"Hello?"
"Hi, Mary?" Molly asked into the receiver of her old mobile.
"Yeah. This is she," Mary replied. A ruffling sound was heard in the background before Mary came back to the phone. "Is this Molly? Sorry, I don't have your number saved on my phone."
"Yes, it is. I was looking for John, but I can't get a hold of him."
Mary stepped away from the phone once more to speak to her fiancé. "John, it's for you... He is on his way out the door right now, actually. Is it important?" Mary asked still on the phone.
"I just needed to speak with him for a bit, but if he is busy... it's fine really."
"Is everything okay, Molly?"
"Yeah, yeah, everything is great," Molly tried to sound confident in her answer, but it came out slightly jarred.
"John is heading over to Baker Street. He says if you are close by, you can meet him there."
"Baker Street..." Molly spoke more to herself than Mary.
"Yeah, he suspects he left some notes there and honestly," She brought her voice down to a whisper. "He can't avoid Sherlock forever.
"Yes..." Molly muttered. "Can't avoid him forever. Tell him I'll meet him there in fifteen. I'm just finishing up with a late lunch now."
"Okay, great," Mary replied to Molly before turning away again and shouting "She'll meet you there," over her shoulder at John.
The ever familiar black door to 221b Baker Street was cracked open as Molly approached the flat from the tube where she'd gotten off. Just the site of it elicited an unnerving feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She heard Mrs. Hudson's voice carrying out the door before she even saw John or the older housekeeper –land lady.
"Oh, John," she cooed as he caught sight of Molly entering through the front door. "You really need to make amends with him.
"I have, I have Mrs. Hudson," he remarked before smiling faintly at Molly and giving a shy wave.
Mrs. Hudson shook her head, not completely believing John, for good reason, before placing her tea towel over her shoulder and greeting Molly formally.
"How are you Molly dear?"
"I'm fine. Just fine," Molly replied, trying to skirt herself away from anymore questions.
'That's nice," She replied. Molly eyes crinkled slightly. Was that sarcasm laced intricately into Mrs. Hudson's reply or was she just imagining things? She couldn't still be upset that Molly had been a part of his fake suicide, could she?
"Well, we'll just go on up then," John spoke breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"He's not here right now though dears," Mrs. Hudson called out as they ascended the stairs.
"Really?" Molly and John replied simultaneously for different reasons. John because of the simple assumption that if not on a case, Sherlock never left his flat. And Molly for the much less typical guess, that Sherlock must have gone home after their canceled lunch date –well drinks.
''Yes, 'fraid so," she confirmed. "But you can go on up if you'd like. You did say you were here to collect some of your things?"
John nodded before turning towards Sherlock's door and pushing it open with a little shove.
The flat looked as it had a mere four hours before, but it felt completely different now. Before, she carried optimism with her, but now she was really doubting the reason she displayed such confidence in the first place.
John set off to the kitchen first, moving the remains of an experiment around as he poked through clutter looking for his notes.
"So, what did you need to talk to me about?" John asked in between huffs of disgust and disbelief over the state of Sherlock's living space.
"While he was away," Molly began.
"Playing dead," John cut in as a children's board game that had been sitting on some manilla folders, crashed to the floor.
"Yes, that," she replied in a small voice. "While he was off dismantling Moriarty's network, you and I had an interesting conversation about him over drinks."
"When I was utterly pissed that night at Mary's?" John asked with a smirk.
'"Yes, precisely that night." Obviously John wasn't going to be delicate over the situation. "You told me that Sherlock... had feelings for me."
John paused his shuffling –the heap of papers in front of him settling like the eery calm during the eye of a storm.
Molly tried jogging his memory more. "You were upset that he was always selfish and that he never, well, made a move on me. Not those exact words, but-"
"That he never gave you a good snog," John finished. "You twat!"
Molly looked taken back.
"Not you," John corrected quickly. "Me, I'm the idiot here!"
"So-" Molly tried to interject again, but couldn't finish, for John had moved out of the kitchen ad was rambling more to himself than Molly.
"You couldn't keep your mouth shut, John. Look what you've done. It was none of your business, but you had to stick your bloody opinion in there anyway."
"I'm guessing you don't approve then?" Molly looked up at John crestfallen.
John let out a strangled laugh and tilted his head to the side considering the statement. "Yes and no. I think you two would get along brilliantly considering how proficient you are with lying. But you know Sherlock just as well as I do and we are both aware that he isn't one for relationships. I'd worry that he was just using you if you were together.
Molly stood there thinking over John's words. Was she just a drug that Sherlock wanted to cure his boredom or did he view her as a person that expected the same amount of attention and love that the other received. Then a third option popped into her head. Did he care about her at all or had John been lying or misinformed that drunken night those months ago?
She turned back to John to clarify when she noticed he had already left and gone upstairs to his old room. She followed suit until she came to the half ajar door. There were only a few more places that these notes of his would be and John had to interest in looking though Sherlock's room or the bathroom in fear of what he might find.
"John," Molly stated confidently. He had been running a hand through his short hair with his other hand clinging to the side pocket of his jean's pocket. "I need to know the truth; or as much of the truth that you know before I go and make a fool of myself. Does Sherlock really like me like that?"
"Yes, most definitely," John answered.
Molly couldn't help but smile as she nodded her head up and down stiffly.
"But in truth Molly, I'd take that information as a grain of sand. He can be rather dense with human emotions and interactions and, well, he is still Sherlock regardless."
"I know," Molly said scraping at the loose paint on the door frame beside he. "I just have this feeling that he isn't that clueless. It's like he is too scared to act on anything. Or he doesn't want to. I just wish he could make up his mind. One minute he acts like a smitten teenage boy and the next minute he is completely oblivious and couldn't care less."
The sound of a buzzer broke the silence between the two causing both of them to jump back a bit. Molly and John looked between each other somehow asking the same nonverbal question of 'what was that?'
"Is someone at the door?" Molly asked John.
John shook his contemplating the source of the noise. "I didn't even think he had a buzzer for this place."
"Could it be the neighbors?" Molly suggested.
John grimaced. "I don't think so. Maybe it came from outside. We could check it out."
Just as Molly was about to agree, her phone vibrated once in her pocket letting her know that a text had come in.
"It's from Mike," Molly told John.
As if on cue, John's phone went off following Molly's text message.
"Hey Greg. What's up?"
"Body?" Molly mouthed.
John nodded his head. The two padded down the stairs with urgency as John continued his phone conversation with Greg.
When the two reached the first floor landing, John hung up the phone. "Greg can't seem to get a hold of Sherlock. He said his call went straight to voice mail..."
"Huh," Molly somewhat replied trying to remember if he had his phone on him earlier. Surely, they'd know if he was actually in trouble or just ignoring everybody on purpose.
"They've found a body underground by the tube. Lestrade wants you to call him if you find Sherlock. He says this case is a tricky one. I'll see you later I'm guessing," John stepped into a cab that had just pulled up. "Bye Molly."
-Author's notes: Sherlock had returned home while John and Molly are upstairs, drunk. He blunders around the kitchen, finding the operation game him and his brother play, and on the floor of the kitchen, he sits down and practices all the while overhearing bits of Molly's conversation with John, only stopping to gravel in his own self loathing at the comments that float downstairs.