The clouds were heavy and dark when John came around for Molly in Mike Stamford's tiny car. John was sweet, kissing her hello, opening doors for her, but as they drove off in a southerly direction, their impatience hovered in the air between them.
Over an hour of relative silence later, she still had no idea where they were going, and she was beginning to suspect that John didn't know either. They had initially headed off toward Brighton, but had turned off the main road about twenty minutes ago, and now John seemed to be steering them directly into the path of a rather angry-looking storm. As they reached the outer rim of it, fat raindrops began pelting the little car.
"You're sure it's this way?" she asked again.
"Molly." It was a warning. Apparently asking three times was his limit. The rain began beating down on the car in earnest. The water was sheeting down the windscreen, the wipers essentially useless.
They passed a muddy road on their right and John swore. He braked, and the poor vehicle skidded a bit. John reversed and then turned with a lurch onto the road he had missed.
"Nearly there," he said cheerfully.
Nearly where? she thought. They could barely see the road in front of them, but Molly was biting her tongue. But when the car seemed to careen off the road into the mud and came to an abrupt halt, she felt justified in yelling. "John!"
He was incongruously calm. "Here we are," he said, popping out of the car, the wind ushering in a bucketful of rain in the short time his door was open. He came around for her, grabbing their bags from the back seat as he helped her out.
Molly's feet landed in thick, ankle-deep mud.
He was tugging her along, and when she looked up (rather than down at her ruined shoes) she saw where he was headed. An enormous Weeping Wych elm stood brave against the storm, and next to it, a cottage of some sort, one level, with a front porch. It was rather small and deserted looking, but the roof looked decent, and honestly that was all she cared about at the moment.
By the time they reached the front porch she was soaked through and shivering.
They left their shoes outside and then burst through the door, John shutting it forcefully behind them.
Molly glared up at him through the curtain of her sopping hair, looking about as happy as a wet cat.
"Er," John began, realizing she was less than pleased. "Why don't you change, and I'll-" he looked around the sitting room. "I'll make a fire," he suggested.
Molly said nothing, grabbed her bag, and sloshed towards a door off to the right that appeared to be a bathroom.
John peeled off his dripping coat and hung it on the front door knob, ran his hands over his face to wipe the rain from his eyes, and headed over to the fireplace. He really hoped the chimney was safe. He checked the flue and pulled kindling from the bucket on the hearth.
Molly hung her sodden clothes over the side of the bath tub, and after toweling off as best she could, pulled on a thick burgundy jumper, jeans, and two pairs of socks. The tangle of nerves tightened in her gut, and she looked in the mirror above the sink.
Fear. You are full of fear, Molly Hooper.
She sighed. Shuddered. Looked again.
Better.
She clipped her hair up in a messy twist and left the bathroom to face John.
He was standing by the fireplace with his back to her, the now roaring flames already beginning to dry his jeans. A small sofa faced the hearth, and she dropped her bag next to it. He turned to look at her, saying nothing, but his expectant face made it clear. He was done waiting.
"Figure we're safe?" she asked, and he nodded.
"Tell me," he said gently. "Everything."
She let out the breath she was holding. Her voice wavered, but stayed strong. "Sherlock's alive."
She didn't know what she expected him to do-yell, cry, deny it, go into shock-but what he actually did was close his eyes.
She let the moments stretch out, but he remained perfectly still.
"John?" she ventured softly.
His lips pursed, his eyes still shut tight.
"I knew it," he whispered.
He opened his eyes then and blinked at her, and suddenly, his breath seemed to leave him and he was gasping.
Molly hurried over and eased him onto the sofa.
"I mean, I suspected," he said raggedly. "Since yesterday, yesterday morning," he clarified.
Only since yesterday? she thought. Oh, this was going to get so much worse. And she only had a few moments before he started asking questions.
"How about some rum?" she asked shakily, bending near him to rummage in her bag.
"What?" he asked, confusion clouding over the relief in his face.
She handed him a large flask. "I find rum helpful in situations like this," she explained.
"Okay," he said, still confused, but taking a swig anyway. He handed it back to her, and she took a long pull off it that would have been worthy of a raised eyebrow had John been looking. She set it back in the bag and then sat at the edge of the sofa, opposite him. His breathing slowed.
She had decided the night before, lying in her bed, not sleeping, that when she told him, she would tell him all of it, and not make excuses, not ask for forgiveness until much, much later.
"You must have questions. And I promise to tell you everything I know," she began.
"Are you . . . are you sure-quite sure-he's alive?" he asked softly, his voice breaking in the middle.
She nodded.
"How . . . how do you know? He . . . " John faltered, squeezing his eyes shut again. "I took his pulse! I saw . . ." He was speaking mostly to himself, shaking his head again.
"You saw exactly what Sherlock wanted you to see," Molly explained. "He faked his death, John. Deliberately."
It all sounded so much more horrible out loud, but there was no holding back now. "He came to me the night before and asked me to help him."
"Help him?" John echoed, looking up at her then. He was sounding confused more than anything, and she realized he wasn't yet fully comprehending what had been done to him.
"He asked me to manage what happened inside the hospital after he jumped," Molly began, purposely using 'jumped' rather than 'fell'.
"And to maintain a certain timeline, to provide a hiding place, and help him escape when the moment came." She was rushing it too much, but she saw his eyes widening and she had to get it all out before he exploded.
"And I agreed. I helped him. And he asked me-" Demanded, actually, she thought, but this conversation wasn't about her. "-not to tell anyone. So I didn't."
John's breathing was ratcheting up again, and she nearly blurted out the rest of it.
"I know he's alive because afterwards I helped him, I hid him until it was safe for him to leave. I gave him money and a sandwich and then he disappeared. He's called me twice since then but he never tells me where he is," she finished.
John was shaking his head as if rattling his brains might make all the pieces fit together.
"Sherlock. Faked his death. On purpose." The strength was returning to his voice.
Molly nodded gently.
"You helped him."
Nod.
"He's alive."
Nod. She wouldn't say the next part for him; she deserved whatever was about to happen.
Now his words sounded as smooth and strong as steel. "And you have. Both. Been lying to me."
She took in his lethally calm voice, the tightening of his jaw, the way he wouldn't break their gaze, and she made herself nod.
He blinked. He took one deep breath. He was trying to calm down, and Molly fought the urge to tell him to be angry, to tell him to yell at her. But then, the dam burst, and later, much later, she would be reminded of a quote about not meddling in the affairs of dragons.
John tried willing his heartbeat to slow, to calm himself, but in doing so, was struck so painfully by the fact that Sherlock had undoubtedly slowed his own heart in order to fool him that he felt his pulse skyrocket in response.
Fuck it. Fuck them both. Fuck it all.
He was up from the sofa and pacing before he knew it, his body propelling itself with anger.
"Seven weeks," he muttered. But that wasn't nearly good enough.
"SEVEN WEEKS!" he roared, and, yes, that worked, and when he glanced at Molly she was, unexpectedly, not cringing, not crying.
His came around and stood behind the spot he'd recently vaulted from, and gripped the back of the sofa tightly.
"Seven weeks of my life, moping like an idiot, going through life like a fucking robot," he spat out. "And everyone dripping with pity, tut-tutting about me when they thought I couldn't hear." His face twisted in contempt. "Seven weeks of wondering how I was supposed to put my life back together, my fucking soul back together," he growled, and pushed off from the soda. He set off pacing again, and she said nothing.
"Jesus, seven weeks of talking to his stupid, goddamned grave, as though he could hear me-"
He froze. His back to Molly, he clenched his fists at his sides.
"Who's watching us, Molly?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," she answered without hesitation. He turned to face her.
"Is Sherlock watching us? Is he witnessing everything? Listening? And just . . ." He paused, finding only hopelessly inadequate words. "Just letting it . . . all . . . continue?" he asked, his voice losing its force.
"I don't know how much he knows. He never told me any details about what he planned to do after-afterwards. But he's getting information somehow. The first time he called me, about four weeks ago, he must have known I was in a place where I could talk, on my break in the park. And the second time he called me-" How she wanted to save those details for later, but she continued, "-he seemed to know exactly where I was and what I had been doing. That's who was on the phone last night, John. It was Sherlock."
"Sherlock?" John was trying to remember Molly's side of the conversation.
"He was . . . reminding me not to tell you anything."
A corner of his mouth pulled upwards. "And you told him to go to hell."
"Well. Yes." She was still surprised at herself for defying Sherlock so completely.
John pressed his lips together and nodded. "Good."
There was still more for him to know, and she waited patiently for him to speak again. He opened his mouth but only let out a huff, and then moved to sit back on the sofa wearily. He slumped back, rubbing his forehead with his hand.
"Can you just-I mean, what possible reason could there be behind all this?" John asked, his hand flailing in front of him.
"He told me very little. He said that Moriarty was targeting you, and he wouldn't stop unless he believed Sherlock was dead. He said that he would fake his death and then be able to hunt down Moriarty and his people more easily. I think he said 'remove the threats' but it was pretty clear what he meant by that," Molly explained, tipping her head to one side and raising one brow. "I thought, since Moriarty had died, that Sherlock could be done with the whole charade. But afterwards, when I was helping him recover, he said that Moriarty had arranged things so that even if Moriarty died, there would still be a threat against you," Molly told him, still amazed at the level of Jim's obsession with tormenting Sherlock.
John clearly felt the same way, the horror creasing around his eyes.
"But not just you," Molly continued, and John lifted his chin, knitting his brows in surprise. "Lestrade, too. And Mrs. Hudson."
"What?" he gasped. "Mrs.-; and Greg?"
"Three assassins. Three targets. All of you would die if Sherlock didn't."
"Oh my God," John breathed. It explained why Sherlock had jumped, why he had been 'confessing' to John that he was a fraud. He needed Moriarty's deceptions to work in order to keep them all safe.
"Oh my God," he repeated, sinking his face into his hands, fingers moving over his scalp as he clasped the back of his neck. He had never bought that Sherlock was a fraud, not for a second, but he had also never understood why Sherlock tried to convince him otherwise. Not until this moment.
"And you think-Sherlock thinks-they're still watching us?" John asked, looking up at her.
"That's what he said that night, before he left. He said that the assassins would have had orders to keep an eye on us, regardless of what happened on the roof, just to be sure. That Moriarty wouldn't have put it past Sherlock to fake his death. He told me we would all be watched-you, Greg, me, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft. Anyone important to him. And that he couldn't afford to give himself away, to give them any hints that he was alive."
When he replied, his voice was soft. "Why didn't he tell me? I could have helped him."
She had so many things she wanted to say, but she kept to the facts. "He said you were a terrible liar. That he needed your grief to be convincing. In order to protect you."
John's face twisted into an ugly scowl, and Molly couldn't stop herself from recoiling as he burst up from the sofa towards her.
"He-"
John was shaking.
"The complete, utter-"
His features fought over which emotion to give expression to. He let out an anguished groan, then wheeled around and strode to the door, ripping it open and stepping out onto the porch.
Molly followed him, closing the door behind her to keep out the rain and wind. John, his swearing barely audible, was pulling on his shoes. Without even glancing at her, he took off down the steps and pounded through the mud towards the huge elm tree.
She stood at the short end of the porch and just watched John Watson attack.
As he kicked at the massive trunk of the god damned tree, John shouted an unending string of abuse into the sounds of the storm raging around him. The complex web of branches and ruffled leaves protected him from much of the rain, but nothing stopped his brain, his heart. The emotions cycled through him, ebbing and flowing, but recursive and ceaseless, waves hurtling him from anger to relief to shame and self-pity, and back to anger again.
He would feel like he was just starting to get a hold of himself when it would knock him flat again, and he threw himself against the trunk with renewed vigor.
Molly watched. She hugged herself against the rain, held herself from going after him, and watched. A few times it seemed like he might stop, might be done, but then his feet would find the bark again. Though his words were unintelligible, she heard his voice cracking and becoming hoarse.
In the end, she had no idea how long he had been out there. When he slumped down, back against the tree, he looked like a marionette with its strings cut, limbs limp and head hanging low.
She waited. She waited longer than she wanted to. But he did, finally, seem to have spent himself. She pulled on her own shoes and made her way to him, and he did not resist as she helped him up.
He was silent as she helped him peel off his filthy wet clothes in the bathroom, as she peeled off her own.
She was silent as she moved them both under the welcome stream of hot water, rinsing them of the pervading mud and warming their skin.
He stood still, letting her wash him chastely, efficiently, letting her wrap him in a towel that matched her own and lead him out to the living room.
She stoked the fire. She pulled quilts from the bed and made a nest for them on the sofa, and they burrowed under them together. She encircled him in her arms as they lay still and said nothing for long while.
Molly knew things. Things people expected her to know, like how a body looks when it's fallen three stories, or how to run a full chem panel, or how to care for kittens. But also things that no one expected her to know. Like what Sherlock looks like when he's sad. Or how to take down a man twice her size. Or that sex can be about so many other things than love; and that it hardly ever is only about love.
And what Molly knew at this moment was that John Watson was about to forgive her.
His head shifted a little, the left side of his face pressed half against her towel, half on the skin below her collarbone. Everything felt warm now, the both of them dry and clean under the quilts in front of the fire.
"Is that-all of it, then?" he asked softly.
"Everything I know," she answered, her voice equally soft, and she kept her hands still where they were on the bare skin of his back.
And John exhaled his relief, his gratitude against her neck. Her eyes fluttered shut and she bent her head towards him involuntarily at the sensation.
He moved to prop himself up a little, and when she opened her eyes he was staring at her, his face only inches above hers. The air changed between them in those long seconds. She became newly aware of how his body lay upon her, their towels loosened and rucked up, one of his legs between hers, the weight of him, and her skin began humming its response.
His nearly navy blue eyes asked a not entirely unexpected question, his gaze steady.
So many reasons. Forgiveness. Gratitude. Solace. Reassurance.
She kept her eyes on his and she shifted slowly, deliberately beneath him, her body an answering wave against his.
His hesitation vaporized, and his mouth found hers. Her hands slid down his back, finding the edge of his towel and tugging, and he lifted so she could pull it away. His hands were softer than she expected, smooth and warm on her skin, but also decisive, and as one moved up to tangle in her still-damp hair, the other was freeing her, letting her own towel fall where it may.
Molly felt like liquid. Like molten muscle. He was somehow everywhere at once, steady and inevitable, and not in a hurry at all. She gave. She yielded. She took. She pulled long kisses from his lips and she pressed his mouth to her wherever she wanted him. He let her. He encouraged her. He read her movements and sighs, studied and learned her until he had her at the edge.
He paused, and she knew why, and she didn't care what he might think of her when she produced a condom from her bag that still lay on the floor near the sofa.
When he pressed into her, she felt overwhelming, satisfying relief, as though the complete forgiveness that she was craving from him were tangibly, physically expressed, and she tensed her muscles around him inside her. She wanted to echo his gratitude with her own, and soon he was at the edge with her, each squeeze, each slide, coiling them both more tightly.
They fell together, melting into each other.
John knew things too. How to heal. How to kill. He knew that whenever he saw Sherlock again he was going to beat the crap out of him and then handcuff him to his armchair in 221b for the rest of his life. And he knew that whatever he and Molly said in the next few minutes would likely set the tone for the rest of their relationship.
But he didn't know she would take the lead.
"Hmm," she hummed against the top of his head.
"Yes?" he answered, lifting his eyes to hers bravely.
"We seem to be getting to know each other better," she joked softly.
He dropped his head back down. "Just a bit," he mumbled against her skin, and then deliberately nuzzled into her neck.
"Oh," she sighed, instantly melting again. "Deduced that right away, didn't you?" she half-whispered, and he smiled against her easily. And it surprised him again, how easy it was, to be with her, to forgive her.
"Why didn't I know you before?" he asked, tucking into her neck again.
"Oh, why would you?" Molly said without accusation. "Who sees the stars when the sun's out? And Sherlock's always been the bloody sun," she explained somewhat wistfully.
Impossible to argue against that, John thought, smiling against her skin again.
After a moment, she cleared her throat gently and he raised his head to meet her eyes. She shifted just a little beneath him, yet he just lifted his eyebrows at her.
"Wouldn't it be great if there were a towel nearby?" she asked with mock sincerity, since he didn't seem to be getting the hint.
He grinned up at her. "Yes, that would be brilliant. Marvelous," he answered. He frowned and shook his head. "Too bad there isn't one around."
She batted at his head with a free hand, and he laughed, ducking away and reaching down for her discarded towel. He placed it at her chest.
"Thank you," she said. It seemed to trigger something in him, and his face was suddenly earnest.
"Thank you," he repeated, and she didn't pretend not to understand. She nodded, and he leaned forward for a kiss.
He moved away and they both tidied up, the towels landing in a heap on the floor. Molly tucked one quilt around her beneath her arms and then looked the room over, as though surveying the damage.
"John, where are we?"
"Ah. Near Brighton," he offered.
"Whose house is this?" she asked, her brows pinched together.
"Well. That's a good-that's an excellent question." He paused. "I have no idea."
She half-laughed, half-gasped. "What?"
"Well, I didn't-I needed somewhere safe, and Christine assured me no one could find us here," he half-explained.
"Christine?"
"Yes."
She continued looking at him.
He cleared his throat. "Yes, ah, Christine. Of the, um, homeless network."
Molly's eyes widened.
"Look, it's not as if I had a lot of time to come up with this plan!" he defended.
She was laughing at him, and he started laughing, too, but after a moment, Molly was sobering.
"Aren't we a pair of criminal masterminds," she said sadly, dabbing at her eyes with her index finger.
John realized how much they were not. "Yeah," he said softly.
"What-I mean, how do we, you, I mean-" Molly stuttered about and then huffed out a breath. "What's next?" she asked plainly.
"Another good question."
She waited for him to continue.
"I don't know about you," he began, "but I have to find him."
She nodded.
"And throttle him."
She smiled a little at that.
"And then, help him. With-whatever mad plan he has."
Of course, she thought. "I want to help," she nearly blurted.
John sat still for a moment. "It could be dangerous. It will be," he corrected. He needed to be clear with her about that.
Molly had considered this. "Well. I'm a little more prepared for danger than I used to be," she reminded him. "But I don't want to get in your way," she added sincerely.
"No, actually," John responded, "I think, if you're willing, you could actually make all of this much easier."
Molly nodded. "What's the plan?"
John's face scrunched together, folding in on itself, eyes closing. He gritted his teeth and looked up at her.
"We have to talk to Mycroft."
The rain continued its steady pounding, but the wind had died down. Molly was astounded at the mess they'd managed to make in such a short amount of time. It took them much longer to clean it up than to make it, and by the time they'd finished, they were starving.
Clean, damp towels and clothes hung on improvised drying racks around the fire, and they sat on the floor in front of the hearth with the food John had bought ranged around them, along with Molly's rum. John had sharpened sticks from off of the great tree and skewered sausages onto them to roast in the fire. At one point he stabbed a large chunk of cheese and turned it round slowly in the flames until it was warm and soft and they could spread it on their bread, and Molly thought she had never had a more satisfying meal in her life.
In fact, sitting there with John, full of cheese and bread and purpose, Molly felt amazing.
She felt ready.