"Sher...Sherlock? You there?"
Indiscriminate sounds. Tension round the mouth. Sherlock Holmes, screwing his fists up against some invisible force. And then...nothing, just his hand uncurling as the life is let out of them again.
So, what exactly would John lose if he lost a Sherlock? He enjoyed life before Sherlock.
That, though, was the problem: he no longer measured his life in years, or stepping stones like career changes; he measured his life in Before Sherlock or After Sherlock.
Lestrade sits opposite Rachel Miller, parentless - again.
"Did my officers not stop you walking in here?"
"I'm small," Rachel says by way of explanation. "And I knew I wouldn't be able to see you just by asking."
Lestrade glances through his office blinds, into the reception. The two officers there are chatting over coffee, completely oblivious that a small child slinked past them and into their superior's office.
"So you...decided to force your way?"
"Yeah."
Rachel is swamped in the chair she's in, her brown hair almost lost in the oak and the top of her head only reaching three quarters of the way up the back of it.
"I've seen more of you recently, Rachel, than most of my force in the last few days."
Lestrade decides not to mention the first time, but can't remembering it: stumbling out the police station into too bright light which dragged out details he didn't want to see…
A small crowd of people - the inseparable mass that forms at the wrong times, never helping, just pushing and shoving; metal wrapped around metal, squashed so it's barely distinguishable as a car, just a pile of broken bits telling of a collision that could have been deadly; a girl, small and fragile, familiar like a forgotten dream, and he realised he couldn't remember her name, just that he asked someone to babysit her.
And that someone, blood-soaked, in front of him.
Best friend, crouching over, with dead eyes...
Lestrade fell through the crowd, shouting long-learned orders without realizing the words actually leaving his mouth – only to, failing to think of anything else to do, put his hand on John's shoulder.
"First I interview you and your parents," continues Lestrade to Rachel," send you away that satisfied that everything's okay... and then you turn up again. On your own. Is everything okay?"
The girl shakes her head solemnly, staring at the ground. "No."
"What? What is it?"
Lestrade leans forward at his desk, hands gripping the edge as Rachel's gaze meets his.
"I wanna see Sherlock."
Lestrade lets out an audible sigh. He loosens his grip on his desk and virtually collapses back into his chair.
"Why do you like Sherlock so much? Then again, I suppose he is quite childish."
"Yeah, at first I didn't think he was a real adult," says Rachel, even though Lestrade intended the second sentence as afterthought to himself. "Is he a real adult?"
Lestrade smiles slightly. "That is still up for debate."
"He's good at games too."
When he sent Sherlock off with Rachel, he expected Rachel to come back sulking, hating the man. Not that he ever doubted Sherlock's competence in making sure she didn't run off - bonding, though, was a different matter.
"Um...Well," says Lestrade. "I'll phone ahead. Maybe tomorrow. But where are your parents?"
"Home."
"Rachel, is everything...okay at home?"
Molly rings. John couldn't say when. To measure time, you need a change but in the stark white hospital room there was no ticking of a clock, John's watch was broken and the closed blinds showed no change in sunlight. John stayed in the same position, as aware of time as a statue. John did know, though, that it was the fourth day he had woken up without Sherlock doing so too.
So he continues to wait for a change, sitting by Sherlock's bed like he's forgotten how to live the rest of his life.
The phone buzzes in his pocket and it takes a moment to remember what that means - then his hand closes around it, his finger presses a button and he holds it to his ear. Like a reflex.
"Hello?"
"Er...hi...John?"
It is such a Molly-like start to the conversation. Hesitant, like she isn't sure she should be having it.
"Molly." When he says her name, it's a relief. "Oh, god. Molly, hi."
Hearing her voice is a time capsule, buried and perfectly preserved, to the first time he met Sherlock at St. Bart's.
"Sorry...um, is this is a bad time?"
"No, no it's um..."
John finds himself completely unable to think of a word. Molly coming could be bad, very bad. Her delicacy, her emotions... Especially when it comes to Sherlock... But, all the same, her voice is comforting him. A feeling that John has never cherished so much as now.
"...it's fine."
There's a pause, like Molly can't quite believe John's given her permission to carry on.
"I was just wondering," she says, "just checking, really. On you...and Sherlock... I was just worried. Am worried."
The more Molly got worked-up, the more at ease John felt. The guilt would come later but, for now, Molly's awkwardness lightened...everything.
"Of course. Well, I'm fine, but he...It's not good..."
A bit not good, John almost says.
"But Sherlock cares about you," says John, using the present tense deliberately and, even though it slips on his tongue, it feels right. "And you have every right to know. To see him."
As he says it, John realizes that he's not lying, that he really does want to talk to another human being. Molly, specifically.
John can hear Molly moving her lips silently, trying to find the appropriate words, to ask for a visit. Even though he'd already essentially invited her. Molly Hooper, scared of gatecrashing despite being invited, wanting to visit Sherlock Holmes, who'll gatecrash anything.
"So, please," qualifies John. "Please visit."
Compared to Lestrade's seriousness, his grey beard deepening smudges under the eyes, his shirking of work duties to visit and care about Sherlock, his long looks…. Compared to Mrs. Hudson, smiling through tears she didn't even try to conceal, useless remedies (newspapers, food, Sherlock's skull) in too many bags, curling up on a chair and hugging herself when John could hug her no more…Compared to Mycroft, barely present, analysing everything from afar but never letting his bubble burst and the real world to touch him….
Compared to all that, Molly's reaction seemed the only appropriate one. For everyone else, the unquestioned questions, the etiquette everyone edged around, the fact that Sherlock might never be the same again was always there, however casual the inhabitants of his hospital room pretended to be or however trivial the conversation got. Molly accidentally avoided the rules, trod all over them in fact and then apologized profusely.
Compared to Sherlock.
White. Still. Never blushing.
In an insane part of John's mind which John can't help but listen to, have a small hope it is right, John can't imagine Sherlock staying white and still in front of a blabbering Molly. He just has to move. Molly brought out the most Sherlock Sherlock there was. The one that would tease ("don't speak, Molly. Not your area"), the one that would abuse ("Molly, your lunch break doesn't exist today") and the one who would watch every detail, change and emotion that would flit across her face, and care, in the Sherlock way of caring: to watch, learn and store. And, occasionally, act ("Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper").
If there was one person that Sherlock needed right now, it was Molly.
And if Sherlock needed her, so did John.
Molly is there within ten minutes - so John didn't have to have the Holmes' brothers deduction skills to know she'd been hanging around outside the hospital before she phoned. Sherlock is in University College Hospital, not St. Bart's; travel time should take twenty minutes.
Molly bustles through the door at the same time as the nurse, so she takes up even more space, with even more breaths and apologies, before sitting down. There is something child-like about Molly. That John wants to cling onto, revel in, like nostalgia. The whole room feels sunnier to John.
The nurse has a single flower in her hand, which she puts in a vase by Sherlock's bed, bright pink near his white skin. It seems to just underline the life Sherlock doesn't have.
"Stay as long as you want," says the nurse to Molly before leaving.
Molly smiles awkwardly, before her gaze (which has been everywhere else in the room) lands on Sherlock.
"Hey, John. I brought some..."
She indicates a bag, which she then drops to the floor as her eyes take Sherlock in.
"My God," she says quietly. "I didn't expect...this. This bad. Sorry," she says. "It just I..."
Her knees look like they've collapsed underneath her when she falls back onto the chair.
"Molly?"
John moves round the room, and kneels in front of her chair and places his hands on her shoulders, so he's between her and Sherlock's bed. He waits for her to finish crying. It's so silent. Even her tears fall almost invisibly. She takes deep breaths, and looks up at the ceiling, so her eyes shine - but tears stay unfallen.
"S-sorry."
"No, no. Don't apologize. It's only natural."
She smiles, but it's like a grimace.
"I don't know why I've... My emotions have kind of been everywhere since I heard from Lestrade. I just keep thinking that I should have somehow...Prevented it. I'm a bit protective of him... I know it's illogical, but I can't help it."
She giggles, but John knows it's to make the conversation easier for him - not because it's suddenly any easier for her.
John thinks of Mycroft, and his sudden disappearance. What invisible chess game is he playing? And against what opponent? There is no way he is sitting idle. Getting John a bed in the hospital room, and making every hour a visiting hour, cannot be the extent of his actions.
"I think he does that to everyone," says John. "Brings out the protective streak. Probably because he's such a child."
"Yeah, exactly! And you're a nice man, John. Thank you. I feel we've missed out on each other... Like Sherlock was an obstacle... No, not an obstacle...no that's not true..."
"You tend to forget about everyone else when Sherlock's around. I understand."
"Well yeah." She smiles. "And that's not an insult to him obviously. He just demands quite a lot of attention!"
"Demands it, sulks until he gets it, screams like a toddler for it..."
"Or sometimes just quietly sits, and gets attention anyway."
John looks at Molly for a few seconds before speaking. "Yeah. The opposite to you, really."
"I don't mind."
John slowly tucks one of her loose strands of hair behind her ear. She stays very still. Then his whole being jumps-
"Molly Hooper."
Molly and John look at one another, wondering it was either of them that spoke but the voice, the contents of the speech, are too distinctive to be anyone else...
Molly looks up; John turns around...
Sherlock has his eyes half open, staring back.
"You're like a beautiful piece of artwork, Molly - but you never completely dry, so you get smudged far too easily. Like now. Over me. You shouldn't."
John opens his mouth to speak, but words don't seem to follow. John can barely dare to hope. Sherlock's eyes are open, the best news he's had in the four days spent at the hospital, but how could he cling onto that given his medical knowledge, given the last disappointment? How can he know Sherlock won't just slip away again?
If there is only a split second though, John is determined to fill it. He rushes forward, too slowly - for everything involved in reaching Sherlock is too slow... John couldn't say where Molly was if he tried. He just puts his weight into the chair next to Sherlock's bed, and stares at Sherlock's moving mouth, eyes, being. Brain. Working.
Suddenly, Sherlock looks up at the ceiling.
"This isn't fair!" His voice fills the room, like it hasn't done in so long. "I'm high! High, the one time I don't want to be..."
John grabs Sherlock's hand.
Sherlock stares at his hands for a few moments, smile twitching, ready to break free.
"John..."
"Sherlock."
"I remember my surname. And I remember you. And I remember Molly Hooper. And I remember my brother. And I remember that," Sherlock takes a large breath, "there are only two known examples of the flower Middlemist camellia in the world - so why is a specimen sitting at my bedside?"
But neither Sherlock nor John look at the bedside table.
The smile that had been threatening to do so fills Sherlock's whole face as he meets John's gaze.
A/N:Well that has been a while... I am so sorry! I've written up to chapter 8 though and have ideas until the end of the fic - so it should be much quicker from now on.
Well introducing molly was on a whim. I'm tempted to include more of her - or would you prefer some other character?
I'm thinking about Donovan/Anderson at some point (can't have one without the other).
I go to University College London and couldn't resist putting the hospital in there... Not that I'm particularly enjoying UCL at the moment, with all the exams. I'm sure a lot of you are in a similar situation (exam season, ew).
Hope you're all well!
P.S. Has anyone been watching The Politician's Husband? I loved it. It made me want to write a Ten fic.