Athor's note: This story would not have happened if I had not seen a manip on Tumblr by cumbercougars (lunacatd here). It looked very much like the title of a Barbara Cartland novel, although it actually is not. I immediately had an idea for a story and here it is. So, thank you for the inspiration. Thanks also to simplyshelbs16 for directing me to the image in the first place! I hope you will enjoy Molly's dream.

PROLOGUE

Molly Holmes was having a terrible day. For almost two weeks now, she had been suffering acute morning sickness. Some days were worse than others, and this was one of them. Every twenty minutes without fail, she had been sick in the plastic container her husband had given her. Running to the bathroom was simply not an option, Sherlock had told her, when the nausea hit so frequently.

The detective had been wonderful, plying her with glasses of water, flat lemonade and Ritz crackers for her to eat between the episodes of uncontrollable nausea.

"You need to keep something in your stomach, or you will just be bringing up bile from it," he had told her practically. From the moment she had informed him of her pregnancy, the sleuth had spent endless hours online, researching pregnancy and its early symptoms.

Only two days after she had made the happy announcement, Sherlock had asked, "Are your nipples tender?"

"Actually they are. How did you know?"

"Besides the fact that you've been wincing when I touch them or try to kiss them?" he asked.

"Oh. I hadn't realized," she said in embarrassment. "Now that you mention it, they have been particularly sensitive of late. Usually they get that way after I ovulate, until my monthly visitor arrives, but this time they've continued to feel sensitive. I suppose that was probably the first sign I was pregnant, after my missed period of course."

"Yet you still waited three days to do the pregnancy test, even though I deduced it might be the case."

"I wanted to be sure it would be accurate. Anyway, the blood test Kaitlyn did confirmed it. She was so excited for us. I made her promise not to tell anyone about it though, until we're ready. Anyway, you still didn't explain about recognizing my sensitivity as a symptom of pregnancy."

The detective flushed slightly. "I looked up 'symptoms of early pregnancy' online."

"Were you worried it might be a false positive?"

Sherlock flushed again. "I was hoping it wasn't. You know I expressed my concerns during our engagement that perhaps I might not be - fertile, after my previous drug usage."

"And I told you God would work things out, and so He has." She patted her husband's hand, and they had gone on to talk of other things.

Molly remembered clearly the first time the morning sickness had hit. Sherlock had been telling her about this long dream he'd had. Unable to sleep the night before, because she was on nightshift, he had texted her. She had recommended he read a book. It always worked for her.

For some unaccountable reason, Sherlock had chosen one of her Barbara Cartland romances. After reading it, he had dreamed himself into the role of being a Marquis who was forced to marry someone he'd never met for her money. Of course, the heroine was Molly herself, and the couple had embarked on a long journey that led to love and eventually, happiness.

Mid-dream, Molly had arrived home from work and found her husband sprawled on the bed, completely naked, bedcovers on the floor, so she had decided to join him and get some sleep. Sherlock had awoken, in a very tense moment of his dream, as Molly had heard him talking in his sleep, and she had tried to comfort him. The result had been a very passionate, fiery encounter between them, where her husband had seemed desperate to know she was real, and they were safe.

They had both slept and when next they awoke, they had made love again before Sherlock began to recount his dream. It was while he was telling her about it, that the first wave of nausea had hit, and she had fled to the bathroom to rid her stomach of all its contents. That was when she had discovered her detective had been thoroughly researching pregnancy, as he offered her well-known "remedies" for morning sickness, crackers and flat lemonade, as well as water for hydration.

Right now, there were two opened bottles of lemonade that Sherlock had removed the caps from, to allow the carbonation to dissipate. On a day like this though, no sooner were the crackers eaten, and water or lemonade drunk, than the nausea hit once more, and she was bringing up her stomach's contents again. Her husband was absolutely correct though. If she didn't drink or eat, the urge to be sick still came upon her and she would dry heave the nasty, bitter tasting yellow bile, which was far worse than expelling the savoury biscuits.

Her husband had been particularly solicitous on this bad day, and the one occasion previously when the nausea was an almost constant presence, refusing to take any cases, or putting off ones he had scheduled. Poor Molly had had to take her second day off work today, because of it. There was absolutely no way she could work when she was being sick every twenty minutes. When it was only the occasional bout of nausea, she managed, although Mike Stamford had reassigned her post-mortems for the time being, because they required undivided attention.

Molly's most embarrassing moment to date had been a couple days earlier, when Mycroft had arrived out of the blue, bearing a baby Doppler monitor for them as a gift. Sherlock had been unable to resist the temptation of boasting to his brother that he was going to be a father, only two days after Molly had started getting sick. When Molly asked her husband why he felt the need to tell Mycroft so soon, before anyone else, he had answered,

"Mycroft gave me such a hard time about us wanting to wait till our wedding night to consummate our relationship , and he gave me such grief about being a forty year old virgin, that I had to throw it in his face that I could actually perform the act, and get you pregnant as well."

Molly had laughed so much she had almost cried. There was always a sense of rivalry between the two men, and she knew Sherlock was rather proud of the fact that he was going to be a father, unlike his brother who, despite several liaisons had managed to avoid acquiring any progeny.

The day Mycroft had visited, Molly had had to excuse herself abruptly to run for the toilet. She suspected, although Sherlock had never said so, that her husband was rather proud of the "evidence" that corroborated his claim to his brother that she was with child.

Sherlock had spent the entire day sitting with her on the sofa, attending to her needs. He had even braided her hair to keep it out if her face, (something he had learned how to do during a "lonely night on Google" as John would say, although really it it was YouTube and during the day) when she had been at work and he had been between cases during their engagement.

Finally though, at almost midnight, Molly sent Sherlock to bed. Upon her instructions, he brought down a Barbara Cartland novel from the spare room for her to re-read. The nausea was not as frequent, and Molly thought she'd try to read for awhile, and wait to feel better, before going to bed herself. She'd always been a fan of Barbara Cartland's stories, the romance, the descriptions of opulence and high society. She loved reading about the nobility, especially those from the Victorian era, and the style of dress worn in those days, corsets and big skirts with petticoats or crinolines.

Only Sherlock really knew the depths of Molly's romantic soul. At work she was all practical and businesslike, with him, her closet romantic exposed itself. Her husband was a very willing recipient. Every time she re-read one of her novels now, she pictured the hero looking exactly like Sherlock, and herself as the heroine. It was eminently satisfying.

In fact, Molly thought, her husband could easily play the role of a dashing nobleman. He was so incredibly handsome, and tall, as well as elegant when he dressed in his suit. She could definitely imagine Sherlock in the clothes of a 19th century Lord, or Marquis, as he had dreamed. In fact, the pathologist was half-hoping that reading a novel before bed might prompt a vivid dream, the way It had prompted Sherlock's a couple weeks earlier.

Molly relaxed on the sofa, reading her novel. After an hour without feeling any nausea, and with her eyes feeling heavy, she at last put the book down and got ready for bed, taking off all her clothes and sliding in next to her husband's warm, and also unclothed body.

He made a little grunt, waking enough to fold her into his embrace, placing his hand in a possessive fashion gently over her breast, as usual.

Molly closed her eyes, feeling contentment and fatigue sweep over her. She slept and got her wish. She began to dream.

Author's note: If you follow my other work, this story fits into my single universe. Chronologically speaking, it takes place after "A Journey to Love and Faith" (which is an ongoing story detailing Sherlock and Molly's engagement) and "Forced to Marry."

The experience of extreme nausea and being sick every twenty minutes is not something I made up. I experienced it myself, so I can describe it in accurate detail.

If you find this interesting enough to follow or favourite, please do take the time to review. I love to read people's opinions, and I always respond to them.

I am a very quick updater, so you should be able to follow the story easily and not forget what is happening. If you are looking for explicit content you will not find it with me. My style is to portray the very romantic, sensual side of the true love and commitment shared by Sherlock and Molly, without using explicit language for body parts, nor the extreme swear words.

-GoodShipSherlollipop