Sherlock unlocked the door to the flat, not easy while juggling the casserole dish foisted on him by Mrs Hudson when he and Molly had arrived a few moments ago.
"He'll tell you he's not hungry," his landlady had commented to Molly, apparently oblivious that he was standing right there. "And then he'll complain there's nothing in the fridge. Well, nothing edible anyway."
In return, Molly had presented Mrs Hudson with a boxed-up piece of strawberry gateau (when did she even do that?), which went some way to assuaging her disappointment for missing out on the cake place.
"She's a treasure, this girl!" Mrs Hudson had exclaimed, squeezing Molly's arm and making her blush.
He had offered a quick nod of appeasement to the older woman before she allowed them to ascend the stairs.
Once inside the flat, Sherlock looked at his watch - it wasn't even five o'clock yet. The number of hours that stretched in front of them both frightened him and sent a spark through his body. How could they get through the evening without making reference to the last time they had spent the night together? Did he really want to avoid that subject so desperately? He suspected that Molly did.
"When do you want to eat this?" Molly asked, taking the casserole dish from him and heading to the kitchen.
"I'm still full of cake," he replied, tossing his coat over the back of a chair.
"I'm not surprised," she replied, laughing. "I think that piece was meant for sharing."
"Yes. I texted Mycroft a photo of me eating his share."
Molly took off her coat and hung it in the hallway, pausing as she decided what to do with her overnight bag. In the end, she left it by the doorway.
"How are you feeling?" she asked. "Do you need anything? Are you on pain medication for the side-effects?"
"I'm fine, Molly, thank you," he replied. He hated being her patient; the aftermath of his shooting he'd been able to deal with, but the pathetic self-inflicted nature of his current state left him feeling indebted and ashamed.
She looked uncertain what to do, hovering on the threshold to the kitchen.
"Do you want me to clean up?" she offered, glancing towards the kitchen, which was, as usual, a health hazard. "It won't take long."
"I'll do it tomorrow," he replied, waving her away.
"Um, I think we both know that isn't true," she said, a slight smile on her lips.
"If I let it get bad enough, Hudders will do it. Or John."
"Before you contract salmonella or a campylobacter infection?"
"Hopefully, yes."
There was a silence while Molly looked around her, clearly wondering what her role was. Sherlock was by this time sitting in his chair, and offered her a seat in John's. She had only sat there for a moment before getting up again.
"Doesn't feel right," she said, her face crinkling.
Sherlock frowned; it was suddenly very important to him that Molly feel comfortable in his home. He rose from his chair and gestured for her to join him on the sofa instead. They settled there together, a safe distance apart. One thing was vital - he mustn't do anything stupid that night, nothing that could jeopardise the precarious balance of their healing friendship, particularly not while he was still so confused over what he wanted.
"Did you really bring DVDs?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered brightly. "Documentaries, though. I know you're not keen on fictional stuff."
"People never act in a rational way in those things," he grumbled. "They speak and act in ways in which they absolutely wouldn't in real life. Especially in those ones you like."
"How do you know what I like?"
He didn't want to tell her that there was a side-room in his Mind Palace devoted to all of the books, films, music and general interests that Molly had ever made reference to and expressed an enjoyment of. At the same time, he didn't want to remind her of the most recent occasion he was at her house and able to steal a good look at her shelves - then they would definitely end up talking about it, and the last thing he wanted to do tonight was upset Molly. So instead, he gave a small shrug that he hoped was enigmatic.
She went over to her bag and returned with a handful of DVDs on a variety of subjects, including unusual medical conditions, cases of mistaken identity and one about the world's great undetected serial killers. Things that he could actually consider watching, if he could keep his attention span under control. He was reading the back cover of one of them when Molly spoke.
"Things seem better with John?"
"Hm? Oh…yes…I think they will be."
"He's realised that you didn't…that you weren't responsible for Mary."
"He did say that, yes."
"That's good," Molly says softly, looking at her hands in her lap. Sherlock has an idea what might be coming next.
"So, I guess it was worth it, then?" Molly asked, staring down at her hands in her lap. "It all played out as you planned, so the risk paid off?"
The easiest thing would be to agree, but Molly had a way of drawing out the truth from him with just a look or in the cadence of her voice.
"There were some things I didn't anticipate," he said carefully. "My drug-fuelled fantasy that I'd spent an evening with Smith's daughter, Faith - that knocked me off course a little. I had to...improvise...and I'm not very good at improvising. I hadn't...fully intended to put myself in harm's way quite to that degree. But it soon became my only option. To be honest, John's interventions helped."
"You let him beat you to a pulp," Molly sighed.
He remembered when she first came to see him in the hospital - at Bart's (it was the only hospital to which he would consent) - and the open look of horror on her face at seeing his injuries. She had touched her fingers to his blackened eye, to his split lip, but not like a doctor attending a patient, like...something else. Sherlock knew she had been angry at John, but also knew that in time she would come to understand.
"It's what he needed," Sherlock replied, adding more quietly. "What I needed, too."
"But Culverton Smith could have killed you, Sherlock," Molly said, shaking her head. "I find it hard...you knew that, and you willingly walked into his trap anyway. What if you hadn't...what if you hadn't come back from that?"
"I put my trust in John as I always do," he told her, simply. "All the rest was game-play."
"Don't call it that," Molly said, twisting the corner of her blouse. "I value your life, even if you don't."
Sherlock felt his heart twist in his chest at this comment. He wanted to tell her that wasn't true, not anymore. He knew the value of a life, and if this most recent case had taught him anything, it was to cherish his own life, too – but when, at Culverton Smith's urging, he said that he didn't want to die, that was only a half-truth. What he would never utter to the serial killer at his bedside was that Sherlock Holmes wanted to live. There was a difference. He didn't yet know what living in that sense looked like yet, but at least now he was ready to find out.
He shifted along the sofa so that he was close enough to Molly to put his arm around her shoulder. She flinched, not expecting it, but then allowed herself to be drawn into his embrace, nuzzling into his chest, moving her hand against his heart. He tried to put himself in Molly's shoes, tried to imagine what it would be like if she was equally reckless, if she was constantly putting herself in jeopardy – and it made him want to promise he would never do it again. But wasn't letting her down even worse? He wouldn't make a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.
He heard Molly sniff, and she turned her face up to his. Tears had welled in the corners of her eyes and Sherlock both hated himself and loved her for her generous heart.
"I'm supposed to be taking care of you, not the other way around," she said, laughing as she fought back the tears.
"You are taking care of me," he murmured into her hair. "Always. Even when you're not actually with me."
This was a dangerous moment. Sitting there like that, their faces so close together, his lips pressed to her forehead where her hairline begun. Add to that everything that was whirling through his mind – her forgiveness of him, the photographs with Rosie, the sweet feeling of waking up with her the morning after Rosie's christening – it all made him vulnerable to acting foolishly.
"Actually, I think I am hungry after all," he said, gently releasing his arm from around Molly.
"Oh. Yes, okay. It should only take a few minutes to microwave the casserole."
Sherlock frowned.
"Microwave's out of use," he said. "Well, that is to say that I don't think we should use it."
He was still struggling with the idea that he was responsible for things in the flat these days, that things didn't automatically appear or become spontaneously clean or get mended.
Molly narrowed her eyes.
"What did you use it for?" she asked, suspiciously.
"Remember those liver biopsies you gave me several weeks ago…?"
Molly's face wrinkled in revulsion.
"You need to separate work and home life, Sherlock," she said, going into the kitchen and giving the oven a quick inspection before turning it on to heat up.
He furrowed his brow.
"But if I did that then we wouldn't be friends, would we, Molly?"
She looked at him, questioningly. He wasn't sure that came out the way he intended it to – perhaps it sounded like he was saying they were only friends because they had work in common, that their friendship couldn't survive if the morgue and lab at Bart's weren't there to hold it together.
"You mean you wouldn't have tolerated a conversation with me if we'd met in the queue at a coffee shop instead?"
She was arching her eyebrows, teasing him. Not offended - thank god.
"If we had met in a queue for coffee, I would have deduced enough about you to make you interesting to me," he replied.
"Do tell," Molly said, searching the kitchen cupboards, presumably for something for them to eat and drink from.
"You'd probably have been wearing your lab coat, for a start. Your hair would be tied back for practical purposes. No jewellery for the same reason. Flat shoes, as you work on your feet all day. And the smells are a dead giveaway – no pun intended."
"Smells?" she asked. "Oh, thanks a bunch, Sherlock. Are you saying I have the stench of death about me?"
"You smell faintly of formaldehyde. Sometimes. It's masked nicely by your lemon and ginger shampoo – you have to get close to smell the chemicals."
"If you'd had your nose in my hair in a coffee shop queue, I wouldn't have been interested in being your friend either," Molly snorted, smiling, but looking slightly put out by the direction of the conversation.
"I like how you smell."
Had he really said that? Blurted it more like. Dear god. That definitely required some further explanation.
"It tells the story of your life," he added. "What you do, who you are."
He swallowed, trying to disregard the sensory memory that had just bubbled up to the surface: the unique and heady combination of scents generated by the two of them in the warmth of Molly's bedroom.
Her face broke into a smile.
"I like how you smell, too," she said, a blush creeping across her cheeks. "I could recognise you anywhere because of it."
Smells, Sherlock knew, were vital to strong relationship bonding – he was aware that Molly would know this, too, but that it was better left unsaid. He'd end up waffling about how he could recognise John from the non-biological washing powder he started using since Rosie was born, or Mrs Hudson from the magnolia-scented perfume bought for her by Mr Chatterjee (a fact that he wasn't supposed to know).
"Much better when you're not smoking, of course," Molly added, smiling.
Raising his eyebrows, he pulled back his sleeve to show her the nicotine patch he'd slapped on his forearm before heading out the cake place.
"The full cold-turkey," he told her, hearing a note of pride in his own voice. To discover that he would be more pleasing to Molly without the whiff of cigarette smoke further galvanised him to make it work this time. Getting one over on Mycroft was another solid reason.
Molly carried two plates, two glasses and some cutlery over to the sink and turned on the tap.
"You understand why I'd prefer to give these a bit of a clean first?" she asked, smiling at him over her shoulder.
He immediately felt a mild flush of shame, keenly aware that he didn't want Molly picking up after him, treating him either as an invalid or a clueless bachelor (okay fine, he conceded to Mind Palace John, he was both of those things). He wanted them to be, well, more equal. He silently vowed to make it up to her once he was fully fit, to be a better…well, whatever he was to her.
Sherlock joined Molly at the sink, drying while she washed, occasionally stealing downward glances at his tiny but fierce pathologist – the mouse that could roar. He couldn't help but marvel at the things she did to him without even knowing, without even trying – in short, the benevolent power she had over him. Rather than fleeing from it or event grimly tolerating it, Sherlock found himself welcoming the domesticity Molly brought to his life, wondering whether it could co-exist with his work after all.
A couple of hours, one lamb casserole and one DVD about bees later, there was no sign of the domesticity abating. Sherlock sat at one end of the sofa, tuning his violin, which he had badly neglected over the past weeks, and Molly sat at the other, her feet resting in his lap while she read the Journal of Clinical Pathology. He knew she had a novel – something old about earls and duchesses, and young women of no means – in her duffel bag, too, but perhaps she was worried that he might tease her?
"You can play if you like," Molly said, looking up.
"It wouldn't disturb you?"
"I think I've been reading the same paragraph about mixed germ cell-sex cord stromal tumours of the gonads for about twenty minutes," she smiled, barely suppressing a yawn, though it wasn't yet eight o'clock. "Though I've taken in enough to know that you wouldn't want one."
Sherlock pulled a face. He was reminded, once again, that despite his reputation and what the outside world might think, next to Dr Molly Hooper he was a dullard.
Molly swung her feet from his lap, allowing him to get to his feet. He immediately felt a rush of nerves when he knew what he would play for her; it was a piece he'd started composing the day after Rosie's christening, when he'd been gone form Molly's flat for less than an hour. But all anxiety dissipated when he took up his bow and began to play, losing himself and allowing his body to become part of the instrument. There was a lightness to the piece, which distinguished it from most of his other compositions (aside from the waltz he'd composed for John and Mary, which he couldn't see himself ever playing again), and a hopefulness – but of course it wasn't complete yet.
"That was lovely," Molly said, and Sherlock felt his cheeks colour with gratification. "What's it called?"
"I don't know yet," he replied. "I'm still working out how to complete it. You're the first person to hear it, though – I don't usually let anyone hear compositions that are unfinished. Well, unless you count Mrs Hudson when she barges in with cups of tea. She likes to critique."
Molly laughed.
"Well, I won't even try to critique," she told him. "But I do feel privileged."
Sherlock was bursting to tell her that it was her music, that he was trying to pour every confusing, maddening, thrilling feeling he held for her into a composition, as though it might give him an answer to everything. But he mustn't offer things he wasn't certain he could deliver. This was not a normal situation for him – this was downtime, limbo, an enforced rest. What would happen when the game was on again? Would he see things differently?
He set the violin and bow back on the table.
"Do you…want to watch the thing about rare diseases?" he asked, gesturing to the stack of DVDs.
Molly smiled up at him, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
"I think I'm a bit tired for that."
"Crap telly?"
She beamed, and Sherlock immediately recalled from his Mind Palace the very first time she smiled at him that way, so openly and genuinely.
"Give me five minutes to get into my pyjamas," she told him.
Molly seemed surprised when she arrived back in the living room to find him in his nightwear, too. In fact, she burst out laughing.
"You're wearing the t-shirt!" she sniggered.
He looked down at himself and back up again, feigning confusion. Yes, he had swapped his usual plain sleep t-shirt for 'Rosie's' gift, with 'World's Best Godfather' now emblazoned across his chest.
"It looks…nice," she added, still laughing. "I think it's now my favourite item of clothing that you own."
"Good," he told her. "Because I'm going to wear it at every important social occasion from now on, starting with Mummy's godawful seventieth birthday 'soiree' in April. You can come if you like – but only if you wear yours as well."
"I think that's exactly how I'd like to meet your mother, Sherlock," she said, trying and failing to adopt a serious face.
"Then it's decided," he said, dropping onto the sofa. "I greatly anticipate observing the look on my parents' faces."
Just the sight of their youngest son with a woman in his company would be enough for his parents, he observed wryly to himself. Perhaps he ought to consider this as an actual, feasible possibility.
"I'd better try it on then," Molly said, interrupting his thoughts. "You know, just to make sure it's suitable evening attire."
Two minutes later she was back, her terrible sleep top ('Pathologists do it in cold storage') replaced with the 'World's Best Godmother' t-shirt. Sherlock's heart performed a quick but complicated acrobatic routine – somehow, in a crudely printed and slightly oversized t-shirt, Molly Hooper looked breathtakingly beautiful.
"What?" she asked, clearly feeling his eyes on her.
"Nothing," he said, with too much protest in his voice. "Shall we see what's on the box of crap delights?"
She sat beside him on the sofa, drawing her legs up underneath her, only getting up some while later to get them both a cup of tea. When she returned and their mugs were empty, she shifted closer to him, eventually leaning up against his left shoulder as the glare from the television reflected on their faces. He knew when she had fallen asleep because her weight shifted, went slack against him. He turned his head towards her, and with his right hand, he carefully lifted a strand of hair away from her face. She wrinkled her nose in response, but didn't wake.
Sherlock flicked off the television. His phone was tantalisingly out of reach, but his need to reconnect with the myriad of unsolved crimes in the world was outweighed by his desire to give Molly her much-needed and hard-earned rest. He tried to go into his Mind Palace, thinking that it had been a while since he had 'tidied up' in there and deleted unnecessary ephemera, but soon realised that his brain was too fatigued. So instead, he gently pivoted Molly's sleeping form around to allow him to slide his own body onto the sofa, manouevring her so she was tucked into his side, her head still pillowed by his shoulder. He felt Molly's fingers flex and grip the fabric of his t-shirt.
He placed a small, chaste kiss in her hair.
As his own eyes drifted shut, Sherlock knew there was a possibility he might regret this in the morning, regret the message this intimacy might be sending to Molly – and to the sentimental portion of his own brain. But maybe he wouldn't. Maybe this was just another small step in the journey; this wasn't how it had been for John and Mary, and probably not for his parents or anyone else he knew, but it made sense that he and Molly did things differently. After all, it was Molly who had persuaded him that being different could be a strength, an advantage even – and Molly was never wrong.
One more chapter (or epilogue) to go – hang fast!
