the hospital bed. "They were tabloids? I didn't notice. What I saw was the headlines."
He sighed. "If you don't believe me, pick them up off the floor and check. There's no truth to any of them, I assure you." He spoke earnestly reaching out his hand towards her and placing it over her restless fingers. A flash of memory returned to him, that of a hand holding his and causing the same slight tingle. It was odd, he thought. In the years they had known each other, they had rarely had any physical contact. Yes, he had kissed her cheek twice, and if he was honest with himself, the second one had not been intended for her cheek, except for the fact that he had just discovered she was engaged and a kiss to the lips would have been highly inappropriate.
"I…I believe you, Sherlock," she responded, looking from his hand to his face. "Why did someone print such rubbish about you?"
Sherlock sighed again. "You undoubtedly noticed the woman leaving my room. Her name is Janine and she was a bridesmaid at Mary's wedding."
She nodded. "I remember. She's very attractive, and I think she was interested in you." He was relieved to see that she no longer looked as if she were about to cry.
"I have a confession to make." He looked down in embarrassment, then back at Molly's questioning gaze. "I exploited her attraction to me. I'm not proud of it, but I used her as a means to an end. For the past month I've been seeing her, buttering her up as it were, to try to get to Charles Magnussen because she is his personal assistant. Do you know who he is?"
"The Charles Magnussen, top of the heap when it comes to destroying people's lives?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at him.
"One and the same. The man is a blackmailer. He discovers unsavoury information about people and, if they don't do what he wants, he exposes their secrets." He blew out a breath. "The point is, Molly, I used Janine for a case, and she used me right back to make a little money for herself. I can't say I blame her." His hand tightened on Molly's.
"I see." For the first time he saw a slight change in her expression, a more hopeful look in her eyes. "So you're not still with her then?"
"I should have thought that was fairly obvious by what I just told you," he responded with a small smile, gesturing at the discarded newspapers on the floor, where the one could still be seen with the headline of 'He made me wear the hat.' "Anyone who knows me wouldn't believe that anyway, I hate that damned ear hat!"
Molly giggled. "I must admit, I think it is a shame to cover your beautiful curls with that hat as well."
My beautiful curls? he thought, intrigued by the statement, filing it away for future reference. Molly likes my curls. Don't get a haircut anytime soon.
Hastily, he forced himself back to the conversation at hand. Best to stick to a neutral topic rather than start daydreaming. "By the way, I need to apologise to you."
"For being an idiot and pumping yourself full of toxins?" she asked a little pertly.
He shot her a rueful smile. "Well, that too. I regret my actions of the previous month. I've made several errors in regard to Magnussen and I am willing to admit it. But no, that isn't what I wanted to apologise for right now."
She looked surprised. "I don't know what else you'd want to apologise about, what is it?"
There was a twist to his lips as he said, "I need to apologise for announcing to all and sundry that your engagement was over."
She gave a short, humourless laugh. "Don't worry about it. That wasn't a revelation. You were probably the last person to know, because I haven't seen you since the wedding."
He furrowed his brow. Apparently the engagement has been over for some time, then, he deduced. To confirm his deduction he asked, "So, if I may be so bold as to ask – when exactly did you break things off?" Then he added, feeling he needed to make sure of the facts, "Unless the meat dagger theorist was the one who ended your engagement?"
He knew it was rude to make fun of the man that way, but really, the theory had been preposterous, and, if he was honest with himself, Sherlock knew he had invited the young man to explain his deduction out loud in order to embarrass himself which he had done, very satisfyingly, as it turned out. He still didn't understand how Molly could have chosen to marry such a simpleton, when she could have done so much better. She was definitely better off without him.
Of course, Molly did not let his tactless statement pass unaddressed. "That's a very rude thing to say, Sherlock," she told him firmly. "Just because you are a genius, doesn't mean everyone else has to be."
He felt a little embarrassed and put in his place. Molly always knew how to make him feel bad for his often thoughtless behaviour. It was one of the things he loved, er liked best about her. "Er, sorry," he muttered, feeling the need as usual to apologise again. He was always apologising to her! Then he raised his brow again in inquiry. "You were going to tell me when you broke things off or he did so?" he pressed.
She looked away from him, as if unable to meet his intent gaze, fixing her eyes on one of the flower arrangements in the room. "I broke it off right after the wedding reception, after he took me home."
Despite himself, Sherlock was intrigued. It seemed a rather cruel thing to do, time-wise, and Molly was not known for her cruelty. In fact, she was the kindest person he knew. He was also rather relieved to know it had indeed been she who had ended things. He was about to ask her why, when a nurse came into the room.
"I'm afraid Mr. Holmes needs his rest now," the nurse announced, reaching behind Sherlock's head to fluff his pillow and to check various things, like how much fluid was left in his IV bag.
Molly stood, removing her hand from where it had rested under Sherlock's.
"Can we continue this discussion tomorrow?" he asked her hopefully.
She nodded. "Tomorrow," she agreed.
"You promise?" he asked, feeling rather silly, but wanting to make sure she didn't back out. He was very curious to know why, after all this time, she had broken things off with her fiancé. He tried not to think about how much it mattered to him to know. That would imply he might be having his own feelings of sentiment for her. Was that even possible?
"I promise," she said softly. To his surprise, she walked towards him and kissed his forehead. Her lips felt very different from Janine's, softer, sweeter somehow. Remembrance suddenly surfaced of a pair of soft, sweet lips against his own, and he was a little embarrassed when his heart rate accelerated and the increase in heart rate became apparent quite audibly from the monitor.
The nurse looked over at him in concern. "Are you feeling all right, Mr. Holmes?" she asked anxiously. "Should I get a doctor?"
Molly also looked at him with a worried expression on her face, not seeming to realise his accelerated heartbeat was due to her kiss, and the remembrance of the last one, rather than some unknown problem he was having.
"I'm fine," he assured the nurse, with a little more brusqueness than was necessary. Molly hesitated, then lifted her hand in farewell and left the room.
Sherlock watched impatiently as the nurse replaced his IV bag and took his temperature, then checked his morphine level and asked why it was set at zero. He informed her that he was trying to stay away from any more medication than necessary, and she shrugged. "It's your funeral, love," she told him before exiting the hospital room.
Once she had gone, Sherlock heaved a sigh of relief. He wanted to think about Molly and the kiss he barely remembered. He closed his eyes and strained to remember every detail. Then an image of her came into his mind of the way she had been the first person with him in his mind palace, just after he was shot. Why had she been the one he thought of first? Why indeed was she always the one his thoughts turned to when he needed help with something?
His near death experience had certainly been a wake up call. He knew he had to re-evaluate his life and make some changes. He thought again about Molly and reached a conclusion. There were some definite changes he needed to make in regard to his relationship with her. He knew that now. For the first time he saw clearly for himself how much she meant to him, and now that she too was free, perhaps there was hope for him. She had kissed him on the lips, after all. Surely that meant something?
He lifted a hand to his mouth, remembering again the tingle he had felt. He definitely wanted to feel that again. If he felt something with the merest brush of her lips, what would it be like to really kiss her?
He had felt no such sensation when kissing Janine, which he had avoided as much as possible anyway. A feigned mouth ulcer had prevented him from kissing her for several days, a toothache for a few more. He had even complained of having painfully chapped lips. In fact, he calculated mentally in his head, he and Janine had shared no more than a dozen open mouthed kisses, including the one in front of John, in the month they had been together, and the rest had been mere brushes of the lips.
His thoughts churned with the possibilities even as his brain kept saying, Molly, Molly, Molly. Finally, he fell asleep still thinking about her.
Author's note: I love the idea of Sherlock acknowledging his feelings for Molly at an earlier point in the series. These dreams give me the chance to explore that.
To see where this dream fits into my Sherlolly universe, I refer you to my other current story, A Journey Through Molly's Diary.
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