Hi all! Again, thank you so much for the support you are showing this little story. This chapter was fun to write, for no real reason other than it was good to try and get inside the heads of my two favourite characters. I hope that I have done them justice. They discuss Sherlock's drug use and have a cat funeral in this chapter, so if that is sensitive for anyone, consider yourself warned.
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The burial of Toby was to be a quick affair. Molly stood, holding the box as Sherlock dug a deep hole in the tiny garden space in Mrs Hudson's courtyard. When the grave reached Sherlock's specifications, he stood, wiping his hands on his trousers before taking the box from her. He paused before lowering the small cardboard coffin into the hole in the ground.
"Is it customary to say something?" Sherlock asked. Molly couldn't help but smile at the thought of Sherlock giving a eulogy for Toby. He had a way with words, that was true, but often, especially in the realm of sentiment, Sherlock had a habit of running his mouth off. His unusual yet moving speech at John and Mary's wedding was proof of that.
"We don't need to." Molly said quickly, crouching beside the grave and picking up a handful of the soil that Sherlock had disturbed in his digging. She threw it onto the lid of the box with a sniffle.
"He was a fine cat." Sherlock said tensely, hoping that it was an appropriate thing to say. Molly looked up at him.
"He was." she agreed, standing straighter once again and dusting her hands by rubbing them together. Molly paused, then added "Toby hated you though"
"I knew it!" Sherlock grinned. he had always had a theory that Toby had disliked him. Each time he had visited Molly the cat would hiss and scratch at him. Molly would always dismiss it as Toby knowing he was more of a dog person. "He always attacked me as soon as I would enter your flat. Crazy fluff ball."
"Well if you hadn't made a habit of breaking into the place unexpected." Molly dismissed. During Sherlock's absences, when he would come back to London and seek solitude within her home, Molly would often be alerted to his presence by Toby's shrieks and Sherlock's cursing.
"He had a set of claws on him, that's for sure." Sherlock laughed. He heard small sniffle from Molly and his heart dropped. He had little experience with funerals, but he was sure that laughter was not commonplace. "I am sorry. I shouldn't be laughing."
"It's ok." she replied, dabbing her eye with the back other hand. "He brought me such joy, it's good to remember the happy stuff."
"Happy," Sherlock snapped lightly. "The scar on my ankle doesn't remember them as happy times."
"Oh, you big baby." Molly grinned, remembering the time Sherlock had acted as though Toby had taken his leg off, when in reality, the small cat's claws had barely scraped him. Sherlock still claimed that there was a scar on his left ankle from the brutal attack. "It's hardly a scar."
Sherlock took the small shovel in his hands again and began gently covering up the box. Molly stood silently, saying her last private goodbyes to her beautiful Toby. The cat had been a constant companion to her over the years and he would be missed greatly.
"Thank you for this Sherlock," Molly began, searching her mind for the words to adequately express what the gratitude she felt. "It's very kind of you to..."
"And it was kind of you to help me fake my death, to allow me to use your house occasionally in my time away, to keep my secret, to look after John while I was gone" he used the shovel to pat down the loose soil, then picked up one of Mrs Hudson's potted plants, placing it on top of the grave. "You have shown me nothing but kindness for the whole life of our friendship, at times when I have been far from deserving. If this is a kindness in your eyes, then you are a far better woman then anyone gives you credit for."
Molly was moved almost to tears again. She stared at Sherlock, searching for the right thing to say. She was rendered speechless. None of her vast vocabulary was helping her, so she fell back to the safest thing she could think of "Cuppa' tea then?"
"Dying for one!" Sherlock replied. They climbed the stairs to 221b silently, moving directly to the kitchen where Molly busied herself with putting the kettle on and finding the rest of the biscuits.
"Who spoke at my funeral?" Sherlock asked suddenly. Molly almost dropped the biscuits in shock. They had never spoken about his fake funeral, both preferring to pretend the whole event hadn't happened. The question had been burning Sherlock since he had begun to dig Toby's small grave, however. It was one of Sherlock's biggest regrets that it had not been safe for him to attend his own funeral.
"Greg did." she replied. "John tried, but couldn't make it though. Greg took over."
"You didn't say anything?" Sherlock asked.
"I didn't trust myself not to reveal that you were still alive." Molly admitted, preparing the two mugs of tea when the kettle whistled. "John asked me to speak, but Mycroft decided that it was in everyone's best interest to skip my eulogy."
"Dictating my funeral. He's a control freak!" Sherlock laughed, accepting the mug when Molly offered it. He had tried to lighten the mood but Molly had turned sad and contemplative again.
"Your funeral was one of the hardest days of my life" Molly said quietly, her eyes not lifting from the mug in her hands. "Second only to my father's funeral, of course."
"Why? You knew I was alive." Sherlock was confused "That should have been some comfort to you."
"I knew." Molly agreed, finally meeting his eyes "But John didn't. And Greg and Martha didnt either. Holding onto that secret, watching them cry, it was heartbreaking Sherlock."
Sherlock felt instantly guilty. He had honestly never considered the weight he had asked her to carry all those years. He had gone to her for assistance because he trusted her with his life (and death). Molly had risen to the challenge of helping him, but he had never even considered what the weeks, months and years after the jump had been like for her.
"I am sorry Molly."
"I know you are Sherlock" she replied softly, it was not her intention to make him feel bad about the situation, but it was something that she had been holding close to her chest for the last few years. If she couldn't speak her mind to Sherlock now, after everything they had said and done together, then she never would be able to. "It was all necessary to protect them."
"Protect you too" Sherlock added. "I did it to protect everyone."
She patted his hand reassuringly. "And the fact that I could help you do that is the most important thing I have ever been apart of, Sherlock. But standing there, watching them mourn for you, even though I knew it wasn't real was a bizarre form of torture."
They were silent for a few minutes, sipping at their tea and picking at the biscuits.
"There was no other option..."
"Don't justify it to me again Sherlock. I understand. I've always understood." Molly sighed. "And I'd do it again. Maybe not the lying and the watching everyone cry part, but I'll help you to the very end."
"I thought you were angry at me" Sherlock began, bringing his hand to his cheek as though it still stung from her slapping Molly blushed a little. That had been the only time she had ever struck anyone. Something within her had just snapped, and while it had felt good at the time, she couldn't help but feel guilty about it now.
"I was" Molly began quietly. "Or still am. Everything I said then I mean with 100% of myself. You are back on drugs. Squandering that amazing brain of yours, throwing away the sobriety you worked so hard for. Damn right I was angry!"
Sherlock was suddenly fascinated with the tabletop before him. There were only two people in the world who had the power to make him feel bad about his previous drug habits. Many had tried, but the only two people to ever get through to him had been his father, and Molly Hooper.
"Do you remember the first time we met Sherlock?" Molly began, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "The very first time?"
"St. Bart's Cafeteria" he said at once. It was one thing he had never deleted from the mind palace, the day he had met Molly. He had no idea why he considered the memory valuable, but it still lived on in the recesses of his mind. "Lestrade introduced us when I first started working with the Yard"
Molly shook her head. "That was the second time. It's ok if you don't remember the first time. I guess it's worthy of deletion"
Sherlock wracked his brain, he was sure that the first time he had met Molly had been in the cafeteria when Lestrade introduced him as the consulting detective. Was it possible that they had met before? "When then?"
"I met you an hour after I finished the autopsy of Jacob Noble" Molly began, waiting to see if the name registered in Sherlock's mind. From the look in his eyes, she could tell that he recalled who Noble was. "Twenty two years old. I had just confirmed that he had died of a drug overdose, but under suspicious circumstances. I called Greg, and in he came... with you"
Sherlock remembered the night, but it was all quite hazy. Greg had dragged him into the morgue by force and thrown him abruptly at the corpse of Jacob Noble, who was still laid out on the autopsy table. Greg had barked his interrogation at Sherlock. He had obviously been a suspect. Sherlock strained to remember more details about that night, but the memory was fuzzy around the edges. He had been high that night, the drugs dampening his senses. All he remembered was the corpse, Lestrade and... A third person. There was definitely someone else there.
"That was you?" Sherlock questioned, and as soon as he asked his question out loud, the image of that third person in the room became clearer. Dr Molly Hooper.
Molly nodded. "I stood there, in the corner, and watched as you and Greg had a battle of intelligence" Sherlock smirked, pulling a small, sad giggle from Molly before she continued. "Even then, out of your mind with God knows what drugs, you were the smartest man I had ever seen. I stood there and watched you deduce what had happened to the man on my table."
"Lestrade arrested me for that" Sherlock complained, finishing his tea.
"I would have too. You were a suspect who suddenly knew the ins and outs if the case. I would've thought you were confessing too." Molly smiled sadly. "But you left that night and were back three months later. Clean, in a nice suit, a respectable young detective consulting with Scotland Yard."
That was the memory that Sherlock had. Of meeting the young female pathologist that obviously had an instant attraction to him. That was the memory he had never deleted.
"However briefly Sherlock, I knew you when you were an addict." Molly told him, taking both of their mugs to the sink. "A shadow of the exceptional man you are now. So yes, I was, am, angry at you. The man I slapped in the lab was not you Sherlock. It was the old you, with your old attitude and your old habits."
Molly went to move out of the kitchen and leave the room. She was exhausted from the words and actions of the day. Any refreshment from her earlier nap had been agressively ripped from her. Sherlock's voice cut through the relative quiet of Baker Street, stopping her. "I am clean again. I was never addicted again."
"Addiction is not something you cure. You know that. Once an addict, always an addict." Molly argued, ready to continue her escape, but Sherlock was on his feet and in front of her immediately, blocking her path to her room.
"I only did it twice" he began. He had an amazing need to explain himself to her. "Enough to make the dealers I was meeting with believe that I was serious. I bought many more hits, but I got rid of them, I swear. It was all an act, for the case"
"And I trust you." Molly sighed. "But a slip is still a slip. It was enough to make you regress back to that man. That mean, terrible man who made me feel like I never counted" She lifted her hand to his cheek, stroking it gently. "You are the smartest, bravest, most handsome man I've ever known Sherlock Holmes, and as I said, you were throwing that away and hurting your friends again. It was too much"
She stepped back from him, sidestepped and continued to climb the stairs to her new room.
"You think I am handsome" Sherlock asked.
"Oh shut up" she forced a smile through the tears that were welled in her eyes.
"Molly, I am sorry." He looked up at her. "I am sorry for all the pain, intentional and otherwise, my friendship has caused you. And I promise I will try to heal any scars I've left"
"I have no doubts you'll try" Molly agreed. "Goodnight Sherlock"
"Pleasant dreams, Molly"
