A/N: I own nothing, only my observations.
P.S: Thank you to Freewaygirl, anon, and briongloid fiodoir for your kind reviews! I was so inspired, I decided to post some more tonight!
Another thank you to all those who started following this story! I was sooooper encouraged by that :)
ALSO: I'd still love some beta readers! It doesn't have to be a permanent gig. I don't expect this to be an epic, but it will be a complete body of work, as they say. For more info, message me 3
Sherlock watched John march away from his tombstone. Grief, Molly had called it. Not sentiment. He'd managed to smuggle back his clothes, the first week after the Fall 221 B had been a disaster. The door was even unlocked when he'd gotten to it. His things were where they'd always been, the only exception being his scarf and coat thrown unceremoniously into a corner of his room. But John's were scattered around the flat, as if they couldn't find a place to belong.
John had been highly emotional. He opened the door, headed straight to his chair and knocked over a stack of papers and books Sherlock had left haphazardly. Upset by the heavy coat that aided in the accident, he flung it into Sherlock's room, slamming the door closed. He hadn't done it carefully and damaged the door. John went to his own room and began packing. He packed two suitcases, then decided he'd come back to Baker Street to retrieve the rest- thus leaving a jumper and a few pairs of slacks in the kitchen. He'd taken tea and coffee in their place. Everything else was left.
This wasn't the sort of grief that made Molly keep her father's shirts. John wanted to get away from Sherlock's memory. He was angry. But the confession he'd made to an empty grave told him otherwise. He'd have to keep an eye on him. This was a John Watson who had been shattered. With the shaking hand that rested on the black tombstone, Sherlock ached with a dull pang in his stomach. Concern. He nearly choked as the feeling tightened his muscles. As soon as John was out of sight, he turned on his heels and left the way he'd come.
Molly Hooper began every day the same, he observed bitterly. There was nothing exciting about her. Lestrade wasn't a morning person. He stayed up late, but his schedule was always different. John hadn't left the new room he'd bought for himself since leaving Baker Street, and while that was concerning, it was still tedious. Mrs. Hudson was seeking comfort from her Pharmacist. That was a bad idea because the man seemed too unattached to be unattached.
Everyone was coping but Molly. Each morning she labored with her coat and bags, tripped down the steps, and fumbled with the gate latch outside her door. Her expression was elsewhere. Obviously worrying about something.
Each afternoon, she would take her break, never longer than twenty-four minutes- probably watching some sort of crap television show on her phone. She'd return to the lab. Do an autopsy or two. Stay half an hour later than everyone else, clean up while listening to crap popular music, walk the first few blocks home, decide against it, and take a cab. She spent the rest of her night on the computer or T.V, he suspected, judging by the dim lighting of her window.
Boring, boring, boring.
John was more exciting than she was, even with staying indoors all day.
And yet...
There was an elegance to her routine. He caught her daydreaming eyes more and more as the days lengthened. But there was still a sadness to her. It surprised him. Had she always been sad? Had he not seen it? Of course he'd seen it, he just didn't care.
One morning he felt a jolt of energy as he figured it out- she was a chronic introvert. Now he could see it- oh, it was plain as day- a dozen thoughts would flash through her head, she'd pick one and hide behind it. She was clever, then. To have so much inside her but to keep it to herself. Molly Hooper was selfish. He allowed a smug grin to play across his face as a co-worker approached her with a project outside Barts. Of course, she didn't give him what he wanted. She wanted to do those autopsies all by herself.
Yes, he'd solved Molly Hooper.
That same evening, as Sherlock gloated from the shadows across the street, Molly Hooper left the Barts crying. Her routine was the same, though. Nothing had happened to disrupt it. She must've been thinking about something, then, that made her cry. He crept along after her, watching her wipe her nose and eyes on her frilly cardigan. She didn't hail a cab, she wanted to be alone. Sherlock floundered, he'd just solved her- now she was changing her routine. Her face red, she stopped inside a bakery and grabbed a loaf of bread. She seemed somehow smaller near other people, he observed, as she fished for change to give an amateur cellist a block before her flat. Molly Hooper had never been small to him. Someone weak and overly self-conscious, yes. But observing her from this distance allowed him to focus on her in a bigger picture. She seemed small because she thought herself small. She didn't think she counted to anyone.
He crossed the street as Molly opened her creaky gate and struggle with her keys. It began to rain. He stood on the curb, watching her turn to close her door. He caught it, a moment before she saw him, a thought in her eyes that was pleading with the world. It was gone the instant she recognized him.
"Sherlock!" She rasped, dropping the bags, and running to open the gate for him. "Are you alright?"
She would expect him to ask for help. To ask for a limb, a look at a file. He didn't have anything to investigate. Lamely, he told her he was.
Molly's flat was smaller than his. It was painted a dirty beige and had pictures of black and white trees over the boxy blue sofa. She had an old television with a VCR, DVD player, and Wii. Her laptop was on her bed along with other clothes and books- it was a disaster. She rushed to close her bedroom door. The kitchen was very small and had a tiny island in the center which displayed last night's dinner and breakfast from that morning.
Molly Hooper was not a good housekeeper.
"So," She rushed on. "Would you like some tea? Coffee?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Coffee. Black, two sugars. As usual."
"Have you eaten?" She fidgeted with her coffee maker, spilling black grounds on herself and the counter.
"What day is it?"
She looked over her shoulder. "It's Friday."
"No, I mean the date." He sighed, sitting down on her sofa, which was uncomfortably low to the floor.
She told him, reappearing with a worried look on her face. "W-When was the last time you ate?"
"Four days ago." He responded tersely, having a staring contest with the cat emerging from the bathroom. "Your cat was in the shower."
"He does that sometimes." She was amused at disgruntled, brown creature.
"If you're so fond of it, why don't you hydrate it more? He's been drinking water from a leaky faucet." He began leafing through the stack of books on her coffee table. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, and a copy of Vogue was a hopeless romantic. "What's this?"
"Vogue." Molly blushed.
"Did you have someone over recently that left it?" He asked, critically inspecting it.
"N-No, why?"
He looked her up and down. "You clearly don't pay any attention to it. It's never been opened."
She stammered to find a response. "I-I just. I thought I'd look through it. Co-worker suggested I read it."
"But you haven't, obviously." He tossed it aside and went to inspect her bookshelf.
"Sherlock," She blushed furiously. "Why are you here?"
"I don't have anywhere to go." He lied.
Her mouth opened into a small 'oh', then she retreated to get the coffee. "If you need a place to stay, you can stay here, if you want." Her voice jumped between octaves nervously. Why on Earth did she insist on being so flustered all the time?
He watched her prepare his coffee with the steady hands of a scientist, rather than the ones that frantically searched through her purse or messed with her hair. "I planned too." He had, hadn't he? Baker Street was out of the question, and staying anywhere else would be a risk. He wouldn't tell Molly he'd been sleeping alleys when he slept, which hadn't been much.
"...You can have the bed." She was rambling.
"The bed? No, I won't sleep in your bed, thank you."
She looked down into her cup, as if wishing she were drowning in it. "I-I can wash the sheets. I know it looked a mess in there, but I can clean it up quick."
"Molly," He felt his eyebrows raise in spite of themselves. "I don't wish to sleep in your bed because I doubt your cleanliness. I don't wish to sleep in your bed because it is yours."
"No, it's fine, really." She avoided him.
"Actually, I quite like the look of your sofa. I often slept on ours at Baker Street." He caught her stare. "Why do you have pictures of trees in your flat?"
"I think they're pretty." She sipped her coffee.
He grunted. "They're badly taken and pointless. Why do you have so many pictures of plants in here? You're a pathologist."
"Are you suggesting that if I were a botanist it would be appropriate for me to have pictures of trees, but because I'm a pathologist I should have pictures of dead bodies, or a kidney, or something?"
"Don't make jokes, Molly."
"Right, sorry."
3 Songs to keep you company as you wait for the next installment:
-Two Headed Boy (parts one and two) by Neutral Milk Hotel
-Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie