A random drabble that popped into my head and begged to be written...
The man on her slab was 53. He'd taken a whole bottle of pills, sat down to watch his last evening newscast, and stopped breathing. He looked peaceful.
His medical history said cancer. Slow, painful. Around his spine, so he was gradually losing the ability to walk. She knew the progression. It was the same as her dad's. He'd fought it down to the last day, but this man - Jerry - had decided against that. Considering what she knew of what he'd been facing, she didn't have the heart to blame him.
But she also didn't have the heart to cut him open and examine his organs, see the cancer, dissect him into mere medical facts. Not today. Not on Father's Day.
She stood, scalpel in hand, staring at it without seeing anything. Five years it had been since her Dad had smiled into her eyes and said, "Just keep making me proud, Molly girl." Five years since she'd held his hand while the heart monitor flatlined. Five years, and it still ached more just as much.
She turned the knife, angled it toward the spot on the chest where the incision had to begin. Her hand trembled. The scalpel clattered to the slab with nerve-shattering clamor. She stared at it, a sob clawing in her throat, and suddenly the effort of reaching for it was just too much.
Somehow she got from the morgue to a hallway, and into an empty room. She collapsed against the wall, letting the tears fall. The ache in her chest, usually easy to ignore, felt like it was about to claw through her ribs and explode into the room with her. She balled her fists and curled them into herself, giving herself over to a crying jag like she hadn't had in five years.
The sound of hesitant footsteps registered only slightly, but it was the tap of the cane that told her who was headed her way. She scrubbed at her face just as John Watson appeared at the door.
He had his mobile in his hand, and a confused expression on his face, but he dropped down beside her in a breath, hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay? What hurts? Did someone do something to you?"
She shook her head, sniffling horridly. "No, it's just... it's Father's Day."
She didn't have to say anything more. John settled against the wall, dragging his leg into position. He'd started using the cane again last month, but the sight of it today squeezed another tear from her eye.
"My dad was in the army," John said. "He got wounded in action three times. Last time I was about 14, and he got sent to a hospital back here in England, and my mum packed us up - took Harry and me out of school - and took us straight to the hospital. We stayed with Dad for three weeks before they let us take him home - caught a bomb blast, more broken bones than not. He never walked right after that. The field surgeon set his leg wrong, you see, and all the flights and the ambulance rides and..."
John inhaled through his teeth. Molly, whose heart was returning to a normal pace, put a hand on his forearm.
"I was helping him from his chair to the loo on our first day home, and he looked at me - embarassed as hell, and said, 'John, don't you dare become a soldier.'"
Molly gave a breathy laugh and wiped another errant tear from her cheek. John smiled tautly.
"He said, 'You get yourself a nice, safe, proper job, in a nice, safe, proper place, and you leave soldiering to the idiots like me and your grandad. Be a lawyer, be a doctor - but don't be a soldier. You'll end up a worthless wreck like me.'"
"Well, you showed him," Molly said, squeezing his arm.
John made a sound in his chest that might have been a laugh, but his face had wrinkled into lines that were deeper than Molly recalled.
"Showed him that trying to be both is even worse."
"John –"
"Nah – it's not like that," John said, poking his foot with the end of his cane. "He was glad I chose the army. Proud. He knew I did it for him, because I wasn't going to let some other poor fellow end up with a bum leg because of incompetence in the field. He just – uh, he just didn't know what to do when his son came home with a worse limp than his."
"My dad wanted me to be a pediatrician or an oncologist," Molly said, resting her head back against the wall again. "Said I needed to be in a place where I could give hope to people who desperately needed it. When I said I wanted to be a pathologist, he stared at me for the longest time. Didn't argue, didn't tell me what was wrong with it. Just stared for – well, probably only about 45 seconds, but it felt like half an hour. Then he nodded and said, 'Hope for the people who need it the most, right, Molly girl?'"
John nodded. "Perceptive man."
"Only time I regretted it was the day he was diagnosed with cancer."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, letting the stillness seep into them. It was companionable, this shared misery. They'd managed to avoid the subject of Sherlock, and Molly was beginning to realize she missed John's presence in her life. Maybe she could stop ducking him, now the first shocks of Sherlock's supposed death had passed.
"I ought to get back to the morgue. I've got a body to examine," Molly said, getting to her feet. "Where were you headed?"
John braced his cane and stood, too, grimacing. "Oh, uh… I was coming back from Tesco and a black car pulled up and I was strongly encouraged to get in –"
He broke off at Molly's gasp, staring at her for several long moments before comprehension dawned.
"Oh, it's not what you think – well, not exactly. Simplest explanation – Mycroft said I needed to come pay you a visit tonight."
Molly thought of Sherlock's constant complaints about Mycroft's surveillance, and of the security cameras in the morgue, and wondered which Holmes brother it was who had really seen her plight.
"Well, I'm glad you did. It… helped."
John stepped back to let her pass and did a short salute.
"Happy Father's Day, Molly."