Disclaimer: Not mine!
Author's Note: Your comments and reactions are keeping me alive! Those of you that have been reaching out to discuss this work with me via Tumblr are making my friggin' day.
Again, please be aware that this is mature content and reader discretion is advised. I want you all the enjoy this but with a peaceful state of mind.
Thanks!
-Mav
Silence.
Beep.
Beep.
Kish.
Silence.
Beep.
Beep.
Kish.
Sherlock sat in the hospital at Molly's bedside, not hearing anything except the beeping of the heart monitor and the breathing machine that pressed air into his love's lungs. He sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair and didn't realize he'd been there for ten hours, with her hand held tightly between his, pressed against his chest, branding her palm with kisses every five beats.
Silence.
Beep.
Beep.
Kish.
Molly's family had come, her mother weeping at the sight of her unconscious daughter, but Sherlock hadn't been able to let go of her hand. Molly's mother, a jovial woman named Sarah, had kissed her daughter's forehead, lamenting what had happened to her sweet little girl, and eventually was forced to get out of the room because she was overwrought with both relief and anger.
Molly's brother had entered the room, his eyes sweeping from his unconscious sister to the haggard detective that sat by her bedside, captivated by every unconscious tick of her facial muscles, seemingly measuring each rising of her breast with her breath. Mark had intended to yell and berate the detective for the danger he'd put his sister in but going by the expression on Sherlock Holmes's face, nothing Mark said to him would hurt him as much as Sherlock's own thoughts.
John Watson fluttered in and out of the room like a bee, talking to her doctors, assuring Sherlock, trying to cajole him into eating or drinking something. "You'll want your strength once she comes to," Mrs. Hooper had tried, saving a tin of biscuits in front of his face, "you don't want to faint, do you?"
Sherlock had taken one biscuit and mashed it in his mouth, only to shut her up.
Even Mycroft had visited Molly, to make sure that his brother was alright. Sherlock would later find out that Mycroft never actually left the hospital, but stayed in the waiting area to give Molly privacy.
Sherlock kissed the inside of her palm and put it back against his chest, holding it there with both hands.
Silence.
Beep.
Beep.
Kish.
Silence.
Beep.
Beep.
Kish.
Silence.
The door opened and Sherlock expected John Watson to be sneaking back inside to check on his friend, but seeing his mother poke her head inside surprised him. He'd been so numb, incapable of feeling anything as he sat by his love's bedside, that feeling the surprise overwhelmed him. "Mum," he breathed, holding Molly's hand tighter.
"Oh, my darling boy," she walked towards him, his father following her inside. She didn't let him rise out of his chair, leaning down to wrap her arms around him, pressing him into her bosom the way only a mother could. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
"Mycroft just told us about what happened," his father stood across the room, a respectable distance away from Molly, his hands clasped in front of him.
"How is she doing?" his mother asked, rubbing soothing circles on his back.
"Same," his voice cracked, the tears he'd been incapable of producing when he'd seen her split, eviscerated body finally flowing, "doctors are hopeful but they're not sure what she was given, so they don't know if and when she'll regain consciousness."
"She's a strong young lady," his father said confidently, "I'm sure she will pull through this."
His mother nodded, still cradling her son's head, "absolutely," she agreed, "if she can handle someone like you, and be so intelligent that she convinced an entire country you were dead for two years, she's strong enough to pull through this."
His father chuckled, "your mum's been half in love with this girl since she helped you go into hiding!"
They left not long after that, having coaxed him into eating one of the muffins Mrs. Hudson had brought in for him. John walked in after a while, sitting on the sofa that was on the other end of the room, flexing his jaw as he watched Molly's monitor.
"You alright?" Sherlock asked him quietly, tearing his eyes away from her long enough to look at his best friend.
An expression of shock crossed his face but he quickly recovered, "why?"
"Back there," Sherlock cleared his throat, "when you had to…work…on her, that can't have been easy," his voice a garbled, cracking mess.
"As long as she's alive, I don't care what I had to do," John told him, "I'd wade through pools of blood as long as she lives."
"I…I…" Sherlock cleared his throat, "I can't tell you how much I appreciate that."
"Sherlock," John cleared his throat, "why…did he keep her alive? I mean he went through great lengths to make sure the room was sterile, that she had all the proper medications, even matched her blood…He went through all that to make sure that that she'd y'know…stay alive, without much…permanent damage. That kind of surgery…he went through great lengths."
Sherlock kissed the inside of Molly's Palm again, holding the contact, breathing in her scent. "She was never his victim," he finally murmured against her skin, "just his medium to deliver a message. I was getting too close to him. He's been doing this for at least a decade and no one's suspected that he's behind these gruesome murders, or suspected that he's a cannibal. He started his work early, well before he went to medical school. When I got too close, he decided to get me the only way he knew how. Unlike Moriarty, he knew how much Molly counted. And Leonardo's not wasteful. Like a hunter, he only kills to make use of the prey. He had no intention to kill Molly or c..." Sherlock cleared his throats again, "he had no intention to consume her. All his other victims he had personal connections with, they had done something to deserve it, in his mind. Everything he does is somehow justified. Molly…Molly never harmed him. I'm his view, she didn't deserve being killed. That's why he was so careful to keep her alive."
"Jesus," john rubbed his face with his hands, "Jesus. All this just to get to you?"
Sherlock nodded, clenching his jaw so tightly that John was worried he would dislocate it or crack the bone. "It seems that proximity to me results in kidnapping, near death experiences, or death itself."
Neither said anything for a while, their eyes fixed on the monitor that beeped, telling them that Molly's heart was still there, still beating, still fighting.
"Listen Sherlock, I know you'd rather do anything but leave her but you should give her family some time alone with her when they come back tomorrow," John told him softly, "I know how hard it is for you to leave her but her family should be with her too. I don't know what kind of magic Mycroft used on the staff to let us even come into her room when neither of us are her family."
Sherlock nodded, "I'll step outside," he promised his friend.
Lestrade opened the door then, poking his head through, "can I come in?" he asked demurely. Some part of Sherlock's brain that still housed the sociopath had been fascinated by everyone's reluctance to enter the hospital bed, to approach Molly. He couldn't quite figure out whether it was out of respect or fear about what had happened to her body, what had been done to her, as if the darkness of the act was contagious…But the man within him, the creature that arose to a full roar whenever he was near his Molly, had been thankful that John had stopped anyone entering that room…he wouldn't have been able to handle anyone else seeing his Molly in that gruesomely intimate condition.
The detective inspector stood in the corner, as far away from Molly as he could. "We just got intel from Interpol, they've tracked Leonardo down to a hidey hole somewhere in Liverpool, apparently a boathouse on the Mersey. Figured you two would want come with me to arrest him?"
Sherlock shook his head, "I can't leave her. Besides, I farm out the arrests, not a part of my duty."
John nodded, "I'm going to stay here too. But keep us updated, would you?"
Greg Lestrade nodded, and with a final glance at Molly, he snuck back out of the room, as quietly as he had come inside.
After a few moments, Sherlock spoke in a voice so quiet that Watson wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "If I ever see that creature, if I went with Lestrade to arrest him, I would murder him. Tear his throat out where he stood. So you must keep me away from him, John. Under no circumstances should I ever be allowed anywhere near Jonathan Leonardo."
"Got it," was the only response Watson could think of.
But the question, who would keep Watson away from Leonardo?
And a nagging part of Watson's mind told him that Lestrade and even Mycroft couldn't be trusted to be alone with that…creature.