So sorry for the late update! I'm actually taking summer classes so the updates might be few and far between, but I promise whenever I get the chance I will work on this story! And thanks to crooney83, a love so strong and true, and patemalah21 for reviewing (especially crooney83 who I know has reviewed a bunch of my stuff)! Your reviews keep me writing! :) Also thanks to everyone who followed and faved!
"So…?" Mary waggled her eyebrows at Molly, her eyes drifting toward the man in the trench coat sitting across from them at the bar. He raised his glass towards them, his grin blinding. "You have to go back to him, you know. You can't just ditch him there."
"I know." Molly glanced down at her hands. She had called her best friend just moments before, her voice almost strangled at the thought that she was going on a date with a hot guy who was actually interested in her. And hopefully not just using her. And she wouldn't think of Sherlock.
Molly barely looked up at the man for a second before her cheeks turned pink, her fingers drawing patterns in the condensation of her Long Island Iced Tea. She shook her head, barely.
"I knew it!" Mary crowed, chortling at her intuition, "He's been staring at you ever since you walked into the bar!"
"Well, maybe it's because you forced me to come," Molly shot back. "And don't think I won't tell John you're still coming to these places," she threatened.
"Ms. Molly Hooper, are you threatening me?"
"I might be," she smiled.
"I think," she glanced at the man again, "your newfound confidence might have come from a certain source sitting riiiiight over…" Molly squeezed her arm before she could finish.
"Don't be ridiculous." She blushed.
"Well, go on then. Chances like this don't come along often, you know. You know John and I met at the morgue, not in a romantic place like a bar."
Half pushed off by a certain friend, Molly slid off her bar stool and slowly shuffled over to the man in the trench coat, still nursing her Long Island Iced Tea in front of her.
"Hey," she glanced at Mary before murmuring to the man.
"Hey, you," Jack grinned back playfully, rubbing her hair playfully and then patting the empty stool beside him.
She took a step forward, but then her mind suddenly flashed back 2 years, to the time when Sherlock had toasted their friendship (so uncharacteristically) with a glint in his eye she didn't recognize. She hadn't understood it then, and she didn't understand it now, but for some weird reason, it made her hesitate.
"Something wrong?" Jack didn't miss the sudden tautness around her eyes, the slight welling of tears that she herself might not even have noticed.
She shook her head and smiled. "Nothing." She was going to go on a date with him, and she was going to enjoy it. Sherlock be damned.
Mary stared at Molly closely from across the bar, her eyes flicking over her friend's face as she laughed at the man's jokes and occasionally lightly touched his arm, only to shrink back again immediately. Molly, poor, innocent Molly, might have missed the signs. Might have missed the way Jack leaned in, how his eyes never left her, even when she wasn't looking at him, and how his nostrils flared when she leaned forward a little (she was getting a little tipsy – she shouldn't have had that second iced tea or the martini) and his eyes flicked downward just a bit lower than they should have.
Yes. Molly might have missed the signs of attraction. But Mary sure didn't. She didn't care about Jack's background or who he was; she had a good feeling about him. She grinned to herself (quite maniacally, if she thought so herself). Sherlock and Jack were certainly fire and ice. And she didn't hold a grudge against Sherlock, honest she didn't (she wouldn't swear upon it though), but she knew for a fact that Molly loved the heat of the hearth much more than the biting chill of winter snow, no matter how beautiful.
And she knew her time had come to make Sherlock pay for John's nightmares, for the way he looked at Sherlock sometimes just a little too closely, almost as if he had to verify his existence.
She took out her phone, aiming it at the laughing couple, and snapped a picture. Then, finding the number she never thought she would use (but if she were honest, she had been waiting for this day for a long time), she attached the photo and hit send.
He was in for a nasty surprise. And although she knew he harbored some feelings for Molly Hooper, he almost certainly wouldn't act on them (yes, she had read John's blog and knew how "sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side"), so he had no chance of winning her heart.
And she would be there to watch him burn when Molly wore white, not for him, but for someone else.
The ultimate revenge.
Yes, I know, most of it's in Mary's POV, but I felt like it worked out better this way because I could better narrate and set up the story. I promise there will be more actual plot later!
