Thanks for the 'pianist's fingers' correction. Of course, Sherlock doesn't play piano...
Molly Hooper's efforts fell flat? Hmm, I wouldn't say so, I wouldn't say so, my darlings:)
And it's only the beginning...of something more...
How can it be so cold in here? It has never been this cold in the morgue. It's her work after all; usually, her fingers would go just slightly numb, and her mind icily sharp, operating methodically, going through every step prescribed by her pathologist's text book. But now, now, it's just the other way round; a stupefying haze murders her brain, needles are stuck in the tops of her fingers.
She is not afraid of the dead; death, yes, death is a mystery, but the dead aren't. A dead body is rolled in, essentially anonymous, stripped of any meaning it may still hold in death and in burial - the most final of all destinations. Her work is that of a ticket seller at a transit station.
Not this time, not this time, and she panicks. She is supposed to be prepared, and yet - when Mandy rushes in, breathes his - his - name loudly into her ear, with a gust of cold air, and whispers the rest of the story, she simply panicks. Avoid the eyes, commands her brain at last - thank god, everyone is avoiding hers. Molly Hooper is Sherlock Holmes' - his - his pathologist. 'I will do it. Leave me alone.' It's here that her body - not even her mind - kicks in and carries her along. She cuts through the thick expensive stuff of his coat - after a haphazard raid her hands execute on the shelves in search for a dissection knife. It was the last moment of vacillation - the rest is thoughtless and flawless. Injecting the antidote he had given her beforehand in his seemingly dead veins; exposing his marble chest - the shirt has to be torn open, too, no time for buttons; her desperate - yet methodically moving - hands exerting pressure, pumping rhytmically on his heart; her desperate mouth on his breathless, lifeless mouth -
- until, it seemed, there was as much of her in him, - in his lungs, veins, blood - than in her own body, if not more. Only that much was enough, and she saw, heard, sensed herself in the first painful spasm of his heart, the twinkle of his temple, in the lips turning pink, finally. A tiny Molly Hooper appearing in his dilatated pupils. Then, at relentless speed - exit Sherlock Holmes (in a body bag, shoved in an utensils' room only she had the keys from), enter the 'other body,' as they kept calling it during the preparation. After the dissection, Molly Hooper drives home, overwhelmed by emotions.
OK. She brought this man back from the dead, but not all of him. And she thought she knew why. For the first time in his life there was more to Sherlock Holmes than his razor-sharp intellect, functionally attached to his lean bodily frame. To resuscitate his body wasn't enough, with the invisible threads, connecting him to life, hanging loose, torn off, so hopelessly entangled. First - before her, definitely before John - he was simply alone. It was transparent, clear, convenient. But then. Dr. Watson. Mrs. Hudson. Detective Lestrade. Molly Hooper. (Mycroft Holmes?) The highly exclusive club of Protecting Sherlock Holmes from Sherlock Holmes. The first rule of the Club: don't talk about the Club, she often mused, half-ironically, half-bitterly. And they didn't. Not even when crossing each other's path on official, tedious occasions, like Christmas; planets, all circling in closer or more remote orbits around their inhospitable, capricious star. Still in obvious need of one another. Why? Because inhospitable stars often attract equally inhospitable, damaged planets, and all together they form an uneasy, paradoxal, predestined whole? And when something tears the whole apart, all its members who were simply alone once, become lonely. Lost. All, including Sherlock Holmes.
People often judged Sherlock Holmes either an emotionless machine or one with a monstruous self-control. Molly knew that neither was true. Sherlock's were raw, primal, black-and-white, unbearably intense emotions, but he seemed to have no grip of them whatsoever. The only way for him to function on his normal - read: superhuman - level, was to shut off this side of his personality completely, - which he did for ninety-nine percent of the time. And it has always worked. Untill now.
Normally, Sherlock Holmes didn't use drugs when on case. Normally. Normally was over. And Molly Hooper was the only one to protect him now. From things worse than death.
Sherlock's TV was on. She could hear a news host rattle on and on about the situation in the Middle East. Sherlock watching TV was not unusual, yet rare. The sound went out almost immediately, as if to confirm her musing. Holmes was sitting in the appartement's only armchair beside the couch. For once, he wasn't wearing an inevitable dressing gown over one of the pristinely white shirts Molly had bought for him along with various other clothing articles (of which none received any attention from Sherlock save for the second exemplar of his scandalously expensive Belstaff coat).
The next thing she noticed was a bottle of the red Chateau Corbiac, uncorked, on the small bedside table and a glass of wine swaying between the unbearably elegant fingers of Sherlock Holmes. Needless to say, wine was, too, one of the spoil-free food products Molly has acquired for Sherlock, 'just in case.' Even she never expected it would be actually consumed.
Sherlock cocked his head at Molly, but she gave him due respect: the tall man did an excellent job to conceal any impatience he might have been experiencing in the mean time. Probably, the wine helped him to kill time.
'Have you got it?' He asked in a clear steady voice, very obviously not expecting to hear 'no', his eyes glued to the mousy bag Molly was squeezing so anxiously her knuckles went white. For the rest, he didn't move, stretched out on the chair in full length, both his arms dangling loosely over the railings. Looking at him, so decadently, eerily handsome, made her suddenly crave for wine.
'Yes, of course.' And she couldn't withstand the urge: 'May I - ?'
'Oh, I insist,' he ennunciated lazily and swayed with his own glass towards the small table, and only now Molly noticed the second wine glass, apparently waiting for her.
She dawdled hesitatingly as the bag in her hands turned out to be an unexpected obstacle on her way to the wine. A decrepit low table in the middle of the room, at some distance from the chair and the counch, looked like the most convenient place.
Sherlock's eyes followed her - or rather the bag - all the time. Not paying any attention to him for a while, Molly took her first thirsty sips at the glass and emptied it. It felt so good, as if a spiral of melted lead pierced her stomach only to infuse her with a liberating shot of energy. Molly considered a second glass, and her hands promptly took the order.
'So you've got it?' For the first time Sherlock showed some impatience, his brow furrying, a sign of slight discontent.
'Oh yes.' Here Molly gave a short abrupt laughter she herself didn't expect. 'Dr. Dalton, he is such a sweet man. He said you have literally opened his eyes!'
'Did he?' Sherlock mumbled rather neutrally, yet with some degree of satisfaction. His lips curled in approval, but his right hand fingers started to tap a rhytmical sequence on the table. It was time.
-Yes, it was time. Briefly, she saw herself in her bedroom before her dresser this morning. She was looking in the mirror and saw nothing. She was pulling the la. -
'Sherlock? Molly said, looking him in the eye. 'I want to ask you something first. I want to show you something. Here.'
She remained still for a few seconds, her fingers groping in the spacious pocket of her inelegant pair of trousers. The subject she had pulled out, was a ring, a plain golden wedding ring. Suddenly she realized how it looked like, her, standing before Sherlock Holmes with a wedding ring in her hand, and bit her lip. The hymeneal subtext was apparently lost on Sherlock Holmes. On the other hand, Sherlock's reaction mesmerized her. At once, he looked extremely concentrated, sober and alert, leaning forward to take the ring - and Molly Hooper herself - in.
'Your father's?' he informed casually, stretching out his hand to examine the ring closer and then weighting it on the hand palm.
'Why do you think so?' asked Molly slowly, after a beat.
'The way you treat the ring. The only - married - person you invest with this level of reverence is your father. What?' He asked quickly, while his eyes narrowed in an obvious effort to predict the forthcoming complication.
'The problem is - I am not sure. It is his ring. It is his ring. And it is not.'
'Tell me. Now.' And now he was leaning back in the chair, the lean steepled fingers woven into a familiar triangle at the level of the lips.