Chapter Seven
An hour later, after Lestrade and Mycroft had taken Fieldson away and Molly had given herself and Sherlock a bath to scrub off any lingering chemicals, Molly sat on the sofa with Sherlock as John made tea in the kitchen.
"You did such a good job staying quiet, Sherlock," Molly told him. "I'm so proud of you."
"You know he only stayed quiet because you were with him," John said as he came in with the tea tray. "He told me once that you calm his mind."
Molly looked back at Sherlock with a smile, warmed by that sentiment.
Sherlock was gazing out the window into the street. "Time has dark and water overflows." He groaned lightly as he rubbed at his head.
"He seems much calmer," observed Molly.
"He knows the case is solved," said John, pouring the two of them some tea.
Molly nodded, staring at Sherlock as he looked down at his hands and inspected them, mumbling to himself.
John set the cups of tea on the table. "What is it?"
Molly hesitated before looking over at him, tears forming in her eyes. "What if something went wrong? Drugs can have permanent side effects. What if he's never really himself again?"
John placed his hands over hers. "We'll get him back. I mean, it's Sherlock. He's the most stubborn git I know."
Molly laughed as she wiped her tears away.
"I can't see the stars," Sherlock blurted out suddenly.
John and Molly smiled as they looked over at Sherlock, who was holding his hands up in front of his face.
"Come on," said Molly, picking up a biscuit from the tray and holding it up in front of him. "How about a biscuit?"
The next day, Lestrade came to visit and check on Sherlock's progress.
"How is he?" asked Lestrade as Sherlock stood in front of the bookshelves, randomly taking books off and putting them back in a different spot.
"The same," said John, watching his friend. "It'll probably take a few more days before he's recovered. He was exposed to a lot of the drug. Molly, on the other hand, has only had a couple slip-ups, and she should be detoxed in the next day or so."
Lestrade nodded. "Good."
"I just keep thinking about Fieldson," said John. "He was left with Sherlock for three days before Molly came home. He could've killed him at any time, but he chose to drug him and put him through that hell."
"Sherrinford," Sherlock blurted out, looking back and forth between the two books in his hands.
John and Lestrade glanced over at him for a moment.
"You didn't know, John," Lestrade told him, looking back at him. "Hell, Mycroft didn't know."
"I know," said John. "Part of me just feels like I should have known he wasn't using drugs. I mean, yeah, he showed all the symptoms and his mind messing with his responses when I asked him…" He ran a hand over his face before giving Lestrade a despairing look. "He asked me for help, Greg." He paused before looking over at Sherlock. "The day Mycroft put his men in place at the flat, he asked me for help. I could see the desperation in his face as he said it." He looked back at Lestrade. "And a few days after that, he came tearing down the stairs, screaming for me. That must have been when he figured out it was Fieldson. He screamed, Greg. I've never heard him like that before."
"Hey," said Lestrade. "Quit beating yourself up. It all worked out."
John shook his head. "When everyone else believed the newspaper gossip about Sherlock being a fake, I never did. And now…what if the drugs leave permanent damage? All because I didn't believe him."
"Molly," said Sherlock suddenly.
They looked up as Sherlock turned towards them, looking around the room. He then looked at John, and John noticed that some of the haze seemed to have cleared from his eyes.
"Molly?" he asked.
John stared at him for a moment before he pointed towards the kitchen. "She's cleaning the bedroom."
To his surprise, Sherlock turned and made his way in that direction. John and Lestrade looked at each other, staggered, and then stood and followed. Sherlock walked into the bedroom, where Molly was pulling dressing gowns out of the bureau with a pair of gloves on. She turned when she heard footsteps in the room.
Molly quickly tossed the dressing gowns into the corner, where she had assembled a pile of ruined bedding and dressing gowns, so that Sherlock wouldn't touch them. "Sherlock, hey."
Sherlock walked up to her. "Can the police spare a car for the funeral?"
Molly frowned at him, surprised by the question. Sherlock hadn't spoken to them directly in days. "What?"
"Can the police spare a car for the funeral?" Sherlock repeated more firmly.
Molly smiled when she realized that Sherlock was trying to ask something specific, meaning he was starting to become lucid once more. However, Sherlock apparently interpreted her smile as confirmation that his question had come out exactly as intended, and he smiled.
Molly placed a hand on his arm. "No, no, Sherlock, your words are still being jumbled."
Sherlock deflated a bit, his head lowering.
Molly placed her hand on his face, drawing his gaze back up. "But welcome back."
He smiled at her, and she reached up, giving him a kiss.
"See?" said Lestrade at the door, patting John on the shoulder. "He's getting better already."
Another two days passed while Sherlock recovered, his words slowly emerging through the gibberish. His in-frequent tremors and twitches had mostly subsided, and the random bursts of thoughts hadn't bothered him in days.
On the morning of the third day, John dropped Rosie off with Mrs. Hudson—whom he would have to buy a big gift for, for all the babysitting she had done the last week and a half—and made his way up to the flat. He found Molly cooking breakfast as Sherlock sat at the kitchen table, sorting through some notes.
He smiled at the domestic scene and moved toward the table. "Morning." He sat down adjacent to Sherlock.
"Morning, John," said Molly. "Breakfast?"
"Please," said John, looking over at Sherlock. "Good morning?"
"Please tell me I didn't talk like this," said Sherlock, tossing the papers onto the table. "It's complete nonsense."
John snatched the papers up and looked at them. Sherlock's handwriting scrawled across the page, his notes just as much gibberish as his speech had been. He smiled when he spotted the sentence: "Butterflies circle the universe in sparkles."
"You did," said John, looking up at him in amusement.
"Ugh!" Sherlock spat out. "I made notes all throughout my incapacitation—when I was able—on the effects of antipsychotic overdose, and now, they're useless!"
John looked up at Molly, shaking his head. "Sherlock Holmes. Never one to pass up an opportunity."
"And, no, you are not replicating the experience to get accurate notes!" Molly told him as she set plates in front of them.
"For once, I do not need to be told," Sherlock assured her. "I never want to experience anything like that again." He picked up his fork. "What a truly terrifying feeling it is to slowly lose control over one's mind." He speared some food on the fork and began eating.
John's jaw clenched at the reminder, and he looked down at his plate. "I'm sorry."
Sherlock looked up at him, speaking between bites. "What for?"
John looked up, the guilt plain on his face. "I left him alone with you. For three days! You told me you weren't using drugs—you asked me for help, for Christ's sake! And I just assumed the worst. I should have known something was wrong."
Sherlock stared at him for a long moment before setting his fork down. "Are you somehow under the impression that you've replaced me as world's only consulting detective?"
John couldn't help the smile that slowly appeared on his face. "No."
"Then you did nothing wrong," Sherlock told him. "You did know something was wrong, but my symptoms and past behavior led you to the obvious conclusion. You couldn't have known that one of Mycroft's men was poisoning me. Mycroft didn't know. I didn't even know it was him until I saw him putting the aerosol can back into his pocket. Fieldson had studied my brother and I for years. He fooled two of the most brilliant minds in England. You didn't stand a chance."
"Gee, thanks," muttered John, hesitating a moment. "But what if you have permanent side effects?"
"Then I shall enjoy teaching myself how to be a detective once again," said Sherlock, going back to his food. "Should be a unique experience." He gave them a cheeky smile.
John let out a chuckle, secretly relieved that Sherlock held no hard feelings towards him.
"Besides, you did save me," Sherlock told him. He looked over at Molly as she sat with her own plate. "Both of you." He reached his hand forward to grasp hers. "You always see me when no one else does. You knew I was still in there. You saved my life." He leaned forward and gave her a kiss, smiling at her.
"As did you, John," Sherlock went on, turning back to his friend. "You were the one who figured out what code I was trying to use. If it wasn't for you, the guilty party wouldn't have been found out. Thank you."
Molly smiled and stood, kissing Sherlock on the cheek. "I'm just glad you're back. I missed you." She turned and headed over to the counter to fetch to kettle as it started to boil.
Sherlock looked over at John, lowering his voice to a low whisper. "Molly never saw the cipher, did she?"
"Don't worry," John whispered back. "Both it and the ring are safe in my flat."
"Thank you," Sherlock replied. "Can you rent me a violin for tonight? It'll take too long to repair mine."
"Tonight?" asked John in surprise. "Really?" He glanced up as Molly came over to pour them tea. He immediately straightened back up with a nod at Sherlock.
"So, going to jump back into cases?" asked Molly.
"Definitely," replied Sherlock as he turned back to his breakfast. "My mind has been out of practice for far too long."
"Mind if we join you?" asked John. "Could use a little excitement after this week."
Knowing that this was absolute rubbish—they wanted to tag along to make sure he was back to proper working order—he chose to ignore the motive. "The more, the merrier. Could need an assistant, after all."
"Well, then…" John took a bite of his toast and stood, going to the sitting room and fetching Sherlock's laptop. Settling back down at the table, he powered it up and typed in the password, frowning. "It isn't working."
"Ah, right," said Sherlock, standing. "Fearing that the culprit had staged the first murder simply to get to me, I believe I changed the password." He stepped up behind John's chair and leaned over him—John pushing himself against the back of the chair and giving Molly a disgruntled look, to which she covered her mouth to stifle the laughter. But he also frowned after entering it. "That doesn't make sense. This is the password I always use when I suspect surveillance." He then straightened. "Oh, damn."
"What?" asked Molly.
"Clearly evidenced by the notes I kept and the bedroom wall scratches I made, my speech was not the only communication method impeded by the drugs," muttered Sherlock. "Who know what I typed in."
"Try 'Molly,'" said John.
Sherlock frowned and looked down at him. "What?"
"Well, by the time you would have changed your password, you would have been aware how your words were being affected," John explained. "And no matter how bad it got, Molly was the one thing you were always clear-headed about."
Sherlock frowned at him a moment longer, looked up at Molly and then bent back over John's shoulder and typed the name. The corner of his mouth tilted upwards as he straightened and looked at Molly again. "Nicely observed, John." He moved back to his seat.
John pulled up Sherlock's email, browsing through them. "Hmm, quite a few." He clicked through the list. "Missing wedding ring…"
"Boring," muttered Sherlock, taking a bite of toast.
"Grandfather's inheritance hidden in his house…" read John.
"Who cares," said Sherlock.
"Little girl lost her cat…" John listed off, "a credit card stolen nine times in a row…a bloke being stalked by—"
"Wait, go back," said Sherlock. "The card."
John clicked on the email. "She says her card has been hacked nine times now. She's taken all sorts of security measures, but somehow, erroneous charges keep appearing on her bill. She has kept the last three cards in a locked case in her purse and never lets anyone but her handle it, and it's still getting hacked." He looked up at Sherlock. "Sounds like she's the only one that could be making these charges. Some sort of multiple personality disorder?"
"Don't be ridiculous," muttered Sherlock. He placed his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers together. After a moment, he lowered them to his breakfast once more. "Set up a meeting tomorrow."
"Right," said John, turning back to the computer to type a response.
Molly stepped into the sitting room, pulling her scarf off. "Well, that was different."
Sherlock closed the door behind her. "In what way?"
"You don't usually take me out for a nice dinner like that," she told him. "I mean, not that I'm complaining. Our jobs keep us pretty busy. And you're just not that kind of a guy. And I like that, I really do—"
"Molly…" Sherlock admonished with a smile, holding his hands up.
Molly smiled as she turned to let Sherlock help her with her coat. "I just mean, it was nice."
Sherlock hung her coat and scarf up on the door, removing his own as well. "Well, I should hope so." He hung his Belstaff and scarf next to her coat and turned back to her. "It is a rather special night, after all."
Molly frowned a little. "It is?"
"Mm, very," said Sherlock, wrapping his arms around the waist of her fuscia evening dress.
Molly locked her hands behind his neck. "It's not Valentine's Day…"
"No," said Sherlock, smiling at her.
"It's not an anniversary," said Molly.
"No, it isn't," said Sherlock. "Not yet."
Molly frowned. "Yet?"
"Did you not wonder why I was experimenting with a musical cipher?" asked Sherlock. He then moved out of her embrace and retrieved a piece of paper from the table. He handed it to her and then picked up his violin and bow, beginning to play.
The piece was beautiful, melodic and full of longing. Sherlock looked up to see her watching him, and his eyes moved down to the paper in her hand. She glanced down at the paper to see that it was a sheet of music titled: Will You? Underneath the title was the cipher: the diagram of a musical note on the treble clef for each letter of the alphabet. A song had been composed below the cipher, and it must have been the song he was currently playing.
Smiling at the eccentricity that she loved so much, Molly set to work decoding the composition.
"I said once that love was false, specious and irrational. Which just goes to show that even I can be wrong. I tried my whole life to distance myself from my emotions, believing they were nothing but a weakness. But you have proven me wrong. Your love has made me stronger. I could not imagine a life without your strength and light.
"John once told me that romantic entanglement would complete me as a human being. And after all this time, I believe I have found my other half. But will my other half have me? Will you become the heart to my mind?
"Will you marry me, Molly?"
Molly was only vaguely aware that the violin had stopped playing. Her jaw had dropped as she stared at this final line, going back over it to ensure she had translated it correctly.
"You did," said Sherlock from behind her, moving his hand into her view in front of the sheet of music.
Molly gasped. He was holding an open ring box in front of her. Inside sat a silver band with a diamond and two yellow sapphires on the top. Molly was speechless. She knew the kind of person Sherlock was and never expected him to want something as common as marriage. She was happy enough that he had even consented to a relationship in the first place and was content to spend the rest of their lives in such a manner. Now, not only did Sherlock also want this, he also wanted marriage? Something he had once called a "death-watch beetle"?
Sherlock stepped around in front of Molly, keeping the ring held up in front of her. "Your love has saved me many times over, and none more so than this week. You keep me sane, but more than that…you make me happy. And I don't know how I could have ever viewed you as a weakness."
Molly stared up at him, speechless.
Sherlock reached down for one of her hands, which had apparently dropped the paper at some point. "Will you save me once more? Will you be my wife?"
It was the look in his eyes that finally broke her out of her stupor. She reached up, placing her arms around his neck and kissing him enthusiastically. She broke away after a while, pulling him into a hug and laughing.
"I take it this is a 'yes,'" Sherlock laughed in her ear.
"Yes, it is," Molly told him, pulling back. "This is very much a 'yes.'"
Sherlock smiled and kissed her.