When Sherlock left the morgue that Christmas eve, he turned the opposite direction from his flat and started walking. It was bloody cold, but he couldn't finish the cigarette in a taxi. It wasn't even a good one. Stale, probably sitting in Mycroft's desk for six months. But it was a cigarette. When he'd smoked it down to the filter, he just happened to be passing a shop that was open despite the holiday (run by Muslims) and popped in to buy an entire pack. They were dark and fragrant and lung searing, just as he liked. He bought a lighter with a scene from Alice in Wonderland on it as well and stepped back out into the chill. It was starting to snow again. He had a destination in mind, but had to take a meandering route, trying his best to avoid cameras. He knew exactly what his brother was doing when he offered him that cigarette and he knew what would be inferred when he took it, but he didn't want to prove his brother right before he could actually follow through on his plan. He did not want to be intercepted.
Going back to the flat was out, even though he did have a tiny stash still there. (He doesn't even keep it there for nights like these. He keeps it there because he can.) Of course they would search for it. Mycroft had surely called John the second he was out of hearing range. But Mycroft was the only one who'd have a snowball's chance in hell of finding it. Well, Mycroft or the woman whose body he'd just identified in the morgue. He reached in his pocket and felt the weight of her camera phone. Bloody stupid. Mycroft was right. He had barely known her.
Except that it didn't feel that way.
Yes, he had been physically attracted to her in a sort of hot, searing way that had temporarily (he told himself) short circuited his brain. Yes, a large part of that attraction was wrapped up in the fact that she seemed almost as clever and definitely as heartless as he. (And honestly had very little to do with seeing her naked.) He would never have let her close enough to drug him if he hadn't experienced that staggering lapse in control.
But the sense of loss he felt now was in simply knowing that there was someone out there that was maybe, possibly, just a little bit like him. The only people he usually met who even came close always seemed to want to kill him.
She might not have been different, in that regard.
The things about her he had not known from their brief (was it really less than fifteen minutes) encounter were filled in a bit by the steady stream of texts she had lobbed at him over the past few months. Each seemed perfectly timed to make her explode into his consciousness the second he was in danger of forgetting her.
He had never answered. It was an act of self-preservation. Though he had found himself standing outside a building with a view of the moon and the Tower Bridge one night, not daring to go in, just standing there because he could (he told himself.)
Now he stood outside another building, far less grand, with a view of a rail yard and an abandoned factory. Inside, oblivion was available in any form he wanted.
He turned around and walked in the other direction. As soon as he reached a street where the cabs would stop, he hailed one and gave an address not far from Bart's.
She was home. He could see the glow of the lights on her probably tiny tree, and the flickering of the television through the window of her sitting room. She was alone. He should have known before she'd said so earlier. Why could he never learn to pick on people his own size?
She answered her door wearing the same awful (though better than John's) jumper from earlier. Her hair was still down. He wanted so badly to tell her that it suited her better than how she had it at the party, but he knew it would only make her suspicious. He did need something from her, but he was starting to understand that perhaps all he really needed to do was ask.
The surprise and hope and apprehension in her eyes invoked the tiniest of protective urges in him. He clamped the lid on that tightly and shoved it as far away as possible.
"Please don't ask me any questions. I can't go back home right now but I don't need to be on the streets."
"Okay," she said, letting him in.
She was watching a movie. It appeared to be a Christmas movie but was also, most definitely, an action movie.
"Die Hard," she said, indicating the screen. "My dad's favorite Christmas movie. Kind of a family tradition."
He sat on her sofa and after a few vain attempts at removing it, allowed her rather persistent cat to curl up in his lap. They watched the movie in silence. He even suppressed his remarks about how absolutely improbable most of the events in the movie were. He would discuss it with John later.
When the movie was over, he stood and made his way to the door. She followed so she could lock up behind him.
"One question?" she said.
"You can ask, but that doesn't guarantee I'll answer."
"Will you be okay?"
He had been expecting her to ask about the body in the morgue. It took him a moment to answer.
"Yes. Of course. I barely knew her," he said.
Her hand was resting on the doorknob, and she raised it slightly. It hovered in the air for a moment before it dropped to her side.
"Merry Christmas, Sherlock."
"Merry Christmas, Molly. And thank you."
He stepped into the hallway and wondered why his loneliness doubled when he heard her deadbolt slide into place. Sentiment. Brought on by this stupid holiday (he told himself.)