The Clock is Ticking
Summary: It's the closest to I love you, Molly Hooper ever gets.
A/N: My first Sherlock fanfiction. I doubt I do them justice, but the idea has plagued me for quite some time. So here we go.
The first thing he notices is her dating had become non existent since her ended engagement.
She didn't seem to bother anymore. He's not relieved by the matter, though he simply knows there is no one quite suitable enough for his astounding pathologist. Still, the matter as to why she decided to end the matter was another thing entirely, no Molly Hooper was a very hopeful creature and unless...
"I'm not interested." Her voice is sharp, before she continues slightly unevenly, "He's ruined men for me. I think I'm just...Im done. Thanks though, really it was very kind of you to think of me."
She looks up from her clipboard to face not only Lestrade, but Sherlock himself. And when her eyes meet his, he knows it's not Tom she's talking about.
.
The second thing he notices is a pamphlet on her desk, a pink pamphlets that reads artificial insemination. He knawls on his bottom lip for a moment as she crosses the room, a cooler in hand.
"Here are your toes Sherlock, but if that's all, I'm really pushed on time today I have to call..."
He doesn't hear her, he's to busy observing her.
She thinks her clock is ticking...
He turns around unexpectedly without so much as a goodbye opens his phone to call Mycroft.
.
It's logical. He thinks to himself as he walks into the clinic. Completely logical.
.
"Do you think this is wise Sherlock?" Mycroft chastises.
But Mycroft doesn't understand because he hasn't been looked at with those eyes. And Sherlock isn't a fan of the sentiment he feels as is.
"We both know I would break her." He replies much calmer than he feels. "This may be the one and only kindness I can give the woman who...who saved my life."
again and again and again, with kind words, wide eyes and big smiles.
"You wouldn't be able to be around, you realize that don't you."
"There's no other person in this world I rather bear and raise my child."
"What on earth are you thinking Sherlock?" Mycroft shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. He can read the refusal all over his face and his heart beats a little harder in his chest at the oncoming rejection.
"Mycroft, please."
There's a pause a dilation of the pupils as Mycroft picks up the phone from his desk.
"Very well then."
.
He is brought into a room, and under many phone calls, and favors later. He is in a private room within the walls of the clinic. He doesn't need to be told what to do, he has an extensive knowledge on how everything worth knowing works.
"There are magazines there."
"They wont be necessary." He says crisply taking the cup from her with his gloved hand."You do understand the, the details of this..operation. These are specifically for her. Molly Hooper that is. No one else's will do."
"Mr. Holmes, I assure you, with the strings you have pulled we assure you that your sperm will be used. She will not know., and we will call you back should we need additional sperm."
It's clinical. It's perfect for him
Molly Hooper deserves better.
He winces despite himself as the doctor leaves him alone with his thoughts.
..
He sees her, nearly a month later, and he knows as soon as he sees her that it's' taken.
Though he had no reason to think otherwise, he was not required to come back, but he hadn't expected to sense it so soon. She looked the same as she ever did, her posture had not changed, her abdomen had not grown yet, but she was smiling and humming. Elbows deep inside a body and she was humming some silly little tune that he couldn't place, and she looked positively radiant.
You did that. His ego purred. You finally made her that happy. You.
"What are you smiling about?" John says nudging him in the arm, and it wipes the look off his face instantly.
"Nothing. Molly. The body did you find..."
.
He dreams of her.
He didn't mean to of course, he never does. But it does happen occasionally as it should she's an important part of his life. One of his dearest friends, most intelligent peers, the woman who loved him until he ruined her for anyone else.
But these dreams aren't like the others. The dreams are of watching another man caress her cheek with gloved fingers, of holding a baby in hands that aren't his. It's enough to make him wake up countless times with sweat dripping from his brow.
He was never really good at sleeping anyway.
.
"John."
"Hm?" His friend says looking up from his new born daughter.
"Do you think I could do that?"
"What, hold her?" John says offering his best friend his baby girl.
Be a husband, a father.
He says nothing as he takes his god daughter into his arms.
.
It's been three months, and the changes to Molly are subtle. Completely unnoticeable to average minded people, he's sure. John certainly hasn't noticed, and he is about to scream that she hasn't said anything.
It isnt until John leaves for lunch that he can take it no longer.
"It worked than?" He says bluntly.
"What worked?" Molly says absently looking up from her microscope to meet his eyes.
He clears his throat uncomfortable. "The pamphlet on your desk. You're pregnant."
He watches the color drain from her face and her mouth open and close. Like a fish. He thinks. Did she really think he wouldnt know?
It takes her a minute, but she nods. "Yes. It did. I mean I am." She sputters and she looks embarrassed her hand finding its way to her midsection, where just the smallest bump, hardly noticeable under her baggy cardigan and blouse lies. She gets that smile on her face as she looks up to him, and she laughs absurdly. "I'm growing a little human being in here!"
He smiles despite himself. "Indeed you are, Congratulations Molly Hooper."
.
She gives her word to Barts a few weeks after he called her out. He's on his way to borrow a microscope, John a few strides behind him, when he catches a conversation that makes his pace slow.
"It's a shame really, the choice she made, bringing a child into the world all by herself."
"She'll have no one to hold her hand. Her father dead and her mother passing. She deserved better ya?"
"Sherlock?" John questions looking back at him as he holds open one of the double doors to Molly's lab.
He turns around without meaning to, and he doesn't know why, but he cant go in there.
.
Sometimes the loneliness is worse than the boredom. He plays his violin, but he's thinking about the drugs. His mind can stay rampant, he just needs to kill the sentiment.
.
At six months, Sherlock insists Mary through her a baby shower, and she is happy to oblige. They host the event in Sherlock's apartment and he cant stop staring.
"You act like you havent seen a pregnant woman before. Did you forget what it was like with Mary?" John mocks as he bounces his daughter slightly on his knee.
Sherlock doesn't say anything just watches the curve of her belly, and the smile on her face.
"She's having a surprise." he says his voice cracking with an emotion John doesn't recognize "I just want to know."
"Well, its not your decision mate. You'll know soon enough. I wager we'll meet the little person soon enough."
A hand at his back and Johns up and over at his wife's side. Mollys eyes meet his across the room and she smiles giving a shy little wave as she turns back to one of her college mates who came into town just to see her.
I see you Molly. I dont see anyone else.
.
Mycroft has people following her to insure her safety. So when Holmes gets a phone call at 3AM about a break in in her flat, and Sherlock hails a cab without waiting to hear any farther details.
When he gets there there is a crowd full of people, and a cop cars as he barges his way through all of them. Molly's hand sets on her large belly and she is pale as a ghost. A slash across her cheek, shallow and thin made with a pen knife, no doubt, and the beginnings of a bruise on her arm.
He's livid as he approaches her, shaking with anger as he grasps her arms.
"Are you okay?"
"S-sherlock?" She stutters, blinking looking clueless in the midst of chaos. Dear god she's in shock, where the hell are the paramedics with that god forsaken blanket now?
"Answer me Molly are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little startled I think. The babies fine." She says. "He didnt. He didnt" and she chokes on a sob.
Its anger that propels him towards one of the officers. "Where the hell is he? Where is the man who did this?"
And than Lestrade is there and Mycroft and he's not sure how it happens but he's getting thrown in a car, curse words coming flying out of his mouth and Molly is left standing there gaping at the scene before her.
.
He stands outside the door, more composed than he feels as he waits for one of his undercover people to come out and tell him how the labor went. How Molly is. How her child is. He paces and paces when a male nurse comes over to him.
"Mr. Holmes."
He steps forward. "How are they?" And he prides himself on how calm he sounds compared to how he feels.
"Mycroft says you would want this." The nurse holds out a floppy disk. "You'll be able to see the whole thing for yourself."
"But they are fine." he presses as he takes the disk. "How...how is she?"
The man, despite instructions Sherlock's sure, smiles at him sadly and he's able to deduce the empathy and panic surges in his chest.
"What happened?"
"Just watch the flash drive. They are fine."
He doesnt stick around for Molly's friends to trickle in, he wasn't suppose to be there in the first place.
.
"Push Miss Hooper. Almost there now."
She screams, and its excruciating to listen too.
"There we go, one more."
Wailing.
"Congratulations, its a boy!"
Molly's breathless, her chest rising and falling as she scrambles to a more up right position.
"Let me, let me see him. My sweet boy." She coos
Sherlocks nurse, places the wet slick brand new baby boy in her arms and Molly sobs.
The newborn baby has brown soft curls, and piercing blue eyes and a strong chin
She cries clutching him to her chest.
"He's looks...just like him." she sobs, tears cascading down her face. "Oh...he's perfect. He's just perfect."
He watches the video 33 times before he shoots up. The rubber band tight around his arm, needle pressed securely into his vein. Delete it. He tells his mind. Delete it. It hurts much more than I could ever fathom. Erase it. Erase it.
But no amount of drugs erases her voice.
.
John notices.
"Sherlock you didn't." He says one day after visiting Molly. "You and her didnt?"
"No. She was inseminated John don't be a prat."
"You know what I mean Sherlock."
"Well, if you think so it must be true." he says adding an eye roll for good measure.
"You haven't visited her Sherlock and I think..."
"What do you think John?" He says his voice a roar, "Let me tell you what you think, you think that I'm chest deep into heroin and it's because I've somehow managed to hack into a fertility clinic, which is surely no easy feat, to have Molly inseminated with my child and have since developed some sort of intense attachment I hadn't predicted? Trully John, do you not know me at all?"
John stared at him for a moment, silent before he crossed the gap towards him again.
"You're using again?"
Of course that's the bit of information that he clings too. Good.
.
She knows.
He should have seen it the minute her eyes widened with the vanilla folder in her hands. He should have seen it coming when she stalked over to him, and he really should have seen it coming before she brought the folder painfully against the side of his face.
The minute the slap vibrated through his face, he knew she knew. There was no point in pretending so he meerly rubs his jaw and looks at her expectantly.
"You know than."
"How could you, you selfish little...why why would you even? I just, my son, my son is."
"What made you decide to run the tests? If appearance had been enough you would have done it when he was born. Why now?"
She bites on her lower lip the anger dissipating from her just slightly. "He deduced me.'
And his heart soars.
"Now why? Why would you do that to me? This was my life. This is my child, This is."
He stares towards her and brushes a light brown strand of hair behind her ear and presses his lips to her forehead.
"Because I adore you Molly Hooper." He admits honestly, "Because the very thought of you giving birth to someone elses child repulses me deeply."
"Than why?" She sputters, tears spilling from her eyes, "Than why dont you just?"
"Because I adore you." he rasps honestly, blue eyes piercing into her with an intensity she cant pinpoint seeing before. "And I break everything I touch."
He steps away from her than, a gloved hand to his cheek. "I suppose it's best if I go away for a while Molly." He stares up to the ceiling. "Allow me this selfishness if you can bare it."
His lips press against her and its soft and tentative and hard and demanding all at once, and her hands reach his face in hopes to keep him there. But he pulls away his forehead touching hers and he closes his eyes, burning it into a special room in his memory palace.
It's the closest to I love you, Molly Hooper is ever going to get.
.
Mycroft sends him videos of his son, his beautiful son, SJ she calls him. It isnt until, many, many moons later does he realize why.
Sherlock Jr.
Even before she had known, she had loved him that much.
I am the luckiest man in the world. He thinks. I am the luckiest man in the world to be loved by that woman.
.
He's five when he returns, and John is watching him for Molly. Apparently the two of them are quite close and it makes him feel unexpectedly unpleasant.
"You're unhappy." The little curly brown haired boy says as he stares at Sherlock. "You may be the unhappiest person I have ever met."
"Elaborate." Sherlock says staring deep into the little blue eyes that mirror his own.
"Theres a pain in your chest that you cant get rid of."
"How on earth can you deduce something like that? I am in not physical distress. You are mistaken."
"No." The little boy says pointedly. "It's psychological. I only know what it feels like because of my mother. She gets that same look in her eyes sometimes."
"What look?"
"You look like you're unraveling."
"Thats enough SJ." John says suddenly. "Why don't you see what Lizzie is up to?"
"I was getting bored anyway." SJ says shrugging non nonchalantly.
And all he can do is stare in amazement. Was he ever that astute?
.
It is Mycroft, with greying hair and an old look in his lie that he confronts Sherlock.
"Perhaps I was wrong." he says his voice cracking, age clearly baring down on him, forcing him to be softer than he's capable of.
"About what?" he muses eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"About you. About Molly. About...SJ. Perhaps...we don't have to break everything we touch."
Sherlock says nothing as he tosses a tennis ball up in the air and catches it.
"Death comes for everyone Mycroft. I hadn't expected age to be the thing to bring you to your knees."
Mycroft says nothing for a moment. "I just think maybe, you've suffered enough. Don't you?"
.
She dies saving their son. Of course she does.
Sj had run in front of a taxi outside of their flat chasing a ball, he had kicked to rambunctiously on the sidewalk. The groceries had spilled, she had taken off faster than one would have thought plausible and pushed him to the side. SJ had walked away away with a few scrapes and Molly Hooper hadn't walked away at all.
He sits in Sherlocks flat with him, in Johns old chair of room 221B. He doesn't talk and neither look at each other.
It isn't until the five year old buries his face in his hands and bursts into tears does Sherlock look at him and not see himself. The little boy sitting in his best mates chair is the only thing left in the entire world of Molly Hooper and despite himself, he joins him in sobbing.
"I killed her!" SJ sobs. "I killed my mum!"
He wraps his arms around him. "No, no." Sherlock soothes but he isnt Molly Hooper and he knows the words fall flat. "You are the only thing left good in this world. The only thing." he says grasping the little boy by the shoulders.
"You are." he says tears rolling down his face as he crushes the little boy to his chest.
"You loved her." SJ mumbles through his tears.
"I love her." He says desperately. "Present tense. Ive always. Always."
.
He visits her.
"Molly. I'm sorry. Im so terribly sorry. I couldn't be what I wanted to be for you in this life. Maybe the next one. Or the one after that. But our boy Molly, our precious boy, there's still time. There's time for me to do right by him. But after, my molly, after I will make it up to you."
The sun smiles down on him, and he thinks maybe, just maybe somewhere, she is smiling too.
.
End