Chapter 4: Delicate

A/N: This chapter goes into the present tense (while the chapters prior were in past.) This is intentional partially because it's a very present tense-y sort of chapter, partially because I've been away from Reliable for so long that it feels right, and partially because this is where, in my vague outline (which is so indistinct that it may as well be nonexistent) this is where the story 'starts.'

If one were to ask a group to venture a description of Molly Hooper, nine out of ten would include words like 'mousey,' 'timid,' 'lonely.' The tenth would have used a random word generator and come up with 'alligator,' 'potluck,' and 'detumescence' because Sherlock Holmes' time was far too valuable to waste on such trivialities. Words that would not be included, at least, not until Sherlock's word generator was allowed to run for far too long, were of the vein, 'confident,' 'strong,' 'leader.'

If one were to run a similar test on Sherlock Holmes' character, the responses would be a little more varied, running the gamut from 'freak' (Donovan) to 'genius' (most of Scotland Yard plus John) to 'bloody gorgeous' (John if you got him drunk enough beforehand.) What these descriptions would not include would be words like 'fragile,' 'quiet,' 'delicate.'

The results of these crowd-sourced studies were not consistent with the behavior of subjects Molly and Sherlock the next morning.

Molly awakes first, as usual, and quietly disentangles herself from Sherlock's quiet arms, which is not as usual. She washes her hands, face, and teeth in the bathroom, gingerly running a brush through her tangled hair before making her way to the kitchen and putting two stale pieces of whole-wheat bread into the toaster.

She then spends the next fifteen minutes wondering whether or not it would be appropriate to bring Sherlock the second piece of toast and whether he liked it plain, buttered, or with jam. In the end, in a rare moment of daring, she decides that this is her flat and she can bloody serve toast if she very well likes, thank you very much, puts two more pieces in the toaster and puts the kettle on to boil while she waits.

The kettle whistles as the toaster dings and Molly smiles at just how well things have come together.

Carrying her tray of toast (strawberry jam for her, one plain, one buttered, one jammed for Sherlock) and tea, she felt more domestic than she had the night before. She pushes open the door to her bedroom with one socked foot and is greeted by a nearly dressed Sherlock on his hands and knees, groping underneath her bed for a discarded shoe.

"Um, hello," she says, "I've brought breakfast?"

He hits his head on the underside of her bed frame in surprise. He looks at her with wide, scared eyes as he holds with one hand what Molly is sure would become a rather nasty goose egg. From the other hand, the missing shoe dangles.

"Breakfast," she says again, holding out the tray. "I didn't know what you wanted with your toast, so I brought some of everything. Toby can eat whatever's left."

Wordlessly, he accepts the food (taking his toast with butter, Molly noted) and eats slowly, fastidiously, careful to not drop any crumbs onto the bedspread. She feels vaguely like a voyeur as she watches him eat. They're sitting side by side on the bed and somehow the atmosphere is comfortable. It's the kind of comfortable that feels like they should continue by watching cartoons on the telly, which feels distinctly out of sorts with the man who has taken you, forcefully, in the very bed that you're sitting in.

Molly considers Stockholm Syndrome for all of two bites of toast before throwing that theory out.

He hasn't kidnapped her, and while yes, it wasn't exactly how she pictured sex with Sherlock, it-

Actually, it had been pretty bloody terrible, and with that realization, the comfort suddenly feels wrong, as if she's somehow become complicit in her own abuse.

"Sherlock," she says softly, setting her toast down on her plate, "You hurt me." It feels like she's telling off a small child – 'No, you musn't take Susie's dolly,' or 'Biting one's teachers is bad,' or, in this case, "You raped me, Sherlock, and I cried myself to sleep for the last two weeks because of you."

His face contorts awfully, into anger or shame or guilt or grief Molly can't tell, but he nods. They resume eating their toast in silence until Sherlock abruptly gets up and walks out the door. Molly polishes off her toast and picks up the second piece with jam as she hears the front door slam.

And then Molly Hooper begins to cry. This is nothing out of the ordinary, at least inasmuch as ordinary can be defined by the last two weeks.

What is out of the ordinary is that, walking down the sidewalk of London, Sherlock Holmes is crying as well.