"Sherlock, I want to re-create our first Christmas."
"Hmm?" Sherlock said absently. He was staring admiringly at the Christmas tree they had decorated the night before. Lights flashed on and off, briefly illuminating the baubles and tinsel on the tree which almost reached the ceiling of the flat. A star adorned the top of the tree.
"Sherlock, did you hear me? I said I want to re-create our first Christmas," Molly said a little crossly.
"Oh, sorry, sweetheart, I was looking at our handiwork from last night and thinking we did pretty well, especially seeing as it was my first attempt at decorating a tree that I can remember." He paused, taking a moment to rewind his mind palace back thirty seconds to recall her words. "You want to recreate our first Christmas? Are your hormones playing tricks on you? Is this some kind of pregnancy amnesia? This is our first Christmas together, and it's still a couple weeks away."
"I didn't say our first Christmas together, I said our first Christmas. Big difference."
"Oh." Realization dawned on his face. "Why would you want to do that? I was a complete arse to you."
"Well, I guess I don't want to re-create it, I'd kind of like to rewrite it, make a better memory."
"Go on," he said gravely, indulging her. Pregnant wives must always be indulged. It was a rule.
"I want to come into the room and have you talk about me having a new boyfriend, then talk about the perfectly wrapped present and all that. I'll put on red lipstick and do my hair the way it was that night with the same jewellery."
"What about your black dress?" He looked at the swell of her abdomen. "I don't think you would be able to fit into that too well right now."
"I have an alternate outfit in mind," said his wife mysteriously. "I just want you to be ready to play your part when I come into the room at six o'clock this evening, okay?"
"Intriguing," he murmured, walking up to Molly and pulling her into his arms, taking care not to hold her too tightly. He was ever aware of the baby growing inside her - his child, their child. He mustn't hurt the baby. "So we will be indulging in a little role-playing then?"
"Well," said Molly, a little breathlessly, "I'm not exactly sure you would call it role-playing when we will be playing ourselves."
Sherlock settled a kiss on her lips. Amazing, he reflected, how he could still make her breathless when he came close to her, as she did him. Well, he supposed they were still newlyweds. It had only been a little over four months. Weren't you considered a newlywed for a year?
Cradling her face in his hands, he kissed her again, marvelling once more at the emotions she evoked in him every single time they kissed. She was so beautiful and she was glowing, especially now that she had entered her second trimester. The first one had bern rough, with her constant nausea and frequent trips to the bathroom to be sick. That seemed to have settled down in just the past week.
Molly let out a little sigh of contentment as his lips moved from hers so he could trail kisses along her jawline, then her neck and finally to the base of her throat, where her pulse was moving at an accelerated rate that matched his own.
"So this little scenario is starting at six o'clock this evening?" he asked, sliding his hands under her jumper and blouse and expertly unclasping her bra. Amazing, how a few months of practice made that once difficult task an easy one now.
"Sherlock," she squeaked, "It's the middle of the day. I have things to do. I need to bake some ginger nuts today and..."
He silenced her protest with another kiss, , coaxing her until her mouth opened in surrender to his and her arms went about his neck. Then he scooped her up into his embrace and strode towards the bedroom with his prize.
Later that evening, just before six, Sherlock was situated in his chair in the sitting room. Molly had banished him from the bathroom and bedroom, saying she needed time to get ready if she were to recreate the illusion of that Christmas from years ago. He was a little excited to see how this would play out.
Right on cue, at six o'clock precisely Molly came into the sitting room. Sherlock was stunned. She had managed to recreate the way her hair had looked that night so long ago perfectly. It was pulled back in front and then hung loose over her shoulders, falling into soft, loose curls.
He had seen the curling iron sitting out in their bedroom earlier. Apparently she had spent a considerable amount of time using it to make those lovely wavy tresses. Molly often bemoaned the fact that she had to use artificial means to curl her hair, while his came naturally. Even after these months of being together, she was still obsessed with his dark, springy locks.
Sherlock observed the festive gold bow in her hair and big, sparkly earrings, the sane ones she had worn that evening. She even wore the same coat and yellow scarf from that night, which for some reason she did not seem intent on removing to reveal her dress beneath. The final element was the small gift bag which contained a beautifully wrapped red present which matched the bright red of her lipstick once again.
Nervously, he cleared his throat. He had replayed that scene over and over in his mind many times over the past several years, always feeling the same embarrassment and guilt each time over his cavalier treatment of the woman he now loved. This time, he would only stick to the script for as long as it suited him.
"I see you've got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you're serious about him," he began now, using the exact words from that conversation. "In fact, you're seeing him this very night and giving him a gift."
Molly stepped closer.
At this point, Sherlock had to change his words slightly, as he was not pointing out his observations to anyone else this time. "I see this present is perfectly wrapped with a bow. It must be for someone special, then. The shade of red echoes your lipstick." Here he went completely off-script to say in a low voice, "Which is incredibly alluring, by the way."
Molly flashed him a bright smile which made him almost completely forget his next line. He sped through the scene in his mind to find where he was at. Ah yes, there it was. "The shade of red echoes your lipstick," he repeated, then went on, "either an unconscious association or one that you are deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper..."
Here he paused again and broke out of his role to say, "By the way, I apologize for calling you Miss Hooper, rather than Doctor Hooper, the title you had rightfully earned."
"Yes, yes," said Molly impatiently," it's fine. Just keep going on with what you were saying."
"Now where was I? Oh yes. Either way Doctor Hooper," he accentuated the correct title, "you have loooove on your mind." He drawled the word love in the same way he had done back then. "The fact that you are serious about him is clear from the fact that you are giving him a gift at all. That would suggest long term hopes, however forlorn...". He broke off once again to insert, "no, not forlorn at all," then continued. "That you are seeing him tonight is evident from the makeup and what you are wearing..." He broke off, not wanting to go on, to say those hateful, false and as he knew now with the benefit of hindsight, jealous words about compensating for the size of her mouth and breasts, but he didn't have to.
Finally, Molly was right in front of him and the gift bag dropped from her grasp to the floor. She opened her coat to reveal, not the black dress, which he had already figured she would be unable to wear right now, but the red babydoll lingerie he had purchased for their honeymoon.
His heart gave a big thump in his chest as he heard his wife say seductively, "Yes, Sherlock. I do have a new boyfriend, and I'm very serious about him. I do happen to have long term hopes, lifetime ones in fact." Her hands reached around his neck to pull him down to her level so she could kiss him fiercely, hungrily.
Sherlock could feel the blood pounding in his ears. He was drowning in her touch. This woman had loved him for so long, and he was now setting things right. He was turning the clock back to give her the happy ending she deserved - what she should have received - back then when he'd first realized how much she cared.
He rubbed his hands over the sheer fabric of the babydoll, then drifted them down to grasp her bum, which was uncovered due to the fact that she was wearing a matching thong with the lingerie. "You haven't worn this for me since our honeymoon," he said softly in his deepest voice and felt her tremble against him. She always loved it when he dropped his voice to its lowest pitch.
She was panting a little at his touch when she answered, "I...I wanted to put it away for Christmas. You know, we always associate Christmas with the colour red."
"Mmmmm," he nuzzled her neck, smelling the sweet fragrance of jasmine vanilla on her skin. She had undoubtedly rubbed a generous amount of lotion on her body, knowing how much he loved the scent. "Are you offering yourself to me as an early Christmas present?"
"If you want me," she murmured, tipping her head back so he could press kisses along her throat.
"Always, always," he told her softly, in imitation of her last words of reproof from that night when she had told him he said the most horrible things. Not this time, though.
"I love you, Molly Holmes," he said, picking her up in his arms for the second time that day and carrying her off in triumph to the bedroom. They would make new, beautiful memories that would forever obliterate the not-so-good ones from the past.
Sometime later, when Molly was lying contentedly in his arms, Sherlock asked, "So, darling, is there anything in that beautifully wrapped present, or was it just an empty box you were using as a prop for our little scenario?"
"Oh, I had forgotten. There's a real gift in there for you. Come and look,". She made a move to climb out of the bed, but Sherlock pulled her back down. "Can't I just spend some quality time with my wife first?"
She arched a brow at him. "Are you saying the past hour has not been quality time?"
"Well, no, I just need some time to recover. Lovemaking can be a very tiring thing."
"Oh, alright then, we can cuddle, but just for a little bit," his wife conceded.
They both drifted off to sleep despite the early hour. When Sherlock woke, he turned his head to kiss Molly to awaken her. Then his stomach gave an enormous rumble. Molly, whose arm had been lightly resting on his bare chest and abdomen as he lay on his back with her sideways next to him, gave a giggle at the ominous sound and the vibration that rippled up her arm.
"We never did eat dinner," she remarked. "I'm famished."
"Me too," he admitted.
Fortunately, there were leftovers from the previous day's meal, which they heated up and ate.
Afterwards, Molly said, "Are you ready to unwrap your present?"
Sherlock gave her a sultry glance through his lashes. "I thought I already did."
Molly laughed, "Cheeky bugger, you know what I mean. Let's go."
Sherlock allowed her to pull him into the sitting room again. He sat in his chair and she presented him with the present which looked so eerily similar to the one from years ago.
Molly could hardly contain her excitement as he opened the gift and saw two large baubles for the Christmas tree. One had his name printed on it in fancy thick black lettering and the other had Molly's. There were smaller baubles in the package as well with no names inscribed.
"I found these at a specialty store," she explained. "They only charge a little extra to have a name inscribed on them, so I had ours done. I thought we could start a tradition of putting them on the tree each year and adding the smaller ones as our family grows." She beamed at him.
Sherlock looked at the smaller balls. There were six. "Are you suggesting we have six children?" he asked hopefully. She had shot down the seven idea some time before.
"Of course not. They just came as a pack of six." She eyed him warily. "You aren't still entertaining ideas of seven being the magic number, are you? I told you, I am too old to have so many. Besides, after the morning sickness I had with this little one," she patted her tummy gently, "I might say that one is enough."
"You can't do that. I told you quite clearly when we were discussing it during our engagement that I wanted at least one of each."
"And I seem to recall not agreeing to any such thing, especially if I pop out three girls or three boys first, remember?"
"Okay then, well I guess we will just have to wait and see what the future holds. Let's go put these on the tree. Thank you, Molly. This was a wonderful idea."
"Actually, I can't take credit for it. Kaitlyn was in America one Christmas and she saw a soap opera there called 'Days of our Lives' - the one that guy Joey from 'Friends' was supposedly on. Anyway, the one family always decorated their tree each year with ornaments that had the names of family members on them. I thought it sounded like a lovely tradition, so I stole the idea for us."
Sherlock and Molly placed the ornaments side by side at the front of the tree with their names facing outwards.
He kissed her softly and then looked at the shiny baubles. "I think, my love, this will be only the first of many traditions for us."
Author's note: Updated with corrections and improvements on June 9, 2018.
My first story in the "Take Two" series. Reviews still appreciated, even though this story has already been out for months. There is no such thing as a story being past its review appreciation date!