So, I just finished my first Sherlolly fic the other day, but I'm still riding the kick. This is my first song-fic too! I'm on a roll. Enjoy!
"Don't you fret, M'sieur Marius; I don't feel any pain"
Molly had seen plenty of gunshot victims come through the morgue. Some were old injuries, a few posthumous, but most were direct cause of death. When she was an intern she used to wonder what it felt like to have a little piece of metal fly through your body, maybe being clean or maybe exploding flesh away from your skeleton. But making a career of forensic pathology usually washes the curiosity away. The nagging was still there, however, and she always assumed it would be incredibly painful. It was, in the first moments, but it faded much faster than expected.
"Molly! Molly, can you hear me?!"
Sherlock's voice was distant. She could see him, kneeling at her side, clutching her hand, frantically signaling for John. The edges of his face were blurring, though. Pale skin mingled with black hair around watery eyes.
"Yeah, a little."
She could barely feel his grip tighten on her hand.
"It's okay, though," she assured, watching his mouth contort. "I'm in shock; I don't feel a thing."
"A little fall of rain can hardly hurt me now. You're here, that's all I need to know. And you will keep me safe. And you will keep me close."
John and Lestrade quickly rushed into her diminishing field of vision. The retired army doctor pressed something tight against her stomach, sending a rush of agony through her whole body. Though she tried to hold it in, Molly couldn't help letting out a whimper. She may have been crying, but it was hard to tell with the rush of water falling all around them. It felt as if the sky was collapsing.
"We should get her inside where it's dry," John told Sherlock.
"No, you don't have to," she rasped, grabbing his arm with her free hand. "It won't make a difference."
"Hold on. Lestrade called an ambulance, they'll be here soon," she heard Sherlock explain.
His tone was calm and mediated, but the raindrops landed on his face in such a way that it looked like he was crying. She knew that was impossible, though. The analytic Sherlock Holmes didn't cry for the dying. He'd gone to great lengths to make that known. Maybe he could cry for Dr. Watson if he was going to die; she wasn't sure. It was nice to pretend he was tearing up on her behalf.
"No one's coming, Sherlock. You don't need to lie to me. It's okay, really. As long as you're here…"
She couldn't believe those words just came out of her mouth! Under normal circumstances she would have been mortified, but everyone says silly things, especially on borrowed time. She'd been wanting to say them to him for a long time. Now was as good a time as ever she supposed.
"You will stay, won't you? Please?"
He nodded and gently pulled her off the pavement into his arm. She hissed as the movement let a gush of blood out of her stomach all over Sherlock's pants and coat. Poor Mrs. Hudson was probably going to be the one washing it out.
"And rain will make the flowers grow."
"I've always kind of liked rain," she mused absently, at this point doing anything to drown the fact that she was bleeding out on the sidewalk of Baker Street. "It reminds me of the garden I kept when I was a little girl. I used to wait for it to rain so my irises would blossom."
"Irises are your favorite," he said.
It wasn't a question. They weren't words the average person would considering comforting, but a smile weakly made its way across her lips. They meant he paid attention, even if it was only to notice the dried petals she kept in the front of her personal binder.
"But you will live, 'Ponine- dear God above… If I could heal your wounds with words of love…"
Sherlock was glad the rain was pouring hard enough to hide his tears. He had asked her to bring over a few blood samples from the morgue so he could check them for certain traces of poisons he linked to Moriarty's hit men. She knocked, despite the building squall, too polite to let herself in. When Mrs. Hudson opened the door she shrieked so loudly and horribly that he and John were downstairs before Molly even collapsed. The test tubes shattered on the ground around her head, forming a macabre halo on the sidewalk. All he had asked for were a few samples! It didn't even cross his mind that being the delivery girl would get her shot.
He had seen lots of people die, but he'd never held someone while it was happening. His worst fear was watching John being killed because of his mistakes. Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, their deaths were the stuff of his nightmares. Molly hadn't been a concern. He couldn't even fathom seeing her anywhere but in the morgue of St. Bart's. She was his pathologist. He expected she always would be and he was wrong. Wrong was not a word often used to describe Sherlock Holmes.
Fear took a harsh fist over his gut when Molly's chest stopped heaving with the effort of fighting for air, and instead reduced to gasping spasms. Her eyelids started fluttering weakly over flitting bloodshot eyes. He lifted her higher in his embrace so she was cradled against his chest. The wrench in his stomach pulled tighter at the sensation of hot blood seeping through his shirt.
"Sherlock? Are you still there?" she whispered.
"I'm here," he replied, running a hand over her cheek.
He wanted to say something, anything, else to somehow make it easier, but nothing came to mind. The minute John looked at the wound he had muttered in Sherlock's ear that it was already too late to save her, even if they did call an ambulance. Lestrade was furious, but John convinced him to tend to Mrs. Hudson.
"This is stupid, but… will you kiss me?" she pleaded with a little laugh that sounded more like a sputter, her eyes almost entirely closed.
"I would kiss you a thousand times if it would save you."
The reply came out of nowhere before he even realized he said them. Her lips were cold, painfully cold, but her breath was still warm in the chill of the storm. It was hard to determine where the world stopped and his imagination began between Molly and the tears and the rain and the blood all together on his mouth. So this is what death tasted like…
Sherlock could just barely make out the last few words she mouthed, though no sound came. He knew at it would take all the drugs in the world to forget them.
And rain will make the flowers grow.
"Her life was cold and dark, yet she was unafraid. We fight here in her name. She will not die in vain. She will not be betrayed."
John watched silently as Sherlock closed Molly's eyes, visibly shivering and still clutching her body as if he held tight enough her soul would come back. Lestrade had called an ambulance from inside, but he could overhear him choking through tears telling them a paramedic team was unnecessary. It was frightening to see Sherlock clinging to the dead woman. The man so devoted to not caring and only making room for productivity was hunched over a corpse. He tried to still see her as their Molly, but military habits died hard. It had been his way of coping with the men he couldn't save. They weren't the living men anymore, just stiffs. When all the color drained out of her lips, he knew there was no more Molly Hooper, whatever her tombstone would say.
When the ambulance finally came, it took John, Lestrade, and another officer to finally get Sherlock to let her go. Even then, Greg walked away with a black eye and the driver had to shoot Sherlock up with a sedative to get him back inside. John was guilty, but grateful. As soon as he and Mrs. Hudson got him dry and in bed, John called Mycroft.
"Moriarty doesn't know what he's done," John explained after he recounted the whole story.
"Indeed. There are no more vicious motivators on Earth than revenge and love," Mycroft said solemnly.
John could clearly see in his mind the elder Holmes brother exhaling exhaustedly and resting his head in his hands.
"This game of theirs has just become exponentially more dangerous, Dr. Watson. You need to keep an especially close eye on him. You'll both have increased surveillance."
He hung up without saying goodbye. John threw the phone down on the table and himself into his armchair, trying to come up with a plan for what he would do when Sherlock woke up. There was still a doubt as to whether he would destroy half the flat or shove all his emotions away and pretend he didn't feel a god damned thing. It was hard to decide which would be more heartbreaking.
A piece of his heart cracked already when as he walked past the bedroom he heard the feverish muttering:
"And rain will make the flowers grow. Rain will make the flowers grow."