I'm currently obsessed with the song 'Waves' by Mr Probz. Hence. And if I may, this is one of those stories where you feel tears welling up, but you're also smiling. I don't think bittersweet is quite the word for it. I don't know. I wrote it because I was feeling quite emotional but it seems I'm even more emotional now that I have written it. Sigh. x

Drifting

Molly was starting to wonder if she was imagining things. It began to feel fictional, the way he would suddenly appear before her in her flat. Sometimes he would need medical help, sometimes he would need a meal. There were times when all he needed was a bit of sleep. Molly would find him either tucked into a tense ball under her sheets, or awkwardly curled into her sofa that was too short for his long frame.

The appearances were erratic. She could never predict them, and Sherlock never warned her. Sometimes, it felt like living with a ghost, who drifted about unexpectedly. He seemed oddly disconnected at times. Molly never forgot the time she had to stitch a nasty slash Sherlock had received on his arm, and his frightening lack of response. He had not winced and he had not cried out. He merely sat at her dining table, staring into space as she ran a needle through his serrated skin.

Sometimes he would look at her, and on even rarer occasions, it even seemed like he was smiling at her. The night she had stitched and cleaned up his wound was peculiar for another reason. After she was done, she had asked gently if there was anything else he had needed. Sherlock merely turned to her, kissed her gently on the forehead and went wordlessly to sleep on her sofa.

Molly had a far more heightened awareness about her own flat now, constantly looking for signs to see if he had been there. Sometimes she was right, spotting a bit of mud on her bathroom rug or the disappearance of leftovers she had in her fridge. However, it had been months and no matter how hard she had looked, there were no signs of her favourite ghost.

Then, one evening, as though no time had passed at all, Molly came home to find a trail of crimson drops that had begun from the steps to her flat. She followed them frantically only to find the drops turning to streaks and the streaks turning to patches from being trampled by footprints. The amount of blood she saw turned her pale with worry.

By the time she burst into the doors of her bathroom, she found him slumped by her bathtub, his shirt carelessly peeled halfway, revealing only a section of a crudely tied tourniquet around his torso. There was also blood dripping down his forehead. Where it came from specifically she could not tell, not with the state of his dark matted curls. He was panting, quietly, but urgently. There was pain ripping through him. Sherlock did not have to scream for her to know the depth of his pain.

Without anymore hesitation, Molly moved in swiftly, getting straight to work. She whispered hushed words of encouragement, urging him to stand so she could better tend to him. He muttered in reply, with Molly catching only a few words from his stream of incoherence. River. Bones. Serbia. Chains. Ice. Moriarty. Moriarty. Moriarty. The name rang in her head like a recurring nightmare. Hearing it from Sherlock's lips somehow made it doubly horrific. With a deep breath, Molly carried on, finally coaxing Sherlock to his feet

As he stood, weakly leaning against her bathroom wall leaving it with smears of sweat, soot and his blood, Molly removed his shirt and addressed his tourniquet. She undid his crude version that he had made from fabric scavenged somewhere. Molly always had medical supplies on hand now and so was able to fashion a proper tourniquet for him, not before flushing the wound clean and sealing it as best as she could.

After a gruelling few hours, Molly had somehow managed to clean him of his bloody wounds, managed to get him to have some semblance of a shower and even succeeded in getting him to eat. She had been prepared to be up all night trying out different dishes or ordering food from wherever that was still open. So she was surprised when he silently wolfed down the pea soup and toast she had whipped up. When that was done, she led him to her bed and let him lie down. His eyelids fluttered, almost frustrated, as though he was fighting sleep. She sat with him patiently, coaxing him gently to rest, reminding him that he was in a safe place. When the eyelids stopped their manic resistance to sleep, she heaved a sigh of relief and stole off to clean herself up.

After a hot shower and a cursory clean-up of her bathroom, Molly returned to bed in her robe and saw that he had finally fallen asleep. She crept in quietly so as not to rouse him, smiling a little to herself as she heard the comforting long breaths he drew from his slumber. As she looked at him, safe and calm beside her, she could not help but bend down to touch her lips to his forehead. She felt him stir and her heart stopped slightly. Thankfully, the restful breathing continued and he remained asleep.

After turning her lights down, Molly had expected that they would both sleep peacefully, with no interruption. She was wrong. Every so often, Molly found herself awoken by the detective beside her, who constantly drifted in and out of sleep. He would toss uncomfortably due to the terrible wound in his side. Sometimes, she was awoken by him muttering to himself again as he thought aloud. What surprised her most, however, was that each time he woke and fell back asleep, he ended up closer and closer to her.

At first, he curled up and moved such that his knees were near enough to touch her back. Then, when he suddenly jerked awake from some thought he had, he fell back into his pillow but draped an arm around her torso. Molly was shocked, of course, from having been jolted awake, but she gently reached for the hand stretched over her and loosely wove her fingers between his. The next time they woke, it was the rippling pain in his side again that caused him to wake with a hiss whilst gripping her hand so tightly she had to pry his fingers open.

Gradually, Molly turned around and decided to face him as they slept. She set one of the lamps back on, but only dimly, so that they could see each other comfortably. She noticed again those fluttering eyelids of disturbed sleep and felt a pang through her chest. For a moment, Molly felt helpless. She found herself reaching for his hands, drawing them to her chest as she inched right up to him such that they were face to face. For a moment, she thought the fluttering in his eyes seemed a little less.

Molly spent the rest of her night watching the detective drift in and out of sleep as he fluctuated between the pain in his flesh and the torment in his mind. Every time he woke, she brought his hands to her lips and kissed it, making sure that she was close enough for him to know she was there.

The night persisted in its blackness but eventually gave in to the slow glow of morning. Molly had slept furtively, just as Sherlock had, but she did not mind. She was glad of what sleep he managed to get. As the sunlight slowly seeped in through her blinds, she smiled as she saw the soft beams rest on his bruised but beautiful face. At the moment, he was sleeping. Molly watched him, and waited, sometimes sneaking a kiss on his delicate fingers even as he slept.

Who knew when the next wave would happen? Molly decided, with another soft kiss on his knuckles, that as long as he drifted back to her, it was always going to be okay.

END