Disclaimer – I don't own the characters. They belong to ACD, MG and SM and the BBC. No one pays me to do this, I do it for love.
Mother Love
by
thedragonaunt
Prologue
Sherlock drew his hands, slowly and smoothly, down either side of the swollen dome of her belly, following the contours of the bulge, from just below her breasts to just above the pubic bone, then down her thighs, to the knees, and back up and round, his hands moving in orbit about her protruding belly button. He then slipped his fingers under her enlarged breasts and stroked up and around the dark pink areoles, increased in size almost to the proportion of the palms of his hands, before moving up to her clavicles, across her shoulders and down her upper arms. Pausing to apply more oil to his left palm, he pressed his hands together, to warm the oil and spread it evenly on both palms, and began the whole process again.
Molly lay back on the pillow, noting, with a small smile, the intense concentration on his face as he performed the ritual of her bio oil massage, for the purpose of warding off stretch marks. He absolutely insisted that he do it, every day. In fact, he would have massaged her morning, noon and night, if she would have let him. He well understood why pre-historic artisans carved totemic images, in stone, of pregnant women and worshiped them as iconic representations of fertility. He adored her fecund body. He thought she had never looked more beautiful.
Molly, on the other hand, felt fat. She felt ungainly and cumbersome. She had not enjoyed this second pregnancy anywhere near as much as she had her first. In truth, the actual experience had been much the same but, this time around, she had William to care for, a bigger home to keep, and then, there was Sherlock. He was attentive to the point of being quite annoying, constantly asking if there were anything she needed, anything he could get her, anything he could do, until she finally snapped and said,
'Yes, Sherlock, you can leave me alone!'
But he had looked so hurt that she immediately retracted the statement and asked him to bring her a glass of milk. She knew she should be grateful but instead, she was impatient and irritable, short-tempered and petulant, in fact, completely not herself. It was the nagging feeling that, to him, it was just another experiment. But then, that was the person he was, wasn't it?
William, for his part, could not quite understand why Mummy had eaten the new baby, but just hoped that he was not to be next on the menu.
ooOoo
