This is a prompt fill for Adi-who-is-also-Mou. Thank you so much for asking me to do this! The prompt was Doctor Who-inspired dialogue:
"I can't-"
"Then what's the point of you?"
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please don't sue.
Apologia
"Molly."
She looked up, startled. Somehow, she'd missed the sound of the door opening and his footfalls across the hardwood floor. She blinked, trying to reconcile the previous, quiet emptiness of her flat with the sudden presence of Sherlock Holmes, who stood in the entryway of her kitchen, looking at her with an unfathomable expression.
Glancing at the clock on the hob, she only then realized she'd lost an hour staring into a mug of untouched coffee, now stone-cold. Returning her gaze to the man before her, she gasped. It went beyond hope to something much closer to desperation. "Anything?" she whispered.
His expression didn't change and she knew before he could reply. He shook his head, just once. "No."
How could she be surprised? It had been nearly seventy-two hours, after all. Didn't statistics say that the first forty-eight hours were the time during which hope was allowed? Anything after that was naïve foolishness. But still, she let her head drop back as the breath was once again robbed from her chest. Each time she realized that her mother was gone felt the same. She couldn't see it changing.
As she waited for her chest to finish seizing, she dully noticed a stray drop of marinara sauce on the ceiling from a cooking mishap the week before. She'd thought she'd gotten it all wiped away.
"John and I canvased the entire building. We talked to all of the staff and tenants. No one remembers seeing her leave." He moved further into the kitchen, lowering himself into the chair across from hers at the small table. He laid his hands flat on the scrubbed wood surface. Frowning at them, he said, "People don't vanish. They get lost. They run. They're taken. They can't just disappear; but it's like she did. I can't solve it and I hate that. This should be too easy, quickly solved and done with." He rocked back on the hind legs of his chair, his cheeks puffing out with a frustrated breath.
Molly stared at him. She didn't even know she could feel seeping bitterness until it occurred to her that maybe he just thought of this as thrill of the chase. "This should be something open-and-shut," she murmured.
Sherlock leaned forward, the thud of the chair legs on the lino likely bothering the neighbors below her. "Just so," he muttered impatiently, steepling his fingers and tapping them to his lips.
She felt a new anger shuffle her grief further aside as she glared at him. "Perhaps you would like to move on something more interesting?" she asked, her breath shuddering.
"I didn't mean it like that. I can't—" he began to say, suddenly putting his full attention on her. Perhaps he realized that he'd made a misstep, but she cut him off.
"You can't find my mother. Then what's the point of you?" she asked lowly.
He drew up straight. His expression didn't change; he just stared at her. She saw his eyes flicker briefly with… something, but then they became flinty again and she decided she'd imagined it. What did he care? After all, life was clearly a game for him to navigate.
She trembled with impotent grief and anger and a myriad of other emotions. Mostly she felt the void of loss, but some of that grief was a whispering voice saying, That wasn't fair. You know him. But she stayed silent as she watched him stand without a word and walk out of the room.
The front door closed with a final click.
Police found her mother's body a day later.
Her parents had her when they were in their late forties. Molly was aware that they were older than many of her classmates' parents, and she got used to the vagaries of aging when she was still young. They had seen hints of the Alzheimer's disease that would deteriorate Ella Hooper's mind years before its actual onset, and Peter Hooper's death only exacerbated it. Molly had moved her mother into care two years ago, after she got lost one too many times walking home from the supermarket. Though her carers had kept careful watch, Ella still managed to slip past them occasionally as the dementia worsened. This time was the last, and the exposure to the winter air was too great for her frail body.
Molly had known her mother would likely not live much longer. She had started sleeping longer and longer each day; a sign that the end was nearing. But still, that this was how she had to die was not something Molly could accept easily. While she made the necessary arrangements for cremation and a service, she felt a seething anger at the world. But she didn't weep.
After the memorial service, she numbly accepted condolences and nodded her thanks to those who offered her comfort as they shuffled past her out of the parlor. At one point, while she listened to a former coworker of her mother's reminisce, Molly thought she caught a glimpse of familiar, dark curls across the room. She wasn't certain, and when she looked again, whomever she'd seen was gone. She decided she'd only hoped to see him. What reason would he have to come? She'd been desperate when she lashed out, yes, but she'd also reduced him to nothing more than a brain whose only function was to help her; something they'd ostensibly moved past years ago.
Somehow, she coasted through the next week. She called into work each day, saying, "Maybe tomorrow." Her coworkers understood, but she knew it would become a strain sooner rather than later. She could only delay the inevitable for so long. But still, like a ghost she walked an aimless circuit through the small space of her flat, staring at pictures, tracing the echoes of faces hanging on her wall.
On the sixth day after the memorial service, someone knocked on her door. By that point, the well-wishers bearing food had stopped coming, and Molly felt a spark of curiosity that had been missing since her mother's death. She blinked in surprise when she opened the door to find John Watson. She'd only spoken with him briefly when he and Mary attended the service, but she hadn't expected to see him again so soon.
After he'd hugged her hello, he led her back into the flat, sitting beside her on the settee. "How are you doing?"
She shrugged. "Better, thanks." Not quite, her traitor voice whispered.
"I'm glad to hear it." John gripped the material of his trousers at the knees, clearly debating. Finally, he spoke again. "I know you're hurting, and I'm so sorry, Molly. I'm so very sorry. I wish it weren't like this."
She nodded, accepting his words.
But John wasn't done. He sucked in a breath, steeling himself. "I know you're hurting," he repeated, "but he didn't deserve what you said to him. Not from anyone, but most especially not from you."
Shame and grief are swamping sensations, and they bowled her over. She closed her eyes as she whispered, "I know." She was only amazed that Sherlock had said anything to John.
"He can say the wrong things. Almost always, in fact. But you and I both know he wanted to help you. That he would have done anything to help you." John hesitated and then added, "He didn't want anyone to tell you, but he was the one who found your mother."
Her eyes snapped back open.
John nodded. "He thinks you're done with him. He went to the service, but he snuck in and out. He's blaming himself, Molly, and he's sure you didn't want him there."
"I always want him," she said, her voice shaking. Her hands clenched in her lap, trying to hold on to a modicum of composure. "Can I fix this?"
John's eyes were full of empathy, his brows furrowed. But his lips curved slightly in a hint of a smile. "Yes, I think you can."
She walked up the stairs to his flat, each step a thud of nerves and shame in the pit of her belly. Though she'd left her own flat only minutes after John, she'd moved slowly and now nearly an hour had passed. She couldn't get over her fear that John was wrong; that she was about to say goodbye to Sherlock for the last time.
As she reached the first floor, she could make out the sound of movement from the kitchen. She came to a stop in the doorway, looking at his proud profile. He looked no different, really. He wore his usual, tailored trousers and a white dress shirt, its sleeves rolled up his forearms. It could have been any visit on any day. He stared out of the window above the sink, not possibly seeing anything in the night's dark.
But as he methodically washed his hands, he held himself stiffly; she could see the tension in the muscles along his spine and shoulders. He shut the tap off with a snap and grabbed a nearby towel, running it over and over his hands. She could see his skin reddening more with each pass of the dishrag.
He kept his head bent to his task, but she knew he was aware of her, though he said nothing.
She needed to speak. If only she could convince her foolish lips to move. After several moments, she barely succeeded. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Sherlock finally dropped the towel into the basin of the sink and slowly turned. He stared at her, his hands dropping to his sides. In the dim light of the single kitchen bulb, his eyes were dark and shadowed.
Hot tears began dripping down her face as she said again, "I'm sorry." Like a dam cracking and then breaking, the tears fell harder and she cried with all of her grief and heartbreak. She cupped her hands over her face, trying to hide from him even as she tightened all of her muscles and rocked back and forth in a weak attempt to comfort herself. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sherlock."
When she realized he'd moved to stand directly in front of her, she dropped her hands and forced her eyes open, though they were already swollen and burning from her tears. He looked at her with his usual, unreadable expression, his eyes scanning her rapidly, though what he was looking for, she couldn't say.
But then, oh but then, he lifted his hands hesitantly to her. She almost couldn't feel the pads of his fingertips as they brushed along the knit of her jumper, up the length of her arms and then around until his palms cupped the rounded points of her shoulder blades. He moved so slowly and carefully, but she pushed herself forward, encouraging him to tighten his hold and draw her to him.
She gripped the material of his shirt at the small of his back tightly, the pressure of her bones against the skin at her knuckles nearly painful. Her tears quickly branded a large wet patch on his shoulder, where she'd pressed her face.
They stood there, not moving any further, until he dipped his head, stopping when his cheek was pressed to hers, made hot and wet with tears. He didn't speak a word, and then he turned his head slightly. His lips, though not pursed in a kiss, pressed to her cheek, where they remained, the heat of him warming her.
"Forgive me," she whispered, shuddering.
His arms only tightened around her more.
The End