WITHOUT REASON
Today is the birthday of one of my close friends who is a soldier (medic to be exact in the Nation Guard) and I found that slightly ironic that I decided to write this out today of all days. You'll see what I mean, I suppose. Anyways he won't be reading this. I don't know if he watches Sherlock to be honest, I know he loves Doctor Who among other British shows but anyways this thing has been in my head for some months and I hope you enjoy it. much love, day
Summary: With war comes peace, and kindness for the difficult colonel stationed in Bart's ward. Ergo, a change unlike anything that he has ever experienced before. AU Period fic.
There were few things in this life that Molly Hooper knew during the Great War. One was that it was painful which anyone would have given her a look and mentioned how obvious she was about it. She had her own reasons as to why she thought so. It wasn't just about how the world itself was doing though that was heartbreaking when she allowed herself to dwell on it. The second would be the idea that she had a part in helping heal the wounded when it was over.
Being a nurse at Bart's wasn't her first wish but it was what was needed at the time. She hid away her books on anatomy and the dissection of it at her homestead and there they stayed as she slipped through the chaos of the extensive hall that held most of the ones that were brutally wounded. However, it wasn't where she was stationed.
A few weeks ago when everything had begun to settle she was pushed into a room that held just one patient. A man a few years older than her. He wore a uniform at first but the next time she was needed, she found him still unconscious and nearly bare apart from the bandages that wrapped around his torso. His legs and anything below his waist was covered by the sheets. Still he stayed with his eyes closed but it wasn't long before she had been informed that he wasn't a comatose patient at all. He had been knocked around a bit by a round of explosives in the last flurry of it but beyond that nothing brutal had happened to him.
He was more or less conscious when she wasn't there. Rattling off demands and such, and requesting her appearance. He never stated her name, and it wouldn't surprise her if he hadn't have known it. However from what the other nurses have relayed back to her, it was clear that he knew he was being taken care of by some who wasn't so fussy all the time and that her name was Molly.
Molly had taken the news with little enthusiasm. She was rather curious what it was about her that changed him into a stiff set of bones on the mattress that he stayed in, always. Never speaking directly to her or acknowledging her presence except when she wasn't there. She had long thought she would never see the man's face really. He looked rather peaceful whenever she sat with him with a small novella in her arms to occupy her time when there wasn't mail to look over for the man himself. Before she knew of his status; not on life support or in a coma she would have his letter which came from different places each time. Sometimes from the heart of London (no actual address given) or sometimes as far away as the Americas.
Most of the notes came from a man who called himself Mycroft. It took a few notes - which she read to him quietly, for her to realize that the man was Mr. Holmes older brother. He was also the same man who had arranged it for the tall man who lay on the bed to have this room on his own with only her company to settle any worries within him. She didn't know if she was doing a good job of that but she enjoyed sitting there watching him sometimes and other times looking over her own notices from her family who lived in the southern part of the city.
At this time, she was under more duress but she never mentioned into anyone as she was needed to do her part in aiding the sick. The only relief she felt was when she had a moment of peace sitting in the corner of the room on the twenty second floor.
It was Saturday which she was supposed to be spending at home, when everything took a turn in all the retrospect. The staff who were taking over for the weekend had called on her to come in. They had actual sent a car and everything to make sure to get there. She had grew more and more annoyed by the time she actual got up to her post, that she gave little word to anyone as she slipped into the second room on the floor. She was frowning for a good ten seconds before her face was covered in scarlet at the scene before her.
The man was out of bed and struggling to walk around the room. "What are you doing?" She breathed out, trying to twist her hair back into the pins that it usually was in under her cap. She had forgotten her cap through the rush and had to hurriedly get dressed.
"Walking, clearly."
"You look like you're about to keel over. Sorry, that was wrong. Why aren't you in bed, Mr. Holmes?" She huffed as she rushed over to him and slid a hand through the arm that was closest to hers and he had begun to tug at him to follow her. He didn't budge but he did look down at her.
It was a rather unsettling moment for her. She found herself highly distracted by his eyes, not the unruly curls that usually looked so flat against the eggshell colored pillow cases. His eyes were a seas of grays that turned into blues that slipped into a river of green. It was rather disconcerting for her to have this reaction when she was rather bothered by having to come here in the first place. "It was getting rather dull, Molly..." He trailed off, his head tilting slightly as she blinked at him.
She frowned at him then. "That's still no excuse." She turned away from his curious gaze and nudge him in the back eliciting an intake of breath from his mouth as she guided him back to the bed and had him sit down. He tried arguing with her when she tried to coax him into lying down. "Must you be so difficult, Mr. Holmes."
Molly took a step back from him once she was sure he was good to sit there on his own and she slipped over to the cot that she sometimes slept on. "There was no need for you rush here." He met her statement with one his own.
Molly's shoulders rose in a shrug. There wasn't much she could do about it now. "You're the one who called on me." She told him, quietly as she slipped a wisp of hair that had fallen into her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
"No. I believe your colleagues called because they were getting annoyed because I was being difficult, as you said and they know that I only cooperate when you are around."
Molly stilled with his admittance of the one thing that she had already known for a little time now. She knew it was rather silly to ask but she did anyways, "Why is that?"
He met her with silence, instead sitting there stiff as a bored looking towards the window unblinking. Molly grew concerned after some time had passed and he had said nothing. It took her a little while to be able to remember something she had read in one of the notes sent by Mycroft. "Don't stay in your head too long and cause one of those unfortunate nurses to think you're actually dead. Not everyone is used to your ways."
He was thinking. She smiled shortly, he was a strange man. Or a strange colonel she should say. On his charts they had his rank too. Not that it matter much, he was as much as a civilian as she was right now. There was no war to fight. There was only living left to concern about. Molly spent time watching him to make sure he was still there - breathing, alive before ultimately growing tired and slipping into a slumber.
There she was with her head laying against the arm of the small cot when he came back to the world. He knew she wouldn't like it but he got up anyways and slowly made his way over to her. That was a very uncomfortable position. Especially for someone of her stature, she was a rather small woman.
He hunched over her, causing his lungs to feel like they were being squeezed then and there and he took a moment to take in a clean breath of air before doing it again and quickly moving her down so that she was actually laying down. Her white dress - the uniform that all the nurses wore was a nice cover for her but he grabbed the blanket that was sitting on the small table with the book that she had left there the last time. He placed it over her before rising back up again and walking back towards the window where she had found him awake this time.
He hummed a staccato of a melody. None of it ultimately connecting but sounded almost soothing to his ears as he closed his eyes and do his best to not move too much or lest he cause more harm to himself. Not that he was ever trying, plus he didn't need Molly to worry. She looked to have enough on her plate.
His eyes opened briefly and he turned to look at the young woman who had unknowingly made this transition easier than any man could ever hope it to be. There was a difference between being on the safe soil of home and the murky waters of the trenches with men who fought to keep all those you loved safe. The hardest part was being away from them or so he had heard. There weren't many he could say he had. He was grateful for her silence when he rested, and now when she fussed over him even though there had been others lately. There was something about the auburn haired nurse who didn't really want to be a nurse.
She had a kindness about her that surfaced even when she looked mussed and bothered. He felt a strange twinge of something when faced with it. It wasn't something he could say with any small amount of his self-assurance that he experienced often. His tongue was usually sharp. Some had said it was because of the job that he had to do out in the lines of war times but this wasn't true. He was a man of truth and facts. Anything less caused for great discomfort.
Which is why it was puzzling to him that all he felt was a small twinge in his chest at the notion of something that wasn't neither a fact or some truth that he could tell. He couldn't even sift through what was happening in order to fathom what it was that made it so easy for him to accept the comfort that the small dainty hands that held his arm earlier and urged him to get off of his feet.
He had felt almost warm because of it, he realized quietly.
The next time that they were in each other's presence and were both awake, it was a very bad time. The ward had been infested by something that was similar to the influenza. Colonel Holmes was not spared, either. Which made him even more irritable to the people who tried to take care of him, Molly included but she ignored it as she wiped his brow with wet cloths, and forced him to take sip after sip of the broth that had been prepared.
They had tried to combat it with a dose of antibiotics but it hadn't worked as much as anyone had hoped it would. Still Molly was there during most of his hours spent awake doing her best to help with the discomfort that came with the multitude of waves of illness that swept over him. He spoke to her in tongues that she had never heard before. For a time she thought he was possessed by something, not knowing the languages however one of the older ladies who had come in to refill the basin and take the drenched sheets that had to be changed on the third day had told her that he was speaking in French.
Why or when he picked it up, she didn't know. She didn't even know what he said to her but on one of the worse nights when there moans of agony filled the ward there was a break from any of such things in the second room on the right.
There Molly stood walking back and forth with a note clutched in her hands as her patient slept. Or at least she thought he was. She was rereading the note over and over again despite that it had been delivered days prior when the first wave of symptoms had rattled the soldiers. She had tucked it away and not looked at it, nearly forgetting about it until a few hours ago when her hands slipped into the pocket of her dress and she felt it in there. She had eyed the man in the bed before pulling it out and silently weeping at what it contained. Now, she walked slowly about trying to keep herself from dashing out of the door and leaving him there; alone.
She couldn't do that no matter how much she needed a moment on her own.
"He's dead. Your father, from the same monster that is quaking the halls of this hospital. It's been two days." Molly jumped back a little as she turned to find the very ill colonel staying before her. His hair clinging to her face from the sweat that matted it, his skin red from the heat that was still sucking at his entire being but there was standing in front of her. Her first instinct was to scold him for being out of bed when he was obviously unwell. However, he was a bit too close to her and she chose to focus on what he was saying. "How do you know that?" She muttered as she felt one of hands wrap around her arm, he was shaking a little but his hand held firm on her as he yanked her towards him.
"You were close to him," He continued ignoring her question. "I don't understand how you could continue treating me when you have already experienced a casualty of your own." He stopped talking for a beat and Molly tried not to notice the way her heart seemed to beat a little faster with him pressed against her. Or the fact that he had willingly pulled her to his side and had an arm keeping her there.
He was burning up though and that caused for more concern that the fact that he knew things that she hadn't told anyone. She placed a hand around his waist as she walked them backwards urging him back to the bed. He shouldn't be up. "What a cruel twist of fate." He muttered as she begun to push him down onto it. "Yes, but it's what happens to people." Molly told him shakily as she situated him in there again. "They die. I am quite sad about it but I can't leave my post no matter how much I wish to."
Molly moved to go wet more cloths but was stopped by the quick hand that reached out for her. "Please. Don't go." His voice sounded weak and Molly smiled weakly at him as she placed a reassuring hand on his that was still holding onto her. "I won't. I just need to get you a few more cool cloths and I'll be right there. Just a few steps, promise." She told him quietly reaching up to smooth his hair back from his face. His eyes closed for those brief moments and it made her smile briefly and she took the moment to gather those cloths before sitting beside him and tending to him as she had been doing for the past few months.
Her eyes welled up with unshed tears for another reason. Watching him in pain, seeing how vulnerable he was made her feel very unhappy. She stayed with him through the night. Her fingers interlaced with one of his own as she hummed to him a quiet lullaby that her dad used to sing to her when she was unwell. Her heart ached even more at the notion that she would no longer get to hear it again.
One fortnight later and Molly was sending the man who called himself Colonel Sherlock Holmes off with a clean slate of health. He was buttoning up the last of the buttons that were left on his jacket before he turned and spied her standing there just by the door. His mouth flickered up for a moment. She was not in her uniform. A formless dress that was close to lavender and white fell at her knees, her arms were covered by light coat and a woolen beret on her head. What he could see of it framed her face in waves that was tucked into the beret. In all her quaint outside attire, she looked utterly breathtaking and soon himself found himself at her side.
Molly's hands fidgeted at her side as she inspected him. He looked distinguished and well put together. She let go of her pride for a moment despite the fact that she had been a huge part in this. He was such a broken man physically before he came here and slipped into her sight. "You look well." She told him, finally saying something.
"I'd say you had something to do with that, Doctor Hooper." He grinned at her. Molly began to wave away his gratitude when she caught that last bit of his comment. He called her a doctor. She wasn't one. "I'm not..." She trailed off as she felt a hand come up and frame her face.
Sherlock had closed the small distance between them as he pressed his head against hers, muttering. "You will be." He breathed in her scent before acting quickly before either one of them could speak again. His mouth pressed against hers hurriedly. Molly gasped into his mouth completely caught off of guard by his action. Her eyes fluttered closed a moment as her hands came up to his chest grasping at the lapels of his jacket as she kissed him back, fully enamored by whatever had caused him to press her so closely to him in this intimate fashion. She didn't pull away even when he pulled away with hooded eyes glancing down at her. His voice was slightly ragged, "Thank you."
"Do you kiss all the women that bring you back from the depths of the unknown?" She asked him, a small twinkle in her eyes.
Sherlock rolled his eyes at her but answered. "No, you'd be the first one I've ever kissed willingly." Molly was a bit speechless and unsure of what was supposed to happen now. She had come up here to wish him well with whatever he was off to do next. This was all rather unexpected.
"Why would you kiss me, Sherlock?" She tested his name on her tongue. Only ever calling him by his surname.
"One day I'll tell you. Until next time, Molly Hooper." He said as let her go and begun to slip out the door.
"Take care of yourself." She blurted out as he opened the door.
"For you, Molly." He winked at her before slipping out of the door. Molly stood here her fingers pressed against her lips which had been molded against his just moments ago and she smiled. She didn't know if she would ever see the gorgeous man ever again but she was happy for that moment and the months that she shared taking care of him in this very room.
Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes met again almost ten years later in the corridor that led to the Morgue of the very same hospital. He had cigarette on his tongue, a lighter flickering in his hands. He looked different but very much the same with a nice coat on.
She called out to him, "You really shouldn't be smoking in here." She paused, watching as his head reeled up and in her direction and he half smiled at her. Pocketing his lighter. Blowing out a little smoke but stubbing out the bit that he had started on and putting it back in a small silver case that was in his suit's lining. He walked to her, talking at the same time "I don't think it's bothering anyone. Mostly corpses around here, isn't it?"
"It wouldn't please me to have to weigh your lung because you smoked it into a black tar mess. Wouldn't please me to have you on my slab at all, really."
"You still care about my wellbeing, Molly Hooper." He stopped in front of her.
"Doctor Hooper, and isn't it obvious my dear?" She beamed up at him as he reached out and touched her cheek. A memory flickered up into her mind at that.
"Yes, of course." He nodded, pressing a small kiss to her cheek. "It's been a long time hasn't it?"
"Your notes have made it easier." She admitted.
"Likewise." he paused for a moment drawing a breath and locking eyes with her again. "Coffee, Molly?" He questioned as he turned his hand slipping down to grab hers.